Clutching at Straws
Page 23
“I can only guess that your son was protecting you, your reputation,” I said. “I’m guessing Freddie was afraid that if it came out that the kidnapping was a hoax, you may have been suspected of complicity or at least knowledge after the fact. I think Freddie saw Moss as someone who might harm you. I think that the fear was misguided, but that the intention was unselfish.”
I had told Jeremy Cash that Freddie had given up his life to protect his father.
I had no idea whether I had helped the man or made him feel worse.
“This officer, Moss, does he have a family?” Cash asked.
“Two young boys,” I said.
“They will suffer because of the actions of their father.”
“Yes, they will.”
“If there is anything I can do to help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
On Thursday, I received a call from Mrs. Moss. She had visited her husband in jail and he had asked to see me. I arranged, with some help from Lopez, to meet with Moss in a private interview room.
“What’s on your mind, Phil?” I asked, passing him my pack of Camel straights.
“I’d like to make a deal,” he said.
“Are you really in a position to do that?”
“You tell me,” he answered. “I never mention the Rolex, the fact that you had material evidence in a murder case in your possession and never brought it to Lopez, and you do a little something for me.”
I doubted that Moss could make anything of it, doubted that anyone would take him seriously. He had no proof that the Rolex was ever at the Chancellor house, and the mysterious wristwatch had become a legendary joke among the likes of Sergeant Johnson. And if the Rolex were to take anyone down, I had decided that it wouldn’t be my decision.
And if it took me down as well, so be it.
As Vinnie Strings would say, “a gamble is a gamble, winning or losing is an afterthought.”
And besides all that, I needed to hear Moss out.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I have the fifty grand I took from Freddie Cash’s apartment. I’ve got it stashed away. I want to get it to my wife and kids. They’re going to need it. I don’t expect them to get much help from the department. I need you to get it to Mary, but only if it’s safe. Only if it can’t come back at her that she received it.”
Mary. It was the first time I had heard his wife’s name. It was a mother’s name.
I told him I would do it.
He told me where I would find the money.
The next day I delivered it to his wife, telling her that it was a gift from Jeremy Cash. One that he would really like to remain anonymous.
That afternoon, going through the mail at my office, I found a short note from Jenny Solomon. It simply read: “I’ll be fine. Do the same.” It was followed by a passage from The Count of Monte Cristo:
Until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words—wait and hope.
On Friday I went down to Los Angeles to see Chance Folsom. I met him on a sound stage where he was working on a film. I had arranged to meet him for his noon lunch break. I told him I had a gift for him.
We walked around the studio lot to a spot where we could be alone.
“You can do what you like with it,” I said, handing him the plastic bag that held Lowell Ryder’s Rolex.
“Do I have to decide right away?” he asked, holding the bag as if it were contaminated with the Ebola virus.
“No.”
“Are you going to lose sleep wondering what I decide?”
“I think I’m going to sleep a lot better now that it’s out of my hands,” I said.
“Nice gift,” he said.
“Sorry about that.”
“I’ve got one for you.”
“Oh?”
Chance reached into the shoulder bag he had been carrying and pulled out a book. He handed it to me. It was Promises Kept by Bernardi. Diamond. I turned it over to look at the photograph of the author.
“You look a lot like him,” Chance said.
I had never really seen the resemblance before.
“It’s a fairly recent development,” I said. “I’ve been searching for a copy for a long time; it’s impossible to find.”
“It’s not what you know, Jake, it’s who you know,” Chance Folsom said. “And who knows you.”
He reached over and opened the back of the book. Stamped inside were the words “Purchased from the Folsom Public Library.”
“Thank you, Chance,” I said.
“Thank you, Jake,” he said, holding up the watch, “for keeping it in the family.”
He had removed it from the plastic bag and was turning it in his hand.
So much for evidentiary fingerprints.
“This inscription,” Chance said, “‘Love, Dad.’ How would anyone know this watch belonged to my brother?”
I didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t really asking for one. “I wonder why he didn’t have Lowell’s name inscribed?”
“Maybe, at the time, he wasn’t sure who he would give it to. You’d better get back to work,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“How about we meet for the premiere? Or did you forget that we did a film in Denver together?”
I had forgotten.
“Count me in.”
We shook hands, then he headed back toward the set and I went for the exit.
As I walked I opened the front of the book.
I read the dedication: “For my sons.”
I closed the book and looked up.
I could see the giant HOLLYWOOD sign on the hill above me.
Dwarfed by the huge midday sun.
And beyond both, something more grand and more humbling.
The rest of the day.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Eric Campbell, Bob Truluck and Down & Out Books for reaching out to me...taking me into the fold...and giving Jake Diamond the opportunity to make new friends...
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.L. ABRAMO was born in the oceanside paradise of Brooklyn, New York on Raymond Chandler’s 59th birthday. Abramo received a BA in Sociology and Education from City College of the City University of New York and an MA in Social Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. He has been a long-time educator, a producer and director of theatre, and an actor on stage and in film; with a number of television credits including roles on Homicide: Life on the Street and Law and Order. Abramo’s first novel, Catching Water in a Net, was recipient of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Award for Best First Private Eye Novel, and was followed by two additional Jake Diamond mysteries, Clutching at Straws and Counting to Infinity. A stand-alone thriller, Gravesend, was recently published by Down and Out Books; and a fourth novel in the Jake Diamond series is in the works. Abramo is a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild, Private Eye Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers.
For more information please visit:
http://www.jlabramo.com/
https://www.facebook.com/jlabramo
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OTHER TITLES FROM DOWN & OUT BOOKS
AND ITS IMPRINTS
See DownAndOutBooks.com for a complete list
By J.L. Abramo
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
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Gravesend
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Bite Harder
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(*) Coming soon
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Here is a preview from Back to Brooklyn, the sequel to My Cousin Vinny by Lawrence Kelter…
Chapter One: Leaving Alabama
Jimmy Willis was dead, gone in the blink of an eye, rocketed to heaven on the wings of a .357 magnum slug.
He took with him the dream of one day owning the Sack-O-Suds convenience store where he’d worked for many years. He’d saved every last dime and was a little shy of the down payment he needed to make the store his own. Old man Scruggs, the founder, hadn’t been out of bed in years, but the store he’d built with his own two hands and operated
for decades was supposed to live on through young Jimmy.
Supposed to.
The convenience store had been closed since the day of the shooting and would probably never reopen. Anything that had been fresh at the time of the shooting had rotted before the police finished with the crime scene. Vandals had looted all the canned goods and the gasoline tanks had been pumped dry. Old man Scruggs didn’t have enough fight left in him to put the store back on its feet, and as such, a senseless act of violence had not only taken a life but reduced a thriving community business to little more than a rotting sarcophagus with grime-covered windows and a leaky roof—a hideaway for hormone-charged teens to use for their pleasure.