A Date You Can't Refuse (22 page)

“May I ask why?”

“I'm living in a bulletproof house and driving in a bulletproof car, and maybe that's the kind of thing that would make you feel safe, but it doesn't make me feel safe, especially in light of the dead people showing up. It's not what I signed on for.” I told him about
Poprobuji 31 Aromat, tebe legko budet osmotretsya—Udachi
on my bathroom mirror, about Crispin's insistence that Chai's “accident” was murder, and about Crispin then reappearing twelve hours later as coyote food. Lendall made notes in a spiral notebook, sometimes asking me to stop so he could catch up. This left me time to study his ears and the subtle plaid of his sports coat.

“All very interesting,” he said at last, looking up from his notes. “And you think someone in the Milos household killed this person, Miss Shelley?”

“Call me Wollie,” I said. “I have no idea who killed him, but I need to know what I'm doing there. I need to know what the big crime is that Yuri Milos is supposedly perpetrating.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why, Lendall? Because only an idiot would just go about her
business with people around her dropping like flies, rolling down the hillsides of Calabasas like pebbles. I don't want to be next, I don't want to be a rolling stone, I want to live long, gather moss—”

“Miss Shelley—”

“Call me Wollie—”

“Wollie, you need to calm down, because—”

“No, Lendall, what I need to do, and I think you can tell by my anxiety level that I will, is walk away from this whole operation, and maybe tell the sheriff on the way out what I know about Crispin, because I feel responsible for him being dead, unreasonably, perhaps, but I do. So unless you can make a compelling argument for me staying, I'm going.”

“Wollie, I can see that you feel frustrated and, yes, scared and perhaps a little emotional, not that we know each other well, but if you'll just trust that—”

“Are
you not authorized to tell me anything? Is that it? You're not high enough up in the food chain to decide this?”

He said nothing, but his face took on a mulish look. I glanced away from him and back to the road. “Look,” I said, “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I've spent my whole life, practically, at entry-level positions. I'm just saying that if you can't talk to me, I can't talk to you either. Nothing personal. Get Bennett Graham on the phone if you need to, but I either get some answers or I'm out of here.”

“Okay.” Lendall took out his cell phone, then hopped out of the car.

Could I do it, though? What if they called my bluff? Would I really leave tonight? I didn't know where my own car was, so I'd have to commit grand theft auto in order to quit my job. Giving notice scared me, and I had no faith that I could stand up to Yuri's persuasiveness. What I could do was drive to an all-night grocery store and leave the Suburban and call Joey or Fredreeq—

The passenger door opened and Lendall hopped back in and handed me the phone. He looked disgruntled.

“Hello?” I said.

“Wollie, Bennett Graham.” His voice was crisp and cold, like the night air. “I understand that you've encountered a peripheral incident.
This will be investigated. You are not to worry about it; your instructions remain intact. Tell Mains what you've discovered.”

“Whoa, Nelly” I said. “There was nothing ‘peripheral’ about it. I got a close-up of this poor kid's face, there was blood in his
eye
balls—”

“You'll get over it. This shouldn't have any impact on what you're there to do.”

“Of course it has impact, it's inherently impactive, and I can't do this job unless—”

“Stop. Emotionalism will not help you. I need you to focus on the reasons you came to work for us. Do you remember them?”

P.B.'s face rose up in front of me. “Yes.”

“Have those reasons changed? Your brother's situation is still tenuous, I assume?”

“Yes. No, it hasn't changed, but—”

“No. And that's the relevant point. So let's move on. What happened today puts you in no additional danger, so there is no reason—”

“How can you know that?” A motorcycle whizzed by us, engine loud.

“It's my business. If you think that walking away from MediasRex is a real option, I suggest you reconsider. Milos would be suspicions about you and your reasons for leaving and would easily find you. You have no experience at going underground. Trust me on this.”

Underground. Apt word. If I were six feet underground, and horizontal, there was a chance Yuri wouldn't find me. Otherwise? “But do you trust me?” I asked. “Because I see another option. I could tell Yuri that you're investigating him and that could buy me enough goodwill for him to let me walk away. P.B.'s interests aren't served by me ending up at the bottom of Malibu Canyon. Who'd take care of him then? You? I don't think so.”

I hung up.

My hands shook as I passed the phone back to Lendall Mains, who stared at me openly. I stared back, feeling a coldness run down my spine. The phone rang. Lendall answered it with “Mains,” and then passed it back to me without a word.

“Miss Shelley, if you ever make a threat like that again, I will file
charges,” Bennett Graham said. “Your brother's interests will not be served by you ending up in federal prison. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Give the phone back to Agent Mains.”

“You go first,” Lendall Mains said.

I rattled off the names Sergei, Alyosha, Pyotr, Andrej, and Josip, as Lendall wrote them down. “And there are lots more,” I said. “Guys hanging out around the compound.”

“How about the trainees and staff? Any strange behavior there?”

“Lendall, if these people were any more eccentric, they'd have their own reality show. Zbiggo Shpek, for instance. Heavyweight boxer and hit man, according to him.”

“Tell me some examples of irregular activity.”

“Alik Milos using the UPS store, back there near Gelson's. To and from Film Estonia, something he does on a regular basis, so I guess it's not irregular at all, but why do that when FedEx is at the house every day?”

“A package
from
Estonia? Really?” He made a note. “Anything else?”

“Today's hike,” I said. “People were running up and down hillsides, climbing into the canyon, risking life and limb and poison oak, and for what? I saw this from a distance, but I wasn't supposed to see it at all, because when I asked about it, no one would talk about it.”

Lendall perked up at this. “Did they have compasses? Other gear? GPS equipment?”

“Too far away to see. I think we all just had backpacks. Filled with water.” I remembered then how Kimberly had stopped me when I'd tried to help myself to a pack. “No, wait—mine had water. I don't know what other people had. Why?”

“Just curious. Go on.”

I told him about the room Olive Oyl had taken me to, and showed him the paper on which I'd done my artist's rendering. He studied it, front and back.

“The main thing,” I said, “is Chai, my predecessor. Everyone seems
to know her, including the trainees who just arrived, but you guys don't seem to find it odd, her death—nobody finds it odd, and that's what I find odd.”

He looked up. “How so?”

“Lendall, a sudden death—that's interesting. That's something people discuss. It's human nature. But this happened recently, and everyone's kind of matter-of-fact about it.”

“Like they're hiding something?”

“No. They'll talk about it, but they don't say anything. Normally, people will tell you where they were when they heard the news, what time it was, their relationship with the deceased. At least early on. Yuri said he kept it out of the press, but how can he squash people's tendency to talk about it at home? And why would he?”

We were back at the mall and I pulled up to where Lendall Mains directed me, alongside a Honda Civic nearly alone in the parking lot, far from Yogi Yogurt.

“Okay,” I said, turning off the engine. “Your turn.”

“You must understand,” he said, “that nothing I'm about to tell you is true. We're just having a casual conversation. Shooting the breeze. It would be irresponsible for me to divulge information about an ongoing case, as Special Agent Graham explained.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, then.” He talked for maybe ten minutes, after which he gave me a small box with a set of instructions. “And one last thing,” he said. “I have something for you. In my car. Wait here.”

Uh-oh. Was I about to be issued a gun by the federal government? If so, I thought, it had better come with lessons and a personality transplant.

I peered out the window, toward where Lendall had opened his hatchback. The interior light displayed a cooler. My mind went to body parts. Speaking of transplants. I could use some body parts. A braver heart. A stronger stomach. Bulletproof skin.

Lendall extracted a package from the cooler and brought it over.

“Your alibi,” he said. “No charge.”

Inside the white bag was a quart of Very Vanilla frozen yogurt.

I
did not return to the compound, but waited until Lendall Mains had driven off, then headed farther into Calabasas, to the Sagebrush Cantina. Joey was at a table in the back, drinking Diet Coke. Fredreeq, in a cowboy hat, sat opposite her, sipping a margarita.

“Fredreeq, what are you doing here in the wild?” I asked. “Isn't it your bedtime?”

“Never mind that. Here are the words I want to hear from you: ‘Fredreeq, I have quit this ridiculous job, which I took on against the advice of people with common sense.’”

“And I want to hear about the chewed-up body you found,” Joey said, pushing a plate of appetizers to me. “Here, have some.”

“What are they?”

“Tijuana egg rolls.”

I pushed them back. “Okay. I'm going to quit, as soon as I do a tiny favor for—uh—”

“The FBI,” Fredreeq said. “What's the favor?”

“Install a bugging device in the dining room at the compound. And one in the office. And in Yuri and Kimberly's bedroom.”

Silence.

Joey was the first to speak. “How well do these FBI people know you?”

“Now listen up, Miss RadioShack,” Fredreeq said. “You can forget devices. You and I are going to drive tonight to this death trap you're living in and pack up a bag for you and I will explain that I've come to take you away to a family funeral.”

“Fredreeq, we're not in the same family,” I said. “You're black.”

“Nobody cares. The point is, you are not staying another night in that place.”

“I'll make a deal,” I said. “I tell you what I just found out and in return—” A waitress appeared at my side. “Just hot tea, please. Chamomile or something,” I said, then waited till she'd gone. “Look, I'm very close to finishing up. And I know what the investigation's about.” I paused meaningfully. “Film piracy.”

Joey and Fredreeq looked at me blankly.

“Okay. I admit, it's a little anticlimactic. But that's the beauty of it. First of all, it makes me less scared. These MediasRex people are pirates. Not axe murderers. It's just a crime against technology. Against Hollywood. That doesn't seem so dire. Which is nice, because some of these people are growing on me.”

“I don't buy it,” Joey said.

“Me neither,” Fredreeq said.

“What don't you buy, film piracy? They just told me.”

“The feds?” Fredreeq said.

“They're lying,” Joey said.

“Why?”

“To keep you on the job,” Joey said, and Fredreeq nodded. “Did you seem freaked out to them tonight?”

I thought about having hung up on Bennett Graham. “A bit.”

Now they both nodded. It grated on my nerves when they did things in unison. “Wiretaps and bugs,” Joey said, “indicate something a little bigger than filched films.”

“Actually” I said, “film piracy costs three to six billion dollars annually to an industry that this city values very highly. And because this crime
involves customs, interstate transportation, and ITSPs, certain judges appreciate its complexity and fiscal impact and are willing to issue warrants for surveillance. Not that it necessarily happened in this case, of course. I must point that out. But it could have.”

“Thank you for the public service message,” Joey said. “The feds tell you that?”

“Inspiring, isn't it? And because they have reason to believe the whole operation may be packing up and relocating soon, they need to move in quickly. Which is why I'll be out of there in a day or two. And just today I saw Alik Milos at the UPS store picking up a package from Film Estonia. It all fits.”

“No, it doesn't,” Joey said. “The piracy thing goes from here to Europe, not vice versa. Californians aren't lining up to see Estonian films.”

The waitress came by with my chamomile tea. “And what about the dead bodies?” Fredreeq asked, oblivious to her. “I don't care if your employer is a pirate or a podiatrist, if people are dying over at his house, it's not the right job for you.”

“Thanks,” I said to the waitress, whose eyebrows were raised. “Waiting tables is no picnic either, huh?”

“Sucks,” she said and moved off.

“Okay, yes,” I admitted. “There are a few things I can't figure out. Like why Crispin was killed. Also, the trainees all seem to be in on some secret, but they've only been here two days and they've just met. So what's that secret? If it's DVD piracy, why are they in L.A., why aren't they back in their countries selling
Spider-Man 6
on the streets?”

“Why do you think they're all in on something?” Joey asked.

I told them about the hike, about team members going off trail, scrambling through the brush in a big hurry. “What's that got to do with stolen movies?” I asked.

“Not a damn thing,” Fredreeq said. “That's geocaching.”

“What?” I asked.

“Orienteering. Francis and the kids are all over it. It's a big scavenger hunt in the wild, using GPS and Boy Scout skills and all that woodsy stuff. They search for treasures.”

“Have you ever done it?” Joey asked.

“I treasure hunt at the mall,” Fredreeq said.

“It sounds very Outward Bound,” Joey said. “A party game to get everyone loosened up and connected, the kind of thing they do on corporate retreats.”

“But if that's the case,” I said, “why not just tell me? I'm part of the team too.”