Try Fear (8 page)

“You hate that more than anything in the world?” Father Bob said.

“At this moment in time, yes. You can only hate in the present moment. And I’ll tell you something else I hate. When the morning
shows say ‘Good morning.’ ”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes! Stupid! Three thousand people die in a tsunami in the Philippines, and Meredith Vieira goes to the reporter on the scene
and says, ‘She’s covering the terrible tragedy there. Good morning, Ann.’ And the reporter goes, ‘Good morning, Meredith.
Yes, bodies littered everywhere in the aftermath…’ Just get to the story! It’s not a
good morning!
I hate that.”

“You are on a hate binge today,” Father Bob said.

“If you don’t hate something you’re not alive.”

“God hates, too.”

Pick looked stunned.

“ ‘Do not swear falsely, the Lord says. This I hate.’ Book of Zechariah.”

I said, “That means he hates half the witnesses who testify in court.”

“And all congressmen,” Pick said.

“Not so fast,” Father Bob said. “He loves the sinner. It’s the sin he hates.”

“Fantasy,” Pick said.

“How do you even know what
hate
is?” Father Bob said. “You must have love to have hate. You must know what love is to know what hate is. You must have good
to know evil.”

“I do know all these things.”

“But how?”

“Because I sense ’em,” Pick said. “The way I can tell yellow from blue. I can’t prove to you yellow exists—we have to see
it together. So love and justice are the same. We see ’em, and distinguish ’em from hate and injustice.”

“What’s there to tell us our senses are correct?”

“Experience,” said Pick. “We’ve all figured out a way to get along with each other.”

“Tell that to the gangs,” I said. “They’re killing cops and each other.”

“It’s the way of all flesh,” Pick said. “There is nothing to save us.”

“Love saves,” Father Bob said.

Pick flicked his hand, as if batting away a fly.

Father Bob said, “ ‘The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one. Yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.’
”

Pick just looked at Father Bob, who seems to pull these things out of thin air. You can argue with philosophy, but poetry
is another matter.

Then Pick said, “ ‘I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to nature, art. I warmed both
hands before the fire of life. It sinks, and I am ready to depart.’ ”

I was afraid Pick was dangerously close to one of his episodes. Every now and then he went off like a cherry bomb. It would
take days to put the pieces back together.

So I said, “Let me contribute a thought.”

They both looked at me. Incredulously, I might add.

I said, “ ‘I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.’ ”

They said nothing.

Then Father Bob started laughing. Pick scowled but at least didn’t launch.

Then my phone played “Potato Head Blues.” I answered.

“Help.” The voice was barely a whisper.

“Who is it?” I said.

“Oh God, help.”

“Kate?”

“Carl’s dead. Oh, dear God, help me.”

C
ARL’S APARTMENT WAS
on Havenhurst in West Hollywood. The building was Spanish revival style. A throwback to the 1920s, when movies couldn’t talk
and the cops were as crooked as an English waiter’s teeth.

The LAPD is a whole lot more professional now, so I was not surprised by the efficient police presence on the ground floor.
I told a uniform I was the family lawyer and showed him my Bar card. He told me I could go in.

Kate was sitting in a wingback chair in the foyer. Slumped. Eric was on his knees, his arm around her.

“Oh Ty!” she said when she saw me. I went to her and took her hand.

“They wanted to ask Mom questions,” Eric said, “but she said she wanted to talk to you first.”

“Is there someone in charge here?” I asked.

“A detective,” Eric said. “He’s in the apartment. 102.”

Kate said, “I don’t know what to do, Ty.”

“Give me a minute.” I walked down the hall and found 102, which was yellow-taped. Another uniformed officer met me there.
I told him who I was. He went inside and a moment later a plainclothes came out to the hallway. He had dark curly hair and
a Roman nose. About my height. Brown, intelligent eyes. Mid-fifties.

He shook my hand. “My name’s Zebker. You’re the family lawyer?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How well do you know the mother?”

“Not very. I was retained to help Carl in a DUI.”

“Is she strong? Emotionally?”

“Why?”

“There are some details about the death that are not very pleasant. It might be better coming from you. I can give the generic.
It’ll all come out in the news sooner or later.”

“All right. What was it?”

“A nine-millimeter in the mouth. Ugly.”

“Suicide?”

“Maybe.”

“Was there a note or anything?”

“I have to reserve that information for now.”

“Come on, Detective.”

“We’ll follow procedure here. Right now my concern is for the mother. She’s pretty upset.”

“There will be an autopsy, right?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “Let me talk to her. And I might talk to a few of the residents.”

“Now hold on,” Zebker said. “We’re conducting an investigation.”

“So am I.”

“What does that mean?”

“I want to know what happened.”

“You’ll find out when we tell you.”

“Why don’t we just cooperate?”

Zebker looked down the hallway, where a few people were milling around. “I don’t want you plodding through my crime scene.”

“Detective,” I said. “I don’t plod. I used to plod. I gave it up.”

He didn’t smile.

“And as you know,” I said, “you cannot prevent me from questioning anybody I want to question, unless you’re holding them
as a material witness.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“It’s the law.”

“Listen to me carefully. You try to question anybody before I do, I’m going to arrest you. That clear?”

“Detective Zebker—”

“That’s it. Now please go talk to the mother and take her home. I’ll be in touch about the autopsy.”

“How about I take a look inside?”

For a moment I thought Zebker was going to yellow-tape my mouth.

I left before he could.

I
HAD TO
tell Kate. I was glad Eric was there, to hold her up.

“There’s no other way to say this,” I said. “It looks like Carl killed himself.”

A shudder ran down her body. Like electric ripples. Then she convulsed into tears.

“Take her home,” I told Eric. “If you have a sedative, give it to her. I’ll come by later and tell you what I can find out.”

“Why why why?” Kate said, through sobs.

Good question. She deserved an answer.

A
FTER
E
RIC TOOK
Kate home, I hung around outside the apartment building.

Zebker did not want me sniffing for witnesses. But what if I just sidled up to one? Any law against sidling?

What would a judge say?

The First Amendment certainly preserves the right of people to peaceably sidle.

I watched the small crowd on the sidewalk. The people were a typical L.A. knot. Different kinds, shades, and attitudes. A
short woman with black hair, wearing a blouse with jungle foliage print, was talking to a guy who looked Filipino. He wore
glasses with black frames.

“Was the meat a little gamey last night?” the woman said.

The guy shrugged. “You do what you got to do.”

“But it should have been fine.”

“Did you cook it slow?” I said.

They both looked at me.

“Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing,” I said. “Slow cooking, that’s best for… what was it?”

“Duck,” the woman said.

“Now I love a good duck,” I said.

“You live around here?”

“No. I’m friends with the family of the guy who died.”

“Then it’s true?” the man in glasses said. “Was it the big guy?”

“You knew him?”

“Well yeah, to look at. Say hi to. That’s all.”

“Nice guy, was he?”

“I guess,” he said. “What happened?”

“Maybe suicide.”

“Oh man.” He shook his head.

The woman looked stunned. “Bummer,” she said. “I was afraid something like this might happen.”

“Oh yeah?” I said.

She nodded. “There’s a whole Stephen King vibe going on around here. You can feel it.”

“You can,” Glasses said.

“Stephen King?” I said.

“Like in that movie with John Cusack,” the woman said.

“
1408
,” said Glasses. “The haunted-room one.”

“No, it wasn’t haunted,” the woman said. “It was evil. The room itself was evil. I almost felt like telling him—was his name
Carl?—not to go back in the room.”

I looked at her. “When did you feel like telling him that?”

“Tonight, in the garage. He was going in. I was going out.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know, maybe seven or so.”

“Think about it,” I said.

She looked up at the sky and blinked a couple of times. “I got to Pearl’s a little before seven. I remember that because she
always watches
Jeopardy
and it wasn’t on yet.”

“He doesn’t know who Pearl is,” Glasses said.

“Oh yeah,” the woman said. “She’s a friend, lives about fifteen minutes away. So I probably saw him about six-thirty or so.
That help?”

I said, “Did he look upset to you, anything like that?”

“No. He was coming back from the store, I guess.”

“How could you tell?”

“He had a bag with him. I think it was BevMo. Everybody knows he’s a boozer.”

“How do they know that?” I said.

“More than a few nights, out by the pool, he stumbled around and made a lot of noise.”

“Thanks,” I said. It looked like the typical, sad scenario. There are a million variations but it’s all the same theme. A
descent into loneliness, as his brother Eric had suggested. A slide greased by liquor or drugs or both. You look at your life
and it’s not what you ever thought it would be. You look at the future and you only see fog or darkness, but not another person
to share it with.

Enough of that and you figure, why stick around?

I knew the feeling. It had poured over me after Jacqueline died. No man is an island, the poet said, but there are lots of
stray rocks on barren hillsides.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

H
E WAS WELL
dressed, professional looking. Mitt Romney hair. Blue dress shirt with creases that could cut lunch meat. Red tie, loosened.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you working on this matter?”

I said, “And you are?”

“I knew Carl. I’m Morgan Barstler. You?”

“Family lawyer,” I said. “Ty Buchanan.”

“Oh, you were representing him, right?”

“Did he tell you that?”

He nodded. “Carl told me what a great guy you are, great lawyer.”

“Great may be pushing it,” I said. “How well did you know Carl?”

“Very well.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

He looked down and put his hands in his pockets. “Why? What good?”

“I’m looking out for his mom. I’d like to find out why this happened.”

“And how exactly
did
it happen?”

“The police say he shot himself.”

Barstler’s eyes started to tear up. He was going to say something, then stopped himself.

“Not here,” he said.

W
E WENT TO
a bar on Melrose. Cool, contemporary interior with a palm-tree-and-teak motif. Barstler was shaky and ordered scotch rocks.
I had an amber ale called Goliath, a local brew.

“Carl and I were together about a year,” Barstler said. “It didn’t last, but we stayed friends.”

“How long ago was it you were together?” I said.

“It’s been about three years now.”

“And you’ve stayed pretty much in contact since?”

“Oh yeah. We spoke all the time. On the phone. Met for movies, dinner sometimes. Saw each other at parties. E-mailed each
other.”

“What is it you do, Morgan?”

“Real exciting. Accountant.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Wish I’d gone into law. I think it’d be a lot more fun.” He looked into his glass. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

“Any reason you can think of why he’d want to commit suicide?”

Barstler shook his head.

“He was an alcoholic,” I said.

“Yeah. Why we broke up. He couldn’t handle it, and I couldn’t handle
that
.”

“He have a long-term relationship after you?”

“Nothing that lasted. One was pretty bad.”

“In what way?”

“He was with an actor named Tim for a while, but Tim was hooking up with this other guy, a real jerk who hangs on the boulevard
pretending to be somebody. But he’s just mean. Carl had some nasty fights with him.”

“With Tim?”

“And this other guy.”

“You know Tim’s last name?”

“I think it was Larchmont.”

“And he’s an actor?”

Barstler nodded. “He was studying at the Stella Adler school, as I recall.”

“And this other guy’s name?”

“Oh, he’s ripe. He calls himself the Reverend Son Young Moon, if you can believe it.”

I blinked a couple of times. “Hasn’t that name been taken?”

“It’s not the same as that other guy. It’s
Son
, as in Son of God. And Young, as in young. Takes some stones to call yourself the Son of God, doesn’t it?”

“Where do I find this guy?”

“He’s hard to miss. Retro punk Mohawk up to here.” Barstler held his hand about twelve inches over his head. “He hangs out
across from the big brick Scientology center, right near the Stella Adler Theatre. He runs his own street scene on the sidewalk.
Talking to people, handing stuff out.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Barstler shrugged.

“Is this guy capable of killing somebody?” I said.