Private Page 10

  The mutt in the red shirt said, “This way,” and led us through a series of archways and high-ceilinged rooms, past wiseguys shooting billiards, to a great room with glass doors leading out to a pool.

  Carmine Noccia was sitting in a chair in front of a fireplace, reading a hardback book.

  He was of medium build, and although he was only forty-six, his hair was going gray. He wore a gray silk sweater and slacks, casual but excellent fabric and cut. He certainly looked the part of a wealthy capo, scion of the last significant Mafia family on the West Coast, a man taking in several illegal millions a week.

  I knew quite a lot about Carmine Noccia. He had graduated with honors from Stanford and got his master’s in marketing at UCLA. After graduation, he’d proven himself to his father, and over the past ten years he’d run prostitution, and probably drugs, for the family business. The don’s son had never been charged with murder, but prostitutes had been found in Dumpsters. A middleman who’d imported girls from the former Soviet Bloc had disappeared. And my gun and Del Rio’s were on top of an antique cabinet in the foyer.

  We crossed the threshold, and Noccia immediately got to his feet, putting his hands in his pockets. He asked us to have a seat, and Del Rio and I plopped onto the leather sofa at an angle to his chair.

  Noccia said, “Did you bring the money to bail out your brother? I hope so. Otherwise, you understand, this is a waste of my time.”

  I patted a pocket of my jacket and said, “I need your help on something else. Someone killed Shelby Cushman. It looks professional, and that’s how LAPD is taking it. If you know who shot her, I’d like to know. She was a friend of mine.”

  As I was talking, Del Rio got up and began strolling around the great room, examining photographs and the rifles hanging from hooks on the walls. He asked Noccia, “You ride those horses in the stable out there?”

  “I don’t know who killed Shelby,” Noccia said, following Rick with his eyes. “I can tell you that we liked her. She was a good lady. Very smart, very funny.”

  I took the thin envelope out of my jacket and handed it to Noccia. He opened the flap, peered in at the cashier’s check for $600,000.

  Tommy’s gambling debt was now paid in full.

  “I’ll get this to the right people,” Noccia said. He put the envelope between the pages of the book he’d been reading: The Audacity of Hope. Interesting. I wondered if he was pro or con on Barack Obama.

  “If I hear anything about Shelby, I’ll give you a call,” he said. “You impressed me tonight, Jack. You did the right thing by your brother.”

  Chapter 53

  THE NEXT MORNING at Private, Andy Cushman sat in the chair across from my desk. His face was very red, with bright white circles where his shades had been, evidence of too much time spent out by the pool. His hair was combed. He had shaved, and his clothes were neat and clean. It didn’t look as though Andy had hit absolute bottom, but I knew in the next few minutes, he’d be there.

  “You’ve got news for me,” he said.

  Colleen brought in my Red Bull and Andy’s espresso. We both thanked her.

  “Andy, I have something to tell you. You’re not going to like it.”

  “Don’t worry, Jack. Whatever it is, I can take it. That’s why I’m here.”

  I nodded as if I agreed. Then I told my old friend that we had found out where Shelby had been working before she was killed: the Benedict Spa.

  Andy jumped up, shouting as he stabbed the air with a forefinger. “What the fuck are you telling me? She worked there? That’s a hundred percent horseshit. It’s a lie! Somebody’s jerking your chain, Jack!”

  I waited for Andy to finish his rant and sit back down. I understood why he was upset. “I wouldn’t tell you if we hadn’t checked it out, Andy. I’m sorry. But it’s true.”

  Andy’s face was nearly purple with rage. His breathing was fast and shallow. I worried that he might have a heart attack in my office, maybe a fatal one.

  “Then tell me why, Jack. Tell me why. She had everything she wanted. Jesus, we had a very active sex life.” He pushed away from the desk. “I want proof; I need it. That’s your business, isn’t it? Proving things? Proof, Jack, proof.”

  “Del Rio and I went to Las Vegas last night and met with Carmine Noccia.”

  Andy did a double take. “What’s he got to do with it? This doesn’t make any sense, Jack. None at all.”

  “He owns the Benedict Spa. He knew Shelby, and doesn’t dispute that she worked for him. But he has no information on who killed her. So he says.”

  “You’re telling me that my wife was a whore and a liar, and on top of that, she was working for the Mob? Why, Jack? She didn’t need money.”

  I said again, “I’m very sorry, Andy.”

  “So any crummy dick with a gun could’ve killed her? Is that what you’ve found out?”

  “We’re working on it right now. We’re all working on it. We’re going to find the guy who did this.”

  Andy slammed his fist down on my desk. “Guess what? I no longer care who killed her,” he said. “I don’t want to spend another nickel on her. Fuck it, Jack. Fuck it.”

  I shook my head. “Please think this through. If we don’t find Shelby’s killer, the police will continue to focus on you.”

  “Let them. They have nothing on me and they’ll get nothing. You just put yourself out of a job, Jack. You’re fired.”

  Andy knocked his chair over as he got to his feet, then he steamed out of my office. He almost ran Colleen down as she came through the door.

  “Did I hear right?” Colleen asked, putting a hand on her hip. I saw that she was wearing her new watch. “He fired us?”

  “No. Well, yeah. He’s upset, but he’s my friend. I’m moving the Cushman case to the pro bono list,” I said. “We’re still working it. Only now we’re doing it for free.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Jack,” Colleen said. Then she shut the door to my office. “Am I still your friend, Jack?”

  Chapter 54

  CRUZ PARKED HIS car outside the Benedict Spa and watched as an absolutely stunning young blond woman came out the front gates and strolled down the hill toward where he sat watching her promenade.

  She was about five-foot-one, small boned, with a short boyish haircut, wearing black bicycle pants, a green spandex top, and flat shoes. She disarmed her Lexus convertible alarm as Cruz approached.

  “Hi, could you wait up a second?” he said, walking toward her. She got into her car and locked the door.

  Cruz took his badge out of his back pocket. He flashed it and made the universal motion to ask her to roll down her window.

  “What are you?” she asked. “FBI?”

  “Private investigator,” he said, smiling at her. “I just need a moment. You work at the spa, right? This won’t be hard, I promise.”

  “I can’t talk to you. Please step back so I don’t run over your toes.”

  “My name is Emilio Cruz. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Carla. Make an appointment, okay? I can talk to you at the spa all you want. For hours, if you like.”

  “Carla, stay right there in your car. Keep the door locked. I have two or three questions, that’s it.”

  Carla, last name unknown, put her key into the ignition and started the car. Cruz crossed in front of the hood around to the passenger side. Carla reached across the seat and pushed the lock button down, but the window was half open.

  Cruz reached in, pulled up the door handle, and got into the car.

  “Get out or I’ll scream. I’ll call the house and someone will come out here and beat the hell out of you, buddy. They can get real ugly in a hurry.”

  “I come in peace. I’m not trying to upset you,” Cruz said. “I just want to ask you about Shelby Cushman.”

  “Let me see that badge again.”

  Cruz held it up. “I’m licensed,” he said. “But I’m not a cop. I’m here for Shelby.”

  Tears suddenly formed in the woman’s eyes.
That surprised the hell out of Cruz.

  “I loved her,” she said.

  “I’ve heard terrific things about her.”

  “She would cry for you when you were upset. She’d give you the shirt off her back—even if you didn’t want it. And she was so funny.”

  “So what happened to her?”

  “What I heard? I don’t know if this is the truth or not. She was in her bedroom, and someone shot her. Shot her twice.”

  “How do you know where she was when she was shot, Carla?”

  “There was talk around the pool. Wait. I think Glenda said it.”

  “Who told Glenda? This is important.”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know anyone who would’ve done anything to Shelby,” Carla said. “But I’m glad you’re trying to find out who killed her.”

  Cruz said, “Just between us, you think the Noccias had anything to do with this?”

  Carla folded her arms and seemed to shrink into herself. “Is that what you think?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Shelby was a moneymaker and absolutely no trouble. I just don’t see it.”

  Carla was clearly getting restless, and nervous. Cruz smiled at her. “I’m almost done. Who were her regulars? Did anyone in particular strike you as volatile? Or possessive? Or vindictive?”

  “Not really. But a couple of guys booked her a lot,” Carla said. “Two of them came in a few times a week. Shelby only worked days.”

  “Who were they? This could really help. Did Shelby talk about them, her regulars?”

  “Hollywood types. One is a film director. The other is an actor. A bad-boy type. I can’t tell you who they are. But maybe you can figure it out. Do you like movies?”

  “Sure, who doesn’t?”

  “You ever seen Bat Out of Hell?”

  “Thanks, Carla. You’re terrific.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She revved the engine. “Really. Don’t tell anyone. And please don’t be paying me any visits, in there or out here. I’m taking one hell of a chance as it is, sweetheart. I don’t want to end up like Shelby.”

  Chapter 55

  CRUZ AND DEL RIO trooped into my office. Cruz combed his hair back with his fingers, refastened his ponytail. Del Rio righted the chair Andy had knocked over and sat in it.

  “Andy fired us? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I had to tell him about Shelby and the spa. He couldn’t believe it.”

  “Ooof,” Cruz said. “I feel for the guy.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Ever wish you were wrong?”

  “He fired us because you told him the truth, huh?” said Del Rio.

  “He’ll change his mind in a few days.”

  “You think?” Cruz said.

  “So, how are you doing?” I asked them. “We’re still working this case, right? We’re going to find out who murdered Shelby.”

  Cruz put a hand in his inside pocket. He withdrew a narrow notebook and started to report. He said that he’d interviewed a woman who worked at Glenda Treat’s spa and that she’d given him the names of two clients who saw a lot of Shelby Cushman.

  “They’re both in the entertainment business,” Cruz said. “I did some research. Also, I checked with the New York office. One of the guys, Bob Santangelo, came from Brooklyn. You know him?”

  “I know his name. I think I’ve seen him in a couple of movies.”

  “Pugnacious type from back east. One of those actors who don’t give TV interviews. Likes to throw his weight around.”

  “He saw Shelby a lot?”

  “A few times a week, apparently. The other guy is Zev Martin, an A-list director, works for Warner Brothers a lot. People say the A stands for asshole in his case. Apparently, he’s quite in love with himself.”

  “Bat Out of Hell,” Del Rio said. “Horror classic, freakin’ masterpiece. I saw it about six times. Martin directed it. Santangelo played the bad guy.”

  “Both of them are married,” Cruz continued. “Neither has a record.”

  “License to carry?” I asked.

  “Negative,” said Cruz.

  “You have a preference?”

  “Nope.”

  “You take Santangelo,” I said to Cruz. “Keep in touch.”

  Chapter 56

  DEL RIO AND I drove to Warner Brothers studios out in Burbank. I showed my badge at security, then told them to check with the studio head, who was a client. A couple of minutes later, I drove down the wide, bright roadway through the lot, past the commissary and the soundstages, out to the bungalows that were laid out in a campus-like setting.

  We found Zev Martin working on his motorcycle to the side of a white house with his name stenciled over the door. He was a small guy in his thirties with tightly clipped facial hair and a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps.

  I introduced Del Rio and myself while Martin squinted up at us suspiciously. “What?” he asked.

  “We’re investigating the death of Shelby Cushman,” I said. So far, this line had proven to be a conversation stopper. This time was no different.

  “You saw her several times a week,” Del Rio said. “At the Benedict Spa. Did she ever say anything to you about anyone giving her trouble there?”

  Martin stood up, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, and said, “You don’t go to see girls like that so you can listen to their problems. Pretty funny idea, actually. Is that what you do?” Martin said to Del Rio. “You pay women to talk about themselves? Why don’t you just get married?”

  Del Rio’s bruises were still dark and plentiful. He looked like a pit bull who’d been matched with an equal—and won.

  “I don’t pay women,” Del Rio said. “What kind of guy does that, I wonder.”

  “Rick,” I said, “wait for me in the car, please.”

  But he didn’t listen to me. He grabbed Martin by the shirt and pulled the collar tight at his throat. The bike went over, folded in on itself.

  “We don’t want any of your bullshit,” Del Rio said into Martin’s face. “Tell us about Shelby or after I beat your brains in, I’ll personally tell your unfortunate wife about your unfortunate visits to the spa.”

  “Hey! What’s with you?” Martin squealed.

  I heard the bleeping of a security cart coming up the roadway in our direction.

  Martin was going red in the face as Del Rio wrung the next few words out of him. “Shelby was in love with some guy. Not her husband, okay?”

  “Rick,” I said, grabbing him from behind, “let him go.”

  “Who was this guy she loved?” Del Rio said, shaking the director.

  “I don’t know. It was a rumor with a few of the other girls. Shelby never mentioned it herself.”

  I wrenched Rick off Zev Martin and apologized as Rick stalked off toward the car.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Martin.

  “Fuck no,” he said, running his hand around his throat.

  “Del Rio is a vet,” I said, leaving out that he was also an ex-con. “He’s suffering from PTSD. I’m very sorry.”

  “I should have him charged with assault,” Martin said, as the studio cop cart parked at the curb.

  “I could be wrong, but I don’t think you want any more attention drawn to this situation,” I said.

  I avoided looking at the security cop and walked back to my car. I got in and slammed the door.

  “It better not be that Shelby was in love with you, Jack,” Del Rio muttered. “ ‘Close friends,’ I think you called it.”

  I started up the car and said to Rick, “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you take yourself off your meds?”

  He was curled up against the passenger door. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Have you ever sleepwalked?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I wake up, I’m behind the couch, or in the closet, or outside on the lawn. I have no idea how it happened. I have nightmares, bad ones.”

  “Take the rest of the day off, Rick. Go home and get some slee
p before you get us killed.”

  Chapter 57

  JUSTINE SIPPED room-temperature coffee from a cardboard cup.

  The cop she’d tracked down, Lieutenant Mark Bruno, was sitting behind his desk in an office overlooking the homicide division bullpen. Bruno was somewhere around forty years old, stocky, thoughtful. Five years ago, he’d been one of the detectives working the Wendy Borman murder case in East LA.

  “Wendy had been dead a day when she was found in that alley,” Bruno was saying. “It had rained. That just added to the tragedy. Whatever trace might have been left on her body was washed right down the tubes.”

  “What’s your theory of the case?” Justine asked.

  “More than a theory. There was a witness,” he said. “Somebody saw the abduction.”

  Justine started and sat up straight in her chair. “Wait. There were no witnesses.”

  “Yeah, there was. The papers didn’t carry the story because, for one thing, the witness was eleven years old. A girl, Christine Castiglia. Her mother wouldn’t let her talk to us for long, and what she saw didn’t actually amount to much.”

  “I’m desperately seeking a lead,” Justine said. “I need whatever you’ve got, however insignificant it may seem.”

  Bruno said, “Nobody ever put Wendy Borman together with the schoolgirls. You’d make a good cop—if you could afford the precipitous drop in pay.”

  “Thanks,” Justine said. “But I could be wrong about this angle.”

  “Well, you just keep sticking your neck out,” said Bruno. “I’m not one of the cops with a hate-on for you, Dr. Smith.”

  “Justine.”

  “Justine. I don’t care who catches the son of a bitch. In fact, now I’m rooting for you. Obviously, we need all the help we can get.”

  Justine smiled. “Tell me about Christine Castiglia.”

  Bruno swiveled his chair a hundred eighty degrees, opened a file drawer behind him, and took out a spiral notebook with “Borman” written on the cover in thick caps. He swiveled back around and rubbed his forehead as he flipped through his notes, saying, “Uh-huh,” from time to time before he looked up again.