by Robert Ward
“How about fancy cars? Other investments?”
“Nothing under his credit, but according to a security scan of his computer, he’s been looking at ads for Jaguars.”
“Very interesting.”
They leaned into the bright yellow light of the screen and Jack typed in the password which enabled them to access Philip Marshall’s entire record. The word was Stealth.
18
AT TEN THAT NIGHT they arrived at Marshall’s bungalow in the Valley. An unassuming place in Studio Village on Lemp and Moorpark. There was a white picket fence outside and a ’50s retro glider on the little front porch.
“Wonder if Beaver Cleaver lives here?” Oscar said.
“More like Eddie Haskell all grown up,” Jack said.
They got out of the car and walked toward the house.
Jack rang the bell, and both of them waited, their guns still holstered but unflapped.
In a minute there was a voice from the other side of the door. “Excuse me, do you have any idea what time it is?” The door opened a crack, and Jack flashed his badge. “Yeah, we do, Phil. Time for you to come clean. FBI. Open
the door. Now.”
There was a brief hesitation, then Marshall slid the chain off the lock and let them in.
• • •
Philip Marshall was a slender, nerdy-looking guy, who had once had a bad case of acne. He wore a bathrobe with pineapples on it. His hair was short, befitting an agent. He said nothing, but sat down. Got up and sat down again.
“You seem a little nervous, Phil,” Jack said.
“Not at all, I’m merely tired. It’s been a long couple of days, and I fell asleep early.”
Oscar nodded and looked sympathetic.
“Relax, man, we’re all on the same side, right?”
“Yeah,” Marshall said. He reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette, and then — rather than light it — put it back.
“How can I help you guys?”
“Nice house, Phil.”
“Thanks. It’s kind of beat up, but I’m selling it soon, anyway.”
“I don’t mean this one,” Jack said. “I’m talking about the one you’ve been looking at up in the Hollywood Hills.”
“No harm in looking, is there? Besides, I planned on flipping it,” he said. “I might do a deal on it with my cousin. He’d be the main financier. I’d do the work on the place. Then we split the profit. Say, what are you guys getting at, anyway?”
“Been looking into Jaguars, too, huh, Phil?”
“Yeah, so what? I look at a new Jag just for the pricing, then I get my car for about half that on the Web. Big deal.”
Jack walked over to him and got in his face.
“You’re right, Phil. It’s not much. But murder is. We want to know why you accessed the addresses of two federal agents who were murdered a couple of weeks later.”
Marshall’s sallow face turned red. He shook his head.
“This is bullshit,” he said. “I’m not talking to you guys anymore. I’m calling my lawyer.”
“I wouldn’t advise that, Phil,” Jack said. “’Cause if you make us wait around all day, we’re gonna arrest you as an accomplice in both these killings.”
Phil Marshall swallowed hard and rubbed his nose.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “What are you guys trying to pin on — ?”
“Two murdered agents,” Oscar said. “Forget the outrage. We know you’re the guy.”
Marshall swallowed again and felt as though his mouth was turning to sand.
“If you’re talking about Zac Blakely, I heard his brakes gave out up in the canyon and . . .”
Oscar said, “Cut the shit, Phil. Blakely was murdered, and now Ron Hughes. If I was the guy who had supplied organized crime with their names, I’d be very concerned for my health. Since you’re the only one who can pin the killers to the victims . . . how long you think you’re going to remain breathing, Phil?”
Marshall ran his hand over his chin. Jack saw tiny drops of sweat coming off his upper lip.
“I didn’t know what they wanted. I had no idea.”
“Sure you didn’t, Phil,” Jack said. “But you know how those guys are . . . they find out you’ve been talking to us . . . they’re gonna come by and take you for a ride out into the desert.”
Marshall sat down in a bamboo chair, and then got up again.
“Okay, then . . . look . . . I tell you about this you’ll cut me some slack, right? And give me some protection?”
Oscar nodded and said, “You talk to us and yeah, maybe we talk to somebody for you.”
Marshall gasped for air, rubbed his forehead. As he talked, he couldn’t meet either of their eyes.
“Okay . . . well, a while back, this guy I know in Hollywood . . . comes over to me and tells me he wants some information on two agents. Blakely and Hughes.”
“What’s this guy’s name?” Oscar said, taking out his notebook.
“Nicki . . . Nicki Sadler.”
Jack got up from his chair and walked across the room.
“Sadler? The lawyer? I know that creep. He used to be a bag- man for the boys at the Tropicana Club. He say why he wanted the names?”
Marshall shook his head.
“No. Something about old debts.”
“He ask for only two names, Phil?”
Marshall gave a weak little laugh and sat back down on the bamboo chair again.
“I had no idea what he wanted to do with them. I swear it.”
Jack walked over close to Marshall and looked down at him.
“How many other names, Phil?”
Marshall looked up and then showed Jack his palms.
“Two more. The other day. I didn’t want to give them to him, but he said the people he represented wouldn’t like it if I didn’t come through. I was afraid.”
“Who were they?” Jack said.
“I didn’t know what he was gonna —”
Jack reached down and picked Marshall up by his hair. Marshall made a high keening sound, like a dying bird.
“Stop.”
“Names,” Jack said.
Marshall began to cry.
“It was yours . . . yours and his . . . Hidalgo. He asked for your families’ names and addresses, too. I’m so sorry. I never did anything like this before. It was like a game at first, and there was so much money in it . . . I’ve never had any money and . . .”
“You gave him our names and our families’ addresses . . .” Jack felt a cold rage. He punched Marshall hard in the stomach. Marshall fell backward into his chair, weeping.
Jack looked at Oscar.
“We gotta call Judge Schur and get his okay for a wiretap.” “Yeah,” Oscar said. “C’mon, Phil, you gotta slip outta that bathrobe and into some prison stripes. Move your sorry little ass!”
He reached down and pulled the weeping Marshall to his feet.
“I am so sorry,” Marshall said. “Isn’t there any way I can help you? C’mon. Give me a break.”
Jack wanted to break Phil’s face for him, but then he had an idea.
“All right, Phil. I’ll tell you what. You’re going to go back in there tomorrow, do your job, and meanwhile I want you to look up any and all information on another agent, William Forrester?”
“Forrester? You think he’s involved in all of this?”
“I do,” Jack said. “You gonna do it or not?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. Forrester is a nasty guy. If he found out about me looking up his records, I can’t imagine what he’d do to me.”
Jack slapped Marshall’s face so hard he knocked his glasses off .
“You don’t have any idea what I’m going to do if you don’t do it, Phil.”
Marshall’s face turned bright red.
“All right. I’ll get all his financials. But it might take a couple of days.”
“You got two is all,” Oscar said. “And you better come through, pal. ’Cause starting right now, we o
wn your ass, amigo.”
Jack got home late that night. After checking on Kevin, he took off his shoes and tiptoed toward his bed, not wanting to wake Julie. But he was barely under the covers when she turned and glowered at him.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
Jack felt a tightening in his stomach. Julie had been extremely tense lately and short with Kevin, too.
“Working the case,” Jack said. “Think we might have caught a break.”
Suddenly Jack was overwhelmed with exhaustion and hoped Julie wasn’t in a talkative mood.
“Is that right?” Julie said. “Out this late working the case?”
He hated her tone and felt some bile come up in this throat.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact. It took this long.”
She gritted her teeth and turned away from him.
Jack looked at the soft curve in her neck, at the wisps of hair around her ears. She was so delicate, so beautiful. Suddenly he wanted to take care of her, make her feel safe, loved.
“Look, honey,” he said. “It just took a while, that’s all. No ulterior motives. No parties or cop groupies involved. Honest. That’s not my style.”
“Great!” Julie cut him off . “That’s fine. Can we just go to sleep now?”
Jack felt a certain measure of panic inside his chest. Things were so new between them, yet she already seemed to be unhappy. No . . . not just that, either. It was something scarier than that. It was as though he didn’t even know her anymore.
Oh, man, he’d done this before. Fallen in love with an illusion of a person and found out, only after it was too late and his heart was entangled, that the woman he thought he was in love with was a figment of his own overactive and somewhat desperate imagination.
“Look, Julie.” He tried to use his most soothing and convincing voice. “I know you’ve been left alone a lot lately, and I’m sorry about it. But since the Bureau murders, I’ve really had to be out there all the time.”
She turned her head toward him. Jack had the weird feeling that he had no idea what her reaction might be. Would she take his head off ? Understand? He wasn’t sure. In fact, he thought, maybe he wasn’t sure who Julie was at all.
Aside from the fact that she was great in bed and a teacher, what did he really know about her? And maybe some of this anger she was displaying was really about Kevin, too.
“You and Kev get along okay?” he said.
She turned over, away from him, curled herself into a ball.
“Fine, if you like hostile silences for hours. Great, if you like asking someone for help with cleaning up dinner, and he mumbles curse words under his breath. Yeah, things are just great around here!”
Jack tried to put his hand on her shoulder but she jerked away as though he were a rattlesnake.
But then she turned over and looked at him again.
“I might as well tell you now, Jack. I’m going home tomorrow for a while. I just . . . need my space.”
Jack felt a bolt of anger.
“That’s it?” he said. “Things get a little rough, and you just walk?”
“A little rough? Kevin is headed for a breakdown. I’m not ready for this . . . taking on the job of being a stepmother to an angry, confused child who could even become . . . violent.”
Jack sat straight up, glowered at her.
“Violent? Did he ever hit you, even threaten you?”
“Not in so many words, but if looks could kill, I’d be stone dead.”
“C’mon, Julie. You know that’s not true. He wouldn’t ever hurt you. He loves you. He’s told me so.”
She looked down at the blanket, afraid to meet his gaze.
“I know. He can be very sweet. But there’s something there that really scares me, Jack. And your work. This guy threatening to kill you. You see, it’s all part of the same thing. Violence on the outside, threats, and then your wife leaving . . . you told me how upsetting that was, and now Kevin acting out all over the place. I can’t . . . I can’t do it, Jack, I just can’t.”
She began to cry, and Jack tried to put his arm around her again, but again she pulled away.
“Julie, I love you,” Jack said.
“I know. I love you, too. But I’m not as strong as all this. I can’t live in a place where violence and fear . . .”
She burst into tears, as Jack stood by helplessly.
Finally she looked up and shook her head.
“Jack, I think I’m going to go now.”
“You sure?” he said. “It’s so late.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
And then she was out of bed, grabbing her already-packed suitcase from the closet.
In a half hour, she was gone. Jack sat on the front-porch steps, looking out at the night. He tried telling himself it was going to be okay, that he could handle it, that after his marriage had cracked open and he’d nearly fallen apart, he’d been fine.
But somehow he didn’t believe it anymore.
He wasn’t going to be fine, and neither was Kevin.
He tried again, and then asked himself what a mature man would do in his position.
But he came up with nothing.
Then he asked himself what he’d really like to do now. That was easy. Take off , go down to Charlie’s place, and tie one on.
But he couldn’t leave Kevin here.
Fortunately, he had the next-best answer close at hand. Jack walked inside, went to the pantry, and cracked open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
This was the immature and wrong thing to do. No doubt.
But the first shot went down smoothly, as did the second, and the third.
Soon he was back on the front porch looking up at the lunatic moon, feeling total immunity from all the pain.
19
JIMMY SEEMED TIRED tonight, kind of listless.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got a cold or something.”
“Well, I’ve got something that’s going to cheer you right up.”
They sat down in the comfortable padded chairs again and stared at the dark screen.
“Here we go,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” Jimmy said. “I think we need to talk about this.”
“No, wait . . . I’ve got some sensational stuff here, Jim.”
“I know . . . I’m sure you have. But I’ve been thinking about this. Is it really the movie we want to make?”
“Of course it is. We talked about this for years. C’mon, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, I know. But that’s my point. When we were talking about it, it was like one thing. You know, a concept. But now that we’re actually seeing the raw footage, is this the movie we really want to make?”
He was up out of his chair now. Feeling hot.
He knew he shouldn’t lose it. Not after what they’d been through.
But what the hell? The risk he’d taken — that they’d both taken — and now Jimmy wants to back out. That wasn’t right. No way.
“Look, Jimmy, if you get out there with me, if you experience the thing with me, then you’ll see. That’s the part of the process you’re missing. If you were there . . . if you saw the looks on their faces . . .”
Jimmy shook his head.
“No, I can’t . . . on this one I’m more of a conceptual guy. A producer.”
“Which is very handy for you. So you don’t have to dirty your hands.”
Jimmy stood up and stared at him. It was surprising how thin he was.
“I think I’ve suffered plenty so far. I don’t think I have to justify my position.”
That got to him. He sat back down.
“Look, we’re so close to home now, and this is great stuff . Take a look at it, will you? I know you’re going to like it.”
Jimmy smiled then, and it was like the room had been lit up. “Okay,” he said. “I will. It’s okay. I just get a little hinky sometimes about the project.”
“Yeah, sure. I know. But we’re doing
this together, Jimmy. That’s the important part.”
“I know,” Jimmy said softly. “Roll the tape. Let’s see just what you got.”
20
FAT NICKI SADLER took a long hit off his bottle of Absolut Mandarin, then wiped his pudgy moist lips with the sleeve of his shirt. He reached into his bowl of Doritos chips and slammed six or seven of them into his mouth. Then, while grinding them down, he finished his denunciation into his office phone.
“Lemme try and fucking clarify what I’m telling you, Lansing. Here’s the deal. I already gave you two extensions of the loan, and you aren’t getting any more, that clear?”
On the other end, the out-of-work actor who supported himself by dealing cocaine to the studios in his ragged old Porsche began to whine:
“But Nicki, you know I’m good for it. I just got a little behind ’cause I was in Vegas, and the fucking Chiefs tanked, and then the Dolphins fucked me when they missed a goddamned fifteen-yard field goal. How often is that gonna happen? Like never. So if you could just front me, say, 10 Gs until . . .”
In his office, Nicki readjusted his big belly and opened his pants a little. He’d just eaten a massive pizza from Rainforest and nine rolls drenched in butter and garlic. Now all that dough and cheese was clogging up his pipes.
“Lemme say this again to you, Jerry. Here’s the answer. N.O. spells NO. That’s NO written in fucking italics. It’s not like a conditional NO, which really means yes. It’s a big, heavy, body rush of a NO. Maybe it would help if you would think of it as the Hollywood sign of fucking NO.”
There was a long silence, and then Jerry Lansing tried one last time.
“They say they’re gonna hurt me, Nicki. I gotta get that money.”
“Pray,” Nicki said, taking another drink of the hot vodka. “Pray, and God’ll give you everything that’s coming to you.”
“You prick!” Lansing said. “All the dough I made you and now, when I need it, you . . .”
Nicki didn’t bother listening to the rest. He slammed down the phone and laughed to himself. Fucking losers! He was sick of them all. Anytime you got into business with a skell like Lansing . . . well, what could you expect?
He pushed his chair away from the desk and, with great effort, ambled over to his mini-fridge.