Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

“Now, what’s this about?” Bix said, sitting on the step.

Nate also sat and said, “Like I told you on the phone, the surfers jacked up some dude with four-five-nine priors who had an address in his car. It was a bad address but the closest number to it belongs to someone named Margot Aziz.”

Bix Ramstead gave Nate a blank look and said, “What’s that got to do with me?”

“Flotsam and Jetsam were wondering if this guy might be employed by the homeowner. His name’s Leonard Stilwell. A white dude about forty, medium height and weight, red hair and freckles. He drives a shitty old black Honda with primer spots on it. If he’s not working for the homeowner, he might be targeting the house for a four-five-nine. That’s what our sleuthing surfers think.”

“Again, what’s that got to do with me?” Bix said.

Nate had given Bix enough bait, but he hadn’t come close to taking it. So Nate decided to tell a half-truth.

“They drove up Mount Olympus a little later and saw one of our cars up there.”

Of course Bix thought that “our cars” referred to police vehicles, and he said, “What night was that?”

“I don’t know,” Nate said, telling another half-truth. “But they checked and found out who was driving the car that night.”

Bix Ramstead looked like he was pondering it and then he said, “Well, if it was the night before last, it was me.”

And that was all he said. He looked at Nate as though it was his turn to talk.

Nate said, “I’m not asking you about your business, Bix. It’s just that they thought this dude Stilwell is bad news and they just wondered-”

Interrupting, Bix said, “I know the woman who lives there. Last year we met at a Tip-A-Cop fund-raiser, and she calls me with problems occasionally.”

Nate would always look back on this moment and regret that he’d not been brave enough and honest enough to show and tell, to compare notes on Margot Aziz. But all he said was “I don’t suppose the problem had to do with somebody who fit the description of this guy Stilwell?”

“No,” Bix said, looking less tense, more forthcoming. “Actually, she’s worried about her husband, Ali Aziz. Do you know the Leopard Lounge?”

“Topless joint on Sunset?”

“That’s it.”

“Yeah, I know where it is.”

“Ali Aziz is the owner. Anyway, they’re in the middle of a raging divorce and custody battle, and she’s afraid he’s gonna do her harm.”

“Is he one of those nightclub-owning gangsters, like the Russians?”

“No,” Bix said. “He’s just some semi-sleazy operator from the Middle East who found his American dream selling T and A.”

Now Nate was the one feeling less tense. It was all in sync with what Margot Aziz had said to him. Of course, the big question tormenting Nate was whether Bix was more than just a professional acquaintance of Margot’s. Again he tried to summon the nerve to ask Bix, and to reveal to him that she had almost offered to let Nate move into her house, and that she’d spent an evening trying to pour booze down his throat.

But all he could bring himself to say was “So do you think somebody should ask if she knows Stilwell?”

“I don’t see why we should add to her worries. She’s paranoid enough about her husband. After all, you said it was a different house number.”

“Yeah, but the number he had doesn’t exist, and the Aziz address is the only one close to it.”

“If it’s bothering you, I guess I could call her tomorrow and ask if she knows the guy. Maybe he’s giving her a price on window washing or something. She happened to mention the house is in escrow and she’ll be moving.”

“It’s not bothering me. It’s bothering those log-head surfers.”

“I can call her,” Bix said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Nate tried to make it sound casual when he said, “Is she an older woman?”

“Why do you ask that?” Bix said.

“Well, if she’s an older woman, I wouldn’t wanna scare her.”

“An older woman in a custody battle?”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot,” Nate said. “She can’t be that old.”

Bix said, “I’ll give her a call tomorrow, just to be on the safe side.”

And that was all the nibbling around the edges that Hollywood Nate was prepared to do. He was convinced that Bix Ramstead was more than an acquaintance of Margot Aziz’s. Because anybody on the planet, when asked if Margot was an older woman, would have said that far from being an older woman, she was a Hills honey who could stop traffic at noon on Rodeo Drive or anywhere else, no matter how much competition was out there. But Bix hadn’t done that.

“Well, I gotta change and meet Ronnie for some carne asada,” Bix said. “Wanna join us?”

“Naw, I think I’ll go in the workout room and hit the treadmill,” Nate said. “I got my physical coming up in two weeks.”

“Catch you tomorrow,” Bix said.

And suddenly Nate Weiss didn’t feel so bad about not telling the whole truth to Bix Ramstead, because he was absolutely certain that Bix had been lying to him.

Midwatch unit 6-X-66 was having an uneventful tour of duty so far. Gert Von Braun had written a ticket to a guy in a Humvee who’d been gawking at a dragon hustling tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard. He blew through the stoplight at Western Avenue, almost broadsiding a car full of Asian kids. Then they’d refereed a family dispute involving a soldier just back from Iraq whose wife had moved in with her boss’s son and wouldn’t let the soldier have personal property that he said belonged to his mother.

Then, two hours into their watch, they’d received a message on their MDC computer that sent them to the bungalow of a ninety-year-old lifelong resident of East Hollywood who claimed that a possible home invader was watching her house. When Gert and Dan Applewhite arrived, they found the old woman sitting in a rocker on her front porch, stroking a Persian cat. A light burned inside and a cable news channel was on.

You could count the old woman’s bones through flesh the color of antique ivory, but she seemed very alert and described the suspicious man to Gert and Dan as having black hair and “large, liquid brown eyes.”

When Gert asked if she had any idea who the man was, the old woman said, yes, his name might be Tyrone Power.

Gert, who was nearly twenty years younger than Doomsday Dan, said, “Is this Tyrone Power a black man or white?”

“He’s white,” Dan said to Gert.

Gert looked at Dan and said, “How do you know?”

Instead of answering Gert, Dan said to the old woman, “Was he wearing a black mask, by any chance? And did he carry a sword?”

“No,” the old woman said. “Not this time.”

“On other occasions?” Dan asked.

“Oh, yes, sometimes,” she said.

“Did he ever carve a Z on any objects around here?”

“He might have,” she said. “He’s very handsome.”

“I know exactly where this man is,” Dan said.

“You do?” the old woman said.

“Yes, and I’ll see to it that he doesn’t come around bothering you again. You don’t have to worry about it. Do you live with someone?”

“Yes, I live with my daughter. She’s at work.”

“Well, you can sleep tight. We’ll take care of that fellow.”

“You won’t hurt him, will you?” she said. “He’s very handsome.”

“I promise we will not hurt him,” Dan Applewhite said.

When they were walking to their shop, Gert said, “So, okay. Who’s this Tyrone Power?”

“You’re too young to know, but he was a big movie star.”

“And you say you know exactly where to find him?”

“Yes, in a mausoleum at the Hollywood cemetery,” Dan Applewhite said.