Money Men (16 page)

"No! I know one of the goddamn nosy neighbors told you to come here because he and I...are friends. His stupid wife started the rumors about us. Did you see the 'For Sale' sign when you walked in? That's why I'm moving."

"Lady, I'm not interested!" The woman looked foolish standing there screaming in her bikini.

"Does this have something to do with his child support? Did his first wife send you here? Can't you people give somebody a break? You've got him in jail on a failure-to-provide warrant. What else do you want-blood?"

"When was he arrested?"

"Two weeks ago. He's been in jail since then."

"Thanks. I don't have any more questions." Carr almost trotted to the door.

"Why don't you do something about dope pushers instead of nosing into people's private lives!" she shouted.

Carr walked to the car, drove around the corner, and parked. He wrote "In jail past two weeks" on the reverse of the photograph and threw it in the glove compartment with the others that had turned out to be dead-end leads.

His notations on the photos showed that three of the men were currently serving time in prison, and one was in the hospital the day Rico was murdered. Another carrot-top had been dead for over a year.

It had taken Carr all day to find these things out.

By 10:00 P.M., he had eliminated two more redheads. He drove to Chinatown and found Kelly sitting in a booth at Ling's. The bar was full of detectives, because it was federal payday. The atmosphere was rowdy.

"Get this," Kelly said, digging his hand deeply into the bar peanuts. "I showed one of the photos to this guy today and he tells me he thinks the photo looks like me. I look at it and by God he's right! Except for the red hair, the picture did sort of look like me. I hadn't looked at it that close before. I felt like a real donkey. He must have thought I was walking around showing mug shots of myself. Do you believe that?" Throwing his head back, he accepted the entire handful of peanuts into his mouth.

Carr almost guzzled his first drink. He had been thinking about it for hours.

Rose stood at the end of the bar under a pink light, lifting drinks onto her tray. Her long black hair contrasted oddly with the bright-blue sheen of her dragon-embroidered cheongsam. Even in high heels, she was tiny, the spread of her buttocks from a tiny waist being her only striking physical quality. In the pink light of the bar, just as up close, she appeared drawn, tired, and less than happy, as if it had taken longer than usual to become forty years old.

She smiled at Carr, and he gave a quick wave. He thought of how he waved at her as he drove away from her house after they had made love the first time. Standing at the window in her kimono she had waved back. He hadn't really wanted to leave. "Very embarrass when children wake up in morning," she had said, with her head slightly bowed.

He wasn't sure why he continued to see her. The meetings were infrequent and always seemed a little strained. They never had a great deal to say to one another. Her husband was dead, and she had to work, and he was a federal cop and lived at the beach. That was about it.

But he kept going back to her wan smile and the way she modestly covered her smallish breasts when she crawled into bed.

She made her way to the booth and handed Carr a Scotch-and-water. Kelly excused himself and got up.

"Sit down for a minute." Carr pointed to the seat.

She shook her head. "Too busy right now. Ling get mad."

"How was Lake Arrowhead?"

"We have a real nice time," she said. Her voice was just loud enough to be heard. "Boys catch fish in the lake. Too bad you couldn't come up one day. You probably busy.

"Yes. Uh, I..."

She saw Kelly coming back to the table.

"You come over tonight maybe?" She looked around to see if anyone was listening.

"Yeah. Okay," Carr said.

She shuffled back to the bar.

The bar phone rang and Ling picked it up.

"Charlie, for you." He held up the receiver.

Carr walked to the end of the bar and squeezed in between two bearded federal narcotics agents.

"Carr here."

"Higgins, LAPD Homicide. I got something for ya. Better roll down to the airport. Parking lot D-3."

"What is it?"

"Last week, in Chinatown, you asked me to let you know about any capers with sawed-offs. Somebody just got blown away down here. Looks like a rip-off."

On the way to the airport Kelly remarked that they had forgotten to pay for their drinks.

Carr nodded at a uniformed policeman and ducked under the rope barrier.

A police portable light illuminated a good portion of the parking lot as well as the heavy body, face down on a blanket of dried blood, Flashbulbs snapped. People stood around wearing uniforms of one kind or another.

Higgins, in baggy pants and a short-sleeved white shirt, which concealed the shoulders of a well digger, appeared formidable in the bright light. He stood next to the body making notes on a clipboard. His belt was an array of holsters and pouches.

He nodded at the Treasury men, tucked the clipboard under his arm, and knelt by the body. He pointed with a pencil.

"See the exit wounds? Definitely a shotgun. There's no way to know for sure whether it was a sawed-off, but that's my bet. Japanese tourist lady on the other side of the lot says she saw the man shoot a..."-he glanced at the clipboard-"'long fat pistol.' From what she says, he shot once, cranked another round, and finished him off, got in his car, and split. She can't give any description. Says it was too dark...Looky here." He pointed to the small of the back. "Fresh knife cut right here. Doesn't make sense unless maybe he was wearing his buy money."

"A money belt?" Carr asked.

Higgins stood up. "That's a roger. The wound could be from getting a money belt cut off."

"Who is he?" Carr furrowed his brow.

"His wallet says his name is Michael Sawtelle and he works as a private dick for an attorney named Max Waxman. I called Intelligence just now. They have Sawtelle listed as 'Fat Mike,' a transaction man. His M.O. is to show up at a dope deal as a front man. He has his buy money tied around his waist. He shows his .45 for security, then deals right on the spot. I guess he wasn't short on balls. The deals are supposedly set up by Waxman. He's listed in the files as a money man."

"Wheels?" Kelly asked.

Higgins pointed with the clipboard. "The black Olds over there. It's clean. Registered to a car-leasing outfit in Studio City that doesn't give out info on who leases their cars. It's a caper car, for sure. Fat Mike had the car keys in his pocket."

Carr shook his head. "Doesn't look like you have too much to go on," he said.

"You're right there. I'll interview Waxman in the morning and he'll tell me he didn't know what Fat Mike was up to. I'll leave the case open for a couple of months to see if anybody will drop a dime. If nothing happens, I'll close it unsolved. Sorry, there's nothing much here to help you guys. Although it definitely could be the same guy who did Rico." He raised his voice as a plane flew over.

"It is the same guy," Carr said. He watched a policeman slide thin boards under the body. "The word is that Waxman finances counterfeit-money deals all the time. We've never been able to prove it."

A young detective in a hound's-tooth coat and styled hair motioned to Higgins from behind the rope barrier. Higgins went over to him. Four policemen grunted, hoisting the body onto a wheeled cart.

"Let's go," Carr said to Kelly. They walked to the rope and ducked under.

Higgins stopped talking to the young detective and turned toward them. "Here's one! The Japanese lady is catching the next flight back to Japan. Says she's seen enough of this country in two hours. Can you beat that?"

"See ya," Carr said.

Being careful not to make unnecessary noise, Carr unlocked the back door of Rose's tract house and sneaked down the dark hallway. He passed the door to her sons' room. It was closed.

He tiptoed into a dark, air-conditioned bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed. He took off his clothes.

"I was waiting for you," Rose whispered. She crawled across the bed and began massaging his neck with miniature hands. Her nipples brushed softly against his back.

Before they made love, Rose stuffed a pillow between the headboard and the wall, as she always did to avoid waking up the children.

It was light. He groped out for his watch. Six.

Rose's head rested on his shoulder. She was awake.

"I've got to get going," he said, trying to bring himself into full consciousness. He eased her head off his shoulder and got out of bed.

Dressing in front of a wall mirror, he noticed the middle-aged flesh around his waist. The children in the other room could have been his if he had married...

Rose lay on her back, her eyes open, arms flat at her sides. "Ling says you maybe get a transfer," she said as he buttoned his shirt.

He turned to the dresser and picked up his holster. He clipped it on his belt and put the revolver in. "Maybe," he said, throwing on his coat.

He walked to the door.

"You come to Ling's tonight?" she said, still staring at the ceiling. Her voice was barely audible, childlike.

"Probably."

"I see you there," she said.

Carr headed down the hallway and out the back door.

****

SIXTEEN

It was 7:00 A.M.

The underground parking lot was cool and drafty. Carr told Kelly to pull in next to a parked delivery van. He did, and turned off the motor. Carr focused the rearview mirror on a sign, RESERVED-MAX WAXMAN, on the wall at the other end of the parking lot.

"Why don't we just talk to him in his office?" Kelly said.

Carr shook his head no. "His office is probably wired for sound. I've never seen an attorney that wasn't big on tape recording."

"I hadn't thought about that," Kelly said.

A half hour went by before they spoke again. The car radio buzzed with a freeway surveillance.

"You know why people become counterfeiters?" Kelly said. He was slumped down in the driver's seat, his eyes closed.

"Why?"

"Because they think it's a crime that really isn't a crime. They figure if they can make a counterfeit twenty that's good enough, they can pass it and it will go all the way to the bank. No one's the wiser. What's a few bucks to Uncle Sam? Nobody gets hurt. That's what they figure."

Carr nodded sleepily.

Kelly continued. "Sort of like doctors who give unnecessary operations."

Waxman pulled into his parking space at 9:00 A.m. exactly.

Carr waited until Waxman took his briefcase out of the trunk and began to walk toward the elevator before approaching him.

"Mr. Waxman?"

"Yes." The lawyer looked puzzled.

Carr showed his badge. "I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. It's about the murder of your investigator."

Waxman's tone was condescending. "I've already talked to the police. I have no knowledge of Michael's personal affairs."