A woman’s velvety voice broke Jackson’s thoughts. “You don’t mind if I take a seat, do you? It’s so crowded here today.”
The Post’s chief political reporter raised his hand to his brow to block the noonday sun. A very tall woman in her early twenties with an amazing shock of red hair that tumbled down about her shoulders. Freckles dotted her creamy skin. She wore an emerald cotton jumpsuit that outlined a body that even a born-again Christian doped on Prozac would have trouble forgetting at night.
“Not at all. Please, sit down,” he said, standing to pull out a chair for her. Was his hair combed? His tie straight? Did his wire-rimmed glasses make him appear the politically savvy reporter or policy dork?
She put a salad and a flavored seltzer water on the table and a large leather portfolio next to her chair. She smiled ever so wonderfully. He fumbled with his newspaper.
She opened the seltzer water. “That’s a good paper.”
“I … I write for it.”
“Really? What’s your byline?”
He pointed to his piece on the metro page about Portillo’s planned media tactics.
“Kent Jackson,” she said. “I read that article this morning. Taught me something. I hate it when articles don’t teach me something. I’m something of a self-improvement nut, read three newspapers a day, a book a week, yoga … oh, listen to me go on.”
“No, no,” he stammered. A beautiful woman who read the newspaper. Goddamn it, a beautiful woman who read his articles and said they taught her something!
She reached her hand across the table. “Caitlin Donnelley.”
He shook her hand. It was a soft hand.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for a reporter,” she said.
“Why’s that?”
“You’re dressed so nice. Calvin Klein braces, nice tie, fitted dress shirt, and worsted khaki pants. Doesn’t fit the image. I tend to notice these things. I’m a model.”
“No kidding. Must be a glamorous life.”
She rolled her eyes. “For some, I suppose. I’m too large in the chest for haute couture, so I’m not on the runway much. New York once or twice a year. Certainly not Europe. Tits aren’t back in Europe yet. And my skin’s too fair for most bathing suit shots, so it’s not like I travel to exotic islands for Sports Illustrated.”
“Then who do you model for?”
“Department store ads mostly,” she said. “This afternoon I do lingerie. With my eyes and hair I shoot well in satin and lace. I’m your basic take your jeans off, put these on, and look hungry kind of model.”
The thought pinched at his lower lung until he had to remember to breathe. Damn Patti! He’d show her!
“So you live here?” he asked.
“I just moved in. By the way, are there any good Thai restaurants in town?”
He blanked. “Thai, uh, yeah, the Golden Triangle, it’s uptown near Fourteenth.”
“That’s great to know, thanks, Kent.” She cocked her head. “I hope you don’t think I’m pushy or anything.”
“Not at all.”
“Good,” she grinned. “Then how about you and me going to the Golden Triangle. I don’t know anyone in town yet really, so it would be nice for me. My treat.”
The pinching got worse; now it extended to his intestines, which went liquidy. “You’re asking me out? You barely know me.”
“You seem sweet and it would be nice to talk to someone with a brain for a change,” she said. She cocked her head again. “Unless you’re married or something?”
“Separated and divorcing,” he said.
“Good for me,” she said, patting him on the hand. “How’s tomorrow night sound, around seven?”
“Okay,” Jackson said. “Okay. All right. I’ll meet you there. I’ll do that.”
She grinned. She shook her hair back and put on a pair of wraparound sunglasses. She picked up her portfolio. “Time to get hungry! See you tomorrow. Ciao, Kent!”
“Ciao, Caitlin!” Jackson cried. “Ciao!”
Bobbie Anne Pace clicked off the tape recorder. She bit at the quick of her fingernail. She peered out through the wall of her Glasshole toward Connie Mills, who was gathering her things to leave for the day.
Pace said, “You know he’s forcing her to do it against her will.”
Margaret Savage stared at the tape machine. “How long did it go on?”
“My God, an hour at least,” Pace said. “Her begging ‘No, Neil! No, Neil! Please!’ The man’s an animal.”
Savage twisted in her chair so she could see into Neil Harpster’s office. The Assistant Managing Editor for Form and Content was busy perusing a stack of files with a contented grin on his face.
Savage said, “And Geld thought Neil was involved in an investment scam.”
“Geld’s a fool,” Pace said. “We have to figure how to help that poor woman.”
“Yes, that poor, poor woman,” Savage said. She continued to stare in the direction of Harpster’s office.
“Margaret? Margaret?” Pace demanded. “Are you all right?”
Savage shook her head as if coming out of a trance. “Right? Of course I’m all right. I was just considering the possibilities.”
“And?” Pace asked.
“What else would you call that? Sexual harassment. Of the most vicious kind,” Savage said. “We talk to Ms. Mills, find out how long he’s been coercing her into that sordid little motel room, and convince her to sue.”
Pace gasped. “It’s brilliant, Margaret! The ensuing publicity will crush Neil’s chances of getting Ed Tower’s job.”
“I told you it was only a matter of time before he revealed his true character.”
“You did, oh, you did,” Pace crooned. “Now, who should approach Connie?”
“You’ll be out in front on this,” Savage said without hesitation. “She’s young and relatively new here, obviously in a difficult situation. You represent a power figure, someone of Harpster’s stature she can rely on in case of reprisal.”
“I’ll have to be delicate. I don’t want her to run scared.”
“You’ll do fine,” Savage said. The columnist took the cassette tape from the machine. She dropped it into her colorful Peruvian cloth purse.
“What are you going to do with that, Margaret?” Pace asked.
“Don’t worry,” the P.C. Oracle soothed. “I’m going to take it home and make a copy. For our protection.”
An hour later Neil Harpster climbed out of his Audi into the perfect Southern California twilight. He closed his eyes and stood still. He reveled in a silence broken only by the freeway din. Inside Lydia would carp about the floral killer that stalked their garden. Even though the sicko hadn’t struck in two days, Lydia was sure to force Neil out into his sleeping bag against the garden wall to spend another night in the damp ocean cold clutching the twenty-gauge pump shotgun.
He yawned at the thought of another night upright in the lawn chair. He yawned again and attributed his advanced state of muscle fatigue to today’s luncheon with the fair and lascivious Ms. Mills.
It had been her idea this time, the naughty girl. She’d called and suggested a new game. She called it “No Means Yes.” She’d gone to the costume store on Twentieth and Market Streets and rented outfits that made them look like the characters on the cover of her favorite new historical romance novel, a bodice ripper entitled, Love’s Furious Fury. It was, she’d told him, a tale of virginal conquest in old New Orleans.
He had felt foolish at first wearing the maroon pirate’s shirt, the knickers, the bandanna, and the long blond wig. In the mirror he was an anemic version of the muscular hunk on the cover of the paperback. But seeing Connie come out of the bathroom in a crushed velvet ball gown with the bodice laced tight over her pink boobs, he threw aside all misgivings. Call me Bluebeard!
Connie had two copies of Love’s Furious Fury and had dogeared the sections they were to reenact. Each one began with her crying “No! No! No, Neil, No!” to which he invariably replied something along th
e lines of “Yes, Yes, you know you can’t resist your desires. Let them go, because No means Yes.”
Harpster opened his eyes and sighed. It wasn’t much as literature goes, he thought; but the memory was more than enough to get him through another night in the lawn chair.
1-800 I-Boozer …
FERNANDO LAZZARD TRUJILLO LOVED nothing more than news of a wealthy drunk driver stewing in the downtown holding tank. Suffering a few hours of one-sided, migraine-soiled conversations with transvestites, street hoods, and junkies down from their latest whoop was usually all it took for them to call his now infamous 1-800 I-BOOZER line and agree to his exorbitant retainer. He put up the first billboard with his smiling face and the 800 number seven years ago. Now they pocked the landscape from Pasadena to the Mexican border. The billboards had vaulted his stature from obscure ambulance chaser to crown prince of the Southern California D.U.I. Bar. Prentice LaFontaine figured it must have been a bumper crop night for the prince. He’d been sitting at this outdoor café outside Trujillo’s office the better part of two hours now and no Fernando.
News had finally gotten the energy up to review his notes last night and stumbled onto an overlooked sliver of information that opened up this possible chink in Sloan Burkhardt’s armor. The California Bar Association gives all attorneys a coded identification number. That code follows them everywhere they go. It is entered every time they are involved in a court proceeding, even when the details of the proceeding are sealed.
For the hell of it, News called the state bar association office and asked them to run the attorney code on Burkhardt’s sealed case. If the name of any other lawyer in the city had popped up, LaFontaine would have spent the day at the beach. But lotuses of hope sometimes spring from brackish water.
The third espresso and croissant of the morning boiled in his stomach when Trujillo appeared. The attorney padded across the intersection as if he were barefoot and the asphalt thorns. He stopped every few feet to peer down at a pair of bright white socks protruding from black leather, open-toed sandals. LaFontaine threw some cash on the table and hurried after him, catching Trujillo just as he reached the foyer to his office building.
“Good morning, Fernando,” LaFontaine said.
“Prentice, I thought they fumigated you years ago,” Trujillo said. His thinning hair was brushed back. The jacket of his green poplin suit strained against a stomach News didn’t remember. The attorney shuffled into the elevator.
“Some bugs are impervious to DDT,” News said. “Can we chat a bit?”
“About?” Trujillo held an alligator hide briefcase and a white bag that reeked of fast food. He yanked at his tie until it loosened. He unbuttoned his collar.
“An old client of yours.”
The doors to the old metal cage elevator opened. “That, Mr. Bug, would violate ethics.”
“Never thought of you as a champion of virtue, Fernando.”
Trujillo sniggered. “What I always liked about you, Prentice, never stood toe-to-toe, always looking below the belt. You’d a been a decent gangster.”
“An instinctive street fighter always looks for weakness,” LaFontaine said. “I apologize.”
“For what?” Trujillo grunted. “I’ve been in this business thirty-one years. I’m beyond taking offense. Besides, my feet are killing me. Podiatrist cut three bunions out of my poor dogs day before yesterday.”
He opened the door to his office. A woman a third Trujillo’s age with a teased hairdo sat at a new computer in a freshly painted waiting room.
“Any messages?”
“You got these two an hour ago, Mr. T. I think they’re still in the tank. The second one there, Palmer, third offense, says he can’t lose his license.”
“Probably has to chauffeur Bill Clinton to the airport this afternoon, right?” Trujillo glanced at his watch. “Find out the arraignment schedule. Get Tony L. to pull the past records on the three-timer. I got to eat some breakfast and soak my feet, then I’ll be down.”
She was already picking up the phone.
“Uh, Fernando?” News said.
“You still here, bug?” Trujillo asked. “Told you, client privilege.”
“Give an insect a chance. I’ve been chasing Sloan Burkhardt so long without a break I feel like a fanatic.”
“Sloan Burkhardt!” Trujillo drew back his lips to reveal a gold cap on his front right incisor. “A member of Fernando’s Asshole Hall of Fame. Why didn’t you say so?”
The carpet in Trujillo’s office was two inches deep. The desk near the window looked freshly refinished to match the row of new oak filing cabinets.
“D.U.I.’s been very, very good to you,” said News, looking around. “I seem to remember this place as a way station for various vermin.”
“1-800 I-BOOZER. My one fucking stroke of genius,” Trujillo said. He crossed into a small bathroom, ran hot water into a plastic bucket, then poured Epsom salts in and carried it to his desk. He stripped his feet of sandals, white socks, and bandages, then laid them gently in the steaming water. He closed his eyes momentarily and smiled. From the white bag he got a cup of coffee and two burritos that reeked of chorizo. Trujillo reached into a drawer and brought out a silver hip flask. He poured a bit into the coffee, took a drink, then asked, “What do you want to know about the Sloaner?”
“He has a sealed file. You got it sealed. I want to know what’s in it.”
Trujillo chomped through half of the burrito. Egg and chorizo squirted on his chin.
“Jesus, you butterfly boys go for the balls right away, huh?” he said. He laughed, then wiped away the grease with his napkin. “A sealed case. That’s serious business, you know? What’s your interest?”
“I can’t tell you it’s confidential?”
“Nope.”
LaFontaine figured as much. He told Trujillo everything, except the suspected link between Burkhardt and Carol Gentry. When he’d finished, the attorney said, “What’s in this for me I talk?”
“You said he was in your derriére hall of fame. Maybe I can make him a public asshole without even mentioning your name.”
Trujillo wiggled his eyebrows. He took a last bite of his burrito. He finished chewing, then cracked his knuckles and stared at LaFontaine. “Bug, you’re never going to get anyone else to confirm this. In fact, if I hear you even try, I’ll sue you silly. Got it?”
“I’ll take what I can get at this point,” LaFontaine said.
“Just so we understand each other.” Trujillo sat back and eased his bruised feet up on the mess of his desk. “Must have been seven, eight years ago, the year before Coughlin Burkhardt died as I remember. I’m sitting here having my chorizo and eggs, just like now. Only the office didn’t look so plush. Anyway the old man himself comes through the door with Sloan. Now Sloan’s maybe thirty, thirty-three, successful, and married at the time I think. But Coughlin pushes him through the door into my office the way a pissed-off father would a teenager who’s fucked up. Seems Sloan had gotten himself into trouble with a lady, a pro. She’s not taking it well that Sloan beat the shit out of her. She was pressing charges until she heard that there was money to be had, maybe a plane ticket to another town. Only there was the problem of the case being on the books. So, anyway, they ask me to participate as their representative in the complex and delicate negotiations with the lady and the judge over sealing the whole matter.”
“Why you?”
“That’s the thing,” Trujillo laughed. “I think Coughlin was too embarrassed to go to one of his highbrow legal beagles to cut the deal, so he came here. I wasn’t exactly a household name back then, and he wanted it all quiet. He even had me pay a couple of the low-level detectives something to keep their mouths shut.”
“Did they?”
“Hey, for $10,000 apiece and no heat from the chief, you bet your ass they did.”
“What do you mean the chief?”
“Leslie. Wasn’t chief then, assistant I think. But he was in on the whole thing, making sur
e it all ran smooth. It was wired.”
“Let me get this straight,” LaFontaine said. “Leslie was in your office that day?”
“Jesu no, I haven’t talked to Leslie in years. He was outside. I watched Coughlin and Sloan after they left, through that window there. They met Leslie on the sidewalk. Then all of them got into that big black Lincoln limo Coughlin used to tool around in.”
Trujillo poured some more liquor into his coffee and laughed again. “Funny as hell, Coughlin coming to me to clean up his kid’s fucking mess. I don’t think they remembered me. But why should they? I was just a bit player back then.”
“Back when?”
“I worked for Mayor Jennings maybe two years out of law school. I was what they called a liaison to the Mexican-American community. Jennings was cutting edge about that kind of thing. Mostly I think he saw how potentially powerful a voting block we Hispanics were. Wanted us on his side.”
“So how did you know Coughlin?”
“Not really know, you know? But I was around with Jennings long enough to understand there was an enemies list. Coughlin was enemy number one. And I got involved in some stuff that wasn’t … how should I put this? … too pleasant in retrospect? Anyway, I came within a short hair of being indicted myself. Testified at the grand jury same day as Coughlin. He didn’t remember me when he came to my office.”
“Or maybe he did and just didn’t want to let you know.”
“Possible.”
“You ever talk to Lawlor back then?”
“Sure. Twice, I think. And, after he was in jail, to Tower. But who didn’t? Those two were good. They had the whole story wired.”
“What did Coughlin testify about?”
Trujillo shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. Grand jury asked me about kickbacks on contracts out at the navy base. Probably asked Coughlin about the same stuff.”
“The kickbacks. True?”
“Jennings was a crook, but they’re all crooks, and he did some good things while he was raiding the till. Hey, what the fuck, it’s history now.”
LaFontaine looked back over his notes. “You’re sure you saw Leslie that day?”
Hard News Page 28