Bestiary

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sadowski had parked the car a few hundred yards down the street from the gatehouse, where the low overhanging branches of a California live oak provided extra shadow. He’d been sitting there for over three hours, and every once in a while he’d been able to hear the sound of violin music being carried on the wind. But the music had stopped, and Sadowski began to hope the party would be breaking up soon.

In his lap, he had a map of greater L.A., folded open to the west side. There were little red Xs wherever he and Burt had decided would be good places to start. Several of the Xs were located right up around here, and Sadowski chose, on his own, to add a couple more. When he lowered his head, the night-vision goggles, strapped to the top of his head, teetered, and he had to flip the scope back up again.

He also had to take a leak.

He was just about to get out of the car when he saw the front gate to al-Kalli’s estate swing open, and a gleaming Rolls, one of the old-fashioned kind, emerge. He pushed the map to the passenger seat, dropped the goggles, and lowered himself in the seat. The Rolls drove slowly past him, down the hill, with an old man in an Arab headdress sitting in the backseat.

Man, Sadowski thought, I could take him out so easily.

A few seconds later, a Jaguar convertible followed, with a sleek couple already arguing about something in what sounded like Italian.

Sadowski wondered if he should look into some audio surveillance equipment, too. Now that he wasn’t working for Silver Bear anymore — now that that asshole Greer had gotten him shit-canned by sneaking around behind his back, showing up at the gatehouse with a fucking blackmail letter (oh yeah, he couldn’t wait to tell him about everything Reggie, the gatekeeper who’d also been canned, had filled him in on) — now that he might be setting up a security business on his own, well, he might have to invest in some more stuff. Wasn’t that the kind of thing, though, that you could, what was it, claim as a deduction?

A few more cars came by, including an old white Volvo — definitely out of keeping with the Rolls and Bentley and Jaguar parade — with a tall, young guy at the wheel, who looked vaguely familiar, and in the passenger seat a very good-looking brunette, who instantly took his mind off the guy; she was turned toward the driver, smiling and saying something. Very fuckable indeed. Sadowski flashed on Ginger Lee; after he’d settled with you-know-who, he’d have to make a stop at the Bayou.

He was beginning to give up hope — had his information been wrong? — when he finally saw the beaten-up green Mustang approach the gate; actually, he heard it first, the muffler rumbling. The car lurched out of the gate and started down past Sadowski’s car. The Silver Bear patrol unit was of course a thing of the past; now he was driving his own car, a Ford Explorer SUV that he was already two lease payments behind on. Buy American. But at least Greer wouldn’t spot this car; he’d never even seen it.

As soon as Greer had passed, Sadowski swept the infrared goggles off his head, put the Explorer into gear, and did a quick U-turn. Up toward the top of the hill, he hadn’t had to worry about any private patrol cars; it was all Mohammed al-Kalli’s property up there, and after firing Silver Bear, the Arab had been too wary to hire any other firm; as a result, nobody would be checking up on his perimeters. Down here, though, the patrol cars were making their usual rounds. Sadowski was passed by one from Bel-Air Patrol, one from Guardian, and even one from Silver Bear. He recognized the Silver Bear guy; he was a new recruit, very gung ho. Tonight, Sadowski was minding his own business, but on the next trip up here he’d have to make sure he got past these guys without being noticed at all.

Following Greer was easy. For one thing, he had no reason to believe he was being tailed; for another, he usually made the same rounds. The VA, the Bayou, sometimes a bar on Normandie, the apartment he shared with his mother. How the hell, Sadowski wondered, did he deal with that? He’d met Greer’s mom once or twice, and if he’d had to live with her, he’d have had the old lady put down long ago.

But as they traveled down Sunset, Sadowski was able to rule out a couple of destinations — the bar, the Bayou. They kept heading west — Sadowski was surprised that Greer’s heap was able to make the time it did — and he was starting to wonder where they were going. He’d already made plans in his head, ways that he could get the drop on Greer, catch him off guard and maybe even throw the fear of God into him. He was gonna catch him in the garage of his apartment building, going up in that crappy little elevator, or at the Bayou, maybe literally with his pants down. But now he’d have to improvise — and that had never been his strong suit.

At Bundy, Greer got in the left turn lane, and though Sadowski hated to do it, he had to wait in the turning lane right behind him as the oncoming traffic passed. He knew he was sitting higher up than Greer, and his windows were tinted, and he was slouching down in the seat, but this was just the kind of maneuver that his mail-away PI course had warned him against. You were always supposed to leave another car between you and the mark.

Not only that, Greer waited all the way through the yellow light — even though there were no more oncoming cars — before gunning it through the red. Sadowski had no choice but to gun his own car through, too, and a guy heading south gave him a blast on his horn. Oh, how Sadowski missed his patrol car; nobody’d ever honked at that.

And now he was wondering if Greer had made him after all. He purposely lay way back, let a Domino’s delivery car get between them, and put on his night-vision goggles at traffic lights so that he could see ahead and make sure Greer’s car was still in range. These goggles, the Excalibur Generation III, had built-in IR-LED and state-of-the-art automatic brightness control; he’d initially balked at the heavy price tag — over three grand — but they’d definitely been worth it. And they were way better than anything he’d been issued in Iraq.

Sadowski rolled down his window; the sound of Greer’s shitty muffler made it even easier to tail him. And this late at night, the heat of the day had completely abated, and it was actually kind of cool out. It also looked like Greer was heading for the ocean. At the bottom of San Vicente, he turned left and Sadowski followed him all the way down Ocean Boulevard to the parking areas for the Santa Monica Pier. What the fuck was he doing here? Going for a ride on the Ferris wheel?

Sadowski pulled into a spot two rows over and waited for Greer to head for the stairs that led up to the pier. He considered confronting him right here, in the parking lot, but there were about a dozen spics partying around a new Cadillac Escalade. (How the hell did these wetbacks get the money for cars like that? Sadowski’d priced it himself, and even the lease payments were sky high.) No, he’d have to find a spot up top, on the pier somewhere, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Even though he’d only received the first couple of lessons for his PI course, it had said you should never cut a promising surveillance short. “Good things come to he who waits,” it had said. And maybe Greer was going to lead Sadowski to a good thing now.

Or maybe it was just a new drug connection.

Greer was hobbling along, and trying to get a cigarette lighted in the stiff ocean breeze. His leg looked bad to Sadowski, and for a second he wondered if he’d taken a beating from al-Kalli or one of his men. But then why would he have been at that party? No, there was something else going down.

The pier, as always, was crowded. A live band, playing that New Orleans kind of zydeco crap, was wailing away on a makeshift stage and the video game parlor was jammed, with bells clanging and buzzers buzzing. Everybody was out enjoying the cooler ocean air. The hot, dry weather, and the drought, just made you want to hang out anywhere near the water. Of course, Sadowski and the Sons of Liberty were probably the only guys in L.A. who wanted the weather to continue just as it had been — at least for a few more days. “The less rain, the less to explain,” was how Burt had put it at the last planning meeting. Burt had a real way with words.

Greer was moving slowly through the crowd, and out toward the roller coaster end of the pier. At one point, a cop on a bicycle pulled up and made him put out his cigarette. At another, Greer stopped and turned all the way around to watch a very hot girl in a frilly pink skirt go by: Sadowski just had time to duck behind a concession stand.

Greer started walking again, and Sadowski, who’d been out on the pier a few times — Ginger had insisted on seeing it right after she’d come to L.A. — knew that he could cut through the snack area and still catch up with Greer by the roller coaster.

But when he came around the corner, he saw no sign of him. There were lots of people in line for the roller coaster, which was thundering overhead and swooping down into a hairpin turn. A bunch of kids were screaming their heads off. But Sadowski still couldn’t find Greer. Son of a bitch, had he doubled back? Or maybe he had come out here to hook up with someone — but where? Sadowski, who was taller than almost everyone around him, stood up on his tip-toes, brushed a couple of shorter guys out of his way — one of them looked like he wanted to start something, but his friend took a good look at Sadowski and pulled him out of harm’s way — and came up empty. Shit. What did his PI course say to do when you temporarily lost track of your target?

Sadowski turned and was just passing one of those photo booths when a hand reached out, grabbed him by the back of the collar, and dragged him inside. He was off balance, too, and felt himself shoved down onto the little metal bench in front of the camera so hard the whole booth rocked.

Greer, swinging the curtain shut, said, “You are the worst fucking detective in the world.”

Sadowski tried to get up, and Greer, leaning over him, shoved him back down again. There was barely room in the booth to breathe.

“You want to see me, why don’t you just call my cell?”

“Fuck you,” Sadowski said. “And the camel you rode in on.”

“Now what,” Greer said, “is that supposed to mean?” Sadowski’s stupidity had always amazed and, to some extent, amused him.

“You know what it means. You and your party pal, Mohammed al-Kalli.” Sadowski only knew so much, and he had to use it sparingly. The PI course said you could find out much more that way. “Did he pay you off tonight? Is that why you were up there?”

“I was up there, dipshit, because I’m working for him now.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m his head of security.”

Now Sadowski laughed. “Yeah, and I’m… I’m King Kong.”

Greer shook his head ruefully. “You just might be.” He swept the curtain open. “You sure smell bad enough.”

Greer stepped out of the booth and wandered over toward the wooden rail. Instinctively, he started to reach for a cigarette, then remembered. He could hear Sadowski, his ego bruised, shuffling up behind him. Greer had spotted the Ford Explorer that was following him almost immediately, and when he’d waited at that traffic light on Bundy, then gunned his way through at the last second, he knew he was right. But he hadn’t been sure who was driving it. His first thought was Jakob. Even though al-Kalli had co-opted him and put him on the payroll, Greer wasn’t sold at all. The whole thing was just too damn fishy. Why would anybody hire him? He wouldn’t. He’d taken the thousand-dollar down payment on his salary, he’d come to the party, but he’d been watching his back. And he wasn’t about to stop.

“You’re not seriously working for that Arab piece of shit?” Sadowski said.

Greer leaned down and rubbed a little feeling back into his leg. He’d been standing on it too long tonight.

“Because if you are, you owe me a cut.”

“Why would that be?”

“You wouldn’t have known diddly-squat if I hadn’t told you. You wouldn’t have known he was up there, you wouldn’t have gotten past the gate, you wouldn’t have seen all those animals you told me about. The weird ones that supposedly ate a guy.”

That was something that Greer did regret. He should never have shot off his mouth that night; he’d just been so shocked by what he’d seen, and what had happened, that he’d let it spill. And that, he knew, was never a good idea.

“Yeah, well, it turns out I might have been just a little bit high that night.”

“What?” Sadowski was very suspicious.

“My meds needed some adjusting.”

“You telling me now that what you said was bullshit?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Sadowski was getting twisted into a pretzel, wondering whether to believe what he was saying now or what he had said back then. Besides being his commanding officer, Greer had always been a slippery fuck. To this day, Sadowski suspected he’d been shortchanged for his part in the mission outside Mosul.

“I don’t give a shit if it’s true or not.” Sadowski had come to a realization. “Reggie told me about your little shakedown action, and that’s what got my ass fired. In fact, Silver Bear’s starting to look back at all the other robberies that went down on houses I had the specs to. I could be in deep shit, Greer.”

Greer always noticed when Sadowski dropped the instinctive “Captain”; he’d been doing it a lot lately.

But maybe he had a point, and Greer was feeling generous tonight. After all, he still had the thousand bucks, in cash, that Jakob had given him. He reached into his pants pocket, took out his paper-clipped wad, and peeled off a couple of hundred-dollar bills. He slapped them into Sadowski’s hand, but Sadowski just kept staring at the wad that remained.

A couple of tourists, eating cotton candy, strolled past them.

“How much did he give you?” Sadowski said. “My cut is half.”

“Since when?”

“From now on.”

Greer should have seen it coming. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. Something in him just kind of turned over, and he thought, Better put a stop to this right here, or else it’ll never stop. Nor did he miss the irony of being shaken down on the very spot where he had brought al-Kalli for the same purpose. He looked out over the railing toward the dark ocean water surging below the pilings of the pier. From where they were standing, the drop had to be fifteen or twenty feet.

“That’s how it’s going to be?” Greer said, reaching down as if to rub his bad leg again.

“You got it.”

And then he grabbed hold of both of Sadowski’s pants legs and with one big heave lifted him up and over the railing. Sadowski made a desperate but futile grab for the railing as he went over, and plummeted headfirst, screaming all the way, into the water. There was a huge splash, and as the cotton candy couple turned to see what had just happened, Greer shouted, “Call the cops! A guy just jumped off the pier!”

He hobbled off, as if frantically looking for help, while the couple craned their necks over the railing. “Look,” he heard the man say, “there is somebody in the water!”

Greer’s only regret was the two hundred bucks.