Money Men (15 page)

Ronnie shook his head from side to side.

People walked in and out of the bright supermarket. They were talkative. The heat of the day was over.

"Shit, shit, shit," Red said, holding the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"What are we gonna do now?" Ronnie said.

"We can recover from this if we just use our heads. This is a setback. Gotta come back. Gotta come back fast. That's the problem," Red said. His voice became rhythmic, constant, uncontrollable. He had started one of his lectures. "We can do it," he said. "Never doubt that for a minute! See the turkeys walking out of the store with their bags of potato chips? Every one of them has a game...a scam." Red pointed to a bald man in a jogging outfit carrying a carton of soft drinks in each hand. "Ten to one he's some kinda businessman. Probably life insurance. I can usually guess...He's got his scam. That's what insurance is. They bet you will die, you bet you will live, and they always win. Insurance companies are more crooked and powerful than the whole goddamn Mafia...Go down the street to the Fairfax Towers Hotel and you can see Brother Roper's church bus load up every morning with suckers. All old people with canes. They crawl into the bus at 8:00 A.M., and Brother Roper drives 'em out to the City of Moses, a plot of land off the freeway between here and Las Vegas. There's nothing there but desert. All they have to do is sign over all their money to him and he guarantees them a home in the City of Moses as soon as it's built. He's had the same scam for ten years and never been busted! The bastard has to be a millionaire by now...It's just luck...You and me pull one chickenshit caper and end up with a gypsy bankroll! But we can't let it get us down. We have to be positive."

Ronnie Boyce's ears buzzed.

Carol, in shorts and a halter-top, bought a morning newspaper from the sidewalk rack and walked back into the hotel room reading.

"Ronnie, listen to this!" She folded the paper to the second page and read aloud. "'The body of an unidentified man was discovered in a parking lot at Los Angeles International Airport last night. Police sources said the man had been murdered by a shotgun, in gangland style, possibly as the result of an underworld dispute. A witness told investigators she saw two men talking at the trunk of a car and one brandished a weapon and fired twice. The police investigation is continuing.' "

"Lemme see." Ronnie, in shorts, got off the bed and grabbed the newspaper from her hands. He read, moving his lips, and threw the paper back to Carol. "They don't have anything," he said.

"Don't
have
anything? If they've got a witness, they've got somebody who can
identify
you. Pick you out of a
line-up!
Oh, God, I knew something like this would happen." She crumpled the paper.

Ronnie sat down on the bed. He leaned back against the headboard. "That's always been your problem, Carol."

"What?"

"Your problem is that you lose your cool. You get excited and you lose your cool."

Carol shook her head. "I just don't want to go back
to
...
"

"...to the joint," he interrupted. "Well, you won't have to as long as you keep your shit from getting disturbed. I used to be the same way. Everything was a big deal. But not any more. The only way to keep out of the joint is to relax, take each day as it comes. If a case comes down, you keep your mouth shut and ride the beef. Nine out of ten times if you keep your mouth shut, you can beat the case in court. That's a statistic, an actual statistic." He adjusted a pillow behind his head.

Carol spoke. "I don't want you to think I'm..."

"I don't think anything, Carol. I'm just telling you that I used to be dumb. That's right, dumb. Would you believe, the first time I did a bank job I didn't know that banks had robbery cameras? That's being dumb. But I'm not dumb any more. The guy I snuffed last night ain't going to take the witness stand too soon. And he was the only other person that saw what happened. Do you see what the fuck I mean?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed resignedly. "Yeah, I guess."

"It's all evidence. What the D.A. wants is evidence. Without it they can't do diddly shit. It's simple, really."

"How much money did the guy have last night?" Carol said.

"Twenty-five G's in funny money," said Ronnie. "But it's going to set up a front. My partner is a con man. He's the best. Within a month I'm going to be set for life, with no way of getting nailed. Phony land deal. There's only so many dudes that have enough smarts to pull one off The paperwork is set up so that there's no way of getting convicted even if you stand trial. They can't prove intent."

"Sounds beautiful." Carol got off the bed and stood staring out the window.

"It is beautiful. We just needed some front money. I did a guy the same way for ten grand a week ago. No witnesses there either." He scratched under his arm. "Let's go get some breakfast." He went into the bathroom and closed the door. The shower started.

Carol turned on the radio fairly loud and dialed a long-distance number. She stared at the bathroom door.

"Naomi?"

"Yes."

"It's Carol."

"Carol, honey, I knew you'd call. I knew you'd change your mind."

"I gotta get out of L.A.," Carol whispered. "I'm with a guy that's bad news. I'll be there this weekend. I'm gonna lay down all my paper-I've got a stack of cashier's checks-then I'm coming to you. I can't take it here any more. I'm paranoid. Can't talk now." She cupped her hand around the receiver.

"Little sister, when you get here the first thing I'm going to do is turn you inside out. I've missed you so much." A kissing sound.

Carol put down the receiver.

The shower went off.

Ronnie walked back in the room, soaking wet. "What's the weird look on your face for?"

"Nothing." She gulped.

"Get a towel." He stood with his hands on his hips.

Without a sound, she picked up a towel from the dresser and began drying him. His back, chest, buttocks, legs, and groin.

"That's the way the screws choke you out in T. I."

"What?"

"With a towel." He snatched the towel from her hands, spun her around, pulled it tightly around her neck. She gagged. He flipped the towel back to her.

"Like that," Ronnie said.

Carol coughed and rubbed her Adam's apple.

"Get your clothes off, woman."

Carol stripped as fast as she could.

Without air conditioning, the field office would have been intolerable. Gray desert air hung outside. Exhaust City.

Carr got up from the desk and stared out the window at the brownstone Hall of justice. The ninth floor was a jail and had iron windows. Five years ago a prisoner had escaped from the jail by using a homemade rope. If he remembered correctly, the man was caught the same day at his mother's house in Glendale, where he had grown up. Stupid.

"Are you sure Vikki wasn't murdered?" Delgado said. He leaned against a bulletin board with blown-up photographs of counterfeit twenties.

"We talked to the taxi driver who picked her up at the women's jail," Carr said. "He took her straight to Leach's pad. Non-stop. A nosy neighbor saw her go into the house. Coroner set the time of death to within a half hour of when she got home. Everything points toward a simple overdose." He loosened his tie.

"I thought you and Kelly searched the pad when you arrested her. Where'd she get the dope?"

"We missed it when we searched. Inside the door handle on the service porch. It was probably an emergency stash," Carr said.

The phone rang.

"Carr."

"This is Kelly. I'm down here at the morgue. I just talked with the coroner himself. He says it was heroin, not poison or anything, and it was usual strength. She O.D.'d. See you in an hour. I gotta stop for a bite."

"Thanks." Carr put down the phone. "The coroner says she O.D.'d on smack. She wasn't murdered-unless somebody gave her a hotshot on purpose."

"I wonder if she committed suicide," Delgado said.

Carr wasn't listening. He faced Delgado. "Let's look at the big picture right now. We're looking for two suspects: a young guy and a middle-aged, balding, red-haired man. The only witness who can identify the red-haired man just checked out of the world. Leach, the man with the samples, won't talk. We've got a stack of one hundred and forty-six photos of red-haired men. That's what we've got. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Only one way to go," Delgado said.

"One way. We'll check up on every red-haired man. See what he's up to, who he hangs with. One of them has got to fit into the picture." Carr turned to look out the window.

"It's a long shot," Delgado mumbled.

"I know it."

****

FIFTEEN

Carr walked toward a run-down stucco house. A FOR SALE sign was stuck in the middle of the tiny yellow lawn. It was as hot as August can be, and his suit and tie felt like a damp strait jacket.

Of course, without the tie, people would never open the door. It was more important than a badge and credentials. Kelly had proved it on a Chinatown bet once by pasting a picture of a monkey over his credentials photo and conducting a whole day of interviews. No one had noticed. And as he told it at Ling's, one lady had mistaken him for an FBI agent.

Carr rang the doorbell. Immediately footsteps clacked on what sounded like a hardwood floor.

The door was opened by a tanned, middle-aged woman in a bikini bathing suit and wooden sandals. She held a TV Guide. Behind her he noticed Danish modern furniture, but no carpeting.

Carr flashed his badge. "Special Agent Carr, U.S. Treasury Department. May I come in?"

"Cute little badge," the woman said. "Come in."

She waited for him to enter and closed the door.

"What have I done to deserve a visit from a T-man?" She walked daintily to a portable bar, picked up a beer glass, and sipped.

"I'm conducting an investigation on someone who lives here in the neighborhood. I have a photo I'd like you to look at." He removed the photo from his shirt pocket. She sauntered to him and examined the photo, holding it gingerly by one corner. She blushed and handed it back.

"Which one of the nosy neighbors told you to come here?" She spoke with her teeth together.

"I may or may not have talked to your neighbors. Right now I'm talking to you. Do you know this man?" Carr took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.

"Of course I know him; he lives next door," she said.

"Who lives with him?"

"He has a wife and three children. Is that what you mean? What kind of investigation is this?" she snarled.

"A background investigation," Carr said. "Do you know any of his friends?"

"Maybe."

Carr took out his pen. "How about some names?" he said.

She slammed her glass down on the bar and began shouting. "What do you mean 'How about some names?' Let me tell you something. This may be a low-rent neighborhood but I've only lived here since my divorce. I used to live in San Marino, but I ended up with nothing except some goddamn furniture!"

"Hold it a minute . . ." He raised his hand like a traffic cop. "All I want to know
is
..."