“Shit, know him from when I used to work sports. Bullfighter. A Mexican. Right up there with El Cordobes and Belmonde, those guys, when he was young. Made millions. Got himself into oil, Acapulco beachfront, hotels. Liked the high life. Always something on the wire about him hanging with the guys from Phoenix, Jersey, Bolivia, like that. I think he retired around ’68, ’69, something.”
“He step over the line himself?”
“He supposed to be worth, what?, a couple hundred million? You flip up the rock, he’s in bed with the wrong people somewhere. His name came up in a laundering scheme once, then again with some assholes who were transporting dope up from South America. No indictments. No convictions. Shit, he’s always on Rudy Gambino’s yacht, that kind of thing. What, Rudy’s gonna have him around because he likes tacos?”
We shot the breeze a little longer, me trying to cadge some freebie Dodgers tickets for the upcoming season and him pretending not to hear, then we hung up. I tapped the desk some more. Cocaine. Organized crime. Rudy Gambino. Murder was beginning to seem more credible.
I picked up the phone and punched the numbers for the North Hollywood P.D. A voice said, “Detectives.”
“Lou Poitras, please.”
“He’s out. Take a message?”
“Ask him to call Elvis Cole. He’s got the number.”
I hung up.
Outside, a brown gull floated on the breeze. He looked at me. I made my left hand into a gun and pointed it at him. He banked away from the building and disappeared. I called Janet Simon. She answered on the sixth ring. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” Her voice was flat.
“Was it rough?”
A hesitation. “I couldn’t tell them.”
I nodded, but she probably didn’t see it. “What’d you tell them about Ellen?”
“I really can’t talk now.”
“Why don’t I pick up some sandwiches or some chicken and come over?”
“No.”
“I guess I’m calling at a bad time.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have my number.”
“Yes, that I do.”
We hung up. It’s always gratifying to be appreciated.
I called the deli, ordered a lean corned beef with Chinese hot mustard, told them I’d be down in ten minutes, and went out onto the balcony. There was a slight haze to the south and west and a thin band of cirrus clouds up high over the Santa Monica mountains to the north. The air felt glassy and damp. It hadn’t turned hot yet, but it would soon. That was L.A.
I thought about Mort, wearing his U.S.S. Bluegill tee shirt in the little snapshot. Mort from Kansas. Mort of the paint store. Mort with his traditional wife and his traditional kids and his not-so-traditional life. Don’t look now, Toto, but this ain’t Kansas
… Would Mort be stupid enough to try to move some dope? Laugh when they laugh, nod when they nod. Partners with Rice, not on a movie deal, but on a dope deal that had gone bad? Had Mort picked up the boy from school, then been kidnapped on the way home? That would explain why Mort’s clothes were still at the house and why he’d left no note. But with Mort dead, why grab Ellen and tear up the house? Because somebody thought Mort had something and thought Ellen Lang knew about it. Maybe that somebody was Domingo Garcia Duran. Maybe Ellen and the boy were up at his place now.
I was thinking about the big walls and the big gate and the big swords with the big bent tips when the outer door opened and the biggest human being I’d ever seen off a playing field walked in. If anything, I am consistent. First I thought Mexican, then Indian, then Samoan. Lots of Samoans come over to play middle guard for USC. He was six-eight easy and slim the way I’m slim, but on him that meant two-forty. When he moved I thought shark, sliding through the water. He had large, thick-fingered hands and big bones. His cheeks were high and flat. So was his forehead. So was his nose. His eyes were black and empty and made me think shark again. A shorter man came in after him, this one Mexican for sure. Shorter than me, but wider and heavier. About one-ninety. Beer barrel body on little pin legs. You could tell he thought he was a hitter because he carried himself sort of hunched over with his arms away from his body. His hair was short and combed straight back the way Chicano kids do when they’re in a gang. His right eyebrow was broken into three pieces by vertical scars. A long time ago someone had hit him very hard on the left side of his mouth and it hadn’t healed right. I said, “Wrong door. Beauty supply is down the hall.”
The big guy stopped just inside the inner door, but the Mexican came in all the way. He opened Joe Pike’s door, glanced in, then closed it again. He turned in a full circle, looking at the cartoon characters on the wall and the clock and the stuff I keep around. His mouth was open. He said something in Spanish I didn’t get, then shook his head and put his left foot on my desk and looked at me. I didn’t like the foot on my desk. I also didn’t like the lump in his windbreaker beneath his left arm.
The big one said, “Are you Elvis Cole?” Perfect diction with a slight accent I couldn’t place. I was back to thinking American Indian.
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m the Blue Beetle.”
He said, “Domingo Duran wants to see you. You’re to come with us.” Talk about hard evidence.
I didn’t move. “Navajo?” I’d just read Tony Hillerman.
“Eskimo.”
“Some heat down here, huh?”
The Eskimo reached behind his back and came out with a black automatic. Looked to be a. 380 but it could have been a 9mm. He held it loosely down at his side. “Come on,” he said.
I stared at the Eskimo for a very long time. He let me. He was probably the guy who asked around at Kimberly Marsh’s place. He may have been the guy who pulled the trigger on Mort. We started. I didn’t like him and I didn’t like what was happening.
The Mexican was handling one of the figures of Jiminy Cricket on the desk. I walked over, took it from him, put it back in its place. He said something in Spanish. “I don’t speak it,” I said.
“It’s just as well,” the Eskimo said. “Manolo doesn’t like you.”
“Tell Manolo to get his goddamned foot off my desk.”
The Eskimo studied me for a while longer, then made a sighing sound and took a step back, taking himself out of it. He rested his gun arm on top of the file cabinet. He said something in Spanish. The Mexicans eyes narrowed and he smiled. One of his front teeth had a design etched into it. He said something back.
The Eskimo said, “He wants you to take it off for him.”
“Tell him it’ll hurt.”
He did. The Mexican gave one barking laugh, then put his right hand under his windbreaker. I stepped in, swept his support leg out from under him, kicked him in the groin when he hit the floor, and followed it down hard, driving my knee in his chest. Something gave with a loud snap. I hit him twice on the jaw with my right hand. His eyes rolled back, shiny and black as marbles, he stopped trying to cover up, and that was it.
The Eskimo hadn’t moved.
“He’ll need a doctor,” I said. “Maybe for the groin shot, but more likely for the chest. A couple of ribs went. Could be some liver damage.”
Manolo rolled onto his side and coughed. The Eskimo looked at him with bottomless eyes. Maybe your eyes get that way from looking down through thin ice to see killer whales looking back at you. I read somewhere that in the Deep Ice Tribes young kids still have to kill polar bears to pass into manhood. By themselves. With sticks.
The Eskimo turned the eyes to me, nodded at whatever he saw, and made the. 380 disappear. “Let’s go.”
“I didn’t want you guys to think I was too easy.”
“No problem.”
He picked up Manolo like I’d lift an overnight bag. Manolo moaned. I said, “Those ribs are probably grating together.”
“No problem.”
We went out my office, along the hall, down the elevator, across the lobby, and out the side of the building.
18