Kill One_An Action Thriller Novel Read online

  I turned away and put my hands on Abi’s shoulders. She turned to face me and smiled. Her eyes searched my face for a moment.

  “Are you going already? I thought maybe a day or two…”

  I gave my head a small shake. “This is business that needs to be attended to straight away.”

  “How long, do you think?”

  I made a face like I was calculating how many board meetings I was likely to attend. “A week, not more than two.”

  She nodded. “Call me, let me know how things are going, and when you’re on your way back.”

  I kissed her and made my way to the hall. Kenny had brought the car to the front of the house and was waiting for me. He handed me two hundred Camels and a bottle of Bushmills.

  “I thought these might come in handy, sir.”

  “I’m pretty sure they will, Kenny.”

  “We look forward to having you back soon, sir.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  I went outside and climbed behind the wheel. The Zombie moved swiftly and silently out the drive and onto Concord Road, toward Weston, and from there west, toward California and the City of Angels.

  Two

  I left the Zombie on the top floor of the USC Shrine Parking Structure on Jefferson Boulevard at eight thirty AM. I took my kit bag and made my way down to the street in the elevator. At that time of the morning it was already bright and growing warm. I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the El Toro Guest House on Juniper Street, in Watts. I settled back for the half hour drive and watched the vast, sunny sprawl of long, wide avenues, palm trees and people who worked real hard at looking like they never worked hard at anything.

  The driver looked at me in the mirror a couple of times. “From back east, huh?” She was young and small, in a denim shirt, chewing gum.

  I smiled. “Yeah, how can you tell?”

  She waved her fingers around her face. “The pallor. Don’t worry. You’ll soon pick up a tan. New York? How about them terrorists, huh? Crazy motherfuckers.”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “I heard something…”

  “In New York, they wanna destroy the TV networks, and the movies and the Internet. Like life ain’t bad enough, now they wanna take away the fuckin’ TV. They bombed the fuckin’ UBC building. Crazy motherfuckers…”

  I snorted. “Life without TV and Facebook, imagine.”

  “Only things that shut my mother up. All I fuckin’ need. No TV…”

  She kept up the monologue for another twenty minutes, until I started to wonder what would shut her up.

  Juniper Street, like most streets south of downtown L.A., gave me the feeling it had never quite shaken off the desert. The road was wide, and the houses were widely spaced, surrounded by trees and palms that grew any old how and any old where. The buildings were low and broad, with corrugated tiled roofs and lime-washed walls in white and terracotta. They had the look of haciendas under a broad, blue sky.

  El Toro Guest House was just one such building. There were no windows out front, only a heavy wooden door with a Mexican blanket hanging in front. On the left there was a tall, iron fence and beyond it a yard with tall palms shading an area of rockery, cacti and yucca.

  I pushed past the curtain and inside the Mexican theme continued. There was a rough-hewn wooden reception counter on the right. The walls were salmon and yellow, uneven and hung with pictures that might have served as covers to the books of Carlos Castaneda. There was a rough pine coffee table, a few armchairs and a TV that was now dark and silent. The only thing out of place was the guy behind the counter. He didn’t look Mexican at all.

  He looked up as I stepped in and his face had ‘I’m a son of a bitch’ written all over it. He was maybe six feet or six one, strongly built and in his late thirties. His hair was sandy and balding on top, which made him look like a Franciscan monk with a bad attitude and a broken nose.

  I didn’t bother to smile. I said, “I need a room for a week. Maybe two.”

  “Seventy bucks a night, up front.”

  I nodded and looked at the pictures on the wall. “Yeah, here’s the thing. I lost my ID and my driver’s license. The replacements are in the post. I don’t mind paying extra.” I fixed him with my eye. “That’s no problem at all.”

  He gave me a once-over, made a mental calculation and said, “Hundred and fifty bucks a night, up front.”

  As I reached for my wallet I let him see the Sig in my waistband. I counted out a thousand and fifty bucks and as I put them on the counter in front of him I smiled. “Two things a man should never be without: a reliable weapon and reliable friends. I am fortunate to have both. If anybody should ever ask you, I was never here.”

  He took an old fashioned Yale key with a paper tag attached to it by a rubber band. It had the number 32 written on it in thick black ink. He handed it to me. “Pal, I forgot you already. Out on the left, behind the yucca.”

  I made my way through a patio tiled in broken terracotta with a small, unenthusiastic fountain splashing listlessly in the center. On the other side, beyond a potted yucca, I found a door that stood with my number on it. I let myself in, threw my kit bag on the bed and pulled up a slatted roller-blind to let in some light. Then I sat on the bed and called a number I had memorized before leaving Boston. It rang three times and a woman’s voice answered.

  “Archer’s Private Investigations. How may I direct your call?”

  “I need to talk to Mr. Archer.”

  “May I ask your name please, sir, and what the call is about?”

  “No.”

  There was a brief pause. “Please hold. I’ll see if he’s free.”

  After a minute a man’s voice came on the line.

  “Archer.”

  “Mr. Archer, I can’t discuss anything with you on the line. I need to come and see you this morning. This job pays well.”

  He hesitated a moment. “It’s urgent, then…?”

  “I need to see you this morning,” I repeated in a dead voice.

  “Say, eleven o’clock? You know where we are?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I stowed my stuff under the bed and made my way back to reception. He was still at the desk, reading a tabloid. I leaned on it with my hands. He didn’t look up. “I need a car: hire, buy. I don’t care. But I don’t want to waste time with documentation.”

  He sighed and raised his face to study mine. “You gonna cause problems for whoever gives you the wheels?” I shook my head. “He picked up the phone and dialed. “Joe, it’s Don, from El Toro… Yeah, you too. Listen to me. I have a gentleman here.” He eyed me as he said it, like I wasn’t really a gentleman. “He urgently needs a car, but he ain’t got time to mess about with papers, you know what I’m telling you…? You got it. Now he is prepared to pay above the odds….” He stopped talking, listened, then jerked his chin at me. “How long?”

  “A week.”

  “A week…” He jerked his chin at me a second time. “Thousand bucks deposit, five hundred for the week. Two hundred finder’s fee.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Done. Don’t keep bleeding me, Don.”

  I gave him two hundred bucks and he pointed past me. “Second on the right, past the church. Four doors down. Red Silverado. Joe’ll be there.”

  I stepped out into the California sunshine, walked past the big, Spanish church and found Joe leaning on the hood of his truck, smoking a rollup. As I approached, he watched me with yellow eyes set behind tangled hair in a black, leather face. When he spoke it was like slow bubbling nicotine.

  “This gonna cause trouble fer me? I don’t need trouble.”

  “You don’t talk to anyone, you don’t get no trouble. Only cash.”

  He studied me a moment through a trail of smoke, then gave a bronchial laugh. “Talk ’bout what?”

  I gave him his money and he handed me the keys. “You get your truck back, Joe. I get my deposit back.”

  He shrugged. “I told you, I don’t need no trouble, miste
r.”

  I climbed in, slammed the door and fired her up. She sounded OK and I set off on the ten mile drive back toward downtown Los Angeles.

  Archer’s Private Investigations was, despite the impression they tried to give you on the phone, a one man operation run out of a seedy office on the fifth floor of the only attractive building left on West Olympic Boulevard. It was a nice, eleven story granite block that looked like it belonged in a 1930s movie. It had a dark wood elevator, with shiny brass fittings and a concertina door, that rattled me all the way to the fifth floor. By the time I got there I was almost surprised to find that Archer’s Private Investigations did not have a door with frosted glass and gold lettering. Instead it had a fire door with a plaque on it that said ‘keep closed at all times’. It was propped open with a rubber wedge and inside I could see lots of sunlight and part of a melamine desk.

  I stepped through into a small office with wall to wall beige carpet, a couple of steel filing cabinets, a door, and an attractive woman with intelligent, humorous eyes. She was sitting behind an unattractive desk that was trying to look like wood, and failing. The woman gave me a humorous, intelligent smile and I said, “I was hoping for slatted blinds and soft focus.”

  “That’s extra, Mr…?”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “Mr. Eleven O’Clock? What are your given names, Al Pass?”

  I moved the smile to the side of my face and said. “Mind your own business.” I nodded toward the door. “Archer in there?”

  “Sure, ask him to lend you some manners while you’re there.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  I knocked on the door and went in. It was like a replica of the other room, only behind the desk there was a man in his fifties smoking a cigarette. He had the hard, steady stare of a cop. Behind him there were two large sash windows with views of Olympic Boulevard. I looked for a wooden coat stand and a hat, but there wasn’t one.

  He stood and reached his hand across the desk. I took it and said, “Are you Archer?”

  He shook his head and gestured me to a chair. “Archer retired and sold me the business. I kept the name. I’m Ted Wallace. I was a homicide Detective with the LAPD for twenty years. Do I get to learn your name now that you’re here, or do you want to keep playing the mystery game?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t mind giving you a name. Will John Smith do?”

  He smiled. “Sure, what can I do for you, Mr. Smith?”

  “I want to put twenty-four hour surveillance on somebody.”

  He looked a little startled. “Twenty-four hours…?”

  “Have you got somebody reliable who can do shifts? I need to know if the target has a routine, and if he has, what it is.”

  He thought about it a moment. “Yeah, I can do that. I got a guy who can do the late shift. If your target leaves his house, you want him followed?”

  “No. I want you to stay on the house, note what time he leaves and comes back. It’s the house I’m interested in.”

  “Sure…” He said it like I was crazy but he was too polite to say so. “How long you want me to sit on this place?”

  “Maybe a week. I’ll want daily reports. I won’t give you any contact details. I’ll come to you.”

  He sat back in his chair and sighed, watching me with narrowed eyes. “I’m a cop, Mr. Smith. I don’t want to get involved in anything…” He spread his hands.

  “I don’t expect you to break the law, Mr. Wallace, and I don’t expect you to abet me in breaking it. All I want is to know the household routine, who comes in, who goes out and when.” He didn’t look satisfied so I sighed, like he was forcing the information out of me and said, “I have reason to believe he might have my sister there, and he may be holding her against her will.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I need to know.”

  “Have you told the cops?”

  “I have nothing to tell them yet, that’s why I need a detailed breakdown of the comings and goings of the household, day by day.”

  He gave his head a little sideways twitch and picked up a pen. “Good enough for me. Who is the subject?”

  “Aaron Fenninger.”

  He laid down the pen again and stared at me. “The Aaron Fenninger? The Aaron Fenninger who just got back from visiting the President at Camp David? The Aaron Fenninger who was just awarded an Oscar for best director?”

  “Is there another?”

  “You think Aaron Fenninger is holding your sister against her will?”

  “You were twenty years on the L.A. police force. Are you going to tell me Hollywood celebrities don’t commit serious crimes?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out except a long sigh, at the end of which he said, “No. I’m not going to tell you that.”

  I shrugged. “If you don’t want to risk upsetting the aristocracy, I can take my business elsewhere…”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’ll take the job…”

  I studied him a moment. “I don’t want him to know you’re there. And I’m not going after him through the courts. This is a confidential report. You’re safe.”

  “No problem. I’ll do it. When you want me to start?”

  I tossed a thick manila envelope on the desk. “That’s expenses and a week’s pay at above your going rate. Discretion is important. Start as soon as you can, today. I’ll need a report every evening. You know where he lives?”

  He spread his hands and made a face that was ironic. “Everybody knows where he lives. He has a mansion in Malibu.”

  I nodded once and stood. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He looked inside the envelope and his eyebrows said he was happy. I left his office and his secretary showed me a face that said she didn’t want to like me but did anyway. I smiled at her. “He taught me to say please and thank you. Now I’m going home to practice. If I get really good, will you give me a sticker?”

  She said something that wasn’t polite, but she smiled as she said it.

  I took the I-10 down to Santa Monica and then followed the Pacific Coast Highway for fifteen miles, with the windows open and the salt air of the Pacific slapping me in the face. It was twelve thirty by the time I parked on Wildlife Road, and I was surprised to see that my twenty year-old Chevy Silverado wasn’t as conspicuous in Malibu as I had expected. I was a hundred yards from Fenninger’s gate and there wasn’t a Bentley, a Cadillac or a Ferrari in sight. I guessed they were all in high-tech garages.

  On the way I had bought myself a hamburger and a newspaper, and now I settled down to eat and watch.

  After half an hour a Buick sedan turned into the road from Selfridge Drive, then turned into Fernhill and parked. In his mirrors he would have a clear view of Fenninger’s house. I figured that was Ted Wallace. Half an hour later the gates rolled open and a white Jaguar F-Type rolled out. It slipped past me and, through the open window, I saw it was Fenninger at the wheel. I made a U and followed at a discreet distance.

  At the intersection he turned east onto the Pacific Coast Highway and began to accelerate. Fortunately he stuck to the speed limit and I was able to settle six cars behind him and follow at a steady sixty-five miles per hour. At Santa Monica he took the Santa Monica Boulevard toward Hollywood.

  It was a good ten mile drive through Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, until we finally came to Cahuenga, where he turned left, then right onto Sunset Boulevard, There he pulled up outside a steel and glass tower opposite the Pacific Cinerama, gave his keys to a boy in uniform and went inside. The boy took the car down a side street. I figured he was going to park it. A sign outside the building told me that Fenninger Productions had its head office on the sixth floor. I drove on by and parked outside the Caviar building. I gave the wing mirror a twitch and sat for half an hour watching the door. Nothing much happened.

  I sat for another couple of hours and a lot more of nothing much happened. Finally, at three o’clock his car came back and another boy in uniform handed him his keys when he came tripp
ing out of the front door. He climbed in the Jag, did a U-turn and accelerated past me, going east. I took off after him. At the bridge he turned right onto the Camino Real Freeway and headed south at speed, back toward downtown L.A.

  Eventually he turned south onto the Harbor Freeway and came off at South Beaudry Avenue to cross under the bridge and park at the lot on 8th and Figueroa. I parked at the other end of the same lot, climbed out and crossed the road behind him to the Ernst and Young Plaza. I followed him into the lobby and watched him step into one of the elevators. There was a woman there with a cleaning trolley. I smiled at her apologetically and said in my best Hugh Grant English, “Excuse me, but, wasn’t that Aaron Fenninger?”

  She gave me a look that was on the sarcastic side of ironic and said, “Yup.”

  I laughed. “I’ll never get used to Los Angeles. I suppose he must be going up to…”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Ten bucks and I’ll tell you.” I gave her ten bucks and she said, “Intelligent Imaging Consultants. He’s a consultant. Top floor. And boy? Your English accent sucks.”

  I walked away laughing, shaking my head and saying, “You Americans!” like I thought she was funny.

  I went back to the truck and sat for a long while, drumming my fingers on the wheel and thinking. Intelligent Imaging Consultants. It had Omega written all over it and Fenninger was a consultant. My purpose here was to take out Fenninger. I could see Sergeant Bradley in my mind’s eye, his big Kiwi face, his stringy beard and his cold blue eyes staring at me. “Stick to the mission, stick to the plan. Everything else is called fuckin’ suicide, sir.”

  He was always right. But he wasn’t here to slap me around the head if I got it wrong. And there was nothing to be lost, I told myself, by finding out a little about Intelligent Imaging Consultants. I climbed out of the truck and crossed the road again, but this time I went into the FIGat7th shopping center. There I bought myself a disposable pay as you go burner and called Ted Wallace.