All the Lucky Ones Are Dead by Gar Anthony Haywood Page B

something that hurt him to his very core.
    â€œOne more thing before I let you go. The name Ray Crumley mean anything to you, by any chance?”
    â€œRay Crumley? No. Who’s he?”
    â€œNobody, really. Just another dead man. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, Mr. Elbridge.”
    Without issuing a formal good-bye, Gunner hung up the phone.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. Gunner, but I told you yesterday,” Bob Zemic said. “Unless you have a court order for me, I can’t allow you to see our surveillance tapes. It just isn’t going to happen.”
    He was sitting in his office at the Beverly Hills Westmore, hands clasped firmly together atop the blotter on his desk, striking the ultimate pose of a man who was never in a thousand years going to change his mind.
    â€œI understand your reluctance here, Mr. Zemic, and I admire your dedication to duty,” Gunner said, smiling in lieu of breaking the security man’s neck. “But I would think in light of Mr. Crumley’s murder—”
    â€œPlease leave what happened to Ray out of this,” Zemic snapped. “It’s immaterial to this discussion.”
    â€œI think that remains to be seen. In fact, I feel just the opposite. That’s why I’m asking you again to let me see the tape you say he had. So I can establish with some certainty whether or not it had some bearing on Mr. Crumley’s death.”
    â€œThat’s not for you to determine, Mr. Gunner. That’s for the police to determine. And as I already told you, the two detectives who were here earlier this morning had no interest in viewing the tape. At least, they didn’t ask to.”
    He was talking about La Porte and Chin, who had apparently been by to see him just over an hour ago.
    â€œThey don’t know what I know,” Gunner said.
    â€œAnd that is?”
    â€œThat Crumley may have been using a copy of the tape to blackmail somebody. Somebody who just might be responsible for both his murder and Mr. Elbridge’s.”
    â€œExcept that Mr. Elbridge wasn’t murdered,” Zemic said. “He committed suicide.”
    â€œThat is what everyone originally thought, yes. Even me. But it’s funny—the more I hear some people say it, the more I think they’re afraid to believe anything else.”
    Zemic sat up, readjusted the torque holding his hands together. “Was that an accusation of some kind?”
    â€œAn accusation? No. It was a cry for help. I need your assistance here, Mr. Zemic. I have a job to do, same as you, and it’s got nothing to do with helping anybody sue the Beverly Hills Westmore for negligence. You’ve got to believe that.”
    â€œDo I?”
    â€œYou do if you don’t like the idea of somebody getting away with murder. Possibly even two murders. And I suggest to you that that may be exactly what happens if you record over or otherwise destroy that tape before the police and I have had a chance to examine it.”
    â€œThere is nothing on that tape to indicate Mr. Elbridge’s death was anything but a suicide,” Zemic said. “I reviewed it, remember? I know.”
    â€œI seem to recall you saying you only scanned through it. That it was basically four hours of an empty hallway, so why watch the whole thing?”
    Zemic flushed, having failed to anticipate this flaw in his own argument. “I think I saw enough of it to make a reasonable judgment of its contents,” he said firmly.
    â€œOkay. So what did Crumley want with it, then? He risked his job to take it home for two days, then lied about having it when you found it missing. Why? Why would he do all that over a tape with nothing on it?”
    â€œI didn’t say there was nothing on it,” Zemic said, becoming increasingly irritable. “I said there was nothing on it relevant to Mr. Elbridge’s suicide.”
    â€œSay again?”
    â€œWhat I’m trying to say is that