Blacklist

by Jerry Ludwig

  I look at my watch. Still time. Barely. But I can’t risk going back for my car. So I tidy myself up and hurry to one of the rear gates used for deliveries. The guard is a stranger who just glances at me as I walk off the lot.

  I know there’s a small hotel about four blocks away, and that’s where I go. A taxi is parked by the entrance. The driver reading a newspaper. I pull open his rear door and climb in, yanking the door shut. The driver folds his paper and looks at me in the rearview mirror:

  “Where to, Miss?”

  And suddenly this strikes me as the most frightening question I’ve ever heard. I’m still quaking from my escape and from all the threats that McKenna and Barney Ott have been raining down on me.

  “C’mon, Miss, we can’t just sit here—where are you goin’?”

  My heart is telling me one thing, my head another. David needs me now. But what I want to do is run away and hide. Because what I’m supposed to do now is infinitely harder than what I have just gone through.

  CHAPTER

  52

  MCKENNA

  It’s near quitting time, so the office is emptying. I’ll go, too, in a few minutes. The Weaver kid is out there somewhere. And that’s the sum total of what we know. Undoubtedly on the run. But every hour he remains on the loose diminishes the prospects of our nabbing him.

  It’s getting dark outside. Downtown L.A. turns into a ghost town after the office workers go home. I’ve still got my jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled, as I thumb through pointless memos that have piled up. A few items for the files, the rest for the wastebasket or the shredder. Then I notice a brief report from an FBI agent in San Diego. After the Navy Department advised that the sailor, whose dog tag we found in Joe Shannon’s lockbox, had died in the San Diego jurisdiction, I’d bucked a pro forma request down there for follow-up.

  The report that’s come back is boring and less than one full page. But a sentence at the bottom catches my eye.

  AN INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF PETTY OFFICER DENNIS PETTIGREW INDICATED THAT TWO HOLLYWOOD FILM RESEARCHERS, JANA VARDIAN AND DAVID WEAVER, HAVE VISITED HIM RECENTLY SEEKING SIMILAR B.G. INFO ON SUBJECT ATHERTON.

  I check the date on the report, received by teletype three days ago, before Leo was murdered. So what was David Weaver, the alleged Blacklist Killer, doing down there? Was it a going-through-the-motions charade for Jana Vardian’s benefit? To assure her of his basic innocence? Why else?

  Atherton. One of those messy loose ends.

  Both Alcalay and I had explored the idea that something in Shannon’s lockbox could have been blackmail material. But no signs of forced entry, so everything was still there. Obviously a metal box won’t burn, and the documents inside were scorched but identifiable and explainable. Nothing unusual, except for the dog tag. So we discarded that early on. Not as if we had found fingerprints on the dog tag.

  And then it hits me. The long-ago FBI classroom lecture about fingerprints. “Hollywood crime films lead us to think of fingerprints as the perfect piece of evidence, the indelible individual proof of guilt. The unique formation of swirls and loops can be that. But be aware that fingerprints are extremely fragile. They are essentially sweat, mixed with body oils. Exposed to extreme temperatures, the water component will evaporate, leaving an organic grainy residue that is easily dispersed.”

  So if Shannon’s killer was out to destroy fingerprints on the dog tag—he didn’t need to crack the goodie box, all he had to do was douse it in gasoline and cook it away. Could that be why the place was torched?

  I could call in this new development to Clyde Tolson. And definitely anticipate his reaction:

  “Focus, Brian, focus! This idea is irrelevant. Our case is solved, all we have to do is catch the traitorous culprit—and we know his name.”

  Yeah. Focus. There are always several of these unanswered questions in every case. Always! Push them aside. This is a flight of fancy I cannot afford. David Weaver is the prize of the decade. When he goes down, I go up. It’s that simple.

  I mark the San Diego report “File Only” and place it in my outbox, then there’s a knock on the doorjamb. It’s Willie Pierson.

  “Got that answer you wanted. Joe Shannon’s nifty house up in Beverly Hills is owned by All-Star Realty Investments, Inc.”

  “So who are they?”

  “A subsidiary of Panorama Studio. Shannon was living there on a lifetime dollar-a-year lease.”

  I stare at him. “We own the place.” Just like Leo’s house. Now Shannon’s place. Also owned by Panorama. A payoff. For what?

  “Something wrong?” Willie says.

  I shrug, not knowing what to do with this new bit of information. “Thanks, Willie.”

  He goes off. I sit there holding the sheaf of bullshit papers, pretending to see them, resisting the thoughts forming in my head. But, hey, how about just for argument’s sake? The gift house to Leo was a perk to a big money-making director to keep him happy and on the lot. But why would Panorama be so interested in keeping Shannon happy? Or quiet?

  The practical voice in my head shouts, What the hell’s that got to do with David Weaver? Nothing, that’s what!

  So who am I arguing with? Which part of myself?

  There’s a small pile of messages in the corner of the desk from Kathleen pleading with mounting urgency for me to call her back. I know what she wants to say. Always the public defender, she’s on the other side of the fence, she doesn’t understand how the system really works. The stampede in Weaver’s direction is unstoppable. Too late for discussion.

  Well, I can hide from Kathleen, but not from what she has already said: How much do you really want this job in Washington?

  I feel an itchy-burning sensation on my wrist. My right hand has been directly under the heat of the desk lamp. I unstrap my watchband and rub the irritated scar tissue beneath. I started wearing a wide leather band years and years ago to avoid questions or assumptions. Is the scar from a suicide attempt or a childhood accident? Which is worse: horror or pity? Of course, I was too ashamed to ever mention being tortured by my stepfather. Better to conceal. But now, with the wristwatch off, I stare at the scar.

  Declan Collins. I’ve tried never to think about him. Until lately, Kathleen and I rarely spoke his name. He’s our sick secret. Declan sprawled on an icy pavement. Both of us crying. As we abandoned him. She cited him recently as a reproach and a warning. Declan had his price. Have I found mine? He took his payment in cash. I’m about to take mine in power. A chance to spend my last years with the Bureau in dignity doing meaningful work. Go out the way I came in. That’s worth a lot to me.

  Enough digressions. I strap on my watch, slip into my jacket, about to leave in search of a stiff drink on my way home, when the phone rings. Maybe it’s Alcalay and all the doubts and temptations will be over.

  But it’s another cop. Jerry Borison at the Beverly Hills cop shop. On the q.t. we notified him a while back of the connection between Wendy Travers’ death and the Blacklist killer. But that whole aspect of the investigation has been a dry hole, kind of neglected really, while everything concentrated on Shannon’s murder and now Leo’s.

  “Well, we got our man,” Borison tells me proudly.

  I can’t believe it. “You got David Weaver?”

  “No, but we got the guy who whacked Wendy.”

  Stunned, I listen to his report. A man walked into a pawn shop on Pico Boulevard and tried to hock a necklace. The pawn shop operator recognized the piece from the insurance photos the Bev-Hills bulls had circulated of the jewelry snatched from Wendy Travers’ body. He called the cops, they arrested Henry Joseph Vitale, a druggie previously convicted for car burglary. “We went to his house and found Wendy’s missing credit cards. We’re charging him in the morning. Knew you’d wanna know.”

  I hang up and sit there pole-axed. Now where the hell are we? My big first assumption, my brilliant deduction, linking Shannon’s death to Wendy’s—it’s suddenly become the ultimate loose end. And it’s completely unraveled.
I suck in a chestful of air, my head spinning as I struggle to make sense of all this.

  And the phone rings again.

  I assume it’s Borison with a detail he forgot to mention, but it’s only the Bureau receptionist announcing a visitor who has no appointment. I say it’s okay. Could be I’m about to catch a break. I sure could use one.

  And Jana Vardian enters.

  Looking scuffed and scared. Behaving as if she’s tiptoed into the snake pit. I gesture and she sits down opposite me. I wait. Until.

  “I’ve—been thinking a lot about what you said.”

  I nod encouragingly.

  “You said I could, I mean should contact you whenever…”

  “That’s right, Jana.” Wait again. Then I decide to cut through. “Do you know where David Weaver is?”

  The pause is heartbreaking. I can see it in her eyes. Her fear. Of me? Of something or someone else? Of herself? Finally she swallows and answers:

  “I—I know where he’s going to be.”

  CHAPTER

  53

  MCKENNA

  The sky is dark enough for the show to start on the big outdoor screen at the drive-in theater on Olympic near Bundy Drive.

  “Th-that’s all, folks!” Porky Pig stutters his signature closing line in the cartoon. I’m parked in my Mustang surrounded by families and amorous twosomes. I’m alone. I climb out of my car and go to the snack stand. It’s nippy weather, a cold wind blowing in from the beach.

  The snack stand is jammed with flirting teenagers and harried parents with tots in tow. I buy a large black coffee and a donut. Then I stroll slowly around the small building—flat-roofed, whitewashed walls—and I take special note of the large trash Dumpster with its lid closed near the rear door.

  I amble on and casually walk behind the sixty-foot-high screen. The ground underfoot is unpaved but hard packed. Okay, that’s good. I return to my car, settle behind the wheel. Everything seems in order. Jana has clued me in, but I’ve brought along a surprise or two of my own. Covering all bases.

  I sip my coffee and watch the drive-in’s main feature, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. I’ve seen it before, it’s still funny. Wish I was in a laughing mood.

  My main feature will go on later.

  DAVID

  I’m leaning back in the darkness against the sea wall on a deserted stretch of beach between Santa Monica and Venice. Music wafts down from the ancient ballroom up above. Not Elvis’ revolutionary riffs. Old timey stuff. Big-band arrangements of Glenn Miller’s and Artie Shaw’s greatest hits. Once upon a time they held marathon contests up there. Dance until you drop, last couple standing wins the big prize. Can’t make it without the right partner.

  Jana taught me to dance. I didn’t think it was possible. “I’ve got three left feet,” I told her when we were still sub-teens. But she insisted. “Yes, you can, David, we can do anything together.” So we did. With her in my arms I could feel the music and make all the right moves.

  After my phone conversation with Harry Rains, I went shopping. To a hardware store to buy a bolt cutter. To RadioShack for a battery-powered tape recorder with an extra-long microphone wire. Then I went looking for some insurance for tonight. I assume Harry will come loaded for bear. Simpler for him that way: dead men don’t blab, quibble, or deny. But my trying to buy a gun was not an option. By now I had to assume that all the gun shops had been alerted, so I’d be busted before I even finished filling out the paperwork.

  But the Army-Navy store on Third Street has a sale on Commando knives. Ugly mothers, dull black tempered steel, slanted saber-tooth edge, slides in easy and rips out hard. That will level the playing field if necessary. Anyway, in a bout between an ex-Golden Glover and an ex-Ranger, I’m confident that Rangers rule.

  So this is the calm before battle. I feel ready. One way or another it’s going to be over soon. There is a bright full moon. A hunter’s moon. The wind is picking up, urging the ocean into small sharp waves that smack emphatically against the shoreline. From above I hear the band begin to play “Dancing in the Dark.” I glance at my watch. I get up and dust off the beach sand. Time to go to work.

  MCKENNA

  It’s the final scene of the movie. The speedboat races away from shore. Tony Curtis has snared Marilyn Monroe, but Jack Lemmon has wound up with Joe E. Brown, who wants to marry him—even when Lemmon, who’s still in drag, whips off his blond wig and confesses he’s a man. “Nobody’s perfect,” Joe E. Brown says forgivingly. Was there ever a more profound line?

  Then the entire parking lot springs to life. Car engines and headlights turn on, drivers begin to exit. It rapidly becomes a traffic snarl. I maneuver into a line that will bring me past the sixty-foot screen. When I get there I veer off and glide behind it as if seeking a shortcut, hoping no one follows me. No one does. I switch off my engine and lights and sit there in the darkness. Wondering how tonight will end.

  It takes a while for all the cars to leave, then I wait some more. I hear doors slamming and faint talking, sounds of the place closing down. After a while, a few more cars leaving. Probably the last workers. Silence. I get out of the car and edge forward to peer around the corner of the screen. No vehicles and no people in sight. The night light is shining above the locked entry door to the shuttered snack bar.

  I get a black tote bag from the car. It’s custom-made, as long as a duffel bag with a zipper running down the spine. Tote it to the rear door of the snack bar. Place the bag on the closed lid of the Dumpster. Hoist myself and the bag up onto the roof. Carry the bag across the flat roof, zip it open, take out a blanket, spread it on the tar paper and squat on it.

  Then I bring out an array of metal pieces that all fit together like a shoulder-fired bazooka. Under the right circumstances, this device can cause even more damage. One of the latest inventions from the FBI’s resourceful gadgeteers. They’ve named it The Shotgun. Assembled it looks like a Buck Rogers’ space ray gun. I’ve been fooling with it around the office since it arrived. Who’d have thought it would come in so handy so soon?

  I lie prone, bring the shotgun to my shoulder, and look down the barrel. Through the telescopic sight, I scan the entire expanse below. The night light over the front door of the snack bar casts long eerie shadows. But nothing down there except rows and rows of sound speakers hanging on their hitching posts. No, more like whipping posts. Waiting for the whipping boy.

  DAVID

  From the side street across Olympic Boulevard I stare through the windshield of my jalopy as the last worker emerges from the main gate of the drive-in. He snaps the padlock shut on the chain. Sealing up the place for the night. He thinks.

  I let him roll out of sight down the boulevard before I drive across and stop at the gate. Hop out with my new bolt cutter and in a moment the joint is open again. I push the gate wide enough for me to drive through, then I get out and close the gate, but not completely. A private invitation for my expected guest.

  I park about dead center inside the drive-in. Open my trunk. The tape recorder with its two reels is in there. Cued up. I’ve already attached the extra-long microphone cord and I run it under the car, bring the mike up at the speaker post. With a roll of black electrician’s tape, I fix the mike to the back of the drive-in speaker. Then put the speaker back on its hook. I look at it. Invisible? Well, good enough in this dim light. Gotta be.

  Then I walk back to the trunk of my car. I press the RECORD button on the tape machine. The red light goes on and the reels start slowly turning. Good for two hours. Should be way plenty. I lower the trunk lid. Gingerly leaving it a few millimeters open. Don’t want to risk severing the mike wire.

  I go to lean against the driver’s door, facing the entrance to the drive-in. I bend over to pull up the thick GI socks I bought at the Army-Navy store. The holster with the Commando knife is strapped to the lower part of my right leg, concealed by the sock. I straighten up. Feeling prepared as I can be for whatever comes. Same feeling I used to have in Korea. Shaky and scared du
ring the briefing sessions, but icy cool when the action began. I hold my hand out in front of me. Rock solid. Nerves of steel. Never needed them more than tonight.

  MCKENNA

  Through the telescopic sight, I’ve been watching David Weaver’s preparations. Thinking all the while, I can take him out at this instant, no questions asked. Never mind that bullshit movie mythology, about how you have to yell, “Freeze, sucker,” and never fire unless fired upon first.

  Here’s Weaver, the most wanted fugitive in America, and there are no witnesses. Easy shot. Easy for me, anyway. The upside is fame and advancement. And happily ever after with Ashley. Weaver’s life ends. My life begins again. There is no downside. Or is there? How about the promise I made to Jana Vardian: that if worse comes to worst, I’ll take him alive. But the FBI team who gunned down Public Enemy number one John Dillinger in Chicago in the thirties didn’t ask permission from his informant girlfriend. Cops lie sometimes to get at the truth. But what’s the truth here and now?

  The winter wind from the ocean has turned sharp and raw, but beads of sweat are running down my face. My body recognizing my turmoil. I know what Hoover and Tolson would prefer. Bird in the hand. Officially declared a predator. Open season. Actually he’s the Golden Goose. Shoot him and the verdict is in and final. Wrap up the Commie bastard this instant. That would be the Bureau position.