White Heat Read online

  He saw the newspaper sitting on the desk. “This Rodney King thing’s gonna blow wide open. Whole town’s gonna go up in smoke.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said, but somewhere inside me I thought maybe he was right. I didn’t want to admit it. Not to him. Not to myself. I’m a multi-generation native of Los Angeles, which makes me a rare bird. And I love my home town, not so much as it is, but as it was when I was a kid. I grew up in a real Leave it to Beaver neighborhood. No one locked their doors. No one worried about getting shot on the freeways. Of course, my relationship with my dad was no Beaver and Ward thing, but I survived, after a fashion.

  He looked down at the paper, saw the headline about Teddie Matson. “She was hot. I wouldn’ta minded havin’ a hormone fix with her.”

  “She was black.”

  “I make exceptions on occasion. I would’ve made one for her.”

  “How white of you.” I don’t know if he caught the sarcasm. If he did he didn’t say anything. I was just as glad. ’Cause a mad Jack was crazier than a mad dog. I’d bet on him against five pro boxers at the same time when he was mad, three when he wasn’t. His washboard stomach rippled under the T-shirt that was always at least one size too small. Even if it wasn’t, his arms were too big for the sleeves. Had to have his shirts custom made to accommodate them. He’d stayed in shape. I hadn’t.

  On the other hand I’m not very large to begin with. But wiry and determined.

  “Hey, I’m not as bad as you think,” he said. “’Sides, I just say what everyone else is thinkin’.”

  “Not everyone.”

  “Hell, almost everyone. Especially the damn limousine liberals that wanna baby everyone, make ’em victims. Make ’em dependent on ’em and on ol’ Uncle Sam. That’s their power base. Hell, the liberals and the—”

  “Cut it out, Jack. Segue.” It was a command. An order. I didn’t want to talk about that shit anymore. Jack stopped. Looked at me. Hurt. He loved to expound. We had a deal. Segue was the end of it. Change of subject. Worked either way, for me or him. We tried not to exercise it too frequently.

  “Hell, I’m only saying out loud what you’re too afraid to even think. What everyone’s afraid to think. ’Cept the niggers. It’s okay for them to think it about us. Change history.”

  I told him to shut up again. But I didn’t kick him out. The problem is that Jack’s too open. Doesn’t even try to hide his prejudices. No veneer of civilization there. Makes me face my own prejudices and fears. Makes me see what I could be and helps me to avoid it. Sometimes I’m successful. Sometimes not. But it’s also one of the things I like about him. You know where he’s at. So you know where you’re at with him.

  Jack and I go back a long way and I do like him. But I don’t like all of him.

  The lobby was crowded. Lou’s strawberry hair glinted in the lights, accenting a still-perfect complexion. Her Anne Taylor dress highlighted her figure, flaring at the waist. Stunning, as usual.

  She knew. Her eyes said it. The corners of her mouth said it. And her weak handshake instead of a hug said it. She knew.

  El Coyote was an old restaurant from the old neighborhood, a few blocks west of La Brea on Beverly Boulevard. It attracted an eclectic clientele. Tonight was no different. Teens in hip-hop drag mixed with elderly couples and homosexual couples and young hetero couples on dates. All inside a restaurant that had been here since before the war—the Big War. Lou particularly liked the decor, paintings made out of seashells. “Interesting,” she always said, as if that was enough. And she loved the food. So did I. But I knew a lot of people who didn’t. You either loved it or hated it, there was no in between. That’s the kind of place it was. I liked their margaritas. They weren’t those slushy crushed ice new fangled things you find in most restaurants. They were just tequila, triple sec, lime juice and salt around the rim. Damn good.

  “Interesting,” Lou said looking at a shell painting, after we were seated. I nodded. There was an awkward feeling between us, a gulf of turbulent air that we were trying to negotiate. There was nothing for me to say in response. This wasn’t a social call. She leaned forward, talking quietly. “You know why I wanted to have dinner, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “I didn’t want to leave any specifics on the answering machine or call a bunch of times.”

  “In case the cops were on us already.”

  She nodded. “I shouldn’t have run it for you. I didn’t know who Teddie Matson was. I don’t watch television, especially sitcoms. How was I to know you were asking me to look up a TV star?”

  Lou did watch television. Lots of it. She watched old movies. What she meant was she didn’t watch sitcoms or dramatic series. Made-for-TV junk.

  “I don’t watch sitcoms either,” I said. “I had no idea who she was. The headline hit me like a hurricane.” What did Lou want from me?

  “You know I run these things for you ’cause you’re an old friend. But I shouldn’t. I could catch hell.”

  “Does anyone know you did it?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no record. But you’re an accessory. So am I.” She looked into my eyes. A searing, guilt-edged gaze that tore into me. She looked away. “Who’d you get the information for?”

  “I don’t know.” My face flushed red. It hadn’t done that in years. I was embarrassed. I had fucked up—bad, just like my father always said: “You’re as dumb as the Mexicans at the plant.” “Why dad? Because I wasn’t a carbon copy of you.” “He paid in cash, up front. I’m sure the name he gave me’s a phony.”

  “You’ve got to find him.”

  “I know. I will.”

  “I should go to the police. They should know everything. It would help them solve it.”

  “Don’t, at least not yet. Give me a few days.”

  She said she would. Neither of us ordered food. We left a good tip and split.

  CHAPTER 3

  The light was mellow, soft. It grazed across the row of Spanish-style stucco duplexes and apartments, reflected off leaded picture windows and prismed onto the street. Each had a driveway to one side or the other. Gardeners worked the neatly manicured greenery of every other building. It was a nice old neighborhood in the Fairfax district, one of the better parts of town. My old stomping grounds.

  The same time of day Teddie Matson had been murdered. I planned it that way, hoping the same people would be around that might have been around that day.

  I walked up the street, my eyes darting back and forth, up and down, aware of everything around me—radar eyes—looking at the addresses on the buildings. The number was emblazoned in my brain. I could see it before my eyes, but it was only a phantom. I passed a gardener at 627, coming to a halt at 625. I stared at the building.

  A typical stucco fourplex from the ’20s. Even though I hadn’t been inside yet I knew the layout—I’d seen enough of them. Two units upstairs, two down. A main front door that would lead to a small, probably tiled hall, with an apartment on either side and a stairway heading to the two upstairs apartments. I walked up the tiled walk, stuck my hands through the remnants of yellow crime scene tape, tried to open the front door. Locked. I rang the bell. No response. I felt as if I was being watched. Still no one answered the buzzer.

  A silver 1970s era Buick pulled into the driveway, slowing. A gray-haired man with wrinkled skin leaned out the window.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of friendliness in his voice.

  I started to approach his car. The electric window shot up. He held up a cellular car phone, finger poised over the nine of, I assumed, nine-one-one. I backed off, holding my hands out in front of me so he could see them. He wasn’t dialing nine-one-one—yet.

  “I’m here about Teddie Matson.” I had to shout so he could hear me through the rolled up window. I’m sure the gardener next door could also hear.

  “You the police?”

  “I’m a private detective, looking for her murderer.”

 
“How do I know?” It was hard to tell, but it sounded like he had a trace of an accent. Today, the Fairfax area is home to a lot of people from Eastern Europe.

  Gingerly, I pulled my ID from my pocket. Held it up for him. He squinted trying to read it, motioning me closer, until I was almost pressed up against the glass. The window zoomed down to the halfway mark. Progress.

  He took the card from me and spent three full minutes glaring at it, before giving it back.

  “We already talked to the police,” he said. “What can you do that they can’t?”

  “I can help them.”

  “Who’re you working for?”

  “That’s confidential information.” I could hardly tell him I was working for myself, that I’d given the killer the address.

  He gunned the engine and the car lurched past me, down the driveway into one of the four garages at the end. I stayed at the front of the building. It looked like he was going to go in the back door, then he walked toward me.

  “What do you want? We’ve been questioned so many times already, the police, the news people. Even her family. It’s bad enough to go through something like this, but to have to relive it every day is torture. My wife hasn’t slept since the, the—”

  “I’m sorry. We’re all just trying to help. Just a few questions?”

  He nodded warily.

  “Was anyone else home when it happened?”

  “My wife. She’s always home. She’s an invalid. But she didn’t see nuthin’.”

  “Might she have heard something?” Was she the person who I felt watching me as I had rung the doorbell.

  He shrugged. I asked to see the entry hall of the building where it happened. He was reluctant to show me, but gave in. From the info Lou had given me and looking at the doors in the downstairs entry hall I knew Teddie’s apartment had to be upstairs.

  Tiled red floor. A large antiqued mirror. Walls a dirty plaster that had once been white. A black wrought iron chandelier hung overhead, showering a dull yellow light on the ashen walls.

  “This is where she fell.” He pointed to the stairs leading to the second floor. “Her apartment was up there. Number four. We think she came down to answer the door for—”

  “Why would she open the door to a stranger?”

  “If you’ll just let me finish, the intercom was broken and she was expecting a script delivery from the studio. Must’ve thought it was them.”

  A heavily carved wooden door off the hall opened a crack. It was to unit number two.

  “That’s really about all we know.”

  “You didn’t see him?”

  He shook his head.

  “Or your wife?”

  Before he could answer the door swung open and a tiny blue-haired woman stood engulfed in its frame. Blue and white polka dots blurted from her dress. Her hair was neatly done. She hardly looked like an invalid. Her husband, who still hadn’t told me his name, looked miffed that she’d come out.

  “It was unseasonably hot that day,” she said in a strong, grandmotherly voice. “Teddie was a—”

  “You don’t even know who you’re talking to,” her husband barked.

  “You’re talking to him. And I seen him show his card to you outside.”

  “He’s not a policeman. He’s a private detective.”

  “Like Jim Rockford,” she smiled. I nodded. Her smile grew. “He’s so handsome. I watch him every day in the reruns.” She looked me up and down, appraising whether or not I met Rockford or James Garner’s good looks. The smile remained, but since it didn’t grow I figured I lost to the actor.

  “It was terrible,” she said, the smile falling off her face.

  “Tell me about it.”

  The old man’s mouth turned down. He wanted no part of this. But his wife was in her element, repelled by the horror and drawn to it. Reveling in it.

  “Terrible,” she said. “He knocked, quietly at first, as if he was afraid of disturbing someone. When no one answered he knocked louder. Then he walked out to the sidewalk.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Only through the curtains. He came back and rang her buzzer. I heard the door lock open on her apartment upstairs and Teddie coming down the stairs. She asked if he was here to deliver the script. He mumbled something. She opened the front door. We always keep the front entry door locked these days. And she asked what he wanted. She was frightened. Then he approached her—”

  “You saw this through the crack in the door?”

  “No, no. I could hear it. I heard it.”

  She didn’t seem nervous, but I felt that she was holding something back. Looking at her husband I figured she didn’t want to deal with him later. He had enjoyed telling me what he knew, even though he would never admit it. But now he wasn’t the star anymore. The spotlight was on her and he didn’t like that. I pictured him lambasting her after I left. She went on, “She was scared. I could hear it in her voice. She usually talked smooth and quiet. But her voice was shrill, loud. He kept moving toward her, and finally, finally—”

  “Enough,” the old man said, cradling her in his arms. “Get out of here.” He motioned toward the door with his hand. I thanked them and left, butterflies, no moths, churning in my gut.

  “Mrs. Perlman,” she shouted behind me.

  Yellow streaks of sun pierced the stucco and glass buildings, melting everything in a golden-hour glow.

  “Hey.”

  I looked around. The Salvador Dali-mustached gardener next door motioned me with his hose. Was he gonna spray me? It was hot. Not that hot.

  “You a cop?” he said.

  “Private.”

  “Didn’t think you were the L.A.P.D. type.” He took a swig from the gushing hose, then sprayed a flower bed. “I seen ’im. He walked right past me.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play this shit with me.”

  “Okay, what’d you see?”

  “You gettin’ paid?”

  I couldn’t tell him the truth so I told him I was. I put a twenty in his hand. Disappointment shattered his placid face. I gave him another twenty and a ten. That was more to his liking.

  “Brown hair, dark brown. And blue eyes. Pale. Man, they didn’t have no passion behind ’em. Nothin’. Steely. Spooky. He didn’t look like he belonged in this neighborhood. Kind of seedy looking, white trashy, but tryin’, you know, to dress up or look like he was better ’an he was.”

  The Weasel.

  “Did you see him get into a car?”

  “No, man. No car. He come from up there, diddy-boppin’ along the sidewalk. He stops here and there, checkin’ addresses I guess. Then he goes up to that place,” he said, pointing to Teddie’s building. I noticed Mrs. Perlman parting the curtains. If only Moses had had her talents. “Guess I don’t give you much to go on.” He pulled one of the twenties, thrust it back at me. I couldn’t tell him I had also seen the Weasel. I shoved it back in his hand, headed to my car.

  When the gardener used the term diddy-boppin’ I recognized him as a Vietnam vet. I thought about saying something, brother-to-brother, Desert Storm vet to Vietnam vet, and all that and normally I would have, but I didn’t want to get sidetracked. I was on a mission—the most important of my life, find Teddie’s killer—and I didn’t want to waste even one second on small talk. I went over to the studio where Teddie’s series was filmed. Couldn’t get past the guard at the gate. On the way home, I stopped at a payphone and tried to make an appointment to see the producers of her show. They’re in mourning, I was told. They just didn’t want to talk, for whatever reasons.

  The sun was beginning to set. Another Golden Hour—dead.

  I pulled up to the house, a Spanish-Colonial built in the twenties. The driveway ran alongside the house back to the garage, which like a lot of people in L.A. I never used as a garage, even though I had a classic Firebird. The stucco was beige, though it might have been lighter at one time. A small courtyard in front was fenced off from the street with a wooden gate. At the
back of the courtyard was the front door. I pulled about halfway down the driveway to where the back door was, parked. Baron, my tan and black German Shepherd was waiting for me with a green tennis ball in his mouth. We played catch. He loved running after tennis balls. Seeing him, playing with him, gave me a feeling of normalcy again. Made me forget about things for just a moment. After half an hour it was time to cool off.

  Most L.A. pools are small and kidney shaped. Of course some are shaped like guitars or cars or whatever ego trip the ego tripper building them was involved in. And most aren’t built for swimming. One of the good things my dad did was build a pool that was lean and mean, long and skinny. Built for swimming, not just skinny dipping. It was wide enough to play around in, but long enough to get a good workout. Problem was, he’d get mad when I’d use it: “Why aren’t you doing something constructive? You never do anything around here. Can’t even change a light bulb.” Of course, I changed more light bulbs than you could count, but he never saw it.

  Screw the workout.

  I floated on a raft, staring up at the afternoon sun, watching a dragonfly dip down toward the water, then retreat. Over and over. Dip and run. Fascinating.

  Then he got too much water on his wings. The weight pulled him down. Under. He drowned. I thought it was a dream, or I would have tried to save him. I was too late.

  It wasn’t the first time:

  I was too late in high school when I finally decided to buckle down and study. If I had I might have been able to get into a good college.

  I was too late in college to graduate, took too much time getting through the required course work. Spent too much time drinking and fooling around. And I quit early to join the service. At least I’d learned enough in school to allow me to pass the math and diving physics for the Teams. That was saying something.

  I was too late to get a real job instead of working for my dad or being a second-rate P.I.