Shooting Elvis Read online

  “Nice bag,” he says. “Mind if I take a look at it?”

  “Sure I mind.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a tape recorder in there, would you?”

  The video image slants down to the carpet, shakes when the purse is opened. The camera is taped to the bottom of the bag, buried under a half foot of books, cosmetics, snack foods, miscellaneous debris like you might find in a normal purse. The image tilts back up to Fleischer. He doesn’t look completely convinced but doesn’t look at the bag anymore, either.

  Cass says, “My friend was supposed to deliver something to you.”

  “I don’t know your friend, so I don’t know what that might be,” Fleischer smiles, playing along. He isn’t going to give anything away to a couple of amateurs, he’s going to listen, deny, act only when Cass leaves. But he knows, all right. The smile is a satisfied one.

  “I guess I have the wrong Mr. Fleischer.”

  The video image cranes up, swivels toward the door, then pans back to Fleischer, looking suddenly more anxious.

  Cass says, “I’ll be ready to make the delivery outside Johnny Rockets on Melrose at seven-thirty tomorrow evening. The price for delivery is ten thousand dollars, cash of course.”

  I walked around the block, flagged a taxi. I gave the driver twenty bucks, told him to wait outside the entrance of Fleischer’s building, then returned to the mini-truck. I felt pretty nervous, because I figured these were serious killers, I’d feel awful guilty if something happened to Cass. No way Fleischer was going to let her go free and easy. I wouldn’t, and I was an innocent babe compared to him. But I also figured he wouldn’t try anything in his office. Five minutes before the deadline Cass hurried out of the building and hopped into the cab.

  It didn’t take long to spot Fleischer’s man. I didn’t recognize the guy behind the wheel, but the car was familiar. A tan Chevy Caprice. I slipped in behind, followed along. Traffic was heavy. The Caprice was keeping two cars behind the cab. It took three blocks to work my way around, signal, and cut inside his front bumper. In that kind of traffic, a normal enough thing to do. The light ahead turned red. The cab stopped short. I could see Fleischer’s guy in my rearview mirror, tapping his wheel. When the light switched to green, I didn’t move. Horns sounded behind. I got out of the mini-truck, walked to the front, popped the hood. The Caprice rocked in reverse and rolled forward, but I had him pinned, and it took him three or four tries to work out of it. By then, Cass and the cab were long gone.

  Just in case Fleischer was working a double tail, Cass and I had arranged a second dodge at a coffeehouse she knew in Hollywood. Cass paid the cab driver, walked into the coffee-house, bought a cappuccino, grabbed a table near the window, started reading a magazine. Left the magazine on the table, walked to the restrooms in back, snuck out the rear exit. I had the truck idling in the alley.

  Cass said, “This development exec, she wants to take a meeting with you.”

  “I’m not the kind of person who takes a meeting.”

  “She told me you made a living photographing babies.”

  The past was what I wanted to get away from, I didn’t want to talk about it, I said, “Since when did you go Hollywood, talking to Paramount?”

  “If I bring you in, I’ll get first shot at the script, maybe a chance to direct.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Really, Nina, you have to consider it a career move for yourself as well. It’s what all the really interesting criminals are doing now. Television movies.”

  “You notice they got caught first.”

  “Even Charles Manson, he writes song lyrics for Guns n’ Roses.”

  “I thought you made documentaries, despised television.”

  “A chance like you comes around once a lifetime. If we can pull this deal off, neither of us will ever have to work another day of our lives.”

  I said, “I sure won’t. I’ll be in jail.”

  16

  Next day, I’m standing in line at a 7-Eleven waiting to buy a Coke, and, okay I admit it, I’ve got an Enquirer mind. I see a copy at the counter rack, I pick it up, read it standing in line, might even buy a copy if the story really hooks me, and the story that morning really hooked me, the front headline went “LOVE CRAZY FAN TEARS HEART OUT FOR TV ACTRESS.” I grabbed a copy out of the rack, looked at it, saw the story was illustrated with photographs by some guy named Ben Harper, two shots of Joe terrorizing Alice with his tennis racket, one of him lifting his shirt up, the last one a close-up of the hole he’d dug in his chest. “Enquirer scoops world press, has photographer and reporter on scene,” the story read. Funny how I was standing right there the whole time, never even saw the guy. Like Jerry said, I didn’t know anything, looked like I was blind too.

  There was a big woman behind the reference desk at the main library when I went there, phone wedged between ear and shoulder while she leafed through the pages of a book. She wasn’t Ben Steel big but big enough to appreciate the size of him, not be shocked by it. I waited until she finished helping the caller on the phone, felt kind of hopeful when I set the crate-top from the second case on the desk, said, “Ben Steel said I should come to you with this.”

  The woman said, “And what did Ben Steel say I should do with it?”

  “Translate it, you see it’s in Russian.”

  “I see that it’s in Cyrillic. Technically, Cyrillic is an alphabet derived chiefly from the Greek and used in the written form of Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian, among others.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  The phone rang again, she hurried off to answer it, looked like an important call because she turned her back on me to talk. A second librarian carried a tall stack of books from behind the reference desk, the books came up to her eyebrows, she had a pencil between her teeth, she had to turn her head to the side to walk. She eased the stack onto the counter, saw the big woman was busy, asked, “May I help you?”

  I said, “Well, Rachel was ...”

  “I’m Rachel. Rosalie is busy just at the moment.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  Rachel saw the crate-top, the lettering stenciled on it. When she looked at me, I thought she was maybe blushing. She slipped the pencil out of her mouth, said, “You’re from Ben Steel, aren’t you?”

  I asked, “You think you could help me translate this?”

  She walked behind the stacks, came back with a big book she said was a Russian dictionary. She propped the crate-top on the counter, set the dictionary to the side, went to work. Rachel wasn’t pretty, but she had a face unlike any other, once you saw it you didn’t forget. Her nose swept powerful as a mountain from the sharp ridge of her cheekbones, her thin-lipped mouth fell away in awe from the majesty of it. On another face such a nose would be tragic, but Rachel was blessed with a pair of eyes that were enormous and dark and Ben was right, they were soulful. I liked her hands too, long-fingered and delicate, she flipped through the pages of that dictionary as quick and precise as a piano player.

  She asked, “Where did you get this?”

  I said, “It fell off a truck.”

  She saw I was kidding and wasn’t, said, “I shouldn’t have asked. I know the kind of work Ben does, but this is a little odd.”

  “Don’t tell me, it says plumbing supplies.”

  “No. It says Hermitage Museum.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The biggest museum in Russia, one of the biggest in the world, in the West we still don’t know how large. Half of Central and Eastern Europe’s art wound up in its collection after World War II.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea why a urinal would be in a box from this Hermitage Museum, do you?”

  “Perhaps as a joke?”

  “Just what I was thinking.”

  “If I think of something, do you want me to call Ben?”

  “Sure. You ever meet or see Ben?”

  “Just on the phone.”

  I thought why not try, said, “He’s a little different in p
erson.”

  “How is he different?”

  I thought about how big he was.

  I said, “He’s shy.”

  Rachel handed me the crate-top across the counter, said, “Unfortunately, so am I.”

  Cass and I got to Melrose Avenue a couple hours early, climbed the fire escape of the building across the street, stood on the roof and looked around. Johnny Rockets is one of those Americana-type places selling fifties nostalgia to a generation born in the sixties and seventies. Hamburgers, fries, a jukebox, waitresses who chew gum, say, “Comin’ right up, hon.” Must be something to selling fatty foods like this, like it’s all from the past, can’t hurt you that way. Even a vegetarian could eat a hamburger here, think it’s okay, I’m not eating this hamburger now, I’m eating it forty years ago.

  We mounted the video camera on a tripod low to the ground, aimed it down at the street. Street traffic was constant, people walked up and down Melrose, shopping and hanging out, lots of witnesses in case Fleischer was tempted to try something violent. I imagined the way it would happen down there on the street, in front of the restaurant. I’d drive up, keep the motor running, stay calm, do the business.

  Cass said, “You never told me what’s in this case you’re delivering.”

  I told her, I said, “A kitchen sink.”

  “I’m serious, you’ve involved me this far, you should tell me.”

  “I told you.”

  “Don’t trust me then. What are you going to do with the ten thousand dollars, assuming they don’t shoot you dead in the middle of the sidewalk?”

  “There’s a Holiday Inn a couple miles from here. I’m gonna rent a room, sleep for twelve hours.”

  “You’re not coming back to the loft?”

  I looked at her like, What are you getting at?

  Cass said, “It’s because of Billy b, right?”

  I’d gone home the night before, shut myself in my room, could hear Billy b working late in his studio. Then he stopped working, knocked on my door, asked if I wanted a beer, if I wanted to talk. I said no to both, listened to him tell me how stubborn and unreasonable I was. Then he went back to work. Never did get much sleep. I said, “I just want to sleep. No hassles. Just sleep.”

  At six-thirty, a tan Chevy Caprice cruised west, parked two blocks down. Five minutes later, a blue Chevy Caprice headed east, parked two blocks up. Maybe Fleischer got some kind of discount at the local Chevy dealership. I let them sit. A few minutes before seven-thirty, a guy got out of each car. Mid-thirties. Pot-bellied. Bad mustaches. Frick and Frack.

  I pulled a copy of that day’s Los Angeles Times from my back pocket, set it on the roof in front of the camera, said, “Remember, no cuts. Get a shot of the date on the newspaper, pan down, film what you see happening. Don’t forget close-ups so these guys can be identified.”

  Cass put her eye to the viewfinder, zoomed the lens in and out, said, “I’ll use a trick we learned in film school, called the choker.”

  I handed over the letters from Kabyenko to Fleischer. “When it’s over, take the tape, make a copy. Put the tape in a large envelope. Put these letters in with it. Seal the envelope, address it to Sergeant Martinez, from Madame Zero. Take the envelope down to the police station on Wilshire, give it to the man personally, then get out before he opens it.”

  “I’ll see you again, right? You’re not planning to disappear?”

  “Not unless something goes wrong,” I said.

  I climbed down the fire escape. The mini-truck was in the back parking lot. I sat for a moment behind the wheel, thought about it, took a few deep breaths, saw how much my hands shook. I started the engine, floored it. The truck came roaring out of the back alley spitting gravel, cut across a lane of traffic, squealed to a stop in the red zone at the corner of Johnny Rockets. I left the driver’s door winged-open, the motor running, got to the back bed in four swift strides.

  Frick and Frack came up to me from opposite directions. Up close, they didn’t look so identical. Same round face, dead brown eyes, but Frick was a couple years older. Had a few more lines than Frack, a couple gray hairs. He was the one carrying the money, the one who started talking to me right away, calling me girl, saying I’d changed so much he hardly recognized me, he was the one they wanted me to watch while Frack stopped at the passenger door, tried to open it. When he couldn’t, he reversed his path, skirted the hood to get to the driver’s side.

  I said to Frick, “I got a friend on the roof with a scope-sight dead center on your chest.” I pointed to a rooftop far away from Cass. “He sees anything go wrong, I don’t get out clean in three minutes, he pierces your lung, you understand me?”

  Frick said, “You got no friend on the roof.”

  “Don’t take me for an idiot, you’ll live longer.”

  Frick smiled, backed down. He called out, “Hey, Frack.”

  His brother backed away from the driver’s side, joined us on the sidewalk. I dropped the gate, let them see the case. Frick opened the brown paper bag, counted five bundles of twenties. He said, “I showed you mine, you show me yours.”

  I grabbed one end of the case, told him to grab the other. We hoisted the case off the back bed, set it down on the sidewalk. Frack grabbed at the lock, tried to open it. I pulled the key out of my side pocket, held it up, said, “The money.”

  Frack said, “What are you going to do with all that cash?”

  “Buy a bottle, drive to Mexico.”

  “For a sweet young thing, you got this worked out pretty good.”

  Frick said, “Key and bag change hands same time.”

  I held out the key. Our fingers met in the middle. He tossed the sack. I let go. Frick knelt at the case, keyed the lock, opened it. Summer in L.A., seven-thirty at night, it’s half dark out, I figured Kabyenko’s trick would still work, they wouldn’t know one from the other. Frick saw the crating, the Russian lettering, said, “Looks good.”

  I said, “Kabyenko left a note. Said some stuff about this Fleischer guy.”

  Frack said, “Let’s see it.”

  I moved toward the open driver’s door, slipped into the seat, jumped on the gas. The truck screamed from the curb, missed giving a guy in a BMW emergency heart surgery by half an inch. I jerked the wheel back, took one look out my rearview mirror. Frick and Frack stood over the case, watched me drive off. Nothing they could do about it, still had no idea what happened, what they didn’t have beneath the crating. I hung a suicide left across traffic, looked for anybody trying to follow. The rearview was clear. I laughed, thought, What idiots.

  The woman behind the desk at the Holiday Inn looked at me like I was some kind of criminal when I walked up with my brown paper bag and asked for a second-floor single off the street. I was afraid she recognized me, but it was just the paper bag, the black hair and pierced nose, guess I didn’t look like her normal guest. She asked, “Will that be cash?”

  I knelt over the brown paper bag, opened it, peeled off five twenties from the top of the first stack.

  “Comes to $88.95,” she said.

  The first twenty I laid out on the desk was good. The other four weren’t twenties at all, they were sheets of paper, same size and color as cash. I knelt over the sack again, tore open another bundle. One twenty on top, nothing but paper beneath. Same result with the rest. Fleischer probably used the same trick with the money in the exploding briefcase. Kabyenko and these guys thought alike, deserved each other. I counted the five good twenties out to the clerk, got $11.05 in change from my $10,000.

  The dream I had that night, two guys were chasing me. Looked a little like Frick and Frack, except they were dressed in whites, carried tennis rackets. They were trying to hit me over the head, shouting they loved me. I jumped, high as I could, started to fly, great feeling, looked down. Frick and Frack had shotguns, started shooting at me.

  Banging on the door woke me sometime after midnight. I staggered out of bed, stuffed myself into my pants one leg at a time, hopped to the sliding glass do
or, didn’t know who it was at the front, wanted to check my escape route. This was the time I started wishing I carried a gun, in case it was somebody I didn’t want to talk to. The banging didn’t stop. I went over to the door, eyed the peep hole. It was Cass. I unlocked everything, let her in.

  Cass turned on the light, asked, “Are you sleeping?”

  I went back to the bed and fell on it.

  Someone else said, “Maybe we should come back tomorrow.”

  I opened my eyes, sat up. A woman stood next to Cass. About thirty years old. Wore a silk blouse, mini-skirt, tights and ostrich-skin cowboy boots, the kind that cost eight hundred bucks a pair. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. Very deft touch with the makeup. Light eye shadow, lipstick a watery red. Feminine but tough.

  The woman said, “You must be Nina. Or do you still prefer Mary?”

  I said to Cass, “This is a joke?”

  A business card materialized between the woman’s thumb and forefinger, she said, “Donna Wanker, Paramount Television. Vice President, Development.” Said it that way too, each word capitalized.

  Cass put her arm around Donna, who smiled with so many teeth showing I thought she was gonna bite me. Cass said, “This is the woman I was telling you about, the one I went to film school with.”

  Donna said, “We’re talking M-O-W, major network, top stars. With this kind of package, we think we can get Madonna.”

  “Get her to do what?”

  “To play you, of course. Movie-of-the-Week. A star of Madonna’s caliber won’t do just any story. And television? Forget it. But this, she can’t pass up. A perfect girl-next-door-turned-Most-Wanted story.”

  I said, “Uh-huh.”

  Donna said, “Cass, she sounds less than enthusiastic. I thought you talked to her.”

  “I did, Donna. I think she’s sitting on the fence now, listening to offers.”

  Donna sat on the edge of the bed, tried to hook my eyes with a look warm and trustworthy the same time it was mercenary. She said, “You haven’t talked to anybody else, have you?”

  I looked at Cass, said, “You could have waited. Just another couple days.”