Gridiron - Philip Kerr

'Come on,' he urged. 'There must be someone.'

'Well,' said the man with the bullhorn, 'I guess you could say I am, kind of.'

'I'm Detective Sergeant Curtis, LAPD Homicide Bureau. Could I talk to you a minute? Let's step out of the sun.' He pointed across the piazza to the edge of Hope Street.

'Hot day,' he said. And then, 'It's about an incident in the Yu Corporation building last night.'

'Another one?' Cheng Peng Fei smiled thinly.

'Someone was killed.'

'That's too bad. Nobody junior, I hope.'

'You approve?'

'If it was Yu himself then that would be good news. The man is a gangster.'

'I was wondering what time you and your people left the piazza last night. Maybe you saw something.'

'About five o'clock. Same as usual.'

'I'm sorry, you are — '

'My name is Cheng Peng Fei.'

'Where are you from, son?'

'Hong Kong. I'm a visa student at UCLA.'

'And your friends? Are they mostly students?'

'Mostly, yes.'

'Did you ever run across the security guard at the Yu building? Big guy. Black.'

'Is that the man who's dead?'

'Yes, it is.'

Cheng Peng Fei shook his head.

'We've seen him. That's all. There's another guard too, isn't there?

Mean looking whitey. We've seen rather more of him.'

'You ever go inside the building?'

'We have thought about it, but we'd probably get busted. So we just stay beside our fountain handing out leaflets, that kind of thing.'

'It was sure different in my day,' said Curtis as they neared the corner of Fifth.

A bum pushing a shopping cart paused briefly to collect a cigarette butt off the sidewalk before continuing in the direction of Wilshire. A tall black man wearing grimy Nike Air Jordans, track-suit pants and a baseball cap coming the opposite way was forced to side-step the cart and stopped to curse the bum before continuing on his way.

'When I was a kid a protest really was a protest.'

'What were you protesting about?'

'There was only one thing people protested about back in those days: Vietnam.'

'Better than going there, I guess.'

'Oh, I went. It was when I came back I got involved. What exactly is your beef with the Yu Corp?'

Cheng Peng Fei handed over a leaflet.

'Here, this'll explain everything.'

Curtis stopped, glanced over the bill and put it in his coat pocket. Then he nodded towards an advertising boarding on a shelter for the DASH, the Downtown Area Short Hop bus service. The ad showed a handshake between two disembodied arms, one of them wearing the uniform of the LAPD. The headline read:

As partners

LAPD

AND YOU

CAN BE A

LETHAL WEAPON

2

FIGHT CRIME

Cheng Peng Fei was bright enough to understand what Curtis was suggesting. He shrugged and shook his head.

'Really, if I knew something I'd tell you, Sergeant, but I can't help you.'

He was shorter than Curtis by a head and, at a hundred and twelve pounds, just over half as heavy. Curtis placed himself in front of Cheng, close enough to have kissed him, and regarded him with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.

'What are you doing?' said Cheng. Trying to retreat he found himself pressed up against the wall on the corner of Fifth and Hope.

'I'm just trying to see inside your inscrutable little head,' said Curtis, holding him firmly by the shoulders. 'So that I'll know why you're lying to me.'

'What the fuck are you talking about, man?'

'Now you're absolutely certain you never met Sam Gleig?'

'Sure I'm sure. I never even heard his name until now.' Cheng started to curse the policeman in Chinese.

'You ever heard of Miranda, college boy?'

'Miranda who?'

'Miranda vs. the State of Arizona, that's who. Fifth Amendment stuff. Guidelines that include informing arrested persons prior to questioning that they have the right to remain silent — '

'You're arresting me? For what?'

Curtis turned Cheng around and handcuffed one hand expertly.

'- anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. And that you have the right to an attorney.'

'What is this? You're crazy.'

'These are your rights, schmuck. Now, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to cuff you to the streetlight there and then go and collect my car and come back and pick you up. I'd go back there with you, only I figure it might inflame some of your friends to see you being arrested and I'm sure you wouldn't want to cause any trouble. Not to mention the embarrassment you might experience. This way you're only going to be embarrassed in front of a few passing strangers.'

Curtis hauled Cheng's thin arm around the streetlight and snapped on the other manacle.

'You're fucking crazy.'

'Besides, while I'm gone it'll give you a little time to reflect on that story of yours. Time to reflect. Time to think of another.' Curtis looked at his watch. 'I'll be back in five minutes. Ten at the most.' He pointed up at the Gridiron that loomed over them, reducing the surrounding buildings to visual insignificance. 'Anyone asks, you just stopped to admire the architecture.'

'Bullshit.'

'Now, there I have to agree with you, Cheng boy.'

-###-

'The tape's running, Frank.'

Cheng Peng Fei glanced around the video room at New Parker Center.

'What tape?'

'We're recording this interrogation on video,' said Curtis. 'For posterity. Not to mention your protection. Is this your good side?'

Coleman sat down alongside Curtis and facing Cheng Peng Fei across a table on which there was only one object: a tyre wrench wrapped in a polythene bag. Cheng pretended it was not there.

'It's so your lawyer can't say we beat a confession out of you with this tyre wrench,' said Coleman.

'What's to confess? I haven't done anything.'

'Please state your name and age.'

'Cheng Peng Fei. I'm twenty-two.'

'Do you wish an attorney to be present?'

'No. Like I said, I haven't done anything.'

'That's your tyre wrench, isn't it?' said Coleman.

Cheng shrugged. 'Could you recognize yours?'

'Yours is missing from the trunk of your car,' said Coleman. 'I checked. This wrench was thrown through the windshield of a car belonging to Mitchell Bryan, an architect working at the Yu Corporation building. A red Lexus. This wrench has your fingerprints on it.'

'Well, if it's my wrench it would, wouldn't it? I had a flat and I changed the wheel. I drove off and left my wrench on the road.'

'The incident with the wrench happened in the parking lot at the Mon Kee Restaurant on North Spring Street,' said Coleman. 'Just a few blocks from the Gridiron.'

'If you say so.'

'When we searched your apartment we found a Mastercard receipt for a meal you ate there on the same night that Bryan's windshield was smashed.'

Cheng Peng Fei was silent for a moment.

'All right. So I smashed a windshield. But that's all. I know what you're trying to do here. But even if your premise is correct and I did smash the windshield of one man working at the Gridiron, it does not make your conclusion, that I murdered another man working there, at all certain. Even if you had ten thousand such premises, it would not establish your conclusion.'

'Are you studying law, by any chance?' asked Curtis.

'Business Admin.'

'Well, you're right, of course,' Curtis allowed. 'This wrench alone would not make it certain. Of course, it might make it easier for us to show you had a motive: your fanatical opposition to the Yu Corp and its employees and agents.'

'Bullshit.'

'Where were you last night, Cheng?'

'I stayed home and did some reading.'

'What did you read?'

' Organizational Culture and Leadership, by Edgar H. Schein.'

'No shit.'

'Any witnesses?'

'I was studying, not partying. I was reading a book.'

'When you do party,' said Coleman, 'what do you drink?'

'What kind of a question is that?'

'Beer?'

'Sometimes beer, yeah. Chinese beer. I don't like the taste of American beer.'

'Scotch?'

'Sure. Who doesn't?'

'Me, I can't stand the stuff,' admitted Coleman.

'So what does that prove? I drink Scotch, you don't drink Scotch, he drinks Scotch. This is like my English class. Can we try the past indefinite now?'

'Drink much Scotch, do you?'

'Ever share a bottle with a friend?'

'I'm not that kind of drinker.'

'What about Sam Gleig? Did you ever share a bottle with him?'

'Sounds to me like you're the ones who have been sharing a bottle of Scotch. I have never shared anything with him. Not even the time of day.' Cheng sighed and leaned forward on the table. 'Look, I admit to breaking the windshield. I'm really sorry about that. It was stupid. I'd had a few drinks. I'll pay for the damage. But you have to believe me, I never met this guy. I'm sorry he's dead, but I had nothing to do with — '

Curtis had unfolded a colour photocopy of the computer-generated picture and spread it on the table next to the tyre wrench. Cheng stared at it.

'I am showing the subject a picture of himself and the dead man taken in the lobby of the Gridiron building.'

'What the hell is this?'

'Do you deny that's you?'

'Deny it? Of course I deny it. This must be a fake. Some kind of photocomposite. Look, what are you trying to pull here?'

'I'm not trying to pull anything,' replied Curtis. 'Just find out the truth. So why don't you admit it, Cheng?'

'I admit nothing. This is a lie.'

'You went to the Gridiron with a fifth of Scotch for Sam Gleig. I figure you must have already met once before. You had some kind of deal going. What was it? Dope? A little Chinese heroin from back home?'

'Bullshit.'

'Or maybe you wanted a favour. A blind eye while you went ahead and got rid of another tyre wrench. Smashed something. You paid him for his trouble, of course. Maybe you were going to hit Sam just to make things look convincing for him. Only you hit him too hard. Then you panicked and took off. Isn't that what happened?'

Cheng was shaking his head. He was on the edge of tears. 'Someone is trying to frame me,' he said.

'You're not such a good picture, China,' sneered Coleman. 'Who would want to frame you?'

'Isn't that obvious? The Yu Corporation, that's who. Believe me, they're quite capable of it. They get rid of me, maybe they can get rid of the protest. It's bad publicity for them.'

'And I suppose having someone murdered in your office building counts as good publicity, does it?' said Curtis. 'Besides, you and your friends are old news. You'll have to do better than that, college boy.'

'Come on, Cheng,' argued Nathan Coleman. 'Admit it. It was you who brained him. We don't figure you did it on purpose. You're not the type. An accident. We'll speak to the DA and get the charge reduced to seconddegree murder. Your daddy pays for a fancy lawyer who tells the court you'd been studying too hard and you'll probably get two to five max. Maybe you can get transferred to a private gaol and finish your studies before you get deported home again.'

Cheng Peng Fei studied the photograph and shook his head. 'This isn't happening,' he said, and then added, 'Perhaps I'd better have that attorney after all.'

Suspending the interrogation the two detectives stepped into the busy corridor outside the video room.

'What do you think, Frank? Do we have the perp?'

'I don't know, Nat. I thought he'd fold when he saw the picture.' Curtis stretched wearily and looked at his watch. 'I reckon I'd better have SID look at it.'

'Do you think it might be a fake?'

'The little fucker's bluffing, I'm sure of it. But it wouldn't do any harm to have it checked before we go to the DA. Besides I've got to pick up the results of the preliminary p.m.'

'You want me to keep working on him?'

Curtis nodded.

'Give him some coffee and try to calm him down. Then come at him with the southpaw.' Curtis punched Coleman playfully on the shoulder with his left.

'What about that attorney?'

'You heard him waive that right, didn't you? This is no homeboy, Nat. This guy's an MBA. There's no one going to say he didn't understand his Miranda.'

-###-

The Scientific Investigation Division was in the basement of New Parker Center. Curtis found Charlie Seidler and Janet Bragg in the cafeteria fetching coffees from the machine.

'Want one, Frank?' asked Bragg.

'Thanks. Cream, two sugars.'

'That's a sweet tooth you've got there,' observed Seidler as Bragg pressed the buttons on the machine. 'Man your age ought to be more careful about what he eats and drinks.'

'Gee, thanks, Charlie. Man your age yourself. Besides, I need the energy.'

They went into the lab.

'Well, Frank, the team went all round your suspect's apartment,' said Seidler. 'Found nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a bottle of Scotch.'

Curtis sighed wearily and then looked at Dr Bragg. She handed him a file containing three sheets of paper and a sheaf of photographs.

'He was hit — and hit hard mind — by a very strong man,' she said, without consulting her notes. The impact caused a depressed fracture of the skull and broke his neck for good measure. It even broke one of his teeth. I can't give you much idea of the kind of weapon used except to say that it wasn't a club or a bat or anything cylindrical. Something flat, more like. As if someone dropped an object on his head. Or hit him with a piece of the sidewalk.

'And here's another thing. I've had a look at your suspect's passport and it says he's only five-eight. Weighs around one-ten. Unless Gleig was kneeling down in that elevator car, there's just no way he couid have hit him. Or unless your man was standing on a box. Like Alan Ladd.'

Bragg noticed the look of disappointment on Curtis's face.

'If he was involved then he must have had someone else with him. Someone taller and stronger. A man of your build, perhaps. A man who likes cream and two sugars in his coffee.'

Curtis showed them the picture. 'So why have I got a picture of just one suspect?'

'You're the detective, Frank,' said Bragg.

'My suspect reckons this is a fake, Charlie.'

'Did a computer generate this?' asked Seidler.

Curtis nodded.

'Not my bag I'm afraid,' shrugged Seidler, 'but I can try someone.' He picked up the telephone and punched out a number. 'Bill? It's me, Charlie. Listen, I'm in the lab with someone from Homicide. Could you come in a minute and give us your head on something? Thanks a lot.'

Seidler replaced the receiver.

'Bill Durham. He's our photographic expert.'

A little man with a dark beard came bustling through the door. Seidler made the introductions and then Curtis showed him the picture. Durham produced a magnifying glass from the pocket of his white coat and examined the picture carefully.