Nailed (26 page)

Chapter 32

Didi DuPree was still in town, but not in a hotel, and certainly not in a Winnebago.

He woke up at mid morning in a private residence. Nothing so grand as the Thunder estate, but the place still went for upwards of a couple million bucks and had a view of the lake. Before he ever opened his eyes, Didi knew that he was alone in the bed. But nearby he could hear and smell the woman who’d taken him in.

He lazily spread his eyelids revealing orbs as cool, gray and uncaring as stones in a fast-moving stream. He had hair the color of anthracite that swept back in waves from a high forehead. His nose was long and broad, his mouth was full and wide. He wore a new goatee, grown in just enough to look respectable.

In repose, as he was now, he looked almost slight. But when Didi moved, and he could put it in overdrive while most folks were still fumbling for the ignition switch, all sorts of long, ropy muscles popped out.

He got to his feet in one fluid motion and eased silently over to where the woman sat naked, clickety-clacking away at her computer. The words just flew up there on that little TV screen like magic. Rat-a-tat-tat. Just blasting out the story from her head. Didi appreciated her speed, if not her dialogue:

BRETT

The world’s not big enough for you to hide from me, Colonel.

If that was the case, Didi thought, the colonel ought to cut off ol’ Brett’s johnson right then and there and gag him with it. But, no, he had to tell the hero how big his hard-on was. And then in the final scene the colonel would get his ass handed to him. That was the kind of thing that had made Didi stop going to the movies. Real bad guys
never
gave anybody a second chance.

But Didi didn’t care about Brett or the colonel. He just want to make sure that ol’ — he had to look at those surgically crafted tits before her name came back to him — Gayle Shipton hadn’t been writing about any of the stories he’d been telling her the past few days. Not that she could
never
use them. He wasn’t a tease. He’d just said she had to wait until he said it was okay.

They’d met last Friday when Didi had been sitting in one of the sidewalk cafes this town seemed to have no end of. She’d strolled right over to him, given him a long look and said, “I bet you’re dangerous. I need a dangerous man right now.”

What Didi had needed was a place to stay, so he let her sit down.

She said she was a screenwriter. She’d come to her “getaway” house to do a complete rewrite of a dogshit excuse for a script that was holding up a sixty million dollar production. She had ten days to do the job. And she needed only one more thing before she sat down and got started: a man. Someone with a real edge to him. She was sure he was that man.

She told Didi he could have her any time she wasn’t working, and he could have all the coke he could snort. That was her offer. Take it or leave it. Then she gave him a little flash up her red miniskirt to show him just what he’d be leaving if he said no.

Didi told her he didn’t do drugs. Gayle Shipton’s knees slapped together audibly and almost walked away. But then she remembered the other half of her offer. What about that, she asked.

“I always was partial to anything shiny and pink,” Didi allowed.

Gayle Shipton was so happy with his response she not only took him home, she offered him the possibility of doing an uncredited punch-up of any scene in which she bogged down. And since she was getting five hundred thousand dollars for her rewrite, she was prepared to be generous.

But the woman, running on coke and speed the past four days, hadn’t bogged down anywhere, in bed or at her rat-a-tat-tat computer.

Besides, Didi had his own project in mind. One that involved serious money.

The woman didn’t miss a keystroke when he put his hands on her shoulders, so he gave her right nipple a little twist. Just living up to his billing. She was the one who’d said he was dangerous.

“I gotta go out,” Didi told her when she looked up, startled.

It took Gayle Shipton a minute to remember who
he
was. Then she smiled. “I’ve been meaning to ask, will you drive me down to Betty Ford when I finish this fucker? I’ve got a room reserved. We’ll put you up somewhere nice in the Springs.”

“Keep treating me right, we’ll see.”

That was close enough. Gayle went back to beating the hell out of her keyboard. Didi watched for a moment, one professional admiring another. If the movie went by as fast as she typed it, he might give it a chance after all.

Didi showered and got dressed. He donned a midnight blue silk suit, sunglasses, and a broad brimmed hat whose color was almost as cool a gray as his eyes. He left his Beretta in his suitcase. He’d warned Gayle not to mess with his case. But the way the woman was cranking on her movie script he doubted she’d get up to pee before he got back.

Didi borrowed Gayle’s little froggy black Porsche 911. He let the sport car’s engine rev for a moment, savoring the muted growl of another fast, tight, and if necessary, lethal machine. Then he sped out of Gayle’s garage and went looking for the Englishman that Jimmy’s boy, Junior Cardwell, had mentioned last week.

Didi fished in the still waters of his mind for the Englishman’s name.

Ring, he recalled. Colin Ring.

“Colin Ring,” the librarian said, handing three books to Deputy Chief Gosden with a look of disdain on her face.

“What?” Oliver asked. “You’ve read them, and they’re no good?’

“I haven’t read them, and all three were purchased by my predecessor.”

The deputy chief didn’t want to hear anybody else’s gripes. He also didn’t want to go back to his office where he’d likely be distracted. The library was part of the Muni Complex just like police headquarters. If somebody just
had
to see him, they only had to walk down the hall. He thanked the librarian for her help and took the books to a carrel in a quiet corner.

It didn’t take long before Oliver decided that pissing all over people’s reputations was what Colin Ring liked to do best. He wasn’t a great writer, but he conveyed a sense of venom in his work that was powerful. Repugnant, too. The deputy chief understood now why the librarian had turned up her nose.

Ring’s first book, the only one Oliver dimly remembered hearing of, bludgeoned a famous singer. It exposed her as a drug abuser who battered the two children she’d so publicly adopted. Ring also detailed the fact that the woman had been abused as a child herself: Mom had set her hair on fire one day when an audition hadn’t gone well. The singer’s scalp had been scarred and hair regrowth had been incomplete. Thus the reason she always wore such ludicrous wigs, and had a hard time keeping a husband, Ring asserted. None of the singer’s own suffering was offered as mitigation for the battery Ring claimed she inflicted on her own children. Rather, it was cause for alarm, a warning that the authorities ought to take her kids away from her.

As Oliver thought he recalled, that warning had been heeded. He also seemed to remember the singer had been confined to a mental hospital after attempting suicide.

Ring had also destroyed the career of a leading man by revealing that he was both a homosexual and a pedophile. The biographer waxed nauseatingly righteous in this effort, claiming that he was saving innocent young boys from a predatory monster. He may even have been right. But his target, even at the height of his career, had been strictly a B-list actor, who had been reduced to doing infomercials by the time Ring got around to knifing him. The library book was dusty, telling the deputy chief it wasn’t borrowed frequently. Oliver couldn’t imagine it had sold well either.

The last hatchet job was a bio on a movie studio head who was found guilty of income tax evasion after Ring detailed that the man wrote off the cost of hookers and drugs as a miscellaneous business expenses. That might have tickled or terrified Hollywood insiders, Oliver thought, but it had to make most of America yawn.

If you didn’t eviscerate somebody who spent a lot of time in
front
of the camera, somebody the public really knew and considered a personal acquaintance, or better yet really knew and already hated, you were nothing in the character assassination business.

So Colin Ring had blown three people out of the water, but, in a business sense, only his first target had been worth shooting in the first place. The deputy chief checked the copyright dates of all three books and saw that the most recent one had been published ten years ago.

He wondered if Ring had picked the wrong target again in Jimmy Thunder.

Oliver knew that a lot of conspiracy-minded African Americans thought whitey was out to get any black man who made more than minimum wage. But he’d never bought that. Black people had character flaws, bad luck, and the right to fail like anyone else. And who would really give a rat’s ass if Jimmy Thunder dropped off America’s cable TV channels tomorrow? Or stayed there for the next forty years.

But … but if Jimmy Thunder could be convicted for — or even just plausibly accused of — crucifying his saintly son to keep his fame and fortune, why, people would buy that book by the truckload. Colin Ring would be back in the big time.

More than ever, the deputy chief liked the Englishman as his doer.

Chapter 33

By lunchtime, Ron had worked his way through the five star hotels and was halfway through the four star tier. Nobody had a Didi DuPree registered, or recognized the photo of the man that the chief had shown them. But the concierge at the Renaissance, an astute middle-aged redhead whose nametag read Marjorie Fitzroy, gave the picture of Didi a prolonged examination.

Ron waited patiently while she sorted out her thoughts.

“I may have seen this man, but not looking like this,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Ron wanted to know.

“Well … look at the shape of his head. It’s basically narrow and rectangular but his jaw forms a fairly sharp V. Then there are the high, prominent cheekbones. I saw a man who shared those characteristics, but he wasn’t clean-shaven. He had a goatee. I couldn’t see his eyes because he wore sunglasses. I couldn’t tell about the forehead or the hair because he had a hat on. But I could give you at least a maybe.”

“You’re very perceptive,” Ron complimented.

“Thank you. I worked my way through college as a life-drawing model. While all the students were busy looking at me, I had nothing to do except look back. I got really good at studying faces. I’ve found it pays to keep up that skill in this job, too.”

Ron asked for a description of the hat and sunglasses. Gray hat with a broad brim over elliptical silver frames with black lenses, Marjorie Fitzroy told him.

The chief thanked the concierge for her help. She told him anytime.

He used the lobby phone to call Sergeant Stanley. He relayed the description of the man the concierge had seen and asked the Sarge to have Didi Dupree’s image digitally modified on the department’s suspect ID software. He was to be disappointed, at least temporarily.

“System’s down, Chief. There’s a ghost in the machine. Computer techs are working on it right now.”

“If it lasts more than a couple of hours, do it the old-fashioned way. See if you can find a sketch artist.”

“What? You mean someone who can actually draw by hand?”

“I thought you knew everyone in town, Sarge.”

“Yeah, but this one’s a reach.”

The chief gave Sergeant Stanley Marjorie Fitzroy’s name. “I bet
she
knows somebody who could do it.”

“Yes, sir,” the Sarge said, his nose slightly out of joint.

“You might enjoy talking with her, anyway,” the chief mollified. “One knowledgeable pro sharing information with another.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t sulk, Sarge. She’s very nice. Very sharp. Good-looking, too.”

“Sure, but will Mom like her?” Sergeant Stanley asked deadpan.

Ron laughed. “Touché, Sarge. But if the computer doesn’t come back up soon, give her a call. Work something out. And there’s one more thing I’d like you to do. The next time you rotate the car outside Jimmy Thunder’s estate, have the officers watch for Deacon Meeker. If he comes out, have the watchers radio for a unit to tail him. He might just lead us to cousin Didi.”

“Will do, Chief.”

Ron hung up and considered what to do next.

The growl in his stomach told him that it better be lunch. He was going to need something to eat before he could continue his rounds. He drove over to What the Hell, a burger place that thumbed its nose at the nutritionally correct, served king-size charcoal grilled patties on jumbo sesame seed buns, and piled on the extras until the customer said stop. Ron had told the owner, Sherm Mason, that if he ever decided to franchise the place, Ron would invest all of his pension fund for a piece of the action.

Sherm, a genial black man, responded that he liked living in Goldstrike too much to be distracted by taking his business elsewhere. But he was thinking he might someday open a rib joint locally with a similar approach to dining. Call the place No Bones About It. He said if he did, he might let the chief buy a small interest.

Ron finished his burger with a smack of his lips. He knew he’d have to do an extra half hour in the gym that night to work off his indulgence. A price well worth paying, to his mind.

On impulse, he decided to take a break from looking for Didi DuPree.

He’d go and see if he could find Texas Jack Telford at home today.

Ron not only found Texas Jack at home, he found him atop it. Jack was up on the roof of the new addition to his house nailing a sheet of plywood to the frame. With all his hammering, Jack didn’t hear Ron drive up. Nor did he hear the chief approach on foot. In fact, Ron had to call out to the five time poker champ before the man knew he had company.

And then the presence of someone so unexpectedly close startled Texas Jack. He sent a box of nails flying. Ron had to duck as a torrent of pointed steel missiles flew at him.

“Jesus, who was that?” Jack yelled from his perch. “Are you all right?”

Ron lowered the forearm he’d raised to shield his eyes. It was polka-dotted with a dozen beads of blood, but none of the wounds felt more than superficial.

“It’s me, Jack. Ron Ketchum. Sorry I took you by surprise like that.”

“I’ll be right down, Ron. Hope to hell you didn’t get hurt.”

“No, I’m all right.”

The chief bent to pick up the nails that had scattered all over the ground near him. He’d gathered a handful when he experienced the shock of recognition. These were exactly the same kind of nail that had been taken out of Isaac Cardwell. He looked over his shoulder and saw Texas Jack had his back to him as he made his way down the ladder from the roof.

Ron pocketed one of the nails.

He couldn’t conceive of any reason why Jack would have wanted to kill Isaac Cardwell. But the man had been Jimmy Thunder’s alibi. He was supposed to have been at Thunder’s estate on the night of the murder. Who knew what kind of relationship the poker champ had with the televangelist? Ron certainly didn’t. But he was going to bring his purloined nail into the lab and compare it with the ones taken from the crime scene. Just to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

“Good Lord, look at your arm!” Texas Jack said, hurrying toward the chief.

Jack was in his early sixties, but he was as whipcord lean as any cowboy from his namesake state. A multi-millionaire from his winnings and his books on how to play poker, he looked completely at home in his work worn jeans and denim shirt. He had steel gray hair worn short enough that he didn’t have to mess with it, and deep blue eyes that missed absolutely nothing that went on at a card table.

But his poker face was almost comically distorted as he gawked at Ron’s arm. The blood from each of the puncture wounds had run down Ron’s forearm and combined with the flow from the others. The chief looked like he’d been slashed from wrist to elbow.

“It’s not nearly as bad as it seems,” Ron said. “If you’ve got a paper towel, I can just blot up the blood.”

But Texas Jack insisted Ron come inside. When Maria, the housekeeper, saw the chief’s arm, she exclaimed and fussed over him, too. Ron washed off his arm with cold water in the kitchen sink, dried himself off with paper towels, and applied the antiseptic spray he was given.

He declined Jack’s offer of a shot of whiskey, but took Maria up on an iced tea.

When the two of them were sure Ron was all right, Maria disappeared, and Jack seated Ron at his kitchen table. That was fine with the chief; it was time they got down to business.

“Jack, I’m investigating the murder of Reverend Isaac Cardwell, and the reason I’m here is that your name has come up.”

Now, the cardplayer’s face and voice were perfectly neutral. “It has?”

“Yeah. Jimmy Thunder told me he was playing cards with you last Thursday night.”

“Oh, okay. I see now. Well, that’s right. We were playing cards. We play once, sometimes twice a month. Usually at his place. But every once in a great while he’ll come out here.”

Ron told Texas Jack that Thunder had claimed the game had gone on all night.

“That’s what usually happens when we play. And I don’t own a wristwatch so I can’t tell you exactly what time I left his place. But I can tell you it wasn’t dawn or even close to it. Let’s just say it was several hands and several grand earlier than normal.”

Which inclined Texas Jack’s story closer to that of Buster Lurie, the gas station attendant, than the one Jimmy Thunder told.

“What was the reverend’s mood that night?”

“Well, that was a little off, too. I mean he’s not a bad player for an amateur, and he knows to keep a straight face when he plays his cards. But there was something about his eyes, I remember, like he was a little edgy. And I didn’t think it had to do with the game.”

“Does the reverend set himself a limit for what he can lose?”

Texas Jack’s face remained as impassive as ever, but he took an unusually long time to answer. In fact, Ron had to prompt him.

“Is this too personal a question?”

“No. It’s … well, you may have heard I have a hard time getting any kind of a game in town these days. There are only two, maybe three fellas in town who’ll play me. Jimmy’s one of them. So it isn’t so much they decide how much they can lose. It’s more like I decide how much I’ll take on any given night. I make it enough so they don’t think I’m coddling them, but not so much they stop playing.”

Ron nodded.

“I hear you still like to play basketball,” Jack said.

“That’s right.”

“Well, imagine how you’d feel if nobody’d ever let you touch a ball again.”

“Awful,” Ron said sincerely. Thwarted, desperate and depressed, too.

“So that’s why I called it an early night. As I say, Jimmy looked spooked about something and I felt I better go easy.”

“He didn’t mention what was bothering him, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Ron thanked Texas Jack for his time and the iced tea.

Jack said he was welcome. Then he asked Ron if he could hitch a ride with him. Jack’s car had conked out on the way back from Nevada yesterday, and he wanted to pick it up at the garage.

“Sure. My pleasure,” Ron said.

On the drive into town, the chief picked up on something that had niggled at his mind the past few minutes.

“The mayor must be one of those two or three guys who’ll play cards with you.”

“Why do you say that?” Texas Jack asked.

“He’s the only source I can think of for how you know I play basketball.”

Texas Jack gave Ron a crooked grin.

“You’re not going to go out and arrest your boss if I admit it, are you?” he asked

Ron laughed at the idea and shook his head.

“Well, then, I’ll admit that when Clay Steadman is in town he writes me a check every few weeks that makes my remaining years more secure.”

Jack’s reference to a means of payment sparked a synapse for Ron. It made him think about the idea that Jimmy Thunder might be going into the money-laundering business. Which brought up another question.

“Does Reverend Thunder pay by check, too? Or does he use cash?”

Texas Jack chose to remain silent again.

“I’m afraid that’s more than idle curiosity, Jack. It could have a bearing on my investigation.” Not that the chief wanted to tell Texas Jack, but if there was dirty money already in Thunder’s pipeline, and he used any of it to pay his gambling debts, Ron might have to impound Jack’s winnings. Assuming the poker champ still had the cash on hand.

“Is this a private conversation we’re having here?” Texas Jack wanted to know.

“Nobody in the car but you and me.”

“Well, like I told you, I don’t like to win too much at any one time. But the problem with Jimmy is, he’s run up quite a tab with me. He owes me close to two hundred thousand dollars. That was another reason I went home early that night. What’s the point of building up a pile of markers?”

“You don’t think Jimmy Thunder will repay you?”

“I’ve got my doubts,” Texas Jack admitted. “At least for the short term. I think the man has himself a serious cash flow problem.”

Just what Ashanti Royce and DaChelle Chenier had told Ron.

Jack’s assessment lent further credibility to the idea that Jimmy Thunder might be desperate enough to get into some big time crime with Didi DuPree. But would Thunder have been desperate enough to have his own son killed?

The more Ron thought about it, the more he wanted to talk with DuPree. He also wanted to renew his conversation with Ms. Royce and Ms. Chenier. They may have been providing sexual favors to Jimmy Thunder, but it made more sense to the chief that their primary purpose had been to further the money-laundering scheme — rather than to help Thunder with his ministry, as they had claimed. It was just too much of a coincidence that the two women and DuPree should all leave Thunder’s mansion within days of each other.

To Ron, it was a case of three very slick rats abandoning a ship that if not actually sinking had at least sprung a serious leak.

Ashanti and DaChelle had indicated they were going to L.A. Ron still had friends in the LAPD. He’d call and ask if the department had a professional acquaintance with the ladies. Ask his pals to be on the lookout for DuPree, too, in case he showed up down there.