“Why did it?”
“Business problems.”
And the way Valentine set his jaw, it was pretty obvious that was all he had to say on the subject.
“Anyway, thanks. You hadn’t given me that half-second warning, I’d be decorating the inside of a coroner’s wagon.”
Shane nodded and sipped his scotch. It occurred to him that if he’d just kept quiet, that would have been it… . No more Dennis Valentine. He could forget all this movie B. S., but he had acted out of instinct. Besides, he was a cop. His job was to protect and serve. Even assholes like Champagne Dennis Valentine got full service.
“Now I owe you my life,” Dennis was saying. “Since I can’t very well turn you into fertilizer anymore, I gotta find some way to come to terms with you.”
“I don’t want to come to terms,” Shane said. “What you’re selling makes no sense to me.”
Dennis sat down on one of the pool chairs, leaned back, and regarded Shane carefully. The trickle of blood from the cut on his forehead had dried. “You know what my uncle always says?”
Shane shrugged.
“He says that to know how things can be, you gotta know how they were. ‘Nother words, study history and it will predict the future.”
“Your uncle,” Shane deadpanned. The Jersey Godfather. Valentine pointed to the chair opposite him. Shane pulled it out, turned it around, and straddled it.
“So for that reason, I like reading history,” the mobster continued. “You ever heard of the Browne-Bioff labor union scandal?”
“No,” Shane said.
“Well, it happened right here, in 1933 and ‘34. It was a successful corruption of the below-the-line IATSE unions—the I. A.”
“Nineteen thirty-three? Guys in snap brims and spats? Can’t you find something a little more recent?”
Dennis smiled and sipped his Taittinger. Shane noticed that there was quite a lot of Gino’s blood on Valentine’s tan pants.
“Back then, George Browne was just some low-level union business agent for one of the showbiz locals. I forgot which one. But with Al Capone and Frank Nitti’s financial and physical help, Browne ran for the presidency of IATSE. A guy named William Bioff represented Capone and Nitti’s criminal interests out here, channeling money into the right pockets and laying big hurt on anybody who talked against Browne. In ‘thirty-four, they finally got Browne elected president. That meant Capone and Nitti controlled IATSE. With Capone’s blessings, George Browne starts cutting new deals with producers on an ad hoc basis. If a producer was willing to send a little vig to this thing of ours back East, then he got a sweetheart deal, got to make his movie on the cheap. The scam lasted almost five years till 1940, when the Shaw brothers got thrown out of power here in L. A. and a buncha reforming assholes took over. Then the cops and the D. A. finally shut it down. So what does this tell us?”
Shane shrugged again and sipped his Ballantine’s.
“It tells us that history can point us to the future. It also gives us an operational blueprint. If it could be done once, it can be done again. I bought the right people inside IATSE, and the ones who didn’t want to play took unscheduled vacations they ain’t comin’ back from. The election for the IATSE presidency was last month. I don’t have to tell you our candidate won. So now I can get you a cut rate on your movie because I’m in a position to make special deals.”
Shane wasn’t wearing a wire, so this heartfelt confession was lost in the wind.
“Hypothetically, even if I were to believe you, I still wouldn’t want to give up a percentage greater than its dollar-for-dollar value,” Shane said.
“Well, maybe to get this all started, I cut you a deal on this first film because you saved my life tonight and because I’m such a Michael Fallon fan. But you gotta look at this as more than just one movie. It’s a business proposition, and if you help me with one last piece of the puzzle, I’ll let you be part of it.”
“What piece is that?” Shane asked.
“Once I start cutting special deals, the union hotheads are gonna start bitching. They’ll go to the D. A., the D. A. goes to the cops, the cops start an investigation. That means the IATSE hard-liners will probably get a forensic audit from the city or state accounting office. Then I got a lot of troublesome legal and IRS tax bullshit. Maybe somebody I already bought down there gets jittery and decides to sell me out. Once that happens, I got the D. A. up my ass. See what I’m saying?”
“I see.”
“I been lookin’ for the right ‘rabbi’ to help me downtown.” Valentine took a sip of his champagne and smiled at Shane.
“By downtown, are we talking about the police department?”
“Let’s say we are. I’m thinkin’ maybe you might lead me to my inside man … or woman.”
“A cop who’ll take a bribe.”
“Only it needs to be someone up high enough to cut off an investigation once it starts to get troublesome.”
Shane sat there and pondered it. Of course they were both thinking of Alexa, but neither said her name.
“Would have to be somebody in administration,” Shane said, then took another sip of scotch. When he looked up, Valentine was staring at him.
“Let’s cut the shit,” the mobster said. “You willing to ask her?”
“Look, she’s upset with the department right now because of what happened to me, and because of the political backlash she’s getting on this gang war. I won’t deny she’s pissed, but taking a bribe … I don’t know.”
“You said you wanted to change careers? This could put you on top in showbiz,” Valentine said. “I’m not just talking about your Mike Fallon movie. You get your wife to cooperate, I’m talkin’ about a piece of my piece of the whole scam. A small but significant piece. And your wife gets paid for her risk. Let’s say we start with a hundred thousand in good-faith money just for her to say we all want to work something out. If nobody at the union squawks, and there’s no investigation, she doesn’t have to do anything and she still keeps the money. If there’s a problem, and she has to go into action and fix something, I can pay by the job or the year. If she shuts down the right investigation, maybe there’s half a mil in it for her.” He sat there staring at his glass of Taittinger, then looked up suddenly. “But there’s one big catch.”
Shane waited.
“If you go to her and ask her, and then she gets froggy and takes what I’m telling you to the OCB, or the D. A… . then I’ll pull out of L. A. and go back to Trenton, but I’ll be pissed, ‘cause a lotta time and money got wasted. This happens, you, your wife and kid—the whole Scully family—go for a deep-sea stroll on the bottom of the ocean. If you talk to your wife, you gotta control the outcome.”
After delivering this bone-chilling statement, Valentine just lounged there, looking at Shane, sipping his Taittinger vitamin cocktail.
“I can control Alexa. Lemme give it a shot.”
“Good.”
Now the doctor was heading across the deck toward them. “The bullet went through. I’ve stitched him up and given him antibiotics, but I want to take him to my hospital. I can’t get human plasma, of course, but I can give him intravenous saline for fluid loss. With bed rest and no complications, he should make it.”
Shane and Dennis carefully carried Gino back to the doctor’s car, then sat him up on the passenger side with the seat reclined. They watched as Doctor Seligman backed down the long drive on his way to an animal hospital with Valentine’s pet gorilla.
Chapter 24.
WISEGUY THEATER
This time on his way home Shane stopped at a mini-market and bought a six-pack of Amstel Light and a bag of tortilla chips. When he got back to North Chalon Road and let himself in, he was concerned that neither Chooch nor Alexa were home yet. It was after ten P. M., so he looked up the number of the library, dialed, then heard a recorded message announcing that they opened at seven and closed at nine.
Shane glanced out toward the backyard and saw Franco outside on the
pool deck, looking in through the sliding glass door. Shane and Alexa had decided to keep him inside for a few days to reacclimate him, but somehow the cat had gotten out. Shane unlocked the pool door and pushed it open. Franco rushed inside.
“Who let you out?” he asked.
Nobody should have been inside from the time he left the house with Gino, at around seven. That only left one answer…
Shane went to the garage, took the LAPD 2300 Frequency Finder out of his trunk, and brought the unit inside. It had a battery pack, as well as a long, retractable cord. He inserted the plug, then began his sweep in the living room.
The first bug he found was in the phone receiver; it was the size of half an aspirin tablet. Shane found a second bug under a lampshade.
In the bedroom there were two more: one in the desk phone, another taped to the back of the headboard. A fifth bug was in the kitchen above the air vent; a sixth, hidden in the den.
Filosiani had called it right.
Shane opened a beer, then went out the front door to sit on the curb. He pulled out his phone and dialed Chooch’s cell first. He got the “subscriber is outside the area” recording, then tried Alexa, who answered on the second ring.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“About a block from Chalon Road.”
“Pick me up, I’m sitting out front.”
He walked inside, got her a beer, then returned to the curb just as Alexa pulled up in her dark brown police-issue Crown Vic. Shane climbed in and pointed toward the end of the block.
“Where we going?” she asked.
“Tell you in a minute. You know where Chooch is?” “Library.”
“Closed an hour ago.”
“Listen, Shane, he’s seventeen. We lifted his curfew. He’s supposed to be growing up, managing his own life. There’re lots of times he gets home late. We’ve gotta let him have some room.”
“Honey, his phone is off and I’m scared to death he’s gonna get dragged into this gang case you’re working.” He pointed to the curb. “Here’s good.”
She pulled over and stopped the car. He handed her a beer.
“Why are we having happy hour in my car?”
“House got bugged.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Then he told her what had happened, and how he had spent the evening.
She listened until he finished, then pulled the tab on her beer. It chirped loudly in the car. Alexa downed half the can at once. She drank beer like a guy. It was just one of the hundreds of little things Shane loved about his wife.
“Of course, you know if you’d let that happen, we’d all be out of the movie business by now,” Alexa said. Shane nodded but said nothing.
“You report the shooting at the Pompadoro to the detectives downtown?” she asked.
“My cell isn’t working too good in this weather,” he hedged.
“Pretty pathetic, Shane.”
“Okay, look. I’ve been kinda busy.”
“What about Parelli, you think he’s still alive, or is he L. A.‘s newest one eighty-seven?”
“Far as I know, he’s still breathing. But Alexa, we don’t want to report it. I’m next to Valentine now. If this investigation goes wide and Dennis gets sucked in, my cover gets blown.”
She nodded, then finally turned to face him. “Okay, I’ll handle the chief. Don’t report anything.”
“Good.”
“You have any idea who made that phone call at the restaurant, lured you outta the way?”
“I been trying to dope that out. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far… .”
Alexa remained silent.
“Since it was Emes in that work car, it had to be Amac’s hit,” Shane started, “one of his vatos probably cased the restaurant to position Valentine for the shooters. The scout could have been at Paradise Square and saw me when they took me to meet Amac. He calls Amac, and says I’m in there. Amac calls me to the phone to get me outta the way.”
Alexa looked over at him and took another long swig on the beer. “I guess it could have gone down that way,” she said. “So, if Amac is trying to clip Dennis Valentine, I guess we know what that tells us.”
“Tells us Valentine’s probably the one organizing the Crips and Bloods, and importing the White Dragon?”
“Could these two cases really be interrelated?” she speculated, her brow furrowed in doubt. “In police work, the first rule is never trust a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence. Valentine moves to L. A. with his uncle’s blessing. But do you really think they’re only gonna do this showbiz deal, or is Dennis also gonna open up all the traditional mob rackets: drugs, guns, prostitution, porno?”
“He’d try and control everything,” Alexa said.
“Right. So that means we gotta figure there’s a good chance Valentine is behind your drug war. The timing makes sense. He shows up, Stone dies, Crips and Bloods unite to distribute heroin, then White Dragon samples hit the street. You said the DEA would have picked up a Mexican or Colombian smuggler, but they didn’t, so maybe it’s the Italians. So it follows that if the Emes know Valentine’s supplying the black gangs with drugs, they would want to clip him.”
Alexa finished her beer in three giant swallows, then crumpled the can and dropped it on the seat between them. “Welcome to my case.”
“Hey, we’re a great team. Even when we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, we score.”
“No shit … we’re the best …” She smiled. “The rubber gun squad.”
“Your call,” Shane said. “I still work for you.”
“I guess we go back to the house and put on a show for the bent noses.”
They parked her car in the garage and went inside. Shane gave her another beer, took a second one for himself, then walked her around the house, silently pointing out the bugs. She nodded at each one, then pointed at him and mimed grinding a camera—show time.
She went to the front door, opened it, then slammed it loudly.
“Hi, honey. Where’ve you been?” Shane called out. Alexa walked into the living room.
“Those pricks downtown! I swear I’d like to shoot that fucking Filosiani,” she said.
They both moved over to the bugged lamp in the living room. Alexa sat near it, but Shane started moving around the room to change the sound density on the mike. He’d heard tapes on hundreds of bugs and they were never clean recordings.
“Whatta you expect?” Shane said, roaming around, picking up a magazine, then dropping it. “Y’know it’s all politics down there.”
“Right. I’m busting my ass and all I’m getting is grief. Did you read that horrible article in yesterday’s Times?” she asked.
“Yeah, saw it after you left. Pathetic.”
“Sometimes I just want to pull the pin. Get the hell out, like you did,” Alexa fumed.
Shane crossed to her and sat. “Listen, I met a guy tonight, a guy nobody in our Organized Crime Bureau even knows is in town.”
“Do we need to discuss this now?” She sounded bored. “I’m really tired.”
“Yeah, we do. Our OCB spotters shoulda picked him up at LAX, but he slipped in here. Your hotshot goomba squad missed him completely. He’s a made guy from the East Coast.”
“Just what I need. Now I gotta deal with some vacationing wiseguy while I got all this other shit to contend with.”
“He’s not on vacation. He’s in town to set up a new business.”
“Who is he?”
“If I tell you, you gotta promise it stays with us. I don’t want this going to OCB.”
Alexa remained silent. They both waited patiently, then Alexa cleared her throat. “Just tell me; let’s not play this game.”
So Shane gave her a glowing account of Dennis Valentine: telling her how smart he was, how careful, and how he was intending to take over IATSE. He ran through it point by point, leaving nothing out.
When he finished, Alexa was quiet for almost a mi
nute. “If he tries to organize a labor union, I can promise, we’ll shoot it down—fast!” she exclaimed.
“Honey, stop thinking like a cop for a minute. This is a chance to get rich. He offered me a piece of his scam. He’ll make us partners. If he pulls it off, it’s worth a fortune.”
“You think he can really do that? Take over IATSE? How much can that be worth?” She sounded both amazed and skeptical at the same time. Alexa, like most cops, was a superb actor.
“What if, tomorrow, I handed you a hundred thousand in cash for just having a meeting with him and saying you’re willing to think about it?”
“A hundred thousand to just think about it? You’re kidding.”
“I’m telling you, this guy is for real. He’s serious.”
“A hundred thousand for just talking to him?”
“All he wants now is for us to agree to agree. Once he starts cutting special deals with producers and studios, he’s afraid some union guy will squawk. Then it could go to the D. A. for an investigation. If it does, all he wants is for you to put the right guy on it. A guy we can control.”
“You’re serious?”
“Honey, this is our little winery and restaurant in Mill Valley. This is all our dreams answered; a chance at a peaceful, normal life away from all that glass-house bullshit.”
She finally said, “I’m not saying I’m absolutely gonna do it, but I think we should hear him out. Why don’t you call him back and set something up?”
They left the room and went out to the pool; Franco trailed along behind them. They sat on the pool deck sofa and Shane put his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, while Franco licked his paws, cleaned his face, and watched.
Shane’s mind was lasering over his myriad of problems.
Chooch was now exposed to Valentine as well as to Amac. Shane was worried about that and was slowly becoming very depressed over it. He wished the boy would come home so he could hold and hug him. He wished he could send his son away to protective custody until this was all over.
Hollywood Tough (2002) Page 17
