Free Blue Screen by Robert B. Parker Page A

screen.
    “Sheriff’s Department Career Criminals unit has been interested in him,” she said. “Since at least 2000.”
    “Or maybe he didn’t,” I said.
    “Who’s running that?” Cronjager said.
    “Career Criminals?” Elaine said. “Doreen Billups.”
    “Get her for me, would you, Elaine?”
    She smiled. “When I reach her,” Elaine said, “will you be able to hold the phone all right by yourself?”
    “Long as you tell me which end to talk in,” Cronjager said.
    Elaine made the call from a phone on the computer table. When it went through, she said, “Captain Billups? Captain Cronjager is calling,” and pointed at the phone on his desk.
    Cronjager picked it up.
    “Doreen?” he said. “Yeah…yeah…How’s Harvey?…good, and the kid?…UCLA?…for crissake, Doreen, I thought he was still in junior-high…yeah, I know…she’s fine, thanks…listen, I see on this here computer I’m so good with that your people are interested in a fella named Gerard Basgall…yeah, right there on the screen…well sure Elaine helped a little…uh-huh…uh-huh…sonovabitch, excuse me, Doreen…uh-huh…okay, well Gerard’s done all right, hasn’t he?…Yeah. Got a detective here from Boston, good-looking woman named Sunny Randall. She needs anything, can she call you? Yes. Elaine’ll give her the number…sure, anything you got. Send it to me, I can get it to Sunny…and thank you, Doreen. Yeah, you too.”
    Cronjager put the phone back.
    “That where it goes?” he said.
    Elaine smiled and nodded. He leaned back in his chair.
    “Okay,” he said to me. “Gerard is a big success. He’s head pimp in the Valley.”
    “Meaning?” I said.
    “He runs all the call-girl operations north of Sunset,” Cronjager said, “between, oh, say, Thousand Oaks and maybe Pasadena.”
    “Any mention of Ethel Boverini?” I said.
    “No.”
    “Have an address for Gerard?”
    “I do,” Cronjager said and wrote it out on a piece of notepaper.
    “Bel Air,” I said. “I think I’ll go see him.”
    “I’ll have somebody take you,” Cronjager said.
    “I know how to get to Bel Air,” I said.
    “I have somebody take you, there’s no parking issues,” Cronjager said. “No hassle.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “And you’ll have an official presence,” Cronjager said. “Be easier to get in.”
    “And out,” Elaine said.
    “See if you can get Sol up here,” Cronjager said.
    “You think Gerard is dangerous?” I said.
    “I’m just a civilian employee,” Elaine said. “But pimps don’t generally respect women.”
    “And keeper of the captain,” Cronjager said.
    Elaine nodded that this was so, and picked up the phone.
    Cronjager smiled at her, then looked at me and said, “If you’re investigating a murder, Ms. Randall, somebody you talk with might be a murderer.”
    “I’ll wait for Sol,” I said.

20
    W E WENT OUT Sunset from downtown, west toward Bel Air. My driver, Sol Hernandez, looked like Lieutenant Castillo in Miami Vice, which was on television when I was in college. The girls I knew in college thought Lieutenant Castillo was hot. Me too.
    “Sol?” I said. “Hernandez?”
    “Short for Solario,” he said.
    We passed Chavez Ravine, where the Dodgers played, drove through Silver Lake and on through Hollywood under a high, hot sun. Even in the least savory neighborhoods there were flowers and trees and the smell of vegetation. The out-of-town weather section of the L.A. Times this morning showed Boston with snow, accumulating to three inches.
    Sigh.
    We went along the Strip in West Hollywood. Sol was blessedly quiet. He did not point out landmarks. In Beverly Hills the greenery intensified, and when we turned into the Bel Air gate past Beverly Glen it felt like I was in Tahiti. We wound uphill until we pulled into the big driveway of a vast, white stucco house with a red tile roof.
    “Gerard appears to have done well for himself,” I said.
    “Head pimp,” Sol said.
    We got out and walked to