Casey's Slip

by Richard L. Wren

  It was clear that Carpenter got his orders from Goldberg, but we couldn’t find any money trail.

  What a crock some of our elected representatives are. They do something really bad, something they can be blackmailed for. Then they allow some slime bag like Carpenter to blackmail them into voting against their constituents’ interests and Carpenter makes money. Worst of all is what it eventually leads to, outright criminal behavior like murder to protect the original crimes. On top of that, there’s a Senator who’s sworn to uphold the law behind it all. We had paper evidence of a direct link between Carpenter and Goldberg, but nothing to prove they were crooks together. They’re all crooks. They just haven’t been caught.

  Smitty reminded us how Richards had broken down and admitted that he’d been told to use a gun if necessary. Richards had been told, “If you have to shoot him to get the package, do it! Just be damn sure to get the package.” He told the Devils he’d assumed he was supposed to shoot the guy based on what he’d been told.

  Now we needed an ironclad link between Richards and Carpenter. Smitty said we’d need something in writing to convince the police that we were innocent of murder. We had the confessed shooter but we didn’t know his motive. If he was a hired killer, who’d hired him? ‘If Carpenter hired him, why? If there was someone behind Carpenter, who was it and was he the one who ordered the killing?

  Smitty was turning into a one-man private detective agency.

  A couple of hours later I found myself almost asleep in my chair. Josie was reading files, curled up near my feet. I was staring at a wall clock without seeing it. I shook myself and realized it was only three but we’d been up all night the night before.

  Smitty spotted Josie on the floor and called a halt for the day.

  “That’s enough guys. It’s been a long day and night. Grab a snack and get to bed. We’ll have another full day tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Later that evening Smitty, Gus, and I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee.

  “So what do you think?” Smitty asked me.

  “About what?”

  “What we’re doing and if it’s the right thing. Sometimes I think we’re just spinning our wheels. You’re outside the gang and maybe a little more objective. So, what do you think.”

  “Honestly? I think it’s a little late for second guessing. You can’t quit now. For one thing, the guys wouldn’t let you.”

  “Maybe I’m just tired, probably should get to bed,” and he lapsed into silence.

  Several minutes went by and then, just as Smitty was getting up, the phone rang.

  Gus grabbed it and after listening for a second said, “It’s for you.” And handed the phone to Smitty. “It’s Moose. You know, on your boat.”

  On the speaker phone the guy said “there’s been a couple of strangers’ snooping around the docks boss. Didn’t look like they belong around here. Been asking a lotta questions about anyone living on any of the boats, but they didn’t get much info from anyone. There’s hardly anyone here, and those that are here don’t seem to cater to strangers. What d’ya want us to do?”

  “You alone?” Smith asked him.

  “No, there’s a couple of us here on the boat. More at the warehouse.”

  “Are the snoopers still around?”

  “Yeah. They’re off the docks, but they’re still hanging around.”

  “Okay. Somebody’s gotta stay on the boat. The other one try to tail these guys when they leave. Whoever stays on board, keep your eyes open and call again if anyone shows any extra interest in my boat. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Sometimes we get bail bondsmen or the sheriff’s department looking for stolen boats down there.”

  Smitty stopped and thought for a moment, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair, then said. “But they never come around at night, do they. And no locals ever case our docks, they’re not gonna cross the Devils. It’s gotta be out of towner’s so you better be extra watchful. Okay?”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  Smitty sat thinking. “You know,” he said after a bit, “now that we know Richards was sent to kill the guy, I gotta change my mind about the caliber of people around Carpenter. The guy at the boat was a professional gunman, somewhat amateurish, but still a pro.”

  “But why’d he hire an outsider, when he’s got his own enforcer?”

  “I can’t figure that out. Maybe the guys he had around him wouldn’t pull the trigger if necessary. But if it was Carpenter’s men down there, how in hell did he find out about me so soon?” Smitty asked

  He continued, “I wonder if he’s got an informant in the police department. Guess who that’d be…That God damned sergeant would drop a dime on me just to get even!”

  CHAPTER 28

  We looked to Smitty to see what was next. Several minutes went by while Smitty stared at the floor. The rest respected his need to think this all through. Nobody broke the silence.

  Finally he lifted his head, shrugged and announced, “Council of war. Gather up and let’s talk about what’s happening.”

  Everyone came to the biker equivalent of attention.

  He stared at the floor again for a moment, then continued.

  “This Carpenter guy don’t know squat about how much trouble he’s in. We could totally put him out of business overnight if we wanted to play rough. We’ve got an organization I’ll put up against anyone’s. I want to put him out of business permanently but – and we’re talkin’ spelled out in capital letters here. No rough stuff. That’s gonna be tough. Plus I’m convinced he’s just someone else’s tool. The real boss, the real murderer’s still out there.”

  “We’re walkin’ a tight rope on the fringes of the law,” Smitty went on, “but Carpenter’s operating way outside the law. That’s in our favor. We need to find out as much about him as he seems to know about us. If he’s snoopin’ around my boat he evidently knows who I am, which means he can find out a lot about me in a hurry. I’m too damn well known on the waterfront, plus I’ve been in the papers a lot.”

  Smitty wasn’t exaggerating. I was gradually remembering seeing his name and the Devil’s name in headlines back over the years. He’d been newspaper fodder a lot, most of it some years ago. He hadn’t mention it to me, but I remembered he’d been arrested plenty of times. I couldn’t remember if he’d ever been convicted.

  I wagged a finger at him, indicating I had a thought I wanted to throw out. I sure as hell wasn’t going to raise my hand, not in this crowd. I made it more like I was bidding at an auction, like when the bidder doesn’t want to call attention to himself. It worked.

  “What you got?”

  “I was thinking, Maybe we could take advantage of someone he’s been blackmailing.”

  “And how would we go about doing that?”

  “Pick out somebody he’s been blackmailing, over something fairly small. Maybe you could make him more afraid of you than he is of Carpenter. Or maybe somehow you could make his problem go away? I think if we all go through the files again as a group we can come up with somebody who fits the profile.”

  Smitty stared at me for what seemed like a full minute. Total silence.

  “I like it. It might even work. Any other ideas?”

  There were none.

  “Okay then, that’s it. Start going through the files and find someone for us to work on.”

  “Smitty? One more idea.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “We should try to find someone that has some power. Not, for example, the guy that owns the donut shop. We need to find someone we can leverage.”

  Because Josie and I had organized our files so well, it was pretty easy to flip through them. Within an hour, I had a list of several names that looked promising.

  One of them was the one I’d told Smitty about earlier, the Sacramento politico. But his problems were so monumental; I didn’t think there was any way we could get him out from under them. Besides, I had a feeling that this particular senator was involve
d with Carpenter, not a victim. Another was an aide to a senator. He was a possibility. His particular sin: forgery. Another was a retired army officer. The army knew he was gay, but his new employer didn’t. Maybe?

  However, the one I considered the most promising was a local police chief. His sin was misappropriation of funds. It wasn’t a large amount, but being a police chief, it could be seriously damaging to his career. It looked like Carpenter or someone had hired outside accountants to check the department’s books and found the transgression that Carpenter was holding over the chief’s head.

  The best part about him though was that he wasn’t just any police chief. He was the police chief of El Cerrito. Carpenter’s home town.

  Smitty wasn’t as enthused as I’d hoped. “Apolice chief? We’re on the run from one police department. You want us to get mixed up with another one?”

  That argument wasn’t going to stop me. “Think about it, Smitty. First off, he’s already in trouble with Carpenter. If we can convince him that we want to help him and that no one’s gonna find out what we know, why wouldn’t he want to help us? Maybe we could convince him that if he helps us, we can get Carpenter off his back. He’d end up indebted to us. How many police chiefs can you say that about?”

  Smitty sat silent for a long time. He was again obviously mulling over the whole problem, starting from square one.

  Finally he said, “You know, I think maybe it’s worth a try. But we’d have to be real careful about it. Let me sleep on it. Maybe I can come up with a way to get to the chief. We could try.”

  He eyed me somewhat speculatively, as if I was some kind of new specimen he’d gotten his hands on but wasn’t quite sure about. I felt that I was beginning to prove my worth to him. Hell, being able to ride a motorcycle isn’t everything. Thinking had its points too!

  Josie popped her head into the kitchen and announced she was on her way upstairs to bed.

  Everybody was yawning. “I don’t care about you guys,” Smitty said, “but I’m turning in too. Josie, you gonna fix breakfast for this gang in the morning?”

  “Yeah, Pops. Have a good one.”

  I caught up with Josie on the stairs. We talked over the days happenings for a few minutes and then headed for our respective bedrooms.

  I got to rethinking what I’d suggested to Smitty. We’re going to entrap and un-blackmail a police chief? And it was my idea? I couldn’t sleep.

  CHAPTER 29

  I could smell coffee and breakfast, and so could the rest of the guys. We were in the den, hashing around yesterdays developments. Josie came downstairs and said breakfast was about ready, we’d eat in the dining room.

  Smitty was issuing orders. “Red and Dave, you two stick around today. The rest of you clear out for the day. Go relax, see your family or something. Get back here by five this afternoon. We’re going to figure out how to meet that chief. We’ll do a lot better without you guys around guzzling beer all day.”

  Looked like I had a day off, kinda’. I couldn’t get away, no wheels. Maybe Josie would be free too? I asked her but she said she was gonna spend the afternoon reading. That’s what I did too, Latitude 38.

  By five we were all assembled in the den again. Smitty held forth.

  “Okay guys, we mulled over lots of ideas today. Needless to say, we don’t have much experience meeting with police chiefs. Particularly to talk about him being blackmailed. We even called some other chapters for suggestions.

  Finally we decided it’d be best if I simply made an appointment saying it was a private matter. That I could only talk it over with the chief. Our thinking was that El Cerrito being such a small town, the chief would be more accessible than in a big city like Oakland.”

  He went on. “I’ll use my full name and this address so if he does a background on me, it’ll be clear.”

  Josie had returned to the room and seated herself next to me.

  I leaned toward her and whispered, “What’s his full name?”

  Without turning her head, whispering from the side of her mouth, she told me.

  “Smith, Edgar Eugene Smith.”

  Smitty continued. “I’ll have to explain, as carefully as I can, what our plan is. I gotta let the chief know that we know he’s being blackmailed and so am I, and that’s why I’m seeing him. Somehow or other, I’m going to stop the blackmailer, is there any way he can help me and help himself too? That’s the general idea we came up with, anybody got a better idea?”

  Silence.

  “Okay, then. We’ll go over the details tonight. I have to rehearse what I’m gonna say to the chief. Tomorrow morning I’ll go over the whole thing with all of you. Once we’ve got all the kinks out of the plan, I’ll call the chief and make an appointment.”

  After dinner was over I helped Josie with the dishes and she asked me if I wanted to go to a movie with her.

  “I don’t think Smitty will let me out of his sight.”

  “Oh pshaw. You’ll be with me all the time and you wouldn’t hurt lil’ ole me, would you?”

  I was surprised, Smitty was easily convinced. Josie said he’d told her he thought I was really helping out.

  So we went to a movie. She drove and I passengered. I offered to pay, but she said that since it was her idea, it was her treat. We had popcorn and held hands. It was like a first date. In fact, itwas our first date.

  We got home early. A little after nine thirty, we had some hot chocolate and a piece of cake, took some kidding from the gang about our dating, and went to our respective beds about 10:30. This time I was out like a light. I fell asleep thinking about Josie and how comfortable we seemed to be with each other. My wound had quit bleeding but still throbbed.

  About 6:30 in the morning someone started shaking me by the shoulder, giving me no choice but to reluctantly regain consciousness. It was Smitty.

  “Something’s happened. Get up!” and he was gone.

  It didn’t take long to get dressed. I already had my shorts on and I didn’t have a lot of clothing to dither over. I tossed yesterday’s clothes on and dashed downstairs. All the guys were there and so was Josie, all wolfing down bacon and eggs and toast, while Smitty paced back and forth, a cup of coffee in his hands.

  I tried to catch Josie’s eye, but she was busy. I grabbed a plate, filled it up and sat down next to Dave. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “You remember who Red was” he asked. I was immediately worried by his use of the past tense.

  “Sure, I remember Red. He gave me my first motorcycle lesson. What’s happened? Is he okay?”

  “No. It’s really bad news. He was shot at his home.”

  “Who shot him? What happened?”

  “As far as we can piece out, Red decided to go to his sister’s house last night and take that guy Richards to his house instead of leaving him with her. Somehow Carpenter must have found out about Red and decided to get Richards back.”

  “How do we know Carpenter did it?”

  “Red was still conscious when we found him. He told us ‘They got Richards.’ That’s all he had time to say just before the cops came.

  “He told the cops he’d interrupted a robbery. Told them he’d walked in on the guys, they’d slugged him and he was out cold for a while. When he came to Richards was dead they were rifling the house so he tackled the closest guy. That was when the other guy shot him.”

  “They killed Richards?”

  “Deader’n a doornail. Red said he heard them say something about what snitches get.”

  “Is Red Okay?”

  “The paramedics were pretty pessimistic about his chances, but Red’s tough. He’s been shot before and came through it. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed. I’m just glad his wife wasn’t there.”

  Smitty was pacing back and forth across the room. Turning to Dave he asked, “Can we visit him?”

  “The Doctors said no visitors. They’re not even letting the cops talk to him. One of the Doctors told me he’s in a coma.”

&nbs
p; Smitty went into a rant. “Damn it, this isn’t supposed to be happening. It’s got to be that God Damned Carpenter again. He’s been a half step ahead of us for a couple of days now, ever since we raided his house. I still think he’s getting information from the cops. How in hell did he even know where Red lived? How could anyone else find him? This stinks. It really pisses me off. Red’s been like a brother to me. We’ve been through more shit together than you guys ever imagined.”

  Smitty dropped himself in a chair.

  “We have to make sure he gets the best care available. Dave, you take care of that,” he said. “Get some of the wives to visit and help his wife, and you go to the hospital and make sure he’s getting the best. I guess I have to stay here and deal with Carpenter.”

  Then he switched gears, from dealing with the past to the future in a blink.

  “For you guys that just came up this morning, here’s what we outlined last night. First thing we do is hit Carpenter where he lives, literally. We need to take his headquarters, his home turf, away from him. We think we can do that with the help of – of all people – the El Cerrito police chief! And guess what. We’re going to blackmail the chief, in a nice way. Listen up.”

  CHAPTER 30

  He certainly had the group’s attention as he continued.

  “Thanks to Carpenter, we’ve got something on this particular chief and we’re pretty sure he’ll want to work with us. You don’t need to know what it is, but it’s something we found in Carpenter’s files and we can use it to our advantage. Once the chief knows what we know, and that we don’t intend to use it to harm him, I’m layin’ odds he’ll jump at the chance to get Carpenter off his back.”

  Restless, Smitty got back on his feet.

  “The problem I wrestled with last night was how to approach the chief. I’ve already made an appointment with him for this afternoon. I’m gonna tell him what I said last night about both of us being blackmailed and that I’m not gonna take it.”