Gerald Petievich - To Die in Beverly Hills

"I'll be in touch," Carr said. He opened the door, then paused. "Did Bailey kill her himself?" he turned to face Kreuzer again.

"You're talking about murder now. Violence is something I've never been involved in. Nor do I intend to. You can check my record. You'll see that I have never even been questioned about any heavy-handed shit. It's against my nature. I really mean that."

"I'm not asking you who made it happen," Carr said. "I already know that. I just want to know if he did it himself or contracted it out."

"Off the record, you'd probably be safe in assuming the former rather than the latter." He stared at the palms of his hands. "I want to cooperate. I'm sure you can see that. It's just that this isn't your average drop-a-dime-on-a-pal operation. You're asking me to rat on someone who carries a gun legally. He could walk in here right now and blow my brains out. He'd beat the rap in court. He'd just say I reached for a gun."

"I guess I could do the same thing," Carr said.

"That's not funny."

"I'll be in touch." Carr opened the door and walked out.

Though it was 8:30 P.M., the summer heat had not diminished. The weather was par for the course for Los Angeles-anyplace else it would be a portent of a summer storm-but rather than distant thunder, there was only the hum of air conditioners.

In the small patio at the rear of the house, Charlie Carr sat at a wooden table with Kelly and Higgins. They were dressed similarly: short-sleeved white shirts, loosened neckties. Kelly wore a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. The table was littered with beer bottles. Kelly's young sons, armed with toy swords and squirt guns, chased each other in and out of the backyard.

Carr finished recounting his meeting with Emil Kreuzer. He picked up his beer and finished it.

"He could double-cross us," Higgins said. "He could go straight to Bailey."

"He will double-cross us," Kelly said. "One way or the other he'll double-cross us. When we used him as an informant in the Larry Phillips case, he played both ends against the middle. That's the kind of an asshole he is."

"But I don't think he'll double-cross us yet," Carr said. "I think he'll wait to see how the land lies. He'll wait to get more information from us before he sets his course. Right now there are too many unknowns for him. He doesn't know enough about what kind of a case we have at this point because I didn't tell him."

"There's no predicting a confidence man," Higgins said.

"Anything can happen," Kelly said.

Carr drank more beer. As if on cue, the others drank from their bottles.

"The surveillance isn't doing us any good," Higgins said. "Bones hasn't been going anywhere except the supermarket and to work at the Blue Peach. Women drop by his apartment now and then and he usually takes one home with him every night from the Blue Peach. He likes skinny broads with short hair. We've been on him twenty-four hours a day for four days and that's all we've come up with: skinny broads with short hair. I mean really short hair. My wife says it's the latest movie-star style."

"Sounds more like Bones is having auditions," Kelly muttered.

A sedan drove into the driveway and parked. Because of the hat, Carr could tell it was B. B. Martin.

Martin climbed out of the car. His sleeves were rolled up and though his trousers hung below his ample paunch, his gunbelt stretched neatly across his midsection. From the belt hung a patrolman's holster that held a six-inch revolver. He walked over to the table, thumbed his hat back on his head and sat down.

Jack Kelly opened another beer and handed it to Martin. Martin drank fully three-fourths of the bottle. He set the bottle on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Something funny happened tonight," he said.

"On his way to the Blue Peach, Bones stops off at a French restaurant on La Cienega. I set up down the street where I can keep an eye on the front door. He's in there about ten or fifteen minutes. Then he steps out the front door with another guy. I was too far away to tell who it was, so I do a drive-by. Bones and this other dude are standing on the sidewalk in front of the place. As I'm cruising past, the other cat is definitely giving me the eagle eye. I just keep my eyes on the road all the way up to Sunset. Then I turn off and circle back to the restaurant. When I got there, Bones was gone."

"What did the man look like?" Carr asked.

"He looked like Travis Bailey, but I can't say for sure. I was too far away." Martin finished the rest of his beer with one swig.

Kelly popped open another bottle and set it in front of him.

"I checked the parking lot," Martin said as he fondled the fresh beer. "Bailey's car wasn't there, but he had time to leave by the time I returned. So I went to a pay phone and dialed the restaurant. I asked the maître d' if Mr. Bailey was still there. He says, 'No, he just-' then catches hisself and says that there was no Mr. Bailey in tonight. It sounded fishy, so I head over to the valet parking lot at the place. I buzz the attendant and he tells me that he notes the license number of every car he parks on the valet parking ticket stub. I look through the evening's ticket stubs. The license number of Bailey's car was written on one of them."

"It was him," Carr said.

"I think he made me," Martin said. "He stared right at me as I went by."

"Now what the hell are we going to do?" Higgins said.

Carr stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets. As the other men bantered, he strolled to the front of the house. Dusk was changing to dark; the streetlights came on. As he stood in front of the house, he again went over the facts in his mind. Gradually the plan took shape and he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Carr walked to the backyard and sat down again. He pulled a pen and some three-by-five cards from his shirt pocket, then wrote "PRESS RELEASE" on one of the cards. After some scratch-outs, he completed the following paragraphs:

Federal Agents have been following leads in what is believed to be a foiled Mafia-style contract murder of a prominent Beverly Hills banking official. Preliminary investigation has shown that Jerome Hartmann, president of the Beverly Hills-based Bank of Commerce-Pacific was the proposed target of an organized crime hit man. A federal informant in Chicago has recently told federal authorities that the July sixth break-in at Hartmann's Beverly Hills residence may have been instigated by organized crime figures who stood to gain from eliminating Hartmann as a witness in a counterfeiting case in which Hartmann was a potential government witness. A shoot-out at Hartmann's residence resulted in the death of convicted burglar Leon Sheboygan and the wounding of U.S. Treasury Agent John Kelly.

Sources within the U.S. Treasury Department, which is investigating the case, have stated that a major organized crime figure in the Los Angeles area may be called before the federal grand jury in the near future. "Progress has been made in narrowing down the motive for the attempt on Hartmann's life," one veteran Treasury agent said. "Since Mr. Sheboygan is deceased, it is doubtful whether we will ever know the complete story. This is not the first time that La Cosa Nostra has tried to thwart an ongoing investigation."

Since it was dark, Carr read the press release out loud to the others.

"That should help Bailey sleep a little better," Higgins said.

"He may not buy it," Kelly said.

"Who'll cover for us on the Chicago angle?" B. B. Martin opened another bottle of beer.

"Bob Tomsic was just transferred there," Carr said. "He'll back up the informant story if it ever comes down to it."

Martin nodded.

"And there should be no problem getting No Waves to issue the release," Carr said, smirking.

"Problems?" Kelly said. "He'll call a press conference at the drop of a hat."