Traeger looked up at him and grinned. “It is,” he said, “and it’ll stay that way. Sure, I listened. Mr. Timuroff, it’s my job to protect Dr. Grimwood and this house. I’d no more break my word to him than you would to Reese Guthrie. Fair enough?”
The anger drained out of Timuroff. “Sorry, Bill. I was looking at it only from my angle. Which bug did you leave alive?”
“The one under her bloomers,” Traeger told him.
They both laughed, and Hector Grimwood, eager and excited, came back into the room. “Thank you for ringing, Mr. Traeger. Tim, I hope all went well? I couldn’t stand just waiting quietly here, so I attended to Evangeline. She’s moved into her room. One of Mr. Traeger’s men very kindly helped me to carry her, and Mrs. Hanson brought all her little things. She’s really comfortable. And now, before you tell me what went on—I hope you’ve not been sworn to secrecy?—can we go right down to that dreadful room and rescue poor Muriel Fawzi?”
“I don’t see why not. Coming with us, Bill?”
“You bet. I can’t wait to disconnect that mike from Fuzzy Muriel.”
They followed Miss Fawzi’s anxious maker back to the iron door. They lifted her up gently, and she rewarded them with her accustomed smile, not even resenting the liberties Bill Traeger was compelled to take. They carried her in triumph to the elevator.
As they ascended, the doctor patted her affectionately. “You know,” he said, “my girls are really getting famous. People are making up dirty limericks about them. I heard one just today:
“They’re guaranteed not to be fadeable,
Wearoutable, even abradable.
They never feel ill
And they don’t need the Pill—
But I still like mine biodegradable.”
He chuckled. “To be quite frank,” he told them, “so do I.”
CHAPTER XIII
Dear Mayor Munrooney
Timuroff picked Pete up at the airport at ten fifteen next morning. Pete was alone, Olivia having decided to stay over one more day to do the zoo again, and he regarded Timuroff reproachfully.
“I told you so,” he said. “You ran me off to Disneyland so you could have the fun of chasing down our phantom all by yourself!”
Timuroff, the night before, had spent a good half hour at bedtime soothing Liselotte, who was beginning to worry for his safety. Now he apologized to Pete with an almost convincing sincerity; and, between the airport and the city, told him everything except Guthrie’s name. That, he explained, was a point of honor, but promised that in due time all would be revealed.
“Reese Guthrie,” Pete said disgustedly. “Ledenthal’s partner, and Hemmet did him dirt about a girl. Don’t get upset—I’m not telling anybody.”
Timuroff looked a little hurt.
“I ought to quote Shakespeare at you,” Pete added, “but I can’t think of anything but ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen… Okay, what do we do now?”
“First I’ll drive you home so you can drop your bag and make a phone call or two. I’m worried about that notion of Miranda’s—Hanson being found dead in his cell, an apparent suicide, with a hearsay confession ready for the press. It wouldn’t be too hard for Kielty to arrange; he must have contacts in the jail. Can you find out who his cellmate is, and who is in the cells on either side of him?”
“No sweat. Jake can manage it.”
“Fine. Then, if they’re hopheads or militants or anything like that, let’s try to get them changed.”
“And after that?”
“After that, you and I are having lunch with Clayton Faraday. Norm Edstrom is going to join us later at the shop. And I’m going to tell them just about what I’ve told you. We’ll see if we can interest them enough at least to listen to the tapes.”
“For a humble little antique arms dealer, you’re doing fine. All we’ll be doing is asking a top federal judge, the guy who throws the book at people, and a Treasury agent, one of the guys who puts the bracelets on them, to listen to illegal tapes illegally obtained with the assistance of a police officer by a man who has committed murder, and then to act illegally on what they hear. Don’t you know the federal courts exist to protect the rights of really useful citizens like Hemmet and Miranda and van Zaam?”
“Don’t be bitter. Anyway, I’m not going to ask them to act illegally on anything. We’ll get them information on which a legal warrant can be issued. Clayton’s a rare bird—he’s more concerned with protecting honest men and their society than with twisting legal technicalities. That’s why they turned him down for the supreme court five years ago. He’ll at least listen.”
“Dreamer! He’ll probably issue warrants for our arrest. And if he does listen, then what? You said yourself Miranda’s got another hiding place. A search warrant’s no good unless you find out where to search. How do we do that?”
“I’ll get it out of Hemmet.”
“That’ll be the day!”
“I’ll get it if I have to kill him.”
Pete shook his head. “The things folks say to homicide inspectors! Did you know you’re wearing your Ivan the Terrible face again?”
“Thank you,” said Timuroff politely.
“I thought you’d like to know. It might prejudice a jury.” The Mazda pulled into the apartment house garage, and they went upstairs, where Pete made his calls. He told Jake Harrell only that he’d left Olivia in the south and flown back because a cousin had been taken ill—which meant that Jake would call him back from an outside phone. He did so ten minutes later, and he already had the answers where Hanson was concerned. His cellmate was a very nasty character named Ollie Upshed, known in the East Bay as a sort of criminal handyman, with everything from purse-snatching to dope-peddling on his record. He had replaced a forger the day before. Jake wasn’t sure who was in the adjoining cells, but he’d find out. Anyhow, he’d arrange that Hanson was surrounded by nothing but honest burglars from now on—or at least enough of them to make sure nothing happened. As for Upshed, they’d best get word to Hanson to pick a fight with him, late on the swing shift preferably, so there’d be a real reason to put somebody else in. It’d mean another charge for Hanson, but what the hell.
Pete hung up. “That should take care of it,” he said. “Good,” said Timuroff. “I’ll phone Heck.”
He called the doctor, who was busy getting Evangeline ready for her final programming, and was assured that Mrs. Hanson would take the message when she visited the jail later in the day.
“That,” declared Dr. Grimwood, “is the kind of legal advice he’ll appreciate. He detests his roommate.”
Timuroff said he’d see him toward suppertime, and put back the phone. “We’d better hurry,” he told Pete. “The judge is going to meet us at the Jade Pavilion. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Pete looked at him mournfully. “Behold the whiskered Muscovite,” he declaimed, “blown by the ill wind of his own madness to his doom!”
“That isn’t Shakespeare?”
“No, it’s Cominazzo—but it fits.” Pete double-locked the door behind them. “Except your being whiskered. I put that in because Muscovites ought to be. Anyhow, think about it when the judge bears down on you.”
On this foreboding note, they drove to the restaurant, where Clayton Faraday was waiting for them. At first glance, people always thought him frail—and were surprised to find that he was as tough as whalebone, both spiritually and physically. Any perceptive man, thought Timuroff, needed only to look into his eyes, gray and alert and absolutely steady under his level brows, to forget his size and age completely. He was full of a cold fire, a tempered strength.
They lunched, and at first talked very generally about the world and its affairs, moonflights and lunacies, rivalries and fashions, works of art and riots of destruction. Then, without noticing how the change was
made, Pete realized that suddenly they were discussing the Munrooney case—or rather that Clayton Faraday was asking subtle, penetrating questions about its background, about Hector Grimwood and his house and girls, about Amos Ledenthal, Hemmet and Miranda Gardner and van Zaam, Hanson and Kielty and the chief, about old weapons and older ways of killing men—and that as he asked them they seemed much less like questions than innocent grace notes dropped casually into the stream of conversation.
Pete realized again then that, if you happened to be very far on the wrong side of the law, Judge Clayton Faraday was a man really to be feared.
“Tim, this has been delightful.” The judge bowed his appreciation. “But I want to hear your real story. Let us go and meet our Mr. Edstrom.”
There was only casual conversation on the drive over to the shop, and they found Norman Edstrom already there. He knew Pete, but he had never really met the judge, and he was obviously impressed, especially when Faraday remembered him and complimented him on his testimony in two separate cases. They entered. The judge took a seat. Instantly, a courtroom dignity mantled the room.
“Let’s get to business,” he said.
“Very well,” said Timuroff. “I am going to ask you and Norman here to listen to more than twenty hours of tapes, or at least to their more important sections. They were surreptitiously recorded with the assistance of a police officer, and—as I understand the law—are not admissible as evidence. In short, the whole thing is and was illegal. However, these tapes reveal the truth regarding the murder of Munrooney—for which two innocent men are now being framed—a murder in which the man van Zaam was a mere instrument. They tell of the murder, by van Zaam, of a girl in Berkeley. They also point to concrete evidence which can be seized legally, and which will, I believe, break the back of a criminal deeply involved in the hard narcotics traffic in this area, and employing every weapon from blackmail and bribery to murder.”
“A tall order,” murmured Faraday. “Go on.”
And Timuroff, episode by episode and point by point, told them the whole story as he knew it, holding back only what he—as a seventeenth-century gentleman—felt he could not honorably reveal. It took him a little more than an hour, and he was interrupted only by a few questions, all Edstrom’s, and by Faraday’s occasional quiet comments, which always seemed inconsequential until seemingly unheralded facets of the story displayed the almost clairvoyant reasoning and perception on which they had been based.
Finally he finished, and for a moment there was quiet Then Clayton Faraday leaned forward, pressing his fingertips together. “I hope, Tim,” he said, “that you didn’t promise this man you call the Phantom of the Opera that I’d shut my eyes to crimes he has committed, or keep this matter secret, or protect him from the law?”
“I told him I had no authority to promise anything,” Timuroff replied. “But I did tell him what I thought your reaction at this point might be.”
“And that was?”
“That, in my opinion, your concern was as much with decency and justice as with the letter of the law—especially when the law itself was being tampered with to pervert justice. I told him I didn’t think either you or Norman would act against him while a chance remained that the testimony of his tapes and the charges he himself has made were true.”
Faraday’s face was stern. “You were right—but you had no right to be. You’ve placed me in a very difficult position, and Mr. Edstrom in one scarcely less embarrassing. Naturally—” He smiled suddenly. “I myself wish more citizens were like you, but that’s because I do not share my profession’s present esteem for criminals. Subconsciously, you know, men forward their own interests, and we lawyers have been no exception to the rule. To many of us, criminals are not liabilities but assets. We are the only men who really need them. Only we can remain uncriticized when we become deeply involved with them—like Hemmet and Munrooney and how many more? They make our reputations. A few dramatic prosecutions can propel a sharp DA right into orbit—a governorship, a Supreme Court appointment, perhaps the Presidency itself. And because we lawyers govern you—we are an absolute majority in both houses of the legislature—we have contrived a legal system which makes both prosecution and defense too complicated, too sensational, and very profitable indeed. Consider the Sirhan trial, or Manson’s. However, these are the laws with which, for the moment, we must live. The people you are challenging are people of great power and considerable prestige. They are people who five not just by breaking laws but by manipulating all their technicalities—so successfully that it has been impossible to root out either political corruption or the organized crime that thrives on it. Regardless of the content of your tapes, these people aren’t going to be easy to attack.” He smiled again. “And now you’ve seen how cynical I am, tell me—why did you come to me, Tim, instead of the law enforcement agencies, who I’m sure would have listened to your tapes without asking too many questions or making too much fuss?”
Timuroff looked at him. “Because,” he said, “the people we’re challenging are what you said they are. Time and red tape are always on their side. If you consent to enter into this, and if after listening to the tapes you are convinced, then when we strike we can strike instantly. That is the only way they can be caught off balance.”
“Exactly,” growled Edstrom, and Pete nodded.
“It seems I’m destined to play devil’s advocate,” said Clayton Faraday. “You have more than twenty hours of taped conversations. Electronics experts can cut and patch and make almost anything out of that much talk. Even if none of it is to be used as evidence, what if the fact of its existence becomes known? That alone could be highly damaging, regardless of your concrete evidence. Cases have been tossed out of court for less. Wait!” He raised a hand as Timuroff started to protest. “We must examine every facet of this. There’s one especially with which I’m not satisfied—the motive for the alleged murder of Munrooney. From what you’ve said, the conversations do not make this clear—and yet you may be forced to make it clear in court, especially if no supporting evidence is found. Remember, your adversaries won’t let you keep it simple.”
“Sir,” put in Edstrom, “we may not need to charge them with the mayor’s murder. If what we’ve heard is true, there’ll be enough other felony counts against them to really knock them in the head.”
“And will that clear Mr. Hanson and prevent Dr. Grimwood’s prosecution?”
Even Timuroff remained silent, and the judge answered his own question. “There is an excellent chance that it will not. Lieutenant Kielty’s possible involvement in such things as bribery and the narcotics traffic will not necessarily invalidate his testimony in an apparently unrelated murder case; nor will the prosecuting attorney necessarily drop the charges simply because of a sensational exposure of civic rottenness and police corruption. No, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to show a motive, and wrap up the Munrooney murder with the rest of it.”
“But that may be impossible,” said Timuroff. “Perhaps no evidence exists, and Hemmet and Miranda certainly aren’t going to be very hel—”
The doorbell rang.
“Now who the hell is that?” Pete exclaimed. “Stitchgrove, with the SPCA hot on his trail?”
“My God! Pete, I’d forgotten. It must be Sergeant Wallton. He phoned while you were gone, saying he’d drop your target pistol off today. Will you let him in? I’ll get our drinks started.”
Pete opened the door carefully. “Denny!” he cried out. “It’s good to see you. Come on in.”
“Hey, Pete in person! I thought you’d be down south.” Wallton entered, a powerful black man with a military moustache. “Look, I hope I’m not bulling in at the wrong time. I see you’ve got some high-powered company.”
“God, no.” Pete took him by an elbow. “We’ve had developments in the Munrooney business, and we’re just about to have a drink to ce
lebrate.”
“Will you join us?” called Timuroff.
“Happy to.”
Pete made the introductions. Like Edstrom, whom he already knew, Wallton had never met the judge personally, and he too was impressed.
Timuroff took their orders. They sat down with their drinks. “Cheers!” Wallton said to Pete. They drank.
He had put down the shoebox he was carrying, and Pete’s glance fastened on it. “What’s this you have for me?” he asked.
Wallton grinned. “That’s window dressing, in case the wrong people saw me coming here. Throw it away. What I’ve got could be a lot more important.” From the inner pocket of his jacket he took a long manila envelope. Then he looked a little hesitantly at Clayton Faraday.
“Go ahead,” Pete told him. “It’s all part of the same deal, and the judge knows just about as much as any of us.”
“Okay.” Out of the envelope, Wallton drew another, from which in turn he took a folded letter. “Pete, I had no use for Mayor Munrooney. To him, I was a nigger—a black who couldn’t live without his kind of busybody to think for me. Those of us, like my old man and me and plenty more, who’d made it on our own were just Toms to him, like to the shiftless bums and Mau-Mau militants, because we didn’t need him any more than we need them. He had me on the guard detail not because I was a good cop, but as a showpiece.” He looked around. “Anyhow, while I was on it I caught on to a lot of high-level political conniving that probably he thought I couldn’t even understand. One piece of it was in this letter.” He unfolded it. “I found it on the car seat where he had dropped it, and I brought it back to him. He must’ve guessed I’d looked at it, because for a second he was all shaken up. Then he turned on the personality, and put his arm over my shoulders, and thanked me. ‘I very much appreciate this, Sergeant Wallton,’ he told me, ‘and I want you to keep this letter for your boys. Someday it may be worth quite a piece of change. But, because it is important, I want you to promise me that you’ll not say a word about it, not to anyone.’ Well, of course I promised, but recently I got to thinking how this case really stinks, with the chief and Kielty trying to job Pete the same way they did me, so when Pete phoned I had no trouble making up my mind. And here it is.”
The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack Page 67