'Where's Wayne and KZ at?' she snapped.
'Stepped outside for a breath of fresh air,' I said. Then I handed her the picture. 'Tell me again how you never heard of David Slade.'
Chapter 9
She was frozen, holding the picture, looking for a suitable response.
'I want to know about that photograph,' I pressed.
She looked up at me. Blue ice turning to hard steel.
Just then, I heard a car pull up out front. Seconds later, the front door was thrown open. I couldn't see the entry from the living room, but the door slammed so hard against the wall that the crystal chandelier shook, rattling the glass teardrops like wind chimes.
'Stacy!' a man roared.
'In here, Lou.'
Then the biggest man I have ever seen lunged into the living room. He was carrying a foot-long. 357 Israeli Desert Eagle, which is a huge chrome-plated gun, but despite its size, it still looked like a toy in Maluga's giant hand.
I'd seen pictures of him in the Calendar section of the L. A. Times, usually at some music awards banquet. The press shots didn't begin to capture the essence of him. He was a monster. From what I'd read, he was half- black, half-Samoan. His head was basketball sized. Round black eyes glinted maniacally from under hooded brows; his mouth an ugly tear in a steroid user's pockmarked face. The rest of him was right out of a Marvel comic muscles on muscles. He was maybe six-feet-seven or eight, and four hundred pounds, but I usually stop estimating height and weight after six-three, two-fifty, because beyond that, it's a SWAT exercise anyway. Maluga was dressed in a loose-fitting tan and yellow dashiki. There wasn't much else funny about him.
'How'd he get in here? Where's Wayne and KZ at?' he snarled. 'What I pay them bustas for if dey can't keep shit like this from happenin'?'
'He's a cop,' Stacy said, glowering at me. 'They left the room to call you and he was going through my stuff, no warrant or nothin'.'
Then Lou Maluga started toward me. There was little doubt how he'd earned the nickname 'Luna.' Roid rage flared in his eyes, sparking maniacally as he advanced. I felt like a wuss, but I knew I couldn't take him, so I yanked out the Beretta.
He saw it, then stopped, raised his gun, and said, 'Go ahead, but I'll fuck you up, homes. One shot never gonna do it. You be dead 'fore you get off two.'
'David Slade died tonight. It wasn't a car accident. He was shot behind the ear. Let's talk about that.' I was trying not to look down the barrel of the huge Israeli cannon cradled in his right hand.
'Slade was a cheese-eater… If he's dead, we all better for it.'
I took the photograph out of Stacy's hand and tossed it across the room to him. He plucked it out of the air. Then I said, 'That looks like a motive for murder to me, Lou.'
He glanced at the shot and threw it aside. 'I don't kill nobody over pussy, asshole.' Then he pushed the gun forward at me. 'Let's get this done.' He was actually up for it, willing to stand there and shoot it out with me at point-blank range right in his own over-decorated, African themed living room.
Then, breaking the moment, KZ and Wayne exploded into the den through the side door. Both had their guns drawn. The odds, lousy before, were suddenly impossible. I heard KZ trombone the slide on his auto-mag and I knew I was probably seconds from going down in a brutal crossfire. We stood there, John Wayne-style, faced off over gun barrels.
That's when the front gate buzzer sounded and Tommy Sepulveda's voice crackled over the intercom.
'LAPD. Open up,' he said. Everybody in the room tensed.
'Open up!' Figueroa shouted next. 'Open up or we're breaking it down!'
'I know Nathan Red is a good lawyer,' I said to Stacy, 'but in his absence, let me advise you that shooting it out with a cop in your house when the LAPD is standing at your front gate is a terrible idea.'
KZ and Wayne started swinging their eyes back and forth from Stacy to Lou, looking like spectators at a tennis match, clearly hoping for further instructions.
'I got a better idea,' Stacy finally sneered. 'Why don't we just let five-oh handle this shitbird?'
Chapter 10
Five minutes later, Tommy Sepulveda and Raphael Figueroa were in the living room. Two sets of angry cop eyes pinned me. While they glared, Stacy Maluga shouted accusations through porcelain-capped teeth.
'He was going through our stuff,' she brayed. 'I leave the room to see where Wayne and KZ be at, an' when I come back this motherfucker's searching through my picture albums. Stuff in books that ain't open an' in direct line of sight is protected from illegal searches without warrants or probable cause. And you ain't got no warrant. This here's an illegal search.' She sure knew her Fourth Amendment.
'You want my side of it?' I said.
'No,' Tommy said.
Lou Maluga was under control now, standing by the bar, uncapping a beer. His brown eyes looked sleepy, the craziness tucked safely out of sight.
'Let's go,' Rafie said to me. 'Tommy will take their statements. You and I are going to talk about this outside.'
Rafie crossed the room and took my arm. What is it about bodybuilders that makes them think it's okay to put their hands on you and yank you around?
'Rafie, you need to hear me out. These people are directly involved in Alexa's disappearance and Slade's murder and I think I can prove it.'
'Let's go. We're doing this out front.'
Sepulveda stayed with the Malugas, while Rafie and I made the long walk down the drive to the car. No cart this time, but Wayne and KZ followed us, driving the miniature Rolls-Royce fifty feet behind, making sure we left the grounds.
When we got through the front gate, Wayne closed it on us and turned the cart around, heading back to the house. Rafie led me over to his maroon Crown Vic. The car was still warm from their drive up here. Rafie opened the back door and shoved me inside.
'Stop pushing me around, will you? Next time you grab me and yank on me like that, get your hands up, 'cause I'm tired a your shit,' taking my frustration out on him, even though he'd done nothing but play by the rules. I was the one who was way out of line, but I was stressed and not thinking straight.
'Don't you think I get it, man?' Rafie said. 'If my wife was missing like this, I'd probably be running around doing the same things you are. But what are me and Tom supposed to do? Should we just stand back and watch while you rip up and flush half the criminal code? This is a high-profile murder case. Tomorrow we're gonna be up to our necks in media. If there is evidence in that house, you just blew it with an illegal search. You know who that guy in there is?'
'Yeah. Lou Maluga. Some ex-con rap producer. I've read about him. He's not a player anymore. Since he got out of prison, he can't even get a CD distributed.'
'Lou Maluga is CEO of Lethal Force, Inc. It's a huge rap label. And you're wrong, this guy is not out of it. He's got a pile of money and throws big fund-raisers for charity. He's put a lot of dough into politics. Real tight with U. S. Congresswoman Roxanne Sharp. I've run six cases on this guy. I know what the score is with this crowd. When people mess with the Malugas, people tend to disappear.'
'So because they've got dough, they get to kill David Slade, maybe kidnap or kill my wife, and we can't say anything?'
