Reason to kill, p.26
Reason to Kill, page 26
“Sure,” I say. “Sure, no problem.”
“Gracias.” Then he moves on. They tuck him gently into the back seat and he’s gone.
Afterward we stand around in the living room and chat with a flippant if somewhat pudgy sergeant named Picolini from the Glendale Police Department. Omar wants to know where Javier’s headed, and the sergeant says probably just to a holding cell overnight until the Hollywood boys can bring him downtown for arraignment. I don’t know what he means by “boys” exactly, but I figure I’m probably never going to see him again and so I keep my mouth shut. He takes our names and contact information, thanks us for all our help, and says we can go on our merry way, but he’s got to hang around here and preserve the evidence, you understand. By which he means he’s waiting for the professionals to show up.
I tell Omar he’s free, this case is closed, then I climb in my car, pull out my phone, and punch in Malloy’s number again. This time it takes him a few rings before he picks up.
“I think maybe you can cancel that arrest warrant for Risa Barsky,” I say, “especially after what Javier had to say.”
“We have,” he says, “at least for now. But there’s still a few loose threads. Pincus Bleistiff had a .38 registered in his name, and, yeah, the slugs match, but we still need to find the weapon and test it before we can go much further.”
“Javier knows where it is, I’m pretty sure.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No, Bill, I thought his confession was plenty.”
“Well, unfortunately, it’s not. I’m grateful, mind you. Problem is, any fool can confess to something, but unless there’s corroborating evidence, it’s just a lot of hot air. Hell, every time a movie star stops a bullet, I have six strangers coming out of the woodwork to confess. You know that.”
“Yeah, of course, I know. But you’re not completely in the dark with this. Javier was there that night on the premises. He had access to a gun. And he’s got these deep, fundamental religious beliefs about who you can shtup and who you can’t. I mean, he’s crazy but—”
“Now, wait a second!” he says. “Are you saying you don’t have an issue with incest, Amos?”
“No. I mean, yes. It’s horrible, but it was what—two or three thousand years ago when they wrote all that stuff down, right? Did they even know what they were doing at the time? And does that justify executing someone today? You ask me, that feels like another question.”
“It’s something we’ll have to look at, though, if it goes to trial. What the Bible says.” Malloy makes a sharp noise over the phone then, which I can’t quite interpret. It’s either a cough or a derisive snort.
“Javier,” I say, “was pretty straightforward, you know.”
“About the murder?”
“Yeah, sure, but more about what a sinner Pinky was. How he just couldn’t take it anymore. How he snapped. That’s the kind of thing could hang a jury. He’ll probably say he did what he did because he was on a mission from God. He’ll take the stand and quote chapter and verse from Exodus. All you need is one member of the jury to buy into that. On the other hand, it could be entertaining.”
“I’m laughing already.”
“Absolutely. But you can’t leave this to a new hire. What you’ll really need is a DA who has his Old Testament down pat. More than the California Penal Code, anyway. Somebody who can paint the big picture.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Amos.”
“I’m talking about history, Bill.”
“What’s history got—”
“Look, it was scribbled down in the desert a long time ago. I know it. You know it. But that doesn’t mean we have to tie ourselves up in knots over it today. That was a long time ago.”
“So?”
“So you want a prosecutor who can speak to that. The Torah demanded the death penalty for incest, okay. He has to admit that up front. Get it out of the way.”
“Why?”
“Why? To put it in perspective, that’s why. Sure, he has to say, they frowned on incest back then. But not just incest. All kinds of things. If you got shit-faced after sundown on Friday night. If you slept with your best friend’s husband. If you got mad at your mom and told her to go to hell. According to the Torah, you die. That’s how Javier saw things. Go figure.”
“I don’t have to figure,” Malloy says. “I just need to gather some hard facts, see where they take me. But for now, I agree with you, counselor. I’ll hold off on Risa.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I appreciate it.”
When I get home that evening, there’s hardly anything to eat in the refrigerator, so I end up taking Loretta out to dinner. There are a lot of new places around, and I used to want to try them out, but now with her condition, she can get finicky, so I stick with what’s tried-and-true. It’s a little family joint we go to on Beverly Boulevard, just east of La Cienega, called Mandarette. Not the most fabulous Chinese food I’ve ever had, but the owners are kindly, they work hard, and they always find a nice cozy corner table for us where we can watch the joggers and the cars go by. While you wait to be served you can stare up at the classy tin ceiling. And after you’ve cracked open your fortune cookie and read what’s inside—“You will find success one day if you just keep at it”—no one minds if you sit there sipping tea for another hour, which we do. Loretta likes Chinese tea. She likes the whole tea experience, in fact. I tell her she must have been a Chinese princess in another life, and she likes that idea, too. Eventually, I look down at the remains of our meal. The rice has gone cold and the crispy sesame beef has begun to congeal on the plate. I signal for the check, and when the waiter comes, some cardboard take-out boxes. That’s when all the events of the day start to tumble into place.
“How is your murder case?” Loretta asks suddenly, lowering her teacup. She used to quiz me a lot about what I was up to, but in the last couple years that has sort of petered out. I am surprised.
“Now, what brought that up?”
“Your case,” she says again, more emphatically, “I want to know what you’ve done. I’m your wife.” She says this last part almost like it’s an ultimatum, like I should remember that, or else.
“Well, today,” I say, “Omar and I went out to Eagle Rock and spoke to a man named Javier Escovedo. And by the time we were done, I’d gotten him to open up and explain why he killed Pinky.”
“Who’s Pinky?”
“The man Javier shot. He was my client for a while. Lived up on Mulholland Drive. You remember where that is, don’t you?”
“You used to take me there to cuddle at night. We did things. I remember, yes.”
“Those were the nights, huh?”
“Pinky was your client. You never told me that. Did he pay you?”
“Eventually,” I say with a shrug. “It took him a while. But then he died. Not too many people write checks after that.”
She gives me an odd look, squints her eyes, lifts her porcelain cup, and swallows the last of her tea.
I don’t joke with her, not like I used to, because she’s become very literal in the past year or so. When she talks, she only wants to talk about certain things. Food and Carmen and the many friends she thinks she has on television. Sometimes she asks about me, but I know I’m on the periphery. It’s a kind of selfishness she practices. A selfishness born of necessity. I don’t blame her. Words have specific meanings, and she seems to hold them more closely to her than ever before. She likes words that keep her safe. “Who do you work for now?” she asks. “Are you working now? Are you getting a paycheck? Tell me.”
“I’m working for Pinky’s daughter,” I say. I reach across the table and cover her hand with my own, rub her fingers gently. I don’t tell her that his daughter was also his mistress. That would ruin a perfectly good evening, I figure. She wouldn’t understand, so I leave it alone.
“This time I’m buying you lunch, Amos, even though you’re a royal pain in the butt sometimes and you talk too much and you don’t deserve it.” We’re working our way through the menu at Musso & Frank on Hollywood Boulevard. I can tell by the sarcastic tone Malloy is taking that he really thinks I’m a great asset to the LAPD in particular and to law-abiding citizens in general.
“The word I like is tuchus, Lieutenant. I’m a pain in the tuchus, yes. Thank you very much.”
Musso’s is Bill’s favorite restaurant, although he has a big soft spot for the Original Pantry on Figueroa. I get that. The Pantry is food for the working stiff. It’s cash only but cheap, and the line to get in can be long. Some of the staff can also be a little hard-boiled; you look at them and you think maybe they’re all fresh out of Folsom. But today we’re sitting at Musso’s, and Musso’s is where he chooses to celebrate. It’s old Hollywood, elegant in the manner of your late Aunt Dorothy, who drank bourbon and did the Charleston. It’s got dark, cool, padded booths and waiters plodding around in red uniforms with towels draped over their arms. When you step through the door here, your first impulse is to order a martini. I never do, not at my age, but it’s that kind of place. It’s been around forever, and it still serves up giant platters of food from another era, when nothing was organic and they didn’t skimp on butter. The last time we were here one of us (I forget who) had liver and bacon. You don’t see that on menus anymore.
It’s been unspeakably hot in LA, even though it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Something to do with El Niño, they say. Or La Niña. One of those things. It’s so hot, I’m wearing the vintage Hawaiian shirt I picked up at Jet Rag on La Brea. Loretta loves this shmata, says it makes me look like an old fading Jewish movie star. Well, I admit, I’m old, and I’m Jewish. When I win an Oscar, we can talk about the rest.
Malloy’s got his tan summer suit on and he’s lost the tie. Still a cop, though, no doubt about it. We order. He has the corned beef and cabbage; I have the oyster stew.
“I thought Jews don’t eat oysters,” he says quietly as the waiter walks away.
“Jews in Egypt didn’t eat oysters,” I tell him. “Jews in America? We eat whatever the hell we want. I do, anyway.”
He nods, taps his spoon down rhythmically on the white linen tablecloth. It’s been three days since they brought Javier Escovedo in for questioning. Three whole days, and I haven’t heard a word. Not that I’m entitled, but I’m interested. Let’s just say that up front.
“This case hasn’t panned out the way we expected,” he begins. “Not nearly.”
I look at him. “You got your man, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he says. “Yes and no.”
The waiter sets a basket of warm sliced bread and a dish of butter before us. Malloy reaches over, takes a piece, then puts it back down.
“We can’t charge Javier with killing Pinky.”
“How come?”
“Well, he admitted it—to you. But he hasn’t said a word to us. In fact, now he’s not offering any help at all.”
“I don’t understand, Bill. He was glad to get it off his chest when we talked to him.”
“Yeah, well, that was then.”
“You asked him about the gun?”
“Of course. He says he doesn’t know what happened to it.”
“So is he still in custody? You can’t keep him indefinitely without a charge, can you?”
“Oh, well, we’re charging him. That’s not a problem. Not for Pinky, though. Turns out Javier murdered Ray Ballo.”
“He admitted to that?”
“No,” Malloy says. “Not exactly. But we have surveillance video of him outside Ballo’s apartment before and after the time of death. And there are a few partial prints in the apartment that match. Javier hemmed and hawed, even after we showed him the video, then he said he went there to pay Ray Ballo off and that things got out of hand. Self-defense is what he said. We’re not buying it, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Pay him off? I’m not following you.”
“I don’t know what’s true, Amos. Everybody’s pointing fingers at everybody else. If you listen to how Javier tells it, Risa was the one who killed Pinky.”
“Javier saw her do it?”
“No, he says that he and Pinky struggled over the gun, it landed in the grass, and Risa picked it up. That’s when Javier claims he got in his car and left.”
“Okay,” I say, “I guess that’s possible.”
“And if you believe Javier,” Malloy continues, “then that means Ray saw her kill him. He was probably the one eyewitness we could have used.”
“If he’d lived long enough.”
“Right. If he’d lived. And if he testified. According to Javier,” Malloy says, “Ray realized early on that his silence was worth something. That’s when he started blackmailing Risa.”
“I thought he loved her.”
“I think he probably did, at some level. Pinky loved her, too. But what does that prove? People are fucked up,” Malloy says. “He was blackmailing her, though. There’s no question. I sent Jason and Remo out to talk to that singer in his country band, Phoebe? Maybe you remember her? Cute little thing.”
“I do.”
“She told us the night before he died, Ray got seriously drunk. Started mumbling all kinds of strange stuff. How he’d landed himself a new career. How he needed a lot more money from Risa, said she owed him now—big time.”
“Okay,” I say. “But why did Javier have to pay Ballo?”
“I thought about that,” Malloy says. “My opinion? Risa was terrified of leaving her apartment in Van Nuys. We were watching her day and night. She couldn’t move, not without some cover. Thought she’d get arrested. So she wired money into Javier’s account, asked him to break it down into small bills and bring it in a bag to Ray’s. That’s when things went south.”
“How much?”
“Twenty grand. And that may have just been the first installment, who knows.”
“You ever find it?”
“We did, yes. It was sealed in black plastic in the back of Javier’s freezer, behind a couple pints of ice cream. He probably should have left it at Ray’s. That would have been a lot smarter. Then maybe the Burbank cops would have gone on thinking it was just a drug deal gone bad.”
“So now what? Where does that leave us, Bill?”
He purses his lips. I can almost see the wheels spinning inside his head. He is a consummate professional. He’d like nothing better than a clean outcome for all this tumult. A moral ending. We all would. “I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “Right now Javier’s being charged with second degree murder. Ray Ballo’s a failed extortionist, in every sense of the word. And Risa Barsky? She’s an incest victim. I can’t imagine what special kind of hell that is. She’ll be haunted forever. And the thing is, she may very likely be our killer.”
“You think?”
He nods. “A killer who’s gonna go scot-free. It’s bad luck, is all. I’m not the DA, of course, but I don’t see how we can touch her with what little we’ve got. The optics would be terrible. How’s that for a scorecard? You tell me.”
The food arrives then, the steam rises, and for a few minutes we stop talking to pay attention to why we came here in the first place. The oyster stew is good, but what Bill’s recounted has left me sad and slightly sick in my stomach. Where did I go wrong? How could I have put even an ounce of trust in any of these people? I drink all the ice water in my glass tumbler. A waiter steps up and pours me another, and I drink that down, too. Even though it’s cool in here, I’m feeling off-balance. I’m starting to sweat. I’d ask for a martini about now if I thought it would do any good.
“Sometimes you have to take what you get,” Malloy says. “I’m not happy myself. But I figured you’d want to know, right? It’s just what it is.”
Chapter 25
FOR TWO WEEKS I sit around my apartment and mope. Omar calls me once, says he’s in the neighborhood and do I want to meet him at Molly Malone’s to talk and grab a beer? I think about it for a second or so, then realize I’d be lousy company and turn him down. Hey, maybe another time, all right? That’s what I tell him. Sure, he says, sure, you bet. And after we get off the phone, right away my ears begin to burn and the voices start cranking away in my head. I never used to listen to critics, but now they’re at my throat, all ganging up on me. I feel ashamed of myself. I pace the living room and stare at the wine spots on the carpet, and I imagine I hurt his feelings. That’s what I think, even though I know it’s crazy. It’s just a beer, he’ll get over it. He’s young and tough, and no matter what I said, we go back a long way, he’ll still love me in the end, I’m sure of that. But now? Now I’m letting him down, and a voice inside is telling me it’s too damn late.
As a kind of atonement, I play checkers all afternoon with Loretta. I always let her win. She likes that. Years ago we used to play chess, and back then she would beat me on a regular basis. Now we’re down to checkers. It’s okay, though. Dr. Ali says what really matters most is keeping her mind occupied. You don’t want her drifting off, he cautions. As if drifting off was something I could somehow prevent.
What I notice is that he never talks about me and my mind. That’s because I’m not his patient. I get that, all right. Thing is, Loretta’s not the only one here. Both of us live in this fucking apartment. We breathe the same air. That’s what I should say to the doctor. What about me? I might drift off, too, I want to tell him. Did you ever consider that? I might drift off. But in the end I keep my mouth shut. He’s only doing his best, after all, what they trained him to do in med school. He separates us, draws distinctions, one from the other. It’s not his fault.
