Hollywood Station (35 page)

The promoter's jowls waddled slightly and he said, "Doobie D. That's all I ever did call him, Doobie D. I swear on my momma's grave."

Benny scowled and said, "Maybe your momma has room for one more in there."

Andi said, "What's his phone number?"

"I dunno," the promoter said, twisting his zircon ring nervously, glancing every few seconds at the tall black cop, who looked about ready to grab him by the throat.

Andi said, "This officer tells me you invited him here as your guest tonight."

"That's 'cause I run into him on the street when I went to visit my momma. He said he wanna go to one of them Hollywood parties I promote. And me, I'm a fool. I say, okay, when I get one, I'm gonna let you know. So I get this job and I let him know and I comp him in here as my guest. With one of his crew. And look at the grief I get."

"If you don't have his number, how did you reach him?"

"I jist have his e-mail address," the promoter said, handing Andi his cell phone. "His cell company is one of them that you can e-mail or phone."

When they were finished at the Gulag and ready to go, Andi was approached by a man with an obvious hairpiece and a peculiar smile. He extended his hand to both detectives and said, "I am Dmitri Zotkin, proprietor of the Gulag. I am sick to my heart from the terrible think that has een-wolved my club tonight. I shall be of service if you need any-think. Any-think at all."

He gave them his card and bowed slightly.

"We may have some questions for you tomorrow," Andi said.

"On the back of the card is my cell number," he said. "Anytime you wish to call Dmitri. Please, I shall be at your service."

After getting back to the station, Andi Googled Doobie D's Internet provider from the text message. Then she left a phone message with the provider, requesting that the customer's name and phone number be pulled up, with the assurance that a search warrant would be faxed to them in the morning before the provider faxed the account information to her.

Andi said to Brant, "We'll write a three-page search warrant and run it over to the Hollywood court tomorrow. Have you ever done it?"

"I'm real rusty," he said.

"The provider will triangulate from the cell site towers. If we're real lucky and Doobie D uses his phone, the provider will call us every hour or so to tell us where he is. It's like a GPS on the cell phone. If he disposes of the cell, we're outta luck."

"Are we gonna finally get home to get the rest of our night's sleep, do you think?"

Looking at those green eyes of his, she said, "Is that all you're thinking about, sleep?"

"It's one of the things I'm thinking about," he said.

Chapter
SIXTEEN

THE ORACLE SHOWED up at roll call that Thursday evening with a detective whom most of them had seen around the station and a few of the older cops knew by name.

The Oracle said, "Okay, listen up. This is Detective Chernenko. He has a few things to say to you, and it's important."

Viktor stood before them in his usual rumpled suit with food stains on the lapels and said, "Good evening to you. I am investigating the jewelry store two-eleven where your Officer Takara was so very brave. And I also have very much interest in the two-eleven of three days ago at the ATM where the guard was killed. I am thinking that the same two people did both of them and now everybody agrees with me.

"What I wish is that you watch out for anybody who might be stealing from a mailbox. It is a crime very typical of addicts, so you might watch for tweakers who are hanging around the blue mailboxes on the corners of the streets. Especially in the area of Gower south of Hollywood Boulevard. If you find a suspect, look for a device like string and tape that they use to fish in a mailbox. If you find nothing, please write a good FI on the suspect and leave it for me at end-of-watch. Any question?"

Wesley Drubb turned and glanced at Hollywood Nate, who looked sheepish, obviously thinking what Wesley was thinking.

Fausto Gamboa, the old man of the midwatch, said, "Why Gower south of the boulevard, Viktor? Can you share it with us?"

"Yes, it is no big secret, Fausto," Viktor said. "It is a very small clue. I believe that information about the jewels was learned from a letter stolen from a mailbox there on Gower."

Wesley Drubb looked at Hollywood Nate again but couldn't wait to see if Nate was going to admit that they might have lost a lead several days ago. Wesley raised his hand.

The Oracle said, "Yeah, Drubb. Got a question?"

Wesley said, "Last week we got a call about two homeless guys fighting on Hollywood Boulevard. One of them said that a couple weeks before, he saw a guy and a woman stealing mail from a blue mailbox a few blocks south of Hollywood Boulevard on Gower."

That didn't elicit too much excitement in itself but Viktor was mildly interested and said, "Did he provide more details than that?"

Looking at Nate again. "Yes, he did. He said the guy was driving an old blue Pinto. And his partner was a woman. And he heard the woman call him Freddy or Morley."

"Thank you, Officer," Viktor said. "I will check recent FIs for the name of Freddy and the name of Morley, but of course that will not be easy."

The Oracle saw Wesley glance at Hollywood Nate again, and he said to Wesley, "I think you're not through, Drubb. Was there something more?"

"Yes, Sarge," Wesley said. "The homeless guy had a card with the mail thief's license number written on it."

Now Viktor's mouth dropped open. "Fantastic!" he said. "Please present me with this card, Officer!"

Wesley looked sheepish, and being loyal to his partner said, "I'm afraid I gave the card back to him."

Hollywood Nate spoke up then, saying, "I told him to give it back. I figured, what the hell, just some tweakers stealing mail, happens all the time. It was my fault, not Drubb's."

"We're not talking fault here," said the Oracle. "What was the name of the homeless guy with the card? Where can Detective Chernenko find him?"

"They call him Trombone Teddy," Nate said. "We wrote an FI on him and the other homeless geezer who knocked him on his ass. But neither one of them has a real address. They don't live anywhere, guys like that."

The Oracle said to Hollywood Nate, "Weiss, you and Drubb are on a special detail tonight. Don't clear for calls. Just stay off the air and go out there and find Trombone Teddy. Get that license number for Detective Chernenko."

"I'm sorry, Sarge," a chastened Hollywood Nate said.

"Do not feel too badly, Officer," Viktor said. "These suspects are no doubt lying down low for a few days but soon must act. Our balls are in their court."

On very busy nights the midwatch units sometimes compared notes for who would get the BHI prize for Bizarre Hollywood Incident of the evening. Six-X-Thirty-two got an honorable mention for a call to east Hollywood, where an Eighteenth Street gang member was loitering by a liquor store with two other homies. A Lebanese store clerk got scared because the guy obviously was hiding something large under his sweatshirt. In the age of terrorism the clerk was afraid that the Eighteenth Street cruisers might be getting ready to bomb his store because he'd once called the cops on one of their crew who had shoplifted a bottle of gin.

Flotsam and Jetsam were the responders, and they had the three cruisers against the wall of the liquor store, assisted by Hollywood Nate and Wesley Drubb, who were tired of looking for Trombone Teddy. Wesley was thrilled that they'd been close enough to provide cover when gang members were involved.

With flashlights and neon from the store lighting him up, the shortest homie, a head-shaved, tattoo-covered, twenty-one-year-old in baggy walking shorts and an enormous cut-off sweatshirt, was looking over his shoulder at them. The cops liked the homie low-slung baggies because they often fell down and tripped them when they ran from cops. But this cruiser had something huge bulging from his chest.

Flotsam drew his nine and holding it down by his leg, said, "Okay, homes, turn around and raise up your sweatshirt real slow. Let's see what you're hiding."

When he did, they saw the yellow pages of the Los Angeles telephone directory taped to his chest with elastic wrap.

"What in the hell is that?" Flotsam said.

"It's a phone book," the cruiser said.

"I know it's a phone book. But why do you have it taped to your chest?"

The gangster looked around and said, "An old veterano from White Fence is after me, man. You think I'm gonna just stand around and take a bullet without some protection?"

"Bro, do you know what you've done here?" Jetsam said to him. "I think you can take this nationwide. You've just designed an affordable bulletproof vest for the inner city!"

On Saturday, two days after Cosmo and Ilya had hidden the stolen car and the money at the house of Farley Ramsdale, Cosmo decided that they had hidden out as long as they dared. He had phoned Gregori at the junkyard that morning and arranged for one of Gregori's Mexicans to drive the tow truck to Farley's address. Cosmo insisted that timing was important and that the truck should arrive at 7 P. M.

"Why do you buy an old car that will not operate?" Gregori asked him in Armenian.

"For Ilya. We need two cars," Cosmo said. "I will give you the repair job and pay three hundred dollars for the tow because it is on Saturday evening. Also, I shall tip your driver another fifty if he arrives at precisely seven P. M."

"You are generous," Gregori said. "And when do you return to me the spare key for my yard that I left with Ilya?"

"On Monday morning," Cosmo said. "When I come to see how much repairs the Mazda needs."

"All right, Cosmo," Gregori said. "My driver is named Lus. He speaks pretty good English. He will tow the car to our yard."

"Thank you, my brother," Cosmo said. "I shall see you on Monday."

When he finished his call to Gregori, Ilya, who was lying on the bed smoking and staring at an old MGM musical on TV, said, "So today you do what you do?"

"You wish to hear my plan, Ilya?"

"I know I say do not tell me. I have a change of mind about some things. Now I wish you to tell how you get rid of the car and get our money. Do not tell me more than that."

"Okay, Ilya," he said. "I shall be at the house of Farley at seven o'clock to help truck driver to take away the car. I shall give to truck driver fifty dollars to call me when he get the car to junkyard of Gregori. If he do not call me, I shall know that police have him and stolen car he is towing. Then we take our money and our diamonds and fly to San Francisco and never come back."

She said, "But maybe yesterday or today Farley has found the car or found our money and made call to police and they are there to wait for you."

"If I do not phone you at seven-thirty that all is okay, you take taxi to airport and fly to San Francisco with diamonds. And God bless you. Please have good life. I shall never tell the police nothing about you. Never."

"You take big risk, Cosmo."

"Yes, but I think is okay. I think Farley and Olive do not look in garage or under house. All they look for is drugs. Nothing else."

"How you can be sure that Farley and Olive will not be there at the house when you go there at seven o'clock, Cosmo?"

"Now you ask question you say you not wish to know."

"You are correct. Do not tell me."

The unanswered question had a simple answer. Cosmo was going to phone Farley to arrange a business meeting and then arrive at Farley's at six P. M., carrying a canvas bag. In the bag he would have his gun, a roll of duct tape and a kitchen knife that he had sharpened when Ilya had gone to the liquor store for cigarettes. If Farley and Olive were at home, he would knock, be admitted on the pretext of paying the blackmail money, take them prisoner at gunpoint and tape their wrists and their mouths. Then cut their throats. Just another addict murder, the police would think. Probably a drug deal gone bad.

If for some reason Farley and Olive could not be home at the appointed hour, there was an alternate plan that involved the spare key to the junkyard. They would be lured there tomorrow by a call from Gregori about buying more key cards. Cosmo would ambush them there and dispose of their bodies somewhere in east Los Angeles. Just another addict murder.

As for the car, if the tow driver phoned his cell, telling him that the towing had been accomplished, Cosmo would go to Gregori's junkyard on Monday morning and tell Gregori he'd changed his mind about repairing the car and ask him to crush the Mazda for scrap. For one thousand dollars cash Cosmo was sure that Gregori would ask no questions and do it.

He could not see a flaw in his plan. It was foolproof. He wished that Ilya would permit him to tell her about all of it. She would be impressed by how much thought he had put into it. The only thing that worried him was that Dmitri might be so angry Cosmo hadn't called him that he would think he was being betrayed and maybe send Russian thugs looking for him.

His hands were shaking at 5:15 P. M. while driving to Farley's house. He decided to make the two crucial calls that would possibly decide his fate. The first was to the cell number that Dmitri said was the only one he should use after the job was done.