Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

“First off, I took care of the Buick Rita told me about. The one at the gas station.”

“What do you mean?”

“The object in the glove box has been disposed of, and the car has been moved, South Central L.A. It’ll disappear a piece at a time within the next few days-Midnight Auto Supply.”

“Oh,” I said.

I knew what Sol meant. The gun in the Buick’s glove box had my fingerprints all over it and could be used by the cops to tie me into the two bodies at the warehouse. The thugs’ car in my possession could also be difficult to explain. Thieves, however, would strip the car and it would never be seen again. But there was still the question of the knife that I’d left at the scene. I’d deal with that later if it came up.

“Now, Jimmy, meet Melvin Dunn,” Sol said.

“Call me Mel.” The man offered his hand.

I shook it, wondering what this was all about. I wanted to get Sol alone, wanted to talk about my kidnappers and the stuff in the envelope.

“Excuse me, gentleman, but Jimmy must be starved,” Rita said. “I’m going to fix him breakfast. Would anyone else care for some?”

Sol and Mel politely declined Rita’s offer of food, but both said they’d love some coffee. We moved into the kitchen and Sol’s eyes lit up when he sipped his Joe. “Whoa! Good stuff, Rita.” She must’ve slipped a little something extra into his.

We continued the discussion while Rita hovered between the stove and the table.

“Jimmy,” Sol said, “Mel has agreed to come forward. But for now this conversation must remain off the record. I gave my word.”

Having no idea what this was all about, I dished out my standard line. “Mel, I’m a lawyer and everything you say is privileged under the attorney work-product doctrine.”

He took a deep breath. “I was a lawyer once. I understand.”

I turned to Sol, “Does this have anything to do with, you know… the envelope?”

“Yeah, Jimmy. It does. And we can speak freely. Mel’s on our side. Now let me explain. While you were tied up-”

“Sol!” Rita snapped.

“Oops… I mean, while you were unfortunately detained, I had a couple of my guys run down leads we picked up from photographs in the envelope.”

“You haven’t even told me about the envelope yet.”

“Interesting stuff, candid photos taken back in the forties, and documents explaining the shots. One picture shows Byron’s men, guys from the DA’s office strong-arming a public official. With a little basic detective work we were able to track down Mel. He was one of the men in the picture.”

Mel added, “I went to work for the DA right out of law school. I thought Byron was a god, committed to reform, and all that sentimental claptrap.” He picked up a spoon and slowly stirred his coffee. He didn’t drink it, just moved his spoon in measured circles. “I guess I was a patsy…”

“Go on,” Sol urged.

“It wasn’t long before Rinehart tapped me to join an internal covert group, officially known as the Gangster Squad. Unofficially they called us Byron’s Bulldogs. We worked for Byron, but took our orders from Rinehart. Did anything he told us to do: black bag jobs, shakedowns, extortion, that sort of thing. My loyalty to the boss and my size, I guess, were why they wanted me.” He looked up. “I have a little flower shop out on Rosecrans now.”

Sol reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a photo, and slid it across the table. I picked it up. “The photo shows Rinehart, Mel, and a few others going nose to nose with a member of the State Board of Equalization, a guy named Bonelli,” Sol said. “The State Board approves liquor licenses. They caught up with Bonelli late one night outside of Sherry’s Restaurant, Mickey Cohen’s old hangout. And guess what? Bonelli’s pockets were stuffed with blank license forms. Isn’t that right, Mel?”

“Yeah, he had a dozen or more on him.”

“One of Cliff Clinton’s private investigators took the picture.” Sol chuckled. “They used big old flash cameras back then and the bright light made the strong-arm guys look like a bunch of startled deer.”

“Bonelli was selling licenses. No questions asked,” Mel said. “Kind of a self-help program. He was helping himself to Cohen’s dough at the State’s expense.”

“You guys caught him?” I asked.

“Oh, we knew about it all along. He was scattering licenses like confetti, selling them to anyone who met his price. Byron wanted his share.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You mean the Gangster Squad actually extorted money from Bonelli, pressured him to cough up a portion and give it to Byron?”

“That’s the way it worked.”

“So Byron was dirty after all.”

“Byron was like Robin Hood, but not quite. He took from the rich and gave it… to himself. Bonelli wasn’t the only one; there were others, many others.”

Rita brought food to the table: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and juice. In spite of the mind-blowing revelations about Byron, I couldn’t keep my mind off the dish she set before me.

“Hope you guys don’t mind, but I’m starving,” I said, digging in.

While I ate, Mel continued to outline how Byron had used his office as a makeshift collection agency. “We didn’t just roust corrupt public officials and politicians. We also went after racketeers, bookmakers, the illegal wire services, and anyone or anything else where Byron could smell a buck.”

“How could you keep an operation like that under wraps?” Sol asked. “It still isn’t public knowledge.”

“Who was going to blow the whistle? The crooks? The greedy politicians? Everyone, it seemed, was on the pad one way or the other. Nope, no one could squeal. If they did they’d go to jail, too.”

“Clifford Clinton knew.”

“He didn’t know much. Not the real stuff that went down. He’d heard rumors, tried to get evidence. A few photos and his suspicions, that’s about all he had-no proof of anything.”

“He was honest and tenacious, I’ll say that for him,” Sol said. “If he’d lived longer, he would’ve brought down the whole damn County Government.”

“Yeah, he tried his best and he rattled a few cages, sure, but Byron had the Times on his side. Clinton couldn’t make enough noise to overcome the newspaper’s editorials. The Times had backed Byron in the election. Labeled him as a reformer and they were sticking to their guns. There’s an old saying: never start an argument with an outfit that buys ink by the barrel.”

“How could you justify such blatant criminal activity? You were a member of the bar, for chrissakes,” I said, pushing my plate back.

“Well, here’s the simple answer. Byron only went after the bad guys. And-”

“You were an officer of the court. You’re rationalizing, Mel.”

“Okay… so I took the extra bonus money and kept my mouth shut.”

“You must have realized at some point how wrong it was,” Rita said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Why are you telling us about this now? After all these years?”

“After a while my conscience kicked in. The whole mess started to grate on me. I couldn’t sleep, constantly fought with my wife. I became a basket case, started drinking. Hell, I lost my family over it. Finally I had enough. I quit, tore up my bar card, and got an honest job. I never told a soul about the Gangster Squad’s real purpose until now. Byron’s still out there, but I’m not afraid anymore.”

What could I say? Drinking, fighting with his wife, quitting his job-except for the names, places, and a few other details, his story was mine.

“Was violence part of the equation?” Sol asked.

“It got a little rough at times.”

“How about murder?”