Crashed

42

“Meet me there,” I said to Louie. “They need somebody with them.”

“Gonna take me some time,” Louie grumbled. “This fuckin’ rain’s gonna slow everyone down.”

“Then get moving. I’ll be there in thirty-five, forty minutes, but I can’t stay long. I’ve got a couple of things I’ve got to do.”

“Like your life is so much more important than mine.”

“You want me to live long enough to pay you?”

Louie said, “On my way.”

“He was so big,” Wendy said. The brightness of her eyes betrayed that she’d been crying. Jennie stood behind her, both hands on her sister’s shoulders, marginally calmer but still obviously agitated. She had a welt under her left eye that looked like it was going to swell until the eye closed.

“Let him in,” Jennie commanded. “He’s getting all wet.”

Wendy stepped aside, and I went in. The place had been a mess before, but now it looked like it had been invaded by a funnel of whirling dervishes. The two chairs were on their sides, dishes, pots, and pans were all over the place, and when I turned back to look at the door, I saw that the lower right panel of glass had been broken.

“He did that with his fist,” Wendy said, her eyes absolutely enormous. “He punched our door and then reached in and opened it.”

“Whose is that?” I asked. Their eyes followed my finger to a long line of blood, left by someone on the move who’d been bleeding pretty freely.

“His,” Jennie said.

“What, when he broke the glass, he cut himself?”

“No,” she said. “Thistle had just come in, she ran in and slammed the door, and when he punched out the glass she grabbed a piece of it and sliced his hand while he was trying to turn the knob. I think she cut him three or four times. He was shouting like, I don’t know, a giant or something.”

“Okay, so he got the door open. Then what?”

“We started throwing stuff,” Jennie said. “Everything in the kitchen, everything we could get our hands on. But he didn’t even seem to notice us. He was just chasing Thistle, and every time he got near her she took a swipe at him with the piece of glass. She cut him one more time, across the arm, and then I got behind him and hit him with the frying pan.”

“He felt that,” Wendy said.

“So he turned around and punched me,” Jennie said, her hand going to the welt under her eye. “And Thistle got out the door, and Wendy had the broom and when he turned to run after her, she stuck out the broom handle and it got tangled up in his feet and he fell on his face. And by the time he got up and got out the door, Thistle was gone.”

“And he came back in and said he was going to kill us,” Wendy said. “But he didn’t.”

“Well, duh,” Jennie said.

“I mean, you know, not then.” Wendy blinked four or five times fast. “But he said he’d be back.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said, and something banged on the door. The girls went straight up in the air, screaming, and came down with their arms around each other. The door opened, and Louie said, “You guys ain’t glad to see me?”

Two minutes after Louie stuck the girls in his big Detroit behemoth and took them to his house, where Alice would fuss over them until it was safe for them to go back home, I was back at the Camelot Arms. I had to check it, even though I was certain that the apartment was the last place Thistle was likely to be. The door was still leaning crazily inward, and things looked pretty much the same, although someone, probably a covetous neighbor, seemed to have nicked a couple of the vintage standing lamps.

I went through the place anyway, looking for anything to tell me whether she’d been here, and where she might have gone. I spent a few minutes wandering around in the bedroom, trying to figure out what was different, before I realized that the most recent journal, the one that had only had ten or twelve written pages, was missing.

So she had dropped by, at least. Almost certainly before she went to Jennie and Wendy’s place.

And the question remained: Was Eduardo working for Trey, or against her?

The old expression about waiting for the other shoe to drop is too vague, because it doesn’t tell you which shoe. Sometimes it’s not important which shoe drops first or second, but at other times it’s almost the only thing that matters.

I’d abandoned the horrible former police car at one of Louie’s garages and was back at the wheel of my anonymous Toyota Camry, meticulously obeying every traffic law in sight, just another sheep in the automotive flock. Since the garage was near Hollywood, I dropped by Wain’s, taking a certain amount of pleasure at his surprise that I’d survived whatever he thought I was doing, and got my deposit back. He nicked me for an extra ten bucks, the crook, pointing out a scratch on the gun that I certainly hadn’t put there, but I didn’t even argue.

I was trying to figure out which shoe to drop next.

Weighing the alternatives in my mind, I swung past my small Hollywood storage area, parked, and went inside. Out of a locked fishing-tackle box I grabbed a nine-millimeter automatic, one with no provenance of prior use in violent crimes. I knew this to be true because once in a while I staked out a gun shop, waited until someone bought a new one, followed the customer home, and waited for an opportunity to steal the gun. It had been worked on by an expert: serial numbers filed off, an acid bath to remove any lingering traces, and the kind of oiling and cleaning that a Marine drill instructor would approve. I kept three of these, two Glocks and a Heckler amp; Koch, one in each of my storage facilities. They’re part of my disaster-prevention kit. They didn’t get much use, but I was approaching the kind of territory where the weight felt good under my shoulder.

I also grabbed Bunny’s diamonds, which I thought might come in handy.

When I was on the road again, it was three-thirty, and the rain was a reality. From the color of the sky, a rich charcoal gray, it wasn’t going anyplace soon.

The thing I most wanted to do was find Thistle, but Los Angeles is a big city with a lot of places to hide. I could spend a month on it and get nowhere. On the other hand, there were two people I needed to see face to face pretty soon, and I knew exactly where both of them were. But which one first? Left shoe, right shoe?

Right shoe. Make the more difficult of the calls now, while there was still time to beat the deadlines for tomorrow’s entertainment trade papers.

Every burglar in Los Angeles knows where Jake Whelan lives. The house is famous, an eighteenth-century French chateau that had been dismantled, shipped to Los Angeles, and reassembled stone by stone in the middle of fifteen hilly acres in Laurel Canyon, where it hosted some of the most memorably debauched parties in Hollywood’s memorably debauched history. This had been back in Whelan’s sunny years, when he had the golden touch, when every film he made took in a zillion dollars and won every award in sight, when the studios bred starlets under the warm film lights like baby chicks, and Whelan had his pick. Before the studio system fell to pieces, making guys like Whelan secondary to stars in terms of clout, and driving the price of filmmaking into the stratosphere. Before starlets began to form their own production companies. Before white powder arrived on the scene and Jake Whelan fell to pieces, losing his touch, his sense of story, and his credibility.

But Whelan had hung onto the ancillary rights to his films; and television, video, the global explosion of DVDs, and now high-definition streaming, had kept the money flowing, faster than even Whelan could spend it. Which was saying quite a lot, given his undiminished appetite for white powder and colored pictures, many of which had been bought from people who didn’t, strictly speaking, own them.

Rabbits Stennet’s Klee, for example.

Whelan’s pictures-a small museum’s worth-were one reason every burglar in Los Angeles knew where he lived. The other was the white powder. Unlike an underground Klee, which can be paid for via wire transfer, white powder is exclusively a cash commodity. Everyone had heard the stories: two inches of hundred-dollar bills beneath half an acre of wall-to-wall carpet, whole sliding walls with bricks of money where the insulation should be, a wine cellar full of currency. Cold cash, so to speak.

Every burglar in Los Angeles also knew that Jake Whelan supported a tidy posse of muscle on twenty-four hour duty, to discourage anyone from getting touchy-feely about his financial reserves. So the house was much talked about but rarely attempted, the subject of many extravagantly complicated schemes that had been hatched over bottles of whiskey or wine late at night and abandoned in the cold, sober light of day.

And here I was, ringing the buzzer outside the black wrought-iron gates and looking up at the television camera trained directly on me.

The man’s voice was gruff and unpolished, as Jake Whelan no doubt intended. “Yeah? Who is it?”

I said, “Tell Mr. Whelan it’s Paul Klee.”

“Hang on.”

I sat there, wondering whether to wave at the camera, for a minute, and then two. Time goes very slowly when nothing is happening, and half an hour or so later, it had been five minutes, and I was wondering whether to turn around and go home or back up, gun the engine, and knock down the gates.

The voice came back. “Drive in slow. Stop about twenty feet from the house, near the bushes. Get out of the car and wait.”

“Slowly,” I said. “Drive is a verb, and it should be modified by an adverb. Drive in slowly.”

“Awww,” the voice said, “Fuck you.”

“Nothing wrong with that sentence,” I said as the gates opened.

The driveway was slate, black and shining in the rain, and it curved its way uphill between ferns big enough to shelter a whole platoon of soldiers wearing camouflage. Every ten or twenty feet I saw another camera, trained right at me. More attention than a burglar generally wants.

The first bits of the house I saw were the turrets, two of them, pointing their dark stone tips at the sullen sky. Then the drive took a final sweeping turn to the right, widening as it did so, and the whole structure came into view. It was enough to make me hit the brakes and just sit there like some yahoo from Yazoo City, staring at it.

The chateau sprawled over half an acre, all rough-carved stone in shades of dark brown and deep gray, muted even further now that they were wet. The lights were on inside, since the day was so gloomy, and the light through the mullioned windows-dozens of them, it seemed-threw the falling rain into relief exactly as it would have done two hundred years ago, when the lights inside would have been torches and oil lamps. Just a combination that’s looked good since people moved out of caves: light, water, and stone.

The front door was arched, made of massive beams of wood with wide bands of rusted iron across them, and it opened as I pulled the car over to the bushes, as directed. Three guys came out, two of them bulked up and hard-looking, wearing T-shirts and jeans, the third slender and nicely turned out in a dark suit. He was carrying an umbrella. They fanned out as they came, one of the muscle boys going left and the other right, and the dapper gent with the umbrella making a beeline for me.

When I opened the back door of the car, everyone froze. The umbrella-toter just stood there patiently, but the hard guys watched my hands as I leaned in and picked up the Klee, which I’d covered with an old Dodgers jacket I keep in the trunk. Everybody watched as I took it out, held it up, and turned it from side to side so they could see I wasn’t hiding a cannon behind it. Mr. Umbrella smiled and covered the rest of the ground to me, extended the umbrella to share it, and walked me back to the front door. One of the muscle boys preceded us, and the other followed.

“To your right,” Mr. Umbrella said, folding the umbrella as we passed through the door. “Please remove your shoes and put them in the rack.”

And there it was, a wooden rack from Japan, perfectly plain and ordinary except that it was beyond the attainable perfection of the mortal world and it looked four hundred years old. I put the Klee down gently, the jacket still covering it, and leaned it against the wall. Then I took off my shoes and put them on the rack, feeling like I was committing sacrilege. In the meantime, everyone else had kicked off loafers, and one of the bodybuilders went to the right, down a couple of stone steps.

“This way,” Mr. Umbrella said, and we followed the body builder into a room that Henry the Fifth would have felt at home in.

The first myth to bite the dust was the cash tucked beneath the wall-to-walls. The floor was dark stone, buffed to a dull shine by several centuries’ worth of feet, and only the central quarter-mile or so was covered by carpet, an enormous all-silk Afghan that was probably older than the house. A couple of couches, two deep-looking chairs, and some dark wood tables had been arranged in front of a fireplace big enough to host the Chicago fire, with room left over for a couple of neighborhood barbecues. In defiance of the warm weather, a fire was roaring in it, nothing much, just a couple of trees’ worth of wood.

“Sit anywhere but the yellow chair,” Mr. Umbrella said, glancing at one that was covered in butter-colored leather. “That’s Mr. Whelan’s chair. Would you like some coffee? Something stronger? Something much stronger?”

“No, thanks.” I sat at the end of one of the couches. “I’m fine.”

“Mr. Whelan will be with you in a few minutes.” Mr. Umbrella turned and went back the way we’d come, climbing the two steps to the entrance hall and going on straight across. The muscle guy who’d preceded us into the room leaned up against a wall and gave me the alpha-male stare.

“I’ve always wondered,” I said, “how you get those muscles on the tops of your shoulders and the sides of the neck. You know, the ones that make your head look so small.”

“Picking up guys like you and throwing them through windows,” he said.

“I guess I’ll eliminate that from my workout,” I said.

I heard some fast click-clack, and two young ladies appeared in the archway that led, presumably, to wherever Whelan was. On second glance, they weren’t so young, although they were fearsomely toned and buffed, if the eighty percent of their bodies that was on display was any indication. They wore tight tops and micro-skirts that were no thicker than their makeup, and the click-clack was the sound of their four-inch heels on the stone floor. They gave me a professional glance, saw directly through me to my wallet, and kept right on going, heading for the front door.

“How come they don’t have to take their shoes off?” I asked the muscle guy.

“ ’Cause I like them,” Jake Whelan said, coming into the room. He was wearing cream-colored silk from head to foot, the slacks in a subtle herringbone that caught the light. He’d tanned his face to the color of a cigar. “The shoes. I like those shoes.” His voice was a rasp, like a striking match. “The girls are okay, too, of course.” He held out a hand and gave me a smile. “I’m Jake Whelan.”

When Whelan smiled, he showed you both rows of teeth, top and bottom, and with good reason. They were the most expensive teeth I’d ever seen in my life. I knew people who lived in houses that cost less than Jake Whelan’s teeth. If there were an aftermarket in teeth, there would be a line of burglars standing patiently in line, all the way around Jake Whelan’s head.

I gave him my hand and as little in the way of teeth as I could manage. His own were enough for both of us.

“So, so, so,” he said, folding himself into the yellow chair. “Mr. Klee, in the surprising flesh.” He’d crossed his leg and one foot bounced up and down in its white calfskin slipper, a telltale cocaine jitter. “You look pretty good for someone who died in 1940.”

“I keep active,” I said. “You know, travel, play shuffleboard, try to learn something new every day.”

“And what brings you to me?”

“Good things come in twos,” I said. “I thought you might have something new that would like company.”

He cocked his head to one side, the smile still in place. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Actually, nobody, and that’s good for you.”

“Then you haven’t got a name, and I’m afraid that means I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about a Paul Klee painting, one of the geometric ones, blue background, one point seven-five million to Wattles’s offshore bank.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said. The foot jumped around some more. “And what’s your relationship to that transaction, if it ever took place?”

“If it had,” I said, “I’d be the guy who went and got the painting for Wattles to sell to you.”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Stand up and spread your arms. I want Wally here to perform a basic security maneuver.”

“Fine,” I said, getting up. “Wally should know I’ve got an automatic in a shoulder holster under my jacket.”

“He’ll relieve you of that, temporarily, although it’s not really firearms I’m thinking about.” He looked past me. “Wally?”

Wally patted me down, helped me out of my jacket, lifted the automatic, and generally made sure I wasn’t wired. “Seems okay,” he said.

“Please,” Whelan said. “Sit. And forgive the rudeness. I didn’t get old by being careless.”

I didn’t sit. “I’d like you to look at something,” I said. “I think it would be best if I stepped back a bit before I show it to you. I’m telling you this so old Wally doesn’t think I’m embarking on some obscure martial arts move.”

“Fine, fine. Back away.”

I picked up the picture, backed up five or six feet, and unveiled it by removing my Dodgers jacket from the frame.

Whelan was good. His expression didn’t change at all. The only telltale was the pulse that was suddenly visible at the side of his neck.

After a minute or so, he said, “Quite nice.”

“Actually,” I said, “it’s better than the one you just bought.”

“If I bought it,” Whelan said.

“Sure, if.”

“And you’re showing this to me because, I assume, you think I’d be interested in acquiring it.”

“I know you would,” I said. “Especially at the price I’m asking.”

“And what would that be?”

“A little less than a third of what you paid Wattles.”

“Three, four hundred?” Whelan said.

“Nice try.”

“Okay, five or six?” Whelan said.

“Right in there.”

“Bring it here.”

I carried it to him, and he took it as reverently as if it had the head of John the Baptist on it. He turned it this way and that, looking at the play of light on the painted surface. He held it level in front of him, parallel to the floor, and examined the brush strokes. He turned it over and checked the back of the canvas. Then he lowered it, very carefully, to his lap and looked at me.

“Why?” he said.

“Why so cheap? Well, for one thing, there’s no middle man. This is more money than I made off the last one.”

“You said for one thing. What’s the other thing?”

“It’s going to require a little effort on your part.”

“What kind of effort?”

“A couple of minutes’ thought and two phone calls.”

“Thought I can handle. Tell me about the phone calls.”

I turned to Wally. “I changed my mind. I would like a cup of coffee.”

Wally’s eyes went to Whelan, and Whelan gave him a tiny nod. Wally left.

“Let’s start with the thought,” I said. “I need you to come up with the name of a director or producer who owes you a favor and has a film working right now, a film with a good small part for a woman in her early twenties. I’m not talking about a lead, just a few days’ worth of work, some dialog, and a few minutes onscreen.”

Whelan shook his head. “I can tell you right now, whoever it is, she’ll take the part and forget about you. You’ll never see her again. She’ll be schtupping the cameraman. I can’t tell you how many chicks I’ve given parts to-”

“I don’t care,” I said. “There’s no romantic relationship.”

“Really. In Hollywood? That’s almost as big a surprise as the painting. What type is she?”

“Think Thistle Downing,” I said.

“Oh-ho,” he said. “I read about that myself, just this morning. Sort of sad, I guess, I mean, that was a cute little girl once. I gotta tell you, I give the lady who’s making the movie more credit for balls than sense. She’ll never get that kid on camera.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Thistle isn’t going to do that movie. She’s going to do the one you get for her.”

He shook his head. “Nobody will work with her.”

“They will if you ask them to. And if you guarantee to cover the expenses if she screws up.”

“Are you crazy? That could be a couple hundred K.”

“That’s pretty much what I figured,” I said. “And I’m donating it, so to speak, out of the cost of the painting. So you offer whoever it is that sum of money in advance, in case Thistle screws up. If she does, they’re covered. If she doesn’t, they’ve just picked up a nice chunk of change.”

Whelan was looking at me as though he expected me to sprout fins and gills. “So that’s two hundred,” he said. “And it doesn’t even go to you.” He shook his head. “What’s the rest of it?”

“A hundred is Thistle’s salary,” I said. “So the producer is getting her both risk-free and literally free. A hundred and fifty is to buy her contract.”

“To buy …”

“Her contract.”

He shrugged. “Sure. Her contract. So, four-fifty in all.”

“And a hundred for me.”

“Just a hundred. Out of all that.”

“That’s right.”

“So it’s all about you, wrapped in pure motives, walking on water.”

“If you like.”

“You gotta be crazy. I don’t do business with crazy people.” He said it with a straight face, too.

I got up just as Wally came in carrying a ridiculously fragile-looking cup and saucer. “Sorry, Wally,” I said. “I’m going.”

“Siddown,” Whelan said. “Wally, give the gentleman his coffee.”

For ten minutes, I watched Whelan work the phone, and it was like watching Derek Jeter play shortstop. In less than a minute he burned through three assistants to reach someone named David, and in under a minute he’d ascertained that the part of the receptionist-“You know, the one whose nails are so long she can’t do anything?”-was as yet uncast, and had made a pitch for Thistle that was nothing short of brilliant: the publicity value, the good-deed aspect of it, how everybody in town would be pulling for her, how it was practically a guaranteed supporting actress nomination if she was any good because everybody votes for a reformed fuckup-and get this, I’ll cover the expenses and even pay her salary. Why? Because I read that thing in the trades this morning and it broke my heart, that poor little kid. You’re a young guy, David, don’t tell me you didn’t watch her every week, well, don’t you think she oughta get another chance? Yeah, me, too. No, I don’t want any credit, I’m just behind the scenes, you’re the one the Pope will sprinkle the water on. Nah, nah, she’s as straight as a string. I’m telling you, all that’s behind her, and I’ll tell you what, if you don’t think two weeks from now that I’ve done you a huge favor, you can come over here and kick me in the ass. Yeah, and I’ll wear my best pants, the silk crepe you keep asking where I got them. Okay, David, you’re a sweetheart, which days? And send the script to me and I’ll get it to her, you’re doing a great thing, bye for now.

“Okay?” he asked me.

“It’s a pleasure to watch you work.”

“You said two calls. Who’s next?” He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“This one needs a little preparation,” I said.

We talked for three or four minutes, and he said, “Piece of cake. You got a number?” I gave it to him, and he dialed.

“Ms. Annunziato, please. This is Jake Whelan. Yes, that Jake Whelan.” He looked at me. “Nobody answers the phone himself any more. Call your fucking plumber, you get an assistant.” He sat up as though someone had entered the room. “Ms. Annunziato,” he said. “Jake Whelan here. Yes, fine, and you? Glad to hear it. Listen, here’s why I’m calling. I read the trades this morning like everyone else in town, and I gotta tell you, it didn’t make anybody happy, I had calls all day from people you wouldn’t believe, the whole fucking A-list, it was like RSVPs for the Vanity Fair party, and they all sound exactly alike, what they’re saying. Yeah, yeah, I know you got a business, but a lot of people, they read that story and thought the same thing I did, which is, this isn’t right. So I’m telling you that a few of us got together and we’re not going to let Thistle make your movie.”

He held the phone away from his ear and made a yacking motion with his free hand. He looked over his shoulder at Wally and made a vague gesture that was perfectly clear to Wally, who went to a heavy wooden chest to the left of the fireplace, pulled out a couple of logs big enough to ride over Niagara Falls on, and tossed them onto the blaze. Throughout all of it, I could hear Trey on the other end, going a mile a minute. After he was satisfied that the logs were going to catch, Whelan put the phone back to his ear and just started talking, without even waiting for her to pause. “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying and I know you got a point of view there, but here’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to make another movie, a real movie, not like a star or anything, but it’s gonna be something we can all feel good about, and we’ve decided to buy her contract from you. How does a hundred thousand sound?”

I started to object, but he held up a hand. “What do you mean, it’s low? Okay, okay. I can sweeten it to one-fifty, but that’s it. And I mean, she’s not going to make your movie no matter what, so you might as well take the money and be a good sport. And also, we’re gonna let you look like an angel here, instead of being on the wrong side in a media pissing match. I mean, just how good does this sound? You announce that you’re delighted to learn that the news about Thistle’s participation in your movie has brought her new offers, and as much as you looked forward to working with her, it’s a privilege to know you’ve played a part in helping her get a more suitable role, and you’re releasing her and you wish her all the best and blah blah blah. And we all just keep quiet about the money you’re getting. See, this way you’re like Lady Bountiful instead of being the bitch who’s trying to force America’s sweetheart into doing the dirty on film.”

He winked at me and rubbed his nostrils. “That’s what I thought. Sure, sure you can release it, we don’t want any credit, in fact, try to get it out tonight, it’ll hit bigger, and the trades are still open. You can use my PR guy if you don’t have one, you got a pencil? Here’s his number.” Whelan rattled off a number. “His name is Skip. Yeah, I know, but that’s what he calls himself.” He rubbed his nose again and his eyes flicked longingly in the direction of the door he’d come in through. “We set, then? All clear on your end? Great, great. Love to meet you some time. I’ve thought for years that your family was one of the great American success stories, great movie idea there. Bye.”

He hung up, swiped his nose with the finger again, and said, “Be right back. You want your hundred Gs in cash, right?”

“Right.” And I defy you to come up with a better answer.

Whelan started toward Powder Central, then bent down and picked up the Klee. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said. He gave it one more look on his way out of the room, and over his shoulder he said, “It really is better than the other one.”