I said, "Who was that?"
"Georgie."
"What's up?"
He cut loose another triangle of hotcake, chewed, swallowed, drank coffee. "Seems there was an accident late last night. Eighty-third Street off Sepulveda, rental Buick hit a utility pole at high speed. Driver and occupant rendered inorganic."
"Driver and occupant."
"Two db's," he said. "You know what high-speed impact does to the human body."
"Garvey and Bobo?" I said.
"That's the working hypothesis. Pending verification of dental records."
"Eighty-third off Sepulveda. On the way to the airport?"
"Funny you should mention that, they did find tickets in the wreck. Pair of first-class passages to Zurich, hotel reservations at some place called the Bal du Lac. Sounds pretty, no?"
"Lovely," I said. "Maybe a ski vacation."
"Could be- is there snow there, right now?"
"Don't know," I said. "It's probably raining in Paris."
He motioned for a coffee refill, got a new pot, poured, and drank slowly.
"Just the two of them?" I said.
"Seems that way."
"Odd, don't you think? They've got a full-time chauffeur and choose to drive themselves to the airport? Own a fleet of wheels and use a rental car."
He shrugged.
"Also," I went on, "what would they be doing on a side street in Inglewood? That far south, you're heading for the airport, you stay on Sepulveda."
He yawned, stretched, emptied his coffee cup. "Want anything else?"
"Is it on the news, yet?"
"Nope."
"But Georgie knows."
No answer.
"Georgie has the inside track," I said. "Being a bail bondsman and all that."
"That must be it," he said. He brushed crumbs from his shirtfront.
I said, "You've got syrup on your chin."
"Thanks, Mom." He threw money on the table and got up. "How 'bout we take a little digestive stroll."
"East on Wilshire," I said. "Up to Museum Row."
"You are nailing those hypotheses, Professor. Time for Vegas."
We walked to the pink granite building where the Cossack brothers had once played executive. Milo studied the façade for a long time, finally entered the lobby, stared down the guard, left, and returned to the front steps where I'd been waiting, pretending to feel civilized.
"Happy?" I said, as we headed back to the coffee shop.
"Ecstatic."
We retraced our walk to the coffee shop, got into Milo's rental of the day- a black Mustang convertible- drove through the Miracle Mile and across La Brea and into the clean, open stretch of Wilshire that marked Hancock Park 's northern border.
Milo steered with one finger. No sleep for two days but beyond alert. I had to fight to keep my eyes open. The Seville had been towed to a shop in Carpenteria. I'd phone in later today, get a report. Meanwhile, I'd drive Robin's truck. If I could stand the sweet smell of her permeating the cab.
He turned on Rossmore, drove south to Fifth Street, hooked back to Irving, and pulled over to the curb, six houses north of Sixth. On the other side was Chief Broussard's city-financed mansion. An immaculate white Cadillac sat in the driveway. A single plainclothesman stood guard, looking bored.
Milo stared at the house, same hostility as when he'd eye-zapped the guard in the Cossacks' lobby. Before I could ask what was up, he U-turned, headed south, then west to Muirfield, where he cruised slowly to the end of the block and stopped at a property concealed behind high stone walls.
"Walt Obey's place," he said, before I could ask.
Stone walls. Just like the Loetz estate that neighbored the party house. The kill spot. Build walls, and you could get away with plenty.
Janie Ingalls abused by two generations of men. A closed-circuit camera atop one gatepost rotated.
Milo said, "Say cheese." Waved. Jammed the Mustang into DRIVE and sped away.
He dropped me back home, and I slept until 5 P.M., woke in time to turn on the news. The Cossack brothers' deaths missed the network affiliate broadcasts but was featured an hour later on a local station's six o'clock spot.
The facts were just as Georgie Nemerov had reported: Single-car accident, probably due to excessive speed. Thirty seconds of bio identified Garvey and Bobo as "wealthy Westside developers" who'd built "some controversial projects." No identifying photos. No suspicion of foul play.
Another death occurred that night, but it never hit the L.A. news because it went down ninety miles north.
Santa Barbara News-Press item, forwarded to me by e-mail, with no accompanying message. The sender: sloppyslooth@sturgis.com. That was a new one.
The facts were straightforward: The body of a sixty-eight-year-old real estate executive named Michael Larner had been found two hours ago, slumped in the front seat of his BMW. The car had been driven into a wooded area just north of the Cabrillo exit off the 101, on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. A recently fired handgun sat in Larner's lap. He'd died of "an apparent single wound to the head, consistent with self-infliction."
Larner had come to Santa Barbara to identify the body of his son, Bradley, forty-two, the recent victim of a heart attack, who'd also- irony of ironies- succumbed in a car. Bradley's vehicle, a Lexus, had been discovered just a few miles away, on a quiet street on the north end of Montecito. The grieving father had left the morgue just after noon, and investigators had come up with no accounting of his whereabouts during the three hours leading up to his suicide.
A homeless man had discovered the body.
"I was going in there to take a nap," reported the vagrant, identified as Langdon Bottinger, fifty-two. "Knew something was wrong right away. Nice car like that, pushed up against a tree. I looked inside and knocked on the windows. But he was dead. I was in Vietnam, I know dead when I see it."
CHAPTER 47
After dropping Alex off, Milo turned on the Mustang's radio and dialed to KLOS. Classic rock. Van Halen doing "Jump."
Kicky little thing, the 'Stang. Something with a little zip.
"Used to be owned by Tom Cruise's gardener," the multipierced girl at the alternative rental yard had told him. Night owl; she worked the midnight-to-eight shift.
"Great," said Milo, pocketing the keys. "Maybe it'll help on auditions."
The girl nodded, knowingly. "You go out for character roles?"
"Nah," said Milo, heading for the car. "Not enough character."
He returned to John G. Broussard's digs on Irving, sat and watched for hours. The chief's wife emerged at 1:03 P.M., escorted to the driveway by a lady cop who held open the driver's door of the white Caddy. Mrs. B. drove toward Wilshire and was gone.
Leaving John G. alone in the house? Milo was fairly certain Broussard wasn't in the office; he'd phoned the chief's headquarters, impersonated a honcho from Walt Obey's office, was told very politely that the chief wouldn't be in today.
No surprise, there. Yet another anti-Broussard piece had run in the morning Times. The Police Protective League griping about poor morale, dumping it all in Broussard's lap. Commentary by some law prof, psychoanalyzing Broussard. The clear implication was that the chief's temperament was a poor fit for modern-day policing. Whatever the hell that meant.
Add all that to the events of last night- and Craig Bosc's report to the chief- and Broussard had to know the walls were closing in.
John G. had always been the most cautious of men. So what was he doing now? Upstairs in his bedroom closet, picking out a cool suit from a rack of dozens? It was almost as if he didn't care.
Maybe he didn't.
Milo kept watching the Tudor digs, stretched his legs, ready for the long haul. But five minutes later a dark green sedan- an unmarked Ford, blackwalls, pure LAPD- backed out of the driveway.