Sally knocked the hood impatiently, and I climbed out, regarding the building with awe. It was familiar, and yet altered in my mind, given what had transpired. The directory box, with its blank renter spot for Apartment 11. I thought about how I'd tried to call up to the apartment anyway, but the line had been out of service. How pleased I'd been with myself when I'd figured out to punch in the entry code. So pleased I hadn't lingered on the fact that I was heading to an apartment with no renter and a disconnected call-up line.
We stopped before the locked front gate. Sally waited expectantly until I realized why. Reaching out a trembling finger, I pressed the four numbers. The gate buzzed, and Sally tugged it open, giving me an after-you wave.
Up the stairs, down the floating hall to Beeman's apartment. That old-fashioned keyhole where I'd seen Beeman's eye peering out at me.
'I reached the manager by phone,' Sally said. 'He claims the place hasn't been rented in months. Water damage--I guess the owner's waiting to pay for mold remediation. The manager's not on site to let us in. And I can't get a warrant. It's not my case, you know. Shame.' Sally put her hands on the railing, looked out across the courtyard below, humming to herself. Something classical. I watched the back of her head.
Then I turned and kicked in the door.
The brittle wood gave easily. Stooped, I stood in the doorway. Empty. No mattress, no dirty clothes, no big- screen TV partnered with a convenient DVD player. Just the moist reek of mold, dust motes swirling in a shaft of light, that water stain bleeding through the wall.
It felt like entering a dream world. I paused a few steps in.
There he'd sat, back on his heels before the TV, swaying, clutching himself.
An actor.
That beaten-down humility I'd identified with so strongly. A man I'd taken for vulnerable, frustrated, damaged.
Paid to play me for a fool.
He'd embodied my hopes and fears. He'd known how desperate I'd been to redeem him, to redeem myself. Even in light of everything else, that betrayal was blinding, humiliating.
Sally was saying something. I blinked hard, my ears ringing, an echo chamber of my thoughts. 'What?'
'I said, we find Doug Beeman, we clear you.'
An electronic chirp issued somewhere in the apartment, and Sally's hand went to her hip. We looked at each other. Sally tilted her head toward the bathroom. We inched over, our steps silent on the worn-through carpet. The door gave silently to the pressure of her knuckles.
The bathroom was empty, but behind the toilet bowl, to the side, visible only once we'd inched past the chipped counter, was a cell phone. It had probably fallen from a pants pocket onto the wraparound shag rug as someone sat.
Another chirp.
As Sally exhaled, I crouched and flipped it open. The screen saver featured a Sin City shot of Jessica Alba and the owner's name, keyed in purple: MIKEY PERALTA. Doug Beeman's real name, on the cell phone he'd claimed not to have?
Clicking the speaker button, I hit 'play.'
'Message from'--and then a prerecorded wheezy voice with a strong New York accent--'Roman LaRusso.' Then, 'Mikey, it's Roman. The deodorant people rang me in a panic when you missed your call time this morning. I figured you were just hungover, but then I heard you might have been in an accident? Are you all right? Can you make it to the set tomorrow? Call me. C'mon, I'm worried.'
Twenty minutes later we were at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, standing over Mikey Peralta's body, the cardiac monitor going strong, peaks and gullies to shame a tech stock. One of his eyelids was closed, smooth as ivory, the other at half mast, revealing the wine-red sclera beneath. His forehead was dented on the right side, a bloodless divot the size of a fist. The teal hospital gown stretched across the compact rise of his chest, and his arms lay limp, his hands curled unnaturally inward. Dark puffy hair, blown back from that receding hairline, framed his chalky face against the pillow.
Brain-dead.
The ICU nurse was talking to Sally behind me. '--filed an accident report. Hit-and-run, yeah. I guess no one saw anything, and he was pretty much gorked on arrival.'
I was still struggling to overcome my shock. As Sally had stepped in and out, taking phone calls and gathering information, I'd stared blankly at the supine body. It was impossible not to think of him as Doug Beeman.
Stepping forward, I lifted his hand. Dead weight. Turned it over. The insides of his wrists were perfectly smooth. The razor-blade scars had been nothing more than makeup and special effects.
I set his arm gently back in place. The smell of whiskey tinged the air around him.
Valentine arrived, and he and Sally conferred in hushed voices. 'RHD ain't gonna like him here one bit.'
'Look, we've got bigger concerns,' Sally said. 'Obviously they're snipping off the loose ends here, covering their tracks. Once they know Patrick's out--'
'Come on. They're not gonna want to Jack Ruby him. That'll only make it obvious there is a frame and open up more--'
I turned, and they went silent. 'Elisabeta's next,' I said. 'Did you find her?'
Valentine said, 'I couldn't run her down. The Fiberestore commercial's two years old. The name on the contract says Deborah B. Vance, but the Social doesn't line up and there are no last-knowns. Actresses are a pain in the ass. They reinvent themselves every five minutes, always working under different names, moving, ducking taxes. Their credit history's a mess, so their financials look like spaghetti. I called SAG and AFTRA, but they've got no one paying union dues under that name. I could keep digging, but'--a pointed look at Sally--'this isn't our case, and you can bet RHD is already all over every move we--'
From outside we heard, 'Officer, you can't just keep piling into the patient's room--' and then a booming voice, 'It's not 'Officer.' It's 'Captain.' '
Valentine looked at Sally, mouthed, Fuck.
The door opened, and the captain entered with his assistant. The captain's eyes, the same coffee color as his skin, swept the room. Of middling height, his bulk softened with middle age, he would have been unimpressive if not for the sense of authority emanating from him like a radioactive glow. A vein throbbed in his neck, but aside from that, his rage seemed to be restrained. 'You brought the lead suspect along to investigate the death of a person of interest in his own case?' He forked two fingers at me. 'For all you know, he was the hit-and-run driver.'
'That's not possible, sir.'
'No? And why is that, Detective Richards?'
'Because I've been with him since the time of his release.'
'You picked him up downtown?' Each syllable enunciated.
Peralta's monitor kept emitting those soothing beeps.
'I did, Captain.'
A deep breath, nostrils flaring. 'A word, Detectives.' The stare hitched on me a moment, the first direct acknowledgment of my presence. 'You, wait in the hall.'
We all snapped to. As I parked myself in a reception chair, Sally and Valentine followed the captain into an empty patient room, the assistant standing post outside, expressionless. The door clicked neatly, and then there was an absolute silence. No baritone thundering, no foghorn blare of displeasure, just a chilling graveyard quiet.
My phone hummed, and, praying it was Ari, I scrambled for it. But the number on the caller ID screen was my parents'. I took a hard breath, returned the phone to my pocket. Not the best time for explanations.
The captain exited, his assistant falling into step beside him, and they breezed by me, nearly stepping on my shoes. Valentine came out a moment later, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He paused before me but kept his gaze straight ahead. 'Four boys, Davis. That's a lotta bills. The case is with RHD and only with RHD. I'm sorry, man, but I'm not gonna fall on my sword for you.'
I pointed at Mikey Peralta's room. 'They killed him.'
'That boy's got two DUIs on record. So a car accident? Not exactly a shocker.'
'They knew that. That's why they chose him.'
'That, too, huh?' He smoothed his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. 'This thing is too big for you. The
