Lost Light

36

The magazine had been published seven months earlier. The story on Linus Simonson and his partners was not a cover story but it was hyped on the cover with a line that said, “Hollywood’s After Hours Entrepreneurs.” The story was hooked to the impending opening of a sixth club in the foursome’s lineup of all-star late-night establishments. The article referred to Simonson as the king of the night crawlers, the one who parlayed the whole empire out of one hole-in-the-wall bar he had bought with a legal settlement. He had taken that first club, in an alley off of Hollywood and Cahuenga, renovated it, cut the lighting in half and brought in female bartenders who were prized more for their looks and tattoos than their skills at mixing drinks and adding bar tabs. He played the music loud, charged a $20 cover and didn’t let anyone in wearing a tie or a white shirt. The club had no name on the wall outside and no listing in the phone book. A flashing neon blue arrow over the front door was the only indication of a commercial venture. But soon the arrow was no longer needed and was removed because there was always a line of clubbers stretching from the door down the alley.

The article stated that Linus-he was referred to by first name through most of the article-then partnered up with three buddies from his days at Beverly Hills High School and started opening new clubs at a rate of one every six months. The entrepreneurs primarily followed the pattern that worked with the first club. Buy a rundown establishment, renovate and reopen, put the word into the pipeline and wait for it to spread through the ranks of the Hollywood cool. After the nameless bar, the lounges the group opened tended in style and name to follow a literary or musical theme.

The second bar the group bought, closed and then reopened was Nat’s Day of the Locusts, a nod to Nathanael West and his classic Hollywood novel. It wasn’t their name. The place had been known as simply Nat’s for decades and most patrons probably believed it was named for Nat King Cole. Either way the name was cool and the group kept it.

Nat’s was also the same place Dorsey and Cross had gotten shot up in. The article reported that the murder had acted to depress the sales price of the place. In fact, it was a steal. But once the bar was reopened-without a name change-and marketed to the night crawlers, the place’s history only added to its mystique. It was another immediate and huge success for the high school pals who called their burgeoning company Four Kings Incorporated.

For a long time in my life I did not believe in coincidence. I now know better. But there are coincidences and there are coincidences. Kiz Rider coming to my house and laying the high jingo on me as Art Pepper was playing it-that was coincidence. But as I sat in the Mercedes and read the magazine article, I wasn’t accepting the happenstance of Linus Simonson buying the bar in which two detectives who investigated the heist of $2 million he counted and prepared for shipment were shot. I didn’t think it was coincidence for a moment. I thought it was pure arrogance.

Besides the nameless bar and Nat’s, the foursome also opened places called Kings’ Crossing, Chet’s and Cozy’s Last Stand, named, according to the article, after a friend who had disappeared. The place which had occasioned the magazine story and was due to open was to be called Doghouse Reilly’s, after an alias used by private eye Philip Marlowe in a Raymond Chandler novel.

The story didn’t delve deeply into the financing behind the four-man operation. It was more interested in the glitz than the underpinnings of the supposed success story. It was taken and reported as a given that the first establishments supported the group’s expansion in a continuing cycle. Profits from the first bar financed the second and so on.

But the picture wasn’t purely positive. The article’s writer ended the story with a suggestion that the four kings might become victims of their own success. The theory espoused was that the population of black-clad night crawlers was finite in Hollywood, and that opening and operating six lounges did not convincingly expand the client base. It only spread it out. The article noted that there were also many pretenders to the throne, a raft of inferior, uncool bars and lounges that had opened in recent years.

The story ended by noting that on a recent Friday night at midnight, there was no line of night crawlers waiting to get into the nameless club. It cynically suggested that it might be time to put up the blue arrow again.

I dropped the magazine into the binder and sat there thinking about things. I had the sense that things were coming together. I felt anxious because I knew instinctively I was close. I didn’t have all the answers but experience told me that they would come. What I had was the direction. It had been more than four years since I had looked down on Angella Benton’s body and I finally had a solid suspect.

I opened the center console and got out the cell phone. I figured there would be no harm in calling my own home number. I checked messages and found I had two. The first was from Janis Langwiser. It was short and sweet.

“It’s me. Call me but use all precautions.”

I knew that meant a pay phone. The next message was from Roy Lindell. He also followed the standard of brevity.

“All right, asshole, I’ve got something for you. Call me.”

I looked around. I was parked in front of a post office on San Vicente. My meter was up and I was out of change for both the parking and the calls I needed to make. But I figured there would be a phone inside the post office and a machine for getting change to buy stamps from other machines. I got out and went in.

The main post office was closed but in an outer room that was open after hours I found the machine and pay phone I was looking for. I called Langwiser first because I figured that I had already moved the investigation past the information I had asked Lindell to get for me.

I got Langwiser on her cell but she was still in her office.

“What did you get from Foreman?” I asked, getting right to the point.

“This has to remain highly confidential, Harry. I did talk to Jim and when I explained the circumstances he didn’t mind talking to me about it. The caveat being that this information goes into no reports and you never reveal its source.”

“No problem. I don’t write reports anymore, anyway.”

“Don’t be so quick and cavalier about it. You’re not a cop anymore and you’re no lawyer. You have no legal shield.”

“I have a private eye ticket.”

“Like I said, you have no shield. If a judge ever ordered you to reveal your source you would have to do it or face contempt. That would mean possibly going to jail. Ex-cops in jail don’t do so well.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I just did.”

“Okay, I understand. It’s still no problem.”

The truth was, I couldn’t see how this would ever come up in a court and with a judge. I wasn’t worried about the possibility of jail.

“Okay, as long as we’re clear. Jim told me that Simonson settled for fifty thousand dollars.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s it and it really isn’t that much. He was represented by a thirty-five percenter. He also had to pay filing costs.”

He’d had a lawyer who took a 35 percent cut of any settlement in exchange for working the case without hourly billing. It meant that Simonson probably cleared a little over thirty grand. It wasn’t a lot when it came to quitting your day job and starting a late-night lounge empire.

The sense of anxiety I had been feeling ticked into a higher gear. I had suspected that the settlement would be low but not that low. I was beginning to convince myself.

“Did Foreman say anything else about the case?”

“Just one other thing. He said that it was Simonson who insisted on the confidentiality agreement and that the agreement itself was unusual. It required that there be not only no public announcement about the settlement but no public record of it.”

“Well, it never went to court anyway.”

“I know, but BankLA is a publicly held corporation. So what the confidentiality agreement entailed was that Simonson be carried under a pseudonym on all financial records related to the payout. He’s carried, again at his request, as Mr. King.”

I didn’t respond as I thought about this.

“So how did I do, Harry?”

“You did real good, Janis. Which reminds me, you’ve been doing a hell of a lot of work on this. Are you sure you don’t want to bill me?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I still owe you.”

“Well, now I’ll owe you. I want you to do one last thing for me. I just decided that tomorrow I’m going to give what I’ve got to the powers that be. It might be good if you were there. You know, to sort of make sure I don’t step across any lines with these people.”

“I’m there. Where?”

“You want to check your calendar first?”

“I already know I have the morning free. You want to do it here or are you going into the police station?”

“No, I’ve got butting jurisdictions. I’d like to do it at your place. You have a room we can put about six or seven people in?”

“I’ll book the conference room. What time?”

“How about nine o’clock?”

“Fine. I’ll be here early if you want to come in and talk first and go over everything.”

“That would be good. I’ll see you about eight-thirty.”

“I’ll be here. Do you think you have it?”

I knew what she meant. Did I have the story, if not the actual evidence that would push the LAPD and FBI into running with the case again.

“It’s coming together. There’s maybe one more thing I can do and then I’ve got to give it to somebody who can get warrants and knock down doors.”

“I get it. I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’m glad you made it through on this. I really am.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks, Janis.”

After hanging up I realized I had forgotten about the parking meter. I went out to feed it but it was too late. West Hollywood Parking Enforcement had beat me there. I left the ticket on the windshield and went back inside. I got Lindell in his office just before he was leaving for the day.

“What do you got?”

“Herpes simplex five. What do you got?”

“Come on, man.”

“You’re an asshole, Bosch, asking me to wash your dirty laundry.”

I realized what he was mad about.

“The plate number?”

“Yeah, the plate number. As if you didn’t know. It belongs to your ex-wife, man, and I really don’t appreciate being pulled into your bullshit. I mean, either kill her or get over her, you know what I mean?”

I agreed that I knew what he meant but not what he had suggested. I could tell that I had seriously put him out with the plate check.

“Roy, all I can tell you is that I didn’t know. I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t drag you in and I am sorry I did.”

There was silence and I thought that I had placated him.

“Roy?”

“What?”

“Did you write down the address from the registration?”

“You fucking asshole.”

He vented for another minute but eventually, grudgingly gave me the address Eleanor’s car was registered to. There was no apartment number with it. It looked like she had not only come up a level in wheels. She was living in a house now.

“Thanks, Roy. It’s the last time on that. I promise. Anything come up on the other thing I asked about?”

“Nothing good, nothing useful. The guy’s record is pretty clean. There is some juvenile stuff but it’s all sealed. I didn’t go any further with it.”

“Okay.”

I wondered if the juvenile stuff involved his former Beverly Hills High classmates and now partners.

“The only other thing is that he’s a junior. There is another Linus Simonson on the computer. Going by the age it looks like Daddy.”

“What’s he on there for?”

“He’s got an IRS rap and a bankruptcy. It’s all old stuff.”

“How old?”

“The IRS came first, like they usually do. That was in ’ninety-four. The old man went bankrupt two years later. Who is this guy Linus and why did you want me to check him for a tail?”

I didn’t answer as I found myself looking into a Most Wanted picture on the post office wall. A serial rapist. But I wasn’t really looking at him. I was looking at Linus. I was working the interior circuits as another piece fell into place. Linus said he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as his father, who had gone belly-up and broke, an IRS collar around his neck. The question that poked through all of that was, how does a guy with no job and no backing from Daddy parlay the thirty grand he’s got in his pocket into the purchase and major renovation of a bar? And then another, and then another.

Loans maybe-if he qualified. Or maybe with a $2 million bank withdrawal.

“Bosch, you there?”

I came out of it.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I asked you a question. Who is this guy? Is he on the movie deal?”

“It’s looking like it, Roy. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“I’m doing what I’m always doing. Why?”

“If you want a piece of this be at my lawyer’s office at nine. And don’t be late.”

“Is this guy connected to Marty? If he’s the guy I don’t want a piece. I want all of it.”

“I don’t know yet. But he’ll get us closer, that’s for sure.”

Lindell wanted to ask more questions but I cut him off. I had more calls to make. I gave him Langwiser’s name and address and he finally said he would be at the law office at nine. I hung up and then called Sandor Szatmari and left a message inviting him to the same meeting.

Lastly I called Kiz Rider in the administration office at Parker Center and extended the invitation to her as well. She went from zero to sixty on the anger speedometer in about five seconds.

“Harry, I warned you about this. You are going to find yourself in a lot of trouble. You can’t just work a case and then call in a gang bang when you think it’s time we were made privy to your private investigations.”

“Kiz, I already did. You just have to decide if you want to be there or not. There will be a nice piece of this for somebody at the LAPD. As far as I’m thinking, it might as well be you. But if you’re not interested, I’ll call RHD.”

“Goddamnit, Harry.”

“In or out?”

There was a long pause.

“I’m in. But, Harry, I’m not going to protect you.”

“I wouldn’t expect it.”

“Who is your lawyer?”

I gave her the information and was ready to hang up. I felt a sense of dread about the damage to our relationship. It seemed permanent to me.

“Okay, see you then,” I finally said.

“Yes, you will,” she replied sternly.

I remembered something I needed.

“Oh, and Kiz? See if you can find the original of the currency report. It should be in the murder book.”

“What currency report?”

I explained and she said she would look for it. I thanked her and hung up. I went out to my car and grabbed the parking ticket off the windshield. I got in and threw it over my shoulder into the backseat for good luck.

It was almost seven on the dashboard clock. I knew things didn’t get going in the Hollywood club scene until ten or later. But I had forward momentum and didn’t want it to ebb away while I just went home and waited. I sat there thinking with my hand over the top of the wheel, ticking my fingertips on the dashboard. Soon they were going through the phrasing that Quentin McKinzie had taught me, and when I realized this, I knew how I could spend the next few hours. I opened up the cell phone again.