Mulholland Dive: Three Stories Page 3

  “You there?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. I just can’t believe it, that’s all. I’m speechless. I didn’t think it would really happen.”

  You may be speechless but you’re talking, Clewiston thought. Keep it up.

  “You wanted it to happen, so it happened,” he said. “I told you I would take care of it.”

  “What happened?”

  “He went off the road on Mulholland. It’s an accident and you’re a rich lady now.”

  She said nothing.

  “What else do you want to know?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t know anything. It will be better when they come here.”

  “You’re an actress. You can handle it.”

  “Okay.”

  He waited for her to say more. He glanced down at the recorder on the center console and saw the red light glowing. He was good.

  “Was he in pain?” she asked.

  “Hard to say. He was probably dead when they pried him out. From what I hear, it will be a closed casket. Why do you care?”

  “I guess I don’t. It’s just sort of surreal that this is happening. Sometimes I wish you never came to me with the whole idea.”

  “You rather go back to being trailer-park trash while he lives up on the hill?”

  “No, it wouldn’t be like that. My attorney said the prenup has holes in it.”

  Clewiston shook his head. Second-guessers. They hire his services and then can’t live with the consequences.

  “What’s done is done,” he said. “This will be the last time we talk. When you get the chance, throw the phone you’re talking on away like I told you.”

  “There won’t be any records?”

  “It’s a throwaway. Like all the drug dealers use. Open it up, smash the chip, and throw it all away the next time you go to McDonald’s.”

  “I don’t go to McDonald’s.”

  “Then throw it away at the Ivy. I don’t give a shit. Just not at your house. Let things run their course. Soon you’ll have all his money. And you double-dip on the insurance because of the accident. You can thank me for that.”

  He was coming up to the hairpin turn that offered the best view of the Valley.

  “How do we know that they think it was an accident?”

  “Because I made them think that. I told you, I have Mulholland wired. That’s what you paid for. Nobody is going to second-guess a goddamn thing. His insurance company will come in and sniff around but they won’t be able to change things. Just sit tight and stay cool. Say nothing. Offer nothing. Just like I told you.”

  The lights of the Valley spread out in front of him before the turn. He saw a car pulled off at the unofficial overlook. On any other night he’d stop and roust them—probably teenagers getting it on in the backseat. But not tonight. He had to get down to the traffic office and write up his report.

  “This is the last time we talk,” he repeated.

  He looked down at the recorder. He knew it would be the last time they talked until he needed more money from her.

  “How did you get him to go off the road?” she asked.

  He smiled. They always ask that.

  “My friend Arty did that,” he said.

  “You brought a third party into this? Don’t you see that—”

  “Relax. Arty doesn’t talk.”

  He started into the turn. He realized the phone had gone dead.

  “Hello?” he said. “Hello?”

  He looked at the screen. No signal. These cheap throwaways were about as reliable as the weather.

  He felt his tires catch the edge of the roadway and looked up in time to pull the car back onto the road. As he came out of the turn, he checked the phone’s screen one more time for the signal. He needed to call her back, let her know how it was going to be.

  There still was no signal.

  “Goddamnit!”

  He slapped the phone closed on his thigh. He looked back at the road and froze as his eyes caught and held on two glowing eyes in the headlights. In a moment he broke free and jerked the wheel right to avoid the coyote. He then corrected but the wheels caught on the deep edge of the asphalt. He jerked harder and the front wheel broke free and jumped back up on the road. But the rear wheel slipped out and the car went into a slide.

  Clewiston had an almost clinical knowledge of what was happening. It was as if he were seeing it on a video screen as one of the accident re-creations he had prepared a hundred times for court hearings and prosecutions.

  The car went into a sideways slide toward the precipice. He knew he would hit the wooded fence—chosen by the city for aesthetic reasons over function and safety—and that he would crash through. He knew at that moment that he was probably a dead man.

  The car turned 180 degrees before blowing backward through the safety fence. It then went airborne and arced down, trunk first. Clewiston gripped the steering wheel as if it was still the instrument of his control and destiny. But he knew there was nothing that could help him now. There was no control.

  Looking through the windshield he saw the beams of his headlights pointing into the night sky. Out loud he said, “I’m dead.”

  The car plunged through a stand of trees, branches shearing off with a noise as loud as firecrackers. Clewiston closed his eyes for the final impact. There was a sharp roaring sound and a jarring impact. The airbag exploded from the steering wheel and snapped his neck back against his seat.

  Clewiston opened his eyes and felt liquid surrounding him and rising up his chest. He thought he had momentarily blacked out or was hallucinating. But then the water reached his neck and it was cold and real. He could see only darkness. He was in black water and it was filling the car.

  He reached down to the door and pulled on a handle but he couldn’t get the door to open. He guessed the power locks had shorted out. He tried to bring his legs up so he could kick out one of the shattered windows but his seat belt held him in place. The water was up to his chin now and rising. He quickly unsnapped his belt and tried to move again but realized the seat belt hadn’t been the only impediment. His legs—both of them—were somehow pinned beneath the steering column, which had dropped down during the impact. He tried to raise it but couldn’t get it to move an inch. He tried to squeeze out from beneath the weight but he was thoroughly pinned.

  The water was over his mouth now. By leaning his head back and raising his chin he gained an inch but that was rapidly erased by the rising tide. In less than thirty seconds the water was over him and he was holding his last breath.

  He thought about the coyote that had sent him over the side. It didn’t seem possible that what had happened had happened. A reverse cascade of bubbles leaked from his mouth and traveled upward as he cursed.

  Suddenly everything was illuminated. A bright light glowed in front of him. He leaned forward and looked out through the windshield. He saw a robed figure above the light, arms at his side.

  Clewiston knew that it was over. His lungs burned for release. It was his time. He let out all of his breath and took the water in. He journeyed toward the light.

  James Crossley finished tying his robe and looked down into his backyard pool. It was as if the car had literally dropped from the heavens. The brick wall surrounding the pool was undisturbed. The car had to have come in over it and then landed perfectly in the middle of the pool. About a third of the water had slopped over the side with the impact. But the car was fully submerged except for the edge of the trunk lid, which had come open during the impact. Floating on the surface was a lifelike mannequin that appeared to have been cut in half at the waist. Both top and bottom piece were dressed in military camouflage. The scene was bizarre.

  Crossley looked up toward the crest line, where he knew Mulholland Drive edged the hillside. He wondered if someone had pushed the car off the road with the mannequin behind the wheel, if this was some sort of prank.

  He then looked back down into the pool. The surface was calming and
he could see the car more clearly in the beam of the pool’s light. And it was then that he thought he saw someone sitting unmoving behind the steering wheel.

  Crossley ripped his robe off and dove naked into the pool.

  Two-Bagger

  The bus was forty minutes late.

  Stilwell and Harwick waited in a six-year-old Volvo at the curb next to the McDonald’s a block from the depot. Stilwell, the driver, chose the spot because he was betting that Vachon would walk down to the McDonald’s after getting off the bus. They would begin the tail from there.

  “These guys, they been in stir four, five years, they get out and want to get drunk and laid in that order,” Stilwell had told Harwick. “But something happens when they get off the freedom bus and see the golden arches waiting for them down the block. Quarter Pounder and fries, ketchup. Man, they miss that shit in prison.”

  Harwick smiled.

  “I always wondered what happened with real rich guys, you know? Guys who grew up poor, eatin’ fast food, but then made so much money that money doesn’t mean anything. Bill Gates, guys like that. You think they still go to McDonald’s for a grease fix every now and then?”

  “In disguise maybe,” Stilwell suggested. “I don’t think they drive up in their limos or anything.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  It was new-partner banter. It was their first day together. For Harwick it was also his first day in GIU. Stilwell was the senior partner. The veterano. They were working one of his jackets.

  After forty-five minutes and no bus, Stilwell said, “So, what do you want to ask me? You want to ask me about my partner, go ahead.”

  “Well, why’d he bug?”

  “Couldn’t take the intensity.”

  “Since I heard he went into special weapons, I assume you’re talking about your intensity, not the gig’s.”

  “Have to ask him. I’ve had three partners in five years. You’re number four.”

  “Lucky number four. Next question: What are we doing right now?”

  “Waiting on the bus from Corcoran.”

  “I already got that part.”

  “A meth cook named Eugene Vachon is on it. We’re going to follow him, see who he sees.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Harwick waited for more. He kept his eyes on the bus depot half a block up Vine. Eventually, Stilwell reached up to the visor and took a stack of photos out from a rubber band. He looked through them until he found the one he wanted and handed it to Harwick.

  “That’s him. Four years ago. They call him Milky.”

  The photo was of a man in his early thirties with bone-white hair that appeared to be pulled back in a ponytail. His skin was as white as a new lampshade and his eyes were the light blue of washed-out denim.

  “Edgar Winters,” Harwick said.

  “What?”

  “Remember that guy? He was like an albino rock star in the seventies. Looked just like this guy. He had a brother, Johnny. Maybe he was the albino.”

  “Missed it.”

  “So, what’s Milky’s deal? If you’re on him, he must be Road Saints, right?”

  “He’s on the bubble. He was cooking for them but never got his colors. Then he got popped and went to the Cork for a nickel. He’s got to crack an egg now if he wants in. And from what I hear, he wants in.”

  “Meaning whack somebody?”

  “Meaning whack somebody.”

  Stilwell explained how the Gang Intelligence Unit kept contacts with intelligence officers at prisons all over California. One such contact provided information on Vachon. Milky had been protected by incarcerated members of the Road Saints during his five-year stay at Corcoran State Penitentiary.

  As a form of repayment for that protection, as well as a tariff for his admittance to formal membership in the motorcycle gang turned prison and drug organization, Vachon would perform a contract hit upon his release.

  Harwick nodded.

  “You’re the resident expert on the Saints, so it goes to you. Got that. Who is the target?”

  “That’s the mystery we’re going to solve. We’re going to follow Milky and see if we can find that out. He might not even know himself right now. This could be an in-house thing or a subcontract job the Saints took on. A trade-off with the blacks or the eMe. You never know. Milky might not have his orders yet. All we know is that he’s been tapped.”

  “And we’re going to step in if we get the chance.”

  “When we get the chance.”

  “When we get the chance.”

  Stilwell handed the whole stack of photos to Harwick.

  “That’s the Saints’ active membership. By active I mean not incarcerated. Any one of them could be the target. They’re not above going after their own. The Saints are run by a guy named Sonny Mitchell who’s a lifer up at Ironwood. Anytime anybody on the outside acts up, talks about changing the leadership, maybe bringing it outside the walls, then Sonny has him cut down. Helps keep people in line.”

  “How’s he get the word from Ironwood to Milky over at Corcoran?”

  “The women. Sonny gets conjugals. He tells his wife, probably right in the middle of giving her a pop. She leaves, tells one of the wives visiting her man in the Cork. It goes like that.”

  “You got it down, man. How long’ve you been working these guys?”

  “Coming up on five years. Long time.”

  “Why didn’t you ever rotate out?”

  Stilwell straightened up behind the wheel and ignored the question.

  “There’s the bus.”

  Stilwell had been right. Milky Vachon’s first stop after getting off the bus was the McDonald’s. He ate two Quarter Pounders and went back to the counter twice for ketchup for his french fries.

  Stilwell and Harwick went in a side door and slipped into a booth positioned behind Vachon’s back. Stilwell said he had never met Vachon but that he needed to take precautions because it was likely Vachon had seen his photo. The Saints had their own intelligence net and, after all, Stilwell had been assigned full-time to the gang for half a decade.

  When Vachon went to the counter for ketchup the third time, Stilwell noticed that there was an envelope sticking out of the back pocket of his blue jeans. He told Harwick that he was curious about it.

  “Most of the time these guys get out, they want no reminders of where they’ve been,” he whispered across the table. “They leave letters, photos, books, everything behind. That letter, that must mean something. I’m not talking sentimental. I mean it means something.”

  He thought a moment and nodded to himself.

  “I’m gonna go out, see if I can set up a shake. You stay here. When he starts wrapping up his trash, come on out. If I’m not back in time, I’ll find you. If I don’t, use the rover.”

  Stilwell called sheriff’s dispatch and had them contact LAPD to send a car. He arranged to meet the car around the corner from the McDonald’s so their conference wouldn’t be seen by Vachon.

  It took almost ten minutes for a black-and-white to show. The uniformed officer pulled the car up next to Stilwell’s Volvo, driver’s window to driver’s window.

  “Stilwell?”

  “That’s me.”

  Stilwell pulled a badge out of his shirt. It was on a chain around his neck. Also hung on the chain was a gold 7 about the size of a thumbnail.

  “Ortiz. What can I do for you?”

  “Around the corner my partner’s keeping an eye on a guy just off the bus from Corcoran. I need to shake him. He’s got an envelope in his back pocket. I’d like to know everything there is to know about it.”

  Ortiz nodded. He was about twenty-five, with the kind of haircut that left the sides of his head nearly shaved and a healthy inch of hair up top. He had one wrist on the wheel, and he drummed his fingertips on the dashboard.

  “What was he up there for?”

  “Cooking crystal meth for the Road Saints.”

  Ortiz picked up the rhythm with his fingers.

&nb
sp; “He going to go easy? I’m by myself, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “At the moment, he should be easy. Like I said, he just got back on the ground. Just give him a kick in the pants, tell him you don’t want him on your beat. That ought to do it. My partner and I will have your back. You’ll be safe.”

  “Okay. You going to point him out?”

  “He’s an albino with a ponytail. Like that Edgar Winters guy.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. You can’t miss him.”

  “All right. Meet back here after?”

  “Yeah. And thanks.”

  Ortiz pulled away first and Stilwell watched him go. He then followed and turned the corner. He saw Harwick standing on the curb outside the McDonald’s. Moving north on foot half a block away was Vachon.

  Stilwell pulled to a stop next to Harwick, and his new partner got in the Volvo.

  “I was wondering where you were.”

  “Forgot to turn on my rover.”

  “Is that the shake car just went by?”

  “That’s it.”

  They watched in silence as the black-and-white pulled to the curb next to Vachon and Ortiz stepped out. The patrolman signaled Vachon to the hood of the cruiser and the ex-convict assumed the position without protest.

  Stilwell reached to the glove compartment and got out a small pair of field glasses and used them to watch the shakedown.

  Ortiz leaned Vachon over the hood and patted him down. He held him in that position with a forearm on his back. After checking him for weapons and coming up empty, Ortiz pulled the white envelope out of Vachon’s back pocket.

  With his body positioned over the hood, Vachon could not see what Ortiz was doing. With one hand Ortiz was able to open the envelope and look inside. He studied the contents for a long moment but did not remove them. He then returned the envelope to the man’s back pocket.

  “Can you see what it is?” Harwick asked.

  “No. Whatever it was, the cop looked at it in the envelope.”

  Stilwell continued to watch through the field glasses. Ortiz had now let Vachon stand up and was talking to him face-to-face. Ortiz’s arms were folded in front of him, and his body language suggested he was attempting to intimidate Vachon. He was telling him to get off his beat. It looked pretty routine. Ortiz was good.