Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  “I agree,” Brandau said, blowing a comforting puff of cherry-blend tobacco out over the room.

  “Well, I disagree,” Michaels said. “I don’t think this is a wise move at all. We are trying to build a picture of Wingate’s whole operation. We want to know as much as we can about his couriers, his meetings … all of that. We build our profile first and …”

  “And meanwhile he does another massive drug deal,” Jack interrupted. “Our CIs have told us that he’s got something planned with Eduardo Morales from Colombia. And we’ve been told it’s going to happen soon. This might be a way to stop it. We’ve got to take the chance.”

  “I’ll be honest, Walker,” Michaels said. “One of my problems with sending you in there is that you’ve never run up against a guy like Buddy Wingate before.”

  “No. But you said that about Jose Benvenides too,” Jack said.

  “Precisely my point,” Michaels said. “You handled him by shooting him, dead. A major player in the international drug trade; a person we badly needed to interrogate.”

  Jack felt an electric anger sweep over him.

  “Gee, I’m sorry, Ted,” he said. “When good old Jose pulled that magnum on me, I should have read Robert’s Rules of Order to him.”

  “It should have never gotten to that point,” Michaels said. “You played cowboy and blew it.”

  Jack pressed his palms on the desk in front of him.

  “Wrong,” he said. “You blew it because I had to arrest him without backup, which you failed to send in.”

  “That’s bull,” Michaels said.

  “That’s enough, guys,” Zampas said. “It’s over now. Jose Benvenides is old news. We have to decide what to do here and now.”

  The Director got up from his chair and stretched. He had a wrestler’s build, squat and powerful.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “A shipment of Colombian white heroin is coming into the country, probably from Eduardo Morales, to be delivered to Buddy Wingate’s boys. Wingate will then off-load it throughout California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Bob Valle and I checked with all our field people in Mexico City just one hour before this meeting, and they haven’t been able to nail down the time, the place … anything. If Morales pulls this off, it’ll set us back five years. This new Colombian skag is purer, more deadly than anything the Asians have to offer us. It’s going to mean that a couple million new people become addicted. The gangs are already trying to get into it, which is going to mean more drive-bys, more guns on the streets. Not to mention smack is back in fashion with all the young, hip Hollywood actors, directors, and producers. They do it themselves and they glamorize it in their fucking movies, and that gets another half million kids to shoot holes in their arms. To put it bluntly, this new smack connection is going to be a fucking unparalleled disaster. We’ve got to stop the streets from being flooded with this shit. So maybe it is a wild card to throw Jack in with Wingate this way, but maybe we have to take what breaks we get. The bottom line is, we’re running out of time.”

  Zampas walked toward Jack now, looking him straight in the eyes.

  “You go to the meeting, Jack, and you play it close to the vest, understand? Wingate acts like a buffoon, but he’s one deadly son of a bitch. And from all reports the girl’s no better. See if you can get next to Buddy, but don’t push it.”

  “You got it,” Jack said.

  Underneath the table he kicked C.J. lightly in the shins.

  “Don’t get behind in your reports, Jack,” Zampas said, running his big hands through his shock of curly black hair. “And keep your dick in your pants.”

  There was a little chuckle from everybody at the table, except Michaels, who said nothing but stared down at his case sheet as if he were trying to bore holes through it.

  “All right, gentlemen,” Zampas said, “if that’s all our business, I’ve got other work to attend to.”

  The agents filed their notes in their briefcases and got up from the table. Jack looked at Michaels, but the assistant director’s back was turned, and he was already heading out the door, his gator-skin briefcase tucked under his arm. Jack felt C.J.’s hand on the back of his neck.

  “Looking good, baby. You’re gonna nail this dude.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Buddy Wingate and his crew are going downtown.”

  “Good work, Jack,” Valle said tensely. “You need anything, let me know. And I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thanks, Bobby,” Jack said. “Hey, man, you all right?”

  Valle kept walking, but Jack could hear him suck in his breath when he talked.

  “Fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Valle stopped and turned to Jack. His lips were tense. “I said, I’m fine.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “But if you want to talk about it, lemme know.”

  Valle nodded slightly, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. It was more obvious than ever that something was wrong, but Jack had too much to worry about to think about it now.

  Jack hustled down the hallway and caught up with Zampas as he headed into his office.

  They walked into the Director’s office. Jack said hello to Jane Hawkins, Zampas’s pretty young secretary. She smiled at him, but her eyes really lit up for her boss.

  “Call from the FBI and from the task force and one from your wife,” she said.

  “Oh, good,” Zampas said, in a strained voice.

  Jane smiled at him with something a little deeper than sympathy, Jack thought.

  They walked by her into Zampas’s inner office, a large corner space with a great view of downtown Los Angeles. Jack looked out the big window and stared at the clean lines of the new Otani Hotel. Zampas looked through some letters on his desk and picked up a car brochure.

  “What do you think of this?” he said.

  Jack looked at some flashy color pictures of a new Lexus.

  “Not bad for fifty grand,” Jack said.

  “Maybe I could get a deal on it,” Zampas said.

  “Be better if we could seize one and commandeer it for office use.”

  Zampas smiled and sighed.

  “Yeah, you’re right, Jackie. That’s about the only way I’m going to get one. I mentioned it to Ronni last night … not a new one, mind you, but an old one, and she went through the roof.”

  “Ah, who needs it?” Jack said. “The bigger the car, the bigger the asshole inside.” Zampas laughed.

  “Sounds like one of your dad’s lines,” he said.

  Jack smiled sadly. Zampas and his father had been best friends and partners for twenty years, right up until the day his father died of a heart attack, five years ago. Jack still had trouble believing the tough, roughneck Dan Walker was gone.

  Now Jack turned and saw Jane Hawkins leaning in the door. She was dressed in a tight black silk skirt, and she looked at her boss in a sexual way.

  Zampas walked over to her and put his big arm around her.

  “Janey thinks I’m still Superman.”

  “That’s because you are,” she said.

  Zampas kissed her on the top of the head in a fatherly way, but there was heat in it, all the same, Jack thought. There were rumors that they were seeing each other after hours.

  Jane hugged her boss back and winked at Jack.

  “Even Superman has to make it to his meeting with the FBI on time,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Zampas said. “I almost forgot. What would I do without you, Jane?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s not find out.”

  She gave him a sexy smile and returned to the outer office.

  “Jesus, she’s terrific,” Zampas said.

  “Yeah, she is,” Jack said lamely.

  “Makes me feel younger just to see her,” the Director said, and there was a smile on his face. Then he seemed to catch himself in mid-fantasy.

  “Listen, Jack, I want you to forget the accident at the theater,” the Director said. “You did the right thing
on the street. And forget any bad vibes you heard in the meeting today. I want you inside, I want Wingate and Morales brought down, and I believe you can do it.”

  Jack looked at Zampas’s broad slab of a face, his dark eyes. He felt the old current of affection switch on inside of him.

  “But I want you to proceed with extreme caution, you understand?”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” Jack said.

  “Wingate is bad enough. But the guys he’s working with … Morales and his friends, are worse. They have a lot to lose if we nail them. Political careers, serious money. If they make you, you’ll be lucky if they kill you.”

  “But they won’t make me,” Jack said.

  “Of course they won’t. There’s something else too. I don’t want you to antagonize Michaels anymore. He’s a very political guy, has a lot of friends in Congress; we need him on our side. Comprende?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Jack said. “It just bugged me what he said about Jose Benvenides. The last thing I wanted to do was shoot the kid. He gave me no choice.”

  “I know that,” Zampas said. “Michaels was being Michaels, so just ignore it.”

  “I’m trying,” Jack said. “But Teddy just gives me too many fucking straight lines.”

  Zampas laughed in spite of himself.

  “Well, I know you’re gonna do a hell of a job on this case.”

  Zampas smacked him on the ear, and Jack turned and walked out of the room. As he left, Jack remembered Zampas, his dad, and himself going to Rams games when Jack was a kid. His old man used to get so wasted that Zampas and Jack would carry him back to their old Chevy.

  Zampas’s new obsession with aging bothered Jack. Jack felt that he ought to take better care of himself. Zampas was getting overweight, often looked tired. Something was bugging him, probably his home life wasn’t so great, and there was this tension in the office. Jack rubbed his jaw. If anything happened to Zampas …

  But he couldn’t dwell on such things now. After all, this had been a good day. Only forty-five minutes ago he was on the carpet for crashing the car, now he was involved in the biggest undercover of his life. He thought of something his old man once said to him about careers. Some guys could go through twenty years and never have a career case. Just one small-shit case after another. Other guys waited a lifetime and got one in the twilight of their careers, when it did them little or no good. Then there were the few lucky agents who fell into cases that made them, right at the beginning. Jack had been an agent three years, and he had gotten lucky—last year, the Benvenides caper, and this time Wingate, a case that would make him a legend in the Agency or, if he blew it, set him back a decade.

  It was scary and it was great. It was juice.

  Down the hall C.J. was waiting, slouched against the wall.

  “Hey, baby,” C.J. said, pulling a toothpick out of his mouth. “No sweat in there, huh?”

  “No sweat at all,” Jack said.

  “We gonna kill, right, kid?”

  “Dead,” Jack said.

  He slapped five with C.J. and hoped his partner didn’t feel how cold his fingers were.

  Chapter 4

  “Cut! No, no, no. That just don’t begin to make it, Jules. Where’s the intensity? Man, it’s gotta look like he wants to fuck her, not kill her.”

  Jack and Charlotte Rae watched from the edge of the Burbank soundstage as Buddy Wingate stormed onto the set. Wingate wore a black uptown-Dallas-cowboy business suit, six-hundred-dollar Nicona boots, and sported a pinky ring with a striking likeness of Bill Clinton’s face made out of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. He was about five foot eight, but that was counting the boots, and moved in a dynamic swirl, his short arms and legs pumping furiously. He looked slightly comical, Jack thought, until you noticed the size of his wrists and hands. They were huge, and the fingers were gnarled, lumpy, as though they’d been broken a few times.

  Now this ball of electricity, greed, and ambition moved toward the young writer-director, Jules Furthman, who backed toward the arc lights, his Dodgers baseball cap falling at his feet in the process.

  “Now, listen up, Jules, ‘cause I am gonna say this only one more time. The scene here is about love not death. I mean this here is where the president reveals to the woman he loves his terrible fucking secrets. But he don’t intend to kill her. He’s brought her here to share! Get what I mean, Jules?”

  “Sure, Buddy. Yeah, you want to play against the text, find a subtext that’ll make the scene something more than a typical fucking slasher movie. I get it and I am totally with you, believe me!”

  “Good man, Jules. By the way I really dig your shoes.” Jack looked at Furthman’s sneakers and saw little red lights blinking on each heel.

  “Very street, Jules,” Wingate said. “Very South Central. Man, you keep wearing clothes like that, you’ll be making movies with the bros, soon.”

  Furthman blushed, and Wingate slapped him on the back and turned toward Jack.

  “Hello there. This must be the hero, hey, darlin?”

  Charlotte Rae smiled, took Jack’s hand, and pulled him out on the soundstage to meet her husband. Jack shook Wingate’s hand and felt his powerful grasp.

  “Good to meet you, son,” Wingate said. “And, by the way, don’t let my tone put you off. That’s ‘jest my manner … comes from dealing with too many assholes. Truth is, I flat out do consider you a hero. You saved my wife’s butt, and I ain’t about to forget it.”

  “Just did what I could,” Jack said, playing it like Gary Cooper.

  “Lemme show you round. You may recognize some of our cast.”

  Wingate led Jack and Charlotte Rae across the room to where two actors, a man and a woman, sat in their canvas chairs. They were chatting quietly but grew more animated as Buddy came closer.

  Buddy gave a friendly little open-hand wave, as if he were an eager new kid on the block, just bopping down the street trying to make friends.

  “Hi ya, guys,” he said. “How’s it going anyways?”

  “Oh, just great,” the woman said. “Marky here is trying to get me to fuck him in the trailer before the scene.”

  “Hey, it’s a bonding thing. I’m only thinking of the work,” Marky said.

  Jack winced a little, but everyone else laughed nervously.

  “Well, maybe you could jest give him a little head, Kaye,” Buddy said. “Hell, my feeling is ‘head’ don’t even count.”

  Again there was nervous laughter, and Jack suddenly realized he recognized both the man and the woman sitting in front of him. The actress was Kaye Williams. She’d been a slasher movie star in the seventies, then graduated to playing a mom on the TV series Ronda’s Gang. Just as the show had taken off, she’d had a famous accident in a Jaguar, driving it off a curving, rain-slicked road in Los Virgines Canyon. They’d found her lying next to her dead lover, an eighteen-year-old pool boy-actor named Louie Salvado. Kaye had almost died herself, but survived and went through a series of operations—a liver transplant and a couple new hips later she was as good as new. But the boy’s parents sued her for thirty million dollars and accepted an out-of-court settlement rumored to be half that. After that little episode, Kaye was finished as a TV mom. Then came a long period of depression, alcoholism, and a couple of visits to clinics not quite as nice as Betty Ford’s. Jack and the rest of America had kept up with her career, by reading People magazine’s “Where Are They Now?” issues. She’d been arrested for shoplifting a couple of times and had to be rushed to Cedars on three or four occasions due to pill overdoses.

  Now, after ten years of “invisibility,” Kaye Williams was acting in a Buddy Wingate production.

  The lead actor’s story was just about as grim. His name was Marky Martin, and he’d had a hit series on TV at one time called Meet Mr. Assistant, in which he played a famous detective’s assistant, who is the one who actually solves the crimes. Martin had a tall rubbery frame, a goofy, country-boy laugh, and had won the hearts of Americans everywhere. TV Guide called him the “Tub
e’s Answer to Jimmy Stewart.” Then he, too, had dropped out of sight. Jack hadn’t heard of him in fifteen years. Now his country-boy face was lined with wrinkles and broken red veins, which the makeup department had tried to hide by coating with about a ton of powder and greasepaint.

  “Remember, Marky,” Wingate said now, “this new scene is really all about love. Yeah, you’re stabbing her with your knife, but as far as you’re concerned, it’s really a love tap.”

  “No problem,” Martin said. “For motivation, all I need to do is remember my third wife.”

  There was more anxious laughter, and Wingate led Jack and Charlotte Rae toward the door of the set and the silver Air-stream trailer he had parked on the steaming macadam.

  “This here ought to be a pretty good picture,” Wingate said, smiling at Jack. “The setup is the president has this cabinet in the Oval Office. He tells people he wants to show them some historical treasures. But what they don’t know is he’s got like dismembered heads, hands, and other body parts in there.”

  “Sounds great,” Jack said.

  “A work of genius,” Charlotte Rae said. “Maybe now you’ll realize why I chose not to act in it.”

  “Well, ain’t you Miss Arty,” Wingate said, smiling at her. “Tell you what, this little baby works. You know why? It’s a good script. Know how you can tell when a script works?”

  “No,” Jack said, playing the straight man. “How?”

  “Well, in my estimation every good script answers a question. The question here is ‘What would happen if the president of the United States was a serial killer?’ With all his power, think of how easy it would be to get away with it.”

  “Hah,” Jack said. “Well, that’s one I hadn’t thought about.”

  Charlotte Rae laughed and squeezed Jack’s arm.

  “No reason you should. But I’m telling you, this little director, Jules Furthman, ain’t half bad. He’s a fucking pain in the ass, with his Beverly Hills bullshit gang clothes and shit…. Other day he’s telling me how he used to hang with the homeys in South Central. Right. But I gotta admit he’s got chops. And Kaye is fine. The question is Marky. Man, I wonder if he can stay off the shit long enough to cut it.”