by T. N. Robb
"Oh, God, oh, God, I'm gonna have a heart attack. Get that thing away."
"Tell me everything you know."
Castellano's head jerked past Cleary toward the door.
"I'll be very Interested in hearing that myself," Dan Dibble said as he entered the bathroom.
"This guy was about to blow town." Cleary was still holding the radio just above the surface of the water.
Dibble's smile was friendly. "You're two steps ahead of me as usual, Jack." He turned his eyes on Castellano. "Got yourself into a hell of a fix there, didn't you?" He looked back at Cleary. "Interesting interrogation technique. I must've missed it in the manual."
"Eddie Rosen put the hit on my brother," Cleary said. "You heard this scumbag. You heard it, Dan. You're the witness."
Dibble nodded.
"You know who Rosen is, Dan?"
Dibble smiled. "Sure. He hasn't exactly escaped my attention." He pointed to the .45 exposed in Cleary's shoulder holster. "Let me have the piece, Jack."
Cleary hesitated, looked from Castellano to Dibble.
"Jack, it's not like I'm talking to a civilian." He sounded annoyed. "Lemme do my job, will ya?"
Dibble stuck out his hand. Finally Cleary pulled out the .45. He hesitated again. "I want everything out of this guy, Dan."
"Don't worry. I'm gonna handle him for you. Just watch."
Cleary reluctantly handed the .45, butt end first, to Dibble.
"There we go. Now the other one." He nodded toward the bulge in the back of Cleary's coat. "Just toss it through the door out of our way."
"That's my gun," Castellano shouted as Cleary pulled the .38 from the back of his belt.
"Shut up," Dibble growled. "You don't need it any more."
Then, matter-of-factly, he trained Cleary's gun on Castellano, who, panicking, tried to stand up. Dibble pulled the trigger, and blew him into the wall. Castellano, in the split second of life that remained in him, looked down in horror at the blood seeping from his chest, across the front of his shirt. His eyes widened, his mouth yawned open in a silent scream, and he slid down the wall, trailing blood, which bubbled pink in the water around him.
"What the hell are you doing?" Cleary yelled.
"What the hell does it look like?" There was a defiant, belligerent edge to Dibble's voice that made Cleary acutely uneasy.
"This is getting to be a habit between you and me, Jack. You know that?"
Suddenly Cleary understood. He understood, and almost wished that he didn't. Damn it, no. "You. For chrissakes, Dan. It was you, wasn't it? You set me up on that bribery rap. You lousy bastard."
"You never get the message, do you, Cleary?" Dibble shook his head. "You're one of those pains in the ass, you know that, Cleary? One of those guys who doesn't want to turn a buck, but doesn't want to mind his own business, either. That's a real dangerous way to be, Cleary."
A tight smile turned on Cleary's lips. "I had a feeling someone inside the department was involved. What were you doing? Providing protection for one of our esteemed city councilmen? Sure, I know that game. Our good lawmaker uses a dirty badge to keep the cops out of his hair so he can reap the unofficial rewards of public office, thanks to the donations of the mob. That's how it goes, doesn't it, Dibble? C'mon, you can tell me. It wouldn't make much difference now."
"Big hot-shot crusader. You were warned off that city council corruption thing three different times." His mouth twisted into a sneer. "It's guys like you, Cleary, who screw every thing up."
"You stink, Dibble. I'm gonna get you. You're gonna go down for this."
Dibble laughed. "You think so?"
Cleary cocked his head as he heard the shriek of approaching sirens.
"Yeah, you're dealing nothing but aces, Cleary. My uniforms are gonna be through that door in about, thirty seconds. I'm gonna tell 'em you shot the guy just before I got here, then you turned the piece on me and I had to blow you away." He grinned, pulling out his own gun, dropping Cleary's in the tub.
"Oh, oh. There go the prints." Dibble smiled, "You're big on investigations, Cleary. Don't you think that'll play in Peoria?"
Since the moment Dibble shot Castellano, Cleary had been aware his number was up, too. But he had one hope. Castellano's body, perched on the edge of the tub, had been slowly slumping to one side. All of his quiet-voiced posturing had been an effort to delay Dibble, in the hopes of breaking his concentration for one moment. That was all he could hope for, but it might be all he needed.
Suddenly Castellano's body fell, and Dibble turned his head. In that instant Cleary lunged at him, knocking his gun hand in the air. Dibble slipped on the wet floor, fell, and cracked his head on the edge of the tub.
The gun slipped from his hand. Cleary scooped it up as he heard the footfalls of the officers entering the house. There was only one escape route and, the way his luck was running, he might not even make it out alive. He crossed his arms in front of his face and hurtled himself head first through the window. Glass exploded around him, and for a split second the world was only the sound of the shattering glass, and the heat. Then he landed on his hands and knees, rolled, scrambled to his feet.
"You dirty son of a bitch, Dibble," he hissed, but didn't look back. He raced down the alley to the Eldorado, adrenaline pumping through him like there was no tomorrow.
EIGHTEEN
The Fugitive
Cleary drove aimlessly for an hour, torn by indecision. He had escaped injury in his desperate getaway, but he didn't have the foggiest notion what to do next. It seemed as if his mind had split down the middle, and the two parts were battling each other for dominion.
One part of him said to call Fontana, his old partner, a man he had trusted for years. But the other part said Fontana was a cop, that Fontana wasn't going to endanger himself. The man had a wife, kids to think about. What good would it do to tell him Dibble was dirty, that Dibble had shot Castellano? What would Fontana do, arrest Dibble because his ex-partner who'd been kicked off the force said so? It wouldn't happen. It was that simple.
But nothing else was simple.
Why did Dibble want Castellano dead? It had to mean he was somehow connected with the Williams case. But how?
Think it through. You'll find, the answer if you think it through.
He pulled onto a side street and parked. He lit a Lucky. He sat back. Closed his eyes. There. Better. Now he could think. The warm late afternoon air slid into the car, smoother than smoke. All right. Where did it start?
Dibble had been a friend of his brother's. Not a close friend, but still a friend. Nick was so involved in his cases, he probably was unaware of Dibble's after-hours activities. Yet, he might turn to the detective for help. Suppose Nick had called Dibble after the Williams hit and told him about the tapes? He wanted to unload them, and rack up some PR with the department at the same time.
But Dibble had sold him out. Dibble had gone to Rosen, who'd sent his own team to pick up the tapes. Rosen had ordered Williams's hit, then Nick's.
He blew smoke at the windshield; his eyes were glassy, distant. That wasn't all. If Dibble worked for Rosen, then Rosen was probably the mobster behind the payoffs to the city councilmen. It was all coming together. It was Rosen's plan to set up the bribery rap against him. A direct hit would have been too obvious, would have sent waves across the state that the mob was killing cops. He had too good a deal going to jeopardize it.
Instead, he had used slow torture. First, the job; then... Ellen. Had Ellen already met her cowboy before their marriage fell apart? He wondered now if it was an accident that she had met him. Maybe she had been duped, willingly so, but still duped. Rosen had been counting on him to kill himself with booze.
He realized he wasn't far from the Rosen Enterprises office. He started the engine. He would go back up to the hotel room. He didn't care about the tapes anymore. He knew where Rosen stood. But there was something else he had left in the room that he was going to need.
First he had to get to Fontana.
Someone had to be told. He drove around the corner, spotted a phone booth, checked to make sure there were no cops around. Then he parked and got out. He dialed the precinct number.
"Charlie, it's Jack. Have you heard any—"
"For chrissake, Cleary. What the hell happened in that motel room?"
"I haven't got time to get into it, but believe me you're not getting the right story."
"Well, they're about to put half the force on picking you up."
"Charlie, Dibble's up to his neck in this shit. He's a front for—"
"Listen, I can't talk now."
"I want to see you."
"Look. I'm a cop, Jack." His voice was almost a whisper. "If I see you, I'll have to bring you in. You know that."
"Charlie, for God's sakes, didn't you hear what I said?"
Cleary listened to Fontana exhale into the phone. He knew he was asking him to cross a line, to chance the same fate that he had met. "I've got some business I have to take care of. I'll meet you in two hours at the pier."
"Thanks, Charlie."
A few minutes later, Cleary drove past Rosen Enterprises, parked in a space behind the hotel, and climbed the back stairway to the room. He was absorbed in his own thoughts and wasn't really aware of anything else until he opened the door of the room. Then he froze at the sight in front of him.
Seated by the window next to the reel-to-reel, wearing the headphones, was Johnny Betts. He took them off and held up a hand when he saw Cleary. "That steno of yours said I might find you here. Heard you've been looking for me."
Cleary stared at him without answering. He closed the door, leaned back against it, crossed his arms. "Figured you'd be either dead or on your way out of town by now."
Betts lowered his eyes to the floor. "You said before you like to know who you're working with. Well, as anyone back home'd be happy to tell you, I'm the son of a roadhouse tramp who split when I was ten and a daddy that..." He shrugged, a slight smile curled on his mouth. "He's your standard redneck badass. Years that he wasn't in jail he'd come home three nights a week and beat the livin' crap out of me for lookin' like him."
He shifted in the chair, glanced briefly at the slowly turning reel-to-reel. "Time since I was twelve I was in foster homes and correctional institutions. Broke parole from an auto theft to come out here last year. Guess the apple don't fall too far from the tree. Hell, if it wasn't for your brother, I'd still be doing the same damn thing."
"I heard on the street someone was selling the tapes," Cleary said.
"You heard right."
"Did you get your price?"
Betts met Cleary's gaze for the first time, then he reached under the chair. From between his legs, he pulled out the metal valise. "I told myself I'd take the ten grand and get a fresh start. 'Bout three-quarters of the way up Mulholland I figured I'd had my quota of those."
"You didn't sell them?"
Betts pushed the suitcase toward Cleary with his foot. "They're all in there. Enough to put Rosen away for Buddy Williams, bribing cops and politicians, bootlegging records through Starlite, selling 'em off the books, and about forty other things."
Cleary rolled forward on the balls of his feet and opened the suitcase. Jesus. They were here. All of them right here. He let his fingers slide across them, as if confirming their reality, then looked up at Betts.
"I don't know about the folks back home, Betts, but from where I'm standing you look like a pretty solid guy."
From the look in Betts's eyes, it was obvious what Cleary had said meant a lot to him.
Cleary walked over to a closet, pulled out a suitcase, and began filling it with weapons he had stashed in the back of the closet. There were several handguns, a submachine gun, a sawed-off shotgun, and enough ammo to hold off a serious siege.
"Hey, what's going on?" Betts asked.
"Lot of heat's coming down. All on me."
Cleary handed Betts the suitcase of weaponry, then grabbed the other one. "I'm taking the tapes. You hold onto the hardware. If I haven't called your place in twenty-four hours get out of town."
"What's happening? C'mon, I wanna know. I wanna help you."
"I'm going to deliver these tapes for Nick. They're going to finally get in the right hands. Be around if I make the call. Now get out of here."
Betts opened the door, started to leave, then stopped and looked back. "Hey, Cleary." He tossed him a nickel, which Cleary snared.
"What's this for?"
"I wanna hear from you."
A brief look passed between them, then Betts was out the door. Cleary, closing up shop, was about to turn off the Uher and the radio receiver when he glanced out the window. His features suddenly tightened as he spotted a familiar black '55 Ford parked in the alley beside Rosen's building.
He reached over and turned up the volume on the recorder. "... do business in Hollywood, Rosen, you need me. I can either keep you open or shut you down. But the money for my guys goes directly to me, and I'll tell you when and where. What do you say?"
Cleary felt the shift inside his chest, as if his heart were sliding from one side to the other. He shut his eyes. Rubbed them. Oh God. It was the last person he wanted to hear. He knew that voice. It was achingly familiar. It was the same voice he had heard on the phone half an hour ago.
"If everything checks out like you say, Fontana, we'll be in touch."
Cleary heard footsteps receding, a door closing, and after a moment, another voice. "What do we need him for, Eddie? We've already got a detective in our pocket."
"You can never have enough of them. Believe me, cops and politicians are the cheapest dollar you spend."
Cleary peered out the window as the door to Rosen's office opened, and Fontana walked out. The man he thought he could trust glanced around once, then headed for the Ford. He gazed at the back of his former partner's head, willing him to look around, to look around and up. Hey, Charlie ole boy. Up here. It's me. Your ole pal, Jack.
But Fontana kept moving, and a sickening feeling spread out across the floor of Cleary's gut.
He wanted to puke.
Streaks of rose and lavender slid across a sky the color of plums, and curved down, striking the waters off the Santa Monica pier. Fontana consulted his watch, then glanced out toward the water where a gull in mindless grace soared skyward. He dropped his cigarette, crushed it under his heel. He glanced down the street for a long moment, as if he were expecting company, then looked at his watch again. He climbed into his car and drove away.
As the car vanished in the distance, Cleary stepped out from the side of a building where he had been watching Fontana. He gazed out as the last sunlight failed, and the sky turned a deep, hopeless violet.
NINETEEN
Night Visit
The Eldorado whispered through the streets as Cleary sought a steadiness of spirit, a resolve not to capitulate to the odds stacking up against him like a bad hand in poker. He knew it might not be enough to save him, but without it he was surely lost. Already, the night seemed to be conspiring against him. The harsh, neon-lit streets looked mean, the dark buildings indifferent. Furtive figures slipped through the shadows, any of whom could be looking for him, setting traps, ready to open fire.
You are in deep trouble, buddy.
He tried to blank his mind of his fears, yet they haunted him. He would die alone, the victim of a mob hit, or worse, by the hand of his old friends and fellow detectives. He imagined Dibble holding a gun to his head, and Fontana red with laughter as he shouted, You fool. You can't trust anyone. When are you going to learn that? And then he saw Ellen, her arms wrapped around the cowboy actor, as she shook her head and denied knowing him.
A cop car pulled alongside him in the next lane. Cleary stifled an impulse to slam his foot against the accelerator and flee for his life. Was the guy watching him? Did he recognize him? Was he about to pull a gun? Oh Christ, he pleaded silently with the cop inside. Just keep on moving, buddy. I'm no one you want.
He turned at the
corner, smoothly, easily, then turned again in an alley, and slowed. Sweat pimpled his forehead, his temples. He felt like he used to after a bender—the inside of his mouth tasted raw and thick, his hands trembled, a knot the size of a golf ball tightened in his gut.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. The alley was as dark and empty as a waiting tomb. Calm down, man. You gotta be able to think straight. On the street again, he scanned the cars. No cops. For the moment, he was anonymous, safe.
He drove on, paying little attention to where he was. At some point, he crossed a familiar route and, without thinking about it, swung into a turn and followed it. He didn't realize he was headed back for another glimpse of his past until he was just blocks from the house. His old place. The knot that had set-tied in his gut now leaped into his chest. He drove slowly past the house. The lights were on. He wondered what Ellen was doing. Cooking? Eating? Talking on the phone? Entertaining the cowboy actor?
He came around the block, stopped in front. It was foolish to be here. It was such an obvious place to look for him. But he didn't care. He shoved the car into gear when he saw Ellen strolling under a street-lamp, her hair drawn away from her face with a kerchief. She was carrying a bag of groceries from the corner market, and when she saw the Eldorado she stopped, staring in disbelief. Then she looked around nervously and hurried over to the car, opening the passenger door.
"Jack, what're you doing here? They're saying on the news that you killed a man. What's going on?"
A pulse beat at his temple as his hand slid inside his jacket and brought out his gun. He pointed it at her. "Get in the car."
Her dark eyes widened in terror. "Jack, what's happened to you?"
"Get in. Now." He spoke calmly, slowly. But his teeth were clenched. He literally saw red. Control yourself, Cleary. "I'm not going to hurt you, Ellen. Just get in."
She slid inside, and he stepped on the gas before she had closed the door. It slammed shut as he took off down the road. "Jack," she hissed. "Have you lost your mind? Where're you taking me?"
