Open Season (Alex Delaware #40)

Chapter 39

Chapter

39

He typed away, finally pushed away from his keyboard.

“Mr. Flick does not live in Hollywood but he’s close enough, near Fairfax and Pico. He was kind enough to legally register two weapons six years ago, a Pardini and a Hammerli, both super-expensive target pistols.”

“No rifle.”

“Big shock, huh? But owning weapons like that tells me he’s a serious marksman who practices. Maybe we can find which range he uses. Not that I’d choose to nab him there, can you imagine? But it’s possible someone’s seen him with the rifle. So what were you just up to?”

I repeated what I’d learned.

He said, “But I’m not supposed to look into it.”

“If it turns out the brother actually contracted Flick, look to your heart’s content,” I said. “If we’re talking some sort of volunteer mission on Flick’s part, I don’t see the point.”

He grunted. “So how’d Flick—or the brother—I.D. O’Brien with only a partial?”

“They’re both math people. Don’t imagine basic hacking with some algorithm is beyond either of them.”

“Your Jane Doe was victimized a year ago. Why wait till now to shoot O’Brien?”

“Joy of the hunt,” I said. “Planning, stalking, staking out. And now that I think about it, a lot of advanced math is like that. Problems that take a long time to solve.”

“Maybe that or O’Brien will still come back to Boykins protecting Keisha.”

“Either way, you’ve got Flick to focus on.”

He faced his desk, spun around and looked at me again. “Ye olde anonymous informant, huh? That’s actually not so bad, I can just list it that way in the murder book, we do it all the time. So okay, thanks. Meanwhile I’ve called another meeting.”

“When?”

“An hour. Tell me you’ve got no patients.”

“Not today.”

“Perfect. Everyone’s hyped and rarin’ to go. Including ol’ Buck but he won’t be here. In South Dakota visiting a daughter.”

He looked at his Timex. “Fifty-six minutes. Let’s get nourished.”

—

We left the station and walked north to Santa Monica Boulevard. Milo’s a regular at most of the restaurants on a four-block westward stretch, leading to consistent VIP service and sometimes hero worship. But he turned east and stopped a few feet from Butler where a painted banner on a Technicolor food truck proclaimed

TASTEE BITES!!!

A gorgeous young woman in a red Tastee Bites T-shirt worked the counter. A second beauty queen in matching tee, white shorts, and high-tops was outside the truck, taking orders from the half a dozen people lined up at eleven a.m. Including two uniformed officers who nodded at Milo.

The women also nodded and the one on the sidewalk hurried up, exultant. “The usual, Lieutenant?”

“You bet, Sasha.”

“Great! And to drink?”

“Large Coke.”

“Perfect! And for you, sir?”

I said, “Roast beef sandwich sounds good.”

“Awesome! It is good! And to drink?”

“Iced tea.”

“Sweetened?”

“No, thanks.”

“Large?”

“Sure.”

“Beautiful!”

—

This time Milo took the stairs with no complaint. This time we used the big interview room to polish off lunch.

Flex space given a new meaning.

No false promises about my sandwich; generously dimensioned, amply stuffed with rare roast beef, and augmented by some sort of hand-whipped horseradish sauce. All of which was appreciated because sloshing coffee was the only thing in my gut.

Milo’s breakfast burrito was the size and shape of a lumbar cushion. He sized it up the way a coyote assesses a rabbit.

When we were through eating, he said, “Hold on, right back,” and returned with an enlarged version of Cameron Flick’s DMV photo. Wheeling one of the whiteboards to center stage, he taped the image dead center.

Nothing noteworthy about the face. On the bland side, really. Even the eyes were unremarkable. Medium brown, slightly down-slanted, neither angry nor kind. Just a pair of eyes, free of that cold forever-stare some witnesses report encountering when faced with evil.

People expect monsters and ogres but sometimes you just get terrifyingly ordinary.