Rock & Roll Homicide

by R J McDonnell

  “One night at 2:00 AM I was closing up and Ian was potted. He found out that day that an uncle in Leeds had died and he couldn’t go home because of the band’s schedule. He was nowhere near passing out and needed a friend. I asked him if he wanted me to call Nigel and he said Nigel would tell me to throw his ass in jail. I thought he might just be feeling sorry for himself, but he wasn’t. He honestly believes Nigel would like him out of the band,” he said.

  “That sucks!” I said with a sincere expression.

  “Speak of the devil,” he said. “Look who’s here.” Ian made his entrance through the back door. He looked like a young Billy Idol with his wild blond hair, muscles and sleeveless shirt. Ian ambled the length of the bar toward us, surveying the tables as he walked.

  When he reached us I said, “Ian, I’m Jason Duffy. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I like the way you think,” he said to me. Then he turned to the bartender and said, “Bushmills.” As the bartender prepared his drink Ian said to him, “So, Bert, I see you’ve been talking to the private dick. I hope you haven’t been telling tales out of school.”

  “Just extolling your virtues, Ian me-boy,” he replied.

  “How about if we grab a table and talk a bit,” I suggested.

  After a long gulp of Bushmills Ian replied, “You think I don’t want to be seen at the bar with a dick.”

  “We haven’t been called dicks since the thirties. You really should have taken an English as a Second Language course before immigrating,” I said with a smile.

  Ian looked at Bert, nodded at me and said, “A comedian. Maybe we will have some fun tonight after all.” Then to me he said, “If you want to do the cloak & dagger we can take the table by the loo. If Bert’s been in there recently no one will come near us. But first give me a little topper, Bert.” Once Bert refilled his empty glass we settled into a booth under a Rolling Stones poster. “OK, grill away. I’m as lucid as you’re gonna find me tonight.”

  “Don’t you have a recording session first thing in the morning?” I asked.

  “You’re on top of things. I didn’t find out about that until I listened to my answering machine a half hour ago,” he said.

  “I just came from Nigel’s. He’s working overtime to get a song together for tomorrow,” I said.

  “And I’m fucking off in a bar as usual. Did he send you over here to keep me sober for tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I don’t work for Nigel, I work for Chelsea,” I said, trying to get him on a positive track. “She thinks the record company had something to do with Terry’s murder. What do you think?”

  “She thinks the blond Bolshevik blew her husband’s mind?” he asked enthusiastically. “I concur wholeheartedly. I knew that fucker was bad news from day one.”

  “Did you see him touch the headphones that day?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I think I did. Terry was always trying to get him to do things. I’ll bet he planted the bomb while me and GI Jo-Jo were adjusting the partitions,” he said.

  “Weren’t the partitions and your drum set pretty close to the explosion?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Thank God for the partitions or the best drum set I ever owned would have been covered in blood,” he said, then quickly added. “That didn’t sound right. I probably told Terry to sod off every day I knew him, though not always to his face. But I’d trade me drums and swear off the booze forever if it would bring him back. He made me famous. I’m not too sure Nigel can keep the band together without him.”

  “Let me ask you about the partitions. I don’t get it. You were halfway through a song and you adjusted the partitions. Isn’t the idea to maintain the continuity of the sound throughout the song?” I asked.

  “My bad. I was a little hung over and I just had a row with Terry at breakfast over my part in his big song that we’d be starting later in the day. I thought about what he said on my way to the studio and figured out a way to finally please him, if that’s really possible. I was so excited about my idea that I forgot we weren’t finished with his other tune. Terry was about to go totally ballistic when GI Jo-Jo told him he marked the exact placement of where the partitions were, and could put them back in ten minutes. Terry chilled and things went pretty well till the explosion.”

  “Shouldn’t you and Jo-Jo have been re-setting the partitions while Terry was listening to his recording?” I asked.

  “Terry’s a workaholic. I don’t suffer from that affliction. I took a little break out at my car. A little taste of the Bushie,” he said holding up his glass. “I needed a little fortification before being browbeaten by the master.”

  “What about Jo-Jo?” I asked.

  “I’m sure he was making time with his groupie girlfriend,” he replied.

  “I didn’t think roadies had groupies,” I said.

  “Delitah has been using GI Jo-Jo to try to get to Terry,” he said.

  “Does GI Jo-Jo know this?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied. “But GI Jo-Jo has always been shy around girls. He’s happy to have a good looking babe toastin’ his buns, even if it’s just a temporary arrangement.”

  “Ian, can I give you a bit of friendly advice?” I asked.

  “Here it comes. Go ahead, get it over with,” he replied.

  “You only have two more songs to go on the CD. The public’s probably going to like it no matter how good those songs are. You guys are in the middle of contract negotiations with your label. Cerise and every other major label will be paying very close attention to those two songs to decide whether or not Doberman’s Stub can make it without Terry. You’re going to be in the studio for what; maybe a week? Why not tone the partying down for one week, then throw yourself and your mates the biggest bash you’ve ever had? You seem to like this business. Why not give it your best shot to keep it going as long as possible?” I asked.

  “Biggest bash ever. I already told you I like the way you think. Good advice,” he said.

  At 7:00 PM I walked in the rear entrance to the Ukrainian Citizen’s Club in my waiter uniform. The Event Manager briefed me on my duties. I was to circulate with a platter of caviar, focusing on the Russian-speaking guests. About 100 people arrived in the next half-hour. The occasion was Ivana Koflanovich’s seventeenth birthday. I got a glance at the guest of honor and she was indeed missing half of her left pinkie finger. Daddy looked like a successful businessman in a gray pinstriped suit. He was in his mid-fifties and had a bodyguard accompanying him at all times. Ivana had to endure both a male bodyguard and a matron shadowing her every step. What a way to live.

  Most of the conversation was in Russian and seemed pleasant and cordial. I heard a couple of guys in their mid-thirties discussing business in Tecate, but nothing that stood out as illegal or sinister. About an hour into the party I heard a couple of elderly women chatting when one said, “Ivan thinks the American Mafia has found him.”

  “Oh my God!” replied the other. “What’s he going to do?”

  “Double the security, upgrade alarms. What can he do? He can’t go back to Russia and he can’t keep running,” she said.

  “I honestly didn’t think the name change was going to fool them for very long,” said the second woman.

  Just as she said this I felt a gun in my ribs and a voice in my ear saying, “Try same move again and I pull trigger.”

  “Is that a new cologne, Nicky? You definitely weren’t wearing it on Friday,” I said, hoping to defuse the tension this man was exuding.

  “Walk toward front door. No funny business,” he said.

  As we made our way around the dance floor I saw my opportunity and took it. Koflanovich was dancing with his daughter and I could see our paths were going to come very close. I assumed Nicky wouldn’t take the chance of inadvertently shooting his boss or the daughter. When they were within two feet of me, in one motion I spun away from my captor, tapped Koflanovich on the shoulder and said, ”Mind if I cut in.” When he let go of her to turn and see who was making the request
, I grabbed Ivana and danced her toward the middle of the crowd. When I reached a point where I could make a dash for the door I said, “You’re a wonderful dancer. Great party. Gotta run.” When I reached the door I slowed my pace, knowing there would be more guards at the entranceway. As they checked me out in my waiter uniform I smiled, said good evening, walked around the corner of the building, then broke into a full sprint toward the parking lot. As I reached the lot I heard a silenced bullet whiz past my head. I then ducked down and wove my way through the cars toward my Acura parked at the far end of the lot facing the street. Three bodyguards worked their way up and down the rows of cars in a pattern that kept me away from my vehicle. As I was about to make a dash across an open space to the next row, a shadow crossed my path and I dropped to my stomach and rolled under a Ford Explorer.

  I reached to the small of my back for my revolver, then realized I wasn’t carrying because the short waiter jacket couldn’t adequately conceal it. Suddenly, a pair of black, shiny shoes were directly in front of my face. “Nicky, over here!” called a voice in perfect English.

  “Do you see him?” asked Nicky.

  “Go down this row and wait at the end. I’ll try to flush him out,” he replied.

  Just as I thought I was safe a cigarette butt bounced under the Explorer and came to rest against the side of my left hand. I managed to squelch my instinct to yell in pain, but I couldn’t keep myself from drawing my hand back quickly from the burning tip. The scraping noise my hand made against the pavement seemed incredibly loud.

  “Nicky wait!” he exclaimed.

  Nicky sprinted back. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Make sure you look inside the vehicles, he’s probably been looking for one that’s unlocked,” he replied and they both walked away.

  I worked my way back to the Acura and was thankful that the remote door locks didn’t make a chirp as I clicked. When the Russians got to a point far enough away to make me feel comfortable I started the engine and peeled out across the sidewalk, over the curb and onto the street. Within five minutes I was on the freeway and out of danger.

  Chapter 5

  On Tuesday morning I stopped at the Denny’s where Terry had his last meal. I used my powers of persuasion and proclivity for bullshit to get seated in the section staffed by the waitress who served the band. After some minor flirting I said, “I heard you served Doberman’s Stub the day of the murder.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “I overheard a couple of your coworkers talking. What were they like?” I asked.

  “At first they were pretty cool. But then they got into a fight and the cute one took off without eating his French Slam,” she replied.

  “Did the rest of them leave together?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “The guy that got here first, left after the cute one. Then, a few minutes later, the other two got up together, but the English guy went to the bathroom while the guy that died paid the bill and took off.”

  “Cassie, pick up,” said a voice from behind a row of steaming plates.

  “Gotta go,” she said with a smile. I gave Cassie a $5 tip for a $3.95 breakfast and departed.

  Twenty minutes later Cory showed me the fruits of his labor; not bad for one day’s work. First, he came up with the tip about the birthday party. Then he gave me a veritable rogue’s gallery of thugs pulling in and out of the Cerise visitor parking spots. If I didn’t know better I’d think Koflanovich was casting for the Russian version of The Godfather.

  Cory photographed every vehicle entering and exiting the building. I was able to pick four guys out of Cory’s array who were at the party last night. He was also able to get license plate numbers on three of the four guys. I took all of the pertinent photos and put them in a zipped satchel to show Shamansky over lunch.

  Jeannine did a bang up job of getting background on people affiliated with Yuliya, Inc. and its predecessor, Rasputin Enterprises. Six years before the Russian Revolution, Josef Chofsky founded Chofsky Enterprises in San Francisco, which was renamed Rasputin Enterprises ten years later. The business became profitable almost immediately because they had connections in Moscow with the Romanov family. Chofsky exported as much technology to Russia as possible.

  Besides advanced sales, the other facet of Chofsky’s business prowess involved training cheap labor to perform assembly tasks. In San Francisco, they employed Chinese immigrants for less than a quarter of what they would have to pay a US citizen. When human rights groups began protesting and picketing in the 70’s, they switched from Chinese laborers to a Maquilladora operation using cheap Mexican labor. The company needed trained Electronics Technicians for key phases of the assembly process. San Diego was perfect, since it has an endless supply of trained Electronics Technicians being honorably discharged from the US Navy and in need of employment.

  Once the USSR broke up, Yuliya shifted the majority of its business interactions to Russia. Obviously family ties remained strong. They even changed the way they did business; relying on Russian Electronics Technicians to do most of the sophisticated finish work rather than using ex-Navy personnel.

  Jeannine dug up an interesting report written by a stock market analyst. Yuliya initiated an extensive expansion into the Ukraine, then reversed itself within one year and pulled out of Russia altogether. The analyst believed the pullout was caused by extensive piracy perpetrated by the Russian Mafia. The pullout happened one year prior to the start-up of Cerise Records. That would give Koflanovich about the right amount of time to shut things down in Russia and get set up in California. Unfortunately, the article didn’t name any executives in the Ukraine.

  I arrived at Larabee’s at 12:40 PM. Mrs. Cleaver gave me a look of vague recognition, so I told her, “Kojak, party of two.”

  She immediately brightened and said, “Of course. If you’ll have a seat I’ll see if your table is ready.”

  “Kojak sure gets the red carpet treatment around here,” I said. “Is it his witty Polish charm or does he know the owner?”

  “Is he a friend of yours?” she asked.

  “We’re both detectives working on the same case,” I said.

  “Detective Kojak saved our little restaurant a couple of years ago. The owner used to have a partner until one day he cleaned out the bank accounts and disappeared with a nineteen year old waitress,” she said.

  “And Kojak found the partner and the money and everybody lived happily ever after?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” she replied. “Your table is ready. Would you like to be seated now?” she asked.

  Shamansky rolled in at 1:00 PM looking sharp in his suit and tie. “You didn’t have to get all dolled up on my account,” I said.

  “Court sucks!” he exclaimed with considerable frustration. “I work my tail off to bust these sleezoids, then help the prosecutor make his case, only to have some left-wing judge give a dead-to-rights repeat offender a free pass so he can qualify for Liberal of the Year at the ACLU picnic.”

  As I was scrambling to come up with something to get Shamansky out of his foul mood, a Julia Roberts look-alike server came over and gave him a kiss on the top of his shaved head. She said, “I always feel so safe whenever you’re around,” in a voice that would instantly melt ice from across the dining room. “I’ll be with you guys in a couple of minutes.”

  Shamansky had an immediate change of mood and said to me, “Let’s figure out what we’re going to eat, then have a look at those pictures.” For a moment his voice lost that cop-tone quality and it was quite obvious he was head-over-heels for our perfect 10 waitress. The thirty-year difference in their ages did nothing to deter his fantasy that he actually had a chance with this beauty. I think I became immune to love at first sight when I got to know Jeannine.

  I had the feeling Shamansky would be riding the pink cloud through the end of dessert and I could probably get a lot more info than I had imagined if I played my cards right. Once his heart-throb disappeared into
the kitchen he asked, “Are the pictures in the satchel?”

  I started off by showing him the crew from visitor parking. “That’s Josef Kozlofsky. He was a minor contender on the heavyweight boxing scene until a couple of years ago. I saw him box at least three times. What he lacks in skill he makes up for in ferocity; and man, can he take a punch,” Shamansky said. I made a mental note to scrap Plan A of hand-to-hand combat if I came across Josef in a dark alley. I was pretty sure I could take him with Plan B – the hundred yard dash.

  Shamansky recognized three more of the 15 scary-looking visitors. He didn’t think any were known felons, but all had several scrapes with the law and all had reputations as very bad dudes. “What do you make of it?” I asked.

  “Something is definitely going down at Cerise Records. But these pictures aren’t enough to be able to get a requisition for more manpower from the brass,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked emphatically.

  “Because my boss is going to cite the names of about five gangster rap bands and tell me this is probably just a bunch of white guys trying to Gravy Train the idea,” he said. We then looked at the rest of the photos I had selected and Shamansky was able to supply a few names to go with the faces. At this point our food arrived and our sexy server made another huge fuss over Shamansky.

  “How could your boss not put two and two together. First you have a murder; then an uncooperative suspect who ducks you; then you have half of San Diego’s Russian bent noses popping over shortly after the murder,” I said.

  “I think that’s putting three and three together, but who’s counting,” he said. “It’s not so much that this doesn’t look suspicious; it’s more that the case against your boss is looking better every day.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say you better put in for your expense reimbursement soon. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say your client will be wearing a numbered shirt by this time next week,” he said.