She looked at the label trying to buy time. It was a bottle of Williams Selyem-out of her price range and hard to find. And she could remember the man the chief was talking about. It had been an evening of great food and conversation with someone who had changed the face of the city. Lena hadn’t been aware that the two men were friends. When she finally spoke, her voice cracked.
“Come in,” she said. “Please.”
A warm smile spread across the chief’s face as he entered the house. She didn’t know what to make of it, and switched over to automatic pilot. She managed to set two wine glasses on the counter without breaking the stems. Then she watched the chief pull the cork and marveled at the rich color of the grapes as he made the pour. They clinked glasses and took their first sips. It may have been the best first sip she had ever tasted.
“Would you mind if we drank this outside?” he said. “I’d like to sit by your tree and enjoy the view.”
Lena shook her head. “Not at all,” she managed.
The chief opened the slider and set the bottle on the table. As he grabbed a chair, Lena pulled the grill over, loaded it up with charcoal, and lit a fire to keep them warm. She took another sip of wine and opened the pack of cigarettes. There was only one left, and she remembered the night she had bought them. The night she ran into Dobbs and Ragetti in the parking lot. The last time she saw Denny Ramira alive. She knew that it would be her last cigarette for a long time.
“You watch much television, Lena?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Me either,” he said. “How ’bout movies?”
“I like them a lot.”
“How many times have you seen The Godfather?”
“More than ten.”
“Then maybe you’ll understand why the first thing I did was make Ken Klinger my adjutant.”
He turned and looked at her with those dark eyes of his. And for the first time since they had met, she got a decent read off them, caught the spark, and everything clicked like a crystal ball.
“Keep your friends close,” she said. “But keep your enemies closer.”
The chief raised his glass as if making a toast to her.
“I knew that Klinger was a piece of shit the moment I met him,” he said. “I’d been waiting for something to happen. I never thought that it would break this big. That so many lives would be lost. But that’s the way it is, I guess. When he told me that he thought you should be assigned to this homicide case, I knew that something was up. But most of all, I knew that Klinger was a moron. He wanted you because he, and the DA, and his lousy friends at Internal Affairs all thought you were incompetent. I agreed to give you the case and called Barrera because we knew that you weren’t. After the way you handled yourself last year, I knew that I could trust you. That I could count on you. That once you got started, you’d put yourself on the line and see it through. That you could take the bullshit I had to deal out for what it really was. A high-stakes gamble by a new chief to clean up our house. That’s why I gave you all those Officer Involved Shooting cases. It wasn’t punishment. I needed to know who was who. And that’s why I had to be so hard on you in my office. Klinger was listening. I needed his confidence, and he needed to hear me knock you down. All I can offer is my apology. By the way, you’ll be receiving the Medal of Valor for this, Lena. No chief has ever been more proud.”
She heard his voice break and felt something deep inside her give way. She tried to hang tough. Tried to keep her game face on. But none of it was working this afternoon. She jammed the unlighted cigarette into the pack and turned her face away.
“Cava’s a cop killer,” she said. “And West’s a former senator. The water’s cloudy, Chief. Both of them got away.”
“For now, at least. But we’ve started to clean house. And sleeping with one eye open every night takes its toll. The world isn’t as big as it used to be, Lena. Sooner or later they’ll run out of road.”
She took a sip of wine, then sat back and finally lit her last cigarette. She looked at the chief’s chiseled face, his gray hair, the intelligence in his eyes, and felt herself begin to relax.
“What about the DA?”
The chief set down his glass. “He’s friends with Tremell. The press can already smell blood in the water. I don’t think he’ll survive. And even if he does, I doubt he’ll be reelected. Before I came over, I checked on Tremell. He’s off suicide watch.”
“That was quick.”
The chief grinned at the thought. “He’s hired one of those consultants to the stars to help him cope with prison life. You know, learn to blend, don’t ask for favors, and don’t make friends with the guards.”
His voice suddenly faded and Lena followed his gaze off the porch to the city below the hills. Something was falling out of the sky At first she thought that it might be ash from another wildfire. But when it seemed to pick up, she realized that it was snow.
She watched the flakes touch the ground and melt away. She looked at it with amazement and thought about Jennifer Bloom’s keepsake from her husband who died in the war.
It was snowing in Los Angeles. Anything could happen here.
“I love this city,” the chief whispered. “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t born here. Maybe that’s why I can’t take it for granted.”
Lena’s cell began vibrating. After checking the display, she turned the phone so that the chief could read the name.
VINNY BING THE CADILLAC KING.
The chief gave her a look. “When a dead man’s on the other end of the line, I guess you’ve gotta take the call.”
Lena flipped the cell open and switched on the speaker phone, then listened as Nathan G. Cava said hello.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter because I won’t be here for very long.”
“Then why did you call?”
Cava laughed. “To let you know that I figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“I know how you found me.”
“I thought you said that you weren’t hiding.”
“I wasn’t. But I needed to know and now I do. Someone gave you my name. And I found out who.”
Lena glanced at the chief, then leaned closer to the phone. “Do you know where he is?”
Cava laughed again. “In a small bungalow on a hill facing the beach. He thinks he’s found paradise. In a few minutes he’ll probably change his mind, though.”
“This isn’t the way to handle it, Cava. You need to turn yourself in.”
“A guy like me needs to do a lot of things,” he said. “And you were wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Killing,” he said. “When we met, you said I liked it. Maybe we’ll talk about it someday.”
The phone clicked off. Lena stared at the snowflakes drifting down onto Hollywood, then turned to the chief as he filled her glass.
“You were right,” she said. “The world isn’t as big as it used to be.”
54
Cava slipped Vinny Bing’s cell into his pocket and glanced at the two bodyguards. They were sitting on the floor in West’s bedroom, their oversized bodies propped up against the wall on either side of the bathroom door. Their head wounds had stopped bleeding while he was on the phone. Still, the wall would need to be wiped down before he left. And something would have to be done about the stain on the carpet.
Only Alan West would think that paradise came with wall-to-wall carpeting.
Cava looked at the clothes laid out on the bed as he listened through the door to West taking a shower. He had forgotten to pop a Flomax this morning and needed to take a leak. The sound of the senator soaping it up in all that water wasn’t helping much. At the same time, life had its rewards. Within the next few minutes all business would be concluded. In another day, Cava would be a thousand miles away picking out his chaise longue in Coronaville.
In another day he would be invisible.
The two bodyguards had gone down as easy as a couple of dead trees, and this surprised Cava. When he saw them in LA. they looked so rough and tough in their black suits. Each one of them had to weigh in at over two-hundred and fifty pounds. Maybe it was the change to Tommy Bahama sportswear that weakened them. Maybe the flowers on their shirts lowered their guard. Or maybe it had something to do with the suntan lotion on their meaty white legs and their big red noses.