Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  "Very profound, Nils. What rules in place of money?"

  "Vanity, power, love, sex. Not necessarily in that order."

  Wisdom from the garden.

  I said, "Bingo again. So which one of those, do you figure, would take a guy with high political aspirations into an involvement with strip joints?"

  He replied in his quietly droll manner, "Surely not love."

  Surely not. No. So that left vanity, power, and sex. With some men those three were interchangeable. And any one could produce murderous intent.

  So what the hell did I have here now?

  I had all three, pal. I had it all.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE FRAMING SPLINTERED away and the whole thing fell in under a single kick. I walked across the fallen door with the S&W leading the way and caught Tanner in his underwear in front of the TV, a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other, gawking at me in disbelief with his gunleather just out of reach on the floor beside him.

  I kicked the hardware rig across the room and holstered my own piece, then took his cigar and his beer away from nonresistant hands and tossed both into the fireplace. I turned off the television; pointed a finger at him. "Stay!"—and went to check out the rest of the apartment. It was a small condo with a very cramped living room—hardly more than a wide hallway leading off to the kitchen and dining nook—one bedroom, one bath.

  If a man's home is his castle, Gil Tanner was a monk. Except that I found a girl in the monk's bath. She'd just emerged from the shower—probably hastily, after hearing the commotion—and was reaching for a towel as I pushed the door open.

  She froze; gave me a stunned look and nothing else.

  I handed her the towel and nothing else, went back to the living room.

  Tanner was being a good boy. Hadn't budged from the chair.

  He was shitface scared. I stood over him. "Now we talk."

  He swallowed around a lump in the throat and asked, "What is this, Joe?"

  "It's the end of it," I told him.

  "End of what, Joe?"

  "Today you resign."

  "From the department? Joe! That's crazy! I'm sixteen months from retirement—"

  "You didn't earn it, Tanner. Today you resign. And you tell Davitsky no more killings."

  That appeared to do the trick.

  "What?"

  "Your little creep partner, too. Tell him no more killings. If you want a good reason for doing that, just keep this in mind—you will be the second to die. Right after him. Understand that? It's not a threat; it's a commitment."

  I showed him my back and went to the shattered doorway. "What do you do with all your loot, Tanner? You live like pigs."

  He did not respond; just gave me a glassy look.

  I went on out and along the hall; encountered an old man in a security uniform who was just entering the building.

  I smiled at him and he asked me. "What's all the disturbance?"

  I told him, "Wild party back there, I guess. Naked women and all."

  He muttered, "We'll by God see about that," and hurried on.

  I went out to my car, took time to light a cigarette and wonder if anything had been accomplished, then took off. I had another stop not far away and wanted to get there ahead of my advertisements.

  It was in one of the new townhouse developments just off Baseline. Very stylish and "in" with junior executives. Which includes, I guess, pizza parlor managers and young entrepreneurs cum deputy sheriffs such as Ed Jones. The "young family" evidence was everywhere, various types of wheeled toys scattered about. Not the sort of place where you'd like to introduce gunplay of any kind.

  The one I was looking for had lighted windows; it was the only one around that did. Drapes were drawn so I could see nothing of the interior. But I could hear the murmur of a television late-night movie through the front door; sounded close to the door. I pushed the bell button and got a response about two beats later, as though someone had been standing just inside waiting for that very thing.

  A peephole opened, an eye was there, and a woman's voice inquired, "Yes?" It sounded more like a ya than a yes, definitely accented..

  I asked the peephole, "Is Ed home?"

  The voice replied, "Who asks?"

  I told it, "I'm Joe Copp. Working with Ed on a case. Has he come home yet?"

  There was a brief hesitation. I could almost hear the woman's mind clicking along its gears. Then I heard the bolt move and the door inched open to reveal an intact safety chain and a two-inch-wide view of a young woman with a very unhappy face. She was wearing a bath-

  robe, and she was either fat or pregnant.

  I voted for pregnant and told her, "Nothing to worry. Sorry to bother you. Can I leave a message?"

  "You are working with Ed?"

  I replied, "Sort of, yes."

  "He should've been home one hour ago. Do you work long with Ed?"

  I was getting a drift and decided to play it. "A while, yeah. Can I leave the message?"

  "Do you work the twelve-hour shift, too?"

  I said, "Not usually."

  This kid was very agitated. She said, "What means not usually? Sometimes yes, sometimes no?

  I had the drift, yeah. I told her, "Well, you know a cop's work. It's never done. Okay if I come in just for a minute? I'd like to leave a message."

  The door closed abruptly in my face. I heard the chain rattle, then the door opened again, wide.

  Pretty kid. Very blond, very Nordic...and yeah, very pregnant. I guessed ninth month and ready to pop at any moment. Hell, it was two o'clock in the morning. This kid should have been getting her sleep, not tending the latch for a wandering husband. A Japanese monster movie was on the tube. A basket of knitting thread sat on the couch; she'd been building something for the baby, a nest outside for the grand opening.

  I told her, and meant it, "I'm really sorry to bother you," as I moved inside.

  She closed the door and turned to me with a tired smile. "It is okay. It is lonely. I do not mind. Are you still at work?"

  I said yes because I felt for the kid, decided not to play a game. She brightened a bit at that, deciding maybe that if I were still at work, maybe her husband was too.

  I told her, "Things have been rough lately. It will calm down soon." I gently touched the belly. "In time for junior, maybe. How much longer?"

  She rubbed it. "Soon now. Do you need pad?"

  I produced my own notebook and pen as I told her, "Thanks, no. Do you miss Germany?"

  She showed me a smile. "Yes. But here is beautiful, this California. I will get accustomed—used."

  She'd already been used but I didn't want to tell her that. I had the pen in position at the pad when I casually inquired, "Was Ed with the MPs when you guys got married?"

  "Yes," she replied. "We are married now two years."

  I said, "Beautiful. And baby makes three."

  She smiled. "Yes. Baby makes all things better."

  I hoped so, but figured not. "Raw deal he got, huh? I mean, you know, the trouble in Germany."

  She said, "Yes."

  I said, "I never got the straight of that."

  She said, "Ed does not like to speak of it. One day he will tell you maybe."

  I said, "Yeah," and jotted my note, tore it out, handed it to her.

  She read it. "What means Learn to drive?"

  I told her, "Ed will understand. Just please see that he gets it the minute he comes home. Okay?"

  She smiled brightly. "Okay. You did not put your name."

  "He'll know that too. Why don't you go to bed? Ed could be quite late tonight."

  "Oh, I do not mind." She looked at the knitting.

  "A baby makes all things better," I reminded her, feeling like a two-faced ass as I said it.

  It would take more than a baby, I knew, to straighten out a guy like Ed Jones.

  It might even take a bullet.

  I hoped not as I bade the young lady goodnight.

  It was not a good nig
ht.

  But, by God, it was getting better all the time.

  Chapter Twelve

  DIFFERENT PEOPLE GO into police work for different reasons. Some come into it with a lot of idealism; think they can make a difference in an indifferent world. I know I felt that way. But the thing that really tipped me into it instead of into some other line of work was my love for a man who unofficially took me under his wing when I was ten years old.

  My dad was killed in an automobile accident. My mom took over as provider and I became a latchkey kid. Guess I could have gone any way, at that time. But Hank Greer was a neighbor and he was a cop. Had three daughters, no son. Hank was the kind of man who needs a son, and there I was in need, like they say, of a male role model.

  He took me fishing and hunting and got me interested in sports. I idolized the man. My mom started going a little haywire when I was in junior high, started hanging out in bars and bringing home a constantly changing lineup of jerks to sleep with. Don't hold that against her, now; she had no bed of roses, and I guess you reach for what's there when the desperation gets to you. Of course I didn't have that kind of understanding at the time, and it bothered me all to hell.

  Well, the less she mothered the more Hank fathered. I moved in with his family when I was sixteen. Don't know to this day whatever became of my mom. She just sort of drifted away. I think maybe she finally died of her broken heart, but I've never really tried to find out. Probably afraid of the truth.

  Anyway, things were fine with my surrogate family. I played big brother to the girls, an oversized eager puppy to the mother, and a good buddy to the father. Made all-state linebacker my last two years in high school and was offered scholarships at Cal and Stanford. Turned them down, and that made Hank sick. But I wanted to be like him, and I couldn't see waiting through four years of college to start.

  So I enrolled in a local junior college and took courses in criminology and police procedures, aiming toward the police academy. Got there, too, soon as I met the age requirement.

  One week after my graduation from the Police Academy Hank was killed in a shootout during a drug bust. It came out a short while later that he had been criminally involved with the guy who killed him. That hurt, yeah. Hurt like hell. I wouldn't buy it until the facts were simply too plain to buy anything else. But I was not downed by that. I think it just firmed up my own resolve to be the best damned cop in town—and I knew what a good cop was supposed to be.

  It has put me through a lot of trouble, though, that ideal. And I finally just gave it up, but not the way some guys do. I mean, I did not give in to the system. I moved outside the system and tried to become the best damned private cop in town. Not that it is all that impossible to be a good cop within the system. Many guys make it through just fine. It's a matter of timing, circumstance and personality. Mine all seemed to be wrong most of the time. I was a square peg in a round hole, and that was uncomfortable all the way.

  But I do know a lot of guys who are fine cops doing a fine job of law enforcement, and there's nobody hanging all over their backs while they're doing it. I think maybe my problem is that I'm just too damn visible. You can't look the other way when I am headed your way. Which makes for confrontations, and I mostly seem to come down on the unpopular side of an issue.

  So maybe I'm a jerk.

  I am a jerk. I could be making a bundle if I just hired myself out to anybody for anything. But, see, I never started out to make a bundle. I'm content to make a living, with my principles, such as they are, intact.

  I started out to talk about the reasons why people go into police work. I gave you one, idealism, and believe it or not a lot of people can be counted in that group. Some, though, go into it strictly as a practical matter. Beats pumping gas or running a delivery route. Pay has gotten quite respectable, too, plus all the health and pension benefits. Besides all that, there's a certain dignity to being a cop. Guys who go into it for practical reasons can go any of three ways: they can be good cops, or bad or so-so. Many in this class are just so-so. Some others go into it because they have this idea that it's exciting and glamorous work. They usually don't stay with it, but those who do stay come down to earth damned quick, and some develop into damned fine cops.

  But there's another class of cop that I am getting at here. This guy is a natural asshole. He is not worth much of a shit for anything because he is essentially a bad ass and would be behind bars except for the badge. This guy is a natural bully, and a natural bully is really a cowardly asshole looking for easy victims to elevate his own putrid image of himself. This guy would have been one of Hitler's early brownshirts and later a concentration-camp commando. You would never find him leading troops into combat, because combat is dangerous and this asshole is not looking for dangerous honors, he is looking for easy victories.

  If you should meet up with this asshole wearing a badge, look out. He will cut you down to his own size in any way he can, and he wears the badge solely as a means of doing just that.

  They look for guys like this during the screening of police candidates, but somehow a few always manage to slip through. Some of them manage to evade official detection for a hell of a long time—sometimes for an entire police career—and some of them even reach high rank. Then you've really got a problem, and I have had those kinds of problems.

  One of these guys in a department is bad

  news enough. Several are scary. Get them together as a team and you've got yourself a full-blown nightmare.

  So what I am trying to tell you is that we had ourselves a full-blown nightmare in the San Gabriel Valley.

  I was not certain at this point just how strongly the nightmare figured in my particular problems of the moment, but I felt sure it was there.

  I needed to find out just how much it figured. And I intended to find out very damned quick.

  It was a small office suite in an industrial complex housing also a number of hi-tech outfits and various service facilities numbering maybe a hundred different companies.

  The decal on the door read: Security Masters Unlimited.

  The lights were on and I could see a guy seated behind a desk as I drove by. A van parked directly in front bore the same decal as the one on the office door.

  I parked a bit up-range and watched the door for ten minutes.

  Nothing went in or out. It was almost three o'clock. Only one other company in the complex was showing any signs of activity at that moment, a computer outfit that was receiving merchandise at a small loading dock at the far side.

  I left the car and gave the area a quick feel on foot, then went calling on Security Masters.

  The glass door was locked.

  I rapped on it, and the guy looked up from the desk. He seemed a bit bored, more than a bit sleepy.

  I opened my coat and let him get a look at the hardware as I placed my ID wallet against the glass.

  He hurriedly stumbled to his feet and came over, unlocked the door without even a glance at the ID and swung it open. Which was dumb.

  I moved with the door and pushed it into his face.

  He went down without a sound and made no move to get back up. I walked around him on my way to the desk, pulled out all the drawers and dropped everything onto the floor. Not looking for anything in particular; just titting for tat.

  The door to an inner office was locked. I kicked it open. Actually there were two offices back there, connected by a narrow hallway. Each contained a desk and a filing cabinet. Everything was locked up.

  I went out and checked the guy on the floor. He was still out. I found no keys on him but I did find a wallet with forty bucks and a reserve deputy ID. I left it lying on his chest and went out to the car, brought back a tire tool, went to work on the locks in the inner offices.

  They popped open with hardly any leverage at all.

  And, yeah, I found some goodies back there.

  Not spectacular goodies but good-enough goodies.

  Good enough to maybe put the whole rotte
n operation out of business for good.

  I wrote a note and folded it into the unconscious guy's hand, then gathered up my goodies and went away.

  All the note said was: "Security Masters, my ass." And I knew I didn't need to sign it.

  I was going to have those guys all over my back before the sun rose.

  I hoped so, anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I WAS GETTING the feeling that I was involved in two separate and distinct problems here—or else two problems with tenuous linkage between them.

  I could not shake from my mind the picture of Tanner's face during my visit to his condo and the stunned look it was wearing when I started linking Jim Davitsky and Ed Jones to the killings. The more I thought about it, the more I had to wonder if I had jumped too quickly into Tanner's face.

  Davitsky, now, yeah—that was pretty much on the edge, too. So okay, he had a creep for a nephew but maybe he didn't know that. To use your political influence to help a relative get a job is one item. To use that relative for murder is another entirely. It takes a large jump to connect those two items. A fragment of gossip about a possible link between Davitsky and some unnamed strip joints is an item. Davitsky linked specifically to the New Frontier is another item. Again, connect them at your own risk. And keep in mind we're leaping about with a guy who takes dinner with the president from time to time.

  And I had taken some damn big jumps there. The mind automatically works that way, of course. But you are supposed to audit that sort of thing, make sure it makes sense before you go around kicking doors down and getting into the face of another guy who is linked nowhere except to the creep in an official police relationship. We do not always get a choice of partners.

  Granted, Tanner himself was a creep. But that was one item. Jones the creep was another. I was having trouble trying to find a bridge between the two. And all because of the look on the older creep's face when I laid it on him.

  Something was not ringing together there.

  So I went back to Tanner's place.

  It was shortly past three o'clock. Roughly forty minutes had elapsed since my earlier visit. Time enough for the guy to get himself together in reaction to that visit. But his door was still lying on the floor inside the apartment. The lights were on. Tanner was still in his underwear. And he had a hole in his head big enough to put your hand into. The old security cop was lying curled in a corner, ditto.