Criminal Carma

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Mary went into the bathroom to put her pants and shirt back on while Reggie walked out onto the balcony and stood at the railing with his back to the room, looking toward the ocean. I called Fahim.

“It sounds like a most valuable item,” he said. “The same stones as in the earrings?”

“Pink diamonds,” I said, “but better.”

“Ah! Come at two-thirty. I will be ready for you.”

I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes past one.

“See you then.”

I called the valet desk and told them to bring the Seville around, then packed the stuff from Baba’s desk in Mary’s suitcase. I put the jewel case in my pocket and stuck the Tomcat back in my belt under my shirttail. A few minutes later, the three of us were strolling calmly through the richly appointed lobby and out into the portico, where the Caddie was idling.

Rather than cruise the cop-infested streets of Santa Monica, I took the 10 east to the 405 and drove north to Wilshire. We had lunch at a sub shop in Westwood, then rolled along Wilshire into Beverly Hills. It was 2:25 p.m. when I pulled up at a meter a couple of blocks from Fahim’s shop and parked in the shade of a banyan tree. The banyan is sacred in the Hindu religion, its ever-expanding branches representing eternity. It is called kalpavriksha, “divine wish-fulfilling tree.” It felt lucky to park beneath it.

“You guys wait here,” I told Mary and Reggie. “Fahim doesn’t like strangers.”

Taking the canvas bag of coins from the suitcase, I walked away through the dappled sun and shade beneath the queen palms that lined the avenue. A well-to-do breeze stroked my forehead, cheeks, and bare forearms like an endless bolt of silk unrolling.

Fahim examined the necklace as he had the earrings, running his various tests. It took all of his savoir faire to keep from showing his excitement.

“Quality as always,” he said. “May I ask how heated the item is?”

“How hot?”

“Yes.”

“Very hot. I wouldn’t even try to move the individual stones in Los Angeles.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Robert.”

He offered me $100,000, citing the difficulty of disposing of something so notorious. I scoffed and countered with $150,000, mentioning Evelyn’s jeweler’s $500,000 estimate of the necklace’s value. Very shortly we settled on a price of $120,000. He paid full value for the Krugerrands, minus a 10-percent handling fee. At the day’s quote, that came to another $22,600. He had all of the money on hand, in hundreds and fifties, and provided a sturdy leather briefcase with a combination lock to carry it in. It took all of my savoir faire to keep a calm demeanor in the presence of that much cash.

I wrote the combination on a piece of paper and put it in my wallet and shook hands with Fahim. We walked from the back room through the shop, past a lady in a mink jacket who was being shown an emerald ring by Fahim’s daughter.

“When will I see you again?” he asked at the door.

“It may be a while.”

“Ma’a salaame,” he said. Go in peace.

“Allay salmak,” I said. May God keep you safe.

Back at the car, Mary and Reggie were swapping stories about where their alcoholic mothers hid the bottle.

“Whud we clear?” Reggie asked causally, playing it cool in front of the pretty girl.

“A hundred and forty grand after expenses.”

“Holy cow!” Mary said, snuggling up to me and making a purring sound in my ear that sent shivers down my spine.

“That the gold, too?” Reggie asked.

“That’s everything but the bonds.”

“Not too shabby for a night’s work,” he said, as if six-figure jobs were run-of-the-mill for him.

Mary turned her head slightly so that Reggie couldn’t see and rolled her eyes.

I laughed and hugged her, then reached back and gave Reggie a solid punch on the shoulder.

“It’s the best fucking score either one of us has ever made by a long shot,” I said. “You did great.”

Reggie shrugged. “What now?”

“I have one stop to make, then we’re in the wind,” I said. “We’ll leave the car here and take the Surfliner to San Diego. We can pick up some wheels there and cross the border at Tecate.”

“Let’s swing by Chavi’s, too,” Reggie said. “She’ll worry if we just disappear.”

“You got it, brother. Anything you need to do, Mary?”

“I’m ready to ride, sweetie.”

A promising double entendre, if ever there was one.

I drove south to the canal district and pulled up in front of Evelyn’s bungalow. She would have to get someone else to fix it up if she stayed.

“Who lives here?” Reggie asked, mystified.

“Evermore,” I said. “You’ve been here before.”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Whadaya want with her?”

“I’m going to give her Christina’s diary,” I said. “And there is something I have to tell her.”

Evelyn answered the door the instant I knocked, same as she had on my earlier visit, as if she spent her time poised at the threshold of her empty house, waiting for someone to arrive and fill it with life and meaning. She looked like she had been crying.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I have something for you. What’s wrong?”

“Baba called me.” Grabbing my arm, she pulled me inside, shutting the door behind us.

When we came back out a little while later, new hope was twisted tightly with old fear in her expression.

Reggie got out of the car as we came down the walk.

“Everything all right?” he asked, glancing around the neighborhood to see if a trap was about to be sprung. “What took so long?”

I opened the back curbside door of the Seville and Evelyn got in.

“What the hell is going on?” Reggie said after I closed the door. “Are we kidnapping her? What’s she boo-hooing about?”

“Baba Raba took Ozone Pacific hostage.”

“Why? What’s he want with him?”

“He’s trying to collect a ransom. He wants the necklace, or a hundred and fifty thousand bucks.”

“Yer not going to give him the moolah, are you?” Reggie asked, horrified.

“No, but I am going to make sure he doesn’t hurt that kid.”

“Fuck that,” Reggie said. “Play Dudley Do-Right on your own time. What’s a homeless kid to us-or to her?”

“Oz is Evelyn’s grandson.”

“Her grandson?” His brown eyes went flat as he looked inward, thinking hard, then got bright as he glared at me. “So what? How’s that our problem?”

“Baba told her we stole the necklace.”

Reggie stiffened, hearing the clank of cell door in his skull. I nodded. “He has some evidence, too. But Evelyn will let us keep the necklace if we get the kid back and she’ll do what she can to stop the police investigation. If she and her lawyer don’t cooperate, the cops will be hamstrung.”

Baba had seen Evelyn and me talking at the ashram on Sunday. Grasping at straws after I got away, he came up with the idea that she might have hired me to steal the necklace so that she wouldn’t have to live up to her agreement with him. When he called, he told her that he had found her grandson but that if she didn’t turn over the jewels or $150,000 in cash or securities by five that afternoon when he was scheduled to meet Discenza at the appraiser’s, the boy would be lost to her forever.

Evelyn didn’t believe him at first, but he used his powers of persuasion to convince her, claiming he had DNA evidence proving Ozone Pacific was her grandson. He also told her that he knew exactly where Christina was and would give her the girl’s location as soon as the real estate deal closed. Evelyn told him she didn’t know anything about the necklace being stolen but that she would get the money if he swore to reunite her with Kelly and tell her where her daughter was. She tried to call Hildebrand for advice and help in getting the funds together, but his office was in an uproar and she couldn’t reach him.

When I showed up and admitted that I was, in fact, a burglar and not a contractor, Evelyn’s confusion whirled faster, but then gradually subsided. I convinced her that I was on her side and wanted to help her. She was too desperate to bother about moral judgments. When I showed her Christina’s diary, she saw that Baba had been lying to her all along.

I told her about Ganesha’s murder and confirmed that Baba was telling the truth about Ozone. I also made it clear that he could not be trusted to return the boy. Even if she had been able to raise the money on such short notice, even if I was willing to use the money in the briefcase, I didn’t think it would get him back. Baba was going off his rocker, resorting all at once to murder and kidnapping. There was no telling what he might do-kill Oz to keep him quiet about the snatch, or hang on to him so that he could extort more money from Evelyn, or use the threat of harming the boy to keep her from going to the cops.

With me coaching her, Evelyn called the guru and told him that she would be at the ashram with the cash by four-thirty. She swore that she hadn’t told anyone else about the meeting and that she didn’t care about the money, only her grandson and daughter.

“Don’t hurt him, Baba,” she said. “I know you need the money for your work, and it’s worth it to me to get Kelly and Christina back.”

I hoped the phone call would be enough to put him off guard.

“We’re going to help her, aren’t we?” Mary said when Reggie and I got back in the car. In her eyes I could see our future together hanging in the balance. If I had been undecided about what to do, her attitude would have tipped the scale.

“Of course we are.”

It was 3:35 when I sparked the Northstar engine. My instinct was to charge. Go straight at the ashram, where I believed Oz was being held and take Baba by surprise while he waited complacently for Evelyn to deliver. We’d rescue the boy, find out if Baba really knew where Christina was, and then leave him incapacitated for Discenza to deal with.

“Stop by the flop,” Reggie said grimly after I explained the plan. “I got a piece there.”

“What’s wrong with Baba’s gun?”

Reggie shook his head. “Um used to mine.”

“You live in this dump?” Mary said when we pulled up in the alley.

“Not anymore,” I said. “Slide over here behind the wheel. I’m going in with Reggie. If any shit goes down, take Evelyn back to the hotel and wait for us there.”

The back door was unlocked and we went in through the kitchen, slow and careful. I had the Tomcat in my hand. As we crossed the living room toward the stairs, Budge came rushing down the hallway from his room.

“Rob!” he said, then pulled up short when he saw the pistol. “Why you got a gun?”

“There’s been some trouble. Have you seen Oz today?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking scared. “I saw Pete and Baba Raba taking him away somewhere. It looked like he didn’t want to go.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“I would have, Rob,” he said. “But I saw them from upstairs and they took off before I could get out there. Where do you think they’re takin’ him?”

“What happened to your hand?” Reggie said.

“I bust it while I was drunk last night,” he said. “What’s going on, Rob? Why you guys’ rooms all tore up? Where they takin’ Oz? He ain’t gonna know how to act out there without someone to keep an eye him. He ain’t been off the beach in years.”

Tanned face puffy, hair tousled, eyes bloodshot, Budge looked hung-over and badly constipated. Viewing him in his board shorts and ratty Los Angeles Rams T-shirt, most people would have seen nothing but an over-the-hill beach bum who had drunk too much beer and wasted too much precious time to be good for much of anything, except more of the same.

I saw backup.

“Is there anyone else in the house?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Reggie, grab your pistol and a change of clothes for each of us as quick as you can.”

“Why we need clothes? I thought we were leaving everything.”

“We might get bloody.”

He nodded and jogged up the stairs.

I turned back to Budge. “Pete and Baba Raba are holding Oz for ransom. I can’t explain everything right now but they say they are going to hurt him if they don’t get the money they want in the next hour. We’re on our way to get him back. We aren’t planning on giving them any money. You can come with us if you want to.”

Budge’s fat-padded body stiffened and expanded, like Superman’s when he tears off his Clark Kent outfit. His face turned angry and hard. “Fuckin’ A,” he said. “Where are they?”

“We think they have him at Baba’s ashram over on Broadway. You have a weapon?”

“I don’t need no weapon for those two,” he said. “I’ll tear their fucking heads off if they hurt that kid.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said. “But they are armed and a weapon might come in handy. You got a knife or a blackjack or anything like that?”

“I got a fish club in my room.”

“Grab it.”

Reggie came down the stairs at the same time Budge returned from his room, holding a smooth, hard skull splitter. It was a cross between a police billy club and a principal’s paddle, an inch thick and two inches wide, and flat, so that it wouldn’t roll on a boat. It was ash, the same kind of wood they use for baseball bats, twenty-four inches long, with a round handle at one end and a rawhide strip that slipped around the user’s wrist. Wielded edgewise by someone as powerful as Budge, it was potentially lethal.