Over the Edge

23

SARNA DROPPED us off back at the cafe, and Milo spent another half hour talking to Asa Skaggs, making small talk and trying to find out if he remembered seeing anyone matching Jamey's, Chancellor's, or Gary's description in the recent past. The old man stopped scouring a cold griddle and thought, scratching his head and sucking on his toothless gums.

"Yamagooch — that's a Jap name, ain't it?"

"That's right."

"We used to have Japs around, in the relocation camp up near Mojave."

"During World War Two?"

"You bet. Later they let 'em out and put 'em in the army, and I hear they done pretty well — tough little monkeys."

"I was thinking a bit more recently, Mr. Skaggs."

"Hmm. No, haven't seen any Japs since then. Plenty of 'em in the city, though. Near San Pedro Street, They call it Little Tokyo now. Got a lady in town, Alma Bachman, who likes to drive over there and eat raw fish. Says it makes her feel younger, which don't make much sense, does it?"

"Not much," said Milo.

"You remember those days pretty well, don't you, Mr. Skaggs?" I said. "During the war and right after?"

"You bet."

"Do you remember the man who bought the army base?"

"Mr. Black Jack Cadmus? Hard to forget him. Now, that was a gentleman, the kind you don't see no more. Carried himself like a king. Beautiful clothes, down to the spats. Sometimes he'd drive up to look at the lake and stop in for a fill-up and a window wash. I remember the car. Twenty-seven Bugatti. Forty-one Royale, the one with the big monobloc straight eight and the twin-choke carburettor. Jet black and big as a bus. He'd had it restored in Italy and shipped over. The way the thing was put together you had to strip the whole engine down if you needed to work on the valves. Maintenance alone cost enough to support half a dozen families for a year, but that's what the man was like. High style, only the best for him. Once in a while, if I was changin' oil or checkin' the tyres, he'd come in here, sit right where you're sittin'. Have a cup of coffee and a chocolate roll — the man loved chocolate. Sal used to say he coulda been a movie star with that black hair and them white teeth."

"Did he ever bring anyone with him?"

"Nope. All by his lonesome. Drove the Bugatti as far as it would go, and then he'd hike around for a couple of hours. I'm saying that 'cause sometimes he'd come back all dusty and I'd kid him. 'Been climbin' and gettin' into mischief, Colonel Cadmus?' You could talk to him like that; he had a sense of humour. And he'd smile and answer back, 'Communin' with nature, Asa. Gettin' back to basics.'"

The old man winked and lowered his voice.

"I never asked him about it, but I think he was up there writin' poetry."

"Why's that?"

"He used to carry this little book with him and one a them fancy gold-tipped fountain pens. One time, when I was cleaning the windows, he left it open on the seat. I got a quick gander, and it was laid out in these little paragraphs, like poetry. When he saw me lookin', he closed it real quick. Probably didn't want to be thought of as no nancy boy."

Milo smiled.

"What did the book look like?" I asked.

"Smallish, leather."

"Black leather?"

"Darkish is all I recall. Coulda been black."

"Did you ever read what was inside?"

"Nope. Never got that close."

"But you're pretty sure it looked like poetry."

"You bet. What else would a real man been ashamed of?"

We exited the cafe. The crime techs had departed, and the road was as silent as a graveyard.

"What were you getting at?" asked Milo. "Poetry and all that."

"The book Skaggs described matches the one in The Wretched Act," I said, "which, now that I think about it, didn't fit with the rest of the sculpture. Everything else in the scene was miniaturised, but the book was full size. Way out of proportion. On top of that it looked more like an antique than a teen-ager's diary. Gary had scrawled 'Diary' on it in lavender, but it was a sloppy job — totally out of character with his style. He's compulsive, Milo. In all the other pieces he took pains to be precise."

A hawk rose over the darkening hills and began circling. Milo stared up at it.

"I know," I said, "there are thousands of black books in this world. But glass canyon was one of Jamey's pet phrases when he hallucinated. He used it the night he called me; it means this place was on his mind. Ordinarily you could brush that off, because he's psychotic and a lot of experts, including Mainwaring, don't put much stock in psychotic speech. But Radovic got killed out here. Is that coincidence?"

Milo ran his hands over his face, grimaced, and cleared his throat.

"Let's roll it back for a minute," he said. "Once upon a time Old Man Cadmus used to drive up here — to the glass canyon — hike around, and write poetry in a black book. Forty years later his grandson — who's a poetry freak and hallucinates about glass canyons — rips off his boyfriend and a tag-along chicken and busts a serial murder case wide open. Then the boyfriend's bodyguard buys a punk sculpture to get hold of the black book, uses it to blackmail two bikers, and gets butchered for his trouble."

He looked at me.

"Enough to make your head hurt, isn't it?"

He walked to the Matador, got in, and closed the door. I watched him pick up the radio speaker and talk into it for several minutes, nodding and brushing the hair out of his eyes. Then he hung up and climbed out of the car, looking preoccupied.

"Pacific Division just started the search of Radovic's boat. Someone had already been there and tossed it good. They left behind guns, knives, and a wad of cash he had hidden in the base of the steering wheel. Also a power drill, a pile of plastic chips and dust and the rest of the toys from the sculpture — the guy I spoke to got a big kick out of hari-kari Ken — but no black book. According to Skaggs, nothing changed hands between Radovic and the bikers, which by itself wouldn't be enough to convince me of anything. But the fact that people went to the trouble of burglarising the boat means they were still looking. So either they found it or Radovic stashed it somewhere clever and it's still around."

A sudden rush of cold air blew in from the south. Milo tightened his tie, and both of us buttoned our jackets. The sky had darkened to charcoal splashed with indigo and coral. The hawk became a faint black crescent, then disappeared. And all around, a primeval silence.

"I can just see it," said Milo. "The golden arches'll be over there, right next to the Taco Bell, which'll be belly to belly with Ye Olde Bitter Canyon Souvenir Shoppe — wiseass postcards and plastic models of the power plant. Progress."

I got caught up in his imagery, visualising high concrete towers jutting brazenly out of the low, silent hills, the modular claws of a prefab town strangling the solitude. Then I remembered something Heather Cadmus had told me.

"Milo, Jamey and Chancellor met at a party thrown by Dwight Cadmus for the money people behind a Cadmus construction project. It was a large-scale deal, and Chancellor was a major investor. Be interesting to find out what that project was, wouldn't it? And the exact nature of Chancellor's involvement."

His eyes widened with interest.

"Very." He laced his hands behind his neck and thought out loud. "Which means getting access to all of Chancellor's financial records. Which, on top of being a major procedural hassle because it would give chest pains to plenty of biggies, would have to go through Dickie Cash — Chancellor's bank's in Beverly Hills. Given Cash's level of industriousness, count on at least a month. And if he's in on it, Whitehead'll have to be, too. Along with all our so-called superiors, which in Trapp's case is a gross inaccuracy. You met those guys, Alex. Far as they're concerned, the Slasher case is solved. They're gonna be real enthusiastic about dealing with this."

"Radovic's murder doesn't bother them?"

"Radovic is a throwaway, a three F: Find it; file it; fuck it. Quoth Charming Cal to Dickie when I wasn't supposed to be listening: 'The faggot was lucky. This was faster than AIDS. Har-har.'"

He grimaced. "Must be nice to be that concrete, huh? Put everything in neat little cubbyholes."

"I think I can find out about the project," I said, "without going public."

When I told him how, he was pleased.

"Good. Do it. If you get something, we'll dig deeper."

He looked at his watch.

"Better be getting back."

"One more thing," I said. "I know you're convinced of Jamey's guilt, but it wouldn't hurt to consider other alternatives."

"You got some, toss 'em at me."

"For one, someone should be taking a closer look at Canyon Oaks Hospital. The night Jamey escaped no one was at the desk. Maybe that kind of incompetence is typical, but maybe it's not. The nurse in charge had piled up lots of debts. She quit soon after Jamey was arrested and left town with a brand-new car."

He smiled faintly.

"Been doing a bit of detecting?"

"A bit."

"What's her name?" he asked, pulling out his notepad.

"Andrea Vann. She's a divorcee travelling with a little boy." I gave him the Panorama City address.

"What kind of car'd she buy?"

"Mustang."

"I'll run a trace on the registration, see what comes up. Anything else?"

"Mainwaring. He has a reputation for being pliable when it comes to a buck. Not a bad choice if you wanted to stash someone away with no questions asked. He bent the rules by letting the Cadmuses bring in their own nurse. Could be he bent a few more."

"You talked to the guy. Did you pick up anything iffy?"

"No," I admitted. "His treatment wasn't particularly creative, but it was adequate."

"Anything you would have done that he didn't?"

"I would have talked more to Jamey, attempted to get a picture of what was going in on inside his head — which isn't to say that I would have succeeded. But Mainwaring didn't even try. Jamey had consistent hallucinations. Months before he was committed he was saying the same things as he was the night he called me. Someone more open-minded might have been curious about it." I paused. "Or maybe Mainwaring knew and chose to suppress it."

Milo raised his eyebrows.

"Now you're talking conspiracy, my friend."

"Just throwing stuff out."

"Let's get back to these consistent hallucinations. What did Cadmus talk about besides glass canyons?"

"He used the word stink a lot. The earth was stinking and bleeding. Rankstink. Bloody plumes. White zombies. Needle games."

He waited a few moments.

"Anything else?"

"Those are the most repetitive elements."

"Any of it meaningful to you?"

"Now that I know about the power plant, I suppose there could be an ecological flavour to it — bleeding the earth, stink as a symbol for pollution."

"How does 'needle games' fit in with that?"

"Needle games and miles of tubing," I recalled. "When I first heard it, I thought he was expressing his fear of treatment. Of course, back then I thought 'glass canyon' meant the hospital."

"What about 'plumes' and 'zombies'?"

"I don't know."

He waited awhile before asking:

"That it?"

When I nodded, he put the notepad away.

"I don't know," I said, "maybe Mainwaring's right and I'm over interpreting. Maybe it's just crazy talk that doesn't mean a damn thing."

"Who knows?" said Milo. "Over the years I've learned to respect your intuition, pal. But I don't want to raise any unrealistic expectations. You're a long way from restoring Cadmus's virginity."

"Forget virginity. I'd settle for the truth."

"Sure of that?"

"Not really."

When I walked through the door, Robin gave me a mischievous smile.

"A sweet young thing named Jennifer has been calling every half hour."

I kissed her and took off my jacket.

"Thanks. I'll call her after dinner."

"Dinner is pizza and a salad from Angelino's. Is she as cute as she sounds?"

"Absolutely. She's also a former… student. And seventeen years old."

Pretending to count on her fingers, she said:

"Less than half your age."

"Now that's a grim thought."

She came over and nuzzled my ear.

"That's okay. I'll still love you when you're old and grey." She touched my hair. "Greyer."

"Gee, thanks."

"So tell me, do all your former students call you Alex in that breathlessly eager way?"

"Only the cute ones."

"Swine."

She bit down on the ear.

"Ouch."

She drew away, laughing.

"I'm putting the pizza in the oven and taking a bath while it warms. Here's Jenny-poo's number. Why don't you call her, Alex, and when you've worked yourself up sufficiently, come in and join me?"

Handing me the number, she sashayed away.

I dialled and got Mrs. Leavitt.

"Oh, you just missed her! But she should be back in a couple of hours."

"I'll try back later."

"Please do, Doctor. I know she wants to talk to you."

I heard the bath water running. There was another call I wanted to make, and I went into the library and leafed through the Rolodex.

Unsure whether Lou Cestare was still wooing fat cats on The Incentive or back at the Willamette Valley estate, I dialled the yacht and got a taped message to call Oregon. The Willamette number was another tape, informing me that it was after hours but that in case of emergency Mr. Cestare could be reached through a beeper code. I punched the code and was connected to a preschool voice.

"Hello, this is Brandon Gestare. Who is this, please?"

"Hello, Brandon. My name is Alex. May I please talk to your dad?"

"Are you a client?"

"Yes. My name is Alex."

"Hi, Alex."

"Hi. Is your dad there?"

"He's in the bathroom."

"How about your mom?"

"She's breast-feeding Hillary."

"Oh. How old are you, Brandon?"

"Five and a half?"

"Do you know how to write?"

"Just printing."

"If I spell my name, could you print it on a piece of paper and give it to your dad when he gets out of the bathroom?"

"Yes. Let me get a piece of—"

The end of his sentence was cut off by Lou's voice ("Who is it, Bran?… Thanks, tiger… No, that's all right, I'll talk to him… What?… No, you don't have — Brandon, it's not necessary. I've — okay, okay, don't get upset, sure, let me explain it to him.").

Cestare came to the line, chuckling.

"It's Lou, Alex. Brandon insists on writing your name down."

"Put him on." I laughed.

The boy returned and said, "What's the letters?"

I dictated my name, and he read it back to me.

"Perfect. Brandon. Now, could you please give it to your dad?"

"Yeah. He's right here."

"Thanks. Bye."

"Bye."

"Hi again," said Cestare.

"You've got a conscientious staff, Lou."

"Train 'em young. What's up?"

"I need some information on a recent bond issue. The Bitter Canyon Power Plant."

"Good bond, but you've got enough long term in your portfolio."

"I'm not interested in buying, just in finding out some of the details."

"What kinds of details?"

"Some background on the issue. Who bought into it in a big way."

Sudden wariness crept into his voice.

"Why do you want to know this?"

"It's related to a case I'm working on."

That silenced him for a moment.

"What does psych have to do with a power plant?"

"I'm not free to get into that, Lou."

"You know something about the issue that I should?"

"No. I—"

"Because I'm into it sufficiently heavy to get burned if something goes wrong. If there's even the slightest nuance of a problem, I want to know about it. Right now."

"Is it a shaky issue?"

"Hello, no. It's a triple A-rated, MBIC-insured." He paused. "But so were the Washington Power bonds. The whole damned investment business is based on faith. And considering the debacles of the last few years, it doesn't take much to shake the faith. If there's going to be a sudden sell on Bitter Canyon, I want to be at the head of the line. Now, what's your connection to it?"

"I can't tell you, Lou."

"I don't believe this! You call me at home in order to pump me and then refuse to tell me why. Alex, you and I—"

"Lou, this has nothing to do with finance. I haven't heard anything even hinting the bond's in trouble. Fact is, I don't know a damn thing about it. It's the people behind it that I'm interested in."

"Which people?"

"Ivar Digby Chancellor, Beverly Hills Trust. The Cadmus family. Any connections between them."

"Oh. That case."

"That case."

"What's your connection with it?"

"Defence consultant."

"Not guilty by reason of insanity?"

"Something like that."

"From what I hear you've got your work cut out for you. Kid's supposed to be really crazy."

"You get that from the Wall Street Journal?"

"The financial whiz grapevine. Anytime a major corporation's involved in something nasty, we money types make it our business to assess the impact."

"And?"

"And the general consensus is that the impact is zilch. If the kid had control of the corporation and planned to turn the lake into a giant Jacuzzi, there might be something to worry about. But in his condition that's hardly likely, is it?"

"Hardly."

"Something the matter, Alex?"

"No. About Chancellor—"

"Gay as a blade but a smart fellow and a hell of an arm twister — the right combination of creativity, caution, and cojones. Beverly Hills Trust is one of the strongest small banks on the West Coast. Chancellor took good care of his depositors. Put through enough smart deals to beat the big boys on interest rates without overextending himself. Made money the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it and watering it until it grew nice and tall. If you're rich enough, you can get away with liking young boys and wearing eye shadow. What else do you want to know?"

"Was he involved in setting up the Bitter Canyon deal?"

"Most probably. As a skid greaser. He'd been dealing with the Cadmuses for years and had plenty of clout with the Water and Power boys, so his influence could only be salutary. But his major involvement was when it came to buying. BHT was a major purchaser of the initial short-term serials. I remember that because by the time the offering came out, all the serials had been snapped up. I was curious who got them and did a little research. He also bought into the long terms. Let me move to the phone by the computer, and I'll punch in the data."

He put me on hold and returned in a moment.

"Okay. I'm calling it up right now Bitter Canyon Consolidated System Power Revenue Bonds, Series of 1987 — here we are. It's a state bond, not a muni, because there's no municipality of Bitter Canyon yet. We're talking seventy-five million dollars in revenue — fifteen thousand lots of five-thousand dollar bonds at par. Eighteen million were in serials maturing from 1988 through 2000, staggered toward the end; the rest, in long terms: one-third twenty-year maturities; one-third, twenty-fives; and one, thirties. Nineteen million each."

"What was Chancellor's buy-in?"

"Wait a sec. I've got that on another file. Okay, here it is. Now, this isn't rock solid precise 'cause there may have been some under-the-table trading, but it's pretty damn close. According to my data, BHT snapped up ten million of the serials — including the shortest terms, which were the most desirable — and another ten in long terms. That's through the bank. Chancellor may have bought more for himself personally, but it'd be difficult to trace that."

I calculated mentally.

"Over a quarter of the total. Isn't that a big purchase for a small bank?"

"Sure is. It's also atypical for any bank to get that heavily involved in long terms, especially considering the downward trend of the bond market over the last few decades. But Chancellor was known as someone who bought aggressively when he believed in something. No doubt he figured to sell at a premium in the secondary market."

"How'd he get such a large share?"

"The Cadmuses and the government gave him the inside track because a big buy by BHT was mutually beneficial. When a savvy investor demonstrates that kind of confidence in an issue, it raises the general level of enthusiasm."

"Where did the rest go?"

"The serials were evenly distributed among several major financial institutions: other banks; savings and loans; brokerage houses; insurance companies. As were a healthy chunk of the long terms, with a little left over for a few eagle-eyed independents such as yours truly."

"Sounds like a hot issue."

"Red-hot. By the end of order-taking period all of it was gone. What does that have to do with defending the Cadmus kid?"

"Probably nothing. Let me ask you one more thing: Could a prior agreement by Chancellor to buy large numbers of bonds influence approval of the issue itself?"

"As a guarantee? Sure. If there'd been initial feasibility issues regarding the project, it couldn't hurt to have a major supplier of project revenues lined up a priori. But that wasn't the case with Bitter Canyon, Alex. The reason it was a hot issue was that the setup was a sweet deal all around. The Cadmus family's owned the land since the war. They bought it dirt cheap from the army and could afford to sell it back at a very substantial discount and still make a whopping profit. That profit, in turn, enabled them to put in a highly competitive bid to build the plant. And I do mean highly. That allowed the bond's interest to come out at half a point to a point over market. These days that's a hell of a lot, and since everyone's projecting lower rates in the foreseeable future, the premium could be juicy."

"One hand washing the other."

"Exactly. It makes the world go 'round."

"I've heard there was some opposition. Conflict-of-interest questions."

"Nothing substantial. Some of the other construction companies tried to raise a fuss, but it died in the back rooms. Most of them weren't big enough to put together a project of that size. The two companies that were couldn't come close to competitive bids. Pushing the objection would have raised the risk of a public outcry over expense padding — which they're all guilty of — and major delays. The surrounding municipalities and DWP wanted the project to be approved quickly and were exerting pressure to speed things up. Being seen as obstructionist would have been a major liability, politically speaking."

"Make waves and forget future contracts."

"A little more subtle than that, but you've got the general idea. Politically speaking, this was easy street, Alex — no Sierra Club types screaming about sacred cactus, high rates of local unemployment. Going to be lots of smiling faces when they break ground."

"When's that supposed to happen?"

"Early next year. Right on schedule."

"And Chancellor's death has had no effect?"

"Why should it? Sure, people are going to be looking at who takes over the bank. If it's a moron, you're going to see a slow, steady trickle of withdrawals — nothing sudden, because everyone gets hurt in a run. But that's an internal issue that has nothing to do with Bitter Canyon. Or the bonds."

"What could affect the project?"

"Nothing smaller than your basic act of God — always nice to blame Him when things go wrong isn't it? The lake evaporates overnight; Cadmus Construction turns socialist and converts to a macramé factory — I don't like the tone of this conversation. What the hell are you getting at, Alex?"

"I don't know, Lou. I really don't."

"Listen, I don't want to come across hysterical, but let me explain my position. In general, I stay away from bonds. Both for myself and in managing portfolios. Historically they haven't performed well, and at best you're protecting your flanks. But I have some clients who insist on them: conservative types like you and fools who are so rich they've deluded themselves that they have enough money. So I keep my eye out for good issues and buy in quickly. It doesn't happen often, but Bitter Canyon was one of those times, and I got in heavily. So far I've made a lot of people happy with it. But if it slides, those same people are going to be very unhappy. Murderously so. No matter that last year I was Midas. One mistake and I'm as popular as Arafat at the B'nai B'rith. All those years of charisma building down the proverbial crapper."

"Like I said, Lou, I haven't heard anything. If I do, I'll call you."

"You do that," he said fiercely. "Collect. Twenty-four hours a day."