Counting to Infinity

by J. L. Abramo

  Chandler filled both glasses, handed one to me, took a seat on the other folding chair, and unceremoniously began.

  Harry Chandler’s career as a private detective started immediately after Harry rearranged his captain’s facial features at Parker Center. Chandler’s credentials as an exceptional investigator helped him, but his reputation as a Boy Scout didn’t. Harry had no lack of work, but it was not the challenging and lucrative sort of work that might have come from more questionable sources had he not been perceived as squeaky clean.

  Chandler soon found himself working cases with Jimmy Pigeon before Jimmy moved his operation from Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

  Chandler also spent a good deal of time working pro bono for himself, trying to nail the city councilman slash mayoral candidate who had contributed to Harry’s fall from grace with the brass at the LAPD. Harry’s efforts resulted in a fine portfolio of photographs of the councilman and a high school cheerleader, which ended the man’s political career and sent him packing to sunny Arizona.

  Soon after, Chandler received a call from an attorney in Chicago offering a large sum of money for what seemed a fairly uncomplicated surveillance job, and Harry could only consider the offer to be just in the nick of time.

  So in the late spring of 1995, Harrison Chandler was retained by Max Lansdale.

  Lansdale claimed that his older brother, Randolph, was regularly making unexplained trips from Chicago to L.A. Max was worried that his brother might be involved with what he referred to as “unsavory characters of the Italian American persuasion.” Max insisted that he had no desire to create any serious problems for his brother; his only wish was to protect Randolph from possible legal trouble or worse.

  Harry watched the elder Lansdale’s movements in Los Angeles long enough to determine that Randolph’s business there, though perhaps stretching the limits of the law a bit, did not involve ethnic gangsters. Chandler reported his findings to Max Lansdale, who seemed satisfied and thanked and paid Harry accordingly. All might have been over between Harry and the Lansdale brothers except for the fact that on one of his visits to meet face-to-face with Max, Harry came cheek to cheek with Carla Rosario.

  And later came nose to nose with Phil Cochran of the Chicago Sun-Times.

  Cochran had been looking into the recent passing of Simon Lansdale. His interest was piqued by an anonymous phone call suggesting that even at the ripe age of eighty-five, the old man’s death in his sleep might not have been entirely natural. Cochran’s investigation included a short interview with Carla Rosario, who claimed to have nothing to offer. When Chandler heard, from Carla, about Cochran’s inquiries, Harry’s overpowering detective instincts kicked into gear. He made contact with the reporter and together they began snooping around. They agreed that there was a very good chance that the tip to Phil Cochran had come from Max Lansdale. Max may have felt that his brother Randolph was a little tired of waiting for the old man to check out and leave Randolph at the helm. Perhaps, though Chandler had found no evidence, Randolph Lansdale was in bed with the Italians and needed his father out of the way to consummate the marriage. Partly for the sheer love of the game, and partly to protect Carla Rosario from any danger working for a murderer could put her in, Harry Chandler began a quiet examination of the circumstances surrounding Simon Lansdale’s uninterrupted sleep.

  Chandler was able to dig up a few pieces of purely circumstantial evidence. It was established that Simon Lansdale was alone in the house on the night he expired in his sleep, his wife being out of state at a Giancana family get-together that Simon had elected to avoid. Harry also discovered that old man Lansdale had been given a clean bill of health by his physician just two days before his death. The Chicago Police Department, after a cursory investigation, dismissed both these points as immaterial. There was no evidence whatsoever that any other person had been inside the house between the time Simon’s wife left him at home late that afternoon and the time his body was discovered the following morning by the housekeeper. The official line was that Simon had simply run out of steam.

  Cochran and Chandler weren’t convinced. Cochran put word out on the street through his many contacts that there would be a handsome reward to anyone who had information placing another person at the scene that night, and a few days later a call came in to his office at the newspaper. A neighbor, who had been walking his dog on the night Simon passed away, claimed to have seen a man leave Lansdale’s home after two that morning. The neighbor felt fairly certain that it was one of the sons, but couldn’t say which one. Cochran and Chandler set up a meeting with the caller, to take a signed statement and deliver the promised reward. The caller, who had never identified himself, failed to show up for the rendezvous and never contacted Cochran again.

  A week later the investigation was stone cold.

  Chandler took a breather from his narrative to refresh our drinks. He pulled a small black and white kiddie-ride car in the likeness of Snoopy over to his chair and used it as a footstool after retaking his seat. He quietly sipped his bourbon and seemed to slip away into thought.

  I brought him back with the obvious question.

  “So, then what happened?” I asked.

  “Cochran lost his patience and jumped the gun with the story, alleging this and that,” said Chandler. “A few days later he was out of a job and a few days after that he was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Dematerialized.”

  “And?”

  “And by then,” Chandler said, “Carla was fired and I assumed she was safely out of danger, so I lost interest. And I thought I had left the Lansdale brothers to their own devices forever until Max called me in L.A. to warn me that his brother was badly overreacting to the loss of Carla’s affections. And then the bomb went off, and when I came to all I could think about was killing Randolph Lansdale.”

  Chandler suddenly jumped up from his seat, knocking Snoopy for a loop. He pulled a large gun from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and pointed it, I hoped, over my head. I nearly chipped a tooth on my bourbon glass. I instinctively went for my own gun but my reach wasn’t long enough, since the .38 was where I had left it, four hundred miles away in the glove compartment of Willie Dogtail’s pickup truck. Chandler stared past me to the door I had entered, knitting his eyebrows into a straight line. When he opened his mouth to speak, I expected to hear him say something like Go ahead, make my day.

  “Did you hear something out there?” he asked.

  I really hadn’t.

  “No,” I said.

  “Sit tight,” he said, walking slowly to the door.

  It would be no problem; I was tight as a drum.

  Chandler reached the door and slowly opened it. He stuck his gun and his head out into the landing. Then he left the room.

  I thought about trying to squeeze myself into the tiny red Volkswagen.

  A few moments later, Chandler returned. He sat down in his chair, righted Snoopy, and made himself comfortable again, putting the handgun on top of the dog’s black and white fiberglass head.

  “You left the door open,” I cleverly noted.

  “It’s harder to sneak up on an open doorway,” he said. “Where was I?”

  “Ready to waste Randolph Lansdale,” I said.

  “By the time we made it to Chicago and to Lansdale’s office, Joe Clams had calmed me down considerably. Joe had lost a sister, and it had him twisted in knots, but Joe was always much more levelheaded. When I walked into Randolph Lansdale’s office it was with the intention of wiping the floor with him until I could get a confession, and then turning him in to the LAPD. I found him behind his desk, slumped in his chair with a bullet hole in his temple. The gun on the floor at his feet belonged to me. I had thought the gun had been lost in the explosion, but apparently it had been taken from my apartment when the bomb was placed. I scooped up the gun and left the office, and we beat it back to Los Angeles. I talked it out with Ray Boyle and we agreed that no one was going to believe that Ran
dolph Lansdale had killed himself with my weapon.”

  “So?”

  “So, what may have been a suicide became a first-degree murder. With my name written all over it. Ray Boyle, Joe Clams, and Jimmy Pigeon helped me disappear.”

  “What happened to the weapon?”

  “I left it with Ray.”

  “Did he check it for prints?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he found only yours.”

  “Did he tell you that?” asked Chandler.

  “I guessed,” I said, “and I don’t suppose Randolph was wearing gloves when he shot himself.”

  “No gloves. I may inadvertently have wiped it clean.”

  “It was great timing, Randolph putting one in his head just before you and Joe Clams arrived.”

  “Perfect timing,” Chandler agreed.

  “So maybe someone else killed Randolph, someone who knew that you were on your way there.”

  “Ray Boyle and I strongly considered the possibility,” Chandler said, “but we had no way to prove it, and I had no choice but to vanish. And no matter how Randolph Lansdale bought it, at least the bastard paid for Carla’s death.”

  “It wasn’t Randolph Lansdale who had the bomb planted in your apartment.”

  “Do you know that as a fact?”

  “Randolph had no motive; he was over his obsession with Carla. Randy was all set to tie the knot with his receptionist.”

  “Maybe he was afraid that I’d found something concrete to link him to his father’s death?” Chandler suggested.

  “If you’re looking for facts, I can’t help you. I’m not a rocket scientist. But I can tell you what I suspect. Randolph Lansdale had nothing to do with his father’s death. He worshipped the old man. I believe that it had to be Max all the way. Max who was seen that night leaving his father’s house. Max who killed Simon Lansdale. Max who was afraid that once you teamed up with Cochran, you might prove it. Max who had someone like Ralph Battle put a bomb under your bed and snatch your gun on his way out. Max who was reestablishing ties with organized crime, and needed his father and his brother out of the way. Max who was already planning to take Randolph out of the picture before he ever hired you. Max Lansdale began setting his brother up by hiring you in the first place. By casting suspicion on his brother’s business dealings, allegedly dangerous dealings with organized criminals. By raising questions about the circumstances of his father’s death with an anonymous call to Cochran, not expecting that you would get on the case. And ultimately by feeding you the bull story about Randolph’s mental instability over losing Carla’s affection. And when you survived the bombing, Max realized the perfect scenario. Max Lansdale knew that you would be hot for vengeance, so he waited and watched. And when he knew that you were on your way to Chicago, Max put one into his brother’s head with your gun, or had Battle do it, just in time for your arrival. And when you went down in a shoot-out with the LAPD, Max was home free. Lansdale may have had some minor worries about Joe Clams popping up again, but he wasn’t losing sleep over it, so he simply kept an eye out. But then Max learned that you were still alive and he felt the foundation tremble, and now he’s looking to put you and Clams under the ground once and for all. Not to mention what he has in mind for me. How did Lansdale find out that you were still breathing?”

  “Max Lansdale knew I was alive because I contacted him after Ray Boyle found the note from Jimmy Pigeon,” Chandler said. “Jesus, now I understand why Max seemed so eager to pay me off.”

  “Oh?” I said, then took a healthy gulp from my glass.

  Harry began to reach inside his suit jacket just as my cell phone rang. I grabbed for the phone with my free hand and hit the talk button as Chandler pulled an envelope from his inside pocket.

  “Hold on,” I said into the cell phone. “Harry, was there a silencer on your weapon when you grabbed it from the floor of Lansdale’s office?”

  The roar of a gunshot filled the room, and Chandler went down hard.

  I dropped the cell phone, spun around, and hurled the glass blindly in the direction of the doorway. I heard the shattering of the glass as I ducked behind a pile of yellow duck cars, and I heard something other than shattered glass drop to the floor, bounce once, and roll toward me.

  Three more shots were fired in my direction; both the cell phone and Harrison Chandler’s weapon were out of my reach.

  A concert of shouting and general commotion began in the restaurant below, and I could hear the intruder bound down the stairs toward the alley. The object the shooter had dropped rolled to a stop a foot from Chandler’s body.

  It was a metal ball, the size of a large marble.

  Twelve

  I counted silently to sixty before I considered coming out from behind my kiddie-car barricade.

  While I counted, I listened for any sound indicating that the shooter was still on the landing or on the stairs. I heard none. I looked at Chandler’s body for any sign of life. There was none. Harry Chandler lay on the floor, inanimate as the metal ball that had rolled to a stop at his feet. I pictured Ralph Battle running from the scene, clutching the matching metal ball in his sweaty palm. I stood up and went to Chandler’s lifeless body.

  I pulled the envelope from his hand and was slipping it into my inside jacket pocket when I heard the first of the police sirens coming nearer. Without additional thought, I scooped up the metal ball and dropped it into my pants pocket. I ignored the gun Harry had set on Snoopy’s head and moved to retrieve my cell phone. As I reached down to pick it up, I could hear Darlene yelling my name from the other end of the line.

  “Calm down, Darlene,” I said into the phone.

  “Jesus, Jake, are you okay? Were those gunshots?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Harry Chandler was killed. I must have been followed.”

  “Probably not,” said Darlene. “That’s why I called. Tom Romano phoned to check on me and heard something on the line that led him to believe the phone was bugged. Someone may have come in when we were down in Santa Monica. Whoever killed Chandler knew about the meeting time and place the moment Chandler set it up. I called Lieutenant Lopez when I heard the shots; she’s on her way over there.”

  “I can hear the police cars coming,” I said.

  “Did you see the shooter?”

  “No, but I have a good idea who it was.”

  “Who, Jake? And if he knew where to find Chandler, why did he wait so long to start shooting?”

  I heard the door to the alley being opened, followed by movement and voices on the stairs.

  “I have some ideas about that too, but I can’t talk now. Get out of the office, go home. I’ll call you later and fill you in.”

  “Jake.”

  “Go,” I said, and ended the connection.

  I put my arms straight up into the air just as Lopez entered, closely followed by my old friend Sergeant Johnson and two uniformed officers. All had their weapons drawn.

  “You interrupted my dinner, Diamond,” Lopez said after telling the others to stand down.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, I lost track of the time.”

  Lopez sent the two officers down to the alley entrance with orders to keep everyone out except the examiners.

  “Sergeant Johnson, please check the body and call in the medical examiner and the crime scene unit,” Lopez said. “Diamond, let’s take a walk.”

  I brushed past Johnson as I crossed to trail Lopez to the stairs. Johnson gave me one of those looks that he had mastered so well, the one that made little daggers shoot out of his eyes. Down at the green metal door, Lopez said a few words to the uniforms and then she motioned for me to follow her down the alley.

  “Who’s the corpse, Diamond?” Lopez asked.

  “Harrison Chandler.”

  “Who put him down?”

  “I couldn’t see the shooter, Lieutenant,” I said. “I was busy ducking for cover.”

  “Uh-huh. Did you disturb any evidence, Diamond?”

  My right hand was d
eep in my pants pocket, rolling the metal ball between my fingers. The envelope inside of my jacket felt as if it were burning a hole in my chest.

  I tried to sound indignant.

  “Of course not, Lieutenant,” I said.

  Lopez abruptly stopped walking, and I saw that we were at her car.

  “Get in, Diamond. I prefer doing my grilling at the station.

  “Lopez opened the passenger door and I climbed in. She went around the car and slid in behind the wheel.

  “My Chevy is up on Frederick,” I said.

  “There’s a pencil and paper in the glove box,” Lopez said. “Write it down so you don’t forget where you left it.”

  “Mind if I call Darlene?” I asked, letting go of the metal ball and reaching for my cell phone.

  “Make it fast,” Lopez said.

  I caught Darlene on her way out of the office.

  “Jesus, Jake, where are you?”

  “On my way to Vallejo with the lieutenant.”

  “Are you under arrest?”

  “Am I under arrest, Lieutenant?” I asked Lopez.

  “Not yet.”

  “Darlene, the Impala is at Masonic and Frederick. Can you get over there to pick it up?”

  “Sure. I’ll grab a taxi.”

  “Pick me up at the police station.”

  “I’ll see you down there,” she said.

  I ended the connection just as we headed into the Broadway tunnel.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting face-to-face across a long oak table in an interrogation room at the Vallejo Street Station. The room had all the ambience of a post office break room. I wanted a cigarette badly, but not enough to bother Lopez about locating an ashtray.

  “Don’t you think we’d be more comfortable in your office, Lieutenant?” I asked.

  “If I had comfort in mind I would have stayed at the small, candlelit French bistro sipping chardonnay and had Sergeant Johnson torture you himself,” said Lopez.

  “Gosh, I hope I didn’t break up a romantic moment.”