Death Walks Skid Row Read online

  “Hmm. Ramona, if you don’t mind my saying so, this sounds a little bit like the plot of a movie, and not a particularly good one.”

  “I know. When Michael told me all this, I believed it, because, well, the guy had just saved my life. But the more I think about it, the less it holds up. My reporting has been critical of the Phoenix project and Cantone, particularly the rumor that homeless people were being bused out of Skid Row and dumped before the television cameras show up. That friend of ours, Danny Speakman, told me that part was true because, when he was in his Aspen disguise, he got bused somewhere too. But that’s why it doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “If my reporting shines a bad enough light on Cantone and Phoenix Terrace to put the project in jeopardy, then shouldn’t that benefit Soto … who can then put his plan to build on the site into action? Why would he be the one who wants to have me killed?”

  “Maybe you uncovered something you don’t realize you uncovered.”

  “I can’t imagine what. I mean, if anybody wanted me out of the way, it would be Adam Henry, the state assemblyman who’s running for mayor. You know, the former action movie star who retired when his age started to get higher than his IQ?”

  Charlie chuckled. “I’ve seen him in things. What did you do to him?”

  “Revealed that he is so dumb he thinks manual labor is the president of Mexico. Or at least allowed him to reveal it on camera.”

  “One doesn’t have to be a genius to get elected.”

  “I know, but here’s an example of just how bright the guy is. I’ve done some research on him. Adam Henry isn’t his real name. He took it when he started acting. His real name is Henry Baron Bonesteel.”

  “What’s so dumb about changing your name?”

  “Nothing, but he could have been Henry Baron, or Hank Steele, or Barry Steele, or something that wasn’t an L.A. sheriff’s department code word.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “‘Adam Henry’ is county slang for ‘asshole’,” Ramona said. “It’s what sheriffs say to each other over the radio, – and Adam Henry doesn’t even know it!”

  That drew an actual laugh from Charlie Grosvenor, which was a rare occurrence.

  “How many people over the years have been laughing behind his back, but haven’t said anything, because he’s a big, rich movie star?”

  Suddenly Charlie Grosvenor stopped laughing. “You didn’t tell the police you’d be staying here with me, did you?”

  “No. I made the decision to come here kind of spur of the moment. I haven’t told anyone. Why?”

  “They know me as a streeter. Police reports are public record. I don’t want someone to find out who I really am and write it up in a report and then have it leak out.”

  “You’re not D. B. Cooper, are you?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. The police don’t know where I am because I didn’t call them after the last murder attempt, so you’re safe.”

  “You didn’t file a report?”

  “Michael said not to. He said he would handle things.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “I reported the first two shots taken at me and the police came out to investigate. They found no evidence of any kind, so they have me pegged as an hysterical woman. Maybe even crazy, given the trick I played on the sketch artist. Because of that I doubt they’d believe anything else I said.”

  “Even with the agent backing you up?”

  “He doesn’t seem to like the police much,” she said. “At least he doesn’t want to work with them. I guess it’s one of those local versus Fed things. Or maybe he thinks the LAPD is somehow involved in whatever conspiracy is going on.”

  Charlie Grosvenor was frowning. “I have to tell you, Ramona, something here’s not right. I’m no expert on this stuff but this guy of yours sounds like he’s acting more as a rogue than an agent. How’d you meet him again?”

  “He was just there, outside my apartment when the police were investigating.”

  “Did he show you a badge?”

  “Yes.”

  “You study it?”

  “I saw it. I didn’t study it. What are you thinking?”

  “He drove you here, dropped you off, but didn’t want to come inside and introduce himself. Didn’t want to see me.”

  “He doesn’t know you.”

  “What if he does, and that’s why? What’s this guy look like?”

  “He looks like the actor from Angel,” Ramona said. “Tall, well-built, dark hair cut short, military style, not a lot of expression.”

  “What about his eyes?”

  “Brown.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I saw them. Oh, and he wears contact lenses, too. He said he’s nearly blind without them. What’s bothering you, Charlie?”

  “The fact that there’s a guy who just shows up all of a sudden like and then disappears with no warning again. Sounds like someone I know.”

  “Well, Danny did that to me, but—”

  She stopped talking and looked at the Governor.

  “You see it now, too,” he said.

  “Oh, my god! His contacts … they were knocked out during the fight with my assailant and he had to find them. I knew he looked familiar, but I decided it was a resemblance to that actor, David someone. But that’s not why he looked familiar. And those contacts weren’t because he’s myopic, they were—”

  “To change his blue eyes brown,” Charlie finished for her.

  “Oh, Jesus! I picked up one of the contacts and thought it was dirty, but that wasn’t dirt, it was brown coloration! He shaved his beard off, he buzzed his hair and dyed it black, he put in contacts, and I fell for it!”

  “You didn’t recognize his voice?”

  Ramona put her head in her hands. “Raspy, almost like he had laryngitis. He disguised that, too. God, what an idiot I’ve been! It was Danny all along! Charlie, we have to go talk to Detective Knight no matter what anyone else thinks about it.”

  “I think you’re right about that,” he replied. “I’ll go call for a ride to the station. We could walk it if we wanted but my little voice is telling me we shouldn’t.”

  ****

  Sitting in his car, which was pulled up outside of the Governor’s apartment building, the man listened to the conversation going on inside through an earpiece. He wanted to find out exactly what the Rios woman knew, or thought she knew.

  He found out.

  One part of him was glad those two had figured it out so quickly. He knew Ramona was going to find the bug he’d dropped in her purse eventually, probably sooner rather than later. But the other part of him, the part that had been assigned to take care of problems, was reeling at how much they had accurately deduced. An old bastard who apparently only pretended to be a bagman and a TV reporter barely old enough to have covered Bush v. Gore had somehow pieced things together.

  To a point.

  A point beyond which he could not allow them to go.

  As he heard the Governor calling on the phone for a cab to take them to the police station, he still wondered just what this guy’s story really was. But he could not waste a lot of time wondering.

  Nor could he waste time chastising himself for not taking the Bible his stinking, wall-eyed prey tried to defend himself with when he shivved him in his box. There’s no way he could have known what it contained.

  But once he had taken care of them, he’d find the damn little book and destroy it.

  And there was certainly no purpose in telling his employer about it before he did.

  CHAPTER 15

  Seated in the back of the taxi, Ramona Rios cut off the call on her cell phone and said, “Knight isn’t there right now. He gets off at six-thirty, but they’re going to find him.”

  Charlie Grosvenor, who was next to her with Jimmy’s Bible in his hands, simply nodded his head.

  When she dropped her phone back into her purse, they both heard t
he odd clink made by the phone striking something hard. Investigating, Ramona came upon the tiny microphone device and pulled it out.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said. “This is a damn bug!”

  She started to roll down the window to throw it out, but Charlie stopped her.

  “No, no, hang onto it,” he advised. “More evidence for the cops.”

  “Is the excrement still listening?”

  “If he is, he knows where we’re going. I don’t think he’d pull anything in a police station.”

  “I hope he is listening!” she said, suddenly angry. Holding the bug to her mouth, Ramona unleashed a string of expletives, a few of which Charlie had never before heard.

  “Damn,” he uttered, half-admiringly.

  They were still a couple blocks away from the Central Community Station. Neither was paying much attention when suddenly the taxi slammed to a halt, and the driver laid on the horn.

  “What’s going on?” Ramona asked.

  “Someone just zoomed around me and cut me off!” the driver called back. Rolling down the window, he shouted, “Idiot!”

  The other driver, whose Audi was stopped perpendicular to the taxi’s nose, leapt out from behind the wheel.

  “Oh, my god!” Ramona shouted, but there was nothing she could do to get away from the other driver who was charging the taxi with a gun.

  “Jesus!” the driver yelled as the man who called himself Michael Fleer, among other things, slammed the barrel of the gun into the driver’s window, causing it to shatter.

  “The two of you get out of the back or the front seat gets a brain shower,” Fleer snarled, holding the gun against the driver’s temple.

  “Don’t shoot,” the driver gasped. “I have a family.”

  “Rios, Governor, I said get out. Now.”

  He cocked the gun.

  “All right,” Ramona said, opening the door and stepping out onto the street. “It’s not dark yet. Someone’s going to see what you’re doing!”

  “A smart guy once told me nobody sees anything on Skid Row, and even if they do, they keep it to themselves. Isn’t that right, Governor?”

  “I wish you hadn’t been listening, Aspen,” Charlie said, surreptitiously tucking the Bible into the waist of his pants behind him as he slid over and climbed out.

  When they were on the street, the driver asked, “Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” Fleer replied. “Here’s your send-off.”

  He shot the man through the head.

  Ramona screamed and Fleer spun around and pointed the gun at her.

  “You damn punk!” Charlie spat.

  “Now you know I’m serious,” Fleer said. “Get the backseat of my car, Rios. Now. You don’t make a move, old man.”

  Ramona’s legs barely carried her to the Audi.

  Turning to Charlie, the one-time Aspen said, “Can you drive, pops?”

  “I haven’t for a long time.”

  “Do your best. Get behind the wheel.” He pointed to the Audi.

  “You didn’t have to shoot him, Aspen.”

  “That same smart guy once told me what life worth on Skid Row, too. I’ll put one through the head of this bitch’s head if you don’t do what I tell you,” Fleer said.

  “Look, son, let’s just take a breath and—”

  “I’ll shoot her, goddammit! I’ve got you pegged, pops. You’re the noble type who would sacrifice himself if that’s what it took to save others. That’s why I’m not giving you the opportunity. So you’ll either do what I say or she’s the one who will be sacrificed, you get it?”

  “Charlie, don’t worry about me,” Ramona said.

  “Too late, baby girl,” Charlie sighed, getting behind the wheel of the Audi. Fleer forced Ramona into the back at gunpoint, then joined her.

  “We’re going back to her apartment,” Fleer said.

  “Why there?” Ramona asked.

  “Because I said so. Pops, I’ll feed you the directions, and if you make one wrong turn or try to do anything heroic, Chi-Chi gets a bullet in the cabeza.”

  The keys were still in the ignition, so Charlie Grosvenor turned it over and lurched the Audi ahead. It had to be thirty years minimum since he had driven a car, but that wasn’t the thing that was eating him up inside. Concern of what would happen to Ramona was causing his chest to tighten, as was the growing sense of guilt that he had lured the taxi driver to his death.

  As he battled with the Audi’s hair-trigger brakes and a steering wheel so sensitive it could be controlled telepathically, Charlie Grosvenor wondered if he was going to see the sun rise.

  ****

  “I’m assuming you called me up here to give me a thumbs down on that press conference,” Adam Henry was saying as he stretched his legs out in front of the sienna full-grain leather sofa in Nick Cantone’s private office in the Harrison Club. If he was apprehensive about this meeting, he did not show it.

  “You almost sound as though you wish I would,” Cantone said.

  “God’s honest truth, Nicky? I wish we could drop this entire thing. I don’t want to be mayor. I never wanted to be mayor. I wouldn’t know how. Why can’t I simply drop out of the race to spend more time with my family?”

  “Which one?”

  Henry grimaced as he took a sip of his bourbon. “I broke it off with Consuela,” he said. “She’s promised to take the boy somewhere far away. That damn kid is getting to look more like me every day. Even Marsha was starting to notice anytime he came over while his mother was cleaning the house.” Marsha Creighton was Henry’s wife, and the mother of his three legitimate children. “But you didn’t ask me up here to talk about my love child.”

  “Nor did I to hear any talk of your quitting,” Cantone said. “Listen to me, Adam. I believe your instincts are right. You wouldn’t know how to be mayor. With a manual at your disposal, you wouldn’t know. But you don’t have to be a good mayor. All you have to do is what I tell you to do. The problem is that in order to be mayor, you have to be a mayoral candidate. And you, my friend, are proving to be an even worse candidate than you are an actor.”

  “Hey, you hold on a minute. I got a Golden Globe for—”

  “You can’t even act the role of a candidate!” Cantone shouted, and once he had reduced Adam Henry to cowering silence, he quieted down himself. “That is going to change, Adam. That’s why I called you up here. You are going to start an intensive course in candidate training.”

  “A what?”

  “I’ve engaged political and media consultants to coach you. By the time they’re through, you will be able to send Slick Willie home licking his wounds after a debate, let alone that sob-sister Al Soto.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Henry asked.

  Nick Cantone slammed his fist down on a Chippendale table, nearly shattering it, causing Henry to jump.

  “I need a mayor into whose ass I can stick my hand and make talk like Kermit the Frog,” Cantoned growled. “That is not simply something I want. It is something I need. It is something I will get. Phoenix Terrace is only the beginning of this city’s transformation in my image. But I cannot fulfill my plans without someone at the top looking out for my interests, and that is why you are going to be L.A.’s next mayor, Adam, whether you like it or not. I have invested far too much into this, and into you, to have anything go wrong now. Alberto Soto must be thrown out of office if I am to get anything done before I’m too damned old to enjoy the results, and you are the only person who can do it. The camera loves you even when you dare it not to. Therefore, I am not asking you to take candidate classes, Adam, I am telling you.”

  Henry drained his glass and set it down on the coffee table. “Purely hypothermally—”

  “Hypothetically, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Okay, but what would happen if I say no?”

  Nick Cantone leveled his very practiced gaze on the former actor. It was the same look he used in boardroom meetings when somebody demonstrated the sheer stupidity as to
disagree with him. The goal was to remain silent and hold the gaze until the other person squirmed. His record was three minutes and forty-two seconds, after which the recalcitrant board member (ex-board member by week’s end) actually leapt up as though the chair had suddenly become molten through x-ray vision.

  It took only twenty-nine seconds for Adam Henry to flinch.

  Cantone smiled thinly. “In the unthinkable event that you refuse me, Adam, I will destroy you entirely. Surely you can see it from my perspective. If you genuinely become of no use to me, then I have nothing to lose by running you through the shredder. All I have to do is leak a little bit of information that I’ve been able to discover about some past problems of yours, and leave you to defend yourself against the D.A.’s office.”

  “Past … you can’t know that.”

  “I can’t know what?”

  “You can’t know about that night … in the rain … after the party. There’s no way you could know. Only two people knew about that, and one’s dead. I saw to that myself!”

  It was a very rare occurrence that Nick Cantone was taken by surprise, but he had to admit this was one of those very unusual moments. He decided to bluff. “You’d be surprised and, ideally, terrified at what I can find out. But perhaps you should confirm whether my information is correct. We are both talking about that night of the wild party … ”

  Henry’s lip was shiny with perspiration. “In 1975, yeah, the party in the Palisades, where I really tied one on, and Mac MacLendon told me I shouldn’t drive home, but I got behind the wheel anyway. It was raining, the road was wet, and on Sunset Boulevard there was this girl by the side of the road trying to flag us down. Mac was yelling at me, ‘Bone, slow down!’ Back then we played a few clubs as Mac and Bone.”

  “Bone … of course,” Cantone improvised.

  “That was my name, Bonesteel. Friends called me Bone. But you knew that.”

  “Of course I did,” Cantoned smoothly lied.

  The former Henry Baron Bonesteel wiped his lip with this sleeve, and then continued.

  “I just wanted to scare the woman, but …”

  “You hit her,” Cantone said, guessing, but doing so with authority. “You hit her and killed her.”