Free Rage by Jonathan Kellerman Page B

soul,” I said.
    “So
is logic. Am I correct in assuming that you called for some reason other than
to boast about the superiority of your accommodations over mine?”
    “You brought
that up.”
    “If
you were really the sensitive guy you claim to be, you would’ve lied.”
    I
said, “The St. Regis has butler service.”
    “I’m
weeping into my case stack. Which, currently, is low. Per an interdepartmental
memo, we are now experiencing an official drop in crime.”
    “Congratulations.”
    “Not
my doing. Probably karmic crystals or chanting or the moon in scorpio-squatting
or the Great Baal of Randomness . . . what’s on your mind?”
    I
told him.
    “That
one,” he said. “You didn’t like working it.”
    “It wasn’t
fun.”
    “Duchay
give any hint what he wanted?”
    “He
sounded troubled.”
    “He should be troubled. Eight years at the C.Y.A. for murdering a baby?”
    “Any
professional guesses about why he didn’t show?”
    “Changed
his mind, couldn’t get it together, who knows? He’s a lowlife, Alex. He was the
stupid one, right?”
    “Right.”
    “So
toss in a lousy attention span, or whatever label you guys are putting on it
nowadays, in addition to his being a lowlife thrill-killer who’s been
thoroughly criminalized after being locked up with gangbangers for eight years.
How old is he, now?”
    “Twenty-one.”
    “Lowlife
at the height of his criminal hormone overload,” he said. “I wouldn’t take any
bets on his experiencing any serious personality enhancement. I’d also not take
his calls, from now on. He’s probably more dangerous than he was eight years
ago. Why get involved?”
    “Looks
like I’m not,” I said. “Though I didn’t pick up any threat or hostility over
the phone. More like— ”
    “He’s
troubled, yeah, yeah. He calls you from Westwood, which isn’t that far from
your place. Semi-illiterate but he managed to find your number.”
    “He’d
have no reason to resent me.”
    Silence.
    “The
plan was to meet him away from my place,” I said.
    “That’s
a start.”
    “I’m
not minimizing what he did, Milo. He, himself, admitted hitting Kristal. But I
always felt Troy Turner was the primary force behind the murder and Rand got
caught up in the situation.”
    “Put
him in another situation and he’ll get caught up again.”
    “I
suppose.”
    “Hey,”
he said. “You called me, not another shrink. Meaning you were looking
for hard truth, not empathy and understanding.”
    “I
don’t know what I was looking for.”
    “You
craved sage detective advice and Uncle Milo’s instinctual protective stance.
Now that the former has been dispensed, I’ll do my best to provide the latter
while you’re gallivanting up Fifth Avenue with a lovely lady on your arm.”
    “That’s
okay— ”
    “Here’s
the plan,” he said. “Though it falls well outside of my job description, I will
drive by your house at least once a day, twice if I can swing it, pick up your
paper and your mail, be on the lookout for shady characters lurking around the
premises.”
    “Gallivanting,”
I said.
    “You
do know how to gallivant? Put one foot in front of the
other . . . and just blow.”
    * * *
    At
one p.m. he called back. “When were you planning to leave for New York?”
    “Tomorrow
morning. Why?”
    “A
body showed up last night in Bel Air, dumped in some bushes near the 405 North
on-ramp. White male, young, six-two, two hundred, shot in the head, no wallet
or I.D. But wadded down in the little front pocket of his jeans was a piece of
paper. Greasy and frayed, like it had been pawed a lot. The writing, however,
was still legible and guess what it was: your phone number.”

CHAPTER 12
    I met Milo in his office on the second floor of the
Westside substation. It’s a windowless cell, formerly a utility closet, set
away from the collaborative buzz of the big detective’s room. There’s barely
room for a two-drawer desk, a file cabinet, a pair of folding chairs,