looser-lipped dudes than cops?”
“Wish I could argue with that,” said Milo. “Anything else I should know about?”
“Some of our guys are hoping it will go serial so they can jockey to take it and career-build.”
“But if you want it, you’ll get it.”
Nguyen laughed. “With Bob Ivey retiring I really am the Senior Junior Dude, meaning even if the boss takes it officially I’m doing the real work. So keep me posted.”
“Long as you pray for me, John. Little offering to Buddha’s fine.”
“I’m an atheist.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get.”
CHAPTER
11
While he ate and washed the dishes, I gave him my best guesses about how to approach Jay Sloat: Keep it non-threatening, preface the news of Vita’s murder by emphasizing that Sloat was not a suspect, just someone Milo was turning to for valuable information.
However Sloat reacted verbally, his body language would be the thing to watch. Criminal psychopaths operate with lower anxiety levels than the rest of us but it’s a myth that they lack emotion. The smartest, coldest antisocials avoid violence completely because violence is a stupid strategy. Look for their smiling faces on election posters. But those a notch lower on the IQ scale often need to prep before indulging their urges with alcohol or dope or by chanting internal rage mantras that provide self-justification.
So if Jay Sloat was anything but the coldest of killers and had carved up his ex, simply bringing up the topic could result in some sort of physical tell: sudden rise in neck pulse, constricted pupils, muscular tension, the merest hint of moisture around the hairline, an increase in blink rate.
Milo said, “I’m the polygraph.”
I said, “Isn’t that what you do anyway?”
“What if Sloat doesn’t respond?”
“Then that tells us something about him.”
Nothing he didn’t already know but he seemed more relaxed as he drove to Brentwood. Maybe it was the sandwiches.
Domenico Valli Men’s Couture was located on 26th Street, just south of San Vicente, directly across from the Brentwood Country Mart, bordered by a restaurant run by the latest celebrity chef and another clothing store that hawked four-figure outfits for trust-fund toddlers.
The haberdashery was paneled in violin-grain maple and floored in skinny-plank black oak. Subdued techno pulsed from the sound system. Light was courtesy of stainless-steel gallery tracks. The goods were sparingly displayed, like works of art. A few suits, a smattering of sport coats, small steel tables that would’ve felt comfortable in the morgue stocked like altars with offerings of cashmere and brocade. A wall rack featured gleaming handmade shoes and boots, black velvet slippers with gold crests on the toes.
No shoppers were availing themselves of all that chic. A man sat behind a steel desk, doing paperwork. Big, fiftyish, with broad shoulders, he had a long sunlamped face defined by a wide, meaty nose. A steel-gray Caesar-do tried but failed to cover a receding hairline. A bushy white soul patch sprouted under hyphen lips, bristly and stiff as icicles.
He looked up. “Help you guys?”
“We’re looking for Jay Sloat.”
His eyes narrowed and he stood and stepped around the desk. Just a touch under Milo’s six three and nearly as bulky, he wore a faded, untucked blue chambray shirt with pearl buttons, stovepipe black jeans, gray suede needle-toe boots, a diamond in his left earlobe. Lots of muscle but also some middle-aged padding.
“Don’t bother telling me, you’re obviously cops. I haven’t done anything, so what gives?”
Broad, faintly Slavic midwestern intonation.
“Lieutenant Sturgis, Mr. Sloat.” Milo extended his hand. Sloat studied it for a second, endured a brief clasp before retrieving his big paw. “Okay, now we’re all BFFs. Could you please tell me what’s going on?”
“Sorry if this is upsetting you, Mr. Sloat. It’s certainly not our intention.”
“It’s not upsetting me,” said Sloat. “I mean I’m not worried personally because I know I haven’t done anything. I just don’t get why the cops are here when I’m trying to work.” He frowned. “Oh, man, don’t tell me it’s something to do with George. If it is, I can’t help you, I just work for the guy.”
Milo didn’t answer.
Jay Sloat pressed his palms together prayerfully. “Tell me it ain’t so, guys, okay? I need this job.”
“It ain’t so. George is the owner?”
Sloat relaxed, exhaled. “So it’s not about that. Excellent. Okay, then what’s up?”
Milo repeated the question.
Sloat said, “Yeah, he’s the owner. George Hassan. He’s really an okay guy.”
“Why would we be looking for him?”
“No reason.”
“No reason, but he’s the first one you thought of.”
Sloat’s brown eyes turned piggishly small as they studied Milo, then me, then Milo again. “George is going through a complicated divorce and she keeps claiming he’s holding back on her. She’s threatening to close down the business if he doesn’t open the books. Last week, she sent around a private investigator pretending to be a customer, dude’s dressed like a dork, starts asking me if I have more of these nice worsted suits in the back. Worsted. What a doofus. I said, ‘Hey, Dan Tana, if you actually want to try something on, let’s do it, if this is a game, go play it elsewhere.’ Guy turned white and got the fuck out.”
Sloat grinned and winked. His bronzed face was smoother than when we’d entered; recounting his dominance put him back in his comfort zone.
Milo said, “I hear you. Well, this has nothing to do with George.”
“What then?”
“It’s about your ex-wife.”
Sloat’s jaw muscles swelled. His pupils expanded. “Vita? What about her?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead,” said Sloat. “As in police dead? Oh, man. What happened?”
“Someone murdered her.”
“Yeah, I got that. I mean who, how, when?”
Milo ticked his fingers. “Don’t know, nasty, five nights ago.”
Sloat stroked his soul patch. “Wo-ho,” he said, in a soft, almost boyish voice. “Someone finally did the bitch.”
We didn’t respond.
He said, “I need a cigarette, let’s go outside.”
Milo said, “Let’s.”
Grabbing a pack of wheat-colored Nat Shermans from the steel desk, Jay Sloat led us out of the store to the curb, where he positioned himself in front of the display window and lit up with a gold-plated lighter. “Can’t smoke inside, George doesn’t want odor on the merchandise.”
Milo waited until he’d puffed a third of the cigarette before speaking. “Someone did the bitch. So for you it’s not bad news.”
“Me and Vita broke up a long time ago.”
“Fifteen years ago.” Milo cited the date of the final decree.
The detail caused Sloat to recoil. “What, you guys are looking into my past?”
“We’ve researched Vita, Mr. Sloat. Your name came up.”
“So you know about my arrests.”
