46
The king was dead.
Cava gazed up at the ceiling in the garage and watched Vinny Bing’s knuckle dragging corpse sway from a rope as the heat switched on and the vents in the rafters blew out hot air. Remarkably, it looked like the king was still wearing that TV smile beneath his crown. His mouth was thrust open and he could see his yellow teeth.
Cava had been freezing his ass off outside the dealership for more than hour. Following the king’s movements through the plate glass windows as he closed up for the night. It turned out that Vinny had a thing for Frank Sinatra CDs, microwaved popcorn, and glasses of bourbon. That he liked to prance around the showroom in his costume, listening to music and peeking in his employee’s desks when no one was around.
Cava had caught up with him as he walked out the front door. Although the king acted surprised and things got dramatic for five or ten minutes, although the king had repeatedly bitten him like a rabid dog during the struggle, it was over now. The king and his cable TV show would wind up buried in the metro section of the paper and fade into oblivion as a rerun.
Cava looked at the cell he had removed from the man’s pocket. It was encrusted with diamonds in the shape of a crown. Below the crown was his first name, Vinny. When he flipped the phone open, it played a jingle. Cava recognized the tune, but couldn’t place it. Once he finally did, he almost wished that he hadn’t killed the slob. It was from the Miss America beauty pageant that used to be on TV. The jingle they played at the end of the show when the winner received her crown and started to cry.
Cava shrugged it off and entered a phone number from memory. After three rings he heard her voice. Heard her say hello.
“Lena?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything right away. He could see her face in his mind’s eye. He could feel the shock through the radio waves in the air.
“Where are you?” she said.
“Free and clear and heading for paradise in a magic pair of cheap shoes. I told you that I’d walk.”
“You’re a cop killer, Cava.”
“Does that mean our deal’s off?”
She paused again. And he could see her face again. He liked having the image in his head and hoped that it wouldn’t wear off over time.
“How’d you get this number?” she said finally.
“I saw it on the screen when you opened your cell and turned it off.”
“You need to turn yourself in, Cava. Believe me. It’s your best chance at surviving this.”
“Stop talking and listen,” he said. “I called for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“My end of our deal and a rare moment of clarity. Tremell’s kid didn’t know anything about the murder. The old man used him as bait to get the girl out to that whorehouse. All the kid knew was that his father wanted to dirty her up and make her look like a whore.”
Another run of silence. Cava thought he could hear traffic in the background. She was in her car.
“He’s covering for his father,” she said.
“Most sons would. But he didn’t know about the murder.”
“What else?”
The king’s shadow drifted over the key rack on the wall. Cava noticed it and glanced at the tags. He could have any car on the lot he wanted. It was free car night.
“The reason I called,” he said. “You’ve missed something.”
“Missed what?”
“A piece of the puzzle. You’ve missed it. And it’s a big piece.”
“What is it?”
He paused a moment, thinking it over. “I’ll leave that to you,” he said. “I’ve got your number. I’ll check in when I get to paradise.”
He shut down the phone and slipped it into his pocket. Then he skimmed through the key tags and picked out another SRX Crossover. Walking to the door, he turned back for one last look at Vinny Bing the Cadillac King and caught the man’s horrific smile from above.
“Hang in there,” he said.
47
Lena sat in her car, still parked on the shoulder of the Hollywood Freeway in Echo Park. She had pulled over as soon as she realized that it was Cava on the phone. Not because of the shock. She could handle that. She had pulled over because she wanted to hear his voice. Wanted to listen to him and concentrate on the moment.
She gazed over the concrete divider at the cars moving up and down Glendale Boulevard below the freeway. Echo Lake was almost invisible. The mariner layer had pushed east from the coast, the cool mist hugging the ground and beginning to fill the basin like concrete rising to the lip of a mold.
Cava had said that she missed something. Something big.
And she had no doubt that he was telling her the truth. She had heard it in his voice. And now she could feel it in her gut. The main wheel that guided her internal compass. The thing she relied on that made it all work.
Something remained hidden. Something essential to the case.
Her cell started vibrating on the passenger seat. She read Barrera’s name on the display and pried open the phone.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Echo Park,” she said. “Heading home.”
“Don’t go home, Lena.”
The tone of his voice spooked her. “What is it,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t go home,” he repeated. “I’m in Hollywood. We need to talk.”
“Where?”
“How ’bout the parking lot outside Capitol Records in ten minutes?”
That main wheel in her gut was talking to her again. “I’ll see you then,” she said.
She closed the phone with an unsteady hand. Lit a cigarette and pulled onto the freeway. The traffic was moving smooth and steady through the gloom toward the Cahuenga Pass. Almost too steady. Her imagination was playing tricks with her. Feeding on something she couldn’t place. Connecting dots that might not be there. When she pulled into the lot, she spotted a Lincoln Town Car parked all the way back against the chainlink fence. On the other side of the fence was Vista Del Mar-a small road tucked away from downtown Hollywood and the exact spot where she had found her brother’s dead body so many years ago.
Couldn’t be good.
She got rid of the cigarette and climbed out of her car. As she crossed the empty lot and walked toward the Town Car, the rear door swung open and the interior lights switched on. Barrera was behind the wheel sitting beside a man she had never seen before. When her eyes flicked to the backseat, she froze.
It was the chief. All three were waiting for her.
She kept her eyes on them and started backing away. Then she finally turned and made a run for it. Barrera jerked the Town Car forward. Lena jammed her key into the ignition, fired up the engine, and floored it. When she hit Vine Street, she made a hard left and pointed the hood downhill into the congestion. But the Town Car was right behind her-tires screeching and pushing fast.
She blew through the light at Hollywood Boulevard and gunned it, then checked the mirror. Barrera was closing in. She tried to think. Come up with a plan. She grabbed her phone and hit Rhodes’s speed dial number, waiting for him to pick up. It felt like an eternity. And she could hear the phone beeping through the ring. Someone else trying to break through. Her Honda was a stick shift. At this speed she couldn’t hold the phone and work the road at the same time. Rhodes finally picked up.
“Where are you?” she said.
“Venice.”
“Stay there. Keep your cell on.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call as soon as I get there.”
She threw the phone onto the passenger seat and grabbed the gear shift. The Town Car could easily outrun her on a straight track. Zigzagging her way over to La Brea, she finally hit the Santa Monica Freeway but lost sight of Barrera in the rearview mirror. There were too many headlights. Too much traffic and glare. She brought the car up to a hard ninety. As she wove through the lanes, she checked the mirror searching for a pair of headlights following her path. After a mile she thought she spotted them. But when the car rocketed past her doing a hot one hundred and twenty, it was another Honda, a lowrider with neon lights along the floorboards and a straight pipe out the back.