Therapy

CHAPTER 44

Roxbury Park-4:40 P.M.

The picnic tables. Shade from the Chinese elms and a declining sun turned the redwood the color of old asphalt.

This late in the afternoon, only four children occupied the play area. Two little boys roaring and running wildly, a toddling girl, hand held by her mother, making her way up the stairs of a double-hump slide and whooshing down. Over and over. Another boy, pensive, alone, sitting and scooping sand and letting it trickle through his tiny fingers. Three uniformed maids discussed something with glee and animation. Blue jays squawked and mockingbirds aped them. Traffic from Olympic was distant and hushed.

The ten-year-old ice-cream truck, once white now gray, was parked facing the fence. The truck’s flanks were decorated with hand-painted renderings of sugary delights in unlikely colors. An elaborately calligraphic statement of ownership read: GLO-GLO FROZEN DESSERTS, PROP: RAMON HERNANDEZ, COMPTON, CALIFORNIA.

On the front passenger seat was a cooler stocked with juice bars, cream sandwiches, and pop-ups. In case anyone asked.

So far, no one had. The trickle of kids and the lateness of the hour combined to discourage commerce. And the truck’s position, too, just out of sight of the play area.

Parked close enough to have a clear view of the picnic tables.

In the driver’s seat sat a detective named Sam Diaz, a technical specialist from Parker Center. Thirty-five, compact, mustachioed, Diaz wore a white sweatshirt over baggy white cotton painter’s pants. A coin dispenser hung from his waist. In his pocket was a commercial food license identifying him as Ramon Hernandez and a wallet full of small bills. Under the sweatshirt rested his holstered 9 mm.

Jerry-built into the truck’s dashboard was forty thousand dollars of long-distance, outdoor recording equipment. The kind National Geographic uses to memorialize birdcalls. The mikes were turned down, and the arias of the jays and mockingbirds were reduced to peeps. So was the noise from the play area: squeaks of high-pitched glee, the murmur of adult voices.

The equipment was hard to spot, unless you got inside the truck and saw all the knobs and the LEDs and the wires that ran under the partition separating the seats from the rear storage area. A talk hole had been cut into the partition, covered by a sliding door, now open. The truck’s doors were locked, and its windows were tinted several shades darker than the legal limit. Hasty job, some of the tinting plastic had puckered around the edges. Why anyone would go to the trouble of concealing an ice-cream truck was the obvious question, but no one was asking.

Milo and I sat in back, on two vinyl bench seats borrowed from an impounded Toyota and bolted to the floor. Another hasty job; the stiff cushions wobbled and squeaked when we moved, and keeping still was driving Milo crazy. He’d finished two ice-cream sandwiches and a peanut-studded drumstick, balled up the wrappers, and tossed them in a corner. Muttering, “Gluttony rules.”

Behind the truck was an alley, and beyond that the high-fenced backyards of the pretty view houses on South Spalding Drive. Through a tiny, tinted heart-shaped window cut into one of the truck’s rear doors, we could see fifty feet north or south. During the hour we’d been there, eight cars had driven through. No movement from the houses. That was to be expected; this was Beverly Hills.

Bolted to our side of the partition was a small, color TV monitor with a digital readout that ticked off the passage of time. The tint was off: Bright Beverly Hills green had faded to olive, tree trunks were gray, the sky was butter-yellow.

A speaker that hung from a metal hook to the right of the monitor supplied the sound effects.

The only sound, now, was Franco Gull shifting his position on the redwood bench. He fooled with his hair, gazed off into the distance, studied the top of the table. Working at being disinterested, as he tried to get down some coffee in a Starbucks cup. Big cup, grande-mega-poobah, or whatever they called it.

During our second meeting, he’d worked at friendly. Telling me he understood I had good intentions. Letting slip, midway through the interview, that he’d suspected “something wasn’t right” with Sentries for Justice, but not knowing what to do about it.

Appreciative of his deal. This was his payment.

The miniature microphone that transmitted his occasional sighs was affixed to the bottom of the picnic table.

Wiring the table was the obvious way to go. Sam Diaz had taken one look at Gull, and said, “The way he sweats, I wire him, he might just go and electrocute himself.”

Other than that, Gull’s anxiety was no problem. He was supposed to be nervous.

Now, he waited.

We all did.

*

At five after five, Diaz said, “I’ve got someone approaching from the Roxbury side- across the bocci field.”

A figure- male, anonymous- could be seen in the upper-right quadrant of the monitor. Then lower, larger, as it got closer. As the man approached Gull’s park bench, Albin Larsen’s form took shape. Today, he wore a wheat- colored sport coat, tan shirt, tan pants. At least that’s what I assumed; the monitor dulled it down to off- white.

“That’s him,” said Milo.

“Mr. Beige,” said Diaz. “I coulda used black-and-white.”

“Yeah, he’s a riot.”

When Larsen got close to the bench, he acknowledged Gull with a small nod. Sat down. Said nothing.

Diaz fiddled with a dial and the bird sounds amplified.

Gull said, “Thanks for seeing me, Albin.” The speaker turned his voice tinny.

Larsen said, “You sounded upset.”

Gull: “I am, Albin.”

Larsen crossed his legs and glanced over at the children. Two kids remained. One maid.

Diaz fiddled with another dial, and his camera zoomed in on Larsen’s face. Passive. Impassive.

Diaz backed up, captured both men.

Gull: “The police have been questioning me, Albin.”

Larsen: “Really.”

Gull: “You don’t sound surprised.”

Larsen: “I assume it’s about Mary.”

Gull: “It started out about Mary, but now they’re asking questions that confuse me, Albin. About us- our group, our billing.”

Silence.

“Albin?”

“Go on,” said Larsen.

“About Sentries for Justice, Albin.”

Milo said, “Guy thinks he’s an actor.”

I said, “Today, he is.”

Albin Larsen still hadn’t responded.

We listened to birdcalls, a three-year-old’s shout.

Gull said, “Albin?”

Larsen said, “Really.”

Gull: “Really.”

Larsen: “What kinds of questions?”

Gull: “Whose idea was the program, how’d we hear about it, how long has it been going on, did all three of us participate. Then they got personal, and that’s what’s bothering me. How much I, personally, billed, could I verify the figures. Did Mary or you ever talk to me about intentional overbilling. They were really gung ho, Albin. Fascistic. Sounds to me like they suspect some kind of fraud. Is there something you and Mary never told me about?”