CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

 

“What the hell is going on?” I asked the bathroom mirror when I was eventually able to hobble out of bed. The image that gazed back—wispy hair standing straight out, red-rimmed, watering eyes goggling out from a face covered with pale blue muck—looked like something that had just climbed down from the New Guinea highlands. And it didn’t have any answers.

I kept asking the question as I made an attempt to get my place right-side up again. I still hadn’t made any sense out of it. None of it. The kid showing up, the way he acted. That bit about Sal. Nothing figured.

About all I had decided was that Tony New must’ve gotten a line on me the same way I got onto him—through the car and a Department of Motor Vehicles check. I hadn’t thought there’d be any reason to be circumspect, had assumed the matter was over when I’d gotten the dough back. Live and learn.

I lay down on my bed. I had just about convinced myself that it had all been a hallucination when there was a pounding on my front door. It sounded like someone was battering it with a Smithfield ham.

I pulled on a green terry-cloth bathrobe, the pile of which was mostly worn down to a patchy nub, limped into the front room, and opened the door. On the other side of the screen were two big guys—mid-thirties, I guessed—with rumpled brown suits, white wash-and-wear shirts that could’ve used some bleach, and pulled-down neckties spotted with the remains of a month’s lunches. Except for the fact that they looked meaner, they might have been related to Tony’s goons.

I was close.

Simultaneously, they flipped open little cases and showed badges and I.D. cards.

“Nicholson. Narcotics,” the one in front said. The other one didn’t say anything.

I quickly flashed the lapel of my bathrobe. “Spanner. Geriatrics.”

Nicholson looked like he’d tasted something rotten. “Can we come in?”

Before I could answer, they’d pulled open the screen door and planted themselves in the living room.

“Sure, why not?” I said.

Nicholson looked me up and down. He didn’t seem delighted by what he saw. He also seemed tired, like he’d been going full out for three or four days. “Okay, Spanner,” he sighed. “What kind of game are you playing?”

Huh?

I shrugged. “A little bridge. A little cribbage. Sometimes some gin.”

Nicholson pulled another face. “Jesus fucking Christ! Just what I needed, a hundred-year-old asshole.” He turned to his partner. “Toss the place.”

“Uh, I don’t suppose you have a warrant or something like that?”

“You want us to get one?”

I looked at Nicholson. He was not a happy man. I got the distinct impression that I was a major source of his discontent.

“No, don’t bother,” I said. “Go ahead. Be my guest.”

The partner started in. He wasn’t as rough as Tony’s boys, but he was nearly as messy. Swell.

While his partner worked, Nicholson just stood there, glowering and tapping his wristwatch with a thick finger. The guy found my little store of smoke, held it up for Nicholson, and the two of them shook their heads. Nicholson continued to glower and tap. No question, he was acting like a pure son of a bitch, but maybe he had his reasons. Obviously, there was a lot going on that I didn’t know about. I thought maybe I should try not to antagonize any more people, at least not until after lunch.

“Sergeant—it is Sergeant, isn’t it?—why don’t you sit down?”

He thought about it. He sat. I sat. Progress.

“What can I do for you, Sergeant? What’s going on here?”

“Funny. That was my question for you.”

“I really don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, all this is a mystery.”

“A mystery, huh? Okay, Mr. Spanner. Tell me about your connection with Anthony Novallo, otherwise known as Tony New.”

“Never heard of him,” I said. So much for cooperation.

“What about the guy that was here forty-five minutes ago?”

“Oh, was that this Novallo? I never got his name.”

“No? What was he doing here?”

“Looking for somebody. The previous tenant.”

“Yeah? The previous tenant moved out in 1948.”

They’d been checking. That sure didn’t look good. I shrugged, like it wasn’t my fault.

“So what’d you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know where the guy was.”

“And that took twenty minutes?”

I shrugged again. “We had coffee.”

Nicholson made a warning sound in his throat. I wasn’t doing such a swell job of making friends, but I didn’t want to say anything until I had a better idea about the direction things were moving. The only thing I was sure of was that Tony New hadn’t called in the cops. So why were they here?

The partner came in. He handed Nicholson the computer printout and whispered in his ear. He gestured toward the backyard and whispered some more. Nicholson looked at the guy, then at me, then said, “Shit.” The partner went out. Nicholson shook the paper at me.

“What’re you doing with this?”

“I collect license numbers. You know, it’s kind of a hobby.” Great answer, Spanner. Really cogent.

The sergeant thought so, too. “Yeah, right. Where’d you get a DMV printout?”

“I can’t remember. Must’ve picked it up someplace.”

“Yeah, they’re on every corner—right?—along with the sex newspapers.” He closed his eyes, squeezed the bridge of his nose, sighed wearily. “Spanner, do you know how many guys I have to deal with every day who’re just like you? Shit. I will say this, though. You’ve got to be the oldest bastard who’s ever tried to feed me a line.”

“What can I say?”

“How about the straight story, for a change?”

“Okay.”

“Tony New?”

“I already told you, I never saw him before this morning.”

“No? What about yesterday?”

“Yesterday? Not that I know of.”

Nicholson’s face grew dark, angry. This seemed to be my morning for raising blood pressure. He started to say something, then swallowed it. Tried again and stopped. The third time he got it out. “Okay, cut the shit, you stupid old man! You have pushed it to the limit. Over, finished, finito! Listen—I saw you knock over Tony New yesterday. About a dozen other cops saw you do it. We have it on video tape. We’ve got it on movie film. We’ve got stills. Nice, clear, and close up.”

What could I say? “Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm. Fucking right—hmm! Now, just keep listening, Spanner. Apparently, from what I understand, you had a pretty good rep at one time. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know or care. Whatever it was, it was a million years ago. And as far as I’m concerned, now you’re just another asshole who’s fucking up my life. You’re in trouble, old man. You’re so deep in shit you need a shovel to see nighttime. Now, I don’t want you under any misapprehension about this, so I’m going to make it clear. On the off chance that you have something other than shit for a brain—that you’re an asshole, but not a completely stupid asshole—I’m going to lay it out for you so you will see how things stand.”

Nicholson laid it out. Did he ever. I began to see why he was mildly pissed off. I began to understand. some other stuff as well. Holy shit.

According to the sergeant, I had waltzed into what was to have been the culmination of a long-term investigation. Tony Novallo was right in the middle of a huge cocaine operation. The cops had been onto him for some time, but had been moving very slowly and carefully. They didn’t just want a bust; they wanted to smash the setup for good. Yesterday had been the day. The kid had been on his way to make a major pickup, and the cops had had it covered all down the line. Until I inserted myself into the scenario.

They had gotten the coke—fifteen kilos worth—and Tony’s contact, a baggage handler at LAX, but that guy was only a functionary, a hired hand between the groups in Colombia and here. The kid had been the one they wanted. Generally regarded as one of the ugliest customers anyone had seen for a long time, three levels of law enforcement had been after him for several years, without success. This operation would have done it. Tony New would’ve been tied up good and tight, and the cops thought they might even have been able to get to the people behind him, people Nicholson described as some very serious individuals.

Now all that work had fallen way short of its goal, and Nicholson was looking at me and wondering why. Under the circumstances, that didn’t strike me as being absolutely unreasonable.

So I told him the story. The kidnapping, the ransom drop, the stick-up, the license plate, the investigation and search, locating the kid, and the surveillance. I didn’t need to tell him about the recovery, The problem was, hearing myself relate it, it didn’t sound any more plausible than my earlier evasions. Especially since that saga of crime and detection was coming out of the mouth of an old fart in pajamas and bathrobe who looked like he probably needed to sleep on a rubber sheet. If it seemed that way to me, I could only imagine how Nicholson was taking it. Judging from the way he was looking out from under his eyebrows, not well.

“What’d you do after you got the money?” he said.

“Don’t you know?”

“Why should I know?”

“You’ve got this elaborate operation. Didn’t you put somebody on me?”

Nicholson looked away briefly, frowning. “We weren’t set up for that.”

“Still...”

“Okay, we did. He lost you.”

I could see it was a sore point with him, so I didn’t make any of the wise remarks that came to mind.

“What’d you do with the money?” he said.

“I came back here and returned it to its owner.”

“And who might that be?” Nicholson’s tone was the same that all cops adopt when they don’t believe a word you’re saying, like, “Come on, let’s get this ritual over so we can start to cut the crap.”

I hardly hesitated before saying, “Sal Piccolo.” I figured I was way past the point of maintaining client confidentiality.

Nicholson wrinkled his forehead and looked disgusted. For some reason, that didn’t seem to be a very good answer this time either. He got up and went into the kitchen, where I heard him using the phone. The partner had come back after tearing the house apart and was standing stolidly by the front door, just in case I tried to make a break for it in my bedroom slippers.

Nicholson came back and stood in front of me, hands on his hips, kind of hulking over me.

“This Sal Piccolo? This the gangster?”

“Yeah.”

“The same one you sent up a long time ago?”

“Yeah.”

“And he came to you to help him in this thing?”

“Right again.”

“No, not right. You know what I think, Spanner? I think you’re full of shit. I think you are, in fact, a stupid asshole. I think you are all the more stupid because you think you can run this number on me. And I think you’re in this up to your eyeballs.”

“Wait—”

“You wait. Somehow or other, Novallo must’ve gotten onto us, and decided this would be a good way of finding out what was happening. Personally, I wouldn’t use an old shit like you, but maybe he thought it’d be cute. There’s a few things I haven’t quite put together, but at least that accounts for how you happened to show up at just the right moment. It also explains how an old guy like you could so easily take down an evil little weasel like Tony New. And also why Tony New came here this morning.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Spanner, I most certainly am. That, at least, makes some sense of what happened, a lot more than that song and dance you handed out. In fact, about the only thing that doesn’t make sense is why you’d try to pass off such a ridiculous story.”

“It may be ridiculous, but it happens to be true. Instead of arguing about it, why don’t you check it?”

“And how should I do that?”

“Easy. Get in touch with Sal.”

“Oh? That could be a bit rough.” Nicholson bent over so his face was right up against mine. He smelled of sweat and breath mints. “You dumb shit, Sal Piccolo died two years ago.”

I might have made some noises, but I doubt that any of them were intelligible.

Nicholson stood up, strode to the door, then turned back to face me, pointing with his thick index finger like it was a weapon.

“I’m going to go now, Spanner. I’m not at all sure why I’m not taking you with me. Maybe because I’m too tired right now. Or maybe because no one’d ever believe an old coot had done all the things we’ve got you cold on. Shit There’s probably eight or ten felony charges I could make stick, up to and including a bunch of conspiracy counts, narcotics, obstruction of justice, and armed robbery. And oh, yeah, Dempster, here, tells me you got a couple of nice specimens of the genus Cannabis growing out by your back fence. That’s cultivation, Spanner. Even without the other stuff, that’s good for eighteen to thirty-six months. Cold.”

Cold was right. A feeling of numbness had spread over my body, like I was shot full of novocaine. Nicholson was jabbing pins into me, but it was happening to someone else.

“And you better believe I’m going to pursue it,” he said, pointing. “I’ll be back, and I’m going to have the same questions for you. Unless you want to spend your golden years as a guest of the grateful citizens of California, old man, you had better come up with some better answers quickly.”

The screen door rattled as Nicholson went out. Dempster looked at me, nodded once to indicate that what Nicholson said went double for him, then followed his sergeant.

I stared at the open door for a long time, waiting for some warmth to return to my hands and feet. I looked at the disarray Dempster had caused and thought about putting everything away again. Why bother? If I did, the way things were going, the Hell’s Angels would decide to hold a picnic here.

Shit. What a swell situation. The mob was after me because they thought I stole their money. The cops were after me because they thought I either queered their bust or I was involved in the cocaine trade. I’d been smeared with toothpaste, had my shin cracked, had my place torn apart twice, been threatened with a slow death and a long imprisonment. And the only person who could straighten this out, everyone says has been dead for two years. Wonderful. Even the guy who wrote those Al Tracker fantasies—and who clearly had a lot of trouble with his plots —would’ve come up with something better than this. Jesus.

I looked up. There was a tapping on the frame of the screen door. What now?

“Mr. Spanner?” a female voice said.

“He’s in Peru.”

She must’ve thought I said come in, because she did.

“Mr. Spanner, my name is Monica Eustace, and I’m with the North Hollywood Senior Community Center.” She was young—early twenties, I guessed—with short light-brown hair and one of the tiniest noses I’d ever seen. She had on a short-sleeve white blouse and a knee-length plaid skirt. She looked and sounded like one of those chirpy little things you see on TV commercials for feminine hygiene products. “I was given your name as one of the people in our area who would be interested in the services we have available.”

“Go away.”

“There’s a variety of recreational and educational programs, there’s Meals on Wheels, there’s—My goodness! What happened here?” She broke off her prepared spiel when she registered the fact that everything in the living room was dumped on the floor.

“Spring cleaning.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Spanner?”

“Dandy. Now, go away.”

I looked dyspeptically at her, trying to will her to leave, but she was full of that kind of young, eager sincerity that always ignores your wishes.

“Actually,” I said, “I could use some help.”

“Good. That’s what I’m here for. I have a Master’s degree in social work, you know.”

“That’s really encouraging.”

“Now, what can I do for you?”

“You could let me have three-quarters of a million dollars.”

“What?”

“Just temporarily. So I can get the mob off my back.”

“What?”

“No? Then how about an armed bodyguard, maybe two?”

“What?” Her perky little smile was beginning to waver.

“I could use a really top-notch criminal lawyer.”

“What?”

“And if you can’t do that, how about putting me in touch with a cryogenics clinic? I might have to do ten to twenty in the slammer, and I figure I might as well be frozen. Right?”

“What?”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“What? I mean, are you feeling all right?” Her expression said she was trying to figure out if my derangement was benign or if I were likely to turn violent.

“I’m fine. You look like you could use a pick-me-up, though.”

“No. I mean, have you been ill? You know, Mr. Spanner, in elderly people, certain illnesses—even mild infections—often can manifest themselves as disorientation, incoherency, confusion, even hallucinations.”

Of course! What a relief! This was all due to a virus.

“If diagnosed and treated promptly,” she went on, “the condition can be completely cured.”

Great. A shot of penicillin and all this would go away.

“But if untreated”—she held up a warning finger— “the condition becomes chronic and irreversible.”

She was starting to sound like Nicholson and Tony New, both of whom were also promising me chronic and irreversible futures.

“Go away .”

“Aggressiveness is another sign of this syndrome, you know.” She sounded like she was reciting from a textbook. “This condition can also be caused by anemia and/or malnutrition. Have you been eating properly, Mr. Spanner?”

Christ! I was beginning to look back fondly on the morning’s first two visitors. No doubt she meant well. That was the problem.

“Go away. Please,” I added, not wanting to seem aggressive.

“And just look at you! It’s after eleven o’clock and you’re still sitting around in your pajamas. That will never do, Mr. Spanner. Don’t you know it’s important for elderly people to stay active? You can’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Whether you feel like it or not, you have to make yourself get out and do things. Use it or lose it, Mr. Spanner!”

That was the second time in twelve hours that I’d heard that. All things considered, I preferred it coming from Miranda.

I jumped to my feet, clapping my hands. The girl cringed.

“You’re absolutely right, honey. I’ve got to get out and start doing things. That’s the ticket.”

I took a step toward her and she backed up, uncertainty showing in her eyes.

“Mr. Spanner, I don’t think—”

“You’ve been a big help, toots,” I said, still advancing.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Now, if you’ll just get out, I can get going.”

“Mr. Spanner—”

She was partly facing the door and halfway toward it.

“I really appreciate what you’ve done. You’ve got me on the right track again.”

I reached out and swatted her plaid-clad behind, winking monstrously.

She hurried to the doorway.

“Mr. Spanner, you don’t realize it, but you’re not well.”

I pulled off my bathrobe and took a step forward. The girl gasped and nearly fell through the screen door. I hurried over and slammed the front door.

“I’m going to have to report this to Mr. Bemelman,” I heard through the door. “You need help whether you want it or not, and I’m going to see that you get it. Don’t worry, someone’ll be back here.”

“They’ll just have to wait their turn,” I called back.

Through the window I watched her bustle out to her car. It looked like my record for the morning was still intact: I’d made another enemy. It never paid to thwart people who were determined to do things for your own good.

The funny thing was, she had been just what I needed.

She was right, Spanner: use it or lose it.