The Murder Book

"No," said Milo. "It's great."

"Thanks." She touched his arm, let the cigarette drop to the pavement, ground out the butt, got a dreamy look in her eyes. Audition fever. "Well, gotta go."

"Thanks for your time," said Milo, reaching into his pocket and slipping her another twenty.

"You are soooo nice," she said.

"Not usually."

"Oh, I bet you are- let me ask you, you meet people, right? Know any decent agents? 'Cause mine is an asshole."

"Only agents of destruction," he said.

Puzzlement lent the beautiful young face temporary complexity. Then her actor's instincts cut in: Still not comprehending, but recognizing a cue, she smiled and touched his arm again. "Right. See you around."

"Bye," said Milo. "By the way, what does Brad do?"

"Walks around with them," she said.

"A walking-around guy."

"You got it- they all need them."

"Hollywood types?"

"Rich types with gross bodies."

"Know Brad's last name?"

"Larner. Brad Larner. He's kind of a jerk."

"How so?"

"He's just a jerk," said Val. "Not friendly, never smiles, never tips. A jerk."

He drove the two blocks to Santa Monica Boulevard, made a right turn, and circled back to Melrose, this time approaching the corner from the east and parking just up from the shuttered Chinese place. The rest of the boulevard was taken up by art galleries, all closed, and the street was dark and quiet. He got out, stepped over the Chinese place's heavy chain, and walked across a lot starting to sprout weeds through the cracks and dotted with mounds of dry dog shit. Finding himself a nice little vantage point behind one of the dead restaurant's gateposts, he waited, taking in the Chinese place's grimness up close- black paint flaking, bamboo shredding.

Another dream rent asunder; he liked that.

Nowhere to sit, so he continued to stand there, well concealed, watching nothing happen at Sangre de Leon for a long time. His knees and back began to hurt, and stretching and squatting seemed to make matters worse. Last Christmas, Rick had bought a treadmill for the spare bedroom, used it religiously every morning at five. Last month, he'd suggested that Milo give regular exercise a try. Milo hadn't argued, but neither had he complied. He was no good in the morning, usually pretended to be asleep when Rick left for the ER.

He checked his Timex. The Cossacks and Brad "the jerk" Larner had been inside for over an hour, and no other patrons had materialized.

Larner was no doubt the Achievement House director's son. The harasser's son. Yet another link between the families. Daddy putting up Crazy Sister Caroline at Achievement House, buying jobs for himself and Junior.

Co

Twenty-year-old fix, John G. Broussard doing the dirty work.

Schwi

Why now?

Maybe because Broussard had reached the top and Schwi

Using Milo to do the dirty work…

Then he falls off a docile horse…

Headlights from the north end of Robertson slapped him out of his rumination. Two sets of lights, a pair of vehicles approaching the Melrose intersection. The traffic signal turned amber. The first car passed through legally and the second one ran the red.

Both pulled up in front of Sangre de Leon.

Vehicle Number One was a discreet, black, Mercedes coupe- surprise, surprise!- whose license plate he copied down quickly. Out stepped the driver, another business-suit, moving so quickly the pink ladies had no time to get his door. He slipped a bill to the nearest valet, anyway, let Milo have a nice, clean look at him.

Older guy. Late sixties to midseventies, balding, with a sparse gray comb-over, wearing a boxy beige suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. Medium height, medium build, clean-shaven, the skin falling away from the bone at jowls and neck. No expression on his face. Milo wondered if this was Larner, Senior. Or just a guy out for di

If so, it wouldn't be a solo di

Vehicle Two was also black, but no feat of German engineering. Big, fat Crown Victoria sedan, anachronistically oversize. The only places Milo'd seen those things, recently, were government offices, but this one didn't have state-issue e plates.

But neither did lots of unmarkeds and for a second, he thought, department brass? and experienced a rush of expectations met too easily: documenting cop honchos with the Cossacks, why the hell hadn't he remembered to bring a damn camera?

But the moment the first guy out of the Crown Victoria turned and showed his face, it was a whole different story.

Long, dark, lizard face under a black pompadour.

City Councilman Eduardo "Ed the Germ" Bacilla, the official representative of a district that encompassed a chunk of downtown. He of the serious bad habits and poor work habits- Bacilla attended maybe one out of every five council meetings and a couple of years ago he'd been nabbed in Boyle Heights trying to buy powdered coke from an undercover narc. Quick and frantic negotiations with the D.A.'s Office had led to the draconian sentence of public apology and public service: two months on graffiti-removal detail, Bacilla working alongside some of the very gang-bangers he'd favored with city-funded scam rehab programs. Lack of a felony conviction meant the councilman could keep his job, and a recall effort by a leftist homeboy reformer sputtered.

And now here was ol' Germ, kissing up to Tan Suit.

So was Crown Victoria Rider Two, and guess what: another civil stalwart.

This guy had looped his arm around Tan Suit's shoulder and was laughing about something. No expression on Suit's CEO face.

Mr. Jocular was older, around Tan Suit's age, with white temples and a bushy, white mustache that concealed his upper lip. Tall and narrow-shouldered, with an onion-bulb body that a well-cut suit couldn't enhance, and the ice-eyed cu

City Councilman James "Diamond Jim" Horne. He of the suspected kickbacks and briberies and ex-wives hush-moneyed to silence back in the good old days when domestic violence was still known as wife-beating.

Milo knew through the LAPD gravevine that Horne was a longtime, serious spouse-basher with a penchant for pulverizing without leaving marks. Like Germ Bacilla, Diamond Jim had always managed to squeak through without arrest or conviction. For over thirty years, he'd served a district that bordered Bacilla's, a north-central strip filled with ticky-tack houses and below-code apartments. Once solidly working-class white, Horne's constituency had turned 70 percent poor Hispanic, and the councilman had watched his vote pluralities tumble. From 90 percent to 70. A series of opponents with surnames ending in "ez" had failed to topple Horne. The corrupt old bastard got the potholes fixed, and plenty else.

Germ and Diamond Jim, walking arm in arm with Tan Suit, heading for the steel door of Sangre de Leon.

Milo returned to the Taurus and, using the ID of a Pacific Division Vice detective he despised, pulled up the Mercedes coupe's plates.

He half expected another corporate shield, but the numbers came back matching a four-year-old Mercedes owned by a real-life person.

W.E. Obey

The three hundred block of Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.