by Jacob Stone
The call ended, and they drove in silence for several minutes before Bogle muttered thanks. The reason for this was Morris no longer needed to bring Benjamin Chandler to Big Joe in order to get what the mob boss knew about the Nightmare Man. Polk’s photos were all that were needed. He could’ve turned the car around and headed back to Los Angeles, and not too many people would’ve blamed him if he had done exactly that. He didn’t need to explain to his friend of over twenty years why he was continuing on to Wrightwood. They had a deal. Bogle needed to bring Chandler back to Los Angeles, and Morris wasn’t about to leave him hanging out to dry.
* * * *
The cabin was set forty yards back from the road and further hidden behind a copse of pines. Even if it wasn’t dusk, it would’ve been easy to miss, and Morris had to circle back before he found the narrow dirt driveway. The lights were off inside the cabin, and it didn’t appear as if anyone was home, but as they drove up, Bogle pointed out that the blinds covering the window on the left had moved.
“Someone’s peeking out,” Morris said.
“Benjamin Chandler.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Ten to one he rabbits,” Bogle said.
“A sucker’s bet,” Morris said.
“Front or back?”
“Back.”
Morris pulled the car to a stop, and he took Parker with him, got a flashlight from the trunk, and continued to the back of the cabin while Bogle went straight to the front door. A BMW convertible had been tucked away behind the cabin so it couldn’t be seen from the front, and a porch door was swinging back and forth. Parker’s ears perked up, and he stood as still as a marble statue. Morris heard noises from the direction where Parker was staring, and in the dusk he saw a person scrambling up a mountain path. It had to be Chandler, and he already had a hundred-yard lead on them. Morris groaned. His creaky knees couldn’t handle chasing someone up a mountain.
He yelled out that they had been sent from Starlight Pictures to bring him back. That only seemed to make the man run faster, at least until he slipped and fell on his face. Bogle soon joined Morris, and they watched as the man fought to get back on his feet.
“I tried telling him who we are,” Morris said.
“He’s in full-blown panic,” Bogle observed.
The man was fading from view as he scrambled up the path.
“It’s possible he didn’t hear me,” Morris said. “The guy’s got to be part mountain goat. I’m not up to chasing after him.”
Bogle said, “Neither am I.”
They both turned to Parker, who looked more than up to the task.
Morris took him off his leash, then gave the dog an encouraging shove and ordered him to go get him. The bull terrier shot up the path.
“We better go up after him,” Morris said.
Bogle asked, “Your dog’s not going to hurt him, is he?”
“Depends how much of a fight he puts up. He’d get hurt worse if we didn’t do anything. There’s got to be rattlesnakes up there.”
The flashlight proved useful as they made their way up the trail, allowing them to make sure they didn’t step on loose stones. They moved at a more leisurely pace than either Parker or the man who they presumed was Benjamin Chandler. Still, even in the cool mountain air, they were both sweating badly five minutes later when they found the bull terrier and the man he had chased up the path.
Morris was relieved to see that the man was in fact Benjamin Chandler. If it hadn’t been him, he was going to have some explaining to do, especially seeing that the actor had been knocked onto his back, and Parker now stood on his chest, growling, with the actor’s right forearm gripped in his mouth. Even without the flashlight, Morris could see Chandler’s eyes were liquid with fear.
The actor screamed out, “I won’t say anything to the police, I swear to God!”
“Relax,” Morris grunted as he pulled Parker off the actor and had him release the forearm. No denying that Nat was right, the little guy needed to lose a few. “We’re here to save your ass. Scout’s honor.”
Bogle offered Chandler his hand and helped him to his feet. He introduced himself and Morris. The actor slowly rubbed the forearm Parker had used for a game of tug-of-war. From what Morris could tell, the skin hadn’t been broken, and if the actor had a broken bone, they’d know it already. His arm was probably bruised, but no worse than that.
Chandler looked incapable of saying a word. He blinked wildly as he looked first at Bogle, then at Morris, and finally at Parker. The bull terrier was back on his leash and grinning happily as if nothing had happened.
“I thought you were sent by Penza,” the actor said finally, as if he were in a daze.
“How about we get off this mountain and back into your cabin?” Morris said. “You look like you could use a stiff drink. You got anything down there?”
“An eighteen-year-old Glenmorangie.”
Bogle asked, “Is that a girl or a scotch?”
Chandler was too shaken up to get the joke. “Scotch whisky.”
“Okay,” Morris said. “Let’s pour a few and explain the situation to you. Are you able to walk? Do you need help?”
When Morris had first flashed the light on Chandler, the actor’s face had been a ghastly white, but now some color was seeping back into his cheeks and his eyes looked less fearful.
“You have no idea how scared I was,” he said. “When I saw your car driving up, I was sure I was a dead man. But to answer your question, I’m okay. At least I think so.”
He held out his hand in front of him, and there was only a slight tremor.
Morris handed him the flashlight, and Chandler led the way down the path. Bogle sidled up to Morris and asked in a low voice, “When were you ever a Boy Scout?”
“I never said I was. But Rachel was a Girl Scout for years, and with all the Thin Mints and Samoas I ate, I earned my honorary title.” He pointed his chin at his dog and added, “So did Parker.”
Chapter 33
“I’m looking for Big Joe Penza.”
The tuxedoed maître d’hôtel at the Russian restaurant Vanya’s was a fleshy man with heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes and a small amount of wispy hair framing his scalp. He gave Morris a bored look and in a thick accent mumbled something that could’ve been: “Don’t know who that is.”
It was almost midnight, and while a scattering of customers still sat at tables, the restaurant felt about as lively as a tomb. Parker, for his part, nearly unhinged his jaw yawning.
Lemmon and Polk had accompanied Morris into the restaurant, while Bogle and Chandler sat two blocks away in Morris’s car waiting for his call. Morris held out Benjamin Chandler’s driver’s license.
“Penza will want to see this.”
The maître d’ gave the license an indifferent look.
Morris dug into his wallet and folded a twenty-dollar bill around the license. The maître d’hôtel conceded then to take the money and license. In that same thick accent that sounded as if his mouth was full of marbles, he mumbled something that Morris took as: “You wait here.”
The man walked off toward the back of the restaurant before disappearing down a hallway. It didn’t take long for him to come back and wave Morris and the others to follow him. He led them to a room in the back where Big Joe Penza and six others sat at a table playing poker, drinking vodka, and eating caviar, smoked fish, and other appetizers. Morris noted that Big Joe liked his private dining rooms.
Penza raised an eyebrow and jokingly remarked, “You brought a small mob with you, huh? Too bad, it looks like I got you outnumbered.”
“True,” Morris agreed. “But your poker buddies need to get lost. We need to talk privately.”
“That so? How’d you know where I was?”
“I had a tail on you since I left you earlier.”
Penza’s thick lips froz
e into a mirthless smile. “You’ll tell me later how you managed that,” he said. “How come I don’t see that actor with you? This another trick of yours? A manufactured license?”
He said this mostly as a joke, but Morris picked up the threat in his voice. That if he wasn’t bringing him Chandler, there would be problems.
“The license is legit. We found him and you’ll be seeing him soon, but there are matters we need to discuss first.”
Penza’s eyes glazed. He didn’t like being told what to do, but he accepted that he needed to send his poker friends away. “A half hour break, boys, no more than that,” he promised them. “Order whatever you want, put it on my tab.”
There was an undercurrent of grumbling, but the men filed out of the room. Once the door closed behind the last one, Morris told Penza that he’d also put a tail on Melanie.
Polk had his camera with him. A top-of-the-line Nikon with a telephoto zoom lens. He showed Penza on the camera’s viewfinder the photos he had taken. At first Penza smirked as if this was an elaborate joke, but once the pictures moved from the outside of the Malibu home to the bedroom, his smirk disappeared.
“These are real?” he asked, incredulously.
“I wouldn’t know how to fake something like that,” Polk said.
Morris said, “Chandler never had an affair with your wife. He doesn’t know her. Never met her. He did, however, witness Bobby Gallo stabbing another of your associates. A knuckle-buster named Vincent Scalise. That’s why he’s been hiding.”
“Why’d Bobby tell me what he did?”
This was said innocently enough. Morris didn’t need to tell Penza what was obvious. That Gallo was covering up his own affair, and at the same time he needed cover to make sure Chandler disappeared and never had a chance to tell Penza what he had witnessed. It took a few seconds, but from the way the mob boss’s eyes dimmed, he saw that also.
“I want to hear this from that actor’s mouth,” Penza demanded stubbornly.
“Sure.”
Morris got Bogle on the phone and told him to bring Chandler to the restaurant. While they waited for Bogle and Chandler, Penza demanded to know where the photos had been taken. Morris gave him the Malibu address.
“They’re still there?”
“As far as I know.”
This was a lie. Morris had earlier called Marty Wright and given him the story of Chandler witnessing Gallo stabbing Scalise, and Wright arranged for the organized crime unit to pick Gallo up. An hour ago, Morris got a call that Gallo had been arrested. They would try to flip him. Melanie Penza was also picked up, but in her case it was more for her own protection. They were going to offer her a witness protection deal to turn on her husband. With some luck Penza would be behind bars by tomorrow, but Morris didn’t need to tell him that.
Penza signaled with his sausage-sized thumb for Morris and his crew to leave the room. “When that actor shows up, you knock on the door, and I’ll let you know when you can come in. For now, scram.”
Morris didn’t argue. Penza wanted to make phone calls in private. It didn’t matter. It would take at least forty minutes for the leg breakers he’d be sending after Gallo to discover that the Malibu home was empty, and by that time Morris would’ve gotten from Penza what he needed. Before turning for the door, he grabbed two pieces of lamb from a platter of shish kebab and fed them to Parker. The mob boss glowered at him but swallowed back whatever it was he wanted to say.
“He earned it,” Morris explained. “It’s partly because of him we’re able to bring Benjamin Chandler to you tonight.”
“Ugly bloodhound,” Penza muttered, impatient for Morris and the others to leave so he could sic his thugs after Gallo, and possibly also after his wife. Morris didn’t bother to correct him regarding Parker’s pedigree.
Instead of waiting by the door, they moved back to the main dining hall so they could be on the lookout for Bogle and Chandler. Penza’s poker buddies were laughing it up at one of the tables. Polk stared longingly at their half-open bottle of vodka.
“I could use a drink right now,” Polk said.
“Only one?” Lemmon asked.
“Hell, I’d take a bottle of that fermented potato juice.”
Morris said, “Let’s see how the night goes.”
Parker let out a satisfied pig-grunt, his tail still wagging from the lamb.
Lemmon laughed as he watched the dog. “I swear, Big Joe looked like he wanted to stab you in the hand for feeding Parker.”
“No doubt,” Morris agreed.
He spotted Bogle and Chandler walking into the restaurant and waved them over, then led the way back to Penza’s private dining room. He didn’t bother knocking. The hell with Penza. When he walked into the room, Penza glared at him and then turned his glare toward Chandler.
“If you don’t know my wife, then explain this,” Penza demanded coldly.
He held up a cell phone that showed a photo of Chandler and Melanie Penza together outside a Santa Monica bungalow. The actor approached Penza and gave the photo a curious look before smiling to himself.
“That was from People magazine,” Chandler explained. “Not that exact photo, of course. The real photo was a publicity shot with me and Jane Wickford, an up-and-coming actress. If you look online, I’m sure you could find the original. Someone photoshopped your wife into this one.”
From the look in Penza’s eyes, he already knew that would be the answer, but he had to play the tough guy.
Morris said, “You’re square then with Mr. Chandler? No remaining issues?”
“Tell him to beat it,” Penza said.
Bogle spoke up, saying, “I’ll make sure Mr. Chandler gets home safely.” He clapped Morris on the shoulder and winked at both Polk and Lemmon before escorting Chandler out of the room.
Morris sat down next to Penza. Polk and Lemmon also took seats at the table. Morris told them to pour themselves shots, that they had earned it. He fed Parker another piece of lamb kebab and spread caviar on a piece of small toast for himself. He’d had caviar a few times in the past and had so far never really cared for it but thought someday he might develop a taste. As he took a bite, he realized today was not that day.
“You’re making yourself right at home, I see,” Penza complained.
“Damn straight,” Morris said. He poured himself a shot of vodka and mouthed l’chaim to Polk and Lemmon, who had done the same. After downing the drink, he slammed the glass on the table. A brightness burned in his eyes when he turned back to Penza.
“I went far above and beyond my end of the deal, and me and my associates are hungry and thirsty after running around all day solving your marital and organizational problems. Now you’re going to tell me what you know about the Nightmare Man.”
He was sick of Penza and disgusted that this man had made him spend costly days jumping through hoops before being willing to help him stop a depraved serial killer. Maybe he wouldn’t empty a clip into Penza, but he could feel a meanness building inside, and he was going to do whatever it took to get Penza to tell him what he knew.
Penza’s thick lips were pushed into a belligerent frown, but something broke in his eyes. He pushed a thick hand through his yellow-dyed hair, a sudden weariness aging him well past his sixty years.
“It’s about time I told someone this,” he said.
Chapter 34
Los Angeles, 1984
Torture will be necessary.
That was the message written neatly on the letter a prospective client sent to Ed Blount’s post office box. They weren’t supposed to do that. They were only supposed to send the address of their own post office box so Blount could arrange a time and place for them to meet. Blount shrugged off this indiscretion, figuring the prospective client wanted to make sure he knew up front what the job entailed in case he had qualms about torture. He didn’t. He was a professional. Half
of his jobs were for the Penza family, half were freelance, and he had no problem doing whatever was necessary. More than a few times he needed to beat information out of a target, and there had been jobs with the Penza family that required the target to be left a bloody mess to send the right message. He got no enjoyment when he had to make a target suffer, nor when he killed them, but it didn’t bother him either. It was a job. It paid the bills.
Almost three a.m. Aside from those working graveyard, the city’s inhabitants were mostly tucked away for the night. It had been ten minutes since Blount had seen another car on the road, and the same wouldn’t have been true an hour ago. North Hollywood would’ve been buzzing then with activity, and cops would’ve been cruising for drunks. In another hour, Los Angeles would be waking up and early morning delivery trucks would start snaking through the city streets. Now was the time of night when Blount liked to work.
His headlights cut through the murky grayness as he drove along North La Brea Avenue. There was too much ambient light from businesses and streetlamps for the night to ever get pitch-black in Los Angeles. That was a shame. Blount would’ve preferred to travel in complete darkness.
The man he was meeting didn’t know Blount’s name and never would. The same wasn’t true for Blount. He had sent instructions detailing the time and location for a meeting to a post office box and hired someone to watch for when the letter was picked up so that the prospective client could be followed. In this way, he discovered that the man’s name was Donald Trilling. Blount now knew enough about him to feel comfortable taking the job. Trilling was by all accounts an upstanding citizen. Someone wealthy enough to own a home in Brentwood and investment properties in Venice, and equally important to Blount, no police record or arrests. There was no reason to suspect that the police or other law enforcement officials would be squeezing Trilling to contact Blount. Still, that scenario wasn’t impossible.
The meeting place was in the back of a supermarket parking lot. The only car there when Blount arrived was Trilling’s silver Mercedes. He pulled up to the left of it and signaled with a wave of his hand for Trilling to get out of his car, and then to come around to his door. Trilling looked confused. Blount waited for him, then rolled down his window, and told him to lift up his shirt. Trilling stared at him with an awkward smile before realizing Blount wanted to make sure he wasn’t wearing a wire. He smirked as he lifted up his cotton-knit long-sleeve shirt to show he didn’t have a recording device taped to his torso. When Blount told him to lower his pants, Trilling made a you-got-to-be-kidding-me face, but he did as he was told, just as he did when Blount told him to drop his briefs.