Total Immunity

by Robert Ward

“That’s my girl! You could leave the back window to the office unlocked and crawl inside.”

  “That sounds a little scary, Jackie. You get caught, they’re gonna know I was in on it.”

  “But I won’t get caught. I find his password and I check his records. There ought to be something there . . . a payment, a date, phone records. They won’t even know I was in there.”

  She pushed her body into Jack’s and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were soft, and the kiss was as tender as a new bride’s.

  “Okay, baby. I do it for you. You know I love making plans with you, Jackie. I think we make a wonderful team.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “There’s no doubt about it. Just get Winkie out of there on Sunday.”

  She smiled and kissed his cheek again.

  “Of course I will, master,” she said.

  Then she turned and walked away. Shaking her perfect little ass one more time for Jack, she slid into her blue Mercedes and drove down Ventura toward Chinatown.

  26

  IT WAS RAINING the day Nicki Sadler was buried, and though he was interred at one of the most famous celebrity cemeteries in the world, Forest Lawn in Glendale, the funeral didn’t make the afternoon news.

  The only mourners were Jack, Oscar, and a woman wearing a black veil over her face, circa 1953. There was a priest, with a bad comb-over and a melon-sized head. He worked for the cemetery. He said a few words about Nicki Sadler’s various charitable donations and how Nicki worked in the land of “celluloid magic. Behind the scenes, yes, but no less of an important part of the wonderful world of Hollywood than the actors and directors.”

  Oscar and Jack huddled under a half-dead eucalyptus tree. Oscar wore his old Dodgers baseball cap as the cold rain ran down their faces.

  “That woman looks familiar,” Jack said.

  “Yeah,” Oscar said. “That’s ’cause she used to star in horror flicks. I saw her in Beasteaters and Brain from Planet Jerry. Name’s Joyce Domergue.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “I remember her. Something about her nostrils. She had a perfect face, but her nostrils were too big.”

  “Yeah,” Oscar said. “And she used to flare them to show she was sexually aroused. Looked like you could drive a dune buggy in there.”

  “Great tits, though,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, but not enough to overcome the monstro nostril factor,” Oscar said.

  They waited until the minister had intoned “dust to dust,” then walked over to the retired horror starlet.

  As they got closer, Jack silently reminded himself to be polite, and not to stare at her nose.

  “Hey,” he said. “Excuse me, but aren’t you Joyce Domergue?”

  “Yes, I am,” she answered. “Let me guess. You’re at Nicki’s funeral, so you must be creditors.”

  Jack laughed and shook her hand.

  “No, ma’am. FBI.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I knew Nicki was a bad boy, but not an international felon.”

  She laughed and lifted her veil. Her nostrils looked almost normal, Jack thought. Maybe it was bad camera work. She had a few lines in her face, but she was still beautiful.

  Jack introduced Oscar, and they walked with her toward her limo.

  “Loved you in Beasteater,” Jack said. “When you killed the monster with that magic lantern . . . whoa!”

  “It was actually a parking flare with some stucco bullshit on it,” the actress said. “Cost about twenty cents to make.”

  “Yeah, but it looked like the real deal,” Oscar said.

  “You guys are funny,” she said. “That movie was total shit. But I was great in it.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “You were my favorite eater of beasts.”

  “Thanks,” Joyce Domergue said. “You gonna put the cuff s on me now, boys?”

  “Not yet,” Jack said.

  “Oh, why not?” Joyce said. “I could use some fun.”

  “We just want to ask you a little bit about Nicki Sadler’s friends,” Oscar said.

  Joyce Domergue put one hand on her hip and sighed.

  “Honey,” she said, “that’s a very short story. I mean, you’re looking at ’em. Nicki was garbage. When I first got out here from Iowa, he tried hard to get me work. For a while. That is, until his various vices and unpleasant associates caught up with him.”

  “We’re thinking of the guy who might have done this,” Jack said. “Guy he collected information for. Information which led to the death of two federal agents.”

  Joyce Domergue looked puzzled. “I don’t know . . . There was a guy that he was worried about. Guy he always met at Musso’s.”

  Oscar looked at Jack.

  “You ever meet him?”

  Joyce shook her head.

  “No, I didn’t know him. But after one of their meetings, when Nicki and I had gotten a little sloshed on Reuben’s martinis, he said the guy wanted some information that was hard to get.”

  “He say what it was?”

  “Something weird. About the Witness Protection Program. Guy wanted to know how he could get inside it, find someone who had changed their identity. I told Nicki he started playing around with that kind of stuff , he was going to end up in a trash bag.”

  Jack felt a strange sensation in his temples, like a small electric current was whipping through his head.

  “Witness Protection? The guy say why he wanted it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nah. ’Least, Nicki didn’t tell me. But he did say it was worth a lot of money to him if he could come up with it.”

  “And did he get the information?” Oscar asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Listen, boys, I’m getting all wet here and between you and me, I hate fucking graveyards.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Jack said.

  He handed her his Bureau card.

  “You think of anything else, will you please call me?”

  She looked down and read his name.

  “Jack Harper,” she said. “Hey, listen, Jack, I’d call you even if I couldn’t think of one damned thing.”

  She smiled her sexiest smile and then turned and got into the drenched limo.

  They watched her drive off in the rain.

  “Man,” Oscar said. “What the hell was that about?”

  Jack felt a buzz of confusion.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why would Steinbach or Forrester want a name out of Witness Protection?”

  “I don’t know. You want to hit Nicki’s home again? We might have missed something.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Let’s go.”

  “I thought she looked great,” Oscar said as they headed to their car.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “What about the nostrils?”

  “Looked like she had ’em worked on,” Oscar said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “That’s what I thought, too. But she waited too long.”

  “That’s the problem with her career,” Oscar said. “You work in low-budget movies, you can’t afford nostril work. That is, until you save up, and by that time, you’re too fucking old to get eaten by the Beast anymore.”

  “Tough racket,” Jack said. “But she was still cool.”

  “Yeah,” Oscar said. “I always kind of dug the big nostrils, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Me, too.”

  Oscar laughed. “Hey, you think agents in D.C. or other parts of the country have conversations like this.”

  “Fuck, no,” Jack said. “Nostril work. That’s a Hollywood thing.”

  They smiled and got into their car.

  27

  CHARLIE AND KEVIN headed down Culver Boulevard toward Jack’s place. They were cruising with the convertible top down in Charlie’s 1968 Caddy Coupe de Ville, both dressed in their baseball uniforms. Sitting in the console between them were two double cheeseburgers from In and Out Burger.

  Kevin took a bite of his Animal Burger and looked over at Charlie with an almost-worshipful gaze. Charli
e smiled back at him.

  “Oh, man,” Charlie said. “I wish your dad was here. I still can’t believe that throw you made.”

  Kevin smiled and tried not to think about the other day and what might have happened to him if Charlie hadn’t appeared.

  “I didn’t really think I could get him,” Kevin said. “He was rounding second, and I hadn’t even gotten to the ball yet. When I picked it up, I was three feet from the fence, and I saw him rounding third. I just wound up and let it go!”

  Charlie nodded happily at the memory of it.

  “Yeah. Amazing! Of course, you missed the cutoff man!”

  Kevin’s face suddenly went blank. “Cutoff man? What cutoff man?”

  Charlie looked stunned. Then Kevin cracked up. And Charlie joined him. Then he threw up his right arm and made a fist.

  “He’s out!” he yelled. “The man is out at home plate!”

  He jerked his thumb in the air as they made a left on Jack’s street and a few minutes later pulled into the Harpers’ driveway.

  As they pulled in, Kevin suddenly felt choked up.

  “Charlie,” he said. “Man, I owe you for what you did for me the other day. I don’t know what I was thinking, going into that dude’s house.”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “The important thing is you survived it. Look, kiddo, we don’t have to say a word about any of this to your dad. He’s had enough troubles for a while. But promise me this: If you feel the need to do something off the wall again, you come to my house first. Before you get in trouble. Okay?”

  Kevin nodded his head and smiled sheepishly.

  “You got it, Charlie,” he said.

  “Okay, gotta get the bag,” Charlie said. “We got all the gloves in here?”

  “Sure,” Kevin said. “I took care of ’em back at the field.”

  Charlie smiled and tousled Kevin’s thick black hair.

  Kevin laughed and hugged Charlie. It struck Kevin that he really loved Charlie like an uncle or something. It was great having him around. But somehow loving Charlie made him wish his dad was around more, too. He hated it when his dad missed games. Of course, he couldn’t help it because of his work, but still . . .

  Better not to think about it. Put it out of his mind. Thank God for Charlie.

  • • •

  Charlie carried the canvas bag with the batting helmets, gloves, balls, and catcher’s gear up the front steps.

  Kevin drank another sip of his milk shake and remembered the great throw he’d made again as Charlie opened the door.

  Charlie called out as they went inside.

  “Jack? You back there?”

  Kevin looked at Charlie quizzically.

  “His car’s not out there, Charlie,” he said.

  “I know,” Charlie said. “But I thought I heard . . . something from the back of the . . . there! You hear that?”

  This time Kevin heard it, too. A shuffling of papers, like someone was trying to clean up something . . . fast. Then a sound like someone stumbling around.

  “Kevin,” Charlie said. “Get back to the car, fast.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going inside. Don’t worry about me.”

  He set the canvas bag down by the overstuffed chair in the living room and took out a baseball bat.

  “No, Charlie,” Kevin said, feeling panic rising in his stomach. “You can’t go back there!”

  Charlie turned and grabbed Kevin’s shoulders.

  “You get back out there to the car,” he said. “Now! I’m not letting anyone rob your house.”

  Kevin saw the utter seriousness in Charlie’s face and headed out the door. Maybe the guy who had come after him had somehow found out where he lived.

  Charlie held the bat with both hands, swinging it back and forth like a sword in front of him.

  “I’m armed,” he said. “You better come out now!”

  He heard another scrambling noise. It seemed to be coming from Jack’s second bedroom.

  Charlie held his breath, heard the beating of his heart in his ears.

  “I warned you!” he said. Then he dodged down the hall and quickly went into the back bedroom. The one Jack used as his study.

  Charlie leaped inside, the bat in front of him. But the room was dark, and before he could see anything, something hard smashed him in his forehead. He fell to the floor, dropping the baseball bat, which rolled down the slightly inclined floor under the sofa.

  Charlie felt his head swim and threw up his hands to protect himself from further blows.

  But no more blows came. The intruder stepped over him and beat a hasty retreat to the back entrance of the house. Dazed, his head throbbing, Charlie heard him open the screen door and run out into the backyard.

  Charlie made an effort to get up, but his head was killing him. Blood was dripping down his face, which put him in shock.

  He tried to pull himself up again by using the couch as leverage, but when he got to his knees he felt a black pool collecting in his eyes. Seconds later, he lay unconscious on the floor.

  “So far I got a big fat nada,” Oscar said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Me, too.”

  He walked over to Sadler’s bar and stared at the crystal decanters.

  “There’s got to be something we aren’t seeing,” Jack said.

  “Yeah. If we’re the targets, then why does he need some guy’s name in Witness Protection?”

  Jack said, “The thing is, if Blakely and Hughes were killed because they were in bed with Steinbach, and they didn’t give them the protection they said they would, maybe there’s another angle here. Maybe someone in Witness Protection is involved in some other part of the case.”

  “I don’t get that,” Oscar said, slumping down in a dark leather chair.

  “I mean, maybe Blakely and Hughes and somebody else in Witness Protection were skimming off the top. Maybe that’s why they were killed. Maybe they have money put away . . . a lot of money . . . diamond money.”

  Oscar nodded.

  “So, according to that theory, the guy in Witness Protection had some kind of information about Steinbach. He and Blakely and Hughes were working some kind of scam. They’ve killed Blakely and Hughes, but they don’t know how to get to the third guy ’cause he’s got a new ID and a new address. So we should be looking for somebody in the program who once worked with Steinbach.”

  “Right,” Jack said. “So think about it. Who would be looking for this guy? None other than Timmy Andreen. Still another reason I have to get into his computer.”

  “I guess,” Oscar said.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like the theory?”

  “No, no . . . I mean, as a theory it’s all right, but, well, . . . you know how sometimes a case seems too easy. So you gotta look at it in a more complicated way?”

  “This case seems too easy?” Jack laughed.

  “No, compadre, this case is the exact opposite. It seems too damned complicated. I mean, we are breaking our asses trying to make this add up, finding connections here and there . . . but what if it was just a lot more simple?”

  “Simple how?” Jack said. Oscar was starting to annoy the hell out of him. On the other hand, his partner had great instincts . . . and when he differed from Jack, there was usually a good reason for it.

  “Come on, Osc, tell me a simple story. I’m all ears.”

  Oscar sighed and shook his head.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t have a goddamned story. But I do know what we need to find out. And that is who these sons of bitches are looking for. If we know that, we understand the whole case. I’m sure of it.”

  “That makes sense,” Jack said.

  “Okay,” Oscar said. “Let’s say the whole case was about that. Let’s say that everything that has happened from . . . from the day we arrested Karl-baby to Blakely and Hughes getting hit, to Sadler’s death . . . Let’s say all of it was really about that one thing. Some guy in Witness
Protection. That somehow all of it added up to him.”

  Jack felt a vague stirring inside of him. The idea sounded crazy, but what if it were true? The thing was, no matter how complicated a case was, it usually was about something simple. Something like money, or revenge, or power.

  If you could find the one thing it was really about, then all the disparate parts might fall into place.

  Maybe Oscar was right. Maybe they did have to think of it that way . . . as far-out as it seemed. Because the way they were going was getting them nowhere.

  “You know, Osc, I think you might be on to something,” Jack said.

  Just then his cell phone rang.

  “Harper,” he said.

  It was Kevin, and he sounded panicked.

  “Dad,” he said. “Come quick. It’s Charlie. He was attacked, right in our home.”

  “Jesus!” Jack said. “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. He’s unconscious, at Cedars. I called 911.”

  “Good boy. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I rode over here with the ambulance drivers.”

  “You see who did it?”

  “No, Dad. Charlie heard something from the back of the house, like in your bedroom. Looks like they took your computer.”

  “I’ll be right there, Kev.”

  Jack hung up and looked at his partner.

  “Whoever wants this information wants it bad. They broke into my place and attacked Charlie.”

  “Jesus!” Oscar said.

  The two men turned and ran for the door.

  28

  JACK AND OSCAR PARKED in police parking at Cedars and ran into the emergency room.

  Standing in the lobby with his baseball uniform still on, Kevin rushed to his father, hugging him in a way Jack hadn’t felt since he was only an infant.

  “How’s Charlie doing?”

  “He had to have twenty-four stitches in his forehead, but he’s going to be okay,” Kevin said.

  Jacked turned to Oscar, who crossed himself.

  “In my own home,” Jack said. “The son of a bitch.”

  But even as he said it, he realized that he didn’t know which “son of a bitch.”

  Oscar was already dialing his cell phone.

  “I’m getting Tommy Wilson right now.”

  Jack hugged Kevin tighter and felt the rage well up inside of him.