in four hundred million dollars. Foreign revenues added another hundred fifty.
Lem Dement announced his “retirement to a life of contemplation” and moved to a “multiacre estate” in Malibu.
Same city where Rory Stoltz went to school. Honing his Industry ambitions.
Where Caitlin Frostig had gotten straight A’s.
Aaron pushed back from the screen. Paced his office.
Malibu was more a concept than a locale, stretching thirty miles up the coast. But the Pepperdine-Caitlin-Rory link couldn’t be ignored.
Aaron considered waking Henry again, to find out if Lem Dement’s spread was anywhere near the sprawling campus. Decided against it. If Henry had managed to revisit his dream, busting his fantasy a second time would breed too much ill will.
Plus, at the early stages of the investigation, he needed to be careful about tunnel vision.
Caitlin goes to school in 90265, ditto Rory.
Rory has the gate clicker to a Hollywood Hills house owned by Dement, whose main crib is in 90265.
He flashed back to the house on Swallowsong. The winding driveway implied a big-view lot. High-priced real estate … maybe the place housed one of the stoners Rory had chauffeured.
In a Hyundai?
Had to be camouflage. So did leaving the club through the back— that was celeb behavior.
Was one—or both—of the stoners a VIP? That synced with Rory waltzing into ColdSnake.
Aaron returned to the keyboard, paired
Rory Stoltz
with
Lem Dement
, and Googled.
Did you mean demented roar?
No, I didn’t, Meddling Cyber-Wienie.
He sat there for a long time, feeling his brain turn to sludge.
Three ten a.m. What he
craved was
sinking his teeth into the case, ripping and shredding like a rabid dog until the facts bled.
What he
did
was slog upstairs to Play Land, undress, fold his clothes neatly over the brass-and-teak valet, slip naked between Frette sheets.
Guessing Caitlin’s face would appear in his dreams. He hoped she would.
Back when he’d been on the job, he’d embraced the classic Homicide D’s self-congratulation.
We talk for the dead
.
And sometimes, the dead talk to us.
CHAPTER
13
M oe arrived at his desk at eight a.m., thinking about the Rory Stoltz-Mason Book connection.
Two messages from Aaron sat next to his computer. Crumpling and lobbing easy two-pointers into a nearby wastebasket, he Googled the actor.
Nearly four million hits. Midway down the second page were accounts of Book’s early-morning suicide attempt by wrist-slash.
Paramedics responding to a 911 call at the Hollywood Hills house of heartthrob …
Facts were in short supply, but no shortage of lurid rehash: anonymous sources claimed Mason Book was addicted to every drug known to humankind, the hush-hush VIP admission to Cedars-Sinai had cost a heavy six figures for a one-week stay …
Moe found a couple of grainy, dark infrared shots of a guy who might’ve been Book being ushered into a black SUV at a hospital service door. Another hit quoted a plea by Book’s unnamed mouthpiece to “respect Mason’s privacy during this difficult period. Mason needs to concentrate all his energies on getting well. He thanks everyone for their support.”
Moe was about to log off when he noticed the date of Book’s wrist-slash.
Printing the citation, he left the D room, turned around a sharp corner, hustled over to the familiar unmarked door, and knocked.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Moe, Loo.”
“’s not locked.”
The room was so small that opening the door brought Sturgis’s rhino frame into immediate close-up. Almost like being charged by a bull, and after all these months still kind of jarring to Moe.
The lieutenant had squeezed his bulk into a wheely-chair, long legs propped on his flimsy desk. Additional cold cases were stacked to the left of a cold computer screen. Sturgis’s heavy jaw flexed.
“Got a second, Loo?”
Sturgis removed the cigar and rolled it from finger to finger, like a carny doing a trick. He pointed to a chair in the corner.
Moe
Lem Dement announced his “retirement to a life of contemplation” and moved to a “multiacre estate” in Malibu.
Same city where Rory Stoltz went to school. Honing his Industry ambitions.
Where Caitlin Frostig had gotten straight A’s.
Aaron pushed back from the screen. Paced his office.
Malibu was more a concept than a locale, stretching thirty miles up the coast. But the Pepperdine-Caitlin-Rory link couldn’t be ignored.
Aaron considered waking Henry again, to find out if Lem Dement’s spread was anywhere near the sprawling campus. Decided against it. If Henry had managed to revisit his dream, busting his fantasy a second time would breed too much ill will.
Plus, at the early stages of the investigation, he needed to be careful about tunnel vision.
Caitlin goes to school in 90265, ditto Rory.
Rory has the gate clicker to a Hollywood Hills house owned by Dement, whose main crib is in 90265.
He flashed back to the house on Swallowsong. The winding driveway implied a big-view lot. High-priced real estate … maybe the place housed one of the stoners Rory had chauffeured.
In a Hyundai?
Had to be camouflage. So did leaving the club through the back— that was celeb behavior.
Was one—or both—of the stoners a VIP? That synced with Rory waltzing into ColdSnake.
Aaron returned to the keyboard, paired
Rory Stoltz
with
Lem Dement
, and Googled.
Did you mean demented roar?
No, I didn’t, Meddling Cyber-Wienie.
He sat there for a long time, feeling his brain turn to sludge.
Three ten a.m. What he
craved was
sinking his teeth into the case, ripping and shredding like a rabid dog until the facts bled.
What he
did
was slog upstairs to Play Land, undress, fold his clothes neatly over the brass-and-teak valet, slip naked between Frette sheets.
Guessing Caitlin’s face would appear in his dreams. He hoped she would.
Back when he’d been on the job, he’d embraced the classic Homicide D’s self-congratulation.
We talk for the dead
.
And sometimes, the dead talk to us.
CHAPTER
13
M oe arrived at his desk at eight a.m., thinking about the Rory Stoltz-Mason Book connection.
Two messages from Aaron sat next to his computer. Crumpling and lobbing easy two-pointers into a nearby wastebasket, he Googled the actor.
Nearly four million hits. Midway down the second page were accounts of Book’s early-morning suicide attempt by wrist-slash.
Paramedics responding to a 911 call at the Hollywood Hills house of heartthrob …
Facts were in short supply, but no shortage of lurid rehash: anonymous sources claimed Mason Book was addicted to every drug known to humankind, the hush-hush VIP admission to Cedars-Sinai had cost a heavy six figures for a one-week stay …
Moe found a couple of grainy, dark infrared shots of a guy who might’ve been Book being ushered into a black SUV at a hospital service door. Another hit quoted a plea by Book’s unnamed mouthpiece to “respect Mason’s privacy during this difficult period. Mason needs to concentrate all his energies on getting well. He thanks everyone for their support.”
Moe was about to log off when he noticed the date of Book’s wrist-slash.
Printing the citation, he left the D room, turned around a sharp corner, hustled over to the familiar unmarked door, and knocked.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Moe, Loo.”
“’s not locked.”
The room was so small that opening the door brought Sturgis’s rhino frame into immediate close-up. Almost like being charged by a bull, and after all these months still kind of jarring to Moe.
The lieutenant had squeezed his bulk into a wheely-chair, long legs propped on his flimsy desk. Additional cold cases were stacked to the left of a cold computer screen. Sturgis’s heavy jaw flexed.
“Got a second, Loo?”
Sturgis removed the cigar and rolled it from finger to finger, like a carny doing a trick. He pointed to a chair in the corner.
Moe
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