Money Men

by Gerald Petievich

  "He doesn't respect you as a person."

  "How do you know?" Vikki whined.

  Carr stood up and walked to the stereo-system wall unit. He took the cassette tape from his shirt pocket and popped it into the tape player. He fiddled with the dials and turned up the volume to loudspeaker quality,

  "If Vikki's there with the stash, she gets arrested. Do you want to get her involved?"

  "What the fuck do I care? She's just a dumb hype bitch. A friend of mine gave her to me. If you go there and find counterfeit money, it's hers, not mine."

  Carr turned off the tape player and removed the cassette. He put it in his coat pocket and sat down next to Vikki again.

  Her expression was the same as in the Polaroid photographs.

  Kelly rambled through the bedroom, slamming drawers.

  Vikki began to cry again. "I want to see my little boy."

  "Who did Pleach give some of the counterfeit money to?" Carr said.

  "Nobody. He was holding the stash for a printer who went to the pen. He didn't want to pass the money because the Feds had the serial numbers. That's all I know. How much time am I going to get? The bag is Pleach's. Not mine. Honest to God." A tear rolled off the end of her nose and landed on the front of her housecoat.

  "Think back, Vikki. Did he give even one or two of the twenties to anyone?" Carr's voice was soothing, soft.

  "He gave a couple of them to a red-haired guy. 'Bout fifty years old, balding. He came over a few days ago. Told Pleach he needed a couple of the bills for a scam or something. I was in the kitchen, and I heard them talking."

  "What kind of a scam?" Carr leaned closer.

  "He didn't say, and Pleach didn't ask."

  "What was the man's name?"

  "Red. That's what Pleach called him. That's all I know. Honest to God."

  "Does Pleach know anybody named Ronnie?"

  "Not that I know of." Vikki grabbed her stomach. "I think I have to throw up...right now." Carr followed her to the bathroom. She gagged and wretched into the sink violently.

  "The mating call of the hype," Kelly said.

  Carr leaned against the bathroom doorjamb.

  "We might have just run out of luck," Carr said,

  "What?"

  "She says the only bills went to somebody named Red. That's all she knows. I believe her."

  "Unless we can come up with a 'Red,' we're at the end of the road," Kelly said.

  Carr nodded.

  ****

  TEN

  At the East L.A. County women's jail, Carr had written "Possession of Counterfeit Notes-Federal Arraignment" on Vikki's booking sheet while Kelly had squirted her vomit off the back seat of the G-car with a garden hose.

  After finishing the usual booking procedures, Carr phoned Delgado and filled him in. It was 9:30 P.M.

  On the way to the field office, Kelly stopped at a taco stand on Brooklyn Avenue.

  They got out of the car and walked to the painted hut. GOMEZ BROS TACOS CARNITAS. A freckled face came to the window and asked for their order in Spanish. Carr and Kelly looked at one another before ordering. The taco man had red hair and was balding. Carr shook his head. It had been a week since Rico had been killed and there still were no real leads. He knew as well as any cop that the longer the investigation took the less chance there was for success. Kelly ate five tacos with extra sauce, and they headed for the field office.

  Delgado was waiting in the records room, sitting at a long table covered with stacks of five-by-eight arrest cards, Styrofoam coffee cups, and dirty ashtrays.

  "The guys that pulled this caper had to know about how a counterfeit deal is done," Delgado said. "I think it's best if we go through the arrest cards, starting at the most current, and work backward. I've got people at LAPD records checking for the same thing. The arrest card has the color of hair and the date of birth." Delgado picked up a stack of cards and began thumbing through them.

  The cards of red-haired men began to pile up in the middle of the table as the night wore on. By 3:30 A.M. they had compiled one hundred forty-six arrest forms of persons fitting the general description. Kelly, using a clerk's push cart, pulled the one-hundred forty-six arrest packages from file drawers, and the three agents dug out photographs of each man, tossing them into a pile.

  "Listen to this," Kelly said. He read from an arrest card: "Identifying marks: Tattoos of devil shoveling coal on each buttock." Kelly laughed hysterically. "This freak has tattoos of the devil shoveling coal into his ass!" They roared.

  An hour later Carr rubbed his eyes. "Let's catch a couple of hours," he said. Kelly's head was already down on the table.

  Arriving home a half hour later, Kelly parked his car in the driveway, because the garage was filled with bicycles of various sizes. He went in the kitchen door, switched on the light, and took lunchmeat and a beer from the refrigerator.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, he chewed slowly, as if in a trance. He was exhausted.

  He looked up as his wife walked into the kitchen buttoning her housecoat, removing her long braids from inside its collar.

  "Do you want me to fix you something?"

  He shook his head and took a long pull from the beer bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  "What's new around here?" he said.

  "Stevie got an F in spelling. Jimmy and junior took their bikes apart and left them all over the garage floor. That's about it."

  "Uh-huh."

  She would not ask him about work. That issue had been resolved early in their marriage. He didn't like to talk about the job, because there were too many things to explain, too many impossible translations. It had been easier to sever the ties between the two worlds.

  Such things had really never been a problem between them. They had never tried to change one another.

  Removing a crayon and coloring book from a kitchen chair, she sat down, softly rubbing her eyes.

  "Do you want to talk?"

  "Yeah, uh, sure," he said with lunchmeat in his mouth.

  "This is the earliest you've been home since it happened."

  "I guess you're right." He stopped eating momentarily and unloosened his tie.

  "I went to early Mass this morning and prayed for Rico. I've had nightmares about it. I've been worried about you, too." She stared at her folded hands.

  "God bless you, Rose." He patted her hands. "Everything will be back to normal pretty soon."

  "How could they do that to someone? Take someone's life...a young man like he was. He'll never be able to have...raise children, to have a family."

  He looked away from his wife's eyes.

  "Are you going to come to bed?" Rose said.

  "Can't sleep right now. I think I'll watch TV for a while." He put things back in the refrigerator.

  Rose got up and went into the bedroom.

  Kelly fell asleep after watching ten minutes of a Richard Widmark movie. He awoke an hour later and telephoned Carr at his apartment. No answer. He phoned Sally's place. Carr answered.

  "Just thought of something," Kelly said. "There used to be a red-haired stickup man that hung around that bail-bond place on North Broadway..."

  "He's in San Quentin."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes. Delgado thought of him and had him checked out."

  "Oh. Uh. Sorry to wake you up."

  "Good night, Jack."

  "Good night."

  Carr hung up the phone on the nightstand.

  "Who was that?" Sally said.

  "Kelly."

  "Do you feel like playing?"

  "I don't know. Do you?"

  She rolled over away from him and mumbled something.

  "What say?"

  "I said never mind."

  Carr thought about the Sunset Motel again.

  It was 8:00 A.m. Driving back toward the women's jail, Carr wondered if it would have been better not to try to sleep at all. The fatigue had set in.

  "What happens if Vikki doesn't recognize any of
the mug shots?" Kelly said, looking blankly at the road.

  "Back to square one," Carr said. He yawned.

  While putting their service revolvers in the jail safety locker, a hefty matron in a green uniform told them that Vikki had just bailed out. The lady sheriffs glossy lipstick was painted slightly over the edges of her lips, giving her mouth a gigantic appearance.

  "Bail bondsman from the San Fernando Valley," she chirped. "He had an order from a judge."

  "Well, I'll be god damned," Kelly said. "You might have figured that some Communist judge would screw things up."

  "Communist?" the heavily rouged deputy said, smiling.

  "That's right, sweet meat. Why else would a judge release a hype on bail? Hypes are sick. They couldn't find their way back to court even if they wanted to."

  "Well, they all do it these days."

  "That's because they're all Communists. Lawyer Communists. All judges were lawyers once. Don't forget that."

  "I guess I never looked at it quite like that." The deputy adjusted a straining bra strap.

  Carr and Kelly walked across the parking lot to the government sedan. "I hope Vikki went back to Leach's place," Carr said. "Otherwise we might never be able to find her." He put the stack of mug shots in his coat pocket. He really hoped Vikki was home.

  Kelly parked the sedan in the driveway of the pink apartment house next door to Leach's.

  "Watch this," Carr said. He stuck his head out the passenger window and spoke in a loud whisper toward the apartment house.

  "Is she home?"

  "Came in two hours ago in a taxi. She's alone. Why'd you let her go?" said the woman.

  "She bailed out," Carr answered. He opened the door and got out of the sedan. Kelly followed.

  "Who the hell is that?" Kelly said.

  "I don't know," Carr said.

  They walked to the front door. Kelly knocked loudly. There was no answer. The house was still.

  Kelly stayed at the front door. Carr walked along the driveway and into the back yard. He knocked on the screen door and waited. No answer. Cupping his hands to his eyes, he leaned forward against the screen. Vikki was at the corner kitchen table. Quietly, he felt the door handle. It was unlocked. He opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Hothouse air. A burner on the gas stove was on.

  Vikki was sitting in the greasy wallpapered breakfast nook, in a dinette chair. A fixing spoon, cotton ball, and an open can of dog food decorated the table. She leaned forward, resting her head on the Formica table as if taking a nap, her right arm, palm up, outstretched.

  The syringe was still in her arm.

  Carr touched her neck with two fingers. He could tell she was dead.

  He sat down resignedly at the table, not concerned about disturbing the evidence. It was accidental, and if it wasn't, he knew there was no way to prove otherwise in an overdose.

  Kelly came in the back door.

  "We're back to square one," Carr said. He looked at Kelly.

  Kelly turned slightly pale. He stepped back.

  "O.D.?" Kelly's voice was thick.

  Carr nodded.

  "I'll get to the radio," Kelly said. He trotted out the back door.

  Carr removed the stack of photographs from his pocket and shuffled through them.

  ****

  ELEVEN

  The doors of the postwar apartments faced a cement rectangle the width of a boxing ring. On the windowsills were red clay pots containing cacti and other succulents, some of which were alive. The area smelled of fried food.

  Red Diamond knocked three times on a screen door that had a sign saying MANAGER.

  A middle-aged woman in a helmet of hair rollers opened the door. She wore a housecoat.

  He asked her about Mona as if he had a right to.

  "Mona Diamond?" she said. "She moved out of apartment number four about two years ago. Who wants to know?"

  "Routine credit investigation," said Red. "She's applied for a loan with our company."

  The woman nodded tediously, as if she had something better to do.

  "Was she living with anyone?"

  "Lived alone. Seldom saw her with anyone. Once in a great while some man would spend the night and leave the next morning. Different guys. This only happened every couple of months. She kept to herself. Did you know her husband was in prison? Some kind of a confidence man. Apparently he really dumped on her. She hated him."

  Red shook his head calmly.

  "That's all I know about her. Nice gal. Kept to herself. No parties." The woman took a bobby pin from the pocket of her housecoat and plunged it into one of the hair rollers. "Is there anything else?"

  "Where did she work?"

  "She was a waitress-you know, coffee shops, restaurants--nothing too fancy."

  "Where is she working now?"

  "I saw her a couple months ago at a coffee shop about six blocks from here. It's on Wilcox below Hollywood Boulevard...the left side...Who did you say you were with?"

  "National Credit Bureau," said Red.

  "I always ask. You never know who you're talking to these days. There's millions of rapists and stranglers. I hate like hell to even open the door."

  "Yes, ma'am," said Red in patrolman style. "Thanks for your help." He walked away holding his breath.

  Though dark, it was still sweltering in Hollywood.

  Red parked the Cadillac in front of the bay window of the Movieland Coffee Shop. He got out of the car and walked to a sidewalk pay phone without taking his eyes off Mona. Looking bored, she served steaming coffee to customers at the counter. He dropped a dime in the telephone.

  A woman answered. "Sovereign Rent-a-Car, Hollywood office. This is June speaking."

  Red cupped his hand around the mouthpiece. "Hello, June. This is Dr. Richard Sanders. I rented a Cadillac from you two weeks ago."

  "Dr. Sanders...uh...we've been expecting you to return the car. Your contract was a two-day rental."

  "That's what I called about. I'm in Phoenix for a heart surgeons' convention and I just wanted to let you know I'll have the car back to you in another week or so."

  "Oh...well, I guess that will be okay. It's just that you didn't have any credit cards..."

  "Young lady, I certainly wouldn't call if I didn't intend to pay for the rental."

  "Certainly, doctor. I apologize if. .

  "No problem. See you in a week."

  "Thank you for calling, doctor."

  Red hung up the phone. He wrote "Heart Convention Phoenix" on a card in his wallet, because he knew that details were always important. Stories must be kept straight.

  Mona wiped the counter with a rag. Red asked himself how many women over forty could be attractive, yes, sexually attractive, dressed in a puff-sleeved waitress uniform? Perhaps it was the combination of the tiny waist and the full, high breasts. Her blonde hairdo was the same as years ago, when she served drinks at the Sahara in Las Vegas.

  Red remembered how the high rollers all had their tongues hanging out when she swished between the crap tables with trays of drinks, and the legs of a fashion model.

  Though she could have had anyone she wanted at that time, it was he who had ended up at the Chapel of Dreams saying vows, with a young Tony Dio as best man. It was in the frenetic days of casino credit, room service, and quick, solid scores; his partner, Tony Dio, bringing in the suckers from Atlanta and Chicago to buy stock, land, and gold that didn't exist.

  Mona flitted along the counter, filling cups again from a steaming glass pot. She was making her best thin-lipped smile.

  Red rolled up the Caddy's windows and concentrated for a moment on relaxing, then tightening, his stomach muscles. It was his own device for trying to calm nervous intestines.

  He got out of the car and walked across the street to the coffee shop. With a deep breath for sphincter control, he swung open the glass door and walked in. He took a seat at Mona's section of the counter.

  Her back to him, she arranged plastic-wrapped crackers around a bowl
of soup. Knowing her temper, he would not be surprised if she saw him and slammed the soup and crackers directly in his face. That's the way she was: quiet, almost docile until anger flamed. Once, in the parking lot of the Stardust Casino she almost scratched a would-be mugger's eyes out. "Cherokee Indian blood," she always said.

  "Hi, Mona," he said in the softest tone he could muster.

  She turned and frowned at him as if she had known he was there. She placed the soup bowl in front of a black man wearing a gas-station uniform farther down the counter. Then she picked up silverware and a napkin from a box and placed them in front of Red.

  "I thought I'd just stop by, now that I'm out," he said.

  Mona took a pencil and order book from her skirt pocket. "I heard you were out. May I take your order?" She leaned on one foot.

  "After all this time you don't have to be so hostile," he said.

  "What do you want?"

  "I just thought we could talk."

  "About what?" Mona snarled. She glanced around to see if anyone was listening. "One of your big ideas that everyone else ends up paying for?" Tomahawk eyes.

  "I'll take a cup of coffee," Red said.

  She served the coffee and kept busy with other customers as he drank it. His guts felt mushy. He restrained the bathroom urge.

  "What time do you get off?" he said as Mona flashed by with a pie à la mode.

  "Eleven," she mumbled without looking at him.

  He sat for a half hour fiddling with cream, sugar, and spoon. Finally she returned.

  As she made out the check for the coffee, Red spoke in his best bedside manner. "I want to talk to you about something important. It'll just take a couple minutes. Can I meet you out in front when you get off work?"

  "Wait out in front," she said without looking up, and handed him the check.

  Outside in the Caddy, Red looked at his watch over and over again. He knew he couldn't expect wonders. After all, it had been five years. But looking at it realistically, the foot was in the door, and the first step was always the hardest. It wasn't as if he hadn't conquered her once, tamed her hot little ass and made her legs stick straight up in the air when they screwed. The facts as they stood were that she had agreed to meet him. He stuck his hand down in his pants and adjusted his genitals.