Jonathan went to stand beside the bar. I suggested Charles stand with him, and when he got up you could see the butt of a piece sticking out from behind the cushion. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I didn’t know!” Barry screamed. He picked up a couch pillow and threw it at them. “ You shits, you shits trying to get me killed! ”
Jonathan and Charles looked sullen and mean, like a couple of fourth-grade psychopaths caught sticking pins into puppies.
I put the gun back on Barry. “You asked everyone you know,” I reminded him.
He hopped around, rolling his eyes and trying to pick up the thread. Ten in the morning and he was already in another universe. “Yeah, right. Look, you gotta open your mind, see? I called around. I asked. Everybody I ask, and believe me, I know everybody Garrett Rice would know, they say Garrett ain’t called. He ain’t been trying to move nothing.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what you’re supposed to tell me, Barry. You’re supposed to tell me who Rice sold it to and when he made the trade.” I dropped the muzzle down to his crotch, let it circle, raised it back to his eyes.
He squirmed like he had to pee. “I swear to Christ. I called. I asked. Rice ain’t been trying to move anything. ”
I took short breaths, thinking. Jonathan and Charles glared. Barry hopped up and down. Jesus Christ, what if Garrett Rice hadn’t had the dope after all? What if, all along, it had been an inside job, the Eskimo taking down two keys to sock away for his retirement, or one of the Italian guests Kimberly Marsh described. Or a cat burglar, just passing by. I stopped breathing altogether, then took a deep breath using my stomach, held it, then let it out slow. Focus and relax. I put my head on Perry Lang and kept it there; anyplace else and everything starts to fall apart, and maybe Perry and Ellen and the two girls with it.
I said, “You ask about two kilograms of lab-quality coke, it’s going to come up if anyone else has been trying to sell some.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Tell me.”
“This guy I know, he says a friend of his wants to sell some. You know, called him up, shopping price.”
“What and when?”
“Key and a half. Said it was 99 percent pure. Said the guy called him three or four days ago, you know, like I said, calling around shopping price.”
“Who’s the seller?”
“Guy named Larson Fisk.”
Great. Larson Fisk. “Who the hell is Larson Fisk?”
Barry looked impatient. “He’s an actor. You probably seen his face a million times. Day player, you know. I sold him some stuff. Come here.”
Barry hopped over to the bar past Jonathan and Charles. He pulled down a thick Academy Players Directory from a shelf beside the bar. “I got lotsa clients in here,” Barry said. “Shit, I get jokes all the time how I oughta have my own star on Hollywood Boulevard. Maybe one day, eh?”
He showed me Larson Fisk. Sure, I’d seen him before. Larson Fisk was Larry, Kimberly Marsh’s boyfriend.
32
The house above Universal was empty but not abandoned. The little red 914 was gone, but a rumpled shirt lay on the living room floor and a couple of Carl’s Junior shake cups sat on the dining room table. Lights burned in a back bathroom. I parked my car out of sight above the house, then came back, picked the front door lock, and let myself in. I walked through the house once, gun out, to see if maybe the cocaine had been left lying out in the open. It hadn’t.
I had ripped the rear bedroom apart and was starting on the little bath next to it when I heard car doors slam down below and a woman’s laugh, light and lutelike.
Kimberly Marsh and Larson Fisk were climbing the steps. She was in shorts and rumpled cream safari shirt tied off beneath her breasts with the sleeves rolled up, carrying her sandals. Sexy. Fisk was in blue gym trunks, beat-up Adidas running shoes, and a black muscle shirt. He was carrying a bag of groceries in each arm and smiling. She was smiling, too.
I went back to the front of the house, took out my gun, and stepped into the little coat closet behind the front door as their key went into the lock. The front door opened. Kimberly Marsh walked in. Larson Fisk followed her. When they were past me, I shoved open the closet door, took one step, planted my left foot, and kicked Larson Fisk on the outside of his left knee as hard as I could. His left knee was the one with the scars.
There was a wet snap similar to what you hear when you joint a chicken. Larry screamed and fell, dropping the grocery bags to catch himself. Something glass shattered and the near bag turned dark and wet. Oranges and pippin apples rolled out across the floor. One made it all the way into the dining room. Kimberly Marsh gasped sharply, spun around to look at Larry, and saw me. Larry was rocking back and forth on the floor, sometimes gripping his leg, sometimes pounding the floor with his right fist. His face was purple.
He called me a sonofabitch.
I waved my gun at him. “Come on, Larry. A sonofabitch would’ve put one behind your ear. Besides, now you can add another scar to your collection.”
He closed his eyes and rocked back, calling me a sonofabitch again, like a mantra, very softly. I shook my head. “You see,” I said to Kimberly, “some people are never satisfied.”
She had backed away until the plank shelves were pressing into her back. The big green fish tank with the dead fish was to her right. Why do blondes look good with green?
She didn’t appear particularly frightened. She said, “What are you doing?”
“Removing Larry as an active threat. He may be stupid, but he is strong. And mean.” I smiled at her.
Larry said, “It hurts! ”
She was relaxing. Her eyes never went to Larry, but her shoulders dropped just a hair, and her hands went down, and she stopped clenching her teeth. I imagined a window in her forehead, behind it little watchwork wheels and gears, spinning and rocking and making ticking sounds. I smiled wider.
She smiled back. “Did you find out what happened to Mort?”
“Unh-huh.”
“Thank God. Can I move back to my apartment now?”
“Nah. Not right now. Now, I want you to give me the cocaine.”
Her eyes got a little bigger, and that was it. She just stood there. The gears spun faster. The ticking got louder. I think of the damnedest things.
I wiggled the gun. I stopped smiling. “Dom wants his dope back, Kimberly.”
Her eyes flicked to Larry then back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I cocked the gun and I pointed it at Larry. “She doesn’t know, Larry.” Larry was watching the gun and clutching the knee. I said, “She sees the stuff just sitting around over at Duran’s, right? And thinks, boy, wouldn’t that be great to have. Only she’s got no way to get it out of the house. So she finds a phone and gives you a call and gets you involved. She throws it out the window and tells you where and you sneak over and pick it up. Risky, Larry. That took balls, with all the goons Duran keeps around. You do all that, and here I am pointing a gun at you, and now she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”
She flipped her head to get the blonde hair out of her eyes and smiled at me as if I’d just told her I thought she had sexy toenails. “That’s silly.” She stepped away from the shelves and cocked her head at me, lifting her ribs to pull her abdomen tight and pushing out her hips to the side. Moving on me. Like she’d seen gun molls do in a thousand movies.
I said, “How about you tell me, Larry? Before I do your other knee.”
Neither of them said anything, but you could hear the breathing.
I said, “Right now you guys are in a survivable position. If the cops walked in, all they could hang on you is possession with intent to distribute and obstruction of justice. They might push for an accessory to murder charge because of Mort but they wouldn’t get it. You give me the dope, then you’re no longer possessing. You give me the dope, and even though you’re a couple of scumbags, I’ll put in a word with the cops.”