To Die in Beverly Hills (2 page)

The only vehicles parked on the street belonged to caterers and gardeners; those in service to the movie stars, kingpins, chairmen of the board, directors, producers and socialites who were residents of The City.

Finally, he reached Sunset Boulevard, turned left and drove past a bus bench. A pudgy, middle-aged blonde woman sitting on the bench reminded him of his deceased mother. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was just her maid's uniform. Or maybe it was the uniform along with the frizzy, peroxide hair. He remembered how the vice-president-in-charge-of-production who had employed her always paid her with a studio expense check in order to beat the I.R.S. In the city, everything was a write-off.

Travis Bailey kept his eyes on the painted curb signs until he found the house he was looking for. He swerved right and followed a semicircular driveway to the front of an immaculate Tudor-style mansion. He parked, then slipped a comb from his shirt pocket and ran it through his hair before he climbed out of his car and headed for the front door. Cautiously, he used the lion's head doorknocker. A lean, middle-aged man wearing a gray blazer that matched the color of his hair opened the door. He held a drink in a slim glass.

Travis Bailey showed his badge.

"Won't you come in?" Jerome Hartmann said after the two men shook hands.

He followed Hartmann along a hallway past a darkened study and into a spacious living room decorated with abstract oil paintings and tapestries. The wall facing the rear of the house was a bank of sliding glass doors leading to a grotto-style pool. An aquarium filled the wall between the sliding glass door and the hallway. Facing it across an expanse of brown shag carpeting that matched the grotto masonry was a diminutive polished-wood bar arrangement.

Bailey took a seat on a sofa.

Hartmann sat down in an uncomfortable-looking chair. He caught himself sipping his drink and, perfunctorily, offered one to Bailey. As expected, Bailey refused. "I take it you're aware of this counterfeiting case I'm involved in," Hartmann said.

"Just what I've read in the newspapers."

"Then I'm sure you understand why I'm a little apprehensive about going away for two weeks. My help is on vacation, so no one will be here, I don't even own a dog. I'm worried about someone planting a bomb in my house while I'm gone. This probably sounds a little silly to you." He sipped his drink.

"Not at all, sir," Bailey said. "But hasn't the federal government offered you protection as a witness?"

"Yes, they have," he said, "but it's too complicated. I don't want people hanging around me all day. I'd just appreciate some special consideration by the Department while I'm gone. If you could just have one of the patrol officers stop by and check things out once or twice a day at their convenience..."

"No problem, Mr. Hartmann, I'll get the word out to the area car," Bailey said. "And as a matter of fact, I'll stop by myself now and then just to check things out." Bailey made a policeman's courtesy-wink.

"It'll sure help my peace of mind," Hartmann said.

"Who's handling the Treasury case?"

"Agent Carr. Charles Carr."

"I've met him."

"Small world," Hartmann said without interest. He gave a banker's terse smile that meant that the meeting was over.

Bailey stood up and shook hands again with Hartmann before he left.

In the unmarked car, he wound south through familiar streets. As usual, things were quiet. Now and then a Mercedes-Benz or a Cadillac slithered out of a driveway. There was the usual number of well-attired joggers running about, a few servants carrying things in and out of homes, a caterer looking for an address.

As he drove, Travis Bailey sorted things out in his mind. As he recently lectured at a Police Management Seminar, the objective of police planning was to set priorities on problems, define challenges and make sound and permanent decisions. After cruising about for what must have been an hour, he decided to give the good news to Delsey Piper. Why not pick the most pleasant task first? Begin what was sure to be stress-causing with something stress-relieving? He reached for the radio microphone. "David Fourteen," he said in a radio voice. "Have David Niner meet me at the golf course to take a theft report."

"Roger, David Fourteen."

By the time he arrived at their usual meeting spot, a deserted cluster of trees at the northern edge of the Beverly Hills Golf Course, Delsey Piper was already there. Her black-and-white was parked under a tree next to a high fence. Dressed in full uniform, she was perched on a front fender. Holding a little mirror, she was brushing her short blonde hair when he parked his car and climbed out.

"A theft report?" she said, amused. "What'll you think of next?"

"You start in the Detective Bureau next Monday," he told her, taking in a view of the golf course stretching below him. Here he was at the top of the city.

She squealed and jumped off the fender. Her uniform equipment rattled. "No lie?"

"No lie," he said. "Cleaver got the okay from the Chief today."

"Hooray!" she said, jumping up and down. "No more chickenshit parking tickets! No more traffic accident reports! Ultrabitchin'! Dynamite!" She continued to bounce up and down like a cheerleader.

Travis Bailey stared with an amused smile at her reaction. He reminded himself that she was only twenty-two years old. He grabbed her Sam Browne belt and pulled her to him. She was still giggling as their mouths met. As they kissed, he found the zippered fly on her uniform trousers and pulled it down.

"What if somebody comes up here?" she said.

"Then they'll find a policewoman getting fucked doggie style," he whispered. He unfastened her belt buckle. The belt, with its heavy equipment, dropped to the ground. He tugged on her trousers, then panties.

"You're so gross," she said, kicking off her trousers.

He spun her ample hips around and pushed her against the police car.

L.A.'s permanent layer of smog was hidden by darkness. Looking through binoculars, Charles Carr stood at the window inside a dark and bare-floored apartment. He knew that the black woman standing inside the bay-windowed apartment across the courtyard couldn't see him. In his line of work, he mused, invisibility was an ideal condition. His feet certainly didn't feel invisible. They were tired to the point of numbness. The stakeout was in its tenth hour.

A fit man, Carr was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, off-the-rack trousers and wing-tip shoes; attire that was neither fashionable nor particularly becoming, but served the Treasury Agent's Manual of Operations requirement "to be dressed in business attire at all times while on duty except when acting in an undercover capacity." Without the weight of a gold badge, handcuffs, revolver and bullet pouch on his belt to sag his trousers, he looked like most other middle-aged men with graying temples.

In the corner of the room, Carr's partner, Jack Kelly, lay on his back on the hardwood floor. A bear-sized man with enormous ham-hock fists, he had his arms folded across his chest like a cadaver. He was snoring.

Charles Carr adjusted the binoculars to get a better view. The lanky black woman lit a marijuana cigarette and took a puff. She was dressed in a pink velour outfit two sizes too small and had a foot-high brillo-pad hairdo. The woman fiddled with a stereo set. The muffled sound of rock music came from the apartment. For the next few minutes she lollygagged about the room puffing smoke, picking things up and putting them down and adjusting her frizz in a mirror over the sofa. At one point she answered her telephone and, having said a few words, hung up. Back to the mirror. More picking at her frizz.

Because of fatigue, Carr's mind wandered. He remembered being on a similar surveillance over twenty years earlier when he was a young special agent still on civil service probation status. As he'd been taught in Treasury Agent School, he had kept a surveillance log and dutifully noted everything the suspect did and the time. During the trial, he had learned that such logs were nothing more than cannon fodder for defense attorneys. "Agent Carr, your log shows a notation that the subject read the newspaper at ten fourteen the lawyer had said. "How do you know that the suspect
read
it? Couldn't he have been just
looking
at the pictures in the paper?" From then on, he had prepared only the most concise of reports. This habit, among others, was a source of constant consternation to his superiors, few of whom he respected, either then or now.

Perhaps that was why he was still a GS-12 special agent rather than agent in charge or a squad leader, as most other agents in his peer group now were. His frequent duty transfers, rather than being part of the Treasury Enforcement Career program (the Manual of Operations used the term
career path)
resulted from his ceaseless disputes with supervisors. The Agents in charge invariably handled threats of civil suits by criminal defendants and other bureaucratic headaches per the Treasury custom, by placing his name at the top of the most-eligible-for-transfer list. What the hell did he care? He was single. He had never looked at eighteen months working the streets of Miami or Detroit as a fate worse than death. The only hard part about leaving L.A. now and then was saying good-bye to his longtime girl friend, Sally Malone.

As a matter of fact, he hadn't been able to get his mind off her all day. After much musing, he had decided that the next time she brought up the subject of marriage he would not automatically shrug it off. He would not make a
commitment
(her word), he said to himself, but would try to have more of an open mind about it. God knows he was sick of restaurant food and Laundromats.

A black man carrying a briefcase approached the door of the woman's apartment. He knocked. A tall man, he wore white, skin-tight trousers and a purple long-sleeved shirt. The woman sauntered to the door and opened the peephole. She unlocked the door and let him in. Inside, the man and woman talked animatedly in front of the window.

Carr pulled a mug-shot photograph out of his back pocket. He moved to the corner of the room and pulled the penlight flashlight out of Kelly's shirt pocket. In its small beam of light Carr examined the photograph. He returned to the window. Using the binoculars again, he focused on the man's face.

"It's him," Carr said.

Kelly snored.

Carr tossed the tiny flashlight, landing it on his partner's barrel chest. Kelly scrambled to his feet, rubbed his eyes.

"What happened?" he asked in an urgent tone as he staggered to the window.

Carr adjusted the binoculars again. The black woman opened the refrigerator and removed what looked like a sack. She and the man sat down on the sofa. Because of the angle, Carr could not see what was taking place.

"She's dealing," Carr said.

Kelly snatched his suit coat off the floor and put it on. "How do you want to work it?"

"He walked in carrying a briefcase," Carr said. "It'll be loaded with fifties when he leaves. Let's grab him first."

The telephone rang. Carr reached down and picked up the receiver. "Carr," he said, keeping his eyes on the window.

"Travis Bailey here, Beverly Hills P.D. Your office gave me this number. Can you talk?"

"For a second," Carr said. He continued to watch the apartment.

"Do you have a bank president who lives in Beverly Hills that is supposed to be a major witness for you in a counterfeiting case?"

"Yes," Carr said. "His name is Hartmann."

"I have solid word that he's going to be hit. We need to talk."

"Hartmann is out of town right now," Carr said.

"I know. He's going to get hit tomorrow when he comes back. My informant is reliable."

"Can you meet me at Ling's in Chinatown in about three hours?"

"See you there," Bailey said.

Carr knelt and hung up the phone, again without taking his eyes off the window.