The drug dealing was still going on, although it had kind of a Wednesday afternoon laziness to it—a few old cars, and a mixed crowd of women and kids and wolfish teens ambling up and down the street in front of the Iranian grocery store and the crumbling apartments. In the gritty yellow light of the Los Angeles sunshine, all the buildings looked ancient, their outlines softened, as if they were ruins of an earlier, and not particularly better, civilization. He slowed the white car as he neared 220, looking for an obvious cop car.
He found it, a dark green Ford LTD with two men inside, parked in the same alley where he had positioned himself last night. He rolled up alongside it, so that the two drivers’ windows were side by side. The black man at the wheel rolled down his window, waited for Beau’s to come down, and flashed him a huge brilliant grin.
“Now, you gotta be McAllister.”
“You’re Rufus Calder, then. Pleased to meet you.” He extended his hand, and Calder shook it twice, hard, through the windows.
Calder was in his late forties, a thin angular man with eyes slanted slightly upward, surrounded by humor lines. An ugly pink scar twisted his right eyebrow into a jagged Z, dropping the lid slightly. He wore a pale beige suit in some light fabric, over a crisp white shirt and a yellow tie.
His partner was a young kid, brown-haired and brown-eyed, with a stylish blunt haircut and round-rimmed dark brown glasses. He was wearing an olive-green silk sports coat and dark brown baggy trousers. His shirt was collarless, in a burnt orange, and it looked like silk. Calder watched Beau as Beau checked out his partner.
“Sergeant, this is Detective Freg. Ain’t he pretty? Luis, I want you to meet Staff Sergeant Beauregard McAllister, of the Montana Highway Patrol.”
Freg nodded at him, without smiling.
“Your name is Luis Freg?”
The man smiled a little. “Yes. You know me?”
“I know the Luis Freg. The matador, got a cornada in his chest in Madrid, back in the thirties. You even look like him.”
Freg loosened up to let some teeth show. They were very white against his tan. “I am named for him, but we are not related. How do you know of him?”
“I’m a Hemingway fan, and Hemingway wrote about him. I even went to see a fight, but that was in Mexico.”
“They fight differently down there,” Freg said, now smiling brilliantly.
Calder grinned at Beau, sharing Beau’s reaction to Luis Freg, amused by it.
“Okay, McAllister, here’s the thing. You see the yard there?”
Beau twisted in his seat. The truckyard at 220 Ditman was about half filled with vehicles of various sizes, parked here and there around the fenced-in lot. Drivers were sitting on their hoods or lounging around the dock while about twenty men and women scuttled around, dragging flats on power carts or running forklift trucks in and out of the loading doors.
At bay nine, a huge stainless-steel and maroon Freightliner with an unmarked stainless-steel trailer was parked right up against the bay doors. A gray tarpaulin was spread across the opening, effectively hiding the activity inside the door.
Beau shook his head. “How come it’s so busy? It was empty last night.”
“Yeah. Apparently the owner, Merced Industries, declared bankruptcy yesterday, and all the companies are trying to get their shit outta the building before the bailiffs lock it up. So this is gonna make things tricky.”
“Yeah, I don’t see any squad cars.”
“We don’t bring prowl cars down here unless we do it in fives. This area, in the summer like this, it’ll blow up in a minute. We keep a low profile around here—hey, which reminds me, you gotta look at this. You’ll like this, Sergeant.”
He handed Beau a photograph. Black and white, taken with a telephoto lens at night, it showed Beau in his tan suit, standing at the gate of the warehouse, reaching up to press the entry button. Beau smiled and handed it back to Calder.
“I figured you’d have somebody around. Who was it? Vice?”
“No, Strike Force. They were zooming a possible AR and saw you cruising around. Took this for fun. I just wanted to show you we ain’t asleep down here in Lotusland.… So the thing is, we got Jimmy Drinaw outta here at the end of his shift this morning. Man, he was pissed at you, McAllister. Anyway, he’s bagged, and we got him on the Ithaca. He took that with him when he left the Oxnard force, so we can hang him up for stolen police property. You want us to?”
“No, I just wanted him out of the way. If we make a case, we’ll need him for chain of evidence.”
“So what now?”
“How much did Meagher tell you?”
“Not a lot. He says you maybe got a drug thing here, but not to bring the narcs into it. He wants me to keep it under my vest for a while, see what it comes up as.”
“Can you do that?”
Calder reached into his suit pocket and flipped out a leather case. He showed Beau the badge, a bright gold badge and the engraved letters LIEUTENANT.
“I can do pretty much what I want, McAllister. I’m Two I C of the intelligence division. We own the town.”
“Okay. First off, I don’t think it’s drugs, I think it’s something else. But what I need is probable cause to pop a guy, says his name is Hank Starbuck—”
“That’d be the Danny Burt guy?”
“Yeah, and when I pop him, it’s gotta be solid enough to enter bay nine, do a kick-in, maybe search and seizure. It’s gotta stand up in Montana as well as L.A. County.”
“What do you think is in there, McAllister?”
Beau wiped his face and took a long breath. “Man, I wish I knew. Tell you one thing, Lieutenant. It’s gonna be nasty.”
Calder’s face stiffened a little. “Burt have a record?”
“Nothing connected to smuggling or drugs. Misdemeanors and minor assault charges. And we don’t have anything on him for a warrant. Legally, we don’t have shit on Danny.”
“Okay, that’s no good. We asked Jimmy about guns, he said he didn’t see any, so we can’t go with weapons dangerous.”
“You run the Freightliner?”
“We did. It’s registered in Visalia. Merced Industries owns it, leases it to Kellerman Cold Haulers.”
“Merced owns the warehouse, doesn’t it?”
“So far. Like I said, they went bankrupt yesterday.”
“Convenient.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, if they filed bankruptcy, what’s the position on them taking stuff outta that warehouse?”
Calder considered it. “Well, it happens all the time. Usually, the bailiffs get there, the place is a burned-out shell anyway. So they don’t rush to lock up the assets. But technically—maybe we could use it.”
“You think? Pop Kellerman Cold Haulers for violating the trustee rules? All I need is the excuse to walk across the street there, knock on the door.”
“Well, if the Freightliner is owned by Merced, and Merced filed yesterday, and Kellerman Cold Haulers is using the truck—Luis, what’s the law here about the Freightliner?”
Freg tapped his long-fingered hand on the dashboard.
“Luis is a lawyer, McAllister. Got a degree and the whole thing.”
“Congratulations, Luis.”
Freg nodded gravely. “Okay. I think, if Kellerman Cold Haulers has legally leased that Freightliner, and they’re all paid up to date, then they have a legal right to run it, and in a sense, Merced is in a debtor relationship to Kellerman. I don’t think you can pop the truck. But—”
Calder smiled at Beau.
“But, if Kellerman Cold Haulers is running the truck illegally—you know, in violation of any state law—then the lease is null and void because of the insurance violation.”
“Yeah, and then it reverts to Merced, technically?”
“True, and then you’d have the right to go over there, ask the driver to prove that he has the legal right to remove his property using a vehicle that is technically under an act of impoundment according to section 337, paragra
ph 9 of the Civil Bankruptcy Act, wherein—”
Beau held up a hand. “Very nice, Freg, but what state law have they broken? You ran them. They’re paid up, they have all the plates. What’s the infraction?”
Calder was still smiling. Freg smiled, too.
“Well, they’ve got two broken headlights. That’s a clear violation of the safety laws, and that would violate the terms of the lease, since it can’t be legally leased unless it’s insured, and it can’t be insured without proper safety equipment.”
Beau looked over at the big steel truck. “You know, maybe it’s my arthritis, but I’m buggered if I can see anything busted on that truck.” He opened his eyes very wide and looked innocently at the two L.A. cops.
Freg and Calder both laughed. Freg got out of the car and walked around to the front. He put on a pair of dark glasses and walked away toward the open freightyard. On the way across Ditman he picked up a chunk of rock.
“Vandals,” said Calder, shaking his head sadly.
“Yeah,” said Beau. “What’s the world comin’ to, huh?”
They both watched Luis Freg duck around a passing Chevy and scoot through the gate.
“Freg is not your average cop, Calder.”
“He’s a good kid. I first saw him, I figured him like you did. You know, suitrack with a gun. And this lawyer stuff, that always puts me off. But he’s sharp, knows how to work the system. Our beefs hold up, and the juries love him. Listen, why’nt you park that boat there, hop inside with me. Soon as Luis gets done, we’ll just roll in there, real casual and laid back, just cruising the yard, you know, me and a visiting trooper. We stop—say, isn’t that a pair of broken lights on that Freightliner. Well, golly, we oughta stop and tell the guy!”
Beau rolled away to lock up the Lincoln Town Car. Then he came back and got inside with Calder.
Across the street, Luis Freg was strolling down the line of parked trucks, nonchalance in every stylish line.
“So Eustace says you guys humped the sixty in the war.”
Calder put his head down and smiled to himself. “Yeah. You in?”
Beau told him about his knees.
“Well, you didn’t miss shit.”
“Meagher talked about a hill once, you called it the Lizard.”
“Co Roc? He mentioned it, huh?”
“Yeah. Well, I thought it was a kind of a coincidence, the lizard thing.”
“Yeah? How come?”
“Well, I live in a place called Lizardskin, up in the hills there.”
Calder was looking at him blankly. “Yeah? And?”
“And—it just seemed, you know, like a coincidence. Both of us having a place named that. At the time, anyway.”
Calder was grinning at him.
Beau started to laugh softly, at the absurdity of … everything.
“Well, there you go,” said Beau.
“Yep,” said Calder, watching Freg as he reached the front end of the big Freightliner. “There you go.”
Freg moved, and there was a glitter, a tumbling of broken light. Calder started the green LTD.
“Okay—lock and load, boys.”
The wind howled around the phone booth, rattling the glass and whipping at Meagher’s pant legs. His ankles burned with flying sand and dirt. God-damn the cellular phone system.
The line was ringing.
“Hello?”
“Sig?”
“Meagher!” Tarr’s voice boomed in the earpiece. Meagher pulled the headset away from his ear and winced.
“Yeah, keep it down.”
“What’s that noise?”
“It’s the goddamned wind.”
“No shit. Power’s out in Hardin and Billings. Good thing it isn’t dark yet.”
“Yeah. Look, I called in and the dispatcher said you were real upset, wanted to talk to me or McAllister.”
“You’re damn right I do. Listen, what the fuck are you guys up to? This is some weird shit you got me into.”
“What is it?”
“Oh no, you don’t! I thought about this, and the first thing is, I did this work for you, and I want something for it.”
“You want an exclusive. I can’t do that. You know that.”
“I know you can’t gimme an exclusive. But you can gimme a jump on it. If this is hairy enough, we’ll have the networks in, it’ll be huge, Eustace. And I want the first quarter-mile.”
“What have you got?”
“Promise me?”
“I promise. I just don’t know what I’m into. What did you get? Anything on Merced and the others?”
“Oh, yes. I’d say so. Have you got a minute?”
“No, I gotta go for a bikini wax and get my toes oiled. Why the hell you think I’m calling you from a phone booth on the goddamn interstate?”
“Okay. I peeled most of this off the CompuServe system. They can boil the whole country down for you, pump out all the corporate histories. The rest I got from the Corporate Registry Service in Wilmington.”
“I’m listening.”
“First off, Merced Industries filed for bankruptcy yesterday, outta the headquarters in Visalia. They own that address at 220 Ditman, and a couple of other properties. Now, Merced also leases trucks and cars, and one of their customers is this Kellerman Cold Haulers, the same guys who have this sublease from Farwest Beef and Dairy.”
“Okay. So what?”
“Well, first off, it looks like they didn’t have to. It looks like they were bled white and dumped by whoever operates it. And Kellerman Cold Haulers is a subsidiary of Merced Industries, through a shell corporation in Delaware.”
“Why do that? Taxes?”
“Maybe. That’s what you’re gonna tell me when this is all out in the open.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Farwest Beef and Dairy looks legit. They’re incorporated in California, at the Ditman address, got their headquarters in Kyoto, and they’re also in Montana, through a subsidiary called Buenavista Ranch. That’d be Ingomar’s old spread, the one these guys bought out last year. To raise beef?”
“Yeah.”
“So what am I into?”
“Finish up first! Then I’ll tell you.”
“Well, all this stuff goes round and round, through a couple of shell corporations in Delaware.”
“Why Delaware?”
“Delaware’s like Liberia. You can get anything registered there. It’s a trigger name. Anyway, it goes round and round, a couple of numbered corporations, until you get to a company called Oceanic Group.”
“Oceanic? Who are they?”
“I can’t tell you. The shareholders are based in Kyoto, and the Japanese don’t file with CompuServe. You have to go to Japan, and even then you may not get it. They import and export stuff, and they have a subleased fleet to do the hauling. One of the subsidiary corporations is Merced, the same guys who just filed bankruptcy. Oceanic has a contract to ship beef for Farwest. They got Merced to lease the trucks to Kellerman Cold Haulers.”
Meagher’s forehead ached. “Man, sounds like a bag of snakes to me.”
“Every snake has two ends, Eustace. One end bites, the other end doesn’t.”
“Hey, words of wisdom, Sig. Hold on, I’ll get my needlepoint and do a wall hanging.”
Tarr laughed. “I mean, it works out. Oceanic owns Merced, right? And Merced files for bankruptcy. So when one of your subsidiaries files for bankruptcy, the parent corporation has to file a petition for claims, just to get the tax write-off.”
“Yeah. So what?”
“So when Oceanic did that, they had to do it through their lawyers. Through a lawyer, anyway.”
“And?”
“And the lawyer has to give the U.S. reporting address of the firm. The reporting address is usually the place where the American papers of incorporation are. Usually, it’s the lawyer’s office.”
“Where was this lawyer?”
“Address is on West 84th Street, in Denver.”
“What
’s his name?”
“Charles Kellerman. The same guy who’s on the shareholder’s list of Kellerman Cold Haulers. But that’s just white noise, I think. The point is, you recognize that address?”
“Should I?”
“It’s the Denver branch of a local law firm.”
Meagher’s headache went away in a flood of cool light. “And—”
“And that local law firm is Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright.”
“Jesus!”
“To cut to the chase, it turns out that Dwight Hogeland’s firm also leased some vehicles from Merced, including family cars and a jet plane.”
“What car?”
“Well, there’s a 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, a Porsche 911, a Cherokee, some others.”
“Does it say who drives them?”
“No. Anyone connected with the leasee, I’d guess, depending on insurance restrictions. No way to tell. But that’s not the really neat part. Guess what the plane is? The one they lease?”
“A Learjet?”
“Buy the man a cigar!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“My sentiments exactly, Eustace. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m not the first guy been asking these questions. CompuServe has a query registry, part of their service to newspapers. You can punch it up, find out if anybody else is making the same kind of inquiry. See who’s on to the same story? So, routine, I punch that up and I find out they did a one-time printout for a Visa customer, the whole package, and that Visa customer’s name was Joseph Bell of South Wyatt Drive, Hardin, Montana.”
“Look. I gotta tell you something else.”
“Else? You haven’t told me dick so far!”
“Who’ve you talked to about this?”
“Nobody. I came home, tried to reach you. Why?”
“Okay. I want you to stay put, and don’t answer the door. Don’t go out for beer, keep the lights off. You got a gun?”
Lizardskin Page 39
