Total Immunity

by Robert Ward

  Having not shaved, covered in road dust, and smelling like two wildebeests from the heat, Jack and Oscar looked seriously out of place in the L.A. theater crowd. Jack waited until he saw Wilson go inside, and then flashed his FBI card to the youthful female usher, who tried to look bored.

  “There’s some kind of trouble here, sir?” she said.

  “None at all,” Jack said. “But it’s high-security. We need to be in there now.”

  “I’m supposed to call my manager on something like this,” she said.

  “You do that and we lose our guy,” Oscar said. “Please let us in now, and you’ll be doing your country a great service.”

  “Yeah,” the girl said, suddenly standing her ground. “Like what . . . spying on left-wingers, or . . . maybe feminists. I happen to know that Gloria Steinem is in the audience tonight. She’s come with Ellen De Generes. Is that who you’re hunting for? A couple of feminists you can harass?”

  “Come on.” Jack smiled. “If you don’t move out of the way soon, I’ll miss the opening act.”

  “If you hurt Ellen, I’m going to call 60 Minutes,” the girl said. “My uncle knows Andy Rooney.”

  “Yeah, well, my uncle is Mister Ed,” Jack said. “Now please move before I have to arrest you and ship you and Ellen to a secret FBI torture camp in Iraq.”

  “Very funny, Fascist-police-state asshole!” she said.

  But she edged away from the gate, though barely enough for Jack and Oscar to squeeze through.

  They headed up the marble steps and went through the golden doors to the gleaming theater. Oscar took a playbill from an usher and examined it.

  “The Maze,” he said. “The Tony Award–winning play about a man in a labyrinth of his own making. Sounds good, huh, Jack?”

  Jack was going to come back with a wisecrack, but suddenly the description of the play sent a chill through his chest. He wasn’t sure why, but there it was: cold, unrelenting, and somehow familiar. Like the case he’d been involved with so many years ago. A case that was coming back to him now . . . but surely that could have had nothing to do with . . . No, it couldn’t . . . That made no sense at all. And yet . . .

  “Jack, come on,” Oscar urged.

  Jack followed his partner to their seats but he felt as though he was already in some other place, watching a private play unfolding in the dark theater behind his eyes. He told himself to calm down, using his binoculars to scan the audience for Tommy Wilson.

  Oscar stood still, ostensibly doing the same, but for a few seconds he was overwhelmed by the cacophony of noises, the orchestra tuning up, the sound of muffled voices and nervous coughing. The stage looked strangely appealing and scary simultaneously.

  “Wow,” he said. “This is something. I gotta start getting into plays.”

  “Try looking for Tommy, Mister First Nighter,” Jack said.

  “I already found him, wise guy,” Oscar said. “Third row, fourth seat in.”

  Jack looked through his binoculars and, sure enough, there he was, sitting by himself, clutching his Playbill in his hand.

  He smiled like a happy kid going on a school trip.

  Jack sat down next to Oscar at the end of the row, where he could keep an eye on Wilson.

  “It’s gotta be a meet of some kind,” Jack said. “And when we find out who, maybe we finally get somewhere.”

  Jack sat back and, though he was tense, as soon as the houselights were turned off , he shut his eyes and fell back into his own little theater.

  He saw a bank being held up. Men wearing Addams Family masks racing out of the bank. He saw them turn and shoot a bank guard, point-blank. The guard fell backward, blood spattering his shirt. He saw one of the masks slip as one of the robbers tripped and fell in the street. A ferret-faced little hustler named Billy Chase . . .

  As the play opened, Jack blinked, looked up at the stage. He began to feel something like panic shooting through his chest. There was something happening inside of him that made him break out in a clammy sweat.

  He shut his eyes and saw another bank robbery . . . and this time there was more shooting, more deaths. Cops shot, a witness . . .

  He opened his eyes, afraid to see any more. This could have nothing to do with the current case. Nothing . . . except it was the only other person he knew who had ever been put into Witness Protection.

  Nah, forget it. He had to keep his eyes on Tommy Wilson.

  Jack wiped the sweat off his brow and tried to keep up with the play on the stage and not the scenes which seemed to be jarred from his memory. It seemed to be about a guy who, due to his own pride, chooses the wrong son to take control of his business, an oil company in Oklahoma. There were loud speeches, and at the end of the first act, the hero had been voted out of the company he started.

  Things were looking bad for the hero, who was considering suicide until he met a woman, Faye, at a flophouse, and fell in love with her.

  At that point the play took on a whole new meaning for both Jack and Oscar. Not because of the writing, which was melodramatic and over the top, but because of the actress playing Faye.

  The two agents turned and looked at one another, both of them speaking at once.

  “That woman . . .”

  “Faye . . . You know who that is?”

  Jack looked down at the Playbill and saw the actress’s name.

  “Alison Baines plays the part of Lake.”

  “Alison Baines?” Jack said, stunned.

  “Man,” Oscar said, “I could have sworn that her name was Maria Vasquez.”

  Jack felt something twisting inside his gut. The e-mails from Chile, saying how well she was doing. The refusal to go into the Witness Protection Plan.

  He watched her on the stage as she and the fallen hero convincingly planned their revenge on the hero’s evil sons.

  “She’s a hell of an actress, isn’t she, mi hermano?” Oscar smiled.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “She ought to win an award. Wonder if they give any out in the Sybil Brand Pen for Women?”

  He slid out of the row and walked around to the far side of the theater, then zeroed in on Tommy Wilson.

  As Tommy watched the sexy, moving actress Alison Baines, his face lit up like a man in love.

  • • •

  The play, though hammy, was a tremendous success; the cast came back for three curtain calls.

  Finally, as people poured out of the theater, Jack and Oscar followed Tommy Wilson stage right, lingering behind him as he made his way down the steps toward the dressing rooms beneath the stage.

  They watched from the shadows at the end of the hall as Wilson rapped on Alison Baines’s dressing-room door. A second later, he was admitted.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said.

  “Shouldn’t we buy her some roses first?” Oscar said. “They always do that in the movies.”

  “Nah, that’s a cliché gift,” Jack said. “We have something a lot nicer to offer her. About fifteen by thirty in a very cozy little condo.”

  Jack turned the knob and found it open. He and Oscar walked inside with their guns drawn.

  Alison Baines was sitting up on her dressing-room table, her long, bare legs wrapped around Wilson’s waist. She was looking over his shoulder, and when she saw her latest guests, she gasped.

  “You!”

  Wilson turned around, in shock:

  “What the hell is going on here . . . ,” he said. But the rest of the sentence died in his throat.

  “Tommy, and the fabulous ‘Maria,’” Jack said. “How good to see you both here.”

  “Yeah,” Oscar said. “I never been to a play before and I really liked it. You were real good, Miss Baines. But I thought you played the other role — Maria — even better.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “You had Maria Vasquez down cold.”

  The two lovers managed to pry themselves apart.

  “I can explain all this,” Tommy said. “Alison was working for me undercover. We were going to tell you, but then
you busted Karl Steinbach so there was no need to.”

  “That’s right,” Alison said, lighting a cigarette. “We decided we’d keep the cover alive.”

  “So we could use it again, if we had to. But now that Alison’s acting career has taken off with the play, we obviously won’t be using her anymore. The truth is, Jack, that once we started working together, we fell in love, and we’re going to be married next June. So why don’t you put your gun away. It’s making Alison nervous.”

  Jack shook his head slowly.

  “Isn’t this a touching story, Oscar?” he said.

  “Yeah, Jackie,” Oscar said. “I love seeing people in love. You know who else used to be a sentimental kind of guy — though you wouldn’t have known it from the way he acted?”

  “Who’s that?” Jack said.

  “Zac Blakely,” Oscar said. “He was a real sucker for romance. Ron Hughes, too. You gonna invite them to your wedding, Tommy?”

  Wilson bit his lower lip and let out a deep sigh.

  “I had nothing to do with any of that,” Wilson said. “I was really sorry about that, but it wasn’t my responsibility.”

  “No?” Jack said. “Well, how come you bought a Jag from Jesse Lopez down in Borrego Springs?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wilson said.

  “No?” Jack said. “That’s a pretty nice pad you have down in Playa, too. I wonder, you loan it out for parties to your pal Stein- bach? Or maybe it’s Forrester you’re hanging with?”

  “I won that money in Vegas, playing poker,” Wilson blustered.

  “Lucky you!” Jack said sarcastically. “Cut the shit, Tom. I already got three people working on your secret bank accounts and your other houses. You better make a deal as fast as you can, ’cause you’re going to be looking at life in San Quentin for conspiring to kill two federal agents.”

  Wilson’s eyes seemed to glaze over, as if he’d just taken a pill that had strange side effects.

  “Look, Jack, you got this all wrong.”

  “And I didn’t know anything about it,” Alison Baines said. “I was just hired to play a part. I was just an out-of-work actress.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “You fed me stuff so we could catch Karl, but you had no idea what was going on. Uh-huh. That’s such patent bullshit that I don’t think even O.J.’s jury would buy it.”

  “I didn’t know anything,” Alison Baines said as tears ran from her eyes. “They just fed me a script, and I delivered the lines.”

  “And you had no idea why Karl Steinbach might have intended to be caught.”

  “No. It was like . . . a role in a play or a film. Say the lines, don’t stumble over the furniture.”

  Oscar looked at Jack and laughed.

  “You’re going to be starring in a reality show soon, Maria. It’s going to be called Prison Cell, and you’re going to be playing the role for a long, long time, señorita.”

  “But I didn’t know anything,” she protested. “Tommy got me in with Steinbach. I thought I was working for the DEA.”

  “Be quiet, Alison,” Tommy warned. “Don’t say another word to them.”

  “That’s right, Alison. Listen to him. It’s really worked out well for you so far,” Jack said. “You didn’t know about Tommy getting Steinbach out of jail by getting him a fake immunity? You didn’t help scam the FBI on the investigation of two dead officers? I think you’re going to have a very hard time proving that, especially since we caught you here together. You’re going away for twenty years, kid. I’ll personally see to it.”

  Alison Baines began to cry.

  “But I have a hit play!” she whimpered.

  “Don’t do that to her, Jack. She’s clean,” Wilson said.

  “Why not?” Jack said. “Give me a reason. Tell me why Stein- bach wanted to get busted. Why you got him out. I finally see this more clearly, pal. You two did this to cover up something else. Something that involves Witness Protection. Something that maybe still isn’t finished. I want to know what the fuck it is, Tommy.”

  Sweat dripped down Tommy Wilson’s neck, like a man having a heart attack.

  “All right . . . Steinbach reached out to me.”

  “Reached out how?”

  “He said he needed to get busted. But he also needed a way out of the bust. I told him the only way to get out was to get immunity, but he didn’t have anything to offer. He didn’t know shit about terrorist attacks. So I helped him figure a way out . . . he’d set up four Muslims, guys who we’ve been watching, and who might be involved with al-Qaeda. They talked a lot of revolutionary shit but weren’t really going to do a fucking thing. We’d been looking for a way to bust them. They needed money to finance their plans, so we were going to put him in touch with them. He’d offer them the dough for political reasons. Then, when they tried to pull off their bombings, we’d nail them all.”

  Jack felt the same chill that bothered him before.

  “And maybe you were going to kill a few of them, too, huh, Tom?”

  “Maybe,” Wilson said. “They’re bad guys, Jack. We know that. What difference does it make if a couple of them catch a stray bullet or two? Everybody comes out ahead. Homeland Security is a hero, and Steinbach gets to go home with a medal.”

  “But why . . . why would he want to get busted in the first place?” Oscar said.

  Wilson smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know. Of course, I asked him about that. He said he owed a guy a favor. A big one. He had to pay the guy back.”

  “A favor?”

  “Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to me . . . I tried to talk to him about it a couple of times. I was worried he was setting me up . . . but he wouldn’t discuss it. Anyway, I know he hated Blakely and Hughes, but I don’t believe he killed them.”

  “You believe he didn’t kill them or you know he didn’t?”

  Wilson looked down at the ground.

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but . . .”

  “But what? It sounds like he played you for a sucker, Tommy. You gave him an out, and he killed them both. That makes both of you his accomplices.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” Wilson said. “And Alison didn’t know anything.”

  “And how much did he pay you to give him that alibi, buddy?” Jack said.

  “Nothing,” Tommy said.

  “Bullshit!” Oscar said. “We know Slick Tommy. He always gets paid some way.”

  “I’m not saying anything else until I have my lawyer,” Wilson said. “Nothing.”

  “That’s smart, Tom. Both of you are under federal arrest. Turn around. I gotta cuff you. “

  “Oh, c’mon,” Alison said. “You can’t do this. It’s opening night. There’s a party I have to get to.”

  “Hey, you’re gonna be having it, all right,” Jack said. “But in a four-by-eight holding cell. And the other guests might not be from Beverly Hills, bitch. Turn around so I can cuff you.”

  Tommy Wilson started to turn but as Jack tried to get his handcuffs with his free hand, Wilson turned and chopped him in the neck. The Glock went off , discharging into the wall. Oscar reached for Wilson, but the actress reached out and raked his face with her inch-long fingernails. Oscar fell back, blood dripping down his chin.

  Wilson shoved by them both and made it to the door. In a second, he was gone. Oscar saw Alison Baines moving past him and hit her in the head with his right hand, sending her sprawling over a rattan chair and onto the floor. She moaned as she stood up, and Oscar pulled her arms behind her and clasped the cuff s.

  Jack was up now and through the door. He ran down the hallway and up the stairs, but hit a wave of stagehands who were carrying a sofa down the stairs. He tried to get by them, but they stumbled and dumped the sofa down the stairs. He barely avoided it by jumping over the railing and rolling onto the floor.

  By the time he’d gotten to his car, Jack saw Wilson pulling out of the gate and turning left. Headed toward the freeway, Jack thought, backing up and squealing h
is tires as his car roared through the gate and went up on two wheels as it screamed down the street.

  Jack cut off a giant Cuervo Gold Tequila truck and nearly smashed into a local bus, but somehow reached the 101 Freeway, though he could barely see Wilson’s car up ahead.

  He drove like a madman, passing cars and trucks on the left and right, and several times going up on the right shoulder, almost hitting a sign which advertised nude nudes. (What the hell were Nude Nudes, anyway?)

  He screamed past the Echo Park exit, no sign of Wilson at all now.

  “Shit!” he said. Wilson could have already gotten off the freeway. Where the hell could he be heading? Certainly not to his home, which was in the opposite direction.

  • • •

  Up ahead of Jack, Tommy Wilson roared west down Sunset Boulevard, past Denny’s Diner, past EAT, past the Hollywood ArcLight Theatre. He crossed Cahuenga and turned right at Schraeder, went past the Hollywood YMCA, and pulled up one block short of an ancient, battered rooming house called the Mark Twain Hotel.

  Quickly getting out of his car, he hurriedly walked toward the front steps of the decrepit three-story building.

  What looked like an old wino sat on the three crumbling front steps, but as Wilson started to pass him, he stood up and announced: “Sorry, sir, the hotel is being refurbished and is closed to the public.”

  Tommy reached into his pocket and showed the man his Homeland Security credentials.

  “Sorry, sir,” the man said.

  “No problem. I need to see Baker right now.”

  “Second floor. Room 245. I’ll tell them you’re coming.”

  “Thanks,” Wilson said as he swung up the steps and went through the badly warped front door.

  Jack was stuck in traffic three or four feet in front of the turnoff at Sunset. Though he was frustrated, it gave him a chance to think . . . Where would Wilson go? Would he keep right on going out to the Valley? Did he have some kind of safe house out there in Studio City or Van Nuys?

  It was possible. But what would be the advantage of going to ground now?

  He was sure to be recognized once his picture got on the evening news and in the L.A. Times, not to mention flashed all over the Internet.