Flipping Out (9 page)

'What time would
you like me to pick you up tomorrow?' Big Jim said to Nora.

I winced. Jim
owns a transportation business. He has over fifty cars and trucks, which he
rents to film crews. He also provides a limo service for studio executives, movie
stars, and just about anybody who wants to be noticed when they arrive. And if
you're lucky enough to get Jim as your personal driver, don't think of yourself
as a passenger. You're more like a hostage. Jim's meddling gene kicks into high
gear. Put that together with Nora in the back seat, and the thought of the two
of them dissecting my case annoyed the crap out of me.

Nora looked at
Jim. 'What are you talking about?'

'Jo arranged for
me to pick you up at your house and drive you to the book party.'

'In a limo?'
Nora said.

Jim laughed. 'I
could pick you up in an eighteen- wheeler, but you'd look better getting out of
a stretch Mercedes.'

'Don't be
silly,' she said. 'I can drive to my own event. Besides, I'm spending the
afternoon shopping with Julia. The two of us can drive there together.'

I was starting
to feel a sense of relief, when Marisol jumped in.

'Absolutely not!
Jo and I discussed this. We're putting on a show. We're getting press coverage.
And with this... unfortunate incident...lots of press. What are you planning to
do, drive up in your SUV and give it to the valet? You have to arrive looking
like a rock star.'

'Fine. Jim, you
can pick me and Julia up at six fifteen tomorrow evening.' She stared hard at
me and Terry. 'Maybe by then my two favourite detectives will give us something
to really celebrate.'

'Well, then I'll
see you tomorrow,' Big Jim said, slowly backing away from the table. 'Nice
poem, Julia. Maybe I can get a copy of it.'

He turned and
motioned for me and Terry to follow him. 'What's going on?' he said, as soon as
we were out of hearing range.

'With what?' I
said.

'Maybe my two
favourite detectives will give us something to celebrate
? Why is Nora busting your chops?'

'Everyone busts
our chops,' I said.

'And Nora busts
everyone's chops,' Terry added. 'It's a match made in Chop Heaven.'

'She wants us to
solve the murder by tomorrow night,
so it can be announced at the book launch,' I said.

'It would help
sell a hell of a lot of books,' Terry said. 'Not to mention jacking up the price
on the house.'

'That's Nora for
you. Did you notice how she was badmouthing the rabbi?' I said. 'And then when
I mentioned the poem...' I paused to give Big Jim room to jump in.

He took the bait.
'Yeah, did you see the way she kept putting down her own daughter and
monopolising the conversation?'

I nodded my
head.

'The woman's a
pain in the ass,' he added, blissfully clueless.

'A bona fide,
certified pain in the ass.'

'You gotta feel
sorry for her poor daughter,' Terry said, giving Jim his best poker face.

I, on the other
hand, broke into a big, broad, shit-eating grin for the first time all day. I
really get off on irony.

Diana and I decided
to spend the night at a hotel.

'Was it
something I said?' Marilyn asked.

Diana laughed.
'Don't be silly.'

'Then it's
something Terry said.'

'No, we just
need a night alone,' Diana said.

'Are you sure
you want to spend money on a hotel, just so you can have wild sex? Our house is
so noisy we'd never even hear you.'

Diana smiled.
'Therein lies the problem.'

'Oh,' Marilyn
said. 'You want the no-ear-splitting- music, no-blaring-TV, no-barking-dog,
no-screaming-kids, quiet, romantic, kind of sex?'

Diana tapped the
tip of her nose. 'Bingo.'

'That's not
possible at our house. Where you guys staying?'

'The Marriott on
Ventura.'

'Well, that's
convenient,' Marilyn said. 'You can walk to the Galleria.'

'We won't be
walking anywhere,' Diana said.

'You're making me
insanely jealous,' Marilyn said. 'Just
go-'

We went. The sex
turned out not to be as quiet as predicted. If you had been listening outside
the door of room 313, you'd have heard the hushed rustling of clothes, tender
whispers, gentle kisses, soft moans, shallow breathing, and then, suddenly,
unexpectedly, a full-blown crying jag.

Much to my
surprise, I was the one crying. It took me five minutes to regain my composure.
Diana just stroked my face and said nothing.

'This has never
happened to me before,' I said.

'It's good for
you to let it out,' Diana said. 'It's healthy.'

'It's
embarrassing. I don't cry. Especially in public.'

'We're naked in
bed. How public is that?'

'I don't
understand what happened,' I said.

'Yes, you do,'
she said. 'Maybe you don't want to deal with it, but you must know why you're
crying.'

We were lying in
each other's arms under cool sheets. I rolled over to face away from her, and
she snuggled in tight behind me. I stared aimlessly at the clock radio on the
night table. It jumped from 6:41 to 6:42. We had only checked in twenty minutes
ago.

'She's dead
almost two years,' I said.

'Jo's death
opened up a lot of old wounds,' Diana said.

'A fellow cop
losing his wife. Even the names are close - Jo, Joanie.'

'I get all
that,' I said. 'Of course, I thought about Joanie at Jo's funeral. But this is
too weird. Crying while I'm having sex?'

'A lot of women
do it all the time.'

'Oh, God,' I
said, 'you're making it worse. Women have unpredictable hormones. Women have violent
mood swings. I may not have proven it lately, but I'm a man.'

She stroked the
back of my neck. 'I know. You're a virile, super-masculine, tough cop, macho
man.'

'Who just cried
like a girl during sex,' I said.

'Tell you what,'
she said, sitting up. 'Let's get dressed and go out to dinner. We'll get you
some steak and potatoes and beer, and we'll find a jukebox that has the theme
from
Rocky,
and then we'll
come back here and try it again.'

She smacked me
hard on my bare butt.

I rolled over,
grabbed her, threw her back down on the mattress, and kissed her hard until she
had to break away just to catch her breath. 'I don't need no stinking steak and
potatoes,' I said.

And then, we
made love.

I was glad
Marilyn and Terry weren't in the next room. They'd have complained about the
noise.

Brendan
Kilcullen has been a cop for twenty years, and he's got the scars to prove it.
A bullet wound in his right thigh, a jagged gash down his left arm from a beer
bottle, and three holes in his dress uniform, where service medals have been
pinned.

He's been a
devout Catholic for his entire forty-seven years, married for twenty-six, and
sober for the past twenty- four. He's the kind of tough, smart cop I'd want
backing me up in a bar fight or a shootout.

He has one
failing. He doesn't do well with pressure from the top, and this was one of
those cases where he was being squeezed hard, often, and from all sides.

Terry and I
reported to his office at seven the next morning.

'It's Thursday,'
Kilcullen said.

'Yes sir,' Terry
said. 'I caught that in today's paper.'

'I'm not in the
mood for comedy, Biggs. And neither is

Reggie Drabyak.
He called me last night. He was stinking- ass drunk.'

'I think he's a
candidate for AA, lieutenant. You really should think about taking him to one
of your meetings.' Terry said it with such a straight face that Kilcullen
wasn't sure whether or not he was being played.

He let it pass.
'Reggie wants to know who killed his wife, and told me if Lomax and Biggs can't
solve it, he can.'

Terry has his
own shortcomings. Among other things, he is genetically incapable of dealing
with criticism. I'm not great at it myself, but I'm better than he is. I took a
half step in front of him and squared off with Kilcullen. 'You and I both know
that Reggie can't solve this, Loo.'

'Then the
question is, can
you
solve it? This is day four of the investigation. And yet, I see no progress.'

'We're putting
in the time, but we're running into a lot of dead ends. No ballistics, no prints,
no suspects, and the biggest problem, no motive.'

'You realise, of
course, that Reggie is not the only one crawling up my ass,' Kilcullen said.

'I know, boss.
You got BUTA.'

He forced out a
laugh. 'Oh, yeah. I got big time BUTA.'

Kilcullen was
not an orator. He came from humble roots and basic schooling. Somewhere along
the way, he picked up the habit of turning many of the finer points of his
dialogue into scatological references. He complained so often about having
brass up the ass that Terry abbreviated it to BUTA. Instead of getting pissed,
Kilcullen seemed to enjoy it. Like maybe we understood him better if we gave
his biggest source of pain a code name.

'Everybody up the
chain of command is calling me,' he said. 'I got so much BUTA that my shit hits
the bowl with a clank.'

His visual
imagery is never pretty, even less so at seven in the morning.

'But that's why
you get the big bucks,' Terry said. 'Because you always know what to say to the
brass when they're screaming for justice.'

'Right,'
Kilcullen said. 'But what do I say to Reggie?'

'We're working
on it, Loo,' I said. 'I swear we're going to solve this.'

He nodded, then
hit us with another of his familiar phrases. 'Speed is of the essence, and
failure is not an option.'

He waved us out
of the room. The meeting was over.

'I always feel
so much more motivated after one of those locker room pep talks from Coach Kilcullen,'
Terry said. 'Plus I feel really confident that we're going to break this case
now that you officially swore we'd solve it.'

'It wasn't an
official swear,' I said-, 'It was more of a contractor swear. Like that asshole
Hal Hooper telling me that Diana and I would be living in the house by
September first.'

We spent the
next eleven hours working hard and getting nowhere. We went over forensics and
the statements that Chris High's team had collected. We talked to informants
who had nothing to inform.

We revisited the
names of all the johns from Reggie's caseload who might have been damaged
enough to want to commit homicide as payback. Then we spent the rest of the day
on the street talking to pimps and hookers, all of whom knew Detective Drabyak,
and most of whom thought he was a pretty decent cop.

By 6:00 p.m. we
were back at the station documenting our failures in writing. Normally, we
wouldn't get the reports out so fast, but we were killing time. We had Nora's
book party to go to at seven, and having seen more than enough of her-over the
past few days, we had no desire to be early.

At 6:45 I
suggested we wrap it up. 'Let's drive over to the party, buy a book, sneak out
early, take Marilyn and Diana out for dinner, and make a decent night of it.'

'Or we could
bail on the party, wait for the paperback to come out next year, ply the girls
with alcohol, and make a fantastic night of it.'

My cell phone
rang. I looked at the caller ID. 'My father,' I said.