Martin nodded.
"And there should be no problem getting No Waves to issue the release," Carr said, smirking.
"Problems?" Kelly said. "He'll call a press conference at the drop of a hat."
"What comes after the phony press release?" Higgins said.
Carr pulled his chair closer to the table. As he explained his plan, the others sat in silence. After he had finished his explanation, more beers were opened.
"It's complicated," Higgins said.
"There's a lot of unknowns," Martin said, drinking down another half bottle of beer.
Carr looked at Kelly.
"Lots of things can go wrong," Kelly said. He bit his lip.
"If they do, we'll make repairs along the way," Carr said. "I say we're in a corner and there's no other way to fight our way out of it."
Everyone nodded in agreement. After finishing their beers, Higgins and Martin left, and Kelly asked Carr to join him for a walk.
For the next hour or so, they strolled the darkened suburban streets. Children sped about on bicycles with reflectors. From some of the homes they walked past, they could hear television dialogue, commercials, Hollywood-style gunshots, screeching tires, shouted commands, music.
They talked about some of the cases they had worked on together earlier in their careers. Finally, as they turned a corner and headed back toward Kelly's house, they ran out of conversation. The two men continued up the street to Carr's sedan, which was parked in front of the house. He pulled car keys from his pocket.
"I really think I'm gonna do it," Kelly said as he gazed in the direction of his home. "I'm not one hundred percent positive, but I've been doing a lot of thinking since this thing happened and I'm thinking seriously about taking the disability retirement."
Carr didn't respond. He unlocked the car and climbed into the driver's seat, started the engine.
"Well, why don't you say something?" Kelly said.
"If you want to get your charge by watching TV from now on, that's up to you, Jack," Carr said.
"The whole job is nothing but a goddamn game."
"True."
"If you had a wife and kids, you'd think differently."
"Maybe I would." He winked at Kelly and drove off.
****
SIXTEEN
IT TOOK Charles Carr twenty minutes to reach Jerome Hartmann's home in Beverly Hills. He pulled into the circular driveway and parked near the front door. The lights were out in the house. Nevertheless, Carr got out and rang the doorbell. After a long wait, he heard footsteps inside. The peephole opened and closed. The outside light came on and the door lock was unfastened.
Jerome Hartmann opened the door. He was wearing a blue terry-cloth robe and leather slippers.
"Sorry to stop by so late," Carr said. "But I want to take you up on your offer to help."
"Come in, Mr. Carr," Hartmann said, stepping aside. He ran his hands through his hair.
"That's not necessary, this will only take a minute. I need the use of a furnished house in Beverly Hills for a few days. I'd like to have the house by tomorrow afternoon. Can you help me?"
Hartmann rubbed his chin. "Greg Peckham and his family are in Cannes the next week or so. I'm sure if I phoned him he'd give me permission ... may I ask what you need the house for?"
"I can't tell you all the details right now, but it involves the people who tried to kill you. If we can use the house for a few days we might be able to catch them."
Hartmann nodded. "Call me tomorrow at the bank. I'll have it all arranged."
"Sorry to have disturbed you."
Jerome Hartmann shut the door.
The Beverly Hills Detective Bureau was busier than usual.
There had been an armed robbery at one of the Rodeo Drive jewelry stores and the office was buzzing with activity. Detectives filled out reports as they interviewed the witnesses: a well-dressed young woman, a middle-aged jeweler who still looked pale, a turbaned man wearing a tailor-made suit. Because it was almost time for shift change, uniformed officers roamed in and out of the office, stalling their return to patrol duties.
Travis Bailey stood in the corner of the room sharpening his pencils in an electric sharpener. As he checked each point, he wiped the excess lead on a tissue, then tossed the tissue in the wastebasket. After honing exactly fifteen pencils, he wrapped them with a rubber band and returned to his desk. He opened a drawer and placed the sheaf of pencils in its proper place, then closed the drawer.
"Hold the line," Delsey Piper said, and pressed the hold button on her telephone. "Line three." She looked at Bailey. Bailey picked up the receiver on his desk.
"It's me," Emil Kreuzer said.
"Where are you calling from?" Bailey's tone was less than friendly.
"In a phone booth of course. We need to get together."
"I can't get away today."
"Could you make time for the score of a lifetime? I mean of a lifetime?"
Bailey looked around the room. "I might be able to get away for a few minutes," he said casually. "Meet me at the department store." He hung up the receiver.
He looked at Delsey, still at her desk. "We have to go see an informant."
Bailey checked an unmarked sedan out of the motor pool and drove a few blocks to an exclusive, five-story department store. He drove into the underground garage and parked. "You wait here," he said.
"Can't I go with you? You keep telling me you'll let me meet some of your informants, and then you never do."
"Next time."
"That's what you always say."
Bailey climbed out of the car and entered the store through a bank of glass doors. Inside, he made his way through a cosmetics department staffed with immaculately groomed women of all ages and a circular platform featuring a display of male and female mannequins wearing see-through plastic coats and black leather tights. He took an elevator to the fourth floor, then wound through the fur department to a restaurant furnished with small white tables and cane-backed chairs. They were surrounded by trellises wrapped with artificial greenery.
Emil Kreuzer was the only male customer. He waved Bailey over. A waitress dressed in a puffed-sleeve uniform came to the table and took Bailey's order for coffee.
"I hope this is important," Bailey said after the waitress had left.
"I'll run it down to you and you tell me what you think. Yesterday I did my hypno thing on this movie star's wife-"
"Name?"
"Fay Peckham, wife of Greg Peckham."
"Go ahead."
"After I do the hypno thing I have conversation with the bitch. Somehow or another we get on the topic of gold coins. She tells me she and good ol' Greg are collectors; that they have lots of U.S. gold coins, numismatic pieces worth lots of bucks. I do the I happen to be a coin collector myself act and after a while she gets up and goes in the den. A minute later she comes back out with a tray of Krugerrands and Austrian Coronas. She tells me that her husband has been collecting for the past ten years and has his collection insured for three hundred thousand. The dumb bitch trusts me."
"How do you know the whole collection is in his house?"
"If you'll let me finish, I'll tell you."
Bailey nodded.
"While I'm sitting there jawing with the bitch, the doorbell rings. She goes to the front door. While she's signing for a package or something, I zip into the den. What do I see? A wall safe! The woman is so dumb she actually left the safe open. I got a glimpse of something beautiful. I'm talking about trays of gold coins. I almost came in my pants."
"You're telling me you saw the coins?"
"I saw them. And when I asked her about her next appointment, she told me all about her trip to Cannes. They'll be gone a week starting today. The safe is one of those little ones. Just have your man take an axe. He can chop the safe out of the wall and take it with him."
The waitress came to the table, served the coffee and hurried off.
Bailey tasted the coffee. "This may not b
e the best time to put Bones to work," he said. "Things have heated up lately."
"I take it you've read the newspaper?" Kreuzer sipped coffee. "It sounds to me like the Feds are chasing their tail in Chicago."
"Anyone can plant a newspaper story. As a matter of fact, it's the kind of thing that Carr would do."
"It's one of the best scores I have ever seen. It's not like taking ten percent on furs and silver. This is gold. Cash to cash. But, of course, it's whatever you think. You're the expert, so to speak." Kreuzer chuckled, then stirred his coffee with a tiny spoon.
"How did you meet the woman?"
"A coffee klatch referral. She attended one of my hypnosis demonstrations." Kreuzer drank almost the entire cup of coffee and looked into the cup. Placing it to his lips again, he threw his head back and drained it. As he did so, Bailey noticed that Kreuzer had thick fingers. A diamond pinky ring he wore was half hidden in flesh.
"Alarms?"
Kreuzer shook his head. He pulled a white card from his pocket and handed it to Bailey.
Bailey read it. It was Peckham's address. "Dogs?"
"No dogs."
"It sounds too easy," Bailey said. "I don't like things that sound too easy."
"Of course, it's not like we're tiptoeing in the house. And with gold coins, we don't have to worry about talking to a fence. They're untraceable. Any coin store in the world would be happy to buy them with no questions asked. Three hundred grand is a lot of bucks. A load of bucks."
"I'll think about it."
Bailey finished his coffee and Kreuzer paid the bill. "Whatever you think," Kreuzer said amiably as they strolled past mannequins wearing sable and chinchilla coats. They reached the bank of elevators and Kreuzer pressed the down button. A vacant elevator arrived; they stepped on and pressed different floors. Nothing was said as they descended.
"I hope you go for it," Kreuzer said when the elevator stopped at the ground floor. "I really do. I have a real good feeling about it."
"We'll see." Bailey stepped off the elevator into the underground garage and made his way to the unmarked police car. Delsey Piper was leaning back against the headrest with her eyes closed.
Bailey got into the car and started the engine. He backed out of the parking space and steered toward the street exit.
"What did your informant have to say?" she asked without opening her eyes.
"Routine info. Someone's planning a burglary in Beverly Hills. He'll find out more and get back to me in a few days ... blah blah blah."
"What are we going to do about it?"
"There's not much we can do about it."
"I wish you'd stop keeping me in the dark."
He reached out and pulled her close to him. He ran his hand up her skirt and she giggled.
"And now I guess we're headed for the apartment?" she said coquettishly.
He shook his head. "The golf course," he said with a wry grin.
"If anyone ever catches us up there we're going to be in trouble."
"But no one ever will."
"You like to do it up there because of the risk."
"Maybe." Bailey slipped his hand inside her panties and massaged her pussy. Delsey spread her legs and he felt wetness.
He stepped on the accelerator and zoomed out of the garage.
Charles Carr waited in his sedan. He was parked on Wilshire Boulevard a block east of the department store. He watched Emil Kreuzer leave the main entrance of the department store and walk across the intersection. Following Carr's instructions, he walked down a side street to his Mercedes-Benz, got in and drove off.
Carr started the engine and followed him as he made a few turns in the Beverly Hills business district. At a signal light in front of a store with a display window full of oriental rugs, Carr sounded his horn.
Emil Kreuzer pulled across the intersection and parked at the curb.
Carr pulled up behind him. Kreuzer got out of his car and looked around fearfully. He trotted to Carr's sedan and climbed in the passenger side.
"I gave him the rundown just like you told me," Kreuzer said.
Carr lit a cigarette, tossed the match out the window. "Did he go for it?"
"Hard to say. He didn't jump on it like a free piece of ass, but on the other hand, he didn't say no. He took the address."
"How did he act today as compared to other times when you've given him a rundown on a score?"
"Pretty much the same. He's not the kind of guy to come right out and tell you exactly when he's going to have a place hit. He's a noncommittal person. That's the best way to describe him. Cagey and noncommittal." Kreuzer smiled. "He's somewhat like you."
A Rolls-Royce pulled in front of them and parked. A middle-aged man wearing a tennis outfit got out of the car and went into the oriental rug store.
"If this thing goes the way you want it to, I'm home free, right?" Kreuzer said. "Immunity from prosecution, like you promised?"
Carr nodded. "If it goes the way I want it to."
"And I won't have to testify?"
"And you won't have to testify."
"What if something goes wrong and Bailey figures out I set him up?"
"Then he'll probably kill you."
"That's not very funny."
Carr drove straight to his apartment after meeting with Kreuzer and telephoned Higgins.
"I put out the bait," he said.
"When?"
"Just now."
"Then I guess we have to set up. Do I need to bring anything?"
"Bring a shotgun and a couple of flashlights. I have the transmitter," Carr said. "I'll meet you at the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station in an hour."
"I'll be there."
After they hung up Carr dialed Sally Malone's number.
"I just walked in the door," she said.
"I'm going to be tied up for a few days. I wanted to let you know-"
"We need to talk," she interrupted. "Can you come over for a few minutes?"
"I'm on my way to a stakeout. I don't really have time right now."
"Will you do this for me? Will you please come over for just a few minutes? I want to talk with you in person."
"We'll just end up in an argument."
"Are you telling me that your job is more important, more important overall than our relationship?"
Carr's eyes closed in frustration.
"All I'm asking for is five minutes."
"I'll be by." Carr set the receiver down.
Hurriedly, he tossed shaving items, shirts and underwear into a briefcase. It barely closed. He locked the windows and front door before leaving, then drove the few short blocks to Sally's apartment. As he knocked on the door, he realized he was out of breath.
"It's open," she called out.
Carr went in. Sally sat at a dinette table. She offered him a drink; he declined politely.
"I know you don't have much time," she said, "so I'm just going to say what I've been thinking for the last week and let the chips fall where they may."
Carr sat down at the table.
"I've felt strongly about you for years and unless I'm wrong I think you feel the same way about me. Maybe we love each other and maybe we don't. I'm really not sure that our relationship isn't some form of mutually destructive behavior. The thought has been on my mind for the past few days and I wanted to share it with you. If you think I'm crazy, please say so."
"I don't think you're crazy."
"But just the way you're looking at me right now I can tell that you haven't the slightest idea of what I'm trying to say." Sally looked at her hands.
Carr stifled the desire to check the time. "I really have to go," he said. "As soon as the stakeout is over we can get together and talk. Maybe I'll take some time off."
"Nothing will have changed. You'll still be the same Charlie Carr. Your job will still be more important than anything else in your life. You'll still prefer the company of sociopathic informants and alcoholic policemen over me. As soon as your precious stakeou
t is over, there'll be another and then another and another. Please don't go to work tonight. Please call in sick or do whatever you have to do. Please don't walk out of here and leave me sitting at this table."
Carr stood up. He pushed the chair back to the table. "You called me over here to argue," he said on his way out the door.
"Don't be surprised if I never call you again," she called after him, her voice cracking. "I mean that."
Carr met Higgins in the parking lot of the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station. After a brief discussion, they drove to Hartmann's bank and picked up the key to Peckham's house. They made a quick stop at a delicatessen on Hillcrest and bought lunchmeat and bread. By the time they made the short drive to Peckham's hillside home it was dusk. As Hartmann had described, there was a locked mailbox on a post at the entrance to a descending driveway.
Carr made the sharp turn and proceeded down the driveway past an elevated tennis court on the right. The house itself was a sprawling one-story structure balanced on hillside struts. It had a four-car garage. Higgins climbed out of the sedan and used a key to unlock the garage. Carr steered into an empty space between a Rolls-Royce and a Maserati and parked.
They carried shotguns, radio transmitters and the sack of groceries into the house. The living room was an expanse of deep black carpeting leading to a semicircle of glass windows covered by sheer curtains. Outside the windows was a plank-floored patio that looked down onto Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles.
Higgins followed Carr through the huge master bedroom and into a study with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The facing wall, behind a mahogany desk, was covered with photographs of the square-jawed Greg Peckham in scenes from various movies. The most imposing photograph was a color shot of Peckham costumed in pirate's knickers, gold earring and a colorful puff-sleeved shirt as he stood on the prow of a sailing vessel. He wore lipstick and heavy makeup.
Higgins stared at the photo. "Can you imagine wearing a costume like that all day to earn a living? All actors must be queers."
"Could be." Carr stepped out of the study and made his way down a hallway lined with oil paintings of Peckham in various flattering poses. The other bedrooms off the hallway were decorated in strikingly different motifs. The walls of one room were covered with zebra skins.
To Die in Beverly Hills Page 20
