A Savage Place

Chapter 13

THE COPS FOUND Mickey Rafferty lying in the open door of his room at the Marmont with his feet sticking out into the hall and three bullets in his chest. Someone had heard shots and called the cops. but no one had seen anything and no one knew anything.

Candy and I got this from a cop named Samuelson in the empty studio where, mornings from nine to ten, a talk show called New Day L.A. bubbled and frothed. It was four fifty in the afternoon. Candy had some news to read at six.

“We found him this morning,” Samuelson said, “about twelve hours ago. We talked to some people at the studio. They said he was close to you.”

Candy’s face was pale and blank. She sat on a sofa on the set, her legs crossed, her hands in her lap. She nodded.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” Samuelson said.

Candy nodded again. Samuelson was sitting on one corner of the anchor desk, his arms folded. He was square-faced and nearly bald, with a large drooping mustache and tinted glasses in gold frames.

“Way I figure it happened,” he said, “someone knocked on the door, and when he opened it, they shot him in the chest.”

Candy shook her head with little rapid movements, almost as if she were shivering.

“You got anything else?” I said.

“Not so far,” Samuelson said. He was chewing gum and occasionally cracked it. “Hoping maybe Miss Sloan would be able to help us.”

Candy shook her head. “I don’t know anything,” she said. “I don’t have any idea why someone would want to kill Mickey.”

“How about you, Boston?” Samuelson popped his gum at me.

“No,” I said, “I only met him once.”

“I know this is a tough time to talk about it, Miss Sloan,” Samuelson said. “But I would like to talk some more when you can. Maybe tomorrow?”

Candy nodded.

“Maybe you could come downtown,” Samuelson said. “Tomorrow, maybe around two in the afternoon, say.” He took his wallet out, slipped a card from it, and gave it to Candy. “If you can’t make it then, give us a call, and we’ll arrange a better time.”

Candy took the card.

Samuelson looked at me. “Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if Rafferty getting burned had something to do with this investigation you’re helping with, Boston.” I shrugged.

“If it turned out that way, you’d get in touch with us right away, wouldn’t you, Boston.” He gave me a card too.

“It’s every citizen’s duty,” I said.

“Yeah, okay.” Samuelson unfolded from the anchor desk. He was tall and looked in shape, not heavy, but like a tennis player or a swimmer. He moved smoothly.

“I’ll be looking for you tomorrow, Miss Sloan. You come too, Boston,” he said.

Candy said yes, not very loud. And Samuelson went out of the studio. It was dead quiet. The weighted studio door swung shut. Candy got up from the couch and walked over to it and looked out through the small double-glass window. Then she walked back over and stood beside me.

“They killed him,” she said.

“I gather we’re not telling the cops everything we know?” I said.

“They killed Mickey,” Candy said. “Doesn’t that-” She spread her hands.

“There are all kinds of things it does,” I said. “But trying to talk about it is inadequate. If they did kill him and they are the same people that had you beat up, then it says they are in earnest.”

“You mean they might try to kill me?”

“They might. But I won’t let them.”

Candy turned and walked away, across the empty studio, stepping carefully over the lash of cables on the floors, and on the far side of the studio, she stopped, turned back, leaned her arms on a camera, and put one foot up on the bumper ring that went around the lower end of the dolly.

“You think you are very tough, don’t you. People die, people are hurt. You’re matter-of-fact about it, aren’t you. `They might try to kill you, girlie, but don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of you. Big strong me.‘ Well, what if they kill you. You ever think of that?”

“No more than I have to,” I said.

“Wouldn’t be manly, would it.”

“Wouldn’t do any good,” I said.

She stared at me over the body of the camera. “What’ll we do, Spenser?” she said. “What in hell will we do?”

“Some of it you have to decide,” I said. “Maybe you have already. For instance what do we tell Samuelson and how much? A few minutes ago you told him nothing. You going to stick with that?”

“Should I?”

“Not my decision,” I said.

“I’m afraid, if they know, they’ll get involved in the whole deal and everyone will shut up and I won’t get a story.”

“Or they might dig it out and clean it up,” I said. “They can do that sometimes.”

“But it would be them, not me. I want this. I don’t want a bunch of cops getting it.”

“If the cops are involved, there’s not much reason for the bad guys to harm you anymore,” I said. “Their whole point is to keep you from the cops.”

“I need this story,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “but don’t think Samuelson is going to be easy. Cops hate coincidence. You’ve employed a detective from Boston for an unspecified investigation, and then your boyfriend gets killed.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. Wasn’t.”

“That’s not the point. He was perceived as such. Samuelson isn’t going to be happy with the hypothesis that there’s no connection.”

“That’s his problem,” Candy said. She was resting her chin on her folded arms, staring across the barrel of the camera, past me, at the blank off-white curtain that backdropped part of the set.

“He’s being nice with you, and careful, because you’re in the media, and he knows you can cause him aggravation. But cops have a high aggravation tolerance, and if he has to, he’ll take the weight, as the saying goes. Then he can become your problem… and mine.”

“I suppose it could be trouble for you.”

“Suppressing evidence. Cops-and D.A.‘s and judges -disapprove of it generally.”

“You can go back to Boston.”

“While you do what?”

“I need this story.” She wasn’t gazing at the offwhite backdrop now. She was looking at me.

“Like the cops,” I said, “the bad guys walk a little more carefully around you than they might someone else. Killing a reporter makes a lot of waves. Remember the reporter that got blown up in Arizona?”

She nodded.

“So do they, and maybe they won’t kill you if they don’t have to. But if you’re running around making more waves than you’d make dead, then the logic seems inescapable.”

“That means you think I should tell the police?”

“No,” I said. “That means I’ll stay.”