Santa Fe Rules (26 page)
“He got your maid on the phone, and she said you’d gone shopping, so he sent me out looking for you. Please call him right away.”
Wolf asked the gallery manager if he could use the phone, then called Eagle.
“I’m glad we got hold of you, Wolf,” Eagle said.
“What’s up, Ed?”
“You’ve been indicted. The police have already been to your house with a new warrant looking for you, and it’s important for appearances that you surrender before they can arrest you.”
“I’m on the east side of the plaza now, at a gallery. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay where you are. I’ll pick you up in five minutes. And don’t go out onto the streets; I don’t want you picked up.”
“All right. Ed, does this mean I’ll have to go back…” he glanced at the woman behind the desk, who was taking an interest in his conversation, “back where I was before?”
“I hope not. We’ll talk about it when I see you.”
“Fine, I’ll wait here.” He hung up the phone and tried to appear calm. He went back and looked at the picture again. “Tell me something about the artist,” he said to the gallery manager.
Eagle drove quickly through the downtown sale traffic. “What we do now is, we turn you in. I’ve already phoned the judge and asked for an immediate hearing on continuance of bail.”
“Are we likely to get it?”
“It depends on what the D.A. might have in the way of
new evidence. He’ll have to tell the court, in general terms, what he’s got. He’ll certainly ask that bail be revoked, and he might get it. At the very least, we’ll have to come up with a higher bond. I know your financial circumstances have changed drastically, so I think we’ll have to pledge your house. How much is it worth?”
“It cost a million and a half to build.” Wolf tried to calm his racing heart.
“That should do it.” Eagle found a parking place at the detention center, and as they got out of the car, Wolf looked up and saw Carreras across the parking lot running toward them.
“Have a look at that, Ed,” he said.
“Uh-oh, let’s hurry,” Eagle said. They hurried into the building. Eagle led Wolf to the high desk and said to the sergeant in charge, “Mr. Wolf Willett is here to surrender himself on a charge.”
Carreras burst through the front door, panting.
“Good morning, Captain Carreras,” Eagle said, beaming at him.
“You’re under arrest, Willett,” Carreras said, producing a warrant.
“Too late,” Eagle said. “He’s already turned himself in, and the judge is waiting for us now for a bail hearing.”
Carreras glowered at Eagle, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward his office.
They sat in the courtroom until the morning’s arraignments had been completed, then the judge looked at Eagle and said, “Any further business?”
Eagle rose. “Matter of continuance of bail for Mr. Wolf Willett, following an indictment,” he said.
“Bring your client forward, Mr. Eagle,” the judge said. “Mr. Martinez,” he said to the district attorney, “may I hear from you on this subject?”
“Your Honor, the state requests that bail be revoked and that the defendant now be incarcerated until his trial. We have evidence placing him at the scene of the crime on the day of the murders; we have evidence of a further motive. The state believes that Willett is a dangerous man and should be jailed immediately.”
The judge turned to where Eagle and his client now sat at the defense table. “Mr. Eagle?”
Eagle rose and took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “Your Honor, I would like to present to the court nine letters from prominent figures in the film industry, attesting to the good character of Mr. Willett.” He handed the letters to the judge, who began leafing through them.
Wolf had written to fifteen people; he wondered who were the six who had not come through.
Eagle continued. “I would like to point out that Mr. Willett has kept the terms set for his current bail, that he has not left the jurisdiction, and that immediately on being informed of his indictment, he voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities. Mr. Willett has no intention of fleeing; he looks forward to a trial so that he can clear his name. I would also like to point out that the state’s case is no stronger than it was at Mr. Willett’s last hearing. Mr. Willett has never denied being in his own home, and I believe that Mr. Martinez’s reference to a new motive is based on information that will, in fact, strengthen Mr. Willett’s defense. We are ready for trial, and request an early court date.” He sat down.
The judge continued reading the letters, then spoke again. “I am impressed with Mr. Willett’s references, and I
am pleased that he has kept the terms of his bail and that he surrendered voluntarily. I will continue bail; however, in light of the seriousness of the charges, I will increase the amount to one million dollars. Can your client raise that sum, Mr. Eagle?”
“He can, Your Honor; he has already posted one hundred thousand dollars cash, and he will offer his house in Santa Fe, which is unencumbered and is worth well in excess of one million dollars.”
“That will be acceptable to the court. I will release Mr. Willett in your custody, pending receipt of the deed to the house by close of business today.” He flipped through a large desk diary. “I have had a postponement of a case, leaving a gap in the calendar, so I will set trial for January tenth. Is that acceptable to the state?” He looked at the district attorney.
Martinez rose. “It is, Your Honor.”
“There being no further business before me, this court is adjourned.”
“Thank you, Ed,” Wolf said when they had left the courtroom.
“Not at all. Where is the deed to your house?”
“In the safe in my study.”
“I’ll drive you back to your car, and you can have it delivered to the court later today.”
“Fine.”
When they were back in his car, Eagle raised another point. “Wolf, I want your authorization to hire two investigators. I know a good man who can look into Grafton’s activities in Los Angeles—Julia’s sister gave me the name of a man Grafton knew there who he might have contacted.”
“Fine, go ahead. What’s the other investigator for?”
“I want to send a man to the Cayman Islands and see what he can find out from the bank there.”
“Aren’t those banks very secretive?”
“Yes, but if we can present evidence of a crime in connection with funds they are harboring, they can choose to give us information. I know a guy in Washington who until recently was an investigator for the I.R.S., and who has a lot of experience looking into Cayman accounts. He’s a C.P.A. in Virginia now. He’ll be expensive, but he’s damn good.”
“All right, go ahead.”
“What are your resources following Julia’s theft of your investments?”
“I’m pledging the Santa Fe house, of course, but there’s the Bel Air house, and my company has got some cash; I can draw on that, if I have to.”
“Good. That should see us through.”
“When did Julia’s sister become so cooperative?”
“I had a chat with her last week, and she agreed to testify for us; then, when she had had a lot to drink on New Year’s Eve, I went over the Grafton business with her again. I don’t think she had really been holding back, but she came through with the name of a man in L.A. that Grafton had mentioned several times in the past. We may have to spread some money around to get information.”
“How much money?”
“Will you authorize twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Yes, go ahead. I’ll have my office in L.A. wire-transfer, say, fifty thousand to you today.”
“That should cover everything.” Eagle stopped the car next to the Porsche, and Wolf got out.
“Ed, keep me posted on these investigations, will you?”
“Sure, I will; I know how anxious you are.”
No
, Wolf thought as he watched Eagle drive away,
you don’t have
any idea
how anxious
.
C
upie Dalton sat in the tiny second bedroom of his small apartment in Santa Monica, which served as his office, and worried. He had earned his nickname when he had been on the force, because he was plump, pink, and resembled the prize dolls at carnival shooting galleries, and he was worried because he had four dollars in the bank and his pension check didn’t come for another week. “Please, God,” he said aloud. “I need some work.” The phone rang.
“Dalton Investigations.”
“Cupie, it’s Ed Eagle. How are you?”
He tried not to sound excited. “Okay, Ed. You?”
“Not bad. I need a guy looked into.”
“Okay. Who is he?”
“His name is—or rather, was—James Grafton, known as Jimmy, recently known in L.A. as Dan O’Hara. He caught the wrong end of a shotgun around Thanksgiving in Santa Fe.”
Cupie wrote down the names. “Never heard of him.”
“Armed robber, con man, escapee, murderer. He bounced out of a New York prison earlier this year and ended up in L.A.; apparently sold a screenplay to Warner.”
“That’s cute. You got anything else?”
“A name: Benny Calabrese, somebody he knew.”
“I know him; a sleaze.”
“What did you expect?”
“So what do you need on this guy?”
“I want to know every move he made in L.A., and anything else you think might interest me.”
“You know my rates.”
“Forget rates,” Eagle said. “I don’t have time for you to chalk up hours and an expense account. This is five grand straight, and anything you have to fork over comes out of that. I’ll have a messenger there in an hour with cash.”
“That would be nice.”
“It’s not a gift, Cupie; it’s for results. I want to hear from you tomorrow, and I want to hear a lot.”
“You got it, Ed.”
“I better have it, or this is the last you’ll see any of my money. Call me.”
Cupie hung up and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Thank you, God,” he said.
When the messenger had gone, Cupie put four thousand dollars into the cheap safe that was bolted to the floor in the bedroom closet, then folded ten hundreds into his pocket. Feeling lighter than air, he strolled down to the parking lot and got into the elderly Continental that he loved so much. He took the freeway to Sunset and drove slowly through Beverly Hills to the Strip. Here he slowed even further and began looking. It took less than fifteen
minutes to find Benny Calabrese’s red Camaro with all the stripes, parked in front of a fast-food joint near the corner of La Cienega. Cupie invented a parking place and walked into the restaurant.
Benny was heavily into a double cheeseburger, alone in a back booth; he had just taken a huge bite when he saw Cupie. He stopped chewing.
Cupie sat down and put a hundred-dollar bill on the table between them. “Now, listen to me, Benny,” he said. “You and I ain’t ever liked each other too much, so this is going to be a brief meeting. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you have two choices: first, you can take the hundred and talk to me good, or second, I can beat the shit out of you.”
Benny started chewing again. Cupie had his attention.
“Now, by the time you finish chewing, you better be talking to me about a guy named Jimmy Grafton.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry, this won’t bounce back on you; Grafton ate somebody’s shotgun a while back. Now, what’s it going to be?”
Benny swallowed hard. “Jimmy’s dead? You ain’t shitting me?”
“Grafton is in somebody’s landfill by now. Trust me, Benny.”
Benny’s hand snaked out and snagged the hundred. “Me and Grafton did some time together—Riker’s Island, a few years back. We kept in touch, even after I came out here.”
Cupie made a beckoning motion. “Don’t pause for breath, Benny; keep it coming.”
“Jimmy was doing life in New York, and he busted out, turned up here calling himself—”
“Dan O’Hara,” Cupie said, completing the sentence for
him. “I know just enough to know if you’re holding out on me.”
“We did some drinking together. Jimmy said he was writing a movie about busting out of jail. He even said he sold it to a studio—that’s what he said, anyway; who knows?”
“He must have had some other scam going. What was it?”
“He never told me about nothing else. He had money; he didn’t seem to be looking for anything to do. He was living in one of them suite hotels in West Hollywood, off Melrose—a hundred and twenty a day, easy—but Jimmy always had style.”
“Was anybody with him? A woman, maybe?”
“He said he was all fixed up in that department, no problem, you know? But I never saw him with a woman. We’d meet at some bar in the late afternoons and have a few, then he’d go off on his own at night.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Benny screwed up his face and thought hard. “End of October. Jimmy had some Lakers tickets, and we went—the only time we spent an evening together.”
“You never saw him again?”
“Nope. That was the last time.”
“Come on, Benny, there’s something you’re not telling me. Don’t make me ask you the hard way.”
Benny looked around the restaurant as if he thought somebody might be watching him. “This goes no further?”
Cupie made a zipping motion across his lips.
“Jimmy wanted some paper.”
Cupie sat up. “Counterfeit money?”
“No, no: paper. Papers, like—you know, social security card, driver’s license, passport.”
“False documents.”
“No, not false; he was very up-front about that. Jimmy wanted the real thing, stuff that would work, you know?”
“And where would he get that?”
“Well, I had to ask around, you know? It wasn’t easy.”
“So you worked hard, Benny. Where’d you send him?”
Benny looked around again. “There’s this guy in Venice.”
“What guy, Benny? I’m getting short-tempered.”
“Around town he’s called Doc Don.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Document Don. Last name’s Dunn.”
“Document Don Dunn.”
“He’s a photographer—you know, the wife and kiddies? Passport pictures? Right along the beachfront. I don’t know the exact address, but I didn’t hear from Jimmy, so he must have found it.”
