Choke

by Stuart Woods

  The chief looked at them both for a moment, then pointed at Daryl. “Not you,” he said. “Tommy, bring me a travel chit, and I’ll sign it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy said, and both detectives rose.

  “Travel cheap,” the chief said. “I don’t want to get any big bills.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy replied.

  “And you,” the chief said, pointing at Daryl. “You ever talk to me that way again, I’ll whip your ass, I don’t care what my sister says.”

  “Yes, sir,” Daryl replied.

  Both detectives got out of there.

  30

  It wasn’t Tommy’s first trip to L.A. Work had taken him there three or four times, so he knew the town a little. He rented a car and drove up to Beverly Hills, then West Hollywood, where he’d booked at a suite hotel on a quiet street. He’d stayed there once before.

  Numb from the three-hour time difference, he took a nap that turned into a deep sleep. The California sun was streaming through the windows when he woke up; it was half past nine, and he was hungry. He called down to room service and ordered breakfast.

  He hadn’t intended to sleep through the night; he’d wanted to visit Carman’s office when there was no one around. He had a good breakfast, showered, shaved, and left the hotel. Carman’s office was in a three-story, semi-seedy commercial building on Melrose, in a neighborhood that would soon be too expensive for a PI. Tommy found a parking meter up the street and walked back to the building.

  He looked up Carman’s name on the building’s directory, then took the elevator up to the third floor. CARMAN INVESTIGATIONS, the sign on the door read. In smaller letters there was an instruction to leave a message on the telephone answering machine if the office was closed. He tried the door; locked. He bent over to inspect the lock, but the door across the hall opened, and a woman strolled down the hall to the ladies’ room. A moment later, someone got off the elevator and went into another office. The place was too busy for messing with locks. He’d have to come back later.

  He took the stairs to the ground floor and tried the lock on the stairwell door at each level. He could get into the stairwell, but not out, except to the street, and he couldn’t get in from the street. He walked to the side of the building and looked down a narrow alley. The fire escape seemed to mate with the window at the end of the hallway on each floor.

  He was hungry; the time change was playing havoc with his appetite, so he found a sidewalk cafe and had lunch in the shade of a large sycamore tree. California could be a very pleasant place, he thought. After lunch he strolled up Melrose, window-shopping, until he came to what he would describe as a very fancy hardware store. He went in.

  “May I help you, sir?” a young woman asked.

  “Yes, thank you, I’d like to buy an umbrella-a large one, like for golf-one with a curved handle, not a straight one.”

  She looked vaguely puzzled.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, sir, it’s just that in my three years here, no one has ever asked for an umbrella, and I’m afraid we don’t stock them. The California weather, I guess.”

  “I see. Can you tell me where I might find such a strange object?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I’m afraid not; I don’t know where you’d begin to look for one.”

  Tommy nodded. “Thanks; I guess I’ll just have a look around.”

  “Of course; let me know if I can help you with anything.”

  Tommy wandered up and down the aisles, finding everyday objects for sale at amazing prices-twenty-five dollars for a flashlight; seventy dollars for a small luggage cart; thirty dollars for a set of cheap screwdrivers. Then he saw something interesting. He reached up and took it down from a shelf. “How much for this?”

  “Oh, that’s the most convenient thing to have,” she said. “I gave my mother one for Christmas last year; she has arthritis and can’t reach up very easily anymore.”

  “How much did you say?” Tommy asked.

  “That’s sixty-five dollars.”

  “I’ll take it,” he said, wondering how he would justify the thing on his expense account.

  He tossed his package into the car and relocked it, then spent the afternoon walking up one side of Melrose and down the other. He bought Rosie a small piece of silver jewelry and picked up some books and magazines. Back at his hotel he ordered dinner from room service and set his alarm clock for 2:00 A.M.

  He was momentarily disoriented when the alarm went off, reaching for Rosie to ask what was wrong. Then he remembered. He showered to get himself fully awake, then slipped into his shoulder holster with the nine-millimeter automatic in its sling and his badge and an extra clip fixed to the strap. He got into a dark blue windbreaker and checked himself in the mirror. He looked respectable enough not to get rumbled by some passing cop, but he’d be hard to see in the dark, too. He wasn’t sure why he was packing the gun, except that he had worn one for so many years that he felt oddly lopsided when he wasn’t wearing it.

  He drove up and down Melrose twice, checking out the area, looking for parked police cars, especially unmarked ones. He passed one black-and-white on the move but saw nothing else. He parked around the corner from the office building, retrieved his recent purchase from the back seat, then locked the car and looked around. He had the street to himself.

  He walked down Melrose for half a block, then turned and walked back, on alert for anyone who might give him a hard time, then darted into the alley alongside Carman’s building. He put on a pair of driving gloves, then ripped the wrapper from the device and tossed the paper into a nearby garbage can.

  It worked as advertised: He took hold of both handles and squeezed them together. The grappler extended a good eight feet. He reached up and grabbed the ladder on the fire escape, then contracted the gadget. A moment later, he had the ladder in his hand. He tossed the grappler across the alley into the garbage can, looked around for a moment, then started up the ladder.

  At the top he took out his key ring and switched on the tiny flashlight attached; it worked remarkably well. The window was a double-hung sash with true divided lights. Good; that made for less noise. He looked down the alley to the street, made sure there were no lighted windows nearby, then peered through the window and down the hallway, which was lit by a single bulb.

  He turned sideways, drew back, and struck the top pane of the bottom sash sharply with his elbow. The glass shattered and fell into the hallway. He looked around again to be sure that he had not attracted any attention. All was quiet.

  Quickly, he reached through the broken pane, unlocked the window, raised it, stepped inside, then brushed together the broken glass with his gloved hands, tossed it into the alley, and lowered the window. He pulled the remaining fragments from the window and pushed them through the now empty pane. He stopped and listened for a full minute. If there was a security guard and he had heard the glass break, he didn’t want to be surprised.

  When he heard no other sound, Tommy went to Carman’s office door and switched on his tiny flashlight again, holding it between his teeth. From his wallet he produced a set of small lock picks and selected two. The lock was a garden-variety dead bolt, and he had it open inside a minute. He put away the lock picks, opened the door, and stepped into the offices of Carman Investigations.

  There was a small room with a receptionist’s desk, a love seat, and some old magazines, and an inner door led to Carman’s private office. Tommy lowered the shade on the only window and pulled the cheap curtains shut, then switched on the desk lamp and looked around.

  It was very neat. That encouraged him, because it meant Carman’s files would likely also be neat. There was an answering machine on the desk, and Tommy pushed the playback button. A mechanical voice read out four messages, two of them from Carman himself, one saying he would be out of town for a few days, another saying to call the shop where his car was being repaired and find out when it would be ready, so he would know whether to rent a car
on his return to L.A. The third and fourth messages were from the same man and the message was the same: “Your new client would like to hear from you as soon as possible.” The voice was pure, accentless Californian, and the mechanical announcer placed both of the messages after Carman had died. Tommy wondered who the new client was. Time to go through the desk and the filing cabinets.

  Suddenly the overhead light went on, and Tommy spun around to find a small woman pointing a large revolver in his direction. Her hand was trembling, but the pistol was pointing more or less at his middle.

  “This is a.357 Magnum,” the little woman said, “and if you mess with me it will make some very big holes in your chest.”

  “I believe you, lady,” Tommy said.

  31

  Tommy waited for the woman to say something else, but she didn’t. During the uncomfortable silence he checked to see if the hammer was back on the pistol. It was. He had been hoping that if she fired, it would be double-action, making accuracy problematic for an inexperienced shooter. No such luck.

  “I’m a police officer,” Tommy said. “Can I show you my badge?”

  “You’re a goddamned burglar,” she said.

  “I promise you, I’m a cop.” He held up his left hand and touched the thumb and forefinger together. “Just these two fingers,” he said. “I’ll pull back my jacket very slowly so you can see my badge, okay?”

  “Very slowly,” she replied.

  Tommy pulled back his jacket and waited for a response.

  “That’s not an LAPD shield,” she said.

  “It’s from Key West.”

  “Horseshit. What would a Key West cop be doing burglarizing an office in L.A.? Anyway, you’ve got a New York accent.”

  “I put in twenty years on the NYPD,” Tommy said, “then I moved south and signed on in Key West.”

  “Pull back your jacket again,” she said.

  Tommy did as she asked, revealing his badge.

  “No, more; all the way open.”

  Tommy let her see the automatic in the shoulder holster.

  “Take it out with your left thumb and forefinger,” she said.

  Tommy lifted the pistol from his holster and held it up as if he had a dead rat by the tail.

  “Drop it in the wastebasket by the desk,” she commanded.

  Tommy turned slightly and let go of the pistol, wincing at the clang.

  “Put your palms flat on the desk and assume the position.”

  Tommy did so and thought the frisking was very professional.

  “Now, stand up, move to your right, and sit in the straight chair.”

  Tommy did as he was told.

  “Put your feet on the desktop and clasp your hands behind your head.”

  Tommy complied.

  “Comfy?” she asked.

  “Just fine,” Tommy said.

  She pulled another chair around until it faced him and sat down, finally letting the pistol rest in her lap. “Before you get any ideas about jumping me, you should know that I fired expert with this weapon on the LAPD range. Got that?”

  Tommy nodded. “You on the job?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. Now explain yourself.”

  “My name’s Tommy Sculley; I’m a detective on the Key West force, and I’m investigating the murder of Barry Carman.”

  “Barry was killed near Miami; the Dade County Sheriff’s Office is the investigating authority. Lie to me again and I’ll put one in your knee.”

  “I’m not lying. Barry was in Key West the day before he died; he came to see me.”

  “About what?”

  “Rocco Marinello.”

  “What did he tell you about Marinello?”

  “That he disappeared from L.A. a few years back and that somebody had hired him-Barry-to find Marinello.”

  “What did Barry want from you?”

  “He’d had a tip that a guy in Key West might be Marinello, and he wanted to know what I knew about the guy.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “Before we get to that, it’s your turn to answer some questions.”

  “I’m the one with the gun,” she said. “I ask, you answer.”

  “Come on, lady, you’re not going to shoot me in cold blood. Now I’m cooperating with you, and I want some cooperation back.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Are you a cop?”

  “I used to be.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Rita Cortez.”

  “What are you doing here at three o’clock in the morning?”

  “Your turn; what are you doing here?”

  “Trying to find out who hired Barry to find Marinello.”

  “Why?”

  “Your turn. What are you doing here at three A.M.?”

  She sighed. “I came to look for some papers. It’s the only time of day I can come here without mixing it up with Barry’s wife. Excuse me, widow.”

  “How’d you get in?”

  “I have a key; I worked for Barry. In fact, we were supposed to be partners. It was the partnership papers I was looking for.”

  “You had an agreement with Barry, and you don’t have a copy of the contract?”

  “I trusted Barry; he said he’d written everything down, in case anything happened to him.”

  “Why don’t you want to see his widow?”

  “He told her about our agreement; she’ll probably look for the papers so she can destroy them before anyone else sees them.”

  “Why would she do that? So she can inherit all this?” He waved an arm at the contents of the room.

  “There’s some money in the bank, and there’s the business. She knows I could keep it going.”

  “Did you and Barry have a little thing going, Rita?”

  She nodded. “He had already left her; the divorce was in the works. Your turn again: Why do you want to know who hired Barry to find Marinello?”

  “I think there may be a Key West connection to Barry’s murder. I want to find out what he reported back to his client, what he found out in Key West.” This was less than the whole truth, but he had to hang on to some of his cards.

  “You think maybe Marinello’s in Key West and that he murdered Barry?”

  Tommy shook his head. “The guy Barry thought might be Marinello is dead. He was killed right before Barry arrived in town.”

  “Shit!” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Finding Marinello would have been a big plum for Barry; the money would have gotten us through the divorce settlement.”

  Tommy nodded. “Tough break. Listen, is there a bar open this late? Can I buy you a drink?”

  Rita stood up and laid the pistol on her chair. “I’ll buy you one,” she said. She went to Carman’s desk, opened a bottom drawer, and extracted a bottle of Wild Turkey and two glasses. “Barry didn’t drink much. He kept this in the hope that one day, some gorgeous blonde would walk in here in tears and he could whip out a bottle, like Sam Spade, and offer her a drink.” She poured two healthy shots and handed him one.

  “Better days,” Tommy said, raising his glass.

  She raised hers and took a sip, then returned to her chair. “Tell me something, Tommy,” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “If Marinello was this guy in Key West, and he died, the money didn’t die with him, did it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Where would it go, do you think?”

  “The guy had a wife.”

  “Then the wife’s got the money?”

  “Depends on what kind of planner Marinello was.”

  “Oh, Marinello was a big-time planner, believe me. He couldn’t have walked with all that money without being a very good planner.”

  “Then the wife might have the money. If she’s the wife.”

  “What do you mean, ‘If she’s the wife’?”

  “I’ve no way of knowing for sure that my murder victim in Key West was Marinello.”

&nb
sp; “He was murdered?”

  “That’s right.”

  She got up and poured them both another drink. “Tommy, you and I have a lot of talking to do,” she said.

  32

  Tommy watched Rita Cortez as she talked, and he liked what he saw. She was short, like himself. And like Rosie. He didn’t have anything in mind, he just appreciated her neat body, her short, dark hair, and the way she seemed to trust him so soon after their bad introduction.

  “I only spent a couple of years as a street cop,” she said. “The rest of the time I was in Records, and I was good at it. Barry was always coming in wanting somebody’s sheet or something, and I always delivered for him in a hurry. Then, when he was having some problems with the captain of the precinct, he decided to put his papers in and go private. He took me to lunch and laid it all out, and it sounded pretty good. I was bored, so when he asked me to come to work with him I took the chance. Worked out well, too. Barry had a lot of friends on the force and down at the courthouse, so he got a lot of referrals. He was a good investigator and he produced for his clients, so we did okay.” She got up, went to a file cabinet, and starting flipping through it. “This Marinello thing was our first shot at some really good money, though. Barry was offered a hundred grand to turn him up.”

  “That’s good money, all right,” Tommy said. “Who hired him?”

  Rita stopped flipping through the files and looked at him. “Later, maybe,” she said, then went back to the files.

  Maybe she didn’t trust him so much after all. “Any luck in the files?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Did Barry have a safe?”

  She nodded. “Right-hand side of the desk, what looks like two drawers is a door. He never gave me the combination.”

  Tommy opened the door and looked at the safe. “Too good for me.” He began opening desk drawers, feeling the edges and bottoms.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll bet he wrote down the combination somewhere. Most people don’t trust themselves to remember.” He continued searching the desk.