“Are they dead too?”
“No. I gave them the keys to Alvin’s car and told them to get out of there. I gave them time before I lit the fires in the house.”
“Holy shit. Where are they now?”
“I saw them a little while ago back at the police station.”
“Oh my God.”
“They’re drug mules. They could be in the station for anything—possession and sales is what they do—or maybe they’re out of work since Rogoso died, and they were caught turning tricks or boosting things from stores.”
“The day after the killing?”
“Young kids don’t know how to save money anymore.”
“They had to be in the police station ratting you out.”
“Could be,” Kapak admitted.
“It’s got to be,” Spence said. “Talking to the police is probably their only shot at staying alive.”
“Think so?”
“If Rogoso’s people know the girls were in the house when you killed Rogoso, how can they not think the girls helped you?”
“I guess you’re right. The police will protect them, maybe get them out of town.”
“How are we going to get you out of here?”
“What do you mean?
“You can’t stay in L.A.”
“Wait a minute. I haven’t decided anything like that. I mean, think about it. We’ve all had a rough week. It’s all just part of the Joe Carver problem. He robbed me a month ago, but we didn’t find him in all that time. That was what caused all this trouble for us. The worst thing it did was make that rat bastard Rogoso think he could kill me and take over. But you got Joe Carver, so he’s not going to be a nuisance anymore. I got Rogoso last night, and so he’s not a problem. There was a war going on for a few days, but it didn’t bring us down. We won. Our enemies are dead. It’s over.”
Spence said, “If you killed three men last night and the police have two eyewitnesses, then your trouble is only beginning.”
“Even if those two girls testified at a trial, the jury might not believe them.”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”
“They’re criminals.”
“Do the girls know you did business with Rogoso?”
“They know something. They delivered Rogoso’s money to me a few times.”
“Think back. Can they say you were in business with Rogoso and how the business worked?”
“Sure, but who’s going to believe them?”
“Mr. Kapak, I don’t usually step out of line and give advice to my elders, or to the guy I’m working for. I shut up and learn. But you seem to be asking my opinion. Is that right?”
“I guess it is. Yeah,” Kapak said.
“Okay then. Will a jury believe two girls who worked for Rogoso when they say they saw you kill him and Alvin and Chuy? Yes. They will. Unanimously.”
“All I’ve got to do is pay one guy to hold out for innocent.”
“If there’s a hung jury, they don’t have to let you go. They can have another trial.”
“We can pay the next guy.”
“Even if we do, the whole story will have been in the papers and on television everywhere, every day, because it’s about a drug dealer with a house in Malibu and a strip club owner who’s been running dirty money through his pussy palaces for years to help gangsters. You’d be in worse trouble. Everybody in Rogoso’s organization, and all of his relatives, will know who got him. Getting off in court doesn’t get you off with them. There will be bunches of them out for revenge. There will also be people who can’t imagine anyone burning Rogoso’s house without first backing a truck up to the place and filling it with money and drugs. They’ll want to take you alive, but they’ll settle for dead, because then they can search your house and the clubs.”
Kapak let his frustration show. “I had no choice. What the hell am I supposed to do about any of that?”
“What I thought you must be doing already—getting out of town as fast as you can. Have the cops filed any charges yet?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked Slosser before I left.”
“And he didn’t say you can’t leave the city?”
“No. And fuck him if he did.”
“This is good. It’s great. You’re still free. We’ve got to keep you out of sight and away from them. They’ll probably try to keep an eye on you so they can yank you in as soon as they’ve finished their investigation. They could even be running the case by the DA right now. Once they arrest you, you’re stuck.”
“But what about Rogoso’s people?”
“I don’t think they can know it was you yet. The girls would be crazy to tell anyone before they were under police protection, because Rogoso’s people would also want to know why you let them go and how they got away.” He sighed. “Of course, the minute you get arrested, it will be on the news. Then you worry about Rogoso’s people.”
Spence judged it was time to be silent and let Kapak think about his predicament. He drove the rest of the way to Kapak’s house, waiting for Kapak to change his mind and name another destination. He pulled up in front of the house, and Kapak said, “I’ve got some things to do right now. I’ll call you in an hour or two, so keep your phone on.”
“Don’t you want somebody around to watch your back?”
“No. This is stuff I have to do alone. And besides, the only ones who might come now are the police. If they do, I don’t want you watching my back. I want you miles away. It doesn’t do me any good to have both of us arrested.”
34
AT 1:30 in the afternoon, Voinovich parked the big SUV on the street around the block from Kapak’s vast backyard. There was a grove of bamboo trees in that quadrant. They were thirty feet tall, with trunks that were at least five inches thick at eye level and tapered to thin whip-tips at the ends. In the slight breeze the only sounds were the thousands of small leaves whispering, the creaking of the trunks, and the occasional clack when two flexible waving shafts touched.
The three men moved deep inside the shadowy grove so they couldn’t be seen. Voinovich spoke in a whisper. “I’ve never been back here before. Why are we coming in this way?”
Jerry Gaffney said, “This is the way Joe Carver came to see him and then got away. You can’t say that about any other way in.”
Jimmy said, “I thought we were going to talk him into coming with us, not sneak in his backyard. What’s he going to think?”
“We talked about this. Don’t you remember?”
“No. Who talked about it?”
“We did. We’ll tell him it’s safer for him if he gets into the habit of doing things in less obvious ways.”
“Why?”
“So if something goes wrong in there, then when the police ask questions, there won’t be eight neighbors who say they saw Kapak leave with us.”
“I mean, what do we tell Kapak the reason is?”
“Jesus, Jimmy. The man is under siege. There’s Joe Carver robbing him once a day, with his crazy girlfriend yet. And didn’t you hear the news about Rogoso on the radio? The evil son of a bitch got killed last night. If
