A Savage Place Part 15

"Franco don't live on Franklin anymore," he said. No one seemed surprised. "I called Boston this morning," Samuelson said. "Talked to a homicide sergeant named Belson. He tells me you're legitimate."

"Gee whiz," I said.

"I told him we probably had a case on you for suppressing evidence and asked him what he thought about prosecuting you. He said if it was him, he wouldn't. Said you probably did the world more good outside than inside, but only barely."

"And what did the prosecutor's office say?"

Samuelson grinned. "Said they were too G.o.dd.a.m.n busy."

"So you're taking Belson's endors.e.m.e.nt."

"Yeah."

The phone on Samuelson's desk rang again. Samuelson said, "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that figures. Okay, I'll come out. Yeah." He hung up and said, "They found Felton. In a Dumpster back of a Holiday Inn out in Westwood."

Candy said, "Dead?"

Samuelson nodded. "I'm going out there now," he said. "You're a reporter. Want to come along?"

Candy said, "Let me call the station for a cameraman."

Samuelson indicated his phone. "Dial eight," he said. He looked at me. "That means you'll be along too, huh?"

I nodded.

"If we see a clue anywhere, try not to step on it, okay?"

"I'll just be grateful to watch," I said. "Try to learn a few advanced police techniques."

Candy got off the phone and off we went.

The five levels above the lobby at the Westwood Holiday Inn, on Wils.h.i.+re, are parking levels, open to the pleasant smell of flowers, with a waist-high wall around each level. You drive down an alley beside the hotel and up a ramp, and there you are. There is no attendant, no limitation on who can drive in. Behind the hotel was a small courtyard with a large Dumpster.

Beyond the Dumpster was a high concrete wall, and beyond that, neat, tile-roofed, mostly stucco houses stretched away down to Santa Nionica and beyond. From any of the levels on the back of the hotel, you could see the tower of the Mormon temple building on Santa Monica with the statue of a guy on top of it who was either Joseph Smith or the angel Moroni. It could have been the last thing Sam Felton ever saw.

Felton was where they had found him, spreadeagled, facedown in the Dumpster, dressed as we'd seen him, with some blood dried in the long hair at the back of his head. He was half submerged in trash.

A black detective with a gray-tinged natural and a mustache talked with Samuelson. "I figure he was shot somewhere else, maybe up on one of the parking levels, and dumped in here. If I had to guess, I'd say he got thrown over the edge up there above the Dumpster. He's sunk in pretty good. He must have landed with some impact." The cop looked familiar to me, until I figured out he looked like Billy Eckstine.

"Had a chance to talk with anybody yet?" Samuelson asked.

"Hotel manager says no one reported anything unusual. He wasn't on last night. The night man's on his way in. Haven't talked with the guests yet. Man:ycr sort of doesn't want us to." It couldn't be Billy Eckstine, the voice was all wrong. Maybe if he sang a couple of lines of "I Apologize." I decided not to ask. n.o.body was that fond of me here to start with.

"Don't blame him," Samuelson said. "We'll do it anyway. Have the two guys from the black and white start at the top floor. You and your partner start at the bottom. Keep track of the rooms where no one's there. We'll want to see if they've checked out or if they're coming back."

The black detective nodded and went off. A cameraman had showed up to meet Candy. He had a shoulder mounted camera and a big black shoulder bag and was dressed like he was on his way to a soup kitchen. Except for the on-camera people, I'd never seen anyone in television who didn't dress like they got a discount at Woolworth's.

I followed Samuelson up to the first parking level while he began walking around looking at the parapet and the floor and occasionally squatting to look under cars.

"Unless he used an automatic, there won't be any spent sh.e.l.ls," I said. "And probably even then he would have picked them up."

Samuelson ignored me.

"You're right, though, that he wouldn't have shot him in the car," I said. "He'd want to avoid getting blood on the upholstery or powder burns or bullet holes. Incriminating."

Samuelson let himself down in a push-up position to look at the cement floor under a white Pontiac Phoenix with a rented-car sticker in the lower left corner of the winds.h.i.+eld. He took a long careful look without getting his clothes dirty and stood back up. He brushed his hands off against each other and moved along the parking level. I followed him.

On the third parking level Samuelson found a smear on the low parapet that could have been blood. Below they were getting Felton's body out of the Dumpster. A plainclothes cop in a plaid jacket was watching them alertly. Samuelson yelled down to him.

"Bailey, come up here."

The cop in the plaid jacket sprang into action. When he arrived, Samuelson pointed at the smear. "Find out if it's blood," he said.

Bailey said he'd get right on it. Samuelson kept up his tour. I followed him. Out front, Candy was doing a stand-up in front of the Holiday Inn. The ragam.u.f.fin with the camera was about five feet out into Wils.h.i.+re shooting her, and a cop in uniform was directing traffic around him.

When we got to the top floor of the parking garage and Samuelson was through looking at it, he leaned his forearms on the parapet and stared out at Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard. Off to the left behind some apartments and a neighborhood of small cla.s.sy houses you could see UCLA sticking up here and there against the green hills.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"We told you all we knew last night," I said.

"Maybe," he said, "maybe not. But right now I'm interested in opinion. Boston tells me you're a real hot shot. What do you think?"

"I think a lot of what you think. That Franco hauled Felton out of there last night and brought him here and blew him away because Franco was confident Felton would spill everything he knew and some he could make up when folks got to chewing the fat with him, so to speak."

"Yeah?"

"And I think Franco is an employee. He's mean enough, but he's small-time. The thing that Candy's trying to uncover is big-time. Franco's the kind of guy that will shake down wh.o.r.es and unconnected bookies and Mexicans with forged green cards."

Samuelson nodded. "So who employs him?"

"Directly I don't know. Indirectly I would guess the head of Summit Studios."

"Hammond," Samuelson said. "Anything more than you told me last night?"

"No," I said. "He should have known about the offer from Felton either way. He said he didn't. He was too helpful and too innocent and too outraged. He's in it, I'll bet you dinner at Perino's."

"Make it Pink's," Samuelson said. "It's what I can afford if I lose. What about Brewster?"

"I don't know. I only met him once. He could be involved. Any guy who got to where he is can't be too meticulous about things."

"And who's doing the extorting? Who's the money going to?" Samuelson said.

I shook my head. "This is your neighborhood, not mine. Any guesses? How about the guy Franco used to collect for?"

"Leon Ponce? Naw. He's too small-time. Shaking down an outfit like Summit, or Oceania... Leon hasn't got that kind of connections. Or that kind of b.a.l.l.s. This is a bib game operation."

Across Wils.h.i.+re a woman in a pink robe came out onto the balcony of her apartment and watered her plants. She had a transparent plastic bag on her head. Probably just colored her hair.

"Wait a minute," I said. Samuelson looked at me.

"Shaking down a major movie studio is a big deal, isn't it," I said.

Samuelson nodded. "I just said that."

"But it's not being run like a big-time operation," I said.

"For instance," Samuelson said.

"For instance it's a G.o.dd.a.m.n mess," I said. "They've beat up a TV reporter and murdered two people including a movie producer. I never heard of Felton, but he can't be totally anonymous."

"Yeah?"

"And sending a lumper like Franco around to collect cash from a producer on location? And being spotted? If the Mob owned Roger Hammond, would they work that way?"

"No," Samuelson said. "Nope, they'd have some stock in the company. They'd have credit transfers and paper transactions I don't even know the names of, and it would take five C.P.A.'s five years to figure out who was getting how much."

"That's right," I said.

"Maybe we been thinking too big," Samuelson said.

"Maybe Franco's starting his own business," I said. "Maybe that's as high as it goes."

"What about that gut feeling about Hammond," Samuelson said. "The dinner you were going to bet at Perino's?"

"I thought it was a chili dog at Pink's," I said.

"That's when I thought I'd lose," Samuelson said.

I shook my head. "Maybe I'm wrong on that. I've been doing this too long to think I don't make mistakes. Hammond is guilty as h.e.l.l of something. I don't know what. But whether it's got to do with Franco..." I shrugged.

"Well," Samuelson said, "we'll start chasing paper. If Felton was paying Franco regularly, the money came from someplace. I'll have someone start on that in the morning. I don't think I've got enough to start digging into Summit's books. All I got is your guess. I'm not sure the courts in California are willing to accept that."

"No wonder," I said, "there's a crisis in our courts."

Chapter19.

CANDY AND I were lunching at the Mandarin in Beverly Hills with a guy named Frederics who was the news director at KNBS. Candy and Frederics both had minced squab. I was working on Mongolian lamb with scallions and drinking Kirin beer. Everything was elegant and cool, including Frederics, who was slicker than the path to h.e.l.l. His dark hair was parted in the middle and slicked back. He had on a white-on-white s.h.i.+rt with a small round collar and a narrow tie with muted stripes and a white crocheted V-neck sweater tucked into tight Ralph Lauren jeans. The jeans were worn over lizard-skin cowboy boots. I was trying to figure out where he carried his money because no wallet would fit in his pants pocket.

Frederics was drinking white wine with his squab. He took a sip, put the gla.s.s down, and said to Candy, "So, after talking with Mark Samuelson and others, the station management-and. I agree with them-feels that there's really no further story, and no further danger to you. Mark says you agree with that, Mr. Spenser."

The minced squab was finger food, served in a lettuce leaf, that you picked up and nibbled. Candy nibbled on hers while I answered.

"You're not the Frederics of Hollywood, are you?"

Slick as he was, Frederics was, however, not a kidder. He shook his head briefly. "Do you agree with Mark?" he asked.

"Mark, huh?" I looked at Candy. She was still nibbling. "Yeah, I agree with Samuelson that she's probably not in any danger. I'm not sure what I think about there being a story."

"Well, that's a news judgment we'll have to make," Frederics said.

"Yeah."

"So we're taking you off the story, my love," he said to Candy.

"It's still there, John. It's a story that we should be staying on. There's more to it than the police think. Isn't there, Spenser?"

"Of course he'd say so," Frederics said. "His fee is in the balance." He looked at me. "Don't get me wrong. I don't blame you, but you're hardly a disinterested observer."

I asked, "Where do you carry your wallet?"

He said, "Excuse me?"

I said, "Your wallet. Where do you keep it? Your pants are too tight to carry it on your hip."

He said, "Spenser, I invited you to lunch because Candy asked me to. I see no reason to be uncivil."

"Yeah, of course. It's just that you're so d.a.m.n adorable that I'm jealous. And maybe a little because she busted her ovaries on this thing, and you won't let her clean it up."

"That's a business decision," Frederics said. "And a matter of professional judgment." He looked at Candy. "The judgment has been made and it's final."

I shut up. It was Candy's career, not mine. She looked at the table and didn't speak.

Frederics said to me, "We'll pay you through this week. You've done good work and you deserve a bonus. Expenses, everything. Take a few days and have a good time before you go home."

"I resign," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I resign. Now. Today. Now. This minute. I don't work for you anymore."

"You don't want the money?"

"Boy, you do have news instincts, don't you," I said.

"You don't want it?"

"That's true," I said.

We were all silent. At the end of the lunch Frederics asked Candy if she had a ride. She said she did. Then Frederics signed the check and we left. I never did see where he carried his wallet. Maybe he didn't. Maybe if you're that slick, you just signed everything. Somebody always had a pen.

Candy said, "You drive."