Menaced Assassin

by Joe Gores

  “Stablehand?” He felt a sudden sharp anxiety. “I didn’t hire any-”

  “There was some large ugly man in ridiculous corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket and a cap hanging around the stables this morning. When I ordered him off the premises, he told me he was sorry, he couldn’t leave.”

  “Good,” said a relieved Kreiger.

  “When I demanded to know what he meant he said to ask…” Belatedly, she broke off to demand, “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Good.’ That tells me he’s doing his job.”

  “You mean you hired him to stand around gawking at me?”

  He said, with admirable mildness, “I’ll have a word with him about being less obtrusive, my darling.”

  Like many Mafia wives, Tiffany had no real knowledge, only surmises, about what her husband did. She knew he was a powerful criminal defense attorney, and she knew most of his clients were not people she would ever invite to their Sunday afternoon pool party/barbecues. She also knew these clients did not explain his tremendous income, but she didn’t question it because she liked to spend it-on her face, on her body, on her horses.

  For his part, Kreiger liked indulging her. She was a very handsome thirty-four, kept her figure and most of the time her place, and was wise enough to service him sexually when and how he liked it. Since he would have considered anything beyond me-Tarzan-you-Jane unmanly and maybe degenerate, missionaries would have approved.

  In mollified tones, she said, “I don’t understand what he’s doing around the stables in the first place.”

  “Well, actually, Tiff, he’s sort of looking after you.”

  “What’s the matter?” she exclaimed in alarm. “Is there danger for the children? Shouldn’t we call the police or-”

  “Nothing that troublesome, darling.” He came around the desk to her. “Nothing we need bother the police about. Just a rowdy element…”

  “I… I don’t understand,” she said weakly.

  She was Woodside born and bred, educated at Sacred Heart in the city, then Stanford, she had never seen any of the rougher edges of life. He put his arm around her shoulders, walked her slowly to the door of the study. He could feel her tremble against him, could smell the horses on her clothing, could very faintly smell the perfume of perspiration from her exertions in the practice ring. It was physically arousing.

  “Now don’t you fret, my love. You know I’ve been buying some of those old fleabag rooming houses and commercial properties south of Market now that the Yerba Buena Center is up and running-”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “There’s some radical homeless advocates who want to see it all upgraded to low-cost housing rather than torn down for new, significant development, and they have made some silly threats. So I just thought it prudent to provide you with around-the-clock protection until the problem is solved.”

  There had been angry shouting matches in the Board of Supes over his permits, but the guards had really been to send Martin Prince the message that he was no stupid mark like the little beaner. A statement. A sort of deadly chess game.

  He walked in the California sunlight down cleaned-up Market Street toward Montgomery, thinking that he liked the analogy. Almost poetic.

  Down in Southern California, Dante was picking up his Avis rent-a-car at the Burbank airport. His elation at learning about the connection between Gounaris and the Mafia’s Abramson had subsided. The bubble had burst. So all the Abramsons were the same guy? Even if confirmed it didn’t prove anything at all about Abramson or anyone in the Mafia being involved in Atlas Entertainment, let alone the murder of Moll Dalton.

  Even at ten in the morning, it was blazingly hot in the Valley; as soon as he got into the car he had the windows shut and the A/C cranked up. He drove in on Airport Way, thinking that in three and a half months he had accomplished exactly nothing to unravel the connection between the murders of Moll Dalton et al

  Not that he had been three and a half months idle. He had been so busy with the real business of the Organized Crime Task Force that if any leads had developed he wouldn’t have been able to follow them up anyway. Rumors of a possible San Francisco link with the New York Chinese gangs smuggling freighters full of illegal Chinese immigrants into California. A goofy tip that an organized band of Latino ex-cons was extorting money from Valley farmers in some scam involving water rights, portable Johns, bogus green cards, and reporting legal workers to la Migra as illegals.

  He passed over the Ventura Freeway; directly ahead was the old Burbank Studios-now Warner Studios-with its distinctive old-fashioned tan water tower. Alameda merged with Riverside to carry him through determinedly quaint Toluca Lake.

  Three and a half months, nothing further from Raptor, no more hits in the organized crime community. No further leads developing. Nothing on the slim leads he already had.

  Dante cut over to Moorpark, which was faster than the Ventura Freeway it paralleled, drove west.

  None of the used tens, twenties, fifties handed to Hymie the Handler by Jack Lenington had turned up at any U.S. bank. Not one. Unless Lenington had buried them in a fruit jar in the backyard-not likely-he had maintained an offshore numbered account. Which made his corruption more sophisticated than originally thought, but it didn’t tell a damned thing about why he had been snuffed. Or if his death was in any way at all connected with that of Moll Dalton.

  Dante turned south on Woodman, crossed Ventura’s tacky commercial blare of fried chicken joints and Chinese take out, at Valley Vista jacklegged uphill past bungalows, gardeners, and greenery irrigated so lavishly that Northern California water was running off in the gutters. Unseen smog stung his eyes.

  Everyone had closed their books on the Spic Madrid killing, and Popgun Ucelli was staying home in Jersey, calling no one more exciting than a local steak house for occasional reservations, and his bookie for occasional bets. The Feebs monitoring his tap were eating well and having good luck following his ponies. No plane trips. No calls from a contractor offering him a hit.

  Also, alas, no more trips to Vegas by the Mafia dons.

  No corpses falling out of cabinets in locked rooms.

  No bodies dead of exotic poisons.

  No dogs doing curious things in the night.

  No need for Dante’s deerstalker hat and magnifying glass.

  Benedict Canyon Lane was a dead-end offshoot up in the hills where, he had finally learned from SAG, Moll Dalton’s mother was living as Gloria Crowley, a name she seemed to have picked out of a hat. He made the right turn into her street, seeing, up beyond the houses, the barren California hills where coyotes skulked that in drought times came down to dine domestic on pet pusses and pooches.

  He began checking the house numbers painted on the curbs, squinting in the glare, hoping to talk to Moll Dalton’s mother cold. No advance notice. If you connected, you got them fresh before they’d had a chance to start image-polishing.

  He had better connect. Under the name of Green, he had made an appointment with St. John for three o’clock, the earliest he could get. He hoped St. John would be stunned by what Dante Stagnaro, alias Mr. Green, brought with him from his interview with dead Molly’s living mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Over the ridge in Beverly Hills, three men were sitting down to lunch in Hubley’s very swank Four Seasons. Dooley, with his back to the window, was a tall lanky writer who wanted to direct. He had a big nose and mean close-set eyes and a receding mane of hair that would have come down to his collar if he had been wearing a collar. Instead, he wore baggy fatigue pants, a rusty leather jacket, and a kelly-green T-shirt with HUNGRY? EAT THIS! in red letters across the lower abdomen. He had long arms and big basketball-player hands he used a lot when he talked.

  “I’ve written three USA and Showtime originals this year, and script-doctored seven others, and I have to make an appointment to call my fucking agent,” he complained. “Way he sees it, I’m stealing 90 fucking percent of his money.”

&n
bsp; Valli, the second man at the table, was a middle-aged actor turned producer; he had a high voice and a first-look production deal with Universal. His face was bland as mashed potatoes with a couple of rodent droppings stuck in them for eyes. His jeans were prestressed and his cashmere sports jacket had a red AIDS ribbon in the lapel. Between them the two men grossed close to a million dollars a year.

  “You know what we call writers,” sniffed Valli. “The first draft of a human being.”

  Dooley was buttering a roll with a lot of wrist action. “An empty cab pulled up and a producer got out.”

  “Now you boys see why you need me,” interrupted St. John in a suave voice, eyes dancing with delight. “Both of you.”

  As host, he was dressed impeccably in a narrow-shouldered three-piece charcoal Shetland wool and a Sulka tie that had cost $200 on Rodeo Drive. He was ready for action.

  It had been almost four months since he had called Martin Prince in Vegas and told him about Stagnaro’s visit. Nothing had happened since then, nothing at all, yet everything had changed. His perception of who he was and what he was had changed. His perception of Prince and his minions had changed.

  “I need personal management,” said Dooley.

  “Packaging,” said Valli.

  “Of course you do, dear boys,” beamed St. John. “And a great deal more besides.”

  Since his realization that Prince and Gounaris had been involved in Molly’s death, he had conceived a daring scheme in revenge: to set up a personal-management and packaging entity. It would give him clout and power in this town on his own recognizance, not something that was tainted with mob money. The daring part was that he hadn’t told Mr. Prince about it. He had lain awake a lot of nights in a sweat of fear while planning it, but something had driven him on despite his terror. The only way he could hurt Prince was financially, and only in secret.

  So he leaned across the achingly white tablecloth toward the writer and the producer, and spoke in his richest, most compelling courtroom voice.

  “Let’s look at the menu, gentlemen. Then, while we eat, I will tell you why you need us so badly.”

  Otto Kreiger’s secretary buzzed him just as he ended a twenty-minute phone call with a drug dealer he was representing on First Amendment grounds.

  “Mr. Ed Farrow from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is holding on line two, Mr. Kreiger.”

  Fucking Farrow again. The only possible hurdle to be cleared at Sixth Street, one that had surfaced only a week ago. This little nitpick, that little niggle, without ever saying exactly what was troubling him about the project. And despite anything the Planning Commission and the Board of Supes might approve, it was Redevelopment that had the final, life-or-death say-so on new development projects in San Francisco.

  They hadn’t even met in person, but this was Farrow’s third call in a week. He wasn’t going to just go away. Kreiger had a nose for corruption, dealing in it so much himself, and Farrow’s voice reeked of it. The man had his hand out-Kreiger just didn’t yet know why, or how, or for how much.

  “I think we ought to meet,” said Farrow suavely. “There are a few things we have to discuss. Not on the phone.”

  “The phone’s been fine up until now.”

  “In person.”

  If the phones were tapped, or Kreiger was taping, nothing incriminating would be on record. When they got together was time enough for Farrow to show him the upturned palm.

  “I have time free tomorrow at-”

  “Today.” The voice hardened, and Kreiger’s features darkened. He never did like to be pushed. “In one hour.”

  “I don’t have an hour this morning.”

  “How very too bad for your new arcade.”

  Kreiger mastered his anger: all he let be heard over the phone was his long-suffering sigh.

  “One hour. Where?”

  Farrow chuckled. “Kreplovski’s apartment. Where else?”

  “Ah.” Farrow had style. Kreiger suddenly was looking forward to the meeting. “All right.”

  “Third floor rear. Apartment 333. The door will be unlocked but it sticks, you almost have to kick it open. I’ll be waiting inside.” The voice tightened. “I’ll only be there once, Kreiger.”

  “Don’t worry your little head about it. I’ll be there.”

  “This house was built by Lou Costello,” said Gloria Crowley. Her voice had a sort of throaty sensuality that seemed offhand and habitual. “Lou was the short fat one. Bud was the tall thin one.”

  “Who’s on first,” supplied Dante brightly.

  He could remember an interview he had once seen on TV with Bud Abbott after Costello had died. The IRS had disallowed dozens of pairs of his shoes. It had depressed Dante, somehow. He had watched their old movies religiously on afternoon TV after grade school, and had split his sides laughing.

  “Mrs. St. John-”

  “Please. Ms. Crowley.”

  They were in the cool shadowy living room with French doors open wide to the apron of her pool. She had been doing laps when Dante arrived. The white filigree beach robe over her two-piece suit of bright harlequin colors was gray with wetness.

  “His one-year-old son drowned in this pool,” she said with an odd false brightness that was like the sound of chalk on a blackboard. “Legend has it that he heard the news and then did his radio show with his partner.”

  Dante didn’t know how to respond. He finally just said, “I have a few questions.”

  She nodded, holding his eyes. She had the addicted swimmer’s seal-like figure, and somewhat coarsened facial features, a little too much flesh under the chin as if the monthly alimony check didn’t run to regular face-lifts. But Dante could see remnants of her daughter’s remarkable beauty in her face and oddly provocative blue eyes.

  “You were divorced almost twenty-five years ago?”

  “That’s right, Lieutenant. So I really know nothing at all about my ex these days.” She focused another limpid-eyed stare on him, waved a hand. He realized she was nearsighted, which explained the come-hither looks. “After all these years…”

  She squirmed around in the big leather chair like a fidgety child; her bottom left skid marks. She was having a very dark drink with lots of ice in an old-fashioned glass. Dante was having iced tea without anything. It was an iced-tea day.

  “The ceilings are all just slightly lower than normal because Mr. Costello really was quite a short man.”

  She took another hit from the squatty glass; ice cubes tinkled. She waved a languid hand and gave a little laugh that did not tinkle.

  “We have house finches nesting right outside the French doors, can you imagine? In the hanging fern pots. They’re forever bringing disgusting things for the nestlings, and their droppings get all over the patio, but…” Another of the airy gestures with her free hand.

  “I was wondering, Ms. Crowley, why such an attractive woman as you has never remarried. Obviously-”

  “And let that bastard off the hook?” There was sudden clarity of eye and voice. “Once Molly was grown and the support payments stopped he would be scot-free and I could not abide that. I will not abide it.”

  Dante thought of a life wasted in getting even. For what? That’s what he hoped to find out here today.

  “So your ex-husband pays for all this?”

  “Not nearly enough, but that bastard will keep on paying as long as he lives, I’ll see to that.”

  She stopped abruptly, as if realizing she was saying too much too vehemently. In the plantings that hid the property fence across the pool, the male house finch puffed up his red chest to cheep at them. He had a loud voice. Dante leaned forward in his chair. The sun glinted off the pool. He wished he could shed his clothes and dive in.

  “Why did you get divorced, if I might ask?”

  “The usual,” she said very quickly and airily. The dismissive hand again; it was her favorite gesture. “Growing apart. Incompatibility. Moving in different directions…”

  “Nothing
to do with your daughter, then.”

  “Of course not.” Indignation now. Indignation he didn’t believe for an instant.

  “And what was your relationship with your daughter before her death, Ms. Crowley?”

  “How can you ask such a question?” Her bosom quivered with indignation beneath its scanty covering. “We were as close as two women could be. The mother-daughter bond…”

  “Yet you weren’t at her funeral.”

  “The bastard never even let me know she was dead!” Tears appeared in her eyes. “I was in Maui with my friend Charles, and only learned of it two days after the service.”

  Dante put surprise into his face.

  “But surely, as close as you and Molly were, her husband must have-”

  “He…” She hesitated again. Took another hit of her drink; it seemed to loosen the reins of her caution. “He didn’t know how to reach me.” There was a long pause. “Will Dalton and I, well… we never actually met.” A longer pause, but his silence compelled further revelation. “You see, once she was in high school…” She put her feet up on a hassock; her relaxed thighs were meaty but still shapely. She made the hand gesture again. “You know children have to rebel at that age…”

  “But when she was in college…”

  Anger burst through her watchfulness again. “By then the bastard had won her over, turned her against me! It started when she was thirteen, expensive gifts, school programs abroad during the summer months. Things I couldn’t afford for her.” Pain spasmed her features. “He was her father, she wanted to know her father, she was so strong-willed I knew any danger would…”

  She stopped again, as if a curtain had descended.

  “What danger is that?” Dante asked.

  “Oh…” The hand wave, meant to be light and airy, was forced and static. “Corruption of values… materialism…”

  “Child molestation?” he said in a tone to match her own.

  She sat bolt upright as if wasp-stung.

  “I didn’t say that!” she yelped. She had her feet on the floor, was halfway out of her chair.