Chapter 56
DEL RIO AND I drove to Warner Brothers studios out in Burbank. I showed my badge at security, then told them to check with the studio head, who was a client. A couple of minutes later, I drove down the wide, bright roadway through the lot, past the commissary and the soundstages, out to the bungalows that were laid out in a campus-like setting.
We found Zev Martin working on his motorcycle to the side of a white house with his name stenciled over the door. He was a small guy in his thirties with tightly clipped facial hair and a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps.
I introduced Del Rio and myself while Martin squinted up at us suspiciously. “What?” he asked.
“We’re investigating the death of Shelby Cushman,” I said. So far, this line had proven to be a conversation stopper. This time was no different.
“You saw her several times a week,” Del Rio said. “At the Benedict Spa. Did she ever say anything to you about anyone giving her trouble there?”
Martin stood up, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, and said, “You don’t go to see girls like that so you can listen to their problems. Pretty funny idea, actually. Is that what you do?” Martin said to Del Rio. “You pay women to talk about themselves? Why don’t you just get married?”
Del Rio’s bruises were still dark and plentiful. He looked like a pit bull who’d been matched with an equal—and won.
“I don’t pay women,” Del Rio said. “What kind of guy does that, I wonder.”
“Rick,” I said, “wait for me in the car, please.”
But he didn’t listen to me. He grabbed Martin by the shirt and pulled the collar tight at his throat. The bike went over, folded in on itself.
“We don’t want any of your bullshit,” Del Rio said into Martin’s face. “Tell us about Shelby or after I beat your brains in, I’ll personally tell your unfortunate wife about your unfortunate visits to the spa.”
“Hey! What’s with you?” Martin squealed.
I heard the bleeping of a security cart coming up the roadway in our direction.
Martin was going red in the face as Del Rio wrung the next few words out of him. “Shelby was in love with some guy. Not her husband, okay?”
“Rick,” I said, grabbing him from behind, “let him go.”
“Who was this guy she loved?” Del Rio said, shaking the director.
“I don’t know. It was a rumor with a few of the other girls. Shelby never mentioned it herself.”
I wrenched Rick off Zev Martin and apologized as Rick stalked off toward the car.
“Are you okay?” I asked Martin.
“Fuck no,” he said, running his hand around his throat.
“Del Rio is a vet,” I said, leaving out that he was also an ex-con. “He’s suffering from PTSD. I’m very sorry.”
“I should have him charged with assault,” Martin said, as the studio cop cart parked at the curb.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think you want any more attention drawn to this situation,” I said.
I avoided looking at the security cop and walked back to my car. I got in and slammed the door.
“It better not be that Shelby was in love with you, Jack,” Del Rio muttered. “ ‘Close friends,’ I think you called it.”
I started up the car and said to Rick, “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you take yourself off your meds?”
He was curled up against the passenger door. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Have you ever sleepwalked?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I wake up, I’m behind the couch, or in the closet, or outside on the lawn. I have no idea how it happened. I have nightmares, bad ones.”
“Take the rest of the day off, Rick. Go home and get some sleep before you get us killed.”