Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (8 page)

Chapter Ten
 

I HAVE A friend at County, a true friend. Her name is Edna Sorensen. She is about five feet tall and five feet around,
fiftyish
, and I am in love with her. Edna is one of the most thoroughly nice people I have ever known.

      
Her kid got into the drug scene a few years back. Nice kid but too impressionable at an impressionable age. She discovered privately that he was dealing coke to his friends at school in order to support his own expensive habit.

      
I was with the department then and she came to me for advice. I took the kid in hand and helped him straighten himself out. He's now in his third year at UCLA and it looks like he'll be graduating with honors.

      
Edna and I have been friends ever since. I see her rarely since I left the department, but a week does not go by without her calling and chatting. Also a chat does not go by without her reminding me of her gratitude for the thing with the kid.

      
Well, I actually did not do all that much, and I never considered what I did do as a quid pro quo. Edna owes me nothing and I had yet to ask a favor of her.

      
But I did badly need a friend at this point and I needed one with Edna's encyclopedic knowledge of people and events at County. She's a supervisor in the personnel division, and what she doesn't know has not been recorded.

      
So I went calling on Edna at twenty minutes past midnight on that Thursday morning. I know her husband
Nils
only very slightly; he works for the county, too, but in the parks department. Nice man, soft-spoken, a bit old- worldly. Got them both out of bed and both seemed honored that I had done so.

      
Nils
put on the coffee while I went through the preliminaries with his wife at the kitchen table.

      
I told her, "I don't want you to tell me anything that would compromise you."

      
She replied, "I understand perfectly."

      
I told her, "I'm like fighting in the dark without a flashlight."

      
She said, "I understand. You need a light."

      
"That is exactly what I need, Edna. But not at your expense. Tell me that you understand that."

      
"I understand that, Joe. How can I help you?

      
"A newly made detective named Ed Jones came over from the reserves recently. He's now riding shotgun for Gil Tanner, San Gabriel Division. I need a make on this guy."

      
She pursed her lips, looked at her husband, then told me, "I know that one. He has PI."

      
"PI meaning political influence."

      
"Who is his sponsor?"

      
She again looked at her husband before saying, "Jim Davitsky."

      
Davitsky is one of our more colorful county supervisors. Very rich, very powerful even before his election to the board several years ago. People are always asking, "What does Jim need with the county?" Jim's answer to that, of course, is that the county needs him. He dines at the White House, this guy. I think he has an eye on Sacramento and the governor's mansion—and maybe beyond.

      
I took a moment to digest that bit of news, then asked Edna, "What's the connection between Jones and Davitsky?"

      
"Jim is his uncle," she said without bothering to check it with her husband.

      
"I see." I saw, indeed. "Anything improper about Jones's appointment?"

      
She looked to her husband for a long moment.

He told her, very quietly, "Coffee in a minute, dear. Give the man what he needs."

      
She turned back to me, fidgeted with the plastic tablecloth for a moment, sighed and told me, "I think it was improper influence, yes. Ed Jones has a cloud in his past. Another man with his record would not be with the department."

      
"What's that cloud, Edna?"

      
She shook her head. "Don't know for sure. Something to do with army service. He was with the military police in Germany. An administrative review board turned him down when he first applied for the reserve program. That review is confidential and sealed. It would take a court order to open it. But then he applied again a few months later and this time sailed through without a scratch. Then the military record came up again over his activation to full-duty status. I remember there was quite a row but I don't know all the details of that. I do know that Jim Davitsky personally intervened that time and the activation went through."

      
Nils
brought the coffee over and poured us each a cup. Ever drink Scandinavian coffee? You can chew it. I chewed mine and asked Edna, "What do you know about Gil Tanner?"

      
She made a face, flipped her coffee-cup with a finger.
"He's a bad cop, Joe."

      
"I know that from personal observation, but how do you know?"

      
"You should see his service record. No, on second thought, maybe you shouldn't. It would make a good cop like you throw up."

      
"Thanks for the vote but I need more than that if you can feed me."

      
She sighed again. "I don't recall all the details. But I can tell you that he has been charged with everything from brutality to dereliction of duty—and right now he's being reviewed on a gross misuse of office."

      
I looked at
Nils
, looked at her. "And what would that be?"

      
"Apparently he and some other detectives have formed a private company to provide industrial security services on the moonlight. It smells almost like a protection racket. They offer you their services but you don't need them. Very quick after you turn them down you suddenly need the services. The record suggests everything from fire bombings to burglary."

      
"That's pretty gross, yeah."

      
She added, "And one complainant was pistol-whipped by a masked intruder during a break-in. The man had refused their services that very day."

      
"How big is this, Edna?"

      
"Not too big right now, I guess. Seems to be centered mostly in your area at this time—"

      
"But it's under investigation?"

      
She nodded. "Tanner's group has been ordered to produce the records on all their accounts."

      
"Have you seen those records?"

      
"They haven't been produced yet. They claimed computer malfunction and requested a thirty-day stay."

      
I sat there and chewed coffee for a moment, then asked her, "Anything else?"

      
"Isn't that enough?"

      
"Ever hear anything about a joint in county jurisdiction called the New Frontier?"

      
She said, "Don't think so. What kind of joint?"

      
"Strip joint."

      
"Oh. One of those. I do vaguely remember something ...not the name but the kind... something a few months ago involving Jim Davitsky and a strip joint."

      
"Bingo. What do you remember about that?"

      
"That's all ... gossip, I think ... something about Davitsky and his hidden interest in these strip joints. I think it was several of them."

      
"Sounds farfetched, doesn't it. Why would a guy like Davitsky get involved in something like that? Not for the money . . ."

      
Nils
gave me a solemn wink. "Some men aren't always ruled by their pocketbooks."

      
"Very profound,
Nils
. What rules in place of money?"

      
"Vanity, power, love, sex. Not necessarily in that order."

      
Wisdom from the garden.

      
I said, "Bingo again. So which one of those, do you figure, would take a guy with high political aspirations into an involvement with strip joints?"

      
He replied in his quietly droll manner, "Surely not love."

      
Surely not. No. So that left vanity, power, and sex. With some men those three were interchangeable. And any one could produce murderous intent.

      
So what the hell did I have here now?

      
I had all three, pal. I had it all.

Chapter Eleven

THE FRAMING SPLINTERED away and the whole thing fell in under a single kick. I walked across the fallen door with the S&W leading the way and caught Tanner in his underwear in front of the TV, a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other, gawking at me in disbelief with his
gunleather
just out of reach on the floor beside him.

      
I kicked the hardware rig across the room and holstered my own piece, then took his cigar and his beer away from nonresistant hands and tossed both into the fireplace. I turned off the television; pointed a finger at him. "Stay!"—and went to check out the rest of the apartment. It was a small condo with a very cramped living room—hardly more than a wide hallway leading off to the kitchen and dining nook—one bedroom, one bath.

      
If a man's home is his castle, Gil Tanner was a monk. Except that I found a girl in the monk's bath. She'd just emerged from the shower—probably hastily, after hearing the commotion—and was reaching for a towel as I pushed the door open.

      
She froze; gave me a stunned look and nothing else.

      
I handed her the towel and nothing else, went back to the living room.

      
Tanner was being a good boy. Hadn't budged from the chair.

      
He was
shitface
scared. I stood over him. "Now we talk."

      
He swallowed around a lump in the throat and asked,
      
"What is this, Joe?"

      
"It's the end of it," I told him.

      
"End of what, Joe?"

      
"Today you resign."

      
"From the department? Joe! That's crazy! I'm sixteen months from retirement—"

      
"You didn't earn it, Tanner. Today you resign. And you tell Davitsky no more killings."

      
That appeared to do the trick.

      
"What?"

      
"Your little creep partner, too. Tell him no more killings. If you want a good reason for doing that, just keep this in mind—you will be the second to die. Right after him. Understand that? It's not a threat; it's a commitment."

      
I showed him my back and went to the shattered doorway. "What do you do with all your loot, Tanner? You live like pigs."

      
He did not respond; just gave me a glassy look.

I went on out and along the hall; encountered an old man in a security uniform who was just entering the building.

      
I smiled at him and he asked me. "What's all the disturbance?"

      
I told him, "Wild party back there, I guess. Naked women and all."

      
He muttered, "We'll by God see about that," and hurried on.

      
I went out to my car, took time to light a cigarette and wonder if anything had been accomplished, then took off. I had another stop not far away and wanted to get there ahead of my advertisements.

      
It was in one of the new townhouse developments just off Baseline. Very stylish and "in" with junior executives. Which includes, I guess, pizza parlor managers and young entrepreneurs cum deputy sheriffs such as Ed Jones. The "young family" evidence was everywhere, various types of wheeled toys scattered about. Not the sort of place where you'd like to introduce gunplay of any kind.

      
The one I was looking for had lighted windows; it was the only one around that did. Drapes were drawn so I could see nothing of the interior. But I could hear the murmur of a television late-night movie through the front door; sounded close to the door. I pushed the bell button and got a response about two beats later, as though someone had been standing just inside waiting for that very thing.

      
A peephole opened, an eye was there, and a woman's voice inquired, "Yes?" It sounded more like a
ya
than a yes, definitely accented..

      
I asked the peephole, "Is Ed home?"

      
The voice replied, "Who asks?"

      
I told it, "I'm Joe
Copp
. Working with Ed on a case. Has he come home yet?"

      
There was a brief hesitation. I could almost hear the woman's mind clicking along its gears. Then I heard the bolt move and the door inched open to reveal an intact safety chain and a two-inch-wide view of a young woman with a very unhappy face. She was wearing a bath-

robe, and she was either fat or pregnant.

      
I voted for pregnant and told her, "Nothing to worry. Sorry to bother you. Can I leave a message?"

      
"You are working with Ed?"

      
I replied, "Sort of, yes."

      
"He should've been home one hour ago. Do you work long with Ed?"

      
I was getting a drift and decided to play it. "A while, yeah. Can I leave the message?"

      
"Do you work the twelve-hour shift, too?"

      
I said, "Not usually."

      
This kid was very agitated. She said, "What means not usually? Sometimes yes, sometimes no?

      
I had the drift, yeah. I told her, "Well, you know a cop's work. It's never done. Okay if I come in just for a minute? I'd like to leave a message."

      
The door closed abruptly in my face. I heard the chain rattle, then the door opened again, wide.

      
Pretty kid. Very blond, very Nordic...and yeah, very pregnant. I guessed ninth month and ready to pop at any moment. Hell, it was two o'clock in the morning. This kid should have been getting her sleep, not tending the latch for a wandering husband. A Japanese monster movie was on the tube. A basket of knitting thread sat on the couch; she'd been building something for the baby, a nest outside for the grand opening.

      
I told her, and meant it, "I'm really sorry to bother you," as I moved inside.

      
She closed the door and turned to me with a tired smile. "It is okay. It is lonely. I do not mind. Are you still at work?"

      
I said yes because I felt for the kid, decided not to play a game. She brightened a bit at that, deciding maybe that if I were still at work, maybe her husband was too.

      
I told her, "Things have been rough lately. It will calm down soon." I gently touched the belly. "In time for junior, maybe. How much longer?"

      
She rubbed it. "Soon now. Do you need pad?"

      
I produced my own notebook and pen as I told her, "Thanks, no. Do you miss Germany?"

      
She showed me a smile. "Yes. But here is beautiful, this California. I will get accustomed—used."

      
She'd already been used but I didn't want to tell her that. I had the pen in position at the pad when I casually inquired, "Was Ed with the MPs when you guys got married?"

      
"Yes," she replied. "We are married now two years."

      
I said, "Beautiful. And baby makes three."

      
She smiled. "Yes. Baby makes all things better."

      
I hoped so, but figured not. "Raw deal he got, huh? I mean, you know, the trouble in Germany."

      
She said, "Yes."

      
I said, "I never got the straight of that."

      
She said, "Ed does not like to speak of it. One day he will tell you maybe."

      
I said, "Yeah," and jotted my note, tore it out, handed it to her.

      
She read it. "What means Learn to drive?"

      
I told her, "Ed will understand. Just please see that he gets it the minute he comes home. Okay?"

      
She smiled brightly. "Okay. You did not put your name."

      
"He'll know that too. Why don't you go to bed? Ed could be quite late tonight."

      
"Oh, I do not mind." She looked at the knitting.

      
"A baby makes all things better," I reminded her, feeling like a two-faced ass as I said it.

      
It would take more than a baby, I knew, to straighten out a guy like Ed Jones.

      
It might even take a bullet.

      
I hoped not as I bade the young lady goodnight.

      
It was not a good night.

      
But, by God, it was getting better all the time.