W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

by The Witness(lit)

  He opened one of the packages. Payne took plates, knives and forks, and a large package of dinner-sized paper napkins from a closet.

  "You going to need any help?" he asked McFadden.

  "No," McFadden said flatly. "Just leave me something to eat and leave me alone."

  "You'd better put an apron on, or you'll get rib goo all over your uniform," Payne said.

  "They call that barbecue sauce," McFadden said. "'Rib goo'! Jesus H. Christ!"

  Payne handed him an apron with MASTER CHEF painted on it. Then he began to pass out the ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, salad, rolls, and other contents of the aluminum-wrapped packages.

  A piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Malone picked it up. It was the cash register tape from Ribs Unlimited. Three com-plete Rib Feasts at $11.95 came to $35.85. They had charged Payne retail price for the BEER, IMPORT, which, at $2.25 a bottle, came to $27.00. With the tax, the bill was nearly sev-enty dollars.

  And Payne had tipped the manager and both cooks. Christ, that's my food budget for two weeks.

  "Fuck it," McFadden said. "Eat first, work later. Mc-Fadden's Law."

  He sat down and picked up a rib and started to gnaw on it.

  "That makes sense," Payne said. "Sit down, Lieutenant. They do make a good rib."

  "I know. I used to take my wife there," Malone said with-out thinking.

  McFadden silently ate one piece of rib, and then another. He picked up his beer bottle, drank deeply, burped, and then delicately wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

  "Are you going to tell me, Lieutenant, what's going on at half past four tomorrow morning at that school building?" McFadden suddenly asked, "He won't tell me."

  "What makes you think something's going on?"

  "The word is out that something is," McFadden said.

  "Can I tell you without it getting all over Highway before half past four tomorrow morning?" Malone replied, after a moment's hesitation.

  "Then you'd better not tell me, Lieutenant," McFadden said. "Not that I would say anything to anybody-just between you, me, and the lamppost, Lieutenant, the only thing High-way has going for me is that it keeps me from doing school crossing duty in a district-but Highway is going to find out, and I wouldn't want you to think I was the one who told them."

  "He's right, Lieutenant," Payne said. "If Charley knows something's going to happen, so does everybody in Highway, and they will snoop around until they find out what."

  "As Lieutenant Malone, I can't tell you," Malone said. "But we're off duty, right? And you're Charley, and I'm Jack, and this won't go any further?"

  He saw Payne's eyes appraising him.

  Is he going to go to Wohl first thing in the morning? "In-spector, I think I should tell you that that new lieutenant can't keep his mouth shut."

  Fuck it, I sense an opening here to get to McFadden. If I can get McFadden to agree not to tell Wohl about finding me at Holland's, Payne will probably, or at least possibly, fall in line. And if he doesn't, if I blow this, things can't get any worse than they are now.

  "Okay, Jack," McFadden said. "Out of school, what's go-ing on in the morning?"

  Malone saw Payne's eyes flash between him and McFadden and back again.

  Shit! He's suspicious as hell.

  "If I did, Payne, would you feel you had to tell Inspector Wohl I told him?"

  Payne met his eyes. Then he picked up his bottle of beer and took a pull at it.

  "Lieutenant," Payne said. "I don't really know what the hell is going on here."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "We're out of school, right?"

  "Absolutely."

  "No, then. I would not tell the Inspector you told Charley about what's going on at half past four in the morning. I was going to tell him anyway. I was just pulling his chain, not telling him before. That's not what's bothering me."

  "What is, then?"

  "You showed up at the school tonight, for one thing. 'Call me Jack,' and 'Let me buy you fellas a cheese-steak,' for some more."

  Christ, I'm losing control. Am I just bad at this? Or are these two a lot smarter than I gave them credit for being?

  "I went out to the school because I thought you were taking heat for something that was my responsibility."

  "What do you want from us, Lieutenant?" Payne asked, both his tone of voice and the look in his eyes making it clear he hadn't bought that at all. "Has it got something to do with Charley finding you snooping around Holland's body shop?"

  Christ, he already knows! What did I expect? Well, fuck it, I blew it.

  "Are you going to tell Inspector Wohl about that?" Malone asked.

  "Unless you can come up with a good reason I shouldn't", Payne said.

  Malone glanced at McFadden. He recognized the look in McFadden's eyes. He had seen it a hundred times. A cop who knew that the suspect had been lying all along had just told him he knew he had been lying all along, and was waiting to see what reaction that would cause.

  And I am the guy they caught lying.

  When all else fails, tell the truth.

  "Holland is dirty," Malone said.

  "How do you know?" McFadden asked, picking up another rib.

  "You've been on the street," Malone said, meeting Mc-Fadden's eyes. "You know when you know someone's dirty."

  "Yeah," McFadden said. "But sometimes when you know, you're wrong."

  Charley McFadden's response surprised Matt Payne.

  What the hell are they talking about? Some kind of mystical intuition?

  "I know, McFadden," Malone said. McFadden seemed to be willing to give Malone the benefit of the doubt.

  Because he's a lieutenant? Or because Charley was on the street? Is there something to this intuition business that these two, real cops as opposed to me, understand and I don't?

  And then Officer Matthew M. Payne had a literally chilling additional thought.

  I knew. Jesus H. Christ, I knew. When I saw Fletchers van, I knew it was wrong. I told myself, consciously, that all it was, was a van, but I knew it was dirty. If I hadn't subconsciously known it was dirty, hadn't really been careful, Warren K. Fletcher would have run over me. The only reason I'm alive and he's dead is because, intuitively, I knew the van was dirty.

  "You want to tell us about it?" McFadden asked.

  "You know Tom Lenihan?" Malone asked.

  McFadden shook his head no.

  "He's Chief Coughlin's driver," Matt offered, and corrected himself. "Was. He made lieutenant."

  "Right," Malone said. "Now he's in Organized Crime."

  "What about him?"

  "We go back a ways together. When he made lieutenant, he bought a new car. For him new. Actually a year-old one with low mileage. I went out to Holland Pontiac-GMC to help him get it."

  "And?"

  "He got a Pontiac Bonneville. They gave him a real deal, he said."

  "That doesn't make Holland a thief," Matt Payne said.

  "Holland himself came out. Very charming. A lot of bull-shit."

  "What's wrong with that?" Charley asked.

  "Holland has six, seven dealerships. Why should he kiss the ass of a new police lieutenant who just bought a lousy used Bonneville?"

  "Maybe because he knew he worked for Denny Coughlin," Matt thought out loud.

  "Same thought. Why should a big-shot car dealer kiss the ass of even Denny Coughlin?"

  "That's all you have?" McFadden asked.

  "Two reasons," Matt said. "One he likes cops, which I doubt, or because he's getting his rocks off knowing he's mak-ing a fool of the cops."

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" Charley challenged.

  "That's the gut feeling I had," Malone said.

  "I don't know what the fuck either one of you is talking about," McFadden said.

  "Tell me some more," Matt said. "What do you think? How's he doing it? Why?"

  "I don't know exactly how he's doing it," Malone said. "But I have an idea why, how it started. A lot of car dealers are dirty.
I mean, Christ, you know, they make their living cheating people. The only reason they don't cheat more, which is stealing, is because they don't want to get arrested."

  "Okay," McFadden said. "So what?"

  "So they all know how to steal something, cheating on a finance contract, swapping radios and tires around, buying hot parts for repair work," Malone said. "Now let's say Holland, maybe early on, maybe that's the reason he's so successful, figured out a way to steal cars. He's so successful, the thievery is like business, so the thrill is gone."

  "Jesus, Lieutenant," McFadden said, his tone suggesting that Malone had just asked him to believe the cardinal arch-bishop was a secret compulsive gambler.

  "Let him talk, Charley," Matt said, on the edge of sharp-ness.

  "I also read somewhere that some thieves really want to get caught," Malone said. "And I read someplace else that some thieves really do it for the thrill, not the money."

  "So you see Bob Holland as a successful thief who gets his thrills, his sense of superiority, by being a friend of the cops?"

  "No wonder they think you're crazy," McFadden said, and then, realizing that he had spoken his thought, looked horri-fied.

  "I don't think-" Matt said. "I'm not willing to join them."

  "Who's them?" McFadden asked.

  "Those who suggest Lieutenant Malone is crazy to think Bob Holland could be a thief," Payne said.

  McFadden looked at Payne, first in disbelief, and then, when he saw that Payne was serious, with curiosity.

  "Based on what, you think he's stealing and selling whole cars?" McFadden asked.

  "I know how," Malone said. "I just haven't figured out how to get Holland yet."

  "Great!" McFadden said. "Then you don't know, Lieuten-ant."

  "I do know," Malone said. "Tom Lenihan is driving a sto-len car."

  "How do you know that?" McFadden asked, on the edge of scornfully.

  "Because the VIN tag and the secret mark on his Bonneville are different," Malone said. "I looked."

  The VIN tag is a small metal plate stamped with the Vehicle Identification Number and other data, which is riveted, usually where it can be seen through the windshield, to the vehicle frame.

  "No shit?" McFadden asked.

  "What's the secret mark?" Matt asked, curiosity having overwhelmed his reluctance to admit his ignorance.

  "The manufacturer's stamp," Malone said, "in some place where it can't be seen, unless you know where to look, either all the numbers, or some of the numbers, on the VIN tag. So that if the thief swaps VIN tags, you can tell."

  If he knows that, Matt wondered, why doesn't he just go arrest Holland?

  "Does Lieutenant Lenihan know?" Charley asked.

  "No," Malone said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I didn't tell him. If I told him, he would go to the Auto Squad, and they would get a warrant and go out there. I don't want some body shop mechanic, or even the guy that runs the body shop, taking the rap for this, I want Holland."

  "Holland probably hasn't been in the body shop for years, and can prove it," McFadden said. "You're sure they're doing this in the body shop?"

  "Where else?"

  "Well, let's figure out how he's stealing cars, and then we can figure out how to catch him," Charley said.

  "Stealing and selling," Matt corrected him.

  "Hypo-something," McFadden said. "What is that you're always saying, Matt?"

  "Hypothetically speaking," Matt furnished.

  "Right," McFadden said. "Okay. From the thief's angle. You steal a car, and you can do what with it?"

  "Strip it or chop it," Malone said.

  "What's the difference?" Matt asked.

  "A quick strip job means you take the tires and wheels, the radio, the air-conditioner compressor, the battery, anything you can unbolt in a hurry. A chop job is when you take maybe the front clip-you know what that is?"

  "The fenders and grill," Matt answered.

  "Sometimes the whole front end, less the engine," Malone said. "Engines have serial numbers. Or the rear end, or the rear quarter panels. Then you just dump what's left. Clip job or strip job."

  "Or you get the whole car on a boat and send it to South America or Africa, or someplace," McFadden said. "You don't think that's what Holland is doing, do you, Lieutenant?"

  "Holland is selling whole cars."

  "With legitimate VIN tags," McFadden said. "Where's he get those?"

  "From wrecks," Malone said. "There's no other place. He goes-he doesn't go, he sends one of his people-to an insur-ance company auction-"

  "A what?" Matt interrupted.

  "You run your car into a tree," Malone explained. "The insurance company decides it would cost too much to fix. They give you a check and take your car. Once a week, once every other week, they-not just one insurance company, a bunch of them-have an auction. The wrecks are bought by salvage yards, body shops, people like that."

  "And Holland just takes the VIN off the wreck and puts it on the stolen car, right, and says it's been repaired, and puts it on one of his lots?" Matt asked.

  "That's how I see it," Malone said.

  "Well, if we know that," Matt asked, "what's the problem? All we have to do is-"

  "Let me tell you, Payne, all we have to do," Malone said, more than a little contempt in his tone. "Let me give you a for example. For example, we take Tom Lenihan's car. We go back to Holland with it and say it's stolen, and where did you get it? They say, 'Gee, whiz, we didn't know it was stolen. We carefully checked the VIN tag when we bought it at the insur-ance auction. See, here's the bill of sale.' So then we go to the insurance auction, and they say, 'That's right, we auctioned that car off for ABC Insurance, and sure, we checked the VIN tag. No, we didn't check for the secret stamping, there's no law says we have to, all the law says we have to do is check the VIN tag and fill out the forms for the Motor Vehicle Bureau. We did that. Besides, we are respectable businessmen, and we resent you hinting we're a bunch of thieves.

  "Oh," Matt said, chagrined.

  "If we went out there tomorrow morning, with Tom Lenihan's Pontiac, which we know is stolen, you know what would happen? First of all, nobody would get arrested. Lenihan would have to give the car up, because it's stolen. The original owner would get it back, but would have trouble with Motor Vehicles because the VIN tag doesn't match the stamped ID on the frame somewhere. Holland would piss his pants, he was so sorry that this happened to an honest man like himself and an honest man like Lenihan. He would give Lenihan another car, maybe even a better one, to show what a good guy he is. Holland would then have his lawyer sue the auction for selling him a hot car. It would take years to get on the docket. There would be delays after delays after delays. Finally it either would die a natural death or the auction would settle out of court, and as part of the deal, both parties would agree never to divulge the amount of the settlement. You getting the picture, Payne?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And then he wouldn't steal any more cars until he figured we didn't have the time to watch him anymore," Malone said.

  "Then how do you plan to catch Holland, Lieutenant?" McFadden asked.

  "I've got a couple of ideas."

  "That's what I'm asking," McFadden said.

  "If Inspector Wohl finds out I haven't listened to all the good advice I've been given to forget Holland, in other words, if you tell him you saw me at the body shop, or Payne tells him about tonight, what's the difference?"

  "The only people I told about you being outside the body shop is Matt and Hay-zus."

  Jesus, he has told somebody!

  "Who's-what did you say?"

  "Hay-zus, Jesus in English, Martinez. He was my partner when we was undercover in Narcotics."

  "And how many people do you think he's told, since you told him?"

  "Nobody. I told him to keep it under his hat until I had a chance to ask Payne."

  "So what about you, Payne?" Malone asked. "Are you going to get on the phone to Wohl the min
ute I leave here, or wait until tomorrow morning, or what?"

  "It's an interesting ethical question," Matt said. "On one hand, for reasons I don't quite understand. I would really like to see Holland caught. On the other, so far as Wohl is concerned, my primary loyalty is to him-"