The Big Dive

by Bruce Most

  “Hector Diaz killed my partner. Case closed. The story you need to be looking into is Senator Kane and his fraudulent law firm and the death of Marcus Raschke. Or are you still obsessed with a few dirty cops?”

  “Are you trying to distract me?”

  “Ask yourself which is the bigger story.”

  “Always playing it close to the vest, Joe. But you never come out well when you do.”

  No, but it seemed to be the only way I knew how to investigate.

  From the visitor’s gallery overlooking the Senate Chamber the next morning, I watched Crawford Kane huddle below with fellow legislators. He reminded me of a crab scuttling from one place to the next, talking conspiratorially in the ear of one legislator, leaning in the face of another, pitching whatever he was pitching while speakers droned on in front of a bank of dimly lit stained glass portraits of Colorado’s movers and shakers. He rarely sat at his desk, located almost directly below a huge ornate chandelier, except to make a point of order to the speaker or to scribble notes on a white ruled pad.

  He spotted me once during a casual survey of the uncrowded gallery. His eyes fixed on me in a moment of uncertainty before he looked away. The state senators recessed for lunch, and I caught Kane as he emerged from the chamber flanked by two cronies.

  “We need to have a little chat, senator,” I said.

  The trio, dressed in midnight blue suits and dark hats, stopped by the polished red stone trim that ran throughout much of the Capitol, stone as smooth as glass.

  “Detective Lancaster, isn’t it?” said Kane with that look the powerful tend to give peons in the presence of other powerful. When I nodded, he said, “I’d love to talk with you, detective, but right now we’re on our way to an important luncheon. Another time.”

  The important luncheon was probably a meeting with a trio of martinis at one of the nearby watering holes. Nothing Kane couldn’t miss.

  “It concerns Bailey, Wilscom and Gable,” I said.

  The muscles in Kane’s face hardened as he struggled to keep his composure. He hastily told his cronies that he’d catch up with them in a few minutes. He furrowed his eyes at me after they left. “You said something about Bailey, Wilson and what?”

  “Don’t play dumb, senator. It was a phony California law firm you set up to scam Japanese internees out of their property.”

  The senator kept his composure, though a muscle twitched by his left eye. “I really don’t—” A passing dark-suit type congratulated Kane on a morning’s parliamentary maneuver.

  “Maybe someplace a little quieter,” I suggested.

  He nodded dully and led me to a small walnut-paneled conference room just off the legislative chambers. Once inside and the door shut, he stood as if waiting for instructions, so I motioned to a spruce-green leather chair with brass rivets under an oil painting of a long-dead legislator. “Sit.”

  “I’ll stand. What is it you want, detective?”

  “Let’s start with Bailey, Wilscom and Gable,” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about them. You said they are a law firm?”

  “Can the stupid act, Kane. I know cons on the street with twice your smarts who play dumb far better than you. According to California records, you owned the firm from 1942 to late 1945.”

  “I’ve made a lot of investments over the years. It’s difficult to—”

  “You used that law firm to con the Japanese internees out of their property. You sold off their homes and their farms, you siphoned off their business profits, you—”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with your investigation into that officer’s death.”

  “One thing leads to another, senator. Now about the law firm . . . ”

  Anger flooded his face. “We were at war with the bastards. It’s not as though they were Americans!”

  “They were U. S. citizens.”

  “They were Nips! Fifth columnists for Tojo. Treason was in their blood. Just like Raschke was a commie fifth columnist. No piece of paper was going to change that!”

  “The government didn’t issue orders to steal from them.”

  “Sure it did. All you had to do was read between the lines. Everybody stole from them.” An arrogant smile creased his face. “But you can’t prove I did.”

  “I don’t need to prove anything. You’re a contender for the governorship. Skeletons rattling around on the front page won’t help your cause.”

  Kane laughed. “That’s what you’re going to do, threaten to go to the press? Nobody’s going to believe you against me. And nobody will care what the hell happened to a bunch of slope eyes during the War.”

  “They’ll care when they find out your scam resulted in the murder of that Japanese girl at the camp.”

  A slight pause. “You can’t prove that, either. And if you try, I’ll sue you and the police department for harassment.”

  “People will care when they learn her death and the scam are connected to the murder of Marcus Raschke.”

  As practiced as Kane was as a politician, he couldn’t keep his skin from going pale. “That’s nonsense. His death was an accident. He was preparing to plant a bomb in god knows what elementary school.”

  “Where’s Neil Thornton?”

  Kane licked his dry lips. “I don’t know a Neil Thornton.”

  “Sure you do, senator. He worked in records at Amache. He sold the pipe dream to the internees, and used your phony law firm to clean them out. The Jap girl learned of it, and he killed her to cover it up.”

  Kane’s eyes gave way to fear. “Jap radicals killed her.”

  “That was the official cover story. But you know the real story, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d like you to leave.”

  “Marcus Raschke was having an affair with the girl. When he learned she was pregnant, he beat her pretty badly. He had something of a temper when it came to women. According to his wife, he sneaked the girl back into camp and left her in one of the kitchen barracks. Beaten but alive. My hunch is Neil Thornton found out and saw his opportunity to permanently get rid of her. Hell, maybe he even checked with you first.”

  Kane vehemently shook his head. “He never called me. Only later did he . . . ” The senator suddenly tailed off, aware of his admission.

  “Tell you what he’d done? That he’d killed her? My hunch is he went to the kitchen and beat her some more and then dragged her outside to freeze to death.”

  Raschke always assumed he’d been responsible for her death, I thought, and Benedict carried the same guilt for aiding Raschke. I didn’t know how well they knew each other, or why Benedict went along, but he had.

  I said to Kane, “I figure after you ruined Raschke about the commie business, he threatened to expose your Amache scam, so you got Thornton to kill him.”

  Kane’s eyes jerked toward me, turned animal-like. “That’s slanderous. You’ll never prove any of it.”

  I pulled out the photograph and tapped the face of the shadowed man next to Raschke. “This the man who ran your scam inside the camp?”

  Kane glanced, then quickly looked away, as if I were showing him the picture of a mutilated corpse.

  “Where is he, Kane? Where’s Thornton? What name is he living under?”

  “I told you, I don’t know any Thornton. I didn’t order that girl killed, I had nothing to do with Raschke’s—”

  I grabbed Kane by the lapels of his expensive suit. “This guy’s leaving bodies around, senator, and when I catch him I’m going to pin his tail to your ass.”

  Kane tried to pry my hands loose but he needed a coupla years workout in LeRoy Sunday’s gym before he could manage that.

  “I’ll call security if you don’t release me immediately,” he said, his face turning red.

  I shoved him back into the chair. “Find Thornton and tell me where he is. I’ll be in touch real soon. You’re a loose end to him, and if you haven’t noticed, he’s cleaning up loose ends.”

&
nbsp; Chapter 29

  That evening, Moroni Perdue and I caught up with Dominic Zingano. Perdue had passed word to the union boss that I accepted his terms to help knock over the safe, and we needed to go over the details.

  We met in the parking lot of an auto body shop on the eastern edge of our precinct. Zingano showed up in his shiny green Hudson, Wes Jackson sitting next to him. We car-necked, driver’s side next to driver’s side.

  Perdue fidgeted next to me like a man sitting on a hot bed of coals. He’d been a wreck ever since we’d first met Zingano and Jackson in The Bottoms. We’d spoken little of that night. I sensed his shame at my discovery of his involvement with the burglary ring, shame that his descent into common criminality disappointed me. And ashamed of me, that the cop who’d broken him in as a rookie, who’d cracked one of the biggest murder cases in Denver history, was himself nothing but a common burglar.

  “Decided to take my offer, eh?” gloated Zingano. His elbow draped over the edge of the open window. The odor of paint fumes and solvents filled the air between us.

  “Seems I have no choice,” I replied. “Twenty-five percent, right?”

  He nodded.

  “All right, here’s the deal,” I said. “The safe’s in The Tuscany.”

  “That fancy new Italian restaurant on twenty-third near Gilpin?”

  “Yeah. They have a high-stakes gambling den downstairs. Very high-pillow clientele. Even a few of our honorable politicians drop in. Which means lots of cash.”

  “I’ve eaten there,” piped up Jackson from the shadows. “Took my old lady. Really good food. I didn’t know they were running a gambling joint.”

  “Always on the ball, Jackson, aren’t you?” I couldn’t resist saying.

  He threw me a glower that could burn through plate metal.

  “The restaurant’s also a money drop for bookies,” I went on. “They bring the cash in boxes and sacks along with the kitchen supplies. Thousands a day. In and out. It all goes through the safe downstairs.”

  “If this joint is all that it’s cracked up to be, why the hell haven’t I heard of it?” questioned Zingano.

  “The gambling’s new, and the bookies moved their drop there just in the past few weeks from another place that was getting heat. I got a lucky tip from one of my sources.”

  He took a long pause. “Does vice know about this place yet? I don’t want to get cross-wise with those boys.”

  “I doubt it. Even if they did, so what?”

  Zingano nodded. Vice might let a new operation ride for a while. Take a piece of the action as long as they didn’t receive reports of violence or disgruntled customers, or the departmental brass didn’t get a hair up its ass and order a “show” raid for public consumption.

  “You said forty grand might be in the safe?” Zingano asked.

  “Minimum. Maybe more. Thursday nights are when the safe is fullest before the bookie money gets dispersed over the weekend. More bills stuffed in there than in Gypsy Rose Lee’s G string.”

  “You scoped it out?”

  I nodded. “They close at midnight weeknights. One o’clock on weekends. Staff is out by one. Mostly small businesses in the neighborhood. They close up well before the restaurant. Little traffic at that hour.”

  “Guards? We don’t do armed robberies.”

  “No guards. It would bring unwanted attention. Who leaves guards at a restaurant?”

  “What about burglar alarms? If there’s that much money in the place, there must be alarms.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t want an alarm bringing cops and discovering their gambling den and the drop. They’re counting on the safe providing all the protection they need.”

  And the confidence that only fools would steal from a bunch of bookies.

  Our radios crackled with a call. Shooting on Colfax. Nothing new.

  “Your source is reliable?” asked the union boss.

  “Absolutely. Now, who’d you get for my boxman?”

  Zingano nodded toward Jackson. “Wes is.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I promised you the best boxman in town. Wes here can punch and peel anything you put in front of him. The guy takes the damn dials home and studies ’em, for chrissakes. Sometimes I think he’s less interested in the money than the challenge of bustin’ boxes that safe companies claim are burglar proof.”

  “I’m not impressed. I watched you guys struggle with old lady Blair’s puny little safe the other night. You had to drag it away in your car to get it open. You’re not gonna throw this damn safe in your trunk and haul it back to union hall so Junior G-Man can figure it out on his own sweet time.”

  Jackson glowered from the shadows of the car.

  “He’s still the best you’ll find,” said Zingano.

  I feigned a show of resistance then caved.

  “What can you tell us about the safe?” Zingano asked.

  Just then, a passing car’s headlights caught the shadows of the auto body shop. I tensed and watched the car until it was out of sight. Zingano seemed unperturbed. After all, who would be suspicious of two parked cop cars?

  I exhaled. “I haven’t seen the safe in person. It’s big like the grocery stores use, I was told. Six or seven feet tall.”

  “Diebold or Mosler?” asked Jackson.

  “Dunno.”

  Jackson whistled. “Market safes are two inches thick. They use the mother of all steel. Cold-rolled, case-hardened chromium.”

  “I warned you this wasn’t a box of Crackerjacks. Too big for you to handle?”

  “I can handle anything that you—”

  “Relax,” cut in Zingano. “We’ve busted big safes before.”

  Greed and arrogance likely made him talk big, but if my plan worked, it wouldn’t make any difference whether he was bullshitting or not. “It better work,” I said. “We won’t have all night.”

  “One other thing, Stryker,” he said. “I’m coming in on this job. That means a bigger cut.”

  “What the hell?” I protested. “I didn’t invite you. All I need is a boxman. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “That was before I heard the details. Wes is going to need help cutting on that safe. Experienced help. We use a circular saw with ten-inch industrial carborundum steel blades. The blades are big and you have to run the saw without the guard. If you bind the blade at those high RPMs, you can break it and get killed from flying pieces. Furthermore, this operation is a helluva lot bigger and riskier than you realize. The bookies are going to be none too happy we took off with their money. I’ll need to pay off people to keep them cool and swallow their losses. We’ll need more lookouts, some shift changes, that sort of thing. Perdue can be one, but we’ll need at least one, maybe two more.”

  “Jesus, Dominic, we’re burglarizing a goddamn safe, not storming Hitler’s bunker,” I said.

  “You’re the amateur here—whatever dime stores you and Benedict were knocking over. You need pros who can round up the right people, ensure they do their jobs, and keep their mouths shut. That’s my expertise.”

  I shook my head in disgust. Secretly, I smiled. I’d hoped Zingano couldn’t keep his grubby little hands off that much money.

  “You inviting anyone else to the party, besides you and boxman here?” I asked. “I don’t want any more surprises.” I was thinking of their partner, Alan Haynes.

  “Just you, me, and Wes go in. Everyone else has ancillary roles.”

  “You said a bigger a cut. How much?”

  “Sixty for us.”

  “Fuck, no! I’m the guy who brought you this. I’m taking risks, too. You’re just providing the hired help.”

  “We’re providing the tools, the expertise, and protection, Stryker, plus people I gotta pay, including your partner. That takes grease. It comes out of my cut.”

  We haggled some more and settled on fifty-fifty.

  Zingano insisted he’d have everything ready by Thursday night. Only one thing was left to do at my en
d. It was the riskiest step of all, but it was the only way I could ensure the exposure of Zingano’s ring, protect Benedict, and maybe, just maybe, keep myself out of prison. I couldn’t pull this off by myself. I needed to confide in someone. There were honest cops in the department, but in the wake of Benedict and Perdue’s betrayals, I couldn’t trust who they were. Except for one. There was one cop I could trust.

  “I gotta tip for ya, Detective Bock,” I said from a phone booth.

  “Who the hell is this?” grunted Luther Bock in his usual pleasant manner.

  “A good citizen,” I mumbled through a handkerchief.

  “Oh, yeah? So what’s your tip, pal?”

  “Dirty uniforms.”

  “What are you, in the laundry business?”

  “That stuff in the newspapers. The burglars in blue.”

  That brought a long pause at the other end of the line. “What do you know about dirty cops?”

  “They robbed the Blair safe a few days ago. And they’re planning another heist. A big one.”

  Another long pause. “How did you find this out?”

  “Sources.”

  “You a cop?” he said.

  “It’s unimportant who I am.”

  “Not to me.”

  Ironically, as much as I detested Bock, he was clean. At least, I hoped so. He’d made clear his dislike of crooked cops and made it his mission to bring down Benedict and me because he suspected we’d broken into the pawnshop. It was a major risk involving him, but I counted on him taking my bait.

  “You want to catch these crooks or not, Bock? I can always pass this on to someone else who will happily take the credit for the bust.”

  “Okay, pal, humor me. Give me names and details.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You saving ’em up for Christmas?”

  “The heist is any day now. I don’t know exactly. But it’s too risky to pass along details yet. You can’t be sure who in the department might find out and tip off these guys. In the meantime, put a coupla guys you trust on standby and say nothing to anyone else.”