The Museum of Desire

Chapter 6

When we returned to the car, noon had passed. “Next closest is Mr. Roget. I’ll try his number.”

No answer, no voicemail. Milo started up the engine. “Damn. If he lives alone, I’ll need a victim’s warrant.”

He drove east on Arizona.

I said, “If there’s no one to talk to, maybe Leon Creech can help.”

“Why him?”

“They’re both older guys who drove livery independently.”

We’d met Creech last year, the driver of a hundred-year-old victim as well as her murderers. Informative, courtly, professional.

“Leon, there’s a gent for you,” said Milo.

“It’s worth a try.”

“Sure, why not, but first let’s see if Solomon Roget lives with someone I can traumatize.”

He didn’t.

No answer at Roget’s first-floor flat in a well-kept Spanish duplex on Hi-Point north of Olympic. A single vehicle sat far up a driveway that had been swept clean recently, under a gray canvas cover. Generous vacant space behind it. Enough for Roget’s limo.

Milo lifted a canvas corner. Black Cadillac.

“Wait here for a second.” He walked around the left side of the building, disappeared for a few seconds, returned. “No one in the backyard, no answer at the service door. I’ll push paper once we’re through spreading gloom.”

As he turned to leave, the door to the second-floor unit opened. A young, sweat-suited blond woman with a left-arm sleeve tattoo stepped out to the landing. In her arms was a swaddled baby. Long, stringy hair, droopy fatigued eyes.

“Hi,” said Milo.

“What’s going on?”

“Police.”

“For him?” said the woman. “Oh, shit, don’t tell me he’s a bad guy or something. We just moved in.”

“You’re talking about Mr. Roget.”

“Don’t know his name, just that he gets to keep two cars in the driveway ’cause the landlord likes him so we have to pay for a night permit.” She pointed to a dusty red minivan across the street.

“Tough deal,” said Milo. “Mr. Roget live with anyone?”

The woman’s eyes rounded. “He is a bad guy?”

“Not at all,” said Milo. “Does he live alone?”

“Why?”

“Something bad happened to him.”

“Oh.” Unimpressed.

“Anybody live with him?”

She shrugged. The baby bounced. “Never saw anyone.”

“How long have you been living here?”

“A month,” she said. “It’s not fair. The parking thing.”

“Big problem for you,” said Milo.

“I mean, is that legal?”

“Don’t see why not.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open. Milo headed for the car, muttering: “Milk of human kindness.”

When she thought we weren’t looking, she flipped us off. Or maybe she didn’t care.

No answer at Leon Creech’s house, either.

Milo pulled out his cell. “Happen to remember the street?”

I said, “Wooster.”

He stared at me. “I was kidding. You remember everything that goes into that brain of yours?”

“I try to filter.”

“Not even gonna ask. Let’s cruise by.”

Creech’s mint-grin stucco traditional was one of the few single dwellings on a block of duplexes and apartment buildings. He owned the property, a traditionalist holding out.

We spotted him from a hundred yards away, dusting off his navy-blue Town Car. Tall, stooped, a human crane, filmy white hair flying away as he worked. Dressed for something important in an olive-green cardigan over a pink golf shirt, immaculate seersucker pants, white New Balance running shoes.

Concentrating on the car, stepping back to check his reflection in the paint.

We parked and crossed the street. Milo said, “Mr. Creech.”

“Lieutenant! Long time.”

“How’s everything been going?”

“Passed my driving test with flying colors.” Creech gave a thumbs-up. “When I see you it reminds me I served, too. Brings back my MP days in Seoul.”

Same thing he’d mentioned the first time we interviewed him.

“And, Doctor, how are you?”

“Fine.”

“That’s good. So what’s up? Another idjit doing something criminal? Not at that dump, the Aventura, they closed it down, got cranes digging up everything.”

“Nope, somewhere else, sir. Do you know a livery driver named Solomon Roget?”

“Solly? What’s up—” Creech’s lips quivered. His long face lost definition. “Oh, no.”

“Afraid so, Mr. Creech.”

“Solly?” said Creech. He touched his chest. “Oh, my my. Solly and I go way back, he was driving when I was still working for the school district. Solly Roget? Really? Haitian, salt of the earth, couldn’t find a nicer guy. When? Where?”

“Yesterday, a house in Bel Air.”

“Bel Air? Like a Manson thing? Where in Bel Air? I used to drive there. Mrs. Meldock, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Robertson, I was the guy for the ladies who lunched.”

Milo said, “Off Benedict Canyon.”

“Not that big one, looks like an office building, you have to take off your shoes even in the motor court — the agent... Mort Medvedev?”

“No, sir.”

“Where, then?”

“Sorry, can’t give out details just yet, Mr. Creech. When’s the last time you saw Mr. Roget?”

“The last time.” Creech tapped his lower lip. “The last time would have to be... couple of years ago? Yeah, two summers ago, some violinist. At the Bowl. We were both doing a drive-and-wait, got put in parking spots right next to each other.”

“In your Town Cars.”

“What else?”

“Yesterday, Mr. Roget was driving a white stretch—”

“That monstrosity? Oh, boy.” Creech’s palm slapped his own cheek lightly. “Piece of garbage, you can’t get axle stability in something that big. Unless you build it like a semi and then it’s too stiff for livery. No resale value, Solly picked it up cheap a long time ago. I told him don’t go there, my friend, the kind of people want to ride something like that you don’t want to know. Guess I was right. Who were the customers? They the ones who did it?”

Milo said, “Doesn’t look like they were.”

“What then, a robbery?”

“It’s complicated, sir. We’re just starting out and trying to get to know Mr. Roget.”

“Been two years but I don’t see Solly changing from the way he was when I knew him. A sweeter guy you’d never meet. You ask me, that was part of his problem. Too nice. Got taken advantage of.”

“By who?”

“Customers passing bad checks — him taking checks, period, was naive. Not getting everything up front.”

“You know all this because—”

“He told me. At the Bowl. We had plenty of time to talk. I brought snacks, he also did. We snacked and talked. So were they lowlifes, the passengers?”

“We’re still gathering information, Mr. Creech.”

“You want, Lieutenant, you can give me names, I’ll see if they ring a bell.”

“You and Solly shared clients?”

“No, but people who use drivers use drivers.”

“Okay,” said Milo, “but please keep the names to yourself.”

“Promise. Shoot.”

“Richard Gurnsey.”

“Nope.”

“Benson Alvarez.”

“Nope. We talking gay guys?”

“Don’t seem to be.”

“Just two guys in the back of a super-stretch,” said Creech. “Doing what?”

“There was a woman, too, we don’t know who she is.”

“A hooker?” said Creech. “An orgy?”

“No, sir. Like I said we’re just starting out, Mr.—”

“Sorry, sorry, Lieutenant, I’m just upset.” Creech patted his chest again. The precise spot that roofed his heart. He winced.

“You okay, sir?”

“Me? I’m fine. I’m just... this is hard to hear, guy like Solly. Easygoing — what the kids call laid-back. Nothing bothered him. His snacks were Haitian. He made them himself, didn’t have a woman to cook for him. Cornbread, that I liked. Some kind of meatball, frankly, too spicy. I gave him potato chips and apple slices. We had a pleasant time and could hear the music in the parking lot.”

I said, “Do you know anything about his family?”

“I know he had one,” said Creech. “Couple of kids, living in Florida. One’s some kind of doctor, the other’s... I think also. Son and daughter, he was proud of them. Whole family came from Haiti on boats, worked their way up, Solly’s wife cleaned rooms. Then she died.”

Creech’s voice caught. “He had it rough. But you’d never know it, always smiling.”

“How did he get clients?”

“What do you mean?”

“We haven’t found a website.”

“I have one,” said Creech, with sudden pride. “Did it last year, move into the new age. But it’s a half-half deal. You get more clients but not always high-quality and then they rate you. The kids, they don’t even know how to tip, to them it’s Uber.” Uttering the last word as if it were a disease. “Nowadays you sell a cookie at a counter, you get a tip. You drive idjits all night, you don’t. That make sense?”

I shook my head. “So if Solly had no website—”

“I asked him that, he told me he did the tear-offs. Those things on bulletin boards, little fringies with flaps? You tear them off, they’ve got a phone number.”

Milo said, “That’s it?”

“When we were at the Bowl, that’s what he had.”

“Where did he hang his tear-offs?”

“Beats me,” said Creech. “My opinion was, not smart. I told him at the time. Anyone can rip off a free piece of paper, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Am I right? You’re here, so obviously I am.”

“Obviously, you are, sir.”

“Yeah,” said Creech. “But here’s the thing, I don’t want to be.”