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by Lee Goldberg

  This room was Harry Spinoza's domain, and he was hunched over a microscope looking at a nose hair when he noticed Charlie come in. Spinoza looked like he hadn't seen sunlight in years.

  "What can I do for you?" Spinoza asked.

  "Detective Derek Thorne, Beverly Hills PD," Charlie said. "I'm working a homicide, happened about three weeks ago. A twenty three-year-old actress got popped in her apartment. We've got zip, except for the bullet we pried outta the starlet's skull."

  He fished the ziplock bag out of the file and dropped it on the counter. "I wanna see if it matches one you dug out of an actor a few days ago."

  His story was brushing so close to the truth that Charlie expected Spinoza to start laughing and arrest him where he stood. Instead Spinoza stood up and pulled a key ring out of his pocket.

  "Case number?" Spinoza asked.

  Charlie opened his file, as if reading off the number from a piece of paper. "78039845," he replied. Thankfully, Spinoza watched TV even less often than he ventured into the sunlight.

  Spinoza walked over to the cage, unlocked it, and disappeared behind some shelves. "You know anything about nose hairs?" Spinoza asked.

  "No," replied Charlie, wondering who would.

  ''Take a peek through the scope," Spinoza said.

  Charlie did. "It looks like a hair."

  "An entire murder case hinges on whether that hair, found in the victim's carpet, matches those taken from the suspect," Spinoza said. "The theory is the killer was standing around, picking his nose, waiting for the victim to show up. That'd show premeditation, too."

  Spinoza emerged holding an evidence bag marked 78039845, containing several bullets, a couple of which were bent out of shape by their travels through Darren Clarke's various organs, bones, and major arteries.

  "Imagine going to prison, knowing you were done in by a nose hair," Spinoza said, opening the bag, selecting a bullet and setting it up on a scope. "I once nailed a guy with a piece of lint. It takes real expertise to do that."

  Spinoza took Charlie's bullet and put it beside the other one under the comparison scope. He delicately turned the knob that adjusted the focus and brought the two images end to end.

  "Do they match?" Charlie asked.

  "I'm not sure yet," Spinoza said. "We're still taking nose hairs from everyone who knew the victim."

  "The bullets," Charlie said.

  "The microscopic stuff, trace evidence, that's the challenge," Spinoza said. "The stuff the perps don't even know they're leaving behind. Bullets are easy, hell, they're practically billboards. They get all scraped up by imperfections on the barrel—the striations on the slug are as good as a fingerprint. Where's the challenge in that?"

  "Do they match?" Charlie asked impatiently.

  Spinoza glanced up at him, irritated. "You don't need to be an expert to figure that out." He motioned him over to take a look. "See for yourself."

  Charlie peered into the microscope. The two bullets were lined up, end to end. They matched.

  There was no doubt about it. Esther Radcliffe had switched the prop gun with her own, the one she had shot Charlie Willis with. He had her.

  "Looks like a match to me," Charlie plucked his bullet out of the microscope and put it back in its bag. "Thanks for your help."

  Spinoza shrugged. "It was nothing. Bring me something tough next time—then I'll strut my stuff."

  Charlie shoved the bag in his pocket and stepped into the hallway. He had solved his first murder. Beyond absolving himself of guilt, the revelation would ruin Esther Radcliffe and probably propel the series, and himself along with it, into worldwide popularity.

  He was so caught up in his euphoria, he didn't notice Emil Grubb until they were almost on top of each other.

  They passed without making eye contact, and then Charlie ducked into the nearest door he could find. When Grubb did a double take an instant later, Charlie was gone. Grubb shrugged it off and continued on his way.

  Unfortunately, Charlie stepped into the robbery detail, where the detectives were slipping on Coverall vests and checking their weapons. Lieutenant Budd Flanek tossed Charlie a vest.

  "Glad to see you," Flanek said, "we can use all the bodies we can get."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Charlie sat in the passenger seat of Lieutenant Flanek's unmarked car, weaving at fifty miles an hour through the slow-moving traffic on Lankershim Boulevard toward Noam's Jewelry Emporium. Two other, unmarked units were following close behind.

  "I really appreciate the assist," Flanek said, never taking his eyes off the road. "The guys see a uniform, they're likely to start blowing people away."

  The silent alarm had come in less than five minutes ago. Anyone crazy enough to pull a jewelry heist in broad daylight was bound to be armed and, more important to Charlie right now, wouldn't think twice about killing a cop.

  Especially an unarmed one.

  "No problem," Charlie replied. "That's why they pay me the big bucks."

  It was just the kind of thing Derek Thorne would say. But Charlie Willis was scared. Which was worse, he asked himself, to go to jail for impersonating an officer, or to get killed pretending to be one? The answer that came back, from deep within his psyche, surprised him.

  You are a police officer, Charlie. You always have been.

  Flanek pulled up a block away from the jewelry store. One of the unmarked cars passed them and parked another block up. From where they were parked, they could see the two-story brick facade of Noam's Jewelry Emporium. The shades were closed, and people casually walked by, unaware of what was unfolding inside.

  Charlie looked for the getaway car, but didn't see any cars with engines running, or anybody sitting in a parked car waiting for something to happen. Except, of course, for the police.

  "Did you work the Rodeo Drive thing a few years ago?" Flanek asked.

  Charlie had, as a traffic control officer. Two robbers walked into a high-end jewellery store at ten a.m., carrying automatic weapons. They were supposed to be in and out in three minutes. But the manager tripped a silent alarm, and the police were there in two. The police stormed the place, and the robbery turned into a hostage situation. Four people were killed before it was over two days later.

  "Yeah," Charlie replied.

  "We don't want that here." Flanek took out his gun and checked it, as if the bullets might have mysteriously dropped out of his gun during the drive. "We wait for them to come out, let 'em think they've got it made, then we take 'em down."

  "Works for me," Charlie said.

  They got out of the car. So did the guys in the car behind them and the two detectives in the sedan up the street. Flanek motioned the two ahead of them to go around back, then motioned to the other two detectives to take positions flanking the front of the jewellery store.

  Charlie pulled out his gun and gave Flanek a determined look. "I'll go around back," he said.

  Flanek nodded and sprinted up the street.

  Charlie hurried around the comer and, once out of sight of the other detectives, holstered his gun, crossed the alley, and kept on walking. He had no intention of pushing his luck. Even if he managed to survive the arrest, he was bound to be uncovered as a fraud once he was back at the precinct, filling out the paperwork. Better to just walk away, hop on a bus, and head back home.

  It might have turned out that way, too, if the bus stop hadn't been on the other side of the overpass, which crossed the cement banks of the storm drain.

  Perhaps then he wouldn't have seen the three men in Department of Water & Power uniforms crawling out of the sewer pipe, wearing goggles and filter masks, and clutching bulging knapsacks. They splashed across the shallow canal stream and climbed up into a sewer pipe on the opposite side.

  He didn't have to be Miss Agatha to deduce they'd tunnelled into the jewellery store through the sewer pipes, and that Flanek and his men were creeping up on an empty building. By the time they went inside, the felons would be long gone.

  Without th
inking, Charlie started to scale the cyclone fence that protected the canal. He was straddling the top when a thought hit him. Derek Thorne would have no problem crawling after the bad guys through the sewage, unarmed, and subduing them with whatever he had on him—his necktie, his badge, and a handful of shit. Charlie Willis, on the other hand, would get himself killed.

  There had to be another way.

  From his vantage point on the fence, he spotted a tiny hardware store across from the bus stop. He hopped off the fence and ran down the street. Charlie hoped he could run faster than three louts in DPW outfits could crawl through a slick, narrow pipe.

  He burst into the mom-and-pop hardware store, pushing his way past customers and clerks to the tool department, where he grabbed a pipe wrench and ran out again, holding up his badge as he passed the shocked cashier.

  "Police business," Charlie yelled as he slammed against the doors, back onto the street.

  He went straight to the fire hydrant and twisted off the valve. A torrent of water shot out of the hydrant and splashed into the street, streaming into the drain. By the time that happened, Charlie was already running to the next hydrant, a short block away. He twisted the valve off that one, too, letting the water spray out onto the hot asphalt.

  Charlie turned to the nearest person he could find, a teenage boy with a curious look on his face.

  "You're deputized," Charlie said, handing him the wrench.

  "Your gun has bullets," the astonished kid said.

  "I wish," said Charlie, wondering if there was a kid in America who went to bed before ten p.m. on Thursdays. "Open every hydrant you can. Don't stop until you hear sirens."

  The kid burst into a big smile and dutifully ran to the next hydrant. Charlie rushed back to the overpass, pulling out his empty gun as he ran, wondering what he'd do with it when he got there, out of breath and out of ammo.

  Charlie arrived at the overpass railing and was relieved to see he wouldn't be needing his gun, after all.

  The three goons in DPW suits had been coughed out of the drainpipe like a wad of phlegm. They were sprawled on the hard concrete, yelping over their broken bones, and trying hard not to drown in the stream of water that spewed out over them, pinning them down and washing the diamonds from their ripped bags into the cement stream that snaked through the city and out to sea.

  In a few days, some lucky beachcomber would find something sparkling amid the raw sewage, soiled condoms, used syringes, and dead seagulls that usually littered the Santa Monica shoreline.

  Charlie was hunched over the railing, catching his breath, when he saw Flanek and two detectives jogging his way on the other end of the overpass. Cries of pain from the canal caught their attention before they noticed him. They stopped and went to the rails, where they were stunned to see the three hapless felons writhing and sputtering in the wash.

  All the cops would have to do was glance up now and they'd see Charlie.

  That's when an RTD bus rumbled to the curb, belching out enough brown exhaust to obscure Charlie from view as he climbed inside. He hunched down in his seat and stayed that way until the bus hit Ventura Boulevard.

  Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he heard a director yell, Cut!

  # # #

  The shiny brass plaque read RESERVED FOR EDDIE PLANET and was propped between the salt and pepper shakers on a table in the back of the La Guerre dining room, right by the window that looked out on Ventura Boulevard.

  Eddie had the plaque made during the Saddlesore days, when he could command the best table at the Brown Derby, and wanted the whole town to know it. Since then, he had carted it around to every restaurant that would run him a tab. And there the plaque would stay, until either the restaurant, or Eddie's bank account, went bust.

  Over the years, the plaque had traveled to dozens of restaurants, from the Brown Derby to Chasen's, Ma Maison to La Serre, the Columbia Bar & Grill to the private room of the Studio Commissary and, in his darkest days, to the Seafood Broiler down the street from his house.

  But now his plaque was back, prominently displayed at La Guerre, the restaurant of the moment. There was a time when his plaque would have been at the table with the best view of the door, where he could see and be seen, but his star had not risen that high again just yet. He had to settle for a window seat, where he could see whose car pulled up, and where, if people pressed their faces against the restaurant's tinted glass, they could see him or his plaque.

  The only way people saw his plaque now was if they were heading into the bathroom. Still, everyone, big and small, had to go piss sometime. And they couldn't do it without passing Eddie's name or, if they were lucky enough, Eddie himself.

  Eddie paid the maître'd to place the plaque on his table twenty minutes before his reservation, just for appearances, so people would think he was so damn busy he couldn't possibly make it to lunch on time.

  Today was the exception.

  Otto and Burt arrived early, and were taken directly to Eddie's empty table, where they ate sixteen baskets of bread wailing for him to arrive. They also ordered themselves a couple of steaks, rare. It was not that Otto and Burt were particularly hungry, but they always had room for food. Whatever was placed in front of them was consumed. If they misjudged the space in their stomach, they'd puke and then eat some more. Otto had read somewhere in a comic book that the ancient Roman aristocracy did that, so if it was good enough for the Romans, it was good enough for them.

  Eddie Planet entered the restaurant, listening to a fanfare only he could hear. He swept through the dining room, a schmoozing wind that blew across every table. He clapped MBC chief Morrie Lustig on the back, shook hands with UBC's Don DeBono, shot a grin at Linda Lavin, and aimed a jaunty wink at Bob Newhart before landing at his table, where he found Otto and Burt popping squares of butter into their mouths like mints.

  "Sorry I'm late," Eddie said, "but I got caught in dailies."

  "No problem," Otto said. "We like this place."

  "They have good butter," Burt added, rolling an oily cube in his mouth.

  "Some places don't give you the squares unwrapped," Otto explained, "so you end up having to lick it off the paper. These are much better."

  ''They melt in your mouth," Burt said, "not in your hands."

  "You ever see Last Tango in Paris?" Otto asked Eddie. ''That was a big piece of butter. I would've liked to suck on that."

  Eddie looked at Otto for a long moment, reminding himself it wasn't brilliant conversation he expected, or needed, from these two. He had an agenda, and if he didn't stick to it, he might just lose his nerve. So he just pushed on, deciding to ignore anything out of the ordinary they might say or do that would distract him from his mission.

  "I'm glad you like the place, boys," Eddie said. "Because this is a very special day for us. It's sort of a celebration."

  "What are we celebrating?" Burt asked.

  "Moving on to the next phase of our relationship." Eddie reached out and clapped them both on the shoulders. "I'm pretty excited about the whole idea."

  "We like you a whole lot, too." Otto narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Eddie. ''But we don't buttfuck."

  Eddie quickly shushed them and looked furtively around the room to see if anyone had heard them. Thankfully, no one had. He did, however, use the opportunity to blow a kiss to Bea Arthur and shoot an A-OK to Steven Bochco, who pretended not to see it.

  "What I meant was," Eddie continued, almost whispering, "your days of risking your necks to make some schmuck actor look heroic are over. Pretty soon, you're gonna be the stars, and some guys will be breaking their bones for you."

  Otto and Burt stared at Eddie in shock.

  "You guys have what it takes to be stars, and you know what that is?" He looked at their faces. They didn't even know what day it was. "Charisma. Raw charisma. You can't learn it. You can't buy it. It's God given. And I knew you two had it the first time I saw you."

  The waiter arrived with the stuntmen's steaks, which were so rare Eddi
e expected to hear the cow scream when Burt took the fork in his fist and jammed it into the meat.

  "We always knew we had the looks," Otto said nonchalantly, looking at Eddie as he cut his steak. "We just never took the time to learn the craft."

  Eddie again found himself staring at Otto as the stuntman chewed. "You certainly look like no other leading men I've ever seen. lt leaps right off the screen."

  "Son of a gun," declared Burt, then he crammed a chunk of bloody meat into his mouth.

  "Hey, don't be surprised. Someone was bound to notice your appeal," Eddie said. "I'm just glad it was me."

  "S-U-N-N of a G-U-N-N," Burt said.

  "Yes, that would be one possible spelling." Eddie waved at Bob Eubanks and tried to keep his composure.

  "It's a little project we've had in mind for ourselves." Otto said, unaware that he was cutting his next piece of meat from his own thumb. "Something that'd capture our understated elegance."

  Eddie, horrified, tried not to stare at Otto nor at the blood spreading from Otto's hand across the steak.

  "Peter Gunn." Burt started humming the classic, jazzy theme. "Dum dum dum dum dadada dum dum ... He's so cool."

  "Since we can't both play him, we decided one could be Gunn, and one could be Sunn. Sunn of a Gunn, get it?" Otto said, pausing to spit out his thumbnail. "You can decide who's who."

  Oh Jesus, Eddie thought.

  "I appreciate that, I really do," Eddie said, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. "But there are a couple hurdles we gotta jump first."

  Eddie waved over the waiter and ordered a vodka, straight up, then turned back to the guys.

  "If it was up Lo me, Sunn of a Gunn would be on the air tomorrow." Eddie said, choosing his words carefully. "But you gotta please the big guys upstairs."