Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  I had used the equipment before, of course. The computer age . . . used to be you could spend days going through back issues and still miss the item you were looking for. Now you just punch up the program on a computer terminal, sit back and let the magic genie search through years of news quicker than you can light a cigarette. It's all cross-indexed by subjects, dates, personalities, events—and you can call up every story in the file on a given person and even get hard copies if you want them.

  There was not that much of a file on Bernard Wiseman, though the file was twenty years deep. He had been charged once years ago with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, charges later dropped. In more recent years he had been honored by the Producer's Guild and attacked by the Writer's Guild, there was a mention of his separation from Justine, coverage of his accident in Mexico, some stuff from the financial pages regarding UT's soaring success, gossip-column chaff about the problems with his board of directors, other odds and sods regarding new projects.

  Then, beginning about six months before the bombing, there was a story at least every week in which he was mentioned as appearing at various social functions around town, always accompanied by Melissa Franklin, who was usually referred to as a "rising star" or words to that effect—once as "UT's rising new star." No mention of any of her pictures, though. There was a flurry of stories spanning the last several weeks—almost daily—again dealing with the infighting at UT. The newest stuff was not yet in the computer.

  I called up the photo file and found three pictures of interest, two of them showing Wiseman in a tuxedo and a stunning blond wearing little more than sunglasses, the third showing Wiseman being wheeled out of his limo by his chauffeur at some benefit. The blond was identified as Melissa Franklin—but who would know for sure? No identification of the chauffeur, but it was the same man as in the Polaroid. Not a lot of help there, but at least it deepened my suspicion that I was up against a masterly production of deception and illusion.

  I needed more information from Melissa, and I wanted another crack at her husband. I also would have loved to get Justine Wiseman into a cold shower and hold her there until she turned blue enough to talk like ordinary people. And I wanted the doggy boy and maybe a crack at some of Justine's party guests.

  The odds, though, were that I would be behind bars before I could get to any of those people. I had been a cop long enough to realize I was on the downward leg of my trajectory through this case—that I was running out of time, out of options.

  Two magnificent police machines were chewing through the interconnections a lot faster than I could hope to. They would get to the end before I would, and I had the sinking feeling that I had been staked out as raw meat from the beginning of this thing. It was more than a feeling. Edgar had supposedly been tipped by an informant that I'd been paid big money to help Wiseman stage his death. I knew how that played in the police mind. Didn't require a lot of stretch for them to infer a whole bunch of other crimes, especially if the tip-line was still busy. Those guys weren't chasing me all over town just so they could prove me innocent. They were on my tail because the politicians on their tails wanted a quick wrap-up to this case and didn't much care who got burned in the process.

  So I was seeing my one hope as a power play straight up the middle—forgetting finesse and fancy footwork, forgetting scenarios and weirdos and mysterious manipulations. I suspected by now that much of that was disinformation anyway, confusion factor. I had to take that shot up the middle.

  So I asked my friend the editor to run a make for me on Andrew "Butch" Cassidy. I mentioned the New York connection and his position at UT, then sat in the corner with bitter newsroom coffee and watched my life tick away while the computer terminal flashed its magic coast-to-coast in a chase after the facts of the matter. I said it already, it's a genie, and it even provided me with Cassidy's Los Angeles address and phone number.

  I was out of there at four o'clock and creeping at low silhouette through the quiet streets, up onto the Santa Monica Freeway and fast west through the fog, off at La Brea and northward at creep speed again toward Farmer's Market and the CBS studios, across Beverly and into a fashionable apartment complex.

  This time it was my piece docking at his nose, and he came up as quietly as I had. He was not sleeping alone. She was young and out of it, sleeping facedown and one arm dangling over the side. He grabbed his clothes from a chair and we went quietly to the living room, where he put them on without protest by word or gesture. We took the elevator to the garage, got into his car and set off for UT. So far I'd done all the talking. We were halfway across town before he asked me what was up.

  I told him, "Life, maybe, yours and mine. I guess it's up to you."

  "What is?"

  "How much longer either of us have. Looks like your New York pals have sewn me into this thing too tight to unravel. So I'm binding you in there with me. What happens to me happens to you."

  "You're nuts," he said. "Who are you? The men in New York have never heard your name."

  "Then you've got nothing to worry about. Nothing happens to me and you too."

  "You better tell me what's on your mind. If I'm bound to you, Copp, at least I should know who your enemies are supposed to be."

  I told him, "You're my enemy, Butch."

  "Bullshit. I don't—"

  "You and every other kinky cop that ever dirtied a badge. I got no respect. You're filth, so don't try shining it on to me."

  He didn't even try to bluster it out. "Who the hell are you to say? I didn't see no honors in your file, Mr. Boy Scout."

  "Didn't work for honors, or merit badges. Obviously you didn't either. Pensioned, my ass. You were lucky to just stay on the streets. How long you been on Chairman Klein's payroll?"

  "Up yours," he said. "I don't owe you anything. Let's do what you gotta do and get it over with. Exactly what d'you want?"

  "Exactly I want my head out of this noose not of my making. I'm going to make you talk sense to me, Butch. One way or the other."

  "With or without your gun, scout?"

  "Whatever it takes. I'll shoot your knees off, I don't care, whatever language you understand best."

  "Or up the nose, like you did to Walter?"

  I said, "You heard, eh?"

  "ID'd the body. The kid was raw. You didn't need that."

  "I also didn't do that, but I was in the neighborhood when it went down. Figured you did it . . ."

  "Why would I do it? He was my man—"

  "You'd do it to your own mother. Especially with fifty mil in the kitty. Assuming there really is a fifty mil. Is there?"

  "There was," he said

  "I'll want you to tell me about that."

  "Already did. Now you tell me about it."

  "I'm the one with the gun this time. I could start with your balls if you like your knees better."

  He actually smiled at that. "Neither are much good to me anymore. Notice that kid back there? Now it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night long. It's embarrassing, especially with these kids. I don't think they even know what sex is, most of 'em. Tight little pussies and empty little heads, that's all I ever get, and they don't even know what they're missing."

  "They know why they're doing it," I told him. They like the color of your money."

  He said, "Maybe that's the problem. Go ahead. Take the balls. I don't need 'em. At least with knees I can still peek through keyholes."

  "Too late," I said. "No more keyholes."

  He laughed. "Guess that dates me too. How old are you, Copp?"

  "Just barely downside of forty."

  "Past forty, you better start calling your shots."

  "Already started it," I said. "Saved one tonight, in fact. Ever been to one of Justine's parties?"

  "Justine Wiseman? Never met the lady. They were separated when I came out here."

  "Did you know Wiseman before his accident?"

  "The back injury? That happened about a year before I came out."
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br />   "Why'd they send you, Butch?"

  "Told you. Their man was cheating 'em."

  "Why didn't they send an auditor?"

  He laughed. "With those guys, I am an auditor."

  I didn't laugh. "Thought they called it enforcer."

  "That too."

  "Legbreaker."

  "On occasion."

  "Even wearing a badge."

  "Hey, hold the holy water. Know how many cops I've buried? Never a kinky one, though. Only heroes get buried. Smart guys bury them."

  "And you're one of the smartest."

  "That's right."

  "Did you come here to bury Wiseman?"

  "Hell, no. And he's no hero. Wiseman will end up burying you."

  "Think he could talk his way out of this mess?"

  "Sure he could. Don't believe their movies. These guys don't have codes of honor. They have bottom- line profit motive. Turn profits for them, they love you. Even if you cheat them they love you because they respect you, and they know you can do it to others for them. He could make it up, sure. Tell Wiseman to sweeten the pot, add ten mil and give it all back. They'll even let 'im keep his job."

  "Sure, suspended from a meat hook."

  He laughed. "You watch too many movies. They don't do that stuff anymore. This new generation don't even know how."

  "But your generation does."

  He turned a smile to me. "My generation invented it."

  He was Butch Cassidy now, and he didn't need a Sundance Kid. He'd been fired, so the record said, from NYPD fifteen years ago after a long career as a mob enforcer with a badge, and he'd been suspected but never charged in a whole litany of crimes since that time. On the streets of New York they didn't call him Butch Cassidy. They called him Butcher Cassidy. Maybe he'd killed a cord of people in Los Angeles, too? Somehow I didn't think so. And I was even hoping that I wouldn't have to get too rough with him. Butcher or not, I sort of respected the way he carried himself. We had a pretty good understanding of each other by the time we reached the studio.

  Besides, I had neither the time, the options nor the brains to set myself up as judge and jury. I was still a cop, trying to do a job. If that meant kissing the guy, then I'd kiss him.

  If it meant killing him, I'd do that too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We sat across the desk from each other. I placed my big pistol midway between us. "Go for it WW any time you'd like," I told him.

  "Who needs it? I told you before, we need to get our heads together on this. So what's the beef? Let's just do it."

  "Tell me again why they sent you West."

  "It reads the same every time. Their boy was cheating on them. They sent me out to watch his fingers."

  "Did he know they suspected?"

  "Course he knew."

  "They'd called him on it?"

  "Sure. He'd been cheating small all along. Hey, everybody expects it. Expense accounts, petty cash, kickbacks, that's considered part of the salary if you do it cool. But this guy really lost it big, especially after the injury in Mexico. They figured he went a little nuts, brooding about that maybe. Went for a grand slam and a quick out."

  "How was he doing it?"

  "Right off the top."

  "Top of what?"

  "Top of the gross. Three sets of books. One set for the stockholders, one for the men, one for himself.

  "So how'd they know for sure?"

  "I found his books."

  "When?"

  "Just last week."

  "So you sent them right off to New York."

  "Took 'em myself.

  "Know how this would sound in court?"

  "I'd deny the hell out of it in court. You know that."

  "Tell it to my pal Edgar," I suggested. "He's brilliant at building cases from bits and pieces. He's trying to wrap one around my throat right now with less to build on. Edgar would say that you came back from New York with a contract in your pocket. He'd say that you shook the fifty mil or whatever out of Bernie and then torched him along with his whole operation."

  "Wouldn't sound too brilliant to me," Cassidy said. "I wouldn't do it that way."

  "No?"

  "No. I'd just take your friend for a drive to Las Vegas. I'd get there, he wouldn't. And I'd dare Mr. Brilliant to find the right spot to start digging up two hundred miles of desert."

  I knew he was right. It had been done that way many times. I said, "So you think the bombs were for stage effect."

  "Sure they were."

  "And the shootings."

  "I'm still wondering about those. But Wiseman's behind them, you can make book on that."

  "You've been watching him for a year. See anything to suggest he might be setting up something like this?"

  "No. But he wouldn't want me to see that, would he."

  "He knew you were watching him?"

  "Had to know. Last few months, anyway."

  "You wanted him to know."

  "Sure. War of nerves. Kept thinking the guy would crack and come back home on his knees."

  "So now you figure he cracked the other way."

  Cassidy shifted uncomfortably. "Looks that way, or else he was suckering me all the way. No ... I think he cracked when his books came up missing. I was in New York three days waiting for the decision. Got back Monday night. It blew to hell Tuesday."

  "Do you know Melissa Franklin?"

  "Know of her. Pretty hot stuff."

  "You've been here a year. Melissa tells me she's been in Mexico a year."

  "No way. She's been humping your friend all this past year, and he has not gone near Mexico."

  "You said you were in New York three days waiting for a decision. What decision was that?"

  "I was told to confront Wiseman on the books and give 'im a chance to come clean. To come home, you know."

  "And if he didn't?"

  The old legbreaker smiled. "Then I could use my own discretion."

  "Squeeze it out of him."

  "Like that."

  "You didn't try that, though."

  "Didn't get the chance."

  "Maybe you did, at least maybe Edgar would think you did. You recovered the fifty mil and decided to keep it for yourself. But you had to cover your tracks. So you blew up all the tracks and now you're just sitting and waiting the air to clear."

  "Sure. And retire to Argentina."

  "Could be."

  "Sure it could. But it didn't turn that way."

  "But aren't you a little worried that the men in New York might wonder if it did?"

  "It occurred to me. Why do you think I'm in such a sweat, birdbrain? Maybe I have to find the guy if only to square myself. Think I'd be hanging around for any other reason? If I had the fifty I'd have already found somewhere else to count it."

  "What's with Guilder?"

  "Raw kid, but he tried hard."

  "You had him tailing Wiseman?"

  He nodded.

  "Ever wonder if Guilder was square with you?"

  "No reason to wonder. He loved to play cops and robbers. Not too quick between the ears but ... I trusted him."

  "He ever mention Melissa Franklin to you?"

  "Don't think so, except maybe in routine reports. Why?"

  "They've known each other for years. He ran into her just before she went to Mexico. So the memory was fresh. If he was shadowing Wiseman, and if she really was in Mexico all that time, don't you think he would've spotted a stand-in?"

  "I don't get it. Why would she have a stand-in? The girl was not in Mexico, Copp. She was right here in L.A. and on Wiseman's arm most every time he went out."

  "Melissa says she was in Mexico. As I get it, something to do with a plan to launder her past and then bring her back a bright new discovery. No more porno. She was called home this last weekend, got here Tuesday just in time for the fireworks. She thinks she was meant to join the fireworks. And she says that Bernie Wiseman was not in that limo."

  "I want to talk with that lady," Cassidy said.


  I told him, "You'll have to catch her first. She's buzzing around in panic and doesn't light too often. I was talking to her last night not a hundred yards removed when Guilder got it. Someone intruded on our meet. I figured maybe it was you. But now I'm thinking on a different tack. Guilder opened fire as soon as the intruder appeared, but it was a public place and anyone could have wandered in off the street—so why did he panic? I'm thinking maybe he didn't panic, maybe he knew right off who he was shooting at, and maybe he was shooting with good reason. Melissa told me that she contacted Guilder because she was scared to death and thought he could help her. But I'm wondering now . . . could Guilder have been working for Wiseman all the time you thought he was working for you?"

  Cassidy's growl was reborn. "He wasn't that smart."

  "Doesn't take smarts to double deal. Just the opposite. And why are you so sure Wiseman is still alive? Did you have Guilder staking out Franklin's place?"

  "Whose place? The girl's?"

  "No. Charles Franklin, the screenwriter, Melissa's husband."

  Cassidy shook his head. "I never figured him for anything . . ."

  "He was with Wiseman in Mexico when the horse fell on him. Claims to have been in love with Wiseman but married Melissa a year later and—"

  "In love? He's gay?"

  "Says he's gay but also celibate. Says he never lived with Melissa. Apparently Wiseman arranged the marriage and sent the girl off to Mexico . . ."

  The old ex-cop gave me a long, hard look. "How'd you get all this shit in such a short time?"

  "It's not nearly enough. You knew nothing?"

  "I knew that Franklin and Melissa were married. I knew that Franklin and Wiseman were pals, made some pictures together. And I figured that Franklin knew that his pal was banging his wife. But I never heard this other stuff."