Private Eye 1: Private Eye Page 5

  The Williams Case

  From where Cleary stood—ninety feet above the craggy coast—he could see a wide sweep of the Pacific, and to the north the pricey curve of Malibu. A small pocket of sand on a shore up the coast was the color of bleached wheat, streaked with two o'clock shadows, and the temperature was pushing toward triple digits. The heat encased him; it was so thick it was like inhaling cotton, and there wasn't even a hint of an ocean breeze.

  "In the past year," Fontana was saying, "he must've handled over a hundred different cases: divorce, child custody, shakedowns, blackmail. Let's face it, Jack, it's not hard to make enemies in Nick's line of work. Hell, they were probably taking numbers."

  "Tell me something I don't know, Charlie." Cleary's eyes were still fastened on the view. He watched a shrieking gull swoop low through the blue and nosedive into the water. A moment later, it spiraled upward, a fish wiggling in its beak. Predator, he thought. Predators were everywhere, and unless you kept your eyes cranked open, they were on top of you before you knew what hit you.

  He glanced at Fontana, who was removing his sport coat and wiping at his damp face with a handkerchief. "Look, I know how you feel. But they've just started, Jack. Dibble's on it, and he's got the best guys in homicide working with him. Something else'll turn up, man."

  Cleary slowly ground out his cigarette on the railing, and gazed out at a lone, becalmed sailboat on the Santa Monica Bay. Fontana, he remembered, had said more or less the same thing to him after he was charged with bribery. If you say you're innocent, Jack, then I believe you. You watch, something will turn up to prove you were set up.

  He couldn't put into words the frustration he felt right now. The strain of hunting for his brother's killer had left him weary and frustrated. He seemed to be getting nowhere, and the police—the guys he had worked with—weren't doing any better. "How 'bout that corpse they bagged the same day up on Mulholland?"

  "D'Angelo?" Fontana shook his head. "Mob house-cleaning, far as I can tell. Ballistics made the submachine gun he was found with as the same piece that croaked a guy named Williams on the Strip last week."

  At the mention of the name, Cleary turned to face Fontana. "Buddy Williams?" he asked with cool indifference, attempting to hide the sudden surge of adrenaline that charged through him.

  Fontana nodded, watching Cleary now as if he sensed something. "You know anything about that?"

  "Just what I read in the papers. Local record promoter, wasn't he?"

  "Yeah, and facing hard time on a payola charge. Decided to spill his guts to a federal task force looking into mob takeovers in the record biz."

  Cleary tried to keep his curiosity nonchalant, but he felt Fontana's eyes on him, and knew his ex-partner figured Cleary knew more than he was letting on. "Any idea who ordered the hit?"

  He shook his head and wiped at his face again. "With Williams and D'Angelo stiff, our investigation's about as cold as the feds'."

  Cleary turned back to the Pacific, ruminating on the information. An image of Lana in her turquoise suit, sliding behind the wheel of her pink-on-white Thunderbird, seeped through him like smoke. D'Angelo murdered Williams, then died the same night as Nick, who'd bugged Williams's beach home for Lana. Nick's death, his murder, was suddenly starting to come into focus.

  "Stay on top of things for me, Charlie. Anything turns up on my brother, anything, I want to be the first to know. Can you do that for me?"

  Fontana's head bobbed, but he was eyeing the bulge of a shoulder holster under Cleary's sharkskin coat. "The door swings both ways, Jack."

  Cleary buttoned his jacket. "Come again?"

  "For crying out loud, Cleary, you're talking to the guy who was your partner for six years," Fontana suddenly exploded. His cheeks turned red, his eyes skewed against the light. "I know what you're feeling right now, and I also know what the hell you're capable of. I can't have you tearing this town apart, avenging your brother's death."

  The distance between them loomed like the Pacific. Cleary didn't know why it was there or how to bridge it. But it bothered him. This was the man he had trusted with his life, and who'd saved his ass more than once. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

  "Not yet. But you will, man. I can feel it around the next corner."

  "Thanks for swinging by, Charlie. I appreciate it." Fontana stood there a moment longer, then turned and headed to his car, shoulders hunched against the heat, sport coat draped over his shoulder. He was pissed; Cleary couldn't blame him.

  He watched Fontana pull out of the parking lot and into traffic, feeling like he had betrayed the man or something. He wasn't sure why he was keeping his suspicions to himself. It wasn't Fontana. No. What it came down to was a severe sense of unease he felt around anyone in the LAPD these days.

  Any time now, tomorrow, the day after, maybe next week, the axe could fall again on him. A grand jury, using the records of the review board, could call for his indictment. Getting fired from his job and ruining his career was one thing. But being thrown into the pen, placed on the same level as the slime he had dedicated his life to fighting, was too much. What was worse for a cop than to be thrown in jail? One thing maybe: being an honest cop, framed on false charges, and locked up with the crooks.

  Cleary walked across the lot to a phone booth, dropped a nickel in the slot, and dialed the number to Nick's office. It's my office now, he thought as the phone rang. Nick would want it that way. But who was he kidding. If he was indicted and convicted, it wouldn't be anyone's office. Felons weren't private detectives, at least not ones with a license.

  "Dottie. It's Cleary. I want you to go through Nick's records, find everything you can on Buddy Williams, and have it ready for me to pick up in fifteen minutes."

  "If that's all you're stopping for, boss, you can save yourself the trip. Your brother yanked that entire file the morning after Williams got whacked."

  Cleary set the phone back into the cradle. His face clouded as he contemplated his next move.

  With the exception of an occasional cab or derelict, the granite canyons of the city were deserted, their dark walls trapping the day's heat like some dire, labyrinthine Dutch oven. The light at Grand and Seventy turned green. Seconds later Cleary tromped on the Eldorado's gas pedal and blew through the intersection, top up, headed north.

  He cruised through the warm night air along Grand, keeping to the legal speed limit. He passed Temple Avenue, pulled the Caddy back to trolling speed, then glanced out the driver's window at the federal building on the corner. Seven stories of dark and impassive concrete and stone stared back at him.

  He parked along Grand Street, then crossed the street and walked half a block to an alley behind the building. Without a second thought, he lugged a garbage can over to one of the steel-reinforced windows, climbed on top of it, and opened a ten-inch jimmy blade. He slipped it through the midsill and began working on the latch. Within a couple of minutes, the window slid slowly open.

  Armed with a four-cell flashlight and burglar's tools, Cleary crawled through the window with the efficiency of a B&E artist. He took a moment to get his bearings in the darkened building, then closing the window, he moved down the hallway, playing his light along the wall.

  Ten feet short of the main corridor, he stopped. His light was shining on another window facing the alley. It was ajar a couple of inches. Woulda saved myself lots of trouble if I'd known they'd kept one open for me, he thought with irritation. His heart sped up as he reached the main corridor and paused. No guard in sight. Then he headed down the dimly lit hall toward a stairwell. If you're caught, pal, it's indictment time for sure.

  He opened the door to the staircase. The silence was thicker than oil, except for the loud drum of his heart. Sweat had leaped across his back, oozed down the sides of his face. He was about to ascend the stairs when he heard a door shut, then footsteps on the stairs. Someone was coming down. He took a step back toward the corridor, and was wondering which way to turn, when suddenly the shriek of a security al
arm sliced through the silence.

  Damn it. What the hell? He froze, wondering how he could've been detected. He had a momentary vision of himself being hauled off by the feds, shoved in a cell, the key thrown away. Move, man.

  The approaching sound of footsteps on the stairs overhead galvanized him. He leaped back into the corridor, and bolted down the side hallway. He glanced back, spotted the shadow of another figure narrowing the distance between them. He dashed to the window he had entered by and hurled himself through it.

  He hung a moment from the sill, then dropped some ten feet into the alley. The sound of his breathing filled the air. His heart hammered. He sprinted off in the direction of Grand Street, but was stopped cold by the sight of a patrol car. Its lights out, its radio crackling, it pulled to a strategic halt near the mouth of the alley.

  Aw, shit, You sure do pick 'em, Cleary. No ordinary B&E for you, but a federal building for a federal rap.

  Cleary pressed against the wall. Do not panic. He looked to his left in the opposite direction for a possible escape route. Hulking in the shadows, at one with the night, was a '49 Mercury. He estimated it was ten long strides away. After a glance over his shoulder to the patrol car, he ducked low and scampered toward the vehicle.

  Pressing himself against the wall again, he saw the car was empty. He was considering the idea of rolling underneath it to hide from the police when suddenly a pair of legs were hanging from a window, probably the one that had been partially open.

  A moment later, a body dropped into a pile of rubbish. "Man, oh, man," the kid hissed, as he leaped up and spotted the patrol car. He scampered to the Mercury. Cleary timed his approach, ripping open the passenger door just as the kid slid behind the wheel. It was a punk with a pompadour, his T-shirt sleeve rolled up to his shoulder over a pack of cigarettes, guilt and fear written all over his mug. "What the hell!" His jaw slackened at the sight of Cleary pointing a .45 automatic square at his face. "Who are you?"

  The sound of sirens pounded in Cleary's ears. He glanced up the alley where two patrol cars now blocked the end. "A guy with a gun. Now get this eyesore moving."

  The kid switched on the ignition. "Like I was gonna stick around for autographs."

  He suddenly popped the clutch and nearly threw Cleary into the windshield as the Merc rocketed in reverse down the alley. Smoke poured off the burning rear rubber, but the lead patrol car was only twenty yards off the front end and gaining, barreling toward them like some creature out of hell.

  They were going at least thirty miles an hour—backwards—when Cleary glanced out the windshield. The patrol car was within five feet, its high beams burning into his eyes, nearly blinding him. Its gumball was flashing, its siren wailing.

  "Weird perspective," the kid shouted, clutching his suicide knob.

  Suddenly he cranked his steering wheel clockwise a full three revolutions as the Mercury exploded out the west end of the alley onto Broadway. The maneuver sent the roadster into a perfect one-eighty whip-slide spin that made Cleary so dizzy he could have puked.

  The kid double-clutched into second without missing a beat and buzzed into the alley across Broadway. Pedal to the metal, he glanced into the rearview mirror at the pursuing patrol cars, now eighty yards off his rear. He looked quickly at Cleary as he shifted into third. "Okay, big shot, now you mind telling me—"

  He bit the words in half as Cleary shoved the .45 hard into his ribs. "Shut up and drive, sucker. Just keep on moving, got that?"

  The kid blasted out of the alley at fifty plus, then cranked the wheel hard left into a four-wheel, tire-screaming drift up Spring Street. Cleary tensely divided his attention between the road ahead, and the cops behind. "Who are you? What were you doing back there?" he screamed at the kid, who glanced down at the gun in his side.

  "Betty Crocker. I was baking a friggin' cake." He cast a quick glance up at the screaming gumballs in his mirror, then slam-shifted into fourth as Cleary raised the .45 to his right cheek and pulled back the hammer.

  "You may have the shooter, pal, but I got the wheel. And this 'eyesore' is doing seventy."

  Cleary, without a word, shifted the barrel two inches to the right and pulled the trigger. The .45 discharged directly in front of the kid's face, shattering his driver's side window. "Ask me if I care."

  The kid slammed a hand over his ear. "Jeez, what are you doing, man? You nuts?"

  "You want to see if I can get any closer?" He cocked the gun again.

  "All right. All right." He held up a hand. The speedometer needle hit eighty as they raced down Sunset. "I was rifling through some FBI files."

  "What for?"

  "For info on a guy by the name of Buddy Williams. A dead guy."

  Just as that little tidbit registered with Cleary, the kid's eyes widened with panic. "Holy sh—"

  He cranked the wheel hard right, missing a tractor trailer by a few feet. Then he swerved into a quick left up North Spring, the cops, matching every maneuver, still burning rubber on his tail.

  "Keep talking," Cleary shouted.

  "Someone had cleaned it out already. Now who the hell are you, man?"

  He lowered his .45 slightly, his eyes darting from the kid's face to a streamliner passenger train flying toward the Spring Street railroad crossing a quarter of a mile ahead. The kid saw it, too. Behind them, a third car joined the chase. The Merc now topped a hundred.

  "The name's Cleary. Jack Cleary."

  The kid shot him a quick look, deeply affected, then locked his eyes back onto the road. "Oh, God."

  The arms of the railway crossing sign descended, and the warning whistle of the oncoming train nearly drowned out the kid's voice as he called out to Cleary.

  "Mine's Johnny Betts. I was with your brother the night he died."

  Two synapses connected somewhere in Cleary's head, and he recalled seeing the Mercury at the cemetery. At that moment, the car exploded through the railway crossing arm and cleared the tracks, momentarily airborne. A breathless split second later the train flashed by behind them, cutting off the patrol cars.

  EIGHT

  Recovery

  TINY NAYLOR'S was the neon name across the front of the atomic-age drive-in coffee shop. Its delta wings were spread like a B-29 poised for takeoff from the corner of Sunset and La Brea. Inside the stainless-steel-and-Formica "fuselage," Cleary and Johnny Betts were deep in conversation in a corner booth.

  "You didn't get any names, plate numbers, anything at all?" Cleary asked. He sipped at his coffee, then gave an annoyed look at the miniature jukebox selector on the wall of their booth as Elvis sang "Poor Boy."

  Betts looked up from his plate of burgers and fries, stabbed his straw at the bottom of his glass of Coke. "I would've asked for a business card, but I was too busy combing lead outta my hair."

  Cleary, who'd noticed his bandaged arm, nodded. Then he slid out of the booth. "Gonna call a cab." He walked over to the phone in the corner, slipped in his nickel, and dialed all fives, the number one of the cab company's cars wore on their sides. The number was busy. He hung up, glanced over to where Betts was weaving his shoulders to the tune and diving into his food as if he hadn't eaten all day.

  He would have preferred Betts being one of his brother's killers, instead of a sidekick. But he believed him. It was just like Nick to give some hard-luck kid, even a hipster-hot-rodder, a break. Yeah, Nick, the softie. Nick the savior. Nick. He probably had him doing some of the tedious footwork, and on his final night had called him in as a backup.

  Nick had never said a word about Betts, but that wasn't unusual. He'd always acted as if his business dealings were military secrets. Now his death seemed just as classified. Stamped TOP SECRET. Not even the guy who was with him at the end knew much about it.

  So far, all he had found out from Betts was what he already suspected: that the tapes were what his killers were after, and that Nick thought he was handing them over to the law. But if they had gotten the tapes, why the break-ins?

  He dialed the
number again, and this time it started ringing. The dispatcher's voice repeated the name of the company and he ordered a cab to Tiny Naylor's.

  "Give him five or ten minutes."

  Cleary hung up, and returned to the table where Betts frowned up at him. "Why you figure they wanted those surveillance tapes so bad?"

  "Must've been something on 'em that tied them to the Williams hit. The mob likes to sweep up its tracks, keep everything nice and neat and clean. No complications. You sure that was all they were after?"

  "Far as I know. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but suddenly Mr. Slick in the fancy duds pulled his gun on Nick, and everything went berserk." He jammed the last of his first burger in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. "You got any reason to believe they were after something else?"

  Cleary just shrugged. Johnny plugged a nickel into the boothside juke and punched a couple of tunes. Then, an inner burden showing on his face, he looked over at Cleary, his brow knitting in a frown.

  "Your brother was the kind of cat I'd follow into a burning house with a can of high octane under each arm." He made a fist; struck the table in frustration. "I bailed outta his wheels, Cleary, believing he was halfway out the door already."

  "You think I'd be sittin' here if I thought you were responsible for his death?"

  Betts shrugged. "I'm just telling you what happened. That's all."

  You want me to absolve you, kid? Okay, you're forgiven. He nodded. "You said you'd been working for Nick. For how long?"

  "Off and on, ever since I hit town. 'Bout a year now, I guess."

  "You were his public relations man, no doubt." Cleary gazed impassively at Betts, just a hint of a smile curling on his lips as the last few bars of "Poor Boy" wound down. He glanced out the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window to the parking lot, looking for the cab.

  Betts stuffed a handful of fries into his mouth, and washed it down with a monstrous Coke, acting as if he hadn't heard Cleary. Then he tossed his head with a look that said, "Nice try wise guy."