Internecine (27 page)

“Tish-tosh,” she said, waving it away. “Ask me anything. You’re a friend of Mister D’s.”

“
NORCO
.” I had a hard time getting the word to leave my mouth.

She looked sympathetic. “Oh, yes. They’re very interested in acquiring you. So, it seems, are the police—directed by their betters, for nuisance
value to you, I would speculate. I know what Mr. D told us, but could you please outline the problem from your own perspective?”

She was all ears and bright, glittering eyes as I told her what I knew. Or what I thought I knew. Occasionally she said, “I see, I see.” Halfway through my multidirectional spill of events, she offered me a glass of very substantial Cabernet, almost as though she knew already what I liked. A couple of times she held up a hand, indicating “hold that thought,” while she scribbled notations on a pad of vellum.

“My dear boy,” she said. “You say you have no leverage, nothing with which to deal with people who detest making deals. You are being far too modest. You possess avenues and options you may not suspect. You really are a true innocent, and it pains me to see you abused in the ways you describe.” She folded the page on which she had been writing and handed it across.

“What’s this?”

“Your strengths, young man. We Sisters make no recommendations. We provide information.”

I started to read it.

“Please,” she said. “Not until after you have left us.”

I stowed the page in my jacket pocket. “I . . . uh, I’m a little short on a proper offering right now, Sister.” I was thinking of that collection plate in the foyer, and the fat envelope Dandine had left in it.

“Tish-tosh,” she said. “You will give what you can, when you can, out of the goodness of your heart. Or, like in those motion pictures, we may require a service of
you,
some day.” She made a face and shot me a look that reminded me of Rocky, the gangster infant in the Warner Brothers cartoons. She indicated my expensive gift wine, now free of its designer bag. “You were thoughtful enough to bring this, and that is what counts. Courtesy and consideration are always on the verge of being lost, don’t you think?”

She actually managed to make me feel as though I was chatting with a matronly older lady who actually gave a damn about me. I haven’t had an official mom for decades, and it felt strange. But not unwelcome.

Back in Zetts’s “borrowed” GTO I examined the sheet the Sister had given me. Four names, four addresses in Los Angeles.

Alicia Brandenberg/St. Regis Hotel.
That was in Century City, on the Avenue of the Stars, and she probably had a suite and a staff.

Theodore Ripkin,
Candidate #1. Could most likely be found at a house he owned in Beverly Hills, up near Cielo Drive, not far from the original location of the Tate/LaBianca murders in nineteen sixty-eight.

Garrett Stradling,
a.k.a. G. Johnson Jenks, a.k.a. Candidate #2. Was downtown in Park Towers, not far from where Dandine’s first automobile had blown up.

Thorvald Gerardis/
NORCO
. This was the first time I’d seen the proper spelling, but as too many people had advised me already, nobody’s name was for real. The Sister’s annotation was cryptic:
New access at 1st Interstate Bank bldg.
Just reading the word
NORCO
was unfairly chilling. Did this mean
NORCO
had an office, or something, down near Sunset and Vine?

There was no way I could call Dandine. Check his progress, get his advice, hear that Zetts was okay so I could reassure him about the car. Explain that I was a bit out of my head. No way for Dandine to tell me I was acting like a Grade A, USDA-certified rump roast of stupidity.

I brought the beast to roaring life and tried to rein it toward the mouth of the alley. Jenks and Ripkin would be unapproachable. They could be tilted against each other, and against the acidic Ms. Brandenberg, later. A backstop. I still lacked the balls to go knocking on
NORCO
doors, just yet. I already wanted to check off Alicia first, if for no more cogent reason than I wanted to hear, from her own photogenic lips, the story of how she had fired Choral Grimes, then had her abducted or murdered, and then, probably, had fluttered off to some cocktail party. I didn’t have any right to be angry about Choral—I had put her in danger as much as any power-bitch boss or assassin wielding barbiturates. But I
was
angry, goddammit.

I was cheesed at the derailment of my babe-in-the-woods life among the walking dead . . . but I felt stronger for the knowledge. I was pissed off that the ideal of decent people, hard work, and fair play was just another fantasy to which we all paid lip service, like obedient consumers doing their bit for word-of-mouth . . . but I had become less blind. I was livid at my own fear of what might happen, or the things I might have to do . . . but at least, then, I would better know what kind of material I
was made from, and whether it was fiber or simple bullshit that strung it all together into the nervous wreck that was me.

If I lived long enough.

Zetts’s huge road-grabbing tires bumped the curb as I negotiated the GTO onto Olympic. If I had hung around for five more minutes, I would have been bushwhacked by the four vehicles that arrived outside the Sisters’ and stopped in a crescent formation in the lot. I found out about this later. No tags, no trim, dealer plates. Like Zetts had said, no shit hanging from the mirrors. I would have heard the old Mexican’s shotgun cut loose. Once.

I might be dead now, or I might have helped.

Alicia Brandenberg’s suite at the St. Regis Hotel was the sort of full-amenity perk that charged normal humans upward of $650 per day and offered twenty-four-hour room service and a complimentary fifty-minute massage. It was up top, on a keyed, secure floor, and I didn’t feel in a mountaineering mood. (For the record, I
still
don’t know how Dandine had gotten onto my balcony in the middle of the night, a couple thousand years ago. Somewhere along the line I have a memory, probably false, of asking him:

(“You don’t talk about yourself a lot, do you?
”

“
Who to?” he asked.

“Point.”
It was my usual [1], [2], [3] . . . and I was getting sick of it.)

Someone with Alicia’s supercharged daybook had to cruise the St. Regis lobby several times during an average business day; it was inevitable. The bar was centrally located, and I needed something to eat, not to mention a fairly hefty drink. I was down to my final, post-jail wad of cash, whittled to about a hundred bucks after the hit it took to buy wine to impress the Sisters.

Enough for appetizers and a beverage, in this place. Maybe two. I had to sit and calculate whether I could afford a sandwich. That was a relatively new experience; not thrilling. I had become so accustomed to flipping out the correct piece of plastic, signing for goods, and trusting the bottomless bowl of an expense account, that the only reflex skill I retained was the ability to sum up a 20 percent tip. If the service was
lousy enough, perhaps I could get away with fifteen—
that
would certainly get me noticed, here.

More harmful exposure was offered by the TV flat-screens hovering over the bar. Thanks to Dandine, I was dreading the sight of my picture popping up on the news and hearing some blow-dried dimwit say
more as it happens
. There was literally no place in the room where you could
not
see a screen, another footprint of progress that was especially annoying around Oscar night in Hollywood. I devoured a French dip on grilled sourdough bread—it
was
pretty good, even though it set me back about fifty bucks total. Sipping beer would stretch my meager bank more efficiently.

Just like when I was in lockup, I scoped the talent of the room. Every now and then, an imposing dude would cycle the lobby. There were about three different ones, none hotel security. Zetts was right; they were obvious when you knew what to look for.

Playing cheap detective is exactly as dull as watching dust gather on a tabletop. Movies and fiction present the stakeout mode as irretrievably eroding—infinitudes of dead time, as you wait for a bus that is already late—until a moment of hot, scary action. Usually the payoff is threatening enough to make the boring part preferable. But in fiction, the waiting is usually edited out, and characters are able to gird for their instant in the spotlight of danger. They reflect upon what has brought them to this phase of their lives; how the signposts had pointed, all along, to some obvious culmination. Imaginary gumshoes are always
en pointe
and on target, no matter how thuddingly exasperating the wait.

People can sneak up on you and catch you by surprise if your guard is down. Dandine would not approve of laziness on the job.

I was nursing my third beer when somebody tapped on my shoulder, saying, “You have a call, sir.”

It was a guy roughly the size of my refrigerator. Lots of neck muscles, his tie more a noose. I’d seen him cruise the lobby about an hour ago. Quarter-inch hair, the back of his head a tuck-and-roll like a package of frankfurters. Big suit that still looked constrictive. A black man with the muddy green eyes of a deep-sea predator.

“If you’ll come this way, please.”

“Nobody knows to call me here,” I said. To try faking tough with this man would be transparently bogus. “What if I want to stay right where I am?”

He smiled, or rather, simulated what humans did when they smiled. He leaned on the bar next to me, his forearm parallel to mine. “In that event, sir, I’d do this.” He cocked my wrist, with my elbow nestled into his. When he straightened, I had to stand up, no choice. “Then you’d have to go where I go.”

“Okay, okay. Just let me pay the—

“Already taken care of, sir.”

“Stop calling me ‘sir.’ ”

“Yes, sir.”

That was how it went. He directed me to the elevators. Phone call, my butt.

“Where’re we going?”

“Up.” He stuck a brass key into the elevator’s button panel and accessed a secure floor. When the doors closed, he said, “Arms up, please.” He caught my arms on the rise and pulled them straight out, as though arranging a shirt on a hanger, impatient with my geometry. After a swift, professional poke-and-pat, he drew a doodad with a whisper-thin telescoping antenna and indicated I should hold my place, arms out.

“What’s that?”

“Scan for bugs,” he said, sweeping up-down, left-right, pits and crotch.

He frowned at the display on the scanner. “You’re clean. Stand there, please.” He indicated the corner of the car, behind me. All I needed was a dunce cap.

“Is this about—

He held a thick finger to his lips. “Shh.”

I did that dumb elevator thing where you watch the numbers.

In the corridor, I noticed my keeper walked with his right foot turned slightly outward, hitting harder than the left. It was subtler than a limp. I decided not to mention it. See, I
can
learn new things. And I figured I should savor my own smugness a tiny bit more before I died.
In this world, I would hear the gunshot only
after
I glimpsed my own brains flying out.

We passed another linebacker; Marine Corps buzz cut, a yard of shoulders, shrink-wrapped into a too-tight suit with stretch seams. They traded nods like cannibal elders and I was conducted through double doors with brass-drop handles into a suite that seemed to take up the whole southern side of the hotel floor. Tons of glass and miles of view. Room-service carts with sterling service and barely touched food. Several televisions all going at once, the news feeds and stock quote channels all muted.

“Sit,” said my keeper, and I plonked into a straight-backed Louis XIV chair designed to be desperately uncomfortable. He pointed at the tray. “Coffee there, if you want it. They have somebody grind it right before they brew it. It’s pretty good.” He shrugged.

Then he popped me on the right ear, putting his weight into the jab. My brain heard a loud howitzer noise and bursting purple globes obliterated my vision; errant planets. Before I knew I was falling, I had already landed on the floor and won a rug burn on my cheek. The whole right side of my head was flushed with a waterfall of white noise.

Tears blurred my view of the legs in front of me, but the shoes were at least eight hundred bucks’ worth of Italian leather. Stupid, to guess who.

“Thank you, Marion.”

I must have looked pretty submissive, one hand hoisting me into doggie position, the other clamped on my macerated ear. It was absurd, but I could almost see up Alicia Brandenberg’s brief skirt from my vantage.

The bald behemoth “helped” me into the chair with a complete lack of grace. I tried to will my head not to loll.

Alicia Brandenberg was wearing black today. Black turtleneck, black leather skirt of triple-dyed lambhide. Black belt. Minimal ornamentation that looked like black pearls. “That was for scaring the shit out of me last night,” she said, “and for embarrassing me in front of underlings. A no-no.”

There were dots of blood on my hand. Blood was leaking out of my ear. If my ear was still on the side of my head, which felt anesthetized—that
scary numbness that engulfs your skull if you stay horizontal too long at the dentist, and the xylocaine starts gravitating.