Jonathan Kellerman - Rage

He got up and headed back toward his store. I walked with him, pressed for more details about the movie.

“Never saw a script. Never got involved directly. Don’t forget, I was just a TV guy.”

“You were good enough to set up meetings,” I said.

“Exactly.” He scratched his chin. “I did all kinds of stupid things back then. Had a little substance-abuse problem that clouded my judgment. I’m talking to you in the first place because my sponsor says I need to be honest with the world.”

Same thing Nina Balquist had said. How much of what passed for honesty nowadays was atonement?

I said, “I appreciate that.”

“I’m doing it for myself,” said Boestling. “Should’ve been a lot more selfish when it counted.”

I drove to Beverly Hills and caught Lauritz Montez exiting the court building on Burton and Civic Center. The double-wide briefcase he toted dragged at his right shoulder as he headed for the rear parking lot.

“Mr. Montez.”

An eyebrow lifted but he never broke step. I caught up.

“What now?”

“A reliable source tells me you and Sydney had more than a business relationship.”

“And who might that be?”

“Can’t say.”

No answer.

I said, “Tell me about Sydney’s movie ambitions.”

“Why would I know anything about that?”

“Funny,” I said. “You didn’t say ‘what movie?’ ”

We entered the lot and he walked to a ten-year-old gray Corvette, put his case on the ground. “You’re getting annoying.”

“Judge Laskin’s retired but he’s got friends. I’m sure the judiciary and the bar association would be thrilled to know how you comported yourself during a major case.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Heaven forbid,” I said. “Then again, maybe you’d rather file indictment forms in Compton for the next twenty years.”

“You’re a real piece of work,” he said, keeping his voice low. “My money says LAPD has no idea what you’re doing.”

I held out my cell phone. “Speed-dial five.” Which would’ve connected him to my dentist.

He didn’t take it. A Beverly Hills cop drove past us in a brand-new Suburban. One officer, all that curb weight. Gas economy doesn’t mean much in 90210.

I pocketed the phone.

Montez said, “What do you really want?” His voice wavered on the last two words.

“What you know about the movie and anything else you can tell me about Sydney and the Daneys.”

He backed away, positioned himself between the Corvette’s scoop-nose and the parking lot wall.

“The Daneys,” he said, smiling coldly. “Always figured them for your typical Jesus freak hypocrites, and I was right.”

“Right, how?”

“Daney was doing Sydney any way he wanted.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Saw her going down on him in her car. In the parking lot, after dark. Asked her about it the next day and she screamed at me to fuck off and get out of her life.”

“Which parking lot?”

“County jail.”

Same place she’d offered her baby blue BMW for the interview with Jane Hannabee. “High-risk behavior,” I said.

“That was the thrill for Sydney.”

“So Daney broke the eighth commandment,” I said. “What made his wife a hypocrite?”

“C’mon,” said Montez. “She had to know. Sydney and Daney were hooking up all the time, how couldn’t she know?” He worked his lips as if to spit, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She rubbed me the wrong way. Psychobabble-spouting airhead. The only one she cared about was Troy, I couldn’t get her to even talk to Rand. You really care, you reach out to everyone.”

“Why’d you want her involved?”

“Character reference.”

“Why’d she favor Troy?”

“They both did. Because they knew Troy from before,” he said. “He was one of their do-gooder projects at 415 City. Which shows you how effective they were.”

“Rand wasn’t a project.”

“Rand never got into big-time trouble until he met up with Troy, so he never had the benefit of their wise counsel. Not that it would’ve made a difference, like I told you.”

“The script.”

“If you don’t believe there’s a script for everything, you don’t deserve that Ph.D.”

“What happened with the real script?”

“Sydney’s movie? What do you think? Nothing happened. This is L.A.”

“What was the story line?”

“How would I know?”

“Never read it?”

“No way, this was top secret. Don’t even know if there was a script.” He pulled out a remote and disarmed the Corvette’s alarm. Moving around me, he opened the door.

“What was there?”

He didn’t answer.

“Suit yourself,” I said and clicked open my phone.

He said, “All I saw was a summary, okay? A treatment Sydney called it. Only reason I knew about it was I found it in her desk when I was looking for matches.” Tiny smile. “I like to smoke afterward.”

“You and she got it on at the office?”

“Those cheap government desks are good for something.”

“What did the treatment say?”

“The names were changed but it was basically Kristal Malley. Except in her story, the boys had been manipulated by the kid’s father into killing her.”

“What was his motive?”

“It didn’t say, we’re talking two paragraphs. Sydney came back from the john, saw me reading, tore it out of my hand, and did the old scream bit. I said, ‘Interesting theory, maybe we can use it for real.’ She freaked out and kicked my ass. Literally, she kicked me.” He rubbed his rump. “She had on these pointy pumps, it hurt like hell.”

“So the treatment was written before the case closed.”

“Before the formal sentencing, but everyone knew how it was going to go down.”

I said, “Whose idea was the deal?”

“Sydney proposed it, Laskin accepted. She lied and told him I’d agreed. I ended up agreeing anyway, because I thought it was the best I could do for Rand.”

“Get the boys started on their sentence and party with co-counsel,” I said.

“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “That night- her desk- was after we’d done the bulk of our work. That’s when Sydney and I really started getting it on. Before that, it was only minor stuff. We kept it outside the office.”

“Motels?”

“None of your business.”

“In her car?”

“You want to be a judgmental prick, go ahead. It’s no crime to have fun.”

“Fun till she started kicking you.”

“She was insane,” he said, “but let me tell you. She had her talents.”

Nymphomaniac,” said Milo. “To use a quaint old term.”

He blew cigar smoke into the air. The way the air felt today, he was cleansing it. “Not that I’m nostalgic for quaint old terms. Having borne the brunt of such.”

“ ‘Queer’ is common parlance now,” I said.

“So’s ‘niggah’ if you’re Snoop Dogg. Try it on some dude at Main and Sixty-ninth and see how many giggles you get.”

Smoke rings floated upward, wiggled and dissipated. We were two blocks from the station, walking slowly, thinking in silence, talking in bursts.

“So everyone’s screwing everyone,” he said. “Literally and otherwise. You think Weider’s story line pinning it on Malley was fiction? Or did she and Daney latch onto something eight years ago? Like Malley not being Kristal’s father. Like Troy telling Weider that Malley had put him up to it.”

“Montez jokingly suggested to Weider that they use it as a red herring and she freaked out. Maybe that was more than keeping her hot idea under wraps.”