All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (14 page)

Gunner and Danee Elbridge turned to see a pair of LAPD uniforms step tentatively into the room, sidearms drawn, faces fixed with nervous concentration. The lead man, a red-nosed white man older than his black partner by at least ten years, studied the pair before him, said, “A neighbor reported shots being fired at this address. And there's a car out front all full of holes.”

“That's my car,” Danee Elbridge said. “It was all a mistake. I thought—”

“You the owner of the house, ma'am?”

“Yes. This man—”

He cut her off again, still holding his weapon at the ready, said, “And you, sir? Who are you?”

Gunner told him, kicking off what turned out to be a thirty-minute break in his conversation with the Digga's widow. The story he and she offered the two officers was disjointed and incomplete, but in the end, the uniforms didn't have much choice but to buy it and retreat. They were able to confirm that Danee Elbridge was indeed the owner of the home, and that the gun she had allegedly used to do all the shooting was registered in her name. And she was insistent no harm had been done, the ugly bump on her head notwithstanding.

When they were at last alone again to pick up where they'd left off, Danee Elbridge and her guest resumed their original positions on her living room couch, sans the makeshift ice packs, and decided after some consideration that their last subject of discussion had been 2DaddyLarge, and the man he had promised was on his way to bring Danee to him. By force, if necessary.

“Funny thing is, I almost gave my shit up,” she confessed, opening the collar of her bathrobe slightly to draw Gunner's eyes to the negligee beneath it. “I mean, I thought maybe if I finally let the nigga have a taste, didn't do nothin' to make it special or anything, he'd see it wasn't workin' and lose int'rest. I was all dressed and ready to go … and then I saw your car comin' up the driveway. An' I said uh-uh, fuck that. I done held that motherfucker off this long, I ain't gonna just bend over for 'im now.”

“Sounds like maybe someone should have a little talk with him,” Gunner said. “See if they can't encourage him to look for companionship elsewhere.”

“You mean
you?
Man, why should he listen to you? He never listened to Cee, and Cee was my husband.”

“True. But maybe Cee never managed to catch him alone. I hear 2Daddy's a lot more agreeable when his homies
aren't
around than when they
are
.”

The Digga's widow laughed. “Ain't that the truth.”

“Your mother-in-law, in fact, seems to believe he's completely harmless.”

“Coretta? She said that?”

“In so many words. I asked her if she thought 2Daddy could've had anything to do with Carlton's death, and she all but laughed in my face at the thought.”

Danee Elbridge's expression darkened, told him he'd struck a chord with this last.

“What do
you
think about that idea?”

“What idea?”

“That 2Daddy may have been involved in your husband's death somehow.”

“I think it's crazy. Cee committed suicide.”

“You sound quite sure about that.”

“I am.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“Why? Because that's all it coulda been, suicide. All these people sayin' Cee was murdered don't know what the hell they talkin' about.”

“Because?”

“Because they wasn't there, that's why.”

“You mean at the hotel. To see the note he left behind.”

The Digga's widow tipped her head slightly to one side, the better to view him with renewed distrust. “Coretta told you about Cee's note?”

“No. Joy did.”

“But he didn't tell you what it said, right?”

Gunner almost had to laugh. “No. And neither did your mother-in-law, if that was going to be your next question. Would you like to be the first to clue me in?”

Danee Elbridge just shook her head. Greatly relieved.

“No. I didn't think you would,” Gunner said.

“Hey, I'm sorry, Mr…. what'd you say your name was?”

“Gunner. Aaron Gunner.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Gunner, but that's just how it is. Wasn't nothin' in that note you or anybody else needs to know about.”

“No, apparently not. At least, that's what everyone who's ever seen it keeps telling me, aside from Ray Crumley, of course. Did you know poor Ray?”

If she did, her face never showed it. “Who?”

“Ray Crumley. He was the security man at the Beverly Hills Westmore who discovered Carlton's body along with Joy. You never met him?”

She shook her head again, said, “No. I mighta seen 'im at the hotel that day, but … we didn't talk or anything. Least, I don't remember talkin' to 'im. Why? What's he gotta do with me?”

“It's beginning to look like he took home a hotel surveillance tape that may have shown someone entering or exiting your husband's room the night he died, kept it a couple of days, maybe even made a copy before returning it. I'd tell you why he'd want to do something like that, except I never got the chance to ask him. He's dead.”

“Dead?”

“As in murdered in his apartment last night, yeah. Somebody broke in and trashed the place, then beat him to death when he discovered them there.”

A short, painful silence ensued as he waited for the Digga's widow to offer some response.

“So? I already told you I didn't know the man. Why you tellin'
me
all this?”

She was either telling the truth, or faking it better than almost anyone Gunner had ever seen. “Because I was hoping you could tell me what it all means,” the investigator said. “Crumley's supervisor says the surveillance tape he took was recorded between four and eight o'clock p.m. that Saturday, more than four hours before your husband was determined to have died. It should have been worthless in terms of proving he was murdered, and therefore useless as a means for blackmail, yet it's my guess somebody killed Crumley trying to retrieve the tape and keep its contents secret. The question is, why?”

“I don't know,” Danee Elbridge said.

“Beverly Hills PD tells me
you
visited your husband's room that night. Around what time was that?”

“I don't remember.”

“You don't remember if it was between the hours of four and eight p.m.?”

“It coulda been. I told you, I don't remember.”

“Do you remember if Carlton had any other visitors around that time besides yourself?”

A full five seconds went by, then: “No. I was only over there for a few minutes, I didn't see who else came by.”

“That isn't quite true, Mrs. Elbridge. Your husband had at least two other visitors that night the police say you were aware of. Both of them were female.”

“Okay. So he had a couple bitches in his room 'fore I came by. What about it?”

“Could
they
have been there between the hours of four and eight that evening?”

She held on to her answer like it was something he was unworthy of, finally mumbled, “Maybe. I'm not sure.”

“The police say you knew one of the ladies by name.”

Another long, angry pause. “Yeah.”

“And that name was?”

“Antoinetta.”

“Antoinetta. Antoinetta what?”

“I don't know the bitch's last name.”

“How about the other young lady?”

The Digga's widow shook her head. “I didn't know her. That was the first time I ever seen her.”

“But you knew Antoinetta.”

“Yes.”

“In what way? She a personal friend, or …”

Danee Elbridge laughed bitterly, shook her head. “See? I knew it. You ain't no goddamn investigator! Look at these questions you askin'!”

“She was in your husband's hotel room the night he died. She might know something—”

“Get outa my house, Mr. Gunner. Now!” She stood up, pointed a long-nailed finger at the door. “Take your ass back to whatever newspaper, or magazine, or TV show you workin' for, and don't ever come back around here!”

“You're jumping to false conclusions, Mrs. Elbridge,” Gunner said, getting to his own feet. “I'm not a reporter.”

“Bullshit!” She stepped up to him, pushed him full in the chest with both hands. “Get out!”

“Take it easy!”

“I said get out!” She pushed him again.

“Look—how about if I told you who my client is? Would you believe I'm who I say I am then?”

“No! Get out!”

“I'm working for your father-in-law. Benny Elbridge,” Gunner said.

Sometimes, given no other choice, you had to
give
a little love to
get
some.

“Say what?” Danee Elbridge asked, stunned.

“My client's Benny Elbridge. What, did I stutter the first time?”

“Cee's father?
That's
who you workin' for?”

“Yes. I don't—”

“Oh no. Now I
know
you' lyin'.”

“Excuse me?”

“That old man ain't got a dime to his name! How the hell's he gonna hire somebody like you to do anything?”

Gunner didn't immediately know how to answer that. “I had the impression he was spending savings of some kind,” he said.

“Savings?” Danee Elbridge laughed openly. “He ain't got no savings! Savings from what? Mr. Elbridge ain't held a job longer'n three weeks his whole life.”

“What?”

“Aw, damn. You really
are
workin' for 'im, ain't you? Only you just now findin' out it's for
free
!” She was laughing in earnest now, indifferent to the possibility that Gunner might take offense.

But there was no way that he could, of course. He deserved to be ridiculed. For while he was actually innocent of the crime she believed him guilty of—taking a destitute man's case without seeing some money first—he
had
waited until now to wonder where else the five-hundred-dollar cash retainer Benny Elbridge had paid him two days ago could have come from, other than Elbridge's own pocket. It was an incredible example of shortsightedness that suddenly left him feeling quite stupid.

“Free or otherwise,” he said, working hard to keep his embarrassment beneath the surface, “my services are being provided here at Mr. Elbridge's request. So does that buy me a little trust from you or not?”

Once again, she made him wait to hear her answer. “Depends on what you ask me.”

“You mean you still won't talk about the note.”

“No.”

“Even if it might indicate that your husband
didn't
commit suicide?”

“It don't matter what it indicates. Gee wrote that note for me and his mama. Nobody else. What it says is personal, and that's how we gonna keep it. Personal.”

Gunner wasn't satisfied with that answer—there was definitely something wrong about Danee Elbridge and Coretta Trayburn being equally protective of the note's contents, while completely at odds over what those contents said about Carlton Elbridge's death—but he could see the Digga's widow was not going to discuss the matter any further. So …

“And Antoinetta?”

“She ain't no friend of mine, and she wasn't none of Cee's. Only reason we even knew her is 'cause she likes to hang with some of the folks we party with. She's always lookin' for stars like Cee to get busy with so she can talk about bein' with 'em afterward.”

“And the girl who was with her that night at the Westmore? You'd really never seen her before?”

“No. That was the first time.”

“And Carlton never mentioned her name?”

She thought about it a moment before answering, said, “He mighta said her name once. I think he said it was Felicia. Felicia or Phyllis, somethin' like that.”

Gunner gave her one of his business cards, said, “It would help me a great deal to talk to these ladies if I could find them. Maybe you could make a call or two for me, see if somebody knows their last names, or possibly where one of them lives.”

Danee Elbridge took the card, showed him the courtesy of glancing at it briefly. “Why? They ain't gonna know nothin'.”

“Still. I'd like to talk to them. You never know what they might have seen or heard that night that could be helpful.”

“Helpful how? Cee killed himself, Mr. Gunner. Why the hell can't people just accept that and leave it alone?”

Gunner eased her gun out of the front of his pants and tossed it on the couch. “Only one reason, really, Mrs. Elbridge,” he said. “Because it might not be true.”

On his way out, Gunner stopped the Cobra just beyond the Elbridge estate's still-open gate, left the car parked in the driveway there to see if he could figure out why the gate wasn't closing. He was trying to pry open the system's control box just inside the grounds when a car horn began bleating incessantly out on the street, forcing him to come around to see who was making all the racket.

“Yo, man! Get the fuckin' car out the way!”

It was a young, needle-thin brother in a black-on-black Cadillac Eldorado, trying to turn up into Danee Elbridge's driveway. He was yelling through the car's open side windows from behind the wheel, giving Gunner a limited view of him, but even through the sun-dappled windshield Gunner could see he was bald, bony, and nowhere close to California's legal drinking age of twenty-one.

Gunner walked slowly over to the Cadillac's driver's-side window, peered down at the scowling kid inside. “Don't tell me, let me guess. 2Daddy sent you,” he said.

“Yeah, that's right. And I'm late. So do like I tol' you and move the goddamn car!” He leaned on his horn again, hard, to prove how serious he was.

Gunner just looked at him.

“Look. You gonna move the muthafucka, or do I gotta move it for you?” the kid asked, throwing the Cadillac into gear.