White Sister (25 page)

"I don't wanta talk about this here. These offices ain't watertight. I got Rawson sweepin' 'em twice a week now. You wouldn't believe what we find in the walls."

Then there was more muffled talk that I couldn't understand and a door slammed. I ran back up to twenty-eight, exited the fire stairs, and was back in the brokerage floor. I pushed the down button, but stood there for almost three minutes before the elevator arrived.

When I got back to the lobby, there was no sign of the Malugas. I thought I had beaten them to the entrance, but I didn't want to get busted standing here, so I sprinted for the parking lot. When I got to the car, I was relieved to see the tan Rolls still in its parking space. I jumped into the Jeep. Bodine was slumped down in the passenger seat with his eyes closed.

"Stay down, I don't want 'em to see us," I cautioned.

"If you talking about that little blond spinner we followed over here she's gone."

I looked over and he nodded.

"She and some brown-frown the size of a dump truck dipped outta here in a yellow Ferrari two minutes ago."

Chapter
38.

WE SAT IN the parking lot for a couple of minutes while I tried to figure out a profitable course of action. For some reason, Bodine was now ranting about the African slave trade in the eighteen hundreds, which he called the Black Holocaust. I tuned him out and tried to piece together a plan. The tape I just made sounded like a plot against Curtis Clark and Lionel Wright set to go down tonight. The problem was, if I tried to book it into evidence and get a case number, I'd be signing up for a boatload of trouble with the department. Nothing on the tape was admissible because it had all been illegally acquired. With no warrant or even correct paperwork from Sally to get the bug installed at ESD, we would both get hammered. As John's voice continued to drone on about slave traders in 1820,1 tried to come up with a solution that wouldn't land me and Sally Quinn in a jackpot.

My tape was worthless in the criminal justice system, but it had to be worth something to Curtis Clark and Lionel Wright. Mayb
e i
t would buy me a place at the table. If I was going to clear Alexa!s name, I had to find a way to somehow get to the inside. Chooch told me that it was common knowledge that Maluga had been feuding with Curtis Clark, but he didn't know why. From what I'd just overheard, it seemed the feud was over stolen royalties and back performance pay.

John kept ranting.

"African slavers was kidnappin' our tribal warriors an' hiding them in the jungle in this old abandoned French village
my great
-
great-grandfather, Chief O, chased 'em there. That village was a Dantean nightmare."

Dantean nightmare? Where did he get this stuff? Had he actually read both Thomas Mann's Tonio Kroger and Dante's Inferno?

I dialed 411 and the exchange operator said, "City and state, please."

I told her what I wanted and she gave me the number, which I dialed into my phone. John kept trying to get my attention.

"Hey," he said, but I ignored him. "Hey, I'm talkin' at you."

"WYD Productions," a woman's lilting voice answered after two rings.

"Lionel Wright's office, please."

"I'll connect you to his assistant, Miss McKenzie."

As I was being transferred, Bodine got frustrated and slipped into one of his high-volume rants.

"This here be my legacy," he shouted. "It's what my life is about. I'm talkin' about a criminal catastrophe
the fuckin' Black Holocaust and all you can to do is blab on yer phone!"

"Shut up, John," I shouted back. "I've got a situation here!"

He fell silent and began to pout.

"Lionel Wright's office," a woman with a clipped British accent said.

"This is Detective Shane Scully with Homicide Special at the LAPD. I need to speak with Lionel Wright or Curtis Clark."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wright is not available and Mr. Clark doesn't record for us. Try Lethal Force, Inc. They can give you a number."

"Lady, this is a police emergency. Your boss is about to get murdered tonight. I have a surveillance tape he should listen to. If you want him and Curtis Clark to see the end of the week, you'll put me through."

There was a long pause. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard me. If you'd rather let them get assassinated, I guess that's your call."

I was putting some stress into her day. Her cool efficiency disappeared. "I c-can't promise anything," she stuttered. "Mr. Wright doesn't
"

"You call him. Tell him what I just said. I'll meet him anywhere. House, office, street corner. He can pick."

"Where can we reach you?"

"I'll call back in ten minutes."

I hung up without saying good-bye. John Bodine was staring at me wide-eyed.

"Bust A Cap is slammin'!" The Black Holocaust seemed lost in the wake of Lionel Wright's celebrity. "You know him? That half
-
stepper is pure cheddar, man! You really know him?"

"Not yet, but I think he's in my future."

Since the WYD phone number had an 818 area code, I put the Jeep in gear and headed toward the 818 section of the city, which was generally the Valley. Bodine stayed strangely quiet as I drove.

Ten minutes later, I dialed WYD. I was again put through to Lionel Wright's assistant, Miss McKenzie, who sounded anxious now.

"Mr. Wright will meet you at his office. Go to our underground parking garage on Sunnyslope off Ventura and ask for the private elevator. One of his security assistants will meet you there."

"What about Curtis Clark?"

"We're trying to contact him."

"Give me an address."

"It's Wright Plaza on Ventura Boulevard between Greenbush and Sunnyslope. We're the whole block. Call me from the garage."

"See you in ten," I said.

"We gonna go see Bust A Cap?" John gushed. "I love that half
-
stepper."

"John, pick a corner you like, 'cause you and I have finally reached the end of our time together." "This is one nigga don't get his ass peeled like no black banana. I got some mojo workin' here."

"Okay, then I'll pick one for you. Ah, yes, how about this one?"

I pulled over and put the Jeep in park. Then I went around, opened the passenger door, and dragged him out of the car by his collar. I yanked too hard and he stumbled and fell, landing on his hip. He grabbed his wound and screamed in theatrical pain.

"I'm gonna sue!"

"Have your guys call my guys."

I got back into the car and for the second time since yesterday, left him in the street.

Even as I drove away, something told me I hadn't seen the last of him.

Chapter
39.

WHEN I GO to potentially dangerous meetings with people I don't trust I always scope out the location in advance and try to arrive late. Sometimes that shakes up the equation and you get a better look at what you're heading into.

I was parked across from Wright Plaza, watching to see if any unusual activity was taking place in preparation for my arrival. The plaza was intended to be an architectural statement piece with twin glass towers connected by a granite mezzanine bridge. There were too many subtle but pretentious rainbow arches incorporated into the design for my taste.

While I waited I called Sally Quinn in the Valley Division and got her just as she was heading out to lunch.

"Sally, I need a background check on Lionel Wright," I told her.

"You gotta cool your jets, buddy. Being in your posse is career poison. This has become very political."

"The minute they found Slade in Alexa's car it was political. Mike Ramsey has been scrambling around like a cat burying turd
s o
n linoleum. He'll do anything to stay out of this jackpot. Alexa and I are just a convenient way out."

"And how does that bring us to Lionel Wright?"

"I need his jacket. Especially anything pertaining to old scores he's got out against him down on Sixtieth Street. That's a Blood neighborhood, so check the gang book or call Organized Crime. I can't remember his name, but I think they have a sergeant down there solely working hip-hop music crimes."

After a short pause she said, "I oughta have the air in my head changed for even considering this." Then I heard her take a deep breath. "Okay. Call me in an hour."

"Sally, thanks for hanging with me." But she had already hung up. After that call, I tried to fit these new pieces into my expanding puzzle. If Lionel Wright had started on Sixtieth Street in South Central, it probably made him a Blood or at least Blood friendly. The Malugas and their whole bunch were Compton Crips. It was certainly possible Lionel Wright had financed his early success in the music business through street crime. I was parked across from twenty million dollars worth of real estate with Lionel Wright's name on it. So let's not hear any more of that argument. Crime definitely pays.

While I watched and waited, I called Chooch on his cell phone. His battery must have been fried because I went straight to voice mail. I left a message that I would be there in time for Alexa's surgery at ten a
. M
. tomorrow. Even though I was pretty sure the rat squad would be there waiting to pick me up, I'd find a way to deal with them. No way was I going to let Alexa go through that surgery without me.

Then I saw a long, white, stretch limo pull into the underground garage at Wright Plaza. Bust A Cap had arrived. I waited another ten minutes and no threatening gangsters were slinking around, so I put the Jeep in gear and drove down Sunnyslope into the underground garage at Wright Plaza. There was a security stand on the A-level in the middle of the drive near the elevators. I pulled up and a large brother with cornrows wearing a starched short-sleeved Wright Plaza security uniform looked in at me.

"I'm here to see Lionel Wright at WYD Records," I said.

The guard was a big muscular guy with gang tats peeking out from under the stretched short sleeves of his uniform.

"Name?" he said, as if he were checking in guests at a leper colony.

"Shane Scully."

He looked at his clipboard and pointed to a visitor parking place nearby. There was no sign of the white limo that had arrived only a few seconds before me. It had probably gone down to some secure parking space below. I pulled in where instructed, got out of the car, and chirped the lock. The guard waved me over, motioning with the index finger of his right hand. A demeaning come-hither gesture.

"I'm supposed to meet somebody from security," I called across the thirty feet that separated us, not about to be beckoned like a naughty child.

" 'Ats right, and security is on its way. You gonna wait for the man right here," he ordered.

I reluctantly crossed the pavement toward him and stood next to the booth.

"You po-lice?" he asked.

"Is that gonna be a problem for us?"

"You got a strap, you best give it to me."

"Back at ya."

We stood there and stared daggers at each other.

At that moment, the elevator opened and two mastodons with shiny, shaved, bullet heads exited. Both were about the same size and shape of KZ and Wayne from Stacy Maluga's house. Narrow waists, chorded necks, and bulging thighs. Dimensions hard to obtain without steroids. They wore expensive tailored, black suits with banded collars. When they reached the security guard, one of them said:

"We got him, Kaz."

"He's packin', Vonnie. Wouldn't give it up."

"It's okay. He's the law," Vonnie replied, showing executive potential. As we walked to the elevator, he said, "I'm Vondell Richmond. This is Taylor Hays," indicating the other security guard who looked at me with undisguised contempt.

Vondell used a key card, which hung from a chain around hi
s n
eck, to activate the elevator door sensor. As it opened, he said, "If you'll please follow us?" Polite but cold.

The east tower of the building was only five stories, and Lionel Wright's suite of executive offices took up the entire fifth floor. When the elevator opened, we walked out into a snow-white reception area: white furniture, white carpet, white drapes. The only color came from several giant abstract canvases, which musf have been done exclusively for this space, because aside from bold slashes of red and blue inside their ornate frames, they were all painted on the same stark, white background. The effect was surreal and startling.

The receptionist was a ten-point-five on a scale of ten with coffee-colored skin and features so delicately sculpted it was hard not to stare.

"Mr. Scully?" she said with her beautiful British accent. "I'm Patch McKenzie. I believe we spoke. Is there anything you'd like to drink?" No stuttering now. She'd recovered her composure since we'd talked.

"I'm fine," I said softly.

"I'll tell Mr. Wright you've arrived." She then spoke quietly into a tiny microphone headset that was barely visible at the side of her face.