Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

COPP

IN THE

DARK

Don Pendleton

A Joe
Copp
, Private Eye Novel

by the creator of

The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series

Reviews of Don Pendleton’s Joe
Copp
, Private Eye Series

Kirkus
Reviews:
 
“Pendleton is the master.”

Publishers Weekly:
 
“Reads like an express train...a throwback to the vintage
Spillane
years...Pendleton knows how to keep us turning pages.”

St. Petersburg Times:
 
“Pendleton has a great new character in
Copp
.
 
His style is fresh, the pace is brisk, and there are enough twists to please any mystery fan.”
  

Library Journal:
 
“Pendleton, author of the long-running paperback Executioner series, shows in his first hardcover that hardboiled writing can be insightful as well as action-packed.”

Milwaukee Sentinel: “Pendleton is a master of action and dialog and ‘
Copp
’ is a taut detective story.”

Booklist:
 
“Action filled...
Copp
is a likable tough guy...An exciting, satisfying read.”

Flint Journal:
 
“Pendleton proves again he is the equal of Mickey
Spillane
when it comes to the hard-boiled mystery.”

ALA Booklist:
 
“This is the real thing, the hardcover debut of the author of the perennially popular ‘Executioner series’...the charm of the Executioner books.”

Books by Don Pendleton

Fiction

The Executioner, Mack Bolan Series

The Joe
Copp
Mystery Series

Ashton Ford Mystery Series

Fiction with Linda Pendleton

Roulette

Comics by Don and Linda Pendleton

The Executioner, War Against the Mafia

Nonfiction Books by Don Pendleton

A Search for Meaning From the Surface of a Small Planet

Nonfiction Books by Don and Linda Pendleton

To Dance With Angels

Whispers From the Soul

The Metaphysics of the Novel

The Cosmic Breath

Copp
in the Dark

All Rights Reserved © 1990 by Don Pendleton

Published with permission of Linda Pendleton.

Originally published by Donald I. Fine, Inc

ISBN: 1-55611-210-6

First Kindle Edition, February 2010

Donald I. Fine, Inc. First Printing Hardcover, 1990.

First
HarperPaperbacks
printing, 1992

BackinPrint/iUniverse
Edition, 2000.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Linda Pendleton and Judy Bullard

For all the splendidly talented people everywhere who keep live theater alive and well, and who give so much to so many for so little. Please keep on.

                                                         
dp

“... And the world will be better for this, That one man, scorned and covered with scars, Still strove, with his last ounce of courage, To reach the unreachable stars!"

—Song lyric, "The Impossible Dream" ("The Quest")

Special thanks to George Champion, masterly voice of La
Mancha
on the Southern California stage, for his insights and valuable counsel

COPP

IN THE

DARK

CHAPTER
ONE

I heard a rustling movement and knew that someone had sat down behind me in the darkened lounge, but I had no other clues until she spoke in a soft little whisper almost at my ear. "Thank you for being so understanding."

I understood nothing. The place had been closed for over an hour. A door had been left open for me at the far side of the building and I'd found my way along a maze of dimly lit corridors to keep an appointment in the dark with a person I'd never met. I had come out of simple curiosity, responding to a murky message left on my telephone answering machine and because the appointed place is at my edge of the L.A. area and I had nothing else to do at three
a.m
. anyway.

It's a luxury hotel complex complete with several fine restaurants, a dinner theater and a lounge, various other diversions, and I knew the place.

"Please don't turn around," whispered the voice in the dark. "If you do, I'll have to leave." Obviously my mysterious prospective client had been waiting for me in the dark, concealed somewhere inside, because I would

have seen her if she'd come in behind me from the softly
 
lighted foyer.

      
I shrugged—for my own benefit, I guess—and said, Tm comfortable. What's up?"

      
"I want to hire you."

      
"I gathered as much. For what?"

      
"What do you charge?"

      
"Depends on what or who I have to do. What's the job?"

      
"I'm in the show," she whispered. "In the cast, I mean,
Man of La
Mancha
. At the dinner theater next door."

      
I knew about it. It had been a long run, held over twice. Saw it myself. I'm no critic but... I liked it. Mostly kids trying to get a start in professional theater but a lot of talent and enthusiasm to make up for the lack of experience.

      
That's a problem?" I asked her.

      
"Well, it's getting to be. A lot of strange things... I think one of the cast is...

      
I could almost see her in the mirrored wall but not quite, just a subtle shape in the darkness, an occasional movement of black on black as she tried to get her thoughts together.

      
I sighed and asked her, "Why the big mystery, kid? Just lay it out for me. What's the problem?"

      
"Well it's very delicate," she replied slowly, as though tasting her words carefully before letting them out. "And a lot is at stake. They're talking about keeping the cast together and taking this show on the road. A major booking agent is interested and the rumor is that several investors have come forward, so...”

      
"So what's the problem?"

      
"Look, a chance like this comes once in a lifetime. It's very important. To me and to a lot of other people."

      
"So I still don't-"

"I think someone is trying to kill our star."

"Come on."

"No, really, a lot of strange things have been happening."

I sighed again as I silently cussed myself for being lured out in the middle of the night by a theatrical imagination. "I get five hundred a day plus expenses," I said heavily. "So how much of my time can you afford?"

She slid a long white envelope over my shoulder as she replied, "We took up a collection. There's a thousand dollars here. Well get more as we need it."

I turned around at that point, struck my lighter and peered at her in the flickering light as I asked, "Why all the mystery?"

She was trying to cover up, leaning back from the flame of the lighter with both hands at her face, in obvious alarm and suddenly very angry. "Put that out!"

I had only a glimpse, a brief impression of dark beauty and flashing eyes, before she knocked the lighter from my hand and ran out.

I was cussing out loud as I found the lighter and lit it again. The envelope was lying on my table and, yeah, ten one-hundred dollar bills were inside it.

I should have walked away and left it there but I wasn't sure she'd be back and I didn't want a wasted collection from hardworking kids on my conscience so I put it in my pocket and retraced my steps through the maze to the outside door, intending to return the money at the next performance of
La
Mancha
.

Someone trying to kill their star! It's a tough business, I knew that, and I could understand the anxieties when that "once in a lifetime" break seems to be materializing, but I also knew that kids like these sometimes become so

steeped in drama that they can lose touch with the real world—and I just wasn't buying the melodrama.

But then I stepped outside and instantly changed my mind about all that.

A gun boomed from somewhere among the parked cars and a bullet plowed into the bricks beside my head. I reacted instinctively, diving for cover behind the low wall of a walkway and staying as flat as I could get while five more sizzling rounds powdered the cement above me, all entirely too close for any kind of comfort. An engine kicked somewhere out there and a car tore away on screaming rubber while I was still cowering in the dust.

There was no thought of pursuit. I don't routinely wear a gun and I didn't even have one in my car.

I was just glad to be alive and still healthy.

Totally in the dark, sure, but reaching toward the light with all the brain I had left.

It was to be a damned long and painful reach... through melodrama to end all melodrama . . . and through a darkness unlike any I'd ever known. My name is Joe
Copp
. I've already heard all the wise remarks about the name, so spare me. I have been a cop of one kind or another all my adult lifetime and I'm crowding forty. I should have learned by now, you're saying, how to do it right and stay out of trouble. Maybe so, but I guess I never had that as my first priority. As a result, I bounced around a lot, one detail to another, one force to another—maybe trying to find superiors who'd be willing to let me do the job my way. Never did, so recently I've been my own boss, a private businessman,
Copp
for Hire—but not that much has changed, I still have a tough time doing it my way.

Like this case.

      
It started in the dark and damn near ended there. Pull up a chair, if you have a minute, and 111 tell you about it. Ever dream the impossible dream, like the man from
La
Mancha
? Ever hold one in your trembling hands and know that it's suddenly becoming very possible? Ever willing to
kill
for it?

      
Some people are.

      
Oh yeah. Some people would kill for that dream.