“Yes.”
The waitress brought a course to the table, and the owner started to leave.
“No, wait,” Matt said. “Keep me company.”
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t want to intrude. There is no charge for your dinner.”
Matt waved his hands over the table in denial. “Sorry,” he said, “but that’s against the rules.”
The owner’s laugh was dismissive.
“I mean it,” Matt reiterated. “It’s against the rules for a police officer to accept free meals—free anything.”
It was obvious to Jackson that the owner wanted to stay and talk, but was torn, and Matt doubted whether it had to do with other business to take care of. He said, “Do other officers come in here and expect free meals?”
The owner looked down at Jackson, his expression a cross between compassion, and surprise at the young detective’s naiveté. “You’re a nice young man,” he said. “You haven’t been a policeman long enough to understand how it is done.”
The owner turned to walk away. Jackson sprung to his feet and grabbed the man’s arm. “Wait,” he said. “I want to talk to you about this.”
The owner shook his head. “Please,” he said, “I don’t want trouble.”
“And I won’t cause you any. Maybe you can help me understand. Maybe you can help me—grow up.”
His comment brought a smile to the owner’s face. He looked down at the floor, as though the answer to whether he should rejoin Jackson at the table could be found there. He looked up. His smile widened, and he took his chair again.
“Look,” Jackson said, “I assure you that nothing you say to me will leave this table. I promise you that. Understood?”
The owner nodded.
“By the way,” Jackson said, “I’m Matthew Jackson. I don’t remember your name.”
“Kahil.”
“All right, Kahil, you said that cops come in here and expect free meals. Do they expect more than that?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Money. Do they ask you for money?”
Kahil thought for what seemed a very long time before saying, “It’s the cost of doing business.”
“Your cost?”
“It’s expected.”
“It’s expected of the mafia,” Jackson retorted angrily. “Not the police.”
Kahil shrugged.
“If someone is shaking you down, Kahil, you should file a complaint with the police. We have an Internal Affairs division that—”
“Detective,” Kahil said, placing his hand on Jackson’s arm, “you are obviously an honorable man. I admire that. But honorable men don’t always see the reality of things.”
“The reality I see is that you’re the victim of a crime.”
“I appreciate your concern, Detective, but I have already said too much. Enjoy your dinner.”
Jackson had arrived hungry, but he no longer was. The conversation had been unsettling. It was obvious that Kahil had wanted to talk about whatever squeeze he found himself in, but was unwilling to go beyond using Jackson as a sounding board. That there were members of the MPD that wielded their positions of authority to shake down honest businessmen wasn’t news to Matt. He’d heard the locker-room jokes about it among senior officers, and was offended at their easy, open acceptance of the practice. He sometimes wondered whether he would eventually become that jaded as he progressed in his career. He was sure he wouldn’t—he would quit first—but could you ever be certain of how you would behave as you grew older, as you got closer to retirement and were concerned that there wouldn’t be enough money to support you in your dotage? He’d witnessed changes in his mother and father—nothing dramatic, but representing a shifting set of worries that caused them to adjust some of their views of the world.
He forced himself to eat a portion of his dinner, but what Kahil had said gnawed at his stomach.
“You didn’t like it?” the waitress asked, eyeing his half-consumed meal.
“No, no, it was fine. I just wasn’t as hungry as I thought I was.”
“Take it home?”
“Sure. That would be good. And I will have coffee.”
While waiting for his coffee, he pulled papers from his briefcase and perused them, looking for nothing in particular but occupying himself while alone. The photos they’d uploaded of Craig Thompson captured his attention and he leaned closer to better examine the face in them. He realized he was doing what he abhorred in people, making snap judgments based upon a person’s appearance. Stereotyping! How wrong. But he couldn’t shake his reaction to Thompson in the photographs. He looked like a man not to be trusted, easily swayed, willing to say or do anything to reach a goal, like too many politicians.
He was immersed in studying the pictures when Kahil came to him with the check. “I would be happy to buy you dinner, Detective,” he said.
“I appreciate that,” Matt said, “but it’s really out of the question.”
As Matt fumbled in his wallet for his credit card, Kahil leaned over to see the photos on the table. Matt looked up at him. “Just some pictures of someone we’re talking to,” he said.
“You know him?” Kahil asked.
“We’ve spoken on the phone. Do you know him?”
“Yes. He used to come in with the woman who was killed. Ms. Curzon.”
“They knew each other at one time,” Matt said, sliding the photos back into his briefcase.
“They used to come in together maybe two years ago. I remember because they fought sometimes, were angry with each other.”
“Really?”
“Then he no longer was with her, until maybe two weeks ago.”
Jackson had taken a swallow of coffee, which he almost spit out. “Two weeks ago?”
“Yes. Only once. And then he came alone a week or so ago. He sat at the bar and had too much to drink. I was worried about him driving, but he called for a taxi.”
Jackson quickly paid the bill. On his way out, he thanked Kahil. “If you ever decide to put a stop to whatever certain cops are doing to you, let me know.” He handed Kahil his card. “Remember that.”
Kahil said nothing as Jackson left the restaurant. When he got in his car, he pulled out his cell phone and called Mary Hall.
“Wake you?”
“No. I’m watching Law and Order. They really get it right.”
“I know. Lennie Briscoe was my idol. Look, Mary, I just left the Silver Veil, that restaurant around the corner from Curzon’s apartment. Ready? Catch this. Mr. Craig Thompson…”
FOURTEEN
Billy McMahon lived a charmed life, considering how many times he’d broken the law.
He’d started getting in trouble as a twelve-year-old in Oakland, California. His offenses were considered by the police and the judges as more public nuisances than serious crimes, and he’d been able to get away with stern warnings from the bench—and a smack from his father—rather than ending up in a facility for troubled, disruptive youths. As he progressed into adulthood, he learned two things: only chumps worked hard, and the key to success was to be charming, especially when the heat was on.
“Charming Billy Boy.”
Billy loved that tune from an unknown Welch songwriter, and sang it often. But its final line, “She cannot leave her mother” didn’t apply to him. He’d gotten away from his mother at the first chance, leaving home when he was sixteen, lining his pockets with money stolen from his mother’s “retirement fund,” a wad of cash she kept in a bag in the freezer. His father had cut out two years earlier.
Billy never looked back, and had no further contact with “the old hag” until the day she died. He told friends that he was hurt that she hadn’t provided for him in her will, and they sympathized with him. How could a mother be that cruel? “She was an evil woman,” was Billy’s explanation. Poor Billy. Charming Billy.
He bounced around the country doing odd jobs, stealing when he thought he could get away with it, conning a few old ladies wi
th his boyish, freckled face, curly red hair, and engaging grin. What a nice young man, these older women believed until they realized that their bank account was bare and Charming Billy was gone. They never knew his real name; he had an array of aliases, and forged documents to support them. He ran afoul of the law on a few occasions, but wasn’t punished for his misdeeds aside from a two-month stint in a small town Oklahoma jail, where the jailer’s wife was so taken with him that she saw to it that he was well fed.
His break into the “big time” came one day in Baltimore, where he’d ended up selling chimney repairs to senior citizens whose chimneys worked just fine. He’d been on that job for only a week when he befriended Augie, a fellow salesman with big ideas. Augie had recently come out of prison, where he’d served a sentence for running an escort service in Baltimore. He’d been caught in a sting. He’d sent two of his girls to hotels to meet with clients who’d phoned for their services. The problem was that the men were undercover vice squad cops, who arrested the women for solicitation. One of them turned state’s evidence against Augie as the brothel’s owner in exchange for probation.
“It’s a good business, Billy,” Augie told him over beers one night, “only you’ve gotta be smart and clever, figure out ways to beat the cops.”
“Maybe I’d like to take a crack at something like that,” Billy said.
“Not in this town,” Augie counseled. “This new mayor’s on his high horse, man. He’s some kind of evangelist or something. D.C. is better. I got a friend there who runs a service, rakes it in. A cash cow. The cops look the other way; like, you pay them off and they’re cool about it.”
“So, how come you don’t go there and hook up with your friend?” Billy asked.
“Him and me had a falling out, so I stay clear. Besides, I don’t need the aggravation. The biggest problem ain’t the cops, Billy. It’s the girls. They can drive you nuts.”
Billy smiled. “I never have any problems with women,” he said.
“Yeah? Maybe you should take a shot at it, then. Hell, you make a go of it in D.C. and I’ll come see you, maybe hook up with you someday.”
“Maybe so,” Billy said. “How do I get hold of this friend?”
A few weeks later, Billy presented himself at the office of Beltway Entertainment and Escort Service, located in a one-story yellow building with peeling paint, and weeds growing in a bed where flowers once flourished.
Augie’s former friend, Luke Gardner, sat behind a scarred desk, a phone pressed to his ear. Billy was surprised at how old he was; had to be damn near seventy, was Billy’s guess. He wore a large cowboy hat and a silver-tipped string tie over a plaid shirt. “Believe me,” he said into the mouthpiece, “we’re not like other services, no extra charges, no games.… Sure… How do you spell that?… She’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
He looked up at Billy. “What can I do for you?”
“My name’s Billy McMahon. An old friend of yours, Augie, told me to look you up.”
The man guffawed. “That lowlife? Why’d he tell you to look me up?”
“Augie’s a jerk,” Billy said with a wide grin, taking the room’s only other chair. “Forget him. I ran some escort services other places, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Baltimore, and figured you might be looking for some help. Believe me, I know how rough this business can be, keeping the broads in line, handling the phone, stuff like that.”
“Tell me about it. What’d you say your name was?”
“Billy. Billy McMahon.” He stood and extended his hand across the desk. “What do you say, Mr. Gardner? Give me a try. You won’t be sorry.”
Gardner sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Yeah, I could use an extra hand. You from around here?”
“Just arrived in D.C. The heat was on in Oklahoma City, so I figured I’d head east. From what I hear, D.C. is wide open, everything’s cool with the cops.”
“We get along.”
Their conversation was constantly interrupted by the ringing phone, and the man’s calls to his stable of women, assigning them to various hotels, offices, and homes. Billy was impressed. If this afternoon was any indication, Beltway Entertainment and Escorts was a thriving business.
During a momentary lull, Gardner said, “Maybe it was good you stopped in. I’ve been thinking about hiring someone to take the pressure off me, and you having experience in this business is good. Sometimes I think I’m getting too old for this. When can you start?”
“Right now,” Billy replied. “No time like this time.”
After a hurried briefing on the way things were run at Beltway—the johns pay $250 an hour, sixty percent to the company, forty percent to the girls—Gardner gave Billy a trial run at taking incoming calls and arranging for the callers’ “dates.” He passed muster. Gardner offered him a salary of $600 a week, and told him he would work the slower day shift. “Not too slow, though,” Gardner said, shaking his head. “These high rollers got needs any time of day.”
Things went well over the next year. Billy was in his element. Gardner taught him everything he needed to know about running an escort service, including which members of MPD’s vice squad were on the take in return for looking the other way. Gardner started spending less time in the office and rewarded Billy’s longer hours with raises, enabling him to buy a used silver-gray Audi, and to move from the rooming house in which he’d been staying into a downtown apartment. Although the job didn’t provide perks such as health insurance or a 401K plan, there was the added-value attraction of Beltway’s working women, who provided Billy, albeit reluctantly, with plenty of sex to supplement what he enjoyed from a girlfriend or two.
But Augie had been right. Keeping the “girls” in line was the hardest part of the job, and Billy soon found himself having to get tough with anyone who strayed from the party line. That included an occasional beating, which he enjoyed administering. One escort who’d tried to increase her forty percent take from the tricks she turned ended up with a bloody lip and broken nose, compliments of Billy’s fists. She got his message. Once healed, she never tried to rip them off again.
Gardner suggested to Billy that his tactics might have become too harsh, and that he should try to cajole the women into playing by Beltway’s rules. Billy said he would. But he quietly dismissed the older man’s protestations as a sign of weakness, and used an iron hand from time to time to keep everything running smoothly.
As months went by, the day-to-day running of the business fell more heavily on Billy’s shoulders, and he began to resent his salaried status. He broached the subject of becoming a partner with Gardner, one night over dinner at a local restaurant. To Billy’s surprise, Gardner wasn’t averse to the notion.
“I’ve been thinking that very same thing,” Gardner said. He’d been drinking more lately, and his speech and gait testified to it. Still, Billy knew he was a tough old bird, with leathery skin, a broad chest, and muscled arms. “You know, Billy, I sometimes think of you as a son.”
Billy beamed. “And I’ve been thinking about you, Luke, like the father I never had.”
“What happened to your dad?” Gardner asked.
“The law. He spent practically his whole damn life in prison. He died there.”
Billy McMahon had been lying for so long about so many things that the truth was forever blurred.
“That must have been tough on you, Billy.”
“Yeah, it was. On my mom, too. She was a saint, raising me and my sisters and brothers alone,” Billy, an only child, said.
“You’ve been doing a good job, Billy.”
“Thanks. That means a lot coming from an old pro like you.”
“You know, Billy, I’ve never lost a night’s sleep doing what I’m doing. The government’s got no business telling grown men and women what to do when it comes to sex.”
“I agree with that, Luke, one hundred percent.”
“So here’s what I’m thinking, Billy. I’d like to take more time off, get down to Florida, where
I’ve got a house, spend more time with my two daughters there and the grandkids. I’m ready to make you a partner in Beltway.”
“I’d be real flattered, Luke. Real flattered, and grateful.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want to go too fast. What I’m suggesting is that as my partner, you take a fair share of the profits. Say, twenty percent.”
Billy didn’t allow his disappointment to surface. He’d kept a close eye on the profits. Twenty percent wouldn’t give him much more than he was currently making in salary. He forced a smile and said, “That’s real generous, Luke.”
“Of course,” Luke said, “once I’m gone, the business will be yours.” He laughed. “I can’t leave it to my daughters, now, can I?”
“No, I suppose you can’t, Luke.”
Three weeks later, after the attorney for Beltway had drawn up partnership papers between Billy and Luke Gardner, Luke was run down and killed by what a witness thought was a silver-gray sedan.
The driver was never found.
Beltway Entertainment and Escorts now belonged to Billy McMahon.
FIFTEEN
“Beltway. You’d like to book a date?”
“No. I’m looking for Billy McMahon.”
Billy paused. He smelled trouble. He usually could.
“Are you Mr. McMahon?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Detective Jackson, Washington MPD.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m speaking with Mr. McMahon?”
“That’s right.”
“We’d like to meet with you, Mr. McMahon.”
“What about?”
Billy went through a fast mental calculation. The payoffs to the vice squad cops are up-to-date.
“About the murder of Rosalie Curzon. When’s a good time for us to get together?”
“I don’t know. I run a busy business and—”
“We can dispatch officers to bring you here to headquarters,” Jackson said. “Or we can talk to you at your place of business. Your choice.”
“I don’t know anything about a murder.”
Murder Inside the Beltway Page 10