“Probably a fair assumption.”
“Well, give Marty a call when you get a minute.” Frank studied his partner. “You know, Street, no matter what happened to this guy, it’s none of your business anymore. If the cops come nosing around, just tell them the truth. If not, this is all ancient history to you.”
Streeter didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he picked up the paper again and reread the article. Once he’d finished, he looked back at Frank. “What did you say?”
“I said, this is none of your concern anymore.”
“I suppose,” Streeter muttered absently. “But I still might make a few calls later and see if I can find out what happened out in that field.”
“I was afraid you might.”
Dexter was in one hell of a mood that morning. First, Grover Royals kills himself driving home on Tuesday night. Then, the next afternoon, old Marty calls him with a job. Twenty-five thousand dollars, cash money. All he had to do was squeeze a couple into Rudy Fontana’s head. It took place out in some field north of town. No hassles, and Rudy even drove himself there. Man, Dexter thought. He’d never seen anyone as shocked as Rudy was when he got out of his car and spotted Dexter and Marty coming at him. He didn’t know who Rudy was more surprised to see. ’Course, when Dexter hauled out his .44 and they marched him out by the trees, he was more than surprised. Just like Rudy: crying and begging the whole time until they bound him up. Wet his pants for sure.
Whole thing took about four minutes and Dexter came away with more money than he’d seen in a long time. More to come, too. The old man said he wanted to get Dexter involved in running things from now on. He’d even let him have part ownership in some club. ’Course there still could be some more grunt work like Rudy in the next day or so, but Dexter was ready for that. Yes sir, from now on, no more hustling for nickels. Old Marty would see to that.
TWENTY-SIX
Tina wasn’t sure how she felt about Rudy’s murder. With Grover, it was easy to sort out. He was totally bad news and he’d killed more than once himself. That was pretty much common knowledge. Hell, he would have killed her and Streeter if the bounty hunter hadn’t fought him off that night at Marty’s, and he’d set up her and Richie before that. But painfully hapless and sleazy as he was, Rudy was fairly harmless. Sure, he dealt in practically every vice a person could yield to, but he never sold anything customers didn’t want or couldn’t get from a hundred other sources. Tina didn’t make value judgments like that. And Rudy had been a more-than-all-right boss. Paid her well, never came on to her, and always respected her opinion.
Sitting at a window table in a coffee shop on West 38th, not far from her apartment, Tina thought about him as she waited for Streeter. Whoever killed him would have had to know about what he’d picked up at the bus station earlier that night. She stared into her coffee cup, frowning. With Sid and Grover out of the picture, she couldn’t imagine who had the knowledge and the motive—not to mention the temperament—to kill her ex-boss. She glanced out the window and watched the late-afternoon rush of traffic picking up. It had been a nice day and the sun was still bright and warm. Just then, she was shaken from her thoughts by a voice from behind her.
“Hey Tina.”
She looked up and saw the bounty hunter standing next to her table. “Hello, Mr. Streeter.”
“Actually, you don’t have to bother with the ‘mister’ part anymore.”
“Okay.” She studied him for a moment. His face was still swollen on the left side and he looked very troubled. “You’ve had a pretty rough time lately,” she added, glancing at his cast.
He sat down and nodded at her. “You might say. Although not as bad as Grover and your friend Rudy. I tell you, that was about the last thing I expected to hear this morning. Him being taken out like that.”
“You and me both. I’ve been practically paralyzed thinking about it.”
“I didn’t realize you two were that close.”
Tina shook her head. “We weren’t. He was pretty worthless and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. But I did work for the man for a lot of years. Despite all his tough talk, I never saw him hurt anyone and he treated me okay.”
Streeter glanced over at the file folders on the table next to her coffee. “Are those the files? The originals?”
She nodded and, reaching out, put her right hand on top of the stack. “These are them. The one and only set, other than the copies Rudy took last night. God only knows where they are now.” She paused. “When you called and asked to meet me, you weren’t very clear about why you wanted these.”
Streeter stirred his coffee and frowned. “Because I doubt if this thing is over yet. It seems to me that whoever killed Rudy had a lot of inside information. Fontana had other employees and normally they would be my first hunch as to who killed him. But Rudy wouldn’t have any reason to fill them in on that pickup at the bus station, and there may have been another motive for killing him besides just getting the cash and those ludes.” He looked at her. “You told me once that you thought the files might have referred to another partner. To a silent partner who was behind Grover and Rudy. If that’s the case, that partner just might have whacked Rudy to protect himself.”
Tina was frowning when he finished. “So maybe this was about their business arrangement and Rudy having the other stuff was just part of it?”
“That’s possible. Or the partner may have killed Rudy to get him out of the operation.”
“But why would the partner choose to kill him now? If Rudy was a good front man for Grover, why wouldn’t he be a good front man for the silent partner?”
“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet.” Streeter leaned back in his chair and looked out the window for a moment. When he glanced back at Tina, he seemed troubled. “But Rudy made a good front man partly because he was under the hammer all the time. Grover was around enough to keep him in line. Maybe the silent partner doesn’t want to get too close to the business and he just didn’t trust Rudy enough on his own without Grover around. Or maybe he tried to work out an arrangement with Rudy and they couldn’t come to terms. Or the silent partner had his own ideas about who he wanted as the front man. Who knows? But the first thing I want to find out is who the hell that silent partner is.”
“You’re hoping that’s in here?” Tina patted the files again.
“I’m hoping there’s something in there I can use. Some hint as to who this guy is. What was it that got you suspicious about a partner?”
“Well, mainly, Grover’s notes explaining certain things. Procedures, places. It’s almost like he’s filling someone in on how he worked. I can see why he was so anxious to get his hands on the originals. There’s a lot of damaging information in there that leads right to Grover. But if it was just for his own information and for Rudy, why would he explain things? Supposedly both of them knew how everything worked. Hell, why would they even need ledgers at all? Theirs was a cash business almost exclusively. Sure, they’d have to put something together for the IRS. You know, to account for the money from the bars and all. But these ledgers detail drug money, the sex parties in the mountains, prostitution at the massage parlors. Everything. There’s no need for that to be down on paper unless he was reporting to someone.”
Streeter thought about that. “Well, I’m going to go over all of it with Frank and see what we turn up. You never know.” He paused. “If we’re right about this and there was another partner, whoever it is might come after you to get these files. We should think about going to the police with them.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to hang on to them for safekeeping. I was going to leave them with Marty, but you’ll be just as good.”
“Sure. Speaking of which, he called me early this morning and now I can’t find him. I’ve left messages with his secretary at work and with Marlene. Have you talked to him lately?”
“No. I was down at the hospital most of the morning and he wasn’t there.”
“I thou
ght Richie was supposed to get out soon.”
“He was. But I guess they’re still afraid of an infection, so they’re keeping him through the weekend.”
Streeter smiled. “Listen, I have to get going. I’ve got a piano lesson in a while, if you can believe that.” He slid the files toward himself and stood up. “I might call you later if I have any questions. If not, we can talk again in the morning. Be careful, Tina. Everything’s still up in the air. And if you have an attorney, you better talk to him. I have a feeling we’ll be going to the police soon.”
Streeter almost ran into Connie in the parking lot in front of the music store that evening. Literally. She was leaving for the day and he was just arriving for his lesson. She started to pull out of her slot near the middle toward the front and he was thinking about Rudy’s murder, not paying much attention to where he was going. He slammed on his brakes and pulled up with his front bumper just inches from her left rear quarter panel. They looked at each other for a moment in surprise. Then he backed up and she continued to pull out and swung around alongside him so their front doors on the driver’s side were next to each other and about a foot apart.
“I wanted to catch you before you left,” he said.
Connie nodded. She looked tired, having been at the store for the past ten hours. But she still seemed upbeat. “It’s been a long day. I was headed home to take a bath and go to bed and finish my book. The one from the other night.” She flashed him a smile. “How are you feeling? Is your arm hurting you?”
“Not too bad.” He ran his left hand over his swollen cheek. “This feels worse, actually.” He enjoyed the way the laugh lines around her eyes looked as she squinted slightly into the setting sun. And those almond eyes looked sensational. “Thanks again for Tuesday. It’s good to be taken care of like that once in a while, and you came and got me at just the right time.” He paused. “Look, I was going to call you today and set up our big dinner. But then something came up and I’m not sure about my schedule for the next few days.”
“Now there’s a shocker.” Her voice stayed upbeat. “You lead a pretty crazy life, Mr. Streeter.”
He shook his head. “Believe me, it’s not usually anything like this. It’s just that right now I’m dealing with the case that won’t go away. Every time I think it’s over, something weird happens and we move on to the next round. I’m not trying to put you off, Connie. Really. I’m looking forward to seeing you again, but you’ll have to be patient. Is that okay?”
Her smiled eased up slightly but she nodded. “Call me when things settle down. Maybe you can tell me all about if and when we finally go out.”
“When this thing finally ends, you’ll be the first to know. Enjoy your book, Connie.” He thought for a moment. “And when we get together, maybe you can tell me about that picture in your bathroom. The one with the good-looking guy holding you. He reminds me of someone.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything at first. Then, “I was afraid you’d notice the resemblance.” Her voice was softer. “I keep that up there to remind me to be careful around men. Of course, with someone like you, I don’t need any reminders. You’ve got ‘stay away’ written all over you.” She shook her head and neither of them spoke for a long time. “Nolan,” she finally said as she put her car into gear and looked ahead.
“What?” He leaned toward her out his window.
“My last name is Nolan. Seeing as how we’ve already slept together, I think you should know that. Just in case anyone asks.” She gave him a quick wink and pulled away.
He watched her leave the lot. Streeter was in a much better mood as he walked to another session with Chopin.
When Streeter got back to the church at about eight-thirty, Frank brought them beers and they cleared off his desk. Then they emptied the files on top and placed them in three piles. One was for the accounting ledgers, which was the bulk of the material. Crude and for the most part perplexing, they consisted mostly of columns of dollar amounts for income and expenses under the headings of the businesses Grover owned. They looked loose and in some kind of code, which would substantiate Tina’s theory that they were meant for someone other than Grover’s accountant.
The second pile, much smaller, consisted of legal paper covered with handwritten notes from Grover, many apparently to himself. To-do lists, notes on who owed him for what. Things like that. The third pile was almost exclusively photographs of very perverse partying by mostly middle-aged white men and young women of all types. They were clearly candid shots, undoubtedly taken without the participants’ knowledge or permission. Judging by the trees and open spaces seen through the windows, the setting seemed to be a large house in the mountains. Also in that third pile were several pages of notes that had been clipped to some of the photos. Those notes contained the men’s names, dates, and dollar amounts. They included fairly heavy hitters in the local business and political arena. Frank and Streeter organized the three piles chronologically as best they could.
“You have any idea what we got here?” Frank asked, standing in front of the desk and looking down.
“A lot of something, I guess. Let’s see if we can make any sense out of the ledgers first.” Streeter picked up the top page and squinted at it. “Tina said almost everything is in Grover’s handwriting. She said she had never seen most of this before she studied it down in Florida. She thought she was taking documents that Rudy had either prepared for his accountant or just things he needed for his own use. Some of them are Rudy’s, but mostly it’s Grover’s work. It’s like he needed to track every penny the businesses took in. But only some of them.” He looked back at Frank. “There’s nothing in here about a couple of the massage parlors he and Rudy owned. That could be for a reason or maybe he just kept those papers in another file that Tina overlooked.”
It took them only about an hour to go through the ledgers. Mostly they just found numbers, with short notes in the margins. Things like “bad weather that week” or “big convention in town,” apparently to explain wild fluctuations in the amounts taken in. One thing that caught Streeter’s eye was a ledger with “11048 Club” written on the top. All of the other documents were for stores or parlors or bars, the names of which he recognized. But 11048 Club meant nothing to him, so he set it aside.
The second pile took a little longer, even though there were fewer documents. It consisted primarily of notes Grover had written to himself regarding personnel moves, suppliers he was dealing with for everything from towels to porno magazines to cocktail napkins, and names and addresses of customers. There were also several references to the 11048 Club. Streeter thought he was finally getting somewhere. The name “Tired” also popped up several times. “Let Tired know…” or “Keep Tired out…”
“This could be a nickname or code word for the partner,” he told Frank.
“Possibly. It’s a person’s name, all right. Look there. What do you make of this ‘MoCo’? I see it three, four times. Once it’s on the same note with Tired.”
Streeter straightened up and stretched his back. “It looks almost like a company name. Or a corporation. Remember what they used to call the Ford Motor Company—FoMoCo? Maybe they still do. MoCo has that same feel to it. I’ll check with the Secretary of State’s office in the morning and see if a MoCo is registered with them.”
In the third stack they thought they found out what 11048 Club meant. It seemed to be referring to the house in the mountains where the sex parties were held. The notes attached to some of the photos had lines like “go to 11048 Club before eight on Saturday” and “get house cleaners to 11048 this week.” There was a receipt for a pool service in Conifer, a small mountain town about thirty-five miles southwest of Denver.
“So they called their house the 11048 Club and it seems to be located around Conifer,” Streeter said when they’d finished at a little before midnight. “My hunch is that 11048 is a street address.”
“How do you track that down?” Frank drained the last of his beer and
studied his partner.
“Who knows? My first move is to find out if MoCo is registered as a corporation. If it is, that should give us some names to go on. We might see if any of those names own property in Jefferson County. Conifer. I’ll also check to see if Grover or Fontana owned anything up there. If we find the place, we can maybe sit on it and see if Tired shows up.”
“That could be a long chore, Street. And it’s not like we’re getting paid for any of this.”
“I know, Frank. You don’t have to keep going with me here. But I’ve got to find out who’s behind all this.”
The next morning, Streeter went downtown to the office of the Secretary of State. His hunch was right. There was indeed a MoCo, a corporation that first filed its articles of incorporation in February 1983. When he pulled the microfiche for the papers, the first name he came across hit him like his piano had just landed on his head. Streeter stood there at the machine staring at the name in utter disbelief. Martin Moats: President. MoCo: Moats Company. There was no reference to Grover Royals or any of his businesses. MoCo was the corporation name that Marty used for his waterbed business and Streeter gathered that Grover used it as a reference for convenience in his notes. The bounty hunter was numb as he wrote down the names and addresses of the other company officers. This opened up a world of possibilities that left him stunned and shaken with rage. As he walked out of the building toward his car, his thoughts were in a jumble. On the one hand he couldn’t believe the old man was involved with Grover in any way. The implications were too astounding and sick. On the other hand, documents don’t lie and MoCo was Marty’s company.
When he got back to the church he went right to Frank’s office. The bondsman wasn’t in, so Streeter went behind the desk and looked up the number for the Jefferson County tax assessor’s office, real property department. He asked the clerk if any residential properties were listed under the ownership of a Martin Moats. Nothing. Then he asked if there was any property listed to a MoCo. As the clerk was checking, Streeter was pretty sure what he would hear.
Streeter Box Set Page 65
