Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

“If you don’t mind.”

“Nah,” said Galoway. “We’re here already.”

—

He led us another 1.9 miles past a spot where another group of houses appeared. Not the homogeneous development just past Laurel. The more typical L.A. random toss of bungalows and mansions and everything in between.

Again, without warning, the Jag made a sudden stop in front of a property on the south side of Mulholland.

Du Galoway got out, expressionless, and pointed to arched iron gates. Returning to the Jag, he flashed a brief smile. “Anything else?”

Milo said, “Can’t think of anything.”

“Good luck, then.” Hooking an oblivious U-ey, Galoway rumbled back toward Laurel.

Milo put on the hand brake and said, “Making friends and losing them.”

—

The property Galoway had indicated was on the corner of Mulholland and Marilyn Drive, hedged by twelve feet of dense, emerald-green ficus. The hedge ran along both streets, far enough on either arm to suggest a huge spread.

We walked to the gates. Two feet lower than the hedge, beefy iron pickets fashioned decades ago and updated by mint-green paint and gilded spearhead finials. A gently curving cobbled road climbed past an alternating array of Mexican fan palms, sagos, and Italian cypresses. At the top of the drive, the barest hint of white wall and red-tiled roof.

Milo said, “This was never anything but serious real estate. Time to learn more about Mr. Des Barres.”

CHAPTER 11

Sunset Boulevard was relatively fluid, so Milo took Laurel Canyon down to the Strip.

We cruised past dormant nightclubs, hair and nail salons, strip joints, skin palaces, sex shops, and cannabis cafés. Everything topped by gigantic recording- and movie-biz billboards. Some of the boards were electronic and kinetic. More movement up there than among loitering addicts, shuffling homeless, misdirected foreign tourists, and the occasional hooker hungry enough to venture out during daylight.

At San Vicente, Milo said, “On paper, Galoway sounded like the least likely source of info. Go know. What do you think of his conspiracy theory?”

“He was set up to fail? Maybe.”

“It happens. But then why open it up at all?”

I said, “We could be talking departmental politics. A token attempt to appease someone, nothing happens, the nets get hauled.”

“Who would the brass want to appease? Don’t see an optometrist from up north having much pull down here.”

“A guy like Des Barres might. So contrary to Galoway’s suspicions, he could be a would-be hero not a suspect. Dorothy was his love interest, he wanted to know what had happened to her and why.”

“Galoway got the case fourteen years after it happened, Alex. Long time to get all sentimental.”

I thought about that. “Des Barres died soon after Galoway took over, from some sort of disease. Terminal illness can change your perspective.”

“I guess. Either way, time to learn more about him. Another long-dead person.”

“Want me to call Maxine and see if he has an interesting past she knows about?”

Maxine Driver was a history prof at the U., the daughter of Korean immigrants who’d disappointed her parents by rejecting med school to become an expert on L.A. gangsters. In the past, she’d traded information for early access to closed-case files. Her work product: academic papers, book chapters, presentations at conferences.

Milo said, “Des Barres was a tycoon who hung with sketchy types?”

“A tycoon who shacked up with a much younger woman and gave her a Caddy.”

“Good point—sure, ask her. Meanwhile, I’ll buy a dust mask and see if I can find the book.”

“Galoway said it didn’t amount to much.”

“Anything’s better than nada.”

He shifted forward in the driver’s seat, jaw jutting, eyes narrow.

Work-mode.

Hooked.

—

No answer at Maxine’s campus office. I was leaving a message on her cell when she broke in.

“Just saw it was you. What’s up, Alex?”

“Looking for anything you have on a guy named Anton Des Barres.” I went through the same spelling recitation Galoway had given.

She said, “French guy or a guy with a French name?”

“Don’t know.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, Alex. He a small-timer?”

“Not a hood,” I said. “A rich guy who owned a company that made surgical equipment. But there are hints of playboy so I thought he might’ve hung with some of your people.”

“My people.” She laughed. “Now you sound like my dad. You could be right, swinging types have always been drawn to the demimonde. Surgical equipment as in scalpels?”

“I believe so.”

“This some sort of Ripper deal?”

“A shooting thirty-six years ago.” I gave her the basics on Dorothy Swoboda.

“Des Barres was her boyfriend and hence a suspect?”

“It’s not at that level, yet.”

“What got this going after all this time?”

“She had one child, a three-year-old daughter. She’s pushing forty, retired, rich, and curious.”

“Retired from what?”

“Gym wear. Company called Beterkraft. She started it and sold it.”

“That’s hers? Love their stuff. Use it all the time.”

“Happy to pass that along, Maxine.”

“Like she’d ever care about a starving academic struggling to avoid the assault of time. So in terms of Des Barres, we’re talking big money, hence big influence, hence trying to dig up dirt.”

“Exactly.”

“Why not?” she said. “I’m getting a little bored with Bugsy and Mickey and their ilk, this could lead me in an interesting direction. Notorious unsolveds. Enriched, of course, by a whole bunch of scholarly theory. And we have worked well together, Alex.”

“That we have.”

“So tit for tat?” she said. “Same as before.”

“No problem.”

“You’re authorized by Milo to deal.”

“Can’t imagine he’d object.”

“I sure hope not. The last one, I got three peer-reviews plus coverage on the U.’s website. Insulated me from having to take over as department head when the rotation reached me.”

“No interest in bossing people around?”

“On the contrary, I love bossing people around, ask my husband. Problem is nowadays leadership means contending with Orwellian word-warp, chronically whining students, and terminally mewling faculty members. Utter the wrong syllable, you face a tribunal. You haven’t encountered that at the old-school med school?”

“I’m not important enough,” I said.

“You’re a full prof, no?”

“Still have the title but I don’t get paid and the last time I lectured was a year ago. Third-year pediatric residents. Too exhausted to protest anything.”

“Ha. Maybe my parents were right. Wrong field. Let me think about that for a sec…nah. All right, I’ll see what I can find about Monsieur Des Barres. What was the name of his company?”

“Don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“He was in his sixties twenty years ago, had a big place on Mulholland.”

“That’s it?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Hmm…you do understand that his not being a gangster lowers the chance of him cropping up in my database. Unless he was a thinly veiled bad guy with a respectable front who appears in a footnote or a side reference. And those guys usually ran restaurants and clubs, they didn’t get into surgical steel.”

“Understood. But like you said, maybe a hanger-on.”

“Just so you don’t get your hopes up,” she said.

“I will be appropriately pseudo-pessimistic.”

“And Milo?”

“He’ll be genuine pessimistic and I’ll give him emotional support.”