Try Darkness (20 page)
“Mr. Buchanan, I’m giving you a friendly warning.”
“Those never work for me. You have to make it mean.”
“Consider it done.”
“Those don’t work for me, either.”
Long pause. “You called me, remember?” Brosia said.
I was operating on too much caffeine. I didn’t need to make him angrier. At least I knew that much. Sometimes I’m a real clear thinker.
“Sam DeCosse, the old man,” I said. “He’s interested in buying a piece of property adjacent to St. Monica’s monastery. That’s where Reatta went to see the priest.”
“Are you suggesting Sam DeCosse had something to do with her murder?” Brosia asked.
“I’m exchanging information with you,” I said. “Which, by the way, means it’s your turn.”
He didn’t respond.
“How did Reatta die?” I asked.
“Her neck was snapped,” Brosia said.
I thought of Kylie then, asleep in the closet as this happened to her mother.
“Thanks for calling,” Brosia said. “Let’s do this again soon.”
I DROVE BACK
to the Lindbrook to take it one floor at a time. The same little man with the wheat pasta hair was behind the Plexiglas. His eyes got round like lollipops when he saw me.
He started shaking his head.
“I have some questions for you,” I said.
“You get out!” he said. “Or I’ll call the cops.”
“Listen, Bashful, I represent the tenant in 414. I have the authority to go in and spend the night if I want to, which I would if I wanted to train a cockroach.”
He picked up the phone.
As long as he stayed in his aquarium, there was not much I could do. So I turned my attention to the guys sitting in the lobby.
Disco Freddy was nowhere to be seen. The one guy I recognized was the man named Oscar. He was sitting near the window reading a newspaper.
I joined him.
“How you doing?” I said.
“Oh. Hey. What’s up?”
“Mind if I sit?”
“Take a load off,” he said. “I just been reading about our wonderful mayor and his little dogs.”
“The mayor has dogs?”
“Did I say dogs? I meant the city council.”
“Whoa.”
“That’s what I said. I used to be a cop, you know. Back in the day when they’d stand up for the troops. Back when the public was on your side.”
“Glory days?”
Oscar closed the paper
.
“Just the days when a cop didn’t have to look twelve ways before doing his job, thinking he might get videoed doing his job and then getting reamed for it. But you didn’t come here to listen to me jabber on, did you?”
“Matter of fact, I wanted to ask about the murder in 414.”
“You’re workin’ for the girl, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Cute little thing. She okay?”
“All things considered, not too bad.”
He leaned over the table like a conspirator. “You want to know if the cops talked to me, don’t you?”
“Did they?”
“Not very much. Like they were just goin’ through the routine. I guess somebody dies here, it doesn’t rate much attention. Not the way I woulda handled it.”
“Why’d you stop being a cop?”
He paused, looked out the window at Sixth Street. “I went into the Turkey Stress Relief Program. Finished first in my class.”
“Turkey Program?”
“Wild Turkey.”
“Ah.”
“Had a wife. She left. Being married to a cop’s no life. No kids. Here I am.”
“Oscar,” I said, “would you help me out with this case?”
The dark eyes cast a little glow. Then he smiled, showing a lost upper tooth, a gap where old memories might leak out.
“What do you want to know?” he said.
“Where were you on the night the woman was murdered?” I asked.
“I was right down here, where I always am. I was sitting and watching Disco Freddy—I watch out for him, see, make sure he doesn’t wander into the street too far—and played some cards with Ricky.”
“Who’s Ricky?”
“Third floor.”
“Might he have seen anything?”
“Don’t think so. We talked after—he couldn’t recall. Course, the way he pickles his brain, it’s kind of hard for him to remember much.”
I was kicking around in my mind how much to tell Oscar. For all I knew, he could have done it. Unlikely, but this was beginning to sound like an inside job. People in Rasta hats don’t just waltz in unnoticed, do their thing, and leave without being seen.
“How long did you and Ricky play cards?” I asked.
“Till about eleven or so. I remember ’cause the TV news started. Eleven’s about when I get to bed.”
“What room?”
“I’m 207.”
“You went to bed after that?”
He smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
“You had company?”
“That’s none of your business, counselor.”
“It could be police business.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you trying to say you think ol’ Oscar has to have an alibi?”
“Do you?”
“You know, you’re a funny guy. I’ve done nothin’ but try to help you, help the cops. Help the little girl. That’s all I’ve done and you think I could do that? You can leave right now, Mr. Lawyer, and take the train right to hell.”
He pushed himself away from the table and stood up.
“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m flying blind here.”
“You just flew into a wall.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Before he could answer, the lights of an LAPD patrol car flashed through the front window. It pulled up to the curb and two uniforms got out.
They walked into the lobby where the Munchkin had come out from his lair. He pointed at me, and the officers walked over.
“Can you tell us what you’re doing here, sir?” the younger of the two cops asked. He was tall and skinny. His partner, older and fatter, I figured was his trainer. Letting the kid take a stab at questioning.
“No,” I said. “What I’m doing here is my business.”
The cop blinked so hard you could almost hear his lids clacking.
“You’re trespassing,” the cop said.
“I’m not.”
“Do you rent a room here?”
“My client does.”
The cop frowned and looked at the Munchkin, who shrugged.
I produced a card, gave it to him. “You can call Lieutenant Brosia at Central if you want to check it out. There’s currently litigation over the tenancy. I have authority from the tenant to be on the premises. It’s just that simple.”
“He’s causing trouble!” the Munchkin said.
The older cop shook his head, like he’d just placed the Munchkin in the nut category.
“Hickman, is that you?” Oscar had come up from behind me.
The older cop squinted. “Oscar?”
“Hey man.”
Smiles and a handshake.
Oscar said, “Me and Hickman rode together a long time ago.”
“Back when men were men,” Hickman said, mostly to his young partner. “How you doing?”
“I’m alive.”
“That’s great,” Hickman said.
The Munchkin said, “Hey.”
“Much ado about nothing here,” Oscar said to Hickman. “Me and Mr. Buchanan been talking quietly. I can vouch for him.”
That was that. The Munchkin stormed off like a child who got his toys taken away. Hickman and Oscar swapped a couple more jovialities. The young cop looked at me and I looked at him.
That’s when Disco Freddy burst into the lobby with a shriek.
The young cop spun around, his hand going to his gun.
“Easy,” Oscar said.
Disco spun around and put his hands out. “Mr. John Travolta!” he said.
“Time to roll,” Hickman said, giving Oscar a clap on the shoulder. The cops left, walking quickly past Disco.
I looked at Oscar. “Thanks,” I said. “How come you backed me?”
“Because you said you were sorry,” he said. “Everybody deserves another chance. I’m talkin’ from experience.”
Disco Freddy strutted across the lobby like Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever.
Well, not
really
like it, but if you tried real hard, you could almost pretend to see it.
“Mumbuddynomakenomubbamind,” he said to us.
Oscar said, “Not now, Disco. Got business.”
Then Disco said, “You want to find the guy that killed her?”
OSCAR’S CHIN DROPPED
. “What’d you just say?”
“I seen the guy, yeah, I seen him, mumbuddy.”
“You can talk?” I said.
Disco flashed a hard look at me. “Mumbuddy!”
“Better let me,” Oscar said. To Disco: “What are you telling me, Freddy? That you saw the guy who killed 414?”
Disco Freddy nodded.
“What did he look like?” Oscar said.
“Mr. Buddy Ebsen!”
I shook my head. Buddy Ebsen? I thought I recalled him from an old movie I watched with Jacqueline once. Maybe a Shirley Temple. He was a dancer. That’s why Disco Freddy was saying this.
“Nice try, Oscar,” I said.
Disco Freddy did a turn.
Oscar grabbed Freddy’s shoulders to stop him. “Freddy, listen to me. What do you mean you saw a guy who looks like Buddy Ebsen?”
“Buddy Ebsen! The greatest dancer of all time! Loosey goosey!” Disco Freddy started to flap his arms. He looked like a heron made of rubber.
“I think he saw somethin’,” Oscar said to me.
To Disco Freddy I said, “Hey, man, was the guy white or black?”
“Buddy Ebsen . . .”
“Yeah, Buddy Ebsen. Was he white or was he black?”
Disco Freddy shrugged. “Saw him from the back.”
“Okay,” I said. “What did he have on his head?”
“Head?”
“Yeah. Was he wearing anything on his head?”
Disco Freddy frowned, took a step back, spun around one time. “Over the rainbow!”
“Whoa,” I said. “You mean a rainbow hat? Different colors?”
Disco Freddy nodded. I looked at Oscar. “Now I think he saw something, too.”
“Where’d you see him?” Oscar said.
“Mumbuddy.”
“Come on, Freddy.”
“Mumbuddy!”
I looked at the ceiling.
“Why don’t you just show us?” Oscar said.
Disco Freddy jumped, then crouched, then went into a soft shoe. Leading toward the stairs.
Oscar looked at me. “Let’s go,” he said.
FREDDY DANCED UP
to the second floor, shouting “Mr. James Cagney!” all the way.
Yankee Doodle Freddy.
We came to the second-floor corridor. It was long and narrow and gray, except for the white wainscoting that spoke of an earlier era. Most of these downtown hotels had been fashionable once.
A music mix blared. Somebody was pumping out gangsta, and somebody else had Tony Bennett on full blast. So a lovely street ode to ho’s and weed was bucking right up against Tony telling everybody to forget their troubles and, come on, get happy.
Sitting against the corridor wall was a young African-American woman with a child, a boy about eight, who was rolling a fire engine back and forth on the floor. She looked our way with sleepy eyes, and then I knew it wasn’t sleep that was in them. She’d had her morning fix.
Disco stopped and pointed to the end of the hall.
Oscar said, “Down there is where you saw him?”
Disco nodded.
“Show us.”
Disco started dancing down the corridor in little circles, left arm out, saying, “Dancing with the lovely Leslie Caron! Mumbuddy.”
It was hard to imagine him dancing with Leslie Caron to the tune-stew of gangsta rap and Tony Bennett. But by this time I knew Disco had his own inner band. The question was, could he communicate with the outside world? Meaning me.
The boy with the fire engine looked at us with suspicion. The mother—I assumed she was his mother—just stared, not focusing.
At the end of the corridor was a window and an exit door. Out the window was a fire escape. The window itself was locked. Didn’t look like it had been opened since the fifties.
I pushed the bar on the exit door, opened it to the stairwell. “Are these doors locked on the outside?”
“No,” Oscar said. “Some secure building, uh?”
“So this guy you saw,” I said to Disco, “was he going out or coming in?”
“Dancing!” Disco said.
“He was dancing?”
“Everybody dances in Disco’s mind,” Oscar said. “Some are just better than others.”
I watched Disco bow, back away, then do what can only be described as a Bizarro World buck and wing. He shot his legs out at the same time, his arms akimbo.
Then he winced and fell to the ground, grabbing his groin.
Oscar grunted, shook his head, then knelt down to help Disco up. “Fred Astaire pull a muscle?”
“Mumbuddy,” Disco said.
“That’s right,” Oscar said.
“Is there anything else you can tell us, Disco?” I said.
“Owweee.”
“I’m gonna take him to his room,” Oscar said.
“I’ll be in touch,” I told him.
Oscar held Disco’s arm and the star of the Lindbrook ballroom limped off with him.
I went through the exit.
I TOOK THE
stairwell all the way down, then pushed open the door. It opened up to an alley that ran behind the hotel, emptying out into Sixth Street to the right. The door locked and denied access from the alley.
So what was accomplished? Not much. If Disco Freddy had indeed seen the killer, it was likely he’d seen the guy on the way out. The question would then be, what was he doing on the second floor?
Or, the guy could have been coming in, which would mean having access from the alley.
Or Disco Freddy could have been on his own little dance floor in his own little universe, taking us all along with him.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t much. Not anything you could go to the cops with.
I went back to the entry and this time the Munchkin didn’t do a thing. I went back up to the second floor. The woman and child were gone.
I knocked on a couple of doors and talked to a couple of guys—one a young actor from Iowa, the other an ex–city parks worker. Neither one saw anyone in a Rasta hat. Both told me Disco Freddy was not the most reliable source.
Like I needed to be told.
ON MY WAY
out I found Oscar back in the lobby, frowning at a newspaper.
“Oscar, you loved being a cop.”