The Quality of the Informant [Gerald Petievich] (fb2) читать онлайн
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Gerald Petievich
The Quality of the Informant
Chapter 1
Though it was early in the day the Castaways Lounge had plenty of customers, mostly men. The walls of the dimly lit bar were decorated with crude glow-in-the-dark paintings of nude women with heavy breasts and luminous pink nipples. There were lots of whispered conversations about money, calls made from the pay phone next to the rest room, sudden departures and returns. There were many bars like it in Hollywood. Paul LaMonica sat at a cocktail table with Teddy Mora, a gaunt man with an oatmeal complexion. The meeting had been Mora's idea. He said he had a proposition. "I've just lined up the best coke connection on the West Coast," Mora said. "They call him the Barber. He's a hair stylist who makes house calls to the movie stars; I mean the big movie stars. He told me they don't even haggle price. They like cocaine and they don't give a shit what it costs." "So?" LaMonica said. He sipped a Bloody Mary. "So, his supplier got himself killed on a rip-off day before yesterday," Mora said. "The Barber wants me to take over. The man needs dope for the movie stars. This is the chance of a lifetime." "Where do I fit in?" LaMonica asked. "I need front money for the first load of snow," Mora said. "I'm offering you the chance to go in with me. We'd be partners. The way I have it figured, we can triple our investment with every load." LaMonica lit a cigarette. "Dope is not my thing," he said. "I don't even know enough about it to talk price. Besides, every deal has a thousand middlemen involved, and from what I've seen through the years, one of 'em is usually a snitch." He frowned. "And I don't like snitches." "I'm not asking you to get involved in any of the negotiations," Teddy Mora said. "I can handle the nitty-gritty. You're an ink-and-paper man and you always have been. I know that." Mora reached across the table and patted the other man on the arm in a brotherly fashion. "All I'm asking you to do is to come in as a partner; to make an investment. You'll come straight in from the top end of the thing. I'll handle all the details. There is virtually no risk whatsoever. I guarantee that." A ginger-haired cocktail waitress came to the table. Her nametag read "Linda" and she wore a low-cut top and a short skirt. "Another round?" she said. LaMonica nodded. As she emptied the ashtray her leg rubbed against his arm. She smiled at him and walked away. He guessed her age as close to forty, a few years younger than his. "How much are we talking about?" LaMonica asked. He rubbed his hands together. "We need a total of a hundred," Mora said. "My fifty grand is in the bank right now." "How do I know that?" LaMonica had a wry smile. Teddy Mora reached into his back pocket, pulled out a bankbook, and handed it to LaMonica. LaMonica opened the book. There were a dozen or so stamped entries totaling about fifty thousand dollars. He handed the book back. "Okay," LaMonica said. "I come up with fifty … then what?" He took a drag from the cigarette and picked a piece of tobacco off the end of his tongue. "Then we deposit the money into a bank account in Ensenada," Mora said. "An hour later we get a telephone call. The load will be stashed in a car in the tourists' parking lot on the U.S. side of the border. We pick up the load and head for L.A., where the Barber is waiting. He pays us up front and we tell him where to find the package. We triple our hundred grand in one day. On our end, it's just you and me. You don't have to meet anyone. There is no way for anything to go wrong. On the Mexican side, the deal is insured by my contacts in Mexico City. When I say 'contacts', I'm talking about people at the highest level. I'm talking about the politicos. It's taken me three years of living in Mexico to set this thing up." LaMonica raised his eyebrows in an expression of disbelief. "Why don't you just parlay two deals for fifty each? Why do you need me?" "Good question," Mora said. "The answer is that I've been talking a big game to the Barber, but now that the connection has finally come together, I'm short of cash. I've got a lot of money tied up in my bar in Ensenada, and I just bought a head shop down the street from here by Grauman's Chinese. I'm short of bucks. It's that simple. I'm giving you a shot at the deal because I trust you; we walked the yard together. If you'll come in with me I won't have to worry about talking this thing up to investors and taking the chance of meeting a fed or an informer. But I hope you're realistic enough to see that there are plenty of people who would literally jump on this thing." Mora picked up his drink and took sips, then set the glass down. His hands grasped the edge of the table. He leaned forward and said, "What I'm telling you is that you can fuck around for the rest of your life with funny money and phony checks and you will never be able to score anywhere near what you could with just one solid coke deal. I don't have to sit here and remind you that bogus bills have to be passed one at a time, or at best, dealt off in thousand-dollar packages to a parade of sniffling, back-stabbing hypes, one out of two of which is a rat. Even checks … top limit can't be more than a few grand and you have to stand there in the bank with your face hanging out in order to cash it." Mora pulled his chair closer to the table. "Coke is the answer. There's guys who have made enough to walk away from everything for once and for all. And I'm not talking about heavies. I'm talking about twenty-one-year-old red-assed punks sailing around on their yachts in Marina Del Rey right this very minute. They had the guts to get in their car and make one round-trip from here to Tijuana and back. L.A. is full of people like that. And what the hell did they have to lose? Minimum, straight probation for the first offense, or maximum, a year in a federal camp with tennis courts. Was it worth it? You're goddamn fucking right it was. Why? Because there's a market for the shit! The movie stars, TV people, doctors, dentists … they pack their noses every night. They get offon it! And, old buddy, most important of all, they are willing to pay out their assesfor it." Having spit out the last sentence, Teddy Mora sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. LaMonica smiled. "I guess after all these years I can trust you not to try to scam me," he said. Linda the waitress leaned back against her bar station and gazed in his direction. She popped an olive into her mouth and made a funny face. LaMonica smiled. "I've always made it a point not to cross PaulieLaMonica," Mora said. "It's because I know you too well. Friend or not, you'd kill me and sit down and eat a sandwich afterward." Mora laughed nervously. The waitress approached them, and they stopped talking. As she arranged drinks on the table she made a point of giving LaMonica an extra peek down the front of her low-cut costume. LaMonica paid her. "Keep the change." "Thank you, Silver Fox," she said with a smile. As she walked away he noticed that her legs were smooth, no varicose veins. All in all, a reasonably attractive woman. Mora's leering eyes followed the waitress back to the bar. "Word is she can suck a tennis ball through a twenty-foot garden hose," he whispered. Linda set the empty drinks down on the bar. She turned and winked at LaMonica. He winked back. "It'll take me a week or two to come up with my fifty grand," LaMonica said. "I have a thing mapped out." "We've got to move on this deal as soon as we can," Mora said. "The buyer won't wait forever. He's big, I'm telling ya. He gets invited to every studio party. He's the dope pusher to the stars."Chapter 2
The air-conditioning unit in the modest apartment had just clicked off. Its rattle was replaced by the whiz-hum sound of the nearby Hollywood freeway. Linda Gleason was in her bedroom, standing in front of a dressing-table mirror. She reached behind for the zipper, tugged at it, and the cocktail waitress outfit split in half. She gave a shrug and it dropped to the floor. In her underwear she turned and faced the man sitting on the edge of the bed. She knew him only as Paul, and his hair was styled, graying, perhaps dyed. His pants were off. He had the paunch, the fish-skin folds on the belly, that all the Hollywood rounders, the credit-card bullshitters, the confidence men with open-collar Beverly Hills shirts wore like a uniform. To her, it was a telltale mark of prison. But there were other signs: his generally cautious demeanor; the vague remarks on the telephone; his reluctance to leave messages or to tell her where he lived; the way he parked his car around the corner from the Castaways Lounge rather than in the parking lot. And the missing little finger … could he have lost it in a prison knife fight? Ile only thing she liked about the man so far was the way he had come right out and put the question to her. No beating-around-the-bush crap about "going out for breakfast" or "taking a drive to the beach." His had been a simple and straightforward "Let's fuck." (Much to his surprise, she'd said, "Shouldn't we wait until we get to my apartment?") Even as a teenager she had preferred the boys who straight-out pulled her sweater off over those who insisted on the crawling-hands-breath-holding-kissy-face act before getting down to business. Of course she had learned early on that women could not express such thoughts. Richard, her dead husband, had made that point more than once. "It kills the mystery," he'd said. "Small world," Linda said, unsnapping her bra. "Like how?" Paul pulled off his undershirt and tossed it on the floor. He had a florist's smile. "You having known my husband," she said, shrugging off the bra and sitting down at the dressing table. As she ran a brush through her hair she watched him in the mirror. He leaned back against the headboard. "Richard and I were at Terminal Island together ten years ago," he said. "Maximum security. I heard about what happened to him after we got out. Too bad." He said "too bad" without shaking his head. He pulled off his shorts and tossed them on the floor. Linda leaned closer to the mirror and applied lipstick. "I told him it would happen if he took money from a loan shark, but he never listened to me … or to anyone else, for that matter." She made her lips flat and pressed them together. The man's hand was between his legs. He was pulling on himself. Linda hoped it wouldn't mean one of those marathon efforts to make him come. At least he wasn't drunk, she thought. Linda Gleason stood up and pulled off her panties. She tossed them at a chair. Crawling onto the bed, she perched on her knees in front of him. "Relax," she said. "Let me do everything." Without hesitation, she took his cock firmly in her hand and pumped gently. "Tell me what you like," she whispered. The man gave a moan and soon became erect. He whispered things for her to do, positions to assume, and she complied. None of the requests surprised her. It was the usual bill-of-fare fantasy cock-worship act that always excited men. Hurrying like an adolescent, he was on top of her, rutting, sweating, exercising his ugly abdomen, and Linda made periodic joy-yelps to help him along. Finally, his eyes closed and he gave in to orgasm. As the man groaned in a wave of pleasure, Linda glanced at a clock on the nightstand. She made an expected aaaah sound. With a wet kiss, he rolled off her in exhaustion. Linda snuggled next to him. Her hand danced gently across the hair of his chest for a while. "Mmmm," she said. "It's nice to be with someone who turns me on." Paul fondled a breast. "I don't come to L.A. very often," he said. "The feds here are looking for me." Linda's neck tingled. She had guessed right. "Why?" she asked. "Funny money." He flicked her nipple. Hiding her excitement at the remark, Linda took his hand and covered it with little kisses. "When are you leaving town?" "Tomorrow night," Paul said, looking at the ceiling. During the next half hour or so, they showered separately and Paul dressed. While Linda stood drying off in front of the bathroom door, Paul said something about using the telephone. Tucking in his shirt, he went into the living room. Linda tiptoed to the half-closed door as he was dialing the phone. "This is Robert French," she heard him say. "May I speak to Mr. Lassiter please?" Linda put her ear to the crack of the door. "Hello, Robert French here," Paul said. "I ordered thirty reams of safety paper and some inks yesterday. Would you check and see if the order is ready?" Nothing was said for a while. Then, "Fine," Paul said. "No, that won't be necessary. I'll be in to pick it up. Thanks." He hung up the phone and made another call. "Yes, for one month only," he said. "I want you to answer: 'International Investigations Incorporated.' I'll call in for messages once a day. Whoever calls, just tell them I'm out of town." He hung up the receiver. Linda dashed to the closet and grabbed a robe. Paul came back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. He started putting on his shoes. "Sounds like you've got something cooking," Linda said, fearing to be any more direct. She ran a brush through her damp hair. "You might say that," Paul said. "Matter of fact, I'll be needing a female backup in a week or so. Interested?" Linda shrugged and continued to brush. She wished she'd had a chance to look through his wallet. "Tomorrow is my day off," she said, sitting down next to him on the bed. "How about coming over before you leave. We can barbecue steaks." She nuzzled his ear. "And maybe I can have a repeat performance before I let you go," she whispered, giving his crotch a squeeze. "Why not," he said proudly. He stood up and threw on his camel's-hair sport coat. Linda followed him to the front door. He patted her on the bottom and said, "See ya tomorrow," in a confident tone. Linda Gleason winked. The man walked outside. Having closed and bolted the door, she found her purse on the kitchen counter, dug out a pack of filter tips and lit up. Plopping down on the sofa, she grabbed the phone off the coffee table and dialed. A sleepy-voiced man answered. "U.S. Treasury Field Enforcement." "I'm trying to get in touch with Special Agent Charles Carr," Linda Gleason said. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. "He works the four-to-twelve shift. Would you like to leave a message?" "I'll call later, thanks." The phone clicked. It was 3:00 P.M. The apartment's solitary bedroom was bare except for a bed with a suitcase opened on it and a dresser. The second-story view from the window was of another apartment house. In Santa Monica, a blocked ocean view was the sign of an affordable address. Having shaved, showered, and donned slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt with a frayed collar, Charles Carr fastened a holster to his belt. He realized as he dressed that he had taken the shirt with him to Washington, D.C., when he'd been transferred there from L.A. two years ago. Unable to find his handcuff case after rummaging through the suitcase, he hung the cuffs over his belt at the small of his back. He shoved his.38 into the holster. While shaving, he had momentarily considered leaving the stubble on his upper lip to begin a mustache. A lady bartender he'd dated in D.C. had once told him it would make him look younger. He had quickly scotched the daydream and shaved clean. So he looked like a fifty-year-old man with a barroom flush on his cheekbones-so what? The Treasury Department's requirements had been for veterans with 20/20 vision and "no distinguishing traits." Though his looks, dress, and general demeanor might keep him from making it to the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly, he figured he still filled the bill as a street-level T-man. He emptied his suitcase of the personal items he always seemed to cart along with him from transfer to transfer: a grainy Treasury Agent Training School class photo with everyone wearing hats; old bullet pouches and scribbly address books; a printed invitation to a 101st Airborne reunion decorated with a map of Korea; a news clipping about his shoot-out with the hired killer Clyde Reno; a dog-eared photograph of his mother and father sitting on the front porch of their tiny home in Boyle Heights; a stack of letters from Sally Malone. He stuffed the items into dresser drawers. Because his belongings were being shipped by government bill of lading (known to federal civil servants as the Wagon Train), he had no utensils. At the kitchen sink, he rinsed out a Styrofoam cup he found in the cabinet and drank two cups of water. He left the apartment and headed downtown. A tepid Santa Ana wind swirled in the open windows of Charles Carr's sedan as he sped east along the Santa Monica freeway. The breeze had wafted the city's stultifying layer of smog to sea, revealing a panorama of chaparral-covered foothills and mountains extending from Hollywood east past Cucamonga: nature's infrequent reminder that without neon, asphalt, Chevron stations, and tract homes with television aerials, Los Angeles was a desert basin touching an ocean. Years ago he had chased a counterfeiter at more than a hundred miles an hour along the same freeway. Each of the familiar exit signs stirred other such memories; a rooftop chase along LaCienega; a three-week surveillance on Sepulveda; a shoot-out in front of a bank on Robertson Boulevard. Hell, he had chased paper pushers and passers around the city for so long that few streets were unfamiliar to him. It was no secret that he thrived on the big-city action: the bizarre people, the jungle politics of the underworld, the challenge of trying to beat the counterfeiters and hoods at their own game. Off duty, his activities centered around police watering holes, maudlin retirement-and-promotion parties, barroom celebrations after big cases, and Dodger games. Though his attachments to women were usually characterized by casual dates and one-night stands, this was due to no particular creed or philosophy. Certainly by any normal standards his existence could be described as neither wholesome nor particularly fruitful. But for a man who more than twenty years ago had volunteered for the army-the 101st Airborne, and combat in Korea-it was not without its rewards. At Vermont Avenue he pulled into the slow lane and took the turnoff. He headed north through a crowded business district. At the edge of Hollywood, he pulled up in front of a fast-food stand, a four-seater operation fashioned out of sheet metal that had been painted bright red. On the awning over the stools was a crudely painted sign of a hot dog dripping with mustard: "Calhoun's" was lettered on the bun. Charles Carr parked his sedan and got out. "The Snake has returned," Calhoun said as Carr straddled a stool. The 260-pound black man wore a white T-shirt and trousers, apron, and a paper chef's hat. Without using tongs, he plopped a frankfurter into a bun. Having loaded the bun with relish and mustard, he wrapped the hot dog and set it down in front of Carr. Calhoun wiped his fingers on a rag. The men shook hands. "Kelly told me you'd transferred back," Calhoun said. "I've been waiting for you to stop by." Carr picked up the hot dog and took a bite. He chewed and swallowed. "What's going on?" he said. "There's some twenties and phony driver's licenses around," Calhoun said. "Nothing really hot and heavy, you understand. Just the usual. If you want it, it's out there." "Money talks," Carr said casually. He took another bite. "You got that right," Calhoun said. "Just wave a little of that green shit around a few people, and a man can get exactly what he wants. Hell, yesterday the dude who lives next door told me he could get any brand of TV I wanted. It'll be stolen, but I could actually order the brand I wanted ahead of time. Can you believe that shit?" Carr nodded. He finished the hot dog. Calhoun plopped another frankfurter into a bun. Carr gestured no, and Calhoun tossed the frank back in the steamer. "How's your son doing?" Carr asked. Calhoun shook his head. "Tyrone's gotten worse since I wrote you that letter," he said. "He won't listen to me and he calls his mother names. It's all because he moved into an apartment with a bunch of jive-ass niggers. A couple of weeks ago I drove him down to the army recruiting office. A sergeant gave him a real nice talking-to. He actually got him to fill out all the papers and take a physical. He was ready to go. The wife and I were all set to have a real nice going-away party for him-a barbecue in Griffith Park." Calhoun adjusted his cap and shook his head again. "Then those jive-ass punks he's been hanging around with talked him out of it. They told him he was an asshole for wanting to go in the army and be a paratrooper. They're dope dealers, a bunch of jack-jawed no-good hophead motherfuckers. I know they're into funny money too. I heard my boy whispering on the telephone about it. At first I figured I'd go over there and cave their damn heads in, but I'd be taking a chance at ending up in San Quentin my own self. I'm afraid that once I got started I wouldn't know when to quit. You know how I am." Carr nodded. A gray-faced old man wearing a filthy baseball cap and T-shirt sat down at the counter. Calhoun served him a hot dog and a cup of coffee. He returned to Carr. "Them jive-ass punks my boy is living with all drive Cadillacs. I raised my son in the Baptist Church. I saw to it that his ass was in Sunday school all the way through the tenth grade. But now he's eighteen years old and he's met some punks that deal dope and have enough money to drive their bitches around in Cadillacs." He slapped the counter violently. "Damn! And to think my boy came within an inch of being an airborne trooper. He woulda been a second-generation paratrooper instead of a goddamn hophead." "A person can't even eat a bog dog in peace," said the old man at the counter. He stood up angrily and walked away with his frankfurter and coffee. Calhoun tipped his hat at the man. "On second thought, maybe I will have another," Carr said. Calhoun winked. He prepared a hot dog and handed it to Carr. "Tyrone just don't know any better. He's grown up in the city and it's all he knows. He's at the age where he needs a change in environment … to find out that there's other people in the world besides the punks that live around the corner. I was the same way when I was his age. I know what I'm talking about." "The boy needs to jump out of an airplane," Carr said. Calhoun folded his arms and leaned forward over the counter. "Or have the jumpmaster kick his ass out the door," he said. Carr took a bite of the hog dog. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Still wearing 'em?" he said. Calhoun stepped back from the counter and held up his foot. The black, round-toed paratrooper's boot had an even shine. "I've had 'em resoled more than thirteen times," he said. "I'll need an address," Carr said. Calhoun smiled. He dug a pencil out of a drawer and scribbled something on a napkin. He handed it to Carr. Carr stuffed the napkin into his wallet. He finished the hot dog, stood up to leave, and said, "Be home tonight." "I'll be standing by, Sarge," Calhoun said.Chapter 3
The squad-room walls were covered with federal wanted posters, blowups of counterfeit twenties, and street maps dotted with red stickpins. Charles Carr swiveled his desk chair around to look out the window. The view below was of downtown Los Angeles in darkness: lifeless buildings, grayish-white streetlights, and a freeway still bustling even after rush hour. Across the road the neon lamps of Chinatown gave off an exotic rainbow glimmer. He was glad to be back. He thumbed through the latest stack of L.A. area intelligence reports, squinting as he turned the pages. He would not give in to wearing glasses. Jack Kelly, a man of Carr's age with the jaw and limbs of a grizzly bear, hunched at the desk next to him. Tacked to the bulletin board behind his desk was a watercolor of an automobile that looked like a box with wheels. "To Daddy from Junior" was printed in a child's letters along the bottom. "Did you find yourself an apartment?" he asked without looking up. "Santa Monica," Carr said. "Same building I lived in before I was transferred." He shook his head. "Rent's up a hundred bucks." Kelly put down the newspaper. "Doesn't seem like two years," he said, chuckling harshly. "The memos 'No Waves' sent to headquarters to keep you from transferring back here were classic. He'd say things like, 'Agent Carr would benefit, career-wise, by a transfer to an office other than Los Angeles,' or 'Office requirements in the Senior Special Agent category are minimal…' like the pencil-neck geek that he is, he would never just come out like a man and say he hated your guts and didn't want you here. Good old true-to-form Norbert C. Waeves, the man who can grind out government memos faster than an offset printing press. Carr smiled and said, "That's why he was promoted to special agent in charge." Kelly changed the subject. "I saw Sally in court the other day. She wants you to call her … told me that three times. Said she had been elected president of the Federal Court Stenographers Association. Nice gal, Sally, lots of class. The wife still says you should have married her years ago. Carr shrugged. Kelly folded the newspaper and tossed it in the trashcan. "Since you were transferred, here's what you've missed: We have a new United States attorney. He was appointed because he's married to the daughter of that guy that owns half the hotels in Palm Springs. He has Jell-O for brains and all of his prosecutors are family friends-arrogant hippies and unbelievable Ivy League pricks. They're more concerned with the rights of the defendant than the public defender, and they all wear bow ties like that storefront lawyer on television. The other day the U.S. attorney actually gave a press release on the prosecution of a postman who got caught throwing his advertising mail in the sewer. The same day I asked them for a search warrant for a counterfeiter's car. They refused to issue one because they weren't sure of the case law. I had to let the guy drive off even though I knew the car had a load of phony twenties in the trunk." "In other words, the system hasn't changed," Carr said. "What system?" Kelly said. He flipped open a briefcase that was sitting on his desk and grabbed a sandwich. He removed the wax paper and lifted the top piece of bread to check the contents, then mashed the sandwich down with the heel of his hand. "Meatloaf and raw onions?" Carr said. Kelly's eyes said yes. He opened his mouth as wide as possible, bit off a full third of the sandwich, and chewed intently. Three more bites and the sandwich disappeared. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his hands and mouth roughly. Later, they left the office with Carr behind the wheel of the government sedan. Carr explained Calhoun's problem as they drove south on Main Street past L.A.'s skid row. "Now I see why you didn't want to talk in the office," Kelly said when Carr finished explaining his plan. He stared at a group of derelicts huddled under a rescue-mission sign featuring a picture of Jesus with outstretched hands. They were passing around a bottle of wine. "Every one of 'em has a full head of hair," Kelly said. "Howzat?" "Winos," Kelly said. "They all have full heads of hair." Carr gave his old partner a puzzled look. "Just think of it," Kelly said. "In your whole entire lifetime, how many bald winos have you seen? There must be something about the booze that helps 'em keep their hair." "Dr. Jack Kelly," Carr said. He chuckled. Carr steered through the deserted garment district and down Central Avenue past crowded soul-food stands and pool halls. "There's still not one single movie theater in all of Watts," Kelly said. "Too much vandalism, too many fights. But there is an answer. The owner could hook electrical wires under every seat in the theater. Anybody causes trouble, just give 'em a jolt. Knock 'em right out the door." "Great idea," Carr said dryly. He pulled out the napkin to check the address, then turned onto a side street. He parked in front of a run-down apartment house with three Cadillacs lined up in the driveway. The agents took flashlights from the glove compartment and climbed out of the sedan. They strolled slowly down the driveway. Kelly flashed a beam of light on a mailbox. The name Calhoun was listed on the box for apartment number 3 along with two other names. Kelly flashed the light on the side of the two-story building. Number 3 was on the ground floor. "I'll take the back," Kelly whispered. He tiptoed along the driveway and turned right at the corner of the building. As Carr approached the front door, he heard the sound of rock music inside. He knocked. Footsteps came to the door and a man inside said, "Who's there?" Carr slipped his revolver out of its holster. "Federal officers," Carr said. "Open the door." There was the sound of running inside. Carr stepped back, lifted his foot, and slammed it into the doorknob as hard as he could. The doorjamb shattered and the door flew open. The living room was empty. He ran down the hallway and into a bedroom. The window was open and a black man was halfway out. He moaned. Kelly had him in a headlock. Carr grabbed the black man by the belt, pulled him back into the room, then threw him against a wall and frisked him. Carr handcuffed the man's hands behind his back. As Kelly started to climb in the window, Carr silently pointed at the closet. "What's your name?" Carr said to the prisoner. "Tyrone Calhoun," he said in a voice that quavered. Carr stepped to the closet door. He stood to the side, grasped the doorknob, and yanked the closet open. Two young black men stood huddled in the corner. "Good evening, lads. Come on out and join the party," he said. The men stepped out of the closet. They wore bright full-sleeved silk shirts and tailored trousers. Carr shoved them against a wall. He frisked. As Kelly crawled in the window, Carr motioned him to watch Calhoun. He grabbed the other two men, shoved them into the living room, and opened the front door. "Bye," he said. The men looked at one another, then rushed out the door and down the driveway. Carr returned to the bedroom. Kelly pulled drawers out of the dresser and upended them. He yanked clothing out of the closet, searched it, and tossed it on the floor. "Do you have a warrant?" Tyrone Calhoun said. "Shut your goddamn mouth," Carr snapped. Kelly hoisted a nightstand upside down. "Bingo," he said. He tossed Carr a stack of counterfeit ten-dollar bills wrapped with a rubber band. Carr held the money in front of Calhoun's face. "Is this yours?" "I just moved in here a couple of weeks ago," Calhoun said. "I swear to God I ain't had anything to do with that stuff." "Oh, really," Carr said sarcastically. "You're under arrest for possession of counterfeit money." He turned to Kelly. "Give him his rights, Jack." Kelly sauntered across the room. He pulled a card from his shirt pocket and read in a singsong fashion: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court or other proceedings. If you cannot afford a shyster one will be appointed for you. You also have a right to a free press and to peaceably assemble for the purpose of libation. Do you understand those rights and wave them as you would the flag of our nation?" "Uh, yes sir," Tyrone Calhoun said. "How old are you?" Carr said. "I just turned eighteen." "Then you also have the right to make one telephone call," Carr said. "Whom do you choose to call?" Tyrone Calhoun squeezed his eyes shut. "My dad will kill me," he said. Carr grasped the prisoner's arm. He pulled him into the living room. Calhoun gave him a number and Carr dialed it. He held the phone to the young man's ear. "Dad? It's me. I … I'm under arrest, but I didn't do anything. I'm at the apartment." Carr pulled the phone away and hung up. "I don't like long phone calls," he said. Kelly shuffled out of the bedroom carrying a handful of pill bottles and glassine envelopes. "Found some dope, too," he said. "The stuff ought to be good for at least another five years in the pen for this punk." He sat down at the kitchen table and made a list of the contraband. "Where are my, uh, friends?" Tyrone Calhoun asked. "On their way to jail," Carr said. A few minutes later, Calhoun, wearing his white uniform, stepped in the door. "Who are you?" Carr said. "I'm the boy's father." "It's not my stuff, Dad," said Tyrone. "I guess it don't really matter now, do it, Mr. Jive-Ass?" Calhoun said. "The bail will be twenty thousand dollars," Carr said. "We're booking him in at the Terminal Island federal lockup." "I'm sorry, Dad." His voice cracked. Calhoun took off his hat. "Officers," he said, "this boy is set to join the U.S. Army. He wants to be a paratrooper. He's done passed the test and filled out all the paperwork. Isn't that right, son?" The young man gave his father a confused look, then nodded. "I'm supposed to be sworn in any day." Calhoun straddled a chair at the table. "Officers," he said, "this arrest will ruin the boy's life. It'll mean that he won't get accepted into the army." He hung his head. "If you could see your way to giving the boy a break on this case, I give you my word that he'll go in the army and never cause any trouble again. I'm a member of the Los Angeles junior Chamber of Commerce." Kelly continued to write on a pad. "Bullshit," he said. "I swear he'll take the oath the very moment the recruiting office opens up tomorrow morning," Calhoun said. "Please don't ruin this boy's life." Carr avoided looking Calhoun in the eye for fear of laughing. Instead he glared at the young Calhoun with a look of mock enmity for a moment. Then he stood up and nodded at Kelly, who followed him to the corner of the room. They feigned whispering. "You're the boss," Kelly finally said in a louder, disgusted tone. "But I still don't like it." He buffed back to the kitchen table. Angrily, he shoved the counterfeit money and the narcotics into a paper bag and strode out the door. "I've decided to give the kid a break," Carr said. "But we're keeping the evidence. If he's not sworn into the army and on a bus to basic training by tomorrow night, we'll be out looking for him. I'm holding you personally responsible for what happens." "You have my word of honor, Officer," the elder Calhoun said. He stood up and shook hands. Carr stepped behind Calhoun and removed his handcuffs. The young man rubbed his wrists. "Thanks a lot, Officer," he said. "Thanks a lot." Carr walked out the door. He and Kelly made it into the sedan and closed both doors before they broke into hysterical laughter. Carr caught his breath. "Operation Shanghai." Kelly kept laughing. He used the back of his hand to wipe away tears of mirth. "After his first day of basic training, he'll wish he'd gone to jail instead!" The laughter continued all the way back to the Federal Building. Before entering the underground garage, Kelly tore up the counterfeit tens and tossed them and the narcotics into a storm drain. Back in the field office, the phone on Carr's desk rang. He picked up the receiver. "I heard you were back," Linda Gleason said. "Long time no see," Carr said. "I have a homecoming present for you, Charlie." "And what might that be?" "A fugitive. Do we have to talk on the phone?" "I'll come over," Carr said. He hung up and turned to Kelly. "Linda Gleason," he said, "she's got something." "One good case coming up," Kelly said. "Good ol' Linda is money in the bank." Carr stood up and put on his suit jacket. "That's the way it always is," Kelly said. "Good informant, good case; bad informant, bad case. Everything depends on the quality of the informant." Having said this, he picked up the newspaper. "You're right," Carr said on his way out the door.Chapter 4
As Carr maneuvered the G-car into a hypnotic stream of headlights that was the Hollywood freeway, he pictured Linda five years ago: She was standing in the living room of her apartment; glass was everywhere, the front window blown out by shotgun pellets. She was wearing a housecoat. Her flashing green eyes were minus the map of lines that had developed around them in the years after. "I knew this would happen eventually," she'd said. "Snitches always get killed." She broke into tears. "I'm gonna get killed just like my husband did." Carr had put his arm around her shoulder and said, "I'll help you find another place to live. They won't be able to find you again." He'd helped her pack and put her in a hotel room for the night. A day or so later, he and Kelly moved her into a new apartment and gave her a new name. It was months before Carr succeeded in building up her confidence again. He took her to lunch, sent cards, gave her little tasks; but if there had been any one reason why she'd begun feeding him information about passers and forgers, con men and scam artists again, he would have to say it was the money-Uncle Sam's reward at the end of every case. There was more money for printers and fugitives than phony-twenties passers; but all in all, it was a nice extra income for nothing more than listening to bar talk, getting samples of the current variety of phony paper, making an introduction or two. In this way, she was like most other informants. A green freeway sign: HOLLYWOOD-NEXT THREE EXITS. Carr swung onto an off ramp that led down a hill. He snaked off the main drag into a residential neighborhood made up of apartment houses that, like everything else in Hollywood, were not worth the money. He parked his car half a block away and walked. On his way up the street he checked the parked cars. They were all unoccupied. He looked around once more and jogged a few steps into a courtyard with a swimming pool. Linda's apartment was on the first floor. He knocked and she let him in. Carr made small talk as Linda Gleason, wearing a long dress with a slit up the side, served coffee from a little silver pot. Without asking, she mixed Carr's double cream. It was the ritual of their meetings. She lit a cigarette and sat in a chair across from him. Linda crossed her legs, making no attempt to cover her thigh. "I don't know Paul's last name," she said. "But he told me he's wanted. He was talking to Teddy Mora for a long time down at the Castaways … definitely business. Teddy sells any kind of paper he can get his hands on. He only comes in on Fridays; I think he lives out of town. He stays all day and deals paper just to people he knows. He and Paul were talking big figures. Teddy calls him Paulie. I made it a point to meet him because my sixth sense just told me he was a crook. I even had him over here to the apartment and he still wouldn't crack with a last name, though he did tell me he was wanted by the feds for a funny-money caper. I think he's got something cooking right now. He made a couple of phone calls that sounded real strange." "What kind of calls?" Carr said. He sipped coffee. "The first call was something about inks and paper," Linda said. "He used the name Robert French. The other one might have been to an answering service. He told them to answer the phone by saying, 'International Investigations.'" She puffed her cigarette. "God only knows what kind of scam that is." Carr put his coffee cup down on the table and pulled a pen and notepad out of his coat pocket. "What does he look like?" he said. "Over forty, medium build, graying hair that might come from a bottle. He has a missing finger-little one, left hand." Carr made some notes, then put the pen and pad away. "I've set it up so he'll be coming over here tomorrow afternoon. You can arrest him when he drives up," Linda said. Carr stood up and sauntered to the door. "I'll check the fugitive files." Linda was looking at her hands. "If you arrest him, can I get my reward the same day? I've got a few bills to take care of." "That should be no problem," Carr said. Carr yanked open a file drawer labeled "Fugitive." He pulled out a stack of brown manila envelopes and spread them out on his desk. It took him an hour to determine that three out of seventy-odd files related to males with the first name Paul. Only one, Paul LaMonica, fit the general description. Carr's finger traced the fine print of the section marked "Physical Characteristics." The amputation was described as "LFT/little/missing." The last line of the rundown sheet read: "Check NCIC for warrant validity." Carr folded the file and slid his chair to the Teletype machine a few feet behind him. He typed in LaMonica's name, date of birth, and social-security number, copying the information from the file. He pressed the "end of message" button and waited. Minutes later, the machine rattled to life again. It typed: WARRANT VALID/SUBJECT IS FED PRISON ESCAPEE TERMINAL ISLAND/ARMED amp; DANGEROUS/U.S. MARSHAL L.A. HOLDS WARRANT. END OF MESSAGE. The machine stopped. Carr leaned back in his chair and read the rest of the file carefully. It included a "Synopsis of Investigation," which read as follows: LaMonica was the principal in a scheme to cause the distribution of extremely high-quality counterfeit hundred-dollar bills. He was able to transact a number of large purchases of diamonds from legitimate jewelers with the bogus notes. He resold the diamonds to other jewelers. LaMonica worked alone in the confidence operation and is believed to have printed the counterfeit notes himself. During the course of the scheme the subject used various forms of well-made counterfeit identification. LaMonica has contacts in Mexico and is believed to be in biding there. There was a mug shot photograph of LaMonica stapled to the inside of the file. Carr ripped the photo off and put it in his pocket. It was almost 5:00 P.M. The atmosphere in Linda's apartment was uneasy. Carr had been there since noon. Linda was sitting on the sofa, thumbing through a fashion magazine. They had run out of small talk. Carr paced in front of the window. Outside, in a courtyard decorated with dying Oriental trees in planter boxes, an old woman with brown spots on her back floated around a swimming pool on an inflated rubber mattress. There was no other activity. The mold-colored apartment doors surrounding the swimming pool might as well have been nailed shut. Through the wrought-iron fence enclosing the entrance to the complex Carr could see Jack Kelly leaning back in the driver's seat of the G-car. Linda picked up the mug shot that was on the coffee table. It was next to a walkie-talkie radio stenciled PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVT. "His hair is grayer than in that picture," she said. "I think he dyes it." "It would have been better if you had set up a meeting somewhere other than your apartment," Carr said. He was still looking out the window. "No matter where or how you arrest him, no matter what time of day or how you do it, in the long run he's going to figure out that I did him," she said. Carr turned to face the woman. "After we arrest him we can say that we followed him from-" "It doesn't matter what bullshit story you give him," Linda interrupted. "He'll figure out that I was the snitch. He's not dumb. I'm not worried as long as he goes back to prison. I'm moving to another apartment next week anyway." She ran her hands through her hair, took a deep breath, and exhaled. "How about some coffee?" she said. "No thanks." She picked up the walkie-talkie radio and pressed the "transmit" button. "Cup of coffee, Jack?" "No thanks," Kelly said. Linda put the radio down. "I hate all the people where I work," she said. "There's no one that's normal. Even the bartenders are ex-cons. Deals go down in there every minute of the day: dope, funny money, hot jewelry, you name it. I don't know how I find these kind of places; come to think of it, they seem to find me. Everyone trusts me because I was married to Richard. They think I'm solid." She laughed without smiling. Nothing was said for a while. Linda flitted about the apartment picking things up, emptying ashtrays. She wiped off the kitchen sink with a sponge. Drying her hands, she turned to Carr. "May I ask you something?" Her tone was soft. "Shoot," he said. "After all these years, why haven't you ever made a pass at me? Other men find me attractive Her smile was wry. Carr fidgeted. "I guess it's because I don't like to mix business with pleasure," he said. "Other cops do." She turned to the sink again and filled a coffeepot with water. "You're right," she said. "It would never work. I wouldn't trust you afterward. It's the way I feel about most men who-" "I think it's him," Kelly blared over the radio. "He's parking across the street … getting out of his car." Carr snapped the blinds closed. He grabbed the radio off the coffee table and pressed the transmit button. "Roger," he said. He leaned close to the blinds and peeked out. "This is the part I can do without," Linda said. She put the coffeepot down and hurried into the bedroom. "He's comin' atcha," Kelly announced. "I'll be behind him." Carr pulled his revolver out of its holster without taking his eyes off the space in the blinds. The gray-haired man opened the wrought-iron gate and stopped. He looked around for a moment, then strolled to the apartment door and knocked. Carr swung open the door and pointed his revolver at the man's face. "Federal officers, LaMonica. You're under arrest." LaMonica raised his hands. Kelly approached at a full run. He snapped handcuffs on the man's hands. Linda Gleason came out of the bedroom, a sheepish look on her face. Paul LaMonica stared at her the way inmates stare at prison guards: enmity without expression. Carr sat in the backseat with LaMonica on the way to the Field Office for the usual processing. LaMonica was slouched down in the seat. "I wanna do a deal," he said. Carr was looking out the window at nothing in particular. He didn't answer. "I know what you're thinking," LaMonica said. "You know my record. I've never cooperated in the past, so why should I now?" He squirmed. Carr nodded. "It's because I have enemies at Terminal Island this time. If you send me back there it's the death sentence. I'll get shanked in a week. One of the prison gangs has a contract out on me." LaMonica's eyes were wide. "That's why I had to escape. It was a matter of survival." Carr reached across the front seat and pulled a booking form from above the visor. He took a pen out of his pocket and filled in LaMonica's name. LaMonica stared at the form. "I have something to offer, but once you book me it will be too late. Can't we just pull over and chat for a few seconds?" Carr wrote "Camel's-hair sport coat, brown pants" under a column marked "Prisoner's Clothing." "Mr. LaMonica wants to chat," Carr said without looking up. Kelly laughed. "I've got a hundred grand in twenties stashed here in L.A.," LaMonica said. Kelly stopped laughing. His eyes met Carr's in the rearview mirror. Carr nodded. Kelly steered off the freeway and into a supermarket parking lot. He stopped the car and turned off the engine. "Where's the stash?" Carr said. "It's less than ten minutes from here," LaMonica said. "I'm willing to surrender it only in exchange for your promise to let me do my time somewhere other than Terminal Island. Leavenworth, McNeil Island, I don't care. I just can't go back to T.I." Carr folded the booking card and stuffed it in his coat pocket. "I can't guarantee-" "I know the program," the prisoner interrupted. "You can't guarantee anything, blah, blah, blah. I also know that for you feds, a prison transfer is no big deal. All I'm asking is that you go to bat for me." Across the street a Cadillac pulled up to a black woman sitting on a bench at a bus stop. She was wearing a blond wig. The driver of the Cadillac spoke to her through the passenger window. The woman looked around furtively and got in. The car drove off. Shaking his head in disgust, Kelly muttered, "Right in broad daylight." Carr lit a cigarette and tossed the match out the window. "So you saved some paper for insurance in case you got caught." "Whatever," LaMonica said with a look of resignation. "If you lead us to the stash I'll do what I can to keep you out of Terminal Island," Carr said. "That's the only deal I'll go for. No more, no less." LaMonica leaned his head back against the seat and exhaled. "Okay," he said. "You've got a deal." "Where to?" said Kelly. "Head down Hollywood Boulevard," LaMonica said. "It's in a bank safety-deposit box." Carr dragged on the cigarette. "The key?" "My wallet," LaMonica said. He leaned toward the window. Carr pulled a wallet from the prisoner's rear pocket. Inside it was a brass key. "Okay, Jack, now we head for Hollywood," Carr said. Kelly started the engine and got back on the freeway. LaMonica gave directions to the bank with panache. 'Right turn here, please … Left turn here, please." With manacled hands he pointed to a restaurant with a neon lobster on the roof. "Best lobster in L.A.," he said. "With a little luck I'll be back in there cracking shells in a year or two. Do you figure I'll get much more than that?" "Depends on the judge," Carr said. Kelly guffawed. "If you get some pussy like Judge Malcolm he'll probably let you go and put us in jail," he said. LaMonica pointed out the window. "There's the bank." Kelly slowed down. The bank was a brown brick structure sandwiched between a health-food store and a shop with hashish pipes displayed in its window. Kelly applied the brakes. He backed into a parking space and turned off the engine. Carr opened the door and got out. LaMonica slid across the car seat and struggled, handcuffed, to pull himself out of the vehicle. Carr reached down and cupped the prisoner's elbow to assist. LaMonica sprang to his feet and slammed his handcuffed wrists into Carr's face. The agent fell backward onto the sidewalk, his eyes blinded by a stiletto of pain. LaMonica bolted. Kelly ran past, shouting. Carr's eyes came back into focus. He was on his feet and running down an alley next to the bank. The warmth of blood spread across his forehead. Wiping it off with his hand, he turned right and trotted quietly along the alley behind the shops. Kelly burst through a store's rear entrance and almost knocked him over. The agents bumped into one another running back in the door. It was a narcotics paraphernalia shop. The bearded man standing behind a cash register looked sheepish. Carr grabbed him by the collar and pulled him across the counter to within an inch of his bloody face. "Where is he, you son of a bitch?" The man's eyes rolled to a door at the other end of the store. Carr shoved him backward as Kelly yanked the door open. They rushed into a roomful of boxes. The only other door led to the street. It was ajar. They ran outside. "Radio for help!" screamed an out-of-breath Carr. He continued his hunt up and down the street, in and out of stores, into alleys. Finally, he returned to the government sedan. Kelly barked instructions and a description to two uniformed officers. They jumped back in their cars and sped off in opposite directions. A car full of special agents arrived and divided into teams of two. Having pinned gold badges to their suit coats, they searched the storefronts on the opposite side of the street, running around like madmen.Chapter 5
Linda Gleason flicked the television and the living room filled with the organ music leading to "The Days of Our Lives." She plopped down on the sofa. As soon as she found out whether Rex was returning to Samantha or flying off to Africa with Claudia, she would wash her hair. She lit a cigarette. There was a casual knock on the door. Probably Charlie Carr with the reward money, Linda thought. "Coming," she said. She jumped up and opened the door. It was Paul, and his face was red. He punched her fully on the point of her chin. Her head hit the carpet. She wanted to scream, but couldn't. Was her jaw broken? "Did you bail out?" she mumbled. Ignoring her, he closed and locked the door. Violently, he pulled off his belt. His eyes were wide in anger. She vaulted off the carpet and ran into the bedroom. The nightstand phone was in her hand. She dialed 0. He was in the room. "You stabbed me in the back, you rat-bitch-snake, cunt, dirty bitch…" "Operator," said a pleasant female voice. Something was around Linda Gleason's neck. She couldn't speak. It was his belt! The receiver dropped from her hand. No air. Her eyes felt as if they were popping out. She had this odd picture in her mind: her eyes and contact lenses actually popping completely out of her head and dropping on the carpet near the front door. It had grown dark. The streetlights came on. Carr sat on the fender of his sedan like a conductor without a train. Using a blood-spotted handkerchief, he dabbed for the hundredth time at the throbbing wound on his forehead. The last of the police officers had given up the search and departed. Across the street, the remaining Treasury agents piled into a G-car. The driver waved at him and drove off. Carr was light-headed, thirsty, and slightly nauseous. Jack Kelly wandered out of an alley down the block carrying something in his hand. "Looky here," he said before coming to a full stop. He handed Carr a pair of handcuffs with a key sticking out of one of the ratchet locks. Kelly pointed behind him. "Found 'em in the alley behind that coffee shop. Can you believe that sneaky bastard carrying a handcuff key? Talk about planning ahead. He must have had it in a shoe." The bearlike man was staring at Carr's forehead. "You're going to need stitches," he said. "Not yet," Carr said. "I'll call Linda. We'll have to find a place for her to stay until we catch him." He dug a dime out of his pocket and made his way to a pay phone at a newsstand down the street. He dropped in the dime and dialed. The line was busy. He walked back to the car and got in. Kelly started the engine. "Only you would think of a goddamn informant before yourself," he said, pulling the sedan into traffic. Carr knocked on the door of Linda's apartment. The blinds were closed and there was no sound inside. "She's not home," Kelly said. He jiggled change in his pants pocket. Carr rang the doorbell. Still no answer. An older woman wearing a floral-patterned housecoat and a turban of hair rollers shuffled out of the apartment next door. Her arms were folded across her chest. She stared at Carr's forehead. He opened his coat and displayed the badge on his belt. "Federal officers," he said. "Have you seen Miss Gleason?" "She's in there," said the woman. "One of her many boyfriends was just over; he came and left in a taxicab." Carr felt like someone had slugged him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He was in Korea again, shells bursting; soldiers were screaming. He grabbed the door handle and turned. It was unlocked. He pushed it open. Linda was lying in a fetal position in the middle of the living-room floor, her hands clutching a man's belt around her neck. Her face was ashen and her eyes open, staring. Carr dropped to his knees next to her. "Holy mother of Christ," Kelly said. He crossed himself. Taking out a handkerchief, he reached for the phone on the coffee table. "Use the car radio," Carr said. Kelly rushed out the door. With two fingers, Carr closed Linda's eyes. He traced the tiny crow's-feet. He pulled his hand away. The woman in rollers edged in the door. Her hands flew to her face and she started to wail. Carr waved her back. She retreated like a wounded animal. Carr felt cold. He rubbed his eyes for a moment. He was drained, exhausted after twenty years on the street. Carr sat on the edge of a paper-covered examination table in the hospital's emergency room. Outside the room a nurse kept telling a sobbing child not to rub something or it would get worse. There was the smell of witch hazel. A young woman doctor with a nose that protruded almost as much as her ponytail stood in front of him holding a curved needle. She said, "This is going to hurt a little," as she took a stitch in his forehead. She was right. Kelly barged in through a set of swinging doors. "LaMonica's key fit one the safe-deposit boxes in the bank," he said, "but as I'm sure you've probably guessed by now, the box was empty." "Don't move your head, dammit," the doctor said. "Sorry," Carr mumbled. "That LaMonica is a fast thinker," Kelly said. "He thought up that whole little act after we arrested him." He shook his head. "Who would have figured him to go straight back over to Linda's, though? Any normal crook would have hot-footed it out of town without looking back. But not LaMonica; the first thing that came to his mind was revenge. He's vicious, a real animal." The doctor stuck the needle in again and Carr winced. "I bet that smarts," Kelly said. "You look like death warmed over." The doctor stopped sewing. She pointed the needle at Kelly. "Sir, would you mind getting the hell out of this room?" Kelly raised his hands and backed out the door. Paul LaMonica sat next to the window in the seat behind the bus driver. He rubbed his wrists. As the bus chugged along Hollywood Boulevard he felt anonymous, safe for the time being. He knew that cops did not stop buses to look for escapees. The sight of a police radio car cruising next to the bus startled him. He stared down at the vehicle as if viewing an alligator from a jungle barge. The radio car turned onto a side street. A half hour later, the bus pulled into the busy L.A. Airport traffic circle and inched along in the bumper-to-bumper crush. Finally it stopped. Paul LaMonica stepped off the crowded bus and smelled jet fuel. He blended into the bustling crowd heading for the international departures terminal. Inside, he stopped for a moment in front of a flight information screen and noted the departure gate number for a Paris-bound flight. He followed another crowd down a tiled corridor and up an escalator. At the top of the conveyance was a gift shop wedged next to a cocktail lounge. He strolled into the gift shop and purchased two newspapers and a cheap flight bag. After stuffing the papers into the bag, he zipped it up. Casually he sauntered out of the gift shop and into the cocktail lounge. It was a dark place with a long bar and windows that faced the airport runway. Travelers of all ages huddled around the tables in the room. There were lots of clocks on the walls. LaMonica wound his way across the floor, surveying the patrons. Finally, he sat down at a table next to an auburn-haired woman of medium build. She was about his age and dressed in a conservative dark skirt and blouse. An enormous purse and an overnight case were in the chair next to her. The case had a Paris baggage tag. When a young waitress approached, he ordered a straight soda. She returned with the drink and he paid. As she walked away, LaMonica hefted his glass to the woman sitting next to him. "Happy travels," he said with a fatherly wink. The woman hesitated, then picked up her glass. "Same to you," she said. She sipped and set the glass down. "Paris?" he said. She nodded. "My first trip." "You'll love Paris. It's a beautiful city. I'm a pilot; I fly there every other week. I'm going over today to pick up a flight." "I just can't wait to get there. It's my first trip to Europe. LaMonica smiled. Nothing was said for a while. "Are the lines at the ticket counter always so long?" she asked. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know. As a pilot I'm not required to check in at the ticket counter." "Of course," she said in a slightly embarrassed tone. "But I did see an extremely long line at the passport office. I'm lucky enough to have a friend who works there, so I just dropped off my passport. He told me he'd stamp it and I could pick it up just before departure time." The woman's hands plunged into her purse. She pulled out her passport. "A stamp?" she said as she flipped through the pages. "It's a new requirement," he said. "A passport officer places a trip stamp on the last page of each passport. If one arrives in France without such a stamp, it causes nothing but problems." The woman looked worried. "My travel agent didn't tell me. Where is the passport office?" "It's right next to the pilots' check-in office," he said. "I'm on my way to pick up my passport right now. I'll be happy to show you the way." "Thank you," the woman said. She struggled to pick up her luggage. "If you'd like, I can have your passport stamped while I'm there. It'll save you carting all your luggage." The woman furrowed her brow. "And perhaps you'd be kind enough to keep an eye on my flight bag while I'm gone." The woman hesitated for a moment. She gazed at the flight bag. "Uh, yes. That would be very kind." LaMonica held out his hand and she gave him the passport. She stuffed it into his shirt pocket. "Be back in a few minutes." He went down the escalator and joined the crowd of travelers heading for the street. At a rental-car desk near the ticket counters, he used a credit card to rent a sedan. From the airport, he drove directly to a printing supply house on Sepulveda Boulevard and picked up the inks and bond paper he had ordered. Having loaded the items neatly into the trunk of the rented car, he drove to the San Diego freeway and headed south. After stopping for lunch at a coffee shop, he entered a bank and purchased one $500-denomination traveler's check. Taking care not to fold it, he slipped the check into an envelope. Back on the freeway again, he went over the supply list in his mind. Unless he was wrong, he had everything he needed.Chapter 6
So far, the interview was going pretty much as Carr had figured it would. After warning him of his rights, Special Agent in Charge Norbert Waeves, fortified behind a desk covered with nameplates, photo cubes, and pipe paraphernalia, had asked Carr to recount his activities for the entire day "in question" and followed up with an inquiry about how the case had originated. With each of Carr's answers, Waeves would make a little puff of pipe smoke and jot something down on his ever-present yellow notepad. A tape recorder sat on the desk between them like a large black magnet. Waeves, a kinky-haired, freckled man who was a few years younger than Carr, held up his pencil like a dart. "Again,"he said. "What time was it when the prisoner escaped?" "About five," Carr replied. His eyes were on the wall behind the desk, where Waeves's framed headquarters commendation letters (the preprinted kind other agents threw away) and photographs of his gun collection were displayed. "I'd like a more accurate estimate. Was it closer to after five or before five?" Waeves said. His smile was strained. "Like I said, it was about five." Suddenly Carr realized what looked different about Waeves. It was the new suit. Shoulder pads. "How do you know it was five?" Waeves insisted. "Why couldn't it have been four or six?" "I don't know. I guess I looked at my watch." Carr frowned. Waeves glanced at the yellow pad. He printed what looked like the word five and underlined it. He put the pen down. "So, you called for help and searched for the escaped prisoner," he said. "Then what?" "We couldn't find him." The interrogator nodded. "Go ahead." "Go ahead what?" "What did you do then?" "I called the informant from a pay phone," Carr said. "Her line was busy." "Why did you try to call her?" "To tell her LaMonica had escaped." "How do you know the line was busy? Couldn't the phone just as easily have been out of order?" Waeves made a sucking sound on the pipe. Carr closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Her line was busy so we drove over to her apartment." "How long did it take?" "To do what?" "To drive to her apartment." "Because of the rush-hour traffic it took about a half hour," Carr said. "Would you say it was closer to twenty-five minutes or thirty-five minutes?" "Yes." "Yes, what?" "It was about half an hour," Carr said. Waeves's angular face became blotchy. He coughed nervously. "How long had Linda Gleason been your informant?" "About five years." "And how was she recruited?" "She was a walk-in," Carr said. "Her husband was murdered on a contract let by Tony Dio the loan shark and she wanted to get even. She gave me enough information on one of Dio's hoods that I was able to get a search warrant for his house. I found fifty grand in tens and the weapon that was used on her husband inside the house. Headquarters authorized a cash payment to her after the conviction, and from then on she just kept feeding me information. She always worked as a cocktail waitress in one or the other of the local hood hangouts. They trusted her because her husband had a reputation for being solid. No one ever suspected her as far as I know." Youknow the story as well as I do, you two-faced bastard. Waeves leaned back in his chair. He rolled a pen on the back of his knuckles. "You arrested LaMonica at the informant's apartment, leaving no doubt as to her role as the informant," he said. "What is your explanation for this tactic?" "It was her idea," Carr said. "She felt comfortable with the scenario and I accepted that." Carr was talking to the recorder. He knew the tape would be played like a party record by the inspectors in Washington, D.C. "Linda Gleason was an active, longtime informant whose original revenge motivation had turned into a financial one. She got a few extra bucks now and then for doing nothing more than repeating bar talk. She had provided information on at least forty cases. It was common for her to make up the scenario for her undercover role." The recorder squeaked. The tape had run out. Waeves punched the "eject" button with a bony finger and the cassette popped out. He yanked open the desk drawer and rummaged around for a fresh cassette. "You don't have anything on me," Carr said. "My operation will be ruled 'in policy.'" Waeves slammed the drawer shut and opened another. He moved things around. "We'll see," he said. "Take your best shot, pencil pusher," Carr said. Waeves pulled a cassette out of the drawer and stuffed it into the machine as if plugging a dike. Carr's tone changed to one of courtesy. "Are there any other questions, Mr. Waeves?" He was looking at the tape recorder. "Yes," said the blotchy-faced man. "What time was it when…” It was after 9:00 P.M. by the time Carr arrived at Ling's bar. He pushed aside a portal of hanging beads and looked around for his partner. Ling's, like the other haunts in Chinatown, was kept mysteriously dark. Bar jokes had it that the cavelike atmosphere was due to Ling's desire to save on utility bills, but Carr suspected that the detectives who drank there preferred the lack of light. Kelly waved, drink in hand, from a bar-stool perch facing the door. Carr made his way to him and sat down. Ling, wearing his usual bow tie and long-sleeved white shirt, wiped his wire-framed eyeglasses on his sleeve. He put them back on. "Charlie," he said, grabbing a Scotch bottle. He poured a drink and set it down in front of Carr. "Lady sheriff detective ask about you last night. Big blonde," he whispered. "She want to know if I have your address since you transfer back. I thought maybe I give her my address. Maybe get her in bed with me and lay her before she know what happens!" He gave a high-pitched laugh. Carr smiled and shook his head. Still laughing, Ling poured more drinks and rushed to the other end of the bar. "How long did he have you in his office?" Kelly said. "About two hours." "Same here," Kelly said. "Christ, you'd think we'd killed Linda." He shook his head sadly. "That's just the way he is," Carr said. Kelly set his drink down. "You're right there. He's the same pipe-smoking, ass-kissing, i-dotting, mama's boy bureaucrat he always was. Over the years I've had dreams about kicking the shit out of him. Literally pounding his friggin' head in." "I know what you mean," Carr said. He gulped fully half of the Scotch-and-water and put the glass down. Neither man said anything for a while. "Linda was getting careless," Kelly said. "She'd done too many cases. She shouldn't have brought the guy over to her apartment. It was a stupid thing to do." "She had a lot of guts." "We don't have anything to go on," Kelly said. "LaMonica could be anywhere by now." "We'll find him," Carr said after a while. "And when we do we're going to play catch-up." Carr and Kelly spent the next day standing around in the hallway outside judge Malcolm's courtroom waiting to testify. The case was a leftover that predated Carr's transfer to Washington. Because of assorted technicalities, Judge Malcolm had granted twelve defense motions for continuance in almost two years. Carr wasn't particularly surprised by the delay because he had seen the defense lawyer use the same strategy in other cases. At 4:00 P.M., Assistant U.S. Attorney Reba Partch, a harried young woman with thick glasses, wiry hair, and an oversized rear end, strode out of the courtroom. She wore a black velvet jacket with a matching tie and a huge dandruffy collar. "You two are excused," she said gruffly. "I let him plead to one count for straight probation." She dug a package of cough drops out of her jacket and popped a couple into her mouth. "It's a weak case anyway, and I'm sick of making court appearances on it. There've been a million continuances. Even the judge is sick of the case." She maneuvered the cough drops around in her mouth. Kelly's face reddened. "Since when is a confession a weak case?" he said. "He told us he did it. Not to mention the fact that he had a stack of phony twenties in his pocket when we arrested him. The jerk has a record a mile long." "If we went to trial on him and lost, then what would we have?" she said. "The same thing we have right now," Kelly said. "Nothing. " Her tongue arranged the cough drops so she could speak. "You people are completely out of touch with reality," she said, cough drops rattling against her teeth. She flung open the door and bustled back into the courtroom. Kelly was still talking about the incident that night as he drove south past fog-shrouded motels and fast-food stands along the Pacific Coast Highway, a two-lane road that wound through the beach cities. "Her daddy raised her, paid for her law school, and juiced her way into a federal prosecutor's job with a nice fat political contribution. The only thing he couldn't do for her was try her cases." "You don't become a judge by taking cases to trial," Carr said. "You might lose. Sally told me that Judge Malcolm never tried a case during his days as prosecutor. He had a perfect record when he was appointed to the bench." "I don't want to talk about it anymore," Kelly said as he swung the G-car into a parking lot next to a smallish building. A flashing marquee on its roof proclaimed "Shorty McFadden's-Le Jazz Club." They got out of the car and strolled to the rear door of the place. The sound of a saxophone came from inside. Both men tightened their belts to keep their guns from bulging under their suit jackets. Carr opened the door and they went inside. Blue lights shone through cigarette smoke onto a stage that barely had room enough for the combo on it. Shorty McFadden, a fragile-looking, jockey-sized man wearing a French-cut white suit and a black turtleneck, was playing a fiery "Cherokee" on his sax. As he harmonized, his eyes were half shut and his knees bent with the rhythm. He had thinning brown hair and the chalky complexion of a man who had just been released from solitary confinement. The crowd was mixed: beach types, a few blacks, more than a few middle-aged hoods with young women, some sunken-cheeked hypes. The T-men were the focus of lots of stares, including one from a black woman bartender with corn-rowed hair who was as tall as a basketball player. Carr and Kelly took a seat at a corner table that provided a view of both doors. At the end of the set, Shorty McFadden bowed to the applause and told the audience in a hoarse voice that it was time for a break. He set the saxophone on its stand and lit a cigarette. Then he hopped off the stage and wound his way to the bar, shaking hands along the way. The Amazon bartender said something to him and he headed straight for Carr's table. Everyone shook hands. Shorty greeted the T-men without smiling. Come to think of it, Carr had never seen him smile. The diminutive man pulled up a chair. "Is there anything going on in here?" McFadden asked, sounding concerned. "Nothing like that," Carr said. "We just stopped by to talk. " "If you ever get word that anything is going on in here, just tell me. I'll burn whoever it is right then and there. I've put the word out that nothing goes down in Shorty's. My old lady had to go to six hearings before the liquor board granted her a license for this place. I will burn anyone who brings trouble in here. I didn't spend fifteen years bouncing from San Quentin to Lexington with a needle sticking out of my arm so that some punk could do business in my club and get the place shut down. This place is my dream, man." He puffed on his cigarette. Smoke wafted out of his mouth and into his nose. "In the old days I used to wake up in the morning and gulp a handful of uppers. During the day I'd use heroin, numorphan, sleeping pills, and drink a gallon of wine. Sometimes I'd lay down about five A.M. or so and try to catch a few winks. And, even withall that shit in my system, do you know what was on my mind? The idea of someday owning my own jazz club…of being able to get up on a stage like I just did and blow 'Cherokee' for my friends. Well, I finally got my dream. And if anybody does anything to fuck it up, even though I'm a solid guy who went to the joint more than once because I wouldn't hand up my friends, I'll burn 'em." He finished off a cigarette with a puff that fired paper all the way back to the filter, and blew out the smoke. "I need some background information," Carr said. Shorty McFadden lit a fresh cigarette. He puffed once and coughed once. "Shoot." "Teddy Mora," Carr said. "The Teddy Mora I know deals paper out of the Castaways Lounge one day of the week," McFadden said. "The rest of the time he's hard to find. I heard he just bought a head shop down the street from Grauman's Chinese. I met him once in the U.S. marshal's lockup when I was awaiting trial. We both made bail at the same time. He had some bank counter-checks and I downed 'em. I gave him front money for some more, and he never came through. He's a snake, a back-stabber." "Have you ever heard the name Paul LaMonica?" Carr said. Shorty nodded. "He's a paper pusher too … funny money and checks. But when I was hanging paper, I never scored from him. The word was that if you crossed him he'd kill ya. Not just get pissed off, but actually blow you away. I wasn't real big on the idea of ending up in the refrigerator because I shortened him five bucks in buy money or some shit. We were in the same cellblock at Terminal Island for a while. He choked a Mexican to death with a rolled-up sheet and got away with it. Even the usual snitches refused to testify against him. He's the kind of guy who would figure out a way to transfer to another joint just to get you. The word is that he learned how to print … does his own paper now and sells it. He's screwy, a loner." "We need some help in finding him," Carr said. "He's a fugitive." With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, McFadden slowly shook his head. "Four years ago you grabbed me red-handed in a bank. My wife was dying in the County Hospital. When you took me to see her before you booked me, it was the first time a cop had done a favor for me. I said it then and I'll say it now, I'll tell you anything you want to know." He pointed to his temple. "What's up here is yours for the asking, but I'll never set anybody up and I'll never testify. If I did, I would be a rat. And no one likes a rat. So if you're asking me to find the man and set him up for you, the answer is no. I'm not a snitch." The lady bartender carried a tray over to them. She set a full bottle of expensive Scotch and two glasses of ice on the table. Her complexion was deep African black and she had wide lips, hips, and cheekbones. She wore gypsy earrings. "This is my new old lady," McFadden said. He introduced Carr and Kelly by their first names. "These people are friends. Take care of them when they come in." The woman winked and walked back to the bar. "We met at a methadone treatment center," McFadden said. "That woman has changed my life. She won't even let me drink." He picked up the bottle and filled their glasses. "Is there anything else you can tell me about LaMonica?" Carr said. Shorty McFadden started to light a cigarette but realized he already had one in the ashtray. He stuffed it back in the pack. "He has a missing finger," he said. "As the story goes, he was running off a load of hundreds in a cabin up near Big Bear Lake and he got his finger caught in the printing press. He was alone, and of course he couldn't holler for help. He ended up chopping his own finger off." Shorty McFadden shook his head. "If it was me, I think I would rather have just started yelling and taken the trip back to the joint for a deuce or so." He glanced at the stage. The other musicians had hopped on it and were picking up their instruments. Shorty McFadden snapped his fingers and pointed at Carr. "Rosemary," he said. "The broad who used to forge all the stolen savings bonds. She knows LaMonica. I suggest you talk with her. She might be able to do you some good." "What's her last name?" Kelly said. "Clamp or Clump or something like that," McFadden said. "Where do we find her?" Carr asked. "The last I heard, she was running an art gallery on Melrose right near the Beverly Hills city limit. As I understand it, she doesn't do savings bonds anymore because every forgery bull in L.A. knows her handwriting by sight." Shorty McFadden smiled for the first time. Carr thought his face looked like a yellow rubber mask. Maybe it was just the lighting… Shorty McFadden glanced at his wristwatch. "What would you like to hear?" he said. "How about 'I Can't Get Started With You,'" Carr said. "You got it." Shorty McFadden stood up and sauntered through the crowd, shaking hands. Then he climbed onto the stage, picked up his saxophone, and tested the mouthpiece. He nodded at the bass man and began to blow. After the first tune, Carr and Kelly finished their drinks and slipped out the back door. Thick fog had rolled in. They climbed into the G-car. Kelly turned on the headlights and started the engine. He drove down an alley lined with trashcans and through a service-station lot. A pickup truck behind them took the same route. Kelly turned north on the Pacific Coast Highway and stepped on the gas. A few blocks later he made a right turn onto a residential street. The pickup truck did the same. "Somebody's on our ass," Kelly said. "I see him," Carr said. The truck pulled up within a few feet of their rear bumper. The headlights blinked on and off. "This is as good a place as any," Carr said, as he dug around in the glove compartment. Having found a flashlight, he reached for his gun. Kelly slowed down and pulled over to the curb. He yanked his revolver out. The pickup stopped a car-length or so behind them and the headlights went out. In the gray illumination of a lone streetlight, he saw the figure of a man with long black hair exit the truck. Slowly, the man headed for the passenger side of the sedan. "Now!" Carr said. The Treasury men swung open the doors of the car and jumped out, pistols drawn. The man raised his hands. "It's me, Frank Garcia!" he said, his hands reaching higher. "Easy does it." Carr shone the flashlight in Garcia's face. The T-men put their guns away. Garcia lowered his hands. "I saw you coming out the back door at Shorty's," he said as he walked closer. "We've had him under surveillance for a week." "What's he in to?" Carr said. "He's the Mr. Big in a five-pound white heroin deal," Garcia said. He had a barrio accent. "Delivery is expected any day." "You must have the wrong guy," Carr said, smiling. "Shorty just told us he's finally cleaned up his act." "He's cleaned up all right," Garcia said. "I've made two buys from him and three from his bitch within the last week. They're dealing China white out of the place like they had a license. The load he's waiting for is one he financed himself. He made a down payment on a fishing boat and hired a couple of stooges to make a round trip to Acapulco. They're on their way back right now. As soon as the heroin is delivered, we're going to take him and his old lady off. I figured you might want to know." "Thanks for the tip," Carr said. "See you down at Ling's," Garcia said. He trotted back to the pickup truck, climbed in, and used the microphone. As he drove off, he gave a wave. "Maybe you should have requested Shorty to play 'Goodnight Irene,' " Kelly said. They both laughed.Chapter 7
It was almost 2:00 A.M. Charles Carr drove out of Chinatown onto the Santa Monica freeway heading toward his apartment. He was full of booze, chicken-roll hors d'oeuvres, and cop talk. Stopping off at Sally Malone's was something he hadn't consciously planned on doing; maybe it was the liquor or the empty morning streets or the tepid Santa Ana wind swirling in the open windows that brought him there. Having parked the car, he shuffled up the steps to her apartment. He knocked gently on the door, waited awhile, and knocked again. "Who is it?" Sally said. Suddenly Carr wished he hadn't come. Could he just trot down the steps and drive off? Sally Malone opened the door a few inches. "Charlie!" She turned on the light in the apartment. "I've had a few drinks," he said. "I didn't realize it was so late." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how utterly lame they sounded. Sally stepped back from the door. "Come on in before you wake up my gossipy neighbors," she whispered. She was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe that stopped way above her knees. Since he'd last seen her she had cut her chestnut hair into a stylish curly shag. The change made her look younger than her forty years. He walked in and Sally closed the door behind him. "Well," she said, going to the stove and lighting a burner under a coffeepot. He followed her into the kitchen. Like the rest of the well-furnished apartment, it was immaculate. "I'd just as soon have a beer if you don't mind," he said. She shook the coffeepot and set it down. "Nice of you to find the time to stop by," she said. He stared at the kitchen floor for a moment. Sally Malone didn't look up from the stove. Carr opened the refrigerator door and took out a beer. Avoiding eye contact, she grabbed a bottle opener off the counter and handed it to him. He popped the cap. "I've been busy since I got back … been meaning to give you a ring." They both watched the fire under the coffeepot for a moment. "All moved in to your apartment?" she said. "Right," he said. "Same building as before. I guess I'm a creature of habit." She picked up the coffeepot and poured. "I'm not," she said without any hint of a smile. "My life has changed since you were transferred. I'm into lots of new and interesting things; lots of meetings. I'm active in a jogging club, a women's rights group, the steno association…nothing you'd be interested in, of course, but I'm busier than I ever have been in my life. It's satisfying. I've found that I thrive on activity." "How's the activity at the FBI?" Carr said. He swigged his beer. After a long silence, Sally spoke to the stove. "I went out with Tom Luegner a few times, if that's what you're referring to," she said. "He's a complete jerk. All he does is talk about his silver fifty-coats-of-lacquer Corvette, or his precious informants, whom he refers to mysteriously as 'Alpha one twenty-three' or 'Delta sixty-seven.' As if I really cared. He lives a big FBI-top-secret act to impress everyone." Almost gently, Carr put the beer down on the sink. "I'd better go," he said, running his hands through his hair. "It's three in the morning and I've been drinking. I'm out of line sliding over here uninvited, and it's none of my business who you go out with. Let's just say I dropped over to say hello to an old pal." His hand touched her cheek softly. She threw her arms around him. They hugged, and Sally pressed her head to his chest. "I'm going to go," Carr said. "I've missed you so much," Sally said. "I waited for you to call me." "Ah, I don't I Ike to talk on the phone," Carr said. Another lame remark. Sally spoke with her head still buried in his chest. "You're going to stay here tonight and we're going to make love until we"-she giggled-"break into a sweat, as you used to call it." She threw her head back and looked him in the eye. "Do you remember the time you said that to me?" She put her head back on his chest before he had to answer. "It was our first weekend together. I still remember. It was almost nine years ago." In the bedroom they helped each other undress. "If we use each other, then so be it," she said. They took turns making love to one another. Their bodies meshed and twisted, and Carr felt her familiar smooth thighs under, on top, and around him. Their kisses became bites. Finally they rested. At daybreak Carr woke up and crawled out of bed. In the semidarkness he found his clothes and dressed. Sally stirred. Carrying his shoes, Carr tiptoed out the bedroom door. As he closed it, he thought he heard Sally say "Bastard!" Paul LaMonica tapped the accelerator and inched forward in a snake of cars. To his right was a large green sign: YOU ARE LEAVING THE UNITED STATES. He rolled down the window of the rented sedan and let in a swirling breeze that Mexicans would recognize as a portent of a Baja rainstorm. A San Diego police van sat parked next to the sign, rear doors open and waiting. The crew-cut prisoners huddled inside looked like sailors on leave. A guard booth less than fifty yards ahead was manned by a Mexican policeman wearing what looked like a bus driver's uniform with a gun belt and holster. LaMonica looked at his wristwatch and took a deep breath. The breeze made his hands feel clammy on the steering wheel, though he knew that logically there was nothing to worry about at this point. Even if a border lookout were in effect, the slob policeman wouldn't have received notice yet. Besides, the only picture the feds had of him was three years old. If he was lucky, maybe they hadn't even found her body yet, and there was certainly no law against transporting printing supplies into Mexico. He would cross the border and be safe. The lines of vehicles moved closer, and the policeman waved him forward. LaMonica took another deep breath and pulled ahead. "Wait," the policeman said, fumbling for something in his trouser pockets. LaMonica noticed that the officer needed a shave. Without changing his somber expression, the policeman stepped backward into the guard booth and opened a drawer. LaMonica felt piano wires cinch tightly around his forehead. His foot felt magnetized to the accelerator. The cop pulled a white card out of the drawer. He stepped out of the booth and handed it to LaMonica. It read: CLUB DISCO GIRLS GIRLSGIRLS THIS COUPON GOOD FOR ONE FREE DRINK On the reverse of the card was a crude map of downtown Tijuana marked with an X. "Here is where you find what you want," said the cop. "Gracias," LaMonica said. His throat was dry. The policeman waved him on. LaMonica drove along a highway that followed the northern edge of Tijuana. He followed the signs to Ensenada. After a while he crossed a bridge over a wide gully cluttered with huts made of cardboard and scrap lumber; makeshift homes that would be washed away with the first rain. The road ahead was clear. LaMonica felt tired, day-dreamy. The memory of his first arrest often came back to him when he was feeling this way. He had been sitting in his car across the street from the bank. A talk show was on the radio. "My son keeps things hidden from me," a woman whined. "He screams at me every time I go into his room. I think he's afraid I'll see him naked." The woman's voice was probing, headachy, like his mother's. The talk-show host was Dr. Robert C. Mendenhall the radio counselor, L.A.'s "Voice of Health." He had turned off the radio in the middle of Mendenhall's advice and climbed out of the car. Pulling the briefcase out of the trunk, he marched straight into the bank. Inside the air-conditioned lobby, he waited his turn in a long line in front of a window marked "Commercial Accounts." Oddly, he wasn't the least bit nervous. Finally, he reached the window. The bespectacled woman behind the counter had bluish-gray hair and wore a buttoned-to-the-neck suit of the same color. "I own the car lot down the street," he said as he snapped open the briefcase. He dumped the rubber-banded stacks of ten-dollar bills on the counter. "An elderly couple just bought a Mercedes and paid for it in cash. Can you believe that?" He chuckled. The woman's face was expressionless. Like a robot, she pulled off the rubber bands and counted the bills. With each stack, she made a mark on a little white pad. "Is this for deposit?" she said without looking up. "I'd like the whole amount in hundred-dollar bills. I'm going to an antique-automobile auction tonight. The purchases are all in cash, but I'd rather just carry a nice neat little bundle of hundreds than-" "I don't have that many hundred-dollar bills," she interrupted. "I'll have to go get some out of the vault." She opened her cash drawer and set the tens inside it. Using a key she removed from her pocket, she locked the drawer. She shuffled into the vault. He was still waiting at the teller window when the police arrived. The woman pointed a finger at him (her lack of expression even when doing this was remarkable). The policeman twisted his arms behind his back. The handcuffs clicked on. "Those tens have been on the warning list for over a month," he heard her say. The cops dragged him out the front door of the bank. He went to trial and then to prison. It was the first time. Never again, he'd promised himself on that day, would he make such a mistake. In the future he would weigh risks and attempt to control variables as carefully as a test pilot would. The road wound around a bill crowned with shacks and finally led down past the turnoff for the bullring by the sea. With the first whiff of salt air LaMonica felt secure again, safe from those who would put him back in prison clothes. In less than an hour he reached Ensenada. The town proper comprised a collection of kitschy hotels and souvenir shops accordioned together. Like other cities on the U.S. border, the town lived off camper-truck travelers in cowboy hats, sports-car types, and college kids looking for a cheap weekend. LaMonica pulled up at a stop sign. Across the street a newly built sports-betting office overlooked a dry riverbed where brown children played with empty pop bottles. The light turned green. He drove out of Ensenada and along a road that followed the coast.At a clump of trees, LaMonica turned onto a dirt road and continued until he was fully within sight of a one-story, wood-frame house. The structure's sheet-metal roof glistened with sea-level heat. He stopped the car. Using binoculars, he watched the house for a few minutes. There was no activity, no sign that anything had been disturbed. He put the binoculars down and continued on. In a swirl of red dust, LaMonica pulled up in front of the cabin, which the Mexican realtor who'd sold it to him had described as a beach house. He got out of the car and stretched. From the trunk, he unloaded cardboard boxes filled with reams of paper and ink cans. Having carted them to the door, he used a key to unfasten a large padlock. Inside, the air was oven temperature and smelled like printer's ink. LaMonica flipped the light switch. In the middle of the room an offset printing press rested next to a worktable. Above it, a fluorescent light fixture hung from a rafter. Under the table, gallon bottles of printing chemicals were lined up exactly as he had left them. Next to the press a lithographic camera covered by a bed-sheet loomed like an apparition. A darkroom fashioned out of tarp and lumber protruded from the wall. Beside it, a pillow rested on a canvas folding-cot. LaMonica pulled the sheet off the man-sized camera and used it to wipe off the lens. He paused for a moment to stare at his reflection: fair features; whitish hair one could describe as "distinguished"; firm biceps; the eyes and hands of a technician, a scientist, a man patient enough to endure prison-one whose symbol could be the forged and tempered steel that was the material of daggers. Rummaging among his box of "Priority One" supplies — printers' manuals, color charts, half-tone screens, aluminum offset printing plates, lithographic film — LaMonica finally found an electric fan. He pulled it out of the box and plugged it in. With the fan blowing on his sweaty frame, he took off his clothes and piled them on a chair. Naked, he was finally ready to get down to business. He sat at the table and resumed work on the passport. Using a razor blade, he separated the cover from the pages. He held a page up to the light. It had neither stamp marks nor folds. The bluish American eagle design, with its fine, unending lines of color, was pristine. He tossed the other pages under the table and began the work of mounting the pattern page for his copy camera. He accomplished this task as he did the rest of his printing efforts, without regard to time. By early afternoon the heat in the workshop had become more than stifling. For a respite, LaMonica stepped in front of the fan and allowed the air to blow-dry his perspiration-soaked chest, genitals, and underarms. This refreshment was followed by a long drink from the jug of bottled water he had brought along. He repeated the process often. By midnight the passport pages were printed and dried. Carefully he trimmed each page on a paper cutter and rounded the corners. He stapled them inside the cover. From a briefcase he removed a photograph of the peasant-cheeked Sandy Hartzbecker. She was posed leaning back against a wall with one knee up. She was nude except for a halter-top. She had a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail glass in the other. With the paper cutter, he sliced away everything in the photograph except her head and shoulders. Using glue and a wipe rag, he affixed the photograph to the inside cover of the passport. This process alone took almost two hours. Exhausted, LaMonica flicked off the light. He pulled the sheet off the litho camera and flopped down on the cot. Having covered himself, he closed his tired eyes. Before falling asleep, he imagined fucking Linda the cocktail waitress and then killing her and running naked across spikes and jagged chunks of glass without sustaining injury. It was light outside when LaMonica woke up. He ate the contents of a can of peaches and drank the juice, then threw himself back into work. Having mounted the traveler's check on a piece of cardboard in front of the copy camera, he snapped photo after photo. Because of his precise standards, it took him almost three hours to prepare suitable negatives. Finally he held the completed black transparencies up to the fluorescent light and checked closely for flaws. By eleven o'clock the cabin was sweltering. He flung open the door and stepped out onto the porch, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. Below the hills in the direction of town he could see the coastline and a procession of fishing boats heading toward the docks near the Ensenada fish market. Birds fluttered among the branches of a nearby tree. He picked up a rock and hurled it into the branches. The birds flew away. He stepped back into the cabin, tossed his clothing on the floor, and returned to work. Using a grayish opaquing fluid and a fine-tipped brush, LaMonica painstakingly eradicated the signatures on the negative for the front of the traveler's check. By the time this procedure was completed, he had a stiff neck. Finally the negatives were ready. One at a time he arranged them on a vacuum-frame table and matched them to a thin lithographic printing plate that was about the size of a legal tablet. He fished around in his box of supplies and brought out a stopwatch. He flicked on an arc light and the stopwatch simultaneously and timed the plate exposures. In less than an hour the plates were completed. After washing each of the plates in developing solution until the image of the checks was visible, he chose the ones he liked best and tossed the others on the floor. Without hesitation, he affixed the front plate onto the printing press and locked it into position. He took the time to carefully adjust the ink and water levels on the printing press, then flicked the "on" switch and stepped back. The sound of a press starting up gave him a slight chill (as it always had ever since the day he lost his finger). The press worked efficiently, spitting perfect copies of the purple traveler's check into its basket. As reams were completed, LaMonica gingerly refilled the paper feed. After a couple of hours, stacks of counterfeit traveler's checks were piled up all over the cabin. Although fatigued, LaMonica took special care as he used a paper cutter to trim the traveler's checks. While doing this, he would occasionally compare one of the counterfeits with the genuine item to make sure it was the right size. By 5:00 P.m. the job was completed. Having handed the checks, he stacked them in a large black briefcase. He carried the case to the car and locked it in the trunk. Using a shovel and pick he had brought with him, he spent the next two hours digging a hole next to a tree near the cabin. He dragged the printing press out of the cabin and shoved it into the hole. He did the same with the copy camera and the vacuum frame. He covered the hole with dirt and returned to the cabin. Using a two-gallon can of gasoline he kept on hand for emergencies, he doused the walls and floor as he backed out the front door. He lit a book of matches and tossed it into the room. A fire jumped. Paul LaMonica climbed in behind the wheel of the rented sedan and watched the cabin as it was engulfed in flames. He remembered the sound of fire engines arriving in front of his house when he was a child … and his mother's whining, siren like voice. "I just don't know what to dooooooooooooooooo with him," she'd said. He started the engine and drove off. As he cruised along the two-lane road toward Ensenada, the sun finally set. He was exhausted. Having taken a few deep breaths, he turned the car radio to a San Diego station. Suddenly an old man on a bicycle pulled into the roadway. Without slowing down, LaMonica swerved and missed him by a couple of feet. His heart beat rapidly for a few moments, then returned to normal.
Chapter 8
Kelly parked the government sedan in front of a small shop with a bright yellow awning mounted over a display window. The awning's calligraphic lettering announced "The New Life Gallery." Kelly followed Carr out of the sedan. They strolled to the window, which contained kaleidoscopic photographs of pasty-faced, embracing women. The photographs were flanked by a wooden box containing a pile of what appeared to be dyed red sand in the middle of a collection of kitchen knives. An artist's business card leaning against the wooden box bore the title "Women's Work." Carr opened the door and stepped into the art gallery. There was the sound of a chime. A fortyish woman with close-cropped blond-streaked hair wearing a shapeless dress stood in the corner speaking softly with a pair of designer-jeaned women of similar age. Both had potbellies like half footballs, wore an excess of turquoise jewelry, and stood poised on six-inch heels. The woman in the shapeless dress acknowledged the agents with a nod and continued her conversation. Kelly nudged Carr. He pointed to a pedestal next to the wall. Resting on it was a carved wood vagina lined with feathers and seashells. In the orifice, the artist had pasted a magazine photograph of women marching with banners. The price tag on the sculpture was $2,000. A mobile hanging above the sculpture was formed with photographs of female buttocks and love poems hand-lettered on Kotex. After a few minutes, the potbellied women departed. The woman with the blond-streaked hair approached Carr and Kelly. Carr reached into his pocket for his badge. "You don't have to show me anything," the woman said. "I can tell you're cops." "Are you Rosemary Clamp?" Carr said. "Cramp," she said. "Rosemary Cramp. But my name is now Rosanna DuMaurier. I had my name changed legally." Kelly continued to stare at the wooden sculpture. "It's the artist's self-portrait," she said. Kelly nodded dumbly. "We're looking for Paul LaMonica," Carr said. "I don't know anyone anymore," she said. "I haven't been arrested for over five years. Of course you've probably checked my record and you already know that. Who told you that I knew Paul LaMonica?" "We didn't come here to cause you any problems," Carr said. "We have a warrant for LaMonica's arrest and we're talking to a lot of people trying to find him." He looked her in the eye as he spoke. "I don't appreciate you people coming into my gallery. It's totally uncalled for. I actually got a chill down my spine when I saw you walk in. It's like a reflex from my past life. I haven't been in trouble for over five years and I'm fully within my rights to ask you to get the hell out of here right now. Now, will you please leave! I mean it." "I apologize if we've embarrassed you," Carr said. He nodded at an amazed Kelly and sauntered toward the door. He stopped in front of a rack of crude pencil drawings and sorted through them. He picked one up which depicted two disconsolate women sitting on a four-poster bed stroking a cat. He stared at the drawing for a moment. "How much is this?" The woman gave him a searching look before speaking. "Twenty-five dollars." Carr walked toward her with the drawing. He handed it to her and reached for his wallet. He pulled out some bills and gave them to her. The woman stared at the money for a moment, then accepted it. "A cop buying lesbian art?" she said. "It's a birthday present for my twin sister. She lives in San Francisco. We lead very different lives, but I respect her more than anyone I know. She had the courage to come out … to be honest." Carr turned and headed toward the door. He opened it. "Do you remember the phony series E bonds that were cashed in the banks along Wilshire Boulevard five years ago?" said the woman. Carr stepped back in and turned to face her. "Three grand's worth in every bank from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica. I remember the case well." The woman tapped her chest. "Me," she said. "I can tell you now because the statute has run out and I can't be prosecuted." "It was one of the best bond capers I've ever seen," Carr said. "Four agents spent weeks working on it. All we came up with was a vague description of a woman." "I wore different wigs," she said. "Paul LaMonica was waiting in the car for me outside each bank. I ended up with nothing more than a few bucks out of the deal. There were too many people that had to be pieced off. Hell, at the time LaMonica was supplying my smack habit and that's all I really cared about. It was right after that caper that I got busted for marks and ended up doing a year in Frontera. I did a lot of thinking when I was in. For the first time in my life I admitted to my true sexuality. For the first time I realized that all of life is based on sex. Admitting my true nature solved virtually all of my problems. For once, I could accept myself. After I was released I kept completely away from the old crowd. I began living a new life. That's why I named this place the New Life Gallery." "Have you seen LaMonica in the past few months?" Carr said. "He stops by once in a while when he's out of the joint. He always wants me to do some phony paper for him, and I always shine him on." "Any idea where I could find him?" Carr said. "What did he do?" "Escaped from Terminal Island." "I'm sure you're already aware that all the paper pushers hang out at the Castaways Lounge in Hollywood," she said. Carr nodded. "I've checked. He's not around there." "Then I don't know what to tell you. But please, don't come around here anymore. My clientele is frightened of police types. This is more than just an art gallery. To my sisters and me, this is a shrine to women. The art here is a declaration of sexual truth. As a matter of fact, I believe that not being honest with oneself is the root cause of drug addiction. I know that my own problem disappeared as soon as I came out." She plucked a bread-dough plaque of buttocks and breasts off the wall and dusted it on her dress. She re-hung it. "It's been a long journey for me, but I've finally arrived. If you people would have knocked on my door a few years ago, I would have jumped through any available window. I was involved in so many crimes that when I was questioned by the cops I had to be told which crime they were talking about in order to confess." She shook her head and smiled. "Did LaMonica phone you a couple of days ago?" Carr said. "Who told you that?" "What did he want?" "As usual he wanted me to do a deal with him. He offered me half of the action, said all I had to do was play a part. I assumed it was some kind of a con scheme." "Did he give you any details?" "Paul LaMonica doesn't give details. With him, everything is on a need-to-know basis. Had I agreed to come in, he would have waited until the last minute to fill me in on the details, names, and places. He believes in high security. That's all I'm going to say." "Thanks." Carr turned toward the door. "Is your sister really one of us?" she asked. Carr nodded. "Yes," he said in a tone of sincerity. "And I am very proud of her." He walked out the door. Kelly followed. The agents climbed in the G-car. Kelly got behind the wheel and started the engine. "I say, lez-be-on-our-way," Kelly said. He laughed uproariously. "Mytwin sister in San Francisco!" He laughed again and Carr joined in. Kelly caught his breath. "I almost had a heart attack trying not to crack up in there! You definitely should get the Bullshitter of the Year award for that act." He threw his head back and laughed again. Carr took out his notepad and made some brief entries concerning the interview. He put the pad away. "Do you think she was holding back?" "Hard to say." Carr rubbed his hands through his hair. "If LaMonica was going to print counterfeit money, why would he call Rosemary and ask her to 'play a part'?" "It doesn't make sense," Kelly said. As they drove down Melrose toward the Hollywood freeway, neither man spoke. Kelly signaled, then steered onto a freeway on ramp and accelerated. "I wonder who would pay two thousand dollars for a wood carving of a cunt?" he said. Carr shrugged. "The boss'll be here any minute," said the bearded man standing behind a glass display case filled with cutting mirrors, roach clips, glass beakers, and tiny scales. "He stops by once a week to pick up the till." "We'll wait," Carr said. Kelly was busy examining a book he had picked off a wall rack entitled How to Grow Marijuana Indoors. He slammed it back on the rack. Two teenage girls carrying schoolbooks came in the door and wandered over to a display of hollowed-out silver dollars and fake soda cans with secret compartments. They giggled. One nudged the other and nodded at the red-faced, staring Kelly. They giggled again and hurried out the door. There was the sound of a car pulling up in the alley. A prune-faced man with a sharp chin and elbows shuffled in the back door. The clerk whispered to him. He turned around and faced the T-men. "I'm Teddy Mora," he said gravely. "You people looking for me?" He spun a ring of car keys lewdly around his middle finger. Carr held out his gold badge. "A prisoner escaped yesterday," he said. "He ran in the front door and out the side door of this place like he knew where he was going." He took a mug-shot photo out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Mora. "Do you know him?" Carr said. Mora glanced at the photo and handed it back to Carr. "I'm an absentee landlord," he said. "I don't live in Los Angeles. This place is owned by a corporation." "We figured you might know the guy," Carr interrupted. "His name is Paul LaMonica." Teddy Mora shook his head. "Never heard of him. Is there anything else?" "Yeah," Kelly said, examining a hashish pipe on the counter. "How long do you think it'll be before you'll be able to sell dope to the kiddies right along with all the paraphernalia?" Teddy Mora twirled the car keys. His gaze shifted from Carr to Kelly and back to Carr. "Is that about it? I have things to do around here." "LaMonica's a fugitive," Carr said. "We're real interested in finding him. You've been around long enough to know what I mean. If we can't find him, we'll be back. And that's a promise not a threat." Ignoring them, Mora turned and spoke casually to his clerk. The agents exited the front door. Kelly drove along Hollywood Boulevard on the way back downtown. When they stopped at a red light, there were straggly-haired teenage boys on each of the four street corners. One of the young men gave a groin-pump greeting to a passing convertible driven by an older man wearing dark glasses. The man pulled the convertible to the curb and the boy approached. "Child prostitutes, stores that sell dope fixings…" Kelly muttered in a defeated tone. "The whole country is turning to shit. Sometimes I think I'd like to take my wife and kids, chuck everything, and live up in the mountains away from it all. No mind-rotting TV, no forced busing, no dope." He shook his bear-sized head. "LaMonica comes into town," Carr said, staring at the road ahead. "He stops by the Castaways Lounge and meets with Teddy Mora. They talk business. Linda gets her hooks in and invites him over-" "For one of her Mata Hari-style interrogations," Kelly interrupted. "LaMonica makes a telephone call from her place," Carr continued, "and uses the name Bob French. He tells her he plans to leave town the next day." He rubbed his chin. "LaMonica came to L.A. to get something he needed, or maybe to sell a package of bad paper." He had a puzzled expression. "It could be anything," Kelly said, coming out of his fugue. "Four-Lima-four from Los Angeles base," blared the Treasury radio. Carr opened the glove compartment, pulled out the microphone, and answered. "Meet Detective Higgins at the L.A. morgue, third floor." "Roger," Carr said.Chapter 9
Carr and Kelly stepped into the morgue elevator and waited for the doors to close. There was an odor of formaldehyde. "Hold it!" shouted someone in the hall. Carr pushed the "open door" button. A freckled man in a pale green surgical outfit backed into the lift, pulling a gurney with a sheet covering everything on it except a yellowed toe. Kelly grimaced and pushed the third-floor button. "You guys here for a murder autopsy?" said the medic. A surgeon's cap balanced precariously on a mop of curly red hair. His voice had a tone of anticipation. Kelly shook his head no. He stared at the yellow toe. "This turkey electrocuted himself," said the red-haired man. "He wrapped an electrical wire around his head, grounded himself in his bathtub, and lust put in the old plug. Zappo!" Kelly shook his head sadly. "Poor guy," he said. The elevator stopped. The doors opened. "He got a real charge out of it!" the doc said. He laughed and waited for the agents to join in. When they didn't, he rolled the body out of the elevator and headed the opposite way down a sterile-looking corridor. "That's why I hate to come here," Kelly said as they walked down the hall. "These people are all creeps. Real honest-to-god one-hundred-percent creeps." Carr nodded. Higgins, a fortyish, crew-cut man who was the size of a football lineman, beckoned them into an office. They sat down around a table covered with bloody knives in transparent plastic envelopes and enlarged color photos of death scenes. One photo was a close-up of the belt around Linda Gleason's neck. "I'm waiting to observe my second autopsy for the day," Higgins said. "Some gang murders that happened last night." He ran a hand through his stubble of blond hair. "I've got a few minutes, so I'll give it to you briefly. Your girl died of strangulation and she had multiple head injuries. The murderer bashed her brains in with a heavy lamp base. He did this after he choked her out with a belt. There were no fingerprints in the apartment except for hers and those of a couple of bartenders from the Castaways Lounge she was balling. I showed LaMonica's photograph to every resident of the apartment house. No one could identify him, including the old lady next door. She wasn't wearing her eyeglasses. " "What about the taxi dispatchers?" Carr said. "Just getting to that," Higgins said. "The taxi company logs show no fare to Linda Gleason's address all day, which probably means that the cabby who drove LaMonica over there pocketed the fare." Higgins stretched his arms over his head. "So unless you can capture LaMonica and talk him into giving us a confession complete enough so that we can corroborate everything he says, we have no murder case." He turned his palms up. Carr raised his eyebrows. He shook his head. "I've read all his previous arrest reports. LaMonica doesn't confess when he gets arrested. He always goes to the joint without saying a word." "Then he'll beat the rap," Higgins said. "It's doubtful we could prove motive because we can't prove he knew she was the informant. For means, the murder weapons have no fingerprints. Proving opportunity is out because no one can place him at the scene of the crime. Getting the district attorney to file murder charges in this case would be about as easy as finding a doctor who'd admit a mistake." Carr stared at the floor for a minute. Kelly took a photograph from the array on the table and held it up. It was a five-by-eight of a group of pigeons pecking at what looked like popcorn strewn along a blood-splattered sidewalk. "What the hell is this?" he said with a disgusted look. "Pigeons eating human guts," said the cop. "Couple of Mexican chaps disemboweled one another on Wabash Avenue day before yesterday. Machetes. A young officer took the photo to prove that he tried to secure the original crime scene like he was supposed to. But the birds showed up for the feast." Kelly tossed the photo down. Carr said thanks to the detective. Then the two agents headed out of the office and down the hall toward the elevator. "Next time we come here I'm going to wait in the car," Kelly said. "I'm getting too old for this shit. I really am." "Me too," Carr said. He gave his partner a punch on the shoulder. In the moonlight the water along the coast was inky, its waves gray, ominous. Paul LaMonica pulled off the El Camino Real highway onto a bumpy road that led to the beach. After a hundred yards or so, his headlights illuminated a stucco building surrounded by sports cars and Cadillacs. The structure was the size of a small tract house. For God only knows what reason, it had been built catty-corner to the water. Like the rest of Baja architecture, it looked unfinished. Like some revolutionary slogan, the word Teddy's had been painted in red above the entrance. LaMonica parked his car and got out. The sound of Mariachi music and drunken conversation mixed with that of the waves slapping against the rocks. He went in. Inside the dimly lit hangout was a circular bar and a few tables occupied by as many boisterous, garishly dressed women as men — mostly bikers and their broads. Three Mexican guitar players strummed in the corner. Everyone, including the musicians, had their eyes on LaMonica as he made his way to a table. Behind the bar, Teddy Mora filled shot glasses from a half-gallon tequila bottle. He wore a Stetson with a red band and feather, and gold necklaces over a T-shirt with a cartoon illustration of a man with an oversized, drooling tongue. He waved at LaMonica and everyone stopped staring. LaMonica sat at an empty table. A few minutes later Mora moved to LaMonica's table carrying a tequila bottle and two glasses. He set the items on the table and pulled a lemon out of his trouser pocket. Using a penknife, he sliced it into wedges. He looked around to see if anyone was listening. "I'm running out of twenties," Teddy said, wiping the wet knife on his T-shirt. LaMonica shook his head. "They're all gone," he said. Teddy filled the glasses and sprinkled salt on the back of his hand. Taking a lick of the salt, he tossed back a shot of tequila. He chomped on a lemon wedge and spit the rind on the floor. "That's too bad," he said. "Everybody wants 'em." He laughed. "I even tossed a few in with my bar receipts and deposited them in the bank." He laughed again. "That's what you can do with my newest thing," LaMonica said. Teddy Mora looked puzzled. "Traveler's checks," LaMonica said. "You can dump a few in with your bar receipts. Even though they're counterfeit, the traveler's-check company will pay off, stand good for them. If they didn't, all of you legit businessmen would refuse to accept them and the company would go out of business." "In other words, the company is willing to take the loss," Teddy said. "Exactly." "Then lay some of that nice paper on me, my good man. Teddy loves Paulie's paper." He stuck out his bony hand. LaMonica pulled an envelope out of his back pocket and handed it to Mora. "You're the only person besides myself who knows about these. You will not deal them to anyone else. Use them yourself or throw them away." "In other words, Paulie has bigger plans for the checks. Teddy gets the picture. Your secret is safe with Teddy," Mora said reassuringly. "Has Sandy been around?" LaMonica asked. "She stops in for a few almost every night," Teddy said. "She's got a new boyfriend. He sticks with her like glue. Do you know who I'm talking about?" LaMonica shook his head. "The spook that drives the gold-colored Caddy. I think his name is Cole," Teddy said, "but he calls himself Mr. Cool." "Never heard of him." "Typical spook weight-pumper," Mora said. "He just got out of San Quentin. Supposedly he's wanted for violation of parole." "How tight is she hooked up with this Mr. Spook or whoever he is?" LaMonica said. He drank a shot of tequila and bit into the lemon. Warmth rushed to his face. "From the looks of it she ain't just 'trying one out,'" Teddy said. "You'll probably have to go through him if you want to use her." A young man wearing a safari jacket slid in the door and surveyed the crowd. He had greasy duck-tailed hair and no color in his face. An Oriental woman in skintight clothing followed him, her T-shirted nipples pointing like camouflaged radar. The man gave a clenched-fist salute to Teddy and the couple sat down at a table with two well-dressed Mexican men. Teddy Mora shook his head. "Things are nothing like the old days," he said. "That asshole will sit right there at that table and will, without so much as lowering his motherfuckin' voice, settle on a price with those two pushers. Then he'll probably do the deal; yes, actually make the goddamn transfer, right out in the parking lot. He'll have his bitch drive the dope across the border tonight. When she gets busted he'll actually wonder why. And when she hands him up he'll wonder why again. It'll probably never occur to the poor dumb shit that he did everything wrong; that, for all anybody knows, half the customers in this place are federal snitches waiting to tip off the customs people at the border. To that young jack-off, life is what he sees on TV. All the young punks today are out of touch with reality. To them everything is just a game. Maybe it's because they all get probation the first time out these days." Mora leaned into another shot of tequila and bit a lemon wedge. "People have been dropping like flies around here," he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "There's gotta be a turkey in the crowd," he whispered, "but I just can't figure out who. Somebody gets arrested almost every day, it seems like. This place is getting a bad name. Couple of American narcs bust in here the other day with the Mexican cops. They handcuffed a guy sitting right at the bar and dragged his ass out of here like a dog-some fugitive from L.A. I mean, like how in the hell did they know he was here?" Teddy's eyes surveyed the other tables suspiciously. "When I figure out who it is, I'll have the cocksucker snuffed out." Teddy chuckled. "Thank God down here it only costs two or three hundred bucks." "Or just tell me and I'll do the job for free," LaMonica said. He smiled. Prune-faced Teddy licked the rim of his shot glass. "Remind me never to piss you off, Paulie the Printer," he said.Chapter 10
After an hour or so of driving up and down the streets of Ensenada like a tourist looking for a room, LaMonica found the gold Cadillac with the MR COOL license plate. It was parked in front of a motel that looked like the others in town, a place with lots of rooms built around a swimming pool that was too small and a bar that was larger than the restaurant. He pulled into a lot across the street, where he could keep an eye on the rooms and the car at the same time. For the next couple of hours he watched the comings and goings of the guests, mostly blue-collar types: hefty men in Bermuda shorts and uninteresting women carrying straw purses. Everyone was in various stages of tanning. They splashed one another in the pool, chased kids, and passed around bags of potato chips. Leaning back in the seat, LaMonica recalled how he and Sandy Hartzbecker had first met. They'd been sitting on plastic-covered sofas in the dingy reception area of the federal parole office in downtown Los Angeles. His first impression of her was that she was a woman who would be impossible to describe. She was neither homely nor attractive, and her face, as well as her height, weight, bra size, and shape of hips, was totally unremarkable. Even her age would be difficult to guess. She had crow's-feet but it was difficult to tell whether they were caused by excessive exposure to sun and wind or the normal aging process. She wore a loose-fitting blouse and jeans, and cheap tennis shoes. Her mousy-brown hair was in pigtails, and her complexion was forgettable; unblemished and devoid of makeup of any kind. She was precisely the type of woman he had been looking for. He could tell by the form letter she kept folding and unfolding that it was probably her first post-release visit. "Who's your parole officer?" he said. She referred to the form. "Mr. Askew." "He's mine, too," LaMonica said. He lowered his voice. "He's big on playing big brother — a God-squad type. Cry on his shoulder a little bit and ask for advice on something. He'll love it. If you ask, he'll go for waiving the monthly visits." "Thanks for the information." Her German accent was muted and as dreary as her appearance. After his visit to the parole officer, LaMonica waited in the hallway outside the office. When she came out, they entered the elevator together. The door closed. "You were right," she said. "He went for it." "Where'd you do your time?" he said. "Terminal Island." The elevator door opened. They dodged through a crowded lobby onto the street. LaMonica offered her a ride and she accepted. "What are you into?" she said when they were in the car. "Paper." LaMonica started the engine and slipped into the halting downtown traffic. "I did some once," she said. "Hundreds. I passed them in clothing stores in the San Fernando Valley." She gave an amused smile. "I bought so many cheap blouses I could have opened my own shop." "What's your business?" "My old man's business was heroin. I did time because I carried for him. I saw the feds following me so I got scared and threw the bundles out the window. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my whole life. I just lost my cool. When they arrested me they told me that if I hadn't thrown the stuff, they never would have known I was carrying. Every time I think about it it makes me sick." "Who's your old man?" "He's dead," she said. "A rip-off. It happened while I was in." She sighed. "But it may have been for the best. If I was with him now I'd probably be right back in all the shit." LaMonica pulled up to a run-down apartment house in the shadow of the Ambassador Hotel. Without asking, he turned off the engine and accompanied her up some steps to her door. She unlocked it and he followed her in. The one-bedroom apartment was sparsely furnished: a worn sofa and chair, a stack of German-language paperbacks on an end table next to a framed photograph of Sandy holding hands with a black man and dressed in army fatigues. They were posed on a cobblestone street. "That was my old man, in case you were wondering," she said without emotion. She tossed her purse down and sauntered into the tiny kitchen. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "He was a dope fiend and pusher, but he was always good to me." "I guess that's what it's all about," LaMonica said in his most sincere tone. They spent the rest of the afternoon sharing the quart of bourbon. Red-cheeked and tipsy from the liquor, she recounted her life story: a small town outside Munich, a taxi-driver father whose goal in life was to sell enough black-market G.I. liquor to buy his own Gasthaus, a mother who ran away with the town butcher and later came back, a Roman Catholic school whose nuns administered swats at the drop of a hat, and finally the story of her sister. Sandy Hartzbecker told the tale as if she were recounting the success story of the century: "She tricked in a fancy whorehouse in Stuttgart for three years and saved her money. When she left, she had enough to buy a Mercedes-Benz and a new identity. She moved to Frankfurt and started life all over again; told everyone she was a widow, that her husband had been a doctor who lost his life in a car accident. She ended up marrying a rich lawyer. It proved to me that people can make something of themselves if they really want to. I knew that I could be more than a waitress in a G.I. bar for the rest of my life. I left Germany and came to the U.S. with my old man." That evening after some sex talk he followed her into the bedroom. As they undressed he noticed her sinewy housemaid's shoulders, her proud, dark nipples. She threw back the covers and climbed on the bed. He joined her and discovered that her sexual abilities were pretty much along the lines of her general appearance: mediocre at best. Afterward, they lay in the perspiration-soaked bed. She lit a cigarette. "You're different than other men," she said. "Howzat?" "Because you're gentle," she said. "I loved the way you went for my tits. You took your time with me and didn't rush. A tit man is a gentle man. I hate to be just used." The next year of nights was a blur of hotels and motels from Las Vegas to Newport Beach, the days spent passing and selling counterfeit money. Passing one bill at a time at shopping centers and department stores, fast-food joints, grocery markets. LaMonica would wait in the car as Sandy Hartzbecker went from store to store getting change for a twenty or fifty. With package deals, he would make the arrangements with a buyer and she would deliver the bills to a phone booth or a rental locker or a hotel room and pick up the payment. All in all, it was just like the song: a really good year … until Sandy's arrest. A black man with an Afro that looked half a foot high came out of a room on the second floor. He glanced around suspiciously and walked down the stairs to the gold Cadillac. He got in the car and drove off. LaMonica locked his sedan and trotted up the stairs two at a time. He tried the door handle. It was unlocked. He pushed the door open. There was the smell of sex in the room. Sandy Hartzbecker got up off the bed. She was naked, but made no attempt to cover herself. "What the hell do you want?" she asked. "Just to talk," LaMonica said. She grabbed a pair of Levi's off the end of the bed and wiggled into them. "The answer is no," she said. Having yanked on a pullover, she strode to the dresser mirror. Angrily, she picked up a brush. Ignoring his presence, she yanked it through her hair. "Can we just have a drink? For old times' sake, shall we say?" She tossed the brush down and faced him. "The only 'old times' I remember was when I took chances for you and ended up going to the fuckin' joint. You better get out of here before my boyfriend gets back. He can press three hundred pounds." "Your cut in this new thing would be twenty-five C's. I can prove it to you on paper." "You are not part of my life anymore," she said. "I'm not into being a mule or a slave for any man. I'm tired of being used. I'm looking out for myself. You knew I was down here and you never so much as looked me up to say hello. Now you need me for a thing and you want to buy me a drink." "I tried to bail you out." "And I'm sure you tried to send me flowers, too," she said. "There's no need for bullshit. We did our thing and now it's over. I don't need you anymore. I do enough coke and smack deals to keep me in clothes and motels. I'm not greedy. I put everything together myself. No moneymen, no partners, no getting busted for somebody else. I'm my own person, and that's the way I like it. I don't want to work for you or anybody else. I did a lot of thinking when I was in Terminal Island. I look at life a lot more realistically now. I'm no longer your average dumb farm girl." "As a matter of fact, you're the most intelligent woman I've ever met," LaMonica said. His gaze was dead serious. "Yeah, well my brains didn't keep me from getting busted for you and going to the joint." "All I ask is one drink. If you want to talk I'll be down in the bar." He walked out the door and closed it behind him. The bar was a spacious, well-lit place with wicker chairs and decorative tiles on the walls and floors. Paul LaMonica sat at a table and sipped a drink. He kept looking out the window toward Sandy's room. Except for a couple of fishermen at the bar exchanging jokes with the bartender, he was alone in the place. Twenty minutes later Sandy strutted in and LaMonica took a deep breath. The fishermen elbowed one another as she shouted, "Cuba libre, no ice," to the bartender and sat down at LaMonica's table. "I don't like people sneaking up on me," she said. "Neither do I." Sandy Hartzbecker dug a filter tip out of her purse and flamed it with a gold lighter. She sucked smoke. "So many people have gotten busted down here in the last few weeks that I've become paranoid," she said. "And I'm not talking about getting taken down behind a few spoons of coke or a brick of weed. I'm talking about the other night when the federales stormed into Teddy's and dragged some dude right out the door. They drove him straight to the border and shoved him across the white line to a carload of FBI agents. He was good for some bank jobs in San Francisco. But how did they know he was sitting there in Teddy's? It's scary. Really fuckin' scary." The bartender set a drink down in front of her and walked away. She poked the ice with her finger. "The simple explanation," LaMonica said, "is that someone who hangs around Teddy's is a snitch." "There was a time when it seemed like you could trust everyone there," Sandy said. She used the straw. "Trust everyone at Teddy's?" LaMonica laughed. Her face reddened. She pointed a finger at his face. "Look, you sonofabitch, I don't have to take any shit from you. The last time we did something together I'm the one who ended up holding the bag, and to this day I'm not even sure what happened. You told me that the pit boss was wired. Just drop the phony fifties on the pass line,' you said. And without so much as asking you a question, I did just that. He was wired all right! The next thing I know the whole Las Vegas Police Department is dragging me away. Did you know that out of the corner of my eye I saw you sneaking off toward the slot machines? The feds offered to let me go if I would tell them who gave me the counterfeit money. But I kept my mouth shut. I protected you. And did I ask you for any help when they sent me to the penitentiary? No. I escaped on my own, without one bit of help from anyone. And I'll tell you this, I'm a much stronger person for the experience." She took a deep drag on her cigarette. "I've never forgotten that you stood up for me, that you didn't hand me up to the feds," LaMonica said. "You might say that I want to make it up to you with this new caper. "Bullshit," she said. Tears welled in her eyes. It occurred to LaMonica that he had never seen her cry. "I know a lot of women who would love to take a shot at twenty-five grand," LaMonica said. "Hundreds of women would jump at a chance to make twenty-five bucks, much less twenty-five grand. But you and I know that's not the goddamn point. You want me because you know I won't snitch on you if I get caught. You know I've stood the test of fire." "In certain ways that's true." "You are the most selfish person I have ever known, Sandy said. "Everything revolves around you. It's what turned me off about you. I can't believe we spent almost a year together." She shook her head. "In this new thing you wouldn't even have to cross the border," LaMonica said. The bartender brought another drink. He set it down. "The answer is still no." LaMonica was silent for a moment. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the counterfeit passport. He opened it and showed Sandy her photograph. Her eyes lit up. He shoved it back in his pocket. "The passport would be your bonus," he said. Sandy Hartzbecker looked out the window for a while. "You actually like to fuck with a person's mind, don't you? You know I want to go back home. I'd be safe. The Germans would never extradite one of their own citizens." "A few simple meetings on this side of the border is all I'm asking," he said. "Meetings with who?" "With a turkey, a square who won't know who you are. You will play a part. You'll be in on the whole thing with me, so you'll be able to see exactly how much money is involved. I intend to split fifty-fifty with you, and you'll be right in the middle with me to see that there's no back-stabbing, no rip-offs. We would be partners." The fishermen laughed hysterically about something and ordered more tequila. Sandy Hartzbecker sipped her drink and set the glass down. She lit a cigarette and puffed twice. Smoke floated from her mouth. "Will you repeat what you've promised me in front of my boyfriend?" Her lips were pursed in a determined manner. "Sure," LaMonica said sarcastically, "and then maybe we should drive down to Teddy's and announce our business to every American thief and dope pusher in Baja. Let's let the whole world in on it. What the hell." "You don't have to tell him what it's about, and I won't either. I swear. But I want you to make the commitment in front of him." She lowered her voice. "If I don't get my cut when it's over, then he'll come for you. He'll be my insurance." "Maybe we should get a lawyer to draw up a contract?" LaMonica said with a sneer. "Can your nigger read?" "You are a bigoted chauvinist pig," she said, her voice cracking. "Mr. Cool is more of a together person than you ever could be. It was a black man not a white man who married me and brought me to the U.S. I would still be serving beer to G.I.s for four marks an hour if it hadn't been for him. He was a dope fiend, but he treated me better than any white man ever has — including you." LaMonica stood up. "I'll be at Teddy's tonight," he said. "If you want in, meet me there. You can bring your boyfriend." He walked out the door wondering whether he should have played it a little softer.Chapter 11
Lamonica had been in Teddy's for over an hour, sitting at a corner table sipping beer. Teddy flitted from table to table with his tequila bottle and lemon. Sandy came in the door followed by her boyfriend. Mr. Cool wore a form-fitting T-shirt the same color as his skin. His biceps were puffed, veiny. Sandy pointed and he strolled to LaMonica's table. Unsmiling, the black man sat down. He had boozy, red-rimmed eyes and a moon-shaped scar on his cheek. Looking self-conscious, Sandy walked past them to the bar. LaMonica stared at the weightlifter with a blank expression. "I'm offering Sandy a piece of a thing I have under way. Her part will be a few simple meetings. I'm promising her twenty-five grand when it's over." He sipped his drink. The black man made a half smile. "Is this a paper thing?" "I guess you could say that," LaMonica said. "Just what kind of paper do we be talking about?" Mr. Cool folded his arms and leaned forward on the cocktail table. The table tilted. LaMonica sat back as if the man across from him were diseased. "High-quality paper." "Then we be talking about funny money," Mr. Cool said. "Is that what we be talking about?" LaMonica sipped his drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "What part don't you understand, brother?" "Just exactly what the fuck do the lady have to do, man?" Mr. Cool said. "Some things people have to do are worth more money than other things people have to do." "If the lady decides she wants in, then she will do exactly what the fuck I tell her to do," LaMonica said. "That's what she has to do." "You didn't answer the muthafuckin' question." "Why don't you give it to me again?" "Man, why don't you quit the shuckin' and jivin' and get down to talkin' some business? The lady asked me to check things out and make sure it all goes right for her, that she ain't going to get ripped off. If I don't give her the go-ahead, then she for damn sure ain'tgonna join your little party. Do you see where I'm comin' from?" "Like I said, her part will be a couple of meetings with a sucker," LaMonica said. "She plays a part. We score and split fifty thousand. This is a guarantee." "In other words, the lady have to show her face. And if she have to be showing her face, then she's right out there on Front Street when the pigs come around with their pictures," he said. He lit a menthol cigarette. LaMonica looked the man in the eye. He said nothing. "You'll have to deal with me if she don't get what's comin' to her," the black man said. "She'll get it," LaMonica said. "But it won't be because I'm afraid of you, nigger." Mr. Cool stared at LaMonica for a moment. Then he got up and went to the bar. He and Sandy whispered. Sandy came back to the table and said, "Okay, when and where?" There were tears in her eyes. "I'll pick you up at your motel day after tomorrow," LaMonica said. "Pack a bag." "Where are we going?" "Up to Tijuana." During the twenty-minute ride from the airport the cabdriver drawled on about how much Houston had grown and LaMonica acted as if he were interested. He pulled up in front of a gunmetal-gray building with letters over a bank of glass doors that spelled "National Headquarters Travelers Chex Incorporated." LaMonica paid the taxi fare, including tip, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He checked every pocket in his clothing as a final security measure, making sure he carried no identification with his real name. He strode into the building. The reception area was decorated with a Texas state flag, travel photos, and a blowup of a purplish traveler's check. The receptionist, a young Mexican woman with dark lips and eyes, was courteous. He told her he wanted to talk to the director of security. She made a brief phone call and showed him into an office decorated with police paraphernalia: insignia patches, inscribed billy-clubs. The fat man behind the desk stood up and shook hands. It was hard to tell his age. He had smooth pink cheeks that probably didn't require more than a once-a-week shave. His hair was black and looked as if it had been pasted onto his head in little greasy gobs. He wore a clip-on necktie. "Omar T. Lockhart," he boomed. "I'm the director of security." LaMonica introduced himself as Roger Brown and handed the man a business card. Lockhart motioned him to a chair. He read the business card out loud: "International Investigative Service." "Most of my clients are corporations," LaMonica said. "I see. And what can I do for you?" Lockhart made a little pointless laugh. "I am a private investigator," LaMonica said. "I represent a client who wants to provide information concerning the counterfeiting of your company's traveler's checks. My client demands anonymity, and I have given her my personal and professional assurances that her identity will be protected. Frankly, she fears for her life." Omar T. Lockhart slid forward in his chair. He took off his glasses and held them up to the light. "In other words, she wants to be paid a reward for her information," he said, putting the glasses back on. He flexed his eyebrows a few times and coughed without putting a hand over his mouth. "And just how will you be paid?" LaMonica gave a puzzled look. "My fee?" he said. "Yes," Lockhart said, "that is what I'm asking you." "I'm working on a percentage of the recovery fee plus expenses. That should be no secret." Lockhart nodded knowingly. He looked out the window. "I'll get to the point," LaMonica said. "My client has knowledge of a stash of one million dollars in traveler's checks. They're five-hundred-dollar-denomination checks." Lockhart turned to LaMonica. "Do you have a sample?" LaMonica pulled a business-sized envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to Lockhart. Lockhart removed the check from the envelope and examined it carefully before putting it back in the envelope. "And just what do we have to do to get our hands on these checks?" Lockhart said. "I'll have to convince my client that it's worth the risk." Lockhart nodded. "I understand." "She is a very street-wise lady," LaMonica said. "She knows full well that traveler's-check companies bear the full dollar loss on counterfeit checks that are passed. She wants ten percent of the dollar amount of the recovery. Lockhart laughed. "Just a hundred thousand dollars?" he said. "No way we are going to pay any such reward, my good man. No way." "I'm just relaying what she's told me. I'm only a middle-man." LaMonica stood up and stretched. He went to the window. The view was of a sprawling business area mixing into suburbs; a town of fast-buck artists, chance takers, oil thieves. "I know you'll want to discuss this with your superiors," he said. "Perhaps we could meet again tomorrow?" Lockhart looked puzzled. He nodded. "If you do decide to deal with my client, I would insist that you make no contact with the police or FBI until the investigation is in its final stages," LaMonica said. "Police agencies have a tendency to move too quickly and could compromise my client." "Of course those decisions are ours alone to make," Lockhart said. LaMonica turned to the security man. "Speaking as a professional private investigator, I'm telling you that my client will not work with the police. Period. I don't intend to waste my time and have the case blown before we are able to locate and recover the counterfeit checks-all of them. There will be plenty of time for the police to make arrests once the investigation is at the proper stage." "That sounds fair enough," Lockhart said. The men shook hands and Paul LaMonica walked out the door. Lockhart returned to his desk. After staring at Brown's business card for a few seconds, he dialed the Los Angeles telephone number on it. A woman answered. "International Investigative Service." "Mr. Roger Brown, please," he said. "I'm sorry. Mr. Brown is out of town for a few days. May I tell him who called?" "I'd prefer to just give him a call in a few days. I have some work for him. Uh, I take it your firm does handle corporate work?" "Yes," the woman said. "This firm handles private investigations and industrial security work for major corporations. May I take your name and address?" Lockhart set the receiver down. The conference room was decorated with a set of Texas longhorns and a color photograph of John Wayne standing in front of the Alamo. He was holding up a book of traveler's checks. Omar T. Lockhart sat in a seat at the end of the mahogany table next to the vice-president for personnel. The table was filled with men wearing dark suits. He had stood up and given his briefing, using as much police jargon as possible. By the time the questions started, there was a definite air of urgency in the room and Lockhart knew full well that he had created it. "Who is this 'private eye'?" said the gray-haired man at the opposite end of the table. His expression was grim, perhaps a requirement for a chairman of the board. "I've checked him out, Mr. Stallworth. He's an independent from Los Angeles. He does corporate work mostly." The eyes at the table went from one man to another like a crowd at a tennis match. "Just how good are these counterfeit checks?" Stallworth said. "Excellent quality," Lockhart said. He removed a check from a folder and held it up. "Easy to pass," he added, realizing that his usual board-room butterflies had almost gone away. Everyone was looking at the check. Stallworth spoke. "How many of these have actually been passed?" "Just a few in Ensenada, Mexico, a couple of days ago. They were passed in a bar," Lockhart said. "They've just started to pop up. For once we're right on top of the operation. We have a chance of recovering the checks before they get into heavy circulation." "Get him down to some reasonable figure," Stallworth said. "We'll pay, but we're not going to pay full fare." "And the police?" Lockhart said. "The private investigator is probably right in that regard," Stallworth said. "If we bring in the police or the FBI at this point, they will take control. Naturally, they'll be more interested in arresting crooks than recovering the counterfeit checks before we end up eating a million-dollar loss. For the time being let's keep the police out of it." Stallworth looked at his watch. "I want you to report to me every day on this matter." "Yes, sir," Lockhart said. Stallworth pushed his chair back. Everyone stood up. The chairman of the board left the room. Omar T. Lockhart felt perspiration trickle down the middle of his back.Chapter 12
Carr and Kelly sat in a sedan across the street from the Castaways Lounge. The tavern was sandwiched between a porno shop with a cloth hanging over its front door and a storefront telephone answering service that Carr knew was used as a contact point for whores and pimps. Over the front entrance to the bar was a sign that read "No T-shirts or Bare Feet." As usual, Kelly insisted on getting out of the sedanand stretching his legs every half hour. So far he had done this four or five times. He finished reading a newspaper and tossed it in the backseat. "Have you ever thought about what this does to a person's health?" Kelly said. Carr gave him a puzzled look. "Just sitting on your butt all day in the front seat of a car," Kelly said. "Lack of exercise, food can't digest properly. It's bad for the circulation, too. Just as soon as we get off work, what do we do? We sit on our butts at Ling's bar, swilling drinks and eating greasy chicken rolls. There's absolutely nothing healthful about the job. If you let it, the job will kill ya, outright kill ya. Death by blood clots in the legs." "Linda said he comes here every Friday without fail," Carr said, gazing across the street. "We'll probably still be sitting here at midnight," Kelly said. Carr shrugged. Less than half an hour later, a Cadillac pulled up in front of the bar. Teddy Mora opened the door, got out, and glanced around. He was wearing a tropical shirt, white pants, and sandals. The T-men ducked down in the seat as Mora sauntered through the front door. They sat up again. "Okay," Kelly said. "The asshole showed up. If he's peddling counterfeit money, he's got to have some on him. I say we stroll right into the place, throw him up against a wall, and see what he's got in his goddamn pockets. Nothing to lose, really, and we might even get lucky." "Let's wait until we catch his act," Carr said. "We could be here forever," Kelly said. Three hours later, Mora exited the front door and looked around. He walked to the Cadillac and got in. "Let's just grab him and see if he's holding," Kelly said. "Not yet," Carr said. His eyes were riveted to the Cadillac. Mora started the Caddy and drove past them. Carr fumbled with the ignition and squealed tires making a U-turn. He followed, letting Mora stay a block or so ahead. Suddenly the Cadillac pulled into a small parking lot next to a hamburger stand. Mora parked and got out. He shuffled into a telephone booth and closed the door. Moments later he exited the booth and returned to his vehicle. He started the engine and drove off. "Pretty short phone call," Carr said, his eyes still on the phone booth. "You're right, partner." Kelly got out of the car, strolled to the phone booth, and stepped inside. A minute later he returned to the sedan and climbed in. "The booth is loaded. There's a stack of bogus twenties taped under the phone box," Kelly said, digging around in the glove compartment. He found a set of handcuff s and stuffed them in his pocket. In less than ten minutes, a white Porsche with a bumper sticker that read "Happiness is Being Single" pulled up next to the hamburger stand. An emaciated-looking young man wearing tight Levi's and a tank top got out on the driver's side. He had a grayish complexion. Tugging nervously at his mop of curly hair, he surveyed the street carefully. Finally, he stepped into the telephone booth and pushed the accordion door closed. "He was in the Castaways earlier," Kelly said. "I remember the car." The young man picked up the telephone receiver and held it to his ear. His other hand sought the bottom of the phone box. He shoved something into his pants pocket and opened the door. After glancing around, he stepped out of the booth and headed for the Porsche. "He's got it!" Carr said on his way out of the sedan. He ran across the street at full speed. As he approached, the young man ripped an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the ground. He dove for the door of the sports car. Carr grabbed the man's arm and spun it behind him. "Federal officers," he said. "You're under arrest." The young man gave a moan. Kelly snatched the envelope off the ground. He handed Carr the handcuffs. Carr fastened them onto the man's wrists. He dragged the struggling man across the street to the sedan and shoved him into the backseat. Kelly climbed in next to the prisoner. He thumbed through the stack of counterfeit notes as Carr walked around the sedan and got into the driver's seat. The young man's eyes were shut. "I'm fucked," he said, shaking his head. "I'm on parole right now. I'll get violated. God damn it!" There were inch-long strands of curly hair growing on the man's sallow cheeks. His nose was running. Kelly handed Carr the packet of counterfeit money. The T-man looked at it without expression for a moment. The prisoner squirmed. "Pretty rough," Carr said. "Taking a trip back to the joint for such a little package…" The young man's mouth hung open like a baby bird's. His eyes were shut. "God damn it," he cried. "I shoulda never left my apartment. I had nightmares last night. Shit comes down on me whenever I have nightmares. My roommate told me not to do anything today…God damn it." "We want Teddy Mora," Carr said without emotion. The man was silent for what must have been a full minute. "I ain't no snitch," he said. "I didn't say you were," Carr responded. "But you just might be a businessman. If you are a businessman, you'll realize that now is the time to make a deal." "Exactly what kind of a deal?" The man leaned forward in the seat. "You for Teddy Mora," Carr said. The young man looked out the window for a while and sniffled a few times. "I'll never testify. I'm not crazy. I've seen what happens to people when they-" "You won't have to testify," Carr interrupted. He lit a cigarette. "If I take this thing to trial I might beat it altogether. I beat my first case that way. My lawyer told me what to say." He twisted around to wipe his nose on his shoulder. He missed. "The assistant U.S. attorney was a broad with wire hair. She kept trying to use big words; got all screwed up when she asked questions. My lawyer told me he met her at a lawyer's party after the trial. She cried about losing the case. He said she blew him in the front seat of his Mercedes after the party. He tells everybody the story." "On the other hand, you might go to trial and lose," Carr said. "That's what happened the second time," the young man said. "The judge sentenced me to probation on the case." "There's a chance you might get a little prison time for the third offense," Carr said. The man nodded. "Just happened to a friend of mine. He got six months-that means two months in the joint minus good time and all." He shook his head sadly. "On the other hand, why do even two months?" Carr said. The man sat quietly for a few minutes. He leaned his head down to wipe his nose on a knee. He missed. "Exactly what would I have to do?" "Just phone Teddy and tell him you want some more, Carr said. "Then will you let me go?" "Yes." The young man furrowed his brow. His head turned from Carr to Kelly and back to Carr. "I want it in writing," he said. "I don't trust cops. I've been screwed before." "We don't put things in writing," Carr said. The prisoner leaned forward and attempted to wipe his dripping nose on his knee. Again he missed. He closed his mouth and inhaled. "This guy is making me sick," Kelly said. "Let's book him." " If you won't put it in writing, will you repeat what you've just said in front of my lawyer?" "We hate lawyers," Carr told him. Nothing was said for a few minutes. "Will you let me go as soon as I make the call?" the young man said. "As soon as you make the call," Carr said. The man leaned back in the seat. He was silent again. Finally, he spoke. "He'll know it was me." Carr stuffed the counterfeit money back in its envelope. He initialed and dated it, then pulled a rubber band off the rearview mirror and wrapped it around the envelope. Roughly he shoved the packet into his inside coat pocket. "You're right," Carr said. He started the engine. The young man sat up. "Where are we going?" "To lock you up," Carr said. He put the car in gear. "Okay. I'll call him," the young man said. "But I've never snitched before. I really haven't." Carr turned off the engine. Kelly reached behind the man's back and unlocked the handcuffs. He opened the car door and ushered the prisoner to the telephone booth. Carr followed. Kelly dropped a dime in the slot and handed the prisoner the receiver. He dialed, with Kelly looming over him like a grizzly. He asked to speak with Teddy Mora. A few seconds went by. "It's me," he said. "I picked up the… uh… letter at the phone company. Yes, everything is okay." He bit his lip. "It's just that the letter isn't big enough. I need another one of the same size. I wasn't thinking when I placed my first order. I'm planning to take a trip and the letter won't last. I want to have enough to last throughout the trip." The young man's face contorted. He bit harder on his lip. "Well, then you can just forget it, man. Like I can score somewhere else. If you don't want to go to the trouble of delivering another letter, I'll just take my business elsewheres… okay, man… okay… The same place. You know I'm good for it…I don't like to talk on the phone either. Right on." The young man hung up the phone. "He's coming to deliver another package to this phone booth," he said. "He was pissed off that I didn't order a bigger one to start with. I did what you wanted." He shook his head sadly. "Now I know what it feels like to rat on somebody." He wiped his nose with two fingers and rubbed the fingers on his trousers. "I shouldn't have done it," he said. Carr's thumb pointed to the Porsche. "Nice to meet you," he said. "I wasn't sure you were going to keep your word," the man said. Carr mocked a smile. The man trotted to the Porsche, climbed in, and drove off. Carr and Kelly returned to the government sedan. Teddy Mora arrived less than ten minutes later. He parked his Cadillac next to the phone booth and got out. The Treasury men had their hands on the door handles. They vaulted out of the sedan and broke into a run. They hit Mora like the Rams' line, knocking him to the ground. They each grabbed an arm and pressed him to the pavement. Carr's fingers flew to the man's pockets and pulled out a stack of twenties. "I was set up," Mora said as Kelly snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.Chapter 13
The field office interview room was paneled with cheap acoustical fiberboard and was, as all police interview rooms are, less than adequate in size. Carr, with Kelly at his side filling out an arrest report, stared at Mora across a small table. He asked him about LaMonica. Mora's arms were folded across his chest. "I saw LaMonica a couple of days ago in the Castaways," he said. "I see a lot of people there." "What did you talk about?" Carr said. "About money. We always talk about money-business deals. I'm an entrepreneur." "Where do you know him from?" Carr said. Mora unfolded his arms and tried to rest them in his lap. This didn't work. He folded them across his chest again. "Terminal Island. We did time together. I'm sure you already know that." "So you talked about money…" Carr said. "That's right. He had some kind of a deal going, and it turned to shit. Some kind of a real-estate deal. Of course he didn't go into detail about it. I assumed it had turned to shit when he came and asked me for a loan. I told him no. That's all I know about him. As far as my head shop, he was there once and he probably figured it was a good place to escape through…the alley and all." Carr stood up and removed his coat. He hung it on the back of his chair. He sat down again. "Where can we find him?" he said. "I have no idea. Maybe San Francisco or Las Vegas. But I truthfully have no idea where he lives," Mora said. Carr was silent for a moment. He looked at Kelly. "If you don't tell us everything you know about LaMonica, we'll be forced to camp out on your ass just like we did today. We'll either end up arresting you again or putting you out of business, or both." "Get the picture, clown?" Kelly said. Mora stared at the wall. Sitting there, his sagging body barely fitting the government-issue chair, the angular man looked foolish, perhaps inconsequential. "LaMonica lives out of the state," he said. "I swear I don't know where. He was here in L.A. putting together some sort of a legitimate business deal. If you know anything at all about him, you'll know that he never tells anyone his business. As God is my witness, that's all I know about the sonofabitch. Now will you let me post bail? I have appointments to keep." Carr stood up and opened the door. He nodded at Kelly. Kelly stood up. "Sure," he said. "We wouldn't want to keep all those nice folks down at the Castaways waiting for their twenties." He grabbed the man's arm and pulled him out the door. Carr and Kelly pulled up in front of a large store front with a sign that read "Lithographic Supply Service of Los Angeles." They went in. Three hours later they were still there, coats off, crowded around a messy desk in the manager's office. The manager, a neat, older man who wore glasses with wire frames and a long-sleeved dress shirt that was a size too big, hovered over them as they sorted through piles of invoices. "How do you know he ordered the supplies from here?" the manager asked sternly. "Your telephone number was on the toll record we subpoenaed from the phone company," Carr said without looking up. "And the name Robert French?" The manager folded his arms across his chest. "Someone heard him make a call and order some ink," Carr said. He pushed aside a stack of invoices and dug into another. "It seems to me," said the manager, "that what we're talking about here is counterfeiting." His tone was grave. Kelly gave the man an odd look. "All printers have tried it once," the stern man said. "What's that?" Carr said. He smiled courteously. "Counterfeiting," the manager said. "Every printer tries it once. They try it just as a lark and destroy the bills afterward. You know, just to see if they can do it." "Hot damn!" Kelly said, holding up one of the invoices like a rat's tail. He dropped it in front of Carr. Carr read the invoice. It listed a sale of black, blue, green, and red ink plus fifteen reams of No. 53 paper to Robert French. Carr handed the invoice to the manager. The manager studied the paper with a determined look. "Fifty-three is Ardmore Bond, a fairly high-quality paper. We don't get much call for it. This was a cash deal. An over-the-counter transaction." Carr scribbled something in his notebook and stuffed it into his coat pocket. The agents stood up to leave and Carr thanked the manager. "No thanks are necessary," he said with a sour look. "This shop has been broken into twice during the last year. I hope you catch the man you're looking for and put him in a penitentiary forever. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Forever." He pursed his lips. "We'll sure try," Carr said on his way out the door. Kelly gave the man a little salute. Carr and Kelly were alone in the squad room. Files, all bearing LaMonica's name, were spread out across Carr's desk. Most of them were marked "Career Criminal," as if such a term had real meaning. Carr had spent the last two hours carefully going over the reports, summaries, and evaluations in them. The Treasury main file included specimen photographs of the counterfeit notes LaMonica had printed throughout the years, mixed in with arrest sheets, conviction forms, intelligence reports, and a stack of booking photographs in which LaMonica's hair became progressively grayer, his jowls slacker. He and Carr were about the same age. The only remarkable difference from other such files was the absence of confession forms. Even LaMonica's first arrest (caught red-handed in a bank changing twenties into hundreds) reflected a refusal to give out anything other than his name. As a matter of fact, after his last arrest, he had refused even that. Carr pulled a memorandum from a banded stack of papers covered by a note labeled: "Not for Dissemination Outside Department of justice." It read: TO: Chief Federal Probation Officer FROM: Carl Teagarten-Deputy Federal Probation Officer SUBJECT: Probationer Paul A. LaMonica-Six-Week Release Report 1. Although probationer LaMonica has a bad habit of falling back into a criminal pattern, he has been out of federal prison for six weeks now and seems to be adjusting. Although he has not gained employment yet, he tells me that he has made a number of applications seeking work as a salesman. I have not allowed him to seek any printing-related occupation for the obvious reasons. 2. LaMonica remains somewhat of a loner and tells me that his free time is spent reading and going to the movies. 3. He rented a fairly expensive apartment in Beverly Hills last week. When I questioned him about it he was very cooperative. Apparently he has recently come into some sort of an inheritance from a distant relative (I haven't had time to verify this, but hope to by the next six-week report). He also made a down payment on a sports car with the same source of income. 4. I have received a number of calls from various law-enforcement agencies for LaMonica's current address, but have refused to provide it under terms of the Privacy Act. 5. Overall, Mr. LaMonica seems to be adjusting quite well at present. He continues to have an overwhelming desire to be accepted by others. Carr shook his head. He turned to Kelly who was dialing a phone at the next desk. "Ever meet anyone who didn't have a desire to be accepted?" "Whatsat?" Kelly said. "Never mind," Carr said. He read the last report in the file. It was a year old and described how LaMonica had been caught in his Beverly Hills apartment with $50,000 in counterfeit twenties. Carr closed the file. Kelly jammed the phone down. "That was headquarters," he said. "LaMonica learned to print years ago in the Terminal Island print shop — some sort of a prison rehabilitation program." He gave a harsh laugh. Carr stood up and stretched. He walked to the window. "LaMonica is getting ready to print," he said. "He bought black, green, red, and blue ink and a lot of paper. He would need black and green in order to print money, but I can't figure the blue and red." Kelly shrugged. "Who the hell knows?" he said. "But there's one thing you can count on. He wouldn't buy ink and paper unless he already had everything else he needed: press, platemaker, photo equipment. He's probably running off a load somewhere right now." "There's another thing that's for sure," Carr said, still staring out the window. "We don't have any leads."Chapter 14
It was Saturday afternoon. Charles Carr slowed down to the speed limit as he approached the garish neon billboards that marked the beginning of the Las Vegas strip. He'd been lounging around Sally's apartment drinking coffee that morning when Sally had pointed at a newspaper advertisement for Las Vegas. With that, she'd jumped up and started throwing things into an overnight bag. "If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," she said. He went with her. And during the trip she managed to talk the whole way. It was as if she were trying to compensate Carr for the long hours of sagebrush and telephone-line scenery. Her topics were familiar ones: judge Malcolm's college-age girl friend, the stenographers association's proposed fifteen-day bus tour of Europe, burgeoning rent and inflation, her sister's beautiful and talented children, and Judge Malcolm's shrewish, menopausal wife. Sally finally stopped talking. She slid over next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's been such a long time since we've taken one of our spur-of-the-moment trips," she said. "Get an idea and just go." She slid a hand inside his shirt and touched the hair on his chest. "You're so quiet." At the check-in desk of the Silver Dollar Hotel and Casino, a mirrored place with a casino lobby the size of a football field, Carr signed the guest register "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Carr." They spent the evening strolling in and out of the casinos, sipping cocktails, playing slot machines, people-watching along the strip. Carr rolled dice for a while at one place, but stopped when he realized Sally was bored. They caught the midnight stage show at the Dunes Hotel and afterward they ordered more than they could eat at a swanky Italian restaurant. They didn't get to bed until after 3:00 A.M., and then they made love for a particularly long time. Sally joked about the therapeutic effects of wine. After exchanging tender goodnight kisses, Carr dropped off into slumber. During the night he reached over to touch Sally and she wasn't there. She came back to bed and was silent for several minutes, but Carr could tell by her breathing that she hadn't gone to sleep. "Are you awake?" Sally finally whispered. "Yes." "We don't communicate on the same wavelength," she said. "We communicate in bed and when we're out and have had a few drinks. Other than that, you're like a stranger. You could be someone I sat next to on a bus. We've dated for years and I still truly do not understand you. Damn." Carr fluffed a pillow. He leaned back against the headboard. "Let's get up and hit a couple of crap tables before we go back," he said. "We might get lucky." "Please communicate with me, Charlie." Carr rubbed his eyes for a moment. He sat up in bed. "We once stood in line in a Vegas parking lot in order to pay some clown fifty dollars to read marriage vows off a three-by-five card. But I couldn't go through with it. I don't want to buy a tract house. I don't want to join the P.T.A. I don't want to go to cocktail parties with the neighbors. I don't want to wear matching tennis shorts. I don't like picnics or Little League games…" "In other words, you are a completely fulfilled person," she said. "You are satisfied with your life. Is that what you're saying?" "No," Carr said in a low and serious tone. "It was about a year ago when I faced myself for the first time in my life. I woke up one morning and went to the breakfast table. It was cold in my apartment and I was alone. I thought about the fact that someday I was going to have to retire. And do you know what I said to myself?" Sally sat up. "What?" "I said, It's time to start taking yoga lessons. I never got around to taking them, mind you, but I thought seriously about it, and as a matter of fact, later that day I bought a quart of yogurt and mixed it with some bran flakes." "You're making fun of me," Sally Malone said. Angrily, she threw the covers back and got out of bed. She fumbled with cigarettes and matches on a dresser table. "I'm sorry for having brought up anything more serious than a Dodger game," she said. Carr reached out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her back into bed. As she protested, he covered her mouth with his. In the morning they grabbed a quick breakfast and headed back to Los Angeles. The airport was a swarming arena; everyone dragging trunks, suitcases, and children from place to place, shouting instructions to one another, waiting impatiently in lines. Paul LaMonica dialed a number on the pay phone. He put a finger in the other ear to keep out the noise. A secretary connected him with Omar T. Lockhart. "I've spoken with my client," LaMonica said without introduction. "I'd like you to meet me at the Houston Airport, in the bar, as soon as possible. I'm waiting to catch a flight." That will give you a chance to have someone follow me, you pig-eyed sonofabitch, he thought. There was a silence. "Okay," Lockhart said. "I'll be right down." He sounded annoyed. LaMonica hung up the telephone. He went straight to a ticket counter, stood in line, and bought a ticket to San Diego. The clerk handed him the ticket and a boarding pass. "You're all checked in, Mr. Ross," the clerk said. "We'll board in an hour." The bar, situated on a balcony overlooking a maze of ticket counters, had few customers. LaMonica waited behind a bank of rental lockers until Lockhart picked out a table and sat down. A minute later a husky man with a shaved head sat down at the bar itself. He and Lockhart exchanged glances. LaMonica strolled over to Lockhart's table and sat down without a greeting. Lockhart spoke first. "My company doesn't like to involve itself in this sort of business," he said. A short-skirted waitress wearing a cowboy hat came to the table. They ordered Bloody Marys and the waitress walked away. "We're not jumping into anything half-cocked. You're going to have to give me some background details before we go any further." "Be happy to," LaMonica said. "My client was the girl friend of Freddie Roth, a well-known counterfeiter. I say 'was' because Roth was murdered about a year ago in an underworld dispute. At the time of his death he had just finished printing two million dollars' worth of your precious traveler's checks. Apparently he had a European buyer for the whole batch. Anyway, my client is sitting on the checks, all of them, right now. That's the story in brief." A wave of perspiration was evident on both of Lockhart's chins. He avoided looking toward the man at the bar. "Now I'll ask you the prize question," he said. "How much will she settle for?" The waitress brought drinks. Lockhart took a healthy gulp and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Ten percent," LaMonica said. "A hundred thousand dollars? You can go back and tell her flat out that she's not going to get it. Flat out. No way," Lockhart said. LaMonica sipped his drink. "The amount of money she wants is not even the hard part," he said. "Freddie Roth's last printing job was contracted by the Mafia…yes, the actual honest-to-God Italian Mafia. If you check on Roth you'll see he was well connected. After Roth's murder, she tried to peddle some of the checks. They found out about it and sent some hoods to take the checks from her. My client heard they were coming, grabbed the checks, and went into hiding. She had planned to live by passing a few of the checks now and then-as you can see, they're of very high quality, easy to pass-but she got cold feet." LaMonica smiled "I don't know whether she was more afraid of the Mafia or the police." "And just how did you get involved?" Lockhart asked. "I do investigative work for her attorney," LaMonica said. "He asked me to check out her story; she owes him a sizable legal fee." He wiped condensation off the outside of his glass. "We're not going to pay ten percent," Lockhart said. His chin dripped sweat. It seemed he had nothing else to say. "I'll certainly relay that message to her," LaMonica said. "I just hope the Mafia won't pay ten percent either. She's negotiating with them, too, as you may have already guessed. As I understand it, their distribution problems are minimum." He looked at his wristwatch. "I've got a flight to catch." Lockhart nodded dumbly. LaMonica got up and they shook hands. "I'll be back in touch," he said. "I want to meet your client. I have to speak with her in person," Lockhart said as if mouthing his one and only line in the school play. "I'll tell her that." LaMonica headed down an escalator and made his way to the boarding gates. At the intersection of two busy corridors, he hid behind a ticket-counter partition. Moments later the man with the shaved head rushed past him like a hound after a rabbit. LaMonica checked his watch once again, then trotted to a boarding area at the opposite end of the airport. He approached a gate and gave a red-suited boarding agent his ticket. "You just made it, Mr. Ross," said the man. "Please hurry. The flight is ready to depart." LaMonica rushed down the boarding ramp and onto the plane. He found his seat and fastened his seat belt. The jumbo jet was only half full. In the seat next to him was a bespectacled young woman wearing designer jeans and a cashmere sweater. She was reading a thick book. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back smartly. As the plane lifted off LaMonica leaned back and took a deep breath. After a while, the woman put the book down and stretched. LaMonica smiled. She smiled back. "Live in San Diego?" he said. The woman shook her head. "Business trip." "I love your sweater," he said. "In fact, I bought my wife one just like it. I was in New York at a medical convention and I missed her birthday. I feel lust awful about it." The woman smiled. "She'll forgive you. I take it you're a doctor?" "Yes, I'm a neurosurgeon. My name is Bill Adams." They shook hands. "Carol Williamson," she said. "I'm a buyer for a department store." "I just hate to travel," he said. "I guess I'm kind of a homebody." "I don't mind it so much," she said. LaMonica closed his eyes. Later, he slid back in his seat and allowed Carol Williamson to step into the aisle. She found her way to the front of the cabin and entered the lavatory. LaMonica looked around carefully. With one hand, he opened her purse and dug out a wallet. His fingers flew to the money pouch. About fifty dollars. Not worth the risk. He pulled two of the ten or so credit cards out of the wallet and pocketed them, then shoved the wallet back into the purse and shut it. He leaned back and closed his eyes again. When Carol Williamson returned and stepped gingerly around him, he acted as if he were asleep. As her leg brushed his he imagined grabbing her crotch with both hands and squeezing until she cried. She wiggled back into her seat. When she tried to initiate some small talk, he ignored her. Over the intercom the pilot announced the weather forecast for San Diego. By midnight LaMonica would be back across the border and at the safe house. He visualized himself lying on the cot-naked, secure and comfortable. Women (he recognized none of them) stood by the bed clutching rattan baskets overflowing with money. They nodded to one another and emptied the baskets over his body. Some of the money fell off the sides of the cot and onto the floor. He was immersed in crisp, rich greenbacks, unable to move, unable to touch himself.Chapter 15
The floor of the huge jai-alai auditorium was a carpet of discarded betting tickets and empty beer cups, the refuse of a seedy-looking crowd (at least half were Americans) that milled around the betting windows. The electronic tote boards at either end of the fronton flashed changing odds on the Perfecta, Quiniela, and Trifecta combinations, gambling jargon designed to avoid the use of the word lose. The court itself was an enormous well-lit stage shielded by fine netting. On its left side half a dozen bored-looking Mexican men sat in a cagelike affair waiting to compete. They were dressed in white trousers and colorful shirts. Paul LaMonica found Sandy sitting alone in the reserved section. He plopped down in a seat next to her. "They want to meet you," he said. "Are they suspicious?" She turned the page of the program she was reading. "A little. You can't blame them. There's a lot of money involved," LaMonica said in a confident tone. Sandy closed the program and stared at the court. "I don't like showing my face. It scares the shit out of me to show my face," she said. "No U.S. soil, no U.S. crime," LaMonica said. "But they could put us together behind a conspiracy." "So what's another grain of sand on the beach?" LaMonica said. The players marched to the middle of the court and bowed to scattered applause. Two of them strutted to the service line while the rest returned to the cage. The game began. "They're no better than the greyhounds who chase the mechanical rabbit," Sandy said, her eyes on the court, "or racehorses. They just come out like slaves and perform. Sad, don't you think?" "I'm sure they're not too sad in the locker room every night when they sit around and cut up the side bets," LaMonica said. "Racehorses with brains." "I hope they don't ask me too much about this Freddie Roth person," Sandy said. "If they do, you just play it by ear — keep everything vague." The pelota slammed against the front wall like a rifle shot. It bounced back full court. A player was waiting. He caught the ball and roundhoused it back. "Mr. Cool keeps asking me about you," she said. "He's afraid you're going to rip me off." Sandy gave him a funny smile. "Your main man," LaMonica said sarcastically. "We're just using each other," Sandy said. "Just like you and I always have." "I don't like him." "You don't like anyone. Particularly black people. You've always been that way." They didn't speak again until the first game was over. The number-three player had beaten number seven with a kill shot to the corner. "I want you to keep your Mr. Cool out of this," LaMonica said. "What you do with him on your own is your business. You and I had something once, but that's over now. I have no jealousy." "You never had any kind of feelings," she said, her eyes on the fronton. LaMonica ignored the remark. "I have a good feeling about our thing. And I'm positive that we'll be able to get it done if we can just keep the program simple and avoid getting other people involved. These things have a tendency to draw outsiders. They smell the bucks at the end of the line. We must avoid letting anyone else in on our act. The risk is too great.""You always keep everything to yourself," she said. "For the whole year we were together I never had any idea where we were going or what we were going to do from one day to the next. I realized it after the cops grabbed me in Las Vegas. They asked me where we were planning to hit next. I actually had no idea." She gave a little laugh. "Hell, even if I'd wanted to do myself a favor and be a rat, I couldn't. You never let me in on the planning. We did live high for that year, though — I will say that. We lived real high." "I want us to be partners in this," LaMonica said. "Don't forget. If things get heavy it'll be you and me against the wall. We can't let other people in on any of the details. There's too much at stake. You should realize that. It's a chance for us to get out of this border act once and for all — to head for Europe, Australia, with a whole new identity. To me, being stuck down here with these bean bandits is as bad as being in the joint." "I hear you," Sandy said. It was payday. Ling's was crowded and noisy. The platoon of federal cops glued to the bar barked for more drinks like kenneled dogs. Ling sat on the floor in the corner of the place probing a broken jukebox with a long screwdriver. "Chickenshit service! Chickenshit service!" chanted the bar revelers. Ling stood up and pointed to the ancient machine with the screwdriver. "You want this thing fix?" he said angrily. Shouts of "Fuck the jukebox!" Jack Kelly hoisted his empty glass like a knight's banner. "And fuck all your moth-eaten Frank Sinatra and Jerry Vale records!" he said. There was a violent round of laughter. Ling tossed the screwdriver on the floor and huffed back to the bar. The laughter continued as he filled glasses with ice. He grabbed one of the glasses, rubbed it on his butt, and held it up. "This one for you, Kelly." The laughter was deafening. Carr sat in a booth with Frank Garcia. Garcia was dressed "TJ" fashion: a cowboy-style shirt and boots, like the million or so Mexicans who filled L.A.'s run-down apartments and garment-district sweatshops. He was thirtyish but looked older because of his rheumy eyes. "When are you going to move in on Shorty McFadden?" Carr said. "Don't ask me," Garcia said. "I'm on a thirty-day suspension." His barrio accent was slurred from liquor. "The other night I stopped after work for a few drinks. I'd just finished working sixteen hours straight. I hadn't eaten all day, so the booze hits me. I walk out of the bar and realize I'm so drunk I can't drive home, so I hop in the backseat of my car and try to catch a few winks. I figured that if I slept for a while, I'd sober up enough to drive." He sipped his drink and stirred the ice. "Next thing I know, a couple of blue-suiters are pulling me out of the car. I show 'em my federal tin, but they don't believe me. They think it's stolen. They actually throw the cuffs on me and take me to the police station! Like there I am getting my fingerprints taken. I'm getting booked for being drunk in public. Luckily, one of the narcs in the station recognizes me and I get cut loose, but it's too late. The blue-suiters have already called up my agent in charge to verify my credentials." He finished his drink and slammed the glass down. "So I end up with thirty days no pay. Can you imagine that? Thirty days on the beach for not wanting to drive drunk!" He shook his head sadly. "Things like that happen to me all the time." Carr gave him a sympathetic look. "Not to change the subject, but didn't you pull some capers below the border last year?" he said. "I was on loan to Immigration. They sent me down there four times last year," Garcia said. "In Tijuana I'd pay a coyote two hundred bucks from the confidential fund and then just take the trip. Sometimes it was in the bed of a truck, sometimes stuffed like a sardine in the back of a van or camper. It would be a full-blown surveillance all the way from the border into Los Angeles. I'd give the signal at the drop-off point and we'd arrest everybody, a conspiracy case usually. The illegal aliens would get deported and the coyotes would bail out and slip back across the border. They'd be back in business before I finished writing my reports. The whole investigation ended up bringing in nothing more than a few extra fugitives." "Where do the American fugitives hang out down there?" Carr said. Garcia sipped his drink as if it were delicious soup. "Ensenada, probably. I've heard rumbles that there's a bar down there a lot of 'em go to. Rodriguez at the Ensenada Police Department keeps an eye on the Americans down there. He's a friend." He gave a quick glance around the bar, leaned close to Carr, and whispered, "And I hear the fan-belt inspectors have a caper going down there right now. It's some kind of a long-range operation. They're gathering information on the activities of American fugitives hiding in Mexico. They're paying some high-power snitch big money to find out who's who and what's what." He sat back and stopped whispering. "You know, one of those big idea things that will end up in a stack of bullshit FBI reports." Garcia chuckled. "The kind of reports that will get passed around at organized-crime task-force meetings," Carr said. "Everyone will act like they recognize the names." He smiled. "Maybe they'll call it Operation Bad-Ass Gringos," Garcia said, still laughing. Carr shook his head. "I'm afraid that code name wouldn't fly for them," he said. "Bad words." Ling finally brought more drinks. He plunked them down and rushed away. "On my last Mexico case I was stuffed in the back of a truck with so many people I damn near suffocated," Garcia said. "When the arrests finally went down, I told 'em I wasn't going to do it anymore. I've got a wife and five kids. You know what they said? They said I had job stress and they sent me to talk to a psychologist. He kept asking whether I felt tired all the time. I told him I never get tired. He asked me why I drink, how I get along with my wife sexually, crap like that. I told him it was none of his goddamn business. They don't know what to do with me now." A tall man in a pin-striped suit walked in the front door. He took a seat at the end of the bar, making no effort to greet anyone. "That's the FBI agent in charge of the fugitive operation I was telling you about," Garcia whispered. "His name is Tom Luegner. But he won't give you any information. You know how those people are." Carr nodded. A while later he carried his drink to the bar and sat down next to Luegner. He introduced himself. "I've seen you around," Luegner said. "You're a…uh…friend of Sally Malone." His smile exuded poise. Every hair on his head was in place, the knot in his tie of a perfect size and shape. Carr ignored the remark. "One of my informants was murdered by a federal fugitive named Paul LaMonica," Carr said. "LaMonica supposedly lives in Mexico. I could use some help." Luegner tore off the corner of his cocktail napkin. He rolled it between his fingers. "The name does kind of ring a bell," he said. "What was your informant's name?" "Linda Gleason," Carr said. Would you like me to spell it for your report?he thought. "And LaMonica killed her?" Luegner said. "That's right." "I'd sure like to help you out," Luegner said in an offhanded manner. "But you know how sensitive our intelligence files are. Of course it's no secret that we've had reports that LaMonica has been seen now and then below the border." Without saying excuse me, Luegner reached in front of Carr and grabbed a few bar olives. He plopped them in his martini. Carr felt the blood rushing to his face. "You can't blame me for trying," he said in a self-deprecating manner. Luegner smiled. "Certainly not. We're all in the same business." Carr stood up. He finished his drink and set the glass down on the bar. Luegner stuffed an olive into his mouth. "By the way," he said as he chewed, "seen Sally lately?" "As a matter of fact I haven't," Carr said casually. He waved at Kelly and strolled out the door. Carr headed down a pedestrian walkway lined with souvenir shops, which because of the hour were closed. He stopped at the entrance to a small parking lot. There were no more than ten vehicles. A silver Corvette was parked in the corner of the dimly lit area next to a commercial trash receptacle. Carr sauntered over to the Corvette. He pulled a pen-sized flashlight out of his coat pocket, flicked it on, and ran the beam of light along the interior of the vehicle. There was a gasoline credit-card receipt on the front seat bearing Tom Luegner's name. He flicked the light off and stepped to the trash bin. Using the light, he rummaged around until he found a wire coat hanger. He pulled it out and twisted it straight, leaving a hook at the end. Carr glanced around the lot again. He was still alone. Holding the flashlight in his teeth, he wedged the wire between window and doorframe. After four or five tries, he managed to maneuver the hook under the door handle. He tugged, the lock snapped, and he swung open the door and climbed in. Frantically, he dug around behind the front seat until he found what he was looking for-a heavy briefcase. Pulling it onto his lap, he tore at the latches and it popped open. Using the flashlight to read by, Carr flipped through a stack of reports titled "Informant Contact Report" and stamped CONFIDENTIAL. Someone was crossing the lot. Carr flicked off the flashlight and ducked down in the seat. He held his breath. The footsteps of more than one person. They came closer. Car doors opened. Men laughed. Car doors closed. A vehicle drove off. Carr exhaled. Balancing the flashlight on his lap, he raced through the papers as fast as he could. The report that caught his attention was the one with the most recent date. It was written in the standard FBI format: TO: Special Agent in Charge FROM: Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge Thomas A. Luegner Subject: Operation Peter Rabbit Source: 2034XD Method of Contact: Tel/con Info:2034XD reports that fugitive Sandra Hartzbecker aka Sandra Hill (FBI #5658940H) met recently in Ensenada with a male adult identified as Paul LaMonica (FBI #9586744L) for the purpose of planning early stages of a stateside forgery scheme. No further information. Rec checks show LaMonica subject of fug. warrant #bhk5906 for escape. Subject escaped from Terminal Island federal prison eleven months ago after overpowering a civilian employee at the institution. He used a counterfeit police identification card to facilitate his escape. Subject is a master printer, many times convicted of counterfeiting U.S. currency, various types of checks, etc. No further information. Hartzbecker is former girl friend/criminal cohort (counterfeit money passer) of LaMonica. Undeveloped leads: Maintain contact with Source. Carr slammed the briefcase shut and set it in the backseat exactly as he'd found it. He slipped out of the Corvette, closed the door quietly, and tossed the coat banger back into the trashcan. Carr climbed into his sedan and started the engine. On the way to his apartment he listened to an all-night jazz station.
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