Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (20 page)

Munch rewound and ejected
the tape, then slipped it into her coat pocket.

* * *

At two-fifteen, Mace and Munch arrived at the San
Diego PD parking lot. The same cop was still on duty at the desk and
issued them passes. They went directly to Rico Chacón's office,
where Mace paged Cassiletti, punching in Chacón's number after the
beep. Two minutes later, the phone rang. Chacón answered,
"Narcotics. Cassiletti? Hold on. " He handed the phone to
Mace.

"
We got the kid," Cassiletti said first
thing. "Found her and the boyfriend at that A.A. meeting just
like Munch said."

Mace turned to Munch, and said, "Your kid is
fine."

She let out her breath in a huge sigh and sank onto
one of the chairs lining the wall.

"You better call the captain," Cassiletti
said.

"
Did you take the little girl to Caroline?"
Mace asked.

"
Yeah, that's all handled."

"
Where are you?" Mace asked.

"
The office."

"Anything new on—"

"Sir?" Cassiletti interrupted. "Captain
Earl is very anxious to speak with you."

"
He can wait another minute."

"He said code two," Cassiletti said, using
LAPD shorthand for ASAP.

"
All right, so hang up." Mace shrugged at
Rico, then redialed the phone and asked to be connected to the
command center. The receptionist asked for his name.

Captain Earl came on the line within thirty seconds.

"
Where the fuck have you been?" he asked.

Why is it, Mace wondered, that no matter who the guy
is, once he puts on the brass, he becomes an asshole? Even Earl the
pearl, who'd been a good investigator and a stand-up guy when he was
a D3, was a shining example of this phenomenon. "You wanted to
talk to me, Captain?"

"You still working the double in Hollywood?"

"
Yes, sir. I believe it's the work of the
Band-Aid Killer."

"
You haven't spoken to the press?"

Mace's hand tightened on the receiver. "No, sir.
On your orders."

"
Why haven't I been apprised of your progress?

"
I'll file a report this evening," Mace
said, wondering what the real problem was.

"Do you have any solid suspects?" Earl
asked.

The use of the word "solid" put Mace on
guard. "I have some possible witnesses I've been trying to
locate."

"
Come in," Earl said. "Do you
understand me? Come directly back to Parker Center. Do nothing else.
Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir. I'm en route now." Mace waited a
second, then called Cassiletti back. "What's up with the
captain?"

"I don't know," Cassiletti said. "He
wanted all my case notes. We must have stumbled into something?"

"
I'm on my way," Mace said.

"
What did Steve Brown want?" Cassiletti
asked.

"I haven't had a chance to call him. I'll see
you in a couple of hours."

Mace hung up the phone and turned to Munch. "I
need to go back to Parker Center. We'll leave the limo at the crime
lab, then I'll take you to your little girl. I just have to make one
more call." He looked at Chacón. "Do you mind?"

"
Help yourself, compadre," Chacón said. He
turned to Munch while Mace looked up Steve Brown's beeper number.

"
Did you find your friend?"

"No, it wasn't her after all," Munch said.

"You must be very relieved."

"
I'd be more relieved if I knew where she was,"
she said. The phone rang. This time Mace answered, "Narcotics."

"This is Steve Brown, anybody there page me?"

"Yeah, Steve. Mace here. Cassiletti said you
called."

"We have to talk," Steve said.

"You're going to have to stand in 1ine,"
Mace said.

"
Yeah," Steve said, "I imagine you're
feeling some heat just about now."

"Where are you going to be later?"

"
Page me," Steve said. "We'll work
something out."

"A1l right," Mace said, and hung up. He
turned to Munch, "You ready?"

"Yeah."

He shook hands with Chacón, saying, "I owe
you."

Munch and Chacón shook hands and exchanged "nice
to meet you."

As they walked down the hallway on the way to the
elevator, Munch held up a cassette. "You got a tape player in
your car?" she asked.

"
No. What is that?"

"It would be easier
if I showed you."

* * *

Raleigh called the number he'd committed to memory.
The voice on the other end of the line answered the call, saying,
"Four one three eight."

"
Two bravo echo six," Raleigh replied.

"Confirmed."

"
Gameboy deviated from the program,"
Raleigh said. "Any problems?"

"Some wet work was involved."

"
Is the situation contained?"

"Actually, better than contained. This is going
to work out to our advantage," Raleigh said. A hot belch erupted
deep in his throat, leaving the burning aftertaste of bile. He
wondered if his duodenal ulcer was acting up again.

"
So we're still on schedule?" the voice
asked.

"
Yeah, Gameboy's in our pocket."

"
Excellent."

"There is one loose end," Raleigh said,
popping his sixth Altoid in an hour.

"
Go on."

"
First name: Ellen. Caucasian female,
mid-twenties, five feet six inches, one hundred and thirty pounds.
Green eyes, light brown hair, but wears wigs. She works for A&M
Limousine."

"
Recommendation?"

"Silence her," Raleigh said.
 

CHAPTER 17

Ellen's ride dropped her off in front of Farmer's
ground-floor apartment on the corner of Brooks and Main in Venice.
Farmer had lived there for twelve years. The landlord had given up
hope of ever raising the rent as long as Farmer chose to stay there.
The only windows in the narrow, dungeonlike apartment faced Main
Street. A twelve-year build-up of grime provided the privacy and
darkness Farmer craved. He'd also nailed thick wire mesh between the
wood sashes to further ensure his security.

Somehow, even though all his cash went to drugs,
Farmer still managed to own a '69 Panhead, which he parked inside his
apartment. The Harley-Davidson oil spot on his carpet was a source of
pride.

Ellen rapped on his door, and called out, "Farmer,"
so he wouldn't think she was the cops. She knew Farmer was a night
person. His displeasure at being disturbed would not last, not when
she flashed her cash in front of him.

"
The fuck you want? " he called out.

"
Open up." She looked nervously up and down
the street while she waited for him to undo the multiple locks on his
door. "C'mon," she said.

At last the door opened, and Farmer stood before her,
squinting at the bright light of day and looking like Willie Nelson
after a two-week bender. He wore a dirty white T-shirt and grimy
jeans. The skin of his bare feet was white. "The fuck you want?"
he asked again.

She slid past him. "Shut the door," she
said. "You holding?"

"You got money? "

"Yes."

"
How much you want?" he asked.

"A dime," she said.

He lit a cigarette and appraised her. "Only a
dime?"

"Ive been clean a while," she explained.

He nodded. "When did you get out?"

"A couple weeks ago. You holding or not? "
she asked.

His apartment smelled of raw gasoline, dirty socks,
and decaying produce. Farmer told her once that a man could live very
easily on what markets threw away. Obviously he was still making the
Dumpster circuit. She wondered if he ever washed his clothes or just
wore them until they fell apart The sheets on his unmade bed showed
the imprint of his body like some greaser's version of the Shroud of
Turin.

"
I'm out of pocket right now," he told her.
"Donna Dumb Cunt has D's, but she only sells three for a
quarter."

She knew he was referring to Dilaudids, a pill form
of synthetic morphine. One of the drug's prized features was that it
was water soluble and easily rendered into injectable liquid. Donna
Dumb Cunt had a lucrative business forging prescriptions and filling
them at select pharmacies. No one called her anything but Donna to
her face, especially when she was holding.

"
Are they the yellow ones?" Ellen asked.
Dilaudids came in three different milligram dosages. The yellow were
ten milligrams and the strongest.

"Yeah, of course," Farmer said. He
scratched a scab on his arm. "You want me to cop for you?"

"
I know Donna. I can go over there myself."

"Yeah, but she don't like foot traffic, and she
won't let you fix there."

Ellen didn't see that she had many options left, not
if she wanted to medicate her hangover. "All right. Take me over
there, let me use your works, and I'll split the dope with you."

Farmer snuffed out his cigarette on the badly scarred
carpet and pulled on his boots. She stood aside while he straddled
his bike and kick-started it. The sound of the Harley roaring to life
reverberated off the walls of the apartment. Ellen held the door open
while Farmer wheeled the motorcycle out to the sidewalk, leaving
behind a spotted trail of dark oil. She pulled the apartment door
shut and jumped on the back of the Harley. Farmer took off toward the
canals by the boardwalk. At the top of Dudley Way, he shut off the
engine and rolled down the alley.

There was a carport behind Donna's building. Farmer
secured the bike with a heavy chain and padlock to one of the support
columns, then he and Ellen climbed down through a cement planter and
knocked on Donna's kitchen door. After what seemed an interminable
pause, Donna came shuffling to the door. Donna had been around Venice
forever. She had dropped acid with Jimmy Morrison and had smoked dope
with Janis Joplin. She still wore her dry, frizzy gray hair long down
her back, like the beatnik she had been too many years ago. She
peered at them through her thick, smudged glasses, tilting back her
head so she could see under her bangs.

"Yeah?" she asked. The pupils of her gray
eyes were the size of pinpricks, indicating that she had recently
partaken of her own goods. Constant drool had left chapped trails on
either side of her mouth. Her teeth were yellowed.

"
Hey, Donna," Ellen said. "How have
you been?"

Donna laughed her throaty "Ha, ha." The
same imbecilic chuckle that had helped her earn her nickname. "Well,
I'm fatter, " Donna said.

"Oh, no, you're not," Ellen said
immediately, even though that was the first thing she'd noticed. The
flowing kaftan Donna wore couldn't disguise the width of her hips.
"You look great."

Donna regarded them both suspiciously. "I'm not
fronting you."

"I've got money," Ellen said.

Donna turned from them and lumbered back into her
cluttered apartment. "How much you want?"

"
Three," Ellen said. She felt the
anticipation building inside her. There was no stopping now. The
thought of getting down had carried her since waking up in La Jolla.
How she was going to handle the rest of her life was all safely on
hold. Everything but the dope was secondary.

Donna poked absentmindedly through her junky
collection of bottles and books, opening each one and mumbling all
the while, "Now where did I hide it?"

Ellen and Farmer exchanged looks. They'd been through
this before with her. Donna said the neighbors noticed if there was a
lot of in and out traffic, so she slowed things up with this game of
hers. Ellen knew better than to volunteer to help search. Donna might
be a dumb cunt, but she was smart enough to know that a dope fiend
would keep searching long after they'd already pocketed your stash.
An alcoholic would rip you off, too, but when they sobered up the
next day they'd come back crying and beg forgiveness. An addict would
rip you off, help you look for your stuff, and vow on their mama's
grave to get the dog who did you dirty.

Donna was standing on a stool, going through the
food-stuffs stacked on the open shelves in her kitchen. Waiting for
Donna to finish her ritual torture was giving Ellen too much time to
think. With thinking, came worrying. Just being here, consorting with
known drug users, was enough to violate her parole. And what about
Munch, who had only tried to help her? What was she going to tell
her? Even worse than the thinking and worrying, Ellen realized, were
the feelings. Either the hangover was making her oversensitive, or
she had forgotten how bad it felt to grovel.

"
How can you not remember where you stashed your
dope?" she asked.