Here Shane opened his briefcase and pulled out the research he’d been doing on Valentine and the DeCesare family. He handed it to Tony Filosiani, who scanned it quickly.
“This guy’s a made DeCesare soldier. I know him,” Filosiani said. “Some of these Jersey mob guys did business on my old beat back East. I know the whole family. A buncha mouth-breathers.”
“Then you know that if Don Carlo is trying to locate a branch of his crime family in L. A., we don’t want to ignore him.”
Filosiani nodded and handed the pages back.
Shane explained about Valentine’s plan to organize the below-the-line show business unions.
By this time, the chief’s next meeting was waiting in his outer office, but Filosiani was hooked. He buzzed Bea and asked her to reschedule it, then turned back to Shane.
“Is that possible? To get entertainment unions t’kick back money?”
“I don’t know,” Shane admitted. “I’m just telling you what Nicky told me. It sounded plausible, but I guess all that really counts is that Valentine believes it.”
Filosiani nodded and Shane continued. He explained Valentine’s fascination with Michael Fallon and how Shane wanted to option a script called The Neural Surfer so Fallon would, hopefully, agree to star in it.
“Who’s gonna pay for the script?”
“You are. At least that’s what I was hoping. I thought we could run it off the Organized Crime Bureau’s budget.” “How much?”
“Two hundred thousand,” Shane said, and heard Alexa gasp from someplace behind him.
Now Filosiani was frowning, too.
“Okay, look, I know this is kinda unconventional, but let’s look past the fact that it’s a script I’m buying, and focus on what we’re trying to do.” Shane was now pitching like an Amway salesman. “In the past, when we’ve heard mob guys were heading into town, we spent heavy bread to convince ‘em to go home. We had people meet ‘em at the airport, followed them around in white vans, bugged ‘em and ran surveillance on ‘em, the whole Blue Plate Special.”
“So?” Filosiani said.
“So, how much did all that cost?”
“Plenty.”
Shane opened his briefcase again, took out some papers and started shuffling through them. “I dropped by the budget office this afternoon, and here’s what I found. In ‘ninety-six, we worked a crew of Gambino guys. They were planning on setting up a sports-betting franchise in L. A. Cost us three hundred grand for wiretaps and round-the-clock surveillance. It went on for two months before they got tired of us and went home. In ‘ninety-nine, we worked a crew of Arcado guys from Chicago. Same drill, little less—cost one-fifty.”
“Okay, okay … I admit we spent some OCB money to keep these guys at bay,” Filosiani said, “but we weren’t buying movie scripts.”
“All I’m doing is spending money to lock this guy up. This script will bring us Fallon. Fallon will bring us Valentine. I wanna work Valentine from the inside, be right next to him. I wanna set up a RICO case for union fixing and I want to see if the SOB killed Carol White.”
There was a heavy silence. Shane heard a clock ticking somewhere but couldn’t spot it.
“How you gonna work from the inside?” Alexa finally asked. “Everybody knows you’re a cop. He’s not gonna let you get very close.”
“I’m not gonna hide it. In fact, I’m gonna talk about it. We put on a show. Instead of putting me back on the job, the chief knocks me down in grade because of stuff he discovered in this year-long review I’ve been under. I get pissed off and quit. We get Press Relations to plant a big story about it tomorrow in the L. A. Times. Call it trouble in the ranks or something. That’s where you come in, Alexa.”
“Me?”
“Themob has never had a foothold in L. A. because L. A. cops have never been for sale. You’re gonna change that. I want to set you up for Dennis Valentine so he’ll try and buy you.”
“The head of DSG?” She sighed.
“Yeah, he’ll go for it ‘cause in that newspaper story, after I get trashed, it’s going to mention how angry you are that your husband got screwed. Maybe a few guarded quotes about the LAPD’s lack of support, given the fact I just won the Medal of Valor. Then the chief’s comments follow. He says I’m off the page and untrustworthy. Maybe kicks some mud on your reputation, expresses some doubt about the open gang war that’s breaking out and the way the Kevin Cordell investigation is being handled.”
Alexa was tired, her nerves were frayed, and she sort of lost her temper at that. “Can’t I just do my job without all this? Besides, we just got that case. It’s not even fifty hours old.”
“Don’t lose your temper, honey,” Shane said.
Alexa stiffened slightly. This was a police meeting. She was Shane’s boss as well as the head of DSG. He instantly knew he shouldn’t have called her “honey.”
He pushed on. “I’ll tell you why. Once I get close to him, I’m gonna set you up to be his inside person, his Judas on the department. You’re the acting head of DSG, so you’re the perfect choice. You could control any investigation we started up against him.”
“He’s not gonna believe that.”
“Yes he is, because he wants to believe it. If we do it right, he’ll jump at it. We’re also gonna be living way over our heads. We’re gonna look like we have big money problems.”
“We live in Venice, Shane. You can’t live any more economically than we do.”
“I wanna move out of there for this case. I’ve got the perfect place staked out and it won’t cost the department a thing. Tony, you remember that house on North Chalon Road in Beverly Hills? The one our drug team took down six months ago, belonged to some Guatemalan heroin dealers?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s an asset seizure, we own it. Furniture’s still in there. All we gotta do is cut the lawn and we’re ready for business.”
“You got this all worked out, don’t you?” Filosiani said, trying not to smile.
“Yep. All I need is a measly two hundred large.”
Now the chief paced in his nearly empty office. He stopped in front of the huge plate-glass window and stared out, looking small and round-shouldered against that huge expanse of glass. “I can’t give you two hundred thousand for a screenplay, Shane. I’ll get laughed out of my budget review.”
“Gimme half, then. Gimme a hundred.”
“Can you do it for a hundred?”
“I don’t know. I can try.”
Finally, Filosiani turned, and now his round face was beaming. “Okay, you got it—plus the house on North Chalon. But Shane, you should sweep it daily. Go to the Electronic Surveillance Division and check out one a them new twenty-three-hundred Frequency Finders we got from the feds last June. Little unit will pick up anything, even low-voltage VHF stuff.” He grabbed his phone and instructed Bea to call ESD and make one available. When he hung up, he said, “I know these mob smart-heads, they’re all paranoid. Even though Valentine’s gonna be coming to you, he’s still gonna wanna know what you’re saying when he’s not around. If he puts a bug in that house and we can find it, we can use it against him.”
“Good thinking,” Shane agreed.
“Okay, get the hell outta here. You’re officially back on duty. You’re gonna be working U. C. but you don’t report to Organized Crime. You report directly to Lieutenant `Honey’ here.” He grinned and Alexa sighed.
“That’s gonna make it easy, ‘cause she’s gonna be living with me in that house on North Chalon Road.”
“Nice of you to ask,” Alexa quipped.
Filosiani tore off a slip of paper and handed it to Alexa. “Give this to the budget office down the hall. They’ll set up a blind account for Sergeant Scully so he can write checks on the hundred grand. Then get together with Press Relations and draft the story. I want to see it by five tonight. Tell Captain Cook I want it in tomorrow’s paper.” Filosiani grinned. “Welcome back, Shane. I miss this kinda stuff. You come up with great idea
s.”
Shane and Alexa left the chief’s office and headed down the hail. She was strangely quiet.
“Let’s get something to eat,” she finally said. “I’ve been inside this damn building since seven this morning, I need to get outta here for a minute.”
The Peking Duck was a cop restaurant one block from Parker Center. It was almost three in the afternoon. The late-lunch crowd had already left so the place was unusually quiet. Shane and Alexa ordered two beers at the bar, then carried them to a booth by the wall. When the Chinese waiter arrived they ordered dim sum and egg rolls.
“You’re kinda quiet, whatta ya think?” Shane said.
“I think you’re out of your mind,” Alexa answered. “You and Tony … it was like the Bowery Boys in there. `You’re my favorite guy. I miss dis kinda stuff. You always come up widda best ideas.’ ” She was doing a reasonably good Day-Glo Dago impression, but at least when she was through, she was more or less smiling. She reached out and took his hand.
“You think you fool everybody, Shane, but I read you like the morning paper.”
“That badly written?”
“That transparent. I watched you when you told him about that dead prostitute, Carol White. He didn’t see what I saw. He didn’t see the sadness and the guilt.” She was squeezing his hand across the table.
The waiter returned and put their food down, then handed them chopsticks and left.
“You don’t owe her anything, honey,” she said. “Yeah … ?”
“You don’t. I mean, it’s fine you want to run Valentine off. I agree with you there. If he gets a foothold in L. A. we’ll end up spending millions trying to police him. So tie him up on a RICO prosecution, but leave Carol White’s murder to Homicide.”
“Yeah, good thinking.” For some reason this was making him angry.
“If Valentine had her killed, it was a professional hit,” she continued. “The guys who did the work are already back in Jersey.”
He didn’t answer, so she went on. “I’m just saying, let Homicide do the Carol White investigation. I’ve got good people on that.”
“You got a drunk, overweight dirtbag on it. Lou Ruta is the primary. He’s gonna work it for the minimum forty-eight hours required on an active homicide, then it’s gonna go in the cold case file because he thinks she was just a junkie whore and he doesn’t want to waste his precious time on her.”
“I’ll make a reassignment. I’ll give it to Sergeant Peterson. You know Swede; you like him. He’s a hard worker.” “He’s in Hollywood, not Rampart.”
“You’re quibbling. I’ll talk to both division commanders and set it up.”
“Okay,” he said, and took a swig of beer. It tasted flat.
“You know, I do love you for caring.”
“Yeah.”
“No, really.”
“Look, Alexa, I know you mean well here and I know you’re trying to make me feel better. But do me a favor: Let’s save this for later, okay?”
“Done,” she agreed. “So how ‘bout them Dodgers, huh?” She was bone-tired but suddenly smiling, trying to help him get past it.
His wife was beautiful. She could take his breath away. She was funny, tough, smart, loyal, and she was his. So why couldn’t he forget about Carol White? Why am I acting like such a rookie over this?
“Wait’ll you see our new house on North Chalon. You’re gonna love it,” he said.
“It was down to just me and Brooke …” Carol whispered in his memory.
“Another beer?” the Chinese waiter asked.
Chapter 17.
THE ART OF THE DEAL
“These guys are soulless killers,” Nicky was saying. Despite the frigid air-conditioning, he had started sweating; the collar and front of his silk shirt were drenched. They were sitting in the magnificent lobby at CAA, one of the most powerful and respected talent agencies in show business.
“You gotta let me do all the talking, bubeleh,” Nicky instructed. “I know how these deals are made. Singh’s agent, Jerry Wireman, is a fire-breathing serpent, a gontser macher. He’s gonna want his pound of flesh.”
“How can it be that tough? We’ve got a hundred thousand dollars. They’ve got a script that’s collecting dust. We trade?’
“The hundred large is bubkes … parking meter cash. You gotta readjust your thinking, babe.”
“What time is Dennis Valentine’s party?” Shane asked, trying to change the subject.
“It’s at six this evening in the garden patio of the Beverly Hills Hotel. The guy loves that hotel; drives all the way from Mandeville Canyon in the Palisades to have what he calls his power breakfasts in the Polo Lounge every morning at ten. Only he eats alone or with one a his apes, so it’s more like breakfast at the zoo.” Nicky’s gaze shifted down to Shane’s blazer. “Where’d you get that thing?” He scowled. “The Navy Surplus store?”
“What thing?” Shane looked down at his jacket.
“If you’re gonna be my partner, we gotta do something about your threads. You dress like an NBC page. ‘Zat tie left over from when you were in the Boy Scouts?”
Shane glanced down at his plain blue tie. When he’d picked it out this morning he thought it looked nice with his dark blue blazer. Now, in the harsh sunlight streaming through the glass lobby of CAA, he had to admit it was pretty cheesy.
“Mr. Wireman is ready to see you,” a very attractive black woman said from behind her two-ton semicircular, granite reception desk. Roman legions had held passes in the Alps with smaller fortifications. Shane and Nicky stood.
“Sixth floor, end of the hall,” the receptionist said. “His secretary, Barbara, is waiting for you.”
Barbara was pretty enough to be an actress herself. She led them down a very busy corridor where hyperfocused secretaries of both sexes were hammering out deal memos and contracts on computer keyboards. She showed them into Jerry Wireman’s office.
The agent was aptly named: wiry body, wiry hair, wire glasses, wire-gray eyes … Wireman. He exuded all the personal warmth of marble statuary.
“Sit. What’s up?” That was all he said. He made it clear by his elimination of all superfluous words that he had a minimal amount of time for them.
They sat.
“Go”
This guy is going to be a treat, Shane thought.
He waited for Nicky, who was their predesignated talker, but Nicky didn’t say anything. Shane looked over and saw that his new partner had frozen. He was just sitting there, his hands clasped together, breathing through his mouth, jaw clenched. Sofa art.
“Go,” Jerry Wireman repeated impatiently, frowning at his Cartier timepiece as if the watch dial contained distressing results from his last cholesterol test.
“Mr. Wireman, Mr. Marcella and I are partners in CineRoma Productions,” Shane started.
“Never heard of it.”
“Yes, well, we have become extremely interested in a script I believe you represent, called The Neural Surfer, by Rajindi Singh.”
“Great merchandise. Ferae naturae—a term we use, meaning full of untamed nature. That product has endless shelf life. It’s why we’ve been in no hurry to accept an offer. The Neural Surfer demands concept-friendly execution.”
Shane looked over at Nicky, who was now sweating big drops. They were dampening and curling his hairline. He seemed to have gone into some kind of semiconscious trance. “Jerry, we share your enthusiasm for the material,” Shane finally said.
“Hard not to,” Wireman said. “Piece is transitional … transcendental. It blends neo-impressionist heroism with gut-wrenching social commentary.”
“Exactly.” Shane didn’t have a clue what he had just agreed with.
“Okay, good deal.” Wireman glared at his watch again and frowned. He looked as if he were about to start tapping the dial.
“So gimme the drill,” he suddenly said. “Does CineNova want to buy it?”
* “CineRoma,” Shane corrected him. “Not buy it just yet. What we’d li
ke is to get an option.”
“A priori of that, we have an existing quote sheet on this material, and I’m afraid our price is solid. We’re not negotiating.”
“Apre-what?” Shane asked, bewildered.
“A priori,” Wireman responded, “means conceived beforehand.” He looked at them askance. Tney didn’t understand Latin. They had just lost important player points.
“Oh, I see,” Shane said. “So what is the price?”
“The cheapest, front-end-friendly option I can offer is two hundred thousand for six months. The important non-negotiable soft clauses include no rewriting or line changes without Mr. Singh’s written approval, and all rights revert back to Mr. Singh in six months. Absolutely no extensions—hoc tempore.”
Shane wanted to hit him, but said instead, “That sounds like a pretty tough deal.”
“We’re talking filmatic breakthrough here. This isn’t Charlie’s Angels where you got three gorgeous chicks running around in see-through dresses. This is a work of inestimable depth—fac et excusa.”
“Huh?” Nicky grunted from the sofa, finally reentering Earth’s atmosphere.
“Means make your move. This is a straight yes-or-no proposition.”
Shane was close to feeding this asshole his wire-rimmed glasses. He looked over at Nicky, who was still leaking water like a Mexican fishing boat.
“We don’t have two hundred thousand to pay for an option,” Shane said.
“Tempus omnia revelat.” Wireman sneered. “Time reveals everything… . Catch ya on the flip-flop.” He stood, shot his cuffs, and motioned toward the door.
Hollywood Tough (2002) Page 12
