The Boy Who Never Grew Up (20 page)

Lieutenant Emil Lamp of the Los Angeles Police Department had handled the trouble when I’d been in town before. He specialized in the big-time show-biz killings. He happened to be uncommonly good at not stepping on famous toes. He happened to be uncommonly good, period. Sharp, determined, thorough, and unfailingly polite. And he couldn’t have been more unlikely looking. He was a fresh-scrubbed, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed little guy with neat blond hair and apple cheeks. He looked like Howdy Doody. He had on a no-iron khaki suit, white button down oxford shirt, striped tie, and nubucks with red rubber soles. “When the heck did you get into town?” he asked brightly.

“Yesterday.”

“And already two people are dead.” Lamp shook his head in amazement. “I read in the paper you were out here working for Matthew Wax. You could have called me, you unfriendly so-and-so. I’d have bought you a beer.”

“They’ll sell you beer now?”

“Heck, yeah.” He grinned and winked at me. “I have a fake ID.”

“Well, I would have called you, Lieutenant, but I had a feeling we’d just bump into each other anyway.”

The grin left his lips immediately. He looked over at the bodies. A cop was photographing them now. “What do you know about it?”

“We had a six-thirty appointment to meet here. I just missed whoever did it.”

“You didn’t notice anybody flying down the hill on your way up, did you?”

“I did not.”

At my feet, Lulu whined anxiously for our attention. When she got it, she barked twice.

“Why is she doing that?” asked Lamp curiously.

She barked twice more. Louder.

“Ignore her, Lieutenant. She’s just doing her imitation of Jerry Lee, the crime-solving star of
K-9.
Next she’ll try to knock you flat on your back and sniff your person for drugs. I was hoping she was over this.”

“Maybe she knows something,” Lamp suggested eagerly.

“She doesn’t. Trust me.”

I advised her to shut up. She snuffled and skulked back to the Vette, miffed.

Lamp walked out into the street and faced the Rolls, playing the angles. “They must have fired the shots from their car, then taken off.”

“Have to be a pretty good shot, wouldn’t they?”

“Fair, certainly.”

“Care to guess what they used?”

“I don’t like to guess.”

“I remember.”

He rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. “Offhand, though, I’d say it was a Glock nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.”

“You can tell by the wounds?”

“Partly.” He grinned at me. “And one of my colleagues found the murder weapon in the ivy over by the wall.”

“Why leave it behind?”

“Why not? Better than being caught with it. Guns are awful easy to come by these days. Easy as scoring a joint.”

“The Glock’s a popular weapon, I understand.”

“Very. Austrian-made. Fires rapidly, accurately, clip holds up to seventeen rounds. Half the P.D.’s in the country use them now instead of the old six-shooter.” He opened his coat to reveal the Glock that was holstered there.

“Any chance you’ll be able to trace it?”

“There’s always a chance,” he said doubtfully. “You know, this would be a really good opportunity, Hoagy.”

“For what, Lieutenant?”

“For you to confess. Save all of us a lot of trouble, and the taxpayers a lot of their hard-earned money. I’ll get you in the end. You know it and I know it. So why don’t you just get it off of your chest? You’ll get a fair deal from me.”

I stared at him. He stared back at me.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t do it.”

He kicked the pavement. “Nerts. You know that speech has
never
worked? Not once?”

“Cheer up, Lieutenant. Maybe you’ll get lucky some day.”

“Hope I didn’t offend you, Hoagy. I had to take a shot.”

“Of course you did. No offense taken.”

“I know very little about the boyfriend, Geoffrey Brand. Abel Zorch I’m plenty familiar with. Any idea who would want him dead?”

“You mean other than my employer?”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” he admitted.

“Lots of people. Abel Zorch had a gift for making enemies.”

He glanced at his watch. “Something tells me I’ll get more out of having dinner with you than by hanging around here.”

“You’ll certainly get fed. Chuy’s okay?”

“Meet you down there as soon as I can.”

I got back in the Vette and started it up, Lulu glowering at me from the passenger seat.

“Great car, Hoagy,” observed Lamp, admiring it. “You always know how to live, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve discovered the meaning of life, all right.”

We heard the vans before we saw them. The TV news crews—one after another of them roaring up the hill toward the scene of the crime. They pulled up with a screech behind the police cars, next to the police cars, wherever they could. Reporters and cameramen hopped out, jabbering excitedly.

Lamp’s face dropped. “Nerts. I hate these guys.”

“And they say such nice things about you. Straighten your tie and smile, Lieutenant. It’s showtime.”

“Nerts.”

I got out of there before they’d completely blocked the road.

Chuy’s hadn’t changed. The decor, mostly plastic potted plants and gaily colored tissue paper, looked like it all came free with a tankful of gas. But Chuy’s mom was still there, cranking out those fresh, hot corn tortillas, one by one. I was on my second basket of them and my third bottle of iced Dos Equis when Lamp came bounding in. He sat down across from me and ordered an iced tea. We both went for the chile rellenos.

“I read your second novel over the summer, Hoagy,” he informed me, tasting his iced tea. “I thought it was a good job. A real insightful look at a marriage gone sour.”

“Why, thank you, Lieutenant.”

“How are you and Merilee getting along these days?”

“Couldn’t be better. She’s fine, I’m fine, we’re both—”

“Cheese and crackers, Hoagy,” he fumed. “I thought we were friends.”

I sipped my beer. “I haven’t the slightest idea how she is.”

“I’m awful sorry to hear that,” he said gently.

“That makes two of us.”

Lulu grumbled at me from under the table.

“Correction—three of us. What have you got so far?”

He opened a small notepad and examined it. “Zorch’s houseboy, name of Kenji, was very tight-lipped. But he did suggest we may have ourselves a lover scorned.”

“You certainly may.”

“Seems that Zorch’s new friend, Geoffrey Brand, broke it off recently with a bad apple, name of Darren Dust. Big-time art dealer and honorary chairperson of the Westside Little Boys in Handcuffs League. We’ve had him in twice for aggravated assault. Nothing’s ever stuck, though. Seems he and Geoffrey were living together until a couple of weeks ago, when Geoffrey dumped him for Zorch. Zorch did take one right in the groin, which tends to suggest a crime of sexual orientation,” he concluded primly. “You already knew about Darren?”

“I did not.”

“Then how come when I said, ‘We may have ourselves a lover scorned,’ you said, ‘You certainly may’?”

“I was approaching it from the other end, so to speak.”

“You mean Zorch’s ex, Johnny Forget?”

I nodded.

“Another neat fit,” Lamp acknowledged, chomping on an ice cube. “Has a history of wigging out—tried to kill his own mother last year. According to Kenji he was extremely upset about Zorch taking up with Geoffrey. Even went so far as to shoot out the windows of Zorch’s Rolls last night in the Spago parking lot.”

“I was there.”

He chuckled. “Same old Hoagy. How is it that you’re always around when the doo-doo comes down?”

“Near as I can tell, it’s a rare combination of good breeding and bad luck.”

Our dinners arrived. The chile rellenos were even better than I remembered.

“Think Johnny could have shot them?” asked Lamp, as we attacked them.

“He certainly has a child’s capacity for anger,” I replied. “But he’s not what I’d call overly swift. I’m not sure he could plan something like this.”

“What’s to plan?” wondered Lamp. “Nice, quiet street. Very little traffic, houses set way back from the road. He waits. He plugs them. He flees.”

“I came up Coldwater,” I said, “then took Cherokee to Hazen. Is there another way in and out?”

“Alto Cedro. Comes into Hazen just before the top of the hill. Twists around into Loma Vista, which goes down through Trousdale to Sunset. He could have taken off that way and you wouldn’t have seen him.”

“No one heard the shots?”

“Kenji claims he didn’t. He had the air-conditioning on, and a gardener was mowing the lawn next door at the time it happened. I don’t know about the other neighbors yet.” He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “High-powered street, Hazen. Zorch’s pal lives right at the top of the hill. Must have some view of the Valley from up there.”

“Which pal is that?”

“Norbert Schlom. He drove by on his way home after you left. Saw all of the commotion. Got very upset when he found out what happened.”

“Was Mrs. Schlom home at the time?”

“I don’t know yet. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“What else can you tell me, Hoagy?” Lamp asked. “What do you know?”

“I know Johnny wasn’t the only one who had it out with Zorch last night at Spago. Trace Washburn did, too. It seems that Schlom has been sitting on Trace’s career, and Zorch could have fixed it for him but wouldn’t. They didn’t like each other very well. Pennyroyal Brim had words with the man as well. She was none too happy about the way he was handling things. The fanfare, the frenzy. And that was
before
her nude shots leaked out this morning.”

“I heard about that on the radio,” Lamp acknowledged. “Surprised the heck out of me. Imagine a girl like her ever posing that way. I mean, golly …” He got a dreamy look on his face, his eyes aglitter. “She’s so pretty and sweet and …”

“Why, Lieutenant, if I didn’t know you better I’d swear you have the tiniest crush on her.”

“No, it’s not like that,” he said hastily, reddening. “I just … well, she’s awful attractive, don’t you think?”

“Does your mom know you’re starting to take an interest in girls?”

“Long as I’m home by eleven it’s okay with her,” he replied, grinning. “What’s Penny like?”

“She’s an actress like any other. What you see is what you don’t get. She’s awfully confused right now. Needs a nice, stable career guy with a good pension to take care of her. You’d make an awfully cute couple, you know.”

“Cut it out, will ya?” he objected.

“Sorry, Lieutenant.”

“You don’t honestly think
she
killed Zorch and Geoffrey, do you?” he wondered.

“I don’t know. But I do think it was carefully planned.”

Lamp frowned. “Planned how?”

“Why did Zorch stop his car there outside the gate and get out?”

“I wondered about that myself. It wasn’t to get the mail—Kenji picks that up about noon. I figured he got out to talk to his killer. I figure they had words before he and Geoffrey got plugged.”

“He never opened the gate. Why not?”

“Maybe he didn’t want them coming in.”

“Or maybe he couldn’t get in himself,” I suggested. “Maybe Zorch had to get out of the car so he could ring Kenji to open the gate for him. He’d make a perfect target that way, stuck out there in front of that closed gate.”

“True,” said Lamp. “Except there’s a remote control to the gate right there in the Rolls.”

“Is it functioning?”

“Haven’t tested it,” he replied. “Left it for the lab people.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been tampered with. Removing the battery would be the simplest way. The only problem with that theory,” I admitted, cleaning my plate, “is that the Rolls was in the shop today getting new windows.”

“Kenji said the Rolls-Royce agency picked it up early this morning. They provided a chauffeur-driven limo to take Zorch to his office.”

“Nice service.”

“They ought to provide nice service, the prices they get for those cars. After they fixed it they left it for him in the parking lot of his office building in Century City.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know. I can find out, if any of this plays.” He mulled it over. “They’d have to go to his office garage and disarm the remote. Then go up to his place to wait for him. But it’s a possibility. Of course, a lot of things are possibilities at this stage. It could have been random violence. An aborted break-in attempt, a drive-by shooting. We get a lot of those now, even in the best neighborhoods.”

“Think that’s what it was?”

“No, I don’t,” he confessed. “Not with it going down the same day as this
Enquirer
business. Zorch was behind that?”

“Shelley Selden seems to think so. I’m not sure. Zorch was a sleaze, but he wasn’t dumb. He told me last night that the Murakami people had been leaning on him to cool it. They hate all of this publicity. Might even pull out. He and Schlom seemed genuinely nervous about it. And Zorch definitely sounded nervous on the phone this afternoon.”

Our waiter cleared our plates. We ordered coffee.

“I’d love to find out who the
Enquirer
did get them from,” muttered Lamp, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “But the press gets real mulish about revealing stuff like that to the police. Heck, they’d go to jail before they’d tell me.”

The waiter returned with our coffee, and to tell Lamp there was a phone call for him. He headed off eagerly to take it. He was positively beaming when he came back a few moments later.

“Chalk up one for you, Hoagy,” he reported, as he sat. “The remote in Zorch’s Rolls was indeed nonfunctioning—no battery. You’re getting pretty darned good at this.”

“Why, thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Just for that you get a prompt, courteous reply to your question—Norbert Schlom’s wife, Toy,
was
home at the time Abel Zorch and Geoffrey Brand were shot. Would you believe the Schloms have a fake squad car parked outside their house twenty-four hours a day? He borrowed it from one of the cop shows his studio does. Keeps it there to ward off burglars.”

“Can he do that?”

“He’s doing it.” Lamp consulted his notepad. “Mrs. Schlom says she heard nothing. Her maid and gardener didn’t hear anything either. One neighbor down the block thought she might have heard several pops, but she said the canyons are always playing tricks with sounds, so she ignored it.” He grinned at me expectantly. There was more.