by Bill Sage
A few seconds later, Phil looked at the stakeout guy to make sure he was still pressuring Ben into producing his insurance card. Seeing that he was, he bent down and examined the right rear of the Toyota. A few seconds later, he crawled around to the right wheel well. Then after confirming that no one was looking, he pulled a tracking device from underneath his shirt and stuck it on the inside of the wheel well, directly above the tire.
Standing up, he got into the Chevy and started it. Then he backed it up a few feet, giving him more room to pull around the Toyota.
When the stakeout guy heard the Chevy’s engine start, he looked back and began trudging over there. But when Phil shut it off and opened the door, he turned around and headed back to the front of the Toyota.
Phil got out and walked over there too. “Not too much damage to either car,” he said, shaking his head.
Ben nodded. That was their prearranged signal, indicating that Phil had attached the tracking device.
Facing the stakeout guy, Phil said, “We’ll handle this on our own. Keep insurance out of it.”
The guy didn’t say anything, just gawked at him. Ben thought he looked like he hadn’t fully understood what Phil said.
“I know we fouled up your day,” Phil added. “We’ll settle up with you today. Give you cash. You can do whatever you want with it.”
That finally got the stakeout guy’s attention. “I think five hundred would take care of it.”
Nodding, Phil said, “That’s fair. I’ll get it now.” Then he turned and walked back to the Chevy.
“Hey, what the hell you doing?” Ben shouted at Phil. “Don’t give him cash. I got insurance.”
Then, as the stakeout guy was heading back to the Chevy, Ben rushed past him and got there first. He opened the rear door, got inside, and scooted across the seat to the passenger side.
Seeing Ben climbing in, Phil stepped over to the open door. Peering inside, he said, “You don’t need to look for the card. I’m gonna pay him myself.”
Wondering what was going on, the stakeout guy walked over to where Phil was standing and peeked inside the car too.
When Ben didn’t answer, Phil bent down and stuck his head into the back seat. “You feeling okay?”
Curious, the stakeout guy stooped down to see what Ben was doing. As he looked inside, Ben whipped out a .38 snub nose. “Get in, asshole,” he demanded, jabbing the gun in the guy’s face.
At the same time, Phil grabbed his shoulders and shoved him into the back seat. Then he slammed the door.
“Hey, hey, whaddaya you guys doing?” the stakeout guy cried out, landing next to Ben.
As Ben was forcing the stakeout guy down onto the floorboard, Phil jumped into the front and tossed Ben a black hood he’d placed underneath the seat.
“Put it on,” Ben ordered. “They cut off Asher’s finger. We’ll cut off your fuckin’ head.”
When the stakeout guy hesitated, Ben rammed the heel of his shoe into his neck, knocking off the DeWalt cap.
“Shit,” the guy moaned, clutching his throat.
“Do it now!” Ben ordered, stomping down on his ribs.
The stakeout guy slowly slipped the hood over his head and kept quiet.
As Phil drove away, Ben noticed a woman staring at them from her second-story window.
Write it down, honey. It won’t lead anywhere.
Phil drove to the service road where they’d left Ben’s SUV. Parking next to it, they dragged the stakeout guy out of the Chevy and tossed him into the back seat of the Suburban. Then Phil climbed in and forced him down to the floorboard.
Ben got in the driver’s seat and started the Suburban. “Let’s get outta here.”
Later that day, Lopez drove by the Toyota and looked through it for clues. All he found was a thermos of coffee, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and a paperback. My Life with the Purples, by Bill Wise.
Coming up dry, Lopez knew it was now up to Ben to pry information out of the stakeout guy.
12
BEN AND PHIL TOOK the stakeout guy to a safe house in Van Nuys, 20 miles north of LA. They tied his hands behind his back and shoved him into a wooden chair. Then Phil wrapped duct tape around his ankles.
Ben couldn’t wait to start questioning him. He and Phil had agreed they’d do whatever was necessary to get him to talk. Ben saying, “He’ll tell us what we wanna know or he’s a dead man.”
The guy said his name was Marty Sands. Phil checked his driver’s license to confirm it. Ben fired a barrage of questions at him. But Sands held his ground, repeatedly saying he didn’t know anything about “any kidnapping or Asher Burns.”
Ben thought Sands handled himself well. Wasn’t belligerent and answered all his questions in a calm and straightforward manner.
“Jeez, I’d never be involved in a kidnapping,” Sands told Ben. “I don’t do shit like that.”
His story was that he’d been hired to watch Roth’s house and report back if he saw the cops go inside. All his contacts and instructions were over the phone. He never saw the guy who hired him.
“If I knew, I’d tell you. I don’t give a shit what happens to them. I never heard of Asher Burns.”
“Where did he call you? At your house or someplace else?”
“My house. That’s where he always contacted me. After I started the job, he’d call me in the evenings to let me know if they’d needed me for the next day. You know, shit like that.”
“So, you’re saying that other than watching the house to see if the cops went inside, you didn’t know anything else about it? Why they hired you to do that?”
“He never told me shit. Nothing,” Sands insisted. “This is the first I’ve heard about any kidnapping. Honest, that’s the truth.”
“But you talked to him on the phone,” Ben yelled in Sands’ face.
“He wasn’t very talkative. The whole situation was kind of strange. He even used a—”
“How did they pay you?”
“I left the window of my car cracked an inch. When I came out in the morning, there were bills stuffed in an envelope.”
“Your car… You mean that green piece of shit you were in?”
“No. That’s the car they gave me to drive. They dropped the money into my own car at home.”
“Where did you get the Toyota?”
“The guy on the phone told me to go to Santa Ana and pick it up. The key was sitting on the back tire.”
“Where in Santa Ana?”
“Boyd Street.”
“How’d you get there?”
“Took a cab.”
“Anywhere on Boyd?”
“He told me to go to Boyd and Cabot.”
“Then what?”
“When I finished watching the house, I drove it home. Then they called and told me to stop doing it.”
“What about the Toyota?”
“They told me to park it where I picked it up. Had my wife follow me and take me home.”
“Then what? They told you to start staking out the house again?”
“Yeah.”
Ben opened a Coke and sat down. “If you’re lying, you’ll pay big. In fact, I hope you are so I can shove that hammer up your ass.”
Sands’ eyes darted to a claw hammer sitting on a table next to Ben.
“I swear,” Sands said, “I am telling the truth. All he told me was to notify him if I saw the police go to that house. I didn’t even know what was…”
“How were you supposed to contact him?”
“By phone.”
Ben took a swig of Coke. “What’s the number?”
“I…I can’t remember. I wrote it down. Maybe it’s on the seat, somewhere in the car. It could be in the glove compartment. Check there.”
“Hey, asshole!” Ben snarled. “We checked the whole fuckin’ car. There was no slip of paper in there.”
“Did you look in the glove compartment?”
“What kind of a moron are you? I told you we searched the car.”<
br />
“I don’t know… I thought, you know, it could be in there.”
“You’re digging your own grave,” Ben sneered, giving him an angry stare. Then he picked up the hammer and stepped closer to Sands. “Tell me the truth before I slam this hammer into your kneecap.”
“Jeez, I am, I am.”
“Okay, what’s this guy’s name?”
“When he called, he said, ‘It’s me.’”
“That’s all?”
“He…he never said a name.”
“And of course, you have no idea who he was?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think he wanted me to know.”
Ben smashed the hammer into Sands’ leg, just above the kneecap.
“Holy shit!” Sands screamed. “You broke my knee.” His head dropped down. “God, you… I am…I am telling the truth. You gotta believe me. Shit, you don’t have to do that.”
Ben asked Sands if he knew where they were holding Asher and if he had any information about the kidnappers, but Sands kept to his story.
“If you think you’re gonna get away with this shit, you’re a fuckin’ idiot. I guarantee you, you’ll tell us everything we wanna know.”
Sands eyed Ben, then looked away.
Ben went downstairs and called Al. Told him what Sands was saying.
“If he’s telling you the truth,” Al said, “we got nothing.”
“I’ve asked him a hundred times where they’re holding Ash. I even used a little force on him. But he sticks to his story. Want me to step it up?”
“You still at the safe house?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m thinking of asking Jake to come out here. You and he can do a ‘Goldman’ on him. Then we’ll know if he’s telling the truth.”
Al was referring to the method they used to break down Goldman. It’s what Jake and Ben did a few years ago. First, no matter how Goldman answered their questions, they said he was lying. Then to scare him into telling the truth, Ben took out a Bowie knife and ordered Jake to stand Goldman up and pull his pants down.
Of course, with Goldman, they weren’t really seeking truthful answers. They were just trying to frighten him into drinking a lethal, Seconal concoction. But the tactic could be used to pry the truth out of some one.
“Phil can do a ‘Goldman,’” Ben answered.
“You sure?”
“Why wait?”
“You think Phil can handle it? You know…”
“Are you kidding me? He eats up shit like that.”
“Okay, you guys do it. Test Sands’ story.”
“Whaddaya want me to do with him when we finish?”
“I’ll decide later.” Roth was thinking that Sands’ fate depended on how much he was involved and whether he was holding back information.
“So, keep him alive for now?”
“I’ll make a decision at the end. We need to keep him breathing until then.”
“If he’s telling the truth, I sorta feel sorry for him.”
“He can ID you and Phil. And he knows you took him to a safe house.”
“Yeah, yeah, I understand.”
“He could be withholding facts from you too. We’ll have to wait to find out. And the big thing—he was working with the people who kidnapped Linda’s father. That makes him garbage.”
“Okay…”
“I’ll make the call when it’s time.”
13
Newport Beach and Miami
1987
WHILE AL AND LINDA were watching Crocodile Dundee on TV, the phone suddenly rang.
“I’ll get it,” Al said, thinking it was Jake.
The caller said, “Al, I’m glad you’re home. It’s Ziggy.”
Ziggy Roth, Al’s uncle. One of the founding members of Detroit’s Purple Gang, a Prohibition-era mob. When the gang disbanded, Ziggy opened the Veterans Club on 12th and Warner. Most of the old Purples went there to drink and gamble.
More than anything else in the world, young Al and Jake wanted to hang out there and be with the Purples. Jake kept bugging Al to convince his uncle to let them come into the club. After a month of Al’s pestering, Ziggy reluctantly relented.
“What a surprise,” Al said. “How you doing down there in Miami?”
Ziggy didn’t answer for a few beats. “That’s why…why I’m calling. Things aren’t going too well.”
“Hang on a second.” Al held the phone against his shirt. “Honey, it’s Ziggy. I’ll talk to him in the den.”
“Sure. Say hello for me.”
Al gave her the phone and went to the den. Picked up the one in there.
“Okay, honey,” he shouted.
When Al heard her hang up, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“Believe me, Al, I wouldn’t bother you if could take care of this myself. But I can’t…can’t do it. All the guys I knew who could handle it are either dead or too old.”
“It’d be an honor to help you in any way I can.”
“Thanks, Al,” Ziggy said. He coughed then cleared his throat. “Funny I’m asking you. I remember you as a little boy, bugging me to let you and Jake come into the club. Remember that?”
“Sure, I do.”
Ziggy let out a long sigh. “Believe me, I really don’t like bothering you like this.”
“Go on, tell me. Tell me what it is. Either I or Jake can make it go away.”
“Thanks, Al. You were always a good boy.”
“Not that good.”
“You had your moments,” Ziggy said, chuckling. “Remember when you snuck that girl into the club? I caught you kissing her near the door?”
“I needed a place to take her.”
Ziggy laughed, then paused before going on. “Okay, this is what’s happening. I went in with this guy to buy some stolen goods. We both put in some dough, then he dumped it on a friend of his for a nice profit. I thought he’d be a square shooter, but he’s holding out on me. It’s a lot of money, and I’m not so well off these days.”
“How much we talking about?”
“Twenty Gs.”
“You don’t want to lose that.”
“I don’t have a pension or anything like that. I do what I can to scrape up a little cash.”
“What’s this guy’s name?”
“Joey Black”
Al held back saying anything for a second or two. He knew who Joey Black was. “He’s a made guy.”
“I know. That’s why no one will do anything. I tried, but they don’t want to buck the system. So, I’m turning to you and Jake.”
Nice. You want us to take on the Mafia.
“You know Jake can’t be involved in anything like that,” Al told him.
“Yeah, I figured that. He’s tied in with ’em.”
“I’d love to be able to do something, but I don’t know anyone in Miami.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Al could hear the disappointment in Ziggy’s voice.
“I…I guess there’s nothing you boys can do,” Ziggy muttered.
“Not so fast, Ziggy,” Al said. “Let me work on it for a few days. I’ll call you back.”
Al went back the family room. “Sorry to be so long. Ziggy needs help, so I’m gonna call Jake to see if he has any ideas.”
“The way you and Jake talk about him, I feel like I know him. You two better do all you can.”
“We’ll go all out.”
“Did you tell him I said hello?”
“Yes. He said I should kiss you for him.”
“How about some popcorn?” Linda asked.
“Great! You stay put; I’ll make it.”
Al tossed a bag of popcorn in the microwave. When it was ready, he scrupulously apportioned it into two separate bowls. They’d stopped putting it in one bowl years ago. Linda thought he took more than his share.
He did.
“Okay, evenly divided?” he asked, handing Linda hers.
After examining it, Linda took a handful out of his bowl
and dropped it into hers. “Now it’s okay.”
Al laughed a couple of times. “You’ll never make me stop loving you,” he said, smiling.
“I keep trying.”
After pausing for a moment, Al said, “I think I better call Jake about Ziggy before it gets too late.”
“Okay, make it quick.”
Al returned to the den, called Jake, and told him about Ziggy.
“You know I can’t do anything,” Jake said. “He’s a made guy.”
“We need to come up with something. I mean, it’s Ziggy.”
“You’re the planner, the guy who analyzes the shit out of things.”
“What about talking to Mario? See if he can do anything. You know, no threats, just an off-the-record talk. That’s the only thing I can come up with.”
Mario was the underboss of the Detroit mob and a good friend of Jake’s.
“Al, you know that’s not gonna work. But it’s Ziggy, so I’ll give it a try.”
The next day, Jake called the courthouse. Al knew he’d say Mario couldn’t do anything.
“You know how it is,” Jake said. “He can’t intercede on behalf of a non-Mafia guy.”
“Big surprise.”
“I feel like shit, and I know you do too.”
“We got to do something. He’s a big part of our lives.”
“Think where we’d be if Ziggy hadn’t let us in.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Al said with a laugh. “But it had a lasting effect on both of us.”
“So, whaddaya think?”
Al sighed. “I feel like crap too. We’ve always been able to come up with something. No matter what the circumstances or who the guy was.”
“Keep on thinking. There’s gotta be something.”
A few minutes later, they both reluctantly accepted that it looked like there was little they could do.
“All right, I have to go,” Al said. “Let’s each go back to the drawing board for a day or two, then touch bases.”
After spending a few days thinking about it, Al called Jake.