“Yes.”
“And you’re an actor, that right, Granny?”
“Yes.”
“And what’d you do before you got to be an actor?”
“I was a homicide detective.”
The detachment left Detective-Sergeant Pouncy’s face, shoved aside by sudden anger. “No call for smartass stuff. No call for that at all.”
“I was with the LAPD for almost ten years, seven of them in homicide.”
“You gotta know I’m gonna check it out.”
“Go ahead.”
“So how come you didn’t lemme know right away from the start?”
“Because if I’d found some guy in a dead woman’s apartment who right away wants me to know he’s an ex- D.C. homicide cop, I probably wouldn’t’ve let him loose till around midnight. If then.”
“Figure he’s dirty, huh?”
“It’d make me wonder.”
“You really an actor?”
Haynes nodded.
“Been in anything I might’ve seen?”
“You watch TV?”
“Not unless she makes me.”
“I was in a
“That the one with the black cop called ‘Downtown Brown’?”
“Yes.”
“You ever know a real cop that’d tell a private one what year it was?”
“Never.”
“Then how come they’re always such asshole buddies on TV?”
“Because the private cop has to have a legitimate connection to law and order.”
“Who says?”
“Hollywood ethics.”
“What the fuck’s Hollywood ethics?”
“Nobody knows,” said Granville Haynes.
Chapter 10
It wasn’t until after he had used the dead Isabelle Gelinet’s telephone to call the Los Angeles Police Department and speak to the irrepressible Sergeant Virgil Stroud in robbery and homicide that Detective-Sergeant Darius Pouncy was nearly convinced that Haynes and even Tinker Burns were probably what they claimed to be.
After an exchange of the usual amenities and the usual information about the weather (a high of seventy-two degrees and fair in Los Angeles; down to forty-one degrees and looking like rain or snow in Washington), Pouncy asked, “You ever have a real slick article out there in homicide by the name of Granville Haynes?”
“Haynes…Haynes,” said Sergeant Stroud. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Claims he used to work for you people.”
“And you need his home phone number, right?”
“What the fuck I want with his phone number?”
There was a brief silence until Stroud said, “Oh. You mean
“Up to his ass in a homicide investigation, is what.”
“Who bought it—somebody rich?”
“Not hardly.”
“Reason I asked is because Granny’s the one we liked to send when rich folks bought it. Real nice manners. Neat dresser. Spoke French, Italian and fair Spanish. Made some damn good cases, too. You’re lucky you—”
Pouncy broke it off. “Hey. We’re not looking to hire him. We just wanta check him out. Claims he used to be a homicide cop but now he’s an actor.”
“Ever see a low-budget slasher flick called
