City of War (30 page)

Carl laughed, and we hung up.

24

Safe Houses and Spitters

Hollywood usually depicts safe houses as grubby apartments in a seedy part of town. Sometimes they are, but not very often. Slum residents know who belongs in their neighborhood and who doesn’t. They also know a lot about each other’s business, and they get suspicious when they can’t determine where somebody fits in. Not a conducive environment for strangers coming and going at odd hours, or for someone who might have a houseful of strange equipment or be running people in and out.

In reality, safe houses are usually in respectable communities, where, as long as you pay your rent and don’t make noise, people will generally leave you alone—if only out of politeness. And for serious operations, swanky is always best. There’s nothing more anonymous than a Park Avenue co-op or a New Jersey horse farm. Most of the time, you can come and go without seeing anyone, and if you do happen to bump into a neighbor, when was the last time a rich stranger struck up a conversation with you? Money can get you attention, but it’s particularly useful when you want to be invisible.

My real estate agent, Jhanya Devereux—exotic names are de rigueur in Beverly Hills real estate—called five of her
high-end counterparts in Washington, D.C., and told them she had a client who was looking for a luxurious building where he could spend a month. Jhanya said her client was doing some consulting at the White House, and if he found the right place, he’d be open to purchasing a floor as his Washington residence.

“What he’s really looking for,” she breathed into the phone, “is a place to give parties and showcase his art collection.” She added that there was no cap on the budget, and, of course, the agent stood to receive a handsome fee plus a bonus for being discreet.

Four of the five got back to her within an hour, and I chose the Watergate. It had several things going for it. First, its location in Foggy Bottom and a steady stream of cabs make it easy to get around. Second, its labyrinthine layout is difficult to surveil. And third, it was a place I knew. There have probably been more clandestine operations run out of the Watergate than any comparably sized plot of land on the planet.

I also know a lobbyist who lives just up the road in Georgetown. Freddie Rochelle’s a horse’s ass, but he’s so greedy and unscrupulous that, for the right price, he’d roast his pet toucan for hors d’oeuvres. Hell, for a little extra, he’d chew it for you. As a rule, I try to avoid lobbyists because it takes a month to bathe them out of your pores, but I’ve come to appreciate that if you need something unconscionable done, guys like Freddie can be useful. Look in the phonebook under “Weasel-Fucks.”

I called Eddie and told him to get the plane ready and file a flight plan to Reagan National for Monday—three days away. I also asked him to book rooms for us at the Hay-Adams—under our real names. Eddie started to ask questions but then backed off.

Duke Pennington responded to my page in fifteen minutes, and when he arrived, I asked if he knew anybody who would like to use the penthouse for a couple of days—all expenses paid.

“You want to tell me why?”

“I need it to look like I haven’t left. You know, room service, dirty linen. But with the drapes closed in case someone’s sitting out there with a pair of binoculars.”

“Manarca?”

“Probably a little more heavy duty.”

“Starting when?”

“About two hours from now.”

He thought for a moment. “You particular about color?”

“I’ve got an aversion to chartreuse. It gives me vertigo.”

He gave me one of those looks. “My daughter and son-in-law are trying to have another baby, but they can’t get much together time with four-year-old twins. And I know my ex-wife would like to get her hands on those kids for a while without their parents hanging around to screw up her spoiling.”

“Then tell your daughter I hear caviar helps fertility, but you’ve got to eat a lot of it and wash it down with Dom Perignon.”

He laughed. “Shit, maybe I should do this job myself.”

I shook my head. “Nobody’d stay cooped up with you for more than an hour.”

Duke used his elevator key to take us down into the Beverly Wilshire basement, where we crossed under Rodeo Drive through one of the tunnels that connect much of downtown Beverly Hills. The passageways were built after the city became a mecca for celebrities so they could move around town without being bothered by ordinary folk. Since 9/11, though, just about anyone with any pull at all uses them.

We came up in Barney’s and went out the back door, where the valet put us in a cab. As we pulled away, my phone went off.

It was Jake. “Manarca picked up your friend, Dante.”

“Remarkable what people can do when they’re motivated,” I said. “Where was he?”

“The loading dock supervisor at Home Depot remembered him. Said he stopped in a couple of months ago and
wanted to know if teenagers ever came around looking for work. When the supervisor said they showed up mostly on weekends when there wasn’t school, the guy came back every Saturday and Sunday for a month.”

“Shopping for a look-alike for his shooter. And one day, in walks Kiki Videz.”

“That’d be my guess. Super thought the guy might be a perv, so he wrote down his license number. Turns out the van belongs to some French chef in Toluca Lake. And guess who was bedding down in the guy’s garage.”

That explained the gasoline smell on the pillowcase over Kim’s head. “What about Tino?”

“Just Dante. And the van, which they’ve impounded.”

“Where is he now?”

“Beverly Hills lockup. Manarca said he wanted to make it easy for you.”

“And I’m sure that’s exactly how he put it,” I said.

Except for a couple of cramped rooms used by attorneys, BHPD isn’t set up for prisoner visitation, so Manarca and a Beverly Hills detective named Kahane had Dante in an assistant chief’s office on the third floor. They had both his wrists cuffed to a chair at a round table, with the two cops seated on either side of him.

I left Archer downstairs, where there was a coffee machine and a stack of law enforcement and gun magazines. She’d wanted to see the man who’d helped orchestrate her sister’s murder and tried to kill her. Tell him what she thought of him. But I needed information, and a scene wouldn’t help. To make her feel like she was doing her part, I told her to call Symphony Limousine and have a car sent over.

“Speak to D. J. Kaplan and tell him to have the driver bring an extra pair of socks. Something light that won’t be too hard to carry.”

“Socks, what the hell…?”

“He’ll understand. And when the car gets here, go out and wait in it.”

The assistant chief’s office faced east looking down Santa Monica Boulevard. The courthouse was a block over. But despite the nearness of the traffic and the comings and goings of the court, no noise seeped inside. Other than the breathing of the room’s occupants, the only sound was the gentle clicking of a Harley Davidson wall clock with a large, white skull on it, which Dante was staring at.

When I entered, Dante made eye contact with me, then went back to looking at the clock. He was smaller and heavier than I expected, but then I’d only seen him once before, and he’d been sitting in a vehicle in the dark. His face was pocked with deep, ridged acne scars, and I could smell the strong odor of scared sweat that’s always on the recently arrested, even the most hardened criminals.

Manarca introduced me to Kahane, then said, “Meet Dante Bruzzi. He came in on a French passport under the name Gerard Paul. But he’s not frog. He’s Italian.”

“Sicilian, you fuckin’ cocksucker,” Dante snarled.

Manarca smiled. “We’ve bonded.”

I looked at the prisoner. “Hello, Dante, remember me?”

He twisted his head toward Manarca. “I want a lawyer.”

It was the same voice I’d heard that night on the 405. But here I could detect an accent. Its edges had been worn smooth, but it was there.

Manarca shot back, “What for? There’s nothing official going on. In fact, you’re not even here. You’re downstairs taking a nap.” To me, the detective said, “Normally, international crap takes forever, but this guy’s prints popped a sheet so fast, he must be quite a star back home. Lives in some shit town called Apollonica. On Corsica. That’s a frog island in the—”

“I know.”

Manarca nodded. “Mr. Bruzzi spent seven years in Florida. Was supposed to be going to school in Tallahassee, but there’s no record he ever attended a class. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think he was cleaning pools either.”

I looked at the prisoner. So now I knew where he fit. Dante
was the Hyena’s English-speaker. Nobody ever shoots the translator. I guessed his age at thirty-five. His eyes were as coal black as his hair, and his skin was dark Med. He’d never been handsome, and the acne scars didn’t help. Suddenly, the Sicilian took a deep breath and pursed his lips. Instantly, Manarca drove four fingers into his solar plexus, and Dante began coughing violently and gasping for air.

“He’s a spitter,” said Manarca. “I found out the hard way.”

“You want to tell me why you killed Dr. York?” I asked.

Dante just looked at me. “Fuck you,” he said.

Manarca said, “That’s his version of the Fifth. Pretty much all he says. From the looks of the garage where we picked him up, at least two more people had been staying there, but they’re gone. One of them was probably your friend, Tino.”

Suddenly, Bruzzi said, “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Not even Kiki Videz?” I countered.

“Never heard of him.”

“Before she died, Kim told me about the City of War,” I said.

I saw Manarca’s eyebrows arch.

Dante stared at me and almost stopped breathing. Then he suddenly relaxed. “Fuckin’ Americans. And your women are the worst—especially the educated ones. All this freedom shit…and lawyers. The rest of the world doesn’t work that way, but you never get it. Not until it’s too late. Did she really think we’d let her publish an article? And those fuckin’ pictures? I’m glad she’s dead. You’re next.”

The door had finally cracked open. I tried to give it another push. “It must have really pissed you off when she just ignored you.”

He sneered, “Like I said, your women are the worst.”

“So is that why you gave her the handjob in the back of the van? A little Mediterranean humiliation before she got dumped in the ocean?”

He exploded. “A Sicilian would never do that! And I stopped Tino as soon as—”

I interrupted him. “Now that you bring him up, where is Tino?”

“Fuck you.”

I looked at him. “And the Hyena? Or do you just call him Uncle Gaetano?”

I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one. So I added, “Well, if you happen to be talking to him, tell him I’m looking forward to sticking a Glock up his fat ass.”

He tried to come across the table at me, chair and all, but Detective Kahane put a pair of meaty hands on his shoulders and pulled him back down. Then Kahane got a good grip on a handful of Dante’s hair and held on.

Bruzzi writhed and snorted and tried to bite the cop, so Manarca dug his fingers back into his gut, and the show stopped.

I stood. “Not much more to learn here,” I said.

Manarca nodded. “I could have saved you the trip, but since we’re just getting acquainted, I thought you’d want to see for yourself. Care to tell me who Uncle Gaetano is?”

He was right. I wouldn’t have trusted him. But next time I might. “Gaetano ‘The White Hyena’ Bruzzi. Some kind of Sicilian godfather. That’s all I know.” I could tell Manarca wasn’t buying in, but, to his credit, he let it slide. “What are you charging him with?” I asked.

“The guy whose garage he was living in has an expired visa, so we’re gonna keep them both on ice until we get everybody’s papers straightened out. The way the Feds move, that’ll give me at least a month to come up with something of my own. And right now there’s a Detective Davis in Manhattan Beach comparing Mr. Bruzzi’s prints to the ones they found in that Kempthorn kid’s house.”

I looked at Dante, but if he was worried, he didn’t show it. “Maybe you’ll catch a break,” I said to Manarca.

He winked. “I’ve got a hunch.”

I stood and walked around the table. I could see Manarca and Kahane weren’t sure what I was doing, so the Beverly
Hills detective took a firmer grip on the prisoner’s hair. Dante was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. I undid the button on his left cuff and pulled it over his forearm. His skin was unmarked. I did the same with the right. No spider there either.

Dante locked eyes with me, and I could feel the hatred. “Like I thought,” I said. “Not a warrior.
Il leccaculo
.”

Despite the cuffs and the grip Kahane had on him, Bruzzi nearly levitated out of his chair. Saliva flew, and he let go with a stream of obscenities that were impressive even from a criminal.

Manarca burst out laughing.

“What did you call him?” asked Kahane.

Manarca answered for me. “
Il leccaculo
. ‘The ass-licker.’ But it goes way beyond that. In the old country, one of them would have to die.”

I turned to leave, then turned back. “I almost forgot,” I said and slid the gold earring with the interlocking
N
and
D
across the table. It stopped in front of Dante. His stare was all the confirmation I needed. To Manarca, I said, “You might want to give County a heads-up. Mr. Bruzzi here likes them before they start to shave. Dresses them up like Barbie.”

I saw Kahane dig his fingers a little tighter into Dante’s scalp.

Manarca walked me out. When the door closed, he said, “We found the mate to that earring in the frog’s garage. Where’d you get yours?”

I didn’t answer.

He started to say something else then decided it would be a waste of time, so he switched gears. “City of War?”

I looked at him. “You now know exactly as much as I do.”

25

Private Sanctuary and Silent Requiem

I’d expected D. J. Kaplan to send my preferred town car or SUV, but when I got downstairs, Archer was sitting in a super-stretch Caddie up to her elbows in a platter of Spago sandwiches he’d included. Add in the case of designer water and the Nate’n Al’s chocolate chip cheesecake, and I smelled a favor request coming from D. J. before long. Archer offered me a ham and cheese. I declined.