Hard Count (Burnside Series Book 11) Read online

  Roberto finally cracked the slightest of grins. “Like you said earlier, everything comes with a cost.”

  “Yup,” I said, wondering the extent to which this cost might yield some valuable info. “I could make a donation to the Police Benevolent Association.”

  “The PBA is from another century. But charitable donations are nice. All donations are nice.”

  I nodded and looked down at the blue mug on his desk. “Baseball season is under way,” I remarked slowly, feeling the smile fade from my lips.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “The Dodgers are looking good.”

  “They are,” he nodded.

  “I imagine a pair of box seats might help your computer load faster,” I said, thinking that the cost of baseball tickets had skyrocketed over the past few years. Signing top players to exorbitant long-term contracts had been a baseball staple for decades. And unlike in football, a baseball contract couldn’t be tossed aside once a player’s performance declined. Most football players could be cut from the team, their contracts nullified at any time; baseball had a more player-friendly set of rules. As a result, someone had to pay for this largesse, and, right now, that someone appeared to be me. Or, more correctly, the Differential Insurance Company. I was glad I had reminded Harold there might be some unforeseen costs.

  “I think my computer is warming up,” Roberto observed. “Let’s see here. Curtis Starr. Up in Mandeville Canyon. Address on Banyan Drive. Pricey real estate. You seem to get involved with some high rollers.”

  “John Dillinger phrased it best. That’s where the money is,” I said. People without money can’t usually afford to hire people like me.

  “That’s true. All right. Looks like there have been multiple calls in the past month. Most recent was around ten the other night. Call from a neighbor next door to him, a woman named Tammy Perino. Had a few others from a different neighbor, Gavin Yunis. And oh yeah, a couple from Curtis Starr himself. Looks like Starr was ticked at this Yunis guy about excess noise. I guess Yunis is doing some construction on his property, they had some confrontations. Then Ms. Perino called the other night because of alleged gunshots.”

  “Alleged?”

  “Couldn’t confirm with any of the neighbors. Yunis denied it, and Starr swore he didn’t fire a weapon. Of course, it turns out Starr said he owns about ten guns.”

  “Now there’s a guy who likes to stay safe.”

  DeSanto shook his head. “Makes our work harder. Let’s see here. Said he owns some handguns, a few rifles, and a shotgun. Showed them to the officers, none of them appeared to have been fired recently.”

  “What’d he say about the gunfire?”

  “Said he heard gunshots, too, he was out in his backyard, thought they were close range. Didn’t know where they were coming from. Seemed like his wife was more upset than he was. But the officers checked things out, and his guns passed the smell test. Officers said they checked out okay.”

  “The ones he showed them anyway.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. Plus, that Yunis guy had some history with the Starrs, they had some sort of ongoing property dispute with the neighborhood, multiple lawsuits filed. Sounds like they both could afford the lawyers, and lawyers are usually the only ones who end up benefiting. But once you get up in that pricey real estate, people think they can get anything they want. When you have that much money, it doesn’t take much to set somebody off.”

  “Doesn’t take much in the flatlands, either,” I observed. “You guys have done a little detective work here. Not exactly LAPD style.”

  DeSanto gave me a look. “Different neighborhoods get different treatment. You know that. Our resources go to wherever the top brass thinks they should go to.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, wondering which neighbor had juice with downtown power brokers. In Mandeville Canyon, it might be all of them.

  “And what are you going to do with all this priceless information I just shared with you?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Keep asking questions, I guess. Can I talk with the detective on the case?”

  “Name’s Marc Knapp, but he’s off today.”

  “Okay,” I said, getting up. “You’ve been very helpful, Roberto. The private sector doesn’t always get this level of cooperation from public employees.”

  “Let’s just say that Juan trained me well. And I’m looking forward to that donation. In April, there’s nothing like watching a ballgame with a couple of Dodger Dogs. I’ve been waiting all winter for them. Glad you stopped by.”

  Chapter 3

  Mandeville Canyon is a wealthy area north of Brentwood, which, in and of itself, is quite a wealthy area. Brentwood achieved international fame many years ago through its most famous former resident, O.J. Simpson, who lived in a mansion on Rockingham Drive, just north of Sunset. There was nothing cheap about O.J.’s multimillion dollar property, but on the snooty Westside of Los Angeles, hillside homes back in the canyon are considered more exclusive.

  Getting into Curtis Starr’s Mandeville Canyon neighborhood meant driving up a thin, twisty road that curved past numerous spiffy homes, one more palatial than the next. When I arrived at the Starr residence on Banyan Drive, I noticed the one thing that didn’t seem to belong there, aside from me, was a food truck. It was not a modern food truck selling gourmet grilled-cheese sandwiches or lobster rolls, but rather, it looked precariously more like the conventional roach coach of old, the lunch trucks that were the cornerstones of industrial areas. These were the trucks serving cheap tacos made with flap meat, no-name bags of tortilla chips, snack cakes and bottles of generic soda. As I drove past the food truck and parked, I saw a half-dozen workers in grimy t-shirts and jeans, haphazardly lined up to get lunch. Another dozen or so were sitting on the curb eating. Down the road was a construction project, a three-story monstrosity that was half-finished, looking more like a swollen Olive Garden than anything resembling a normal home.

  The workers glanced at me as they ate, Ranchera music blasting out of a 1970s style boom box. In a block where the home prices start at $5 million, I imagined the neighbors could not have planned a more unlikely soundtrack. I walked across the street and began knocking on doors, but neither Tammy Perino nor Gavin Yunis were around. Curtis Starr had a shiny new, signal-green BMW in his driveway, but when I knocked on his door, no one answered either. Maybe I had the look of a burglar casing a home. Or maybe a realtor. Either way, no person of interest was talking to me, so I walked back across the street and waited in line at the food truck. After a few minutes, I reached the window. The smell of frijoles was in the air.

  “What would you like, señor?” asked a stout, middle-aged woman with short dark hair.

  I grabbed a bottle of water from the display and handed her some money. “Can I ask you something?”

  She took the bill and peered at me. “What?”

  I flashed my fake ID badge, the one that looked like an authentic LAPD gold shield, but was little more than a shiny trinket I bought at a makeshift stand on Venice Beach for five dollars.

  “The people who live in that house,” I said, pointing to the Starr home. “You ever hear anything going on there? Arguing, fighting, that kind of thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of Curtis Starr. “He look familiar?”

  She looked at the picture and was about to speak, but then she hesitated. “I mind my business,” she said. “I don’t want no trouble.”

  I reached into my pocket and offered her a fifty. “There’s already trouble. I’m trying to fix it.”

  She hesitated some more, until common sense seemingly overcame her and she snatched the bill out of my hand. “The big guy who lives there? He’s a problem. Been a problem since I started coming here.”

  “Curtis Starr?”

  “I think. Yeah, maybe,” she said and pointed to the phone. “That guy.”

  “How long’s the problem been going on?” I asked.

&nb
sp; “Couple months.”

  “What kind of a problem is he?”

  “The kind you wish lived in some other neighborhood. Not this one.”

  I opened the bottle of water and took a swig. “Has he threatened you?”

  “He threaten all the time. Says I have no business being here, like I’m breaking some law. I got just as much right as him to be here.”

  “I imagine that didn’t go over well.”

  “No. He say he is a homeowner and he has more rights than me. That I block traffic, that he’s trying to conduct business in his house, and that my truck is a problem, and this and that. He says I’m breaking the law, but there’s no sign that says I can’t park here. This is a public street.”

  I didn’t bother to tell her she was wrong. Public parking does not mean the public can park anywhere. Food trucks have caused issues in business districts where they take up valuable parking spaces. But they often show up in residential neighborhoods where construction is happening, and if the cops don’t issue parking tickets, the trucks will continue to come back. Even if they did cite the food trucks, the tickets would likely be tossed out the window on the drive home. While the food truck operators aren’t supposed to go into neighborhoods like this, especially ones with narrow streets, people don’t always do what they’re supposed to do.

  “This guy, Curtis. He ever threaten you physically?” I asked.

  “He threatened me once. But some of the men, they come over to help. He’s big, but he can’t beat up a group like that over there. So he threatens. Says he’s going to get them all deported.”

  I nodded. “Has he ever had a problem with the other neighbors?”

  “Just the man who owns that house over there. The one that’s going up. The workers call him Señor Gavin. He came by a few days ago, and he and that big man started yelling at each other again. Right in the middle of the street.”

  “You hear any of it?”

  She hesitated again, and I tried to remember how many fifties I had in my pocket. There weren’t a lot. I pulled my fake badge out once more and tapped it. “Like you said, you don’t want no trouble, right?”

  Taking a breath, she looked past me before continuing. “First, the big man, this Curtis, started yelling about my truck again. Then he started yelling about all the construction noise. Then Señor Gavin was telling Curtis to mind his own business. To not call the police again if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “Did Curtis say anything back?”

  “No, he just stared at him. Then Señor Gavin said something but it was low. I couldn’t hear. Señor Gavin turned and walked away. Curtis, he just stood there for a few minutes, not moving. Staring. Like a statue.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “You now know everything that I know about this. Not much. But if you could get that Curtis to leave us alone, that would be nice.”

  I nodded, and made no promises. I doubted I could do anything to alter the trajectory of Curtis Starr’s life, other than to possibly keep it from ending too soon. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young man stride down the Starr driveway, climb into the green BMW and start it up. The engine gunned loudly, the brake lights came on, and he spun quickly out of the driveway, tires screeching ever so slightly. Then he roared down the street. I didn’t have any other leads, so I quickly thanked the woman at the food truck, ran over to my Pathfinder, jumped in, and began to follow.

  The good thing about tailing someone on a narrow canyon road like this, is there aren’t many turnoffs until they reach Sunset Boulevard. The shiny green color also made it easier to track from a distance. But the challenging aspect surrounding tailing someone was that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up. By the time I saw the traffic light turn yellow at Sunset, the BMW was already in the intersection, turning right. I floored my Pathfinder, honked my horn to alert the other drivers that an important person was blowing through a now-red light, and narrowly missed sideswiping a white Hyundai. My horn honking and tire screeching apparently provided little in the way of satisfaction to my fellow travelers. In my rear view mirror, I saw the driver of the Hyundai yelling in an animated way, and pointing an angry finger in my direction. I didn’t look too hard to see just which finger that happened to be.

  The BMW sped west on Sunset, made a series of sharp turns, and then went through a stop sign without so much as slowing down. We sped quickly through what might be considered country roads in some parts of the world. In these parts, however, these roads only led us onto 7th Street in Santa Monica. Thankfully a red light with cars lined up stopped me from losing him. I managed to tail him onto Lincoln Boulevard, and a few minutes later we were pulling into the crowded parking lot of Bay Cities Deli. Had I known this earlier, I might have chosen a lighter breakfast.

  Bay Cities Deli has been a fixture in Santa Monica forever. Part sandwich shop, part grocery store, part hangout, it is home to some of the best Italian food in the Southland. And even though we keep lowering the bar on what we consider to be good Italian food, Bay Cities still maintained quality that is both consistent and superb. When I lived nearby, I came here frequently; since we moved to Mar Vista, I don’t get here as much. It is sometimes easier to just stay local, with local now meaning something within a five-minute drive from the house.

  I watched the BMW park in a narrow space, and saw a strapping young man emerge from the vehicle. He had bushy, reddish-brown hair, and his cheeks and nose held some freckles. He walked into the shop as I waited impatiently in my Pathfinder for a woman to carefully pack items into the back seat of her Prius and then finish her phone call. Finally, she eased slowly out of her space. Fortunately the lines at Bay Cities were invariably long, and Brady Starr wasn’t going anywhere soon.

  Once in the crowded store, I walked to the deli counter on the right, where I yanked a ticket from the machine. I looked down and saw the number 76 printed on it. Per the electronic sign above the counter, the staff was currently serving number 54. There would indeed be a long wait.

  Brady Starr was standing in front of a glass-enclosed refrigerator, examining drinks. He finally pulled out a Dragon Berry Vitamin Water, twisted off the cap, and took a long swig. He wandered over to a display that featured a basket of imported pasta, looked at it for a moment, and then pulled out his phone. I approached.

  “Brady?” I began.

  “That’s me,” he said, not bothering to look up.

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s all good,” he said absently, scrolling through his phone. He looked up. “Not doing selfies right now.”

  “How about a mug shot?”

  He looked up at me with a suddenly puzzled expression. “Do I know you?”

  “We met once when you were at Roche. I used to coach defensive backs at USC.”

  He shrugged. “Uh-huh. Well, you had your chance. Bet you wish you’d have offered me, huh?”

  I didn’t bother to tell him the truth, that no, we weren’t sorry to pass on a quarterback with a big arm and questionable values. He certainly would have won some big games, but some guys were more trouble than they were worth.

  “The path not taken,” I said, thrusting my fake badge between his eyes and his phone, and lowering my voice. “Maybe we should talk somewhere else.”

  He gave me a long look. “About what?”

  “About what happened the other night. Shots fired. I think you probably remember an LAPD unit stopped by.”

  He frowned. “I thought you said you were a coach.”

  “I used to be. Now I work in law enforcement,” I said, not bothering to add I was not exactly a police officer these days, and right now I was technically closer to breaking the law than enforcing it.

  “You get canned?”

  “Let’s just say they brought in a new head coach and he wanted to … how should I put it? Go in a different direction.”

  “Too bad. The money must have been pretty good. Sucks to lose your job.”

  “
I’m doing okay,” I said slowly, wondering how we got onto this topic. “And I imagine you’ll be doing really well soon. First-round draft pick and all.”

  “Hell with that,” he sneered. “I’m looking at being the first one off the board.”

  “That what Cliff Roper told you?”

  He peered at me. “You know Cliff?”

  “Yeah. Our paths have crossed,” I said.

  “Cliff’s a good agent,” he said. “You talk to him for five minutes and he makes you feel like you’ve known him half your life. He’s got the gift.”

  “He does.”

  Brady glanced at me oddly, as if trying to figure out a puzzle. “Look, I’ve already talked to those other cops. I don’t know what more I can tell you.”

  “There’s some unanswered questions. Why don’t we just go outside for a minute, where we can have some privacy. Unless you want to have someone overhear about gunshots fired outside your house. Right before the NFL draft. You know how social media gets. Rumors and all might lower your draft stock. You think?”

  He considered this for a moment, gulped, and then walked outside without a word. We sat down at the one empty table, which faced a crowded Lincoln Boulevard, teeming with cars sitting bumper-to-bumper. At the traffic light up the street, an overheated pickup truck sat with its hood up. Cars crept past it, a few drivers honking horns in displeasure.

  “Okay, Brady. Tell me what happened the other night.”

  “It’s weird,” he said, taking another swig of the Vitamin Water he had yet to pay for. “Like I said to those other officers, I heard a few pops, thought someone might be doing target practice or something in their backyard.”

  “At ten o’clock at night?”

  “Sure. I do it sometimes myself. Mostly shooting at cans. Once in a while I get lucky and a raccoon or a squirrel comes by. I’ve taken down a couple of opossums, too. Hate those things. Ugly as hell.”

  “Uh-huh. But this wasn’t target practice the other night, now was it?”

  “Probably not. My dad and stepmom were in the Jacuzzi outside. I was playing Madden in the living room. Right after I heard the pops, the two of them came running inside, dripping like crazy all over the carpet. It was kind of funny.”