Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

Emboldened by Ali’s deferential manner and by the liquor warming him, Leonard went for it. With sweat dampening his T-shirt, he said, “What would she say if I told her you planted a bug in her house?”

Ali was genuinely perplexed and said, “A bug?”

“A listening device,” Leonard said. “I bet she’d hire a security company to sweep the joint and they’d find it. Where’d you put it? In the bedroom?”

Hanging on to a semblance of a smile, Ali said, “You talk very much shit, Leonard.”

“I hung around and saw you go in that garage, Ali,” Leonard said. “And you were carrying that folder you never wanted in the first place. And you were in there for thirteen minutes. What would the little woman say about them little nuggets of information?”

Ali Aziz blinked first, unsmiling, his teeth clenched. Then, voice trembling, he said, “I do not put no bugs in the house. I just read the document and put the folder back in the house. That is all.”

“I guess you could try to sell that to the little woman,” Leonard said. “But she ain’t gonna buy it. And after they do the electronics sweep and find the bug, you are gonna be in a world of hurt when her lawyer tells the judge. Actually, what you done was a serious crime, Ali. You committed a felony, entering that house and planting a bug.”

For a frightening moment, Ali Aziz thought about the pistol in his desk drawer. He quickly came to his senses, knowing he could never get away with that. Not here, not now. Instead, with a voice hoarse and raspy, he said, “I understand. I shall give you the business loan, Leonard. But I do not have so much money here. Come back next week.”

“I want it now, Ali,” Leonard said. “We can start with what you got on you. I seen you peel off five grand right outta your pocket one time after Whitey and me got you a load of booze.”

Without a word, Ali Aziz reached a trembling hand into his trousers pocket, pulled out his roll of $100 bills, and tossed it on the desktop, gold money clip and all.

Leonard finished his drink, poured another, and removed the money clip and pushed it back to Ali. He counted while Ali sat trying with all of his self-control not to leap across the desk and get the thief’s skinny neck in his fingers and squeeze.

After he finished counting, Leonard said, “You let me down. You only got twenty-one hundred here. Go to your safe and get the rest. Whadda you got, a floor safe?”

Ali Aziz could barely get out the words, but he managed to say, “Please go to the bar, Leonard. Have one more drink. Come back and I shall have the money.”

“Sure,” Leonard said. “But you don’t gotta worry about me seeing your safe. I never steal from a friend.”

Leonard Stilwell’s legs were rubbery when he walked down the passageway to the main room, and he knew it wasn’t the booze. He had just pulled off the biggest score of his life! It was scary but he’d stung that fucking Ay-rab with ease, and there was no reason he couldn’t do it again before Ali’s ex-wife moved out of the house.

What was it Ali had said? Escrow was closing pretty soon? After that, and after the divorce shit was all worked out, a shakedown wouldn’t work anymore. In fact, Ali could retrieve the listening device himself by then, or he might even have somebody else break into the house and get it out of there in order to get Leonard off his back. But Leonard thought he ought to be able to burn Ali Aziz one more time, maybe in a few days, before Ali had a chance to react to what had just happened to him. Leonard figured that in business, timing was everything.

He was so utterly stoked, with more money in his pocket than he’d ever had in his life, that he sat by the stage and stuffed a $20 bill into the G-string of the dancer, a big, busty babe in a cowboy hat who’d licked her lips and winked at him. Then, when he finished his drink, after tipping the cocktail waitress $10, he walked back down the passageway. But suddenly he stopped and felt a wave of fear sweep over him. It was safe enough here with all the people around, but he thought of how Ali’s face had gone deathly pale. That swarthy camel fucker had turned whiter than Leonard for a minute there. Whiter than a corpse.

Leonard grabbed the first busboy to walk past him, handed the Mexican a $10 bill, and said, “Come with me to the boss’s office.”

He knocked this time, then pushed the door open gingerly, holding the Mexican by the arm and saying, “Ali, I brought the help with me.”

Ali was sitting at the desk, staring at the doorway, his hands folded under his chin. The look on his face was as grim as Leonard had seen on the strong-arm robber last night after he got the word that their new cellie was a short-eyes kiddie raper.

Ali said, “Please come in.”

“I’ll leave the door open,” Leonard said. Then to the Mexican, “What’s your name, son?”

“Marcos,” the kid said.

“Okay, Marcos, hang there for a minute,” Leonard said, leaving the door open so that Ali knew there was a witness, in case violence was on his mind. Then Leonard hurried across the room to Ali’s desk and picked up the stack of currency awaiting him.

“Good-bye, Leonard,” Ali said. “I do not want no more loans between us.”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” Leonard said. “This is what they call squid pro quo. That’s lawyer talk and it means we’re straight with each other.”

When he left the office, he handed the busboy another $10 and said, “Thanks for being my bodyguard, son.”

Ali Aziz entered his little half bathroom, closed the door, locked it, turned on both water taps to muffle the sound, and, gripping the sink, screamed until drool ran down his chin.

BIX RAMSTEAD WAS FEELING much more alive after having had a nap and a shower and shave. He dressed in a pale blue Oxford shirt and clean chinos and swallowed some aspirin to diminish the raging headache. He felt resolute enough to resist Margot Aziz now, while the sun was still high enough over the Hollywood Hills and his resolve had not been shattered by six or eight ounces of booze. That’s all it took when he was around her, that alluring young woman so different from his wife.

Bix didn’t believe that Margot was truly in love with him, as she claimed. Her miserable marriage made her think so. But to have a woman like Margot Aziz professing her love for him, so passionate for him, had been overwhelming. Margot wasn’t shy like his wife, Darcey. She was assertive and sophisticated and always knew just what to say. She was mischievous and funny and made him feel more worldly, more important, than he was or ever could be. And Margot made him feel young like her.

When Bix was able to step back and analyze it soberly, none of it made sense. They had been intimate for only five months. They’d had sexual encounters only half a dozen times in those five months, always in hotels, where she’d rented a room and waited for him until he got off duty. And always she had provided drinks to allay his fears and guilt. He’d been besotted by this perplexing young woman who claimed she’d never betrayed her husband before meeting Bix, and who made him believe it.

Bix parked his minivan in her driveway and Margot answered the door very quickly. She was dressed the way she often was when they had evening clandestine meetings. She wore creamy tailored pants that hugged her body, a simple black shell, a delicate gold necklace, no earrings, no bling. Her ears were perfect and she seldom adorned them. Her shoulders were wide and square, her tan was year-round.

Bix was glad she was not wearing low-cut jeans and a rising jersey that exposed her muscular belly, as she sometimes dressed for a daytime rendezvous. That’s when she looked most sensual.