Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

“And this looks like the work of a crazy?”

“Who the hell knows, Alex? We’re not talking hard science. Most probably we’ll find it was what I said before. One of them — probably the father — got a good look at the shitty cards he’d been dealt and tossed the room. They left the car behind so it’s probably temporary.

“On the other hand, I can’t guarantee they didn’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, didn’t collide with a nutcase who thought they were Pluto Vampires out to take over his liver.” He held the matchbook between thumb and forefinger and waved it like a miniature flag.

“Right now,” he said, “all we’ve got is this. It’s not in my ballpark but I’ll pay the place a visit and follow it up for you, okay?”

“Thanks, Milo. Getting to the bottom of it would calm a few people down. Want company?”

“Sure, why not? Haven’t seen you in a good while. If missing the lovely Ms. Castagna hasn’t made you unbearably morose, you might even turn out to be good company.”

There was a phone number on the matchbook but no address, so Milo called Vice and got one, along with some background on the Adam and Eve Messenger Service.

“They know the operation,” he said, tooling onto Pico and heading east. “Owned by a sweetheart named Jan Rambo, has her finger in a little bit of everything. Daddy’s a mob biggie in Frisco. Little Jan’s his pride and joy.”

“What is it, a cover for an outcall service?”

“That and a few other things. Vice thinks sometimes the messengers transport dope, but that’s only a sideline — impromptu, when someone needs a favor. They do some relatively legit stuff — party gags, like when it’s the boss’s birthday and a nubile young thing shows up at the office party, strips and rubs herself all over him. Mostly it’s sex for sale, one way or another.”

“Which sheds new light on Nona Swope,” I said.

“Maybe. You said she was good looking?”

“Gorgeous, Milo. Unusually so.”

“So she knows what she’s got and decides to profit from it — it might be relevant, but what the hell, when you get right down to it, this town was built on the buying and selling of bodies, right? Small town girl hits glitter-city, gets her head turned. Happens every day.”

“That has got to be the most hackneyed soliloquy you’ve ever delivered.”

He broke out laughing and slapped the dashboard with glee, then realized he’d been squinting into the sun and put on a pair of mirrored shades.

“Oka-ay, time to play cop. What do you think?”

“Very intimidating.”

Jan Rambo’s headquarters were on the tenth floor of a flesh-colored high rise on Wilshire just west of Barrington. The directory in the lobby listed about a hundred businesses, most with names that told you nothing about what they did — a free hand had been used with words like enterprise, system, communications , and network. A good third of them ended with Ltd. Jan Rambo had outdone them all, christening her meat market, Contemporary Communications Network, Ltd. If that didn’t convince you it was all very respectable, the brass letters on the teak door and the matching thunderbolt logo were sure to do the trick.

The door was locked but Milo pounded it hard enough for the walls to shake, and it opened. A tall well-built Jamaican in his midtwenties stuck his head out and started to say something hostile, but Milo shoved his badge in the mahogany face and he shut his mouth.

“Hi,” said Milo, grinning.

“What can I do for you, Officers?” asked the black, over-enunciating in a show of arrogance.

“First, you can let us in.” Without waiting for cooperation, Milo leaned on the door. Taken by surprise, the Jamaican stepped back and we walked in.

It wasn’t much of a reception room, barely larger than a closet, but Contemporary Communications probably didn’t do much receiving. The walls were flat ivory and the only furniture was a chrome and vinyl desk upon which sat an electric typewriter and a phone, and the steno chair behind it.

The wall backing the desk was adorned with a photographic poster of a California surfer couple posing as Adam and Eve, underscored by the legend “Send that Special Message to that Special person.” Eve had her tongue in Adam’s ear and though the expression on his face was one of stuporous boredom, his fig leaf bulged appreciatively.

To the left of the desk was a closed door. The Jamaican stood in front of it, arms folded, feet apart, a scowling sentry.

“We want to speak with Jan Rambo.”

“You got a warrant?”

“Jesus,” said Milo, disgustedly, “everyone in this lousy city thinks he’s in the movies. ‘You got a warrant?’” he mimicked. “Strictly grade B, dude. C’mon, knock on the door and tell her we’re here.”

The Jamaican remained impassive.

“No warrant, no entry.”

“My, my, an assertive one.” Milo whistled. He put his hands in his pockets, slouched and walked forward until his nose was a millimeter short of Eskimo-kissing the Jamaican.

“There’s no need to get unpleasant,” he said. “I know Ms. Rambo is a busy lady and as pure as the freshly driven snow. If she wasn’t, we might be here to search the premises. Then we’d need a warrant. All we want to do is talk with her. Since you obviously haven’t advanced far enough in your legal studies to know this, let me inform you that no warrant is necessary when one simply wants to make conversation.”

The Jamaican’s nostrils widened.

“Now,” Milo continued, “you can choose to facilitate that conversation or continue to be obstructive, in which case I will cause you grievous bodily injury, not to mention significant pain, and arrest you for interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duty. Upon arrest, I will fasten the cuffs tight enough to cause gangrene, see to it that you are body-searched by a sadist, and make sure you are tossed in a holding cell with half a dozen charter members of the Aryan Brotherhood.”

The Jamaican pondered his choices. He backed away from Milo, but the detective bird-dogged him, breathing into his face.

“I’ll see if she’s free,” he muttered, opening the door a crack and slithering through.

He reappeared momentarily, eyes smoldering with emasculation, and jerked his head toward the open door.

We followed him into an empty anteroom. He paused before double doors and punched a code into a pushbutton panel. There was a low-pitched buzz and he opened one of the doors.

A dark-haired woman sat behind a marble-topped tubular metal desk in an office as big as a ballroom. The floor was covered with springy industrial carpeting the color of wet cement. To her back was a wall of smoked glass offering a muted view of the Santa Monica mountains and the Valley beyond. One side of the office had been given over to some West Hollywood decorator’s fantasies — mercilessly contemporary mauve leather chairs, a lucite coffee table sharp enough to slice bread, an art deco sideboard of rosewood and shagreen similar to one I’d seen recently in a Sotheby’s catalogue; that piece had gone for more than Milo took home in a year. Across from this assemblage was the business area: rosewood conference table, bank of black file cabinets, two computers, and a corner filled with photographic equipment.

The Jamaican stood with his back to the door and resumed his sentry pose. He worked at fashioning his face into a war mask but a rosy flush incandesced beneath the dusky surface of his skin.

“You can go, Leon,” the woman said. She had a whiskey voice.

The Jamaican hesitated. She hardened her expression and he left hastily.