Milo said, “An hour or so ago a girl in a gray dress rode in on a bicycle and rolled into the sub-lot. About your age.”
“You say so.”
“You didn’t see her?”
“Like I said, I’m busy with the cars.”
“We thought you might notice a girl on a bicycle. Or just the bicycle parked down in the sub-lot.”
“There’s no bike down there now,” said Jeremy. “She probably took it on the elevator. She a hooker, too?”
Milo smiled. “Would you be willing to help us?”
“Like what?”
“Keep your eyes open for a girl on a bicycle. You see her, this is my number.” Handing his card over.
Jeremy pocketed it without reading. “That’s it?”
“You see her with someone, that would be even better, Jeremy. But whatever we can get is great.”
“Great,” said Jeremy. “That’s like an alien...” His lips moved. “An alien conception. I’m going back. I don’t, Rudy’ll narc me.”
“What’s Rudy’s last name?”
The kid stiffened. “What, you’re going to talk to him about me?”
“Not a chance,” said Milo. “We’ll maybe eventually talk to him about the building but your name won’t come up.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“What’s that?”
“An ancient ritual. Rudy...”
“Galloway. He used to give traffic tickets. He’s a total dick.”
We waited until he’d passed under the port cochere before retracing our steps and passing the building a second time. Things had quieted. Only two cars. Rudy and the other valet lolled near a phone-booth-sized structure and smoked cigarettes. Off to the side, Jeremy stood motionless, studying slate.
Milo said, “Twenty-four stories of people with fuck-you money. Try prying info out of the staff.”
I said, “One thing in your favor: The residents are owners, not tenants. Meaning they pay property tax and are on the assessor rolls.”
He stopped short. “Plug in the address, see who’s divvying up to the county... there’s got to be what, sixty units, seventy units, maybe more... cross off Taffy, the old doctors, look for a single guy or one whose wife travels... hell, yeah.” Slapping my back. “Muchas gracias.”
Chapter 39
Back at Milo’s office, he began researching the pink obelisk.
Completed in 1984, before the city imposed height restrictions. Ninety-four units.
The roster the assessor kicked out made him groan.
Fewer than half the owners were cataloged as individuals; the majority had shielded themselves behind ambiguously named trusts, holding companies, and limited liability corporations.
Milo said, “No one’s listed as Homicidal Asshole, aw shucks.”
He phoned Binchy and Reed, asked them to keep up the watch on Amanda Burdette, adding the details of the pink tower.
Just as he’d turned away from his computer screen an incoming email caught his attention.
As he read, his lower jaw dropped. Inching closer to the message as if he’d missed something, he rubbed his face. Sat back and pointed.
From: GB2341@cirrusfactor.com
To: MBSturgis@LAPD.org
Topic: Meeting possible?
Lieutenant Sturgis: Brearely and I are leaving Rome and will be back in the US tonight. We’d like to meet with you as soon as possible, even tomorrow. Best, Garrett Burdette
Milo said, “Would ‘hell, yeah’ be over-eager?”
Hi, Garrett: Sure, no prob. Hope you had a good time. How about 10 a.m., tomorrow my office?
Robin put down her fork.
Dinner had been a surprise greeting, fragrant and just-plated as I got home. Grilled cumin-rubbed lamb chops, hummus, spicy carrots, and tomato-based Turkish salad. She’d cooked the meat. The sides had come from a take-out place in Pico-Robertson, not far from the run-down studio apartment of a ninety-three-year-old Spanish guitarist who could no longer drive and whose fingers failed at restringing his ’46 Santos Hernandez.
Robin had been servicing Juan’s prize instrument for a long time and considered her visits welfare checks.
I said, “This is delicious. So how’s he doing?”
“Such a sweet man, it’s sad. While I was working, he tried to show off with some Villa-Lobos on his other guitar, the cheapie. He managed to hit a few good notes that reminded me he was one of the best. But mostly...” She shook her head. “Anyway, you can thank him for dinner. I brought him a sandwich from the old deli and noticed a new place nearby. Kosher Tunisian. Smelled great, so I figured why not? What do you think?”
“Terrific. I’ll clear and wash.”
She smiled. “I’ll accept that offer unless Big Guy calls and you need to run out again.”
“Nope, the day’s over. Maybe tomorrow morning will be interesting.”
“The honeymooning couple. Think it’s some kind of confession?”
“To multiple murders? Unlikely. Milo’s been wondering about Garrett as the high-IQ boyfriend but that’s never felt right to me. Yes, he knows something about Poland, but in terms of direct involvement?” I shook my head. “If Amanda’s visit to the condo is relevant, it backs that up. Garrett was in Italy so it wasn’t him she came to see.”
“Hmm,” she said, cutting a small piece of lamb and chewing it.
I said, “What?”
“What if she was being sisterly and checking out his place for him while he was away? Watering plants, tidying up.”
“Unless he’s managed to conceal millions, he doesn’t own a unit there. Plus Amanda doesn’t come across as the tidying type.”
“Your basic sloppy student?”
“I have no idea about her personal habits,” I said. “She doesn’t come across as other-directed.”
“She wouldn’t do a favor for her brother?”
“I guess anything’s possible.”
We ate some more.
She put down her fork. “So what do you think he wants, honey?”
“To pass on information he’s been withholding about Poland,” I said. “In the best of worlds he’ll identify The Brain and clarify the link to Skiwski.”
“Why step forward now?”
“Conscience? Fear? Who knows?”
Robin smiled. “Am I being annoyingly Socratic?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I just don’t have answers.”
“Hopefully tomorrow will clear it all up.”
“As Milo would say—”
“My mouth, God’s ears.”
“Your mouth, there’d be a good chance.” I leaned over and kissed her hard.
“Whoa. I surprise-feed you, you get romantic, huh?”
“What, I’m all gastrointestinal tract?”
“Darling,” she said. “You’re a prince among men but you do have a Y chromosome. Please pass the carrots.”
Chapter 40
Milo’s seven a.m. text asked me to be at his office half an hour before the ten o’clock with Garrett and Brearely Burdette. I arrived at nine fifteen, found him hunched at his keyboard. He waved me to sit, kept typing.
An empty box from a West Hollywood baker and the crumbs that went with it littered his desktop. Ditto for a grease-splotched take-out carton from a pizza joint near the station. A mug filled with cold coffee sat perilously close to the edge. Toss in an unsmoked panatela, smudges under his eyes, black hair worked wild by nervous fingers, sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, and a tie knot yanked down to mid-belly, and he’d been there for a while.
“Morning,” he said. “For what that’s worth. Went over the wedding list again, no overlap with the condo list. Doesn’t eliminate anything with all those owners shielded by corporate bullshit, so I searched those to see if I could find a link to Academo. The geniuses at Google failed me.”