Jonathan Kellerman - Compulsion

“Would that surprise you?”

“Those two,” she said. “Who knows about people like that?”

“People like what?”

“Always like this.” She made a sour face. “Sloppy, messy, like they don’t wash. Dyale said they were like roaches.”

“Pests,” I said.

“Dirtying Roland’s property, not being fair to Roland. The way they treat the dog.”

“They were cruel to their dog?”

“Dyale said they never walked it, the dog made mess inside.”

“Dale was inside the Safrans’ apartment.”

Her mouth slackened but her eyes got tight. “This is the fyirst time I think about that.”

“Dale and the Safrans didn’t get along,” I said. “No reason for him to be there.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Roland nyever asked Dyale to help him, nyever. ”

“Roland wanted to make sure you told me that.”

“Roland is not some gangster. In Belarus he was a hospital clerk, helped old people get medicine.”

“The night the Safrans disappeared, they went to a play downtown. Was Dark Nose Holiday still running?”

“Running.” She giggled. “More like limping. We had four days.”

“Did the Safrans attend?”

Slow nod.

I said, “Dale invited them.”

“I say why, he say why not be nyice?”

“Did they enjoy the show?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did you see Dale with them after the show?”

“Don’t know,” she insisted. “I was taking off my makeup. It takes time.”

“Dale had already left.”

“Yes.”

“Ever see the Safrans again?”

Long silence. Head shake. “My God. Dyale.”

“Was Dale in any other productions after that?”

“Nyo.”

“How’d he spend his time?”

“Mostly I was in Long Island. I use the apartment for when I don’t want to drive back.”

“Did Dale have a job?”

“He said he was going to look for one but not now, he had money. From the parents, just a little – that was a lie, too?”

“He inherited more than a little,” I said. “Once he left Roland’s building, there’s no record of him working anywhere. What kind of work did he say he’d look for?”

“He didn’t – ah, I think of something else. He said he was going to travel.”

“Where?”

“The world. Like it is one place. I said, Dyale, trust me, the world is not one place, it is little boxes of people who hate each other and kill each other and no one likes anyone different. Do you want to go to Belarus and see why I left? He said, No, Sonny, I mean the great cyities. Paris, London, Rome. I asked why he never went to the great cyities when he was cyaptain in Germany. He said the army kept him too busy. But maybe he wasn’t in Germany, eh?”

“That would be my guess,” I said.

“All lies,” she said. “Okay, so what else is new?”

“Do you have any pictures of him?”

“I don’t kyeep souvenirs.”

I asked for a physical description. The picture she painted – big, hefty, bald – matched everything Roland Korbutz had said.

“Brown eyes,” she added. “Soft eyes. Sometimes he wore glasses, sometimes contacts.”

“This may sound strange, but did he ever dress in women’s clothing?”

“Not on the street.”

“You’re not surprised by the question?”

“At Dark Nose, one of the gyirls – she played Systema – was big, size sixteen, eighteen. Once in a while Dyale would joke around.”

“About her size?”

“No, no, the clothes. He put it on, then a wig, talked in a high voice. Very funny.”

“Goofing around.”

“What, he is weird that way?”

I shrugged.

She said, “This is a weird sexy murder?”

“Hard to say what it is.”

“Oh, boy… I guess I am lucky. Dyale was always nice to me, but who knows, eh? I am tired, now, Ah-lex. Too much talk.”

She walked me to the door, leaned in, kissed my cheek in a cloud of vanilla.

I thanked her again.

“Why not?” she said. “Maybe one day I’ll see California.”

“Did the chief get his money’s worth?” I asked Milo.

“I’ll let you know after I talk to him.”

“When’s that?”

“When the palace beckons.”

Five p.m., gloomy skies, heavy air in L.A. We were in a coffee shop on Santa Monica Boulevard renowned for omelets the size of manhole covers. Coffee for me, coffee and a plate of cinnamon crullers for him. Two hours ago, he’d finished a late lunch at Café Moghul. An interesting mix of cumin and his digestive cigarillo lingered on his clothing.

Before going to bed last night, I’d left him a message, summarizing what I’d learned in New York. Hadn’t heard back because he’d been surveilling Tony Mancusi until sunrise.

He rubbed his eyes. “Dale did the Safrans… okay, I got my money’s worth, let me pay for your uneaten hundred-dollar plate of lettuce.”

“Forty bucks,” I said. “Lettuce and scallops.”

“Whoopy doo.”

I’d been back since noon. He’d remained unreachable until four p.m. Revisiting Gilbert Chacon at the Prestige rental lot and getting Chacon to admit that he’d arrived late for work, found the chain propped up but the lock missing, rushed to Rite Aid on Canon and bought the cheap drugstore version we’d seen.

“Think there’s more to it?” I said.

“Someone bribed him to leave it off? Don’t think so, he offered to take a poly, cared more about losing his job than aiding and abetting.”

“However it happened, whoever picked the lock, kept it.”

“Sentimental.”

After leaving Chacon, he’d participated in a conference call with Texas authorities and detectives from six cities where Cuz Jackson claimed to have committed atrocities. Three dead ends, one unlikely, two possibles.

Plus Antoine Beverly, one big question mark.

The needle-and-gurney folk in the Lone Star State wanted to get things moving. The chief’s office had asked Milo to push on Antoine but there was no lead to follow other than locating Antoine’s boyhood friends.

No sign of either. “ Hollywood unmarkeds been cruising by Wilson Good’s house for the last forty-eight hours. Definitely no one home and St. Xavier’s starting to worry.”

I said, “Maybe he got really sick and ended up in the hospital.”

“We looked into that. Zip.”

“The coach has left the field,” I said.

“Funny thing ’bout that, huh? Like I said, all the fool had to do was cooperate. Wouldn’t that be something, Antoine coming down to some creepy kid-on-kid thing.”

Thinking about that made me tired. Or maybe it was no sleep in the cell-like hotel room followed by a bone-fusing six-hour plane ride.

I swigged coffee. Milo tore open a packet of Splenda but didn’t use it. “Good was Antoine’s age at the time of the disappearance. You see a fifteen-year-old capable of something like that?”

“They’re not myelinated.”

“Who what ?”

“Myelin,” I said. “It’s a substance that coats nerve cells and plays a role in logical processing. Teens don’t have as much as adults. Some folks think that’s a good reason not to execute young criminals.”

“At what age does it turn normal?”

“Differs from person to person. Sometimes not till middle age.”

“Bad living through chemistry,” he said. “But we’re not talking some low-impulse stupid homicide. Baby-gangbangers pull that off all the time. If Good’s dirty for Antoine, we’ve got a teenager stealthy enough to murder his best buddy, smoothly cover it up, and go on living as an upstanding citizen. Serving as a pallbearer and crying his little eyes out.”