A Death In Beverly Hills, page 19
Around eight the next morning he parked just out of view of the front door. A few cars exited the underground garage and a few more drove past, none of them paying much attention to him. On the way there a quick stop at a local garage had added a small crowbar to his supplies. Dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt and gray tie at least Steve looked like he belonged in this neighborhood. At about twenty after eight the front door slammed open and a chunky black-haired woman in a red and blue print dress stormed down the walk. Shouting, the guard boiled out of the lobby half a second behind her. She paused only long enough to scream some insult at him and then flounce away. The guard broke into a run and, with a worried glance over her shoulder, she took off a few paces ahead of him.
Without thinking, Steve slipped the crowbar up his sleeve and headed from the door. His fingers sweating, he punched in 6972 and slipped inside. The elevator dinged and he flattened himself against the wall. A maid sauntered out, a net shopping bag in her hand. Steve slipped into the empty elevator just before the doors closed then hit the button for the third floor.
The doors opened onto a small foyer. To the left was a door marked "3A" and to the right "3B." Fry lived in 3B. For two long seconds Steve stood rooted then the elevator trembled and he ducked past the closing doors. For another second he listened but heard nothing. Shit! He slipped the crowbar into his hand. The apartment door was locked. Behind him the elevator whined. Leaning his shoulder against the door, Steve slipped the tip into the slight gap. Now it was a matter of leverage. The wood made a little crunching sound and the space widened. He shoved the tip in deeper and pulled. More crunching sounds then a sharp PING immediately followed by the echo of metal clattering across ceramic tile. Steve shoved the bar in all the way and gave it hard, fast pull. The panel resisted for half a second then something snapped and pieces of wood and screws broke loose. The door swung open on silent hinges. Steve hurried inside and pushed the door closed. Unless someone gave it a careful look they wouldn't notice a thing, Steve told himself.
Straight ahead was a glass-walled living room, to the right a large kitchen and to the left a hallway leading to the guest bath and master bedroom suite. Beyond the kitchen was another corridor leading to another bathroom and two more bedrooms. Scattered here and there were pantries, closets, a laundry room and a study-game room. The place was silent except for the faint hum of the AC. Steve cautiously made his way down the hall, placing his ear to each closed door. Only one of them seemed to have an occupant. He paused outside and took a deep breath then, gun in hand, burst through the door and raced for the rumpled bed. The mound under the comforter shifted and a bleary-eyed face peered up. For an instant Fry lay froze then sucked in a quick breath, preparing to scream. Steve rapped the gun barrel across Fry's head before he could make a sound.
The blow made a thudding noise like a blanket-wrapped hammer glancing off a brick. Stunned, Fry bent forward, cradling his head. Droplets of blood dribbled through his fingers and stained the tented bedclothes between his knees. A soft whooshing sound like a pregnant woman's breathing in Lamaze class escaped his lips. By degrees, Fry's cries changed into a mewling whine, 'ooohhh, oooohhh, oooohhhh, oooohhh'.
Steve twisted his victim onto his belly and used his belt to tie Fry's hands behind him. It was the work of a few seconds to rip a strip from one of the sheets and secure his ankles as well. Finally, Steve twisted Fry into a sitting position, his back against the headboard.
Gauzy curtains covered the windows overlooking the pool and through them Steve could see a blurred garden and the gently swaying trees as if a Monet landscape had come to life. An errant thought comparing the bucolic scene below with the gory work that awaited flitted through Steve's head. Blood leaked from Fry's forehead, around the curve of his eye and on down to his chin where it dripped onto his pajamas. Slowly, Fry became aware of his surroundings and a pair of lazy eyes fixed on Steve's face.
"If you try and shout, I'll shatter your teeth and then knock out one of your eyes. Do you understand me?"
Fry didn't answer aloud but he didn't need to. The fear clouding his face said it all.
"Do you remember me? Do you?" Steve swung the gun as if preparing to strike again.
"Lawyer," Fry mumbled.
"Wrong. I'm the husband of your last victim."
Involuntarily, Fry smiled, a smear of blood staining his teeth. Steve jammed a pillow over Fry's face and smashed his kneecap with the butt of the gun. Fry bucked against the pillow and a muted scream trickled through the goose down.
"You think that's funny? You think butchering my wife is funny?" Steve smashed the knee a second time and was rewarded with a protracted muffled scream. Half a minute later he released the pillow. "Who am I?" Steve asked, looming over Fry's pale form.
"Husband of the woman I killed," Fry wheezed.
"Why do you think I'm here?"
"To punish me."
"Right again."
"S-not right," Fry mumbled, then spit out a gob of blood that had drained into his mouth.
"Was killing my wife right, asshole?"
"I'm a sick man. I can't help myself."
"Maybe I'm a sick man too. Maybe I can't help myself."
"You're a lawyer. You know better. You can't do this."
"Did you enjoy it? Killing my wife."
"What do you want me to say?" Another gob of blood hit the sheet.
"The truth."
"Why would I do it if I didn't enjoy it? My father abused me. Screwed me up. It's the only way I can--"
"Shut up!" Steve hissed raising the gun like Barry Bonds wiggling his bat.
"Whatever you say. What are you going to do? You can't get me back home like this. How do you think you're going to get me on a plane?"
"Plane? Who said anything about a plane?"
"Why else are you here?"
"Moron, I'm here to kill you."
"You can't do that. I have a right to--"
"Shit!" Steve growled and a soundless explosion seemed to detonate inside his brain. His head filled with fire in brilliant reds and blacks. In an instant a web of invisible chains seemed to dissolve, releasing a screaming beast inside him. Janson shoved the pillow over Fry's face. The .45's muzzle sunk deep into the goose feathers and Steve yanked the trigger.
Even muffled by the cushion the automatic made a frightful roar and feathers swirled like snow in a squall. Fry let out a muffled scream. Steve lifted the pillow and saw a ragged gray-rimmed hole in Fry's left cheek. Shit, that wasn't going to kill him. Thrashing and screaming Fry tried to escape.
Not thinking about Lynn or about anything except murder Steve folded the pillow around the pistol and pressed it against the center of Fry's forehead. Janson's only emotion was a blood lust as ferocious as a shipwrecked sailor's craving for the sight of land. For half a second he paused then, unable to think of any reason not to, yanked the trigger. The gun kicked and blood splattered in a spray of sodden red feathers. That should be the end of that fucker. Better make sure. Steve grabbed a second pillow and pounded two more slugs into Fry's head, leaving it as broken as a morning-after Halloween pumpkin.
If anyone had asked Steve what he was thinking when he fired those last two bullets into the leaking corpse he couldn't have told them to save his life. At that instant his head was filled only with a swirl of random sounds and twisted images like a traveler on the Kansas prairie suddenly sucked fifty feet up inside a tornado.
Some seconds later the roaring in his brain dissipated and Janson stepped back from the bed. Was Fry dead? Could a man live through that? He should check Fry's pulse but Janson couldn't make himself touch the dead thing on the bed.
Steve wiped the gun then washed his face and hands in the bathroom sink. The water swirled red and little bits of brain and bone poured down the drain. He threw off his coat which seemed, miraculously, to have protected his shirt from all but a few microscopic stains. In the mirror a wild-eyed man stared back at him. Janson paused a moment to study the stranger.
Carefully he combed his hair then, as if waking from dream, grabbed his coat and returned to the bedroom. He retrieved his belt from the body and made his way through the apartment, pausing to wipe his prints as he went. At the lobby he marched out looking neither left nor right. For a moment the guard glanced at him. Was this man a guest of one of the tenants? Had he arrived during the night guard's tour?
He babbled something in Spanish. Steve waved without turning around and opened the door with a handkerchief-wrapped hand. Had someone reported the shots? Was the guard going to check on the tenants or call the cops or just go back to his paper? Steve neither knew nor cared. Only one thought filled his mind: drive to the airport and fly away. Wiped clean of prints the gun went into a garbage bin outside a busy restaurant five miles away. He didn't go back to the hotel, didn't check out, didn't pick up his bag, didn't return the car, just parked it in front of the rental agency with the keys inside and raced for the terminal as if he was late for his flight.
The next plane headed in the right direction was a Mexicana flight to Cancun. Steve didn't care. It could have been headed for Nassau or Caracas for all that it mattered to him. The ticket cost him $984, one way. His VISA was no good down here so he paid with traveler's checks then staggered onto the plane and slept as if drugged. A few hours later he walked onto a half-full L.A. bound flight and landed on U.S. soil a free man.
For several days Steve waited to be arrested but nothing happened.
"Everybody thinks you killed Alan Fry," Greg said as soon as Steve entered his office.
"I did."
"Don't ever admit that to anyone." Markham leaned forward. "Let's go over what they can prove. You were in Cuba--"
"That will be hard for anyone in the States to prove."
"Why?"
Steve laughed. "The Cuban government wants American tourists so they kindly refrain from stamping U.S. passports. As far as my records go, I was in Nassau."
"Credit card charges?"
"VISA and Master Card aren't accepted in Cuba. I bought Traveler's Checks at Barclay's Bank in Nassau."
"Which is out of the subpoena range of U.S. courts," Greg said, making a note on his pad. "So, the U.S. authorities can prove you were somewhere in the Carribean during the period that Fry was killed but they can't put you in Cuba. Did you leave any evidence, the gun, fingerprints, witnesses?"
"It was a black market gun. I paid cash and I never gave the guy my name or where I was staying. I didn't leave any prints or physical evidence behind."
"The clothes you were wearing . . . ?"
"I dumped them in the Cancun airport when I changed planes. They're long gone." Steve looked away. "The only witness was the guard at Fry's building and all he saw was the back of my head. I don't think he could ID me. If they find the gun and trace it back to the guys who sold it to the cab driver and then back to him, he could pick me out of a line-up, but that's not what's bothering me."
"Which is?"
Steve gave a wry laugh. "The courts in Havana aren't exactly on my side. Once I'm back there they don't need any evidence. They'll just lock me up on general principals."
"Are you planning on going back to Cuba?"
"Not voluntarily, but I don't figure they'll give me a choice."
Now it was Greg's turn to laugh. "That will never happen."
"Won't they just extradite me . . . ?" Steve's voice trailed off at the shake of Greg's head. "Why not?"
"Without overwhelming evidence of guilt, and probably even with it, no American court is ever going to extradite an American citizen to Cuba on the charge of killing a Cuban citizen. The more the Cubans scream for your blood, the more the U.S. will tell them to take a hike. But, of course, it will never get that far."
"Why not?"
"The Cubans are never going to ask for your extradition. Ever. Ever!"
"I don't get it," Steve said, clearly confused. "I went down there. I killed one of their citizens in cold blood . . . ." Steve threw up his hands as if it was all self evident.
"You've got to look at this from Cuba's point of view. Fry was a big embarrassment to them. The U.S. was making them look awful in the international media for sheltering a serial killer. They were taking a beating in the press. If it was any country asking for Fry's head other than the United States, he would have been gone in a New York Minute. Castro is a very Law and Order kind of guy, but they couldn't give in to El Diablo, Uncle Sam. They were stuck. Until you came along and solved their problem for them. Arrest you? Hell, they'd probably like to give you a big kiss on the lips.
"They sure would never, ever try to extradite you. The last thing the Cubans want is a six month long extradition battle splashed across the world press, especially in a case that they know they would lose in the U.S. courts anyway. It's a lose-lose for them."
Steve's expression made it clear that he was still confused.
"Look, they want tourism and, surprise, giving asylum to serial killers is not real good for business. They don't want anyone reminded that the Headless Killer was a Cuban citizen and they don't want Cuba to get the reputation as some sort of a criminal haven. Do you think they want to give other would-be Alan Frys the idea that they should escape to Cuba? You're talking about a national heart attack here. Believe me, the Cuban government wants no part of going after you, besides which, from what you tell me, they didn't have any evidence anyway."
"But if they find the cab driver. . . ."
Greg waved away the suggestion. "There's no percentage in tying himself to gunrunning and murder. Down there it would be pure suicide. No way he talks. Plus the fact that the gun had to be untraceable before he gave it to you. The way that country works there's no way he would have given you a piece that could be traced back to him or his friends." Markham shook his head. "People may suspect you did it. They may believe you did it. But the only person who can prove you did it is you, and you're not testifying, even if the Cubans were to try to extradite you, which I guarantee they won't."
"So, I'm in the clear?" Steve said, not quite believing it was true.
"In the clear? Steve, you murdered a guy in cold blood. You can't just ignore that."
"He deserved it," Steve said angrily.
"What's that line from Unforgiven, when the kid tells Clint Eastwood that the guy they killed had it coming? Eastwood gives him that hard-eyed squint and says, "Hell, kid, we've all got it coming."
Steve just frowned and walked out of the office as if he hadn't heard a word Greg had said. But he had.
* * *
No, the Beast's head did not explode. Steve had seen a head explode once and as much as he wanted to suppress the memory, to wipe it from his mind like some fevered dream, it would not go away. Standing there in front of the Courthouse, watching the Beast storm into the smoggy haze, Janson remembered everything he had seen with perfect clarity.
Chapter Thirty-One
It took the promise of a corned beef on rye with all the trimmings to get Jack Furley to meet him in the plaza near Parker Center. From a hundred feet away Furley gave Steve a quick nod and headed for the far side of the park where he hoped he wouldn't be spotted by anybody from the detective division. Steve grabbed a bench under a spreading plane tree and dropped the deli bag on the slats next to him. Dressed in a brown sport coat and pants over an olive shirt and black tie Furley settled on the bench looking exactly like what he was, a young detective catching a quick sack lunch.
"They forget the pickle?"
"It's on the bottom."
Furley dug through the bag. "Yeah, okay." For a few moments squawks of ravens and Stellar Jays competed with the pop of Furley 's Coke can and the crunch of his teeth decapitating the kosher dill.
"Mmmmm, this is good. You get this at Saul's?" Furley asked around a mouthful of thin-shaved corned beef.
"Only the best for my friends on the force."
"Unhuh," Furley mumbled and took another bite. "Didn't get any breakfast. You're not eating?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Unhuh," Furley repeated in a knowing tone. He noticed the small beads of sweat on Janson's forehead and that his lips had that pinched look guys got when it was all they could do not to think about a six pack of sweating long necks and tall red-strawed glasses filled with ice and good scotch. Half his life Furley had seen that look on his father's face. "So, you wanted to talk about something?"
"There's this guy, a biker meth-dealer, into some bad stuff. I need his rap sheet and I need to know where he was the day Marian Travis was killed."
"Is that all? Shit, you didn't need to buy me a sandwich to ask me for something like that." Furley took another bite. "So, are we done here?"
Maybe it was the smell of the corned beef, but in the deli the old cravings had hit Steve like a runaway train. He could taste the cold splash of hops against the back of his throat, he could feel the slippery bottle sweating in his hand. His mouth felt like cotton. Steve licked his lips and squinted into the sun.
"The guy's name is Terry Monroe," he said in a raspy voice. "He's Bobby Berdue's wholesaler. A guy like him could have popped Marian Travis and never given it a second thought."
"Him and about ten thousand other guys in this county." Furley grabbed the second half of the sandwich. As soon as he finished eating, Steve knew he would be gone.
"With Marian out of the way, Kaitlen marries Travis and brother Bobby's on easy street. These guys don't care who they kill if there's a payday in it for them."
"Do you have anything, anything at all, tying Monroe to this murder?" Furley waited three long seconds, then laughed. "That's what I thought."
"So, eliminate him as a suspect. Get a dump on his phone, run his credit cards--"
"What have you been smoking, Janson? That requires a warrant and a warrant requires probable cause. You were a D.A. for Christ's sake! You know better." Furley shook his head and crunched the last piece of the pickle.
