Heartbreak Hotel

Chapter 33

A call to Smooth Operator Gentleman’s Club in City of Commerce confirmed Vicki Vasquez no longer danced there. A call to Brave Losers Cocktail Lounge west of downtown elicited stuporous ignorance of her patronage from three separate employees.

Milo phoned Charles Ruffalo’s residence on Credo Lane. Out of service. Same result with Vasquez’s cellphone.

“For all we know he moved her up to Silicon Valley.” He stood. “Only one way to find out.”

GPS’ing Credo Lane, he studied the map.

“High up. At least we can catch a view.”

I said, “There you go,” but the street-grid on the screen meant more to me than a random attempt to find a witness.

Little more than a jog from the home of an actress whose shattered mind had led me on a search for a missing child last year.

Milo saw me staring. “What?”

“Zelda.”

“Oh, yeah, that. Something about Hollywood, the hills, huh?”

“People think they can hide up there.”

“We know better.”

Charles Ruffalo, “an independent IT Consultant and Data Manager,” according to his LinkedIn page, lived at the apex of an axle-tormenting road that skinnied as it unraveled north of Sunset.

We zipped past the Chateau Marmont as if the hotel was an afterthought. Celebrities had partied and died there. Ordinary people, too, but who’d know or care?

The hospitality industry was based on a strange concept when you thought about it. Foster homes for adults that were seldom homey. Pledges of comfort and security impossible to guarantee.

I was still turning that over when Milo parked near the house. Charles Ruffalo’s chrome address numerals were placed just off center on an eight-foot wall of gray stucco. Stress cracks sprouted from the bottom and spidered upward. The low flat roofline of a house barely cleared the barrier. Off to the left was a wide gate made of plastic trying to pass as glass.

Chrome for the front door, same finish for the keypad.

Milo said, “Tight little fortress, can’t even check if the Aston’s there.”

“I had one of those, I’d garage it.”

“If she’s in there with or without Geeko, and I say who I am, what’s the chance she’ll open up?”

Noise from behind saved me from the sad, truthful answer. Big mass of brown, chugging up the hill.

UPS truck. It rumbled just past us, motor idling as the driver jumped out with a package, laid it down in front of the door, pushed the button, and dashed back behind the wheel. After effecting a jerky three-point turn that maimed part of a neighbor’s shrubbery, he sped off.

Before the sound of the truck engine had wiffled to silence, the chrome door opened and a woman came out, rubbing her eyes. Young, pale, and chesty, wearing a black top with a hood that flopped on her back and hot-pink yoga pants striped with silver. Hair a half foot below her waist was curled at the ends like a pageant queen’s do. White-blond on top, mahogany in the center, black on the bottom. A cosmetic parfait.

She bent and picked up the package. By the time she’d finished reading the label, we were there.

Even with dual smiles and Milo’s softest, “Ms. Vasquez? L.A. police, nothing to worry about, we’d just like to touch base,” Vicki Vasquez reacted with the purest terror I’d seen in a long time.

Tight-throat wheeze followed by a gasp. Electric eyes bouncing as her already wan complexion lost color.

She backed away from us, trembling hands letting go of the package. I caught it. Something addressed to C. Ruffalo from Net-a-Porter. From the size and the rattle, probably shoes.

Vicki Vasquez said, “My Jimmy Choos,” and burst into tears.

I said, “Here you go.”

Instead of taking the box, she crossed her arms. “I— I— I...”

“So sorry to barge in,” said Milo. I’d never seen him more avuncular. That and his badge offered subtly did nothing to calm her.

She said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I said, “We don’t want you to, either.”

She gaped. Nice teeth. Even with the chattering.

I chanced inching closer to her, kept my voice low and soothing, my speech slow and rhythmic.

Hypnotic induction voice. Back when I was helping kids deal with pain, I could do ten inductions a day, leave the hospital sleepy and serene.

Vicki Vasquez didn’t seem impressed but a second later, she did reach out for the box. Hugged it to her bosom and maybe that was enough temporary comfort because she stopped retreating.

I said, “There’s absolutely no need to talk about what happened to you, Vicki. This is something different.”

She continued staring. Finally: “What?”

No sense being abstract. “The people who assaulted you are suspected of murder.”

Milo’s arched eyebrows said, That’s psychology?

Vicky Vasquez said, “Charlie’s right.”

“Charlie—”

“My soulmate. He says I’m lucky.”

“He’s right, you sure are.”

“Who did they murder?”

“Someone involved in a business deal,” I said.

“Nothing to do with me.”

“Absolutely nothing. But if we could show you some photos—”

Vicki Vasquez looked down the road. “Out here?”

“If you’ll allow us, we’re happy to come inside—”

“Let me see that badge again.”

Milo complied, showed her his card, as well.

She said, “Homicide. Okay, that’s not my problem. Come in.”

The house was more gray stucco inside and out, the flat roof white pebbly stuff. The interior was one sprawling space backed by glass and floored in slate. A few randomly placed pieces of bright-red and blue furniture carved from foam coexisted with molded-resin tables. Italian contemporary, probably uncomfortable, probably expensive.

The glass let in sky and hillside and the real estate dreams of homeowners lower down in the hillside pecking order, most content with postage-stamp lots. Altitude reduced patio furniture to matchsticks. Lawns and swimming pools were colored mosaic tiles.

Vicki Vasquez crossed halfway across the room, placed her package on one of the tables, refolded her arms across her chest. No art, no books, no cooking implements visible in the kitchen. A seventy-inch flat-screen took up the largest masonry wall, wires dangling. A single photograph was propped on another table. Vasquez in the merest black bikini standing next to a skinny guy in his forties wearing baggy swim-trunks. Ruffalo had thin dark hair, gray temples, a hangdog face unrelieved by a Bucky Beaver smile so wide it threatened to bisect his head.

Moving back inside seemed to shore up Vicki Vasquez’s confidence. She tossed her hair, clamped her hands on her hips, turned so her body formed an hourglass framed by glass.

Panorama drama.

She said, “Show me what you got.”

Gerard Waters’s and Henry Bakstrom’s mugshots narrowed her eyes. She flipped the bird, made a raking motion with her other hand.

“Motherfuckers. Catch them and kill them.”

Milo showed her Alex Shimoff’s drawing of the blonde.

Her nostrils flared. A screech escaped from somewhere deep inside her.

“You know her, Vicki?”

“Duchess. Fucking bitch, I hate her the worst.”

“Duchess.”

“That’s what they called her.”

“What’d she call them?”

“I never heard none a their names.”

“But the men called her Duchess.”

“That’s no name, anyway,” said Vicki Vasquez. “Right? That’s like a... a...”

I said, “A title.”

“Yeah, a fucking title. Like she’s a queen or something. Fuck that, she ain’t. She’s a fucking bitch.”

I said, “You especially hate her because—”

“She’s a girl. She should be on my side.”

That let loose a storm of obscenity and a quick march across the picture window and back. When she returned, Milo said, “What else can you tell us about them?”

“You didn’t find my car?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t give a,” she said. “It was crap, Charlie’s buying me a Mustang.”

“Good for you. Anything else you remember?”

“They need to die.” She stabbed air. “Charlie knows kickboxing, he could smash their fucking brains and shove it up their asses.”

“Glad you have someone to protect you.”

“Charlie loves me.”

“Is there anything you can—”

“If I knew something, I’d tell it. I want you to catch them.” She grinned. “So you can do what you do.”

Milo said, “What do we do?”

“You guys?” she said. “The po-lice? You find ’em, you shoot ’em.” She flashed a gang sign. “LAPD. Baddest homeys in the hood.”

We left her posed in the doorway, drinking a can of Fresca and playing with her hair.

As we passed out of earshot, I flashed the same sign. “Yo, Homey.”

Milo said, “Nice to be appreciated. Maybe she was on to something. Blondie’s in charge, sees herself as royalty.”

We got back in the car.

I said, “The way they assaulted Vasquez has similarities to burking, no?”

“Three-on-one teamwork, a helpless body.” He stuck out his tongue. “All the stuff I’ve seen and you can still creep me out.” He started the engine. “Yeah, you could be right.”

“Teamwork,” I said, “but no team spirit. First Waters got cut from the roster, then DeGraw. The Duchess and Bakstrom are the core — directing and producing. The others were likely expendable right from the beginning.”

He pulled the same three-point turn as the UPS driver but avoided landscape assault. “Same old story. The good-looking popular kids rule.”