All conversation stopped.
Ricci puffed himself up. “I’m Ricci. Wha’chu want?”
Cruz said, “Don’t you remember me?”
He opened his jacket and showed the guy his gun, the one he’d had to give up outside the club.
Ricci looked at the gun, pivoted, and, his hat flying off his shaven head, took off toward the exit at a fast run.
Cruz shouted, “We just want to talk to you.”
The guy ran pretty fast.
“Shit,” said Del Rio.
CHAPTER 85
Paul Ricci, limo driver by day, bouncer by night, weighed two hundred pounds, a lot of it muscle. He steamed past the small administration building at the entrance to the parking lot, took a hard left on the sidewalk, and got his speed up on the side street.
Cruz took off after him.
Cruz was smaller but faster and was closing in on Ricci, who was running alongside a high vine-covered fence, heading due north toward Sepulveda Boulevard.
Cruz did not want to end up on the boulevard. A foot chase through eight lanes of traffic was a pileup waiting to happen.
Cruz shouted, “Ricci. Stop,” but Ricci ran out into traffic, showing some good open-field moves as he wove between fast-moving cars.
Horns blared, first at Ricci, then because traffic had slowed. A moment later, Cruz had lost sight of him.
Cruz stood in place for a few seconds, taking in nice deep breaths of diesel fumes, trying to see everything at once. Vehicles of every size and shape obscured his view, and now he was getting mad.
What was wrong with the guy, running like that?
Then Cruz saw Ricci’s shiny head. He was across the road at the base of the staircase leading from Sepulveda up to the Sky Way. There was no place to go once he got to the top, but Ricci was going anyway. Asshole.
Cruz waded out into the roaring traffic, holding up his cop-like badge so that cars would slow for him, calling out, “Ricci, for Christ’s sake. I’m not a cop.”
Cruz got across Sepulveda as Ricci was climbing the upper section of the switchback. Ricci turned his head, saw Cruz gaining on him-and lost his footing. He grabbed the handrail too late and went down, giving Cruz the chance he needed to close in.
Cruz took the stairs like Rocky and caught up with Ricci. “Okay?” he asked. “Is this enough running for one day?”
He reached to give the guy a hand up, and Ricci took the help. But as soon as he was on his feet, he swung at Cruz’s jaw. The bouncer was off balance, and Cruz easily ducked the punch, then he returned the favor with a punch of his own.
Cruz’s fist connected beautifully with Ricci’s jaw, and Ricci went down again, this time for the count.
“California light-middleweight champ, 2005,” Cruz shouted to Ricci. “That’s who you’re fighting with.”
Right then, Del Rio drove the Mercedes up the sidewalk to the base of the stairs.
He got out and straightened his jacket.
“The relief column has arrived,” he called out to Cruz.
Del Rio joined Cruz and Ricci on the steps, where a couple of people passed them without making eye contact.
Del Rio said to Ricci, “Listen, douchebag. We don’t care about your life story, okay? Just tell us what we want to know and we’re gone.”
Ricci rubbed his jaw. “You’re not cops?”
Cruz said to Del Rio, “You believe him?” Cruz put out his hand and helped the guy up again. “Listen, Paul. We’re not cops. We don’t want to hurt you or anyone. We paid Karen and Carmelita for information about five murdered johns in the LA area. We didn’t get it.”
“What information? What information?”
The guy was still panicky, and now Cruz was thinking that one of the people walking up to the Sky Way might have called the police.
He said, “Carmelita said a driver named Billy Moufan had told her that one of their drivers was the killer. She said that Billy OD’d. But there’s no such person as Billy Moufan and there never was. The thing she didn’t say is that you drive a limo. Big oversight. Are you ‘Billy Moufan’? Do you know who killed those johns?”
“No, no, no. It wasn’t me. I’ve only had my chauffeur’s license for six months. Let me show you my license. Lookit.”
Del Rio looked.
Ricci said, “If I tell you the guy’s name, we’re done, right? And you gotta keep us out of it. I don’t want Karen or Carmelita to get hurt.”
“That’s the deal. You never told us the name or where to find the guy.”
“Okay,” Ricci said. “Listen, he’s Karen’s first husband. Tyson Keyes. He’s the driver who tipped off Carmelita about the killings. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t want to know.”
Paul Ricci refused a ride back to the lot, so Del Rio and Cruz got into the car and headed downtown to Private.
“Tyson Keyes. Does he know who did the killings? Or did he do the killings?” Cruz asked Del Rio.
CHAPTER 86
I didn’t want to have dinner with anyone.
I wanted to tail my brother from his office, see where he went, with whom, what he was up to.
But Jinx was a client, a nice person, and if I had to dine with anyone, she topped the very short list.
I said, “Would an early dinner work for you?”
She said early would be fine, and I guessed that if we met at six, I could be watching Tommy’s house by eight.
I drove to the Red O, just opened in 2010 by award-winning chef Rick Bayless. The place was visually dramatic, starting with the huge wooden doors that led from Melrose into a glass-covered courtyard.
Inside was a blend of design and architecture evoking South Beach and a hot resort town in Mexico. There was a communal table up front, hand-wrought chandeliers overhead, a curving glass tequila display tunnel, and huge pots of palms everywhere.
I’d read that the Mexican nouvelle cuisine here was incredible even in a town noted for its Mexican food. At six, I could smell the spicy chocolate aroma of mole and I realized I was hungry for a really good meal.
Jinx was waiting for me in one of the small eating spaces tucked into an alcove off the main room. The ottomans, couches, and deep chairs were all covered in black leather. As much as I liked the decor, though, Jinx was the real attraction.
We kissed cheeks, ordered drinks, and as soon as the waiter brought the tequila cocktails, Jinx said, “Tell me something good, Jack. I’m counting sheep at night, and last night I got into the hundreds of thousands.”
I smiled.
She said, “I mean it. Two hundred thousand.”
I smiled again and we both laughed.
It had been almost a week since I’d taken on Jinx Poole as a client, and Cruz and Del Rio had put a lot of time on her tab.
“I think we’re getting somewhere,” I said to Jinx.
The waiter took our order, and when he left, I told Jinx about Cruz’s night at Havana and about Del Rio and Cruz confronting a limo driver under the Sky Way earlier today.
“We have a pretty good idea how to find this Tyson Keyes. If he knows who killed the johns, we’re going to find out.”
“Why were Karen Ricci and Carmelita Gomez holding back his name?”
“Ricci was afraid of him,” I told her. “Apparently Keyes is abusive. I don’t know why women marry men like that. And I don’t understand why they stay with them.”
“My husband was abusive,” Jinx told me. “It’s complicated. I’ve been wanting to tell you about it.”
“Tell me,” I said.
Jinx sipped her drink. She had said she wanted to tell me, but I could see from her expression that it wasn’t an easy story to relate. I sat next to her and waited her out.
“I killed him,” she said. “I want you to know that I killed my husband.”
CHAPTER 87
Nothing about Jinx Poole said “killer” to me. She was smart, cool, a respected businesswoman, and her admission sounded literally, factually, unbelievable.
Yet I believed her.
Still, I was just about shocked out of my shoes-and I didn’t hide it.