JO03 - Detour to Murder (22 page)

C H A P T E R 
36

Before leaving the apartment, I
phoned the office and told Mabel where I’d be just in case a call came in from the hospital. I also asked about Rita.

“She’s on a wild-goose chase. She has a lunch appointment with some guy named Strickling out in Palm Springs. I had to give her five bucks from petty cash for gas. I don’t know—”

“Goodbye, Mabel. Gotta go.” I hung up.

Thirty-five minutes later I pulled into a parking lot on Hill St. and hiked a couple of blocks to Clifton’s on South Broadway, only ten minutes late.

It was one of those clear, crisp autumn days with a stiff breeze that blew the smog out beyond Catalina. Pedestrians moseyed about and everyone’s mood seemed as bright as the sky. There was an aroma of spice from street vendors selling tacos and carnitas, and a sense of lethargy filled the warm, dry air. On days like this store clerks smiled, customers didn’t complain, and people said
please
and
thank you
. Even bums slouching on Broadway guzzled wine without shouting obscenities. And Clifton’s gave needy folks a meal for only a penny.

Walking into the crowded cafeteria, I stood for a moment to take in the curious décor. The place tried to convey the feel of a mountain forest—a forest that would be right at home in Disneyland. In addition to a cascading waterfall next to a plastic tree, a huge deer head with antlers hung on the wall and looked down on the lunch crowd as they ate from plates heaped with plebeian fare. I asked a busboy where the offices were located, then strolled past a fuzzy bear holding a fishing pole and climbed the stairs up to the third floor. Finding the owner’s office, I rapped on the door.

“Come on in,” someone shouted.

“Sorry, I’m late,” I said to the three men who looked up at me as I entered.

Sol sat on a couch, puffing a cigar. The couch rested against a wall filled with framed photos that had been taken at locations around the world, mostly China, from what I could tell from just a quick glance. Vincent Bugliosi leaned forward in a wooden armchair off to the side of a modest desk.

The man sitting behind the desk came around to greet me. He had a slender build, thinning hair, and a wide smile. Probably in his late forties, he spoke in a voice tinged with authority.

“Don’t give it a thought, O’Brien. Everyone’s late. The parking… what can I say? Anyway, the name’s Don Clinton. My sister and I own the place.” He nodded toward Sol and Bugliosi. “I think you already know these men.”

We all shook hands, and I took a seat in the armchair on the other side of the desk.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Maybe a little strawberry Jello to go with it?” Don asked. “We serve the stuff by the ton.” He chuckled.

“No, thanks. I had my coffee this morning.” I didn’t mention that I hated strawberry Jello.

“We were just talking about you. They say you’re working on a case that involved Frank Byron, the DA back in the early forties. Tell me about it.”

Bugliosi stood. “Let me jump in here, Don. I want to give Sol and Jimmy a little background, just a few highlights about your father, Clifford. Then everyone will know why we’re having the meeting here at the cafeteria.”

“Good idea,” Sol said.

“Don’s father, Clifford Clinton—the founder of Clifton’s—was one of the good guys. Back in the forties, Los Angeles was as corrupt as they come. A political machine controlled by hoodlums ran everything, right down to dogcatcher. Clifford decided to do something about it. So he and a few other good citizens started a reform movement, a committee to clean up the government. They did their own investigations, made a lot of noise and started to expose the bad guys. It wasn’t easy. Strong-arm thugs tried to stop the reformers. This cafeteria was smoke-bombed several times. Clifford received anonymous threats on his life almost daily, but he kept right on with his crusade.”

“The press kept quiet about the corruption? No editorials, nothing?” Sol asked.

“Not a thing, Sol. The
L.A. Times
went along with the status quo. Isn’t that right, Don?”

“Yes. Dad and the others even started backing candidates for public office, straightshooters that they could trust. He gave them the money and the clout that they needed to win.”

“The movement started making headway,” Bugliosi added. “In the late thirties, the committee managed to get a few reform candidates elected. But the big one, the election that would count more than all the others, came up in 1940. The office of District Attorney was up for grabs when it became obvious that the incumbent DA, Fitts, was an out-and-out crook. Earlier he’d taken a bribe and was indicted. Even though he wasn’t convicted, the stink clung to him like black on coal. Perfect opportunity for the committee to back a reform candidate. Long story short, Frank Byron convinced the committee that he was the man they were looking for.”

Don nodded. “Dad thought Byron was too young, but the committee checked him out thoroughly. He came across as smart, clean-cut, without a hint of scandal. So Dad and the committee decided to back him to the hilt.”

“But he didn’t stay straight. Did he?” Sol asked.

“At first everything seemed okay. But after a while, things just didn’t add up.”

“Like what, Don?” I asked.

“Little things at first. For instance, Byron was seen being wined and dined at nightspots on Sunset—Ciro’s, Café Trocadero, Mocambo, places like that.” Don paused for a moment, looking down at his hands. “I mean, the committee didn’t expect him to be an altar boy, anything like that. But he seemed to be making friends with a lot of questionable characters. Then there were the rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?” Sol asked.

“Nothing that could be proven. But a number of big criminal cases never made it to court.” Don shook his head. “Especially cases involving gambling interests and crooked politicians.”

“How’d he get away with it?” I asked.

“Dad found out Byron had formed a secret goon squad while in office, a small group of investigators that reported only to him. My father wasn’t exactly sure what they did. But he figured Byron used the goons to intimidate possible witnesses. Maybe that’s why no one came forward with information about Byron’s activities.”

“All through the years Clifford kept files and notes relating to his investigations,” Bugliosi said. “There was a notation in one of the files about the goon squad. An unnamed informant came forward and gave him the names of the members. Guess whose name popped up.”

“Who?”

“Rinehart. He was a young lawyer back then, working for the DA’s office.”

“The DA worked for Byron in the forties?” Sol said. “That’s interesting.”

“Yeah, and here’s the grabber. Rinehart was the
leader
of the goon squad. Actually went out with his boys on the so-called raids.”

Sol stubbed out his cigar in an upright ashtray that stood next to the couch. “My God, Vince!” he said. “Why didn’t you bring this out during the campaign?”

“Couldn’t. There was no concrete proof. The other members were long gone. No one could verify that such a squad even existed, much less that Rinehart was the leader. I would’ve looked like a fool making allegations against Rinehart regarding something I couldn’t prove.”

“My dad said Byron was the biggest mistake of his life,” Don added. “He became obsessed with digging out the truth. Even after Byron left office in ’46, Dad kept pursuing his investigation. He worked on it until the day he died in 1947. He left his files to me, but I had a business to run. As far as I was concerned it was ancient history. Changes were starting to take place; the reform movement had done its job. Clean government was coming back.”

I began to wonder what this meeting was all about. How could any of this possibly be related to my case?

Sol must’ve been reading my mind. “Thanks for the history lesson,” he said. “But what does all of this have to do with Jimmy? How does it tie into his client, Al Roberts?”

Don remained silent for a moment then glanced at Bugliosi, who nodded. He reached in his desk drawer, pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to Sol.

“Take it with you. You can study the contents later.”

Sol opened the envelope and thumbed through it. With his thumb and forefinger he slowly pulled out a glossy, black and white photo.

He looked up and said, “My God. Is this stuff for real?”

C H A P T E R 
37

Sol and I thanked Don
Clinton and Vince Bugliosi for their help and left. We walked out the front door together, and Sol’s limo drove up to the curb immediately. He reached out to open the passenger door.

“Wait, Sol. What’s in the envelope?” I asked.

He looked up and down the sidewalk, then pulled a grainy photo of a group of heavyweights standing in a circle outside a restaurant at night. It was obvious from the clothes they wore—wide ties, big lapels, and fedora hats—that the picture had been taken back in the forties. “Let’s meet at my office,” Sol said. “We need to talk in private.”

“I’ll see you there in a half-hour.”

As soon as the limo pulled away I jogged south on Broadway, heading back to the parking lot. When I came to the Seventh St. intersection I waited for the light to change. When it turned green I started to walk across the street. Halfway through the intersection, someone rushed up behind me. Suddenly, I felt a hard object jammed in my ribcage.

A male voice whispered in my ear, “Don’t turn around. Just keep walking.”

My heart raced. “What the hell!”

He jammed the gun harder. “Keep walking, asshole.”

I made it to the other side of the street without turning around. But my eyes shifted from side to side. I didn’t see a soul. That old line flashed in my mind:
There’s never a cop around when you need one…

A couple of seconds later the same black Buick that’d haunted my nightmares pulled up to the curb. The back door flew open. My assailant shoved me into the seat and climbed in after me.

The car sped away and quickly merged with the traffic.

In addition to the driver, another guy sat in front. He turned and faced me, his gun pointed at my head. I glanced at the asshole next to me: one of the goons that had worked me over after smashing my car. The bastard in front was the other one. They were fat ugly guys, hardboiled and rotten to the core.

“Hey! What’s this all about?”

“Shut up. You’ll find out soon enough,” the guy in front said.

“You’re the same sons-of-bitches that—”

The heavyweight reached over the seat and pistol-whipped the side of my head with his revolver. I slumped back in the seat as pinpoints of light danced in front of my eyes.

“I told you to shut the hell up!”

The guy next to me wrapped tape around my wrists. My shoulders hurt like hell when he yanked my arms up tight behind my back. I decided I’d better calm down before I got myself killed.

The driver said nothing. He kept his eyes on the road as we traveled west on Seventh. A few minutes later we cruised south on the Harbor Freeway. Transitioning to the 405, we headed toward Long Beach. We got off the freeway at Cherry, drove a few miles, and entered Signal Hill, a small area of decrepit oil derricks and rusty tanks just north of Long Beach.

We turned right onto a winding dirt road, climbed a small rise, and came to an oil field at the top of the hill. I could almost taste the petroleum fumes and methane gas that hung in the air as we splashed through oily mud puddles and wound around numerous pumpjacks, all nodding slowly, up and down, up and down.

We finally stopped in front of a dilapidated brick building designed in the classic Eyesore Style of Architecture. A faded sign painted on the wall of the abandoned structure read
Signal Oil Tool Warehouse
.

The driver got out of the car, came around and opened my door. Without saying a word, he reached in and jerked me out. The other two thugs grabbed my arms and half dragged me across the dark, slimy dirt toward the warehouse door. The driver unlocked and opened it, then stood off to the side while the other guys shoved me through and followed me in.

The driver locked the door after us.

I stood in semidarkness—the only light filtering in from a row of dirty windows running along one wall, located close to the ceiling fifteen feet above the cracked and buckled concrete floor. Upright wooden beams supporting the roof were laid out in a grid pattern and spaced about twenty feet apart. At the far end, a small office with broken windows and a missing door looked as if it were about to collapse under its own weight.

My original abductor gave me another hard shove in the direction of the upright beams. I stumbled, but caught myself before I fell. “Keep your goddamn hands off of me,” I snapped.

Lightning fast, he slapped my face… hard. I tried to kick him. He stepped aside and I missed. He clobbered me again, this time with the butt of the gun. I went down. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” he shouted.

“Hey, Danny, cool it,” the driver said. “Let’s get him tied to the post first.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me up and hauled me over to one of the beams. He undid the tape on my wrists as the goon from the front seat kept his gun trained on me.

“Don’t be an asshole, O’Brien,” Danny said. “Don’t make it hard. We’re just going to tie you up, ask you a few questions, then we’ll be outta here.”

I felt my face. It hurt like hell and I knew I’d been cut. The sticky metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I felt woozy, nauseated. Blood mixed with sweat dripped to the floor. The building was like a huge hothouse with heat waves radiating from below. Maybe I should’ve tried to fight, but I was too weak, and they might’ve killed me anyway. I just looked at the floor, wondering why they were doing this to me.

The driver took hold of my arms and wrapped them around the support beam behind me. “Toss me the duct tape and the rope,” he ordered.

With my arms secured behind the post, he looped a piece of rope tied in a slip knot around my neck and jerked me up until I had to stand practically on my toes. Then he fastened the other end to a spike nailed high in the beam. If I tried to slide down into a sitting position I’d hang myself.

“Hey, Morelli,” the thug named Danny said to the driver, “we’ll handle this guy. Find a phone booth. Call the Tower and tell the boss we got him. Use that phone number I gave you. Hurry back; this won’t take long.”

“Okay, I’m on my way,” The driver left, and the door slammed behind him.

With my arms and legs bound to the wooden support beam, Danny and the other jerk started in on me. Danny backhanded me across the face. His gaudy ring sliced my skin. “Listen up. We can make this easy or hard. Tell us what we want to know and we’re gone.”

My face must’ve looked like hamburger. It throbbed and burned; I felt like it’d been mauled by a junkyard dog. “What do you want, for chrissakes?” I mumbled.

“Where’s the paper?”

“What are you talking about—” The guy hit me again. I started to get woozy. My head nearly hit my chest, but as soon as it fell an inch, the rope around my neck tightened, cutting into my windpipe. I had to keep my head up, or I’d be strangled.

Danny grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. He moved in close, eyeball to eyeball. His breath could peel paint. “You know what we want: the old lady’s paper. We know you got it.”

My God! These guys were after Mrs. Hathaway’s blackmail documents. They killed her but didn’t find what they were looking for. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me at ’im, Danny,” the other guy said as he whipped out a switchblade. The six-inch blade snapped open. “I’ll make this bastard talk. I’ll have a good time cutting up the prick.” He laughed and moved closer to me.

“Back off, Rollo. I don’t want him dead.”

“Maybe, I’ll cut him a little, he’ll bleed, maybe he’ll live…for a while.”

“Look, damn it, I don’t have her papers. She didn’t give me anything, just some old phone numbers. That’s all.”

“C’mon, man, let me cut ’im,” Rollo said again.

“Not now.” Danny turned back to me. “Tell us where you hid the paper and we’ll let you go.”

“I figure you guys had found the papers… when you searched her shed… before you killed her.” I felt weak. My eyelids weighed a ton, but by a force of will I kept them open. I couldn’t let my head drop.

Rollo moved in close, waving the knife back and forth in front of my face.

Danny held him back. “Look, Rollo, let’s just do what we we’re told. We’re in no hurry. C’mon, let’s go. Let the asshole stew here for a while. He’ll tell us all about the paper when we come back in the morning.”

“In the morning? Hey, you can’t leave me here like this all night! I won’t make it,” I shouted.

Ignoring his cohort, Rollo moved in even closer. Our noses almost touched and I felt his hot breath on my face. “I’ll cut you, man. You’ll bleed red, man. Your stinkin’ blood will gush.”

He raised his knife slowly. I felt the sharp pressure of the tip of the blade pressing against my jugular. One more millimeter and I’d die.

“Rollo, let’s go! Morelli will be back by now.”

“Then I’ll cut ’im? When we come back?”

“Yeah, Rollo. If he don’t talk, you can cut him up. You can cut him in as many pieces as you want.”