Wildcase - [Rail Black 02] Read online

  * * * *

  WildCase

  [Rail Black 02]

  By Neil Russell

  Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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  1

  Ashes and Badges

  Just coming out of the Cajon Pass, a goddamn stop sign came hurtling out of the darkness and whanged across my hood. At the speed I was traveling, it sounded like a manhole cover, not to mention the divot it dug. Somewhere a Rolls-Royce paint salesman smiled.

  The road to Vegas is always busy. Even in the middle of the night. And when the high desert winds are blowing, it’s deadly. Dodging fishtailing big rigs in blinding sand is as much fun as lights-out in a Turkish prison. The only thing that could make it worse is if you’ve had one too many and haven’t slept since the day before yesterday. As the actress once said, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?”

  LAPD Deputy Chief Yale Maywood had suggested I follow him in my car because he didn’t know when he’d be able to free up somebody to run me back to town. That gave the attitude-infused cop chauffeuring him the opportunity to make it as difficult as possible. Dancing steel and machine-gun-velocity debris screamed, “Slow down, asshole!” but he kept banging along at ninety, and I had to do the same to keep the city-issue Crown Vic in sight. Eventually, traffic began to thin, making the unmarked sedan a little easier to see, and the right-to-left hurricane steadied enough that I didn’t have to keep jerking the steering wheel a quarter turn into it.

  My day hadn’t started any better ...

  * * * *

  Woody Allen likes to say, “I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Having been close a few times, I’m with Woody. Unfortunately, when it comes to people I care about, too often I’ve drawn the short straw. This time it was Bert Rixon.

  We stood on the aft deck of my yacht, the Sanrevelle, and looked into the clear, noontime sky, the gusting breeze threatening to blow into something bigger. I’d double-checked the coordinates with the Neptune Society before we’d left Newport Beach, so I knew we were in the right place. Hopefully, they’d given the air charter the same information. Under normal circumstances, I’d have asked my own pilot, Eddie Buffalo, and his usual right-seater, Jody Miller, to do the ash drop in Jody’s Stearman, but Eddie was in New Orleans handling some business for his mother, and Jody was showing off his plane at a Wisconsin air show.

  Bert had picked this spot himself, halfway between Catalina and San Nicolas Islands. It was where he’d been fishing when Brittany had finally agreed to marry him. At the time, he’d been battling a twenty-pound barracuda, so he’d been a little distracted and hadn’t quite caught what she said until she reached over the transom and cut his line with his brand-new Microtech knife, which she then proceeded to drop. That’s Brittany’s trademark. If she’s on a boat, she’s going to lose something over the side. Glassware, bracelets, hats, who knows how many shoes, and one time, two pieces of a sectional sofa—but since she’d been trying to throw them at Bert, they may not count.

  The proposal and lost knife had been eight years ago. She’d been twenty-three, and fresh off the Laker Girls roster with a torn labrum, her place taken by a nineteen-year-old centerfold who wasn’t likely to surrender it after Brittany rehabbed. Bert Rixon was a newly minted triple centimillionaire, not yet out of his thirties, who’d sold his cutting-edge prosthesis business to a private equity firm, then pissed them off to the point that they barred him from the offices.

  The ALS diagnosis had come last year, and the doctor had given Bert eighteen months. He’d been an optimist. It took nine. The last two . . . well, some things are better left unsaid.

  Now, all five-three of the Widow Rixon was huddled against me, and even though the sun was warm, I felt her trembling. Rhonda Champion stood at the railing with her new husband, Oscar, a reality show producer who was minting money on one of the chick networks with something called Let’s Go Buy a Purse. Somehow, I kept forgetting to TiVo it. Rhonda and I had once been involved, and it didn’t end smoothly. She does interior design, mostly on yachts, which is how she met Oscar, and he went head over heels for her, something you wish for everyone.

  There were a dozen others on deck, craning their necks, looking for the plane, most fellow boaters from the Dolphin Bay Yacht Club. As usual, the majority were wearing my sunglasses. When you own a boat, you keep extra shades around, and I’d found this little company, Zeal, that had smart designs and grasped the concept that people come with different face shapes. I ordered an assortment to keep in a tray in the salon. Only now, when guests arrive, the first thing they do is put their own glasses in their pockets and grab mine. The day somebody returns a pair, a gong’s going to go off, and a duck will come down and hand them a check for ten grand.

  Mallory, my very British houseman and best friend, was on the fly bridge, keeping the Benetti from bumping around too much in the chop. At 102 feet, it’s more boat than I need; more even than I wanted. It was custom-built for one of the NBA’s premiere big men who liked the same colors I do—red and black—but suddenly found himself playing in Europe for a tenth of his former salary. When you’re my size and find a doorway that doesn’t leave knots on your forehead, you buy it. If it’s surrounded by a beautiful piece of machinery, so much the better.

  My watch said 12:21, more correctly Bert’s watch. A black and gold Rolex with a little too much going on with the dial for my taste. Normally, I don’t wear jewelry of any kind, but the week before he died, Bert handed it to me with tears in his eyes. He tried to say something, but his throat muscles had lost their ability to make words, so I put it on and thanked him. My plan was to toss it in a drawer when I got home, but Bert had had the Rolex’s bracelet replaced with a simple, black alligator strap, which I found unusually comfortable. I left it on, and now, as I felt Brittany’s fingers brush over it, I was glad I had.

  I heard the plane before I saw it. The pilot was coming right out of the sun, so we had to wait until he banked to get a glimpse. I’d asked him to make a low pass over the Sanrevelle first, and he took me literally. He couldn’t have been more than ten feet over the deck when he went by, and that close, even a single-engine Cessna looks large. I could see the two men inside. They were young and clearly happy to be flying on a travel-poster day. I couldn’t blame them.

  The prop wash combined with the wind blew some expensive hair around, and I heard an agonized female voice cry out, “What the fuck?” which would have amused Bert no end. Then the Cessna climbed back to a thousand feet and made another approach. I heard the engine slow and saw an arm extend out the passenger side. The sun caught the ashes as they spread. They looked like tiny pieces of silver . . . drifting . . . swirling . . . And then it was over. The pilot kicked the plane back to speed and turned toward the mainland. Brittany buried her face in my jacket.

  * * * *

  “Rail. . . Rail Black . . . you come out here right now!”

  The words were alcohol-slurred and the voice familiar. I was in the Sanrevelle’s salon with Emilio, the yacht club chef, and his significant other, Tenelle, sous chef at the Montage, trying to wrangle an invitation for dinner. I ignored the interruption the first time, but it got louder, and profanity was added, so I excused myself and threaded my way through the crowd just as the Brazilian band came back from a break.

  Bert had planned the party, all the way down to who couldn’t come—a longer list than those who could—but it was an uneasy fun we were having. Every person aboard had cared deeply about him, even when he was being an asshole, and the small talk was manufactured and the dancing halfhearted. Then Brittany had gotten too drunk too fast and made something of a scene with one of the musicians. She was in my bed now, sle
eping it off, and I didn’t expect to hear from her until well into tomorrow. But it takes the edge off a memorial when the widow does a lap dance on the drummer.

  As I stepped onto the aft deck, Rhonda was swaying uneasily and holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and a glass in the other. The Santa Ana winds had kicked up strong and driven everybody else inside. While her hair blew wildly, and her dress fought against modesty, she took a slug of Brut, then tried to refill the glass and missed. “Well, fuck it anyway if you won’t hold still,” she said and threw the offending vessel over the side. If she was intending to hit water, she missed by 180 degrees, and I heard glass shatter on the concrete dock.

  She was now drinking from the bottle, and based on the two staggering steps she took backward as she raised it, this wasn’t going to be her first empty. The problem was that, unlike Brittany, Rhonda could pound it all night and not pass out. She either got passionate or belligerent, and sometimes both. I looked around for Oscar, but she set me straight. “Cocksucker left. Said I could fuck my way home.” She grinned crookedly. “I told him I didn’t have to cause I was just gonna fuck you and stay. After all, you’re no stranger to this pussy, are you?”

  Wonderful. Just wonderful. So much for grabbing a couple of beers and some bonito fishing with the new husband. “How about I get somebody at the club to run you home, Rhonda? Maybe you can get there in time for makeup sex.”

  “I can have all the makeup sex I want without going a step past that big-ass mattress of yours. Now, come here, Mr. Black.” She was loud enough now that pretty much everyone was drifting in our direction to see what the commotion was.

  She advanced toward me, unsteady, but undaunted. With her free hand, she reached over her head and unclipped the back of her little black dress. There was no graceful way to handle this, so as she fumbled with the zipper, I plucked the champagne bottle out of her hand and swept her up in my right arm. She threw her head back and shouted at the stars. “I’m gonna ride you until I can’t walk.”

  Taking a couple of long strides, I cleared her feet over the transom and dropped her, leveraging her far enough out so she wouldn’t hit the ship on the way down. It was a good fifteen-foot plunge. Time enough for her to get off a, “You motherfucker!” before the splash.

  I was suddenly very tired, and as the crowd began meandering back inside, I made my way along the railing to the pilothouse. Mallory was seated in one of the captain’s chairs, holding court with a couple of good-looking women whose husbands were talking navigation equipment.

  “I’m going to walk up to the club and get a room,” I said. “Tomorrow, I want to run down to Dana Point for a couple of hours; then we can head back to Beverly Hills.”

  “What about Mrs. Rixon? Will she be okay alone?”

  “I’ll ask her if she wants to go with us, but my guess is, she’ll pass. She needs to find her way through this, and her support network is right here.”

  I saw Mallory’s eyes drift beyond me and through the windshield. I turned. Two young men in suits were coming down the pier. They might as well have had signs around their necks. A couple of very junior plainclothesmen, hoping someday to make detective, but now just equal parts grandstand and nervousness. I stepped outside, and they looked up but kept walking until they got to the portable wooden staircase that led up to my deck. I watched them pick their way past a young couple locked in a heavy embrace, and a few seconds later, they were standing in front of me.

  “You Black?” one of them said out of the corner of his mouth. I think he was trying to sound like Lenny Briscoe, but when you’re a fast twenty-four with a pimple on your nose and chewing gum, it doesn’t have the same impact.

  “It’s gotta be him,” his partner said. “They said he’s bigger than hell.”

  “Either of you ever been on a boat before?” I asked.

  The question seemed to confuse them, so I waited until Mr. Wrigley came up with an answer. “My old man used to go fishing up at Big Bear. Had a little aluminum job. Why?”

  I looked at his partner. “You?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Well, the first thing you do is ask permission to come aboard. The second, you don’t scuff up my deck with leather soles.”

  They both involuntarily looked at their feet. The one guy mumbled, “Sorry,” but Gum Boy wasn’t on the same page. He flashed his badge and gave me a stare he must have practiced in the mirror. There are two things that really frost my ass. One is post office clerks going on break when there’s a line, and the other is the I’m-a-cop-and-you’re-not attitude of about 10 percent of every force in America. The ones who look at a soccer mom with a carload of six-year-olds, and say, “I know she’s dirty, she just hasn’t made a mistake yet.”

  When you see it, you can make book that, growing up, the guy was a bully. He also isn’t going to heal. For the doubters, drop by a cop convention. It’ll take less time than it took to park your car to find the go-ahead-make-my-day crowd. They’ll be hanging together, grabbing their nuts in front of women, and talking loud. Even other cops don’t want to be around them.

  I looked at the badge, then at its owner. “You’re thirty miles outside your jurisdiction, Junior.” Then I turned and went back into the pilothouse.

  It took about ten seconds for him to follow me, but I reached out and closed the door in his face. While the two couples watched in silence, I turned my back on the glass and told Mallory that Rhonda was going to need some dry clothes and a ride home. A couple of moments later, I heard the cops walking back along the deck, then saw them striding up the pier, the jerk waving his arms and talking loudly to his partner while the wind whipped their hair and suit coats.

  Five minutes later, a middle-aged, uniformed officer wearing all the brass in the world came down the same way. I knew him. Yale Maywood. A good man, a legendary cop. I stepped back on deck, and he stopped just below.

  “Evening, Yale.”

  “Sorry about the false start,” he said. “Thin recruiting class. We gotta pay bounties just to fill the ranks.”

  “That one’s gonna be a problem his whole career. Along about the fifth lawsuit, the ACLU’ll send you a plaque.”

  “Three more fuckin’ years, I’m fishin’ in the Ozarks.”

  “What can I do for you, Chief?”

  “Like you to take a ride with me.”

  “Can it wait till morning?”

  “If it could, I’d be fightin’ my Lab for a spot on the sofa.” I hesitated, and he added, “Chuck Brando’s dead. Lucille too.”

  * * * *

  2

  Voodoo and Victorville

  As the dark desert stretched out in front of me, I turned my thoughts to LAPD Homicide Capt. Charles Scott Brando, whose forty-second birthday party I had recently attended.

  Every year, my foundation gives a chunk of money to Blue Rescue. Whenever a cop or firefighter in LA County dies in the line of duty, BR pays off their mortgage. And if they’re renting, they buy the life partner a house. No publicity, no bows. It just happens. I can’t think of a better way to send people off to do a life-or-death job than for them to know that if it all goes to shit, their loved ones will have a roof.

  Chuck was on the board. My attorney, Jake Praxis, Hollywood’s gift to the Bone Crusher Hall of Fame, introduced us. Somebody had written a best seller about one of Chuck’s cases, and Paramount was pretending they never heard of him. That’s correct. If you do something noteworthy, and a story is published about it, it can be made into a movie without your getting paid. The writer gets a check, but not necessarily the guy who lived it. Producers don’t even have to tell you go to piss up a rope, but they like to anyway.

  To avoid a hassle, the studio usually offers you a nickel, and if you don’t get weepy over their generosity, they tell the screenwriter to change your name or ethnicity or composite you, and bingo, legally, you’re not depicted anymore. If the story’s big enough, and you’re so entwined in it that even the Hollywood sharks can’t figure ou
t how to separate you from events, they simply work from news stories, official documents and interviews and turn you into a cardboard figure. And good luck with a lawsuit over cardboard. That is, unless you can make noise. But it has to be the right kind of noise.

  Life story rights and technical advisor services are the mother’s milk of movies based on real events, but you can count on one hand the number of attorneys you want representing you in this rarefied air. For my money, you can count them on one finger, Jake Praxis, but that doesn’t keep every real estate and tax clown with a bar number from regularly getting civilians screwed six ways from Sunday. A wise man once said, “Everybody’s got two businesses: their own and show business.” A doctor sees something he doesn’t understand, he calls in a specialist. Lawyers? Take a look at the Senate.

  With Chuck, Paramount’s position was basically, there are a million cops out there who can tell us which gun goes with a brown suit, and we already own the book. If you don’t like what you see on-screen, take a number. And while you’re at it, go fuck yourself.