Fugitive Nights

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Come on, you must have somebody that owes you a favor. We need the information right now and I don’t want her or Clive Devon to find out we’re running her license number.”

  He hesitated, but got up to go to the public phone. Before leaving he whispered, “I’m positive neither bartender’s so much as pocketed a wrong tip. Your client may be giving these bartenders a bum rap.”

  “He says he’s sure he’s being jobbed,” Breda said.

  “Well, your client’s not exactly a blithe spirit loved by all. He gets off on browbeating all these young kids named Heather and Chad. Look at his eyes. They’re shiftier’n Iran.”

  “Run the number,” Breda said. “I’ll take Mr. Riegel outside and have a chat.”

  Breda found her client directing traffic in the foyer. She caught his eye and motioned toward the door. When he met her outside Breda said to him, “I’ve had a man at the bar for an hour. There’s nothing going on.”

  A hurried conversation turned into an ultimatum from Mr. Riegel. He wanted somebody watching the bartenders that evening. He was having a private party in the banquet room, and was expecting a very large group from the convention center plus the regular in-season crowd.

  “I’ll try to be here for a few hours, Mister Riegel,” Breda assured him.

  “I want you or one of your people here from seven till eleven,” he said, “or you’re fired.”

  It was only after thinking of Lizzy’s tuition, books and board that Breda showed him her pimp-killer smile and said, “Sure, Mister Riegel. I’ll have somebody here all evening.”

  She caught up with Lynn before he’d returned from making the call, took him to the foyer and said, “You’re right, he’s slime. Can you come back here this evening for a couple hours?”

  “Tell him to shove it.”

  “I need this sleazy job!” she said. “I’m trying to get some nice clean insurance frauds to work on, but right now I need this client.”

  “It gets expensive sitting at a bar,” he said.

  “I’ll pay for the drinks.”

  “Do they go against my fee?”

  “No,” she sighed. “You’ll actually get paid to slosh down the booze.”

  “I think I can handle that.” Then he looked at the notepaper and said, “The car’s registered to Blanca Soltero. Lives in Indio.”

  “That’s Clive Devon’s maid,” Breda said. “The girl must be her daughter. Shit!”

  “He might have something going with the maid’s daughter.”

  “No, that doesn’t work,” Breda said. “Not with the sperm bank business.”

  “Look, he lied to his wife about meeting the girl, didn’t he? There’s something happening between them.”

  “No wonder nobody wants these crappy domestic cases,” Breda said. “Meet me at my office in thirty minutes. I’m gonna see if the Plymouth’s still at the Devon house.”

  Twenty minutes later, Breda was on foot again, peeking over the wall at Clive Devon’s pool. She had to retreat to her car when the dog started barking. The girl and her car were gone, but she’d have to return for her dog, Breda surmised.

  When she got back to her office she was surprised to see someone in the waiting room with Lynn Cutter, who was slumped in a chair, looking gloomier than usual.

  Lynn opened one eye and said to her, “Help’s arrived, and he’s very helpful. Actually, he’s the kind a cop that’d do a Heimlich maneuver on your pet, even if the pet was a parakeet. He always means well, this young man.”

  “Hi, Miss Burrows!” Nelson Hareem said, sticking out his hand and grinning like Bugs Bunny. “I think we’re getting a little closer to the drug smuggler!”

  By four o’clock that afternoon they’d been presented with a Nelson Hareem scenario that made Breda’s neck hair do the lambada. Not because she thought it was remotely plausible, but because it proved that Lynn Cutter was right: The kid was a banana.

  “You think the guy’s what?” Lynn asked, after Nelson had announced his hypothesis.

  “An Arab terrorist,” Nelson repeated calmly, with that agreeable smile. “It’s very possible.”

  “It’s very possible,” Lynn said to her.

  “I hear him,” Breda said. “You mean the guy’s not a drug smuggler? The kind that comes into this valley in a private plane because his flight bag’s full of dope and panics when he’s taking a pee and suddenly sees a cop in uniform? He just couldn’t be that kind of ordinary scumbag crook?”

  “No.”

  “Why, Nelson?” Breda asked. “Not that it makes any real difference in my life. But why? I’m curious.”

  “The coins in the mouth were the first tipoff,” Nelson said. “The old Indian at the reservation said it proves he’s a man a the desert.”

  “I see. He couldn’t be a man of the Mexican desert?”

  “At first I thought so, till Lynn found this.” Nelson handed a dime-sized coin to Breda. “It’s Spanish. Diez pesetas. See the profile of King Juan Carlos? I figure the guy flew to Mexico on Iberia Airlines by way of Spain. I figure he’s from Algeria, maybe Morocco. That’s right near Spain.”

  “I know. I saw Casablanca” Breda said.

  “But that’s only part of it. There was the thing he said to the pilot when they talked to the mechanic at the hangar.”

  “I thought he only spoke Spanish.”

  “But he pointed to the map on the wall, and he said something the mechanic thought was in Spanish. And he laughed. Well, jist look at your map a this valley. Know what’s one of the closest places to that airport?”

  “What?”

  “Mecca! He saw Mecca and made a joke about bein near a holy place. I mean, it fits!”

  Lynn and Breda looked at one another, and Breda slipped into a little grin of derision, saying, “Then it wasn’t Spanish he spoke?”

  “Mighta been,” said Nelson. “Or it mighta been Arabic. He probably speaks two or three languages.”

  “Nelson,” Lynn said, “they got a Coke machine downstairs. I’ll buy if you go get em. My left knee’s so swollen it’s grotesque. The other’s even worse. You wouldn’t know it from Marlon Brando.”

  “Sure, regular Coke?”

  “Regular,” Lynn said.

  “Diet,” Breda said.

  “My treat,” said Nelson, and dashed out the door.

  “See?” Lynn said when they were alone. “He has cosmic reasons for doing what he does.”

  “He’s real cute,” Breda said. “I feel like taking him to the zoo or maybe buying him some Gummi Bears, but he’s a nutter, all right. Wacko. No telling what’s bubbling in his brain.”

  “Unfortunately, I have to work with him for the next two days or he turns over all his information to the sheriffs. That means they find out about Clive Devon, et cetera.”

  “They’d interview Devon!”

  “Of course they would.”

  “He’d find out about the surveillance! That’d screw me out of five thous …”

  Too late! Lynn put on a happy face you couldn’t remove with a chisel. “You little dickens!” he said. “Aren’t you the one? Five grand? And here I am risking my entire pension for a measly thousand bucks?”

  “If we get to the bottom of the Devon affair, I’ll give you another five hundred,” Breda said, regretting the day she’d set eyes on this grinning dipso. “But I need help.”

  Nelson Hareem came bursting back into the office with the cold drinks, beaming with anticipation. “Can we start real soon, Lynn? I got a need to proceed. Big time!”

  Lynn took his Coke and said to Breda, “Remember that guy Jack Graves? The one that got a stress pension after shooting the kid? Jack needs something to do, something to take his mind off the accident. Let’s see if he’ll take on your bartender case. He used to do lotsa undercover assignments in bars when he worked dope. You could watch Devon’s house tonight. Me, I could check out motels that begin with A, B or C for a bald-headed smuggler.” Then he turned to Nelson and said, “Excuse me, I meant t
errorist. By the way, who’s he terrorizing?”

  “Could be anybody,” Nelson said. “How about an ex-president? Gerald Ford lives here.”

  “Why would any self-respecting terrorist bother with Gerald Ford?” Lynn wanted to know.

  “How can I get hold of this Jack Graves?” Breda asked.

  “I’ll take you to see him now,” Lynn said. “Lives in a motor home up in Windy Point. I try to visit every couple weeks.”

  “Lynn, I’ve only had a chance to check out five motels,” Nelson said. “Don’t you think …”

  “Go get yourself a hamburger,” Lynn said. “Meet me right here at six o’clock and we’ll spend the whole evening working on the A’s, okay?”

  “Okay,” Nelson said agreeably. “I know a good orthopedist who could look at those knees.”

  “Too late,” Lynn said. “I already had two surgeries by a goon that’s destroyed more knees than the IRA.”

  Windy Point was aptly named: Breda held on to her purse with both hands and hoped she wouldn’t be wind-stripped of her jumpsuit. There was a little grocery store and gas station in Windy Point, but that was about it for commerce in the working-class enclave just north of Palm Springs. Both she and Lynn had to lean into the whistling gale as they walked across Jack Graves’ little cactus garden toward his mobile home.

  “After slogging through this hurricane I hope he’s home,” Breda shouted, feeling the sand peppering her sunglasses.

  “Jack’s always home,” Lynn shouted back above the blast. “That’s the trouble. He needs to get out more.”

  Lynn banged on the metal door of the mobile home and yelled, “Jack, put your pants on. Brought a visitor.”

  Jack Graves was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and was barefoot. He was much taller than Lynn, very thin and gaunt. He had a kindly face and was gray around the sideburns, but the hair on top was as dark as Breda’s and his chin stubble was black.

  Breda could’ve picked him out of a lineup from hearing his story. There was a lot of torment in the eyes of Jack Graves.

  “Meet Breda Burrows,” Lynn said. “She’s a new P.I. in town, retired from LAPD. I’m helping her on something.”

  When Breda shook his hand it felt clammy, and she could see droplets by his hairline and above his lip. It wasn’t that hot in the mobile home. He must be sick, she thought.

  The living room was small and exceptionally neat; everything was in perfect order. Breda sat on a daybed sofa next to Lynn.

  “Can I get you something?” Jack Graves asked. “How about a beer or a soft drink?”

  “Nothing, thanks,” Breda said.

  “Just had a soda pop,” Lynn said. “How you been?”

  “Fine.” Jack Graves smiled. He had heavy dark eyebrows and thick lashes which made his eyes even more sunken.

  Lynn said, “Jack, you get any skinnier you’ll fit through a mail slot. I gotta take you out for some burritos.”

  “Just getting over the flu,” Jack Graves said.

  Lynn Cutter noticed the perspiration, and said, “You’re gonna have to back-comb your pubic hair to hold your pants up!”

  “Flu’s all better now,” Jack Graves said. “I’ll gain some weight.”

  “How’s your ankle?” Lynn turned to Breda. “Jack sprained it chasing a gopher outta his garden. Can you imagine? Living out here, anybody else woulda shot the …”

  Then Lynn caught himself, and Breda saw the expression change on Jack Graves’ face. You didn’t talk about shooting anything with this man.

  Breda covered for Lynn by saying, “So the ankle’s fine?”

  “Yeah, I must be getting old,” Jack Graves said. “And I tripped coming out of the market the other day and landed on my hip.” Then to Lynn, “Remember when I told you about that hip pointer I got in the car wreck where I went in pursuit?”

  “Yeah, same hip?”

  “Uh huh. It’s bothering me a little bit.”

  “Can you walk around okay, and maybe sit at a bar for a few hours tonight?”

  “A bar?”

  “We got a job for you,” Lynn said. “Not big money, but something to do.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Jack Graves said. “I really oughtta take care of my washing and ironing tonight.”

  “Please, Jack,” Lynn Cutter said, in a gentle voice that Breda hadn’t heard him use before. “It’s a little job that has to be done and I don’t have anyone else to do it for me.”

  “Okay, Lynn,” Jack Graves said. “I guess clean underwear can wait.”

  Lynn took five minutes to explain The Unicorn bartender-watch to Jack Graves, and Breda realized that this was a Lynn Cutter scheme to help the man.

  Breda saw six photos of a child on the wall, from when the boy was a chubby two-year-old to a lad of twelve or thirteen. She figured that Jack Graves was a divorced man with a son, perhaps a boy close to the age of the one he’d killed when they’d raided the wrong house.

  When Breda and Lynn were driving back to her office, Breda said, “That was a nice thing to do for him. And I can use the help.”

  “Jack’s gotta get out,” Lynn said. “He’s dwelling on that shooting. I been with him when we drive past Mexican kids and he gets a look on his face. Jack’s in trouble.”

  “Whadda you make of all his accidents?”

  “Same as you,” Lynn said. “You didn’t hear the half of it. He also accidentally cut his hand while slicing onions. That one took about thirty stitches. He broke two toes when he dropped a five-pound sledge trying to put up a fence. All this in a period of a couple months. That guy’s carrying so much guilt the next accident might be fatal. If you could maybe come up with any other little job he might do for you, I’d appreciate it.”

  “He needs psychiatric counseling.”

  “He needs body armor. Unless he can get busy and take his mind off it. You can’t be alone like that, not all the time.”

  “I could use some help with the surveillance on Clive Devon. Could he take your place while you go sleuthing with Nelson?”

  “Sure,” Lynn said. “Nelson promised he’ll give up and forget the whole thing in two days if we don’t get a lead on his smuggler. I mean his terrorist.”

  “Of course his fee would come out of your share.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” Lynn surprised Breda when he added, “It’s worth it if it gets him away from himself. You can’t be alone all the time.”

  “If Clive Devon hooks up with that Mexican girl again I’m risking a dog bite,” Breda said. “I’m gonna sneak and peek and find out what they’re doing.”

  “Be careful,” he said. “That dog’s goofier’n a blind date.”

  “I think he’s just a big puppy.”

  Lynn looked at his watch and said, “Time to face up to an evening with Nelson Hareem. You’re right, Nelson’s adorable, but why is it every time I look at that kid I hear the shower music from Psycho?”

  Out-of-towners equated Palm Springs with glamour and money, and there was still a lot of it around. But the big money was relentlessly moving south in the valley, to Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, and even La Quinta now that PGA West was there. One didn’t find the Forbes Four Hundred bucks around the Las Palmas neighborhood anymore, but there was still old quiet money, like Clive Devon’s. It was in the downtown commercial section of Palm Springs that the big change showed, more than in the residential areas. Many of the shops were vacant now, even in season. There were signs in too many windows saying, “Moved to Palm Desert,” to El Paseo, a shopping area with pretensions of becoming another Rodeo Drive.

  Most desert residents are blue collar, or live on fixed incomes, in places like north Palm Springs, or Desert Hot Springs or Cathedral City. It was in such off-the-avenue districts, whose motels were both low profile and low-priced, that Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem were searching.

  “We’ll max out with the fifty-buck-a-nighters,” Lynn suggested. “In fact, thirty-five-a-nighters would be a better bet if there are any that cheap in s
eason.”

  The first few were easy enough. The employees on night duty showed Lynn and Nelson the motel registers with hardly a glance at the badge Lynn presented, and despite the fact that Nelson—in a Los Angeles Lakers blue and yellow T-shirt with Magic Johnson’s number 32 on the back—looked more like one of the weekend, student hell-raisers than a cop.

  Lynn noticed the bulge under the arm of Nelson’s T-shirt and wasn’t surprised. He’d figured Nelson to be a leg holster type as well. And he probably carries a dagger, and maybe a derringer in his shorts, Lynn figured. The Nelson Hareems of this world were as predictable as August heat rash.

  It was dark when they got to the fourth one, Bessie’s Apartment Motel, north of Desert Hospital, just a few miles and a few million dollars from the other Palm Springs. It looked promising, a run-down stucco one-story, with a white rock-composition roof.

  Bessie herself was working at the reception desk, and wasn’t overwhelmed by a Palm Springs police badge being waved under her nose. She’d been watching Wheel of Fortune and dreaming of winning a Beverly Hills shopping trip. She didn’t look quite as masculine as George Burns, whom she resembled, but her voice was more gravelly.

  Bessie glanced at Lynn and said, “What is it, another runaway from L.A. get in trouble?”

  “Need to talk to a guy who mighta checked in yesterday afternoon. He’s a Mexican …” Then Lynn looked at Nelson and said, “Or maybe he’s from the Middle East.”

  “Like Kansas?”

  “That’s Middle West.”

  “Like the guys that’re behind the counter in a Seven-Eleven store,” Nelson offered.

  “Oh, Eye-ranians?”

  “Yeah, like that,” said Lynn. “But maybe he’s a Mexican.”

  “Mexican, Eye-ranian, gimme a break!” Bessie said. “Think anybody can tell the difference?”

  “He’s bald but might be wearing a blue baseball cap or some other hat,” Lynn said.

  “Then I wouldn’t know he was bald, would I?”

  “No,” Lynn said.

  “He’s maybe in his late thirties, early forties. About my height but huskier. Strong-looking guy. With a big droopy black mustache. Might not have a car.”