Gridiron - Philip Kerr

'Could be the guy's just a realist. I mean, LA's not exactly the kind of city where you want people thinking they can just drop by and say hello.'

They turned on to Hope Street and Curtis pointed. 'That looks like it there,' he said.

The two men got out and started to walk towards the building.

Dominated by a Fernando Botero bronze on top of a fountain, and lined with silver dollar eucalyptus trees, the Hope Street Piazza was a pointed, elliptical shape measuring about forty metres end to end. As it narrowed towards the farthest of the two extremities, a series of white marble steps rose through a shortened perspective that seemed to make the approach to the building something grander and more monumental. Frank Curtis paused in front of the fountain, glanced up at the fat lady reclining above it and then at the small crowd of Chinese men and women who were grouped behind a police barrier near the foot of the steps.

'How do they do it?' he said. 'These scene-of-crimes buzzards. What is it? Some kind of ghoulish telepathy?'

'Actually, I think they're here to demonstrate,' said Coleman. 'About the Yu Corporation's human-rights record or something. It was on TV.'

He looked up at the sculpture. 'Hey, you ever fuck a really fat one?'

'Nope,' laughed Curtis, 'can't say I have.'

'I did.'

'As fat as this little girl here?'

Coleman nodded.

'You're an animal.'

'It was something, Frank, I tell you. You know what? It made me feel like I'd done my bit for the human race.'

'Really?' Curtis was more interested in reading the sign beside the fountain:

Warning

For your own safety please do not drink the water in this fountain. It has been treated with an anti-corrosion agent to protect the sculpture. Consume it at your own risk.

'Too bad if you're a thirsty illiterate, eh?' said Curtis.

Coleman scooped some water in the palm of his hand, sipped some, spat it out again and then grimaced.

'There's no danger of anyone drinking that,' he said. 'It tastes like car polish.'

'Some of the folks round the Nickle like a nice drop of car polish. It's quicker than methylated spirits.'

They continued towards the building, unaware of the nature of the hexagonal concrete paving beneath their feet. Called Deterrent Paving it was part of the same harassment strategy, which also included the fountain's supply of Choke Water devised by Ray Richardson himself against the area's many derelicts. Every night one hexagonal block in seven was raised hydraulically to a height of eight inches, like the armour on the back of some pale antediluvian creature, to discourage any homeless people from sleeping there.

The two men stopped at the foot of the steps and, shielding their eyes against the strong sun and the reflected white glare of the concrete facade, stared up at the colourless cluster of tubular steel columns and horizontal trusses that denned the Gridiron's front elevation. The building seemed to be divided into ten zones, each suspended from a truss by a single line of steel hangers. Each of these massive horizontals was supported in turn by a steel mast made of clusters of individual steel columns. In spite of himself Frank Curtis was impressed. This was what he imagined when he thought about science-fiction: some inhuman, white-faced machine, a blank-faced emissary from a palsied, godless universe.

'Let's hope they're friendly,' he muttered.

'Who?'

'The aliens who built this fuckin' thing.'

They ran up the steps, flashed their badges to the patrolman standing by the door and ducked under the police line. Once inside they passed through another glass door and found themselves confronted by the massive tree that dominated the atrium. 'Now that's what I call a house plant,' said Curtis.

'I guess now you won't have to ask the architect why the building had to be so big. Will you look at the size of that thing?'

A patrolman and a security guard walked towards them. Curtis hung his badge over the edge of his coat pocket and said, 'LAPD Homicide. Where's the body?'

'Fourth level,' said the patrolman. 'The computer centre. CSIU and SID are up there now, sir.'

'Well, show us to our seats, son,' said Curtis, 'before we miss the start of the show.'

'If you'll follow me please, gentlemen,' said the guard.

They walked to a waiting elevator car and stepped inside.

'Data centre,' said the guard.

The doors slid shut and the car started to move.

'That's a neat trick,' observed Curtis. 'You the guy that found him?'

'No, sir,' said the guard. 'I'm Dukes. I just came on shift. It was Sam Gleig who found Mr Yojo. He was the night detail. He's with the other officers, upstairs.'

They walked along a balcony overlooking the atrium which was marked by a series of lights set into the floor a couple of inches in front of the glass barrier.

'What's this?' asked Curtis pointing down at their feet. 'The runway?'

'In case of fire,' explained Dukes. 'So as you don't fall over the edge if the building fills with smoke.'

'Thoughtful.'

They turned down a corridor and approached the bridge that led into the computer room. Coleman was hanging back, leaning over the balcony to look across the span of the building.

'Will you look at this joint, Frank? It's incredible.'

'Come on, Toto,' called Curtis. 'We're not in Kansas any more.'

'You don't know the half of it,' said Dukes. 'Man, this place is like Star Trek.'

'Take charge of the landing party, Mr Coleman,' said Curtis. 'I want some answers.'

'Aye-aye, sir.' Coleman reached for a cigarette and then changed his mind when he saw the No Smoking sign on the computer-room door. Halon 1301 sounded none too friendly.

The crime scenes investigation unit and the scientific investigations division were working quickly and quietly, the subject of their scrutiny still seated in his chair.

'Jesus, this room,' someone was saying. 'I couldn't live in a room without a window.'

'You want to put that down as a probable cause of death?'

Over the years Curtis had become familiar with most of the scientific personnel; he knew that the faces he didn't recognize would have something to do with the victim himself. Friends or colleagues. He told Coleman to clear them out and where necessary get their statements. Only then did he take a closer look at the body.

The coroner's assistant, a tall, suitably cadaverous man with lank hair and tinted glasses, straightened and waited for the detective to conclude his cursory examination.

'Jesus, Charlie. The guy looks like he spent the weekend on the beach at Bikini Atoll.'

Curtis stepped back and wafted the foul air away from his nose and mouth.

'What did he do? Shit himself to death?'

'Sure smells like it.'

'He died in the chair, right?'

'Looks that way, doesn't it?'

'Only it's never proved to be lethal before, unless you were Ethel Rosenberg. Come on, Charlie. Are there any medical grounds for suspicion?'

Charlie Seidler shifted his negligible shoulders.

'On the face of it, hard to say.'

Curtis glanced eloquently at Yojo's blue and bloody features and grinned.

'Are we talking about the same face, Charlie? Take another look at him, will you? I mean, you don't get two black eyes like that 'cause you got careless with your make-up pencil. And where did all that blood on his shirt come from?'

'His mouth. He bit through his tongue.'

Seidler held up a plastic bag inside of which was what looked like an insect larva.

'We found the tip of it lying on his lap.'

'Nice souvenir.'

Curtis pinched his nose and stepped in closer to take another look.

'Cause of death?'

'Too early to say. Could have been strangled. Could have been poisoned. His mouth's shut too tight to see what's in there. But it might be natural causes. Heart attack. Fit of some kind. We won't know anything for sure until we've had him on the slab.'

'Charlie, your private life is your own affair.' Curtis grinned and went in search of the witnesses.

Curtis found Coleman waiting with Mitchell Bryan, Aidan Kenny, Sam Gleig and Bob Beech. They were all seated around a glass table underneath one of the mighty Saltire cross-braces of the building. The detective ran his hand along the smooth white fluoropolymer finish of the brace's aluminium cladding and then peered over the balcony on to the floor of the atrium below. It was, he decided, more like being inside some weird and wacky modern cathedral: the Church of Modern Day Astronauts. Jesus Christ the First Spaceman. The world's first orbitting mosque.

'This is one hell of a place you have here,' he said and sat down at the table.

'We like it,' said one of the men.

'Liked it. Until this morning,' said another.

Nathan Coleman made the introductions and then outlined what he had been told.

'The dead man was Mr Hideki Yojo. A director of computer science for the Yu Corporation, which owns this building. His body was observed by Mr Beech, Mr Kenny and Mr Bryan here on a closed-circuit television during a meeting that was taking place at the offices of Richardson Associates on Sunset. They're the architects who designed this place. When the body was seen, at around nine-thirty, the security guard on duty, Mr Gleig here, was asked to come and investigate. He found the body at around nine-forty.'

'Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?' Curtis shook his head.

'I'm sorry, I'll re-phrase that. What am I saying? This is the most extraordinary looking place I've ever seen. That computer room looks like something out of a movie. I'm just a cop. My idea of a well-designed building is one where the can is easy to find. No offence intended, gentlemen.'

'None taken,' said Mitch. He pointed over Curtis's shoulder. 'And while we're on the subject, the can is over there.'

'Thanks. Well then, Sam. Mind if I call you Sam? Did you notice anything especially unusual, apart from the body itself, of course?'

Sam Gleig shrugged and said that he had not noticed anything at all unusual.

'Man was dead. I could tell that straight away. I was in the army so I was sure, right? Until then it had been a quiet night. Same as always. Mr Yojo, he often worked real late. From time to time I got up and took a walk around the building, but mostly I stayed in the security office. You can keep an eye on everything from there with all the security cameras. Even so, I wouldn't have been paying that close attention. I mean, that's the computer's job. Abraham just tells me if he thinks there's something I need to go and take a look at, y'know? And I can tell you last night there was just the two of us. Me and Mr Yojo.'

'So who's Abraham?' frowned Curtis. 'Am I missing something here?'

'That's what we call the computer, Sergeant,' shrugged Beech.

'Oh. I see. Well, I used to call my car lots of names. Now this CCTV,' said Curtis. 'Is there a video of what happened?'

Aidan Kenny handed Curtis a compact disc.

'I'm afraid that it only covers the moment of actual discovery,' he explained. 'This recording was made at our offices on Sunset. You see, we're still at the stage of installing the building's various management systems. In fact, that's one of the reasons why Hideki Yojo was working late. We'd had a glitch with the hologram software. Hideki was trying to fix it. Anyway, we have yet to install disc-recording facilities in this building.'

'And did he fix it? The glitch?'

Kenny looked at Beech and shrugged.

'I really don't know. According to — to the computer, his last transaction, I mean the last time he made a program entry, was around ten o'clock. He must have died any time after that.'

Curtis raised his eyebrows. Kenny looked sheepish.

Bob Beech cleared his throat and pushed a folded computer print-out towards Curtis.

'We don't handle much in the way of hard copy here,' he said. 'In fact, we make it a company rule to avoid paper as much as possible. Normally we scan images of any document type that we are obliged to deal with and turn them into electronic images. However, I had this printed out in case it was useful to you.'

'Thanks a lot. What is it?'

'Hideki Yojo's medical records. I expect you'll need it for the autopsy. There will be an autopsy, I suppose? There usually is in these situations.'

'Yes. You're right. There'll have to be an autopsy.' Curtis's voice was clipped and business-like. He hated being second-guessed on something as straightforward as a preliminary investigation.

'The thing is,' added Beech and then, noticing Curtis's irritation, 'well, it may not be relevant.'

'No, please. You're doing fine so far.' He laughed uncomfortably. 'I wouldn't do things any differently from the way you're doing them, Mr Beech. Please. Go ahead.'

'Well, it's just that Hideki had been complaining about severe headaches. If it was natural causes then it might be related.'

Curtis nodded.

'Do you think it was natural causes?' Mitch asked.

'It's a little early to say, sir,' answered Curtis. 'We won't know anything for sure until after the autopsy. So right now we're treating it as suspicious.' He decided to upset them a little. 'It's possible that Hideki Yojo was strangled.'

'Jesus,' said Kenny.

Curtis collected the tape and the print-out and stood up.

'Well, thanks a lot for all your help.' He glanced meaningfully at Nathan Coleman. 'We'd better be getting back to Parker Center."

'I'll see you out,' said Mitch.

'It's OK, I've spoken to an elevator before. Of course, that was just cursing it. But I'm sure I can — '

'You don't understand,' said Mitch, 'nobody can use an elevator in this building without Time Encoded Signal Processing and Recognition. If the computer doesn't recognize you, you can't use the elevator, open a door, operate the telephone or use a computer work-station.'

'Now that's what I call a powerful union,' said Curtis.

The two detectives followed Mitch to the elevator.

'Atrium floor, please, Abraham,' said Mitch.

'What happens when you have a heavy cold?' asked Curtis. 'Or when you have had too much to drink? Your voice might be different then.'

'The system works extremely well regardless of the user's condition,' said Mitch. 'The false negative rate, when the system refuses the rightful user, is around 0.1 per cent. The false positive rate, when the wrong person is allowed access, is less than half of that. It's almost foolproof.'

'Besides,' added Mitch. 'If you've had too much to drink you shouldn't be in here in the first place.'

'I'll remember that.' Curtis glanced around the atrium. 'I guess this is progress, huh? Not so much an aesthetic vision as a piece of cold calculation.' He shrugged. 'What do I know? I just have to look at it.'

Mitch watched the two detectives leave the Gridiron and felt relieved that they had not asked who else had been working late the night before. But he was a little disturbed by the thought that Alison would very probably recall his having told her that Hideki Yojo had been with him in the restaurant round about the time that he died. That might take some explaining.