Self-Defense (35 page)

“I’ve heard the grand opening party was
pretty interesting.”

“So have I—wine, women, song, music, all
sorts of fun. One damned bit of ha-ha the whole year, and I was having my
appendix out. Bit of bad luck, eh? When I healed up and got back, the old man
wouldn’t talk to me. Punishment for not being there. As if I’d defied him by
bursting my bloody appendix. A few months later, I was out on my arse.”

Removing the celery stick from his glass,
he nibbled the edge.

“Gawd, this takes me back. You really
think you’ve got a book in it?”

“I hope so.”

“Send me a copy if it ever gets
published.”

“Absolutely. Speaking of getting
published, I can’t find anything on the two writing Fellows, Terrence
Trafficant and Denton Mellors. Trafficant had a best-seller, then faded from
view, and Mellors just seems to have disappeared without publishing anything.”

“Terry the Pirate and Denny.... This is a
hoot, haven’t thought about them in ages. Well, Terry’s probably in jail
somewhere. I have no idea about Denny.”

“You think Trafficant got into trouble
again?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Trouble was his
art.
Fancied himself a
bad
guy, bloody Wild West outlaw. Bloody
criminal
is what he was, used to walk around with a big hunting knife in his belt, take
it out during mealtime, pick his teeth, clean his nails. He put it by his plate
when he ate, protecting his food with one arm, as if we were out to steal it.
He really gave poor Sprentzel a hard time. Removing his shirt, asking Sprentzel
if he thought he was pretty. Imitating Sprentzel’s accent, calling him a faggot
and worse. Threatening him.”

“What kinds of threats?”

“ ’Make you my wife, faggot.’ That kind of
rubbish. The rest of us were scared witless, but Lowell always stood up for
Terry. A bloody pet—one big cheery family we were. Where else could Trafficant
be other than jail?”

“Still, it’s odd,” I said. “Achieving all
that success and reverting back to his old ways.”

“A criminal,” he said, with some passion.
His forehead was shiny and he licked his lips. “He was never anything but.”

“What about Mellors?”

“Another charmer—very bright actually.
Well-spoken, educated, but a bit of an arse-licker.”

“Lowell’s ass?”

“And Terry’s. He got on with Terry better
than the rest of us. Not as cherished as Terry, though. Number-two man on the
ladder.”

“Sounds like there was a hierarchy.”

“Definitely. Terry first, then Denny. Then
Sprentzel and me, vying for low rung. I’d have to say Sprentzel was at rock
bottom because he was gay. Buck had no tolerance for that—man’s man and all
that, raw meat for breakfast.”

“But he chose Sprentzel as a Fellow.”

“He didn’t know when he chose him.
Sprentzel wasn’t one of those nelly-fairy types, flouncing around. In fact, I’m
not sure how we all found out about him. Probably from Terry. Terry always made
a big point of it.” He looked downward. “All that bluster. That knife.... Yes,
poor Sprentzel was definitely low man.”

“Was Mellors a tough guy, too?”

“No, not really—university type. Devious,
but not nasty.”

Trying to figure out how to ask what he
looked like, I said, “I’ve seen pictures of Trafficant, but none of Mellors.”

“Yes, Terry became quite a celebrity for a
while. The book.”

“What about Mellors? Did he ever publish
his book?”

“I have no idea.” Shrug. “As I said, Buck
encouraged isolation.”

“What did he look like—just to help me
form a mental picture.”

“Big. Muscular. Light for his race.”

“He was black?”

“Tan,” he said. “What the South Africans
call “colored.’ Black features but tan skin. Blond hair. Nice-looking fellow,
actually.”

“Facial hair?”

“I think so. It’s been a long time.”

“A beard?”

“A mustache, I believe. He didn’t like
being thought of as black. Didn’t like to talk about race. One time Sprentzel
brought it up—all that German guilt—and Mellors just walked away. Then Terry
showed up with his knife and went into his little fag routine. It was really a
boring place.”

“Why were Trafficant and Mellors
high-status?”

“Denny because he went around telling
everyone what a genius Buck was. With Terry it was something else—almost as if
Buck looked up to
him.
As if he represented something Buck admired.”

“Such as?”

“Who knows?”

“Hatred of women?”

He stared at me. “Hatred of everything, I
suppose. The two of them would drink together, get pissed, and take walks in
the woods singing filthy songs.”

“Did Trafficant ever get into any trouble
while up there?”

He ran his fingernails over the ridges of
the celery stalk. “Other than playing with that knife and making our lives
miserable, I never saw anything. Why?”

“Trying to flesh him out,” I said. “I
still think it’s strange the way he vanished.”

“As I said, check the jails. Or the
cemeteries. He had a very nasty temper. Anything could set him off. Person like
that, the chance of leading a long, peaceful life goes down. That’s my business
now: risk assessment. Figuring out who’ll make it and who won’t. Anyway, I must
be going. It’s been fun, but time to get back to reality.”

Milo’s exhaustion saturated his phone
voice.

“Task-force blues?” I said.

“Nothing-accomplished blues. The coroner
gave us zero on Nicolette Verdugo. Our copycat’s being obsessive-compulsive.”

“What about the feces on the corpse?”

“The
feces,
” he said, “are of the
canine variety. Another one of those charming details we’re withholding from
the media.”

“Do any of the Bogettes have a dog?”

“They have a goddamn pack of dogs, but try
getting hold of a single turd. They’re holed up at some dirt ranch out past
Pacoima, belongs to one of Shwandt’s death penalty lawyers. Mangy mutts and
cats and horses behind chain link and barbed wire.”

“A commune? At least having them all in
one place should make surveillance easier.”

“Not really. There’s no real cover. Too
much open space. Girls come out the front door wearing skimpies and flipping us
off. The investigation has not progressed apace, sir. How’s Lucy?”

“Haven’t seen her today, she’s out driving
with Ken. And someone else took a drive last night.” I repeated what the boys
had told me about Doris leaving with Tom Shea.

“They also said she loves to gamble. So if
there was some sort of payoff, that could explain why the Sheas live well and
she doesn’t.”

“You said she didn’t seem to like the
Sheas. Now Tom picks her up?”

“If she’s taking a temporary vacation
because my questions shook things up, Tom and Gwen could be looking over
shoulders, too. They might help her split ’cause it’s in their best interests.”

“Could be your questions combined with our
chat with Mo Barnard. She lives right up the hill from the restaurant. If she
dropped in for dinner and let on that Karen’s file was being opened... wonder
if the Sheas’ll rabbit, too.”

“They already left once. Though now
they’ve got community ties. It’s possible they view Doris as a loose cannon and
feel once she’s gone they can handle the pressure. All
her
ties are out
of town: two sons in the army, both master sergeants, one in Germany, one near
Seattle. I don’t know if they go by Reingold. She could be with either one of
them or somewhere in Nevada, playing. She told me she liked it, was thinking of
moving there.”

“Early retirement, huh? Okay, when I get a
chance, I’ll look into her. Nothing new on Trafficant, by the way. I can’t hit
every jail, but so far he hasn’t shown up in any of the major ones.”

“I learned a little more about him today.
Managed to locate one of the Sanctum Fellows, a sculptor named Christopher
Graydon-Jones. He’s become a biggie at an insurance company in Santa Monica. We
had drinks. He remembers Trafficant as a knife-wielding bully and Lowell’s pet.
Trafficant and Lowell used to get drunk together and take walks in the forest.
And the third man in the dream may be a writer named Denton Mellors. Only
critic to give Lowell’s last book a good review. He had a mustache—though it
doesn’t match the one Lucy describes in the dreams—and he idolized Lowell. He
and Trafficant were a clique at the retreat. So my money’s on him as Hairy Lip
and Trafficant as the man with his back turned. Graydon-Jones said something
else that supports that: Lowell looked up to Trafficant. It wasn’t a standard
student-teacher thing. Last session I had with Lucy, she described the third
man as talking roughly to Lowell. Ordering him to roll the girl into the grave.
From what I heard today, Trafficant could’ve done that and gotten away with it.
What do you think?”

“I think,” he said, “that you’ve got
threads. Getting closer to a weave. But with all these people gone, so many
years passed, it may not happen. Then again, who’m I to criticize? I spent
today praying for wisdom in dog shit.”

Denton Mellors had been a graduate student
at Columbia, but it was too late to call the university. On the chance that
he’d returned to New York, I tried Information in all the New York boroughs and
New Jersey but found nothing. Then I wondered if he’d stayed in L.A. and gotten
a writing job on a newspaper or magazine or in film. Before I could get any
further with that, my service called.

“Emergency from Mr. Ken Lowell, doctor. He
couldn’t stay on the line, sounded pretty upset. Here’s the number.”

My heart lurched as I copied down the 818
exchange and called it.
Another suicide attempt. Or worse.
Lucy more
vulnerable than I’d thought, hypnosis a terrible mistake, weakening her
defenses—

“Van Nuys Division.”

The police.
Worse.

“This is Dr. Delaware returning Ken
Lowell’s call.”

“Who’s he?”

“Probably a victim’s brother.”

“Probably?”

“I’m a doctor returning an emergency call
to this number.”

“What was the person’s name?”

“Lowell.”

Four unbearable minutes later, Ken said,
“Thank God they reached you. We’re in real trouble.”

“Lucy?”

“No, no, it’s Puck. We found him, Lucy and
I. It was horrible. She didn’t actually see him, I closed the door before she
could, but—”

“What happened, Ken?”

“They’re saying overdose. He must have
gotten hold of some strong stuff or something. He—the needle was still sticking
out of his arm.” I heard him gag. “Sorry.”

“Take your time.”

“He was all—but you could see the damned
needle.” His voice broke, and I heard him choke back sobs. “It wasn’t even an
arm anymore,” he said, gulping. “But you could see the damned needle.”

The Van Nuys station is part of the
municipal complex on Sylvan, just off the boulevard, where thrift shops,
pawnbrokers, bail bondsmen, and discount Western-wear barns prevail. Posted
just inside the door among the bulletins and wanted posters was a Xeroxed flier
from a local gang threatening to assassinate officers. Someone had written on it
Come and get it, lowlife.
The front room was noisy and active. Several
handcuffed men waited to be booked.

It took a while to get past the desk.
Finally, a detective named Almondovar came out and walked me through the squad
room to the Robbery-Homicide area. Thirty-five or so, he was compact and
stubby, with neat graying hair and curious eyes. His Ultrasuede sportcoat was
gray, his slacks a darker gray, and he wore lizard-skin cowboy boots.

“Whose doctor are you?” he said.

“Lucy Lowell’s. Was it an accidental OD?”

“Did you know the victim?”

“Just by reputation.”

“Big-time addict?”

“Long-term addict.”

“From the shape he was in, you couldn’t
tell much—here we are.”

He opened the door of an interrogation
room. Lucy and Ken sat next to each other at a folding card table, looking like
prisoners of war. Before them were two cups of coffee, untouched.

“Hey, folks,” said Almondovar.

Ken’s eyes were red and his blond-stubbled
face looked swollen. Lucy didn’t move or blink. Her dull gaze went right
through me.

Almondovar said, “We already took
statements from them, doctor. If there’s anything more we need, we’ll let you
know.”

Neither Ken nor Lucy budged.

“What I mean, doctor, is they can go.”

“We’ll get going soon as possible,” I
said.

Almondovar whispered in my ear, “We might
need the room soon.” To Lucy and Ken: “Sorry, folks, we’ll do what we can to
clear this up.”