Chasing Charlie Chan - Special Edition: Includes Catching Water in a Net

by J. L. Abramo

  The counterman refilled Cady’s coffee mug and took a stab at being friendly.

  “Looking for a good PI?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for a certain PI. Jimmy Pigeon.”

  “You won’t find him in there.”

  “Oh,” Cady said, looking up from the book.

  “Pigeon works out of Santa Monica, his name has been in the news lately. His partner was murdered recently. If you’re looking for someone here in town, I could offer a few suggestions.”

  “I need to see Pigeon,” Cady said.

  “Old friend?”

  “Never met him. I’m looking him up for my brother.”

  Jackson Masters skipped breakfast Sunday. He had not slept very well and he had no appetite. When he first made the lunch date with his father for that Sunday afternoon he had been looking forward to the visit. But after the phone call from Pam Walker on Saturday, he was again afraid he might betray his anxiety in his father’s presence.

  William Masters lived in a large home not far from the Rockingham mansion that had dominated the news for the past week. A uniformed officer stopped Jackson Masters’ car as he rode toward the ex-Governor’s house. Masters showed the officer his identification and stated his destination. The officer apologized for the inconvenience and waved Masters through the check point. Masters pulled into the drive and put on what he hoped was a convincing smile before climbing out of his vehicle and slowing walking to the front door.

  Jimmy Pigeon pulled his car into the driveway shortly before noon. In less than thirty minutes, the streets of the neighborhood would be jammed with vehicles approaching Dodger Stadium for the last of a three game series against Colorado. The Dodgers had lost the day before, suggesting Ray Boyle had continued watching from his bed in the hospital. Jimmy had called ahead before leaving the house on the lake. Fran Stradivarius had answered the phone and reported her son had been up half the night in front of a stack of library books and the laptop and Vinnie was now rolling around the house, fidgeting in his wheelchair, ambulatory pacing, as he waited for Jimmy to arrive.

  The front door flew open before Jimmy could ring the bell, as if Vinnie had been peering out of the window all morning. It took Jimmy a few minutes to calm Vinnie down long enough to locate and greet Fran.

  He found Fran at the kitchen stove. Her back was to him, three pots sat on lit burners on the stovetop. She was stirring a large kettle of tomato sauce with a wooden spoon. For a moment, she reminded Jimmy of his mother at the stove, already preparing dinner when he returned from school on weekday afternoons, anticipating the arrival of Jimmy’s father from his shift with the LAPD.

  It was a Friday afternoon in April, 1958. Jimmy had raced back from school, turning down an invitation to play in a pick-up basketball game at the schoolyard. Today, he was in a hurry to get home, anxious to know what the ‘big surprise’ was; the surprise Nick Pigeon had promised his son the night before.

  Nick had come up to say goodnight to his son. Jimmy’s two younger sisters were asleep in the next bedroom. Jimmy was reading a book his father had given him, Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Nick was a lover of the classics and Jimmy had inherited his father’s enthusiasm. Jimmy put the novel down and smiled when his father walked in.

  “Hey, Pop.”

  “It’s late, son, time for lights out.”

  “Can I finish this chapter, Dad?”

  “It can wait. It’s been around for a hundred years, it will be there tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, do you have any big plans for Friday night?”

  “Not really,” said the fifteen-year-old. “Why?”

  “I thought we might go out together, after dinner.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “C’mon, Dad, tell me. I’ll go nuts thinking about it all day in school tomorrow.”

  “How is school?”

  “Fine. C’mon, Dad, tell me.”

  “Tomorrow. Now, get to sleep.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Things are not always fair, son. Trust me, this will be worth the wait. A little mystery is good for you, keeps you on your toes. Now, bedtime.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, son?”

  “Being a policeman?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it like the Musketeers?”

  “Just a little bit, son.”

  “That’s what I want to do, Dad. Be a police officer, like you.”

  “You have a long time to decide.”

  “All for one and one for all.”

  “Go to sleep,” Nick said, turning off the light.

  Friday, Jimmy sat at the kitchen table after school, his mother at the stove. He had been badgering her for nearly an hour, trying to get her to reveal the secret.

  “Jimmy,” she said, turning from the stove, “you are driving me crazy. Your father will be home soon. Go up the street to your aunt’s house and pick up your sisters.”

  “Mom.”

  “Go. Get the girls.”

  An hour later, Jimmy heard a car pull up in front of the house. He ran to the front door and opened it to find Captain Roger Rollins standing there. Jimmy’s mother came to the door. Rollins asked if he could talk with her.

  Alone.

  Before leaving twenty minutes later, Rollins reached into his pocket.

  “We found these on Nick’s body,” he said, handing her two tickets for the very first home game of the first year Los Angeles Dodgers. The ‘big surprise’.

  Jimmy still had those two baseball tickets; a reminder that things are not always fair.

  The woman at the stove became Fran Stradivarius again. She turned to find Jimmy standing silently behind her.

  “Jimmy, are you okay?”

  “Yes, Fran. Looks like you’re cooking up a storm.”

  “Sunday dinner. I hope you’ll stay.”

  “C’mon, Jimmy,” Vinnie called from the dining room table. “I’ve been waiting all morning to show you this.”

  “Maybe I will, Fran,” Jimmy said. He left the kitchen to find out what Vinnie was all juiced up about.

  “I found two files we hadn’t looked at,” Vinnie said, as Jimmy pulled up a chair beside him at the table. “They were in a separate folder titled North Linden, the name of the street where the Masters’ mansion sits.”

  “Go on.”

  “The first is a history of the mansion which Richards put together. The place was originally owned by the Fox Studio. When Warner Oland was signed for five more Chan films in 1934, after the incredible success of the first eight, the contract included a huge salary and the house on North Linden. When a new contract was negotiated in 1936, Oland demanded lots more cash and artistic control of the material. The actor was having personal problems. He was drinking a lot and becoming extremely difficult to work with. Oland’s services were getting too costly and far too messy for the studio and they were looking for a way to get out of the contract and replace the actor. The task was given to Reginald Masters. In 1937, Oland walked off the set of Charlie Chan at Ringside and never returned. Sidney Toler took over the role of Charlie Chan in the next film. Masters somehow solved the studio’s dilemma and was rewarded with the deed to the mansion in Beverly Hills.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy said. “So, how did Ben Siegel wind up living in the mansion?”

  “Rumor had it that Siegel may have been instrumental in encouraging Oland to disappear and Masters might have thanked Siegel by giving him the keys to the mansion. Masters’ career skyrocketed after Oland left. He took the Charlie Chan franchise to Monogram Pictures during the war in exchange for a large piece of the studio and by war’s end he controlled the film company. When Bugsy Siegel was killed in 1947, Masters moved into the vacated mansion.”

  “So, Masters moved into his own house. Big deal.”

  “Unless Masters gained more than just a new street address when Siegel died,” Vinnie said.

  “What’s in the second file you found?” Jimmy asked.


  “It’s just a few pages, but it may be the break we’ve been looking for.”

  Vinnie just sat there looking at Jimmy. The kid was wearing a goofy smile.

  “Are you going to tell me or what?”

  “Richards put these few pages together specifically for Lenny Archer.”

  “For God’s sake, Vinnie, tell me what it is.”

  “The photograph of the woman who looks like Virginia Hill and a long note to Lenny. Take a look,” Vinnie said, bringing the note up on the laptop screen.

  Jimmy pulled the laptop closer and read.

  Mr. Archer:

  Thank you again for your help last week. The information you were able to collect about the ownership history of the house on North Linden will be very useful in the research for my book, Chasing Charlie Chan. As I mentioned on the telephone this morning, I’m hoping you can now help me find a woman. I have included a photograph. On Thursday, I drove out to North Linden to shoot pictures of the mansion. I saw the woman leave the house before she was picked up by a taxicab. I thought I recognized her, but couldn’t place her. I snapped a photo and then, not knowing quite why, I jotted down the number of the cab. When I returned home and looked over my files, I realized why the woman looked so familiar. I tracked down the cab driver and, for a price, he told me he had taken the woman to the Beverly Crescent Hotel.

  I went to the hotel on Friday morning with a print of the photograph, to try to find out who she was. Again, for a price, I was informed by a front desk clerk the woman’s name was Natalie Levant and that she was not in her room. I left a business card with the clerk, Harry Sherman, with a note asking the woman to please give me a call. I waited Friday and Saturday to hear from her, but never did. This morning, I phoned the hotel and was told she had left the hotel on Friday evening and not returned.

  I wish I could give you more to work with, but this is all I have. Please let me know if you have any luck. Thank you for agreeing to meet me away from your office. For the past few days, I have had the feeling I was being followed. I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but you know what they say about being paranoid.

  Edward Richards

  “Being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not watching you,” Vinnie said.

  “They were watching Richards and he led them straight to Lenny. Raft and Tully. They followed Lenny back to the office from the drop point to find out what Richards handed him and what he knew. They tried beating it out of him and he wouldn’t talk. Then they found what they were searching for, grabbed it and they shot Lenny on the way out,” Jimmy said. “It’s all on the fucking tape. They slaughtered him and then went and did the same to Richards.”

  “Why? For trying to find the woman?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Can you print a copy of the woman’s photograph?”

  “No problem, but I’ll have to take the disk over to my desktop computer,” Vinnie said. “The printer is in my room. Give me a minute.”

  Jimmy went back into the kitchen, to tell Fran he couldn’t stay for dinner and thank her for the offer.

  Jimmy waited in the dining room until Vinnie came back with the photograph. He snatched it from Vinnie’s hand and headed for the front door.

  “Are you going to see Ray Boyle?”

  “Not before I go to the Beverly Crescent Hotel.”

  Seth Cady stepped off the bus. It was his fourth bus trip in less than forty hours. Southern Nevada Correctional Center to Las Vegas to Oakland to LA to Santa Monica.

  Cady walked up the Third Street Promenade looking for a phone book. He spotted Meg’s Café, walked in and sat at a window booth. A waitress fixed him up with coffee, a pen and a phone directory. He found Jimmy Pigeon’s office and home addresses and jotted both down on a paper napkin.

  The waitress came back to refill his coffee cup. Cady quickly slipped the napkin into a shirt pocket.

  “Can I help you find something?” she asked. “I know the town pretty well.”

  It was Sunday. Cady didn’t expect to find Pigeon at his office. He would find him at home, but he would wait. He needed a place where he could lie down for a while. He had not allowed himself a moment’s rest since walking out of the gates of the Nevada prison. And he needed a place to go after he dealt with Pigeon, where he could stay out of sight until heading back to Las Vegas in the morning.

  “Do you know a place where I can get a room, not too expensive and not too far from here?”

  “Everything is too expensive around here,” she said. “But there’s a motel on Broadway at Nineteenth that’s not terribly bad. And you can easily walk it.”

  “Thanks,” Cady said, placing a five-dollar bill on the table and rising to leave. “I’ll check it out.”

  “Hold on, I’ll get your change.”

  “Keep it,” he said.

  Cady walked to the exit. He turned and gave the woman a big smile before stepping out to the street.

  The waitress carried the phone directory back to its place beside the cash register.

  “Who’s your new friend, Kim,” Meg kidded from behind the counter. “I haven’t seen him here before.”

  “Just a man looking for a motel.”

  “I wonder where he’s from. He had a strange look in his eyes. Like someone who doesn’t get out much.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Kim said, “but I can tell you he’s a good tipper.”

  Another customer came through the front door.

  “Well, what a surprise,” Meg said.

  “Who is he?” Kim asked.

  “Someone I hadn’t expected to see again so soon.”

  The man walked straight up to the counter.

  “How are you, Meg?”

  “Good, Nathan. How are your wife and the baby?”

  “Annie is doing really well,” Nate Archer said, “and the boy is amazing. I can hardly take my eyes off him.”

  “That’s great. I’m glad everything went well. So, what brings you back so soon? It must be something important to tear you away from your family.”

  “I’m looking for Jimmy. He wasn’t at home or at his office.”

  “I haven’t seen Jimmy for a couple of days. Last I heard he was headed to LA. He said he planned to see Ray Boyle at the hospital and see Vinnie Strings also. If it’s urgent, I can make a couple of phone calls, try to find him.”

  “It’s not urgent. It’s just every time I look at the baby, I think about Lenny, and how I left Jimmy holding the bag. I wanted to talk with Jimmy about it, make myself more available if he needs help.”

  “I have keys to Jimmy’s apartment,” Meg said. “Let me get you something to eat, if you haven’t had lunch. Then you can go over to his place and wait for him. Just make yourself at home. I’m sure Jimmy won’t mind. He should be back before too long. In the meantime, I will make a few calls and try to track him down.”

  “Thanks, Meg. I appreciate it.”

  “Hold your gratitude until after you’ve tried the lunch special,” Meg teased.

  Just as certain genetic diseases skip generations, the sins of Reginald Masters had been inherited not by his son, but by his grandson.

  The woman had chosen to approach Jackson Masters. It was logical, he was much more accessible than a reclusive millionaire or an ex-Governor.

  She had contacted Masters through the DA’s office and was able to persuade him that a private meeting was in his best interest. At a café near the Criminal Courts Building, she told him just enough to convince him her determination was unshakable. She insisted he arrange a visit to the home of his grandfather. She told Masters she would wait at the Beverly Crescent Hotel for an answer, but would not wait long. If she did not get word of an appointment to speak to Reginald Masters by the next day, she would be talking with someone who might consider her information worthy of a sensational news story and a huge price tag.

  Then she had left Jackson Masters sitting in the café.

  He sat, stunned, debating whether to call
his father or call the old man. He called his grandfather and told Reginald Masters about the woman and what she wanted.

  “Bring her to me, and don’t speak of this to anyone,” the old man had said, in a voice that chilled Jackson Masters to the bone.

  Seth Cady checked into the motel on Broadway shortly after two on Sunday afternoon.

  He paid cash for a one-night stay and asked the clerk to give him a wake-up call at five.

  “Do you think Simpson really did it?” the kid asked, handing Cady a room key.

  Cady said nothing. He had no idea what the kid was talking about.

  Up in the room, Cady stretched out on the bed. His fifty-fourth birthday was less than a week away. He had spent nearly half his life, nearly all of his adult life, behind bars. He had been raised by a domineering mother and an alcoholic father who gave him little attention and less love. He had done little that was right in his life. The only human who ever cared about him, had ever defended or protected or nurtured him, was his older brother, Will. He had no prospects, no place he needed to be, except at the desk of his parole officer in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning. No place at all. He wanted to do one thing he could feel good about, one thing that would have made his big brother proud of him. He’d had a very long time with very little to do but think about what that might be.

  Seth Cady could only hope killing Jimmy Pigeon would do the trick.

  FATHER’S DAY

  Jimmy quickly identified Harry Sherman from the gold nametag on the front of his red sport jacket.

  “Hello, Harry,” Jimmy said from across the check-in counter of the Beverly Crescent Hotel.

  “Do I know you?”

  “I’m really hoping this won’t take that long,” Jimmy said. He placed the photograph on the counter and tapped it with his finger. “Tell me about this photo.”