“I don’t know. It just doesn’t wash.”
“Sure. And when you get something more than one of your goddamn Oriental hunches, I’ll talk about it. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for my car.”
“What do you mean, keep an eye out for your car?”
“My car was stolen. Didn’t Beckman tell you? My car-right here in Beverly Hills, standing in the driveway of my house.”
“That is adding insult to injury. Still, Captain, if you insist on driving a Mercedes, you take the risk that goes with it.”
“What do you mean, Mercedes? The car’s twelve years old. I bought it for nine hundred dollars and put three thousand into it. Sure it’s a Mercedes-ah, the hell with it! We’ll find it. Meanwhile, get into some old clothes and look like a gardener.”
“I am a gardener,” Masuto replied as he opened the door to leave. “I grow the best roses, the best tomatoes, and the best cucumbers in Los Angeles. It’s a relief to pretend to be something I understand.”
Masuto stopped to look into his office, where Beckman still labored over the files. “I hear you’ve turned gardener,” Beckman said.
“I wish it were permanent. What have you got?”
“Not much, but Mike Barton is an interesting guy. Angel isn’t her name and Barton isn’t his.”
“What is his name?”
“I’m not absolutely certain, but maybe it’s Brannigan. Also, he gambles.”
“Everyone gambles.”
“Big. Also, which I’m not sure about either, cocaine, and maybe the Angel sniffs a bit as well.”
“Can you find anything on her?”
“I’m looking.”
“Keep looking. From what I’m told, the drop will take place at twelve noon. This has to be kept very quiet, but the big brass convinced Wainwright to leave him uncovered when he makes the drop.”
“That’s crazy!” Beckman exclaimed.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t think it makes much difference. I’ll see you later.”
The gardener’s truck was downstairs, an old Ford pickup with two lawnmowers sitting in the loading area. There were also picks, shovels, two bags of lime and a rolled-up hose. It had a cranky clutch and it bucked as Masuto backed out of the parking area.
It was just nine o’clock when he parked the pickup in front of his house in Culver City. Unlike New York City, there was no regulation requiring Beverly Hills policemen to live in Beverly Hills. If there had been, they would have to have been very wealthy policemen indeed. The small cottage in Culver City, only a few miles from Beverly Hills, was Masuto’s base, his retreat, his argument that the world he lived in was not entirely insane and bloodthirsty. There was his home, his wife, his children, his tiny meditation room and his rose garden. Now his children were at school, the teen-age burglar had departed and evidently his wife, Kati, was out shopping, for the house was empty. He changed into old shoes, work pants, and a blue shirt, and as he was ready to leave, Kati entered, her arms full. Masuto took the bags of groceries from her and carried them into the kitchen, while Kati told him how delighted she was that he had been given the day off and was prepared to work in his garden.
“I am not going to work in the garden. In two minutes, I shall drive off in that truck parked in front of the house.”
“The gardener’s truck?”
“Yes.”
Kati shook her head bewilderedly.
“I have not become a gardener. It’s a costume for my assignment. I’ll tell you about it tonight. Until then-” He spread his hands.
“Ah, so. We are man and wife, but still I’m not to be trusted. Very old Japanese, Masao,” she said, shaking her head. Kati was the gentlest of souls, but since she had joined a group of nisei women in the process of consciousness raising, she had developed a vocabulary of protest and disapproval. “Old Japanese” was a part of it. Masuto kissed her, refused to argue the point, and left the house, reflecting that as a Zen Buddhist he was poorly developed indeed. He should have been able to see her point of view. Well, one day he would change all that-one day when he had completed his twenty-two years on the force and was in a position to receive his pension. When that time came, he would spend at least six hours a day in meditation in the Zendo in downtown Los Angeles. Until then, unfortunately, he was a policeman.
Or was he just that, a policeman and no more? What was the point, the focus of his existence? With all his years of meditation, he had not experienced enlightenment, or satori, as the Japanese called it. He was more romantically inclined than people suspected. His wife, Kati, knew that her husband was a most unusual man, but even she did not suspect that there were times when he saw himself as a member of the ancient samurai. That was sheer fantasy. His family was not of the samurai, but out of plain peasant people, for all their success here in this new country; but at a moment in history Zen Buddhism had been the religion of the samurai, and for all of his failings, Masuto was a Zen Buddhist-and how so different from the samurai? The film the Japanese had made, which was titled
And was that why he lived out the role of a policeman?
Or did he live simply for the occasional puzzle that broke up the dull routine of robberies? In all truth, he loved his work. That was his burden, his karma, to make his life out of the bleakest, the most horrifying aspects of what is euphemistically called civilization. Be that as it may, his problem now was to go disguised as a Japanese gardener, to the home of a film star, and to try to find out why said film star was unwilling to involve the police in the kidnapping of his wife. Wainwright would have seen it differently; he would have insisted that Masuto’s responsibility was to find the kidnapper and to protect Angel Barton-if, conceivably, she could be protected. Why, Masuto wondered, did a part of his own mind reject that notion?
Then he put his thoughts aside. It was best not to think, not to speculate. More must happen.
Mike Barton’s home was on Whittier Drive, north of Sunset Boulevard, at the extreme western edge of Beverly Hills. In a wealthy and elegant city, this was one of the wealthier and more elegant neighborhoods, enormous houses of twenty and thirty rooms sitting in manicured jungles of exotic tropical plantings. Barton’s house suited the neighborhood, a strange combination of oversized Irish cottage and French chateau, painted white, surrounded by a whitewashed stone wall. A high iron gate opened to the driveway, and as Masuto turned into the entrance, the gate opened, indicating that someone was expecting him and had noted his approach. He drove around to the back of the house, as a gardener would, and as he got out of the car, Bill Ranier, Barton’s business manager, came out of the back door to meet him.
“All right, Sergeant, you’re here,” Ranier said. “I don’t know how good this idea is, but since your people insist, Mike agreed to go along with it. Just remember that he’s pretty damn disturbed, so don’t try to break him down. He’s going to do this his own way, and any pressure or strongarm tactics can only hurt Angel-maybe kill her.”
“I don’t use strongarm tactics,” Masuto said softly, “but it might be worth noting that in Italy, where the payment of ransom is forbidden by law, people have tried to operate this way, without the police. It doesn’t help. The same number of kidnap victims are killed. If Barton would cooperate, we might get both the kidnappers and his wife and a million dollars to boot.”
“Well, he won’t. He’s going to do it his way.”
“Is the money here?”
“Inside. McCarthy got here a few minutes ago.”
“In what form? What kind of bills?”
“Fifties and hundreds. We have the numbers, but hell, there’s no problem with laundering it. Billions of petrodollars floating around the world, so I guess we can kiss it good-bye.”
“Possibly. I think now I’d like to talk to Barton. By the way, how many servants are in the house?”
“He keeps three in help, Joe Kelly chauffeurs and doubles as a butler when he has to, Freda Holtz-she’s the cook-and Lena Jones, the maid.”
“Does Kelly do the gardening?”
