“By the way,” Czarnek said, standing at the foot of my bed and watching the nurse work, “Royale wasn’t his real name. His real name was London Bridges.”
“Sure it was,” I said. “And I’m the Empire State Building.”
“I’m serious. London Bridges. I mean, who names their kid London Bridges?”
“My husband has a first cousin named April Showers,” Nurse Battle-Axe said.
“I knew a guy in high school named Burt Nurney,” I said.
Nobody laughed. Tough crowd. Czarnek cleared his throat and waited while the nurse finished patching me up.
“I know when I’m not wanted,” she said. “Press the button if you need anything. I probably won’t answer.”
“Big surprise there,” I said.
She gave me a wink and left.
As Czarnek explained it, London Bridges, aka Lamont Royale, was a young man with a past. He’d grown up in Miami, the youngest son of an African-American real estate developer and his Swedish-born wife, and dropped out of the University of Miami his sophomore year to attend culinary school, hitting the links during his off-hours to become a scratch golfer. But apparently he found criminal enterprises more entertaining. With multiple prison stints on priors ranging from burglary to assault, he eventually skipped out on parole and traded the Sunshine State for Las Vegas, there to reinvent himself, as so many others do. London Bridges became Lamont Royale, golf pro. While giving a private lesson one day, he taught my former father-in-law how to nail a fifty-yard bunker shot, then shared his secret recipe for beef bourguignon (applewood smoked bacon, heavy on the Côtes du Rhône). Within a week, Royale had quit his country club gig and moved into the penthouse to work for Carlisle full-time.
Somewhere along the way, Royale had also been recruited by Russian intelligence operative and oil broker Pavel Tarasov.
“Tarasov found out about his criminal record. He knew Royale was on the lam, so he blackmailed him,” Czarnek said. “Anytime Tarasov wanted him to pull some little caper for him, all he had to do was threaten to rat him out and Royale danced like a puppet.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Your new best friend, Richard Smith. Can’t shut the guy up. A regular Chatty Cathy. He’s down on the coronary ward. He feels damn lucky he and his daughter survived the whole thing.”
It was Royale, Czarnek said, who’d introduced Tarasov to my former father-in-law, Gil Carlisle. There was a fortune to be made in the Kashagan oil field. All Tarasov needed was a willing investor with deep pockets. As soon as Carlisle’s check cleared the bank, Tarasov intended to have him die “accidentally,” after which he would take over the entire operation.
“Tarasov gets wind that Echevarria’s doing some investigative work for Carlisle. He worries that Echevarria’ll find out shit that’ll squirrel the deal in Kazakhstan, so he decides to have Echevarria whacked. He sends Royale to Arizona with orders to convince a guy he knows out there who’s on the Russian payroll to do the killing.”
“Robbie Emerson.”
Czarnek nodded. “Royale threatens to turn Emerson in to the FBI unless he agrees to be the triggerman, but Emerson can’t bring himself to take the assignment. Commits suicide instead. So Tarasov orders Royale to do the killing.”
“What about Ortiz, the retired math teacher?”
“I have to say, you pegged that one right, Logan. Royale told Smith he messed up on the address. Got the two streets confused. Went to the right house number but the wrong house. He shoots Ortiz thinking it’s Echevarria, realizes later that he’s screwed the pooch, goes to the right address a few days later, and this time does the job right.”
“You told me the two murders weren’t linked. Two guns, different calibers.”
“I stand corrected. We found both guns in Smith’s garage, where Royale had stashed ’em: The .45 he used on Ortiz and the Glock .40-caliber he shot Echevarria with — which, by the way, he also shot you with. We also found the Domino’s shirt he was wearing the night he killed Echevarria. He hid that in the garage, too, including his receipt from the thrift store where he bought it. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.”
The LAPD, he noted, had gone back to Echevarria’s neighbors and run a photo lineup past them. Everyone picked Royale out of the six-pack.
“We showed the same six-pack to witnesses in the Ortiz homicide,” Czarnek said. “They picked out Royale as well. The thing I couldn’t figure out, though, was how Echevarria’s neighbors could all say the shooter was dark-complected, when witnesses in the Ortiz homicide all said he was white.”
“Helps if your killer’s biracial,” I said.
“Two for the price of one,” Czarnek said.
Royale denied any involvement in the murder of Gennady Bondarenko, according to Czarnek, even though the bullet recovered from Bondareko’s crispy critter remains matched the gun Royale had used on Echevarria and me. The story he told Smith before he died was that Tarasov had attempted to get Bondarenko to invest in the oil deal, and that he intended to have Gil Carlisle “permanently removed” as soon as the deal was finalized, thereby upping both Tarasov’s and Bondarenko’s potential shares. Bondarenko declined the offer.
“He told Tarasov he was done with that life,” Czarnek said, “so Tarasov threatened to blackmail him. Bondarenko said if he tried anything like that, he’d drop a dime on Tarasov’s plan to kill Carlisle. So Tarasov shot him. He cuts off Bondarenko’s hands with the power saw he has Royale buy for him out in Arizona, steals a Winnebago, sets it on fire with Bondarenko’s body inside, and tells Royale to stash the murder weapon. Royale hides it in Smith’s garage.”
“Like you said. Not the smartest tool in the shed.”
The detective peeled the plastic off a fresh wad of nicotine gum.
“Where’s Tarasov now?” I asked.
“On the wind. Possibly back in Russia. Arrest warrants were issued last night.”
“What about for me?”
“What’d you mean, what about you?”
“I mean, prosecutors tend to frown on civilians who go around shooting other civilians with non-permitted concealed weapons, even in self-defense.”
Even if by some miracle I got probation, I was certain that the FAA would pull my pilot’s license permanently given all the trouble I was already in having violated the Vice President’s airspace.
Czarnek assured me I had nothing to worry about.
“We take this to the DA, it gets leaked, pretty soon we got Washington stepping on our necks, calling every ten minutes. That’s all this city needs right now. Besides, you did us a favor, Logan. You cleared three homicides and saved the taxpayers the expense of a murder trial. And I don’t think you need to worry too much about your pilot’s license. Some buddy of yours called me. Salty son of a bitch. Said he’d already talked to the FAA. Told ‘em you were working some secret squirrel case. They’re dropping their investigation in the name of national security.”
“His name, by any chance, wouldn’t be Buzz, would it?”
“How’d you know that?”
I smiled.
Czarnek patted my ankle and told me to get some rest. “You did OK, Logan. I apologize for every shitty thing I ever said about you.”
He walked out. I closed my eyes for what I thought was a few seconds. When I opened them again, three hours had gone by.
Savannah was sitting in the chair beside my bed.
“Go back to sleep.”
“I’m awake.”
She studied my face.
“What?”
“I still don’t know what exactly it was you did when we were together, your real job. But I do know what you did for Arlo, and my father. You saved his life, Logan.”
She got up, leaned over and kissed me softly. Her lips, as the old expression goes, left something to be desired — the rest of her.
My gut roiled with warring emotions. I felt fulfilled and empty, like a million bucks and penniless. I remembered a literature class I took my senior year at the academy. We studied e.e. cummings: Kisses are a better fate than wisdom. I had no idea what e.e. was talking about back then, but I did at that moment. I turned and gazed out the window.