Howard Fast - The Case of the Russian Diplomat

“This one needs an ambulance,” pointing to the unconscious man. “I broke his nose.”

“He’ll live.”

When he put Ana down on the seat next to him in his car, thinking how much she looked like one of those Japanese dolls they sold in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, with her jet black hair, her straight bangs and her round face, she had stopped sobbing and was able to smile at him and say, “You look funny, daddy.”

“Why?”

“Your face is so dirty.”

“We’ll go home, and we’ll both wash, and everything that happened is only a bad dream.”

“It was real,” she whispered.

“Yes, it was real,” he said to himself. “Only too real.”

He drove onto the freeway. There was no traffic to speak of at this time of the day, and in exactly twenty minutes he was in front of his house in Culver City. Kati must have been at the window, because Ana was hardly out of the car when Kati had her in her arms.

It was half past two in the afternoon when Masuto returned to the cottage on Fountain Avenue. The two dark men still lay on the floor, their wrists handcuffed behind them, the shorter man with a smashed face that was a bloody mask, blood all over his clothes. Beckman was leaning against the wall with the two guns stuck in his belt.

As Masuto entered, the skinny man started to shout at him in a language that Masuto guessed was Arabic, and then switched to English. “My brother needs a doctor. He is dying.”

Ignoring him, Masuto asked Beckman about his hand.

“I don’t know, Masao. It hurts like hell. I never hit anyone that hard before.”

“Are you animals? My brother is dying!”

In response to this, the man with the broken nose moaned with pain.

“This place stinks,” Beckman said. “Can we get them out of here?”

Masuto did not reply. He stood there silent, staring at Issa.

“How did Kati take it?”

Masuto ignored him, staring at Issa.

“If they both died here,” Masuto said thoughtfully, “no one would know the difference.”

“Masao!” Beckman was shocked. Masuto met his eyes, and Beckman sighed and shrugged. “If you want it that way.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Issa screamed.

“What’s your name?” Masuto demanded. “Your real name?”

The thin man pressed his lips together.

“Give me the revolver,” Masuto said to Beckman.

“It’s just a cheap Saturday night special,” Beckman observed, handing it to him.

“It works.” Masuto spun the cylinder. “It’s a rotten gun but it works. I guess that’s what one asks of a gun.” He pointed the gun at Issa, who cringed and closed his eyes.

“Open your eyes and look at me when I speak to you,” Masuto said quietly. “I asked you your name. I am not asking for evidence or anything that may be used against you. I simply asked your name.”

“Issa Mahoud.”

“And his name?” pointing to the other.

“Sahlah Beeden.”

“Then you are not brothers?”

“We are brothers in the struggle for justice.”

“And what struggle is that?” Masuto asked.

“The struggle to liberate my homeland from the Zionist pigs.”

Masuto turned to Beckman and said, “Read them their rights, Sy.”

“This is an admonition of rights,” Beckman said tonelessly. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak with an attorney and to have the attorney present during questioning-”

“Stand up, both of you,” Masuto said when Beckman had finished.

Issa struggled to his feet. “My brother can’t stand up. He needs an ambulance.”

“Get him on his feet, Sy.”

Beckman dragged Sahlah to his feet, and they marched the two of them outside to Masuto’s car. “They’ll make a mess of the seat,” Beckman said. “Maybe we ought to call an ambulance.”

“The hell with the seat,” Masuto said coldly. “We deliver these two ourselves.”

With Beckman’s help, the two men got into the back seat of the car. A few people came out of houses along the street to stand by their doors and watch in silence. The traffic moving by slowed. Masuto opened the luggage compartment, and they put the two guns in there and took back their jackets and their own guns.

At the station in Beverly Hills, Beckman marched the two men inside, Masuto following with the pile of the Russian’s clothes and possessions and the two guns. Sergeant Connoley was at the desk. He said, “By God, Masao, we been looking for you and Beckman all day. Where the hell have you been? And what have you got there?”

“Where’s Wainwright?”

“He went back to the Beverly Glen Hotel with the G-man. He’s screaming bloody murder about the way you and Beckman took off and never called in or one word about where you are. What do you want me to do with these two beauties?”

“Book them and then lock them up.”

“For what?”

“Start with this. Murder, accessory to murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and resisting arrest.”

“That’s all?”

“Armed robbery?” Beckman whispered.

“We’ll get to that.”

“Better give it to me again,” Connoley said. “It’s a long list.”

Masuto repeated the charges, and then told Connoley, “We’ll be with Sweeney if the captain calls in.”

“That one,” Connoley said, “ought to go to a hospital. He don’t have much face left.”

“He can walk,” Masuto said coldly. “Get Sam Baxter over to patch him up. I want him here.”

“Baxter will love that.”

“I don’t give a damn what Baxter would love.”

Climbing the stairs to Sweeney’s office, Beckman said to Masuto, “I never seen you like this before, Masao. It’s no good. It’s not your way.”

“I’m all right.”

“You’re involved, which is no good for a cop. Ana’s with her mother. It’s over.”

“Not yet. It’s not over yet.”

Sweeney looked up from his light table as they entered his office and grinned. “Ah, the two missing hawkeyes. It’s only three-fifteen. Do you still work here or are you on pension?”

“We have ten minutes, and this is damned real and close, Sweeney. So tell me what you’ve got.”

“Goodies. So many goodies I don’t know where to begin. Start with the glass. You consort with belly dancers, Masao, a side of you I never suspected.”

“Will you get on with it!”

“This belly dancer, she was in Stillman’s room and she was also in the yellow Cadillac. They all match.”

“How do you know it was the belly dancer? I never told you that.”

“But I have my ways. I got her photograph and I spent the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Washington, nothing. Chicago, New York, nothing. But Bonn in Germany-I hit pay dirt. They sent a Telex back that she was wanted by the cops there under the name of Bertha Hellschmidt, that she was suspected of being an agent of the East German intelligence, and they sent me a set of her prints for confirmation. And, sonny, they matched.”

“That’s good,” Masuto said. “That’s wonderful, Sweeney. I’m grateful. Did they say what she was wanted for in Bonn?”

“Something to do with the murder of the Israeli athletes at the seventy-two Olympics. They didn’t go into details, except to mention that her father was an SS officer back in the Nazi days.”

“Good. One more favor, Sweeney-only because we have no time. We booked two men downstairs. One of them, the skinny one, is called Issa. Get his photograph and send it to the San Fernando cops, care of Lieutenant Gonzales. Get him on the phone and tell him I want him to show the picture for identification to a man called Garcia, who is the gardener at the Felcher Company. Remind him about our conversation yesterday.”