Lenard’s small locker was there, painted the same dark color as the wall. The lock had a little slot for a key, but I had something almost as good.
The urge to look around the room to check who was watching me was powerful, but I knew it would just draw attention. I took the ghost knife from my back pocket and sliced through the lock. The door squeaked as it swung open.
Right at the front was a Nintendo DS; Lenard liked his videogames, especially when he needed to kill some time. Beside that was a roll of cash no thicker than the cord of a vacuum cleaner. But in the back, hidden in the shadows, was a foot-high gold statue of a hairless man standing on a black base. The base was made to look like a spool of film, and a nameplate had Ellen Egan-Jade’s name on it.
Oh, shit. Was this what Lenard did when he thought he could get away with anything? This?
I snapped up the roll of cash. If he’d been standing beside me, I could have beaten the hell out of him. I could have kicked him in the nuts. I even, for a few moments, considered calling the cops. But no. I couldn’t do any of that. I took his money—let that be an expensive lesson. Then I’d tell Arne one of his people was keeping evidence of a rape and murder at the Bigfoot Room. I’m sure that would go over beautifully.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
It was the bartender. I shut the locker as I turned around. “I’m looking for a guy,” I said, unsure if I should use Lenard’s name or how best to describe him.
“Try a bar in West Hollywood,” he said, to general laughter. “This place is for people who want drinks.”
Now every face in the room was turned toward me. Only Crew Cut wasn’t smiling. Suddenly, I recognized him. He had been the one who tossed Wardell’s jacket at him in front of Steve Francois’s fancy white house. He shut his cellphone off and put it into his pocket.
At that moment the front door opened, and I saw several large figures backlit by the desert sun as they entered. Crew Cut slid off his stool.
I sprinted to the back door, slamming it open. This time an alarm sounded.
The alley smelled of garbage and concrete. I vaulted onto the dumpster, then jumped for the edge of the bar roof. Crew Cut and the rest of Potato’s crew weren’t idiots, even if they looked like they were. I was sure they’d have someone at the mouth of the alley.
I scrambled onto the roof, feeling like a coward. Which I was. Ghost knife or not, I didn’t want to tangle with anyone in Potato’s crew. The door banged open a second time, and I heard heavy treads scraping against the ground.
“Dammit,” a man said. Despite the alarm, I recognized the voice as Potato’s. “Gone.”
“He didn’t come this way,” a second voice shouted. It sounded farther away.
Another voice came from a good distance away. “Not this way, either.” I’d been right about the entrance to the alleys.
Someone opened the dumpster lid and let it fall shut again.
“How do they
I risked a peek over the lip of the roof and saw them moving away. Good. Just as they turned the corner, I threw my leg over the sheet-metal roofing and hung by my fingers. It was a three-foot drop to the concrete, and when I hit the asphalt, I was face-to-face with the bartender. He scowled at me from the open doorway, the Oscar statuette in his hand like a bell.
“What the hell do you call this?” With the door open, he had to shout to be heard over the alarm.
“Evidence,” I shouted back. “And you’re putting your fingerprints all over it.”
His hand sprang open and the award clattered to the ground. I turned and ran toward the end of the alley that Potato and his men had not taken. Once I hit the sidewalk, I slowed to a casual stroll.
I should have asked Wardell to drop me off a mile from my car and walked back to it. I should have realized that Francois would send Potato and his men after me once he found out about the video Arne posted, and that Wardell could tell them where he’d dropped me off.
But had they already grabbed Arne off the street? Judging by what I’d just heard, I’d bet against it.
Still, if Arne wasn’t at the Bigfoot Room, I didn’t know where to find him, and I didn’t have as many friends as I used to.
I unrolled Lenard’s money and spread it flat under the floor mat. A cop would find it two minutes into a determined search of the car, but this was the best I could do. I drove back into Studio City and parked outside Ty’s gym.
Six people pushed through the doors in a rush just as I reached them, but the last, a muscular woman who couldn’t seem to stand up straight, held them open for me. The front desk was swarmed with people turning in locker keys and receiving plastic cards in return. I waited for things to thin out, watching people get processed at the desk and exit. Leaving work, rushing home to make dinner, pick up their kids, or go on dates, they were nothing like me. And God, there were so many of them.
When things had slowed enough that the supervisor could pay attention to me, I stepped forward. She was the same one I’d spoken to a couple of days before, but she didn’t recognize me. I had to explain myself again. Ty wasn’t here, she told me, and no, I couldn’t have his address or phone number.
A customer at the counter turned to me and said: “You mean Tyalee Murphy? He’s just around the corner. I’ll show you.”
I followed him outside. We stood at the edge of the parking lot together. He gestured toward an intersection like a man karate chopping an imaginary opponent. “That street there beside the pet-supply store is Cartwell. I think. Whatever the name, you go that way one block and take the very first left. Ty lives on that block, on the left side, in a building with two beautiful jacarandas out front.”
I had no idea what a jacaranda was, but I could figure it out. “That’s great. Thanks.”
