City of War (4 page)

I shook my head. “What good would that have done? Another corpse, and there still wouldn’t have been any money for Joanne. Besides, it wasn’t equitable. Street was a jerk and a thief, but he didn’t kill Shane. Leukemia did. So I went to see him and asked him to do the right thing.”

“Let me take a wild stab. He told you to go fuck yourself.”

“You must have seen the movie.”

“So what did you do?”

“I called in some watchers.”

“Watchers?”

“People who watch people for a living. They followed Merle everywhere. Took his picture, sent over drinks when he was at a bar, waved to him in church, rode the same planes, went to the movies and sat next to him. They even got a guest membership to his country club so they could play golf and take saunas with him. The only time Merle was alone was when he was home in bed—and then he wasn’t sure.”

“God, that would be creepy having someone invade your space like that.”

“After a while it makes you jumpy. Your mind conjures up things.”

“Is it even legal?”

“Merle didn’t think so, and he tried to convince a judge. So I brought the watchers into court. All twenty-two of them, and they sat there smiling, well-dressed and polite as you please. But there wasn’t a single incidence of blackmail or intimidation Merle could point to. And when the judge asked me how long I expected to continue the ‘watching,’ I told him I’d set up a fund to cover it for five years, then I’d reevaluate. I think he was secretly amused. He told Merle not to waste the court’s time again unless he had something actionable.”

“So Merle figured out you were rich—and powerful.”

“I don’t know about the power part, but yes, by then Merle knew I had considerably more money than he did, which always makes a wealthy man nervous because he knows that nine times out of ten the biggest bankroll wins. About a month later, I got word that Merle was looking for someone to take me out of the picture.”

“Like kill you?”

“Preferably painfully. And though Merle was operating out of his league, every now and then even a blind pig finds an acorn. So rather than risk his stumbling into something stupid, I ratcheted things up. The watchers had learned that his wife, Eve, was on Merle’s case to buy her a Jaguar. She was a regular at the showroom, brought home brochures, and once, she and Merle had had a shouting match in a restaurant where he’d stomped out yelling, ‘If you want a goddamn Jag, get off your goddamn ass and get a goddamn job!’”

“Classy guy.”

“It gets better. Merle had a girlfriend…Babette.”

“Of course, what else could a girlfriend be called.”

“One day while Merle’s at work, Eve answers the door and finds a brand-new British Racing Green Jaguar XK convertible sitting in her driveway, complete with a giant bow and gift card. Unfortunately, it read…”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Things moved pretty quickly after that. When Merle called, his voice was trembling. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ I told him that if he ever happened to come across anybody in need of something other than a Jag, maybe he’d be a good citizen.”

“This is fucking great. How much did he send her?”

“Three hundred thousand.”

“What a cocksucker.”

“I thought so too, so the watchers stayed on the job, and Babette got tickets to Paris—again care of Eve. The second check was more generous. One million. But the third, which came right after Eve and Babette got into a hair-pulling contest in Merle’s office lobby, was just right—an additional one and a half million, bringing the total to exactly what he’d stolen from Shane.”

Kim whistled softly. “Two point eight mil. So it was over.”

“Not quite, there was still the matter of the house.”

“Don’t tell me he bought
that
back?”

“No, another family was living there. So he bought her a bigger one across the street.”

Kim burst out laughing. “And how much of this windfall did you get, if you don’t mind my asking?”

I looked at her and just kept looking. She must have seen it in my eyes. Finally, she got so uncomfortable that her lip started to tremble.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He was your friend, of course.” After a moment, she asked softly, “Do I qualify? As a friend, that is?”

“You’re getting there, but you need to know that I only
help those who tell me the truth. Bullshit can get people hurt—or worse.”

I watched as she took that in, turned it over in her head a couple of times and made a decision. “Okay, where was I?”

“The elevator at Ralphs.”

“Right. When I got down to where I’d parked, I saw a dark blue van sitting behind my car and the guy called Tino standing beside it. I didn’t see anyone else, but I really wasn’t looking. I was just supremely pissed that in a big garage with maybe six or seven cars in it, this clown had managed to hit mine. As I approached him, he looked up with this great fucking concern. ‘Is ziss your car, miss?’

“It was such a half-assed French accent I actually thought he was putting it on…like some goddamn Westwood waiter. So I gave him my best ‘Yes, it’s my car, asshole. And you better have fucking insurance.’

“‘I so sorry,’ he said. ‘I talk on zee phone. And before I know, zee goes crunch.’”

I interrupted her. “‘Zee goes crunch?’ Are you sure those were his exact words?”

“Who the hell would make that up? Is it significant?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but it’s distinctive, and distinctive is always good.” I’d heard Dante speak, and I’d thought I’d heard a slight accent, so it didn’t seem logical that Tino would be putting on a heavier one. It was probably legitimate.

Kim continued. “So I walked around the van to get a look, and sure enough, there was a long scrape on the driver side door. I bent down and ran my finger along it, and as I did, someone came up behind me, slapped an adhesive patch over my mouth and threw a pillowcase over my head. Then another pair of hands grabbed me, and pretty soon, my wrists and ankles were taped so tight I couldn’t move. They put me in the back of the van, and one of them got in with me. Tino, I’m pretty sure. I could hear him breathing.”

She hesitated, and I let her sit for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

“He cut off my clothes,” she said finally. “And he touched me. God, I wanted to scream. But even if my mouth hadn’t been taped, I think I was too afraid. It didn’t go on too long before the other guy said something, and he stopped. Then he rolled me up in some kind of carpet and got back out. The pillowcase smelled like gasoline, so I was trying my best not to vomit when they got in a shouting match. That’s when I heard their names. It was ‘Fuck you, Tino,’ and ‘Fuck you, Dante,’ like some kind of bizarre comedy act.”

“What was the argument about?”

She looked uncomfortable. “About Tino’s molesting me.”

“What exactly did they say?”

“Dante told him to act like a professional. That if he tried anything like that again, he’d kill him. He might have even hit him because Tino went crazy-mad. He screamed, ‘Maybe you watch, you learn zee man way!’”

She fumbled for another sip of wine, hands and glass shaking.

I said, “I know it’s difficult, but the sooner you get it out, the more you’ll remember. And in the for-what-it’s-worth department, most people who’ve gone through a terrifying experience feel better after they’ve told someone.”

She nodded, then blurted, “Wait a minute! And another car came in the garage! I remember praying somebody would see what was happening. But then it faded away.”

“And…,” I said, trying to keep her going.

“Something hit the ground.”

“Loud?”

“No, just…shit, it was my car keys! There’s this big ring on them—you know, one of those gaudy pieces of crap from the car wash that says, ‘Grab Your Brass.’ I got it in a gift exchange. It’s ugly and it’s too big, but it made so much noise whenever I dropped my keys that I left it on.”

“So since Dante and Tino ended up in the van, somebody had probably arrived to drive the Mustang away. What do you want to bet she was wearing lime green and the wrong lipstick.”

“Like I said. I’m a freaking fucking idiot.”

“Nope, you’re like everybody else, completely unsuspecting. It’s why Americans are what we are, but it sure does cost us sometimes. Every cop knows that serial killers, kidnappers, child molesters and all sorts of other bad guys love vans. So they tell their wives to never, ever park beside—or even walk next to—one. Go around the block, go to another store, go home. But stay the fuck away. And if you come out of a place, and there’s one parked next to you, get a security guard or call a cab, but
don’t get near a van—ever
. And with 95 percent of them, it goes in one ear and out the other. It’s just more husband blah, blah, blah. So if a cop’s wife, who’s had it drummed into her, isn’t paying attention, what do you think everybody else is doing?”

“It gives me the creeps.” Then she exploded. “Fuck, I had everything in there. My phone…my datebook…like maybe fifty CDs…my goddamn dry cleaning.”

“But you’re alive.”

She cooled off immediately. “You’re right. I gotta stop worrying about the pain-in-the-ass stuff.”

I switched subjects. “I know this is a difficult question, but were you—”

“Raped?” she said. “No. Except for Tino’s handjob, it was just like I was a package they picked up. They didn’t even talk to me. We drove for a long time, maybe a couple of hours, mostly on freeway, I think, because we were going fast. When we finally stopped, there was no more light coming through the pillowcase, so the sun must have set. We sat for a while, and I heard planes landing not too far away.”

“Props or jets?”

She thought for a moment. “Both. Smaller ones, not 747s. A little while later, the back door opened, and somebody—Dante, I think—got in with me. He pulled the pillowcase off my head and shined a flashlight in my eyes. Before I could stop blinking, the pillowcase was back on. I heard another voice—a man—say, ‘Okay,’ then the door closed, and I was alone again.”

I looked at her. “So they needed to prove to somebody they had you…or they were making sure they had the right person.”

Kim looked shocked. “You mean somebody paid them to do this?”

I ignored the question. “When you said earlier that you were going to be fish food, what did you mean?”

“As soon as the van started up again, Dante asked Tino if he’d gassed up the boat. Tino said he didn’t have to because there was half a tank left. When Dante heard that, he went ballistic. He started yelling that half a tank would only get them out twenty-five miles, and they needed to go at least fifty to be sure the current wouldn’t pull my body back to shore. He said that they’d have to stop in Catalina and fill up, and he didn’t think he had enough room on his credit card.

“When I heard that, I panicked and started thrashing around. I don’t know why, but I have this almost sickening fear of drowning. And I’m terrified of boats—especially small ones. I must have been making quite a racket, because Dante climbed over the seat and told me to lie still or he’d have to knock me out. I knew it was Dante because he didn’t have that stupid accent. Then he slapped me—hard. It hurt even through the pillowcase.”

“So you went to work on the tape.”

“My hands were in front of me, and during the struggle at Ralphs, I’d broken off four nails on my right hand. The stubs were jagged enough so that if I twisted my hands just a little, I could scratch at the tape on my left wrist.”

I looked at her hand. She’d obviously found a file upstairs, but four of her nails were ground down to her fingertips. She saw me looking and covered her right hand with her left. It was a small thing, but it was the kind of modesty you can’t fake, and I was moved.

She went on, “It was completely dark, and Tino drove with his window open, which let in enough noise so they didn’t hear me when I finally got loose. I was going to jump out
right then, but a big semi came up behind us, and all I could think about was being sucked under it and dragged.”

“And then you got lucky, the traffic stopped.”

Kim nodded and burst into tears, and I knew it wasn’t going to be productive to continue. So I said, “How about if we pick this up tomorrow when we’re both a little fresher.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

I walked her upstairs, but when we got to the door of the Toledo Room, she suddenly turned and lunged into my arms. “I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she sobbed quietly. “Please.”

I let her cry for a few moments until she had gotten through the worst of it, then I led her gently to my room. I put her under the covers, silk robe and all, turned out the lights and lay down on top of the bedspread next to her. I reached over and stroked her hair.

“No,” she said. “Not like that. I want you to hold me…I
need
you to hold me.”

So I got up, slipped out of my shorts and shirt and got into bed next to her. I’m not a prude, but I’ve got this thing about making love to women who are in a fragile emotional state. It can lead to complications and bitter feelings later, and I have the scars to prove it. But like a lot of things, my philosophy looks better on paper than it plays after you’ve had several glasses of wine and you’re naked.

As she came into my arms, I realized that she’d shed the robe and the lace in her hair. She’d left the strand around her neck. So it was just me, Kim York and her tears—and several inches of nuns’ handiwork.

She clung to me for a long time, but gradually her muscles relaxed. I thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she started to move against me. I’m a gentleman, but I’m not a saint, and I responded.

At some point, she turned over and pushed her tight rear end into me. “Do you mind?” she asked. “I want you to work my nipples while you fuck me.”

“You get right to the point.”