by Bill Bernico
“Let’s see if Mama wants to come join you, shall we?” I laughed triumphantly and set the trap back in the corner near the sofa leg. I had to try to keep this family together and my waste can was as good a place as any for a family reunion.
I was washing my hands at the sink when a shadow fell across my office door. The handle twisted a half turn and the door opened. This time a real guest occupied space in my office with me. It was Sergeant Dan Hollister, one of L.A.’s finest.
He wore a gray double-breasted suit, buttoned up all the way with a white shirt beneath it. A splash of red leaked out between the lapels and a gray pork pie hat sat high on his head. His steel gray eyes scanned the room briefly before he settled in my client’s chair. He looked like he meant business. He looked like he wanted to share that business with me.
Dan made himself comfortable while I dried my hands. I rolled my sleeves down and returned to my swivel chair. Dan produced a large manila envelope and slid a photo out of it. It was a morgue photo of an old gentleman, sixty or so with the typical four-day stubble of a skid row bum. A corner of the man’s mouth was stained with a brown substance. It looked like chewing tobacco. His mouth hung open in a gaping yawn and I could see his teeth, or what used to be teeth. Now they were just brown and yellow stubs. He threw the photo on my desk and it slid to a stop in front of me, right side up.
“Didn’t know you went in for these high society types,” I said.
“Name’s Hugh Grossman.”
“How fitting.”
Dan continued without smiling. “He’s a street bum. Sixty-two, five-nine, a hundred and twenty, gray, blue. Last seen on Crocker and Sixth around eleven last Wednesday night. No priors, no family that we know of and no leads. Interested, Matt?”
“I can’t even figure out why you would be.”
“Normally I wouldn’t be,” Dan said. “Guys like this turn up dead all the time downtown. You might say it’s an occupational hazard, if you could call what they do an occupation.”
I picked up the photo and studied the face. Grossman’s eyes were still open, the light hitting them just right. “So what’s different about this guy?” I said.
Dan reached into his coat pocket. He held out his thumb and forefinger. Pinched between them was a bill—a crisp, new one hundred dollar bill. Dan grabbed the other end of the bill and gave a quick jerk. It snapped and sounded just like a new bill should.
“His?” I said.
“Doubt it, Matt,” Dan said. “It came out of this bundle.” Dan held a pile of similar bills wrapped in a brown paper band with some figures printed on it. He threw the bundle on my desk and I picked it up to see what it said—a dollar sign, a five and three zeros. I was holding five thousand dollars.
I held the bundle up to my ear and flipped through the sheaf of bills rapidly. I looked at the money and back at Hollister. One eyebrow drew upwards and my mouth pinched tight.
“Yup, phony,” Dan said, anticipating my question. “High quality phony.”
I threw the wrapped stack back on the desk. “Where’s a geezer like that come up with this kind of wad?” I asked, taking the bill from Dan, snapping it and holding it up to the light.
“Don’t know,” Dan said. “That’s where you come in, Cooper. I’m really short-handed what with that rash of thefts in the central division and half the force out chasing leads on the Troller case and...”
I dropped the bill on my desk. “Can it, Hollister. You’ve never asked me to help the L.A.P.D. before. Besides, those phony bills make this a federal case. What gives?”
Hollister sat in the chair opposite my desk. “Look, you could probably use the work, not to mention a few points you could rack up downtown. You want it or not?”
“Only if I’m told the facts and I can handle it my way.”
“Look, Cooper,” Dan started to say. He stopped himself, licked his lips and started again. “I need to know that what we talk about here today won’t go any further.”
I nodded. “Okay, you got it.”
The chief is up for re-election this fall and needs this one. If we bring the feds in right away, he doesn’t look so good. If we—you can quietly get a handle on this in the next twenty-four hours, we may not have to call them in just yet. I know they’ll eventually step in and take over, but if we can put a name to those bills...well, you know what that could mean to the chief.”
“And old guys like this aren’t exactly high priority, are they?” I looked back at the photo again. “No one to claim the body and start asking a lot of questions. How’d he die?”
“One shot to the back of the head with a .25 caliber Colt,” Dan said. “One of my men found him just minutes after he died.”
“Neat trick,” I said, plucking a cigarette from the pack in my breast pocket. “How’d he manage that one?”
Hollister rose from the chair and started pacing. “It was just after midnight and Officer Varney was on foot patrol last night on Crocker when he spotted a man coming out of the alley behind Leo’s Bar. Varney walked toward him, but when this guy saw him coming, he ran back into the alley and Varney gave chase. When he got to the spot where he saw the man running he tripped over Grossman here.”
“Passed out in the alley?” I said, striking my match and holding it to the end of my cigarette.
“That’s what Varney thought,” Dan said. “Varney tripping over Grossman gave the other guy enough of a head start to get away clean. Varney bent over to ask Grossman if he saw anything but Grossman didn’t answer. Varney nudged him on the shoulder and Grossman just keeled over. That’s when Varney saw the blood and the bullet hole.”
“You figure this guy Varney was chasing iced the old man?” I said.
“Hadda be. There’s wasn’t anyone else around,” Dan said. “We couldn’t figure out why until the coroner’s assistant undressed Grossman and this bundle was found in his inside breast pocket.”
I held up the bill again, trying to spot the telltale mistake that marked it as counterfeit. “But why?”
“As far as we can figure,” Dan said, “the suspect had the cash on him and was being followed when he came across Grossman passed out in the alley. He must have figured he’d plant the money on Grossman and come back around for it later when he could lose his tail.” Dan took the packet of bills from me and deposited it in a business-size manila envelope that he inserted in his pocket.
I glanced again at the photo and said to Dan without looking up, “the suspect probably killed Grossman just to make sure he’d still be there when he came back around. He didn’t want him waking up and wandering off or finding the cash.”
“Fits with what we found,” Dan said. “He probably figured that if anyone saw Grossman lying there that they’d just think he was passed out drunk and walk right on by.” Dan returned the photo to the larger envelope. “The suspect hadn’t counted on Officer Varney coming by just then. He didn’t even have enough time to get the money back. He just ran.”
“Too bad for the old guy,” I said taking another look at the glossy photo on my desk. “Any family?”
“None we know of,” Dan said. “Want the job?”
I settled back in my chair and pulled on the cigarette. I blew the smoke in D.A.’s direction. “What’s in it for me?” I said.
“It’s what’s in it for you if you don’t.”
I sat straight up and leaned forward. “And what’s that?”
Dan leaned over the waste can, looked down at the mouse for a second and then up at me. “Well, then it looks like it’s back to your big-game safari. Now do you want it or not?”
“City voucher for my rate plus expenses?”
Dan shook his head. “Cash—off the books.”
“Sure,” I said, rising from my desk. “Where do you want me to start?”
“You can start in the alley behind Leo’s Bar,” Dan said. “Someone there may have seen something. We went over the scene already, but never got the chance to question the locals.”
The single snapping sound echoed faintly in the corner. “Two down, one to go,” I said, smiling.
Dan left my office just ahead of me. We stopped at the curb in front of my office building and he got into his car and rolled down the window. “Matt, keep me posted. The chief’s on my ass for anything he can use.”
I nodded acknowledgment and climbed behind the wheel of my Olds. Crocker Street was a good twenty minutes away and I was eager to get started.
Maybe by the time I got back momma would be ready to join her kids in the trashcan.
The alley behind Leo’s bar connected Sixth Street with Seventh. Leo’s was a long, narrow bar with its front door emptying out onto Crocker. The alley itself was as nondescript as an alley can get. There was the usual assortment of trashcans and boxes, an occasional cat and one manhole cover. Steam sifted out of the holes in the cover like miniature smoke signals. Maybe there were miniature Indians beneath it. Maybe not.
A few feet down from Leo’s back door I located the drain pipe that ran down from the roof. It was here that Hugh Grossman was killed. There was still a vague chalk outline on the surface of the alley and reaching up onto the building where Grossman’s body had rested.
The area had been thoroughly policed and I really didn’t expect to find an overlooked clue. I just wanted to get a visual picture of what happened that night. I got what I came for and left.
I returned to my office and sat at my desk. I needed to draw up a plan for my next moves when the phone rang.
“Hey Matt,” Dan’s voice said, “Wanna get a look at our killer?”
“Geeze, that was quick,” I said. “Whaddya want me to do for the rest of the day?”
“We’ll talk about it when you get here. You coming?”
“On my way,” I said, eager to get back into the meat of my job. It took me twenty minutes to make it back to the precinct and down the hall to Dan’s office.
I entered without knocking, as I usually did, and stood in front of Hollister’s desk waiting for him to finish his phone conversation. Dan said his good-byes to the person on the other end and hung up the phone. Handing me a photo he said, “this is our boy.”
The photo was a candid shot of a man who obviously didn’t know he was being photographed. It was a shot of a man getting into a Packard sedan. He wore a long overcoat and a gray fedora. He was tall, probably six-one or six-two and looked every bit a dapper gentleman. Aside from that he looked like a hundred other guys I’d seen.
“This is what he looked like this afternoon,” Dan said, handing me a second photo.
This time the photo was of a man who was just getting out of the Packard sedan—head first. One leg rested on the sedan’s front seat, the other lay twisted on the floor near the clutch pedal. His face was flat against the pavement and his hands were flattened out on either side of his head. A stream of blood started near his head and ended in a pool in the gutter.
Dan reached into a manila envelope, retrieved a slug and handed it to me. I examined it and found it to be a .25 caliber, similar to the one taken from Hugh Grossman’s head.
“You sure this is the guy?” I asked, bouncing the slug in my palm before handing it back to Hollister.
“It’s him,” Dan said. “Someone shot him with this.” Dan reached into his pocket and produced a .25 caliber revolver. “We test-fired it and the slug matches the one taken from Grossman.”
“That’s kinda poetic, isn’t it?” I said, examining the gun.
“What’s that?”
“This guy being shot with his own gun. Taxpayers are gonna be mighty grateful someone saved them all that prosecution money. Not to mention the chief and the feds and...” I smirked as I thought of the swift justice that had been administered in this case. “Catch his name?”
“McMillan,” Dan said. “Dexter McMillan. He was Emil Becker’s button man. The way if figures is McMillan was supposed to deliver the phony bills to Becker. When he came back empty-handed Becker either shot him or had it done. It’s gonna be tough to prove but it’s the only lead we have to go on.”
“So where does that leave us?” I asked.
“With Becker,” Dan said. “Find him and go from there.”
“Where was McMillan found?” I said.
“In a lot in the sixty-six hundred block of Santa Monica near Cahuenga.” Dan stood behind his desk and looked at me. “Be careful, Matt. Becker would just as soon put one in your back as look at you.”
I made it to Santa Monica and Cahuenga in ten minutes. The lot was still roped off and there were two uniformed officers standing nearby. Murder must have become old hat because there was only one reporter snooping around, asking the officers questions.
I showed my shield and I.D. to one of the officers and stepped over the rope, scouring the area without trying to seem as if I was looking for anything.
After a while I turned and was about to leave when something caught my eye. I looked down and covered it with my shoe before looking around me to see if anyone else was looking my way. Crouching down, pretending to tie my shoe, I moved my foot and there it was. I picked it up and tucked it into the side of my right shoe. I stood up and brushed my suit off and headed back to my car, nodding my thanks to the officers.
Back at my office, I locked my office door and sat behind my desk to remove my shoe. I held the shoe up over my desk and poured the contents onto the blotter. It plopped out and settled there in front of me. It was perfect. It was exquisite. It was a silver tie tack and it had a single monogram on it—B.
I drew an envelope from my desk drawer and slipped the tie tack into it and sealed it. I lifted the throw run near my desk, exposing the “floor safe” where I kept my most important possessions. Inserting my “key” and turning, I lifted the “latch” and deposited the envelope.
With the rug back in place I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window at the Hotel St. Claire across the way.
For the next three days nothing much happened and I was beginning to get bored. I normally don’t take divorce cases but my bank account was so low it had to reach up to tap me on the heel. I agreed to meet with Mrs. Lloyd Hastings. She told me that she thought her husband had a mistress and she asked me to tail Mr. Hastings. I told her I charged twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses and she agreed. She said she’d be more than happy to pay me—with his money.
Discretion was not in Lloyd Hastings’ dictionary. It was the easiest tail job I’d ever taken. It was as if he wanted to get caught. Some guys are like that. They’d rather go through the whole routine with a setup like this and have someone else tell their wives the bad news than to calmly tell their wives themselves that they want a divorce. Mr. Hastings was no different. Maybe one day his new girlfriend would save enough to buy him a backbone.
Within six hours I had all I needed to hang Lloyd Hastings out to dry but waited another day before reporting back to Mrs. Hastings. After all, fifty bucks is fifty bucks.
I was at my desk making out a deposit slip for Madeline Hastings’ fifty-dollar check when I got a visitor. The doorknob wiggled back and forth a few times and then someone knocked. I unlocked the door and opened it. Standing in the doorway was a woman—a woman to make a Boy Scout leader leave his troops in the woods.
Her hair was blonde and piled up under a large brimmed hat. She was wearing a long blue coat and carrying a small handbag. Her legs ended in a pair of blue high heels that made her calves jut out in smooth, flowing curves. She had bright red lipstick and light blue eye shadow accenting the bluest eyes this side of Beverly Hills. She looked to be about thirty and I was in love.
“Mr. Cooper,” she said in a whispery voice.
“Matt,” I whispered back. “Call me Matt, Miss...”
“Mrs. McMillan,” she said in a purring cat-like voice. “Mrs. Dexter McMillan. Can we talk?”
“Of course, Mrs. McMillan. Let me take your coat.” I helped her out of her coat. Her dress was another shade of blue accented with a petite white collar and thi
n white piping down the front. It was low cut, fit her like a glove and my mind went blank for a second.
She caught me staring. “Done shopping yet?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McMillan,” I said. “Won’t you have a chair?” I pulled out the chair next to my desk and invited her to sit. I lifted one leg and perched myself on the edge of my desk facing her. “What can I do for you?”
She crossed her legs and those curvaceous calves led to a lovely pair of knees. I took a mental journey up those legs and breathed a deep breath before looking back up at her.
“Mr. Cooper, I thought you might be able to answer a few questions about my husband.”
“Like what?” I said. “I didn’t really know him. I’m sure he must have been a fine...”
“Cut the crap, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “We both know Dexter was a cheap hood and died the way he lived. I’m not concerned about who did it or why.”
My eyebrows nearly jumped off my forehead. I suddenly saw another side of this lovely lady and was taken by surprise.
“We both knew Dexter would get his some day,” she said. “It was just a matter of when, where and how. What I want to know is what happened to all of his personal belongings.”
I got down off the edge of my desk and took a seat behind it. “Mrs. McMillan, all Dexter had on him at the time of his death were the clothes on his back. Period.”
“I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean the other stuff.” She lowered her head briefly and then looked at me without raising her head again.
“What other stuff,” I said.
She nervously shifted in her chair. “I couldn’t ask the police about it, you understand, but Dexter had set aside, shall we say, a rather tidy sum of money and I want it. Of course, I’d be willing to pay you well for your time.”
“Mrs. McMillan, let me get this straight,” I said. “Dexter stashed his take from all the jobs he pulled and you want me to help you get it back? That’s foolhardy, to say the least. It’s also money he wasn’t and you aren’t entitled to. The police would...”
