was waiting for me at my car.
“Dude!” he said.
“Dawg,” I said.
“Guess what? I’m starting my own business!”
“Whoa. Does Wall Street know about this?”
“They will, man.”
“What’s this new venture called?”
“Psy Chic,” he said. Pronouncing it sheek. “Get it? It’s psychic services for the upscale crowd.”
“My congratulations,” I said. “I think you have found the perfect niche market right here in L.A.”
“Maybe you could help me incorporate,” he said.
“Definitely. You’re going to need the protection of the corporate veil.”
“Thanks, man. And I want you to be the first.”
“That’s okay—”
He grabbed my left wrist and closed his eyes. “Quiet, please. Just make your mind a blank.” Only put his left hand up in the air, like an antenna. “You are going to do something very, very important.”
I waited.
“And soon,” Only said.
He opened his eyes and let go of my wrist, and smiled.
“You’ll make a bundle,” I said.
168
I DROVE TO the Sip and found, as usual, Pick McNitt in a snit.
“When did saving money become an idiot thing to do?” he said. “Putting money in the bank, every paycheck, that’s what my dad did, how he raised his family. So what dipstick decided this was stupid, and convinced us to gamble, to become a nation of consumers instead of savers? To drown ourselves in debt to let the good times roll? Who was it? Who?”
I declined to guess and went to the back to read the paper. I hadn’t gotten too far in when my cell buzzed.
It was Zebker. “Courtesy call,” he said.
“Am I going to be happy about it?” I said.
“Remains to be seen. I just talked to Detective Stein. He gave me a courtesy call. Are you sitting down?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“Then here it is. The rifle you found in that guy’s house is not the one used to shoot the nun.”
I waited for a punch line. And waited.
“You still there?” Zebker said.
“I’m picking my jaw up off the floor, I’ll just be a second.”
“Yeah. The guy, his name’s Gruber, is an ex-felon. You were right about that. But the other guy’s clean. He’s back on the street.”
“Oh, that is good news. Anything else?”
Zebker said, “And I thought you’d like to know we traced the receipt at BevMo. Carl used his card to buy two bottles of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion, a liter of Pepsi, and a bag of pretzels. We found the tequila bottles, one empty and one half full, and pretzels in the apartment. We didn’t find a liter bottle or the bag.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Look, there’s things I don’t like about this file. But we can’t arrest your guy again, and if he didn’t do it, somebody else did, and maybe you can help me find out who.”
“How?”
“Just think about it, will you?” he said.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“You did your job. Fine. No hard feelings.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe I’ll bump into you at a Dodger game sometime. We can talk about it over a Dodger Dog.”
“Yeah, right, and—” I stopped myself.
“You there?” Zebker said.
“The inventory list. You have it there in front of you?”
“Just a second.” Pause. “Yeah, right here.”
“Is there a Dodger hat on it?”
Another pause. Then, “No. Why?”
For a few seconds I couldn’t speak. Then I said plenty.
169
AT SEVEN O’CLOCK that evening, I went to see my client once more.
Fayette was not happy to see me.
I walked right in and said, “I need to talk to Eric. Alone.”
“Hey, you can’t just—”
“Tell him I’m here,” I said. I went to their balcony door, opened it, and went outside to look at Warner Center Park.
“Now listen,” Fayette said, “we have plans—”
“What’s going on?” Eric said, coming into the living room. He saw me at the balcony door. “What’s up, Ty?”
Fayette said, “He wants to talk to you alone.”
“Fine,” Eric said.
“What’s this about?” Fayette asked.
“Eric can tell you later,” I said. “If he wants to.”
“What does that mean?” she said.
“It means I want to talk to Eric alone.”
Husband and wife looked at each other for a moment. Eric said, “Honey, why don’t you run out and do an errand or something?”
She seemed to pick up a message from him, because she didn’t say a word. She grabbed her purse from a table with a whiff of annoyance, and went out the door.
I was still standing between balcony and room. I could hear a TV going next door. Some show about the entertainment biz, I think it was.
Eric turned to me. “Sorry, Ty, she’s a little uptight. We’re still working on things.”
“I bet you are.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Confess,” I