Fugitive Nights

by Joseph Wambaugh

  When they were safely seated, Nelson asked, “Do you actually like this place?”

  “It’s all these old actors,” Lynn Cutter said. “I don’t feel like such a failure when I’m around them. Far as all the other old geezers, I don’t feel so old when I’m around them. Far as lawyers, I definitely feel morally superior when I’m around them. So I guess The Furnace Room satisfies a lotta needs.”

  “Pretty strange crowd,” Nelson said.

  “We got lotsa power lines out by Highway Ten that could produce mutants, which might explain this joint. But it’s kinda strange to hear you call people strange.”

  Changing the subject, Nelson Hareem asked, “Where ya gonna live, Lynn, when your house-sittin jobs run out?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Nelson.”

  “Gonna be a private eye like Breda after your pension starts?”

  “She’s not making enough money to keep her in Kibbles, which is what I been eating lately. And the work’s sleazier than the state legislature.”

  “You and Breda’ll each have a pension. Half your salary each adds up to one full salary.”

  “What’re you saying, Nelson?”

  “You could work together and maybe be housemates. I saw the way you looked at her, Lynn,” Nelson said, wrinkling his nose. “And the way she looked at you.”

  “Why, Nelson, ain’t you the little matchmaker!” Lynn said, draining the last of his Scotch. But then, “How did she look at me?”

  “Same way you looked at her.”

  “I don’t have a freckle on my lip.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Breda and me’ll be housemates when Salman Rushdie opens a laundromat in Tehran.”

  “I think she likes you more’n you think,” Nelson said. “I could read it in her eyes.”

  “I could read the Rosetta Stone easier,” Lynn said. “Think we should have another drink?”

  “I’ll buy,” Nelson said.

  “Oh please don’t, well all right,” Lynn said, just as Breda Burrows and Jack Graves entered the smoky saloon looking for them.

  “Over here!” Lynn called out. “Next week, Wilfred’s receiving his first order of used Israeli gas masks!”

  After they sat down, Nelson shook hands with Jack Graves, who described the successful resolution of The Unicorn job, saying, “If Riegel found out how the bartender was doing him, the guy’d be discovered out on the desert next week. Or part of him would, the rest having passed through some coyote’s bowels.”

  “That’s a complete gag-me-to-the-max trick,” Lynn said. “No wonder I didn’t spot it.”

  “I’ve decided Jack might be able to help us on the Clive Devon case too,” Breda said to Lynn. And then, seeing concern in Lynn Cutter’s eyes, she added, “Of course, you and I still have our original arrangement.”

  Lynn was satisfied that she’d decided to pay Jack, but there was a little something else going on in his own head that Lynn didn’t like. Breda was saying in effect that Jack Graves was a better cop! Lynn felt another stab when she smiled at the gaunt man. She’d never looked at him like that.

  Son of a bitch! Lynn thought. I’m jealous!

  Breda said to Lynn, “Jack’s gonna watch Clive Devon tomorrow from the moment he gets up till he goes to bed. I presume Nelson’s going to give you back to me soon?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” Nelson said, nodding agreeably, and Lynn had a sudden urge to reach over and grab the little cop by the throat, except he was certain that Nelson would just look at him with disappointment and never understand. You hated to strangle somebody unless they knew why.

  “I been thinking, Nelson,” Lynn said. “Maybe the guy really is a Spaniard. Is Seve Ballesteros playing in the Bob Hope Classic? Your guy may be a super Seve fan.”

  “If I can offer an opinion,” Jack Graves said quietly, “Breda’s told me what you’re doing and I been wondering if the guy’s a Colombian. You know, with all the heat in Miami, they been running all the cocaine from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia through Mexico to southern California. Why not a Mexican load-plane full of Colombian cocaine?”

  “There’s no desert in Colombia,” Nelson Hareem said. “Our guy’s a man of the desert.”

  “That again.” Lynn Cutter sighed.

  “Some tar heroin from Pakistan and Iran also comes through Mexico,” Jack Graves said. “They got some very dry terrain in those countries, I believe.”

  “Here I thought I was coming into semiretirement in a nice quiet resort,” Breda said.

  Jack Graves said, “This little metropolis has more Secret Service assigned on a per capita basis than anywhere in the world including Washington, D.C., because of who lives here and who plays here. The FBI has three resident agents in and out of Palm Springs because of all the interstate major frauds, and a lotta presidential nominees get interviewed right out on these golf courses. The air traffic controllers in this town direct squadrons of executive jets.”

  “Sounds great to me!” Nelson said. “I can’t wait to get a lateral transfer. I’m sick a taking theft reports on stolen dates. And I hope I never see another date beetle! Ugh!”

  “I gotta admit, Nelson, I’m a little intrigued with your terrorist idea,” said Jack Graves.

  “At last!” Nelson beamed.

  “I don’t find it totally convincing,” Jack Graves said, “but we’re getting a few people in for the golf tournament who could be targets.”

  “Not Dan Quayle, for chrissake!” Lynn said. “When Reagan came to town they’d have to close all airspace over the city for fifteen minutes to deal with the huge crowds. When Prince Charles came to play polo they had a traffic jam five miles long. When Dan Quayle came to play golf at PGA West, we detailed two reserve officers and three detectives to help Secret Service protect him from the adoring throngs … which ended being a guy and his wife, both Young Republicans. Who the hell is gonna terrorize anybody by going after Dan Quayle?”

  “You sure hate Republicans,” Nelson said.

  “I am a Republican!” Lynn informed him. “A poor Republican. It’s unnatural, like a vegetarian vampire.”

  “I wouldn’t completely rule out heroin smuggling,” Jack Graves said to Nelson, “even if your man of the desert’s from the Middle East. I remember the time when some Algerians came to Palm Springs with a load of heroin sewed inside the Spandex waistbands of their pants. They beat all airport security with that one.”

  “Algerian?” Nelson said thoughtfully. “Maybe! Who else is comin for the golf tournament that’s terrorizable?”

  “According to the papers, there’s a Saudi billionaire coming to play tennis in a pro-am,” Breda said. “He might qualify. And Benazir Bhutto from Pakistan is here, now that she’s out of work.”

  “Aw-right!” Nelson said. “Now we’re gettin somewheres!”

  “A Saudi sheik?” Lynn said. “Maybe I can meet him and learn a few tricks. I married two women and my life’s wrecked. Sheiks get married a hundred and four times and fly to Palm Springs for a weekend a tennis. There’s a moral somewhere.”

  “Lynn knows Palm Springs a lot better than I do,” Jack Graves said to Nelson. “I’d trust Lynn’s instincts.”

  Lynn said, “If it’s Middle East types you’re after, an Iranian recently bought a bar in Cathedral City that caters to a gay clientele.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few questions around there tomorrow,” Nelson suggested.

  “Why not?” Lynn said. “But if we have to do lunch, you might end up being the catch of the day.”

  When Nelson went to the bar to fetch more drinks, Lynn said, “Jack, I know how cute he is and all, but I wish you wouldn’t encourage him with all these crime stories. He already thinks everyone he meets in Palm Springs is Mafia if their name ends with a vowel.”

  Lynn didn’t fail to notice that Breda was getting a glow. He figured her for a three-drink woman, and she’d already downed two.

  She said, “If you don’t get away from Nelson after tomorrow
, we’ll have to make a new arrangement. How’s he keep his job, all the trouble he gets in?”

  “He must have a witness pool that’ll swear to anything he says,” Lynn answered. “One thing I know, he’s fearless. And me, I’m afraid a guys that ain’t afraid. Guys like Nelson’re a greater danger to society than MTV. I like him, but he wouldn’t know the difference between dandruff and date rape. How about another Chardonnay, Breda? I’ll buy a round.”

  That shocked her so much that she accepted, even though she’d had enough. Then to her dismay, when Nelson returned to the table, he said, “Y’know, Breda, I think I can help you with your Devon case.”

  “Can’t afford any more employees,” Breda said. “Eastern Airlines went under because of too big a payroll.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t charge you nothin,” Nelson said. “It’s jist that I think your Clive Devon has a definite connection with my …”

  “Smuggler-terrorist-mafioso,” Lynn said. “Actually, your guy’s a double hyphenate.”

  “Whatever,” Nelson said. “Anyways, some streets out there, there’s so many motels he could use a different one every night. Maybe Clive Devon’s the key to it. Maybe our smuggler phoned Clive Devon.”

  “About what?” Breda challenged, and Lynn definitely liked her better with booze in her. She didn’t show that odd little grin so often. He couldn’t take his eyes off the bittersweet chocolate freckle next to her lip.

  “I don’t know, but for starters, what if he told Devon about what went down at the airport? And that he couldn’t go to their …”

  “Rendezvous is the word you want,” Lynn said. The freckle glistened now when a drop of wine bathed it. And she licked the freckle!

  “Yeah, rendezvous. Maybe the guy told Devon he couldn’t risk drivin to Palm Springs in a hot car, and that Devon should come pick him up.”

  “In Painted Canyon?” Breda asked, incredulously.

  “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Nelson said. “Nobody spotted him.”

  “What the hell could he have that Clive Devon wants or needs?” Breda asked.

  “Everybody needs somethin,” Nelson said.

  “What do you need, Nelson?” Breda asked.

  “Shade.”

  “Shade?”

  “Yeah, I can’t do another summer down the other end a the valley. You can tell how many days a guy’s worked by countin the sweat rings on his shirt. There’s no shade. At least up here in Palm Springs you got the big mountain for afternoon shade. I gotta have shade. I need number seventy-five sunscreen and it don’t go that high.”

  “Shade,” Breda repeated. It was so simple. Nelson Hareem just wanted a little shade!

  “I’m itchy all the time down there,” Nelson explained. “Athlete’s foot, jock itch. By September it’ll feel like I’m wearin barbed-wire Jockey shorts. It got so dry last summer, all my elastic died and my shorts kept fallin down.”

  Jack Graves put his hand on the young cop’s arm, saying, “I’ll do my best tomorrow, Nelson. If I can tail Clive Devon, and he teams up with your dark bald smuggler, I’ll get a hold of you. I’d like you to get your shade.”

  Breda was looking at Jack Graves, and Lynn could plainly see that she liked him. But he was no longer jealous. Jack was too troubled to even notice that exquisite freckle near the lip of Breda Burrows.

  Nelson finished his beer and said, “Well, maybe we should go home and get a fresh start tomorrow, Lynn.”

  “I know it’s time for me to go,” Breda said.

  “You okay to drive?” Lynn asked, hopefully.

  “Of course!” she said, indignantly.

  “I’ll be on stakeout in front of Clive Devon’s house by six,” Jack Graves promised Breda.

  “Six-thirty’s early enough, Jack,” she said.

  As Lynn Cutter was getting to his feet, wincing from pain in his right knee, Nelson said, “I’d like to suggest somethin and let you all think about it tonight. It might sound crazy.”

  “Nothing crazy about you,” Lynn said. “Fourteen percent of adult Americans say they’ve seen UFO’s.”

  “I want you to consider that maybe he had somethin in that flight bag that none of us thought about.”

  “I’m afraid to ask,” said Breda.

  “Maybe he had a detonator and a nice big blob of Semtex,” Nelson said.

  “Semtex?”

  “Same stuff that brought down the Pan Am flight over Scotland,” said Nelson. “Maybe the Dan Quayle idea isn’t so far off. Or maybe there’s another big politician here for the Bob Hope Classic. There usually is.”

  Breda and Lynn gaped at one another, while Nelson silently showed them his agreeable expectant grin.

  Lynn said, “Well, Nelson, I’ll have to sleep on that one. Semtex, huh? I gotta admit one thing: that stuff’d kill a politician faster’n an endorsement from Jesse Jackson.”

  She owed herself a bath like this one, Breda thought. She’d been soaking in bubbles and bath oil for more than an hour, refilling the tub every time the water got tepid, and to hell with California’s water shortage. The desert valley had underground water.

  There was no getting around it, she needed Rhonda Devon’s five thousand dollars, less what she’d have to pay Lynn Cutter and Jack Graves. But Breda was beginning to doubt that tailing Clive Devon to picnics and swim parties with Blanca Soltero’s daughter was going to resolve anything. Maybe they were just friends.

  Breda had been toying again with the idea of having Lynn pose as a patient in need of Clive Devon’s urologist. Even if he didn’t actually give a semen sample for a fertility check, he was smart enough to interrogate a receptionist, and might learn something about Clive Devon’s link to a Beverly Hills sperm bank.

  Lizzy needed six hundred dollars next week to cover room and board for a month, and at least another two hundred for her birthday present. Breda thought it best to send money on all holidays and birthdays, because Lizzy needed too many things for her mother to risk buying unnecessary gifts.

  Another twelve hundred was due for the home mortgage, and a thousand dollars in office rent was due. Her landlord was the kind of guy who would tip a parking attendant fifty cents and expect to be thanked for it. When she’d complained about her rent the old geek had rolled his watery eyes, leaned over his desk until she was breathing his ghastly cologne and said, “Breda, we could work out something, you and me.”

  Breda cooled him down by saying, “Melvyn, I’m going to have to trim your nose hair if this conversation is to continue. I’ve painted my kitchen table with smaller brushes than that.”

  The crap a woman alone had to put up with to stay in business!

  Breda’s wildest hope was that Jack Graves would tail Clive Devon to a tryst and videotape it with the camera she was going to provide. She felt certain that if she had absolute proof of a lover, Rhonda Devon would be satisfied enough to confront her husband and deal with the sperm bank question on her own. By now, Breda was certain that the sperm bank must have something to do with an heir and money.

  She was also sure that, in her own strange way, Rhonda Devon wanted to keep her husband even though she probably had more affairs than the Rolling Stones, and probably with both sexes. Breda hadn’t forgotten the way her client had looked at her while drinking that martini. Maybe it wasn’t exactly love that Rhonda Devon had for him, but a need for something more than his money.

  Well, it was silly to try to understand people who were that rich. They were different, Breda was sure of it. So she’d be there in the morning with the video camera and hope that Jack Graves might get the chance to use it. She had faith in him.

  Jack Graves. Breda wondered if he and his wife had split up before or after the shooting of the child. She hoped it was before, that a wife wouldn’t abandon a man after something like that. He wasn’t the first cop to get involved in that kind of a shooting. She could’ve done it herself once.

  Breda and two male detectives had been attempting to serve a felony warrant for murder on a gangban
ger at a housing project in Watts. They believed he was at home, but nobody answered their knock at 1:10 A.M. One of the detectives slipped the lock with a credit card and all three entered, guns drawn. Breda took the back bedroom. She heard footsteps. She wheeled and aimed! It was a rabbit.

  A white, pink-eyed rabbit was hopping around a bedroom in the ghetto of Los Angeles. There was rabbit shit everywhere, but no suspect. She’d come within an ounce of trigger pull of blowing that bunny’s ears off and a lot more. The rabbit stood in front of an infant lying on the floor in a nest of blankets, where she’d been left by her addict mother.

  According to Lynn, Jack Graves had killed a twelve-year-old Mexican kid. His bunny had been a human child. Maybe Lynn was right, that getting out of the mobile home and back into something that at least approximated police work would help him. But Breda didn’t think it would.

  She’d worked with a cop who had the same look as Jack Graves. Stan McAffee, her old partner, used to complain of migraines for which they could find no physiological source. She’d liked Stan, everyone did. They’d go to ball games, movies, even out to dinner. She’d allowed herself to have a belated romance with him, but it was too late. The headaches had grown unbearable, or so he claimed. Three weeks after retiring from LAPD, he’d swallowed The Big .38 Caliber Aspirin.

  She’d cried her eyes out at his funeral when the solitary police bagpiper played a somber march while they lowered the casket. Stan had eyes like Jack Graves.

  When he got back to his mobile home in Windy Point, Jack Graves carefully watered all his indoor plants. Today was the day to do it, but he hadn’t because he’d been busy helping Breda Burrows. He’d have to set the alarm for 5:30 A.M. to allow himself enough time for a bowl of cereal and two cups of coffee. He wouldn’t have time to read the paper but he could take that with him. While sitting in his car on Clive Devon’s street he’d probably have lots of time to read the paper. He did everything carefully, meticulously. He’d developed an overriding need for order.

  The yip yip yip of coyotes. Then a keening, almost lost in the wind. Then more coyote voices, a pack of twelve sounding like a hundred. Jack Graves opened the door and stepped out into the desert night to listen. The wind was howling down the pass and the moon flooded the foothills with white light. And there was a white glaze across the sky but beyond it he could see the dipper. Perhaps the brooding wind or the eerie light was stirring the wild hearts of the little desert wolves. They sounded deliriously happy.