Guilty or Else jo-1

by Jeff Sherratt

  “Well helloooo, Mr. Jackson.” She snatched the cash.

  “Yes, sir, double Daniels on the rocks and a Coke.” Her teeth flashed. “Now what else can I get for you fine gentlemen?”

  “After you get the drinks, get me a big plate of beef, rare, extra portion.” Jake gestured in my direction. “You gonna eat, O’Brien?”

  “I had a late breakfast.” I lied about that, but I couldn’t eat with Jake. Thinking about how he wolfed down the donuts killed my appetite.

  The waitress did a little curtsy and departed to get the order.

  “We’ve got to talk,” I said.

  “So talk.”

  “No offense, but you can’t hang around me all the time.”

  “Say it like it is. You don’t like us, don’t like what we do, and you’d get a bum rap hanging with wise guys.”

  “Yeah, my credibility would suffer. I can’t be seen with you all the time. It wouldn’t look right to certain people for me to be constantly seen in your company.”

  “Change of plans, gotta clear it with Joe.”

  “Talk to Joe, okay?”

  “I’ll call him right now. Watch my food when it comes.”

  Like someone would steal this guy’s food. “Sure, I’ll watch it.”

  He left to find a payphone. While he was gone, the waitress brought the order. Jake’s plate was heaped with slabs of semi-raw meat. The sauce dripped over the edge, creating a rust-colored stain on the white tablecloth.

  Jake soon returned, grabbed a fork and a small butcher knife. He hacked off a couple hunks of meat and shoved them in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and started to cut off another big piece.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Two things. First, we’re doing Silverman a favor protecting you.” He talked and ate at the same time. He finished chewing, grabbed the drink, and downed half the glass. “Second, you do your job, maybe Karadimos will be outta business.”

  “That’s right, I think-”

  “Hear me out!” he demanded, his mouth half full of rare prime rib.

  “Okay, sorry.”

  He looked at me sideways and set the cutlery down with a bang. “So anyway, we’re not going to get in your way.” He tossed back the rest of the Jack Daniels.

  “Good, and if I need you, I’ll just give you a call.”

  He swallowed. “You don’t call nobody, goddammit.”

  “Okay! I won’t call.”

  “I ain’t gonna hang around all the time no more. I ain’t no lousy bodyguard, but when it gets serious, I’ll be there. He lowered his voice. “And believe me; you’ll be glad I came.”

  He leaned back and belched.

  C H A P T E R 22

  We left the restaurant. I said goodbye to Jake in the parking lot. He grunted something. We each got into our cars and drove off. I headed east on Florence. Jake followed for a couple of blocks. I didn’t see his Caddie in my rearview mirror when I turned right on Woodruff Avenue.

  Karadimos’s pilot, Ron Fischer, lived on Newville Ave. in a two-story apartment building. The street was lined on both sides with pastel stucco, box-like structures dating back to World War II. The building that Fischer lived in had splotches of gray plaster showing through its pink color. It looked like somebody had painted the building with strawberry Kool Aid, one coat.

  After parking at the curb in front, I climbed the outside stairway and walked along a railed balcony to unit 6. I rapped on the door, no answer, knocked again but still nothing.

  I went down the stairs and walked to a rickety carport in the back. The parking area was divided into sections with numbers. Parked in stall number 6 was a dirty, white El Camino. Two other cars were parked in the carport, a beat-up red Pinto with no hubcaps, and a twenty-year-old Ford station wagon.

  I found the manager’s unit and knocked. A drowsy old guy opened the door. “You here about the apartment? It’s rented.” He started to shut the door.

  “No, wait,” I said. “I’m looking for Ron Fischer.”

  He held the door half open and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes.

  “His car is back there.” I nodded my head toward the parking area. “But he doesn’t answer his door.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  The old guy’s TV blared inside, a soap opera. “I need to find him.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Official business.”

  He scratched his rib cage. “You some kind of bill collector?”

  “No, I just want to know if you’ve seen him around.”

  “Hey, fella, I mind my own business. As long as they pay the rent and don’t cause a ruckus.” The manger closed the door.

  “Mister, you looking for Ronnie?” a hushed female voice asked.

  I turned. A twenty-something woman with dyed blonde hair stood before me. The dye job needed a retouch. “Yes, I am. Do you know him?” She had a dynamite figure, but a rather plain face. A trip to the dermatologist would help.

  “We’re kinda friends,” she said.

  “Have you seen him lately?”

  “No, and I’m worried. I haven’t seen him for about a week.”

  “He’s a charter pilot,” I said. “Maybe he’s on a flight.”

  “I don’t think so. I have a key to his apartment…” She paused. Her eyes seemed to focus on something faraway. After a moment she continued: “He always takes his flight case when he’s on a charter. It’s still here.”

  “You two are pretty close, huh?”

  “Sorta. We go out sometimes.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last Monday, or maybe it was Tuesday, I dunno.” She held up a blue bag, which had the words dirty duds stenciled on it. “I was going to the laundromat. I do his wash too. What are friends for, huh?” She glanced down.

  “You do his laundry?” I wanted to keep her talking.

  “Yeah, it’s no big deal.”

  “Sure, no big deal.”

  “Last week I went to his apartment to get his stuff. Ronnie rushed outside and left. He walked right by me, didn’t even say goodbye.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Got in a cab and took off.”

  “You don’t know where he was headed?”

  She glanced at her open-toed sandals. A moment later, she looked up at me. Her mouth quivered. “No, I don’t know where he went. But I think something’s wrong.”

  I glanced at a monarch butterfly, its wings doing a slow flutter as it rested on the flower box in the window of the apartment next door. I didn’t tell the girl I also thought something was wrong, very wrong.

  “Two guys came looking for him later that day,” she said.

  My head snapped back to her face. “Two guys? Do you know who they were? Seen them before?”

  “No, but they were mean lookin’. One guy had a jagged scar on his face, you know, like he’d been in a knife fight. And the other guy, well, he was mean too. I could tell.”

  “Maybe they were cops?”

  “No way. I’m a…well, I’m, a modern dancer at the Kozy Kitty on Pioneer Boulevard. I know cops when I see them. They’re our best customers.”

  So she was a stripper. She had the body for it, that’s for sure.

  “Did you file a missing person report?” I asked.

  “No, Ronnie wouldn’t want the cops looking for him.” She hesitated a moment then continued. “He’s been in trouble before. It’s behind him now, but he’s got a thing about cops.”

  “Do you have a picture of him? Might help me find him.”

  “He had a thing about having his picture taken, too. One time I brought a Polaroid camera with us when we…” She shook her head. “No, I don’t have any.”

  I gave her my card, the real one, not George Biddle’s. I asked her to call me if he turned up. I told her I was working on a case and Fischer was a witness. She didn’t ask and I didn’t tell her what the case was about. She gave me her number, said her name was Tracy, and asked me to call her
if I found out anything about him.

  I said that I would.

  I hurried back to my office to make some calls. When I arrived, Rita was gone and the place was clean. Everything was put away and the office seemed to be in order. She’d done the best she could on the bloodstains in my office, but I could still see a few rust-colored spots on the carpet.

  Picking up the receiver, I remembered the warning Sol had given me about the phones being tapped. I set it back down.

  It was almost two o’clock and I hadn’t eaten all day. Foxy’s on Third St. had a good hamburger and the place was spotless. I’d grab a bite at the coffee shop and make my calls from their payphone.

  I drove to the restaurant, entered, and sat at the counter. The waitress arrived and I ordered a burger and fries, then went to the payphone.

  “Joyce, I’ve got to talk to Sol. It’s important.”

  “He’s not in,” Joyce said. “But I can get him a message.”

  “Tell him I’m at Foxy’s, here in Downey. I’ll wait for his phone call.”

  I went back to the counter and polished off my meal. Helen brought me another cup of coffee. While waiting for Sol to call, I wrote facts about the case on a paper napkin.

  Fact one: Welch was having an affair with the victim.

  Fact two: the plane was flown back on the day of the murder.

  Fact three: Welch pressured Judge Johnson to wrap up the case.

  I looked at what I had written and reflected on it. One problem: Welch had a hundred or so witnesses who were with him in Sacramento at the time of the murder.

  Another thing: why was Karadimos pushing me so hard to stop the investigation? If Welch were guilty, why wouldn’t Karadimos just drop the Senator from his payroll and replace him with the next stooge that came along? Karadimos would know if Welch were guilty. After all, it would’ve been his pilot, Ron Fischer, who flew him back to Southern California that day.

  The waitress interrupted my thoughts. “Jimmy, you have a call. You can take it in the office.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I picked up the phone receiver resting on top of a small stack of invoices scattered across the desk. Sol said, “Jimmy, my boy, got a pencil?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s the phone number for that shiksa you’re so hot for.” He gave me Bobbi Allen’s home number. I wrote it on the back of one of my business cards.

  “Thanks, Sol, but-”

  “Jimmy, gotta go. Having lunch with a macher. Tell you about it later.”

  “Wait. That’s not why I asked you to call.”

  “You want more favors? You want I should call her for you?”

  “No, this is about the case.” I told Sol about the jet. How it had been flown the extra two hours without being logged. And I related my discussion with Tracy, the pilot’s girlfriend.

  “I think you’re on to something. Something big,” Sol said.

  “We need to run a skip-trace on Fischer. I want to call him as a hostile witness.”

  “How do you know he flew the jet back here? He could’ve flown the plane anywhere. Isn’t it rule number one, never put a witness on the stand and ask him a question that you don’t know the answer he’ll give?”

  “It’s too big of a coincidence, the exact flight time, and if it were an innocent flight Fischer would have logged it.”

  “He’d lie on the stand, wouldn’t he?” Sol asked.

  “Sure he’ll lie. But when he does, I’ll make him eat his words. Make him look like a lying bastard. When I’m finished with him, the jury will know the truth.”

  “Aren’t we a mite self-assured, a little egotistical today?”

  “Sol, you find the guy. I’ll nail him.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Not long, today’s Monday. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning.”

  “Not much time to find a guy who doesn’t want to be found.”

  “I need to show a strong alternative to the D.A.’s theory. They still won’t drop Rodriguez as a suspect, but maybe they’ll grant bail. I might be able to get him out on his own recognizance, no bail money. I gotta get Rodriguez out of jail.” A horrible thought crossed my mind. “Sol, listen. If something happens to Rodriguez while he’s in custody, if he somehow should happen to die, the D.A. would close the Gloria Graham murder case. It’d be all over. Welch and Karadimos would be off the hook.”

  “Yeah, a mamzer like Karadimos could have it carried out, jail or no jail. It’s the easiest place on the planet to whack someone. A shiv in the back, it’s over. The hit man’s wife or girlfriend gets an unexpected deposit in her bank account. Yeah, I’d better get my guys looking for Fischer right away,” Sol said.

  “One more thing.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you get someone to sweep my office for bugs and check the phone as well?”

  “I told you your place is bugged, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Sol, please. Just send someone. Okay?”

  “I’ll send a sweeper right away, but it might be too late. The barn door and all that.”

  I left Foxy’s and raced back to my office. Sol’s electronics guy wasn’t there yet and I didn’t want to use the phone even to check my messages. I decided to make some coffee and wait.

  When Rita went to the All American Home Center to get the rake, she also bought a new coffeepot. The old one had been smashed during the break-in. I didn’t care; it was beaten up and shabby. The one she bought looked sharp, kind of space age with a lot of dials and stuff. It was the newest automatic type that I’d seen on TV. But I didn’t have the foggiest notion how to work the thing. I figured there must be an instruction book around here somewhere.

  After looking in a couple of desk drawers, I asked myself where I’d put the book if I were Rita. I went to the filing cabinet, opened the drawer, and sure enough, inside was only one file, labeled: Pot, Coffee, Book!

  I fiddled around trying to hook up the high-tech gizmo, and was just about to give up when a small guy who looked about seventeen opened the door and walked in. I started to say hello, but he put a finger to his lips.

  “Quit.” he whispered.

  “Sol sent you?” I whispered back.

  He nodded his head.

  Before the guy started searching the place, I asked in a low voice if he knew how to hook up a coffeepot.

  He glanced at it and shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t waste my time on that piece of crap.”

  That did it. I’d stop for coffee later at Dolan’s Donuts.

  The kid wandered around carrying a device shaped like a large plastic wishbone. The arms were about ten inches long, and the handle was like a tennis racket but it had small lights and knobs on it. He walked around the place, holding the gadget in front of him, waving it up and down as if it were a divining rod and he had come looking for water. When he finished checking both offices and the restroom, he gestured for me to meet him outside.

  “Yep, the place is hot. I haven’t checked the phones yet, but they’re probably hot too.”

  “Can you remove the bugs?” I asked.

  “Sure, only take a few minutes.”

  We walked back into the office, where he took some tools out of his pocket, removed the plate covering the light switch, cut a wire, and pulled out a device about half the size of a pack of cigarettes.

  “Wow,” he said, his eyes bulging. “Look at this transmitter. Isn’t she sweet? See how small she is? This is the newest technology, very expensive. She’ll broadcast on an FM frequency over five hundred yards. Can I keep her?”

  “Yeah, why not.” I wondered why he referred to a listening device using the female pronoun.

  “Great! I’ll check the phone connection box, outside. I’m sure they’ll be another beauty like this one wired to the main line.”

  As soon as the sweeper left, I dialed my answering service. “Mabel, this is O’Brien. Any messages?”

  “Yeah, the usual.”


  “Read them, okay?”

  “My assistant took the messages while I was out. Left them around here someplace. Hang on.” A few seconds later, she came back on the line. “Okay, here’s the first one. It says, ‘Mr. O’Brien, please call me. Your car insurance is due. Signed, George Biddle.’ Next: ‘O’Brien, you’re a dead man.’ The third one is from a print shop. They’ve got a special this week.”

  “What! What did you say?”

  “They got a special this week, you know, on printing. Wait a minute!” Mabel paused. “Oh, my God! The second one says, ‘O’Brien, you’re a dead man.’ It’s not signed. What the hell is this? You really must have pissed someone off.”

  “Must be a joke.” I slowly hung up the phone. Karadimos had a special this week, too. Dead lawyers, a dime a dozen.

  C H A P T E R 23

  I didn’t sleep well Monday night. I rolled around in tangled sheets and woke up about a dozen times. Finally giving up, I got out of bed at five, showered and shaved, and landed at Denny’s Coffee Shop at 5:30 a.m. I ordered coffee and some eggs. Dawdling over the Times, I read it cover to cover.

  By seven, I’d finished the paper, even the want ads, and set it aside. I couldn’t get Welch out of my mind. It would do no good to phone his office again. I knew he wouldn’t return my call, but what I really needed was a face-to-face meeting. I wanted to look him in the eyes when I asked him a few questions. I felt I’d know a lie when I heard one. But how would I get him to agree to a sit-down, when I couldn’t even convince him to talk to me on the phone?

  Finishing the last of my coffee-my fifth cup-I happened to glance out the large plate glass window at the front of the coffee shop overlooking the parking lot. I noticed a guy wearing a black leather overcoat walking toward my Corvette. He stood beside my car for a moment. Then with one swift motion, he pulled a baseball bat from under his coat and smashed the driver’s side passenger window. He tossed something in through the opening then ran to a car that waited for him. The car, a dark blue Buick, sped away.

  I shot outside, instinctively raced around the lot and ran halfway down the block. Of course, the guy was long gone.