“Thanks,” I said.
“Not pleased?”
“It needed to be done.”
As we pulled out into traffic, he said, “When I hunt and actually bag something, I get hungry. I’m thinking red meat.”
“Okay.”
“Not up for it?”
“Red meat’s fine.”
“Had a big breakfast?”
“Had nothing.”
“You find playing Grand Inquisitor that repugnant?”
“A little outside my training.”
“Hey,” he said. “Psychological warfare. In Vietnam, the Army woulda had you writing pamphlets.”
“Where’s the red meat?” I said.
“Okay, change the subject… Wilshire, near the beach, there’s a new place that dry-ages, but if you find the notion of feasting after breaking down another human being repugnant, I understand. Even though said human being is a self-serving slimeball.”
“Now that you put it that way.”
“Gull may not have been in on the scam or the killings directly, but I don’t buy the complete-innocent act. I think the deal the ADA authorized was a gift.”
Two-year suspension of Gull’s psychology license in return for full cooperation in all criminal and civil matters pertaining to…
“More than fair,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
The steak house had microbrews on tap and an adjacent dry-aging room whose picture window faced the boulevard. A family of tourists stopped to admire sides of beef hanging from gleaming hooks, and Milo took the time to join them. Two little kids pointed and giggled, and the father said, “Cool.” The mother opined: “I think it’s brutal.”
Inside, seated at a back booth, Milo said, “Controlled decay kicks up the taste. Kind of like real life.”
I said, “Real life is hard to control.”
He clapped my shoulder. “All the more reason to gorge.”
Over two mountains of Steak Delmonico, baked potatoes the size of running shoes, and a bottle of red wine, we reviewed what we’d learned from Gull.
Milo said, “Sonny is coming across as a victim, not a bad guy.”
“No reason for Gull to lie about that. On the contrary. If there was a way to spread the blame, he’d have done it.”
“So maybe Gull doesn’t know the inside dope, or Sonny really is just a poor shmuck, hung up over his ex. Who happened to make a lot of money.”
“And didn’t know how to spend it,” I said.
“And out of the goodness of her heart, Mary helped him. She sure liked the green stuff, didn’t she? Nice lucrative practice, extra bucks from the ex, and she still risks it all going for a scam.”
“Maybe it was more than dollar signs,” I said. “Maybe it was the thrill of pulling off something illegal. Like we said, she probably rationalized it as penalizing a corrupt system.”
He gobbled steak, said, “Interesting woman, our Mary. Cultivates an identity as a professional woman and a dispenser of wisdom, but she had no compunction tapping Sonny for an increased allowance. Top of that, she liked being held down.”
“Power’s a strange drug. Sometimes people in authority like being controlled sexually.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Oh.” He sopped up gravy with a wedge of sourdough. “You believe Gull never talked to Mary about Degussa’s fantasies concerning Flora?”
I said, “Even if he didn’t, Mary had to have some idea what was going on. Flora came to her for treatment and sexual unresponsiveness, and Mary knew Degussa from the scam. Knew what kind of person he was. For all we know Degussa sent Flora for therapy. To tune her up sexually.”
“Brian Van Dyne said Flora had heard Mary on the radio.”
“There’s a lot Brian Van Dyne wasn’t aware of.”
“Fiancée with a shadow life,” he said. “Flora juggled the two of them?”
“Flora met Degussa while working at the parole office. He put on some of that macho sociopath charm, and she threw Roy Nichols over for someone even tougher. The thrill was forbidden fruit. Then she met Van Dyne and started thinking matrimony, but she didn’t want to give up the game.”
“A nice, respectable teacher to show off for Mom, rough trade on the side.”
“It’s possible Flora’s murder had nothing to do with the scam,” I said. “Her crime scene was a lot bloodier than any of the others, and there was no forced entry. To me it feels like passion and sex gone haywire. When we met Roy Nichols, you wondered about a jealousy motive. Why not apply that to Degussa?”
“Degussa found out about Van Dyne and blew,” he said.
“The wrong guy to betray. Toss in Flora’s inability to climax, and you’re talking rage fodder. A guy like Ray Degussa would take sexual unresponsiveness as a personal insult.”
“Sticking her every which way. That’s a goddamn blueprint for what he ended up doing to her. And Mary Koppel never warned her.”
“Confidentiality,” I said. “She was big on that.”
He sawed at his steak, stopped. “So I should take Flora off the scamster list?”
“No evidence she was involved.”
“And,” he said, “her mom’s a nice old lady.”
“That, too.”
“Confidentiality… Mary didn’t want to jeopardize the cash flow. Three hundred fifty plus of her own inflated billing, and she and Larsen split another three hundred that came in under Gull’s name. That’s over half a million each, in addition to what they were earning legitimately. And Mary had an allowance.”
“Mary had contempt for Sonny because he didn’t know how to live.”
“She lived, all right. Until she didn’t. The key is finding all that money. Zevonsky’s getting the ball rolling on financial subpoenas.”
“Knowing about Larsen’s African connections might help.”
“Here’s hoping.” He saluted, finishing off a mammoth chunk of steak, chewed slowly, swallowed. “How do you see Mary’s murder going down? She makes noise to Larsen, gets threatening, and he dispatches Degussa to finish her off.”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
I refilled my wineglass and took a long swallow. Nice cabernet. The latest from the health mavens was that booze was good for you, if you didn’t overdo it.
That was the key: knowing the boundaries.
He said, “It all fits but I’m still short on proof. Can’t even get a home address on Degussa. The club he works for pays him cash under the table.”
“Try the Marina,” I said. “Flora took Van Dyne there for brunch. Maybe because she’d been there with Degussa.”
“Bobby J’s- yeah, I like that, if she was gaming that would be fun for her. I’ll drop by again, flash Degussa’s mug.”
He hitched his trousers, and we left the steakhouse. He must’ve left a huge tip- cop’s tip- because the waiter followed us out to the sidewalk, thanked him, and shook his hand.
Milo told him, “Enjoy,” and we returned to the unmarked.
“With what we know now,” he said, “I should also be able to get some extra personnel for serious surveillance. This is good, Alex. Not anywhere near a slam dunk, but good.”
“Nice to see you happy.”
“Me? I’m always a ray of sunshine.” As if illustrating, he spread his lips in something that might have been a smile and switched on the police radio as he drove. Humming along, atonally, with the dispatcher’s droll recital of outrage and misery.
Midway back to the station, he said, “There’s still the matter of how Jerry Quick fits into the scam.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” I said. “Gull knew him only as Gavin’s father, and maybe that’s the point. Jerry started following Gavin around. Because Gavin had been acting strange. Gavin didn’t know that and spotted his dad and copied down his license plate. In Gavin’s damaged mind, everyone was part of the conspiracy.”
“Gavin was paranoid?”
“Prefrontal damage can do that.”
“A concerned father would be helping us, Alex, not destroying evidence and hiding out. Quick’s been gone, what- five days. What the hell is that all about?”