The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [69]
IN A MANSION IN THE HILLS above Glendale, a man named Mardiros Iskenderian rose from his bed one morning and put on a white silk suit he hadn’t worn in 20 years. He stuffed a 9 mm handgun into his waistband and a .38-caliber revolver into his coat pocket and walked step by small step down the stairs. His wife, Rita, who had fallen in love with him when she was 12, couldn’t believe the sight. For a man who was so near death, cancer everywhere, he looked beautiful. It had been months since he had ventured outside by himself, months since he had driven one of his fancy cars, and she fretted that he was too weak to go anywhere. He told her not to worry. He was feeling much better now, and besides, he was only going to Zankou Chicken to see an old friend.
He had lived his life like one of those princes of Armenian fable, maybe Ara the Beautiful or Tigran the Great. His story began in a tiny storefront in Beirut, where his mother in her apron hand spooned the fluffy white garlic paste that would become the family fortune. From Hollywood to Anaheim, he had opened a chain of fast-food rotisserie chicken restaurants that dazzled the food critics and turned customers into a cult. Poets wrote about his Zankou chicken. Musicians sang about his Zankou chicken. Now that he was dying, his dream of building an empire, 100 Zankous across the land, a Zankou in every major city, would be his four sons’ to pursue. In the days before, he had pulled them aside one by one—Dikran, Steve, Ara, Vartkes—and told them he had no regrets. He was 56 years old, that was true, but life had not cheated him. He did not tell them he had just one more piece of business left to do.
There was one son, the second son, Steve, who always seemed to know what was on his father’s mind. He was the son most like Mardiros. His smile, his temper, his heart. Had Steve been home that day, he might have sensed trouble or at least insisted that his father not go alone. But Mardiros had sent Steve off to the mall to fetch him one of those slushy lemonades, the only thing he still had a taste for. By the time Steve got home, the lemonade still icy, his father was gone. The boy would forever be tormented by the question of whether design or chance had prevailed that day. Was this errand a ruse, part of his father’s plan, or had he simply failed to hurry home fast enough?
“Steve, something bad has happened,” his mother cried at the door. “There’s been a shooting. At your Aunt Dzovig’s.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He took the car. He said he was going to Zankou. But I don’t believe him now. They heard shots at Dzovig’s.”
Dzovig was Mardiros’s younger sister, as pretty as he was handsome. She lived in a big house on the other side of the Verdugo Hills with her husband and two sons. She managed a pair of Zankous for Mardiros and had taken on the chore of caring for their mother. Of course, everyone knew this was no chore at all, because the mother, Margrit lskenderian, the creator of the garlic paste and most every dish worth tasting at Zankou, was a woman who pulled her load and the load of three others.
The drive to Aunt Dzovig’s house was a winding seven miles. Steve ran every stop sign, racing down one side of the canyon and up the other. As he rounded the bend and the Oakmont Country Club came into view, he could see TV news helicopters circling like vultures.
“No, Dad,” he shouted. “Please, Dad, no.”
Up the hill, where the canyon oaks gave way to palm trees, neighbors had spilled out of their million-dollar estates. Police were everywhere, and he could see that his aunt’s house had been cordoned off. He jumped out of the car and made a dash for it. He ran with the lean of a man who had every right to whatever reality existed on the other side of the yellow tape. A detective halted him short.
“Who are you?”
“I am Steve Iskenderian.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“Mardiros Iskenderian. I am his son. Is he inside?”
“Yes.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes. He’s dead.”
For a moment he felt a strange relief that only later would he attribute