Into the Fire(54)
He pointed. “I’m assuming these initials are code names?”
“Yeah. Lower-end workers, payoffs, bribes, whatever. I guess I could run them down, tracking the precise amounts of the payments and then digging through bank records, but it’d be a slog.”
“Do it anyway. It would be helpful to match the code names with real identities.”
“For what? These are peripheral players.”
“Once I take care of Petro and his goons and Max is in the clear, I’ll send him into a police station with that thumb drive. If they know the names of the bottom feeders, it’ll help them put a ribbon around the case later, tie up the loose ends. Plus, I want to make sure I know the extent of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This mission already telescoped on me once. Last time I thought it ended with Terzian. Then I found out about Petro. I could do without another eleventh-hour surprise.”
Joey reached down, unplugged a zip drive from a port, and tossed it to Evan. “Here’s a copy. I’ll keep chipping away at the original.”
Evan squatted to scratch the dog’s ears. “Okay. Take care of Dog.”
“Where are you going?”
Heading out, he glanced at the Victorinox fob watch clipped to his belt loop. In less than an hour, he was due to meet with the jackass who had mugged Ida Rosenbaum—Jerry Z of the frequent typos and the rationalized orthography. As if Evan didn’t have his hands full already with money launderers and organized-crime outfits.
Evan said, “McDonald’s.”
Both Joey and Dog the dog cocked their heads at him in concert.
Evan said, “You know that thing about how owners start looking like their dogs?”
He ducked the Big Gulp flying at his head and closed the door behind him.
29
A Man Moves Through the Night
Due to its West Hollywood location, the McDonald’s at the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset aspired to be high-end. That meant clean booths, ample napkins, and additional seating upstairs.
As Evan neared the entrance, two moms with gym-attenuated limbs passed by, pushing strollers and sipping kombucha. They cast a wary eye at the fast-food joint, as if it were a den of iniquity. No line-caught salmon or free-range chicken in there.
Evan entered, hit with a stream of ketchup-scented air-conditioning, and looked around. A few high-schoolers comparing iPhone pics. A homeless guy bundled into a booth, hands encircling a cup of water. A musclehead in a gym tank top plowing through a Big Mac with lawn-mower efficiency.
None seemed likely suspects.
As Evan mounted the stairs, his RoamZone rang.
He paused, checked caller ID, then answered. “Now’s not the best—”
“It’s sixty-four yards off the ground,” Trevon said. “The first measurement you asked for. And the second distance is six hundred seven yards. They say ‘as the crow flies’ but that doesn’t make any sense ’cuz crows fly all sorts of ways—”
“Can I maybe call you in a—”
“—like if they’re hungry or see a worm or maybe they’re coming to land on a telephone wire. So you don’t really know how they fly, do you, which makes it an imprecise standard of measurement.”
“Trevon, thank you. But I have to call you back.”
Evan hung up the phone, slipped it into his pocket, and continued up the stairs.
The tables were sparsely populated—a few couples, a group of kids with Fairfax High sweatshirts, a pair of elderly women.
And a heavyset white guy clad in an Adidas sweat suit with thick gold chains, pierced ears, and orange-tinted Oakley Razors worn backward so the lenses rode the fat rolls on the nape of his neck.
Evan circled the table, bringing Jerry Z into view. Steps notched into the sides of his light blond hair. A wispy beard clutching his chin. Pebble eyes set in a wide, boyish face. At the moment those eyes were fixed on the elderly women, no doubt considering the pearl necklaces resting against the folds of their blouses.
Evan sat before him.
“You Jean Pate?” Jerry Z pronounced the first name hard, like “Gene.”
“Yes. Do you have the necklace?”
“You a cop?”
“No, I’m not a—”
“You hafta say, you know. Or it’s like entrapment or some shit.”
“No. I’m not a cop. May I see the necklace?”
Jerry Z hunched forward, his massy chest pressing into his picked-over tray and bringing forth a waft of body odor that smelled vaguely like barbecue potato chips. He shot a glance over his shoulder, taking in a couple holding hands at the booth over by the stairs. They looked like models. Or fitness trainers. Or television doctors.
“I always forget how many faggots there are all over WeHo,” Jerry Z said. “Always checking out my shit.”
Evan noted his gel-sticky hair, the unwashed scent, the 1989-vintage shaved lines in his hair. “I’m sure they find you irresistible.”
Jerry Z reached into his sweat-suit jacket, retrieved a black velvet bag, and spilled its contents onto the table next to his tray. A jumble of rings, several necklaces, solid-gold bracelets hinged open like horseshoes.
A diamond earring with dried blood on the post.