CHAPTER
37
Big Micky was anything but.
He sat facing us under a huge live oak. Nothing grew under the tree, and the ground had reverted to sand. The rest of the yard was perfect bonsai grass around a half-Olympic black-bottom pool with a spitting-dolphin waterfall, herringbone-brick hardscape, statuary on pedestals, blood-red azalea beds, more big trees. Through the foliage, a spreading, hazy view of the San Gabriels said money couldn’t buy clean air.
The old man was so shrunken he made the wheelchair look like a high-back. No shoulders, no neck—his smallish head seemed to sprout from his sternum. His skin was legal-pad yellow, his brown eyes filmed, the skin around them bagged, defatted, jeweled with blackheads. A fleshy red blob of a nose reached nearly to his gray upper lip. Bad dentures made his jaws work constantly. Only his hair was youthful: thick, coarse, still dark, with only a few sparks of gray.
Milo’s warrant had opened the electric gate of the house on Mulholland but no one had come up to greet us and he’d taken out his gun and let the uniforms come on like an army. Just as we’d reached the front door it had opened and the ponytailed frog I’d given the medicine vial to was leaning against the jamb, trying to look casual.
Milo put him against the wall, cuffed him, patted him down, took his automatic and his wallet, read his driver’s license.
“Armand Jacszcyc, yeah, this looks like you. Who else is in the house, Armand?”
“Just Mr. K. and a nurse.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” said Jacszcyc. Then he noticed me and his head retracted.
The uniforms went in. A sergeant came back a few minutes later, saying, “No one else. Lots of guns, we’re pulling an arsenal.”
Another uniform came out with Nurse Anna. Her tight face was glossy with sweat and her big chest was emphasized by an electric-blue angora sweater.
She kept her head down as they took her away.
“Okay,” said Milo. “Leave me a couple of guys to tear up the place for dope.”
“No dope so far,” said the sergeant.
“Keep looking. And bust this one for concealed weapon.”
Frog was hustled off and we stepped in. The center of the house was one sixty-foot stretch of dark-paneled space clear to the back, sparkle-ceilinged and gold-carpeted, filled with groupings of green and brown couches, ceramic lamps with fringed shades, heavy, carved tables full of souvenir-shop porcelain and crystal. Clown paintings and Rodeo Drive oils of rainy Paris street scenes said all talent should not be encouraged. The rear wall was covered by pleated olive drapes that locked out the sun and sealed in the smell of decay.
A screech-bird voice from the back yelled, “Where’s that water, Armand!”
A wheelchair sat next to a fake Louis XIV commode with an obscenely inlaid front. The marble top was crowded with medicine bottles. Not like the vial I’d showed Jacszcyc. Big white plastic containers. No prescription blanks. Drug-company samples.
“Armand!”
“He had to run,” said Milo. “Nurse Anna’s gone, too.”
The old man blinked, tried to move. The effort turned him green and he sank back.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Police.” Milo flashed ID. Two uniforms came over and he told them, “Over there.” Pointing to the open doorway of a big brown kitchen. The counter was piled with water bottles, soft-drink cans, takeout cartons, dirty dishes, pots and pans.
“What the fuck you moe-rons doin’ here?”
His accent was interesting: the broad farmer drawl of Bakersfield tucked up at the final syllables by a hint of Eastern Europe. Lawrence Welk without the cheer.
“Gimme some water, moe-ron.”
Milo filled a glass and held it out along with the warrant.
“What’s that?”
“Drug paper. Anonymous tip.”
The old man took the glass but ignored the warrant.
He drank, barely able to hold the glass, water dribbling down his chin. He tried to put it on the table, didn’t protest when Milo took it.
“Drug paper? Wrong customer, moe-ron. But what do I give a flying? Tear up the place, it’s rented anyway.”
“Rented from you,” said Milo. “Triage Properties. That’s a medical term. Interesting choice for a doing-business-as. My-son-the-doctor’s idea?”