The Flaming Motel

Saturday

November 2





V


Something nagged at me as I drove across the city in the middle of the night. I’d left Liz at the restaurant, laughing at Ben Cross’s jokes, after I announced that I needed to go, that a key witness on the Vargas case was found dead. I made sure everyone, especially Ben, was aware of where I was going. Maybe that was my reason for going. Maybe I wanted to make sure Ben knew I was an important guy and he was just some spoiled rich kid who didn’t matter to anyone but himself.

As I drove through the misty Santa Monica air, I tried to quit thinking about Liz and Ben. I tried to stop asking myself what it was about him that made her like him so much. He was the exact opposite of me. And maybe that was the point. Maybe that was her way of rejecting me indirectly. Maybe she was glad I’d left to go play big shot. Maybe they were back in our apartment right now, f*cking like crazy right on the living room floor. Or worse, on the deck of his condo, listening to the waves crash beneath them while Liz let him inside of her.

By the time I made it all the way across the city, I’d driven myself crazy, beating myself up with suspicions and baseless speculations. Benjamin Cross wasn’t the problem. He was a symptom. I was blaming him for something I couldn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand.

I pushed it all aside when I pulled up at the bottom of the block of Gower by the Do Prop Inn. Pete Stick had been dead for about four hours by the time I got there. It was the middle of the night and I had no real reason for going there, other than curiosity and escape. I parked near the corner of the street and sat in the car, watching the bodies move around in the pulsating glow of the flashing police lights. The ambulance was still there, along with two police cruisers and a couple of other vehicles. It seemed like a lot of activity for a hanging.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d come. Besides wanting to remind Liz of my own existence, something just seemed wrong about the whole thing. I kept picturing the thick-framed, hard-edged Pete Stick and found it impossible to believe he hung himself. I figured if I went, I might learn something. Although it seemed all but certain, now that he was dead, that our big case was definitely over.

I got out and walked up the block. There was no police tape or anything, just the collection of vehicles and people milling about. I stood on the sidewalk across the street and watched. The entrance to the Do Prop Inn was open, and people kept coming and going from it.

Next to the ambulance were a couple of uniform cops, standing around smoking cigarettes. An EMT was loading a large plastic equipment box into the back of the ambulance, and two guys in regular clothes were leaning against an unmarked car, talking through some notes one of them was holding.

I stared at the profile of the older of the plainclothes guys. He looked familiar in the darkness, but I couldn’t be sure from across the street. I was nervous about getting any closer. I didn’t want to piss anyone off. But then, I figured there wasn’t any barricade or anything, so I stepped off the curb and walked toward them, trying to get a better look.

The older guy must have heard me coming because he turned to look at me when I was halfway across the street. I recognized him for sure then. And from his grimace, it was clear he remembered me. He said, “There’s no way I’ll believe this is a coincidence, even if you lie to me. What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Detective Wilson.” I smiled at him and walked the rest of the way to the car. Wilson looked exactly as he had four years ago. Still had the crew cut. Still looked like he ran five miles a day and could do a hundred pushups without breaking a sweat. His hair might have been a little more silver, but it was hard to tell in the pulses of red and blue light.

The other guy was looking at me now, so Wilson said to him, “Chuck, this is Oliver Olson. He was the kid who broke the Steele case a few years back.” Chuck nodded in recognition. Then Wilson turned back to me and said, “I assume you actually became a lawyer after that?”

“Sadly, yes,” I joked. But Wilson didn’t smile. Despite his gruffness, I always felt like Wilson kind of liked me. He knew putting the Steele thing together had nearly gotten me killed. He seemed like the kind of guy who respected things like that, even if he would never admit it.

He studied me for a moment and said, “So what the hell are you doing here?”

“Got a call.” I turned and studied the ambulance and cop car. Their lights blinked in the darkness, splashing red and blue light over the entire street. Then I said, “I heard there was a light show over here on Gower. I’m an insomniac, so I figured I’d come check it out.”

“You gotta few more years to go before you become a good bullshitter, Olson. Quit f*cking around. The kid call you?”

“Nope.” Now I was wondering who the kid was.

He rolled his eyes and barked, “Spill it, Olson. I got a woman at home who’s a lot better looking than you. I’d like to mother up to her before sunrise.”

I smiled at him. “Detective Wilson, you’re such a romantic.” I shrugged, and said, “I was just curious why the key witness in one of my cases ends up dead only a few hours after I talked to him. That’s all. I’m having a hard time believing that’s a coincidence.”

“He hung himself, Olson.”

“If you’re so sure of that, why’d you go to Don Vargas’s house to talk to people?”

“You represent Vargas, eh?”

“I can’t tell you who I represent.” I could see in Wilson’s eyes that he knew I had him cornered. He was trying to change the subject from his presence there to mine. So I added, “But what I do know is that they don’t send homicide cops out in the middle of the night to take a look at a clear cut suicide.”

Wilson raised his eyebrows at Chuck and then came around the car and walked past me. I followed him to the other side of the street. “Look,” he spoke in a soft, confidential voice. “Stick hung himself. The ME already signed off on it as a suicide. Stick’s blood alcohol level was about point two-five, which would have you or me stumbling around trying to remember our own names. Guy got drunker than shit, got depressed, and did himself. Unless the coroner finds something interesting, that’s the way it’s going in the books.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that he happens to kill himself right after Vargas, his business partner, is murdered?”

Wilson smiled, and laughed a little. “First of all, Vargas wasn’t murdered, that was an accident.” Then he leaned back a little, cocked his head to one side, and said, “You always did jump to conclusions, Olson. Keep in mind what happened last time.”

“Hey, last time, everyone got caught. So don’t give me that shit.”

“What about the journalist?”

I groaned. It was the second time in twenty-four hours it had come up. “This isn’t about me,” I said.

“No, it’s not. But you’re assuming things you don’t know anything about. You’re working for Vargas, and your witness is dead, and you’re pissed off about it. Well, frankly, I’m glad your case is f*cked up because I don’t like to see cops get sued by ambulance chasers like you. What happened to that fancy-assed law firm you worked for anyway?”

“You can buy my autobiography when it comes out, Wilson. Right now, I want to talk about whether Pete Stick was murdered.”

Wilson sneered and shook his head. “This ain’t a murder, Olson. That’s what I’m telling you. Before you go running all over town jumping to conclusions about shit, you need to listen to me. This is a suicide.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Same reason you are. It looks suspicious.” Wilson flipped through his notes and angled the pad so it caught enough light for him to read. “Peter Thomas Stick, born August 7, 1947. Six juvie offenses up through the summer of ‘65. Then the army took him off society’s hands for a three year stint. Next arrest is in ‘69. Stolen property. Does four months at the end of that year. Then he doesn’t show up on the radar again until ‘74. That’s when he goes big time. Insurance fraud. He gets caught helping a downtown jeweler steal his own stuff and make claims on his store policy. He does two years for that one. Next arrest is in ‘81. Insurance fraud. He burns down a HUD house he manages to buy out in Palmdale. Insurance company doesn’t fall for it. This time, he does six years. Next arrest is ‘95.” Wilson looked up at me. “Wanna take a guess?”

“Insurance fraud?”

“You’re a smart guy, Olson. That fancy law firm really lost a talent when it shed you.” Wilson turned back to his notes. “In ‘95, Stick had hooked up with another dirt bag who has a broker’s license and they ran an insurance agency, but forgot to actually buy any policies on behalf of their clients. When they get caught, the State finally throws the book at the f*cker and Stick does a ten-year stretch at Quentin. Gets out in ‘05. Six months later, he’s running this place.”

Wilson waved his hand at the building across the street and closed the notebook. I watched the EMTs close the doors on the ambulance and pull away. The flashing lights went off when it was halfway up the block. No siren, no reason to hurry. The guy in the back was long dead.

Finally, Wilson said, “It seems suspicious until you know all of that. And then it makes perfect sense. So quit barking up this tree, Olson.”

I wasn’t convinced. “Just because Stick was a scam artist, doesn’t mean he killed himself.”

“Doesn’t mean he was murdered, either,” Wilson gritted his teeth and said. “This guy spent almost half his adult life in the joint. The rest of it was spent putting frauds together. How the hell does a guy like that get out of jail and start running a successful, legitimate business like this?” He pointed to the building.

“People change.” I smiled.

“F*ck you, Olson. You know what I’m saying.”

“Look,” I said. “Why would Stick kill himself? He’s got a business, he’s turned his life around.”

“Don’t give me that,” Wilson sneered. “Stick was a no good piece of shit fraudster who probably owed money to half the scumbags in town. With Vargas gone and no one to prop him up, he probably realized his life was shit and figured he’d end it before someone ended it for him.”

“But you don’t know that.”

“Look,” Wilson said, “he was trying to borrow money from Vargas the night he was killed.”

“To pay the rent and keep his business afloat.”

“Is that what he told you?” Wilson grinned. “It’s bullshit. County records show Vargas owns this f*cking building. Why would he borrow money from Vargas just to pay it back to him? He needed money for something else, and I don’t really give a shit what it was. For whatever reason, Vargas was taking care of this guy. With Vargas gone, Stick knew he was out in the cold. The medical examiner found no evidence of foul play, and neither have I. This is getting closed as a suicide, and I’m going the f*ck home.”

Wilson stepped off the curb and walked to the car where Chuck was still waiting. He waved at me over his shoulder without looking back. Wilson and Chuck slid into the unmarked and drove off.

Two uniformed cops came out of the building toward the one police car that was left and got in it. They shut the flashing lights off and the whole block went dark. I watched the cops sit inside the car with the dome light on. They were comparing notes and laughing with each other. Just another stiff and another night on the job. Funny stuff, apparently. Then, after another minute, they drove off and the street was empty and quiet.

I could see the lights of Sunset Boulevard crossing Gower three blocks up. The cops drove up to it, turned right, and disappeared into the neon glow. It was a little after two in the morning and the drunks and crazies would be out in force. I needed to either become one of them, or get home quick. I started walking back to my car, when I heard a voice call out to me.

“Hey, man.”

It was coming from across the street. I turned back to look, suddenly afraid of getting robbed, and saw the guy with the patchy red beard who worked for Stick. He stood in the doorway watching me. I hesitated before crossing the street toward him. I walked up to him without saying anything and he stepped back to let me into the ratty reception area. It was only when I was inside that I realized how cool it was outside.

“So you’re Vargas’s lawyer?” the kid asked from behind me.

I leaned my back against the counter and faced him. He was leaning against the wall near the door. “Yeah,” I said. “You the one that found Stick? Called the cops?”

“Yeah.” The kid puffed out his cheeks and shook his head in disbelief. “That was some crazy shit.” I watched the way he slouched, studied the wispiness of his beard, and concluded he was only in his early twenties at the latest.

“What were you doing here?” I asked.

“Just came back to drop some gear off. Found him in the warehouse.” His eyes bulged with the memory and he shook his head again. “Man, I never seen nothing like that.”

“You think he hung himself?”

“Shit, I don’t know what I think.”

“How long have you known Stick?”

“Worked for him since he opened this place. I used to work at another prop place before. Heard about this one opening. Money was better.” The kid shrugged and looked concerned that he might have to look for another job.

I said, “And after all that time, did you get the impression Stick was the kind of guy who would kill himself?”

The kid looked at me and stroked the thin hairs on his chin. He seemed to be studying me, deciding what he should say next. Then he said, “No way, man. Pete was a tough motherf*cker. He wouldn’t hang himself. At least, I don’t think he would.” Then he added, “Normally.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well,” the kid shrugged his shoulders, hesitating, watching me. He was giving me the creeps. Finally, he said, “I don’t know, man. I think he was in trouble. He was usually a really cool guy. You know, really easy going. But lately, he was tense. He seemed stressed.”

“You tell the cops this?”

“Sure.”

Then I pressed my luck, pushing the kid a little. “So what didn’t you tell the cops?”

He suppressed a startled look and I knew there was something he wanted to tell me but was afraid to. It was why he’d called me over in the first place. He must have assumed that because I was Vargas’s lawyer I was okay. Now he didn’t seem so sure. But I waited him out, letting the silence get to him. After a long thirty seconds, the kid cracked.

“Look man,” he started in a rush. “I don’t know anything. Alright? I mean, I don’t have any idea what was going on.”

“How do you know anything was going on at all?”

He realized his protest had showed more of his hand than he’d intended and he let out a sigh. I watched his shoulders sag and his head drop, like he was deflating right before my eyes. “Look man, you tell the cops this and I’ll deny it.”

“I’m not a friend of the cops.”

“I saw you talking to them.”

“I take my information where I can get it.”

“All I know is that on Thursday afternoon, Pete told me to do something. Something important that I didn’t understand at the time, and I don’t really understand now. What I do know though, is that something f*cking weird is going on.”

“What did he tell you to do?”

The kid stuck his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. Then he said, “Look, man. This shit is freaking me out. I need to get the hell out of town.”

I didn’t get it at first. I said, “Freeways are everywhere around here.”

The kid shook his head and said, “No, I mean get the hell out permanently. I ain’t sticking around here so someone can find my ass dangling in a warehouse somewhere.”

I shrugged my shoulders. Another long silence fell between us. The kid seemed to be struggling for something, like a novice gambler trying to calculate a bet. Finally, he said, “What I got to tell you is going to blow your mind. Meet me at the Farmer’s Market tomorrow afternoon at two. I’ll be sitting by the Cajun place. Come alone and bring ten grand in cash.”

The kid turned and walked outside. I followed him out and he locked the door behind us. “What if I don’t show?” I asked.

He grinned and said, “Well, then at least I won’t have to worry about someone killing me because I told you. And if you do show, at least I’ll have ten grand to disappear with.”

The kid turned and walked up the block toward Sunset. I watched him go until he disappeared in the darkness. Then I turned and headed for my car. All the way home I kept thinking, that kid would make one hell of a poker player.