The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(45)

“Yeah, Tito’s.”

“That’s tequila?”

“No, vodka. The good stuff.”

Ballard pointed to the short dog in the other man’s hand.

“Where you guys buy your bottles?”

The man pointed with the bottle down toward Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Mostly over there at Mako’s.”

Ballard knew the place, an all-night market that primarily sold booze, smokes, rolling papers, pipes, and condoms. Ballard had responded to numerous calls there over her years on the late show. It was a place that drew rip-off artists and assaults like a magnet. Consequently, there were cameras inside and outside the business.

“You think that’s where Eddie got his fiver?” she asked.

“Yup,” said The Kid.

“Had to be,” said Short Dog. “Ain’t no other place round here open late.”

“You heard about Eddie having trouble with anybody?” she asked.

“Nah, ever’body like Eddie,” Short Dog said.

“A gentle soul,” Raspy added.

Ballard waited. Nobody volunteered anything about Eddie having trouble.

“Okay, guys, thanks,” Ballard said. “Be safe.”

“Yup,” said The Kid. “Don’t want to end up like Eddie.”

“Hey, Miss Detective,” said Beret. “Why you asking all these questions? Nobody give a shit ’bout Eddie before.”

“They do now. Good night, guys.”

Ballard got back in her car and drove down to Santa Monica Boulevard. She turned right and went down three blocks to a rundown strip shopping plaza, where Mako’s Market was located. The market anchored one end of the plaza and a twenty-four-hour donut shop held down the other end. In between there were two empty businesses, a Subway franchise, and a storefront business that offered one-stop shopping for notary needs, photocopying, and losing weight or quitting cigarettes through hypnosis.

The area patrol car was parked in front of the donut shop, confirming the cliché. Ballard got out of her car and waved her hand palm down, signaling smooth sailing. Behind the wheel of the patrol car, she could see Rollins, one of the officers who had responded to the fatal fire the other night. He flashed his lights in acknowledgment. Ballard assumed his partner was inside the donut shop.

Mako’s was a fortress. The front door had an electronic lock that had to be opened from inside. Once buzzed in, she saw the business was built like a bank in a high-crime neighborhood. The front door led to an anteroom that was ten feet wide and six feet deep. There was nothing in this space except an ATM machine against the wall to the left. Front and center was a stainless-steel counter with a large pass-through drawer and a wall of bulletproof glass rising above it. A steel door with triple locks was to the right of the counter. A man sat on a stool on the other side of the glass. He nodded at Ballard in recognition.

“How’s it going, Marko?” she said.

The man leaned forward, pushed a button, and spoke into a microphone.

“All is okay, Officer,” he said.

Ballard had heard a story about Marko Linkov having ordered the sign out front many years ago and then accepting the misspelled sign that arrived at half price. She didn’t know if it was true.

“You sell Tito’s vodka?” Ballard asked.

“Yes, sure,” Marko said. “Got it in back.”

He started to slip off his stool.

“No, I don’t want any,” Ballard said. “I just want to know. You sell a bottle of it the other night? Monday night?”

Marko thought about it for a moment and slowly nodded.

“Maybe,” he said. “I think so.”

“I need to look at your video,” Ballard said.

Marko got off the stool.

“Sure thing,” he said. “You come in.”

He disappeared to his left and Ballard heard the locks on the steel door being opened. She had expected no pushback on her request, no questions about search warrants or other legalities. Marko depended on the police to keep an eye on his business and to respond to his many calls about belligerent or suspicious customers. He knew that if he expected that kind of service it was a two-way street.

Ballard entered and Marko locked the door behind her. She noticed that in addition to the bolt locks he flipped down a metal burglar bar across the door. He wasn’t taking chances.

He led her past the display shelves to a back room used for storage and as an office. A computer stood on a small crowded desk that was pushed against a wall. A back door led to the alley behind the plaza; it, too, was steel and equipped with two burglar bars.

“Okay, so …,” Marko said.

He didn’t finish. He just opened up a screen that was quartered into four camera views, two outside the front, showing the parking lot and the front door of the shop, a third in the alley showing the back door, and the fourth a camera over the ATM in the front room. Ballard saw the patrol car still positioned outside the donut shop. Marko pointed at it.

“Those are good guys,” he said. “They hang around, watch out for me.”

Ballard still thought the donuts might be the draw but didn’t say so.

“Okay, Monday night,” she said.

Ballard had no idea when Edison Banks Jr. received the bottle of Tito’s his fellow encampment inhabitants saw him with, or how long it would have taken him to consume it. So she asked Marko to start running the playback fast, beginning at dusk on Monday. Every time a customer entered the store he would slow the video to normal speed until Ballard determined that the customer was not purchasing what she was looking for.