Hollywood Crows

TWENTY-THREE

HE’D FALLEN ASLEEP watching TV and awoke feeling like Rosie O’Donnell was sitting on his head. He had a humongous headache when he got up that morning. He was looking for something to blame it on besides the two pipeloads of rock he’d smoked, and all those 40s he’d guzzled. Then he remembered those little capsules that Ali Aziz had given him. He vaguely recalled popping two of them before he passed out.

Leonard Stilwell turned on the TV, since he couldn’t stand silence, and began drinking ice water. After that he drank a glass of orange juice before going back for more water. He’d never been so thirsty in his life and his head was killing him. It had to have been the sleeping meds. Leonard opened the drawer of the lopsided chest of drawers that contained two pots, a frying pan, two dinner dishes, a bowl, a few knives, forks, spoons, socks, some underwear, and two clean T-shirts. On top of the T-shirts he found the envelope with the magenta-and-turquoise capsules.

He should’ve known better than to use anything that fucking Ay-rab had given him. He took the envelope into his tiny bathroom and dumped the remaining capsules into the toilet. It took two tries to get them all flushed away.

When he came back into the kitchen, one of the local morning news anchors, a hottie whose heavily penciled eyebrows were used as emphasis, was talking about a killing. Leonard felt like adjusting the TV vertical to keep those bouncing fucking eyebrows in one place. When he turned up the volume to hear if for once she had something sensible to say, he heard “Ali Aziz.” Then she went on to the next story.

“Holy shit!” Leonard said, switching to every other local channel. But the news was either over or somebody was talking about some horrible fucking recipe you couldn’t get Junior the Fijian giant to choose in place of a bowl of cockroaches.

He quickly got dressed, took four aspirins, and ran downstairs to his car, driving a couple of blocks to a residential street where he could steal an L.A. Times. Then he drove back to his apartment and looked all through the newspaper, but he saw nothing about Ali Aziz. He turned on a local channel again and saw an LAPD spokesperson just winding up his brief statement on the suicide of some LAPD cop and the fatal shooting of nightclub owner Ali Aziz by his former wife, who’d been mixed up romantically with the dead cop.

The first thing that Leonard Stilwell thought was, There goes my chance at another Ali Aziz shakedown! The second thing he thought was, How can I make a buck from this by telling the rich widow that Ali bugged her house? The answer was obvious: He couldn’t. Not without revealing his own part in it. And he’d seen enough of Hollywood jail.

Leonard Stilwell told himself to look on the bright side. He had ten grand plus. He had the stake he needed to get out of crime and go into the business he’d been contemplating. Still, it was a goddamn shame that the hotheaded Ay-rab had to get himself smoked like that just because some cop was porking his old lady. It was the only time in his life that Leonard Stilwell had found himself right in the middle of a big-time soap opera, and he couldn’t figure out how to squeeze a fucking dime out of it!

Late that morning, Detective Bino Villaseñor had nearly completed his reports and was eager to go home, when he got the word that Officer Bix Ramstead had shot himself. Everything changed in an instant. Both the area captain and station captain were in meetings with the West Bureau commander. And the detective knew without a doubt that this thing was going to be discussed with the chief of police himself before Bino Villaseñor ever slept in his own bed.

The detective called the law offices of William T. Goodman, Esq., and was politely told that Mr. Goodman’s client Margot Aziz would be making no further comment to anyone unless compelled to do so by court order. Mr. Goodman said that he would accept any subpoena pertaining to this terrible tragedy on behalf of his client at any time in the future.

At 2 P.M. that day, after spokespersons for the chief of police had been badgered and hounded by reporters, Detective Villaseñor found himself in a conference room on the sixth floor at Parker Center with police brass and representatives from the district attorney’s office. Bino Villaseñor had been preparing himself for this meeting all day and had expected dozens, if not hundreds, of detailed questions. But by the time he arrived, all of them had already read his reports and seemed satisfied. The questions were few.

A deputy district attorney said, “Detective Villaseñor, is there any doubt in your mind that Officer Bix Ramstead was not part of a plot to murder Mr. Ali Aziz?”

“No doubt whatsoever,” the detective said. “In my opinion, he killed himself out of shame and remorse. The officer had lost everything and couldn’t face the disgrace he’d caused to himself and especially to his family.”

The deputy district attorney said, “Is there any doubt in your mind that Mrs. Margot Aziz did not plot to murder Mr. Ali Aziz?”

Bino Villaseñor looked around then at all that brass, everyone expectant. And he said, “If this was a setup and Officer Ramstead was a fall guy needed for corroboration, only Margot Aziz knows how she pulled it off. Getting Bix Ramstead in that bedroom for the first time might not have been so tough, but getting Ali Aziz in there with his own registered gun in his hand and murder on his mind, well, I just can’t imagine how she coulda timed it so well. I’m real sorry that Officer Ramstead is dead, but her story and Bix Ramstead’s story are the same story. And every employee of the Leopard Lounge who was there last night has been contacted today. Including a dancer named Jasmine McVicker who popped in the door for a few minutes to have her identity verified for a midwatch unit. And nobody saw Ali Aziz leave the club last night, not even the bouncer, who’d left for fifteen minutes to stop a brawl in the parking lot.”

The deputy district attorney said, “Did you speak to Mrs. Aziz’s attorney about a family trust or wills involved in this case? As a motive for murder?”

“That was one of my first questions to him,” Bino Villaseñor said. “Margot’s executor is her father in Barstow, and everything she has goes to her son, Nicky Aziz.”

The district attorney said, “And how about the estate of Ali Aziz?”

“His lawyer informed us that he is the executor, and all of Ali Aziz’s assets go to Nicky Aziz.”

The deputy district attorney said, “As far as you are concerned, then, this is a case of self-defense and not a murder, am I correct?”

“Correct,” Bino Villaseñor said. “At least for now.”

The deputy district attorney said, “And her lawyer will not produce Margot Aziz for further questions unless by subpoena?”

“Correct,” the detective said. “The last thing he said to me was that she’s going on an extended vacation to get away from the press, possibly on a cruise. He said that her son has been taken to his grandparents’ home in Barstow, and that Margot Aziz would not be returning to Hollywood until what he called the ‘ugly scandal’ is no longer in the news. He said that she’s distraught and mentally exhausted.”

The bureau commander said, “You did a good job, Detective. And you look a bit exhausted too. Why don’t you go home.”

“I got a few good rounds left in me, Chief,” said Bino Villaseñor, “but on this one, I’m shadowboxing with ghosts.”

At the end of that long day, the sergeant in charge of the Community Relations Office told all Crows at a very solemn meeting that Bix Ramstead’s family was planning to have a private funeral service as soon as the coroner released Bix’s body to their mortuary. Then their sergeant told a few anecdotes from happier times he’d had with Bix, and he invited others to do the same.

Ronnie Sinclair had to dab at her eyes several times while others were talking about Bix, and she declined when asked if she’d like to say anything about her partner. Ronnie wanted to tell them about the time Bix became an angel to a dying child, but she knew she’d never be able to get through it.