“Shit. Social security is a real bitch to get anything out of.”
“I had to do that first and lay low until I got a number. Then I got a bank account and a driver’s license.”
“What about your storage?”
“That was later. I ran with nothing. Rachel sent me that stuff later on. I called her and gave her a P.O. box number to send it to. Then I canceled the box.”
“Call the place you stayed at and get the date you arrived. That’s two days after you left L.A.”
While Darla called the apartment building, I tried to find ways to tie Melrose to Peaches and got nowhere. Darla was scribbling notes on a pad. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Melrose’s wallet. He had his official ID card, a driver’s license, social security card, health club membership card, two video club cards, a health insurance card, an AT&T calling card, gasoline credit cards, an ATM card, and a VISA card. If you weren’t dead, I’d enjoy fucking you over big time, ruining your credit, looting your accounts, running up a big VISA bill. Wonder what your line was?
Then it hit me, something Darla had said. I hopped off the bed, motioned to her to hang up, and did a victory dance that was probably a premature ejaculation, but fun anyway.
“What’s with you?”
“Remember what you did in the airport? You booked a flight with your credit card to create a false trail, then used cash for the real one. Keli said that Melrose went ballistic when he found that he’d bought Peaches’s ticket in the wrong name. He wouldn’t want any more of a record of their flight than was necessary. He’d have paid cash for the tickets. So he races back to the counter to do it. We know he’s pissed. We know he’s got a low-budget operation. She said the house was a dump. He’s taking a minimal crew, not a lot of margin for error. He’s gotta pay the Mexicans in cash for everything. The house, the cameraman, the performers. He doesn’t want more currency on him than he needs. No reason to attract attention. I think he was pissed because he had to put her ticket on a credit card.”
“Can we find out if he did?”
I waved the wallet at her. “With this, I could be Burton Melrose. Give me the phone.”
She handed it to me and I called the credit card 800 number. I asked to review a charge on my bill, an airline ticket to Mexico. They wanted my card number, social security number, address, phone number. I had it all.
“I have your account, Mr. Melrose, but I don’t see any airline tickets on the screen.”
“How far back are you checking?”
“This is just the current month.”
“Oh, I know it’s older than that. I was promised a discount by my travel agent and I don’t think it was applied. I just saw this TV special on how travel agents steal money from their clients and I want to be sure I was charged the right amount.”
“How long ago do you think it was?”
“I’m really not very good on dates. I’d look back through the summer.”
I stewed in silence until “Here it is, Mexicair, one round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Monterrey. September 11.” She read the fare to me and I muttered that I’d been had. I asked her to fax me a copy of the charge and gave her my office fax number.
“Yes, yes, yes. We’re getting there. What did you find out?” I asked Darla.
“My first day here was July 29, so I was scheduled to fly out July 27.”
“Great. Now we need to get copies of the passenger lists for those flights.”
“What’ll that prove?”
“It’ll put you and Melrose on a flight to Mexico and then Peaches and Melrose. In fact, for that one he bought her the ticket. That’s only part of it. I want the third name: the tech who flew down. Melrose wouldn’t want too many people involved. I’ll bet he used the same tech. This guy is the key, you said so yourself.”
“How?”
“He had to be the one who cut and edited the master. He was there when they shot the scenes in Mexico. He ties Melrose to you and to Peaches, to making the video itself. He had to fly under his real name too. So we can find him. He’s the whole ball of wax. He ties Melrose to everything and drops it right on the D.A.’s door. We need to find him and fast. With this unraveling I’m worried that we’ll find him. In the morgue.”
CHAPTER 28
I called Hoss Wisinski and caught him on the way out the door.
“Yo, Hags, what’s up?”
“I need another favor, Hoss. I need passenger lists for flights on Mexicair Air Lines, Los Angeles to Monterrey, on these dates: July 27 and September 11. They won’t talk to me but they will answer a police inquiry.”
“That’s it? Sure. I’ll give ’em a call when I’m at the station. I got a couple of days light duty coming to me. I banged up a knee restraining a prisoner. Stupid fucker resisted himself right into Casualty Hospital.”
“Shit, now he’s really in danger.”
“Hey, by the way, anything come out of that last inquiry? A guy from L.A. showed up here. He wanted to know who the inquiry was for. He said the chick was a blown informer and that there was a hit out on her. He wanted to get her back in protective custody before the other side found her. I didn’t think I had any choice so I gave him your name. He wasn’t snowing me, was he?”
“Christmas in the Rockies, Hoss. Don’t worry about it. You catch any shit for that last favor?”
“Nah. Where you gonna be? This could be late.”
“Call my beeper. I’ll get back to you. Then you can fax it over to my office and I’ll pick it up.”
“Talk to you later.”
I cradled the phone. “Nothing more we can do about that. Just wait until he calls. Then I’ll go down to the office and get the faxes. See what we caught.”
There was one more thing to do. The perfect end to the perfect day. I called Walter’s office. He was still there, and not happy about it.
“Leo, what the hell is going on? Where are you?” he boomed at me.
“Not yet, Walt. Obviously Darla didn’t turn herself in. We had an unscheduled meeting with Burton Melrose. What do the police know?”
“They know plenty. I went outside when I heard the sirens. I had been given a description of Melrose and I identified him to the officers at the scene. Then I heard the other witnesses describing the guy who shot it out with Officer Melrose. The guy who shot at him while he was fleeing, which resulted in his being killed while running for his life. That’s when I shut up. I strongly recommend that you turn yourself in, Leo. They’ve got your picture out everywhere. You’re listed as armed and dangerous, everything but shoot on sight. Right now you’re a cop killer, Leo. Even with your hands in the air, if you break wind, you’ll catch more lead than Baghdad did.” Walt fell silent. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“A karmic shit storm, Walt.” I went on to tell him what had happened.
“Okay, you had reasonable grounds to believe that he wasn’t a police officer. Darla identified him as a guy from California. Even though he’s a cop out there, he has no police powers here. If he’d been legit, he’d have shown up with Maryland officers to take you to the airport. So far so good. Who fired first?”
“He did. I just returned fire.”
“Still okay. You can use lethal force to repel lethal force. What about when he started to run?”
“I gave pursuit. I told him to halt.”
“Did you fire at him?”
“Yeah. A warning shot over his head. He turned to fire at me and the car hit him.”
“Good. It sounds like he panicked and caused his own death. That’s not what the police believe. The witnesses were real hazy about the sequence of events. They think he fired at you, then turned and ran, you fired at him, then he got hit by the car. That makes it murder, Leo. Murder of a police officer. They’re taking this one seriously. I think you should come in, tell them your side of the story. Have the agency start digging up witnesses to corroborate it. You know what the streets are like. Two shootings a day is the average now. The cops a
lready see guns that aren’t there. I’m worried about a trial, that’s for sure, but I’m more worried that you won’t get off the streets.”
“You hear me arguing with you? Let me just tell you what I’ve been trying to do. There’s not a lot of time to waste. Once I go inside I can’t help myself very much. I want you to know everything that needs to be done.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m waiting to get passenger lists for two flights from L.A. to Monterrey. They’ll put Melrose on the planes with Darla and another porn star, Peaches Melba, real name Martha Tupperman. Darla can identify Melrose as the guy who offered to get her off the drug bust if she’d make a porn tape in Mexico. The passenger list will have them as no-shows. Then he goes down with this other girl. I’m getting a copy of his credit card charges. He paid for her ticket. This girl turns up as the star in a doggie tape that’s the centerpiece of a major sting operation. The girl made calls to a friend in L.A. from a house in Monterrey. You have to get her phone records. Maybe she reversed the charges. You should also talk to the defense attorneys in L.A. Get a chance to see the tape. Maybe you can identify the house by exterior shots. Get the phone number from the address.”
“Why don’t we just subpoena the girl?”
“She’s dead. Suicide after this whole thing went public. We can put Melrose with the star, in Mexico to make a porn flick. The real kicker is the tech who did the work splicing in the scenes with the body double. He’s the direct tie to Melrose as the producer of the tape. He may even be able to tie this to Melrose’s boss. That’s the motive for Melrose to come out here and silence Darla.”
“Slow down. What’s the motive?”
“When Darla disappeared, they wrote her off as a loss. Then she shows up on a police request to NCIC. They’re worried about what kind of trouble she’s in now. Maybe she’ll try to parlay what she remembers into leverage. So they send Bellicosi out to see what’s going on.
“He doesn’t like what he sees. Then you call out there looking into the bust. Not only is Darla not lost any more, she may be coming back to face trial. She’ll be out on bond talking to her old friends. Somebody’ll tell her about Peaches. She’ll start putting it all together. The trial was only last month.
“Then I shake Steinmetz up. Suppose he and the D.A. or somebody in that office are making a deal. The D.A. doesn’t look into the Pudwhacker fire too hard. In exchange Steinmetz, through his girlfriend, sets up Darla for a bust so they can leverage her into the Mexico deal. The sting gives the D.A. a big win for morality and decency. It’s an election year. Law and order’s had a rough year out there. It’s also good for Steinmetz because it clouds Darla’s credibility if she contradicts Stephanie Mitchell’s new story of sex under duress.” I stopped to reload.
“Steinmetz preempts everything with the confession. He and the D.A. still have loaded pistols at each other’s heads on the fire, but his girlfriend is safe. Then you scuttle that with the photo. Steinmetz has to cut a deal with you. That removes the drug bust over Darla’s head. She’s coming back there free and easy. This thing is unraveling like a snake tapestry.”
“I can put more pressure on Steinmetz,” Walt suggested. “We haven’t signed anything yet. I can demand that he roll over on the D.A.”
“That may be too much. If all this is true, then he’s looking at murder one for that fire. The D.A. has more leverage there than we do.”
I pushed on. “Darla can reveal that the D.A.’s office was in the business of making porn to catch the buyers. Not just any porn but a bestiality tape so they’d have gaudy and guaranteed convictions. That’s the motive for killing her. The only loose ends left are her and the tech.”
“Okay, what’s the tech’s name?” Walt asked. “I’ll call some private people out in L.A. Have them sit on this guy until we can depose him.”
“That’s it, I don’t know yet. I won’t know until I get the passenger lists. If I get the passenger lists.”
“You know,” Walt said in even measured tones, “the cost of a scam like this is prohibitive. You need a whole line in the budget to pull this off. That means that Melrose wasn’t on his own. His office was notified of his death while attempting to bring Darla into custody. That puts them ahead of us, and they probably know who the tech is.”
“Wonderful, fucking wonderful. Call Dan Kearny in San Francisco, ask him what the best agency in L.A. is, and retain it. Also call Rosa Cravat. If you’re right, then there’s got to be a money trail somewhere. Nobody can hide money from that woman.”
“I’ll get right on this stuff, Leo. How do you want to handle this?”
“Before we talk about that, what do we do about Darla?”
“Excuse me,” she said. “You guys aren’t doing anything with Darla. Darla does Darla. Give me that phone.”
I went over to the bed and lay down.
Darla listened for a while. She turned toward me and rolled her eyes as if Walter had said something particularly stupid.
“Of course I’ll testify. Without me he’s trying to high-jump out of the Grand Canyon, and good fucking luck with that. Can you keep me from having to go back to Los Angeles? Good. What do I have to do? Is there any other way? Let me think about it, okay?”
She handed me the phone.
“I hope we can prove all those connections you listed,” Walt said. “Without a motive for Melrose to threaten you, your story isn’t very credible. Right now we’ve got your version of the sequence of shots and the other witnesses.”
“What about Darla?”
“Until we prove otherwise, she’s a wanted drug dealer, a fugitive, and a porno actress. I’ve seen better résumés.”
“What’s the bottom line, Walt?”
“They’re going to arrest you and take you in for questioning. That’s for sure. After that, we have to marshal the evidence to support your version. If not, you’ll stand trial. This time you’ve killed one of their own. Before, when you’ve thinned the herd, they didn’t press. This will be different.”
“All right, Walt. I’ll call you when I have that tech’s name. Don’t call the cops until you hear from me. Can you do that?”
“I can do that. Besides, I don’t know where you are.”
I put the receiver down softly so it wouldn’t break. All of a sudden my life and everything in it seemed very fragile.
“You don’t look so good,” Darla said.
“I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to get buried at the bottom of this tunnel, and I don’t see very much that I can do about it.”
Darla sat down on the bed facing me. My throat got real tight. She might be the last woman I’d see in quite a while. I thought about reaching out to touch her, but I didn’t know what I wanted or maybe I did. I remembered Sam pushing past me when she left. And how I stood there unable to stop her. I’d been standing like that ever since. Hands jammed in my pockets.
“Darla, I want to—”
“Did you think about running away? If it was me, I’d be gone. Why aren’t you?”
I smiled at her. My unasked question drifted away. Had I been rescued or condemned?
“I’ve got bad knees.”
“Come on, you know what I mean.”
“I know. I don’t know. I’m just not a runner. It’s not in me. I can’t imagine myself doing that. Like you said, we draw our lines in different places. That’s one of mine. I’m not sure that it’s smart or that it’s brave, but it’s me. And that’s about all I’ve got left these days. Being me has cost me a lot. If I gave that up, I’d have nothing and everything I’d lost would be for nothing.”
Darla slid over on the bed until our knees met. She held her hands up and apart, fingers spread. “C’mon, put your hands up against mine.”
What the hell. I mirrored her. My hands dwarfed hers. Slowly she twisted her palms back and forth and then she slipped her fingers between mine and held me tight, almost as tight as her eyes did as she asked me, “So, where do you draw the line on being
a sex object?”
CHAPTER 29
Sex with Darla was like a steeplechase ride. She mounted up and then deftly guided me around the course. There were long spaces of open ground over which we galloped with increasing speed. Eyes closed, she rocked her hips back and forth and strummed herself. I stroked her thighs and enjoyed the pleasure in her faint smile as we readied for the next jump. The terrain rose steeply ahead of us. Darla gripped me with her legs and leaned forward into the wind of her desire until her ragged breathing filled my ears. My hands encircled her hips and, as she opened her eyes to look past me, I licked the sweat from between her swinging breasts.
Shuddering, Darla reared back and kneaded my shoulders, slowing us to a canter as she searched for the next trail. Suddenly my beeper went off. I reached over and saw that it was the answering service, not Hoss. I turned the beeper off.
Darla smiled down at me. “A couple more like that and I’ll treat you real good. Ever have a coffee blow job? First I fill my mouth with warm coffee. Then I—”
“Stop. I’ve got to check in. It could be important.”
“No, don’t. Let it wait. This is important.” She pouted.
I steadied her. “Just sit there. I’ll call in and take the message and we’ll get right back to it.”
“Okay.” Darla moved herself in figure eights on me, then reached back and ran her nails slowly up my thighs.
I punched in the numbers and enjoyed the wait.
“Answering for Franklin Investigations.”
“Yes, this is Leo Haggerty. You had a message for me?”
“Yes, Mr. Haggerty. The alarm system at your office went off. Our instructions are to call you right away.”
“Okay, thank you. How long ago did it go off?”
“About three minutes ago. Do you want us to call the police?”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll check it out myself.”
I put the phone down. Darla, now empty, was still astride me. “That didn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t good. Someone tried to break into the office. The agency’s been there ten years without a problem. I don’t like the timing of this. I have to go down and check it out.”
Mexico Is Forever Page 17