Dr. Knox Read online

  “You got this, brother,” Sutter said, laughing. “I’m going to find the bar. Shout if you need me.”

  I nodded and looked around at the wreckage of the room: the strewn clothing, bedsheets, and pillows, the overturned ashtrays, wine bottles, and crumpled tubes of lube. There was music playing—Tawny Mack covering Carole King—and a muted TV on the wall tuned to CNBC. The air was scented with booze and weed and sex and something else—something chemical, familiar, but elusive.

  “What can I do for you, Will?”

  This brought on more laughing. Gable struggled to keep it together enough for speech. “Tee has a gig later tonight, doc—a surprise thing on the roof of the Roosevelt.” He looked at me over his shoulder, waiting.

  “And…?”

  “And she needs to get up and get ready. Plus, we need to pee.”

  “And…?”

  There was more laughter from both of them, and Gable looked at Tawny’s graceful white hands on his ass. She wiggled her arms, but her palms and fingers didn’t budge. “We went overboard with the Super Glue,” Gable said, giggling.

  Indeed they had. Besides gluing hands to asses, they’d managed to weld parts of their thighs and bellies to each other too, though fortunately their genitals were joined in only the usual way. Between blushing and giggling, Tawny said it was like they were engaged.

  “Let me know where you’re registered,” I said, and Will Gable blanched. “Do you have nail polish remover?” I asked. Gable didn’t think so, but Tawny had some, at the bottom of a turquoise Hermès bag large enough to hold a pony. It didn’t take long to free them, after which they raced each other to the bathroom.

  Traffic was slow as we headed back toward Venice, but the wind off the ocean was soft. Sutter handed me an envelope.

  “I took mine out already,” he said.

  I opened it and looked at the bills. “This puts me over a hundred. Finally.”

  Sutter nodded and glanced over at me. “That’s good, right?”

  “Not good enough for a down payment. Not yet.”

  “And you’re still fixated on staying put?” he asked. I nodded. “You’ll get there,” he said. “One step at a time.”

  “Feels like I’m walking to Europe.”

  Sutter smiled. “You know, Gable wants to hire you. Seriously—he asked me just now, when he paid. The guy doesn’t even know your name, or that your degree isn’t from a cereal box, but he wants you to be his regular doctor.”

  I laughed. “I like the kid, but he’s nuts.”

  “Totally. Still, the guy loves you.”

  “All my best references are from crazy people.”

  “Story of my life,” Sutter said.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Brinkley’s interpretation of a California clambake entailed no bare feet, no bonfires, no sand, and no visible clams. It did feature trays of raw oysters on crushed ice, lobster empanadas, grilled scallops, Kobe beef on skewers, puff pastries that smelled of jasmine, a full sushi bar, and a very full bar bar. It took place in something called the Regal Room, and spilled onto a large adjacent terrace with views of the dark Pacific, which was the closest it came to a beach. The music was live, vaguely Brazilian, and with a heavy elevator inflection. The waiters and waitresses were all actors—lovely, bored, tired, and bitter.

  Sutter had been right about the evening’s timing: the fund-raisers and donors were still in the midst of hors d’oeuvres when I arrived, and were convivial without yet being comatose. They ranged in age from early-middle to early-old, and I was relieved to find that they were not in black tie. My blue blazer and tan were adequate camouflage, as long as no one looked too closely at my shoes or my watch, which—once I’d lifted an unclaimed nametag from the unattended reception table—no one did.

  No one paid much attention to my nametag either, which was a good thing, because I’m sure I didn’t look much like Suresh Mittal. I helped myself to a flute of California not-champagne and wandered through the crowd, scanning for anyone who resembled the pictures I’d seen online of Hoover Mays: blond, blocky, square-faced, early fifties. I saw many people who met the criteria, but none who had Hoover’s expression, of a mildly surprised pig, and none with the right nametag. I was leaning against the terrace rail, the Pacific and the Ocean Avenue traffic moving restlessly at my back, when a woman took my hand.

  She had a nametag, but in place of her name she’d substituted a smiley face with X’s for eyes and a shaky, anxious line for a mouth. Her Capri pants were white, her sleeveless silk blouse was turquoise, and the square-cut diamond on her finger was yellow and a little smaller than a golf ball. She was tall, fortyish, and expensively blond—just the kind of toned and bored housewife I’d be cruising for if I was the dissipated tennis pro Sutter said I resembled.

  “Dr. Mittal is in the gastroenterology department at USC,” she whispered. “He fixed my husband’s duodenal ulcer six months ago, and you are not him.” Her voice was years younger than she was, and her tone was light and conspiratorial. Her diction was very careful. Drunk, but pleasantly so.

  “I’m not even in the gastro department,” I said. “Suresh gave me his ticket.”

  “Not a gastro—then what the hell are you?”

  “ED.”

  She squinted, then smiled slyly. “Erectile dysfunction?”

  “Emergency department.”

  “So, if I want you, all I have to do is call 911?”

  “Only if it’s a real emergency.”

  She slid her hand over mine, and up to my biceps. “Oh, trust me, it is.”

  I laughed. “Suresh told me to look out for Hoover while I was here. Hoover Mays. Have you seen him around?”

  She put on a melodramatic frown. “What do you want him for?”

  “Suresh told me—”

  She waved away my explanation. “Excuses, excuses,” she said, and pointed at the ceiling.

  I looked up. “He has a room upstairs?”

  She shook her head gravely and kept pointing.

  “He’s in heaven?”

  She barked a laugh. “Not hardly. There’s a bar on the roof. Last time I saw Hoover, that’s where he was headed.” She tilted her head sideways and flicked my nametag with her finger. “He might not be glad to see you, Suresh.”

  —

  The penthouse of the Brinkley had a big round bar for posing and smiling, curtained nooks for intimate dining, a fireplace and soft leathery furniture for lounging, innocuous electronic music for ignoring, and windows and postcard views all around. But Hoover Mays wasn’t there for the views or airy music; he was there to drink and brood. He sat in a wing chair not far from the fire, hunched forward and staring at the dregs of something in the rocks glass he held in his pudgy hands. A waiter hovered near, and I heard Mays order a gimlet as I took a seat nearby. His voice was low and tired, and I didn’t think it was his second drink, or even his third.

  He wore a navy linen jacket, a pale-pink shirt, white linen pants, and supple-looking loafers without socks. The clothes were well tailored but—like his expensive haircut—could only hide so much. Neither clothes nor coif could disguise the scratches on his face and neck, the split lip, or the ugly contusion—a fading eggplant color—on his right temple. None of the injuries was fresh, and my guess was that they were a week to ten days old, roughly the vintage of Elena’s injuries. The waiter offered me a drinks menu. I declined.

  “A gimlet sounds good,” I said, nodding at Mays. “I’ll have one of those.”

  The waiter vanished. Mays glanced my way but said nothing. My drink arrived with his, and I took a sip and sighed. “That was good advice,” I said. “Thanks.” Mays grunted softly. “You escape the clambake too?” I asked.

  Mays looked up and squinted. His little blue eyes were unfocused. They took in my nametag, but it looked like work. He nodded at me. “It was crowded,” he said.

  “Crowded and boring,” I said. “But they need the money.”

  “They seem to need it all the time.”
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  “You don’t think it’s a good cause?”

  He shrugged. “I go where she points me. She tells me to sign a check, I sign a check.”

  I chuckled. “Who is she?”

  He swallowed some of his gimlet. “The wife,” he said. He absently touched a finger to his bruised temple and winced.

  I pointed to my own face and then to his. “That looks painful. What happened?”

  He looked at me again, and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. “Car accident.”

  “You have it looked at?”

  “It’s fine. Nothing broken.”

  “Where’d it happen?”

  His eyes darted around and he took another drink. “What—the accident?”

  “Yeah. Where were you?”

  “The 405. Coming off the 405. Onto Sunset.” He squinted at me and looked for my nametag, but I’d taken it off and put it in my pocket. “Do I know you?”

  I shook my head. “Lot of broken glass in your accident?”

  “What?”

  “Was there a lot of broken glass? I ask because those lacerations on your neck might be from broken glass.”

  Mays nodded. “Yeah. Plenty of broken glass.”

  I swirled my glass and watched the ice cubes bump around. “But they could also be scratch marks. They look more like scratch marks.”

  Mays was wide awake now. He put his glass down carefully, and sat up straight. “What the…Who the hell are you?”

  “To me it looks like Elena gave as good as she got. A few inches and she would’ve caught you in the eye instead of the temple, and then we could be talking detached retina or—”

  The porcine face went ashen. Mays looked around the room and back at me. He leaned toward me and his voice fell to a whisper. “For chrissakes, keep quiet. Who…who’s Elena?”

  “That might be more convincing if you hadn’t turned gray first, Hoover.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Siggy didn’t tell me you’d screw around like this.”

  “Siggy sent you?”

  “Why else would I be here?” I said, nodding. “You’re supposed to go over it with me.”

  “Go over what?”

  “What happened with Elena.” I put up my fists in a boxing pantomime.

  Mays looked me over again. “I told him all this. And how do I know he sent you? You don’t look like—”

  “Siggy doesn’t hand out ID cards. You want to call him, go right ahead. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you. Maybe he’ll send over those guys that don’t look like me. They’ll fit in well around here. Your friends will like meeting them.”

  He went even paler. “Jesus—no.”

  “Okay, then. Tell me about Elena.”

  Mays gave another furtive glance around. The room was filling up and he didn’t like it. He cocked his head at a corner alcove, and we carried our drinks there. Up close, his bruises were uglier and angrier, and one scratch—a long one down his neck—looked infected. He stared at the tabletop and kept his voice low. As he spoke, his cheeks reddened, and his face took on a stricken look, as if he were listening to the story rather than telling it, and didn’t like what he was hearing.

  “There isn’t much to say. Last time I saw her was a week ago last Thursday, in the afternoon, at three. My usual day, at my usual time, and everything was…as usual. Everything was normal. She was the way she always was—a little shy at first, and then…Everything we did was…It was just like every other time.”

  “I get it. Go on.”

  “And, just like always, I took a bath afterward. Usually, I take a long one—there’s a big soaking tub in the apartment, and sometimes Elena gets in, and we go again. Sometimes I fall asleep in there. The only thing different that day was that I couldn’t stick around long. I had a thing in Malibu and I needed to get going, so, even though she had the bath waiting, I had to make it a short one.

  “I was in the tub for a little while; then I put on a robe and went out to the living room, and there was Elena with my wallet and my car keys, headed for the door. I grabbed her arm, but before I could ask what the hell she was doing, she was all over me, punching, kicking, scratching—biting, for chrissakes. She was out of her skull. I seriously thought she was going to kill me.” Mays looked up at me, embarrassed. He was more than a foot taller than Elena, and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.

  “So you hit back,” I said.

  “I defended myself. I…I slapped her a couple of times and we wrestled, and then we were down on the floor. And then I saw stars. She clocked me with something—a lamp—and by the time I got myself together, she was gone—along with my car keys, my wallet, my phone, and all my goddamn clothes. She even took the fucking bathrobe.”

  “You called Siggy then?”

  Mays shook his head. “With what? There’s no phone in the apartment, and I wasn’t going to look for one wearing nothing but a napkin. I…I didn’t know what to do, so I waited. Finally—a few hours later—one of you people came around.

  “Siggy told me to say I got mugged if anyone asked, and to report the car stolen. I didn’t want to at first, because I didn’t want anything to do with the police, but Siggy said that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “So you reported it?” Mays nodded. “You hear anything back?”

  He squinted again. “A few days ago, the cops called. They said they found the car someplace east of downtown. A really crappy neighborhood.”

  “The car, but not Elena?”

  “Not that anyone’s told me.” Mays squinted at me again, and I could see gears turning through the gimlet sludge in his head. “Don’t you know all this already?”

  “Just connecting the dots,” I said, and wondered how long it would be before Mays did the same. “Did she know anybody in town?” I asked.

  “Know anybody? She was fresh off the boat when I started seeing her—just like every other girl Siggy’s set me up with. She was straight from who knows where—some Romanian pig farm or something. She didn’t know anybody when she got here, and she still doesn’t; Siggy doesn’t let these girls out. Well, you’d know more than I would about that.” But from the sidelong glance Mays shot me, it was clear he had his doubts. The gimlets were losing their efficacy.

  “What did you say your name was?” he asked.

  “Sergei.”

  “Bullshit—you’re not Russian.”

  I shrugged. “And the apartment where you saw her—where was that?”

  Mays squinted. “How can you not know that?”

  “How many girls do you think Siggy has? How many apartments? You think I keep track of them all?”

  “I…I think I should call him.”

  I shrugged. “You do that. In the meantime, I’m going to the bar. I don’t know where the hell that waiter disappeared to. You want anything?”

  Mays was pulling out his cell as I rose. He rose too, as if he wanted to stop me, or follow, but then he thought about it and sank down again. He shook his head. I grinned at him and walked to the bar and past it, out the door.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sutter was at the Arsenal, on Pico, and it took me half an hour to get there from the Brinkley. There were a lot of old weapons on the wood-paneled walls—rifles and swords, daggers and flintlock pistols—and shiny red leatherette on the banquettes and booths. There were candles on the tables, in red glasses that threw a dim, diabolical light. The crowd was dense and noisy for a weeknight, and I had to edge and elbow my way through.

  On the phone Sutter had said he was wrapping up a meeting, and there were two guys with him at a booth in back. They were doughy bookends: balding and pale, with stylish scruff on their chins, artfully frayed jeans, tee shirts with the names of bands I hadn’t heard of, and watches that cost more than my car. Sutter glanced my way and nodded toward the bar. I drank cranberry juice and club soda there while he finished, and carried my glass over when the bookends left.

  “Hard to believe those guys have jobs,” he said as he
folded a check and tucked it into his pocket. “They’re like little babies.”

  “Jobs doing what?”

  “Television. They sold a cable series and they’re looking for a combat consultant—that’s what they called it. Somebody to teach their underfed leads a little pretend Krav Maga.”

  “And that’s you?”

  “For five episodes, guaranteed, if the check clears.”

  The waitress came and smiled at Sutter and put a hand on his shoulder. He ordered a bourbon, and when she went to get it I told him about my conversation with Hoover Mays.

  When I finished, Sutter was quiet. “No applause?” I said after a while. “I thought I did pretty well.”

  “Yeah, just great. So great that you pretty much guaranteed another visit from Siggy’s boys, just as soon as Mays sobers up and finds the balls to tell Siggy about you. It won’t take him long to do the math and send some Ivans back to the clinic. And this time there won’t be any foreplay.”

  It was my turn to be quiet. “Shit,” I said eventually.

  “Shit for sure, but that’s not even the bad news.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Turns out Siggy’s not your worst problem. I ran the tag you gave me, brother, and the company it belongs to makes Siggy’s crew look like Jehovahs going door to door. They call themselves Petro Risk Partners, which makes them sound like they’re in insurance or heating oil, but they’re not.”

  “What are they?”

  “Their Web site says security consultants to the energy industry, but that’s sort of bullshit too. They actually have just one client, and they’re not so much consultants as they are a private army.”

  “Whose army?” I asked. “Who’s their client?”

  Sutter grinned. “Bray Consolidated.”

  It took a moment for the penny to drop. When it did, I found it hard to swallow my drink. “As in Harris Bray?” I said.

  Sutter nodded and looked at his phone, scrolling. “Yep. As in Bray Oil and Gas, Bray Chemicals, Bray Agriculture, Bray Logistics, and Bray Media, not to mention the Bray wing at the art museum, the Bray Pavilion at Palms-Pacific Hospital, and that new opera house downtown. I was surprised at the list when I Googled.” He slid the phone over to me.