Jeff Sherratt - The Brimstone Murders

Joyce escorted me along a marble-lined hallway leading to Sol’s private office at the end of it. I amused myself with his lava lamp until he appeared promptly at nine a.m.

I apologized about the disconnected phone call. He frowned and commented about how someone who didn’t know me might feel as if I had hung up on him. I chuckled. “Imagine that,” I said. We shared the donuts, washing them down with a gallon of Sol’s special grind of Kopi Luwak coffee. He wouldn’t tell me the secret method that the growers in Sumatra employed in the bean’s preparation. But I didn’t care how it was made, the coffee tasted great.

While we ate the donuts and drank the coffee, we discussed the murder investigation. Without bringing up the discovery of the gun-the less said about that the better-I told him my reasons for the Barstow trip. I explained how I’d tried to find the teen drug center. I mentioned the old man in the Bright Spot Cafe, and told him about my meeting behind the Harvey House with Jane. And, of course, I added how the girl had been afraid of being punished, how the old man, Ben Moran, allegedly ordered beatings. We both agreed that the center was the key to solving the mystery of Robbie’s escape, and that Robbie’s escape was the key to Hazel Farris’ murder.

“Now all we have to do is find the center.” Sol started to rise out of his chair. “And we can’t do that sitting here on our fat asses.”

I gingerly placed the donut in my hand back in the box.

He summoned the Deacon, his number one operative, and Cubby, his principal driver, and soon the four of us were in Sol’s big black limousine. We cruised northeast, rolling at a hundred miles per hour on Interstate 15 heading for Barstow and the Bright Spot Cafe.

The mobile radiophone buzzed. The Deacon, sitting on the jumpseat in the back of the big limousine, reached out with his massive arm and lifted the receiver from its cradle. After he listened for a moment, he handed it to Sol. A few moments later, Sol replaced the radiophone receiver in its cradle and turned to me. “That was Joyce. Mabel phoned her. She had a message to give you.”

“Yeah, what was it?”

“Said the cops came to your office with a search warrant looking for a gun.”

My stomach did a little samba. I cleared my throat. “What did they find?” I asked with all the calmness I could muster.

Sol’s eyes bored into me. “Nothing. But why would they expect to find a gun there?”

My heart sank. “You mean they didn’t find it?”

Of course, I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be arrested the minute I showed up back in Downey, but at the same time, I was disappointed. After a serious discussion, Rita and I had come to an understanding. We agreed that we’d put the gun back where it was found. I’d explained that it wasn’t her responsibility to do the cops’ job, searching for evidence, and as long as the evidence wasn’t tampered with, she had no obligation to tell them what she knew. When the cops finally got their search warrant, and found the gun … well then, so be it. We’d fight the section 187 charge, and we’d win. She reluctantly agreed and gave me her word she wouldn’t dig the gun out again and hide it. Now it troubled me to realize that Rita hadn’t kept her promise.

“Hey, buddy boy, you said nothing about a gun. What gives?” Sol asked.

I blurted out the whole story: the cops looking for my gun, Rita finding it, and our agreement.

“Gott in himmel! ” Sol shouted. “You mean to tell me you had the gun in your hand? The murder weapon, the piece of evidence that could put you in jail for life, and you wanted to leave it there for the cops to waltz in and pick up? You shmuck! Thank God for Rita, at least someone in that feckockteh firm has a brain.”

With a wave of his hand, he indicated his immediate need for a drink. I was glad Sol wasn’t holding the gun at that moment; he probably would’ve shot me with it. He was that angry. And I couldn’t blame him. After all, he had my best interests at heart, and he was doing his utmost to help me find Robbie so I’d stay out of jail. But I was still disappointed that Rita broke her word.

The Deacon opened the sliding door of the small bar built into the seatback and started to fix Sol a drink.

“Sol, listen,” I said. “I couldn’t let her do it. But she did it anyway.”

The Deacon handed Sol the drink, his signature martini, one-hundred-proof vodka in a glass.

Sol took a sip, then put his arm around my shoulder and tousled my hair. “Ah, Jimmy, my boy, you big oaf,” he said. “That’s why you couldn’t make it as a cop. Too damned softhearted.”

“Yeah, should have run you in when I had the chance,” I mumbled with a weak grin, but the expression on my face must’ve mirrored my feelings. While Rita had violated my trust, she’d done it for me, and the thought of that tugged at my heart.

“Hey, O’Brien, quit with the long face. We’ll get to the bottom of this. We’ll find the drug center. The Deacon will explain to those jokers at the Bright Spot that we’d really like to know where that dad-blamed center is,” Sol said, oblivious to the real reason for my sudden shift of mood. “Isn’t that right, Deacon?”

“Right on, boss,” the Deacon answered.

The Deacon, a nickname he acquired when he was an All-American defensive end for USC-named after the great Deacon Jones of the L.A. Rams, whom he emulated-was a powerful black guy about six-two and two-hundred-twenty pounds. He had arms of steel and his shoulders looked like the crossbeams that held up the Vincent Thomas Bridge. After a tour in Vietnam, Special Forces, decorated for valor twice, and a stint in the Secret Service, he joined Sol’s team of talented and formidable agents. It wasn’t long before the Deacon became Sol’s prime operative, often accompanying him on special missions where muscle and diplomacy were needed in equal proportions.

The Deacon wore an expensive Italian-cut business suit with all the accessories, monogrammed dress shirt, Magnum 45, and an Hermes tie, the Magnum being tucked into a designer crocodile holster.

While Sol took another call, I stared out the window at the vast desert wasteland rushing by. I wasn’t focused on the sun-bleached rocks or scorched mountains. I tried to comprehend where and how I’d gone wrong. I thought about the terrible mess I was in: Robbie’s escape, Judge Tobias and his disappointment in me, and now Rita sacrificing her ethics on my behalf. It was too much. Thoughts of quitting the law crossed my mind. Yeah, maybe it would be better if I gave up the law business, got a real job. But quitting the law, canceling my bar card, would probably be a moot point before long anyway.

“By the way, Jimmy,” Sol said, after he hung up the phone. “Mabel had something else to tell you.”

“Yeah, what’d she say this time?”

“Seems she found a goddamn mouse in your office.”

“A mouse in my office?”

“Yeah, imagine that. When she came to work this morning, Rita and you were in your office talking. Mabel left and came back when you two were gone. Later, when she went into your office to get a file, she noticed that someone had moved the filing cabinet. She went to straighten it. And guess what? She found a goddamn mouse. That’s what she said, a goddamn mouse behind the cabinet. She said it’s now in her purse.”

I hadn’t been paying much attention to Sol, but suddenly it dawned on me what he was talking about. “Mabel did what? Rita wasn’t there?”

A mischievous grin appeared on Sol’s face. “Why would Mabel put a goddamn mouse in her purse?” He glanced at the Deacon. “Why would she do that, Deacon?”

“Don’t know, boss.”

“Maybe she didn’t want the cops to notice how untidy a law office can get. Things like that laying around. Disgusting.”