Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I HAVE A friend on the Honolulu Police Department. Met him at a cop convention years ago in San Francisco and we had some laughs together. Have a lot in common. His name is Billy
Inyoko
. Japanese. Billy and I have kept in touch over the years but we have not spent a lot of time together. We are telephone friends. We exchange favors. I was a bit short on the exchange because the islands get a lot of our bad asses while theirs tend to stay closer to home.

      
So I was not at all reluctant to call Billy at that hour of the morning, only a couple of hours past midnight on Oahu. I caught him at home with one foot in bed and told him about

      
Linda. Well, not everything about Linda, but I gave him an inch-by-inch description and her flight number and asked him to look in on her arrival and get a line on her whereabouts when she settled in somewhere.

      
Billy sounded a little tired but he assured me that he would do that. We jawed for a couple of minutes about other things and then I casually mentioned Jim Davitsky.
   
He knew the name.

      
"One of your esteemed politicians," he remarked.

      
I said, "Yeah. Know the guy?"

      
"By reputation, mainly. He's got a place out near Diamond Head. Comes over from time to time. Does a lot of entertaining. Mostly political. Came the last time with a group of congressmen from Washington. We get security assignments out there from time to time."

      
I casually inquired, "Ever get the White House bunch out there?"

      
"Not the main man, no, not yet."

      
"What does that mean?"

      
"It means he does get the White House bunch. In dribbles and drabbles. Yeah, we get a lot of action from your man Davitsky"

      
I told him, "Keep the head up. You might be getting a lot more. This woman could be headed there."

      
"She'll be in fine company."

      
"What does that mean?"

      
"It means a lot of women head there every time Davitsky does."

      
"That way, eh?"

      
"Oh yes indeed, very much that way."

      
I said, "Matter of fact, Billy, I have some inside poop that Davitsky might be coming over your way later today. You might, uh, keep an eye on him too."

      
"Sorry, pal."

      
"What does that mean?"

      
"It means that the favors end where my chin begins."

      
"That way, eh?"

      
"It's a small island, Joe."

      
I told him, "Message received. I'll still appreciate a line on the woman, Billy."

      
"You'll have one."

      
I thanked him and we said good-by.

      
I then shook down the hotel suite, looking for anything, found nothing. I made some coffee and drank it, had a fruit snack, checked out at five A.M.

      
Had to get moving.

      
I was expecting a sunrise service at my place.

      
And I did not want to miss any of the festivities.

      
I knew these guys, but barely. All three of them. Detectives. Clones, more or less, of Gil Tanner. But only one, I think, was San Gabriel Division. They were waiting for me in my driveway.

      
I do not live in a neighborhood, exactly. Only four homes are built along that particular ridge. Each has a two-acre lot, and each is landscaped for privacy. My neighbors have horses. I hate horses, and I especially hate the flies that keep them company. You might find this surprising but I do a lot of gardening. It's my way to relax.

      
Anyway, I have privacy there. I can walk all around my place bare-assed and the neighbors would never know unless they went out of their way to keep tabs on me.

      
But nobody keeps tabs, up there.

      
It's a
tabless
society, up there in the hills, and we like it that way.

      
Well... most of the time we like it that way.

      
I was not so sure about this time.

      
These guys were really pissed at me. Like disturbed hornets. Or an Apache war party.

      
I got out of my car and leaned back against the roof, lit a cigarette, said, "I'll tell you guys why I sent for you."

      
"Do that," growled Vince Garbanzo. We called him Beans.

      
They were standing in an arc, an arm's length apart at about three paces out. Flanking Garbanzo were Frank Cruz and Tony
Dilivetti
. None of these guys was soft like Tanner. They were bad-asses and enjoyed it.
Dilivetti
held a baton.

      
"You're going out of business," I told them.

      
Dilivetti
scratched his head with the tip of the baton and said, "Do tell."

      
I said, "Well, technically, you're already out of business."

      
"I think it's the other way around," said Garbanzo. "We don't need your kind in the valley. We figure it's time you're moving on."

      
"How far would you like me to move?" I inquired. "Six feet? Straight down? Like Tanner?"

      
That gave a pause. They exchanged glances.
Dilivetti
asked, "What's that about Tanner?"

      
"Someone prepared him for the move. Put a hole the size of a baseball in his skull to cinch the deal. You boys know nothing about that?"

      
"When was this?" Garbanzo asked.

      
I sighed. "Little while ago. Changes nothing, though. Except to point the way. Good-by, boys. It has not been nice knowing you. I want your asses moving and I don't want them stopping within smelling distance. You fold up your tents and you steal away, a long ways away, or else I'm—"

      
Dilivetti
took a step forward with the baton at combat stance. Garbanzo put an arm on him, said, "Wait, Tony"; said to me, "What's your interest, Joe?"

      
"Call it the stars and stripes forever. I still believe in the Constitution, human rights, all that stale, corny old stuff."

      
Cruz uttered his first words. "Get this guy. The original hard-ass. I never saw you bleed for anybody, hotshot. Where do you get off laying that rap on us?"

      
I told him, "I get off where guys like you get on, Cruz. Now back off. Go back to your barrio and work your scams on the sad devils whose backs lifted you up here. Maybe one of them will decide who the real enemy is and show you the way home. I got no respect at all for an Indian who eats other Indians. Get your rotten ass off my turf, Geronimo. You're over fertilizing it."

      
What did it take to get these guys fighting mad?

      
Cruz just blinked at me.

      
I took a drag from my cigarette and told Garbanzo, "Let go the Dago, Beans. He wants to play."

      
Garbanzo did, then, and
Dilivetti
did.

      
He came at me with the baton.

      
I used it to lever him off the side and over the car.

      
He hit the hedges at the other side of the drive.

      
By this time, though, I was in a sandwich between Garbanzo and Cruz, and Cruz was going for my balls.

      
I gave him his own, instead, and hoisted him by them into Garbanzo's face.

      
They both tumbled down, with Cruz howling.

      
I stepped on his face because I cannot bear to hear a grown man cry.

      
Then I took a ground-level charge from Garbanzo and diverted it into the side of the Cad.

      
He hit like a Ram in the rutting season; went down; stayed down.

      
But now I had
Dilivetti
again.

      
His face was like oozing hamburger from the thorny hedges but the eyes were pure crazy.

      
This time he came with gun in hand but in his rage had neglected to thumb the safety. I beat him to it and crunched the arm apart with the back of the elbow across my chest.

      
He screamed and fell to both knees. A bone was protruding from the sleeve of his jacket.

      
Cruz was still squirming around the ground, moaning.

      
I picked him up and tossed him into their car, did the same for Garbanzo.

      
Dilivetti
stopped groaning long enough to tell me it had all been a mistake.

      
I agreed with that and suggested that he get in the car and drive the mistake elsewhere.

      
He was bloody and hurting, but somehow he managed to do that.

      
I watched the carload of mistakes lurch out of my drive, and I felt good and I felt bad.

      
Good because all of us cousins to the apes take a certain satisfaction in a good fight well-fought.

      
Bad because I knew that those guys were not the answer to my real problems of the moment.

      
And because I knew that my real fight had only just begun.

Chapter Fifteen

I STUDIED THE mess in my bedroom for several minutes before I started cleaning it up.

      
The whole thing with Linda Shelton was out of focus.

If I was buying Davitsky as my villain and Ed Jones his henchman, for whatever reason, and if by some hook or crook Linda was in their camp, then her place in the puzzle was fuzzy as hell.

      
Why the attempts on her life? Or were they?

Why the frame with the gun in the death of George the bartender? Or was it?

      
Could Jones have gone after Linda without realizing that he was subjecting her to friendly fire? Possibly, sure; but, if so, then how loose was this thing?

      
The shotgun attack on my bedroom seemed for real enough. But as I was standing there in the debris and studying the angles, nothing was for sure. The fire had actually come nowhere near the spa.

      
Let's say, okay; the first round was purely in the dark because he was working with one-way glass. After that first round, though—and there must have been eight to ten more—he was like standing at a shooting gallery at the county fair, firing at point-blank range with nothing to distract or interfere. Why was all that fire so ineffective? Intentionally so?

      
The little duel with the cars on the mountainside seemed in retrospect just as half-hearted.

      
So what the hell was it all about?

      
Or could it be—could it possibly be?—that Linda was striding through this whole thing a total innocent? Did it make her guilty of anything at all, the mere fact that she was on friendly relations with a powerful politician?

And if so, had she—and this worried the hell out of me—had she then jumped from the frying pan into the fire by turning to Davitsky for aid and comfort at an especially troubled time? He was powerful, no question. Women,

including smart women like Linda, were known to go for that.

      
I was going crazy inside my head.

      
I did not know that Jim Davitsky was dirty. I did not know that Ed Jones was anything but a hot dog looking for some relish.

      
I did not know a goddamned thing.

      
Which was what was driving me crazy.

      
So I turned to a problem I could do something about. I cleaned up my bedroom. Then I brought in some leftover paneling I'd been storing in the garage and used it to patch the shattered window.

      
I was feeling a little better after that. So I went to the kitchen and built some breakfast, ate it quickly, then went to the living room to sit in an easy chair with a riot gun across my lap to catch a few winks.

      
I slept for two hours like that.

      
Then I showered and shaved and put on some fresh clothing that did not smell like death, and went downtown.

      
I got to the county offices at precisely nine o'clock and found Edna Sorenson at nine-oh- one.

      
We went into a little conference room. She brought coffee to keep me busy while she rounded up the necessary people. These were all ladies, three of them plus Edna, and we had a nice informal gossipy conversation.

      
I assured one and all right up front that I intended to use in any way possible any and all scraps of information I could take away from there; I also pledged on Edna's friendship that I would protect my sources into the grave.

      
I heard some interesting things.

      
Put any of those ladies on a witness stand and they could not have told you much. Most of it was hearsay, rumor, gossip. But I was not interested in the technicalities and I was not trying to build evidence. I was trying to work toward an understanding of the situation I was in; trying to dispel the crazies.

      
I did gain quite a bit in the way of understanding. But I did not dispel any crazies.

      
I was out of there at nine-thirty and streaking toward the San Gabriel foothills; as good, that is, as you can streak on a Thursday morning downtown. But I was on the Foothills Freeway before ten o'clock and I reached the New Frontier about fifteen minutes after ten.

      
The joint was just open. There were no patrons.

      
One bartender and two girls were on duty.

      
There was no music and nobody was dancing or even naked.

      
The girls looked like hell hung over.

      
One of them, I know, had been working the night before because she did a double take on me as I entered and went quickly toward the offices at the back side. I went over to the bar and sat down.

      
A big guy came out of the office, looked me over, went back inside.

      
The other girl approached me cautiously; timidly inquired, "Can I get you something?"

      
"Have any coffee?"

      
"Sure. Just a sec."

      
"Pure black," I called after her.

      
She brought the coffee in a
styrofoam
cup and put it in my hands.

      
"Send that guy over here," I said in a quiet voice.

      
"What guy?" she asked nervously.

      
"The guy in the office."

      
She went away without a word.

      
I watched her go into the office. The bartender smiled at me and I smiled back. He turned away and went to work on his
backbar
setup. There was no remaining evidence of the mess I'd made in there the night before.

      
The manager came out and sat down beside me. I guess he was a manager. Head bouncer, maybe, bookkeeper—who would know, these days? He lit a cigarette, offered me one. I accepted it, didn't like it, lit one of my own.

      
Meanwhile he was telling me, "I understand you're the one who tore the place up last night."

      
I dropped my lighter into my pocket. "Yeah."

      
"For God's sake why?"

      
I shrugged. Pulled out an oldie. "It seemed the thing to do at the time."

      
He smiled. "Mighty Joe
Copp
."

      
I smiled back. "I was provoked. At least now you know my name."

      
"My apologies. I'll try to see it doesn't happen again."

      
I produced the picture I'd taken from Gil Tanner's bedroom and handed it to him. "I need to talk to this kid,"
    
I said amiably.

      
He studied the photo for a moment, said, "What makes you think you'll find her here?"

      
"I guessed. I'll need her name and address, please."

      
He handed the photo back and gave me a sour look.
 
"You know we can't give out that information."

      
"I agree that ordinarily you should not. But this is not ordinary. It's about life and death, to coin a phrase. So I really must insist you give it to me."

      
"Look, Joe—"

      
"You look. You work underage kids in this joint. How do you keep your license?"

      
"You've been misinformed. All of our girls must produce two items of personal identification to get on here. We are very careful about the age business."

      
"Not careful enough. Juanita Valdez would be twenty next week."

      
He said, "Wait right here," and returned to his office.

      
I had time for only a sip at the coffee and a drag at the cigarette before he was back again. He placed a manila folder on the bar in front of me. "See for yourself."

      
It was the personnel file on Juanita. Had her picture in there, bare-ass; had also a Xerox of her driver's license and birth certificate. Both of those indicated that she would be twenty- three next week. Funny thing, though. It was the same driver's license I'd used to call her twenty next week. You can do all sorts of tricks with a copying machine. Especially if all you are going for is a phony proof of age, just for the record in case you should ever need it.

      
I closed the file and handed it back. "Sorry, guess I had bum info."

      
He smiled, slid another folder my way. "Would you like to verify
Tawney
Matthews too?"

      
I smiled back, opened the folder, made a mental note of the home address, handed it back. "Thanks. That's all I needed."

      
"No provocation this time?"

      
"See?" I said. "Could have been this easy last night."

      
"It gets a little crazy in here some nights.*'

      
"Crazy enough for Jim Davitsky?"

      
His smiled faded. "Who?"

      
"Guy that owns the joint. Didn't you know that?"

      
"You're wrong about that. A management corporation owns this place. Three more just like it."

      
I said, "Okay" and went out of there.

      
But I had not been wrong.

Jim Davitsky owned the management corporation. And Jim Davitsky was a pervert. I got that from an unimpeachable source. I can't identify that source because I promised on Edna's friendship that I would not. But the lady is in a position to know, and she knows a lot.

      
She'd even attended a couple of his parties; one of them in Hawaii. With all the president's men.