Compulsion

CHAPTER 25

“Did the chief get his money’s worth?” I asked Milo.

“I’ll let you know after I talk to him.”

“When’s that?”

“When the palace beckons.”

Five p.m., gloomy skies, heavy air in L.A. We were in a coffee shop on Santa Monica Boulevard renowned for omelets the size of manhole covers. Coffee for me, coffee and a plate of cinnamon crullers for him. Two hours ago, he’d finished a late lunch at Café Moghul. An interesting mix of cumin and his digestive cigarillo lingered on his clothing.

Before going to bed last night, I’d left him a message, summarizing what I’d learned in New York. Hadn’t heard back because he’d been surveilling Tony Mancusi until sunrise.

He rubbed his eyes. “Dale did the Safrans… okay, I got my money’s worth, let me pay for your uneaten hundred-dollar plate of lettuce.”

“Forty bucks,” I said. “Lettuce and scallops.”

“Whoopy doo.”

I’d been back since noon. He’d remained unreachable until four p.m. Revisiting Gilbert Chacon at the Prestige rental lot and getting Chacon to admit that he’d arrived late for work, found the chain propped up but the lock missing, rushed to Rite Aid on Canon and bought the cheap drugstore version we’d seen.

“Think there’s more to it?” I said.

“Someone bribed him to leave it off? Don’t think so, he offered to take a poly, cared more about losing his job than aiding and abetting.”

“However it happened, whoever picked the lock, kept it.”

“Sentimental.”

After leaving Chacon, he’d participated in a conference call with Texas authorities and detectives from six cities where Cuz Jackson claimed to have committed atrocities. Three dead ends, one unlikely, two possibles.

Plus Antoine Beverly, one big question mark.

The needle-and-gurney folk in the Lone Star State wanted to get things moving. The chief’s office had asked Milo to push on Antoine but there was no lead to follow other than locating Antoine’s boyhood friends.

No sign of either. “ Hollywood unmarkeds been cruising by Wilson Good’s house for the last forty-eight hours. Definitely no one home and St. Xavier’s starting to worry.”

I said, “Maybe he got really sick and ended up in the hospital.”

“We looked into that. Zip.”

“The coach has left the field,” I said.

“Funny thing ’bout that, huh? Like I said, all the fool had to do was cooperate. Wouldn’t that be something, Antoine coming down to some creepy kid-on-kid thing.”

Thinking about that made me tired. Or maybe it was no sleep in the cell-like hotel room followed by a bone-fusing six-hour plane ride.

I swigged coffee. Milo tore open a packet of Splenda but didn’t use it. “Good was Antoine’s age at the time of the disappearance. You see a fifteen-year-old capable of something like that?”

“They’re not myelinated.”

“Who what?”

“Myelin,” I said. “It’s a substance that coats nerve cells and plays a role in logical processing. Teens don’t have as much as adults. Some folks think that’s a good reason not to execute young criminals.”

“At what age does it turn normal?”

“Differs from person to person. Sometimes not till middle age.”

“Bad living through chemistry,” he said. “But we’re not talking some low-impulse stupid homicide. Baby-gangbangers pull that off all the time. If Good’s dirty for Antoine, we’ve got a teenager stealthy enough to murder his best buddy, smoothly cover it up, and go on living as an upstanding citizen. Serving as a pallbearer and crying his little eyes out.”

“Seeing yourself as moral and living with something that evil would be a hell of a burden, but people pull it off. Or Good could be one of those highly functioning psychopaths who’s managed to avoid trouble.”

“And now trouble comes visiting,” he said. “So he freaks out and splits.”

“Or Antoine’s death wasn’t a calculated crime. Couple of kids horsing around and something went horribly wrong. Good panicked and hid Antoine’s body. Now he’s terrified.”

“Maybe three kids. Antoine’s other pal is a junkie and a career criminal. That could be self-punishment.”

“Gordon Beverly said Maisonette had family problems, lived through a drive-by. Maybe his resources weren’t as strong as Good’s.”

“Bradley sentences himself to a lousy life, Wilson gets the house in the hills. Maybe that makes Good the really cold one… hell, it could’ve been premeditated. The Goods told us Antoine sold more subscriptions than anyone. What if those little bastards wanted to pocket his dough and he wouldn’t give it up?”

“The way those outfits generally operate, the kids hand in the forms and get paid later.”

“Okay, but my nose is telling me something happened among those three boys. Gotta find Mr. Good and start demolishing his illusions, but I can’t lose track of Mancusi and Shonsky. Speaking of which, Tony called Jean Barone yesterday, wanting to know when Mama’s will was going to be processed.”

“What’d she tell him?”

“What I told her to say: The wheels of justice grind slowly. The Tonester hung up without as much as good-bye. Maybe cranking up the pressure will lead him to do something stupid. Like meeting with whoever Dale Bright’s pretending to be.”

Snatching a cruller, he bit down hard, created a spray of crumbs. “Thanks for taking the trip, Alex. You believe Korvutz about not setting up the Safrans?”

“He had no incentive, the building was going to be vacated with or without the Safrans’ consent.”

“So what was Bright’s motive?”

“Killing’s fun when you can frame it as altruism. Sonia Glusevitch said Bright was the most helpful man she’d ever met.”

“The gal-pal,” he said. “Credible?”

“I think so.”

“Able but not often willing,” he said. “But not gay.”

“This guy defies classification.”

He finished the cruller, took another. “Frolicks in frocks, good with makeup. No record of him living in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. Same deal with military service in Germany.”

“What a shock,” I said.

“Reinvent yourself. Pastime of the new millennium. Why didn’t he just run for office and save us all this grief.”

“Politics would be a poor fit,” I said. “He genuinely likes helping people.”

He laughed so hard crumbs bounced off his belly.

I said, “Dale and Tony could’ve met at some cross-dresser get-together. Tony complains about money problems, how his mother lives in a nice Westwood house while he’s forced to move to a dump because she’s turned off the tap. Dale decides to put in a fix. Maybe Tony has no idea what he’s initiated but maybe after he hears the details – a killer in costume – he suspects something.”

“The plaid cap,” he said. “He talked about his father wearing one just like it. If that was one of Dale’s little jokes, how’d he find out about Tony Senior’s sartorial habits?”

“Tony gabs, Dale’s a good listener. If Tony knows he’s partially responsible for Dale butchering his mother, that would explain the emotion we saw.”

“Barfing. But he doesn’t turn Dale in because he’s scared of being nabbed as an accessory.”

“What interests me is that Dale acted with no worry about Tony giving him up. He understands Tony’s psyche.”

“Or he’s biding his time.”

“Tony’s in jeopardy? I guess it’s possible. Either way, if surveillance doesn’t produce something soon, I’d think about confronting him directly.”

He made his way through the second cruller. “You really think this is evil altruism, Dale doesn’t get paid for his hits?”

“If we’re right about the Ojo Negro killings, he murdered his sister and Vicky Tranh and got rich. But if money was his sole reason for eliminating Leonora, all he had to do was sit in the woods and pick her off with a rifle. Instead, he dressed up in costume, showed himself, stole a car, engaged in incredible savagery. To me that says there was psychosexual payoff. And that fits with what Leonora told Mavis Wembley about Dale: secretly cruel as a child.”

“Tortures animals, volunteers at a shelter. He’s all about irony, isn’t he?”

“Irony and theater,” I said. “Think what it took to pull off Kat Shonsky’s murder: stealing a conspicuous car, stalking his prey, then abducting her, possibly in drag. Then returning the car to where it’s sure to be found and leaving token blood on the seat. Leaving the scarf where it would be seen immediately if Kat’s grave was unearthed.”

“That grave would’ve definitely been unearthed,” he said. “The permits for the sisters’ swimming pool had just come through.”

“Be interesting if Dale was aware of that.”

His eyebrows arched. “Someone the sisters know… wonder if they’re back from their cruise.”

He motioned the waitress over, handed her some bills.

“That’s way too much, Lieutenant.”

“Caught me in a weak moment, Marissa.”

“Honestly, Lieu-”

He placed a big hand over hers. “Take your kid to the movies.”

“You’re so sweet.” She tiptoed to buss his cheek, just about skipped away.

I said, “Random acts of kindness.”

“Me and Dale.”