Private L.A. Read online

  Looking at Ziegler placidly, I said, “And I think you know I know who he is.”

  “What?” Ziegler said, confused.

  “I’m walking away now,” I said. “You’re sworn to uphold the law, so go find whoever tried to kill me.”

  I went toward Justine and the dogs. We hadn’t had time to say much to each other since she’d called 911.

  “Want some coffee?” she asked, looking anxious, sad, and wan in a way I’d never seen before.

  “I’d love some.”

  Inside the bungalow she had the blinds drawn, but the windows behind them were open and you could hear the vague rumor of the ongoing crime scene investigation. Every once in a while one or the other of the dogs would start growling at the noise, and Justine would hush her. My mind was clanging, and my hand was trembling at the memories of the attack. If I hadn’t gotten my foot on the pedal, who knows?

  Justine came over, poured me coffee. I studied her as a way to escape my own thoughts, and as she turned, it struck me that she was carrying some heavy burden. Her not-so-perfect lover?

  “You all right?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Just a little green around the gills. I’m not used to drinking that much on an empty stomach.”

  I said nothing as she sat on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, stirring her coffee and finding it terribly interesting.

  “How do you deal with it?” she asked at last.

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Violence,” she said. “You seem at ease during times of violence.”

  “I wouldn’t say at ease,” I replied. “I was just taught to be resourceful when things get chaotic.”

  “You either have the capacity for it or you don’t, I suppose,” she said.

  “What’s this all …?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve got more important things on our plate. I’ve been looking into Sharing Hands.”

  I still wanted to know what was going on with her, but I could tell she was in no mood to go there. So I said, “The orphans’ charity?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s quite a remarkable operation.”

  Justine showed me the Sharing Hands website, summarized the reviews the organization had received from various philanthropy watchdogs that cited the Harlows’ commitment and the charity’s foresight in building an endowment.

  “Makes them sound like saints,” I said.

  “It does,” Justine said. “Then again, how many family-values congressmen get caught with mistresses?”

  “More than a few. Let’s keep digging.”

  We scrolled through a dozen or more references to Sharing Hands’s good deeds before spotting an aberration in the comments section below an article about the charity that had run in the London Times two months before.

  The comment was signed, “A. Aboubacar.”

  Mr. Aboubacar claimed to be from Nigeria.

  “They promised us an orphanage and a school,” Aboubacar wrote. “They say they have built several in my country. But ignore the Harlows’ glamour. Come here and look for yourself. There are none that I can find.”

  Justine said, “He’s probably just a kook, don’t you think?”

  The rest of the testimonials we’d looked at had been so uniformly full of praise that I was about to agree with her. But then I noticed something that had been staring us in the face all along.

  Doors began to open in my mind, and through them I saw dimensions we’d never considered before when it came to Thom and Jennifer Harlow.

  “What?” Justine said, seeing something in my expression. “You believe him?”

  “We have a bunch of things to check out before I’ll say that,” I replied. “And then we’re going to have a face-to-face chat with the friendly crew over at Harlow-Quinn.”

  Chapter 92

  DAVE SANDERS LIVED in Brentwood in a sprawling Georgian manor surrounded by a high wall and a gate that faced North Carmelina Avenue. Driving one of the company Suburbans now that my Touareg was totaled, I pulled up to the gate around seven thirty that night, about forty minutes after the Kid alerted us that Sanders had returned home and, surprise, was entertaining this evening. His guests? Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.

  I hit the buzzer by the gate, looked up at the camera. After several moments, Sanders answered gruffly, “What do you want, Morgan?”

  “I’ve got the Harlows’ staff from the ranch with me,” I said. “They’d like to see the children.”

  “Impossible,” he snapped. “What business do you—?”

  “I’ve got a writ here,” I said, cutting him off and waving a piece of paper out the window. “Signed by Judge Maxwell, ordering you to allow them to see the Harlow children. If you do not open this gate, I will call LAPD, and they will see the order carried out.”

  For several seconds Sanders said nothing, then, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Jack. But fair warning, I don’t trust you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual, Dave,” I said brightly. “Now open the gate.”

  A pause, then a loud click and the steel gates swung back. We drove onto a lighted drive that split before a long narrow reflecting pool that finished in a fountain in front of the house.

  “Wasn’t this place in The Beverly Hillbillies?” I asked Justine as I took the right fork in the drive.

  She looked at me quizzically. “Sorry, that show was a bit before my time.”

  “Mine too, but watch it sometime,” I replied. “A classic. I really think this might be the place where Jethro and Miss Hathaway did their funny business.”

  She looked at me like I was nuts, and then laughed. It was good to see her smile again. We parked out front where the cement drive gave way to a mosaic of inlaid stone. We got out, opened the back doors, released Anita Fontana, Maria Toro, and Jacinta Feliz, who turned nervous and submissive when Sanders opened the massive front door and came out under the portico, followed by Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.

  “Where’s this writ?” Sanders demanded.

  I handed it to him, winked at the publicist and the producer, said, “Amazing how swiftly judges react when the FBI’s special agent in charge requests something. And you’ll see that Justine Smith is named as court-appointed supervisor of this and future visits.”

  For once Camilla Bronson was at a loss for words. Terry Graves acted as if we were unpleasant bugs come to call.

  Sanders read the writ closely, looking for loopholes, I suppose, but the document was ironclad. He handed it back to me, sniffed, “You could have called and made an appointment.”

  “And miss breaking bread with the Harlow-Quinn team?” I said. “Not a chance. But first: the kids?”

  The Harlows’ attorney nodded stiffly toward the door. The housekeeper, the cook, and the maid went by him quickly into a large marble foyer with a sweeping staircase that rose to a second floor. I came in last, nodded, said, “In the old Beverly Hillbillies show, didn’t Jed Clampett live here, in this house?”

  Sanders looked insulted. “He most certainly did not.”

  “Striking resemblance.”

  In a deepening huff, the attorney led us off the foyer to a screening room where the children were watching a movie about a tailless dolphin.

  “Miguel!” Anita cried.

  The boy looked over the seat at her, acted as if he’d expected never to see her again. “Nita!” he yelled, and ran into her arms.

  The Harlows’ housekeeper fell to her knees and embraced the boy, tears streaming down her face as she kissed him and spoke to him in Spanish, calling him her little one and her best boy. Pressing her shiny cheeks to his, she looked radiant and complete in an unexpected way. As if the two were deep soul mates.

  Malia and Jin were on their feet, hugging Maria Toro and Jacinta Feliz, who’d also broken into tears.

  “Look how big you get,” the cook said to Malia, who towered over her.

  “You good?” Jacinta asked Jin.

  Jin glanced at Sanders, bit her lower li
p, but nodded.

  “They’re being well cared for,” Camilla Bronson declared.

  “Dave’s hired round-the-clock help,” Terry Graves said.

  “Cook. Maid. Tutors. Psychologists,” Sanders added. “Even a physical-fitness instructor. And we got a Wii and a Nintendo installed. Isn’t that right?”

  Malia shrugged and then bobbed her head.

  “But he won’t let us go out, Nita,” Miguel complained to the housekeeper. “He won’t let us watch TV hardly ever. He won’t tell us what happened to Thom and Jen. And he keeps Stella in a kennel all the time.”

  Sanders gave a sickly smile to the boy, then to me and Justine, and said, “The dog’s been peeing everywhere.”

  “And I advised that the children not be seen in public,” Camilla Bronson said.

  “We’re trying to protect them from the howling mob,” Terry Graves said.

  “I’m sure you are,” I said. “But who’s here to protect them from you three?”

  Sanders acted as if I’d slapped him, sputtered, “How dare you insinuate that anything untoward has ever—”

  “We’re fine,” Malia said to Justine. “No one’s hurt us or anything.”

  Jin nodded, but her brother’s head was bowed.

  Sanders’s chin rose and he gazed at us in triumph.

  “Jack,” the publicist said. “You don’t really need to be here, do you?”

  I winked at her a second time. “Why don’t you go get the dog so the kids can play with her, and then the five of us will have a little chat.”

  “About what?” Terry Graves asked icily.

  “C’mon,” I said. “You sound like someone who likes to know the end of a movie before you’ve even seen it.”

  Chapter 93

  AFTER BRINGING STELLA to the screening room, where the bulldog was greeted like Cleopatra returning to Luxor, Sanders reluctantly led us into his private library, a polished, meticulous man cave done up like an alpine lodge: oxford-red leather club chairs and couch; a poster-sized photograph of the attorney skiing at Aspen when he was younger; his framed degrees from USC and Boalt Hall; and a massive flat-screen television above the gas fireplace where the moose head should have been.

  “What’s this all about?” demanded Sanders, who was flanked by Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves, both of whom were regarding Justine and me as if we were ferrets or some other kind of blood-seeking weasel.

  I took one of the club chairs while they remained standing, said, “We think we’ve made a break in the Harlow case. Several, in fact.”

  Their expressions mutated through a variety of emotions, surprise, skepticism, and wariness, all in a matter of two seconds.

  “What—?” Camilla Bronson began before Sanders cut her off.

  “You were fired, Jack.”

  “Absolutely,” Terry Graves said. “Whatever you’ve turned up, don’t expect to be paid for it.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of that,” I said, marveling at the way the man’s brain worked. “But you should know that people who work at Private are suckers for lost causes. We also have a deep aversion for jobs left unfinished.”

  The producer’s eyes darted to Justine and back. “What have you found?”

  “That the three of you are colossal liars,” I said, speeding up before any of them could protest. “We can’t figure out exactly why yet.”

  “But we’re close,” Justine said.

  “Get out,” Sanders said hotly. “Take the help with you. Time’s up.”

  I didn’t move, said as firmly as I would to one of Justine’s terriers, “Sit down. The three of you. Or I will make a call to the FBI that will turn your world so fucking far upside down and confining, it will take a Houdini act on your part to get any of it right again.”

  They watched me for a long beat, trying to see if I was bluffing. Then, one by one, and more contritely, they took seats.

  Camilla Bronson cleared her throat, said, “What is it you think we’ve lied to you about?”

  “All sorts of things,” Justine said.

  Sanders scowled.

  I said, “But we’ll limit the discussion at present to the Harlows’ finances.”

  That got their attention. “What about them?”

  “You told us, Dave, that they were on the verge of bankruptcy,” I said. “Nothing could be further from the truth, isn’t that right?”

  “No, it’s not right,” he snapped. “They were spending far beyond their means, and they were in danger of personal bankruptcy, Chapter Seven.”

  I saw the nuance. “But not corporate bankruptcy, Chapter Eleven?”

  He studied me. “They were on more solid ground there.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Because Thom got the cash from the mystery investor you told us about?”

  “That’s right,” he said, sounding like he was on surer ground himself.

  “Or should I say Harlow-Quinn got the money?” I said, looking at Terry Graves. “Is that right?”

  The producer hesitated but then nodded. “Yes, it was … a good thing.”

  “No doubt,” Justine said agreeably. “So who is Mr. Mysterious Deep Pockets?”

  Sanders rolled his palms outward. “As I’m sure you understand, this kind of investor prefers to remain anonymous, and we can’t breach the attorney-client and fiduciary privileges.”

  Terry Graves almost smiled. But Camilla Bronson was scratching her right forearm. It was the first unpolished thing I’d ever seen her do.

  “Lying again,” I snapped. “You three are pathological. What did that come from? A genetic defect? A rotten childhood? Or did you all study hard to be lying asses?”

  As one, their faces reddened and twisted in anger. Sanders struggled to stand. The publicist did too, saying, “I’m not listening to—”

  Justine said, “We know that ESH Ltd is the deep pockets.”

  “Nicely done, by the way,” I said. “The offshore company. The Panamanian bank. Just enough distance that you could claim the money came from a mysterious investor.”

  Sanders’s face had looked ready to explode, but now he sank into his chair. Camilla Bronson followed, scratching at her forearm again.

  Terry Graves had paled considerably. “How could you know about ESH?”

  “We’re good,” I said. “It’s why you hired us. Breaking the registering agent’s will only cost me twenty grand. Thom and Jennifer own ESH Ltd.”

  Sanders said quickly, “So what? We use ESH to receive and hold monies earned overseas. There’s absolutely nothing illegal—”

  “Then why lie?” Justine asked.

  I made a tsk-tsk gesture with my finger. “Let’s just get it out on the table, shall we? No more beating about the whatever. ESH is indeed where the Harlows gather overseas money to be funneled into Harlow-Quinn Productions. But the money is not from foreign film proceeds. Or not so much, anyway.”

  Not one of them responded.

  I went on, enjoying myself, saying, “That’s what we thought ESH was all about when we first learned of its existence. But earlier today we figured out that ESH really stands for ‘Endowment Sharing Hands,’ the fund boasted about ad nauseam on the so-called charity’s website.”

  “So-called charity?” Camilla Bronson said fiercely. “That foundation has saved hundreds, thousands of lives.”

  “Probably,” Justine said. “But think how many more kids could have been saved if the twenty-seven million the Harlows siphoned away to fund their for-profit movie business had actually been spent on orphans.”

  “Siphoned?” Terry Graves cried. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “Sure it is,” I replied. “Did you know that Private has done a lot of work with PayPal the last few years? Lots and lots of goodwill there.”

  “PayPal?” the producer said, confused. “So what?”

  Justine said, “You jiggered the PayPal account associated with Sharing Hands so that fifty percent of every dollar was diverted and deposited in ESH Ltd’s Panamanian bank account
.”

  “Brilliantly conceived,” I said. “A secret piggy bank that just keeps filling for little piggies like you, Dave. And you, Camilla and Terry.”

  “Not to mention Thom and Jennifer,” Justine said.

  “It’s not like that at all,” Sanders protested. “There are promissory notes, and detailed contracts, agreements. Those funds were an investment for Sharing Hands. The charity stands to make back its money fivefold when Saigon Falls hits.”

  Incredulous, I said, “But you’ve got interlocking boards of directors between the charity, an offshore legal entity, and a production company designed to make its owners multimillion-dollar profits? That’s collusion any way you look at it, Counselor. And the way I look at it, when this comes to light, you will all be put in prison, punished, and publicly vilified for taking money from orphans to make a goddamned movie, no matter how brilliant it might be.”

  Chapter 94

  THE HARLOW-QUINN TEAM sat there, looking at us in stunned silence. It was the kind of moment where someone might lose it and go for a weapon. My right hand moved slowly to my pistol.

  But instead of running amok, Sanders gave a shudder and his shoulders trembled. His eyes watered. His face twisted in open despair as he choked, “I tried to rein them in.”

  Camilla Bronson panicked. “Shut up, Dave.”

  “Fuck you, Camilla,” said Terry Graves, then looked at me, trying to project earnestness. “Dave and I both tried to keep Thom from chasing every grandiose dream that came into his unbe-fucking-lievably creative genius brain.” He threw up his hands to an invisible audience. “I couldn’t stand up to Thom when it came to spending.”

  “You two are making a monstrous mistake,” the publicist warned.

  The attorney ignored her. “And I couldn’t stop Jennifer from spending like a freak in their personal life, a fucking OCD spending freak!”

  Terry Graves said, “Thom would come in, all explosive energy, manic with it, and he’d make you see his visions. And then later, in the theater, he’d show you far beyond what he’d caused you to imagine in the first place, right up there thirty feet high on the screen, like he was some kind of supermagician, or god.