Blood Test Read online

  “Alex could—”

  He flashed her a wide, loose-lipped smile. “I’m going to be needing to talk to Alex for a while. I’ll get you a ride.” He went out to the six patrolmen, selected the best-looking of the bunch, a trim six-footer with curly black hair and shiny teeth, and brought him back to the office.

  “Ms. Lucas, this is Officer Fierro.”

  “Where to, ma’am?” Fierro tipped his hat. She gave him an address in Westwood and he guided her to his squad car.

  Just as she was getting in, Milo rummaged in his shirt pocket and called out, “Hey, Brian, hold on.”

  Fierro stopped and Milo bounded over to the car. I jogged along with him.

  “This mean anything to you, Beverly?” He handed her a match-book.

  She examined it. “Adam and Eve Messenger Service? Yeah. One of the nurses told me Nona Swope had gotten a job as a messenger. I remember thinking it was strange—why would she get a job when they were only in town temporarily?” She looked at the matchbook more closely. “What is this, a hooker service or something like that?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I knew she was a wild one,” she said angrily, and gave him back the matchbook. “Is that all?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Then I’d like to go home.”

  Milo gave the signal and Fierro got behind the wheel and started up the engine.

  “Uptight lady,” said Milo after they drove away.

  “She used to be a sweet young thing,” I said. “Too much time on the cancer ward can do things to you.”

  He frowned.

  “Quite a mess in there,” he said.

  “Looks bad, doesn’t it?”

  “You want me to speculate? Maybe, maybe not. The room was tossed by someone who was angry. But couldn’t it have been one of the parents, furious at having a sick kid, all scared and confused about pulling him out? You worked with people in that situation. Ever see anyone freak like that?”

  I reeled back a few years.

  “There was always anger,” I told him. “Most of the time people talked it out. But sometimes it got physical. I can recall at least one intern getting slugged by a father. Plenty of threats. One guy who’d lost his leg in a hunting accident three weeks before his daughter came down with kidney tumors carried a couple of pistols into the hospital the day after she died. It was usually the ones who denied it and held it in and didn’t communicate with anyone who were the most explosive.” Which fit the description Beverly had given me of Garland Swope. I told him so.

  “So that could be it,” he said uneasily.

  “But you don’t think so.”

  The heavy shoulders shrugged.

  “I don’t think anything at this point. Because this is a crazy city, pal. More homicides each year and folks are getting wasted for the weirdest reasons. Last week, some old character jammed a steak knife in his neighbor’s chest because he was sure the guy was killing his tomato plants with evil rays from his navel. Deranged assholes walk into fast-food joints and mow down kids eating burgers, for chrissake. When I first went into Homicide things seemed relatively logical, pretty simple, really. Most of the stuff we used to catch was due to love or jealousy or money, family feuds—your basic human conflicts. Not now, compadre. Too many holes in the Swiss cheese? Ice the deli man. Looney Tunes.”

  “And this looks like the work of a crazy?”

  “Who the hell knows, Alex? We’re not talking hard science. Most probably we’ll find it was what I said before. One of them—probably the father—got a good look at the shitty cards he’d been dealt and tossed the room. They left the car behind so it’s probably temporary.

  “On the other hand, I can’t guarantee they didn’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, didn’t collide with a nutcase who thought they were Pluto Vampires out to take over his liver.” He held the matchbook between thumb and forefinger and waved it like a miniature flag.

  “Right now,” he said, “all we’ve got is this. It’s not in my ballpark but I’ll pay the place a visit and follow it up for you, okay?”

  “Thanks, Milo. Getting to the bottom of it would calm a few people down. Want company?”

  “Sure, why not? Haven’t seen you in a good while. If missing the lovely Ms. Castagna hasn’t made you unbearably morose, you might even turn out to be good company.”

  7

  THERE W AS a phone number on the matchbook but no address, so Milo called Vice and got one, along with some background on the Adam and Eve Messenger Service.

  “They know the operation,” he said, tooling onto Pico and heading east. “Owned by a sweetheart named Jan Rambo, has her finger in a little bit of everything. Daddy’s a mob biggie in Frisco. Little Jan’s his pride and joy.”

  “What is it, a cover for an outcall service?”

  “That and a few other things. Vice thinks sometimes the messengers transport dope, but that’s only a sideline—impromptu, when someone needs a favor. They do some relatively legit stuff—party gags, like when it’s the boss’s birthday and a nubile young thing shows up at the office party, strips and rubs herself all over him. Mostly it’s sex for sale, one way or another.”

  “Which sheds new light on Nona Swope,” I said.

  “Maybe. You said she was good looking?”

  “Gorgeous, Milo. Unusually so.”

  “So she knows what she’s got and decides to profit from it—it might be relevant, but what the hell, when you get right down to it, this town was built on the buying and selling of bodies, right? Small town girl hits glitter-city, gets her head turned. Happens every day.”

  “That has got to be the most hackneyed soliloquy you’ve ever delivered.”

  He broke out laughing and slapped the dashboard with glee, then realized he’d been squinting into the sun and put on a pair of mirrored shades.

  “Oka-ay, time to play cop. What do you think?”

  “Very intimidating.”

  Jan Rambo’s headquarters were on the tenth floor of a flesh-colored high rise on Wilshire just west of Barrington. The directory in the lobby listed about a hundred businesses, most with names that told you nothing about what they did—a free hand had been used with words like enterprise, system, communications, and network. A good third of them ended with Ltd. Jan Rambo had outdone them all, christening her meat market, Contemporary Communications Network, Ltd. If that didn’t convince you it was all very respectable, the brass letters on the teak door and the matching thunderbolt logo were sure to do the trick.

  The door was locked but Milo pounded it hard enough for the walls to shake, and it opened. A tall well-built Jamaican in his midtwenties stuck his head out and started to say something hostile, but Milo shoved his badge in the mahogany face and he shut his mouth.

  “Hi,” said Milo, grinning.

  “What can I do for you, Officers?” asked the black, over-enunciating in a show of arrogance.

  “First, you can let us in.” Without waiting for cooperation, Milo leaned on the door. Taken by surprise, the Jamaican stepped back and we walked in.

  It wasn’t much of a reception room, barely larger than a closet, but Contemporary Communications probably didn’t do much receiving. The walls were flat ivory and the only furniture was a chrome and vinyl desk upon which sat an electric typewriter and a phone, and the steno chair behind it.

  The wall backing the desk was adorned with a photographic poster of a California surfer couple posing as Adam and Eve, underscored by the legend “Send that Special Message to that Special person.” Eve had her tongue in Adam’s ear and though the expression on his face was one of stuporous boredom, his fig leaf bulged appreciatively.

  To the left of the desk was a closed door. The Jamaican stood in front of it, arms folded, feet apart, a scowling sentry.

  “We want to speak with Jan Rambo.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “Jesus,” said Milo, disgustedly, “everyone in this lousy city thinks he’s in the movies
. ‘You got a warrant?’” he mimicked. “Strictly grade B, dude. C’mon, knock on the door and tell her we’re here.”

  The Jamaican remained impassive.

  “No warrant, no entry.”

  “My, my, an assertive one.” Milo whistled. He put his hands in his pockets, slouched and walked forward until his nose was a millimeter short of Eskimo-kissing the Jamaican.

  “There’s no need to get unpleasant,” he said. “I know Ms. Rambo is a busy lady and as pure as the freshly driven snow. If she wasn’t, we might be here to search the premises. Then we’d need a warrant. All we want to do is talk with her. Since you obviously haven’t advanced far enough in your legal studies to know this, let me inform you that no warrant is necessary when one simply wants to make conversation.”

  The Jamaican’s nostrils widened.

  “Now,” Milo continued, “you can choose to facilitate that conversation or continue to be obstructive, in which case I will cause you grievous bodily injury, not to mention significant pain, and arrest you for interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duty. Upon arrest, I will fasten the cuffs tight enough to cause gangrene, see to it that you are body-searched by a sadist, and make sure you are tossed in a holding cell with half a dozen charter members of the Aryan Brotherhood.”

  The Jamaican pondered his choices. He backed away from Milo, but the detective bird-dogged him, breathing into his face.

  “I’ll see if she’s free,” he muttered, opening the door a crack and slithering through.

  He reappeared momentarily, eyes smoldering with emasculation, and jerked his head toward the open door.

  We followed him into an empty anteroom. He paused before double doors and punched a code into a pushbutton panel. There was a low-pitched buzz and he opened one of the doors.

  A dark-haired woman sat behind a marble-topped tubular metal desk in an office as big as a ballroom. The floor was covered with springy industrial carpeting the color of wet cement. To her back was a wall of smoked glass offering a muted view of the Santa Monica mountains and the Valley beyond. One side of the office had been given over to some West Hollywood decorator’s fantasies—mercilessly contemporary mauve leather chairs, a lucite coffee table sharp enough to slice bread, an art deco sideboard of rosewood and shagreen similar to one I’d seen recently in a Sotheby’s catalogue; that piece had gone for more than Milo took home in a year. Across from this assemblage was the business area: rosewood conference table, bank of black file cabinets, two computers, and a corner filled with photographic equipment.

  The Jamaican stood with his back to the door and resumed his sentry pose. He worked at fashioning his face into a war mask but a rosy flush incandesced beneath the dusky surface of his skin.

  “You can go, Leon,” the woman said. She had a whiskey voice.

  The Jamaican hesitated. She hardened her expression and he left hastily.

  She remained behind the desk and didn’t invite us to sit. Milo sat anyway, stretching out his long legs and yawning. I sat next to him.

  “Leon told me you were very rude,” said the woman. She was about forty, chunky, with small muddy eyes and short pudgy hands that drummed the marble. Her hair was cut blunt and short. She wore a tailored black business suit. The ruffled bodice of her white crepe de chine blouse seemed out of character.

  “Gee,” said Milo, “I’m really sorry, Ms. Rambo. I hope we didn’t hurt his feelings.”

  The woman laughed, an adenoidal growl. “Leon’s a prima donna. I keep him around for decoration.” She pulled out an extra-long black cigarette from a box of Shermans and lit it up. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, she watched it rise to the ceiling. When it had dissipated completely she spoke.

  “The answers to your first three questions are: One: They’re messengers, not hookers. Two: What they do on their own time is their own business. Three: Yes, he is my father and we talk on the phone every month or so.”

  “I’m not from Vice,” said Milo, “and I don’t give a damn if your messengers end up giving fuck shows for horny old men snarfing nose candy and playing pocket pool.”

  “How tolerant of you,” she said coldly.

  “I’m known for it. Live and let live.”

  “What do you want then?”

  He gave her his card.

  “Homicide?” Her eyebrows rose but she remained impassive. “Who bit it?”

  “Maybe no one, maybe a whole bunch of people. Right now it’s a suspicious disappearance. Family from down near the border. The sister worked for you. Nona Swope.”

  She dragged deeply and the Sherman glowed.

  “Ah, Nona. The red-haired beauty. She a suspect or a victim?”

  “Tell me what you know about her,” said Milo, taking out his pad.

  She removed a key from a desk drawer, stood, smoothed her skirt, and went to the files. She was surprisingly short—five one or two. “I guess I’m supposed to play hard to get, right?” She inserted the key in the file lock and twisted. A drawer slid open. “Refuse to give you the information, scream for my lawyer.”

  “That’s Leon’s script.”

  That amused her. “Leon’s a good guard dog. No,” she said, taking out a folder, “I don’t care much if you read about Nona. I’ve got nothing to hide. She’s nothing to me.”

  She settled back behind the desk and passed the folder across to Milo. He opened it and I looked over his shoulder. The first page was an application form filled out in halting script.

  The girl’s full name was Annona Blossom Swope. She’d listed a birthdate that made her just twenty and physical measurements that matched my memory of her. Under residence she’d claimed a Sunset Boulevard address—Western Pediatric Medical Center—with no phone number to go along with it.

  The eight-by-ten glossies had been taken in the office—I recognized the leather furniture—and they’d framed her in a variety of poses, all sultry. The photos were black-and-white and shortchanged her by their inability to capture her dramatic coloring. Nevertheless, she had what professionals call presence and it came through in these pictures.

  We thumbed through the photos—Nona in a string bikini rolled down over her pelvis, Brazilian style; Nona braless in a sheer tank top and jeans, nipples budding through the fabric; Nona making love to an all-day sucker; Nona, feline, in a filmy negligee with a fuck-you look in her dark eyes.

  Milo whistled softly. I felt an involuntary tug below the waist.

  “Quite a gal, eh?” asked Jan Rambo. “A lot of skin passes through these portals, gentlemen. She stood out from the rest of them. I started calling her Daisy Mae because there was a naive quality to her. Limited life experience. Despite that, she was a little girl who knew her way around, know what I mean?”

  “When were these taken?” asked Milo.

  “First day she got here—what’s it say, a week ago? I took one look at her and called the cameraman. We shot and developed ’em the same day. I saw her as a good investment, started her off on messenger service.”

  “Doing what, exactly?” he pushed.

  “Doing messenger work, exactly. We’ve got a few basic skits—doctor and nurse, professor and coed, Adam and Eve, dominatrix and slave or vice versa. The old clichés, but your average yahoo can’t break out of clichés even when it’s fantasy time. The client picks the skit, we send out couples, and they do it like a message—you know, Happy Birthday, Joe Smith, this is from the boys in the Tuesday night poker group and, presto, the show is on. It’s all legal—they joke around, but nothing that challenges the penal code.”

  “How much does that run the poker buddies?”

  “Two hundred. Sixty goes to the messengers, split fifty-fifty. Plus tips.”

  I did some quick mental arithmetic. Working half-time Nona could have pulled in a hundred dollars a day or more. Big bucks for a country girl barely out of her teens.

  “What if the client is willing to pay more to see more?” I asked.

  She looked sharply at me. “I was wondering if
you talked. Like I said before, the messengers are free to do what they want on their own time. Once the skit is over, it’s their own time. You like jazz?”

  “Good jazz,” I answered.

  “Me, too. Like Miles and Coltrane and Bird. Know what makes them great? They know how to improvise. Far be it from me to discourage improvisation.”

  She took out another Sherman and lit it from the one smoldering in her mouth.

  “That’s all she did, huh?” asked Milo. “Skits.”

  “She could’ve done more—I had plans for her. Movies, magazine layouts.” The meaty face creased into a smile. “She was cooperative—took off her clothes without batting an eye. They must raise ’em wild in the country.” She rolled the cigarette between stubby fingers. “Yeah, I had plans but she split on me. Worked a week and—” She snapped her fingers—“poof.”