Fugitive Nights (1992)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

"Wanna hear some Dwight Yoakam?" Nelson started thumbing through his country cassettes.

  "Never heard of him."

  "How about George Strait?"

  "Is George Strait the one that wears a Gene Autry hat?"

  "Damn, Lynn!" Nelson was incredulous. "What kinda music do ya like? Waltzes or somethin?"

  "As a matter a fact 'Tennessee Waltz' is a big-hit single in The Furnace Room. Has been for thirty-five years or so. The only cowboy song I can identify with is 'She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).' "

  Nelson said, "My favorite lately is 'Chasin' That Neon Rainbow.' I guess maybe that's what I'm doin, but damn it, I need some bright lights! I wanna get outta the desert and come to town!"

  When Nelson changed lanes to lunge past some cruising kids in a van, Lynn almost got whiplashed. "Puh-leeeeze, Nelson! I'm getting seasick. Do I have to buy a patch to wear behind my ear?"

  They checked out two more Palm Springs motels, but got no report of a single man fitting the smuggler's description. Nelson said, "We oughtta drive up to Desert Hot Springs now."

  "Gimme a break, Nelson!" Lynn moaned. "Jesus, Vm starting to sound like Bessie."

  "Okay, let's see, how about the Cactus and Sand Motel? Know anything about it?"

  "Yeah, it's fifty-five a night. No terrorist has that big an expense account."

  "How do ya know it's fifty-five?"

  "I got picked up one night by some babe at The Furnace Room. She complained about how much it cost her. That was when Washington was talking about cutting Social Security checks and she didn't know if she could afford me."

  "You went to a motel with a woman that's on Social Security?"

  "I'm the hottest number The Furnace Room's ever seen," Lynn said. "I've put more a those old babes in bed than broken hips ever did. In fact, I sorta promised myself to the one that sings "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" every Thursday night. Remember that one, Nelson?"

  "That's sick, Lynn!"

  "I know. I don't understand how you can stand me. Why don't you drop me at The Furnace Room where I can indulge my perverse desires and buy myself Wilfred's easily chewable supper, if there's any left over from the early-bird special."

  "Okay, let's make a pit stop," Nelson said. "I could use a beer."

  "I could use a pension," Lynn said. "And Doctor Ruth for counseling. I wouldn't be in this mess if I had any kind a sex life. It's that damn freckle."

  "What freckle?" Nelson wanted to know.

  Chapter 10

  The dog started barking the second she stepped onto the driveway that night, frustrating her plan to force open the electric gate far enough to squeeze inside. The barking came from upstairs-front, in what Breda assumed was the master bedroom suite. Then someone, perhaps the maid, opened a downstairs door and flooded the entire property in light. Breda had to hurry back to her Datsun Z, fire it up and drive away. That goddamn slobbery brown dog!

  Rhonda Devon had left a message with Breda's service that she'd expect a progress report by the weekend, but Breda knew that her client would really expect a satisfactory answer, not just a report. Breda wondered what Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem were up to, checked the time, saw that it was 8:30 p. M., and even though she was exhausted, decided to see if Jack Graves had been having any luck at The Unicorn. Her flagging morale required some sort of resolution to at least one of Her cases.

  When she got to The Unicorn, there were no less than 150 diners being served, the foyer was packed with people waiting, and they were two deep at the bar. One of those at the bar was Jack Graves.

  He was sitting quietly near the service area, sipping beer from a bottle. He wore an old Pendleton shirt, a soft tan corduroy jacket, khaki trousers and well-worn moccasins. He smiled from time to time at a guy next to him who was half bagged and loud. Breda walked up behind Jack and put her hand on his shoulder.

  "Hello, Breda," he said. "Wanna drink?"

  "I can use one," she said. "Chardonnay."

  Jack Graves gave his stool to Breda and stood behind her. The suspect-bartender wiped the bartop and bared his tobacco-stained teeth in what passed for cordiality.

  "Chardonnay, please," Jack Graves said to him.

  When the bartender was gone, Breda asked, "Any luck?"

  "Oh yeah," Jack Graves said quietly. "Mister Riegel was right. The bartender's supplementing his income at Riegel's expense. My guess is he makes an extra thirty or forty bucks a night, not worth firing him for. He's a very good bartender."

  "Maybe he'll just warn the bartender."

  "He'll put the guy in the hospital."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "I know your Mister Riegel from when our guys worked a deal with the Palm Springs Special Enforcement Unit," Jack Graves said. "That's when I became friends with Lynn. Riegel pals around with an Arizona crime family. See, Palm Springs is a neutral town. Mob people from Chicago or wherever, they can come here with no worries. And they do come. Palm Springs even gets some bad guys from as far away as London."

  "As in England?"

  "The British accent's a great advantage for con men around these parts, particularly with bankers, it seems. And cocaine sells for at least a seventy percent profit in London over what it sells for here."

  "In this little city there's all that going on?"

  "At your old department, at LAPD, they got fifty people doing intelligence work that one guy does in this town."

  "And my Mister Riegel is active?"

  "He's never gone to tea dances, I bet, but he's semilegit now. Look around. This restaurant's doing bust-out business."

  "I won't be taking any more jobs from him," Breda said,"but I'll finish this one. So tell me, how's the bartender scamming his boss?"

  "It's a variation of the old BYOB gag, but in this case he didn't bring his own bottle and put it behind the bar. He has some kind of container stashed back in that alcove area. He's pouring his own booze and pocketing the proceeds."

  "How's he get it from back there to here? Lynn watched him and said he's positive the guy doesn't carry anything when he goes back and forth."

  "He doesn't, not in his hands."

  "How's he do it then?"

  "Enjoy your wine and watch him," Jack Graves said, smiling. "It's good to have somebody to talk to."

  Breda looked into Jack's brown eyes. They were nice eyes, but sad. She said, "Okay, Jack, I'll enjoy my wine."

  A group of six at the bar were called to their table by a bosomy hostess in an off-the-shoulder beaded dress. When they'd gone the bartender glanced down the bar, peeked out toward the front, then headed for the alcove.

  When the bartender came back, Jack Graves whispered to Breda, "Watch him wash the glasses."

  Breda raised up a few inches on the barstool for a better look. The bartender nodded to a customer who called for a Tanqueray on the rocks, and then bent over the sink to rinse out a few glasses, just as Jack Graves had predicted.

  "Did you see it?"

  "No," Breda said. "What?"

  "He's carrying it in his mouth. That guy can probably carry six ounces of Scotch without changing expression. When he bends over to wash glasses, he's spitting it into a bowl next to the sink on his end of the bar. His partner may or may not know what he's up to."

  "Ree-volting!" Breda shuddered. "Disgusting."

  Jack Graves grinned. "It really is. I've never seen it before."

  "I guess I should tell Riegel right away. Jesus, what if the guy has AIDS or something? Gross!"

  "I wish you wouldn't," said Jack Graves.

  "Why?"

  "Your Mister Riegel's pals back in that banquet room have been ordering a lotta Scotch. He might think they got some from his bowl."

  "All the more reason!"

  "They aren't the kind a guys that have cucumber sandwiches every afternoon. They'll hurt this bartender."

  "I can't let my client serve second-hand Scotch!"

  "Lemme have a talk with the guy. Gimme a few minutes."

  He signaled to th
e bartender and when the guy came over saying, "Another beer?" Jack Graves simply said, "If you take one step toward that bowl of booze behind the dirty glasses I'll stop you from dumping it. Then my partner here'll call your boss."

  "Who are you?" The bartender jerked his face toward the front door at the mention of Riegel.

  Jack Graves said, "Someone who doesn't wanna see your legs broken. Just go straight back to that alcove, retrieve whatever you have stashed there, and grab your coat at the same time. On the way out tell the hostess you're getting severe chest pains and a numbness in your arm. Tomorrow you can call Riegel and say you had a mild heart attack and you're quitting your job. And if you ever work in any other bar in this valley I'll tell Riegel what you did to him."

  "Who are you?" the bartender demanded.

  "I'm the timer," Jack Graves said, looking at his watch. "You got exactly three minutes to get it all done and be outta here. If you don't, whatever happens to you tonight isn't my fault."

  The bartender looked at Breda, then back to Jack Graves. Then he looked at the boisterous crowd of cigar smokers in Armani suits with Mr. Riegel in the banquet room.

  The bartender turned and headed for the alcove. Less than a minute later he came out wearing a cardigan sweater and said something to the hostess on his way out the door.

  "Tell Riegel you spotted the guy serving lots of free drinks," Jack Graves suggested to Breda. "Tell him you're sure he was just giving away booze for big tips and he must've figured out who you are and panicked."

  "Riegel'll probably try to withhold some of my fee for letting the guy spot me."

  "He'll be glad you got rid of him. People with egos like Riegel's can't stand to be had. He knew the bartender was having him, he just couldn't spot it."

  "What if the guy does have AIDS?"

  "I don't think he's an AIDS candidate," Jack Graves said.

  "That'd add new meaning to the term, 'dying for a drink,' " Breda said.

  "Everybody dies," Jack Graves said, light glancing off his bony cheekbone. "Why not for a drink? How about another Chardonnay?"

  By the time Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem had consumed their first drink at The Furnace Room, another failed actor and longtime friend of Wilfred Plimsoll was ranting about how television had destroyed his profession and, parenthetically, been the cause of the fact that in the past thirty years he'd been gainfully employed for about twenty-two days, all told.

  The actor, Walter Davenport, had blue-white hair, wore a plaid double-breasted sport jacket, white cotton trousers, white leather loafers and a school tie from a private academy he'd never attended.

  "TV?" he bellowed. "They do TV shows about pimply kid-doctors named Boobie or Doobie or something! When I die I want my ashes mixed with toxic waste and dropped on Burbank Studios!"

  "Let's go find a table, Nelson," Lynn suggested. "I can't bear too much sound and fury tonight."

  This time they avoided the old warbler who was at her favorite table, joining in when the piano player played a few bars of "Sentimental Journey." They spotted an empty table for two beside the used-brick fireplace that hadn't been lit for a decade.

  "Let's grab that deuce," Lynn said, pointing to the table. "My aching knees could end the California drought."

  When they were safely seated, Nelson asked, "Do you actually like this place?"

  "It's all these old actors," Lynn Cutter said. "I don't feel like such a failure when I'm around them. Far as all the other old geezers, I don't feel so old when I'm around them. Far as lawyers, I definitely feel morally superior when I'm around them. So I guess The Furnace Room satisfies a lotta needs."

  "Pretty strange crowd," Nelson said.

  "We got lotsa power lines out by Highway Ten that could produce mutants, which might explain this joint. But it's kinda strange to hear you call people strange."

  Changing the subject, Nelson Hareem asked, "Where ya gonna live, Lynn, when your house-sittin jobs run out?"

  "I honestly don't know, Nelson."

  "Gonna be a private eye like Breda after your pension starts?"

  "She's not making enough money to keep her in Kibbles, which is what I been eating lately. And the work's sleazier than the state legislature."

  "You and Breda'll each have a pension. Half your salary each adds up to one full salary."

  "What're you saying, Nelson?"

  "You could work together and maybe be housemates. I saw the way you looked at her, Lynn," Nelson said, wrinkling his nose. "And the way she looked at you."

  "Why, Nelson, ain't you the little matchmaker!" Lynn said, draining the last of his Scotch. But then, "How did she look at me?"

  "Same way you looked at her."

  "I don't have a freckle on my lip."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Breda and me'll be housemates when Salman Rushdie opens a laundromat in Tehran."

  "I think she likes you more'n you think," Nelson said. "I could read it in her eyes."

  "I could read the Rosetta Stone easier," Lynn said. "Think we should have another drink?"

  "I'll buy," Nelson said.

  "Oh please don't, well all right," Lynn said, just as Breda Burrows and Jack Graves entered the smoky saloon looking for them.

  "Over here!" Lynn called out. "Next week, Wilfred's receiving his first order of used Israeli gas masks!"

  After they sat down, Nelson shook hands with Jack Graves, who described the successful resolution of The Unicorn job, saying, "If Riegel found out how the bartender was doing him, the guy'd be discovered out on the desert next week. Or part of him would, the rest having passed through some coyote's bowels."

  "That's a complete gag-me-to-the-max trick," Lynn said. "No wonder I didn't spot it."

  "I've decided Jack might be able to help us on the Clive Devon case too," Breda said to Lynn. And then, seeing concern in Lynn Cutter's eyes, she added, "Of course, you and I still have our original arrangement."

  Lynn was satisfied that she'd decided to pay Jack, but there was a little something else going on in his own head that Lynn didn't like. Breda was saying in effect that Jack Graves was a better cop! Lynn felt another stab when she smiled at the gaunt man. She'd never looked at him like that.

  Son of a bitch! Lynn thought. I'm jealous!

  Breda said to Lynn, "Jack's gonna watch Clive Devon tomorrow from the moment he gets up till he goes to bed. I presume Nelson's going to give you back to me soon?"

  "Day after tomorrow," Nelson said, nodding agreeably, and Lynn had a sudden urge to reach over and grab the little cop by the throat, except he was certain that Nelson would just look at him with disappointment and never understand. You hated to strangle somebody unless they knew why.

  "I been thinking, Nelson," Lynn said. "Maybe the guy really is a Spaniard. Is Seve Ballesteros playing in the Bob Hope Classic? Your guy may be a super Seve fan."

  "If I can offer an opinion," Jack Graves said quietly, "Breda's told me what you're doing and I been wondering if the guy's a Colombian. You know, with all the heat in Miami, they been running all the cocaine from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia through Mexico to southern California. Why not a Mexican load-plane full of Colombian cocaine?"

  "There's no desert in Colombia," Nelson Hareem said. "Our guy's a man of the desert."

  "That again." Lynn Cutter sighed.

  "Some tar heroin from Pakistan and Iran also comes through Mexico," Jack Graves said. "They got some very dry terrain in those countries, I believe."

  "Here I thought I was coming into semiretirement in a nice quiet resort," Breda said.

  Jack Graves said, "This little metropolis has more Secret Service assigned on a per capita basis than anywhere in the world including Washington, D. C., because of who lives here and who plays here. The FBI has three resident agents in and out of Palm Springs because of all the interstate major frauds, and a lotta presidential nominees get interviewed right out on these golf courses. The air traffic controllers in this town direct squadrons of executive jets."

  "Sound
s great to me!" Nelson said. "I can't wait to get a lateral transfer. I'm sick a taking theft reports on stolen dates. And I hope I never see another date beetle! Ugh!"

  "I gotta admit, Nelson, I'm a little intrigued with your terrorist idea," said Jack Graves.

  "At last!" Nelson beamed.

  "I don't find it totally convincing," Jack Graves said, "but we're getting a few people in for the golf tournament who could be targets."

  "Not Dan Quayle, for chrissake!" Lynn said. "When Reagan came to town they'd have to close all airspace over the city for fifteen minutes to deal with the huge crowds. When Prince Charles came to play polo they had a traffic jam five miles long. When Dan Quayle came to play golf at PGA West, we detailed two reserve officers and three detectives to help Secret Service protect him from the adoring throngs . . . which ended being a guy and his wife, both Young Republicans. Who the hell is gonna terrorize anybody by going after Dan Quayle?"

  "You sure hate Republicans," Nelson said.

  "I am a Republican!" Lynn informed him. "A poor Republican. It's unnatural, like a vegetarian vampire."

  "I wouldn't completely rule out heroin smuggling," Jack Graves said to Nelson, "even if your man of the desert's from the Middle East. I remember the time when some Algerians came to Palm Springs with a load of heroin sewed inside the Spandex waistbands of their pants. They beat all airport security with that one."

  "Algerian?" Nelson said thoughtfully. "Maybe! Who else is comin for the golf tournament that's terrorizable?"

  "According to the papers, there's a Saudi billionaire coming to play tennis in a pro-am," Breda said. "He might qualify. And Benazir Bhutto from Pakistan is here, now that she's out of work."

  "Aw-right!" Nelson said. "Now we're gettin somewheres!"

  "A Saudi sheik?" Lynn said. "Maybe I can meet him and learn a few tricks. I married two women and my life's wrecked. Sheiks get married a hundred and four times and fly to Palm Springs for a weekend a tennis. There's a moral somewhere."

  "Lynn knows Palm Springs a lot better than I do," Jack Graves said to Nelson. "I'd trust Lynn's instincts."

  Lynn said, "If it's Middle East types you're after, an Iranian recently bought a bar in Cathedral City that caters to a gay clientele."