Whispers. Part 28

Suddenly, his eye was caught by a fuzzy white dot just south of the winery, a single smudge of light in the middle of a vineyard, approximately where the Frye house stood. Lights in the Frye house? There wasn't supposed to be anyone there. Bruno had lived alone. Joshua squinted, but without his gla.s.ses, everything at a distance tended to grow hazier the harder he tried to focus on it. He couldn't tell if the light was at the Frye place or at one of the administration buildings between the house and the main winery complex. In fact, the longer he stared the less he was sure that it was a light he was watching; it was faint, lambent; it might only be a reflection of moonlight.

He went to the nightstand and, not wanting to turn on a lamp and spoil his night vision, he felt for his gla.s.ses in the dark. Before he found them, he knocked over an empty water gla.s.s.

When he got back to the window and looked up into the hills again, the mysterious light was gone. Nevertheless, he stood there for a long while, a vigilant guardian. He was executor of the Frye estate, and it was his duty to preserve it for final distribution in accordance with the will. If burglars and vandals were stripping the house, he wanted to know about it. For fifteen minutes, he waited and watched, but the light never returned.

At last, convinced that his weak eyes had deceived him, he went back to bed.

Monday morning, as Tony and Frank pursued a series of possible leads on Bobby Valdez, Frank talked animatedly about Janet Yamada. Janet was so pretty. Janet was so intelligent. Janet was so understanding. Janet was this, and Janet was that. He was a bore on the subject of Janet Yamada, but Tony allowed him to gush and ramble. It was good to see Frank talking and acting like a normal human being.

Before checking out their unmarked police sedan and getting on the road, Tony and Frank had spoken to two men on the narcotics squad, Detectives Eddie Quevedo and Carl Hammerstein. The word from those two specialists was that Bobby Valdez was most likely selling either cocaine or PCP to support himself while he pursued his unpaid vocation as a rapist. The biggest money in the L.A. drug market was currently in those two illegal but extremely popular substances. A dealer could still make a fortune in heroin or gra.s.s, but those were no longer the most lucrative commodities in the underground pharmacy. According to the narcs, if Bobby was involved in drug traffic, he had to be a pusher, selling directly to users, a man at the lower end of the production and marketing structure. He was virtually penniless when he got out of prison last April, and he needed substantial capital to become either a manufacturer or an importer of narcotics. "What you're looking for is a common street hustler," Quevedo had told Tony and Frank. "Talk to other hustlers." Hammerstein had said, "We'll give you a list of names and addresses. They're all guys who've taken falls for dealing drugs. Most of them are probably dealing again; we just haven't caught them at it yet. Put on a little pressure. Sooner or later, you'll find one of them who's run into Bobby on the street and knows where he's holed up." There were twenty-four names on the list that Quevedo and Hammerstein had given them.

Three of the first six men were not at home. The other three swore they didn't know Bobby Valdez or Juan Mazquezza or anyone else with the face in the mug shots.

The seventh name on the list was Eugene Tucker, and he was able to help them. They didn't even have to lean on him. Most black men were actually one shade of brown or another, but Tucker was truly black. His face was broad and smooth and as black as tar. His dark brown eyes were far lighter than his skin. He had a bushy black beard that was salted with curly white hairs, and that touch of frosting was the only thing about him, other than the whites of his eyes, that was not very, very dark. He even wore black slacks and a black shirt. He was stocky, with a big chest and bigger arms, and his neck was as thick as a wharf post. He looked as if he snapped railroad ties in two for exercise--or maybe just for fun.

Tucker lived in a high-rent townhouse in the Hollywood Hills, a roomy place that was spa.r.s.ely but tastefully furnished. The living room had only four pieces in it: a couch, two chairs, a coffee table. No end tables or fancy storage units. No stereo. No television set. There weren't even any lamps; at night, the only light would come from the ceiling fixture. But the four pieces that he did have were of remarkably high quality, and each item perfectly accented the others. Tucker had a taste for fine Chinese antiques. The couch and chairs, which recently had been reupholstered in jade-green velvet, were all made of hand-carved rosewood, a hundred years old, maybe twice that, immensely heavy and well-preserved, matchless examples of their period and style. The low table was also rosewood with a narrow inlaid ivory border. Tony and Frank sat on the couch, and Eugene Tucker perched on the edge of a chair opposite them.

Tony ran one hand along the rosewood arm of the couch and said, "Mr. Tucker, this is marvelous."

Tucker raised his eyebrows. "You know what it is?"

"I don't know the precise period," Tony said. "But I'm familiar enough with Chinese art to know this is definitely not a reproduction that you picked up on sale at Sears."

Tucker laughed, pleased that Tony knew the value of the furniture. "I know what you're thinking," he said good-naturedly. "You're wondering how an ex-con, just two years out of the stir, can afford all this. A twelve-hundred-dollar-a-month townhouse. Chinese antiques. You're wondering if maybe I've gotten back into the heroin trade or some allied field of endeavor."

"In fact," Tony said, "that's not what I'm asking myself at all. I am wondering how the devil you've done it. But I know it's not from selling junk."

Tucker smiled. "How can you be so sure?"

"If you were a drug dealer with a pa.s.sion for Chinese antiques," Tony said, "you'd simply furnish the entire house at a single crack, instead of a piece or two at a time. You are clearly into something that earns a lot of bread, but not nearly as much as you'd make distributing dope like you used to do."

Tucker laughed again and applauded approvingly. He turned to Frank and said, "Your partner is perceptive."

Frank smiled. "A regular Sherlock Holmes."

To Tucker, Tony said, "Satisfy my curiosity. What do you do?"

Tucker leaned forward, suddenly frowning, raising one granite fist and shaking it, looking huge and mean and very dangerous. When he spoke he snarled: "I design dresses."

Tony blinked.

Collapsing back in his chair, Tucker laughed again. He was one of the happiest people Tony had ever seen. "I design women's clothes," he said. "I really do. My name's already beginning to be known in the California design community, and some day it'll be a household word. I promise you."

Intrigued, Frank said, "According to our information, you did four years of an eight-year sentence for wholesaling heroin and cocaine. How'd you go from that to making women's clothes?"

"I used to be one mean son of a b.i.t.c.h," Tucker said. "And those first few months in prison, I was even meaner than usual. I blamed society for everything that happened to me. I blamed the white power structure. I blamed the whole world, but I just wouldn't put any blame on myself. I thought I was a tough dude, but I hadn't really grown up yet. You aren't a man until you accept responsibility for your life. A lot of people never do."

"So what turned you around?" Frank asked.

"A little thing," Tucker said. "Man, sometimes it amazes me how such a little thing can change a person's life. With me, it was a TV show. On the six o'clock news, one of the L.A. stations did a five-part series about black success stories in the city."

"I saw it," Tony said. "More than five years ago, but I still remember it."

"It was fascinating stuff," Tucker said. "It was an image of the black man you never get to see. But at first, before the series began, everybody in the slammer figured it would be one big laugh. We figured the reporter would spend all his time asking the same idiot question: 'Why can't all these poor black folks work hard and become rich Las Vegas headliners like Sammy Davis, Jr.?' But they didn't talk to any entertainers or sports stars."

Tony remembered that it had been a striking piece of journalism, especially for television, where news--and especially the human interest stories on the news--had as much depth as a teacup. The reporters had interviewed black businessmen and businesswomen who had made it to the top, people who had started out with nothing and eventually had become millionaires. Some in real estate. One in the restaurant business. One with a chain of beauty shops. About a dozen people. They all agreed that it was harder to get rich if you were black, but they also agreed that it was not as hard as they thought when they started out, and that it was easier in Los Angeles than in Alabama or Mississippi or even Boston or New York. There were more black millionaires in L.A. than in the rest of California and the other forty-nine states combined. In Los Angeles, almost everyone was living in the fast lane; the typical southern Californian did not merely accommodate himself to change but actively sought it and reveled in it. This atmosphere of flux and constant experimentation drew a lot of marginally sane and even insane people into the area, but it also attracted some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the country, which was why so many new cultural and scientific and industrial developments originated in the region. Very few Southern Californians had the time or patience for outmoded att.i.tudes, one of which was racial prejudice. Of course, there was bigotry in L.A. But whereas a landed white family in Georgia might require six or eight generations to overcome its prejudice toward blacks, that same metamorphosis of att.i.tudes often transpired in one generation of a Southern California family. As one of the black businessmen on the TV news report had said, "The Chicanos have been the n.i.g.g.e.rs of L.A. for quite some time now." But already that was changing, too. The Hispanic culture was regarded with ever-increasing respect, and the browns were creating their own success stories. Several people interviewed on that news special had offered the same explanation for the unusual fluidity of Southern California's social structures and for the eagerness with which people there accepted change; it was, they said, partly because of geology. When you were living on some of the worst fault lines in the world, when the earth could quake and move and change under your feet without warning, did that awareness of impermanence have a subconscious influence on a person's att.i.tudes toward less cataclysmic kinds of change? Some of those black millionaires thought it did, and Tony tended to agree with them.

"There were about a dozen rich black people on that program," Eugene Tucker said. "A lot of guys in the slammer with me just hooted at the TV and called them all Uncle Toms. But I started thinking. If some people on that show could make it in a white world, why couldn't I? I was just as clever and smart as any of them, maybe even smarter than some. It was a completely new image of a black man to me, a whole new idea, like a light bulb going on in my head. Los Angeles was my home. If it really offered a better chance, why hadn't I taken advantage of it? Sure, maybe some of those people had to act like Uncle Toms on their way to the top. But when you've made it, when you've got that million in the bank, you're n.o.body's man but your own." He grinned. "So I decided to get rich."

"Just like that," Frank said, impressed.

"Just like that."

"The power of positive thinking."

"Realistic thinking," Tucker corrected.

"Why dress designing?" Tucker asked.

"I took apt.i.tude tests that said I'd do well in design work or any aspect of the art business. So I tried to decide what I'd most enjoy designing. Now, I've always liked to choose the clothes my girlfriends wear. I like to go shopping with them. And when they wear an outfit I've picked, they get more compliments than when they wear something they chose themselves. So I hooked up with a university program for inmates, and I studied design. Took a lot of business courses, too. When I was finally paroled, I worked for a while at a fast food restaurant. I lived in a cheap rooming house and kept my expenses down. I drew some designs, paid seamstresses to sew up samples, and started hawking my wares. It wasn't easy at first. h.e.l.l, it was d.a.m.ned hard! Every time I got an order from a shop, I walked it to the bank and borrowed money against it to complete the dresses. Man, I was clawing to hold on. But it got better and better. It's pretty good now. In a year, I'll open my own shop in a good area. And eventually you'll see a sign in Beverly Hills that says 'Eugene Tucker.' I promise you."

Tony shook his head. "You're a remarkable man."

"Not particularly," Tucker said. "I'm just living in a remarkable place and a remarkable time."

Frank was holding the manila envelope that contained the mug shots of Bobby "Angel" Valdez. He tapped it against his knee and looked at Tony and said, "I think maybe we've come to the wrong place this time."

"It sure looks that way," Tony said.

Tucker slid forward on his chair. "What was it you wanted?"

Tony told him about Bobby Valdez.

"Well," Tucker said, "I don't move in the circles I once did, but I'm not completely out of touch either. I donate fifteen or twenty hours of my time every week to Self-Pride. That's a city-wide anti-drug campaign. I feel sort of like I've got debts to pay, you know? A Self-Pride Volunteer spends about half his time talking to kids, the other half working on an information-gathering program, sort of like TIP. You know about TIP?"

"Turn in Pushers," Tony said.

"Right. They have a number you can call and give anonymous tips about neighborhood drug dealers. Well, we don't wait for people to call us at Self-Pride. We canvas those neighborhoods where we know pushers work. We go door to door, talk to parents and kids, pump them for anything they know. We build up dossiers on dealers until we feel we've really got the goods, then we turn the dossiers over to the LAPD. So if this Valdez is dealing, there's a chance I'll know at least a little something about him."

Frank said, "I have to agree with Tony. You are rather remarkable."

"Hey, look, I don't deserve any pats on the back for my work at Self-Pride. I wasn't asking for congratulations. In my day I created a lot of junkies out of kids who might have done right if I hadn't been there to steer them wrong. It's going to take me a long, long time to help enough kids to balance the equation."

Frank took the photographs out of the envelope and gave them to Tucker.

The black man looked at each of the three shots. "I know the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He's one of about thirty guys we're building files on right now."

Tony's heartbeat accelerated a bit in antic.i.p.ation of the chase to come.

"Only he doesn't use the name Valdez," Tucker said.

"Juan Mazquezza?"

"Not that either. I think he calls himself Ortiz."

"Do you know where we can find him?"

Tucker stood up. "Let me call the information center at Self-Pride. They might have an address on him."

"Terrific," Frank said.

Tucker started toward the kitchen to use the phone in there, stopped, looked back at them. "This might take a few minutes. If you'd like to pa.s.s the time looking at my designs, you can go into the study." He pointed to a set of double doors that opened off the living room.

"Sure," Tony said. "I'd like to see them."

He and Frank went into the study and found that it was even more spa.r.s.ely furnished than the living room. There was a large expensive drawing table with its own lamp. A high stool with a padded seat and a spring back stood in front of the table, and beside the stool there was an artist's supply cabinet on wheels. Near one of the windows, a department store mannequin posed with head tilted coyly and shiny-smooth arms spread wide; bolts of bright cloth lay at its plastic feet. There were no shelves or storage cabinets; stacks of sketches and drawing tablets and draftsman's tools were lined up on the floor along one wall. Obviously, Eugene Tucker was confident that eventually he would be able to furnish the entire townhouse with pieces as exquisite as those in the living room, and in the meantime, regardless of the inconvenience, he did not intend to waste money on cheap temporary furniture.

Quintessential California optimism, Tony thought.

Pencil sketches and a few full-color renditions of Tucker's work were thumbtacked to one wall. His dresses and two-piece suits and blouses were tailored yet flowing, feminine yet not frilly. He had an excellent sense of color and a flair for the kind of detail that made a piece of clothing special. Every one of the designs was clearly the work of a superior talent.

Tony still found it somewhat difficult to believe that the big hard-bitten black man designed women's clothes for a living. But then he realized that his own dichotomous nature was not so different from Tucker's. During the day, he was a homicide detective, desensitized and hardened by all of the violence he saw, but at night, he was an artist, hunched over a canvas in his apartment-studio, painting, painting, painting. In a curious way, he and Eugene were brothers under the skin.

Just as Tony and Frank were looking at the last of the sketches, Tucker returned from the kitchen. "Well, what do you think?"

"Wonderful," Tony said. "You've got a terrific feeling for color and line."

"You're really good," Frank said.

"I know," Tucker said, and he laughed.

"Does Self-Pride have a file on Valdez?" Tony asked.

"Yes. But he calls himself Ortiz, like I thought. Jimmy Ortiz. From what we've been able to gather, he deals strictly in PCP. I know I'm not on solid ground when I start pointing the finger at other people ... but so far as I'm concerned, a PCP dealer is the lowest kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the drug trade. I mean, PCP is poison. It rots the brain cells faster than anything else. We don't have enough information in our file to turn it over to the police, but we're working on it."

"Address?" Tony asked.

Tucker handed him a slip of paper on which the address had been noted in neat handwriting. "It's a fancy apartment complex one block south of Sunset, just a couple of blocks from La Cienega."

"We'll find it," Tony said.

"Judging from what you've told me about him," Tucker said, "and from what we've learned about him at Self-Pride, I'd say this guy isn't the kind who's ever going to knuckle down and rehabilitate himself. You'd better put this one away for a long, long time."

"We're sure going to try," Frank said.

Tucker accompanied them to the front door, then outside, where the patio deck in front of the townhouse offered a wide view of Los Angeles in the basin below. "Isn't it gorgeous?" Tucker asked. "Isn't it something?"

"Quite a view," Tony said.

"Such a big, big, beautiful city," Tucker said with pride and affection, as if he had created the megalopolis himself. "You know, I just heard that the bureaucrats back in Washington made a study of ma.s.s transit possibilities for L.A. They were determined to ram some system or other down our throats, but they were stunned to find out it would cost at least one hundred billion dollars to build a rapid transit railway network that would handle only ten or twelve percent of the daily commuter crush. They still don't understand how vast the West is." He was rhapsodizing now, his broad face alight with pleasure, his strong hands tossing off one gesture after another. "They don't realize that the meaning of L. A. is s.p.a.ce--s.p.a.ce and mobility and freedom. This is a city with elbow room. Physical and emotional elbow room. Psychological elbow room. In L.A., you have a chance to be almost anything you want to be. Here, you can take your future out of the hands of other people and shape it yourself. It's fantastic. I love it. G.o.d, I love it!"

Tony was so impressed with the depth of Tucker's feeling for the city that he revealed his own secret dream. "I've always wanted to be an artist, to make a living with my art. I paint."

"Then why are you a cop?" Tucker asked.

"It's a steady paycheck."

"Screw steady paychecks."

"I'm a good cop. I like the work well enough."

"Are you a good artist?"

"Pretty good, I think."

"Then take the leap," Tucker said. "Man, you are living on the edge of the Western world, on the edge of possibility. Jump. Jump off. It's one h.e.l.l of a thrill, and it's so d.a.m.ned far to the bottom that you'll never crash into anything hard or sharp. In fact, you'll probably find exactly the same thing I found. It's not like falling down at all. You'll feel like you're falling up!"

Tony and Frank followed the brick wall to the driveway, past a jade-plant hedge that had thick juicy leaves. The unmarked sedan was parked in the shade of a large date palm.

As Tony opened the door on the pa.s.senger's side, Tucker called to him from the patio deck, "Jump! Just jump off and fly!"

"He's some character," Frank said as he drove away from the townhouse.

"Yeah," Tony said, wondering what it felt like to fly.

As they headed for the address that Tucker had given them, Frank talked a little about the black man and then a lot about Janet Yamada. Still mulling over Eugene Tucker's advice, Tony gave his partner only half his attention. Frank didn't notice that Tony was distracted. When he was talking about Janet Yamada, he really didn't attempt to carry on a conversation; he delivered a soliloquy.

Fifteen minutes later, they found the apartment complex where Jimmy Ortiz lived. The parking garage was underground, guarded by an iron gate that opened only to an electronic signal, so they couldn't see if there was a black Jaguar on the premises.

The apartments were on two levels, in randomly set wings, with open staircases and walkways. The complex was structured around an enormous swimming pool and a lot of lush greenery. There was also a whirlpool spa. Two girls in bikinis and a hairy young man were sitting in the swirling water, drinking a martini lunch and laughing at one another's banter as tendrils of steam writhed up from the turbulent pool around them.

Frank stopped at the edge of the Jacuzzi and asked them where Jimmy Ortiz lived.

One of the girls said, "Is he that cute little guy with the mustache?"

"Baby face," Tony said.

"That's him," she said.

"Does he have a mustache now?"

"If it's the same guy," she said. "This one drives a terrific Jag."

"That's him," Frank said.

"I think he lives over there." she said, "in Building Four, on the second floor, all the way at the end."