Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series) (13 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I connected with a
Times
editor, fellow I'd known since my LAPD days, and he let me into their morgue to search out Wiseman, though he assured me he had already done that and could gist it for me in two minutes. I'd already been
gisted
; I wanted a close look for myself. The editor was very interested in the Wiseman affair, of course, and he also knew that I was hot. I promised him a lock on the story if I ever put it together for myself. He set up the equipment for me and then left me to my own devices.

I had used the equipment before, of course. The computer age . . . used to be you could spend days going through back issues and still miss the item you were looking for. Now you just punch up the program on a computer terminal, sit back and let the magic genie search through years of news quicker than you can light a cigarette. It's all cross-indexed by subjects, dates, personalities, events—and you can call up every story in the file on a given person and even get hard copies if you want them.

There was not that much of a file on Bernard Wiseman, though the file was twenty years deep. He had been charged once years ago with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, charges later dropped. In more recent years he had been honored by the Producer's Guild and attacked by the Writer's Guild, there was a mention of his separation from Justine, coverage of his accident in Mexico, some stuff from the financial pages regarding UT's soaring success, gossip-column chaff about the problems with his board of directors, other odds and sods regarding new projects.

Then, beginning about six months before the bombing, there was a story at least every week in which he was mentioned as appearing at various social functions around town, always accompanied by Melissa Franklin, who was usually referred to as a "rising star" or words to that effect—once as "UT's rising new star." No mention of any of her pictures, though. There was a flurry of stories spanning the last several weeks—almost daily—again dealing with the infighting at UT. The newest stuff was not yet in the computer.

I called up the photo file and found three pictures of interest, two of them showing Wiseman in a tuxedo and a stunning blond wearing little more than sunglasses, the third showing Wiseman being wheeled out of his limo by his chauffeur at some benefit. The blond was identified as Melissa Franklin—but who would know for sure? No identification of the chauffeur, but it was the same man as in the Polaroid. Not a lot of help there, but at least it deepened my suspicion that I was up against a masterly production of deception and illusion.

I needed more information from Melissa, and I wanted another crack at her husband. I also would have loved to get Justine Wiseman into a cold shower and hold her there until she turned blue enough to talk like ordinary people. And I wanted the doggy boy and maybe a crack at some of Justine's party guests.

The odds, though, were that I would be behind bars before I could get to any of those people. I had been a cop long enough to realize I was on the downward leg of my trajectory through this case—that I was running out of time, out of options.

Two magnificent police machines were chewing through the interconnections a lot faster than I could hope to. They would get to the end before I would, and I had the sinking feeling that I had been staked out as raw meat from the beginning of this thing. It was more than a feeling. Edgar had supposedly been tipped by an informant that I'd been paid big money to help Wiseman stage his death. I knew how that played in the police mind. Didn't require a lot of stretch for them to infer a whole bunch of other crimes, especially if the tip-line was still busy. Those guys weren't chasing me all over town just so they could prove me innocent. They were on my tail because the politicians on their tails wanted a quick wrap-up to this case and didn't much care who got burned in the process.

So I was seeing my one hope as a power play straight up the middle—forgetting finesse and fancy footwork, forgetting scenarios and
weirdos
and mysterious manipulations. I suspected by now that much of that was disinformation anyway, confusion factor. I had to take that shot up the middle.

So I asked my friend the editor to run a make for me on Andrew "Butch" Cassidy. I mentioned the New York connection and his position at UT, then sat in the corner with bitter newsroom coffee and watched my life tick away while the computer terminal flashed its magic coast-to-coast in a chase after the facts of the matter. I said it already, it's a genie, and it even provided me with Cassidy's Los Angeles address and phone number.

I was out of there at four o'clock and creeping at low silhouette through the quiet streets, up onto the Santa Monica Freeway and fast west through the fog, off at La Brea and northward at creep speed again toward Farmer's Market and the CBS studios, across Beverly and into a fashionable apartment complex.

This time it was my piece docking at his nose, and he came up as quietly as I had. He was not sleeping alone. She was young and out of it, sleeping facedown and one arm dangling over the side. He grabbed his clothes from a chair and we went quietly to the living room, where he put them on without protest by word or gesture. We took the elevator to the garage, got into his car and set off for UT. So far I'd done all the talking. We were halfway across town before he asked me what was up.

I told him, "Life, maybe, yours and mine. I guess it's up to you."

"What is?"

"How much longer either of us have. Looks like your New York pals have sewn me into this thing too tight to unravel. So I'm binding you in there with me. What happens to me happens to you."

      
"You're nuts," he said. "Who are you? The men in New York have never heard your name."

      
"Then you've got nothing to worry about. Nothing happens to me and you too."

      
"You better tell me what's on your mind. If I'm bound to you,
Copp
, at least I should know who your enemies are supposed to be."

      
I told him, "You're my enemy, Butch."

      
"Bullshit. I don't—"

      
"You and every other kinky cop that ever dirtied a badge. I got no respect. You're filth, so don't try shining it on to me."

      
He didn't even try to bluster it out. "Who the hell are you to say? I didn't see no honors in your file, Mr. Boy Scout."

      
"Didn't work for honors, or merit badges. Obviously you didn't either. Pensioned, my ass. You were lucky to just stay on the streets. How long you been on Chairman Klein's payroll?"

      
"Up yours," he said. "I don't owe you anything. Let's do what you
gotta
do and get it over with. Exactly what
d'you
want?"

      
"Exactly I want my head out of this noose not of my making. I'm going to make you talk sense to me, Butch. One way or the other."

      
"With or without your gun, scout?"

      
"Whatever it takes. I'll shoot your knees off, I don't care, whatever language you understand best."

      
"Or up the nose, like you did to Walter?"

      
I said, "You heard, eh?"

      
"
ID'd
the body. The kid was raw. You didn't need that."

      
"I also didn't do that, but I was in the neighborhood when it went down. Figured you did it . . ."

      
"Why would I do it? He was my man—"

      
"You'd do it to your own mother. Especially with fifty mil in the kitty. Assuming there really is a fifty mil. Is there?"

      
"There was," he said

      
"I'll want you to tell me about that."

      
"Already did. Now you tell me about it."

      
"I'm the one with the gun this time. I could start with your balls if you like your knees better."

      
He actually smiled at that. "Neither are much good to me anymore. Notice that kid back there? Now it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night long. It's embarrassing, especially with these kids. I don't think they even know what sex is, most of '
em
. Tight little pussies and empty little heads, that's all I ever get, and they don't even know what they're missing."

      
"They know why they're doing it," I told him. They like the color of your money."

      
He said, "Maybe that's the problem. Go ahead. Take the balls. I don't need '
em
. At least with knees I can still peek through keyholes."

      
"Too late," I said. "No more keyholes."

      
He laughed. "Guess that dates me too. How old are you,
Copp
?"

      
"Just barely downside of forty."

      
"Past forty, you better start calling your shots."

      
"Already started it," I said. "Saved one tonight, in fact. Ever been to one of Justine's parties?"

      
"Justine Wiseman? Never met the lady. They were separated when I came out here."

      
"Did you know Wiseman before his accident?"

      
"The back injury? That happened about a year before I came out."

      
"Why'd they send you, Butch?"

      
"Told you. Their man was cheating '
em
."

      
"Why didn't they send an auditor?"

      
He laughed. "With those guys, I am an auditor."

      
I didn't laugh. "Thought they called it enforcer."

      
"That too."

      
"
Legbreaker
."

      
"On occasion."

      
"Even wearing a badge."

      
"Hey, hold the holy water. Know how many cops I've buried? Never a kinky one, though. Only heroes get buried. Smart guys bury them."

      
"And you're one of the smartest."

      
"That's right."

      
"Did you come here to bury Wiseman?"

      
"Hell, no. And he's no hero. Wiseman will end up burying you."

      
"Think he could talk his way out of this mess?"

      
"Sure he could. Don't believe their movies. These guys don't have codes of honor. They have bottom- line profit motive. Turn profits for them, they love you. Even if you cheat them they love you because they respect you, and they know you can do it to others for them. He could make it up, sure. Tell Wiseman to sweeten the pot, add ten mil and give it all back. They'll even let '
im
keep his job."

      
"Sure, suspended from a meat hook."

      
He laughed. "You watch too many movies. They don't do that stuff anymore. This new generation don't even know how."

"But your generation does."

He turned a smile to me. "My generation invented it."

He was Butch Cassidy now, and he didn't need a Sundance Kid. He'd been fired, so the record said, from NYPD fifteen years ago after a long career as a mob enforcer with a badge, and he'd been suspected but never charged in a whole litany of crimes since that time. On the streets of New York they didn't call him Butch Cassidy. They called him Butcher Cassidy. Maybe he'd killed a cord of people in Los Angeles, too? Somehow I didn't think so. And I was even hoping that I wouldn't have to get too rough with him. Butcher or not, I sort of respected the way he carried himself. We had a pretty good understanding of each other by the time we reached the studio.