The Straight Man - Roger L Simon

by Roger L. Simon

  "Now wait just one second. You're telling me you were standing in front of a public audience at the Fun Zone giving intimate details of our investigation?"

  "Well, not in any particular order. I mean, I don't think they could possibly—"

  "Who the hell do you think you are? That's the most unprofessional thing I've ever heard! You have no idea who was out there."

  "You have no right to tell me what to do."

  "But I do! You work for me and your behavior is ridiculous. You can't go around—"

  "I didn't give away anything."

  "How do you know?"

  "How do I know? I was the one who was there . . . oh, the hell with it." She went into the bathroom and grabbed her things, muttering as she came out again. "I was right in the first place. Mixing business and private life makes a mess of everything. So I think for both of our sakes we should just break it all off right here."

  "What?"

  "I'm leaving."

  "I didn't ask you to do that."

  "I'm not a charity case and if you don't trust the way I do things, as far as I'm concerned, there's no point. So good-bye."

  "Good-bye."

  She started out of my bedroom, then stopped for a moment by the door. "Oh, as you may recall, Nastase was a Romanian. So it should be obvious: B for B is Bibles for Bucharest."

  She closed the door and left.

  17

  When I tried Chantal the next morning, the phone was off the hook. Later on, I got a machine. Fuck it, I thought. We're all neurotics. It's hopeless. And I went into the shower.

  I had just finished drying myself when Koontz called.

  "Your girl friend put on quite a show last night."

  "She's not my girl friend now."

  "Oh, yeah? That's interesting. The way she was describing you on stage, she made you sound like a combination of Humphrey Bogart and John the Twenty-third. But that's none of my business. Anyway, she did put the icing on that restraining order. It should be in place in about fifteen minutes. Sorry about that. Look, I know this sounds like the Lonely Guys Club, but if you aren't doing anything Thursday night, that integrated software class—"

  "Thanks, but no thanks."

  "Don't mention it."

  He hung up just in time for the doorbell to ring. It was the messenger for Global Pictures with the deal memo.

  "Mr. Steinway wants me to wait while you sign this."

  "My lawyer likes to see these things first." I said, opening the envelope. I could just see myself being dragged into court by a bull terrier like Steinway over a noncompliance issue.

  "I'm not supposed to leave without it," he said, handing me a pen. He planted himself inside the doorway as if he were a process server for the IRS. I would be the one needing a restraining order to get him out.

  "Look, this isn't—" I started to say, when the phone rang.

  "Hello."

  A voice whispered: "The money is moving."

  "What?"

  "The money is moving."

  "Who is this?"

  "A Christian."

  "A Christian. Great. Look, hold on a second here." I turned to the messenger. "Al1 right. All right. Here. Take it." I scrawled my signature on the bottom line of the memo and handed it to him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, this is a—"

  "You didn't date it," he said.

  I quickly wrote out the date and handed it back to him. The messenger nodded and left.

  "Hello, Mr. Christian."

  Silence.

  "Hel1o."

  "Look for the medicine."

  "Medicine? What medicine?"

  No response.

  "Hello? . . . Hello? .... "

  A click.

  Christian. Medicine. Bibles for Bucharest. Burckhardt, I thought. Two minutes later I was in my car, heading down La Cienega toward~the Miracle Mile. It was raining hard, the first rain of the year, and cars were skidding all over the place from the fresh road oils. L.A. drivers never remember how to drive in wet weather from one year to the next, and it was like a game of bumper cars all the way to the dismal facade of the Fallbrook Arms.

  I climbed the stairs quickly with the sudden urgency of a man who is afraid of the inevitable. This increased when I found Burckhardt's door locked. I banged on it a few times and then, smiling at the Chicano delivery boys who were loitering in the corridor, let myself in with my lockpicks. The way they didn't bat an eyelash, they were probably there for the same thing.

  No one was in the office. Much to my relief no one was in the bathroom or the closet either. Of course, he could have been off in the woods someplace. Or at the bottom of a garbage heap. Burckhardt was the kind of guy who could have been dead for five years and no one would ever have known it.

  I rummaged around in his desk for a while, finding nothing but some unpaid utility bills and an amazing collection of candy bar wrappers. Then I sat down and borrowed his phone. Luckily, it was still connected. I called information for the number of Cosmic Aid headquarters in Ojai and dialed them.

  "Eddy Sandollar, please," I said.

  "Mr. Sandollar isn't here at the moment," said the receptionist. "Is there someone else who could help you?"

  "I'd like to speak with Mr. Sandollar directly. This is kind of an emergency. Is there somewhere I can reach him?"

  "Does he know you?"

  "Yes, he does. My name is Moses Wine."

  "Hold the line, please."

  In a few minutes she was back on the line asking for my number. Eddy would call me directly. I hung up and the line rang inside of a minute.

  "Hello, Moses."

  "Hi, Eddy. Thanks for calling."

  "No problem. God, that was some zoo the other day. I don't think I'll ever forget it."

  "I don't think any of us will. Look, Eddy, are you still in LA.? Because I think you could help me figure out a few things."

  "Jeez, Moses, I'd like to help you, but I'm on my way back to Ojai in half an hour. I'm going to Ethiopia in three days to supervise the delivery of some Land-Rovers. If you don't do it yourself, they'll use them to invade the Sudan or something. You know how it is over there—the poorer the country, the bigger the army."

  "So I heard. Where are you right now? Maybe we could meet for just a few minutes. lt's very important."

  "Sure, Moses. Sure. You know Ben Franks on Sunset? Meet me there in fifteen minutes."

  Sandollar was sitting at a table in Ben Franks with his head buried in Billboard when I got there.

  "Still reading the old bible," I said, sitting down opposite him. He didn't look as if he had slept much the last couple of nights. I could hardly blame him.

  "It's a hard habit to break. Got any suggestin's?"

  "No. Is there anything wrong with it?"

  "I don't know. It feels like an addiction. And I've got more important things to do with my life now than worry about which group is number one with a bullet."

  "I guess you do. But speaking of Bibles, ever hear of an organization called Bibles for Bucharest?"

  "Bibles for Bucharest?" He laughed. "As in Romania?"

  He rolled up the Billboard and tapped it on the table.

  "Sounds like one of those old organizations that used to smuggle Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. I think there was a guy once who made millions that way."

  "Millions?"

  "You get an eight-hundred number, get on one of those cable networks, and say you're going to bring God to the atheists. It starts rolling in so fast you can't count it."

  "What about a Korean reverend? Would he have had anything to do with that?"

  "I wouldn't know." He smiled. "There's always Reverend Moon."

  "Anyone less well known than that?"

  "Probably. The Koreans are very evangelically minded. What's all this about?"

  "I'm not sure. But somehow I think it relates to the deaths of Mike Ptak, Vasile Nastase, and probably Carl Bannister."

  "Well, that's interesting. I hope you're right. I sure hope Otis and his bro
ther aren't responsible."

  "How would I find out about a Korean reverend?"

  "Well, I'm not exactly sure. That isn't really my line. Cosmic Aid tries to keep a nonsectarian profile. Besides, these religious organizations are pretty well protected. The government can't even get into their books. It's really quite a scandal. I've heard a lot of stories."

  "Like what?"

  "Re1ief organizations collecting small fortunes and then sticking them in the bank and living off the interest. Or using them to build multi-zillion-dollar headquarters to rival small corporations. Hell, even Live Aid didn't know how to spend its money. They had millions in the bank for over a year before . . . But, hey, Moses, look, I wish I could help you some more, but like I said, I do have to get back. Good luck with this, huh? And keep me posted. If there's anything I can do to help Otis, it'd mean a lot to me." He stood. "And, frankly, it doesn't look so great for Cosmic Aid, if you know what I mean. That wasn't our most successful fund raiser. Check you later." He shook my hand and started out.

  "One last quick one."

  "Sure."

  "What about medicine? Are there any scams to do with medicine?"

  "Why not?"

  "Bad medicine?"

  "Not bad. Outdated. You know the drug companies. The world's biggest overproducers. They've got to get rid of the stuff somehow."

  "So they sell it to relief organizations at a discount."

  "You got it."

  "And the charity pockets the difference."

  "Makes everybody happy, doesn't it?" He checked his watch. "Now I've really got to go." He suddenly noticed the Billboard stashed under his arm and handed it to me.

  "You'd better keep this. Bad karma, you know. 'Bye." And he was out.

  Christians, Bibles, and outdated medicines. I sat there rolling over that Holy Trinity and wondering if they connected in some way to Ptak and his so-called twenty-five million. That was a lot of aspirins, even at today's inflated rates. But then, Elmer Gantry never had cable access.

  Five minutes later I was on the road myself, heading downtown. Given the restraining order, I would have to pass up Otis's bail hearing, but there was nothing to stop me from checking the fictitious business names index for Bibles for Bucharest. And also for something like "nestor" or "nestron," the word, according to Chantal, Mike Ptak had bellowed from the penthouse of the Albergo Picasso as he plummeted to his death. And if that index happened to be in the civil court building on Hill Street, only just around the corner from the criminal courts on Temple, well, I had no control over that.

  But I hadn't gone more than half a mile when I picked up a blue Dodge in my rearview mirror. Its driver was the same Scott Glenn look-alike who had been pursuing me all over New York. In the eighties, I thought, even the killers were bicoastal. I didn't waste any time. I pulled into the parking lot of a Burger King, walked over to the most public pay phone I could find, dropped in a quarter, and dialed.

  "Parker Center," came the voice on the other end.

  "Commander Koontz, please."

  "Line's busy. Can you hold?"

  "No. Get me John Lu at the Asian Squad."

  The phone rang. "Lu here."

  "Hello, John. Moses Wine."

  There was a slight pause. I looked down the street for my New York friend but couldn't see him. "Hello, Moses." Lu sounded about as happy to hear from me as a physician from a malpractice attorney.

  "Listen, uh, John, could you answer a small question for me? It's about those Chu's Brothers. They seem to be adherents of some rev—"

  "Sorry, Moses. I'm not supposed to talk to you."

  "I see. But this is—"

  "I can't."

  "All right. That's the way it is, huh? Get me Koontz."

  "I'll try."

  This time the line was free.

  "Koontz here."

  "Wine here."

  "What now?"

  "I'm being followed."

  "What're you doing out?"

  "I'm serious, Koontz. You've got to lift that restraining order. I'm being followed by a hired killer from New York."

  "That's not surprising at all. This is a DEA case. Now get inside where the guy can't shoot you, shut your door, and don't open it. Or do I have to put you under arrest? Didn't you read the papers this morning? There's massive evidence of continued rise in coke use in this city. Everybody's embarrassed and the commissioner's trying to run for mayor. Somebody's going to take the heat for it and I don't want it to be me."

  "Look, you guys don't have the right line on this case. There's something very different going on."

  "Dream on, white boy."

  "I'm not sure what exactly, but it has something to do with a giant rip-off in the world of international aid or Christian relief."

  "Do you have any evidence of this'?"

  "No, but——"

  "Look, Wine, let me be frank with you. Ever since you've been seeing that psychiatrist of yours, I think you've been going a little bit off."

  "That's the problem. He's one of the people I suspect."

  "See what I mean? I don't consider myself an expert, but I took a shrink course at the academy and I know they call that acute paranoia. Go home."

  He hung up.

  I looked down the street for the New Yorker, but I still didn't see him. I got back in my car and drove slowly downtown. I wasn't feeling comfortable. In fact, I was feeling as lonely and alienated as I had ever been. I didn't have a real case, I didn't have a partner, and what client I had would undoubtedly renege when he found I was legally incapable of performing my duties. It was the pathetic summation of fifteen years of private investigative work. Mean streets had become empty streets. Maybe Koontz was right. Maybe I didn't have as firm a grip on reality as I thought.

  I wasn't feeling much better when I pulled into the parking lot across from the Temple Street courthouse. Mobile units from the three major networks as well as from a couple of the local stations were positioned out front behind a police barricade that cordoned off an unruly crowd of courthouse groupies, winos, and bag ladies. Despite the rain, they were all obviously waiting for Otis, and I walked quickly past them into the entrance of the civil court on Hill.

  The record bureau was downstairs and I hesitated only for a second before I signed my real name with the clerk. It didn't take long to look up the two names. Not surprisingly, there was no listing in California for a Bibles for Bucharest. There was no Nestral either. But there was a Nestron on Sixth Street. It was listed as a distribution company. But with no indication of what it distributed.

  I hurried out of the building and headed back toward my car. But just as I turned the corner onto Hill Street, I saw the crowd surge forward. Otis, in dark glasses and a pin-striped suit, was emerging from the criminal courthouse with his manager/attorney Purvis Wilkes and three expensive-looking white lawyers with fat briefcases. They were followed by a couple of dozen reporters dangling Nikons and video cameras and chanting "Mr. King, Mr. King."

  Purvis Wilkes edged Otis behind him, holding his hand up in front of the reporters while guiding his client toward a waiting limousine. "Mr. King will not be making any statements at this time."

  "Mr. Wilkes, any comment on the million-dollar bail?" someone shouted.

  "No comment."

  "Are these gentlemen part of your defense team?"

  "At this moment I am Otis's sole attorney. We're looking for someone on the California bar."

  And then they came all at once: "Is it true Otis'll only be represented by a black man?" "Was he high'?" "Was it PCP or speedballs?" "Are you going to plead insanity?" "Was his father once indicted for murder?" "Did the movie s studio force him into psychotherapy?" "Did Bannister want to be his manager?" "Has he always been self-destructive?" "Has King King fled the country to avoid prosecution?" "Do you know his whereabouts?" "Did Otis do this to defend his brother?"

  "No comment. No more questions now," said Wilkes, continuing to block Otis out and back him toward the limousine
. He almost had the reporters out of the way and Otis in the limo, when the comic stopped and shouted, "Hey, wait a minute. See that dude?" He pointed toward me. "He went all the way to New York so's I could come back here and get my ass hung. You know the moral of that one, don't you, all you print-freak motherfuckers?" The reporters, seizing their opportunity, started edging forward, cameras rolling. "Never trust a white man, any white man, but especially one of them civil rights-kissing, Motown-loving, Huey-hugging, Stokely-sucking, Jesse Jackson jive-time jigaboo jelly-hopping liberal-radical whatevers who think they gonna save your ass. Just 'cause those motherfuckers was on some kinda march twenty years ago, they think they own you. But they got love and hate and guilt all so screwed up in their own pea brains, all's they can do is kill you with kindness! And with friends like that, like the dude say, who needs enemies? So that be the Gospel According to Saint Otis. When I die in jail, it ain't my cross they gonna nail!"

  And with that he got into the limo and drove off. The reporters and most of the crowd ran after him, trying to get some last word. Not a bad speed rap, I thought, for someone who had been clean for at least twenty-four hours. I thought I'd better move on before the fourth estate decided to interview the object of Otis's derision, but as I started down the sidewalk, I could see the New Yorker standing there, staring at me.

  18

  He was still in my rearview mirror when I saw Nestron near the corner of Sixth and La Brea, a low-slung warehouse in the early sixties style with dull mustard brick walls and a shake roof. Although the light was green, I slowed as I approached La Brea, stopping at the intersection and ignoring the outraged shouts of the truckdriver behind me. Then, when the light turned red, I gunned my engine and ran it, zooming between two cars and a bus and shooting across the wet intersection onto San Vincente amidst a chorus of squeaking breaks and honking horns. I was going about seventy-five and spraying enough water to irrigate a block's worth of azaleas. Fortunately, there weren't any cops around as I made a hard right on Orange Drive and then another onto Edgewood Place. I sped through La Brea again, dodging more cars and a couple of trucks, and made my third right on Citrus Avenue. Then I pulled over to wait to see if I had lost the New Yorker. He must have been more sensible than I, because it seemed as if I had given him the slip somewhere along the line. I slid into first again and drove slowly down to the end of Citrus, entering Nestron the back way and parking beside their loading dock.