Private L.A. (7 page)

STELLA THE BULLDOG
sprawled on her side, panting hard, as if she had run for miles in a torrid heat. Justine lay on the veranda floor, stroking the poor beast’s head and laying wet towels over her body. Justine has a thing for dogs. And they have a thing for her. She owns two, spoils them silly.

“She’s been getting progressively worse,” said Justine when I exited the main house with Sanders and Del Rio. “We’re going to have to take her to a vet.”

“No vets,” Camilla Bronson snapped. “I know for a fact that Thom and Jennifer put a chip under her skin. They’ll ask questions.”

“So what? The dog’s sick,” Justine said firmly.

“She probably got into some bad meat and now she’s suffering for it,” Sanders said.

“Yes, just keep her out here so she doesn’t dump or puke in the house,” Terry Graves said.

Justine set her eyes on the attorney, the publicist, and the producer in a way I’d seen before. She no longer liked the Harlow team. They were clients. She’d do the work, but she wouldn’t like them. She stated flatly, “This pup gets any sicker, I’m taking one of the Suburbans and going to—”

Trying to defuse the situation, I said, “Tell me about the house staff.”

“What about them?” Sanders asked.

“I need to know their story.”

“I just spent two hours with them, Jack,” Justine said, then looked at Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Terry Graves. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Anita Fontana, thirty-four, the head housekeeper, had been with the Harlows for twelve years, ever since the actors bought the ranch. She appeared the most upset, kept looking at a picture of the family she had by her bed and weeping. She said she loved the Harlows, especially Miguel. The Harlows were demanding but fair, generous at times, surprisingly cheap at others, and somewhat aloof from their children.

“Aloof!” Camilla Bronson cried. “That goes nowhere. Do you understand?”

“How couldn’t they be aloof at some level?” Justine shot back. “Busy careers and philanthropic work chew up vast amounts of time.”

“Jen and Thom are excellent parents,” the publicist retorted. “Anyone who says otherwise is either a fool or a liar.”

“Then all three of them must be fools or liars,” Justine replied.

The cook—Maria Toro—agreed in large part with the housekeeper’s take on their bosses. She’d been with the Harlows eight years; said Jennifer was always trying to keep Thom on a vegan diet, but that he loved meat. Jacinta Feliz, the maid, had been at the ranch two years before the furlough they’d been given during the Harlows’ sojourn in Vietnam.

“She said Malia suffered nightmares and was a lonely girl,” Justine said.

“That’s not—” Camilla Bronson began.

Terry Graves cut her off, said, “Listen to the woman and quit trying to spin things.”

The publicist was indignant. “I’m not spinning—”

“Yes, you are, Camilla, and it’s not helping,” Sanders said. “Go ahead, Ms. Smith.”

“The boy wets the bed regularly,” Justine went on. “Jin has several imaginary friends and believes her stuffed animals come to life at night.”

I said, “What about the Harlows? When was the last time they were in contact?”

Justine replied that Anita said she’d been in touch with the Harlows several times in the last month, trying to coordinate their arrival with the house staff’s. The original plan called for the three women to return to the ranch two days before the Harlows, but then, Anita said, she’d gotten a call from Cynthia Maines. A change of plans. The women were to return three days
after
the Harlows’ return.

“First I’ve heard of that,” Sanders said.

Camilla Bronson threw up her hands. “Which means what?” Justine said, “Changing the arrival date makes it possible for the Harlows to disappear. That way the caretaker is the only other person to deal with, which makes me think that Cynthia Maines is of interest to us, perhaps our insider.”

“My God,” Terry Graves protested. “I can’t believe that.”

Sanders shook his head. “Cynthia was devoted to the Harlows.”

The publicist, for once, said nothing.

I said, “I think there’s sufficient cause to bring in the FBI.”

That soured the Harlow team.

“Do you know the shitstorm you’ll cause?” Camilla Bronson demanded.

“For me? Or for you?”

Her jaw clamped shut, but she was staring bullets at me.

“I agree with Camilla,” Terry Graves said.

“I do too,” Sanders said. “At this moment, there’s insufficient evidence to bring in the FBI.”

“Dave, you called us in,” I began. “I think the missing two hours and the dog’s reaction are enough.”

“I don’t, and you work for us, and for the Harlows, Jack,” the attorney said firmly. “I, we, want Private to find them.”

“Yes,” Camilla Bronson said, more sure of herself. “We don’t want this getting out unless it absolutely has to.”

“Anything you need to do, you do, Jack,” said Terry Graves. “Just keep this quiet for a few days to see if they show up or we get a ransom note. In the meantime, you keep your people working.”

“What’s this about?” I asked. “Money?”

“Damn right,” the producer retorted. “We have a lot riding on
Saigon Falls
. All of us have sacrificed for this project, and word of the Harlows’ disappearance could cause the entire project to collapse, taking tens of millions of dollars and our futures with it.”

Sanders and Camilla Bronson nodded.

I glanced at Justine, whose expression was hard. I could feel it too. These three had some other angle on this that we weren’t seeing. But they were paying, and I had to agree that other than the traumatized bulldog there was no sign of violent struggle anywhere inside the compound. Except for the power and security system issues, they could have just walked away. Hell, for all we knew, maybe Thom and Jennifer had screwed with the security system, wanting to disappear for one reason or another. Thom liked keeping secrets. It would not be entirely out of the question.

“I’ll give you two days,” I said.

“Three,” Sanders said.

Camilla Bronson said, “Where are Anita, the others?”

“In their quarters,” Justine said.

“I’m getting them out of here,” she said, turning. “They’re coming with me to L.A. I don’t want any of them talking to anyone.”

My cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID: LAPD Chief Mickey Fescoe.

I squinted, trying to think of what my fair-weather friend might want this time. I flashed for a second on my brother, Tommy, who was being investigated in the murder of Clay Harris, a surveillance expert who once worked for me. I’d been in the next room when the shooting went down, heard the shots but saw nothing. My brother told me it was self-defense. I’d left him at the crime scene to deal with his own mess. Had Tommy implicated me? It was all I could think of, unless Fescoe had gotten wind of the Harlows’ disappearance?

I turned away from the others, walked off the veranda out onto the lawn beneath the live oaks.

“Mickey,” I said, trying to sound even, nonchalant.

“Jack, how soon can you and Del Rio be in the mayor’s office?”

“What’s going on?”

“How long, Jack?”

I looked over at the helicopter parked on the Harlows’ front lawn. “Give me clearance to use the helipad?”

“Done.”

“Forty minutes, tops,” I said.

“We’ll be waiting,” Fescoe said.

“No clue, Mickey?”

“Turn on the radio, Jack. Turn on the TV. It’s on every goddamned station in L.A., and they don’t know the half of it.”

“WELL DONE, MR.
Hernandez,” Cobb said to the killer as he stripped off the No Prisoners disguise inside the rear of one of the white panel vans.

“Why didn’t I take her?” Hernandez grunted.

“Because by our letting her live, the terror will rise. It has a face now, a voice.”

“Could have been her and the kid lying there and not talking,” agreed Johnson, who was up front, driving them east toward the City of Commerce.

“Could have been anyone,” Hernandez said, humming again.

“People don’t like change, gentlemen,” Cobb observed. “I don’t care if you’re a Taliban in East-Jesus-Stan or a mom in Litchfield, Connecticut. People like their routines, their habits. When you threaten their habits and routines, they get upset, lash out, and do all sorts of things they would not normally do.”

“Like take sharp terms in a negotiation, Mr. Cobb?” Johnson asked, grinning in the rearview mirror.

“That too, Mr. Johnson,” Cobb agreed, allowing a rare smile that only deepened the lines of the spiderweb scar on the left side of his face.

“And now?” Hernandez asked.

Cobb’s smile disappeared. “We let Mr. Kelleher and Mr. Watson continue to execute their end of the plan. And we wait for contact.”

“You sure they’ll try now?” Johnson asked.

“Dead sure,” Cobb said. “Worms just can’t help themselves when they feel the soil all around them getting prickly and hot.”

ON A SCREEN
in the private office of the Honorable Diane Wills, mayor of Los Angeles, the killer rose from a squatting position in front of Sheila Vicente, his back to the camera as he exited the pharmacy.

In a voice oddly composed given the traumatic experience she’d suffered not two and a half hours before, Sheila Vicente said, “He was humming that old Doors song before he saw me and Enrique. He was humming it as he left.” She shifted in her chair, started to weep.

Mayor Wills went to console her while a handful of L.A.’s other high-and-mighty looked on. L.A. Police Chief Mickey Fescoe, L.A. County Sheriff Lou Cammarata, L.A. District Attorney Billy Blaze.

Del Rio and I had come off the helicopter twenty minutes before. We’d flown down from Ojai with the Harlows’ management team and the help, leaving Justine, Sci, and Mo-bot to continue the search, at least until dark.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what their angle was, calling us in on a missing persons case, then not taking our advice to bring in the FBI. But I had had little chance to think about that.

The entire flight down we’d watched the news coverage of the shootings at the pharmacy on La Cienega. Local news interviewed a teenager who’d been inside during the killings, shopping for nail polish.

“It was creepy,” the teen said, beginning to choke. “I never heard a thing until one of the clerks started screaming bloody murder, like
Cabin in the Woods
or something.”

But that and the body count was about all we knew until we got to the mayor’s office, watched the raw footage of the killing spree, and heard Sheila Vicente describe the killer humming as he left.

“ ‘Peace Frog,’ ” Del Rio said. “That was the song?”

Vicente had composed herself again. She nodded at Del Rio. “You know—‘Blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles’?”

“‘Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.,’ ” Del Rio replied.

“You were supposed to give a message to the mayor, is that right?” Chief Fescoe said.

Ruddy coarse skin, early fifties, Fescoe is as smart as any man I know, also one of the most cunning. He’s a good cop. He’s a better politician. Which was what had puzzled me about the killings. Why were we here? Why had Del Rio and I been allowed to see the raw footage?

“Yes, and only to the mayor,” Vicente said, looking to Wills, a tall, formidable, red-haired woman who long ago played volleyball at UCLA and graduated first in her class at Stanford Law.

“What is it, dear?” Mayor Wills asked.

Sheila Vicente reached into her purse and with trembling hands drew out a Baggie. I could see there was something inside it but couldn’t tell much more. The assistant district attorney started to hand the Baggie to the mayor, but Chief Fescoe was quicker and blocked the transfer.

“Lay it on the desk,” he said. “No more fingerprints.”

“He wore gloves, flesh-colored thin gloves,” Vicente said.

I crossed the room to the desk, saw the lime-green card in the Baggie, and saw the printing: NO PRISONERS.

Four yesterday. Five today. He’s on an escalating spree. Those were my first thoughts. I said, “Captain Harry Thomas with sheriff’s homicide has a card just like this, taken in evidence at the Malibu Beach killings last night.”

Sheriff Cammarata scowled but said, “That’s true.”

Sheila Vicente said, “Mayor, he told me to tell you that unless you comply with his demands there will be no mercy after this. None.”

“What demands?” Mayor Wills said. “I haven’t heard any demands.”

There was a silence for a beat, broken by Chief Fescoe, who paled considerably before saying, “I have. In letters yesterday and today, and then again on video two hours ago.”

“What?” cried Blaze, the district attorney.

“And you told no one?” demanded Sheriff Cammarata.

Fescoe bristled. “At first we thought it was just some nut job writing crazy letters. We had no word that you found that calling card at Malibu last night. Until the killings at the CVS, we had nothing to say the threats were real.”

“What threats and what video?” Del Rio asked.

Fescoe nodded to his assistant. “The ones we got two hours ago.”

The assistant tapped an order into a laptop computer. YouTube appeared on the big screen. The featured video on the page was entitled

NO PRISONERS: FACES OF WAR L.A.

“Play it,” Fescoe said.

The slayings on the beach were ruthless, precise, and shot from the killer’s perspective. The camera work seemed remarkably smooth given the brutality of the action. The only parts of the killer you saw, however, were the gloves and the guns.

After the last man fell dead, a warning appeared:

IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY

MANY MORE WILL DIE.

NO ONE IS SAFE. NO ONE

“Hundred and twenty-five thousand hits,” Del Rio said, tearing me from thoughts of being under the tarps the night before, looking at the burned bodies of the four men I’d just seen executed on video.

“Comply?” the mayor said. “Comply with what?”

Fescoe paled again, swallowed, and said, “He wants money to stop the killings. Lots of money.”