Author: Matt Goldman
Category: Mystery
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/matt-goldman/page,16,556903-dead_west.html
I stood. “They might have found your car.”
“I am not stupid.”
The helicopter circled overhead, its spotlight fixed on something close. The machine in the sky rattled Vasily. Or maybe it was just the moment. Whatever he wanted from me, whether it was to help him break into his own house or do something he hadn’t mentioned, the time had come when I’d yield to his threat or not.
Then I saw something Vasily didn’t see. The helicopter he’d hoped for to drown out the pop-pop-pop of a .22 drowned out more than that. I’d been gifted a window of opportunity. I lowered the marshmallows. The blue flames burst into orange on the end of the skewer. I lifted the flaming stick and pointed it at Vasily. My move wasn’t a legitimate threat. Flaming marshmallows were no match for a gun. They were nothing other than ridiculous. But the circling helicopter and Vasily’s nerves and my audacity to raise flaming marshmallows in his direction were enough to confuse Vasily. Just for a moment. But a moment was all I needed. All we needed.
I don’t know if Vasily saw the shadow or felt it. Either way he noticed too late. Just as he turned, a right arm smashed down on the pistol as the left arm squeezed Vasily’s neck between biceps and forearm. The pistol hit the pavement. Vasily opened his mouth and bit.
Jameson White howled, and Vasily twisted out of the big man’s grasp. He dropped to the pavement. I leapt over the fire pit. Vasily picked up the gun, pointed it at Jameson, and squeezed the trigger.
32
Jameson grabbed his thigh. Vasily pulled the flaming skewer from the back of his neck and screamed like a chihuahua giving birth to a Saint Bernard. I reached forward with my right hand, slapped it over Vasily’s right eye, and pressed hard. Jameson let go of his thigh, blood on his hands, and wrenched Vasily’s right wrist. Vasily dropped the pistol a second time. I let go of his good eye. He hadn’t regained his vision.
When he did, he saw me pointing the .22 at his chest. I said, “Jameson, how bad is it?”
“The bullet went clean through. Seen enough gunshot wounds. Always wondered what this felt like. Ha! Now I know.”
“Sit down, Vasily. Jameson, if you can, go inside and find something to secure our friend to the chair.”
Jameson started for the house. Vasily’s one eye looked at me. Not in anger or betrayal or fear. He looked at me with a plea for mercy. With a plea for help.
I said, “You came here with a loaded gun, Vasily. Not just a threat. Not a prop. You came with a weapon to kill.”
“Buddy…” His voice was hoarse. “Not to kill. To protect. They kill me if they find me.”
“Who will kill you?”
His eye blinked. And blinked again. His shoulders offered an apologetic shrug. Then he turned and ran toward the driveway. I aimed the pistol at his back, then lowered it to his legs. He neared the edge of the house. I lifted my finger off the trigger. Vasily Zaytzev disappeared around the corner.
Jameson White came out a minute later, his thigh wrapped in duct tape. He carried the roll in one hand and a beer in the other. “What the hell happened? Where’s the one-eyed Russian?”
“He ran.”
“And you didn’t shoot him?”
“Didn’t feel right.”
“Didn’t feel right? Didn’t feel right?! He would have shot you! I know ’cause he shot me. Might have killed me if you didn’t give him a hot marshmallow in the neck. Didn’t feel right. Man, Shap, when you see a black widow spider in your house you squash it. You don’t put a jar over it and slip a piece of paper underneath so you can take it out and let it go free. A black widow is a deadly spider and you need to kill it or it will come back and kill you. Stomp on it, twist foot, clean shoe. Why the hell is that grin on your face?! I’m saying you did something stupid. Something that could get you killed. Or worse, get me killed. What is that stupid grin doing there?!”
The helicopter flew off. The yard was quiet. I said, “You’re back.”
“’Course I’m back. Ellegaard called and said you were being stupid. Said I’d better check on you. And good thing I did. Trying to fight a gunman with a roasted marshmallow. What the hell has got into you?”
What I had meant was the Jameson I know and love had returned. Not completely but he was on his way. The sprinklers erupted in the neighbor’s yard, hissing white noise behind an eight-foot wall. I said, “Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to wreck it.”
“What?”
“So two choices. We take you to the emergency room or we call Dr. Li and have her come over to take a look first while we drink whiskey and eat s’mores.”
* * *
Dr. Li arrived ten minutes later. She examined Jameson in the kitchen, first cutting the duct tape off his sweats. A couple years ago Jameson cleaned and bandaged my arrow wound three times a day. He’d just done the same for himself. When he’d gone inside to get something to tie up Vasily, he’d cleaned the wound with vodka and used a clean white T-shirt from Ebben’s dresser to wrap the wound under his sweats, which he secured with duct tape to maintain pressure. Dr. Li recleaned the wound and said Jameson would need stitches. She insisted he go to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai hospital and warned us hospital personnel would have to report the gunshot wound to police.
Jameson looked at me. “What do we tell the police?”
“We tell them exactly what happened. I’ll make the call. I can handle the two I’ve met.”
Brit heard none of what happened in the backyard thanks to her lounging in the tub with noise-canceling headphones blasting her daily meditation podcast. But she was hardly centered and relaxed. She refused to stay at the house alone with Vasily running loose so the four of us got into Dr. Li’s Prius and headed to Cedars-Sinai. I called Detectives Hall and Montanio and relayed the night’s events. Hall said they’d meet us in the ER and thanked me for the overtime.
At the emergency room, they took Jameson in back. Brit had gone to the cafeteria because she didn’t like being around sick people. Dr. Li and I sat in the waiting area.
I said, “How come you’re not back there with Jameson?”
Dr. Li said, “I don’t want him to focus on me. I want him to focus on people who are doing what he used to do. It will help remind him how valuable he is from the patient’s point of view.”
Huh. That was nothing less than thoughtful, but I kept up my guard. “Thank you for that.”
“I can get Jameson a job as a nurse practitioner in Los Angeles. They are much in demand here.”
And there it was. I said, “Nurse practitioners are much in demand everywhere. And it’s not like he’s unemployed by circumstance. He’s unemployed by choice. His hospital in Minnesota is begging him to come back to work.”
“I see that you are upset, Shap. May I call you Shap? That’s how Jameson refers to you.”
“Sure. You can call me Shap. And may I call you something other than Dr. Li?”
“Yes. Nikki.”
Jameson had seemed to improve since reconnecting with Nikki, so I said, “Well, Nikki, Jameson’s not worse since I last saw him.”
“Except for getting shot.”
“Yeah. Except for that.”
“He and I have had long talks. Our history helps. I’ve always told him he spends too much time alone. Not when he’s working, of course. But in his free time. You don’t know how good it has been for him to have met you and Ellegaard and Annika. And he loves Gabriella. Jameson says she’s too good for you. You are a lucky man.”
“I am. Looks like Jameson might be, too.” Dr. Li dropped her eyes and half-smiled. I said, “So, what exactly is your history with Jameson?”
“I met Jameson at UCLA when the athletic department assigned me to be his tutor. He didn’t go to the most academically rigorous high school and never would have been admitted to UCLA if not for football. He needed help.”
“You did well.”
“That is kind of you to say. He and I spent a great deal of time together. We were both freshmen when we met. By his sophomore
year, Jameson didn’t need my help anymore. He’s quite gifted intellectually—he just needed to learn good study habits. I gave him a jump start, and maybe sparked his interest in health science, but he did the rest.”
“And you remained friends.”
“Neither of us wanted to end our tutoring sessions, so we continued for the duration of Jameson’s athletic eligibility. That was five years. The last year, I was in medical school, but we still met under the guise of tutoring.”
“Sounds like romance.”
Dr. Li smiled. Her eyes shined. “Yes, I think it might have been. But there were obstacles. I was a different person then, very much under the influence of my family. My father had a highly visible position with the Chinese government. I couldn’t disgrace him by dating a non-Chinese person. So I showed no romantic interest toward Jameson. He had plenty of that from other young women so he didn’t pursue it with me.”
“What about after UCLA?”
“Jameson moved to Montreal. I stayed in California and married a Chinese man I met in medical school. Jameson fell in love with Joline then followed her to Minneapolis and went to nursing school there. I’d just had my son when Joline passed away. Jameson’s life has been in Minnesota. My life has been here.” I glanced at Dr. Li’s left hand. No ring. Maybe she lost it in a patient. She caught my wandering eye and said, “I divorced my husband three years ago when I learned he had a habit of paying blondes to have sex with him.”
“Sorry the marriage didn’t work out.”
“I used to be sorry. Not now.”
“Because Jameson’s back in your life?”
She didn’t respond.
I said, “Well, I don’t know how long Jameson will stay with you, but if you haven’t noticed, he’s six foot seven and big-boned. Your grocery bill will go up—you should probably budget for that.”
“There he is.” It was Detective Hall. “The trouble magnet. If it’s bullshit, it sticks to Shapiro.”
“I was worried you weren’t going to make it, Detective.”
“Where is Mr. White?”
“They’re stitching him up. He can talk.”
Detective Montanio walked in. Hall said, “The vic can talk. Which one do you want?”
Montanio chose me. We found a couple of seats on the opposite side of the room and I described the events that led to Jameson White getting shot in the thigh. She commended me on not putting one in Vasily’s back as he ran off.
When Detective Montanio seemed satisfied I’d told her all I could tell, I said, “Are you going to hold Ebben Mayer overnight?”
Detective Montanio said, “No. We cut him loose just before we left.”
“Huh. You sounded pretty sure he was tied to Thom Burke’s fifteen million.”
“Yeah. We still are. But his agent sent Elisabeth fucking Gottlieb to the precinct.” I didn’t register the name. “Seriously? Elisabeth Gottlieb is the criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles. You got to front a retainer of 50 grand just to look at her. And she’s got a reality show in development called Until Proven Guilty. It’s gonna be huge.”
“How do you know that?”
“Everyone knows it. Where have you been? Now where’s the gun?”
I told her it was at the house. I would have brought it but I wasn’t licensed to carry in California. I also mentioned they might find a .22 slug in the stucco which would corroborate my story. She said they’d pick up the gun in the morning. Enough was enough for one day.
Detective Hall returned to the waiting area holding his notebook in one hand. “Shapiro, you’re free to take Mr. White home, but we don’t want either of you leaving town. Understood?”
I nodded and returned to Dr. Li. She said, “I am so sorry.”
“For what?”
A nurse approached and asked who would be driving Jameson home. Dr. Li took the clipboard and pen and signed the form. The nurse said Jameson would be ready to go in a few minutes, and walked away.
I stood. “I’ll go find Brit. Can I get you anything from the cafeteria?”
“Please stay a moment.” I sat. Dr. Li said, “I spoke to the head of administration at Jameson’s hospital in Minneapolis to tell her Jameson is doing better. The woman got very excited and asked when they could expect Jameson’s return. I told her I didn’t know yet but would call her again soon. Then I got calls from four doctors and seven nurses asking about Jameson. They really love him there.”
I said, “Everyone who meets Jameson loves him. But he can’t be two places at once. And he seems to be doing better here.”
“Jameson and I were foolish when we were younger. Too proud or idealistic or ashamed to acknowledge how we felt for each other. Then life got in the way. Different cities and different partners and even different countries. But we reconnected after the school shooting. We grew close again on the phone.”
I said, “You saved him.”
“I don’t know if that’s true. But after his first night with me, we talked of marriage.” She smiled a sad smile. “But he talks so much about Minnesota. About you and Ellegaard and Annika. And he likes the assistant Kenji because Kenji gives you a hard time. Jameson talks about the doctors and nurses he works with at the hospital and still communicates with survivors of the shooting. Did you know that?” I shook my head. “Jameson loves me, Nils. I know he does. But he loves Minnesota. I can’t ask him to give that up for me.” Her eyes shined.
I said, “No.”
“No?”
“Jameson will love it here, too. He’ll go see the Minnesota Twins play in Anaheim instead of in Minneapolis. He’ll talk about the weather in Minnesota because there is no weather here. It may bore you senseless, but you’ll get through it. He’ll find an NP job in Los Angeles and there will be a whole new crop of doctors and nurses and patients who love him.”
She said, “But it will not be the same.”
“It doesn’t have to be the same and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Everyone gives up something for the big picture. It could be stinky sponges left in the sink or an insomniac who likes to discuss their insomnia in the middle of the night or having to move out of your beloved coat factory and into a cookie-cutter condo. Take it from me, when the right person comes back into your life, someone you’ve known since you were practically a kid, you can’t throw that away because it’s not perfect. You got to—”
“Whoa, Nelson! Twenty-four stitches in the meat of my leg and another eighteen on top. Good thing it wasn’t a nine mil or I’d have more thread in me than a pair of Levi’s. And five in my hand where the bald dude bit me. Thank the Lord the dentistry in Russia is lagging, otherwise it could have been worse. Ha!” Jameson White sat in a wheelchair, pushed by a woman the size of Jameson’s thumb.
Brit returned from the cafeteria. She and Dr. Li left to pull up the car. The nurse handed me a slip of paper and said, “This is for his painkillers. We’ve also listed what else he needs to redress the wound.”
I said, “We’ve been down this road before, huh pal?”
Jameson said, “This ain’t no role reversal, Shap. You ain’t changing my bandages unless you became a nurse practitioner in the last few days, which I am certain you did not. Now walk behind us. We hit an incline, my tiny nurse won’t have the horsepower to push me up it.”
33
We drove back to Hancock Park and found Ebben in his living room sucking down an energy drink. He’d just returned home and looked wiped by the hours-long police interrogation. He had lived his life insulated from the big bad world. Even being Beverly Mayer’s grandson hadn’t prepared him for it.
Ebben said, “They kept asking me about a movie called Veins of Gold. Anyone hear of it?” No one had other than me. Ebben grabbed a second energy drink and headed to bed. I don’t know how that works. Brit also headed upstairs to watch some Netflix, then Jameson and I left with Dr. Li. When we pulled into her driveway, I promised I’d have Jameson home by midnight then we got in the rented Land Rover.
I drove, and
Jameson complained about my driving. First stop was picking up August in Westwood. Jameson told August how he got shot, embellishing here and there to emphasize how he’d saved my life and that Vasily only escaped because Jameson had gone inside to get duct tape.
Second stop was Target on Santa Monica Boulevard to buy flashlights, red cellophane, rubber bands, latex gloves, and an overgrown Swiss Army knife.
Third stop was Thom Burke’s house in Nichols Canyon, a dark road with houses only on one side. The property was still wrapped in police tape, but not enough to prevent us from slipping behind it and picking the lock on the back door.
“What are we looking for?” said August.
“I’m not sure.”
Jameson said, “We can find that, no problem.”
“A home office would be a good start. Or at least a file cabinet.”
Jameson said, “Can we get in trouble for this?”
“So much trouble. A patrol car probably drives by every hour or two, but we parked a few hundred feet away and, as long as we keep the red cellophane over our flashlights, it should appear dark from the outside.”
“It’s good to be wearing latex gloves again. I’ve missed the feeling.”
“Don’t say that in public.”
We found Thom’s home office in the second bedroom of the two-bedroom house. Two metal filing cabinets held up an old door to create a desk. No computer in sight. The police probably took it. I opened a filing cabinet drawer. Empty. Same with the others.
August said, “How’s the leg feeling, Jameson?”
“Like a 350-pound nose tackle just landed on it. But I’m all right.”
I opened the closet and found a bookshelf. The bottom half was filled with scripts, their titles written on their sides just like I’d seen in Ebben’s home office. The top half was empty. I shined my red light on the spines. I found Veins of Gold on the second shelf. I pulled out the script. Only it wasn’t a script. The header said Veins of Gold—Production Budget. It was dated June of last year. I saw categories for Actors from leads to background. Another category for Director, including First Assistant Director and Second Assistant Director. Another category for Director of Photography, including Best Boy and Grips and Gaffers. More categories including Hair and Makeup, Wardrobe, Sound, Transportation, Special Effects, Digital Effects, and Postproduction. I didn’t understand any of it. Except for one thing—the total. Fifteen million dollars.