Obsession

CHAPTER 26

“How do you feel about hypnosis?”

“I’ve never really thought about it.”

“It’s basically deep relaxation and focused concentration. You’d be good at it.”

“I would? Why?”

“You’re intelligent.”

“I’m suggestible?”

I said, “All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Receptivity is a skill that gets better with practice. Smart, creative people do the best because they’re comfortable being imaginative. I think it’s a good choice for you right now because you can get some quick results and go back to the excellent progress you made when you were a kid.”

No answer.

“Tanya?”

“If you say so.”

I began with rhythmic, deep breathing. After the third exhalation, she opened her eyes. “Where’s Blanche?”

“Sleeping in her crate.”

“Oh.”

“Hold on.” I fetched the dog, placed her on the couch next to Tanya. Tanya stroked the top of her head. We resumed the breathing exercise. Within moments, Tanya’s body had started to loosen and Blanche was asleep, flews puffing and fluttering.

I counted backward from a hundred, using my induction monotone. Matched the rhythm of my voice to Blanche’s snorts. By seventy-four, Tanya’s lips had parted and her hands were still. I began inserting suggestions. Framing cues for each breath as an opportunity to relax.

At twenty-six, the light on my phone blinked.

I said, “Go deeper and deeper.”

Tanya slumped. With the tension gone, she looked like a child.

So far, so good. If I didn’t think too hard about the larger issues.

When an hour had passed, I gave her posthypnotic instructions for practice and prolonged relaxation and brought her out.

It took several tries for her eyes to stay open. “I feel…amazing…thank you. Was I hypnotized?”

“You were.”

“It didn’t feel…that strange. I wasn’t sure I could do it.”

“You’re a natural.”

Tanya yawned. Blanche followed suit. Tanya laughed, stretched, got to her feet. “Maybe one day you can hypnotize me to study better.”

“Having problems concentrating?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Not at all. I was kidding.”

“Actually,” I said, “being relaxed would help with exams.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that.” She reached into her bag. “I’ll practice every day-you did say something about that, right?”

“I did.”

“It’s a little…odd. I’m looking right at you but you’re…close and distant at the same time. And I can still hear your voice in the back of my head. What else did you tell me to do?”

“Nothing else,” I said. “You’re in control, not me.”

She rummaged in her purse. “Hmm…I know I’ve got a check here…”

“When would you like to come back?”

“Can I call you?” Extracting a white envelope, she placed it on the desk. “Signed and ready to go.” Her eyes shifted to Jordan’s letter and the photo. “You can keep them, I don’t want them.”

“I’ll pass them along to Lieutenant Sturgis.”

She stiffened. “Mommy helped him with his addiction, I don’t see how that would relate to his murder.”

“I don’t, either, but he might as well keep all the data. I would like to schedule another session, Tanya.”

“You really think so?”

“If money’s an issue-”

“No, not at all, I’m doing great in that department, have kept right on budget.”

“But…”

“Dr. Delaware, I appreciate everything you’ve done-are still doing for me. I just don’t want to be too dependent.”

“I don’t see you as dependent, at all.”

“I’m here, again.”

“Tanya, how many nineteen-year-olds could do what you’re doing?”

“I’m almost twenty,” she said. “Sorry, thanks for the compliment. It’s just that…look at Jordan. All that rage because he couldn’t shake his dependency. Mommy taught me the importance of taking care of myself. I am not going to be one of them.”

“Them?”

“Weak, self-pitying people. I can’t afford to be that way.”

“I understand. But all I see is someone smart enough to ask for help when she needs it.”

“Thank you…I really feel I’m okay, what we did today was amazingly helpful.” She shook her arms to demonstrate. “Rubber girl. I’ll practice. If I forget something, I’ll get right in touch.”

I didn’t answer.

“I promise,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

At the front door, she said, “Thanks for trusting me, Dr. Delaware. No need to walk me down.”

I watched her descend to her van. She never looked back.

Monday, the blinking light was a message from my service. Detective Sturgis had phoned.

I told Milo about Lester Jordan’s angry missive.

He said, “So the guy was an asshole, we saw that in person.”

“Maybe it clarifies things. From the note it’s clear that Patty helped him through an O.D., but there was no hint she supplied him with anything other than TLC.”

He said, “Great. Meanwhile, the hills are alive with the sound of suspects. I located a three-year-old black Hummer registered to Quick-Kut Music, address on the fourteen hundred block of Oriole Drive. I’m meeting Petra in an hour at Sunset and Doheny-near Gil Turner’s liquor store. Come fly with us, if you’re so inclined.”

The bird streets worm their way into the hills above the Strip, just east of Trousdale Estates, skinny, sinuous, haphazardly paved feats of engineering.

Mockingbird, Warbler, Thrasher, Skylark, Tanager.

Blue Jay Way, where George Harrison sat alone in a rental house, waiting for a press agent who’d made a wrong turn, staring out at a vast table of city shrouded by night and fog.

Easy to lose your way up there. Random cul-de-sacs and no-warning dead ends say someone in the city planner’s office had enjoyed playing darts. Grades are treacherous and jogging’s a life-threatening procedure due to the lack of sidewalks, Porsches and Ferraris buzzing the curb. The houses, many of them hidden behind hedges and walls, range from Palladian palaces to no-style boxes. They butt up against each other like rush-hour straphangers, teeter over the street. Squint a certain way on the bird streets and the hills seem to be trembling even when the ground is still.

The good part is heart-stopping views, some of the best in L.A., and seven- to eight-figure property values.

A twenty-eight-year-old music thief would need a serious income supplement to swing it and the obvious answer was dope. Despite that, I meant what I’d told Milo about Patty not being involved in the dope trade. Jordan’s note was personal-rage at losing an emotional safety net, not concern about being cut off from his supply.

Patty’s sin had been doing her job too well.

Yet she’d committed another iniquity, something serious enough to haunt her for years. And Lester Jordan had probably died because of it.

When I got to the liquor store, Milo stepped out of his unmarked, unfolding a map and wondering out loud if the topography of Oriole Drive allowed a decent vantage spot. Taking the padded envelope without comment, he dropped it onto the passenger seat and returned to the map.

Petra drove up in her Accord.

The two of them studied the street grid, decided to park at the bottom of Oriole and walk. Petra’s car would be the transport vehicle because it was unobtrusive.

“Not cool enough to be a local,” she said, tapping the hood, “but maybe they’ll think I’m a personal assistant.”

She drove north on Doheny Drive, used her stick shift to keep it smooth.

Milo said, “Nice gear-work, Detective Connor.”

“Had to drive better than my brothers.”

“For self-esteem?”

“Survival.”

Every second property seemed to be under construction or renovation, and the side effects abounded: dust, din, workers darting across the road, gouges in the asphalt inflicted by heavy machinery.

As we climbed, the houses got smaller and plainer, some of the punier ones obviously subdivides of old estates. Oriole Drive began with the thirteen hundred block. We parked at the base and began a steep upward hike.

Petra’s long, lean legs were made for climbing and my self-punishing runs made the grade no big challenge. But Milo was panting and trying hard to hide it.

Petra kept an eye on him. He forged ahead of us. Wheezed, “You…know…CPR?”

She said, “Took a refresher last year but don’t you dare, Lieutenant.”

Glancing at me. I threw up my hands.

The scrape-scrape of his desert boots became our marching cadence.

A No Outlet sign appeared at the advent of the fourteen hundred block.

Fourteen sixty-two meant the top of the hill or close to it.

Milo gasped, “Oh, great.” Rubbed his lower back and trudged.

We passed a huge white contemporary house, then several plain-faced fifties boxes. What the Orwellian dialect known as Realtor-Speak would euphemize as “midcentury charmers.”

The part about “drop-dead views” would be righteous.

Milo pressed forward. Mopping his face with a handkerchief, he sucked in air and pointed.

Empty space where 1462 should’ve been.

What remained was a flat patch of brown dirt not much bigger than a trailer pad and surrounded by chain link. The gate was open. A construction permit packet hung on the fence.

A man stood at the far end of the lot, a few feet from the precipice, staring out at smoggy panorama.

Milo and Petra checked nearby vehicles. The closest was a gold BMW 740, parked at the crown of the cul-de-sac.

“Car’s not much bigger than the property,” he said. “L.A. affluence.”

Petra said, “That’s why I don’t paint landscapes.”

Unmindful of us, the man lit a cigarette, gazed, and smoked.

Milo coughed.

The man turned.

Petra waved.

The man didn’t return the gesture.

We walked onto the lot.

He lowered his cigarette and watched us.

Early forties, five eight or nine, with heavy shoulders, bulky arms and thighs, and a hard, round belly. A square, swarthy face was bottomed by an oversized chin. He wore a pale blue dress shirt with French cuffs, chunky gold cufflinks shaped like jet planes, sharply creased navy slacks, black croc loafers grayed by dust. The top button of the shirt was undone. Gray chest hair bristled and a gold chain nestled in the pelt. A thin red string circled his right wrist. A beeper and a cell phone hung from his waistband.

Wraparound Ray-Bans blocked the windows to his soul. The rest of his face was a tight mask of distrust.

“This is private property. If you want a free view, go to Mulhol-land.”

Petra flashed the badge.

“Police? What, he’s gone crazy?”

“Who, sir?”

“Him. Troupe, the lawyer.” Cocking his head toward the house to the south. “I keep telling him, all the permits are in order, there’s nothing you gonna do about it.”

Some kind of accent-familiar but I couldn’t place it.

“Now, what, he’s again yelling about the noise? We graded a week ago, how can you grade without noise?”

“We’re not here about that, Mr…”

“Avi Benezra. Then what do you want?”

I got the accent. A few years ago, we’d worked with an Israeli police superintendent named Daniel Sharavi. Benezra’s inflections were harsher, but similar.

Petra said, “We’re looking for the residents of 1462.”

Benezra removed his glasses, revealed soft, hazel eyes, squinting in amusement. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”

“Wish we were trying to be, sir.”

“The residents? Maybe worms and bugs.” Benezra laughed. “Who’s your intelligence source? The CIA?”

“How long has the house been gone, sir?”

“A year.” Thumb curl toward the neighboring house. “Troupe had quiet for a year so he got spoiled.”

“Fussy guy?”

“Fussy asshole,” said Benezra. “A lawyer.”

“Is he home?”

Avi Benezra said, “Never home. That’s why he’s crazy to complain. Maybe you can tell him to stop bothering me. You know why he’s mad? He wanted to buy it, put a pool on it. But he didn’t want to pay what it’s worth. Now I don’t wanna sell. Gonna build for myself. Why not?” He waved at the view. “It’s gonna be something, all glass, views to Palos Verdes.”

“Gorgeous,” said Petra.

“It’s what I do,” said Benezra. “I build, I’m a builder. Why not finally for me?”

“So you tore down the house a year ago?”

“No, no, no, a year ago is empty. I tore down five months ago and right away he’s driving me nuts, that bastard, complain to the zoning board, the mayor.” Spiraling a finger toward his temple. “Finally, I get the okay.”

“How long have you owned the property, Mr. Benezra?”

Benezra grinned. “You interested in buying?”

“I wish.”

“I buy five years ago, house was a piece of crap but that!” Another flourish at the view.

He smoked, shaded his eyes with his hand, gazed up at a jetliner climbing from Inglewood. “I’m gonna use as much glass as they let me with the new energy rules. I just finished building a gorgeous Mediterranean on Angelo Drive, nine thousand square feet, marble, granite, home theater, I’m ready to sell. Then my wife decides she wants to live in it. Okay, why not? Then, I get divorce and she gets the house. What, I should fight?”

“Have you ever rented to a man named Blaise De Paine?”

“Oh, boy,” said Benezra. “That one. Yeah, he was the last.”

“Problem tenant?”

“You call trashing every room and not paying a problem? To me, that’s a problem. My fault. I broke the rules, got clucked.”

Petra said, “Clucked?”

“I’m talking polite to a lady.”

She laughed. “Which rules did you break?”

“Avi’s rules. Two months in advance, plus damage deposit up front. Him I let go one month, no deposit. Stupid, I shoulda known better, the way he looked.”

“How’d he look?”

“Rock and roll,” said Benezra. “The hair, you know. But he was recommended.”

“By who?”

Benezra put his shades back on. “A guy.”

“Which guy, sir?”

“This is important?”

“It might be.”

“What’d he do?”

“Who referred him?” said Petra.

“Listen,” said Benezra, “I don’t want no problems.”

“If you haven’t done anything-”

“I didn’t do nothing. But this guy who referred him, he’s a little famous, you know?”

“Who, sir?”

“I don’t know nothing about his problems.”

“Whose problems, sir?”

Benezra sniffed the air, smoked greedily. “What I hired him for was legal. What he did for other people, I don’t wanna know.”

“Sir,” said Petra, “who are we talking about?”

“A guy I hired.”

“To do what?”

“Watch the wife. She wants the house on Angelo, nine thousand square feet, she can roll around in it, fine, okay. She wants the jewelry, okay. But my boat? Properties I had before I met her? Very very very not okay. I knew what she was doing with you-know-who, maybe this guy can prove it, she don’t get too pushy.”

“We’ve got no-fault divorce in California.”

“That’s the official stuff,” said Benezra. “But she got the fancy friends, the fund-raisers, lunch at Spago. Not gonna look good everyone knows she’s not so perfect. I hired him to get the evidence.”

“We’re talking a private investigator.”

“Yeah.”

“Because your wife…”

“You’re a woman. What do you think she did?”

“Slept around?”

“Not around. One guy, her eye doctor.” Tapping a black lens. “I pay ten thousand for LASIK so she don’t have to wear contact lenses, no more itchy itchy. She pay me back by getting another kinda treatment.” Chuckling.

“It’s good you can laugh about it,” said Petra.

“What, I should get an ulcer?”

“What’s the name of the private detective?”

“The famous one,” said Benezra. “Fortuno.”

“Mario Fortuno.”

“Yeah. He still in jail?”

“As far as I’ve heard, sir.”

“Good. He took my money, did nothing. The other stuff, I have no idea.”

“Did Fortuno say how he knew Blaise De Paine?”

Benezra ticked a finger. “A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. ‘But he’s okay, Avi, trust me.’” He laughed louder. “Maybe I missed one of the friends.”

“What else did Fortuno tell you about De Paine?”

“Nothing else, I was stupid, but I figured a guy like that, he’s working for me, why would he cluck me? I even gave discount rent because the place was crap, it was gonna get tear-down soon.” Swiveling back toward the view. “Lookit that.”

Petra showed him one of the party photos taken off the Internet. “Is this the person we’re talking about?”

“That’s him. What’d he do?”

Moses Grant’s DMV shot produced a head shake. “Him I never seen. What, a gangster from Watts?”

Robert Fisk’s mug shot evoked raised eyebrows. “That one was here, seen him at least a coupla times. Maybe living here, even though the deal was only one person, we’re talking six hundred square feet, one bedroom, one bath. Used to be the garage of that bastard’s place back in the fifties, he buys two years ago, thinks everything should go back together but don’t wanna pay market. He drives me so crazy, I was going to leave green space but forget it, it’s gonna go inches from the property line.”

Petra waved Fisk’s image. “What makes you think this person was living here?”

“One time, I come for the rent, he was the only one in the house. No shirt on, crazy tattoos, doing exercises in front of the window-on a mat, you know? Judo, karate, something like that, clothes and crap all around. I try to make chat. I learned krav maga-Israeli-style karate-in the army. He said yeah, he knows it, then he shuts his eyes and goes back to breathing in and out and stretching the arms. I say sorry to bother you but what’s with the rent. He says he don’t know nothing, just visiting. Those tattoos, all over here”-touching his own chest-“and up to the neck. He’s a bad guy?”

“We’d like to talk to him. What else can you tell us about De Paine and Mario Fortuno?”

“That’s it.” Benezra looked at his watch. “I hire him to find out about her. He tells me she’s clucking the eye doctor, thank you very much, big-shot detective. That I already know because she sees twenty-twenty and she keeps making appointments.”

Shaking his head. “Thirteen thousand dollars for that, thank you very much. He should rot in jail.”

Milo said, “So he never followed through?”

“Always excuses,” said Benezra. “It takes time, Avi. We need to make sure it’s gonna be bona fide evidence, Avi. The eye doctor’s office is locked, Avi, maybe it’s gonna cost a little more, Avi.”

A wide smile nearly bisected his face. “I finally figure out I’m being clucked twice. Now I’m thinking maybe sue my divorce lawyer-he’s the one sent me to Fortuno. I call him, he tells me Fortuno ripped him off, too.”

“How?”

“Hired him to write some documents, didn’t pay.”

“The lawyer’s name, please.”

“Oy,” said Benezra. “This is getting complicated. Okay, why not, I’m finished with him. Marvin Wallace, Roxbury and Wilshire.”

Benezra took a last drag of his cigarette, pinched it out, flicked it across the lot. “Always excuses for not doing the job, Fortuno. Finally he’s got a good one.”

“What’s that?” said Petra.

“The one you guys gave him. You put him in jail.”