“I know.”

  “You don’t want to end up like Tomaso, do you?”

  “Alan, I have to go.”

  “If Byrd was connected to someone at Leverage, maybe we’ll find the connection through his record. In the meantime, stay away from Marx. You should lay low for a while, Elvis. Don’t give these people an excuse to arrest you.”

  “They could have arrested me yesterday.”

  “They might still change their minds. Give me a chance to find out what they’re doing before you get yourself in worse trouble.”

  We reached the door, and I watched him go to his car. It was a lovely car, and he waved as he got in.

  “Hey, Alan. Good to have you aboard.”

  He twisted around to look at me. He said, “I’m sorry I doubted your instinct.”

  I smiled as he drove away.

  26

  MEMBERS OF the Los Angeles City Council had downtown offices on Spring Street, but each member also maintained an office in his or her district. Maldenado’s district office was in a two-story strip mall in an area where most of the signs were in Spanish and Korean, conveniently distant from the spying eyes that went with the downtown action. The councilman’s office was located above a women’s health club. The women entering the club were uniformly beautiful, but this probably had nothing to do with the councilman’s location.

  I parked underground, walked up to the second floor, and entered the reception area. The receptionist was speaking Spanish to an older couple while two men in business suits waited on the couch, one tapping out a text message while the other read some sort of document. Photographs hanging above the two men and behind the receptionist showed Maldenado with Little League teams, sports stars from the Dodgers, Lakers, and Clippers, and various politicians. I counted Maldenado with three different California governors and four U.S. presidents. The only person who appeared with Maldenado more than once was Frank Garcia.

  The receptionist said, “May I help you, sir?”

  The older couple had taken a seat.

  “Elvis Cole for Mr. Maldenado. I have a ten o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir. They’re expecting you.”

  She immediately led me around her desk and into Maldenado’s office. She didn’t bother to knock or even announce me. She opened the door, let me walk in, then closed the door behind me.

  Before entering politics, Henry Maldenado had sold used cars and trucks, and had been good at it. His office was large and well appointed, and reflected his love of cars with models of classic Chevrolets. Maldenado was a short, balding man in his fifties who looked younger than he was, wearing jeans, a short-sleeved shirt open at the neck, and cowboy boots. A bank president’s desk sat at the far end of the room, bracketed by a glass wall overlooking the street and a couch. He came around his desk, offering his hand and a charming, natural smile. A second man sat on the couch.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Cole. If I haven’t expressed this before, I want to personally thank you for the help you’ve given to Frank in the past. He is one of my closest, dearest friends.”

  “I’m sure. Thanks for making the time, Councilman.”

  The other man was nothing like Maldenado. He was thin, with a sagging face and steel-colored hair. His sport coat and slacks fit like secondhand clothes draped on a rack. I made him for his late sixties, but he could have been older. He did not stand and made no move to greet me.

  Maldenado waved at him as he showed me to a chair facing the desk.

  “This is another close friend, my advisor, Felix Dowling. Felix has been working the back rooms of this city longer than either of us cares to admit, isn’t that right, Felix?”

  Maldenado laughed, but all Felix managed was a polite nod.

  Maldenado hitched his pants and hooked his butt on the front of his desk, one foot on the floor, the other dangling in front of me.

  “So, Abbot tells me you have some concerns about my friends at Leverage. They’re a fine firm. Been in business for many years. Just a fine group of people.”

  “That’s good to hear. I’m hoping you can answer a few questions about them.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, I don’t know much about those folks, but Felix here, well, Felix knows just about everything about everyone in this town, so that’s why he’s here. He knows where the bodies are buried, I’ll tell you that.”

  Maldenado laughed again, but Felix still didn’t join him.

  Felix said, “Why don’t you freshen your coffee, Henry?”

  Maldenado glanced at his cup and appeared surprised at how empty it was.

  “You know, I’ll do that. I’ll be right back, but you boys don’t wait for me.”

  Maldenado closed the door on the way out. I glanced at Dowling, and Dowling seemed to be sizing me up. The office felt different with Maldenado gone, as if it suddenly belonged to Dowling and maybe always had. I let him look.

  He said, “So. You’re the boy got the sonofabitch who killed Frank’s daughter.”

  “My partner and I. I wasn’t alone.”

  “She was a sweet kid. I met her a couple times.”

  I nodded.

  We looked at each other some more.

  He said, “Okay. What’s up?”

  “I believe Leverage Associates might be acting to suppress or subvert a murder investigation. Would they do that?”

  He shrugged with no more reaction than had I asked if they validate.

  “Would they? In my experience, people will do damn near anything. If you’re asking whether they’ve done that kind of thing in the past, my answer would be no. I’ve never heard them to be associated with anything that extreme. They’ve had clients get into trouble, sure, but never like that.”

  He stopped, waiting for the next question.

  “Are you familiar with their client list?”

  “Sure. They have five or six on the council, couple of commissioners, on up the line. Right now, I’d call it fourteen clients holding office and another thirty or so contenders.”

  “Could you get information about those individuals if I wanted it?”

  “Yes. You want their entire list?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Done. What else?”

  The door suddenly opened. Maldenado took half a step in and froze in the opening. Dowling and I glanced at him, but he backed out of the room, closing the door.

  Dowling said, “Forget him. What else?”

  “Do you know the name Debra Repko?”

  “No.”

  “She worked at Leverage as a first-year associate. That’s a training position where—”

  “I know what it is.”

  “She worked with several clients while she was there. Maybe a lot of them. Could you get their names?”

  “That one I can’t promise you. I can get some names, no doubt, but I’ll have to see. Was she screwing somebody?”

  “She was murdered almost two months ago. When her case was being investigated, Leverage didn’t want their client list made public or the clients questioned. They had a deputy chief named Marx crowd out the detectives.”

  Dowling seemed interested for the first time.

  “Thomas Marx?”

  “You know him?”

  “Never met, but he wants into politics. A lot of these guys do. He’s had a few conversations.”

  “It’s beyond the conversation stage. He’s signed up at Leverage.”

  Dowling seemed surprised.

  “Marx is with Leverage?”

  “They think they can position him for a shot at the council.”

  Dowling stared with the same surprised expression, then suddenly barked a single sharp laugh.

  “Of course. Wilts is with Leverage.”

  Casey Stokes had mentioned that Wilts thought Marx had what it took to get elected. I thought Dowling was saying the same, so I nodded along.

  “That’s right. Someone told me Wilts was a big supporter.”

  Dowling made the bark again.

  “Bet your ass he is. Marx was Wilts’s fixer. How do you think Marx got to the top of the glass house?”

  The glass house was Parker Center.

  “Marx took care of Wilts for years, and Wilts took care of Marx. Guess he still is. Wilts must have brought him in.”

  Wilts had been at Marx’s press conference, but I had seen Wilts at dozens of press conferences over the years and thought nothing of it. I had not known their relationship was deeper, or longer, and now a nervous tension grew in my belly. Debra Repko’s final event was a dinner for Nobel Wilts.

  “What kind of trouble did Wilts need fixed?”

  “Those days, Wilts was a notorious drunk. I’m talking blackouts. He was always getting pulled over or crashing his car. Couple of times he got out of hand with a broad. Whatever. He’d call Marx, and Marx would make it go away. That’s what fixers do.”

  “And Wilts returned the favors?”

  “Leverage wouldn’t be interested in a stiff like Marx unless he was holding an ace. I’m guessing Wilts brought Marx in as his successor. The old man must be thinking about calling it quits.”

  “As simple as that? Wilts tells Leverage Marx is his boy and Leverage takes him aboard?”

  “Well, Leverage isn’t doing it because they like his smile. This stuff costs money.”

  “So who’s paying the tab? Wilts?”

  Dowling made a flicking move with his hand.

  “Nah, he probably pressed one of his backers into footing the bill. They make the investment now, they get the favors later. Politics is like Oz, only you never see the magician behind the curtain.”

  “Can we find out?”

  He thought about it a moment, then checked his watch.

  “I’ll have to get back to you. Anything else? Henry has a full day.”

  I thought about what he had told me and all that went with it. Marx was no longer just a cop shading an investigation for publicity; now he was a cop who covered up crimes. I wondered how many crimes he had covered, and if Wilts was his only angel.

  “One more thing, Mr. Dowling. How far back do Marx and Wilts go?”

  “Gotta be fifteen or twenty years. Fifteen, for sure. I can tell you exactly how they got together. I heard it from someone who was there. You do what I do, you hear things, you learn from what you hear.”

  He went on without waiting for me to ask.

  “Wilts was still a supervisor, before his first run at the seat. Found himself shit-faced at Lenny Branigan’s, but that didn’t stop him from trying to drive. He didn’t make it half a mile. Sideswiped a line of parked cars, just raked right down their sides knocking off the mirrors, and ended up on the sidewalk. When he came to, Marx was wiping the blood from his face, had to be about three in the morning. Marx wasn’t even on duty that night, just happening by, and one thing led to another. Marx drove Nobel home, then brought his car to a boy in Glendale who worked fast for cash. I’ve used him myself. You know who told me this story?”

  I shook my head.

  “Wilts. Wilts said, you need a boy you can trust, you call this boy Marx. He was looking out for Marx even then, figuring I’d use him.”

  “Did you?”

  Dowling smiled.

  “I have my own fixers.”

  Dowling glanced at his watch again.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. I guess that’s it.”

  “Okay. You talk to Frank, tell him Chip Dowling sends his respects.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.”

  I thought of a final question when I reached the door.

  “One more thing—”

  He nodded.

  “What’s the worst thing Marx ever fixed?”

  “I don’t know the worst thing he fixed. All I know is the worst I’ve heard about.”

  I let myself out.

  27

  I SAT in my car in the strip mall parking lot, watching the women come and go without seeing them. The heat was suffocating. It baked down from the sky and bounced up from the parking lot and soaked into the car until the car became part of the oven. The heat came from all sides, and didn’t let up, but I still did not move. I didn’t like what I had learned from Dowling or what those things led me to think.

  The manila envelope with the articles and files I had collected was behind the passenger seat. I fingered through the printouts until I found the one I wanted, and reread it.

  Marx had investigated the murder of the first victim, Sondra Frostokovich, almost seven years ago. Described as an administrator for the city, her body had been found by workmen in an empty building on Temple Street, four blocks from where she worked in the city administration building. She was twenty-four years old, and had been strangled to death with an extension cord. Lindo had pointed out the blood dripping from her nose in the death album Polaroid. Three drops that, when compared to the coroner investigator’s crime scene pictures, established the Polaroid had been taken within moments of her death. When I closed my eyes, the frozen image returned to life, and the red pool continued to grow.

  The short article provided no personal information of any kind. No family members, spouse, or children were mentioned, nor was a place of birth or school affiliation. The article ended with the plea from Marx for anyone with knowledge of the crime to come forward. He had almost certainly worked the case with a partner, but the only officer identified was Detective-Sergeant Thomas Marx of Central Bureau Homicide.

  It was a long road from sergeant to deputy chief, and Marx had traveled that road in only seven years.

  I dialed Information and asked for any listing in any city area code for Frostokovich. It took a moment, but the operator found five listings scattered over three area codes—two male, one female, and two showing only initials. Good thing Sondra wasn’t a Jones or Hernandez.

  I called Edward Frostokovich first, but got no answer, not even a message machine.

  Grady Frostokovich was my second call. He answered on the fourth ring, sounding young and polite. I identified myself, and asked if he knew of or had been related to a Sondra Frostokovich.

  He said, “The one who was murdered?”

  “That’s right. I’m sorry to disturb you like this.”

  “Hey, no worries, I barely knew her. They found the guy. All this time later, they got him. How cool is that?”

  “I’m looking into the original investigation back at the time of her murder. Think you could help with that?”

  “Well, I would if I could, but she was my cousin, you know? Our family isn’t the closest family in the world.”

  “Was Sondra from here in L.A.?”

  “Oh, yeah. They lived in Reseda.”

  “Are her parents or sibs still here?”

  “That’s my Aunt Ida. Uncle Ronnie died, but her mom was Aunt Ida. You should talk to Aunt Ida.”

  There was an I. L. Frostokovich on my list.

  “Is that I. L. Frostokovich?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. She’s really nice. My mom hates her, but she’s really nice.”

  Grady was right. Ida was nice. I explained I was working with the family of the seventh and final victim, Debra Repko, and asked if she would be willing to tell me about her daughter. Five minutes later I was heading for Reseda.

  28

  IDA FROSTOKOVICH lived in a small tract home in the center of the San Fernando Valley, north of the Los Angeles River and fifteen degrees hotter than the basin side of the city. When Ida was a child, orange groves covered the valley floor as far as she could see with Zen perfection—identical rows of identical trees, each tree identically distant from its neighbors; row after row of low green clouds heavy with orange balls that smelled of sunshine. She remembered those times, and thought often of the trees, but during the boom years after the Second World War, the groves were bulldozed and the trees replaced by row after row of small, low-cost houses. Most of the houses were much the same in size and shape as the thousands of other houses there on the valley floor, but none of them smelled like sunshine.

  Ida had probably let the house go after losing both her daughter and her husband. The small stucco house with its composite roof, faded paint, and ragged yard seemed weary. A single orange tree from the original grove stood in the front yard like a lonely reminder of better times. Two more trees were in her backyard, the crowns of the trees visible past the roof. I circled the block twice before I stopped, checking to see if someone was watching her house, but found no one. The paranoia.

  I was walking up the drive when she opened the door. Ida had been waiting for me to arrive.

  “Mr. Cole?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come in where it’s cool.”

  Ida Frostokovich was a sturdy woman with big bones, a fleshy face, and nervous hands. Like the Repkos, she had created a shrine to her daughter, which I saw as soon as I entered. A poster-size portrait of Sondra hung on the wall over the television, with smaller pictures around it and still more pictures on a nearby credenza. The pictures preserved Sondra’s life from birth to death, and dominated the room. I had seen similar shrines when I returned from the war and sought out the parents of friends who had died. A husband or wife could be lost and you would never know they were gone, but losing a child left an emptiness so large it screamed to be filled with memories.

  “You say the Repkos want to know about the original investigation?”

  “They’re trying to understand why it took so long to catch this man.”

  She settled into a Barcalounger and cupped one hand with the other, but the hands never quite rested.

  “Oh, I understand, believe me, and I don’t blame them. If the police would have caught this lunatic sooner, their daughter would still be alive.”

  “Something like that. Were you satisfied with the way Sondra’s investigation was handled?”

  “Ha. Seven years, and they still wouldn’t have him if he hadn’t blown his own brains out. I guess that should tell you something about my satisfaction level.”

  “Who notified you of the discovery in Laurel Canyon?”

 

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