Beverly Hills Is Burning: A Rail Black Novel Page 2

  I caught up with it after a few feet, but when I resurfaced, Miss Jones was gone. I went back below to a spot where I thought she should be, but she wasn’t. I was furious with myself. A long time ago, I’d tasted the same fury. It had been a different sea, a different woman, but I’d been tested and found wanting. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  The light didn’t penetrate very far, so I had to make a guess. About fifteen feet further down, I caught a glimpse of a bare foot. I grabbed the ankle it was attached to and headed back to the top.

  She didn’t make it easy, kicking at me every stroke of the way. I reevaluated my earlier forensics. Probably some Cartel Charlie in there along with the booze—maybe a couple of huffs of meth to top it off. The way the best actresses are partying these days.

  I wondered how cool they’d think it was if they could see the filthy hands and sore-covered bodies on the creeps who handle the stuff on its way to their spa-pampered, organic-only bodies. Maybe watch some drug lord piss in the cocaine mash as a commentary on the DEA. Or a hepatitis-infected mule roll a wad of crystal in a leaf and stick it up his unwiped ass. It’s safer to lick a toilet at a truck stop. But with this crowd, nothing matters but the moment.

  This time, when we broke the surface, I didn’t take any chances. I clipped her on the chin with a hard right—maybe a little harder than I had to—and she went goodnight. I looked around for the Sanrevelle. She was a hundred yards away, but the Pacific was just as calm as I’d left it. Mr. Cooke had moved along to “Chain Gang.” I knew how he felt.

  I floated Miss Jones on her back again and removed her necklace so it wouldn’t bite any further into her neck. The choker of large blue diamonds was impressive but rendered inconsequential by the enormous marquise-cut stone hanging pendant-like against the hollow of her throat. It was large enough that my thumb and forefinger would barely have encircled it, and I couldn’t help but notice how heavy it was as I buttoned the piece into one front pocket of my cargo shorts and the Mag-Lite into the other.

  After sliding the lady’s shoulders up on my left hip, I cupped her chin and began taking long, smooth sidestroke pulls toward home. I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I heard a powerful engine coming fast. The likelihood of being run down was remote, but in the last few minutes, remote had become my middle name. I stopped and turned to check, and as I did, I heard yelling, then a pair of searchlights swept over us.

  The Orange County Sheriff’s rescue boats are the same kind the Coast Guard uses to interdict drug traffickers. They look like miniature red tugs, only they can do seventy and make a U-turn into their own wakes with enough Gs to leave your tonsils on the window. This one had three deputies wearing a lifejackets over their bulletproof vests strapped into its jet fighter seats.

  The fourth seat was occupied by a civilian—one of those skinny andros network television trots out as men these days. He had a sheriff’s department blanket over what was left of a tuxedo and was the one doing the screaming. If I hadn’t seen it was an XY chromosome, the soprano pitch wouldn’t have told me. “There she is! There she is! Oh, Dear Jesus, she’s dead!”

  The patrol boat throttled back, glided past me and stopped. As I came up on its stern, the pilot cut the engine. The guy in the tux was out of his seat and standing at the transom. “Don’t just sit there, motherfuckers! Help her! That’s Valentine Jones!”

  I got a look at the face of the deputy nearest me, and he wasn’t particularly moved. The one who joined him had a slightly different take. “Shut the fuck up, sir. Miss Jones looks like she’s in capable hands.” SoCal law enforcement doesn’t get a rod-on when they see a celebrity. They do, however, have an aversion to being called motherfuckers. Especially by metrosexual twits.

  Miss Jones’s dress had ridden up high enough in the boat’s wash that her Full Brazilian was now on prominent display. I noticed for the first time a delicate stream of tiny tattooed stars beginning somewhere within her bare V and running down the inside of one leg, apparently to give the appearance they were falling out of her.

  My first thought was ouch. I’m not a big ink fan, and the few times I’ve asked for an explanation of a particular one’s symbolism, I’ve come away wishing I hadn’t. With women, since I don’t think we’re going back to granny skirts and high boned collars, I have yet to see work the owner will be proud of when she’s fifty. Miss Jones was no exception. But she was also an actress, so foresight was likely a concept she kept in the same storage locker as her manners.

  I eased her close enough so the pros could grab her, and as she was being lifted aboard, something flashed in the glare of the searchlights. It was a tiny, silver flying bird on matching ankle chain. I was surprised it had survived the impact of the fall, let alone our duel in the deep. Right about then, she came to. Refreshed from her nap, the thrashing she’d been doing earlier had only been a warm-up. And cocksucker was the word she seemed most comfortable with.

  Despite all she’d been through, she’d maintained that one high heel, and she got it under the chin of the easygoing deputy, drawing blood. He didn’t coldcock her like I had, but he did manage to bang her head on a cleat with enough of a clunk that she came back to the real world. “What the fuck? Are you trying to kill me, cocksucker?” Then she threw a right that just missed.

  This earned her nylon restraints around her wrists and ankles, and she went wild. The second deputy casually took out his Taser, and Tux-Man lost his mind. “You can’t use that! She’s the biggest star in the world!”

  “How about I warm it up on you?”

  And all of a sudden, everybody rediscovered their gentler side—at least until Miss Jones put her hands to her throat and got her second wind. “Oh, my God, my necklace is gone! I had it when I jumped!”

  Tuxedo came back to the transom and glared down. “You stole it, didn’t you?” His voice was high enough now to call dogs. He turned to the cops, “That necklace is the Star of…” He seemed to catch himself. “It’s a Benedict Crown original, and it’s priceless! I demand you arrest this man!”

  The person I’m trying hard to overcome wanted to shrug his shoulders and feed Mr. Crown’s—whoever he was—diamonds to the squid on my way home. My inner Dalai Lama, however, unbuttoned my pocket and passed the sparkles up to Shirley. He grabbed the necklace with manic satisfaction. “See, I told you!”

  Valentine immediately started bucking against her makeshift cuffs and screaming again. “That’s mine, goddamn it! Somebody take it from that asshole!”

  The guy forgot about me and turned on the new assault on his dignity. “Why you lying piece of shit! I just let you…”

  Practiced in such matters, the deputy with the 50,000-volt attention-getter grabbed the necklace. “We’ll sort this out at the station. Now both of you shut up… please.”

  The mellow deputy looked down at me, amused by the scene as only a cop can be. “You’re Rail Black, aren’t you? The rich guy who’s on trial?”

  This really was my lucky night. I didn’t bother correcting him that it wasn’t my trial. I was just a witness.

  “My brother-in-law’s a deputy too. Up in Santa Monica. He’s working your courtroom. Monday’s your big day on the stand, right?”

  “So they tell me.”

  “Good luck, man. I wish you’d killed that little creep. If it matters, so does every cop I know. That your boat over there?”

  “It is.”

  “Climb aboard. We’ll run you home.”

  “I’m fine,” I answered. “What you can do is leave my name out of your report.”

  The deputy thought about that. “I don’t see a problem. Princess here is Archibald Hatt, a local real estate hotshot. He says the plane was his, and him and Pussy Galore was the only ones aboard.” He broke into a wide grin. “Besides, this is Newport Beach. Second marriages, third mortgages and Fletcher Jones. Nobody gives a shit about LA assholes.”

  I smiled back. “This LA asshole says thanks. Where were they headed?”

  “Apparently, now
here. Mr. Hatt says they were partying at his place in Laguna Beach when Miss Jones decided she wanted a ride in his new King Air. According to him, the hangar’s supposed to keep it gassed up, and he didn’t check the gauge. When things went to shit, he got her out and managed a couple of maydays before he put it in the drink. We were nearby, so we told the coast guard we’d check it out.”

  You never want to get in a plane with me at the controls. I might be the worst pilot on seven continents. But even drunk on my ass, I wouldn’t take off without checking my fuel. High-end actresses wearing five figures of outfit and who knows how much in jewelry don’t go looking for parachutes to climb into—especially over water only a couple of miles from land. “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Neither do we,” said the deputy. “We’re hopin the girl can fill in the blanks.”

  I thought about what she’d regurgitated. “Don’t hope too hard.”

  “Well, once we do a tox on him, Hatt’s problem’s gonna be his insurance company. He’s upright, but he’s asked me for a menu twice, so I’m bettin he slammed a lot more than a couple of appletinis. Add in the tab for our little bus ride, and he’ll be writing checks for a while. Maybe it’ll smarten him up.”

  “Don’t bet on that either,” I said. I waved, then turned and swam around the patrol boat toward the Sanrevelle. Five minutes later, I hauled myself over my own transom.

  As I stood under a shower hot enough and long enough to wash away Miss Jones and her necklace detective, I was torn between calling it a night and starting over with a fresh Sapporo and a new cigar. Not surprisingly, alcohol and nicotine accompanied by Mr. Cooke won, and when I finally resumed enjoying the meteor debris from my flybridge, I committed myself to letting the next parachute fend for itself.

  Unless, of course, Sofia Vergara happened to be dangling from it.

  What I didn’t know at the time was that for somebody who goes out of his way to avoid show business, I was just getting started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cypriots and Caddies

  Matthias “Matty Aspirins” Papadopoulos turned onto Sepulveda Blvd. out of Pinkie’s high-rise garage a half-mile from LAX. In the old days, this running around bullshit wouldn’t have happened. He’d have walked out of United, crossed a few lanes and slipped into his wheels at one of the four-hour meters in the short-term lot. Ten minutes later, he’d have been rolling north.

  But the falafels had fucked that up along with everything else. Now, everywhere you looked, there was a cop with a bomb dog or a flak-jacketed soldier running an electronic sniffer over your trunk. So you waited half an hour for a shuttle then stood with a bunch of assholes and their bad breath and puking babies while some pousti jitney driver with a five nose rings whiplashed your spine and screamed on his cell phone.

  The signs on Pinkie’s walls said vehicles were subject to a check there too, but just because you gave a guy a badge, a mutt and an assignment didn’t mean he was going to work any harder than some lazy-ass sewer worker who goes on break while the toilets on your block are blowing turds at the ceiling. Once the cop’s supervisor is out of sight, he and the dog are a cinch to head up to Randy’s with the other union assholes to shoot the shit under the big donut.

  Pinkie’s was owned by a Korean, which guaranteed no security cameras. Matty’s old man, Stavros, who loan-sharked out of his restaurant supply business before the cancer ate him, used to say the K’s always paid, but if shoes didn’t come with laces, they’d go barefoot. Koreans didn’t buy extra anything. Matty didn’t know about shoelaces, but he did know what cameras cost, plus if you had one, there was always a chance it might catch something. Then you’d have to jerk off for months with some Deputy D.A. who couldn’t spell “earn a living.”

  Guys like Matty usually didn’t drive themselves, but he’d ridden with one too many nervous dickheads who could attract a cop passing out communion wafers. He hadn’t been to LA in six years, but nothing had changed, except maybe the traffic, which was worse. It was still hot, the air tasted like ass and nobody seemed to give a shit about anything.

  He didn’t like the car either, a black BMW 650. It was fast enough, but anybody who knew anything about this kind of work wouldn’t have ordered up a 2-door. He was going to have to make a stop.

  The Cypriot’s shop was on Pico, a couple of blocks west of Hauser. The sign said Papazian’s Auto Body, but if a guy named Papazian existed, he took orders from the Cypriot. Papazian’s was an old four-bay gas station with the windows painted out and cars in various stages of damage and repair parked wherever there was room. But if you took your insurance company a quote from Papazian’s, they fell out of their chairs laughing.

  The Cypriot’s business was tagging stolen luxury cars with clean VINs, greasing some guy at the DMV with a bad smack habit to issue new paper then running the sheep-dipped vehicles down to Long Beach for an ocean cruise. Most went to China, but Matty had heard the hot new market was Afghanistan. Afghanistan? What the fuck? He was glad he was in services, not P&L.

  “Jesus Christ, if it ain’t Matty Aspirins. I heard you might be in town.” The Cypriot came out of an open bay, wrapped his thick arms around Matty and hugged him. “Motherfucker, you never put on a pound.”

  Matty watched the tight gold Greek Orthodox crucifix around the heavyset man’s neck dance over his Adams apple. “You could maybe get a longer chain.”

  “Reminds me not to order a third Whopper,” the Cypriot laughed, his whole body shaking. He looked at the BMW. “I assume you want to get rid of that.”

  “I need two more doors.”

  “I can give you a Caddie or a Benz.”

  “Fuck the Germans. Which Caddie?”

  “DTS, silver.”

  “I gotta move some stuff over.”

  “You want one of my boys to help?” The Cypriot jerked his head toward the shop where two dark-haired young men were working on a yellow Vette.

  “You and I can handle it.”

  “Pull around back. I’ll get the keys.”

  The four dive bags clunked when the men handled them, but the Cypriot didn’t comment. Matty slammed the lid. “You know who to bill.”

  The Cypriot shook his head. “You were never here. Plates are legit. Reg and insurance are inside. Everything’s in the name of Elite Rubber. That’s reclaimed tires, if anybody should ask. Real place, up in Fresno. My brother-in-law owns it. I’ll call him soon as you leave.”

  Matty nodded and got into the Caddie. The Cypriot held the door. “You been at this a long time.”

  “That supposed to mean something.”

  “You gotta start thinking about slowing down before you find out you already have. Maybe at the wrong time.”

  Matty didn’t like hearing it, but the Cypriot was right. These last couple of years, every job seemed like an ordeal. He was starting to hate airports—and adrenaline. “And do what?” he asked.

  “You and me, we got someplace to go. Not like the working stiffs in this country who’re gonna die in their own piss.”

  “Shit, Mykonos costs more than New York.”

  “Fuck Mykonos. I’m talking about Cyprus. I bought a building in Pyrgos. Five floors, just up the street from the water. I got a long-term tenant on the ground floor, and the top two are for me and my sons. You can have either of the others.”

  “Jesus Christ, I came for a car, not a real estate pitch.”

  “Four hundred grand. Furnished. Walk to everything. You got enough stashed away to live like Rockefeller there.”

  “What am I supposed to do at night? Watch you eat?”

  “Man, you been out of circulation too long. The Med’s liberated now. Women from all over go to Pyrgos to get laid.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. Think about it. Four hundred large.”

  “Okay to leave the Caddie at the airport?” Matty asked, changing the subject.

  “Just let me know where. Toss the keys. I got another set.”

  “You don’t hear
in a week, report it stolen.” Matty fired up the big V-8, and the fat man closed the door. Just before he pulled away, the Cypriot held up four fingers and mouthed the price again.

  One of the Cypriot’s sons came out of the garage. “Which VIN you want on the Vette?”

  “We got a new batch from the Armenian. Use one of them.”

  Matty burned rubber as he turned onto Pico.

  “Who was that guy?” asked the son.

  “An old friend. Matty Aspirins.”

  “Aspirins?”

  “Somebody gets a headache, Matty makes it go away.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gardenias and Late Editions

  Cocoon ambiance is the hallmark of a new crop of high-décor, high-VIP hostelries that have sprung up along the expensive stretch of neon and valets known as the Sunset Strip. None more protective than the twenty-story, black and glass monolith, Hotel Innuendo, known to the glitterati as simply the I, which is fast becoming the newest backdrop for monied merriment and misbehavior. For well-heeled sybarites who are shy-of-camera and predatory surveillance, this is the place you want to lay your head. However, if you’re a tourist hoping to see a famous face, it is advisable not to test the I’s security. It bites.

  Matty used a remote from his briefcase to open the underground parking garage of the Gardenia, a twenty-unit apartment building directly behind the Innuendo. He parked the Caddie in the rear slot of a tandem space marked 203, locked it and took the elevator to the second floor.

  The apartment had been redecorated since he’d last used it, but it was still devoted to comfort, not vogue. He dialed the A/C down to sixty-eight and did a walk-through, closing the plantation shutters in each room. Several changes of clothes in his size were hanging in the closet along with a bathrobe. In the dresser, he found fresh underwear, socks, the remote for the flatscreen and a pair of expensive Brunton Epoch binoculars. He put the binoculars in his briefcase, located a cable music channel playing some Jack Jones then went back out, double-locking the apartment door behind him.