L.A. Times

by Stuart Woods

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll help you get your price up in this town. You can always show people a contract that says two hundred thousand instead of a hundred. And it would be in your own best interests, if anyone should ever ask, to say that you got two hundred thousand.”

  “Michael, are you stealing money from me?”

  “Chuck, if you ever say anything like that to me again—or to anybody else—you and I will have done business for the last time. Now, if you’re unhappy in any way, you can put that briefcase back on the table, I’ll give you back your contract, and we’ll call it a day.” He waited for an answer.

  “I’m happy, Michael,” Chuck said. “After all, who else would give me a hundred grand for a screenplay he hadn’t even read?”

  “That’s right, Chuck,” Michael said. He smiled. “Just remember, you and I are both going to be around for a long time; we’ve already made some money together, and we’ll make a lot more.”

  Chuck shook his hand and left. Michael waited five minutes, then picked up his own briefcase and left, waving good-bye to the banker.

  Michael got into the Porsche and drove downtown to his own bank, the Kensington Trust. Derek Winfield received him in his office.

  “I’d like to make a deposit,” Michael said.

  “Of course,” Winfield replied. “I’ll just have this run through a counting machine to confirm the total.” He left the room with the briefcase for a few minutes, then came back and handed Michael the empty case and a receipt. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “I’d like to know my current balance,” Michael said.

  “Of course.” Winfield took a key from his pocket and inserted it into a computer terminal on his desk. He typed a few keystrokes, looked at the screen, then typed a few more strokes. A printer on a side table hummed and produced a sheet of paper. Winfield handed it to Michael. “Interest will be paid tomorrow on the past week’s earnings,” he said. “This amount doesn’t include that.”

  Michael looked at the sheet of paper and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m very pleased.”

  “I’m glad,” Winfield replied. “And today’s deposit will be earning from tomorrow.”

  Michael left Winfield’s office whistling. It was difficult to know how things could be any better.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Special Agent Thomas Carson of the Los Angeles office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation leaned over the counter and pressed his ear to a headset. Lined up along the twelve-foot counter were half a dozen Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorders, moving spasmodically.

  “It’s his second trip to the bank,” the technician said, twitching the volume slightly so Carson could hear better.

  “What happened the first time?” Carson asked. “Remind me.”

  “My memory is that he deposited a large sum of money, but you’ll have to check the transcripts to be sure. Callabrese’s name is in the log for that date, and the log should be cross-referenced by now.”

  “Thanks, Ken,” Carson said. “I’ll look up Mr. Callabrese.” He went to the files, found the name, and referenced the date; then he went to another filing cabinet and extracted the transcript. He sat down and read it thoroughly, then reread the file on the Kensington Trust. There was a weekly meeting with the bureau chief in a few minutes, and Carson was light on input; this would give him something to talk about. He went to the computer room and requested a profile on Vincente Callabrese, waiting for the printout. He was not the first, he noted in the logbook. An LAPD detective named Rivera had gotten in ahead of him. He called Rivera.

  “This is Tom Carson over at the FBI,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  An unenthusiastic response. Why did cops hate the FBI so much? He had never understood it. “I just ran a guy named Vincente Callabrese through the system, and I saw you did, too. What have you got?”

  “His fingerprints were on a car used in a crime. A mob hood from Vegas named Ippolito stole a car and ran a guy down with it. Contract job. Callabrese’s prints were on the dashboard.”

  “And what do you surmise from that?”

  “I surmise he was in the car. A witness said there was a second man.”

  “Where do you go from here?”

  “Nowhere,” Rivera replied. “The guy’s a complete zero in the system; no paper of any kind. All I can do is put a flag on his record and wait for him to get arrested. It’ll happen sooner or later; it always does.”

  “Right, Detective Rivera,” Carson said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Rivera said. “I showed you mine; now you show me yours.”

  “Oh, we’ve got even less than you have,” Carson said. He could hear Rivera swearing as he hung up the phone.

  Carson stopped by his desk to check his messages, then tucked the file under his arm and walked down the hall toward the large corner office that housed his chief. There were two other department heads present—personnel and investigation; Carson was head of surveillance.

  Carson endured the personnel report in silence and the investigation report with interest, then it was his turn.

  “What have you got for me, Tom?” the chief asked.

  “You’ll recall, chief, that we’ve had a tap on the offices of the Kensington Trust since last May.”

  “No, I don’t,” the chief replied curtly. “What the hell is the Kensington Trust?”

  Carson was going to have to make this good. “They’re an investment bank based in London, with offices around the world; what the Brits call a merchant bank.”

  “So?” The chief looked at his watch. The man had come out of the major crime side of the Bureau, and financial stuff bored him. He liked mob stuff, though; Carson knew that.

  “We’ve suspected them for a long time of a major laundering operation, but they’re very slick, and it’s been hard to nail down anything. However,” he said quickly, before the chief could interrupt, “now we think there’s a significant connection with La Cosa Nostra.”

  Suddenly the chief was all ears. “Oh? Tell me about it.”

  “A few months ago, a new face turned up at Kensington’s offices, name of Callabrese.”

  “And he’s mob?”

  “We believe him to be.” Carson had precious little evidence to support this conclusion, but he had the chief’s interest for the first time in weeks, and he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. “In the first of his two visits to the Kensington offices Callabrese opened a new investment account with seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars. A hundred thousand was in cash, and the rest was in a cashier’s check on a New York bank.”

  “Which bank?”

  “We don’t know that, and we’d have to subpoena their records to find out. I don’t think it’s worth doing just yet.”

  “Go on.”

  “Callabrese specifically requested that his money go, and I quote, ‘on the street.’”

  “Jesus, Carson, that could mean Wall Street. What’s the big deal?”

  “You’d have to listen to the tapes to get the nuances, chief, but I don’t think he meant Wall Street. He said he expected a return of three percent a week, and Kensington’s L.A. manager said he thought he could manage that.”

  The chief nodded. “That sounds like loan-sharking,” he said, “but we don’t have enough evidence to prove it, do we?”

  “Not yet, chief, but even if we did, I wouldn’t want to go after Kensington. I think the bank is important because it could lead us to some really big-time stuff. It’s more important as a conduit of information for us than as a target for a bust.”

  “I see your point,” the chief said, nodding. “How much longer have we got on the court order?”

  “Three weeks,” Carson replied.

  “Have we got a cooperative judge?”

  “Cooper; he’s pretty good.”

  “Wait two weeks and then go back for a six-month extension,” the chief
said. “I’ll sign the request.”

  “Yessir,” Carson said happily; this had been exactly what he had wanted. He hated to see a wiretap order expire; it made him look bad.

  “What happened on Callabrese’s second visit?” the chief asked.

  “He brought another hundred thousand in cash.”

  “Well, he’s got to be mob; nobody walks around with that much cash.”

  “On his first visit, he mentioned a New York connection, but no names. I’d give odds he’s connected, though.”

  “With a name like Callabrese? Sure he is. Did you run him through the system?”

  “Yes, and he’s there, but it’s a low-grade presence. He was printed on a juvenile arrest eleven years ago, but nothing since. An L.A. homicide detective had run a request recently; I talked to him about it. Turns out Callabrese’s prints turned up on a car that had been stolen by a Vegas mob guy and used in a hit-and-run murder. This guy came up dry on a background check—there’s no paper at all on Callabrese.”

  “Then he’s mob,” the chief said, excited now, “and it doesn’t sound like he’s just passing through. Did you order a photograph?”

  “There isn’t one on record. The local precinct must have screwed up. I’ve flagged his file, though. If he gets arrested, I’ll hear about it.”

  “Add Callabrese to the watch list,” the chief said. “I want the name cross-referenced to both banking and loan-sharking.”

  “Yessir.”

  The chief stood up. “Thank you, gentlemen. Next week at the same time.”

  Carson went back to his desk feeling pretty good. Odds were he wouldn’t hear from Callabrese for a while, but it was a name he could use in weekly meetings for weeks to come. “Thank you, Vincente Callabrese,” he said, “wherever you are.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  The ringing telephone woke Detective Ricardo Rivera. He rolled over and looked at the bedside clock: 6:30. And he didn’t have to be in until 11:00. Shit.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Ricky.”

  He should have known. “Cindy,” he said, exasperated, “why the hell are you calling me at six-thirty in the morning?”

  “I guess you know why,” she said.

  “Goddamnit, I’m not on until eleven; I could have slept another three hours.” She had lived with him long enough to know that once he was awake he couldn’t go back to sleep.

  “Sorry, I wanted to be sure and catch you.”

  “How’s Georgie?” He’d always hated the name, but she had insisted on naming him after her father. George Rivera just didn’t work for him.

  “He broke a finger playing football yesterday.”

  “Are you sure it’s broken?”

  “Sure, I’m sure; they put a cast on it in the emergency room. He’ll have to wear it for six weeks.”

  “Badge of honor,” Rivera said, smiling in spite of himself. He’d had a cast on his arm once, and he’d gotten a lot of mileage out of it with the girls.

  “I had to write a check for the hospital,” she said. “We hadn’t used up the deductible yet.”

  He cringed inside. “How much?”

  “Three hundred and twenty dollars.”

  “Christ! You’d think he’d broken his back!”

  “They had to x-ray and everything. It’s not really out of line, considering what medical stuff costs these days.”

  “Did you have that much in the bank?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got to make a deposit today to cover the check, and I haven’t got it.”

  “Let it bounce once,” he said. “Payday’s the day after tomorrow.”

  “I can’t do that, Ricky,” she said. “I’m not screwing up my credit record now that I’m on my own. The order says you pay for medical.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll stop by a branch this morning on the way to work.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And Ricky?”

  “Yeah, your check will be on time; don’t worry.”

  “Is that the truth, Ricky?”

  “Yes, it’s the truth.”

  “Because you’ve been late three times, and it’s really screwed up my life every time, you know?”

  “It’ll be on time.”

  “My lawyer says that if you’re late again I shouldn’t let you see Georgie this weekend.”

  “So you’re going to hold me up with the kid?”

  “Not if I get the check on time,” she said.

  “It’ll be on time, I promise.”

  “And you promise to make the deposit this morning?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Thanks, Ricky; I’ll see you this weekend.”

  Rivera got out of bed and rummaged in the bedroom desk for his checkbook; his balance was three hundred and thirty-one dollars. He’d have eleven bucks left after he wrote her the check. He looked in his trousers pocket; twelve bucks there. It was TV dinners until payday. He sat down at the desk, took a fistful of bills from the top drawer, and added them up on the calculator. After the bills and Cindy’s check, he’d have just under a hundred dollars to last him until the next payday.

  Ever since the divorce, over a year ago, he’d had no money. Even his small part of their savings had been frittered away paying the most basic bills. He wasn’t making it, and that was a fact.

  They’d lived decently when they were married; there was a pretty nice house in the Valley and two cars. She’d gotten the house and the station wagon, but he was making the payments on both, of course. They’d accumulated some savings, but the judge had given her most of it. He knew her well; if he didn’t keep up the payments, she’d go for sole custody of the boy, and she’d probably get it, too.

  He sighed heavily. His life was in the toilet, and he didn’t like the swim.

  He stopped at the bank and deposited the three hundred and twenty dollars into her account, and he arrived at his desk early. There was a message to call Chico; he walked over there instead.

  Chico was bent over a photographic negative of a thumbprint, inspecting it carefully with a magnifying glass. Rivera waited until he straightened up to speak.

  “How you doing, amigo?” he asked.

  “Ricardo, my boy, how you?”

  “Okay. You got something for me?”

  “Yeah; sorry I took so long.”

  “That’s okay, there was no rush. It’s off the books, anyway; I’m just satisfying my own curiosity.”

  Chico poked through a drawer and came up with a plastic Ziploc bag containing an elongated silver object. There was a fingerprint card stapled to it. “I got a match on the right index,” he said. “That what you wanted?”

  “Well, it confirms my guess,” Rivera replied wearily, “but it doesn’t get me anywhere, really. I can’t prove when the prints got where they did.”

  “That’s the way it goes,” Chico said, handing him the bag.

  Rivera accepted it. “Thanks, amigo; I owe you one.” He walked back to his desk, and his heart was beating faster. He had the sonofabitch, he had him cold. Now he had enough for an arrest and a lineup.

  He sat down at his desk and thought carefully about this. If he played his cards right, there was light at the end of his own particular tunnel. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number.

  “Hello,” he said. “This is Detective Rivera, LAPD. I’d like to see him as soon as possible.”

  “Please hold,” the woman said.

  “Michael, that Detective Rivera is on the phone again. He wants to see you as soon as possible.”

  Michael thought for a moment. “Margot,” he said, “remember when I lost my letter opener a while back?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “I didn’t. I just went over to Supply and got you a new one.”

  “I see,” he said. “Ask Detective Rivera if he’s free for lunch.”

  CHAPTER

  34

  Michael got to the beach hal
f an hour early. He’d borrowed Margot’s little BMW, and he parked it at the extreme northern end of the parking lot, by itself. He got out and trudged through the sand toward the sea, then stopped halfway and looked back toward the highway. The beach was lightly populated at this hour on a weekday; that was good. A couple of hundred yards to the north was a small concrete block building containing toilets. He walked over to it and checked the men’s room: three urinals, two stalls, and a sink. He reached behind him and made the pistol stuck in his belt more comfortable; then he left the building and returned to the parking lot.

  Rivera was on time. Michael watched him park his car and approach; he smiled and extended his hand. “Good to see you, and thanks for meeting me out here; it was a lot more convenient for me.”

  Rivera shook his hand but didn’t speak.

  “Let’s take a stroll while we talk,” Michael said. He started up the beach toward the toilets, and Rivera kept pace with him. The wind was at their backs. “What’s up?” Michael asked. “Made any progress on your case?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Rivera said. “It’s solved; I wrapped it up this morning.”

  Michael felt nauseous. “Congratulations! Tell me about it.”

  “You want me to lay the whole thing out for you, or you just want the results?”

  “Lay it out for me,” Michael said. Another hundred yards to the toilets.

  “It went something like this,” Rivera said, puffing a little; it was hard walking in the soft sand. “Our man Callabrese was some sort of a mob guy in New York. Mob guys always have false I.D.’s—Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, that sort of thing—that’s why there was no paper anywhere on Callabrese under his own name. So, anyway, Callabrese gets the hots for L.A. He comes out here and goes into a legitimate business, and he’s doing pretty good. Then Moriarty gets in his way. The lawyer has something Callabrese wants, and Moriarty won’t sell it to him. Callabrese doesn’t like this, and he reverts to type. He calls somebody, who calls somebody in Vegas, who sends Ippolito down to L.A. to deal with Moriarty. Ippolito steals a car, meets Callabrese somewhere, probably so he can ID the guy, and they park on Moriarty’s street and wait for him to surface. He comes out of the house to get in his car, Ippolito runs him down, then gets out of the car, goes back, and puts a knife in him. Callabrese watches all this from the car, and two neighbors get a good look at him.”