by Daniel Depp
Table of Contents
Cover
The David Spandau Thrillers by Daniel Depp
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Epilogue
“Wet Eye” Director Dies in Car Crash
The David Spandau Thrillers by Daniel Depp
LOSER’S TOWN
BABYLON NIGHTS
DEVIL’S DANCE *
* available from Severn House
DEVIL’S DANCE
A David Spandau Thriller
Daniel Depp
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This first world edition published 2014
in Great Britain and 2015 in the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2015 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.
eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Depp
The right of Daniel Depp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
Depp, Daniel author.
1. Spandau, David (Fictitious character)–Fiction.
2. Private investigators–California–Los Angeles–
Fiction. 3. Motion picture producers and directors–
California–Los Angeles–Fiction. 4. Hollywood (Los
Angeles, Calif.)–Fiction. 5. Suspense fiction.
I. Title
813.6-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-07278-8433-6 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-542-1 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-587-1 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, Scotland.
PROLOGUE
Chekhov’s rule about the use of plot devices is this: that if a gun is introduced in Act One …
Captain Midnight said to the man,
‘Get that dog away from me or I’ll kill it.’
MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, on a gray overcast afternoon in early spring.
Deets sat on a bench by the pond eating a pastrami sandwich and looking out across the lake. His view of the downtown LA skyline was slightly impeded by that stupid geyser they’d put on the middle of the water. Deets hated that geyser, squirting like an old man with a lousy prostate, a reminder of things to look forward to. It was a shitty day but the park was still busy, Asians and blacks and Latinos milling around. Deets reckoned that at least half of them were there doing something illegal. The place was a goddamn supermarket for weapons and drugs, and the pond itself was like a night deposit for guns and body parts. Every now and then the police dredged it looking for someone gone missing. Deets wished he could be here one time to see it. It was the only reason worth coming.
Deets was a big guy in a dirty rumpled brown suit and wore thick heavy-rimmed spectacles. When you first saw him he looked stupid, then you got closer and realized there was something strange about the eyes. You looked in there and you could see the gears whirring, but the machine itself was designed by Hieronymus Bosch.
Deets had pulled his sandwich out of the greasy bag and was chewing on it, staring into space and dripping juice down the front of his jacket, when the faggot came over with his little dog and sat down on the bench next to him. The faggot was having one of those little mincing conversations on his cell phone, talking about what Ronnie did or did not do with Albert at the party Saturday night. Deets could feel his stomach turning. The dog sat in the faggot’s lap. It was one of those little dustmop dogs, one of those little yappy ones, the ones that make you as nervous as they are. The dog looked up at Deets and Deets looked down at the dog. The dog sniffed and smelled the sandwich and began to bark. The faggot made no attempt to shut the dog up, he just let it bark and talked louder into his phone.
That’s when Deets threatened to kill it.
The fag stopped talking and stared at him.
‘What?’
‘You heard me,’ said Deets. ‘Get that yappy little shit-eater away from me or I’m going to pop its head off like a Christmas cracker.’
The faggot just stared at him, his mouth opening and closing but no sounds coming out. Then he finally said,
‘You can’t say that.’
‘Why not,’ said Deets through a mouthful of pastrami and rye. ‘You going to call a cop? Go ahead. When was the last time you heard of anybody going to jail for threatening the life of a canine, hah? The constitution don’t extend to animals. I could kill your fucking dog and eat it in front of you and maybe, just maybe, I’d do six
months of soft time in jail. And that’s only if the fucking judge is a PETA member or something. You think the county of Los Angeles is going to spend the forty thousand bucks it would take to prosecute, house, and feed me just because I killed and ate your fucking little lice-ridden ankle-huncher?’ Deets took another bite of the sandwich. ‘No, I do not think so.’
The faggot kept trying to talk, opening and closing his mouth, trying to form words. But nothing came. Tears welled in his eyes.
‘Timothy?’ said the cell phone. ‘Timothy, what’s wrong, what’s happening?’
Timothy picked up the little yapping dog. It snapped and snarled at Deets. Timothy tried to clamp his fingers round the dog’s snout but it broke free and bit him, went on snarling at Deets, who just sat there and stared into space and chewed his sandwich. Timothy was crying in earnest now, shaking, trying to keep the dog from leaping out of his arms.
‘Timothy? Darling? What is it, what’s going on?’ said the phone.
Timothy wrapped his arms around the struggling dog, crushed it to his body, walked away sobbing.
Captain Midnight took another bite of his sandwich, drank some of his cream soda.
Malo had been sitting on a bench farther down the path. He was a large black man in a well-cut suit and expensive shoes. He carried a folded copy of Time magazine. He got up, walked over, and sat down where the fag had been.
‘You still just as much of a people-person as ever, huh, Deets.’
‘I got tired of you sitting over there like a fucking idiot waiting for him to leave.’
‘Suppose he comes back with a cop?’
Deets gave a kind of pastrami-muffled chortle.
‘There’s two guys over there been dispensing dope all afternoon like they was the fucking Walgreens. Over by the water fountain there’s a bloodstain where some cholo got offed last week with an AR-15 in a drive-by. If we sit here long enough, somebody is liable to try and steal one of our vital organs. You think the police are going to put all that stuff on hold while they investigate a threat of grievous bodily harm on some faggot’s terrier? Anyway I fucking hate dogs. Fucking filthy beasts.’
‘You a cat person, then?’
‘Nah, I fucking hate them too.’
Deets ate the last of the sandwich, drained the can of cream soda. He wadded it all up, dropped it on the ground next to him, took out a filthy handkerchief, and wiped his hands.
‘What have you got?’
‘You can do the Marmont, right?’ Malo asked him.
‘Stevie Wonder could do the Marmont,’ said Deets.
‘It’s a simple B and E. Guy will be out all evening, you got plenty of time. You can do the key card?’
Deets snorted. This sort of question was beneath contempt. He was fucking Captain Midnight, for fuck’s sake.
Malo ignored the snort and went on.
‘Inside there’s a laptop computer somewhere, I don’t know what kind. On the computer there’s a manuscript, or parts of one. Somebody’s memoirs. You’ll be able to tell. I want you to copy the thing and then I want you to leak it to the press. You’ve done this often enough, I don’t need to explain it. Use them friends of yours.’
‘It’s not blackmail?’
‘That don’t concern you. You leak the info a little at a time. I want you to stop I’ll tell you. When I do, I better fucking hear skid marks, you understand? I hear you going all entrepreneurial on me and they going to find your head bobbing in that water over there and your ass somewheres up in Bakersfield feeling lonely. Whatever you make on the deal you get to keep.’
Deets eyed Malo suspiciously. Smiled, said,
‘This don’t sound right. You want me to steal this shit, sell it, and then keep the money. Excuse me if I’m worried about getting fucked.’
‘Man I work for ain’t interested in the money. He just wants it out there.’
‘And anybody traces the source it comes back to me?’
‘That would be your problem,’ said Malo. ‘You old enough to hold your own dick and you ought to know who you can trust and who you can’t. Anyway we both know you clearing enough to make it sweet so don’t ask me for no motherfucking tea and sympathy.’
Deets made that snorting noise again.
‘In and out, no fucking around like last time. No cute little tricks. No silver bullet. You go in, you get what you got to get, then come out. Yes?’
‘You de boss,’ said Deets in his sambo accent.
‘Don’t you get funny on me, Deets. After that little trick last time, only reason we called you is we can’t find nobody else this late.’
Deets laughed.
‘Only reason you called me, baby, is because I’m the only fucking one who can do the job and we both know it. I’m Captain Midnight, remember. You go take your pickaninny shuck and jive and play it for some other guilty honky. I know what I’m worth.’
‘One of these days, Deets,’ Malo said as evenly as he could manage, ‘I’m going to kill you, you sick, fat-assed racist motherfuck.’
‘You ain’t going to do shit as long as you need me. And since I’m the best, that’s going to be a while yet. That just frosts those big black balls of yours, don’t it, Malo? God, I love that. Now that you done give me ol’ massa’s message, you can go back off to the cotton fields and fuck your sister or something. By the way, you goddamned nappy headed Arkansas porch monkey, don’t you ever threaten me again.’
Malo shook his head, gave a bitter laugh, stood up.
‘You forgetting something, sambo?’
Malo looked at the folded magazine in his hand. Deets smiled. Deets held out his hand and Malo started to give it to him, then changed his mind, went over and dumped it into a trash can, walked away.
‘You stupid black cocksucker!’ Deets called after him.
Malo gave him the finger over his shoulder and kept walking.
Deets cursed and mumbled to himself and went over and stared down into the trash can. It was filthy, there were bees and flies all over. God knows what he could catch. He stuck his hand in and fished around. An old Korean woman walked by, stared at him.
‘What the fuck are you looking at, you ignorant slope,’ Deets said to her.
Deets pulled out the envelope, now soaked in god knows what. He opened it, took out the money, wiped off the individual bills, then tucked them into his jacket pocket. He was cursing Malo and thinking about that so hard he stepped in dogshit. He yelled, jumped into the grass to do a little foxtrot trying to wipe it off. Back on the sidewalk he tried to kick a fat pigeon who was just asking for it, but he missed and nearly fell down.
It was that sort of day.
ONE
The Chateau Marmont is maybe the last hotel in the Western hemisphere to still use keys. Real keys, the metal kind, the kind where you want to break into somewhere you make a copy in a bar of soap or something, or, what the hell, you just pick the bastard. There was likely a master key somewhere in his bag, but it wasn’t worth looking. Deets stuck in the picks and thought about a late-nite breakfast at Canter’s when he got finished.
A fucking blind coon piano player could have done it, so he couldn’t feel particularly proud. Malo could kiss his pale and dimpled ass, Deets was going to treat himself when he went in. It took him less than five seconds with his mind primarily on a bagel with cream cheese, lox, and onions.
This of course is why he got the Big Bucks.
He was a fucking super hero, no question about it.
Captain Midnight went into the dark hotel cottage. He closed the door, took a small flashlight from the messenger bag he carried, shined it around while he hummed ‘New York, New York’. What he was looking for, the laptop briefcase, was over near the desk. He zipped it open, took out the computer, sat it on the desk. Checked his watch. He was okay on time.
He turned on the computer, waited for it to boot. It asked for the password. Fuck that, I laugh in the face of passwords. He got out the notebook file containing a couple of dozen of his very own sp
ecial start-up disks. He selected the right one, slid it into the computer, rebooted. It shut down, hummed, woke up. Now, rather than some asshole start-up program, it circumvented all that crap and shot him directly into the system files, and from that a list of every file on the computer.
‘Hurrah,’ said Captain Midnight. ‘I am clearly a god among common mortals.’
Captain Midnight searched the computer screen desktop, leisurely glanced through a few files. It didn’t take long to find it. He plugged in a flash drive, downloaded the file onto it. It took just a few seconds and he was done. He ran a quick file check to see if there was anything he’d missed.
‘This is just too easy. Where is the challenge, I ask you? Where is the poetry?’
Checked his watch again. Still good.
‘Let’s have a little fun then, shall we?’
He took out a large Snickers bar, unwrapped it, chewed on it while he leisurely browsed through files.
‘Boring … boring … boring … Aha!’
Photos. Captain Midnight opened the file. Some old family shit, lots of photos of some bozo with curly blond hair and a beard. Captain Midnight thought he remembered the guy from somewhere. Then Captain Midnight found some photos of nude women. He brightened up.
