Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series) (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I woke up first in the trunk of a moving car. I was hogtied and had the taste of blood in my mouth, my eyes were matted with it dry and sticky, and I had a headache that could be described only with kettledrums and crashing cymbals. My ears rang. I welcomed the black waves that kept washing in on me.

So I guess I was in and out a lot, or maybe it just seemed a lot or it was mixed with dreams. There were a lot of people around, in and out, and voices tumbling about, all distorted in my ringing ears. I have memories—dreams or otherwise—of bouncing along a rough road in the trunk of a car, red-fogged visions of an Indian boy and a tall blond beauty, of the doggy boy, the VW, and distorted faces I thought I should recognize but didn't.

Maybe I actually saw a wheelchair somewhere, and I think for certain I saw the dry-wash ravine and felt myself sliding into it.

I heard a rattler and felt myself frying in the sun; I remember a group of dark-skinned people peering down at me and another Indian boy with a sweat- band around his head, and I felt the hands that lifted me up and carried me away.

The first lucid moment oriented me to the night sky through a window with no glass in it. I was lying on a makeshift bed. Two Indian women were sponging my body with a cool liquid. They shushed me when I tried to speak, and one of them went to get the men.

There were three of those, one very old and obviously in charge. He smiled at me and said, "Did you decide to keep the body?"

"Is it worth anything?" My voice was a croak.

"Only to you, I guess. Someone tossed it away like an empty skin. But it will mend, I think it will mend and walk again."

I said, "That's nice, I guess," and that's all I remember of that.

I woke up next time in muted daylight, covered with a light blanket and lying facedown, my face in some sort of soft yoke. Someone was doing things to the back of my head—sponging it with a liquid, I think. Whatever, it felt good. The ringing and the drums and cymbals were gone, but my mouth tasted like I'd gone to sleep with a dead mouse in it. I heard the murmur of voices outside or in another room.

I tried to lift my head, decided against it, but I guess the attempt provoked a response from my nurse. She moved quickly away, and again the old man came to see me.

He helped me turn over and sit upright, then gave me water—mixed with a little whiskey, I think. "You're fine, fine. Don't worry. You are in good hands. My granddaughters make excellent medicine and they attend you night and day. Am I mistaken or do you prefer this to an emergency room and curious policemen?"

      
It wasn't easy to talk but I told him, "I think you're right, grandfather. Unless there's a bullet in my head. Is there?"

      
"Oh I think it missed by maybe two of your hairs. Never mind, there are plenty of hairs left and they will grow over the ditch in your scalp. Do you have dizziness?"

      
Sure I had dizziness. "I appreciate what you've done, friend. But I've got to get moving as soon as I can. How soon would you say?"

      
"Tomorrow. Meanwhile, do not worry."

      
"What day is this?"

      
"This day is Sunday."

      
"Morning or evening?"

      
"Morning. You have been two nights with us."

      
"Am I on the reservation?"

      
"Yes."

      
"Don't you want to know how I got here?"

      
"Oh, we brought you here. My grandson saw them drop you into the ravine. Why they did that to you, it is your business not mine unless you want to make it mine."

      
I said, "This business you don't need, friend. And I need to take it off your doorstep. So if you'll just get my clothes and help me find my feet . . ."

      
Don't get the idea that I was in a tepee. The
Aguas
are not poor. They still own much of the developed land in the area and have kept the best for their
ownuse
. Landlords to the rich, if you will. Some of the Palm Springs incorporated areas are still Indian lands.

The kid who found me was only five years old. He and an older brother were playing and he was lying on top of a rock and scouting white-eyes when a shiny car appeared and "white people" pulled another gringo from the trunk and dropped him into a shallow ravine. I was bloody, powder-burned and I guess a scary sight to the kids, but they ran for help and the whole family responded.

Grandfather's name was Emilio, a fine gentleman in my book. The Indians have their own style of dignity. I'll take it over the corporate jungle anytime anywhere. These people still manage to have their feet on the earth and their hands in the stars, and they say that the human being is the natural conduit between the two. They think of themselves that way, I guess—especially those who still remember the old ways. I'll never argue with it.

The women had restored my clothes to almost good as new—even got the bloodstains out—and not an item was missing from my pockets. The
gunleather
was intact, pistol all cleaned and oiled, loaded and ready to fire. I had a burned groove in my lower scalp a quarter-inch wide and two inches long, clear to the bone and whittling a bit. The way Emilio described the wound when he first saw it, my gringo friends probably thought that the bullet had pierced the skull and jellied some brain tissue. They tossed me away to die, and maybe I would have anyway if the kid hadn't spotted me.

It took me all that day to get my walking legs back. Emilio and his sons drove me into town at sundown and we found the Honda just as I had left it two days earlier.
 
I thanked them again, we shook hands all around, they went back to the reservation.

      
I was still a bit light in the head but able to return to the scene of the crime. I parked the Honda in the driveway and rang the doorbell, got no response, went around and peered through the picture window, saw no signs of life in there; went to the office and made a gentle inquiry.

They had no Franklin in their complex, no Wiseman or Moore; I could get that much but no cross-reference by number, that was a no-no.

I didn't want to push my luck so I got the hell out. I still felt poorly and wanted the soft touch and gentle hands of an understanding woman; I wanted the sanctuary of Nancy Parker's apartment.

The drive back to L.A. was practically a meditation, punctuated by mental kicks in the ass and a growingly cynical attitude towards the human situation, the gringo humans anyway. But I knew I'd never make it as an Indian, the genes just aren't there, and besides I hate the fucking desert. Face it, I like where people are, great hordes of people all butting and shoving against one another, competing for the buck and for standing room on a growingly crowded planet—it's what I was born to.

I finally admitted to myself that I like it, and that by God nobody was going to shove me off of my turf. I lost my fear, in that moment of honesty, because I suddenly realized who I am.

I'm Joe
Copp
, by God I'm big and I'm mean and I can take care of business with the best of them. I'm just as smart and just as capable as any son of a bitch when I'm in my own, and I'm in my own when I'm doing what I know is right.

No son of a bitch is going to bleed my friends. Not as long as I have breath in the lungs and fire in the head.

I'm bad Joe
Copp
and I'm burning all over with the need to take it back to those of
sonofbitches
.

Fuck sanctuary, I wanted blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It required some fancy footwork but I ran down Abe Johnson's home address and presented myself to him at ten o'clock that night.

He stood framed in his open doorway, a big powerful-looking man with commanding shoulders that nearly filled the opening. He grabbed me and pulled me inside. "For God's sake, man, what are you doing here?"

I said, "Sorry to bring it home to you, Abe, but we've just got to talk."

I don't know how many emotions washed over that big black face as he stood there contemplating a fugitive in his living room. It was a modest ranch style in one of the newer subdivisions in the north valley, comfortably furnished and neat as a pin except for a kid's toy here and there. A playpen occupied the center of the room and a television murmured at us from somewhere out of view.

      
A child's voice yelled from the back. "Mummy ..."

      
I said, "God, Abe, I'm really sorry but—"

      
Angela came into the room and relieved the awkwardness. She looked great in a lounge robe and white socks, a bit thicker in the middle than I remembered but just as pretty. She said, "Abe—" then saw me and caught herself. "The kids want you to tuck them in."

      
He gave me a grim look and patted his wife's arm as he left the room.

      
I said, "You look great, Angie."

      
"Can't say the same for you, Joe. You look as usual. How long since you've been to bed? For sleeping, I mean."

      
That was a shot. I took it with a smile. "I'm really happy for you, mummy."

      
She smiled back. "I'm plenty happy enough for myself, but thanks. They're great kids."

      
"Have to be."

      
She came over and hugged me at the arms. "Joe, Joe—what's going to become of you? Still chasing dragons and tilting at windmills. Aren't you getting a little old for that kind of stuff?"

      
It had been a lot of years, but at that moment they were all wiped away. I kissed her forehead and she raised a hand to the back of my neck like she used to do. I winced and pulled away from that. She quickly dropped the hand. "My God, what's that you've got back there?"

      
"Small hurt," I told her. "It's healing."

      
Abe was back. He came over and pulled me around, checked out the damage.

      
"Headshot," I muttered. "Got lucky. It went around instead of through."

      
He said, "You need to get that to a doctor."

      
"It's been to the best," I assured him.

      
"Why isn't it bandaged?"

      
"It is bandaged. Nature's way, they said. Never mind that. We've got to talk."

      
"I'll put on some coffee," Angela said, and left us alone.

      
Abe asked me in a quietly furious voice, "How could you bring this here, Joe?"

      
"Had no place else to take it, Abe."

      
He took me back to the eat-in kitchen and we sat and stared at each other across the table while Angela banged around with a coffeepot. Presently he said, "Okay, start talking."

      
"You first," I said. "How'd you make out after that dumb-ass stunt on the telephone?"

      
"I've been reassigned," he replied soberly. "Community relations." He smiled, at something on my face, I guess, and added, "Pending a full review. It's okay, I think of it as a vacation. I'll be on sane hours for a while and maybe I'll get reacquainted with my kids. Now you."

      
"Still you. What's happening with the case?"

      
"I told you. I'm reassigned. Don't know and don't really care what's happening with the case."

      
Angela plugged in the coffeepot and left in response to another summons from the kids' bedroom. Abe's eyes followed her out, then he turned to me. "That's a good woman, Joe. We have her in common, you and me, both loved by Angela. Why does something like that always seem to drive men apart instead of bringing them closer together?"

      
I said, "I feel as close to you as any man I've ever known, and I don't really know you. And you went overboard for me, pal, without being asked. So I guess the logic doesn't apply to us."

"Sure it does. I don't really know you either, and I'm not even sure I like you. I don't like to look at you and get a picture of Angela lying in your arms. But I love her, and so I honor her love for others. I just want you to know, that's where you stand with me. Anything you get from me, you get because of Angela."

She came back in at that moment, caught us staring at each other and picked up on the feelings there, I guess. "You guys talking about me?"

Abe told her, "Now don't you have a high opinion of yourself . . . why would us two cops be discussing a tired old housewife going into middle-age spread?"

She made a mock swing at him and said from the doorway, "Watch the coffee. I'm watching TV."

He blew her a kiss, and that big beautiful smile faded as he turned back to me. "What I'm telling you, man, is that you're still affecting her life. So just how do you want me to play it?"

I stood up. "You've played it enough. I appreciate it, whatever the reason."

"Use the back door," he said.

He went out with me and we stood in the darkness back there. He told me, "They're still dying, Joe. That man Cassidy was blown out of his bed Saturday morning. Today they fished a body out of the Hollywood reservoir and it's been identified as a woman who worked for Justine Wiseman. Maybe Mrs. Wiseman is dead somewhere, too, because she's disappeared without a trace. What the hell is going on here?"

I replied, "You just said it, without a trace. That's what they're doing, removing all traces."

"What who is doing?"

"They. I don't have a real make on they yet. Is the dead woman a young Mexican girl?"

"No, a physical-fitness coach. She lived with—"

"Viking Woman," I said.

"Her name was
Hulda
Swenson. She lived with Justine Wiseman. Her mother was Bernie Wiseman's housekeeper."

My new wound was beginning to throb again. I told Abe: "I think Wiseman's still alive. I also think he stole fifty million from his company. I think Charlie and Melissa Franklin somehow helped him set it up. I don't think he had an accident in Mexico. I don't think he needs a wheelchair. I don't know who died in that blast, but I think the evidence was rigged. I think they rigged me into it partly to confuse the picture further. I think they headshot all those people as further confusion. To make it look like mob executions. People back East pulling strings, etcetera. I found a condo in Palm Springs where someone's been lying low. That's where I got shot. They thought I was dead or dying and dumped me in a desert ravine. That was Friday. Some Indians found me and doctored me. I knew from nothing until today."

"What's the address of that condo?"

I handed it to him on a slip of paper already made out. "I'm too hot to run a make. I thought maybe you could do that. Also try to get a line on a place down near San
Quintin
in Baja, supposedly owned or maybe leased by Wiseman. Melissa Franklin told me she spent the whole past year down there but I don't know, I sniff more staged confusion there. Charlie Franklin is deep into this, I don't know how dirty but certainly deep inside of it. He's the one led me to Palm Springs. There's another guy, posed as Wiseman's chauffeur the day they came out to my place. He's about the same general description as Albert Moore. I saw him at Justine's place on Thursday night, playing sex games for a party of gay women. If you've got another John Doe with a tag on the toe, you might try that connection—I'd say he's a hot candidate for it."

He commented, "You've been a busy boy."

I handed him another slip of paper. "These are license tags I jotted down in Justine's driveway Thursday night. The way they all ran, I'd guess a little discreet pressure would produce quick cooperation. Most of these women are probably married to important men who would shit and go blind if the truth came out."

"This was a gay party?"

"Yeah, your physical culturist acted like head dyke around there. I think probably Justine can go either way and switches with opportunity and mood. She's tough as nails, so—"

"Tell me about it," Johnson said.

I said, "That's all I have. Oh ... Butch Cassidy told me early Friday morning that his sponsors in New York were eager to make a deal with Wiseman to get their money back. He made it sound like forgive and forget."

"His sponsors are syndicate people?"

"Sounds like, yeah. This Klein is, I gather, their financial minister. But I don't think they're actively behind any of what's going down out here. Cassidy told me that he'd been watching Wiseman for a year, that he finally nailed the evidence—a secret set of books—and took it East just a week ago—well, a week ago when he told me. According to Cassidy their reaction was to play it cool, find the money first. What would happen next is not too hard to figure out, but somehow I think the bloodletting is mostly Wiseman's fancy footwork erasing the tracks and confusing the picture. Remember, he's a bright boy.

He's obviously been playing
footsie
with these fellows for years—maybe even before he came out from New York—so he must know the rules of play. I think it's significant, though, that the hell all started coming down after Cassidy busted the play."

"You should have stayed with the force, Joe," Abe said.

"I never fit into that. Ask Angela, she knows what a jerk I am."

"She told me," he said.

"It's why she left me. Told me that cowboys make lousy lovers and even lousier husbands."

"You're not a cowboy."

"Sure I am. Don't disillusion me."

I shook his hand, asked him to make my good-by to Angela. He told me: "Hang onto your ass, Zorro. Keep in touch. I'll try to feed you."

"Forget it, I just fed you. Now I'm finished feeding. I'm going for blood."

"Carefully."

Sure. And I knew just where I wanted to start.