"I want to know everything you hear about capers with sawed-off shotguns. Call me night or day."
"That's a promise," said the detective.
Carr swung open the door at Ling's, and glass chimes rattled. Sunlight splashed along the bar, revealing rows of brandy snifters with tiny parasols. On the wall hung a swan-scene tapestry and a photograph of the spectacled Ling and his brother wearing bow ties.
A dusty jukebox in the comer (known to the badge-carrying regulars as Ling's Hit Parade) waited to blend outdated tunes into the usual field office and precinct house chatter. Because of the early hour, the four worn Naugahyde booths nestled against the opposite wall were empty.
Delgado sat at the bar alone. He stood up and greeted Carr with a strong handshake. He had been the agent-in-charge in Los Angeles years ago, before his leadership abilities had vaulted him to Washington, D.C.
It was no secret that Delgado and Carr were old friends. Without a friend in Washington, Carr could never have managed to avoid the bureaucrats' obsessive love of transfers and remain in Los Angeles. Of course, wanting to stay in Los Angeles was a desire few other agents could understand. While most other T-men couldn't wait to buy a set of golf clubs and ship out for three years of "eight-a-day-Monday-through-Friday" in Phoenix or Portland, Carr preferred LA's big-city action. Undercover buys, search warrants, and conspiracy cases were his cup of tea. Besides, Los Angeles, from sandy-floored beach bars to the shady edges of the tract-house valleys, felt like home by now.
"Greetings, amigo," said the tall, slim Chicano. "It's been a long time." With his full head of gray hair and pin-striped suit, Alex Delgado could pass for a Latin-American diplomat.
"I guess you knew where to find me," Carr said.
"Right." Delgado laughed curtly. "I came here from the airport…Took the noon flight out of Dulles." He looked ill-at-ease. His complexion had a saddle-soap tinge.
Carr sat down. He looked at the other man's suit. "You dress a little better now that you're a big-shot headquarters inspector," he said with a smile.
"I'm such a big shot that I'm bored to death. My job is nothing but political bullshit, staff reports, and phony statistics…Doctor tells me I have an ulcer." Delgado pointed to his glass. "Look at me. I have to drink Scotch and milk. I had an operation, but it didn't help, so I've been thinking about pulling the pin. I've got my twenty-five years in, and I'm tired of fighting the ass kissers and pencil heads…" He tore pieces from the wet napkin under his drink. "How about you?"
Ling set a Scotch-and-water in front of Carr, who sipped, then said, "Haven't really thought about it."
"Are you still seeing Sally?"
Carr nodded.
"Nice gal. A really classy lady. The wife and I always sort of hoped you two would get married. You go back a long ways with Sally, don't you?"
"I guess so."
"Typical Charlie Carr remark," Delgado said. "Noncommittal when it comes to anything personal. No, sir, you haven't changed a bit."
"You have. You used to get to the point a little quicker."
Delgado ignored the statement without so much as a wince. A survival technique, Carr figured, that he had picked up at the School of Beating Around the Bush on the banks of the Potomac; smile, agree, ignore, achieve.
The gray-haired man dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped milk from the corners of his mouth. "I look at retirement as just a change of scenery," he said. "Nothing more. It'll do me good. I don't need the pressure any more. I've done my part. It'll be a welcome change for me. Changes are something we all have to face." He gulped the chalky mixture and continued. "It's just a matter of accepting the stages of life. I mean you and I are of another generation. The new guys don't know how it was years ago, before court decisions: Miranda, Escobedo, outlawing the wiretaps… Things are one hundred percent different from when you and I went to Special Agent School. I'm sure you agree."
Carr didn't answer.
"Seriously. I'm asking your opinion," Delgado said. He patted Carr's arm.
Carr looked at Ling and made the "another round" gesture with his index finger. Ling dug into a sink full of ice with a scoop.
"Nothing has changed," Carr said. "It's the same street, the same bad guys. The same rules. Only difference is that they don't stay in prison as long-and they all carry guns. That's because they watch TV and they think they are supposed to carry guns. Other than that, nothing has changed. Everything is exactly the same."
Delgado curtly laughed away from the subject and steered the conversation to small talk. The next two hours were spent talking of ancient cases, almost forgotten girlfriends, and snapping fingers trying to remember bartenders' names at some of the old downtown hangouts.
Though it was one drink after another, neither man became drunk. It was as if it was necessary to pour in the drinks to continue. Carr knew it was Delgado's way.
Then finally came the trunk story. It was almost a ritual between them by now and seemed to grow with every retelling. Undercover Agent Carr, acting the part of a buyer and convincing the seller to accompany him to Big Bear to pick up a package of twenties, Delgado hiding in the trunk of the automobile as protection. Delgado's motion sickness on the mountain roads, the retching sounds coming from the trunk, Carr turning up the radio to cover the sounds-then the punch line. Delgado, covered from head to toe with vomit, jumps out of the trunk, gun drawn, and runs into the mountain cabin to arrest the counterfeiter. When it was over, even he had laughed at Delgado's strange appearance.
They chuckled. Delgado slapped Carr on the back. "Charlie, you're one of the best undercover men in Treasury. For twenty years you've made cases that others couldn't make. The counterfeiters fear you. You're known as the Snake out there. He sipped a fresh Scotch-and-milk. "But guys like you and me have to move along in life…Do you know what I'm saying?"
"Not exactly," Carr said. I'm going to make you say it, he thought.
"I'm telling you the powers-that-be are saying that Charlie the Snake should accept his rightful senior agent status like the others of his vintage and come out of the street. I mean why the hell should you still be out there booting doors, covering buys, taking chances every goddamn day? In that, I agree with what they are saying."
Ling served Carr's seventh Scotch-and-water with a "here comes joke" leer, and said something about Carr's needing to find a new girlfriend since Rose the cocktail waitress was on vacation at Lake Arrowhead. Carr forced a smile. Ling returned to a sink at the other end of the bar and continued scrubbing glasses.
"I guess you know that I'm in charge of the shooting investigation," Delgado said. "That's why they sent me out here."
Carr took a long pull from the drink. "What have they decided to do with me?"
Delgado paused before answering. "Charlie, you know I'm just the one who coordinates the interviews and writes the final report. I can make a recommendation, but what happens in the end is up to the people at headquarters."
"Hogwash," Carr said matter-of-factly. "The Ivory Tower has already decided what they're going to do. Your report will be justification for it. I want to know what's going to happen to me."
Delgado looked at his drink sadly. "They're going to transfer you on the next list. Of course you'll be able to get your choice of offices… I can help with that."
Carr spoke to Delgado's reflection in the bar mirror. "Hold up the transfer until I find who killed Rico."
"You know how headquarters is…"
Carr turned to face the other man. "To hell with headquarters. I'm not taking a transfer until this thing is over."
"No, sir, the years haven't changed Charlie Carr." Delgado sipped his drink. He rubbed his stomach.
Carr felt uneasy. He wished he'd been less direct.
"Charlie, what are your ideas on how the investigation should go?" Delgado said at last.
"If Rico's murder had made the papers," Carr said, "we might never find the killer. Luckily, there's been no publicity, so the killer must believe he
murdered a hood. He must figure that the cops have nothing to go on except the body of a thief in a motel room. I say that's what we want him to think. Let him believe he killed a hood rather than a cop. Our only chance to bag him is if he tries it again."
Delgado nodded and ordered more drinks.
At 1:30 A.M. Ling began wiping up the bar and locking liquor cabinets. He yammered something about closing time.
"I guess you were pretty close to the young fellow," said Delgado in a soft tone.
Carr cleared his throat twice. "You would have liked him. He was one-hundred-percent T-man. He could have become an inspector like you someday. He could smell green ink a mile away." He spoke imploringly, as if the inspector had the power to change what had happened.
"I'm going to lay my cards on the table," Delgado said, with open palms. "I want the killer caught one way or the other. You know what I mean by that. On the other hand, I don't want to see you end up in Leavenworth in his place."
Delgado got off his barstool, rushed his drink to his mouth, and swallowed. He looked at Carr. "I can postpone your transfer for a few weeks. It's against policy, but I've got my years in and there's not a hell of a lot they can do to me at this point. I'll use the argument that you are the only one who saw the killer and can identify him. All I'm asking you to do is keep your head. I want your word you will keep your head."
Carr, sober, looked him in the eye. "You have my word."
"Ling, two more for the road," Delgado said.
"I'll also give you my word on something else," said Carr. "I'm going to find the one who did it and put him in a box."
Delgado acted as if he hadn't heard the remark.
Carr pushed the buzzer under the name Sally Malone and waited. He was prepared for her not to let him in.
Seconds later, the door buzzed open. He walked upstairs to her apartment. The door was ajar and he walked in almost cautiously. The living room was neat-as-a-pin Mediterranean, with lots of carved wood and modern-art prints. The place was as immaculate as her desk in judge Malcolm's courtroom.
Sally was standing at the stove stirring mushrooms with a wooden spoon, her back to him. She wore a robe that barely touched her knees.
"Look who's here," she said without turning around. Her voice was soft, almost inaudible, as always.
Carr sat down at the kitchen table and drummed his fingers. Sally stopped stirring, poured a Scotch-and-water and plunked it down in front of him.
"You know this is the first time I have seen you in three weeks," she said after returning to the stove. Admiring her gray-streaked hair and tanned athletic features, Carr thought she looked much more like a dance instructor than a stenographer. They had met because she had asked him to lunch, during a counterfeiting trial. He remembered waiting for her to call him the next week, as sort of a people experiment. He finally had to call her. Later, she said she would never have called him for the second date. He always wondered…
"You know how busy…" he said.
She turned and faced him. "How busy can someone be!" she interrupted in an angry whisper. "Can you really be so busy that we only see each other once a month? … Twelve times a year? The same thing is happening to us again, and I, for one, should know better. Sometimes I can't believe I have known you for eight years."
"It's not like I intentionally didn't call you," Carr said. "You know that." He realized it was a dumb thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth.
"I know exactly why you didn't call! You and that crude Jack Kelly are like children who forget what time it is when they're playing. You get a charge out of arresting people and all the crap that goes with it. You are a forty-five-year-old Boy Scout! You like the danger or something. I don't understand you… Did you know that we both live in apartments in Santa Monica and see each other once a month? Oh, hell, what's the use!"
She turned back toward the stove, picked up the frying pan, and dumped the mushrooms into the sink. She washed the pan furiously. Nothing was said for a few minutes.
"Did you know the young undercover man who was killed? I heard the judge talking about it." Her tone was sour.
"Yes," murmured Carr. He sipped his drink.
Sally finished up at the stove and placed the utensils in the sink. She grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter with tier hands and stood with her head down.
Carr looked at his watch. "I thought we could go to a movie tonight," he said politely.
"Jesus," she said, shaking her head. "No communication whatsoever. Why can't you talk to me? I heard you were there when it happened. Can't you at least share that with me? Sometimes when I am around you I feel absolutely alone, as if I'm talking to…"
Carr stood up and walked toward the door.
"Please don't leave right now," Sally said.
Quietly, Carr followed her into the bedroom.
It was the usual sex scene: the almost perfunctory kisses, clothes in neat separate piles, thrusting tongues, moans of love, her fingernails in the usual place on his shoulders, Carr delaying his orgasm until the proper time…Then the whispers.
"I have two tickets to a charity brunch at Marina Del Rey tomorrow morning," she said. "The judge gave them to me. It should be a real nice affair." She got up from the bed and put on a robe. Her eyes sought his reaction.
"I had planned to drive out…"
"…to Chino," she interrupted. "A two-hour drive to Chino prison to see Howard. After all, you certainly wouldn't want to miss your Saturday visit with him. You've gone out there every Saturday for the past year. Every single Saturday… Incredible." She shook her head.
"We could go somewhere on Sunday," Carr said.
She stared at the bedroom mirror. "Sure. To wherever I want. You, as usual, never have any ideas. For once I would like to go somewhere that we both want to go… Though I'm sure you'd much prefer to be sitting at a bar in Chinatown drinking with your pals." She said "pals" as if it were a curse.
THREE
Carr's mind wandered as he drove on the Pomona Freeway toward Chino. He pictured Norbert Waeves (known as No Waves), the pipe-smoking Los Angeles special agent-in-charge, puffing smoke and reading aloud the one-inch newspaper article about Howard. "Howard Dumbrowski, a special agent of the U.S. Treasury Department, pleaded guilty to manslaughter today in Superior Court. Accused of murdering his wife after finding her with another man in their Glendale apartment, Dumbrowski declined to make any statement in his own behalf before being sentenced to two years in state prison." Jumping for joy, the SAIC had tossed the newspaper in the air. "Hooray! He pleaded guilty! No trial! No more bad publicity!"
The visiting-hour trips to Chino were rough at the beginning-forced laughs followed by embarrassing silences.
Carr turned off the highway at the green overhead sign CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE, CHINO. ONE MILE.
The visitors' area was in the open. Metal picnic tables surrounded by a high chain-link fence. It reminded Carr of a grammar-school lunch area. At the tables sat blacks and Chicanos talking with sadly dressed wives. Restless children in T-shirts and tennis shoes wrestled on the yellow grass like bear cubs.
Howard, with a gray crew cut and starched denims, still looked like a cop: stocky, blue-bearded, piercing blue eyes.
During the past year his eyes had seemed to become more deep-set.
Carr sat down. Howard smiled. He began dealing gin rummy, a ritual that had started as a compromise to avoid the hurt of conversation. Howard had nothing to talk about any more, and Carr knew that shop talk, even about the old days, brought a sadness to Howard's eyes.
"I got a letter from my daughter yesterday. She told me about Rico de Fiore."
Carr hesitated. "I was his cover. The guy who did it got away from me. He jumped out the motel-room back window."
"Rico was a sharp kid. He had the touch," said the prisoner.
Carr nodded. They looked at each other for a moment.
Howard shuffled and dealt the cards. "Pick up your hand," he said.
At the end of the hand Carr took a small notebook out of his sports-coat pocket, turned to a fresh page, and recorded the score of the fiftieth game.
"I'm going to Eugene, Oregon, when I get out," Howard said. "Lumber-mill job. With the conviction, I figure that's the best I can do. I know I would have beat the rap if I'd gone to trial. Catching her in the sack and all, you know…temporary insanity…But I didn't want to embarrass my daughter with a trial. You can imagine how the press would have played up the whole thing, how it would have looked to her college friends."
Nothing was said for a long while. Eventually Carr took over as dealer, Howard as scorekeeper.
"Partner, there's something I gotta say," Howard said. The blue eyes flashed. "There were rough times in here, particularly the first few months. I had to fight every day. Once, I found out they were going to put ant poison in my chow. I didn't eat until I found out who it was. A big husky guy. I caught him in the yard and kicked his teeth out. Got almost all of 'em." He hesitated. "I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't know if I would have made it without the card games. I know I can make it now."
"Pick up your cards," Carr said.
"There's something else," Howard said. "Since the day I was arrested, you're the only one who's stuck by me, and you've never asked me one question about it. I really appreciate that…But I want you to know. A year ago I walked into my apartment with a few drinks under my belt and my old lady is fucking the next-door neighbor. I killed her because I had my gun on. I was a federal cop and my gun was right there in a holster on my belt. Now I'm in the joint for it…but I'm the same now as I ever was, and like you and everybody else in the whole goddamn world, I'm never going to change…My wife is dead and I'm alive and one year older. It's as simple as that. A set of circumstances."
A bell sounded. A guard opened a gate in the chain-link fence, and visitors began to depart.
Howard stood up and put the deck of cards in his shirt pocket. They shook hands. "Drop me a line when you get your transfer orders," Howard said.
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