by Bruce Most
“Don’t think so.”
“First name?”
“Dunno,” I said.
“What do you know?”
“That I need to find him.”
Chapter 27
I read in yesterday’s paper that American troops used flamethrowers to fry a bunch of Chinks heavily bunkered twenty miles northwest of Seoul. Or was it the day before? The battles all sounded alike. Much like the streets of Denver. We take a hill one day, the bad guys retake it the next. Or they overrun a new hill and we have to assault that one. After a while, you’re not sure what the hell you’re fighting over.
My investigation of Benedict’s murder had fallen into a similar sense of stalemate. I’d gain a hill here and lose a hill there. Each new piece of evidence I captured made matters more confusing, not clearer. New hills arose out of nowhere. Trying to tie Amache and Raschke and Benedict and Diaz and Zingano’s dark riders together—if they were tied together—was as bad as slogging through cold Korean mud.
I was in a dead-end alley with Camp Amache, and I wasn’t doing any better with Dominic Zingano. Three days had passed since confronting Perdue in the floral shop, yet no word from the union boss whether he would provide assistance for the burglary I was planning. I bugged Perdue each shift, and each shift he said be patient.
Zingano’s lack of response reinforced my suspicion that he was the one who’d made the threatening call to my house. He didn’t trust me, and he blamed me for the heat being brought down on dirty cops, so he wouldn’t risk my becoming part of their burglary ring.
Yet he couldn’t ignore me, not with me witnessing their burglary of Blair Secondhand. I was a threat to them. They’d have to work with me—or kill me.
Shortly after ten o’clock in the evening of the third night, not long after our dinner break, Perdue and I took our usual pass through The Bottoms down by the South Platte River. Once filled with vibrant Italian truck farms at the turn of the century, the Bottoms had sunk into a gloomy collection of warehouses, abandoned buildings, railroad tracks, and dark empty lots, towered over by the silhouette of a flourmill. The only people down here at this hour were derelicts, thieves, and teenagers hot to get it on in the back seat.
It was near here two years ago where Perdue and I discovered the headless body of a murder victim.
The evening was cool but we patrolled with our windows down to catch any suspicious sounds. Nothing but the distant din of the city and the nearby rumble of a passing train. As we passed a school supply warehouse on Huron Street, headlights suddenly loomed behind us. I twisted and squinted out the rear window. The vehicle was closing on us. The unmistakable silhouette of the single red dome light of a patrol car. A patrol car out of its precinct.
I stared at Perdue. “Zingano?”
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“I swear, Joe. He said nothing to me.”
“Pull over.”
We did. The headlights slowed and stopped ten feet behind us. The front passenger door opened and a man in civilian clothes stepped out. A towering man. In a cowboy hat.
I came fast out the passenger door, my hand close to my gun.
“Easy, Stryker,” said Zingano. He raised empty hands. “We just came to talk. Per your request.”
The driver exited. Wes Jackson in uniform. I couldn’t see his hands, so my hand remained near my gun. He cleared the car enough to show he wasn’t holding anything, though his gun was close by on his hip.
Perdue got out. “Dominic. You coulda told me you wanted to meet—”
“No, I couldn’t,” he snapped. Perdue fell silent. He seemed to sense his place around the big man.
The Bottoms was part of our nightly patrol routine and they’d waited for us. I scanned the shadows of the block. Shadows where other pals of Zingano might be waiting.
The fetid odors of the river drifted over us.
I refocused on Zingano. “Helluva place to meet, Dominic. Your office woulda been more comfortable.”
“More secure this way,” he said. “The wrong people might be listening.”
“You believe the department has your office wired?”
He smiled cynically. “They would love to know our union’s plans. But in this case, I’m thinking more along the lines of entrapment.”
“You worried I’m setting you up?”
“Chief Hamilton would love to take me down and the union with it.”
“C’mon, Dominic, if I were a stoolie for the department, I woulda arrested your ass the other night at Blair’s. Right in the act. I wouldn’t be risking my ass out here on a dark street.”
“Jesus, Joe,” interjected Perdue, “Dominic wouldn’t do anything like—”
“What is it you want, Stryker?” cut in Zingano. He was being careful to let me initiate any suggestion of criminal activity.
As much as I wanted to get in his face over the threatening phone call to my home and my family, now was not the time. Far more important that I set my sting.
“Like I told Moroni, I got a big job,” I said. “Something Benedict and I were working on. With him dead, I need assistance. I understand everything has to come through you.”
Zingano threw a glare at Perdue, as if to say don’t talk so damn much. I do the talking. He refocused on me. “What gives you the idea I could or would be willing to help with this . . . job?”
“Why else would you be here, Dominic?”
“It’s my duty as union president. When I hear rumors implying dirty cops, I check them out.”
“Let’s not pussy foot around. Benedict told me what you guys do. You implied it when you asked me to get Lou Sheppard off the dirty cop story. That’s why I observed you breaking into Blair’s the other night. Checking you out to see if you were up to the task.”
That was a gamble. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence that Benedict worked with Zingano’s burglary ring.
“Benedict had a loud mouth,” said Zingano.
Loud enough for you to kill him?
The squawk box in both of our cars chattered out a call for car seven in Precinct 50 to respond to an auto theft in progress. The shrillness startled us in the quiet, as if the boxes were listening in on us.
When the chatter died, Zingano said, “What’s this big job?”
“A safe with a helluva lot of money in it. More than you guys get robbing five-and-dime stores. But I’m no safecracker. I need a good boxman.”
“I need more details.”
“Nah, nah, Dominic. The only detail you get at this stage is that it involves a lot of money. The rest can wait until it’s time. If you help me.”
“You got a lot of balls, Stryker,” said Jackson
“They’re what keep me going.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself, Dominic.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the patrol car. I figured going in that Zingano and Jackson would be wary of me. My plan was to override their distrust by luring them in with two things they could trust: their own arrogance and greed.
“All I need is a good boxman,” I said. “Figured you’d know one. A referral fee for you, of course. Though I gotta say, after watching you guys struggle with old lady Blair’s safe I’m dubious you’re up to the task.”
Jackson stepped toward me. “Hey, we got it—”
“Quiet, Wes,” snapped Zingano.
“The point is,” I went on, “this safe is not a box of Crackerjacks. It’s big and tough. And I don’t know how to peel a safe. I’d rather work with cops. Guys I can trust. You can’t depend on common criminals. But if you don’t have a guy who’s up to the task, I’ll recruit outside help.”
Big Z seemed to be weighing the pros and cons.
“Fuck ’im,” said Jackson when the silence became unbearable. “Walk away, Dominic. Let him get his own ass caught.”
“That’s the problem, Wes,” said Zingano. “If he gets caught, it’s bad for the rest of us. Brings too
much attention. It’s shitty enough with this reporter poking under rocks. We don’t need the department doing it, too.”
“I don’t plan on getting caught,” I said.
Zingano laughed. “No one does. But shit happens. Ask all those lowlifes in jail. That’s why I don’t like rogues. Things are less apt to go wrong and people are less apt to get caught and rat on each other if we’re all in it together. Discipline, Stryker, discipline.”
For the first time, I sensed him taking my bait. But I buried the hook in him just a little deeper.
“I’ll take my chances if you aren’t willing to help,” I said. “The money’s too good.”
He shook his head in slow disapproval. “Look what happened when you and Benedict tried doing things on your own. Shit happens. He’d be alive if we’d provided protection and services.”
“You know who killed him?”
“No, I don’t. Only that it’s always riskier going out on your own.”
Was Zingano implying they’d kill me if I went rogue?
Zingano raised his big right hand and rubbed his fingertips together. “You said a lot of scratch, Joe. How much? You can tell us that, can’t you? Or is it nothing but big talk?” He touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “All hat and no cattle.”
“Yeah, well the safe I have in mind has a lot of cattle.” I paused for effect. “Forty grand. More if our timing’s good.”
Everyone whistled.
Even Wes Jackson now looked as if he’d take the bait.
“That big a theft could bring a lot of heat from the department,” Zingano said. “That’s dangerous.”
I shook my head. “That’s the sweet deal here, Dominic. The victims won’t go to the cops.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say their money is dirty, too.”
“Then they might try to bring their own justice,” he said.
“Oh, they will. But if you’re as good as I hear, I’m sure you can persuade them to take their loss in silence.”
“A job that big will require more work on our part,” he said. “A bigger cut.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five percent of the take.”
“Jesus! This is why I didn’t want you guys involved other than giving me the name of a boxman. This is my job. I’m the one who came up with it. A plan and everything.”
In the distance, a train whistle echoed in the darkness.
“Our services ensure you get to keep the other seventy-five percent,” said Zingano. “We’ll see that you get the best boxman in town. We’ll provide cover. It’s important that the right cops know when something is going down so there’s no accidental interference. Should things go wrong, god forbid, we go to bat for you. We have friends throughout command. Friends who will do favors to ensure your problem disappears. I don’t offer that to rogues.”
“Friends who helped you get Perdue here to spy on me?”
Zingano remained silent.
I shook my head in feigned disgust. “I’ll mull it over.”
“There’s nothing to mull over, Stryker. It’s my way or no way.”
Chapter 28
Lou Sheppard called early afternoon before my shift. I hoped the reporter was calling with good news. God knows I needed some to work with, a break in the case. I wanted my family back.
“I tracked down the information you wanted on that California law firm,” he said over the chatter of the newsroom in the background.
“Great! What do you have?”
“Not over the phone. Face to face, Joe.”
“Why?”
“I found some very intriguing information and I want to know why you want to know it. Meet you at The Press Club in an hour.”
The Press Club was Lou’s second home, second only to police headquarters where he lived for the arrival of the next report of a crime. It was the lunch hour and the club was packed with its usual contingent of tired alcoholics and fresh-faced reporters. We sat at an empty poker table in the basement with two beers. I shouldn’t be boozing before a shift, but I got the sense this wasn’t going to be good.
“So what’s the big deal you couldn’t tell me on the phone, Lou?” I asked over the whir of cards and clink of chips at a nearby table
Sheppard wagged his finger. “You first. Why your interest in this law firm?”
I took a stiff drink. “Marcus Raschke didn’t die accidentally from that bomb blast. He was murdered. And his murder might be tied to the law firm.”
The reporter’s eyes lit up. He reached for a notebook inside his frayed suit jacket, but I stopped him with my hand.
“No notes, Lou. Not yet.”
Sheppard set his hands back on the table. “You have proof he was murdered? Homicide sure as shit ain’t saying that.”
“Ask the dicks why a man who allegedly hid twenty pounds of dynamite in his basement to make bombs would bother to wipe his fingerprints off the stuff. As well as the gun they found.”
“You’re saying the dynamite and the gun were planted?”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
“A tip.”
“Your tip say who killed him?”
“No. But you can figure the list is pretty long.”
“Why your interest in Raschke? He ain’t your case. You’re a beat cop. You ain’t even supposed to have cases.”
“Something I stumbled across.”
The reporter’s expression said he suspected I hadn’t “stumbled across” my alleged information, but he let it go. Too much history of my not telling him everything. “This information you have, Lou, does it fit into that scenario?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He pulled out a battered spiral notebook and flipped through pages. “I contacted a reporter friend at the Sacramento Bee. Old salt named Zeke Wigglesworth. Name like that he shoulda been English royalty instead of a reporter, but—”
“Get to the point, friend.”
Sheppard found the notes he was searching for. “Zeke said Bailey, Wilscom and Gable was established as a partnership in November forty-two and dissolved in October forty-five. Its address was a PO box in Thousand Oaks. Curious that a law firm would have only a PO box for an address. It got more curious when Zeke called several lawyers in Thousand Oaks, but none of them ever recalled the firm or any lawyers by those names. The state’s registry also showed no lawyers with those names connected to such a firm. Instead, there was only one lawyer’s name listed in the partnership documents, a jackleg lawyer out of Fresno named Shaw whose heart blew out in forty-eight.” Sheppard flipped his notebook shut. “Your law firm was a shell.”
“That’s it?” I said. “I came all the way down here for that?”
Sheppard grinned. “I’m saving the best for last.”
“I thought reporters always lead with the best part.”
“I’m a closet novelist. We save the best for last.”
“Pray, speak, Hemingway, before I break your typing fingers.”
Sheppard looked around the room, leaned across the table, and said in a confidential voice, “The records show that the firm was owned by Crawford Kane.”
I almost choked on my beer. “Senator Crawford Kane?”
“The same. His address was listed as Colorado Springs.”
I whistled softly. Crawford Kane, who’d publicly denounced the presence of the Japanese-American prison camp in the state, had lined his pockets defrauding the camp’s internees.
Which meant Kane conspired with the mysterious Neil Thornton, a suspect in Raschke’s death. And maybe Benedict’s.
Sheppard leaned closer. “Kane’s name grabbed my balls, Joe, as you can imagine. Why would he own a California law firm that appears to be nothing more than a shell? Where did you come up with the name of the law firm?”
“I can’t tell you my source. I can tell you this law firm took control of the estates of many of the Jap internees at Camp Amache on the pretense of helping them save their homes and businesses during t
heir imprisonment. Kane must have used the jackleg lawyer to handle the legal paperwork in California. When the internees were released, they discovered it was a scam. They’d been conned out of their property. Most of them lost their homes, their businesses, savings, possessions, everything.”
Lou glanced at the four men engrossed in their poker game and said in a banked voice, “You’re accusing Kane of defrauding these Japs?”
“Damn right.”
Sheppard sighed. “Nobody’s gonna care about this as a story, Joe. Even if it could be proved. People in the state agreed with Kane. They still have a lot of animosity over the Japs’ treatment of our prisoners.”
“People might care if it’s linked to Raschke’s death.”
Sheppard looked up from his beer. “How?”
“I’m trying to find out. Our dead professor was an Amache camp administrator. He might have been involved the scam. Or at least knew of it.”
“You’re suggesting Senator Kane had something to do with Raschke’s death?”
Kim Raschke fingered Kane as a suspect because he and other anti-commies wanted to silence her husband and his research against McCarthy. But Kane’s link to the fraudulent law firm suggested another motive—a cover-up. But why after seven years?
“I can’t get into the details yet, but yes, his death and the scam may be linked.”
The reporter licked his lips like a lion ready to pounce on his prey. He got us two more beers. “Tell me more about this scam.”
I gave him a sketchy outline of what I’d learned, holding back the names of the Japanese internee who’d told me about it, Yamazaki, and Neil Thornton, who’d exploited the fears of internees and steered them to Kane’s fake law firm. I also held back mention of the Jap girl likely murdered to hide the scam. Too risky it might lead Lou to the discovery that Benedict was a camp guard back then and his linkage to Raschke. All four men connected to the camp, and two of them dead.
Lou gave a low whistle. “How did you learn this, Joe? Homicide sure as hell doesn’t want you nosing in its shit.”
“I can’t tell you.”
The reporter frowned. He took a drink and pondered for a long moment. “You sure this doesn’t have something to do with the murder of your partner?”