The Murder Book

CHAPTER 21

Alone, at his crappy little piss-colored desk, the washer churning the clothes he'd just loaded for background noise, Milo felt better.

Free of Alex, he felt better.

Because Alex's mind could be a scary thing- cerebral flypaper; stuff flew in but never left. His friend was capable of sitting quietly for long stretches when you'd think he was listening- actively listening the way they'd taught him in shrink school- then he'd let loose a burst of associations and hypotheses and apparently unrelated trivialities that turned out too often to be right-on.

Houses of cards that, more often than not, withstood the wind. Milo on the receiving end of the nonstop volleys, felt like a wobbly sparring partner.

Not that Alex pushed. He just kept supposing. Suggesting. Another shrink tactic. Try ignoring any of it.

Milo had never met anyone smarter or more decent than Alex, but hanging with the guy could be draining. How many nights' sleep had he lost because one of his friend's suggestions had hooked a barb in his brain?

But for all his bloodhound instincts, Alex was a civilian and out of his element. And he'd failed to mature in one regard: had never developed a proper sense of threat.

In the beginning, Milo had attributed it to the carelessness of an overenthusiastic amateur. It hadn't taken long to learn the truth: Alex got off on danger.

Robin understood that, and it scared her. Over the years she'd confided her fears to Milo- more nuance than complaint. And when the three of them were together and Alex and Milo lapsed into the wrong type of conversation and her face changed, Milo caught it quickly and changed the subject. Strangely enough, Alex, for all his perceptiveness, sometimes missed it.

Alex had to realize how Robin felt, yet he made no effort to change. And Robin put up with it. Love is blind and deaf and dumb… maybe she'd simply made a commitment and was smart enough to know it was damn near impossible to change anyone.

But now, she'd gone on that tour. And taken the dog. For some reason that felt wrong- the damn pooch. Alex was claiming to be okay, but that first day Milo'd dropped in, he'd looked really bad, and even now, he was different… distracted.

Something was off.

Or maybe not.

He'd poked a bit at Alex's resistance. Playing shrink to the shrink and why the hell shouldn't he? How could you have a real friendship when the therapy went only one way? But no luck. Alex talked the talk- openness, communication blah blah blah, but in his own articulate, empathetic, ever-so-disgustingly civilized way, the guy was pain-in-the-ass, dead-end immovable.

Now that he thought about it, had Alex ever been deterred? Milo couldn't remember a single instance.

Alex did exactly what Alex wanted to do.

And Robin… Milo'd offered his smoothest reassurances. And he supposed he'd done a decent job of keeping Alex out of harm's way. But there were limits.

Everyone stood alone.

He got up, poured himself a vodka and pink-grapefruit juice, rationalizing that the vitamin C counteracted the oxidation, but wondering how closely his liver resembled that medical journal photo Rick had shown him last month.

Erosion of hepatic tissue and replacement with fatty globules due to advanced cirrhosis.

Rick never pushed either, but Milo knew he wasn't happy with the fresh bottle of Stoli in the freezer.

Switch channels: back to Alex.

Other people's problems were so much more engaging.

He walked half a mile to a Budget Rent-a-Car on La Cienega and got himself a fresh blue Taurus. Driving east on Santa Monica, he crossed into Beverly Hills, then West Hollywood. Not much traffic past Doheny Drive, but at the West Hollywood border the boulevard had been narrowed to one lane in either direction and the few cars in sight were crawling.

West Hollywood, The City That Never Stopped Decorating, had been digging up the streets for years, plunging businesses into bankruptcy and accomplishing little Milo could see other than a yawning stretch of dirt piles and ditches. Last year, the ribbon had been cut on a spanking new West Hollywood fire station. One of those architectural fancies- peaks and troughs and gimcracks and weird-shaped windows. Cute, except the doors had proved too narrow for the fire engines to squeeze through, and the poles didn't allow the firefighters to slide down. This year, West Hollywood had embarked on a sister-city deal with Havana. Milo doubted Fidel would approve of Boystown nightlife.

Among the few businesses the roadwork couldn't kill were the all-night markets and the gay bars. A guy had to eat and a guy had to party. Milo and Rick stayed in most nights- how long had it been since he'd cruised?

And now, here he was.

He found himself smiling, but it felt like someone else's mirth.

Because what the hell was there to be happy about? Pierce Schwinn and/or a confederate had manipulated him into warming up Ingalls, he'd accomplished nothing but had managed to screw up royally.

Attracting attention.

Playa del Sol. That toothy putz Paris Bartlett. First thing he did after ditching Alex was to check city records for a business registration on Playa. Nothing. Then he ran Bartlett through every database he could think of. Like that could be a real name.

Taking a giant risk because what he'd told Alex had been true: As a civilian he was forbidden to use departmental resources, he was treading felonious water. He'd put up a firewall by using the ID numbers of other cops for the requests. Half a dozen IDs of cops he didn't care for, jumping around different divisions. His version of identity theft; he'd been collecting data for years, stashing loose bits of paper in his home safe because you never knew when your back was gonna be against the wall. But if someone tried hard enough, the calls could be traced back to him.

Clever boy, but the search had been futile: no such person as Paris Bartlett.

Which he supposed he'd known right away, apart from the moniker having a phony ring, Bartlett, all hair and teeth and eagerness, had had that actor thing going on. In L.A. that didn't necessarily mean a SAG card and a portfolio full of headshots. LAPD liked guys who were good at pretending, too. Channeled them into undercover work. Nowadays, that meant mostly Narcotics, occasionally Vice when the word came down to run yet another week or two of hooker rousts for public relations.

Years ago undercover had meant another Vice game, a regularly scheduled weekend production: Friday and Saturday night operations put together with military lust. Staking out targets and delineating the enemy and moving in for the attack.

Bust the queers.

Not naked aggression, the way it had been back before Christopher Street, when gay bars were ripe for routine, big-time head-breaking. Most of that ended by the early seventies, but Milo had caught the tail end of the department's fag-bashing fervor: LAPD masked the raids as drug busts, as if hetero clubs weren't fueled by the same dope. During his first month at West L.A. he'd been assigned to a Saturday night bivouac against a private club on Sepulveda near Venice. Out-of-the-way dive in a former auto-painting barn where a hundred or so well-heeled men, believing themselves to be secure, went to talk and dance and smoke grass and gobble quaaludes and enjoy the bathroom stalls. LAPD had a different notion of security. The way the supervisor- a hypermacho D II named Reisan who Milo was certain was tucked deeply in the closet- laid out the plan, you'da thought it was a swoop on some Cong hamlet. Squinty eyes, military lingo, triangulated diagrams scrawled on the board, give me a break.

Milo sat through the orientation, struggling not to succumb to a full-body sweat. Reisan going on about coming down hard on resisters, don't be shy about using your batons. Then, leering, and warning the troops not to kiss anyone because you didn't know where those lips had been. Looking straight at Milo when he'd cracked wise, Milo laughing along with the others and wondering: Why-the-hell-is-he-doing-that? Fighting to convince himself he'd imagined it.

The day of the raid, he called in sick with the flu, stayed in bed for three days. Perfectly healthy, but he worked hard at degrading himself by not sleeping or eating, just sucking on gin and vodka and rye and peach brandy and whatever else he found in the cupboard. Figuring if the department checked on him, he'd look like death warmed over.

V.N. combat vet, now a real-life working detective, but he was still thinking like a truant high school kid.

Over the three days, he lost eight pounds, and when he stood his legs shook and his kidneys ached and he wondered if that yellow tinge in his eyes was real or just bad lighting- his place was a dingy hovel, the few windows it offered looked out to airshafts, and no matter how many bulbs he used, he could never get the illumination above tomb-strength.

The first time in three days that he tried food- a barely warmed can of Hearty Man chili- what he didn't heave whooshed out the other end. He smelled like a goat pen, his hair felt brittle, and his fingernails were getting soft. For a full week later, his ears rang and his back hurt and he drank gallons of water a day just in case he'd damaged something. The day he returned to the station, a transfer slip- Vice to Auto Theft, signed by Reisan- was in his box. That seemed a fine state of affairs. Two days later, someone slipped a note through the door of his locker.

How's your bunghole, faggot?

He pulled into the Healthy Foods lot, stayed in the Taurus, scanned the parking lot for anything out of the ordinary. During the drive from his house to the station, then from Budget to the market, he'd been on alert for a tail. Hadn't picked up any, but this wasn't the movies, and the hard truth was, in a city built around the combustion engine, you could never be sure.

He watched shoppers enter the market, finally satisfied himself that he hadn't been followed, and crossed over to the row of small stores- rehabbed shacks, really- that sat across from Healthy Foods. Locksmith, dry cleaners, cobbler, West Hollywood Easy Mail Center.

He flashed his badge to the Pakistani behind the mail-drop counter- pile up those violations, Sturgis- and inquired about the box number listed on the Jeep's registration. The clerk was sullen, but he thumbed through his circular Rolodex and shook his head.

"No Playa del Sol." Behind him was the wall of brass boxes. A sign advertised FedEx, UPS, rubber stamps, While-U-Wait gift-wrapping. Milo spotted no ribbons or happy-face wrapping paper. This was all about secrets.

"When did they stop renting?" he said.

"Had to be at least a year ago."

"How do you know?"

"Because the current tenant has been renting for thirteen months."

Tenant. Milo pictured some leprechaun setting up house in the mailbox. Tiny stove, refrigerator, Murphy bed, thumbnail-sized cable TV blaring The Pot of Gold Network.

"Who's the current tenant?" he said.

"You know I can't tell you that, sirrr."

"Aw shucks," said Milo, producing a twenty-dollar bill. Keep those felonies coming…

The Pakistani stared at the bill as Milo placed it on the counter, closed his hand over Andrew Jackson's gaunt visage. Then he turned his back on Milo and began fiddling with one of the empty mailboxes and Milo reached over and took hold of the Rolodex and read the card.

Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Block

Address on Cynthia Street. Just a few blocks away.

"Know these people?" said Milo.

"Old people," said the Pakistani, still showing his back. "She comes in every week, but they don't get anything."

"Nothing?"

"Once in a while, junk."

"Then why do they need a POB?"

The clerk faced him and smiled. "Everyone needs one- tell all your friends." He reached for the Rolodex, but Milo held on to it, thumbing back from Bl to Ba. No Bartlett. Then up to P. No Playa del Sol.

The Pakistani said, "Stop, please. What if someone comes in?"

Milo released the Rolodex, and the clerk placed it under the counter.

"How long have you been working here?"

"Oh," said the clerk, as if the question was profound. "Ten months."

"So you've never dealt with anyone from Playa del Sol."

"That is true."

"Who worked here before you?"

"My cousin."

"Where is he?"

"Kashmir."

Milo glared at him.

"It's true," said the man. "He had enough of this place."

"West Hollywood?"

"America. The morals."

No curiosity about why Milo wanted to know about Playa del Sol. Given the guy's line of work, Milo supposed he'd learned not to be curious.

Milo thanked him, and the clerk rubbed his index finger with his thumb. "You could show your thanks in another way."

"Okay," said Milo, taking a very low bow. "Thank you very much."

As he left, he heard the man utter something in a language he didn't understand.

He drove to the Cynthia Street apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Block, pretended to be a census taker, and enjoyed an affable five-minute chat with the possibly hundred-year-old Selma Block, a blue-caftaned, champagne-haired pixie of a woman so bent and tiny she might very well have fit into one of the mailboxes. Behind her sat Mr. Block on a green-and-gold sofa, a mute, static, vacant-eyed apparition of similar antiquity whose sole claim to physiologic viability was the occasional moist and startling throat clear.

Five minutes taught Milo more about the Blocks than he'd wanted to know. Both had worked in the Industry- Selma as a costume mistress for several major studios, Irwin as an accountant for MGM. Three children lived back East. One was an orthodontist, the middle one had gone into "the financial world and became a Republican, and our daughter weaves and sews hand-fashioned-"

"Is this the only address you keep, ma'am?" said Milo, pretending to write everything down but doodling curlicues. No chance of Mrs. B. spotting the ruse. The top of her head was well below the pad.

"Oh, no, dear. We keep a post-office box over by the Healthy Foods."

"Why's that, ma'am?"

"Because we like to eat healthy."

"Why the post-office box, ma'am?"

Selma Block's tiny claw took hold of Milo's sleeve, and he felt as if a cat was using his arm for a spring post.

"Politics, dear. Political mailers."

"Oh," said Milo.

"What party do you belong to, dear?"

"I'm an independent."

"Well, dear, we like the Green Party- rather subversive, you know." The claw dug in deeper.

"You keep the box for Green Party mailers?"

"Oh, yes," said Selma Block. "You're too young, but we remember the way it used to be."

"The way it used to be when?"

"The old days. Those House UnAmerican fascists. That louse McCarthy."

Refusing the invitation to stay for tea and cookies, he extricated himself from Mrs. Block and drove around aimlessly, trying to figure out his next move.

Playa del Sol. Alex was right, it did have that real estate ring, so maybe the Cossacks did have their hand in this- assisted by LAPD.

The fix. Again.

Early on, he'd looked up Cossack Development's address, found it on Wilshire in Mid-City, but he hadn't retained the numbers in his head- those days were gone- so he called Information and fixed the placement between Fairfax and La Brea.

The sky was dark and traffic had started to thin and he made it over in less than a quarter hour.

The Cossack brothers had headquartered themselves in a three-story pink granite, ziggurat-dominated complex that occupied a full city block just east of the County Art Museum. Years ago, this had been junk real estate- the fringes of the pathetically misnamed Miracle Mile. Back in the forties, The Mile's construction had been an historic first: a commercial strip with feeble street appeal but entry through the rear parking lots- yet another symptom of L.A.'s postwar infatuation with The Car. Twenty years later, westward flight had left the central city area a sump of poorly maintained buildings and low-rent businesses, and the only miracle was that any part of The Mile survived.

Now, the current cycle: urban renewal. County Art- not much in the way of a museum, but the courtyard did offer free concerts and L.A. didn't expect much- had spawned other museums- tributes to dolls, folk art, and most effectively, The Car. Big, glossy office structures had followed. If the Cossacks had gotten in early and owned the land under the pink granite thing, they'd made out well.

He parked on a side street, climbed wide, slick granite steps past a huge, shallow black pool filled with still water and dotted with pennies, and entered the lobby. Guard desk to the right, but no guard. Half the lights were off and the cavernous space echoed. The complex was divided into east and west wings. Most of the tenants were financial and showbiz outfits. Cossack Industries took up the third floor of the east wing.

He rode the elevator, stepped into an unfurnished, white-carpeted, white-walled space. One big abstract lithograph greeted him- yellow and white and amorphous, maybe some genius's notion of a soft-boiled egg- then, to the left, double, white doors. Locked. No sound from the other side.

The elevator door closed behind him. Turning, he stabbed the button and waited for it to return.

Back on Wilshire, he continued to study the building. Lot of lights were on, including several on the third floor. A couple of weeks ago, the state had warned of impending power shortages, urged everyone to conserve. Either the Cossacks didn't care, or someone was working late.

He rounded the corner, returned to the Taurus, reversed direction, and parked with a clear view of the building's subterranean parking lot. Fighting back that old feeling: wasted hours, stakeout futility. But stakeouts were like Vegas slots: Once in a great while something paid off, and what better basis for addiction?

Twenty-three minutes later, the lot's metal grate slid open and a battered Subaru emerged. Young black woman at the wheel, talking on a cell phone. Six minutes after that: a newish BMW. Young white guy with spiked hair, also gabbing on cell, oblivious, he nearly missed colliding with a delivery truck. Both drivers traded insults and bird-flips. The streets were safe, tonight.

Milo waited another half hour, was just about to split, when the grate yawned once more and a soot gray Lincoln Town Car nosed out. Vanity plates: CCCCCCC. Windows tinted well past the legal limit- even the driver's pane- but otherwise nice and conservative.

The Lincoln stopped at the red light at Wilshire, then turned west. Traffic was heavy enough for Milo to obtain cover two lengths behind, but sufficiently fluid to allow a nice, easy tail.

Perfect. For what it was worth.

He followed the gray Lincoln half a mile west to San Vicente Boulevard, then north to Melrose and west again to Robertson, where the Town Car pulled into the front lot of a restaurant on the southwest corner.

Brushed steel door. Matching steel nameplate above the door, engraved heavily:

Sangre de Leon.

New place. The last time Milo had taken the time to look, an Indonesian-Irish fusion joint had occupied the corner. Before that had been some kind of Vietnamese bistro run by a celebrity chef from Bavaria and bankrolled by movie stars. Milo figured the patrons had never served in the military.

Before that, he recalled at least six other start-up trendolas in as many years, new owners refurbishing, grand opening, garnering the usual breathless puff pieces in L.A. Magazine and Buzz, only to close a few months later.

Bad-luck corner. Same for the site across the street- the bamboo-faced one-story amorphoid that had once been a Pacific Rim seafood palace was now shuttered, a heavy chain drawn across its driveways.

Sangre de Leon. Lion's Blood. Appetizing. He wouldn't take bets on this one enduring longer than a bout of indigestion.

He found a dark spot across Robertson, parked diagonal to the restaurant, turned off his headlights. The rest of the decor was windowless gray stucco and sprigs of tall, bearded grass that looked like nothing other than dry weeds. An army of pink-jacketed valets- all good-looking and female- hovered at the mouth of the lot. Stingy lot; the seven Mercedes parked there filled it.

The Town Car's chauffeur- a big, thick bouncer type nearly as large as Georgie Nemerov's hunters- jumped out and sprang a rear door. A chesty, puffy-faced guy in his forties with sparse, curly hair got out first. His face looked as if it had been used as a waffle iron. Milo recognized Garvey Cossack right away. The guy had put on weight since his most recent newspaper photo, but not much else about him had changed. Next came a taller, soft-looking character with a shaved bullet head and a Frank Zappa mustache that drooped to his chin- little brother Bobo, minus his slicked-back hairdo. Middle-aged sap doing the youth-culture thing? Cranial skin as a proud badge of rebellion? Either way, the guy enjoyed mirror time.

Garvey Cossack wore a dark sport coat with padded shoulders over a black turtleneck, black slacks. Below the slacks, white running shoes- now there was a touch of elegance.

Bobo had on a too-small black leather bomber jacket, too-tight black jeans and black T-shirt, too-high black boots. Black-lensed shades, too. Call the paramedics, we've got an emergency overdose of cool.

A third man exited the Lincoln, and the big chauffeur let him close his own door.

Number Three was dressed the way businessmen used to dress in L.A. Dark suit, white shirt, undistinguished tie, normal shoes. Shorter than the Cossack brothers, he had narrow shoulders and a subservient stoop. Saggy, wrinkled face, though he didn't appear any older than the Cossacks. Miniscule oval eyeglasses and long, blond hair that shagged over his collar fought the Joe-Corporate image. The top of his scalp was mostly bald spot.

Mini-Specs hung back as the Cossacks entered the restaurant, Garvey in a flat-footed waddle, Bobo swaggering and bopping his head in time to some private melody. The chauffeur returned to the car and began backing out, and Specs walked past the pink ladies' expectant smiles. The Town Car turned south on Robertson, drove a block, pulled to the curb, went dark.

Specs remained out in the lot for a few seconds, looking around- but at nothing in particular. Facing the Taurus, but Milo caught no sign the guy saw anything that bothered him. No, this one was just full of random nervous energy- hands flexing, neck rotating, mouth turned down, the tiny lenses of his glasses darting and catching street light, a pair of reflective eggs.

Guy made him think of a crooked accountant on audit day. Finally, Specs ran his finger under his collar, rotated his shoulders, and made his way to the pleasures of leonine hemoglobin.

No additional diners materialized during the thirty-seven minutes Milo sat there. When one of the untipped valets looked at her watch, stepped out to the sidewalk, and lit up a cigarette, he got out of the Taurus and loped across the street.

The girl was a gorgeous, little red-haired thing with blue-blue eyes so vivid the color made its way through the night. Maybe twenty. She noticed Milo approaching, kept smoking. The cigarette was wrapped in black paper and had a gold tip. Shermans? Did they still make those?

She looked up when he was three feet away and smiled through the cloud of nicotine that swirled in the warm night air.

Smiling because Milo had his latest bribe visible. Two twenties folded between his index and tall fingers, backed by a freelance journalist cover story. Forty bucks was double what he'd paid the Pakistani POB clerk but the valet- her tag said Val- was a helluva lot cuter than the clerk. And as it turned out, a lot easier to deal with.

Ten minutes later he was back in the Taurus, cruising past the Town Car. Mt. Chauffeur was snoozing with his mouth open. A shaved-head Latino guy. The redhead had supplied Mini-Spec's ID.

"Oh, that's Brad. He works with Mr. Cossack and his brother."

"Mister Cossack?"

"Mr. Garvey Cossack. And his brother." Blue-eyed glance back at the restaurant. "He co-owns this place, along with…" A string of celebrity names followed. Milo pretended to be impressed.

"Must be a jumping place."

"It was when it opened."

"No more, huh?"

"You know," she said, rolling her eyes.

"How's the food?"

The parking cutie smiled and smoked and shook her head. "How would I know? It's like a hundred bucks a plate. Maybe when I get my first big part."

Her laugh was derisive. She added: "Maybe when pigs fly." So young, so cynical.

"Hollywood," said Milo.

"Yeah." Val looked back again. All the other girls were loafing, and a few were smoking. Probably keeping their weight down, thought Milo. Any of them could've modeled.

Val lowered her voice to a whisper: "Tell the truth, I hear the food sucks."

"The name can't help. Lion's Blood."

"Ick. Isn't that gross?"

"What kind of cuisine is it?"

"Ethiopian, I think. Or something African. Maybe also Latino, I dunno- Cuban, maybe? Sometimes they've got a band and from out here it sounds kind of Cuban." Her hips pistoned, and she snapped her fingers. "I hear it's on its way out."

"Cuban music?"

"No, silly. This place."

"Time for a new job?" said Milo.

"No prob, there's always bar mitzvahs." Stubbing out her cigarette, she said, "You don't happen to ever work for Variety, do you? Or The Hollywood Reporter?"

"Mostly I do wire service stuff."

"Someone's interested in the restaurant?"

Milo shrugged. "I drive around. You've got to dig if you wanna find oil."

She looked at the Taurus and her next smile was ripe with sympathy. Another L.A. loser. "Well, if you ever do Variety, remember this name: Chataqua Dale."

Milo repeated it. "Nice. But so is Val."

A cloud of doubt washed over the blue eyes. "You really think so? 'Cause I was wondering if Chataqua was maybe, you know, over the top."

"No," said Milo. "It's great."

"Thanks." She touched his arm, let the cigarette drop to the pavement, ground out the butt, got a dreamy look in her eyes. Audition fever. "Well, gotta go."

"Thanks for your time," said Milo, reaching into his pocket and slipping her another twenty.

"You are soooo nice," she said.

"Not usually."

"Oh, I bet you are- let me ask you, you meet people, right? Know any decent agents? 'Cause mine is an asshole."

"Only agents of destruction," he said.

Puzzlement lent the beautiful young face temporary complexity. Then her actor's instincts cut in: Still not comprehending, but recognizing a cue, she smiled and touched his arm again. "Right. See you around."

"Bye," said Milo. "By the way, what does Brad do?"

"Walks around with them," she said.

"A walking-around guy."

"You got it- they all need them."

"Hollywood types?"

"Rich types with gross bodies."

"Know Brad's last name?"

"Larner. Brad Larner. He's kind of a jerk."

"How so?"

"He's just a jerk," said Val. "Not friendly, never smiles, never tips. A jerk."

He drove the two blocks to Santa Monica Boulevard, made a right turn, and circled back to Melrose, this time approaching the corner from the east and parking just up from the shuttered Chinese place. The rest of the boulevard was taken up by art galleries, all closed, and the street was dark and quiet. He got out, stepped over the Chinese place's heavy chain, and walked across a lot starting to sprout weeds through the cracks and dotted with mounds of dry dog shit. Finding himself a nice little vantage point behind one of the dead restaurant's gateposts, he waited, taking in the Chinese place's grimness up close- black paint flaking, bamboo shredding.

Another dream rent asunder; he liked that.

Nowhere to sit, so he continued to stand there, well concealed, watching nothing happen at Sangre de Leon for a long time. His knees and back began to hurt, and stretching and squatting seemed to make matters worse. Last Christmas, Rick had bought a treadmill for the spare bedroom, used it religiously every morning at five. Last month, he'd suggested that Milo give regular exercise a try. Milo hadn't argued, but neither had he complied. He was no good in the morning, usually pretended to be asleep when Rick left for the ER.

He checked his Timex. The Cossacks and Brad "the jerk" Larner had been inside for over an hour, and no other patrons had materialized.

Larner was no doubt the Achievement House director's son. The harasser's son. Yet another link between the families. Daddy putting up Crazy Sister Caroline at Achievement House, buying jobs for himself and Junior.

Connections and money. So what else was new? Presidents were selected the same damn way. If any of this provided a hook to Janie Ingalls, he couldn't see it. But he knew- on a gut level- that it did matter. That Pierce Schwinn's forced retirement and his own transfer to West L.A. had resulted from more than Schwinn's dalliances with street whores.

Twenty-year-old fix, John G. Broussard doing the dirty work.

Schwinn had sat on whatever he'd known for two decades, pasted photos in an album, finally decided to break silence.

Why now?

Maybe because Broussard had reached the top and Schwinn wanted his revenge to be a gourmet dish.

Using Milo to do the dirty work…

Then he falls off a docile horse…

Headlights from the north end of Robertson slapped him out of his rumination. Two sets of lights, a pair of vehicles approaching the Melrose intersection. The traffic signal turned amber. The first car passed through legally and the second one ran the red.

Both pulled up in front of Sangre de Leon.

Vehicle Number One was a discreet, black, Mercedes coupe- surprise, surprise!- whose license plate he copied down quickly. Out stepped the driver, another business-suit, moving so quickly the pink ladies had no time to get his door. He slipped a bill to the nearest valet, anyway, let Milo have a nice, clean look at him.

Older guy. Late sixties to midseventies, balding, with a sparse gray comb-over, wearing a boxy beige suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. Medium height, medium build, clean-shaven, the skin falling away from the bone at jowls and neck. No expression on his face. Milo wondered if this was Larner, Senior. Or just a guy out for dinner.

If so, it wouldn't be a solo dinner, because the occupants of the second car nearly tripped over themselves to get to his side.

Vehicle Two was also black, but no feat of German engineering. Big, fat Crown Victoria sedan, anachronistically oversize. The only places Milo'd seen those things, recently, were government offices, but this one didn't have state-issue e plates.

But neither did lots of unmarkeds and for a second, he thought, department brass? and experienced a rush of expectations met too easily: documenting cop honchos with the Cossacks, why the hell hadn't he remembered to bring a damn camera?

But the moment the first guy out of the Crown Victoria turned and showed his face, it was a whole different story.

Long, dark, lizard face under a black pompadour.

City Councilman Eduardo "Ed the Germ" Bacilla, the official representative of a district that encompassed a chunk of downtown. He of the serious bad habits and poor work habits- Bacilla attended maybe one out of every five council meetings and a couple of years ago he'd been nabbed in Boyle Heights trying to buy powdered coke from an undercover narc. Quick and frantic negotiations with the D.A.'s Office had led to the draconian sentence of public apology and public service: two months on graffiti-removal detail, Bacilla working alongside some of the very gang-bangers he'd favored with city-funded scam rehab programs. Lack of a felony conviction meant the councilman could keep his job, and a recall effort by a leftist homeboy reformer sputtered.

And now here was ol' Germ, kissing up to Tan Suit.

So was Crown Victoria Rider Two, and guess what: another civil stalwart.

This guy had looped his arm around Tan Suit's shoulder and was laughing about something. No expression on Suit's CEO face.

Mr. Jocular was older, around Tan Suit's age, with white temples and a bushy, white mustache that concealed his upper lip. Tall and narrow-shouldered, with an onion-bulb body that a well-cut suit couldn't enhance, and the ice-eyed cunning of a cornered peccary.

City Councilman James "Diamond Jim" Horne. He of the suspected kickbacks and briberies and ex-wives hush-moneyed to silence back in the good old days when domestic violence was still known as wife-beating.

Milo knew through the LAPD gravevine that Horne was a longtime, serious spouse-basher with a penchant for pulverizing without leaving marks. Like Germ Bacilla, Diamond Jim had always managed to squeak through without arrest or conviction. For over thirty years, he'd served a district that bordered Bacilla's, a north-central strip filled with ticky-tack houses and below-code apartments. Once solidly working-class white, Horne's constituency had turned 70 percent poor Hispanic, and the councilman had watched his vote pluralities tumble. From 90 percent to 70. A series of opponents with surnames ending in "ez" had failed to topple Horne. The corrupt old bastard got the potholes fixed, and plenty else.

Germ and Diamond Jim, walking arm in arm with Tan Suit, heading for the steel door of Sangre de Leon.

Milo returned to the Taurus and, using the ID of a Pacific Division Vice detective he despised, pulled up the Mercedes coupe's plates.

He half expected another corporate shield, but the numbers came back matching a four-year-old Mercedes owned by a real-life person.

W.E. Obey

The three hundred block of Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.

Walter Obey. He of the billion-dollar fortune.

Nominally, Walt Obey was in the same business as the Cossacks- concrete and rebar and lumber and drywall. But Obey occupied a whole different galaxy from the Cossacks. Fifty years ago, Obey Construction began nailing up homes for returning GIs. The company was probably responsible for 10 percent of the tracts that snaked parallel to the freeways and sprawled across the smog-choked basin that the Chumash Indians had once called the Valley of Smoke.

Walt Obey and his wife, Barbara, were on the board of every museum, hospital, and civic organization that meant anything in the lip-gnawing, over-the-shoulder uncertainty known as L.A. Society.

Walt Obey was also a model of rectitude- Mr. Upright in a business that claimed few saints.

The guy had to be at least eighty, but he looked a good deal younger. Good genes? Clean living?

Now here he was, supping with Germ and Diamond Jim.

The Cossacks and Brad Larner had been inside for one hour. No shock, it was their restaurant. Still the question hung: table for three, or six?

He obtained Sangre de Leon's number from Information and called the restaurant. Five rings later a bored, Central European-accented male voice said, "Yes?"

"This is Mr. Walter Obey's office. I've got a message for Mr. Obey. He's dining with the Cossacks, I believe they're in a private room-"

"Yes, they are. I'll get the phone to him." Eagerness to please had wiped out the boredom.

Milo hung up.

He drove home trying to piece it all together. The Cossacks and Walt Obey and two city councilmen noshing on designer grub. Brad Larner along as a gofer, or his dad's surrogate? Alex had pulled up something about the Cossacks' trying to bring a football team to L.A., maybe reactivating the Coliseum. The scheme had died, as had nearly everything else the Cossacks had tried- movies, tearing down landmarks. On the face of it the brothers were losers. Yet they had enough clout to bring Walt Obey from Hancock Park to West Hollywood.

The Cossacks in their chauffeured Town Car with personalized plates screamed new money. But Obey, the real money man, drove himself in an anonymous, four-year-old sedan. The billionaire was so unobtrusive he could pass for your average, middling CPA.

What got vulgarians and bluenoses together? Something big. The Coliseum sat in Germ Bacilla's district, and next door was Diamond Jim Horne's domain. Was this one of those complicated deals that always managed to elude zoning laws and whatever else stood in its way? Taxpayers footing the bill for rich guys' indulgences? Something that might be jeopardized by the rehash of a twenty-year-old murder and the exposure of the Cossacks' role in covering up for their crazy sister and junkie-murderer Willie Burns?

Why had Georgie Nemerov gotten so antsy?

The only possible thread between Nemerov and the rest of it was the department.

And now the department was verifying his vacation time and maybe sending that Bartlettt asshole to spook him.

Health facilitator. Meaning what? Be careful not to get unhealthy?

Suddenly, he wanted very much to make someone else deathly ill.

When he pulled into his driveway, the white Porsche was parked up near the garage, little red alarm light blinking on the dash, extra-strength lock bar fixed to the steering column. Rick loved the car, was as careful with it as he was with everything else.

He found Rick at the kitchen table, still wearing his scrubs and eating warmed-up Chinese food from last night. A glass of red wine was at his elbow. He saw Milo and smiled and gave a weak wave and the two of them shared a brief hug, and Rick said, "Working late?"

"The usual. How'd your day go?"

"The usual."

"Heroics?"

"Hardly." Rick pointed to the empty chair across the table. The final dark hairs in his dense cap of curls had faded to gray last summer, and his mustache was a silver toothbrush. Despite being a doctor and knowing better, he liked to tan out in the backyard and his skin had held on to summer color. He looked tired. Milo sat down opposite him and began picking at orange chicken.

"There's more in the refrigerator," said Rick. "The egg rolls, the rest of it."

"No, I'll just take yours."

Rick smiled. Weary.

"Bad stuff on shift?" said Milo.

"Not particularly. Couple of heart attacks, couple of false alarms, kid with a broken leg from falling off a Razor scooter, colon cancer patient with a serious gut bleed that kept us busy for a long time, woman with a darning needle in her eye, two auto accidents, one accidental shooting- we lost that one."

"The usual trivia."

"Exactly." Rick pushed his food away. "There was one thing. The shooting was the last case I pulled. I couldn't do anything for the poor guy, he came in flat, never beeped. Looks like he was cleaning his 9mm, stared into the barrel, maybe making sure it was clear and boom. The cops who came in with the body said they found gun oil and rags and one of those barrel-reaming tools on the table next to him. Bullet entered here." Rick touched the center of his mustache, under his nose.

"An accident?" said Milo. "Not suicide? Or anything else?"

"The cops who came in kept calling it an accident, maybe they knew something technical. It'll go to the coroner."

"Sheriff's cops?" said Milo.

"No, you guys. It happened near Venice and Highland. But that's not what I want to tell you. The body had just gone to the morgue, and I came back to chart and the cops who brought the guy in were in the cubicle next door and I heard them talking. Going on about their pensions, sick leave, department benefits. Then one said something about a detective in West L.A. division who'd tested HIV-positive and put in for retirement. The other cop said, 'Guess, what goes 'round comes round.' Then they both laughed. Not a joyful laugh. A mean laugh."

Rick picked up a chopstick and seesawed it between two fingers. Looked into Milo's eyes. Touched Milo's hand.

Milo said, "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Didn't assume you had, or you'd have told me."

Milo withdrew his hand, stood, and got himself a beer.

Rick stayed at the table, continued to play with the chopstick. Tilting it deftly, precisely. A surgeon's grace.

Milo said, "It's bullshit. I'da heard."

"I just thought it was something you'd want to know."

"Highland and Venice. What the hell would Wilshire Division know about West L.A.? What the hell would blues know about D's?"

"Probably nothing… Big guy, is there something I should know? Some tight spot you've gotten yourself into?"

"Why? What does this have to do with me?" Milo didn't like the defensiveness in his own voice. Thinking: the goddamn department rumor mill. Then thinking: Health Facilitator. You never know…

Rick said, "Okay," and started to get up.

Milo said, "Wait," and came around and stood behind Rick and put his hands on Rick's shoulders. And told him the rest of it.