Robert Crais - The Monkey's Raincoat

It was a six-block walk to Westwood Village along elm-shaded sidewalks.

If you ignore the surroundings, Westwood Village could be the center of a college town in Iowa or Massachusetts or Alabama. Lots of fast food vendors, restaurants, collegiate clothing stores, bookshops, art galleries, record stores. Lots of pretty girls. Lots of young guys with muscles who thought playing high school football and being able to lift 200 pounds made them memorable. Lots of bicycles. In a drugstore next to a falafel stand I bought a box of envelopes, a roll of fiber wrapping tape, a stamper that said PRIORITY, an ink pad, and a Bic pen. On the way out I spotted a little sheet of stick-on labels that said things like HANDLE WITH CARE. I bought that, too.

Back at the car I tore an old McDonalds Happy Meal box into strips, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote Mr. Barry Fein on the front. I put the wrapping tape along all four edges, then across the flap on the back, making sure to keep the fiber bands even. Even in crime, neatness counts. I stamped PRIORITY twice on the front and twice more on the back, then put a sticker that said DO NOT BEND where you normally put the stamp. I looked at it. Not bad. I bent it twice, then put it on the ground and stepped on it hard. Better.

I walked back to 11001 Wilshire and went in to the guard at the reception desk. "Got something here for Mr. Barry Fein," I said.

The guard looked at me like I was somebody else's bad breath and held out a hand. "I'll take it." He'd crossed the line into his fifties a couple years back. He had a broad face and a thick nose that had been broken more than once, and eyes that stayed with you. Ex-cop.

I shook my head. "Unh-unh. Hand delivery."

"Hand deliveries are made to me."

"Not this one." I waved the envelope under his nose. "My ass is in the grinder as it is. Guy tells me, get this to Mr. Fein and be careful with it, right? Like a dope I drop it and some asshole kicks it and the wind picks it up and I gotta chase it half across Westwood against the traffic."

He was impressed. "This is as far as you go."

I put the letter in my pocket. "Okay, you're a hard ass and you don't give a shit if I get chewed. Call Fein. Tell him it's from Mr. Garrett Rice. Tell him that even though he wants this you've decided that he shouldn't have it."

The guard's eyes never moved.

I said, "Look, Sarge, either you call Mr. Fein now or Mr. Rice is gonna call him when I bring this thing back, and then my ass won't be the only one in the grinder."

We stared at each other. After a while his mouth tightened and he picked up the phone and pressed three buttons. One of the doormen had come inside and was looking at us. The guard put down the phone and scowled at me, not liking it that I'd showed him up.

He said, "You think I'm letting you upstairs with the piece, forget it."

He was good. The way I'm built, most people never see the gun under the light jacket I wear. I grinned and spread the jacket. He reached across, fingered it out, and put it under his desk. "It'll be here when you come down," he said.

"Sure."

"When you get out of the elevator, turn right, then right again."

I took the elevator up to six, got out into the H-shaped hall, turned right, then right again by a little gold sign that said 601 & 603››. Blue-gray carpet, white walls, cream light fixtures, Italian moderne artwork. It was so hushed and so clean and so sterile, I wondered if people really lived there. Maybe just androids, or people so old they stayed in bed all day and fed from tubes. I thought of Keir Dullea as an old man in 2001 .

At the end of the hall a blond man stood in the door to 601 waiting for me. He was blond the way straw blonds are blond, so light it was almost white. He wore a white LaCoste shirt and white slacks and white deck shoes, all of which made his dark tan look even darker. On the young side, maybe 24, with a boyish face, and built the way you're built when you lift for strength rather than bulk. Like Pike. Unlike Pike, he was short, not over five-eight.

"Mr. Fein?" I said.

"I'm Charles. Are you from Mr. Rice?" His voice was higher pitched than you would've guessed, and soft, like a sensitive fourteen-year-olds. Five-eight was short for this kind of work.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to give this to Mr. Fein."

Charles took the envelope, opened the door, and stepped to the side to let me in. The first two knuckles of each hand were large and swollen, the way they get doing push-ups on them and pounding sacks of rice and breaking boards. Maybe five-eight wasn't so much of a problem for him.

We went through a blue-tiled entry, down two steps, and into a room not quite the size of Pauley Pavilion. It was very bright, the outer wall all glass and opening out on a balcony lush with greenery. The glass was open and, very faintly, you could hear the cars below like a whisper. The place was done in pastels: gray and blue and raspberry and white. The tile gave way to carpets, and ultramodern Italian furniture sprouted up out of the carpet. Barry Fein was sipping cognac at a hammered-copper bar. The copper clashed horribly with the pastels. So did Barry. He was short and skinny and dark, with close-to-the-skull hair and furry arms and furry, bandy legs. He was wearing red plaid Bermuda shorts and a dark blue tee shirt that said RKO Pictures . There was a hole in the shirt on his left shoulder. He was barefoot.

He said, "You the guy from Gary?" Charles gave him the envelope.

"Indiana?"

He looked at me, cocking his head. "Garrett Rice, stupid. Gary. Jesus fuckin' Christ."

"Well, not really."

"Whattaya mean, not really?" He finished the cognac, then refilled the snifter from a bottle of Courvoisier. There was a hard pack of Marlboros and a heavy Zippo lighter beside the bottle and a large marble ashtray filled with butts. Maybe I could introduce him to Janet Simon and they could have a smoke-off.

Barry Fein opened the envelope and looked in and saw Ronald McDonald. "What the fuck is this?"

I said, "Can I get my wallet out and show you something?"

Charles put his fists on his hips and stared at me thoughtlessly. Barry said, "Aw, shit, you ain't a cop, are you?"

"Unh-unh." I got out my wallet, went over to the bar, and showed him my license. "It's very important that I find out if Garrett Rice has tried to sell you two kilograms of cocaine."

Barry grinned at me and looked at Charles. "Is this guy serious or what?"

Charles smiled benignly. Perhaps repartee was beyond him.

I said, "Listen to me. I'm sorry I used a ruse to get up here, but I didn't think you'd see me if I played it straight. I'm not here to bring you trouble. Garrett Rice may have stolen two kilograms of lab-quality cocaine from a very bad man. Now that man wants it back and he's holding a little boy hostage. I think if Garrett stole the dope he'll try to move it. You're a guy he might move it through."

Barry Fein shrugged and jerked his head at Charles. "Get rid of'm."

I looked at Charles. "I'm in a rush here, Barry. He won't be able to do it."

Barry shrugged again. Charles whistled sharply between his teeth, and a moment later another Charles walked in from the balcony with a watering can. Five-eight, blond, muscled, white shirt and pants and shoes. Twins all the way down to the big knuckles.

Barry said, "Jonathan, we got some trouble here."

Jonathan set the watering can down and came over to stand a little in front of me, Charles a little behind. They stood with their feet spread for balance and their hands loose at their sides. Jonathan had the same perfect skin and vacant eyes as Charles. Idiot angels. The two of them reminded me of the kids down in Westwood who thought they were tough. Only these guys weren't down in Westwood. And they probably were tough.