Hollywood Station (31 page)

Budgie opened her report binder and said, "Is someone trying to murder her?"

"No," he said, "she's trying to murder me."

Suddenly his hand holding the glass of lemonade began to tremble, and the ice cubes tinkled.

With his long experience in Hollywood crime, Fausto took over. "And where is your wife now?"

"She's gone to San Francisco with her sister-in-law. They'll be back Monday morning, which is why I felt safe to call you here. I thought you might like to look for clues like on . . ."

"CSI," Fausto said. These days it was always the CSI TV show. Real cops just couldn't measure up.

"Yes," he said. "CSI."

"How is she trying to kill you?" Fausto asked.

"She's trying to poison me."

"How do you know that?" Budgie asked.

"I get a stomachache every time she cooks a meal. I've started going out to dinner a lot because I'm so frightened."

"And you wouldn't have any physical evidence, would you?" Budgie asked. "Something that you've saved? Like they do on CSI?"

"No," he said. "But it happens every time. It's a gradual attempt to murder me. She's a very sophisticated and clever woman."

"Is there any other evidence of her homicidal intent that you can offer?" Fausto asked.

"Yes," he said. "She's putting a toxic substance in my shoes."

"Go on," Budgie said. "How do you know?"

"My feet are always tired. And the soles sometimes hurt for no reason."

Fausto glanced at his watch and said, "Anything else?"

"Yes, I believe she's putting a toxic substance in my hats."

"Let me guess," Fausto said. "You have headaches?"

"How did you know?"

"Here's the problem as I see it, Mr. Houston," Fausto said. "If we arrest her, a high-priced shyster like the ones Michael Jackson hires would look at all this evidence and say, your wife's a lousy cook, your shoes're too tight, and so's your hat. You see where I'm coming from?"

"Yes, I take your point, Officer," he said.

"So I think what you should do is put this aside for now and call us back when you have more evidence. A lot more evidence."

"Do you think I should risk my life eating her food to collect the evidence?"

"Bland food," Fausto said. "It's not easy to disguise poison in bland dishes. Go ahead and enjoy your mashed potatoes and vegetables and a steak or some chicken, but not fried chicken. Just don't go for the spicy stuff and avoid heavy sauces. That's where it could be risky. And buy some shoes that are a half size bigger. Do you drink alcohol with dinner?"

"Three martinis. My wife makes them."

"Cut back to one martini. It's very hard to put a toxic dose in only one martini. Have it after dinner but not just before bedtime. And only wear hats when you go out in the sun. I think all of this will disrupt a murder plot or flush out the perpetrator."

"And you'll come back when we have more to go on?"

"Absolutely," Fausto said. "It will be a pleasure."

There was no pleasure to be had in the house of Farley Ramsdale. Three hours had passed since Cosmo and Ilya had pushed the car into the little garage, and still Farley and Olive had not come home. At one point Cosmo thought Ilya was asleep, lying there on the couch with her eyes closed.

But when he got up to look out the window at the darkened street, she said, "Stay back from the window. Every police in Hollywood looks for a man in a blue shirt and a woman with the hair that they shall know is a wig. We cannot call a taxi here. A driver shall think of us when he hears about the robbery. Then police may come here and talk to Farley and he is going to know it was us and he shall tell them."

"Shut up, Ilya. I must think!"

"We cannot go to a bus. We may be seen by police. We cannot call any of your friends to come for us unless you wish to share money with them because they shall find out. We are in a trap."

"Shut up!" Cosmo said. "We are not in the trap. We have the money. It is dark now."

"How do we go home, Cosmo? How?"

"Maybe the car will start now."

"I shall not put myself in that car!" Ilya said. "Every cop looks for that car. Every cop in Hollywood! Every cop in all Los Angeles!"

"The car must stay here," he agreed. "We put the money in shopping bags. There are paper bags in the kitchen."

"I understand," Ilya said. "We walk away from this house because we do not dare to call the taxi to come here? And then we call from my cell phone and taxi is going to meet us out on the street someplace where we hide in shadows? And we get taxi to leave us a few streets from our apartment?"

"Yes. That is exactly correct."

"And then Farley and Olive come home to find a car in garage and pretty soon when they turn on TV they see about robbery and the death of the guard and how the killer looks like and you don't think they know who done it? And you think they do not call police and say, Is there reward for the name of killers? The car is here. You do not think this shall happen, Cosmo?"

Cosmo sat down then and put his head in his hands. He had been thinking for three hours, and there was no alternative. He had planned to kill Farley and Olive at the junkyard just before getting the money for the diamonds, but now? He had to kill them when they walked in this house. Yet he could not risk gunfire.

He went over to Ilya and knelt on the floor beside her and said, "Ilya, the two addicts must die when they come home. We got no choice. We got to kill them. Maybe with knife from the kitchen. You must help me, Ilya."

She sat up and said, "I will not kill nobody else with you, Cosmo. Nobody."

"But what must we do?" he pleaded.

"Tell them what we done. Make them partner. Give them half of money. Make them help us to push that goddamn car away from here and leave it or set fire on it. Then they drive us home. And while all this happens, we just got to hope the cops do not see us. That is what we do, Cosmo. We do not kill nobody else."

"Please, Ilya! Think!"

"If you try to kill Farley and Olive, you shall have to kill me. You cannot stab us all, Cosmo. I shall shoot you if I can."

And with that, she drew the pistol from her purse, got up, and walked across the room to the sagging TV viewing chair, where she sat down with the gun in her lap.

"Please do not make fool talk," Cosmo said. "I must call Dmitri. But not now. Not today. I do not talk to Dmitri yet. We must see what is what before I call him."

"We shall get caught," she said. "Or killed."

"Ilya," he said, looking at her. "Let us make love, Ilya. You shall feel much better if we make love."

"Do not come close to me or it shall end here with guns, and you cannot let guns shoot on this quiet street, Cosmo. Or maybe you also wish to stab every neighbor too?"

Budgie and Fausto were back on patrol looking for something to do, when Budgie said, "Let's go by Pablo's Tacos and jam up a tweaker or two. Maybe we'll shake loose some crystal. We could use an observation arrest on our recap."

"Okay," Fausto said, turning east on the boulevard. "But whatever you do, don't order a taco in that joint. You heard about the tweaker at Pablo's that shoved bindles of crystal up his bung and tried to say his partner made him do it? Well, sometimes he cooks there."

Farley was absolutely livid by now, and Olive was getting an upset stomach from the stress. For the tenth time, he cried out, "Ain't there a goddamn teener or two left in this fucking town?"

"Please, Farley," Olive said. "You'll make yourself sick."

"I need some ice!" he said. "Goddamnit, Olive, we been fucking around for hours!"

"Maybe we should try the doughnut shop again."

"We tried it twice!" Farley said. "We tried every goddamn place I can think of. Can you think of a place we ain't tried?"

"No, Farley," she said. "I can't."

Farley raised himself up and looked to his right and saw 6-X-76 parking in the lot. A tall blond female cop got out, along with an old rhino who Farley figured must be a Mexican, or these days a Salvadoran, and that was even worse.

Farley turned his face away and said, "Olive, tell me these two cops ain't gonna jack us up. Not twice in one night, for chrissake!"

"They're looking at us," Olive said. Then Farley heard her say cheerfully, "Good evening, officers."

Farley put both hands on the steering wheel so they wouldn't get goosey and blow his fucking head off, and the female cop said, "Evening. Waiting for someone?"

Farley pointed to Olive and said, "Yeah, she's an actress. Waiting to get discovered."

That did it. Fausto said, "Step outta the car."

Since this had happened to Farley dozens of times in his life, he kept his hands in plain view when Fausto pulled open the driver's door. Farley got out, shaking his head and wondering why oh why did everything happen to him?

Fausto patted him down and said, "Let's see some ID."

When Olive got out, Budgie looked at Olive's scrawny torso covered only by a short T-shirt, revealing a sunken belly and bony hips. Her jeans were child size, and Budgie perfunctorily patted the pockets to see if she felt any bindles of crystal. Then Budgie shined her flashlight beam on Olive's inner forearms, but since Olive had seldom skin-popped, there weren't any tracks.

Farley said, "Gimme a break, amigo. Some of your compadres already rousted us tonight. They ran a make on us and on the car and then gave me a fucking ticket. Can I reach in my glove box and prove it to you?"

"No, stay here, amigo," Fausto said, painting it with sarcasm. To Budgie he said, "Partner, take a look in the glove compartment. See if there's a citation in there."

She opened the glove compartment and retrieved the traffic ticket, saying, "B. M. Driscoll wrote it right after roll call. Near the cybercaf,."

"I'll bet it never occurred to you, amigo," Fausto said, "that maybe the reason you get stopped by so many cops is because you hang out where tweakers score their crystal. Did that ever flash on your computer screen?"

Farley thought he better lose the Spanish words because they didn't work with this fucking greaseball, so he tried a different tack. "Officer, please help yourself. You don't even have to ask. Search my car."

And Budgie said, "Okay," and she did.

While she was searching, Farley said, "Yes, I got a minor record for petty theft and possession of crystal meth. No, I don't have drugs on me. If you want, I'll take off my shoes. If we weren't standing out here, I'd take off my fucking pants. I'm too tired to reason with you guys anymore. Just do what you gotta do and let me go home."

"We even told the other officers they could come home with us," Olive said helpfully. "We don't care if you search our house. You can do a fishing exposition, we don't care."

"Olive," Farley said, "I'm begging you. Shut the fuck up."

"Is that right?" Budgie said. "You're so clean you'd take us home right now and let us search your house, no problem?" To Fausto, "Whadda you think of that, partner?"

"Is that what you'd do?" Fausto asked Farley, as he wrote a quick FI card. "Take us to your crib? You're that clean?"

"Man, at this point I'm just tempted to say yes. If you'd let me go lay in bed, you could turn the fucking place upside down, inside and out. And if you find any dope in that house, it would mean that Olive here must have a secret boyfriend who's supplying her. And if Olive could find a boyfriend, then there really are miracles and maybe I'll win the California lottery. And if I do, I'll move clear outta this fucking town and away from you people, because you're killing me, man, you're killing me!"

Fausto looked at the anguished clammy face of Farley Ramsdale, handed him his driver's license, and said, "Dude, you better get into rehab ASAP. The trolley you're riding is at the last stop. Nothing left ahead but the end of the line."

When Fausto and Budgie were back in their car, she said to Fausto, "I'm tempted to drive by the address on that FI a little later."

"What for?"

"That guy's gotta score some crystal. They'll be smoking ice and getting all spun out tonight or he'll be in a straitjacket. He's that close to losing it completely."

Ilya was on her feet, pacing and smoking. Cosmo was the one on the couch now, exhausted from arguing with her.

"How long we sit at this place?" he asked lethargically.

"Almost six hours," she said. "We can't wait no more. We got to go."

"Without our money, Ilya?"

"Did you wipe all evidence from the car, Cosmo?"

"I tell you yes, okay? Now please shut up."

"Did you empty the cigarette tray in the car? That is evidence."

"Yes."

"Get can of money out from the car."

"You got idea, Ilya? Wonderful. You don't like my ideas. Like we must kill the addicts."

"Shut up, Cosmo. You will put can of money under this house. Find a little door that go under this house. Put can in there."

She began emptying ashtrays into a paper bag from the kitchen, and he said, "Ilya, the car? It cannot travel! What are you thinking about?"