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

by Don Pendleton

  "I'd say we're already there, kid," and I went out of there.

  Linda made no move to stop me—but I did not get far.

  An HPD cop was at my car. I knew why he was looking at it, and I knew what he was looking for. I clasped my hands at the back of my head and told him, "There's a pistol in my waistband. You're welcome to it."

  I took the spread against the roof of the car while he took the gun and cuffed me. He did not read me my rights and I made no attempt to exercise them.

  Even at that, I figured, I was in far better shape than the bewitching, or bewitched, Belinda. You go figure it. I was merely under arrest for suspicion of homicide in the death of a police officer and twenty-five hundred miles from home. Linda Shelton, I suspected, was already under a sentence of death and would never see home again.

  But she'd bought it for herself.

  And maybe she'd bought it for me, too.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I HAD BEEN in a holding cell for about thirty minutes when Billy Inyoko came for me. He took me to his cubbyhole office upstairs where we had coffee and talked. They had me sewed into this thing, of course—felony hit-and-run, suspicion of vehicular homicide while resisting arrest—various other minor charges: enough to make aloha mean forever.

  I gave Billy all the details of how it went down, then told him, "It was a hit, pal, and I was the target. How was I to know one of Honolulu's finest was the guy with the trigger?"

  He frowned. "That doesn't say much for Honolulu's finest, does it. Don't worry, Joe, we've known about Danny Woo for a long time. We've been letting him play and biding our time for the bigger fish."

  "About the size of Hong Kong Charlie."

  Sourly, Billy confirmed that. "Yeah. Guy has very strong connections, and he's into every dirty thing on the island."

  "Just how high do those connections reach?"

  Billy fidgeted for a moment before replying. "High enough to give fits to every honest cop in the department. This man Davitsky has become quite a power broker. Almost overnight."

  "That so? Even here in Hawaii?"

  He growled, "Yeah. Especially here, we think. Look, the politics on this island have never been a matter of holy pride. Nothing really rotten, you understand—not that I've known about—but it has always been a good-old-boy's club. Simply translated, they take care of one another. It's a small island, Joe. Never the center of anything, forever the outhouse of mainland politics and lately the playground for the powerful who are more comfortable in an outhouse than in a Washington suburb. They feel safe here. They are safe here. Or they were. Until . . ."

  "Until Davitsky and Hong Kong Charlie got to be buddies."

  "Well . . . that's what we're thinking."

  "How many important men, do you figure, have become compromised by Davitsky's hospitality?"

  He shrugged. "They come and go like bats in the night."

  "Never with their wives," I guessed.

  "Hell no, not with their wives,," he replied, smiling sourly. The smile widened as he corrected himself. "Well, maybe one or two wives. Equal time for the goose, you know, sometimes."

  I said, "Yeah," thinking of that Museum de Sade out there beyond Diamond Head, and the bewitching lady apparently ensconced there.

  "Anyway the thing has gotten totally out of hand. We believe your man Davitsky thought he was using Charlie Han—Hong Kong Charlie—and Charlie encouraged him to think that way. Meanwhile Charlie is muscling into the local political scene using his new mainland clout. We just don't know at this point how deep the connections run. One thing we know for sure . . ."

  I lit a cigarette, said, "It runs all the way to Washington."

  He sipped his coffee, making eye contact over the rim of the cup. "You said that. I didn't."

  "If you can't even say it, pal...okay, right, it's a small island. So say something about where I stand in all this now."

  He solemnly replied, "We're leaning overboard with you, Joe. You've got to understand that my neck is right up there beside yours."

  "That's small damned comfort."

  He did not smile. "It's not that bad. I've convinced the men upstairs that you are maybe the best route into this problem. The catalyst, maybe, to shake this thing off center. So ..."

  "So officially all is forgiven."

  He stared at me for a moment, then replied, "Let's say it's temporarily suspended. No charges are being filed, pending—"

  "Pending what?"

  "Pending a more comprehensive look at the situation."

  "I see," I said, but I saw dimly. "My license still intact?—I mean, the HPD stamp?"

  He nodded solemnly. "Naturally. You're still conducting an investigation. Right?"

  "Maybe not. I've sort of lost heart for this investigation. Besides, I don't know where the hell to take it."

  "Take it to Charlie Han."

  "Why am I beginning to feel like the sacrificial goat? Maybe I don't want to take anything to Charlie Han. Maybe only a damned fool would take it to Charlie on his own turf."

  Billy smiled. "There you go."

  I said, "Thanks, but I guess I don't want to play."

  "You disappoint me, Joe."

  "Does that mean you took me for a damned fool?"

  "I took you for a dedicated cop."

  "No, you took me for a damned fool. Let's play it that way. And let's say that I've decided I am not that big a fool. I don't want to play."

  Billy replied without really pausing to think about it. "Then I would have to remind you that you are under island detention."

  I said, "Remind, my ass. This is the first you've mentioned it."

  He smiled. "I told you that we've suspended judgment, pending ..."

  "Let's suspend that suspension, then. Charge me and book me so I can make bail."

  He was still smiling. "Hard ass, aren't you. Bail won't get you off the island, Joe. If you're going to hang around, you might as well be doing something useful."

  I said, "Bullshit. I've decided to take up vacationing as a hobby. Send on the hula girls."

  He put his hands behind his head, tilted back in his chair, laughed.

  I said, "Yeah, it's funny as hell, Billy."

  He composed himself. "We have a man inside Charlie's camp."

  "Hooray."

  "They've decided that Miss Shelton should not be allowed to return to the mainland. Alive, that is."

  That sort of gnawed at my numbness, but all I said was: "Then don't you think you have an obligation to rescue the lady?"

  He was entirely sober again. "How would you propose we do that? Invade the home of a powerful politician, kidnap the lady, then try to justify our actions on the basis of a tip from an anonymous informer? Or should we expose our man, prematurely close down an undercover operation two years in the building and maybe end up with nothing but a false arrest suit from a very irate 'victim' who refuses to believe that she is a victim?"

  I looked at my hands because I could not meet Billy's gaze. He had me, and I knew it.

  "So what do you want from me, Billy?"

  "I just want you to act like Joe Copp."

  "Act the fool," I translated.

  He grinned. "Show me an honest dedicated cop who's not a fool."

  I reminded him, "I'm a private cop, now."

  He reminded me, "You've always been a private cop."

  Funny, I had never thought of it that way before. But maybe Billy was right.

  I told him, "I'll need a thorough briefing. Everything you know or think you know about Charlie Han and his interests."

  "Naturally."

  "And I'll need a writing."

  "What kind of writing?"

  "Something official saying that I'm under contract to HPD."

  Billy screwed his face into a thoughtful frown; finally decided. "I'll try but I can't guarantee that. See, that would—that would defeat our whole ..."

  I finally tumbled to it, then, that these guys were really scared of Hong Kong Charlie.


  "See what you mean, yeah." I sighed and thought about it, chewed it thoroughly, then told my entirely scrutable friend, "Okay. What the hell, anyway? I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. May as well be damned for something worthwhile. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to charge me and book me in the death of Daniel Woo. Make my bail. Then just stay the hell out of my way until I come out screaming."

  Billy Inyoko smiled slyly and reached for his telephone.

  And why not?

  He'd just landed himself a damned fool. And now he was preparing to throw him overboard again with a hook through his belly in shark-filled waters.

  Aloha, my ass.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I HAD A new funny car, a new gun, and a newlease on life on the hard side. It was a short-term lease. I knew that. Leases on the hard side are always short-term. Life is like that. You find a way to spend it quietly and eco-

  nomically, and the leases tend to be more enduring. Start spending it loudly and extravagantly, you never know where your next step will land you. Which I guess is why most people like it better when it's quiet and controlled. Most people, I think, prefer the predictable life. The things they are doing today are pretty much the same things they were doing yesterday and will be doing tomorrow.

  Which is why we have cops.

  Cops are sort of like a guarantee of the status quo. And cops usually lead more or less predictable lives themselves. They patrol the same beats day after day, become attuned to the predictable patterns and rhythms and react in predictable ways when those patterns become disturbed. That's mainly what police work is all about.

  But crime, you see—crime is not at all that predictable. Crime is usually always a break in the pattern, or a shift in some rhythm. It is life out of control. Someone or some group decides to step outside the normal flow and start a new cycle that respects neither the status quo nor the other guy's turf. New cycles are great, of course, if they promote something better and respect other people's rights. That's progress if they do and crime if they don't.

  But I was talking about leases on the hard side. Most cops don't stake out territory over there. They visit the hard side from time to time, sure, all of them do, but in the main their lives are as predictably routine as anyone's—often to the point of boredom enlivened only by their own imagination. I mean, think of it: just driving around aimlessly all day or all night, waiting for some pattern to break down, or endlessly shuffling papers at a desk and waiting for something interesting to break the monotony. Makes me think of a scene in an old war movie where these highly trained combat troops are going crazy with boredom waiting for the war to come their way, scared that it will but even more scared that it will not. That's what a cop's life is like, mostly, anyway.

  But Billy Inyoko and his people at HPD were sort of caught between the two sides of the street. They could neither relax into the monotony of a routine gone sour or effectively invade the hard side because the patterns had become too jumbled. Like a general in the field under orders to pursue and engage the enemy but receiving conflicting signals from Washington about who the enemy is, where his jurisdiction is and how hard he can fight.

  That was where Billy was, and I understood that.

  But I also understood where I was, and I did not like that. I was like one of those military covert operations designed to get the job done while the politicians debated what the job should be; let's all hope they will rubber- stamp the action—but if they do not . .. well, sorry, Joe, but of course we can't acknowledge you if the thing goes sour.

  So sure, I was a soldier without a flag. Billy had given me directions to the front and a clap on the back but no handshake. Go get 'em,

  Tiger, sure—but don't tell anybody who sent you.

  Which is what I meant by a short-term lease.

  It was no lease at all, actually.

  It was only a travel permit to the hard side, with no guarantee of a safe-conduct return. If there was a lease involved, then it was to a burial plot in no-man's-land, without even a marker over the grave.

  I knew that. Sure. I knew it. So color me stupid.

  Because I was going for it.

  It was nearing two o'clock when I returned to Charlie's joint on Hotel Street. Nothing had changed except the faces on the customers—a few obvious tourists but mostly young soldiers and sailors—the same pall of smoke and the jangling canned music and pretty Oriental girls everywhere. I found room at a stand-up bar and attracted about the same kind of attention I'd found earlier, the same indelicate groping and bodyrubs undoubtedly designed to incline the male mind and so forth toward the rooms upstairs. There was constant traffic up and down that stairway; I staked out a particular kid in navy whites and timed his reverse along that stairway. They were quick bangs; I timed this kid at shortly under five minutes. The girl he'd descended with was on her way up with another guy within a couple of minutes. Figure the mathematics of that, if you'd like, at fifty bucks a pop. Staggers the mind, almost, when you realize there are about fifty girls working that floor and all very busily.

  I had to wonder how many joints like this Charlie had going for him, just trying to dimension the thing in my own head—and knowing, too, that the house got most of the take from the girls.

  I turned away maybe ten invitational gropes before one came along who could handle rudimentary English. This one said her name was Li and seemed a bit older than most—pushing thirty, maybe. She was from Saigon, she said, and had always been in love with American men and their big baloney-sticks. She proved that by bending over and placing a delicate kiss on my slacks, and then guided my hand beneath her shorty wrap. So I fed my curiosity and allowed her to lead me up the stairway.

  There was a long hallway at the top, going off in both directions, with small cell-like rooms opening to either side.

  A nasty looking guy at a desk up there took my fifty, examined it and waved us on without even looking directly at me.

  The only privacy in those "rooms" was provided by a beaded curtain at the door. Mine was even shredded a bit, so actually there was no privacy whatever unless there is some comfort to be found in semi-darkness. One small Tamp with about a ten-watt bulb provided the only lighting. I have seen closets larger than that room, and the "bed" was nothing more than a thin pad on the floor, several inches shorter and not much wider than I am.

  I have to say that Li was very pretty, but she'd lost her spontaneity the moment my fifty hit that desk. Now she seemed tired and resigned to another tussle on the pad. Or maybe she was just glad for the quiet break. She was shucking her wrap as she moved through the beads at the door, draped it on the back of the only piece of furniture in there—a canebottom chair—and set a little hourglass-type timer beside the pad. "You want suck or fuck?" she asked me in a dulled voice.

  I said, "Relax." .

  "No time relax," she informed me. "Five minute limit." She turned over the hourglass —or the five-minute glass, I presumed. "You want suck or fuck?"

  I asked her, "What became of all that adoration for American men?"

  She gave me a noncomprehending look and sank to the pad, moved onto her back, raised the knees and spread them, clasping them in her hands. "You want give suck?"

  I chuckled and sat on the chair.

  She dropped the knees, rolled over, peered at me across a shiny shoulder, tiredly said, "You say."

  "I said relax," I reminded her.

  She replied, "Okay. Relax. Look." Then she began moving into various acrobatic positions.

  I put a hand over there and stopped that. "You relax."

  The kid was just trying to please. She rolled onto her back and lay still, eyes closed, but reminded me, "Five-minute limit."

  She had the business phrases down pat but very little else to command English, I decided, but I told her anyway, "I come talk Charlie."

  She opened one eye and found me with it. "Fifty dollar talk Charlie?"

  I showed her a grin. "Yeah. Dumb, huh. I come wo
rk Charlie. Charlie good work?"

  She closed the eye, waited a beat, then replied, "Go away."

  I said, "Need work Charlie."

  "Charlie no work American men," she quietly advised me. "Charlie work China men, Viet men, China girl, Viet girl. American men dumb, huh. No work Charlie."

  We were doing okay with the lingo, after all.

  But the lingo was not the problem.

  The problem was the guy at the doorway.

  He was a big Asian; he was a bad-ass and he looked very upset. He said something angry to Li in her own tongue. She scrambled off the pad and grabbed her wrap, ran out naked.

  I bent down and turned the hourglass over, looked up at the guy from that level and said to him, "Come work Charlie."

  He put the muzzle of a Colt .45 against my throat, helped himself to my gun and said to me, "Cut the bullshit, guy. We've been watching you all night."

  Fancy that. My fondest hope had just been realized.

  I said, "Then you know why I have to talk to Charlie."

  He said, "No, I don't know about that. But I know why Charlie needs to talk to you."

  So okay, I could buy it to that point.

  Okay, sure, I had to buy it. I'd already put my fifty down. On the hard side.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  IT TURNS OUT to be a long wait for my little talk with Charlie Han. I am seated on an uncomfortable chair in this dirty and cramped little office at the rear of the club, and time moves slowly. I do not even have room enough to straighten my legs and stretch out a bit. My back is to the wall and my knees are butted against the front of a steel desk that looks like maybe it was bombed at Pearl Harbor. It has an undisturbed layer of dust that took a long time to accumulate so I have the idea that very little business is conducted in this office; I am starting to wonder how much thicker the dust layer will get before Charlie shows up.

  This jerk won't let me smoke.

  He wants to know what's the matter with me, I want to endanger other people's health with my nasty habit.

  I point out to him that five minutes inside that clubroom is equal to a lifetime of the paltry smoke from my cigarettes, but he doesn't buy the argument; I still can't smoke.