Hollywood Crows

EIGHTEEN

VIOLENT NIGHTMARES tormented Leonard Stilwell all through the night. He’d been in a cell with three other guys, including a tatted Latino strong-arm robber who’d somehow learned that a prisoner late in arriving-a thirty-two-year-old insurance agent-had been booked for sexually abusing his girlfriend’s eight-year-old daughter.

The Latino had been minding his own business until then and hadn’t said anything to anyone the whole time that Leonard had been in the cell with him. But when he received the word about the child molestation, he got up and without warning began beating the insurance agent’s head against the wall of the tank, causing a laceration on his skull that spattered blood onto Leonard’s T-shirt.

When the jailers heard the screams, both men were pulled from the tank. And as the attacker was being led away, Leonard heard him yelling to the jailers, “Me, I’m a robber! That’s what I do! Him, he’s garbage!”

Later, Leonard was on his bunk, sleeping fitfully, waking often with night sweats. During one of those waking periods, he decided that he was getting too old for this life. He was through doing petty stings and scrounging for rent money. When he got out, he was going to get a stake and begin life anew, and he thought he knew how to do it.

After they were awakened for what Leonard called fried roadkill and fake eggs, he uttered a spontaneous comment to his remaining cellmate, an old con artist with refined features and a mane of white hair who had bilked three elderly women out of their life savings.

“Man, I’ve had enough,” Leonard said to him. “Way more than enough. This ain’t what I planned for my life. This ain’t what I had in mind.”

The old con man replied, “Destiny is pitiless, son. Nobody ever started out in life wanting to be a proctologist either, but shit happens.”

The residential burglary team who got the arrest report on Leonard Stilwell had a heavy load that week and were able to devote very few hours to a follow-up. One of them got Leonard out of his cell and interviewed him with much the same result that Charlie Gilford had gotten. The detective’s partner, D2 Lydia Fernandez, drove to the address of Margot Aziz and knocked on the door at 10 A.M.

Lola was vacuuming the living room and Nicky was watching Sesame Street in the family room, with the volume turned up loud so he could hear it over the vacuum noise. Margot, still in her nightgown and robe after a drug-aided nine-hour sleep, answered the door. A woman not much older than Margot, looking businesslike in a matching summer jacket and skirt, showed Margot her badge and presented a business card, saying, “Good morning, ma’am. I’m Detective Fernandez and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Margot stepped out on the porch and said, “I’d invite you in but we’d have to communicate in writing. I have a five-year-old in there.”

The detective smiled and said, “I’ll just need a moment. Do you know a man named Leonard Stilwell?”

“I don’t think so,” Margot said. “Why?”

“This man?” the detective said, showing Leonard’s mug shot.

Margot took the photo and said, “I’ve never seen this man, as far as I know. Can you tell me what it’s about?”

“Possibly nothing,” Detective Fernandez said. “He had an address in his car that’s close to yours but not right on. He has a burglary record and he had some tools that could be used to enter a locked door. I’m going to check with every resident on this block.”

“A burglar?” Margot said. “How scary.”

“Was your house or property disturbed in any way yesterday?”

“Not at all,” Margot said. “My housekeeper was here most of the day, and a few hours after she left, I came home with my son. The doors were locked and the alarm was set when I entered. Should we be worried about this man?”

“There’s no need for alarm,” the detective said. “Just be aware that there’re always opportunists like him looking for an easy target.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Margot said.

When the detective was turning to leave, Margot said, “Could I trouble you for just a minute about another matter?”

“Okay,” the detective said and stopped.

Margot said, “I’m not worried about burglars, but I’m involved in a very nasty divorce and my husband’s made some veiled threats. I’d like the patrol car in this area to drive by from time to time. Would you please remind Sergeant Treakle at Hollywood Station? He was here one night.”

“I’d suggest you give him a call,” the detective said. “Any note I leave for him might get misplaced in the piles of paperwork at our station.”

“I’ll do that,” Margot said.

She stood on her porch and watched the detective entering the driveway next door. Now Margot had another name to add to the list of police officers she’d apprised of worrisome threats from Ali Aziz.

When Margot reentered the house, she motioned for Lola to turn off the vacuum and said to her, “We have to be more careful about security, Lola. That was a police officer. There might be burglars in the neighborhood.”

The Mexican woman said, “I be careful, missus. I always lock doors and set the alarm.”

“Yes, Lola, and you’ll have to start remembering to always set the lock on the door to the garage. We can’t be too careful these days.”

“Yes, missus,” Lola said. “I am sorry. I forget that one.”

“You didn’t forget yesterday,” Margot said. “So just do it like that every time.”

Lola looked perplexed because she couldn’t remember setting that thumb-latch yesterday, but since she was getting praised for it, she figured she must have done it for once.

“Yes, missus,” Lola said with a fourteen-karat smile.

Ronnie Sinclair made two calls that day to the homes of chronic complainers about trash removal, one of the objects being a twelve-foot sofa with the springs hanging out of it. How it got into the front yard of a vacant house was anyone’s guess, and the complainant said it wasn’t there yesterday. It was during moments like this that Ronnie thought about becoming a real cop again.

But then she looked on the bright side. She was in street clothes today instead of her uniform because of a dinner meeting she had to attend. And she had no radio calls to answer and got her SLO pay bonus. Moreover, she had time to study for the sergeant’s exam. Still, there was a wistful feeling every time she saw a black-and-white roaring to a call with lights flashing and siren wailing.

Ronnie was sure by now that Bix had fallen off the wagon and hit the deck hard. With his wife and kids out of town and with days off, she figured he was binge drinking. After learning that Leonard Stilwell was in jail, she didn’t really have an excuse to bother Bix with more phone calls. It was still hard to accept that he might be just another Hollywood Nate, tapping some rich bimbo up on Mt. Olympus. She’d expected much more from Bix Ramstead.

Then she started to wonder why she was so troubled by it. She wondered if there was resentment here because Bix had never so much as uttered a sexual innuendo or shot a suggestive glance in her direction. Was it that her pride was hurt? That Bix might prefer one of those Laurel Canyon stone-washed Crate & Barrel addicts who outgrew their tramp stamps by the age of forty and lived with tattoo remorse or laser scars? Or maybe that he’d prefer one of those Hollywood Hills trophy bunnies in all that distressed second-skin denim, married to middle-aged guys who still dressed like middle school but never in uncool pastels, the lot of them mentally exhausted from trying to think up screwier names for their babies than the movie stars routinely came up with? Is it that I’m a jealous bitch with wounded pride? Ronnie Sinclair asked herself.

The detectives had found nothing on Mt. Olympus or on any report that would marry Leonard Stilwell to a burglary or theft of $1000. The day-watch patrol officers had come in with several arrests that would require extensive investigation, so at 3 P.M. the overworked detectives permitted Leonard to be released from custody, and he was given back his money and his tools. The desk officer at Hollywood Station looked at Leonard like he was nuts when he asked if the officer could break a $100 bill for the pay phone because he’d left his cell in his car.

The desk officer called Leonard a cab, which was driven by a Pakistani, who transported Leonard to the parking lot on Hollywood Boulevard by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. After a raging argument with the parking attendant, they settled on a parking fee of $85 for leaving his Honda parked for twenty-six hours, and Leonard gave the leftover $15 to the cabbie. He was now down to nine Ben Franklins.

Trying to keep all his anger and frustration under control, he dialed Ali’s office number and got voice mail. He said, “Ali, it’s Leonard. I need to see you at six o’clock. Be there, man.”

Then Leonard drove to IHOP and loaded up on pancakes, ham, fried eggs, and hash browns, wolfing it all down so fast the waitress was gawking at him. After that, he drove to his apartment building, wrapped a $50 bill around the tension bar and lock pick, and slid it under Junior’s door. Then he went to his room, collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep.

When Ali got to his office, he picked up the voice mail and listened to it three times. There was nothing good going to come of this. He could hear a shaky defiance in Leonard’s voice. The “Be there” was particularly worrisome. It had to be about money.

It made Ali open the middle drawer of his desk. It was just a precaution. He would wait until he saw Leonard before he took any action. Leonard was stupid and he was not. He could outwit the thief and probably reason with him, but just in case, he had to have another option.

Ali had intended to give the vial of sleep aids to the first of his girls who gave him a good blow job, but now he had better use for them. Ali took two magenta-and-turquoise capsules from the vial and emptied their contents into the trash basket. In a few minutes he intended to refill them with powdered sugar from the kitchen. He placed the deadly capsule into the vial near the top. Like in Russian roulette, one could shake a capsule out of the vial and perhaps survive. Or perhaps not. Before Leonard Stilwell arrived, Ali decided he would place the vial on the desktop in plain sight.

Bix Ramstead had a violent headache, as well he should, given the quantity of booze he’d consumed in the last thirty-six hours. He’d woken up in his clothes, sharing the sofa in his living room with Annie, the Lab/shepherd mix he’d rescued so long ago. Annie, staring directly into his face, whimpered and wagged her tail when his eyes opened.

“Hi, Annie,” he said and winced.

He pulled himself upright and stretched his back muscles side to side, then limped into the kitchen and rinsed out Annie’s dish.

“Want some breakfast, girlfriend?” he said, and Annie sat watching him with the special devotion that rescued dogs were said to possess.

He tossed three aspirin in his mouth and washed them down while mixing Annie’s kibble with boiled chicken and a hard-boiled egg. He panicked for a second when he couldn’t remember if he’d fed her last night, but then he saw the empty can of dog food on the sink and knew that he had.

After Annie was happily eating, he made sure the doggy door was open, giving her access to the backyard, and he refilled her bowl on the back porch with fresh water. Then he made some coffee and poured himself a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. He got the orange juice down but couldn’t manage the cereal.

Bix gathered the two empty bottles of vodka and the dozen beer cans and put them in a trash bag. They’d be collected before he picked up his wife and kids from the airport. He was afraid there would be no way he could hide the drinking from Darcey. She knew him too well and he’d promised her too much. He recalled the last vow he’d made to her: “Even though I do not believe I’m an alcoholic, if I ever get drunk again, I’ll go to AA for help, I swear.”

And she had said, “As much as I love you, I’ll take the kids and leave if you don’t.”

He brought the coffee cup to his mouth, and a sob escaped him. He put down the spoon and fought for control.

The cell phone sounded and he didn’t know where it was. For a moment he forgot that he’d asked for and received a compensatory day off today. He followed the sound and found the cell on the sofa, where it had fallen from his pocket. His hangover prevented him from reading the screen without his glasses.

He managed a painful hello.

“Bix!” Margot said. “Thank god!”

“Margot, why’re you calling me?” he said.

“I’ve got to see you!” she said. “It’s urgent!”

“I thought we’d settled this,” he said.

“You’ve got to come. I don’t know where else to turn.”

“Is it about us?”

“No, I swear. It’s about Ali. I think he’s insane.”

Now the pain was hammering over his right eye. “You’ve got a lawyer. You’ve got the law on your side.”

“They can’t help me if I’m dead. I think I need to buy a gun.”

“Jesus, Margot!” Bix said. “Your fears’re exaggerated.”

“Detective Fernandez from Hollywood Station came by today. There was a suspicious character arrested who had an address in his car that they think might have something to do with me.”

Through the fog Bix remembered. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I was supposed to mention that guy to you. His name is Stillwater or something.”

“Leonard Stilwell,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “It didn’t sound like much. Frankly, I forgot about it.”

“I can tell you about that too if you’ll just stop by.”

“Margot…”

“Come and talk to me. That’s all, just talk. If you think I’m being hysterical, I swear I’ll never call you again.”

“I’m sick today, Margot,” he said. “I’ll drop by in the afternoon, but only for a few minutes.”

“Wonderful!” she said. “Can I help you? What’s wrong?”

“I slipped,” he said. “I got blitzed last night. I’m sick today.”

“Poor Bix!” she said. “I’ve got a secret potion for hangovers that I learned when I was a dancer. There were lots of hangovers in the Leopard Lounge, that’s for sure.”

“How about five o’clock?” he said.

“Can you make it later?” she said. “Lola’s here today until five. How about six-thirty?”

“Okay,” he said. “Now I gotta go lie down.”

“Take some vitamin B and C,” she said. “Lots of it. Drink plenty of juice and water, and put a cold towel over your forehead and eyes. Try to catch a nap.”

“I’ll see you at six-thirty,” he said.

Bix thought it over. He felt safe with her in the daytime. The sun was still high enough at 6:30 on these long summer days. It was after sundown that the enchantment always started, the times when he could not resist her.

He’d once admitted that to Margot, and she’d said cheerily, “Why, Bix, didn’t I ever tell you? I’m a vampire!”

Margot Aziz found her go phone and called Jasmine moments after she hung up from her call to Bix. It was difficult not to betray the excitement she felt.

When Jasmine answered, Margot said, “It’s me. Where are you?”

“Where am I?” Jasmine said, annoyance in her voice. “I’m home trying to get a little rest after your husband made me dance four sets last night because that cunt Goldie took the night off, claiming she had an ankle sprain.”

“Get on your throwaway. I’ll call you right back.”

In a moment Margot rang the number of the pay-as-you-go phone she’d bought for Jasmine, who answered with a bored, “Yeah, so what’s up?”

Margot said, “It’s gonna happen!”

“I’ve heard that before,” Jasmine said.

“Tonight!” Margot said.

That got her attention. She said, “Don’t tell me that if it isn’t true, Margot. I can’t deal with it no more.”

“Tonight, baby!” Margot said. “Take the night off.”

“Ali will kill me!” Jasmine said, and Margot almost laughed.

Jasmine realized what she’d just said and muttered, “Damn! That’s sick.”

“It’s your turn to sprain an ankle,” Margot said. “I’ll have my friend under control before midnight, for sure. You be ready to do what you gotta do then.”

“Midnight?” Jasmine said.

“Right around midnight,” Margot said.

“I was starting to think it was like a game,” Jasmine said. “Not real, you know?”

“It’s real, baby,” Margot said. “We’ll have it all.”

“Will you call me when it’s time?”

“You be sitting in your car a block from the club no later than eleven-thirty. Sometime after that you’ll get the call, and then you gotta be good, honey. Real good.”

“I will be,” she said.

“Make that mascara run,” Margot said.

“I can do it,” Jasmine said. “I just hope you can.”

“I love you,” Margot said, ending the call.

Margot poured a cup of coffee and called the nanny in order to have Nicky picked up for an overnighter. The nanny was used to it and got well paid for overnighters. There was nothing for Margot to do now but to prepare herself mentally.

She decided that after a few months she’d kiss off Jasmine with a nice “severance package.” Margot figured that $100,000 would be enough for her. Of course, Jasmine would rage and threaten to expose Margot, but what could she really do? Admit to being a co-conspirator and accomplice? And what could she prove if she did make such an outrageous claim? No, Jasmine would take the money and fall in love with someone else. Just like the song, she fell in love too easily, but only if the lover was very rich. That reminded Margot to retrieve Jasmine’s go phone in the next few days and dispose of it. Just in case.

Sheer emotional exhaustion kept Leonard asleep for an hour. When he got up, he showered and even shaved. He put on a clean T-shirt and faded Levi’s jeans that weren’t too grungy and his best pair of sneaks. He smoked a cigarette and amped up on coffee and began a rehearsal. He had to strike the right ’tude going in, was how he figured it. He had to be ready to be just too cool when the fucking Ay-rab started waving the verbal dagger in his face.

The Leopard Lounge had enough dancers in the stable to keep the club crowded in late afternoon, and happy hour prices were not necessary. Leonard counted more than forty cars in the parking lot at 6:10 P.M., and it made him feel more justified than ever in making demands for a decent fee for services rendered.

He once again entered the office of Ali Aziz without knocking, and found Ali seated at his desk with a bottle of Jack and two glasses. Near the bottle were some letters and a blank envelope, along with a vial of magenta-and-turquoise capsules.

Ali, who had also been mentally rehearsing, had the toothiest smile that Leonard had ever seen on him.

“Leonard, my friend!” Ali said extravagantly. “I am very glad to see you. I have got back the important document, thanks to my friend Leonard. Everything is correct again!”

Leonard sat in the client chair and said, “Yeah, well, I’m happy you’re happy, because I think we got more business to discuss.”

“I wish to order some food for my friend. I feel like a new man. A nice steak, perhaps? T-bone? Rib eye?”

Leonard gave a head shake, not knowing what to make of the new Ali, and he said, “Naw, I ate at IHOP.”

“A drink?” Ali said, pouring two hefty shots of Jack Daniel’s.

“Okay,” Leonard said, picking up the nearest glass.

“You look like you are tired,” Ali said. “You are getting enough sleep, no?”

“I get enough,” Leonard said.

“I am getting good sleep,” Ali said. “I take sleep medicine that one of my dancers gave to me.”

“That’s good,” Leonard said, thinking he might try switching from smoking rock to booze if he could afford good stuff like this.

Ali said, “I am going home in one hour because I was awake at five o’clock this morning to do inventory. My bitch wife no longer does inventory for me, so I must do all things.”

“Yeah, life is tough,” Leonard said. “You shoulda been with me last night. Even your sleeping pills wouldn’t a helped.”

“Where you were last night?”

“In jail.”

“Oh, god!” Ali said. “What did you do wrong?”

“Nothing,” Leonard said. “Except that I did that job for you. And the cops found my tools and rousted me, and I spent the night in jail, even though they couldn’t prove nothing and had to kick me out this afternoon.”

“Oh, god!” Ali said. “You didn’t say nothing about-”

“Of course not,” Leonard said. “But I still got popped behind that business I did for you.”

“I am so sorry, my friend,” Ali said, pouring another double shot for Leonard. “That is why you look so sleepy.”

With two capsules full of powdered sugar concealed in his left hand, Ali reached for the vial of capsules on the desk. Ali unscrewed the top and appeared to shake out two capsules onto the desktop, dropping the two that he’d palmed. Then he screwed the top back on and put the vial near the bottle of Jack.

Ali made it very apparent that he was putting the capsules into his mouth and swallowing them down with a shot of the Scotch, saying, “This is very good sleep medicine. I shall be feeling very peaceful soon. And then, maybe one hour from now, I shall go to bed and sleep for ten, twelve hours. You only want eight hours, you swallow down one capsule. Wonderful sleeping.”

“Yeah, that’s nice, but maybe we oughtta talk,” Leonard said.

Still brimming with bonhomie, Ali said, “You try.” Then he unscrewed the top again.

“I ain’t ready to go to sleep,” Leonard said.

“No,” Ali said, “not for now. You try later. You shall thank me. If you like them, I get you all you want.”

Leonard had never been one to turn down drugs of any kind, and he gave a nod while Ali dumped the capsules onto the desktop and put the empty vial in the drawer. Then he pushed a plain envelope across to Leonard with his fingernail and, with a mirthless smile, said, “One hour before you wish to sleep, swallow down two.”

Leonard scooped the capsules into the envelope, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Then he said, “I been thinking that my pay for what I done for you is pathetic. You just said how much I helped you. But what happened to me? I went to the slam and spent the fucking night with maniacs and child molesters and gangbangers.”

Ali stopped smiling then. His brow wrinkled and he said, “I feel great sorrow for you, my friend.”

Leonard said, “Yeah, well, I ain’t looking for pity. I just want proper compensation.”

Ali knew he had guessed correctly. It was blackmail. He’d probably demand another two hundred. Maybe even five. And he’d be back in a few weeks. And a few weeks after that. Ali was glad he had decided to give Leonard the other deadly sister. It would be the only way to stop these petty demands that would eventually get expensive, and even dangerous.

Trying to maintain an attitude of sympathy mixed with puzzlement, Ali said, “How can I help you, Leonard?”

“I think ten thousand bucks will help a lot,” Leonard said.

Ali could not remember a time when he needed to control so much outrage. He sipped some Jack and, with a quiver in his voice, said, “You wish for me to pay you ten thousand? Am I hearing the correct words?”

“It’s only a loan,” Leonard said. “I got an idea for a small business. I need a stake.”

“A loan,” Ali said without intonation.

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “I’ll pay you back in maybe a year, eighteen months tops, with twenty percent interest. That’s fair, ain’t it?”

“But Leonard, ten thousand is very big money,” Ali said.

“Not to you,” Leonard said. “I seen your ex-house. I seen this club packed to the walls, with money laying all over the bar and the tables and even on the stage. How much did you make on a case of that hot liquor I used to supply you? Come on, Ali, ten grand ain’t much for you to lend to a friend.”

“I shall have to think,” Ali said. “You come back in three, four days. We are going to talk some more.”

Suddenly Leonard said, “What would your ex-old lady say if she knew you paid me to steal a folder from her desk?”

Ali knew that his voice might betray the rage welling up from his belly, so he took another sip of Jack Daniel’s and said, “My bitch wife? She would say no, Ali has no care about documents in this house. She would not be believing such a thing, Leonard.”

Emboldened by Ali’s deferential manner and by the liquor warming him, Leonard went for it. With sweat dampening his T-shirt, he said, “What would she say if I told her you planted a bug in her house?”

Ali was genuinely perplexed and said, “A bug?”

“A listening device,” Leonard said. “I bet she’d hire a security company to sweep the joint and they’d find it. Where’d you put it? In the bedroom?”

Hanging on to a semblance of a smile, Ali said, “You talk very much shit, Leonard.”

“I hung around and saw you go in that garage, Ali,” Leonard said. “And you were carrying that folder you never wanted in the first place. And you were in there for thirteen minutes. What would the little woman say about them little nuggets of information?”

Ali Aziz blinked first, unsmiling, his teeth clenched. Then, voice trembling, he said, “I do not put no bugs in the house. I just read the document and put the folder back in the house. That is all.”

“I guess you could try to sell that to the little woman,” Leonard said. “But she ain’t gonna buy it. And after they do the electronics sweep and find the bug, you are gonna be in a world of hurt when her lawyer tells the judge. Actually, what you done was a serious crime, Ali. You committed a felony, entering that house and planting a bug.”

For a frightening moment, Ali Aziz thought about the pistol in his desk drawer. He quickly came to his senses, knowing he could never get away with that. Not here, not now. Instead, with a voice hoarse and raspy, he said, “I understand. I shall give you the business loan, Leonard. But I do not have so much money here. Come back next week.”

“I want it now, Ali,” Leonard said. “We can start with what you got on you. I seen you peel off five grand right outta your pocket one time after Whitey and me got you a load of booze.”

Without a word, Ali Aziz reached a trembling hand into his trousers pocket, pulled out his roll of $100 bills, and tossed it on the desktop, gold money clip and all.

Leonard finished his drink, poured another, and removed the money clip and pushed it back to Ali. He counted while Ali sat trying with all of his self-control not to leap across the desk and get the thief’s skinny neck in his fingers and squeeze.

After he finished counting, Leonard said, “You let me down. You only got twenty-one hundred here. Go to your safe and get the rest. Whadda you got, a floor safe?”

Ali Aziz could barely get out the words, but he managed to say, “Please go to the bar, Leonard. Have one more drink. Come back and I shall have the money.”

“Sure,” Leonard said. “But you don’t gotta worry about me seeing your safe. I never steal from a friend.”

Leonard Stilwell’s legs were rubbery when he walked down the passageway to the main room, and he knew it wasn’t the booze. He had just pulled off the biggest score of his life! It was scary but he’d stung that fucking Ay-rab with ease, and there was no reason he couldn’t do it again before Ali’s ex-wife moved out of the house.

What was it Ali had said? Escrow was closing pretty soon? After that, and after the divorce shit was all worked out, a shakedown wouldn’t work anymore. In fact, Ali could retrieve the listening device himself by then, or he might even have somebody else break into the house and get it out of there in order to get Leonard off his back. But Leonard thought he ought to be able to burn Ali Aziz one more time, maybe in a few days, before Ali had a chance to react to what had just happened to him. Leonard figured that in business, timing was everything.

He was so utterly stoked, with more money in his pocket than he’d ever had in his life, that he sat by the stage and stuffed a $20 bill into the G-string of the dancer, a big, busty babe in a cowboy hat who’d licked her lips and winked at him. Then, when he finished his drink, after tipping the cocktail waitress $10, he walked back down the passageway. But suddenly he stopped and felt a wave of fear sweep over him. It was safe enough here with all the people around, but he thought of how Ali’s face had gone deathly pale. That swarthy camel fucker had turned whiter than Leonard for a minute there. Whiter than a corpse.

Leonard grabbed the first busboy to walk past him, handed the Mexican a $10 bill, and said, “Come with me to the boss’s office.”

He knocked this time, then pushed the door open gingerly, holding the Mexican by the arm and saying, “Ali, I brought the help with me.”

Ali was sitting at the desk, staring at the doorway, his hands folded under his chin. The look on his face was as grim as Leonard had seen on the strong-arm robber last night after he got the word that their new cellie was a short-eyes kiddie raper.

Ali said, “Please come in.”

“I’ll leave the door open,” Leonard said. Then to the Mexican, “What’s your name, son?”

“Marcos,” the kid said.

“Okay, Marcos, hang there for a minute,” Leonard said, leaving the door open so that Ali knew there was a witness, in case violence was on his mind. Then Leonard hurried across the room to Ali’s desk and picked up the stack of currency awaiting him.

“Good-bye, Leonard,” Ali said. “I do not want no more loans between us.”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” Leonard said. “This is what they call squid pro quo. That’s lawyer talk and it means we’re straight with each other.”

When he left the office, he handed the busboy another $10 and said, “Thanks for being my bodyguard, son.”

Ali Aziz entered his little half bathroom, closed the door, locked it, turned on both water taps to muffle the sound, and, gripping the sink, screamed until drool ran down his chin.