Jonathan Kellerman - Twisted

“I was kidding, Isaac. You did great, that’s more than I could’ve pulled up.”

The compliment seemed to zip right past him and he remained grave.

She turned to her own computer, pulled up Robert Leon’s file on NCIC. The most recent mug shot showed a lean, silver-haired guy with a long, seamed face. Thick wavy hair combed straight back, jet-black mustache.

Sixty-three but he looked younger. Good bone structure, she could see hints of the young male model. On soap operas he’d be cast as a Latin lover.

Leon had smirked for the booking officer. Despite the wise-guy quality to the smile, it managed to be engaging.

Above the smile, the hard eyes of a seasoned con.

“Did you come across any sibs for the brothers?” she asked.

“Not specifically,” said Isaac, “but I did find a story in a free San Francisco weekly that said Robert Leon had lots of kids. Kind of a gypsy king situation, but they’re not ethnic Gypsies.”

“Anything else interesting in the article?”

“Not really. It wasn’t very well written. Hippie prose- kind of a retro-sixties thing. I’ll print it, too.”

Petra, born in 1973, considered all the hippie stuff quaint history. What could it mean to him?

“Okay, thanks,” she said. “You’ve given me something to work with.”

“On June 28, I haven’t come up with anything new.” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Maybe I made something out of nothing.”

“You didn’t,” said Petra. “It’s definitely something. Let me run with what you’ve given me on Leon and his gang, then let’s get together later- say four or five- and brainstorm the June 28 stuff. If you’re free.”

“I am,” he said. “Definitely. I’ve got some things to do on campus but I can be back by then.”

His smile was big as the ocean.

Petra phoned Lompoc a second time and got the details on Robert Leon’s visitors. Three names interested her. An eighteen-year-old female named Marcella Douquette with a Venice address on Brooks, and two guys in their forties who’d listed residences here in Hollywood: Albert Martin Leon, forty-five, Whitley Avenue; Lyle Mario Leon, forty-one, Sycamore Drive.

She tried all three phone numbers. Disconnected.

Back to NCIC. Albert and Lyle had both done time for nonviolent crimes, Albert in Nevada and Lyle in San Diego. Mug shots showed a clear resemblance to Robert Leon- the same leanness, the wavy hair. Albert’s was already gray and he wore it parted in the middle and down to his shoulders. No looker; his nose was mashed and off-center and his eyes crowded the misshapen cartilage. His stats said his body was full of scars. He was a bad-check artist.

Lyle Leon’s hair was still dark. Clipped at the sides, bushy and squared-off on top- an eraserhead-do far too young for his age. An earring and a bristly soul patch said this guy thought himself quite the hipster. He’d been busted for peddling worthless cleaning solutions to old folk, had done less than a year in San Diego.

Smalltime hustler trying to look like the Big Dude?

There was no mention of the relationship between either man and Robert Leon. Given the age difference, the patriarch might’ve sired sons early. Or Albert and Lyle were Robert’s cousins, whatever.

No criminal record for Marcella Douquette. The girl was young, give her time.

Maybe none of it meant a thing, but it was time to do some legwork.

Albert and Lyle Leon’s addresses were bogus. Same setup as Sandra’s: multiunit apartments, no record of either man ever living there. Neither con was on parole and neither had registered any motor vehicles, so there was no way to trace them.

Petra drove to Venice. The Brooks Avenue house was one of three clapboard single units on a dirt lot in definite gang territory. Teeny little shacky thing, sitting askew on a raised foundation. Tar-paper roof, ragged boards. The surrounding lot cordoned by chain link and full of litter: spare tires, an old washing machine, rolls of plastic tarp, soda bottles, beer cans, splintered parts of wooden pallets.

It was one P.M. and the shaved-head crowd was sleeping in. Petra could smell the ocean- a nice, salty fragrance with just the slightest undertone of rot. The shack was a total dive but only a quick hop to the beach. Venice Beach, where deviance was the norm and scamsters worked the tourists every Sunday.

Perfect for The Players and their ilk. Petra’s chest twitched. Maybe she was finally on to something.

She got out of the car, looked up and down the block, let her fingers settle atop the spot on her hip where her gun rested. A platter of soupy, gray fog pressed down on the ocean- the usual June gloom- and the entire neighborhood was washed in newspaper-photo tones.

Maybe that’s why the head-basher chose June to do his thing. Depressed over ugly weather.

She waited some more, took in Marcella Douquette’s alleged residence from a distance and made sure no low-riders were cruising. The chain-link fence was locked and bolted but low, barely at waist level.

Petra approached the property, waited for the requisite pit bull to show. Nothing.

She checked out the street one more time, got a toehold in a chain-link diamond, and was over.

No doorbell, no answer to her assertive knocks. She was about to walk around behind the shack when the door to the neighboring unit opened and a man stepped out, squinting.

Hispanic, mid-twenties, bare-chested, wispy crew cut. Wispy mustache to match. Like that old actor… Cantinflas.

He wore baggy blue swim trunks and nothing else. His soft, hairless chest- all of him- was the color of mocha ice cream. Nicely burgeoning potbelly. Outsized outie navel that resembled a summer squash- sue that obstetrician.

No tattoos or scars that she could see. No macho-swagger either. Just a sleepy-looking, flabby guy getting up at 1:20 P.M.

She gave him a businesslike nod.

He nodded back, sniffed the air.Yawned.

She went up to him. “You live here for a while, sir?”

His reply was too soft to make out so Petra got closer and said, “Pardon?”

“Just for the summer.”

“When did you start living here?”

The guy stared at her. She flashed the badge. He yawned again. Through the door to his shack she saw a gray-carpeted room with a blue couch and a pumpkin-colored beanbag. Outsized black leather case atop the couch. The window shades were drawn. Mildew from the carpet wafted out to the stagnant June air.

“I started May one,” he said. “Why?”

“Why May?” said Petra.

“That’s when school was over.”

“College?”

“Cal State Northridge.” He hitched his swim trunks. They slid back down. “What’s up?”

Petra evaded the question with a smile. “What’re you studying?”

“Photography. Photojournalism. I live in the Valley, figured Venice would be a good place to get shots for my portfolio.” He frowned. “What’s going on?”

Petra looked up at the sky. “How does the fog affect your photography?”

“With the right filters you can do cool stuff.” Another frown. “Are there problems? ’Cause I didn’t realize how sketchy the neighborhood was but now I see where it’s at.”

“Problems?”

“I wouldn’t leave my equipment in the house, alone.”

“Bad neighbors?”

“The whole neighbor hood. I don’t go out much at night. Probably, I’ll leave at the end of the month.”

“No lease?”

“Month to month.”

“Who’s the landlord?”

“Some corporation. I got it from an ad at the C-SUN bulletin board.”

“Cheap?” said Petra.

“Real cheap.”

Petra said, “I’m trying to track down a young woman named Marcella Douquette.”

“She the one next door?”