“That’s what we heard.”
“Great, I can put a hold on him as a bail jumper,” O’Meara said, “He won’t get out of that.”
“Turning to me, Smitty said, “Casey, you did good! I didn’t think it would work, but you pulled it off.”
I thought we’d been really lucky.
It was early evening when we got home and Smitty announced that we’d probably head up to Sacramento the next day. He told me I’d be riding shotgun with either Gus or Josie, my pick. Gee, guess which one I picked.
“As long as there’s nothing more we can do tonight, maybe we should go out for dinner and a show,” Josie said, looking over at me. “And don’t forget, young man, you still owe me an ice cream cone!”
I threw my hands up. “Guilty as charged, ma’am,” I said. That was an idea I could really get behind.
Smitty seconded the idea and, for a minute I was afraid he would invite himself along. After a moment’s consideration and a sharp look from Josie, he decided he really should spend some more time planning. He also wanted to talk to the chief again and put another call in to his buddy, Little George, up in Sacramento.
We drove over to her place, she picked up some personal things, and we went out to dinner. We had a great meal and saw a lousy movie. Because neither of us had any preferences we went to a multiplex and just chose the movie that started when we got there. Something about a guy and his girl friend trying to figure out if they wanted to get married or not. Best part of the movie for me was holding hands with Josie.
When we got back to the house Josie fixed us chocolate sundaes, complete with cherries, nuts and whipped cream.
“Now you owe me two ice cream treats.” Being in debt never felt so good.
We finished our ice cream and went downstairs, where a bunch of guys were playing poker. It looked like fun to me and I thought about hanging around and maybe getting in the game. Josie saw the gleam in my eyes. “Forget it!” she laughed. “These guys play cutthroat poker, for high stakes.”
There was no money on the table, just chips. She told me that the chips were worth up to a hundred a pop. I still had most of the hundred that Smitty had given me, but that was about it. I decided not to play. Besides, how long could I play with one chip.
Next morning, nobody was in a hurry.
“It only takes an hour to get to Sacramento, we have plenty of time for a good breakfast,” Smitty told Josie.
A little before eleven, six of us took off for Sacramento. Five motorcycles and riders with me tucked in behind Josie for the ride, clad in borrowed helmet, jacket and boots.
Little George’s house was located in a suburb of Sacramento. What was originally a tract house had been enlarged several times and now had five bedrooms. Smitty told us he’d bought both the adjoining lots so he had plenty of room to expand.
When we got to his house there was an urgent message for Smitty to call the chief.
“Carpenter’s out of jail again,” Smitty reported. Smitty put his phone on speaker, the chief was talking.
“It was a real foul up. Oakland got a call from the lieutenant governors office in Sacramento saying Carpenter was a close personal friend of somebody up there, and this friend would take it as a personal favor if he could arrange for Carpenter to have the benefit of the doubt. An assistant to the Oakland chief relayed the request to the local judge who let him out under home confinement. So he’s home but who knows what he’ll try. Shouldn’t have happened but it did.”
Smitty asked the chief if his counterpart chief in Oakland had any idea who in the office had called. The chief said they had no idea, that they’d only been able to trace the call back to the lieutenant governor’s office. Said the call had been logged in late in the afternoon, when the LG’s office would have been full of people.
The only clue they had was that it was a female voice.
As soon as he got off the phone, Smitty introduced us all to Little George. He was everything Josie had said he was. The only word that fit this fellow was huge. Hugely huge, with a grayish red beard. Every inch a Viking. I thought he’d make a great Santa Claus. All he needed was the suit and to dye his beard white. I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, they were so permanently crinkled.
We all sat down at a large dining room table, the six of us and three of them.
Smitty started. “You know what we’re here for. You said you’d heard rumors about a couple of guys that might pay off. And you heard what our police chief just told us. Does any of that link together?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure who works in the lieutenant governor’s office. I’ll have to get help there. But you say the call came from there and it was a woman’s voice?”
“That’s what the chief said.”
“That’s where I’d start then. I can get a list of all the gals that work in his office and we can start checking them out.”
One of his guys spoke up, “I can get that done,” He stood up to leave.
Smitty stopped him. “What we probably need is the name of every gal that has access to his phones, not just employees.”
Little George told the guy to keep going. Then to Smitty, “No, actually you don’t. I know the lieutenant governors office phones are guarded. Only the staff and his personal assistants have access, and Smitty, this won’t take long, it’s a matter of public record. Couple’a hours, maybe. In the meantime, head over to the Senator hotel. I got five rooms reserved for you. Check ’em out.”
The hotel turned out to be a grand old dame of a hotel. The rooms were large, comfortable and fancy.
As soon as we checked in, Josie called me in my room and said, “We better take a little time and buy you some decent clothes.”
She said if we ate at the hotel dining room, she didn’t think my jeans would look too sharp. Then she really surprised me. “It’s Dad’s idea,” she told me. “He gave me his credit card and told me to ‘get Casey looking halfway decent.’ Those were his exact words.”
“How much money do you think it’ll take to make me look ‘halfway decent’?”
“I don’t have any idea, but there’s no limit on his card. We can go hog wild! I’ll knock on your door in ten. Be ready!”
At the door, she said she was kidding a little about spending a fortune, which I wouldn’t have let her do anyway.
“I think if we can find a Penny’s, we can get you looking like a million for a lot less than a million,” she assured me.
It was fun. We didn’t buy a whole lot. Slacks, sport coat, shoes, no ties. Josie wanted me to buy a tie, but I put my foot down, insisting instead on a couple of nice sport shirts suitable to wear with a sport jacket.
When we got back to the hotel, we ran into Smitty at the entrance to the cocktail lounge in the lobby. I thanked him for the clothes and he wanted to know why I didn’t have them on. I said I’d wear them later in the evening if we ended up here for dinner.
“That’ll work. In the meantime how about I take the cost of the clothes out of your pay, at a rate of, oh say, about fifty bucks a month?”
I must have looked shocked.
Then he laughed and said, “Gotcha!”
I had a hard time telling when he was kidding.
CHAPTER 66
At five, Smitty called Little George.
“You better come on over,” Little George told Smitty. “We got the names of everyone in the lieutenant general’s office, plus one lady’s name that actually works in the AG’s office but spends lots of time in both. I don’t know what to do with them, so let’s talk.”
We piled into the car Little George had rented for us and crossed town to his place. As we pulled up, a large maroon limousine was just leaving. Obviously the car belonged to the gang – it had motorcycle decals on both front doors. We parked and walked to the front door.
Little George threw the front door open before we could ring the bell. Laughing, he said, “Didja’ see my pimpmobile? I just sent a couple of the guys out for Chinese. They love to drive it. It’s
a blast!”
“Guess you don’t believe in keeping a low profile, do you?” Smitty laughed.
“Naw – I do all my good deeds in that thing, like for the boy scouts or the PTA, you know, stuff that earns you a good rep. You want to use it?”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Smitty said, to my surprise. Then I remembered –we wanted to keep a low profile. “Let’s see what you got.”
We went back to the big table and he laid out what he had.
“There’re eight ladies permanent in the office. Then there’s the other lady I told you about, from the AG’s office.”
“AG?” I asked.
“Attorney general” Smitty said looking at me like I’d suddenly dropped three bars in his estimation. “Knock, knock. You do remember the attorney general, right?”
“Right,” I said, abashed.
“So there’re only nine ladies who might have made the call?” Smitty said.
“Yeah. There’re a couple of other ladies who’re in there once in a while, but they can’t use the phone, so that’s about it.”
“How many guys can you round up for me to use?”
“Hell, I can get a couple a dozen if you need that many. Whatcha got in mind?”
“Can you get the home addresses of these nine?”
“Sure. It’ll take a couple of hours, but sure.”
“Why don’t you get your guys started on that, and I’ll run my ideas by you. See if you think they’ll work.” Little George disappeared for a few minutes, then returned.
“Okay,” Smitty said. “My guess is that one of these nine has been feeding info’ to whoever it is that’s Carpenter’s boss and been getting paid for it. That means she’s been getting extra money. Maybe lots of it.”
“Or maybe not,” Little George countered. “Maybe someone just bribed her to make that one phone call.”
“I don’t think so,” Smitty disagreed. “First, whoever wanted the call made couldn’t ask just anyone to make that kind of a surreptitious call. It had to be someone she’s known a long time. But more than that, someone had to be working in a place where they could swipe information for blackmailing purposes. What better place than the AG’s office?”
“That sort of points to the lady who works both offices, doesn’t it?” Little George said.
“Yeah, but we can’t be sure,” Smitty said. “Anyway, that leads me to my idea. Tomorrow morning, get nine of your guys to take one lady each and do some research on them.”
“Research?” Little George asked.
“Yeah, personal research. Each guy goes out and rings doorbells. Calls on every neighbor in each gal’s block. Asks a lotta questions.”
Little George looked a bit uncomfortable with this idea. “What kind of questions?” he wanted to know.
“The kind that’d help us find someone who’s living above her income. I’m betting that one of these gals has been getting extra money by lifting files from her boss’s office and selling them to somebody else. And I’m betting that she’ll have blown at leastsome of that money. An expensive car. Luxury trips, maybe. Who knows what, but something that’d set off alarms.”
“My guys are pretty sneaky,” Little George said, “but they can’t come roaring up on motorcycles asking questions and not expect to be stiffed.”
Smitty had to agree. “You’re right. I’ll rent cars for any of the guys that need wheels. They need to look respectable and drive up in a car.”
“They could tell people that they’re doing a background check on someone who’s being considered for a big job in government,” I suggested.
“Sure. That’ll work,” said Little George. “Goes on all the time here!”
“What do you think?” Smitty asked. “Can your guys do it?”
“Oh, it’ll work okay,” Little George said. “I just don’t know if you’ll find out what you want.”
“Tell the guys to be a little pushy,” Smitty said. “Like it’s a really big job the gal’s being considered for. Can you get the guys together by tomorrow morning?”
“Done,” said Little George. “Let me get the guys organized. I don’t need you here to get this rolling. Why don’t you all relax back at the hotel? Are they treating you right? Are the rooms okay?”
“Perfect.”
“They better be,” he said. “They owe me.”
“They owe you?”
“Yeah, I got rid of a problem they were having with a teen gang. They comped me the rooms.”
He was right, he didn’t need us around. We headed back to the hotel. As we crossed the lobby, the lady at the front desk called to us and wanted to know if we had a Mr. Smitty in our party.
“That’d be me,” Smitty said, and walked over to the desk.
She handed him a message and said she’d been told to tell him it was urgent. When he opened it all it said was to call the chief as soon as possible.
“C’mon,” Smitty said. “I’ll call him from the room. Wonder what’s gone wrong now.”
We all went into Smitty’s room and he got the chief on the phone. His first words were,
“Where were you yesterday morning?”
“Why, what’s going on?”
“Never mind. Just answer my question, where were you early yesterday morning?”
“Yesterday morning? I was home all yesterday morning. I think we left for Sacramento about eleven.”
“Were you home alone all morning?”
“No, we were all there. Josie fixed a big breakfast for us about six or so in the morning.”
“Good, you have an airtight alibi.”
“What do I need an alibi for?”
“Smitty, you’ll never guess what’s happened.”
“Involving Carpenter?”
“Yep, your old buddy Carpenter got himself murdered.”
“Murdered? How?”
“Well, he got out again on a home confinement and there’s some evidence that the judge was compromised.”
“Yeah…?”
“Last night we get a call from the golf course back of his house that some of the first golfers out in the morning had heard gun shots.”
“On the golf course?”
“Yeah. Two of them. We rushed up there but we couldn’t find anything. Later in the morning the fire department got a phone call from a golfer that one of the homes next to the course was on fire. That there was lots of smoke coming out of the rear of the place.”
“And it was Carpenter’s house?”
“You guessed it. When they got on the scene, smoke was pouring out the back of the house on the golf course side. They broke in and found a kitchen grease fire. Carpenter was lying dead on the floor next to the stove. They had the fire out quickly. Being a grease fire, it was mostly smoke, not much by way of flames.”
“And he was shot?”
“Yes, twice,” the chief said. “The firemen called us about the body. When we got there we found him with two bullet holes in his chest. He was dead before he hit the floor. As far as we can tell he was taken out by rifle shots from a small hill on the golf course. The shooter must have gotten there while it was still dark and waited. The only shot possible was through the window above the stove and that’s what he did. Only a pro could put two shots in his chest from that distance.”
Reflectively, Smitty said, “I’ll be damned. D’ya have any clues to the shooter?”
“Not a one, so far. By the time we got up there, golfers had trampled all over the whole area. Judging by the time that the gunshots were reported, we’re estimating he was shot about six-thirty yesterday morning. The fire department didn’t get there till after ten, and we didn’t get there the second time till almost eleven – way too late to find any clues on the course.”
“How about witnesses? Anybody see anyone suspicious?”
“Nothing. We asked everyone we could find, and we’ve got a list of everyone who was on the course yesterday morning to interview. Maybe we’ll get lucky, but I doubt it.’
&
nbsp; “So, now what about the FBI investigation?
“They’re here right now. If anything they’re more interested.”
“Jesus Christ, what’s next?” Smitty replied.
“You!” the chief replied, “You and Casey. That’s what might be next. Somebody’s cleaning up loose ends. You or Casey might be next on the killer’s list.”
“You think so?”
“Why not. Somebody knew Carpenter was trying to get out; odds are that person knows about you and Case too. Don’t forget this was a pro operation. You better be extra careful.”
Smitty slowly and thoughtfully hung up. “Did you hear all that? Murdered! By a pro. And the chief thinks we might be next.”
Everyone was silent for a couple of minutes.
Smitty called Little George and brought him up to date.
“Son of a bitch. You bring more trouble to this town,” was his response. “A professional hit man’s on your trail? Look, I’ll send some guys over to keep an eye on you; I sure as hell don’t want you killed on my turf.”
How thoughtful, I thought. I’ve survived jail, a motorcycle gang, a psychotic cop and wild motorcycle rides, only to be killed by a professional hit man? I hoped that Little George’s men were good.
CHAPTER 67
Little George recommended a nearby restaurant that he could protect and we all agreed to meet down at the bar at 7:30, on the way to dinner. At seven my phone rang, Josie asked me if I was dressed yet.
“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Let’s meet right now at the bar downstairs. I just can’t wait to see you with clothes on.”
“Clothes on?”
“How aboutnewclothes on? Does that sound better? Hurry up. There’s something I want to ask you!”
Josie’d already ordered a drink for me. She said she wanted to try a Cosmo and had gone ahead and ordered for both of us. We found a booth towards the rear of the room.
“So how do I look in my new duds?” I asked.
“They’re the cats’ meow, she laughed. Now shut up and listen,” she commanded, “I’ve never done this before and I’m a little nervous, she started.”
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