Money Men (9 page)

"I know what you said this morning."

"Well, now it's tonight and I'm sitting here having a drink. I just did ten days in jail and it doesn't make a shit to me one way or the other whether you can score for me or not. I have other sources. Okay?"

Pleach turned his head, and spoke to the bar mirror. "Don't get pissed, man. I'm just always a little paranoid about dealing with new people... I'm ready to deal tonight if you're ready. No shit."

"Now that you're through with the cat-and-mouse game, go get me a sample. I'll take a look at it, and then we'll talk business. "

"I'll have to take a little trip to get the stuff. After you see a sample, how long before you can have the buy money?" Leach's hand explored his face again.

"It's five minutes away," Carr said,

"Do you have any objections to showing me the money before I go make a commitment to my man? He's going to ask me if I've seen the buy money...You know how it works."

The black man was intently watching Leach. He kept swishing the ice cubes in his drink, trying to look nonchalant. The blonde had moved next to Kelly.

"You'll just have to tell him that I don't show money until he shows a sample. My mother always told me that walking into traps was bad for my health."

"Okay. Okay. I'll go get a sample. I'll be back here inside of an hour. No shit. Be ready to deal in five minutes after I show the sample."

Leach got up and walked quickly out the door.

The black man looked at his wristwatch.

Kelly brushed past Carr on his way to the men's room. He returned to his barstool shortly.

Carr ordered another drink and walked into the stinking men's room. He locked the door. Reaching under the sink he felt for the tape and pulled it off with the note.

Spade is a lookout, shoulder holster. I take him. Push for parking lot. Too many people inside.

Carr threw the note in the toilet, pulled the handle, and watched it disappear. He returned to his stool.

The bar phone rang. Gabe answered and stretched the cord to reach the black man. He listened, said, "Right on," and gave the phone back to Gabe.

Leach came back within a few minutes. He walked in the door and looked around nervously. The black man gave a subtle nod.

Leach walked to Carr and handed him an envelope.

"Let's go out in the parking lot. There's too many people in here," Carr said. He placed the envelope in the pocket of his sports coat and walked toward the door. Leach followed him closely, looking about. The black man put money on the bar.

Carr stepped out the front door onto Hollywood Boulevard. He took the envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and saw four twenty-dollar bills. The serial numbers were the same.

Leach was walking ahead of him now, into the parking lot. Carr saw the black man come out the rear door into the dark parking lot with his hand inside his leather coat. Where was Kelly?

Leach stopped suddenly and faced Carr. "You looked at the samples," he said. "Now lemme have 'em back and you go get your fuckin' buy money."

"Sure," said Carr. He handed the envelope to Leach.

Kelly came out the back door. It was time. Carr reached into his back pocket, removed a handkerchief, and threw it to the ground. With a puzzled look, Leach focused on the handkerchief for a moment and then looked back at Carr.

Kelly jumped the black man from behind. They fell, struggling, to the asphalt, behind a row of parked cars.

Carr pulled his .357 magnum and pointed it at Leach's face. "Federal officer! Freeze!" He pulled his coat back, showing the badge on his belt.

Leach dropped the envelope and raised his hands.

The sound of fist striking flesh and the rattle of handcuffs came from behind the parked cars. Kelly stood up, holding a .45 automatic for Carr to see. "I got him," he said, out of breath.

Kelly got in the back seat with the handcuffed prisoners for the ride to the field office.

In the interview room, Leach picked at his face as Carr filled in the arrest forms.

"Is that a two-way mirror on the wall behind you? No shit?"

Carr continued to write.

"Why don't you warn me of my constitutional rights?"

"No need to. You are bought and paid for. You delivered four counterfeit twenties to the man."

"I think I was entrapped into the whole thing. No shit. You asked me to score some paper for you in the county jail. I was just doing you a favor...Why were you in my cell in the first place?" He squeezed something on his neck and looked at his fingers. He wiped the fingers on his pants.

Carr completed the last of the redundant paperwork. He put his pencil down and offered Leach a cigarette.

"Thanks. No shit." Leach pulled the cigarette from the pack and hung it from his mouth. He lit it with a flourish.

Carr spoke softly. "Pleach, you've been around. I think you and I can talk turkey. I'll be up front if you will. What I want is the names of everybody you've dealt the twenties to, and the location of the rest of the stash. What do you want?"

Leach pulled the cigarette from his mouth and looked Carr in the eye. "It doesn't matter what I want or don't want 'cause I ain't saying a fuckin' thing. And that is no shit." His expression was smug.

"You must be one of those freaks who actually
likes
the joint. Is that it?" Carr said. He leaned back in his chair.

"I like the joint about as much as I like sticking my head into a bucket of pure shit. But I've been around long enough to know that since I'm on parole I'm going to be violated. I'll pick up another eighteen months, of which I'll have to do a third. Your case with the four twenties will be dropped by the U.S. attorney in the interest of justice so as not to clog up the court since I'm already going back to prison. After all, four twenties is only eighty bucks. With good time, I'll serve four months, and probably only three, since December is early-out time. So, for ninety days you want me to be a snitch and take a chance on getting a shiv stuck up my ass? No way. No fuckin' way. When I was a kid I once did ninety days for getting caught with one roach. I can do ninety days standing on my head."

Carr knew he was right. "If you don't want to cooperate, I guess I'll have to go to your pad and search it. If Vikki's there with the stash, she gets arrested. Do you want to get her involved?" Carr spoke clearly.

"What the fuck do I care? She's just a dumb hype bitch. A friend of mine gave her to me. If you go there and find counterfeit money, it's hers, not mine. I didn't know what was in the envelope I gave you. Why don't you just book me? Fuck all this yakety-yak. No shit." He folded his arms across his chest.

Carr gathered up the stack of printed forms. He stood up and opened the door.

Kelly was waiting in the hallway, eating a large greasy doughnut. "Any luck?" He spoke with his mouth full.

"Nope. You?"

"The spade says he knows Pleach from the Paradise Isle. Acts as a lookout for him when he does deals. Pleach gives him a few bucks after the deal goes down. That's all he's gonna say." Kelly gulped some of the doughnut. "He's con wise, told me what I already know. He just did six months for killing his next-door neighbor; he's out on an appeal or something. Can you imagine that? Six months ... I'd like to kill my next-door neighbor's kid. His motorcycle is too loud. Six months couldn't be all that bad." He rammed the last of the doughnut into his mouth and chewed. "I'm going down to the grand-jury room. Pick me up there when you're ready to go."

Carr walked down the hall into the tech shop and switched off the tape recorder labeled "Interview Room #1." He removed the cassette tape, wrote "Arrest interview. Defendant Virgil Leach" on its label, and placed it in his shirt pocket. He looked at
his
watch. It
was 8:00 A.M.

****

NINE

It was 9:30 A.M. by the time Carr had finished briefing Delgado and making phone calls to the coroner's office. He left the field office and took the elevator to the ground floor.

When the elevator door opened, he walked down the marbled hallway toward a large set of wooden doors with gold lettering that read FEDERAL GRAND JURY. A small cardboard sign hung on a door handle. DO NOT ENTER. GRAND JURY IN SESSION
.
On one side of the doorway stood four long-haired men, whispering to one another. They wore open-collared shirts, tight pants, gold necklaces and rings. They looked at him as if a badge was pinned to his coat.

Farther down the hallway Kelly leaned against the marbled wall.

"What's it look like?" Carr said.

"That paper-pushing sumbitch Tommy the Hat has been on the witness stand for the past hour and a half," he whispered. "He won't even give so much as his home address. The court stenographer walked out a couple of minutes ago and told me. His asshole friends are standing over there with ants in their pants waiting to see if he is going to give up on them as being the ones who passed the fifties." Kelly spoke in a defeated tone. "But Tommy's being a real stand-up guy...That's because he knows we don't have a good case on him."

"Why not?" Carr said.

"A bad search warrant."

"Dry hole?"

"No. We found thirty-five grand in fifties under his bed. Problem is the typist made a mistake and typed in the wrong date on the search warrant."

Carr shook his head.

The grand-jury doors opened. Curly-haired and freckled, Tommy the Hat, in a French-cut white suit, was the first one out. He tapped a matching Stetson with a silver band onto his friz.

Carr walked directly up to him and grabbed his hand before he reached his friends. Tommy looked surprised.

"Tommy," Carr said, cranking the young man's hand in wedding-reception style. "The truth never hurt anybody. You've kept your part of the bargain, and Uncle Sam will keep his. Thanks again, buddy."

Tommy the Hat pulled his hand away from Carr as if it were a handcuff. The young hoods glanced at one another and turned their backs. They swaggered down the hallway without looking back. "I ain't no fucking stool pigeon!" screamed Tommy. "I didn't say a word in there." He pointed at Carr. "You...you...mother fucker!"

Carr winked at the now red-faced man and headed down the hallway toward the exit. Walking next to him, Kelly made guttural sounds to try to keep from laughing. They passed through the revolving doors into the parking lot, and Kelly burst into hysterical, booming laughter. "How do you ever think of that shit?"

Kelly parked in front of the stucco apartment house next door to Leach's place.

Carr picked up the microphone from the glove compartment and gave the location. He replaced the microphone and shut the compartment.

"Why don't you take the rear," he said. He opened the door and got out. Kelly drove around the corner.

Carr waited for Kelly to get into position. He heard a loud whisper coming from a ground-floor window of the apartment house. "Are you a policeman? I saw you talk on the car radio." The voice was old.

Carr stopped. "Who wants to know?"

"The people in that house are up to no good," said the woman. "The girl is a doper. She passed out on the front lawn once. She lives with a guy who beats her like a dog. People go and come at all hours. I hope you arrest them."

"What's your name?"

"I don't want to get involved," she whispered.

Shaking his head, Carr walked to the front door of the house and knocked.