The Big Sheep Read online

  “Priya is fine,” said Durham. “That drama queen TC Gemmel got her a little worked up, but she’s resting in a bedroom down the hall.”

  I glanced at Keane, who gave me a slight nod.

  “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Fowler?” Durham held a half-empty tumbler in his hand, and I noticed Keane was working on one of his own. A very large man in tan slacks and a black turtleneck, who had at first escaped my attention, stood stock-still against a wall to my right. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious, but it didn’t seem like it had been more than a minute or two.

  I shook my head and immediately regretted it. “Maybe some water.”

  “Sure,” Durham said. The large man disappeared for a moment into an adjoining room and came back with a bottle of water, which he handed to me. He returned to his post without a word. The guy had to be six-foot-four, an inverted mountain of muscle. He moved like a wrestler and wore a gun in a shoulder holster. My own gun seemed to be missing. I wondered if I could get across the room and disarm Turtleneck before he could react. Maybe, I thought, if the pounding in my head would stop for five seconds.

  “Sorry about your head,” said Durham. “My security people are very protective of Priya. Brian may have gotten a little carried away.” Turtleneck, whose name was evidently Brian, gave a little smirk. “Now, would one of you gentlemen care to explain why you’ve been sniffing around my house, asking questions about Priya?”

  Neither of us said a word.

  Brian took a step forward. He was squeezing his knuckles in his thumbs, cracking them one by one. You could see his muscles moving even under the fabric of the sweater. I imagine this was supposed to intimidate me. It did, a little.

  I leaned forward on the couch, rubbing the base of my skull with my right hand. Brian was maybe fifteen feet away. I rolled my shoulders, then twisted my spine until it gave a satisfying crack. I straightened my legs, then bent them again. I leaned forward, spreading both of my palms out on the carpet. The throbbing in my head got exponentially worse. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

  “Nothing to say for yourself, Mr. Keane?” said Durham. “I thought you were the brains of the operation.” He turned to me. “I suppose that makes you the brawn, Mr. Fowler. What a pathetic operation you two are running. I’ve stumped the brain and incapacitated the body.”

  “Let me explain something to you,” I said, opening my eyes and fixing them on Durham. “If you want to know why Mr. Keane and I are here, you have to understand what it is I do for Mr. Keane.” Flex muscles, release. Get the blood flowing. Fifteen feet. Could I do it? If I didn’t black out from the pain in my head, I thought I could.

  “You’re stalling, Fowler,” said Durham. “If you like, I can have Brian give you a reminder of the seriousness—”

  I leaned forward again, mimicking my hunched-over stretching pose of a moment earlier. Except this time I dropped into a sprinter’s crouch. Held it for just long enough to get my balance, then shot forward, making a beeline for Brian. My legs were rubbery, but they held. I’d done my best to get the blood moving to my extremities, but there was a pretty good chance the sudden movement would cause me to black out. And any second now the pain in my head would register.

  It hit just as I reached Brian, like a grenade exploding at the base of my skull. I was relying on momentum now, coasting on a wave of agony. I brought my right hand back and made a fist. Brian saw it and bobbed to his left, which is what I was counting on.

  Here’s the thing about bodyguards: they weren’t born bodyguards. They did something else first. Most are ex-military or civilian law enforcement. But the really high-paid ones, the ones who work for people like Durham, tend to be heavyweight boxers or wrestlers, for the simple reason that they look impressive. Appearances are important, particularly in Hollywood.

  That isn’t to say Brian was incompetent. I’m sure he was well trained; he could probably hit a dime at twenty-five yards with that Glock .40 on his chest. But he had a weakness, which was that he was at heart a wrestler. You could tell from his neck muscles and the way he walked, his arms hanging in front of him as if he expected any moment to have to drop on all fours. So when a crazy man threw a punch at him, he reacted like a wrestler: bob to the side and try to take advantage of the attacker’s loss of balance. Solid tactic, if this were a wrestling match. It wasn’t.

  Brian grabbed my wrist with his right and twisted hard. It probably would have hurt a lot if I didn’t already have Hiroshima going off between my ears. He slammed me against the wall behind him, grinding my wrist into the middle of my back. Point to Brian. He had me in an unbreakable hold. Unfortunately for Brian, I was now pointing his own gun at his abdomen. I’d wager that until he felt the cold steel of the barrel creeping up under his turtleneck, he’d completely forgotten he even had a gun. I’d slipped it out of its holster with my left while he was focused on my right. Wrestlers.

  It was an incredibly awkward position to be in, my face smashed up against the wall and both of my arms twisted behind my back. But I held the trump card. Brian could break my arm, but I could perforate his colon and possibly paralyze him from the waist down. Hard to make a living as a bodyguard in a wheelchair.

  The only problem with this plan was that I was rapidly losing consciousness. My eyes were watering from the pain in my head, and I could feel my vision darkening around the edges—not that I could see anything with my nose smashed against a wall. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and it was all I could do to keep the gun barrel pressed up against Brian’s belly. My only hope was that Brian’s wrestler brain would finish its cost-benefit analysis of the situation before I collapsed. As an added bonus, I was pretty sure that if I passed out before Brian loosened his grip, he’d rip my arm right out of its socket. So that was a whole new sort of pain to look forward to, if I ever woke up again.

  “Brian!” I heard Durham yell. “Get him under control!”

  I’m not sure what he was expecting Brian to do exactly, but Brian was frozen with indecision. Evidently, Durham didn’t realize I had a gun on Brian. I did, didn’t I? I couldn’t feel my hand anymore.

  As my vision blurred, my thoughts did as well. Where was Keane? Hadn’t he been in the room with me? Why wasn’t he helping? We had come here on a case, I seemed to recall. Something about a sheep. Someone was trying to murder a sheep? That didn’t sound right. Where was here, anyway? Some kind of party? It didn’t feel like a party. It was no use; I wasn’t going to be able to make sense of it. I just needed to lie down. Lie down and sleep.

  A moment of blackness, then:

  I was sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, the Glock about to slip out of my left hand. Brian, standing a few feet away, looked like he was about to make a move for the gun.

  “Uh-uh,” I muttered, managing to get a slightly tighter grip on the gun. I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger if I tried, but evidently I appeared threatening enough to make Brian rethink his plans. I took a deep breath and shifted the gun to my right hand. My head still felt like a bass drum at the Rose Bowl parade, but feeling was coming back into my fingers. Brian must have made the right choice—and just in time, too. I didn’t remember turning around or sliding down the wall, but some part of my brain must have been functioning well enough to keep the gun pointed more or less in Brian’s direction.

  “That,” I said with as much bravado as I could muster, “is why Keane keeps me around.”

  Durham glared at me a moment and then broke into a laugh. “Well done, Mr. Fowler. I guess you do earn your keep after all.”

  Keane finished his drink and turned to face Durham. “Now how about you tell us what’s going on with Priya.”

  “Put down the gun, and I’ll tell you what I know,” said Durham.

  “Nice try,” I said.

  “You’ve made your point, Mr. Fowler,” said Durham, with a touch of irritation. “You’re not going to murder me in my own home. Drop the gun, and we’ll talk things over. I have nothing to hide.”
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  “I’ll give Brian his gun when I get mine,” I said. I got to my feet, still pointing the Glock at him, while doing my best to ignore the sheet-metal-stamping plant operating in my skull.

  Durham nodded at Brian, and he turned and walked to a portrait that hung on the wall. I recognized the subject as Selah Fiore, the ex-actress who was currently the CEO of Flagship Media. The picture was from her glory days, some thirty years ago, when she was still quite the looker. Brian removed the portrait, tapped a combination on a wall safe, and opened the door. He picked up the gun and handed it to me, handle first. I returned the favor. I waited for him to holster his gun before I did the same.

  “All right,” said Keane. “Tell us what you know about Priya.”

  Durham shrugged. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Bullshit,” I growled. “The girl is scared out of her mind. You parade her in front of strangers at parties like she’s some kind of prize animal. Meanwhile, you’ve got men standing by with syringes, for Christ’s sake.”

  Durham sighed. “What’s going on with Priya is that she’s a frightened little girl who became famous way too fast. I don’t ‘parade’ her in front of strangers; I invite her to parties, and I encourage her to attend because it’s good for her to meet people away from the set. And yes, I have people looking out for her safety. Occasionally she has panic attacks, and sedatives help calm her down. Her personal physician recommended these measures.”

  “Who does this physician work for?” I asked. “Flagship Media?”

  “Who do you work for?” said Durham.

  “We’re asking the questions, remember?” I said.

  “We have Priya’s best interests at heart,” said Keane. “If you really are looking out for her, we’ve got no quarrel with you.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Durham. “Come down to the set tomorrow. Observe Priya all you want. Talk to whoever you like. If Priya hired you, then clearly she doesn’t trust me. Maybe if you poke around for a while and don’t find anything, it will help her state of mind. I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.”

  “You’re inviting us to the DiZzy Girl set?” I asked.

  “You’ll be my personal guests,” Durham replied. “But let me make something clear. You’ll have an escort. You will not interfere with filming, and you will not fuck with Priya.”

  “We’re not going to do anything to hurt Priya,” I said.

  “You’re not listening to me,” said Durham, his voice low and steady. “Priya Mistry is the Hope Diamond. She’s the Mona Lisa. She’s the goddamned Taj Mahal, understand? If you know what’s good for you, do not fuck with her.”

  SEVEN

  We left the party and returned to the office. So much for remaining incognito; that thug with the syringe had forced me into the open. Anyway, we’d done our best to protect Priya; if anything happened to her now, it was out of our hands. At least Durham and his thugs knew we were suspicious of them.

  I sat with an ice pack for a while and then went to bed. In the morning, I expected to head to the DiZzy Girl set, but I found Keane had other plans. He’d set up an interview with Jessica Díaz, the widow of the late Hugo Díaz. Keane seemed to think she might be able to tell us something useful about the missing sheep, but I couldn’t imagine what. In any case, according to Priya’s schedule, she wasn’t due at the set until ten A.M., so we had some time. We took Keane’s aircar to the quiet neighborhood in Pasadena where Jessica Díaz lived.

  Jessica Díaz was a slim, slightly mousy-looking blond woman with excellent posture and a terse but cordial way of speaking. Her reserved demeanor could of course be explained by the recent loss of her husband, but I got the impression she was always like this. Reserved and aloof, as if her life were something she preferred to observe at a reasonable distance. If she was distraught, she hid it very well. Her house was tidy and spotless.

  I’d begun by explaining there had been a theft at the lab where her husband had worked, and told her we’d talked to all the employees with access to the lab. In her husband’s case that was obviously impossible, so protocol required we interview his next of kin. It was a reasonable-sounding fib. I also made sure to explain that the theft occurred after her husband’s passing, so of course he wasn’t a suspect.

  “We just need to cover our bases,” I said apologetically. The three of us sat around a coffee table in her living room. “You know how it is with these big corporations.”

  Jessica nodded sympathetically.

  Keane kept silent as I ran through the basics (Sorry for your loss, had you noticed any changes in your husband’s behavior, had he mentioned any problems at work, had you observed him having secretive conversations on his comm or in person, is there any possibility he left the house the night he died, etc., to which she gave the expected responses: thank you, no, no, and no), but he perked up at Jessica’s response to my question about whether Hugo had seemed depressed lately.

  “No,” she said, “In fact, he seemed happier than usual. The happiest I’d seen him since before his accident.”

  “Accident?” I asked. Keane listened with interest.

  “Four years ago, when he was working for Gendrome,” Jessica said. “Hugo had an accident in the lab. A machine had been misprogrammed, and it nearly crushed his skull.”

  “Nearly?” asked Keane.

  She shot him a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve never heard of someone’s skull being nearly crushed,” Keane said. “It’s typically a binary thing. Either your skull is crushed or it isn’t.”

  I glared at Keane, but he was oblivious.

  “It crushed his shoulder,” Jessica said, only a hint of irritation in her voice. “He had six surgeries. They put in a titanium joint.”

  “I see,” said Keane. “And did anyone ever determine who programmed the machine incorrectly?”

  “I don’t believe so, no,” said Jessica. “It was an honest mistake. Could have been anyone in the lab.”

  “Anyone including Hugo,” said Keane.

  “I suppose so,” said Jessica.

  “Did Hugo have a lot of friends?” Keane asked.

  “He had a few,” said Jessica.

  “Did he hang out with people from the lab? Go to the bar for a few drinks, that sort of thing?”

  “We don’t drink,” said Jessica.

  “Did he ever mention anybody from work? Calvin? Jason? Susan? Mary?” I had no idea where Keane was going with this. The first two were the names of actual Esper employees. I didn’t know of any Susan. Mary was, of course, the sheep.

  “He may have mentioned Jason once?” said Jessica uncertainly. “I don’t remember hearing about any of the others.”

  “What do you know about your husband’s work?”

  “He was a technician. He worked on lab equipment.”

  “For a genetics lab.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Did you know he worked with animals?”

  “He said there were animals around, yes.”

  “What kinds of animals?”

  “Pigs, I think?” she said. “And sheep. I remember the sheep because he used to joke about getting me a cashmere sweater. ‘Some assembly required,’ he said.” She smiled at this, and I gave her a sympathetic chuckle.

  “Did your husband like animals?” Keane asked, ignoring the joke.

  “We love animals,” said Jessica. “We have two cats and a dog.” None of this was in evidence, which I found a bit odd.

  “Did your husband love animals?” Keane asked.

  “I just said he did.”

  “No, you said ‘we’ love animals. What I’m asking is, did your husband love animals?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you know exactly what I mean. Are you sure he never mentioned a sheep named Mary?”

  “A sheep named Mary? I don’t know why he’d have mentioned something like that.”

  “This is no ordinary sheep, Ms.
Díaz. This is a very attractive sheep. The kind of sheep a man could develop feelings for.”

  Jessica looked to me for help. “Keane,” I said, “I think this is probably not—”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Keane said. “You knew about Hugo and the sheep.”

  “I don’t…,” she started. “Mr. Keane, is it? I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  A smile played at the corner of Keane’s mouth. “Sure you do, Jessica. Your husband spends all day working with sheep, and then he tells you he’s going to get you a wool sweater. Did he tell you what he was going to do to you while you wore the sweater? Did he say he was going to spank you and call you Mary?”

  I was so blindsided by this sudden escalation that I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Jessica stared, openmouthed, at Keane. “I think…,” she said faintly, “I think the children will be home soon. You should go.”

  “Sure thing,” said Keane, springing to his feet. “We’ll see ourselves out. Thank you for your time.” He made a beeline to the front door. I wasn’t sure how to apologize without making things worse, so I just sort of awkwardly waved and followed Keane outside. Jessica remained on the couch, in stunned silence.

  “What the hell was that about?” I demanded as we made our way back to the car.

  “Just having some fun,” Keane said.

  “Jesus Christ, Keane. Her husband just died.”

  “Yeah, she’s real broken up about it, isn’t she?”

  “People grieve in different ways.…”

  “People do, yes. But unfeeling harpies act like that.” He jerked his thumb toward the house as he got into the car.

  I got into the driver’s seat. “You of all people have no right…,” I started.

  “That woman is a sociopath,” said Keane. “Did you see her house? Spotless. Smelled of Lysol and bleach. They have three children and, if Jessica is to be believed, two cats and a dog. There’s no sign that anyone lives in that house other than Jessica Díaz. And did you notice her use of the pronoun we when referring to her husband? Appropriating his life, borrowing his emotions because she has none of her own. Can you imagine living with that? No friends, no life of your own, that creature living off your energy like a vampire. No wonder he tried to crush his skull in a vice.”