Doing Hard Time (14 page)

Half an hour later, he was unpacked and ensconced in his new home. It was spacious and sunlit and beautifully furnished. He even liked the art on the walls. He got out his cell phone and called Charmaine at the New Desert Inn.

“Hi, there, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” she said.

“I’ve found a very nice place to live,” he told her, “but now I have to ask you if I can trust you not to tell Pete Genaro where I live or my new phone number.”

She was silent for a moment. “Yes, you can,” she said.

“Tell him this: that the phone number I gave you has been disconnected and that I said I was checking out of Shutters and headed back East.”

“All right.”

“Something else: there is a man registered at the New Desert Inn called Majorov.”

“I’ve met him. I didn’t like him.”

“I’ll tell you why later, but it is important that he never hear the name Billy Burnett. When you next come to L.A., I’ll give you another name to use.”

“This is very intriguing,” she said.

“We’ll see how good an intelligence agent you can be,” Teddy said. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you next week.” He broke the connection.

When Charmaine finished her shift she went to Pete Genaro’s office and knocked on the door. He waved her to a seat.

“Tell me what you’ve learned about Billy Burnett,” he said.

She repeated the biographical information Billy had given her, then she took a deep breath. “I’m afraid he may have left L.A.”

Genaro’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”

“He told me he was checking out of the hotel, and when I asked where he was going, he said, ‘Back East.’ He said he’d be in touch. I tried to call him a few minutes ago, and the number had been disconnected, like the earlier one.”

“Do you believe he actually left L.A.?”

“I don’t have any reason not to think so.”

“How did the two of you get along?”

“Okay, I guess. We had dinner, then went back to his hotel, which was Shutters. I stayed the night.”

“Did you have sex?”

“Yes.”

“Did he enjoy it?”

“I believe so.”

“Then why would he abandon you after such a short acquaintance?”

“I don’t know. I’m baffled.”

“Our Billy is a slippery character,” Genaro said. He threw up his hands. “Well, if he doesn’t want to know us, he doesn’t want to know us. Thanks, honey, you did your best.”

Charmaine left Genaro’s office wondering if her story had worked.

• • •

Teddy got settled in his new apartment, did some grocery shopping, and picked up a copy of a local magazine. On a rear page was an ad for a tour of Centurion Studios.

• • •

In Phoenix the young man keeping watch on the FlightAware screen saw the red light from the GPS locator go off, then, a few minutes later it went on again, this time at a street corner in downtown Santa Monica. He called Igor’s cell phone and got voice mail, left a message, then called his hotel and was told there was no reply from the room. He left a message there, then hung up. The GPS marker was still at the same location. He checked a map of Los Angeles and found that the dot was at Shutters.

• • •

Later that morning a maid knocked on the door of Smolensky’s room, then went inside and cleaned it. She thought it odd that he had gone out but left what appeared to be the contents of his pockets on the dresser—money, wallet, what appeared to be keys. She called the front desk and reported what she had found.

The desk clerk sent a bellman to the room, and he confirmed the maid’s story. Then an assistant manager visited the room and noted that a parking ticket for the hotel garage was among Smolensky’s belongings, and that he would have needed it to leave the garage. The car keys were missing, but a check of the garage showed the car was still there. Three hours later, when Smolensky had not returned to his room, the assistant manager reported the information to the manager, who called the police.

Two hours passed before a pair of detectives visited the hotel, talked to the manager and the maid, looked at Smolensky’s room, then at his car.

“Can we open the trunk without a warrant?” one of the men asked the other.

“If we have reason to fear for Smolensky’s life.”

“Okay, I fear for his life, how about you?”

“I fear for his life, too.” They got a crowbar from their car and pried open the trunk.

• • •

In Phoenix, Igor’s secretary came into his office and spoke to the young man watching the computer screen. She looked shaken. “The Los Angeles Police just called,” she said. “Igor is dead. They found him in the trunk of his rental car in the garage at Shutters. You should talk to them on line two.”

The young man went to Igor’s desk and picked up his phone. A long conversation ensued, during which he was asked a lot of questions he couldn’t or didn’t want to answer. As soon as they had hung up, he went to the secretary’s desk.

“Have you got a phone number for Mr. Majorov?” he asked.

“He’s at the New Desert Inn, in Las Vegas.” She wrote down the number for him.

“Have you ever met Mr. Majorov?”

“No,” she replied. “I’ve talked with him on the phone several times, though. He was very businesslike, no charm.”

“Would you like to call him and tell him what’s happened?”

“I think you should do that,” she said. “You’re management, I’m just a secretary.”

The young man went back to Igor’s desk, called the number, and asked for Majorov.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Majorov?”

“Yes?”

“This is Todd German, in Phoenix. I work for Igor Smolensky.”

“Yes, Mr. German, what is it?”

“We just got a call from the Los Angeles Police. Igor has been found dead, in the trunk of his car.”

After a brief silence, Majorov asked for an account of his conversation with the police. Todd told him everything he had said.

“Did they ask about someone called Billy Burnett?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you mention that name to them?”

“No, sir.”

“Then they don’t know that Igor was looking for him?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have any information on the whereabouts of Burnett?”

“No, sir. I was watching the FlightAware website, looking for Burnett’s airplane, which seemed to be based at Santa Monica Airport. Igor planted a GPS tracker in the airplane, and I could see that represented on our tracking screen. Then the marker was turned off and turned on again, and it had moved to Igor’s hotel. I think the police must have turned it off, because it isn’t alive anymore. I called the place at the airport where the airplane was kept, and they said he left this morning, headed east.”

“Call the police back and tell them you’d like to claim the body, then go to Los Angeles and arrange to have it cremated and the ashes disposed of. Igor wasn’t married, was he?”

“No, sir, I don’t think so.”

“Did he have a regular girlfriend?”

“Not that I know of. He worked all the time.”

“Yes, he was a very hard worker. Go through Igor’s desk and office and remove everything that belonged to him and shred any documents that mention Billy Burnett. Find his desk diary, if he kept one, and his address book. Scrub his office computer clean of any files pertaining to Burnett. If anyone calls the office asking for Igor, they are to be told that he has left the company and you have no forwarding address. When all that is complete, bring the diary and address book and come to Las Vegas. There will be a room reserved for you at the New Desert Inn. We will talk then.” Majorov hung up.

Todd hung up the phone and buzzed the secretary. “Book me a room for tonight at Shutters, and get me a seat on an airplane to Los Angeles, and tomorrow, to Las Vegas.” He thought for a moment. “First class. Then come in here and help me. Also, get two thousand dollars in cash from the safe.”

“You’re going to L.A.?”

“Yes, to claim the body and have it cremated. Then I have to go to Las Vegas and see Mr. Majorov. Do you know of anyone who Igor was attached to that should be notified?”

“No, I don’t think there was anyone like that,” she said.

“Anyone who calls should be told that Igor has left the company and we don’t have a forwarding address.”

Todd hung up the phone. He had the feeling that he had just been promoted in the organization.

Teddy drove to Centurion Studios after lunch and, at the gate, was directed to the parking lot for tour customers. He arrived to find two dozen people boarding a tram pulled by an electric cart, paid for his ticket, and climbed aboard the last car, sitting next to an attractive woman of about forty. The tram departed.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the driver said over the speaker system, “and welcome to Centurion Studios, one of Hollywood’s last intact movie factories. Some of the buildings you’ll see date to the beginnings of the movie industry, but most were built after the founder of the studio bought this land and created Centurion.”

The driver continued his spiel as they drove past a row of what appeared to be old-fashioned Los Angeles houses. The driver explained that they were called bungalows and housed dressing rooms for stars and the offices of producers and directors. As they passed one particularly nice example, Teddy saw Peter Barrington’s Porsche Cayenne parked in front of it, and he made a mental note of the address.

The tram continued down the studio’s famous New York street, which had been the standing set for dozens of movies over the decades, then passed the fire department and continued to the back lot, where there was an old Western town set and stables for horses. The tram stopped.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to dismount and visit one of the most interesting departments of the studio: the armory. This is where the weapons are kept that are used in Westerns, cop movies, and war movies, and we’re going to have a demonstration of shooting by one of the studio’s stuntmen.”

The group filed into the building and was shown several rooms filled with weapons of every sort, then led into a large room where they were handed headsets that would protect their ears from the noise while amplifying their leader’s voice.

He introduced the stuntman, who was dressed in Western regalia, and the group watched as he demonstrated his quick draw and rapid-fire technique with a lever-action rifle. The demonstration came to a halt when his weapon jammed.

Teddy, who was standing a few feet behind the man, watched as he tried to clear the weapon. “Don’t force it,” Teddy said. “It’s going to have to be field-stripped to fix the problem.” The cowboy put down the rifle and chose another. The same thing happened.

A man appeared at Teddy’s elbow. “Are you familiar with the workings of the Winchester model 1873?” he asked.

“Intimately,” Teddy said.

“Come with me,” the man said.

Teddy followed him into a workshop where a rifle had been locked in a vise.

“You want to have a go at that?”

Teddy chose a tool from above the workbench, opened the weapon, and pointed to a broken part. “That will need to be replaced,” he said. “Do you have spares?”