Blood Test

“I don’t think anything at this point. Because this is a crazy city, pal. More homicides each year and folks are getting wasted for the weirdest reasons. Last week, some old character jammed a steak knife in his neighbor’s chest because he was sure the guy was killing his tomato plants with evil rays from his navel. Deranged assholes walk into fast-food joints and mow down kids eating burgers, for chrissake. When I first went into Homicide things seemed relatively logical, pretty simple, really. Most of the stuff we used to catch was due to love or jealousy or money, family feuds — your basic human conflicts. Not now, compadre. Too many holes in the Swiss cheese? Ice the deli man. Looney Tunes.”

“And this looks like the work of a crazy?”

“Who the hell knows, Alex? We’re not talking hard science. Most probably we’ll find it was what I said before. One of them — probably the father — got a good look at the shitty cards he’d been dealt and tossed the room. They left the car behind so it’s probably temporary.

“On the other hand, I can’t guarantee they didn’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, didn’t collide with a nutcase who thought they were Pluto Vampires out to take over his liver.” He held the matchbook between thumb and forefinger and waved it like a miniature flag.

“Right now,” he said, “all we’ve got is this. It’s not in my ballpark but I’ll pay the place a visit and follow it up for you, okay?”

“Thanks, Milo. Getting to the bottom of it would calm a few people down. Want company?”

“Sure, why not? Haven’t seen you in a good while. If missing the lovely Ms. Castagna hasn’t made you unbearably morose, you might even turn out to be good company.”

7

There was a phone number on the matchbook but no address, so Milo called Vice and got one, along with some background on the Adam and Eve Messenger Service.

“They know the operation,” he said, tooling onto Pico and heading east. “Owned by a sweetheart named Jan Rambo, has her finger in a little bit of everything. Daddy’s a mob biggie in Frisco. Little Jan’s his pride and joy.”

“What is it, a cover for an outcall service?”

“That and a few other things. Vice thinks sometimes the messengers transport dope, but that’s only a sideline — impromptu, when someone needs a favor. They do some relatively legit stuff — party gags, like when it’s the boss’s birthday and a nubile young thing shows up at the office party, strips and rubs herself all over him. Mostly it’s sex for sale, one way or another.”

“Which sheds new light on Nona Swope,” I said.

“Maybe. You said she was good looking?”

“Gorgeous, Milo. Unusually so.”

“So she knows what she’s got and decides to profit from it — it might be relevant, but what the hell, when you get right down to it, this town was built on the buying and selling of bodies, right? Small town girl hits glitter-city, gets her head turned. Happens every day.”

“That has got to be the most hackneyed soliloquy you’ve ever delivered.”

He broke out laughing and slapped the dashboard with glee, then realized he’d been squinting into the sun and put on a pair of mirrored shades.

“Oka-ay, time to play cop. What do you think?”

“Very intimidating.”

Jan Rambo’s headquarters were on the tenth floor of a flesh-colored high rise on Wilshire just west of Barrington. The directory in the lobby listed about a hundred businesses, most with names that told you nothing about what they did — a free hand had been used with words like enterprise, system, communications, and network. A good third of them ended with Ltd. Jan Rambo had outdone them all, christening her meat market, Contemporary Communications Network, Ltd. If that didn’t convince you it was all very respectable, the brass letters on the teak door and the matching thunderbolt logo were sure to do the trick.

The door was locked but Milo pounded it hard enough for the walls to shake, and it opened. A tall well-built Jamaican in his midtwenties stuck his head out and started to say something hostile, but Milo shoved his badge in the mahogany face and he shut his mouth.

“Hi,” said Milo, grinning.

“What can I do for you, Officers?” asked the black, over-enunciating in a show of arrogance.

“First, you can let us in.” Without waiting for cooperation, Milo leaned on the door. Taken by surprise, the Jamaican stepped back and we walked in.

It wasn’t much of a reception room, barely larger than a closet, but Contemporary Communications probably didn’t do much receiving. The walls were flat ivory and the only furniture was a chrome and vinyl desk upon which sat an electric typewriter and a phone, and the steno chair behind it.