Robert Crais - Free Fall

At sixteen minutes after noon, Harold Bellis came out of his building and walked north, probably off to a business lunch at a nearby restaurant. Eleven minutes later, his assistant, Martha, appeared out of the parking garage driving a late-model Honda Acura. She turned south.

I ran back across the street, rode the elevator up to Bellis’s floor, and hurried up to the receptionist, giving her the Christ-my-day-is-going-to-hell smile. “Hi. Martha said she’d leave my calendar with you.”

She gave confused. “Excuse me?”

“When I was here this morning, I left my date book in Harry’s office. I called and Martha said she’d leave it with you for me.”

The receptionist shook her head. “I’m sorry, but she didn’t.”

I gave miserable. “Oh, man. I’m screwed. It’s got all my appointments, and my account numbers. I guess it just slipped her mind. You think it’d be okay if I ran back there and checked?” I gave her expectant, and just enough of the little boy so that she’d know my fate in life rested squarely on her shoulders.

“Sure. You know the way?”

“I can find it.”

I went back past the assistants and the cubicles to Martha’s office. It was open. I went in and closed the door, then looked over the files until I found the client index. It took maybe three minutes to find the client index and twenty seconds to find the Lester files.

The articles of incorporation of the Lester Corporation, a California corporation, were among the first documents bound in the Lester Corp files. The president of the Lester Corporation was listed as one Akeem D’Muere. D’Muere’s address was care of The Law Offices of Harold Bellis, Attorney-at-Law. Sonofagun.

I flipped through the files and found records of the acquisitions of nine investment properties throughout the South Central Los Angeles area, as well as two properties in Los Feliz and an apartment building in Simi Valley. The purchases included two bars, a laun-dromat, and the pawnshop. The rest were residential. I guess the weasel-dust business pays.

The Premier Pawn Shop location was purchased nine months and two days prior to Charles Lewis Washington’s death. There was a contract with a property management firm for six of the businesses, as well as receipts from contractors for maintenance and renovation work performed on seven of the businesses. Each property had a separate file. The Premier showed plumbing and electrical work, as well as a new heating and air conditioning unit, and there was also a receipt from something called Atlas Security Systems for the installation of an Autonomous Monitoring System, as well as a Perimeter Security Alarm. Similar systems had also been purchased for the two bars. I wasn’t sure what an Autonomous Monitoring System was, but it sounded good. The cost of these things and their installation was $6,518.22, and there had been no mention of them in the police reports. Hmm.

I wrote down the phone number of Atlas Security Systems, then closed the file, and borrowed Martha’s phone to call them. I told a guy named Mr. Walters that I was a friend of Harold Bellis’s, that I owned a convenience store in Laguna Niguel, and that I was thinking of installing a security system. I told him that Harold had recommended Atlas and something called an Autonomous Monitoring System, and I asked if he could explain it. Mr. Walters could. He told me that the Autonomous Monitoring System was perfect for a convenience store or any other cash business, because it was an ideal way to keep an eye on employees who might steal from you. The AMS was a hidden video camera timed to go on and off during business hours, or whenever a motion sensor positioned to my specifications told it to. He gave me cost and service information, and then I thanked him and told him that I’d get in touch.

I hung up the phone, returned the files to their cabinets, left the door open as I had found it, then walked out past the receptionist and drove to my office.

As I drove, I thought about the video equipment.

No one shot at me on the way, but maybe they were saving that for later.

When I got to my office at five minutes past one, there was a message on my machine from James Edward Washington, asking me to call. I did.

James Edward said, “You know a taco stand called Raul’s on Sixty-five and Broadway?”

“No.”

“Sixty-five and Broadway. I’m gonna be there in an hour with a guy who knows about what’s going on. Ray came through.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

I hung up, then called Joe Pike. He answered on the first ring. “Pike.”

“I’m going to meet James Edward Washington at a place called Raul’s on Sixty-five and Broadway in about one hour. He says he’s got a guy who maybe knows something.”

“I’ll be there.”

“There’s more.” I told him about the Lester Corporation and Harold Bellis and the contract with Atlas Security. I told him about the video equipment.

Pike grunted. “So Akeem D’Muere saw what happened to Charles Lewis.”

“It’s possible.”

“And maybe it shows something different than the police report claims.”

“Yeah. But if that’s the case, why doesn’t Akeem use it to fry these guys? Why is he protecting them?”

Pike fell silent.

“Joe?”

“Watch your ass out there, Elvis. It’s getting too hot for these guys to sit by. They’re going to have to move.”

“Maybe that’s how we finally crack this. Maybe we make it so hot that they’ve got to move, and when they move we’ll see what they’re doing.”

“Maybe. But maybe their idea of a move is to take us out.”

Nothing like a little inspiration.

Thirty-two minutes later I exited the freeway and turned north on Broadway past auto repair shops and take-out rib joints and liquor stores that had been looted in the riots and not yet rebuilt.

Raul’s Taco was a cinderblock stand on the west side of Broadway between a service drive and an auto parts place that specialized in remanufactured transmissions. You ordered at a little screen window on one side of the stand, then you went around to the other side to wait for your food. There was a tiny fenced area by the pick-up window with a couple of picnic benches for your more elegant sit-down diners and a couple of little stand-up tables on the sidewalk for people in a rush. A large sign over the order window said WE HAVE SOUL-MAN TACOS. An hour before noon and the place was packed.

I drove up to Sixty-fourth, pulled a U-turn at the light, then swung back and parked at the curb in front of the transmission place. James Edward Washington and a young black guy maybe Washington’s age were sitting across from each other at one of the picnic tables, eating tacos. The second guy was wearing a neon orange hat with the bill pointed backwards, heavy Ray•Ban sunglasses, and a black Los Angeles Raiders windbreaker even though it was ninety degrees. Washington saw me and nodded toward the table. The other guy saw him nod and turned to watch me come over. He didn’t look happy. Most of the other people in Raul’s were watching me, too. Guess they didn’t get many white customers. Washington said, “This is the guy Ray was talking about. Cool T, this is the detective.”

Cool T said, “You say his name Elvis I thought he a brother.”

I said, “I am. Amazing what a marcel and skin lightener will do, isn’t it?”

Cool T shook his head and gave disgusted. “And he think he funny, too.”

Cool T started to get up but Washington put a hand on his forearm and held him down. “He’s white, but he’s trying to help about Lewis. That means he can be all the funny he wants.”

Cool T shrugged without looking at me. Aloof.

Washington took a taco wrapped in yellow paper out of the box and offered it to me. He said, “This is a Soul-Man taco. These Mexicans grill up the meat and the peppers and put barbecue sauce on it. You like barbecue?”