Until Proven Innocent (6 page)

My only consolation today is in knowing that she won’t get part of my dinner. Stuart is picking up our dinner tab tonight over at the Charthouse Restaurant, while he’s trying to lure me into his business deal.

*****

Stuart’s Lincoln Town Car pulls up, and from my seat at the bar I can see him waddle into the restaurant. It seems like he adds about twenty pounds for every new business he starts. After we’ve had a cocktail or two, our table is ready and we order our dinner. Stuart can’t resist any more. He starts out. “Peter, you are now looking at number 579.”

“
What is that Stuart, the amount of pounds you intend to weigh by the end of the year?”

“
Oh contraire, mon frer, that is my West Coast code number. It’s the number I have to say when calling in to my California broker.”

“
So, what have you got going now, some stock scam?”

“
Not really. I’m betting on baseball, and 579 is my account number with the local bookie I’m using.”

“
That’s it? That’s the new business deal you’re so excited about? You’re now a professional gambler? Stuart, I’m surprised at you. You should know better than that. You can’t win in the long run. The odds are against you.”

“
Uh-uh, Pete. That’s where you’re wrong. The odds are with me. I can’t lose.”

“
Oh boy, that’s great. You’d better hope that they don’t hear about your sure-fire winning plan in Las Vegas, because if they do, they’ll probably send a chartered plane for you. They love people with systems up there, especially people like you, who have plenty of money.”

“
Peter, you know me better than that. I’m a conservative businessman. This is a plan that’s got real math to back it up.”

“
Stuart, please spare me the details. You’d be better off trying to invent some perpetual motion machine. Come to think of it, you may have, because planning on winning by gambling is a perpetual loss machine.”

“
All right, that’s enough tearing me apart. Listen, here’s the plan, and when you hear it, you’ll realize how simple it is.

“
Last week I flew up to New Jersey to meet with my car supplier, you know, Billy Z. Well, before I left, I told Vinnie to try and get me down for five hundred on the Dodgers-Mets game. I never heard from Vinnie, so when I got to Billy’s office, I told him I wanted to bet on the game. He vouched for me and turned me on to his New York connection. This guy told me that if I wanted to bet on the Dodgers, he could give me seven-to-five odds. I took it, and bet five hundred on the Blue Team.

“
The next day, I finally got hold of Vinnie. As usual, he and Olive screwed up my instructions completely, and they bet five hundred of my money out here in California on the Mets. But here’s the good part: strangely enough, the odds were the same – but the other way. They got seven to five too.

“
Now you know that normal baseball games can’t end in a tie, so stop for a second and look at the arithmetic of what happened. I can’t win on both bets, so that means I’ve gotta lose five hundred bucks on one of the bets. But, by the same token, I’m also guaranteed to win seven hundred bucks on the other bet. That means I’m guaranteed a winning spread of two hundred, no matter who wins.”

Something is wrong here. Not only am I actually understanding what Stuart is telling me, but it sounds logical.

“
Wait a minute, Stu, you mean to say that the bookies know that the odds are different on each coast, but they each take your bets anyway?”

“
Sure they do. In fact, they probably lay off money between each other in the same way. Bettors act on emotion. Bookies act on business. When teams are evenly matched, you can almost always get odds against your home team’s victory by placing your bet on them in the other team’s town. That’s because home teams are such favorites with the local fans. All you have to do is find out what the spread is, and establish a line of credit with the bookies. Billy Z took care of my New York connection, and I’ve got a woman’s clothing salesman out here that makes book in the merchandise mart. The only down side is that I’m limited to a thousand dollars a game, so all I can make is an average of about one or two hundred on each. But there are so many hundreds of games going on a year, I can probably pull in over a hundred and fifty grand each season.”

“
That’s nice Stu, but what are you going to do about the income tax?”

“
Ah, I knew you were going to ask that. I asked each of the bookies to pay me by money order, so every cent that comes in will be reported on my return.”

“
What about the payments?”

“
Even better. The clothing salesman will accept my check and Billy Z will pay the New York bookie. He’ll let me reimburse him by adding the extra amounts onto the car purchases I make from him.

“
Every penny that comes in and goes out will be reported to the IRS, and they can audit me any time they want to.”

He did it again. Stuart is absolutely the most amazing person I’ve ever met when it comes to figuring out ways to make money. I only can see one hole in his entire plan. If he gets called in for an audit by the IRS, as I’m sure he will when they see ‘gambling’ as a listed source of income on his return, he’ll have to name his betting connections, which will no doubt lead to audits of the California guy, Billy Zee, and the New York bookie.

I’ve never been involved with the gambling community, but I have a strong feeling that they won’t like getting arrested, audited, and sent to prison for illegal bookmaking operations and federal income tax evasion. I hope Stuart makes a lot of money with his plan, because he may have to hire quite a few bodyguards next year.

Walking down to our boat on C4200 dock after an educational, complimentary early dinner, I see Tony the cop sitting on our dock box again. He hands me a small envelope.

“
Here’s the info on that cell phone number you gave me.”

“
Thanks, Tony. By the way, do you know anything about ballistics?”

“
All I know is that without me, those experts would be out of work. Why, you got some problem with a bullet?”

“
No, it’s just this movie I’ve been brought in on as a legal consultant. They’ve got a part where some ballistics expert is called to the witness stand. The rest of the witnesses are mostly cops.”

“
I can’t help you with the ballistics part, but I sure can straighten you out about how the cops testify. All I know about bullets is what I’ve learned from reloading my own.”

“
You mean you reuse your bullets?”

“
Sure. The new .50 caliber ammo for this revolver can cost up to three bucks each. If I go to the firing range three or four times a month, that can cost me several hundred a month. By reloading, I cut that cost down by around two-thirds.”

“
What do you have to do, pour in some more powder and put a new bullet head on?”

“
Yeah, I wish it was that easy. Actually, I use a single-stage center-fire metallic press, with a separate powder measure and a hand-priming tool. The press sits on a ledge in my boat near a portlight. Maybe you’ve seen it there when passing by my slip.”

“
Oh, yeah, I did happen to notice it. I thought it was a special device you used to make coffee with. What’s involved in reloading ammunition? Is it a complicated process?”

“
Not really. There are only five steps. Clean and lubricate the press, resize and decap the cases, re-prime the cases, charge the cases with powder, then seat the bullet in and crimp it. Actually, it’s not that hard. I’ve even taught your little Suzi how to do it. She saw the press and wouldn’t leave me alone until she knew how it worked. Hope you don’t mind my giving her lessons. She wants to go to the range with me too, but I told her she’s a little small for that, and she’d have to get your permission first. About the only thing she could fire that wouldn’t push her back onto her rear end would probably be a little .22 caliber pistol.”

Okay. So he doesn’t know anything about ballistics – just how to recycle killing tools and teach my little roommate the skill. I know that the kid feels like we still owe him for his previous and possibly future help on our cases, so maybe I can get him a job with coaching the movie cops in testifying, especially if I tell Joe Caulfield that Tony will work for less than a thousand a week. That’s the easy part. Now it’s time for the tough question.

“
Would you have any problem working for a black guy?”

“
Not at all. Is it a job about coaching actors to testify like cops? Because if it isn’t, I’m not interested in being a rent-a-cop working as a security guard.”

“
Wait a minute, Tony, I thought you were supposed to have some reputation as not caring for black people. Is that only when you’re on active police duty, and doesn’t apply when you’re on suspension?” He’s a little surprised by my assessment of his feelings.

“
Hey, wait a minute. I have nothing against any person just because of the color of his skin. It’s certain cultures that I’m not happy with. We were at war with Germany and Japan just fifty years ago, and now we all drive German and Japanese cars and count them as our allies and our friends. Some blacks were forced into slavery over a hundred and fifty years ago, and hundreds of thousands of white soldiers died in a civil war to help them gain freedom, but every time you see some loudmouth opportunist like Jesse Jackson on television, he’s got his hand out for the poor black people who are being discriminated against.

“
Well, my question to him is, who’s holding guns to the heads of black kids and forcing them to drop out of school? And how does their dropout rate compare to that of Japanese kids? It’s not the color of their skin that’s doing ‘em in, it’s their culture.

“
I’ll bet that when you were a kid, one of your parents read a book to you once in a while, or a nursery story. And they probably also told you to obey the law, stay in school, go to college, and become a useful member of society. Do you think that black kids in the ghetto are getting read to, or being told to stay in school, or helped with their homework? I don’t think so, and that’s what I don’t like. I didn’t like school at all, but if I missed a day and my father found out about it, I was in for a beating.

“
If someone can show me that they have a respect for other people’s rights, and for the law, then I’ve got no problem with them. If they can’t, then they deserve whatever they get. Remember, it wasn’t a white guy who walked into that Mexican restaurant to hold it up and probably kill everyone there. I didn’t go out of my way to hurt him. He brought it on by himself.

“
Now who’s this black guy I might be working for, and where’s the job?”

He sure set me straight. I guess you can’t judge a book by its reputation. Maybe Tony has been getting a bum rap, but being predisposed to dislike any culture is not a healthy way to look at people. I tell him I’ll try to get him the job, but I also realize that we can never be close friends.

Back on the boat, I open the envelope he gave me, and see that the cell phone number of the guy that’s been bugging Olive is registered to a Hershel Belsky in Beverly Hills. Okay Hershel, it’s nice to meet you.

* * * * * *

Chapter 5

I like it when there’s some action going on. The few irons I have in the fire this month aren’t exactly high profile capital murder cases, but there’s still enough to keep my interest level up.

Aside from Olive’s Hershel, there’s April’s crooked apartment building manager, and my budding career in the entertainment industry. April left a message for me that she actually did go out and get one of those pooper-scoopers on a pole, so I feel good knowing that I made an honest woman out of her. Olive hasn’t heard from Hershel in a while, so I’ve still got some time to set up a surprise for him, and I’ve already got a nice one in mind. I told the kid to have Tony check him out a little more.

And as far as Tony’s job is concerned, Joe Caulfield wants to meet with him. He’s already agreed with my suggestion to bring in a technical consultant on the cop testimony part of the script, so now it’s just a matter of the two of them seeing eye to eye. I’ve set up a meeting for them on the soundstage. I hope Tony doesn’t shoot him until the movie is finished, or at least until I’ve been paid.

I give Tony my copy of the script to read, so he can see what the movie cops are supposed to testify about.

*****

April is nervous because someone slipped a manila envelope under her apartment door, and she doesn’t know what’s in it or who left it there. I’m glad she called me before touching it. I tell her to leave it on the floor and that someone from my office is on the way over there. I send Tony over to her apartment and give him instructions to make sure he wears the proper gloves when he picks it up to put it into an evidence bag.

Victor Gutierrez is a friend of mine who operates a private scientific lab out near Pasadena, where he does all types of forensic examinations, from autopsies to fingerprints. After giving Tony directions to Victor’s place, I make a phone call so that Tony’s arrival will be expected. I want to know everything I can about whoever put that envelope under her door.

Tony’s an organized guy. After dropping off the envelope at Victor’s place, he calls to check in with me.

“
Tony, did you get that thing over to Victor’s place?”

“
Yeah, but you didn’t tell me what he does in the back room.”