does a better job than they’re doing now. And you know what, we’re going to take the burden of decision off your shoulders, Bob. With all the people dying here, getting a court order to search your tenant rolls will be a snap.”
He patted Pena’s shoulder with terrifying gentleness. “One other thing. Bob. If I suspect you’ve concealed or monkeyed with those rolls before I get access to them, I’ll have you cuffed, booked, and sitting in a cell faster than you can say obstruction of justice.”
Pena’s shoulders sagged. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Do what you gotta do.” Smiling wanly, Pena picked up his sandwich. Held it out. “Want it? Lost my appetite.”
“Tsk,” said Milo.
“Do what you gotta do,” Pena repeated. “Free country.”
* * *
—
We returned to the unmarked where Milo put his cell on speaker and speed-dialed Assistant D.A. John Nguyen.
Nguyen listened to the specifics. “So the company’s either hiding something or they’re just bureaucratic assholes. Unfortunately, either way, you’ve got no grounds to pry their cold, dead fingers from their corporate info.”
“C’mon, John.”
“Being a shithead isn’t a crime, Milo. If it was, both state legislatures and the governor would be eating jail food.” Nguyen laughed. “Which is a cool fantasy, no? You can try getting paper from one of your sap judges but don’t hope for much. Problem is, you’re not dealing with a specific suspect. This is a civil matter, judges don’t want to wade in that septic tank.”
“I’m gonna go for it.”
“It’s your time and effort. Don’t call me up and bitch, ’cause I’m gonna say—”
“I told you so.”
“Toi da noi voi anh roi.”
“What’s that?”
“I told you so in Vietnamese.”
“Sounds nicer.”
“Not when my mother says it—tell you what I’ll do. I’ll check out this company, see if they’ve got any local liabilities—not just a few people croaking on dope. The kind of civil stuff certain judges will take on.”
“Such as?”
“High rate of tenant complaints, poor maintenance, rent gouging, lax payment of property taxes and utilities, failure to comply with inspections. Something serious comes up, leveraging a bit of stupid footage shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Thanks, John. How do you say it in Vietnamese?”
“No idea, Mom never thanks me.” Nguyen laughed. “Oh, yeah. Kam ung.”
CHAPTER
36
Phone back in pocket, Milo consulted his Timex. “Still early. Not that I’ve accomplished anything. You up for another try with Susie’s mom or should I drop you at home?”
I said, “I’m free.”
He said, “If that’s a statement of spiritual and emotional well-being, I find it offensively smug.”
* * *
—
We were back in the Valley half an hour later. Focusing the online map revealed Mentor Place as a twig in a bramble of side streets. Milo GPS’d and followed the directions of a sultry female robot. Three brief twists off Laurel followed by two equally stunted straightaways and a surprise right turn finally got us there.
The kind of place where GPS made a difference: a stunted, two-block afterthought, narrower than any other in the neighborhood.
Probably a converted back alley from the Valley’s postwar boom, when ranches and citrus groves buckled before an influx of sun-seekers, G.I.’s at loose ends, industrious optimists, and self-inventors of varying morality. A human tsunami, flooding the region with hope and recklessness and avarice, every inch of loam up for bid.
The houses lining Mentor Place fit the notion of barrel-bottom: old, small, undistinguished, and from the frequent cracks and skewing, structurally iffy.
The street merited even more than L.A.’s usual level of municipal neglect. The road was puckered and potholed, curbs had crumbled, fissured sidewalks shrugged upward where burrowing tree roots had triumphed. The trees were a random assortment placed at irregular intervals and in need of grooming. Some of them—carobs and jacarandas and orchids—had dropped blossoms and branches and pollen that collected in heaps of unexploited mulch. A few were dead and listed ominously.
The house where Susie Koster had lived as a teen was still green—one tone lighter than lime—and scraped yellow in spots. As promised by the assessor, the squat box shared an unfenced lot with three identical bungalows, two painted white, one daring to be mauve. A few geraniums ran along the front of one of the white houses. Otherwise, the entire property was flat brown dirt backed by twenty dense feet of eugenia hedge.
Decades ago, a parasite had killed off acres of estate-concealing eugenia on the Westside, the pests hopping from mansion to mansion. Maybe isolation and neglect had its advantages.
No cars in any of the driveways. Working people.
Milo looked at his watch again. “No way I