Beware Beware (21 page)

We sat down on a gold fabric sofa, and she crossed her legs and said, “So?”

“First of all,” I said, “I'm sorry about your boss. This must be a hard time for you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It's been super weird.”

“How well do you know Jamie?” I asked.

“Not that well. I helped him get the job, and I've seen him a lot just with Joe. But we've never hung out or anything like that.”

“Nice guy, in your opinion?”

“Yeah.” She paused, then whispered, “Is it true they think he did it?”

“You mean the police? I wouldn't know much more than you.”

She bit on her upper lip and nodded with visible disappointment.

“What do you think?” I asked.

She brightened, and I knew all at once how to handle her. Not only was Rory Buckner an attention seeker, she was also a gossip—the best kind of person to interview when you had no real authority.

“I don't know, but he's such a cokehead I wouldn't be super surprised.”

“He's the only cokehead you know?”

She smiled. “Touché.”

“What was their relationship like?” I asked.

“They were close, which is saying a lot, actually. I worked for Joe for six years, and I don't think he ever asked me a single thing about myself.”

“Wow.”

She shrugged. “I'm not bitter or anything. That's just how he was.”

It was clear enough that she was bitter, and that could only work to my advantage. “Did you like him?”

“I did,” she said. “It was a good job. Paid well, kind of weird hours, but I couldn't complain.”

“As a person, though?”

She frowned. “I don't want to talk crap,” she said. “But I guess you could say he wasn't a great person.”

“In what way?”

“He was super self-centered and unreasonable.
Bratty
, I guess, if you can call a grown man that. Sometimes he would just smile and look at me and say things like, ‘You love me, right?' Like, kind of joking? But I always had to answer.”

“And you'd say yes?”

“It was part of my job, really. I've never met a man who was so into his own fame. He wanted love—he needed to be loved—but, like, he didn't want the bother of loving back.”

“So you didn't love him.” I thought of Jamie, sobbing that he did.

“Sometimes I thought I did. In the way you might love a kid you babysit. I'm sorry he's gone. I can say that for sure.”

She put her head down and I followed suit, giving a moment of silence to the dead man. When I thought enough time had passed to change the subject, I went for it.

“So, how do you know Daphne?”

“Oh boy,” she said. “The short answer is that I don't. Not really.”

“I thought you were friends. I thought you got Jamie that writing gig.”

She laughed. She had a salty laugh. “Is that what she told you?”

I nodded, combing over my memory for a possible mistake. There was none. “She said you waitressed together.”

“We may have waitressed in L.A. at the same time, like everyone else. But I never even saw Lanya Waters until Abby's party.”

“Was that the night—”

“Oh yeah,” she said.

“Were you there?”

She nodded.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I shouldn't.” She paused, chewing her lip, but I could tell I'd revived an itch, and I could see it growing irresistible as she reviewed her trove of secrets, unjustly hidden from the world.

“Sure you should,” I said. “Look, this is a huge case—you know that, right? The whole world wants to know what happened to Joe Tilley. You were close to him—you know things most people don't. What you have to say might end up being important.”

She didn't say anything for a minute, but I could tell she'd made up her mind.

“I was helping out with the party,” she said. “Dealing with the caterer, taking people's coats, whatever. Towards the end of the night, I was also watching Abby. She was getting trashed, and I was kind of babysitting her, making sure she didn't puke in anyone's wineglass, etc.”

“Did you meet Lanya then?”

“I did, yeah. She was one of the cocktail waitresses, and I gave them the rundown on how the evening was supposed to go. She was beautiful, of course. They were all beautiful. But I guess I remembered her because she was black, and like, extra beautiful for a black girl, you know what I mean?”

I didn't respond, and for a second she seemed to wonder if she'd said something wrong.

“Anyway, I remembered her. After.”

She looked at me meaningfully, but I didn't interrupt.

“I didn't see her again until the next morning, which was a Sunday. I'd gone home late, and I expected to sleep in, but Alex called me at around eight o'clock. I remember looking at the clock and wondering what the hell it was Joe wanted.”

“And what did he want?”

“Well, Alex got me on the phone and he was super angry, I could tell. He was cussing and breathing hard, and I just thought, ‘Ugh. What is it this time?' And then he told me that this cocktail waitress from the party wouldn't leave the house.”

“That's what he said?”

“That's almost the exact phrasing. ‘One of the cocktail waitresses won't leave the house.' As if it were two in the morning instead of eight.”

“So, what did he want you to do about it?”

“He wanted me to come to the house and talk to this waitress while he kept an eye on Abby. He thought I could convince her, woman to woman, you know?”

“Sure.”

“So I went over there. It sounded urgent so I didn't even put on makeup or anything. Just threw on a sweatshirt and jeans and booked it. And when I got there, I parked outside like Alex told me to and waited for him to let me in.”

“The utmost caution when the lady of the house is sleeping.”

“That's when I really met Lanya,” she said. “She was in the guest bedroom, alone, and naked.”

“Naked?”

“She was sitting under the covers, but she was topless, like her boobs were showing and it was like she didn't even notice.”

Daphne wasn't the exhibitionist type—I'd known her long enough to rule out that trait. There was something very wrong with this scene.

“So I walked in and I was thinking, ‘What is wrong with this woman? She sleeps with a movie star in his own house and refuses to leave? Doesn't she know the drill?' and I was trying to figure out a gentle way to say all this when I realized she hadn't even looked at me. I started to introduce myself, and she just stared straight ahead like I was a ghost. I waved my hand in front of her face like this, like, ‘Hello?' and she just blinked.”

I put a hand over my mouth and breathed hard. I didn't want to hear the rest of the story, but I didn't stop her.

“I tried talking to her, saying I understood where she was coming from and all, but that she couldn't stay here. I feel like I chattered on for, like, ten minutes, and then we just kind of sat there, in total silence, for even longer. Finally, she looked at me, and she just said, ‘Send in the man.' I assumed she meant Alex, and I tagged him in and spent the next hour upstairs, hoping to God Abby didn't wake up. I guess they must have worked something out, because when he came to get me, the guest bed was made and Lanya was dressed—I mean as dressed as she was going to get in that cocktail outfit.”

I looked at Rory's yoga gear, but couldn't manage a laugh.

“Alex gave me a list of things to do and pushed us out of the house, together.”

“What things?”

“Morning-after things,” she said. “I got her some new clothes and a dose of Plan B and watched her take it in front of me. I gave her a ride home. She barely talked to me, except at the end, when she demanded my contact information.”

“Did you give her any money?”

“No,” she said. “But I'll bet Alex did. I never did find out how he convinced her to put her clothes on.”

“Miss Buckner,” I said, as serious as I felt. “What did Joe Tilley do to Lanya Waters?”

She bit her lip. “What do you mean what did he do
to
her?”

I stared at her until I was staring at my own form reflected twice in her pupils, solid and unforgiving. “He raped her,” I said. “Didn't he?”

She recoiled as if I'd drawn my hand to slap her. “No,” she said. “I mean he didn't
rape
rape her.”

My head filled with heat and I had a hard time controlling my voice. “The fuck does that mean, ‘he didn't
rape
rape her'?”

“Hold on. Calm down,” she said. “I did think, maybe, it wasn't just that they slept together, okay? So I asked Alex about it.”

“And?”

“He said they'd been flirting all night and that Lanya told her ride to go ahead without her. She meant to spend the night, or at least a few more hours.”

“And?”

“I only know this secondhand, okay? I didn't ask a lot of questions. That's not my job.”

“It's mine. Keep talking.”

“Well from what I understand, they started fooling around, and then she said she didn't want it anymore. This is what
she
told Alex.”

She
. Like it was a dirty word.

“And then they had sex. And instead of leaving, she stayed the night. And that's where I found her. Naked, refusing to leave.”

“He raped her. Joe Tilley was a rapist.”

“No, come on. He wasn't perfect, but he wasn't a rapist.”

“Miss Buckner, I don't know what dictionary you're using, but in mine, you become a rapist when you rape somebody.”

“There's a gray area. What happened between Joe and Lanya—that's a gray area.”

“That is a very
dark
gray area,” I said, my eyes burning. “Some might even call it black.”

I stood up and grabbed my bag in one quick motion, and she stayed planted on the couch, looking startled.

“I didn't do anything,” she said, with a dazed, petulant murmur.

I thanked her for her time and let myself out before she could utter another word in her defense.

On my way home, I thought of all the questions I'd forgotten to ask. What happened next? How did she set up the art sale? How had she contacted Rory? How, and when, and why? What had happened to her, to Joe, in the years between?

But it didn't matter, not really, and I couldn't go back now. I had stormed out in my righteous rage, and the heat of it welded the door shut.

 

Thirteen

I was sitting in traffic with my thoughts booming in my head when my phone rang. It was Chaz.

“Winfred Park,” he said. “From Diamond Bar, California.”

“That's his full name?”

“Was,” he said. “He's dead.”

I listened, dumbstruck, as Chaz filled me in.

Winfred Park was thirty-one years old, and he lived alone in a two-bedroom apartment on Catalina, in the heart of Koreatown. He supported his mother, who lived in subsidized housing in West Adams, and had a brother, Alfred, who was twenty-nine. Both brothers were affiliated with the Rampart Boulevard Gang, a sprawling organization with a presence dating back to the sixties. It was L.A.'s first multiethnic gang, a Harvard of the criminal world. Not that that would help Mrs. Park sleep at night.

Winfred had been found dead in his apartment, after an anonymous tip to police. It had happened sometime that day, between morning and early afternoon. The cause was apparent enough. He'd been shot, execution style, right between the eyes.

“Jesus,” I said when he was done with his report. “He was a fucking gangster?”

“Oh yeah, had the tattoos and everything.”

“His brother, Alfred. Are the odds pretty good he was one of Isaac's attackers?”

“That would be a good guess.”

“Lot of Koreans in this gang?”

“A good number. Mostly Mexicans. One of the major ally gangs is Korean, and there's some crossover there.”

“What do they do?”

“Rape and pillage. I don't know, girl. Gang stuff.”

“Well, what did a gangster want with Lori?”

“The same thing every man seems to want with Lori?”

“I guess the question is—what did he want with Taejin?”

He sighed noisily and asked, “Do you want me to check it out?”

Homicide was an everyday occurrence in Los Angeles. Most of these murders had nothing to do with me. I had one on my plate right now, and it was as much as I could handle, if not more.

Winfred's murder was not my problem. I didn't like the guy, and frankly, it didn't pain me much to see him gone. He was dangerous, with a lecherous ugly heart that beat, until recently, for Lori.

But if Taejin Chung was in trouble, if he was at the mercy of a gangster to the point where he'd loan out his niece in payment of services or disservices, rendered or withheld—then maybe that was my problem. Lori was as close as I had to family these days, and Taejin, by extension, was in my clan. It was clear enough, anyway, that his woes had the power to cause Lori injury.

I nodded silently before talking at my phone. “If you have time,” I said, “I want to know what Taejin owed Winfred, and whether that debt stays with him now that Winfred is dead.”

“Do you think Taejin could have killed him himself?”

“I don't know him well enough to say for sure. I would guess he had motive. But we can let the police solve this shithead's murder.”

“That reminds me—guess how I got the scoop,” he said.

“I don't know. You're good at your job?”

“I am, yeah. But we got lucky this time. The detective on the case is you and Art's mutual friend.”

“Veronica Sanchez? And she talked to you?”

“She and Art go way back.”