The Museum of Desire

Chapter 11

Beverly Hills High is a twenties-era French Normandy concoction sprawling across twenty prime acres that had once served as a racetrack. By three twenty Milo and I were parked near the main motor exit watching for either Shirin Amadpour’s one-year-old white Porsche Boxster or Todd Leventhal’s two-year-old black Dodge Challenger to emerge.

The Dodge was the first to show, snorting and bucking as it waited behind a silver BMW halted by a crossing guard.

Young male at the wheel, young female next to him. We followed as the car made its way north to Wilshire, turned left on Beverly Drive, and continued into the core of the Beverly Hills business district. Keeping two car lengths behind and being treated to a symphony of tailgating, jerky unsignaled lane changes, and braking so sudden it juddered the Challenger’s frame.

Milo said, “Stupid kid lives on the 600 block of Alpine but he’s driving for fun. Hopefully he won’t be pulled over by BHPD before he gets there.”

His hopes were fulfilled as the Challenger was allowed to continue its clueless journey past Santa Monica Boulevard and east on Carmelita Avenue.

I said, “Warren Zevon got the name for his song from this street.”

“Huh.” He liked Zevon’s music but wasn’t in the mood to fake interest.

The black car hooked a quick left at Alpine Drive and continued half a block before careening over the curb and landing in a driveway of a homely, square house faced with gray shingles. In Beverly Hills, seven million bucks.

The driver, smallish, ferret-faced, and sporting a blond fade hairdo, got out swinging a black backpack. Slamming his door he stood next to the car and thumbed his phone. The girl unfolded herself from the passenger side. Pretty and slim, taller than her companion, clutching an identical backpack. Both of them had on charcoal-colored T-shirts and jeans and matching polychrome sneakers. A sheet of black hair tickled an area two inches below the girl’s waist.

Out came her phone. Down went her eyes. Two sets of adolescent fingers worked manically.

Milo said, “Modern romance,” and bounded out of the Impala.

Neither kid noticed our approach. That level of space-out, as vulnerable as Benny Alvarez.

Did the future portend a planet teeming with easy victims?

Finally, when we were a foot away, the girl looked up. Huge brown eyes sparked with alarm.

Milo’s smiling “Hi, guys” made matters worse. Her mouth dropped open and she grabbed the boy’s arm. He kept scrolling. “Whuh?”

“Todd — look.”

Milo said, “Todd Leventhal? Shirin Amadpour? Glad we caught you. Lieutenant Sturgis, Homicide.”

The girl gasped and squeezed Leventhal’s skinny biceps.

He kept texting.

“Taw-odd!”

Harder squeeze. Leventhal’s gray eyes rose slowly, favoring us with a neutral stare. The cropped part of his hair was etched with rising thunderbolts. The top of the do was three inches of off-white straw. “Yeah, you called. What happened afterward at the party. No idea.”

“I’ll give you an idea,” said Milo. “Someone was killed at the house you rented.”

“Don’t know about it.”

“Yes, we don’t,” said Shirin Amadpour. “That sounds terrible but we just throw parties.”

Milo said, “It’s a regular thing for you guys?”

Leventhal shrugged.

Amadpour said, “Basically.”

“How often?”

“Three, four times a year.”

“Kind of a hobby?”

The question perplexed Amadpour. “I guess.”

Leventhal’s eyes slitted. “No way. We’re in it for the money.”

Milo said, “Capitalism at work.”

Amadpour said, “No, socialism — Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter.”

“What I’m telling you is we make money,” said Leventhal. “It’s business, okay? Forty bucks guys, twenty girls.” A glance at Amadpour. The smile a carnivore gets picking out a steak.

I said, “Girls pay less.”

“Ye-ah.” The unspoken word: stuuupid. “ ’Cause girls are worth more. They’re like a... guys come because a girls.”

Amadpour took that as praise and beamed.

Milo said, “The feminine mystique.”

“Huh?”

“So how many people showed up last Friday?”

Another shrug from Leventhal.

Amadpour said, “We didn’t count.”

“How about an estimate?”

Leventhal said, “Three hundred. Give or leave.”

Amadpour said, “Yeah.”

Milo said, “How much do you guys pay to rent the house?”

Leventhal said, “Why? You want to do competition?” Giggling at the thought.

“Just trying to get an overall picture, Todd.”

“We don’t know jack about what happened after.”

“I know but just for the report.”

“The report,” said Leventhal. He smirked. “They wanted seven I got ’em down to five.”

“Thousand or hundred?”

Both kids cracked up. Leventhal said, “You get a place for hundreds, let me know.”

Milo said, “See what you mean about bank.”

Amadpour said, “But we really basically do it for fun. And basically for practice.”

“Practice for what?”

“The future. I’m going to be an event planner and Todd’s going into finance.”

Leventhal shot her a peeved look. “You don’t know for sure what I’m doing because I don’t know for sure, I might be a sports agent.” His eyes dropped to his phone. An index finger tapped the side lovingly before touching the screen and lighting it up.

Milo said, “How about holding off for a sec.”

“Why?”

“We’re having a conversation.”

“That what this is?”

“Taw-odd! Be nice to them!”

Leventhal said, “What? They’re not being nice to us. They think we know something about what happened.”

Amadpour said, “No, they don’t.” To Milo: “You don’t think that, right? All we did was throw a party.”

Leventhal huffed.

I said, “Any problems at the party?”

Shirin Amadpour cocked a hip. Black hair swooshed. “Nope, it was totally perfect.”

Leventhal said, “We don’t have problems. We get the right people.”

“As staff or guests?”

“Both.”

Milo said, “How do you build your invitation list?”

“List?” The boy snickered. “Yeah, we make a stone list. Like the Babylonians with their hydroglyphics.”

Amadpour said, “We use the Sosh-Net. Like two days before.”

Leventhal said, “Everyone who comes, we want. We don’t, we use football players from the U. to tell them bye-bye.”

“We’re careful,” said Amadpour. Pouting. “We try really hard.”

Leventhal shot her a peeved look. “We don’t try, we succeed. The money keeps out you-know-who.”

Milo said, “Who?”

“Ha.”

I said, “Forty for guys, twenty for girls.”

“We might go forty-five next time. Even fifty.”

Amadpour said, “But probably keep the girls at twenty.”

Leventhal said, “Maybe twenty-five.”

I said, “So nothing unusual happened Friday?”

“Nah, Friday was easy-peasy,” said Leventhal. “Agency said no cars, there’s too much dirt on the property, which was cool, made it easier, the football players could filter at the street.”

“Anyone argue with them?”

“Nope.”

Amadpour said, “Where did the... you know happen?”

“Behind the house,” said Milo. “In a car.”

“Proves it,” said Leventhal, doing a little jig. “We didn’t have cars so we’re not responsible for what happened later.”

I said, “When was the party officially over?”

“Officially and unofficially is the same, dude. Two. Then me and her looked around and we were outta there by two thirty.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Anything,” said Leventhal. “There was nothing.”

Amadpour frowned. “It was kind of creepy. Being there, dark, the house was like a... it’s big.”

“The football dudes were also there,” said Leventhal.

“But then we were there by ourselves, Todd.”

“Whatever. There was nothing freaky.” His hand rose and grazed thunderbolts.

Amadpour said, “I thought it was creepy. That house, big and ugly and cold-like.”

“Whatever.” Leventhal hefted his backpack and looked at Milo. “We’ve got no responsibility except overall safety and security at an event we initiate and manage competently.”

Milo said, “That sounds pretty legalistic, Todd.”

Orthodontic grin. “My dad’s a lawyer and so is hers and they told us. Even though they still give us shit.”

“About what?”

“Making our own bank.” He nudged Amadpour. “They’re scared we’ll make so much we won’t need their asses.”

She said, “I’ll always need my parents.”

He said, “You never know. We could be kings of the world.”

“I’d be a queen.”

“It’s a metaphor.” Another grin. “From a movie.”

“Which one?”

“Forget.”

Milo said, “So what’d you guys do after you left?”

“We ate,” said Leventhal.

“Denny’s,” said Amadpour. “In Westwood.”

“Waffles and links,” said Leventhal.

“Tuna salad,” said Amadpour.

“Okay?” said Leventhal. “Can we go live our life?” His hand brushed Amadpour’s cheek. She colored at the jawline. Lifting his backpack, he began walking toward the gray house.

Milo said, “None of this seems to bother you, Todd.”

The boy stopped. Turned. “Why should it bother me?”

“The fact that a murder happened where you’d just thrown a party?”

Todd Leventhal looked as if he’d been spoken to in Albanian. “I don’t know who it happened to.”

Milo loped toward him and handed him a card. Leventhal held it to his skinny flank.

Amadpour took the time to read her card. Her lips moved. Homicide.

She said, “I’m so sorry for whoever it was.”

The two of them entered the house.

Milo said, “The Todd-ster’s a pretty cold dude, no?”

“Not the most charming lad.”

“Didn’t pick up any tells. You?”

“Nope.”

“Can’t think of any motive he’d have other than he’s cold.”

I said, “Despite his business skills, he probably isn’t smart enough to coordinate the level of the production we’re looking at. And why would he call attention to himself?”

“Production. That’s really stuck with you.”

“Hard to think of it as anything else.”

“This one, hard to think of anything, period.”

We drove back to the station. He said, “Story breaks tomorrow, meanwhile it’s time for you-know-what.”

“I don’t know what.”

“No progress? Take a meeting. I called it for nine a.m. tomorrow, me and the kids. Any chance you can make it?”

I checked my phone. “I was going to do something more amusing but sure.”

“What?”

“Stick hot pokers in my eyes.”

He laughed for a long time. Good to hear.