Fugitive Nights

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “He sounds like every gardener I ever seen around here,” Bessie said. “Gimme a break!”

  “Right,” Lynn Cutter said, and indicated to Nelson that it was time to let Bessie return to her Wheel of Fortune fantasies.

  “But,” she said, “it maybe sounds like a guy named Vega in bungalow four.”

  “What?” Lynn and Nelson said in unison.

  As they headed for the two rows of semidetached cottages making up Bessie’s Apartment Motel, Lynn Cutter got a load of what a few others before him had seen and would never forget— Lynn got to see the carrot-top cop when he put on his game face!

  The first thing Nelson did was reach up under his Lakers T-shirt and grab hold of the .38 in the upside-down holster.

  “Puh-leeeeze!” Lynn cried. “This is prob’ly just a snowbird from Walla Walla. Let’s not kill him right away!”

  “Ain’t you carryin a piece?”

  “No.”

  “I got an extra one!”

  “I figured.”

  “Want it?”

  “No.”

  “Then stay behind me.”

  “With pleasure. But puh-leeeeze don’t Schwarzenegger the door. Let me handle it.”

  “I’ll whistle when I’m in position!” Nelson whispered. “Like a whippoorwill!”

  Nelson squatted down so he could pass under the front window of bungalow four and not be spotted. He duck-walked toward the rear of the building, and when he was in position to watch the back door, he whistled from the darkness.

  It dawned on Lynn. There’s no whippoorwills in the frigging desert. Not even one scraggly-assed whippoorwill!

  Lynn knocked. No answer. He knocked again and said, “Mister Vega! Bessie sent me to tell you the gas meter shows a leak in one a the bungalows! Mister Vega, you there?”

  Lynn put his ear to the door. He walked to the corner of the bungalow, peered toward the darkness out back and saw Nelson crouching with his gun extended in both hands just like on television. When Lynn Cutter had first become a cop nobody extended two arms to hold one little gun!

  “Nelson!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nobody home. We’ll come back later.”

  Bessie had turned off Wheel of Fortune by the time they got back, and was busy registering a nervous middle-aged guy who had a babe outside in his car.

  When the cops reentered the motel office the nervous guy was writing “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson” in a counterfeit scrawl, and had given a wrong license number. As though anybody gave a shit about him and a teenage hooker from Indian Avenue.

  Lynn said to the motel proprietor, “Bessie, we might come back later. Don’t say anything to the guy in bungalow four, okay?”

  “Think I’m gonna nail a notice on his door?” Bessie snorted. “Gimme a break!”

  “Okay, Bessie,” Lynn said, and the cops left her to tend to the nervous guest who kept watching the street for cops.

  But before Lynn and Nelson could get out the door, Bessie said, “Hey! Here comes Mister Vega now.”

  Lynn grabbed Nelson’s arm to anchor him and took a good look through the motel window at the burly man walking their way. He was carrying a bag of take-out food and he did look like the guy with the baseball cap, right down to his Zapata mustache, except that he was wearing a straw cowboy hat.

  Before Nelson could start blasting out windows, Lynn opened the glass door and dashed out, as though hurrying toward the parked car containing the Lolita.

  Suddenly, Lynn stopped in his tracks, turned to the dark burly man, and said, “Sir! You have a wasp on your hat!”

  And the burly guy dropped his bag of ribs and whipped the hat off all in one motion. And his hair fell out. He had more than Milli Vanilli, all done up in double braids, Injun style.

  “Where is it?” the guy yelled.

  “It’s gone,” Lynn said. “I oughtta get a job with Terminix Pest Control. Boy, I can spot a nasty wasp faster’n the Anti-Defamation League.”

  Even in Nelson’s topless Jeep Wrangler, cruising along Palm Canyon Drive at night was beautiful. Rows of light washed high up on the towering palms that lined both sides of the avenue. There were throngs of in-season tourists strolling about, and college kids scoping out the hardbodies.

  Of course, during Easter week there’d be hell to pay when Palm Springs tried to keep forty thousand vacationing students under control after they got drunk and turned Palm Canyon Drive into a honking blaring screaming parking lot.

  A television crew would be on hand then, which would encourage lots of on-camera miniriots. There’d always be a few coeds hanging on the back of a bike, or sitting up on the trunk of a convertible, flashing the crowd. One would probably start it off by removing her bikini top. Then another might stand up in a pickup and show everyone that her bikini bottom was on backwards. Then somebody would take it all off.

  Then a macho sophomore would no doubt run out into the street to cop a feel, or steal the bikini, or otherwise prove to the coed that she shouldn’t have had that last six-pack. And she’d scream for help, and a fight would start and lots of students and maybe a few cops would all end up with contusions and abrasions. It happened every Easter week: traffic jam, gridlock, flashing, fighting, riot.

  And every year, a coed would have to flash at least one cop by lifting her T-shirt to reveal her address written across her tits. After which, she’d utter some variation of, “Officer, I’m lost. Here’s my address. Can you take me home?”

  The last one to do that to Lynn Cutter—when he was in uniform with a squad of cops from five different jurisdictions—was a nymphet with creamy shoulders and a pouty candy-apple mouth. While her pals snickered and guffawed at the cop-flashing, Lynn had said to her, “I can tell by your nipple development that you’re under the age of eighteen. There’s a curfew law. Go home.”

  She’d covered her boobs very quickly, wiped off her smirk, and said, “I’m seventeen and ten months! I consider myself eighteen!”

  “So do I,” Lynn said, “but that doesn’t change reality for either of us. Go home!”

  As Nelson Hareem revved the Jeep Wrangler, it jerked Lynn Cutter out of his reverie.

  “Wanna try Desert Hot Springs or Cathedral City, Lynn?” Nelson asked.

  “Why don’t we finish up here in town first?”

  “Okay,” Nelson said, agreeably. “There’s one on Chaparral that looks likely. Thirty-five a night isn’t too much for a terrorist, is it?”

  “I don’t know, Nelson,” Lynn said. “I haven’t called the terrorist hot line lately.”

  “Wanna hear some Dwight Yoakam?” Nelson started thumbing through his country cassettes.

  “Never heard of him.”

  “How about George Strait?”

  “Is George Strait the one that wears a Gene Autry hat?”

  “Damn, Lynn!” Nelson was incredulous. “What kinda music do ya like? Waltzes or somethin?”

  “As a matter a fact ‘Tennessee Waltz’ is a big-hit single in The Furnace Room. Has been for thirty-five years or so. The only cowboy song I can identify with is ‘She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).’”

  Nelson said, “My favorite lately is ‘Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow.’ I guess maybe that’s what I’m doin, but damn it, I need some bright lights! I wanna get outta the desert and come to town!”

  When Nelson changed lanes to lunge past some cruising kids in a van, Lynn almost got whiplashed. “Puh-leeeeze, Nelson! I’m getting seasick. Do I have to buy a patch to wear behind my ear?”

  They checked out two more Palm Springs motels, but got no report of a single man fitting the smuggler’s description. Nelson said, “We oughtta drive up to Desert Hot Springs now.”

  “Gimme a break, Nelson!” Lynn moaned. “Jesus, I’m starting to sound like Bessie.”

  “Okay, let’s see, how about the Cactus and Sand Motel? Know anything about it?”

  “Yeah, it’s fifty-five a night. No terrorist has that big an expense account.”

  “How do ya
know it’s fifty-five?”

  “I got picked up one night by some babe at The Furnace Room. She complained about how much it cost her. That was when Washington was talking about cutting Social Security checks and she didn’t know if she could afford me.”

  “You went to a motel with a woman that’s on Social Security?”

  “I’m the hottest number The Furnace Room’s ever seen,” Lynn said. “I’ve put more a those old babes in bed than broken hips ever did. In fact, I sorta promised myself to the one that sings ‘The Little Old Lady from Pasadena’ every Thursday night. Remember that one, Nelson?”

  “That’s sick, Lynn!”

  “I know. I don’t understand how you can stand me. Why don’t you drop me at The Furnace Room where I can indulge my perverse desires and buy myself Wilfred’s easily chewable supper, if there’s any left over from the early-bird special.”

  “Okay, let’s make a pit stop,” Nelson said. “I could use a beer.”

  “I could use a pension,” Lynn said. “And Doctor Ruth for counseling. I wouldn’t be in this mess if I had any kind a sex life. It’s that damn freckle.”

  “What freckle?” Nelson wanted to know.

  The dog started barking the second she stepped onto the driveway that night, frustrating her plan to force open the electric gate far enough to squeeze inside. The barking came from upstairs-front, in what Breda assumed was the master bedroom suite. Then someone, perhaps the maid, opened a downstairs door and flooded the entire property in light. Breda had to hurry back to her Datsun Z, fire it up and drive away. That goddamn slobbery brown dog!

  Rhonda Devon had left a message with Breda’s service that she’d expect a progress report by the weekend, but Breda knew that her client would really expect a satisfactory answer, not just a report. Breda wondered what Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem were up to, checked the time, saw that it was 8:30 P.M., and even though she was exhausted, decided to see if Jack Graves had been having any luck at The Unicorn. Her flagging morale required some sort of resolution to at least one of her cases.

  When she got to The Unicorn, there were no less than 150 diners being served, the foyer was packed with people waiting, and they were two deep at the bar. One of those at the bar was Jack Graves.

  He was sitting quietly near the service area, sipping beer from a bottle. He wore an old Pendleton shirt, a soft tan corduroy jacket, khaki trousers and well-worn moccasins. He smiled from time to time at a guy next to him who was half bagged and loud. Breda walked up behind Jack and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Hello, Breda,” he said. “Wanna drink?”

  “I can use one,” she said. “Chardonnay.”

  Jack Graves gave his stool to Breda and stood behind her. The suspect-bartender wiped the bartop and bared his tobacco-stained teeth in what passed for cordiality.

  “Chardonnay, please,” Jack Graves said to him.

  When the bartender was gone, Breda asked, “Any luck?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jack Graves said quietly. “Mister Riegel was right. The bartender’s supplementing his income at Riegel’s expense. My guess is he makes an extra thirty or forty bucks a night, not worth firing him for. He’s a very good bartender.”

  “Maybe he’ll just warn the bartender.”

  “He’ll put the guy in the hospital.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know your Mister Riegel from when our guys worked a deal with the Palm Springs Special Enforcement Unit,” Jack Graves said. “That’s when I became friends with Lynn. Riegel pals around with an Arizona crime family. See, Palm Springs is a neutral town. Mob people from Chicago or wherever, they can come here with no worries. And they do come. Palm Springs even gets some bad guys from as far away as London.”

  “As in England?”

  “The British accent’s a great advantage for con men around these parts, particularly with bankers, it seems. And cocaine sells for at least a seventy percent profit in London over what it sells for here.”

  “In this little city there’s all that going on?”

  “At your old department, at LAPD, they got fifty people doing intelligence work that one guy does in this town.”

  “And my Mister Riegel is active?”

  “He’s never gone to tea dances, I bet, but he’s semilegit now. Look around. This restaurant’s doing bust-out business.”

  “I won’t be taking any more jobs from him,” Breda said, “but I’ll finish this one. So tell me, how’s the bartender scamming his boss?”

  “It’s a variation of the old BYOB gag, but in this case he didn’t bring his own bottle and put it behind the bar. He has some kind of container stashed back in that alcove area. He’s pouring his own booze and pocketing the proceeds.”

  “How’s he get it from back there to here? Lynn watched him and said he’s positive the guy doesn’t carry anything when he goes back and forth.”

  “He doesn’t, not in his hands.”

  “How’s he do it then?”

  “Enjoy your wine and watch him,” Jack Graves said, smiling. “It’s good to have somebody to talk to.”

  Breda looked into Jack’s brown eyes. They were nice eyes, but sad. She said, “Okay, Jack, I’ll enjoy my wine.”

  A group of six at the bar were called to their table by a bosomy hostess in an off-the-shoulder beaded dress. When they’d gone the bartender glanced down the bar, peeked out toward the front, then headed for the alcove.

  When the bartender came back, Jack Graves whispered to Breda, “Watch him wash the glasses.”

  Breda raised up a few inches on the barstool for a better look. The bartender nodded to a customer who called for a Tanqueray on the rocks, and then bent over the sink to rinse out a few glasses, just as Jack Graves had predicted.

  “Did you see it?”

  “No,” Breda said. “What?”

  “He’s carrying it in his mouth. That guy can probably carry six ounces of Scotch without changing expression. When he bends over to wash glasses, he’s spitting it into a bowl next to the sink on his end of the bar. His partner may or may not know what he’s up to.”

  “Ree-volting!” Breda shuddered. “Dis-gusting.”

  Jack Graves grinned. “It really is. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I guess I should tell Riegel right away. Jesus, what if the guy has AIDS or something? Gross!”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” said Jack Graves.

  “Why?”

  “Your Mister Riegel’s pals back in that banquet room have been ordering a lotta Scotch. He might think they got some from his bowl.”

  “All the more reason!”

  “They aren’t the kind a guys that have cucumber sandwiches every afternoon. They’ll hurt this bartender.”

  “I can’t let my client serve second-hand Scotch!”

  “Lemme have a talk with the guy. Gimme a few minutes.”

  He signaled to the bartender and when the guy came over saying, “Another beer?” Jack Graves simply said, “If you take one step toward that bowl of booze behind the dirty glasses I’ll stop you from dumping it. Then my partner here’ll call your boss.”

  “Who are you?” The bartender jerked his face toward the front door at the mention of Riegel.

  Jack Graves said, “Someone who doesn’t wanna see your legs broken. Just go straight back to that alcove, retrieve whatever you have stashed there, and grab your coat at the same time. On the way out tell the hostess you’re getting severe chest pains and a numbness in your arm. Tomorrow you can call Riegel and say you had a mild heart attack and you’re quitting your job. And if you ever work in any other bar in this valley I’ll tell Riegel what you did to him.”

  “Who are you?” the bartender demanded.

  “I’m the timer,” Jack Graves said, looking at his watch. “You got exactly three minutes to get it all done and be outta here. If you don’t, whatever happens to you tonight isn’t my fault.”

  The bartender looked at Breda, then back to Jack Graves. Then he
looked at the boisterous crowd of cigar smokers in Armani suits with Mr. Riegel in the banquet room.

  The bartender turned and headed for the alcove. Less than a minute later he came out wearing a cardigan sweater and said something to the hostess on his way out the door.

  “Tell Riegel you spotted the guy serving lots of free drinks,” Jack Graves suggested to Breda. “Tell him you’re sure he was just giving away booze for big tips and he must’ve figured out who you are and panicked.”

  “Riegel’ll probably try to withhold some of my fee for letting the guy spot me.”

  “He’ll be glad you got rid of him. People with egos like Riegel’s can’t stand to be had. He knew the bartender was having him, he just couldn’t spot it.”

  “What if the guy does have AIDS?”

  “I don’t think he’s an AIDS candidate,” Jack Graves said.

  “That’d add new meaning to the term, ‘dying for a drink,’” Breda said.

  “Everybody dies,” Jack Graves said, light glancing off his bony cheekbone. “Why not for a drink? How about another Chardonnay?”

  By the time Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem had consumed their first drink at The Furnace Room, another failed actor and longtime friend of Wilfred Plimsoll was ranting about how television had destroyed his profession and, parenthetically, been the cause of the fact that in the past thirty years he’d been gainfully employed for about twenty-two days, all told.

  The actor, Walter Davenport, had blue-white hair, wore a plaid double-breasted sport jacket, white cotton trousers, white leather loafers and a school tie from a private academy he’d never attended.

  “TV?” he bellowed. “They do TV shows about pimply kid-doctors named Boobie or Doobie or something! When I die I want my ashes mixed with toxic waste and dropped on Burbank Studios!”

  “Let’s go find a table, Nelson,” Lynn suggested. “I can’t bear too much sound and fury tonight.”

  This time they avoided the old warbler who was at her favorite table, joining in when the piano player played a few bars of “Sentimental Journey.” They spotted an empty table for two beside the used-brick fireplace that hadn’t been lit for a decade.

  “Let’s grab that deuce,” Lynn said, pointing to the table. “My aching knees could end the California drought.”