The Crime Writer (aka I See You) (2007) Page 17

  I could walk into the factory under a ruse and see whether I could spot Frankel. But there were two problems: the welding masks and the fact that if he was my guy, he'd recognize me as much as I would him. And if there was one thing I didn't want, it was Morton Frankel with the pointy sideburns knowing I was sniffing his trail.

  I called information and had them put me through to the factory office.

  "This is FedEx," I said. "I have a delivery for a Mortie Frankel that I need him to sign for. Is he in today?"

  Gruff voice "Hang on. Lemme check the board." Rustling. Screeching machinery. "Yeah, he's here."

  "I'm stuck in traffic in Burbank. How late will he be there today?"

  "They knock off at three." He hung up before I could thank him for providing excellent service.

  A genuine lunch whistle split the air. I drove back to the parking lot and watched the men spilling out into the weedy side yard to eat. They sat on cable spools and rusted machinery and had metal lunch pails with thermoses. I watched more emerge from the gloomy interior, lifting their face shields to reveal red, shiny faces. I was losing hope when a thick form stepped out into the midday glare. He was facing away, but the vibe off him was electric, and I wasn't surprised when he turned. He swiped a palm across that hard brow and flicked a spray of sweat to the dirt. Flapping the front of his blue overalls to move air through them, he exchanged a few words with another worker.

  There was maybe fifty yards between us parking lot, fence, brief throw of yard but I felt as though we existed in separate bubbles, he with his tools, beat-up overalls, and sparks, I with my leather driver's seat, notepad, and tinted windows. Suddenly sweating in my air-conditioned Highlander, I stared at him. Had this man stood in the dark of my bedroom the night of January 21, watching me sleep? Had he drugged me, taken my blood, and plucked a hair to leave beneath the cold, dead fingernail of Kasey Broach? And if so, why?

  There was something fascinating about Frankel looking at him was unsettling, but I couldn't take my eyes off him.

  Please be a killer so I'm not.

  It dawned on me that Kaden had been right about something else. Frankel was mine. He was my suspect, and he would be until he wasn't.

  I watched those teeth tear into a sandwich, watched his jaw flex as he chewed. See you later.

  Chapter 26

  Chic staggered beneath the pop-up hit by his eldest son, Jeremiah, screaming, "I got it! I got it!" to call off his various children wielding mitts of all sizes.

  He snared the ball in a basket catch, then let it flop free. His brood groaned and hurled gloves at him and piled on as he laughed at his self-parody, rolling on the grass of his extended front lawn and covering his head protectively. Grabbing ankles and wrists, I pulled the kids off him, calling them by all the wrong names.

  Angela came out, her glare sending the children and almost me scrambling to wash up for lunch. She bore a tray of drinks for the workers who were lazily assembling a high-end play structure to the left of the baseball diamond. Complete with corkscrew slide, rope ladder, and mini rock-climbing wall, and topped with a fake tree house, the contraption made the play set at Hope House look like a heap of scrap metal.

  Angela served the workers, then turned to her husband. "Baby, take Drew on down to the truck and get me some queso blanco."

  "We having soul comida?" I asked.

  She nodded. "And, baby, pick up a gift for Asia's lil' friend from camp. They brought her the Polly Pockets when they dropped by, 'member?"

  We headed offon foot, sourcing the distant chime of the Mexican-food truck as Chic filled me in on the latest from the database guy. He'd unearthed a number of the overlaps between Genevieve and Broach that Kaden and Delveckio had referred to, and a few others that sounded irrelevant. Broach and I both belonged to 24 Hour Fitness but worked out at different locations. We both had checking accounts at Wells Fargo. Stop the presses.

  "And there's one other tidbit nothing that shudders the heavy bag, but worth poking at." Chic pouched his lips. "Your boy Delveckio bought his life-insurance policy through the same broker as Adeline." He reacted to my face before I could say anything. "I knew you'd go spinning on this like you did with the Cal Unger thing" though he'd agreed to look into it, Chic had been understandably skeptical about Cal as suspect "but it's probably nothing, like everything else. Question, though what's a rich girl like Adeline need a million-dollar life-insurance policy for?"

  "Genevieve had one, too they were each other's beneficiaries. Their father read in some in-flight magazine that people with life insurance live longer and take fewer risks."

  "Ain't that like buying a Subaru because you hear people with low blood pressure own 'em?"

  "I thought so, but Luc plays golf with Warren Buffett, and I use the driving range off I-5, so whose advice are you gonna take?" I rolled my lips over my teeth, bit them. "I don't like this Delveckio overlap at all."

  I pictured the detective in the interrogation room, his weak features set in their best approximation of anger. I did the advise-next-of-kin for Adeline. I wish I'd borrowed your camcorder first so I could make you watch her reaction. I repeated his words to Chic, who shrugged.

  "Don't you think it's weird he referred to her by first name?" I asked. "And why mention her at all, let alone so emotionally? And now we've got a million-dollar life-insurance policy in the mix."

  He gave me the slow-down hands. "It's a big city, but the right demographics cut it down to size. So they used the same insurance broker. So the fuck what?"

  I was embarrassed to have no answer. Plus, how would Delveckio fit with Frankel, my lead horse? Like Cal, Delveckio ran across Mort Frankels every day in the course of doing business. Frankel could be a hire. Or, given the paucity of connective tissue, both cops could be red herrings. Delveckio and Genevieve's kid sister used the same insurance broker. Any more salient than my sharing a gym with Kasey Broach?

  Chic interrupted my thoughts. "Hard to imagine Delveckio having an affair with Adeline I've met her and seen him, and that match only works if the finances tilt the other way." He sucked his teeth, an old Chic standby. "And even if they was? What they need another million for anyway? If there is a hook here, it ain't the broker, it's a step removed. The cat who referred them to the broker, that kind of stuff. Until then it's just another L.A. overlap. So we'll keep chasing the digital trails and focus on whoever put that sheen on your forehead when you first drove up. And that was . . . ?"

  I was convinced Chic was Sherlock Holmes in another ethnic incarnation. I told him about Morton Frankel and asked him to put his guy on him to see if and how he connected with the other living and dead players in our evolving drama. Chic of course lifted an eyebrow at the new name and listened pensively while I yammered on about the case developments.

  "What you gon' do next?" Chic asked. He seemed to have been expecting my silence, and nodded. "Call me when you need it."

  We ducked into the corner store and picked up a plastic braid set for Asia's friend.

  "That's how it works," he said. "They buy crap for your kids, then you buy crap for theirs. It's supposed to show you're caring."

  My cell phone rang, and I tugged it out of my pocket and answered.

  "You'll be here at one-thirty, correct?"

  It took me a moment to place the voice as Caroline's.

  Junior's court date. Oh, yeah.

  "Hello?" she said.

  "I'm just . . . I'm sort of tangled up today. More than usual, I mean."

  Caroline said, "Last I heard, your presence was court mandated."

  "There is that."

  "Get him there, then you're off the hook. But you'd better not screw this kid over with what's at stake for him."

  From my brief experience ofjail, I knew it was no place for a fourteen-year-old who cried over his dog going to the pound.

  "I agree," I said.

  "Trust me, you don't want to go to war with me."

  "No," I said, "I think I enjoy you too much."
/>   I hung up as Chic ran down the food truck. His shapeless jersey, from an obscure minor-league team, drooped to midthigh. Together with his unlaced black high-tops, it made him look as if he'd raided the closet of one of his sons. We strolled back together in silence, the sun coming off the pavement in waves.

  "The lady psychologist?" he finally asked.

  "Yeah."

  "You like her?"

  "A lot. She's a bit hard-edged, though. Moody, too."

  "Always easier to take somebody else's inventory."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I listened when you talked about her earlier."

  "Thanks for the clarification."

  He smiled his broad Chic smile, proud of himself, pleased with the world. "This life leaves you behind, Drew-Drew. There's no way around it. Everyone. The singers, the actors, the shortstops all look younger than you. Okay, fine, you can get used to that. But then you take a ten-year nap and you realize that you're pushin' forty and Jimi Hendrix was twenty-five when he recorded 'Purple Haze.' "

  "Twenty-seven when he died."

  He tapped his temple. "You was always gonna be the one guy who'd do it different. Live up to your i-dee-lized self. Wudn't gon' get stained by mediocrity or domesticity. Keep reachin'. Keep fightin'. Have that affair with Sue from Accounts Payable. There's them and us, and then there you are. Beer gut." He tapped his washboard stomach. "TV watcher. Coupla rib joints. Slow-growth mutual funds. It hits you you ain't gonna raise no monument or have your mug stamped on a coin. You're you and you can't avoid it. But I tell you this when it quiets down, when you're done fussin' over how you miss the big paychecks and your shot at the Hall of Fame or wherever I was gonna wind up if I kept up a lifetime .302, the one thing you got is that woman next to you in bed. None of it matters. Nuthin'. Monogamy been tough on me I never denied it. You give up the smile at the stop sign. The locked eyes in the elevator. Movie romance marriage ain't never that good. It ain't never that good, but it's better, too. It's been ten years since I stepped out on Angela, and I ain't never gonna step out on her again. Because I'm not afraid anymore 'bout what's passin' me by."

  Chic's wisdom, as usual, came in baffling guises. I'd kept up with about half of what he'd said. His alteration between first and second person, while seemingly as sloppy as his free association, struck me as no accident.

  Before I could not respond, a yellow Camaro passed us, then locked on its brakes and reversed back to us speedily. A guy with thick hair and a track suit hopped out. "Chic? Chic Bales?"

  Chic eyed him warily, accustomed to the drill. "The one and only."

  The guy ran over, jiggling happily beneath his clothes, and embraced Chic. "I love you, man."

  Chic patted his back. "Giants fan?"

  "That's right. Thank you."

  "Glad to give something back."

  The guy did a double take at me, then frowned at Chic. "Nice company you keep." He climbed into his car and screeched off.

  We returned to a picnic table literally bowing under the weight of the food. The workers were packing up at the curb. My gaze pulled from the laden table across the expanse of the yard to the newly erected play structure, and I couldn't help note the contrast between here and the cramped little space at the back of Hope House. I wandered off from Chic toward who looked to be the foreman.

  "Hey," I asked, "how much does a play structure like that cost?"

  "The Romp-n-Stomp? Thirty-five hundo."

  "I'd like you to send one to this address." I jotted the Hope House address in my notepad, tore the page, and handed it to him. Tucked into one of the credit-card slots in my wallet, I kept an emergency check, which I unfolded and filled out.

  The guy asked, "You want to write down a message, something?"

  "Naw, say it's an anonymous donor." The guy shrugged and climbed into his truck. I saw a shadow and turned to find Chic standing behind me. "We don't want it tainted," I said.

  Chic stared at me knowingly. "Right." As we headed back, he added, "You don't got no money."

  "I got more than those kids."

  "Still."

  "I'll sell my cappuccino maker."

  "Huh?"

  Angela was waiting for us at the table. She kissed Chic on the neck. "How's my Drew?" she asked.

  "Contemplative," Chic said.

  "Hi," I said, "I'm right here."

  We sat elbow to elbow, mowing through tortillas and chips. But I didn't feel relaxed and safe as I usually did at the Baleses' table. Every time I'd get distracted into a teasing match or a domestic squabble, Morton Frankel would seep into my thoughts. The gloomy factory interior, lit with flames and sparks. His dangerous eyes. Those too-long teeth, like fangs that he didn't have to bother to sharpen up.

  Occasionally swatting a child's reaching hand, Angela listened quietly as I told her about the four days since I'd seen her last.

  "That Junior," she said, "he sound like a nice boy."

  "For a multiple offender."

  "And the woman in charge of him? Ms. Caroline. He lucky to have her."

  "She might be too smart for her own good."

  "I know, baby." Angela shifted her attention to Jamaal. "Tell your daddy what you wanted to tell him."

  Jamaal said, "Okay okay oka-oka-oka-oka "

  "Deep breath," Chic said.

  "I want to go out for the team next year."

  "Nuthin' wrong with that."

  "Soccer. Not baseball."

  Chic dropped his fork.

  "And the scars," I added quietly, to Angela. "I'm not sure I could get used to them."

  "I know, baby." Angela's eyes didn't leave her husband.

  Chic looked over at her, and she nodded once, slowly. With admiration I watched him gather his composure, his jaw grinding left, right, and then he said, through a strained smile, "Nuthin' wrong with that either."

  Jamaal came around the table and hugged him from the side, and Chic got him in a headlock and pretended to smack his head into the picnic table. Angela stood to clear.

  I said, "I think I might ask her out."

  Angela rested a hand on my shoulder. "I know, baby."

  Chic walked me to my car. I rolled down the window, and he leaned in. His eyes snagged on Frankel's booking photo on the passenger seat. "Careful on this next move, y'hear?"

  I rested my hands on the steering wheel, studied my thumbs. "Kaden was right I think like a writer. But this is the real world."

  Chic patted my forearm, drawing himself up. "It's all the real world, Drew-Drew."

  Chapter 27

  "Hi, Big Brother."

  "Hello, Junior," I said for the fifteenth time.

  You mind if I turn on the radio, Big Brother?"

  I finally caved. "Would you stop calling me that?"

  Clapping, Junior fell against my passenger door, weak with laughter. He wore a sweatshirt with the hood raised over his baseball cap in case we needed to pull over and rob a 7-Eleven.

  "Just look at the damn printouts before we get to court."

  I'd zipped home after lunch at Chic's to feed Xena scrambled eggs with diced bell peppers. She'd shown her appreciation by crapping on my hearth. Once I'd cleaned up after her, I'd hopped on the Internet and printed out pictures of Volvo wagons through the years. Junior's attention was a scarce commodity, but we'd already determined that what he'd seen was clearly not one of the recent not-your-mama's Volvos. He couldn't distinguish between the 200s, the 700s, and the 800s, but he was pretty sure it hadn't been a 900 series, with the rounded corners, introduced in '91. Though it spanned too many years to be particularly helpful, the range of models he liked included Morton Frankel's 760.

  "I tole you, homes, all this suburban shit look the same to me. Now, if it had some rims" bouncing in his seat "yeah, boy, then I tell you who, what, where, when, and why."

  "And you're sure the cops haven't called you yet?"

  "Hayell yeah, I'm sure. You think Ms. Caroline gonna lose the message if the LAPD come callin' for my ass?"
/>
  She hadn't been there when I'd picked him up. "Will she be back when I drop you?" After he shrugged, I cleared my throat. "She's . . . Do you know what happened to her? Her face, I mean?"

  "What happened to yours?"

  Fair enough.

  "Course I know." Junior studied me with his smooth brown eyes. "Oh, homes. Oh, homes!" Now with the elbows-out dance bump. "Big Brother and Ms. Caroline sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage "

  I screeched into a parking space and hopped out before the baby carriage's arrival. We were, thankfully, on time, but Judge Celemin wasn't. Or at least he pretended to be running late, his occasional glances an indication that he was taking pleasure in making me and Junior wait on the uncomfortable bench in the rear of the courthouse.

  I checked my watch again 2:15. Forty-five minutes to quittin' time for Morton Frankel. I assumed he'd come home for a post-work shower, and I wanted to be parked by his apartment to see what he drove up in.

  The judge bumped a few more hearings ahead of ours and then dragged through some paperwork. By the time he called Junior up the public defender materializing as though he'd been summoned electronically and tacked three more months onto his probation, it was ten till.

  I hurried Junior back to the car. He seemed pleased about the ruling. "I don't never want to leave Ms. Caroline. She the shiznit." He eyed me. "Ain't she?"

  Frankel's place was close to the courthouse. I wouldn't have time to take Junior back and get there in time. I drove quickly, letting Junior distract himself by working my radio like a video game. The ploy only lasted so long.

  "Where we going?"

  "I'm having you neutered." I slowed in front of a run-down three-story complex on a street spotted with fabric stores and taqueri'as. Five black teenagers squatted on the strip of brown lawn next door, hugging their knees and rolling dice. In the brief parking lot, the space corresponding to Frankel's apartment number was empty. I cruised the neighboring blocks looking for a Volvo.