Death on a High Floor (23 page)

“Fiercely?”

“No. Fierley. F-I-E-R-L-E-Y.”

“Okay, got it this time.”

Then Clay seemed to study my face. “You look familiar.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, like a guy in the newspaper.” He bent over and took a newspaper out of his backpack, which was under the seat in front of him. I could see that it was a
Chicago Tribune
. He thumbed it to an inner page of the second section.

“Yeah!” he said. “Here’s your picture. Says you’re wanted.” He grinned and handed me the paper. There was a picture of me, over a short blurb saying the LAPD had asked the Chicago police to find me because I was fleeing a murder warrant.

Clay looked excited. “Did you do it?”

“No!”

“Yeah, you look too corporate to be a killer,” he said. He had clearly not seen me in my parka.

“Thanks, I think.”

“Can I get your autograph?” Clay handed me a pen and gestured at the article.

I was stunned. I sat there, pen in hand, and thought about the fact that whether I was acquitted or convicted, for the rest of my life people on airplanes would probably want to talk to me. I suppose I should have seen it coming with the Blob. But this was more up close and personal. I thought about the fact that if I got convicted, this might be my last airplane trip ever. I had a sudden image of myself sitting in one of those buses they use to transport convicts, dressed in an orange jumpsuit.

“Mr. Tarza?” Clay was looking at me. I had drifted off.

“Oh, sorry. Sure.” I wrote my name across the “wanted” article and handed it back to him.

“Um, could you write something more personal?” he asked.

“Like what?” I was unskilled in this kind of thing, clearly.

“How about, ‘To Clay, who didn’t turn me in.’” He smiled.

I laughed, took the article back, and amended my autograph as he had asked.

“So you’re not going to turn me in?” I said.

“Nah. But I do want to see them come on board and arrest you. It will be the coolest thing that’s happened to me all year. I’ve been buried in Aristotle. Talk about dry.”

“Aristotle had nothing to say about avoiding arrest?” I asked.

“No.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll let me surrender. My lawyer’s meeting me at the airport.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He looked awkward. “Well, good luck, Mr. Tarza.”

“Thanks.” Then I realized I had one more question. “What are you going to do with the autograph?”

“Sell it on eBay.”

“Oh.”

We both spent the rest of the flight reading, as if there were nothing unusual about anything. Just a suspected felon and a college student, heading home to Los Angeles.

The plane landed thirty minutes early and taxied to the gate. As soon as the little ping sounded, announcing that the plane had stopped, the flight attendant came on the PA and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special circumstance involving a request from airport security, and I ask all of you to remain in your seats for just a few moments. This won’t take long.” Several people who had gotten up sat back down.

Clay looked like he had just become the proud father of a new baby boy. “I knew it. They’re going to nail you here.”

“What?”

As I said it, three burly LAPD cops were suddenly beside me. Along with Detective Spritz.

“Are you Robert Tarza?” he asked.

“You know damn well I’m Robert Tarza.”

“There’s no need to be hostile.”

“You could have let me surrender.”

“You were fleeing.”

“Coming back to L.A. to flee?”

I noticed passengers in the other rows craning toward us. No one looked the least bit irritated that they were being delayed. It was as if time had stopped.

Spritz ignored me. “Please put your hands on top of your head and get up, slowly.”

I put my hands on my head and started to get up. It was hard, because I had to stoop slightly to keep my hands, now on my head, from bumping the overhead bin as I rose.

“Awesome,” Clay said. Then he pointed his cell phone in my direction, casually, as if he were about to put it to his ear to make a call. Another damn picture. Spritz either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Now,” Spritz said, “please walk slowly to the back of the plane.”

I walked. One of the big guys had gone ahead and opened the door to the small restroom. When I got there, Spritz pushed me inside, not so gently.

“Lean over the sink and put your hands behind your back,” Spritz said.

I leaned, and he clicked a pair of handcuffs on me. It was the first time in my life my hands had been irretrievably pinned behind my back. I felt, well,
sullied
. Two of the big guys patted me down as they continued pressing on my shoulders, shoving my head toward the sink.

Then Spritz Mirandized me in a rhythmic voice, as if he were reciting Homer:

You are under arrest

For the murder of Simon Rafer.

You have the right to remain silent . . .

Each time he recited one of the Miranda verses, the two big guys on my shoulders gave me another push, like I was a drumstick they were using to beat time.

Anything you do or say

May be used against you

In a court of law.

You have the right to consult an attorney

Before speaking to the police.

By now my nose was bumping the sink with the recitation of every line.

And to have an attorney present

During questioning.

If you cannot afford an attorney

One will be appointed for you . . .

If you wish.

He finished the last verse on a rising inflection.

“I already have an attorney,” I managed to say from deep in the sink.

“Yeah, I’ve met her,” Spritz said. “What can I say? You ought to plead guilty right away.”

“I’m not guilty.”

“I’ll mark it down.”

“I’m not.”

“All right, let’s take him out.”

The two big guys pulled my shoulders up, so that I was standing again, half-in and half-out of the lavatory.

Spritz put his face up to mine. “Fritz and Fernando here are going to walk in front of you, and Sergeant Drady and I are going to walk behind. One bit of trouble and we’ll have to let you use the front lavatory.”

“I won’t give you any trouble, Detective.”

“Good.”

With that, they frog-marched me down the aisle of the plane. Taking their good time about it, it seemed to me. Most of the passengers simply gaped, although I noticed that several of them were already on their cell phones, talking animatedly, and there were a few more flashes. I was news.

As we reached the door of the plane, I made an inquiry of Spritz, but without turning my head around, which seemed like it might be interpreted as giving trouble.

“Are you going to march me through the terminal?” I asked.

“Shit no.”

It soon became obvious that I was to be taken out the little side door in the telescoping jetway that was hooked to the plane. The door the ground crews use to go in and out. I had the odd thought that this was a breach of airport security. None of us had security cards.

There was a car waiting on the tarmac, next to the plane. It was an old LAPD black and white. Spritz put his hand on my head to keep me from hitting the door jamb as I got into the back seat, just like they do on TV. After Spritz buckled my seat belt, both he and Sergeant Drady climbed into the back seat through the other door, with Spritz in the middle. The two big guys got in front, and the car took off.

We drove in silence for five or ten minutes, as the car threaded its way out of the runway complex and onto city streets. I knew Spritz was just waiting for me to say something, but I counseled myself to remain silent. An attempt at self-Mirandizing.

In order to avoid talking, I spent some time examining the inside of the car. It was filthy. The windows were greasy, and it smelled of cigarette smoke. In the end, I failed Miranda.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Downtown, to book you,” Spritz said.

“Parker Center?”

“No, the old Parker Center’s closed, and the new one doesn’t have its jail built yet. You’ll be going to a temporary jail nearby.” He looked over at me. “We thought about booking you at the airport station, but decided to give you a break and take you downtown.”

“Why is that a break?”

“Fewer media around.”

“Oh.”

We rode on in silence again. No one said anything for maybe ten minutes. By then we were on the San Diego Freeway. There was a lot of traffic, and I tried to keep myself from opening my mouth again by watching the cars go by. Other motorists were staring at me. They would glance away only if I managed to catch their eye. It created in me an increasing sense of capture, and, frankly, a rising panic. Spritz must have sensed that.

“Do you want to talk about it, sir?” he asked.

“Talk about what?”

“The deep shit you’re in.”

“I have a lawyer. I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me if you
want
to. Who knows, you might even learn something, huh? Anyway, you’re a lawyer yourself. How long have you been at it?”

“Thirty six years.”

“Litigation, you told me, right?”

“Mostly.” Although I didn’t actually recall telling him that. But I took the point. He was reminding me of our first meeting. Of the contrast between then and now. Then, high above the city, looking out at the hills and the ocean, lord of all I surveyed. Being snotty. Now, handcuffed in the back of a beat-up old black and white, looking at the fly stains on the seatback, lord of nothing. Trying to be nice.

Spritz went right on. “So as a litigator, you can protect yourself, huh?”

“I don’t know much about criminal law,” I said.

“Neither does your lawyer.”

“Don’t dump on Jenna.”

“Okay. But how about I tell you something to show my good faith in this conversation? Something your crackerjack lawyer hasn’t found out.”

“Sure.”

Just then, the car came to a sudden, slamming halt. Despite the fact that I was wearing a seat belt, I tried instinctively to bring my hands around to keep from hitting the seat in front of me. Which simply caused the handcuffs to bite painfully into my wrists. Initially, at least, it’s hard to remember you’re wearing cuffs.

Spritz spoke to the driver. “What the hell was that?”

The driver turned his head around. “Accident. Just happened. We should be by it in a few minutes.”

I had not really gotten a good look at the driver before. My view of him had been mostly from the sink. Now I concentrated on his face. It was beefy and flushed, like an Irish cop of old. Except Spritz had called him Fernando. Then again, we were in Los Angeles. For all I knew, his name was Fernando O’Shaughnessy.

Studying Fernando took my mind off my stomach, which was feeling queasy from the abrupt stop. I’ve never been a good back seat passenger. I used to beg to sit in the front seat when I was a kid. My parents never gave in to that request, but at least they didn’t handcuff me.

The car started to move again. Somehow, with that momentary disruption of Spritz’s smooth arrest machine, I had begun to feel in control again.

I heard myself saying, “So, Detective, you were about to tell me something I don’t know.”

“We know where the coin is,” he said.

Now that was something I
did
want to know. I assumed that he was talking about the original, which I had concluded was missing. But if I said, “Where is it?” I’d be admitting that the coin was involved in all of this. On the other hand, they seemed already to know that the coin figured in this. So I wouldn’t be telling them much.

And I
had
made progress with Serappo. I was now certain that there was a counterfeiting ring out there. The only questions were who and why. The more information I got, the sooner I could nail it all down and get the hell out of this.

Sergeant Drady spoke for the first time. “Don’t you want to know where the coin is, Robert?”

Drady had apparently mistaken my non-answer, driven as it was by my internal ping pong match, as a lack of interest. But he had called me Robert. I smiled. “So you’re Mr. Nice Cop?”

“Nope,” Drady said. “More Mr. Bunco Cop. Bunco, computer fraud, forensics, forgery, that kind of stuff.”

“Mr. Bunco cop, huh?” I said, in my most Spritzian manner.

Spritz shot me a look. Apparently, he was not unaware of his own verbal tic, but didn’t like having it called to his attention.

Drady ignored all that and continued. “Detective Spritz and I talked it over, and kinda thought you might wanna know where the coin is, you know? If you’re not interested, no biggie.”

“Well, he sure as hell doesn’t seem interested,” Spritz said.

I was interested all right. I seized upon a cautious, middle-way to approach it.

“What coin are you referring to?” I asked.

“The one,” Spritz said, “that you sold Simon Rafer, the
Ides
.”

I tried to sound not all that interested.

“Oh, where is it?”

Sergeant Drady answered. “In Shanghai.”

I don’t know if my eyebrows shot up or not. They might have. Shanghai is world counterfeiting headquarters. Rembrandts, Sumerian cylinder seals, Homeric vases. Whatever you want. Not only that, Simon had asked me to wire his $500,000 to an account in China.

Spritz picked it up again. “In fact, the coin was overnighted to a Mr. Chen care of a tea store in Shanghai. Who is Mr. Chen?”

I did indeed know who Mr. Chen was. Or I thought I did. Sam Chen. A coin appraiser in San Francisco who was always willing to give a high appraisal to a needy seller. Popularly known in the trade as Mr. What Do You Need? I knew he also spent time in Shanghai.

Something told me, though, that it wouldn’t be a great idea to cop to being acquainted with Mr. Chen.

“What makes you think I would know who he is?” I asked.

“How about because you’re the one who overnighted the coin to him in Shanghai?” Spritz said.

“I did no such thing.”

“Sure you did,” Drady said.

“I didn’t,” I said, as if repetition would win the day.

“You want proof, Mr. Lawyer? We have your law firm’s overnight mail log with your name on it as the sender.”

“Anybody could have sent that.”

“Just like anybody could have stumbled on Mr. Rafer’s body.”

“Sergeant, I absolutely did not send anything to any Mr. Chen. But since you are persuaded I did, and there seems no way to change your mind, I think now I’m just going to assert my Miranda rights and keep silent, okay?”

I pretended to look out the window again. We had passed the accident and were speeding up. Soon, we’d be downtown. I’d be out of the filthy car, and Jenna would make them stop talking to me. Did Jenna even know I’d been arrested? I didn’t really know. I didn’t know anything. This time, I really was going to keep my mouth shut.

“I don’t know how staying silent helps you,” Spritz said. “You’re already pretty incriminated.”

I continued to look out the window.

Spritz continued to talk. “One of the incriminating things,” he said, “is what we found in the box in your garden. But I guess you already know what was in the box we dug up there, huh?”

I hadn’t even known there was a box buried in my garden until Larson, the guy from the
National Enquirer
, told me about it. Knowing more about that box and exactly what kind of ancient coins were in it might prove very useful in unraveling the mystery.

“What box, Detective?”

Sergeant Drady leaned forward, over and across Spritz, and put his face next to mine. “Don’t fuck with us, asshole.”

“I’m not fucking with you, sir. I don’t know anything about a box in my garden.”

Drady backed away, settled into his seat again, and sighed. When he spoke, he seemed to be talking to Spritz.

“Here we are, trying to help him out. And all he does is fuck with us. Maybe we should just tell the DA to go ahead and charge it as a capital crime. Like he wants to.”

I was stunned into silence. It had never occurred to me that what I was being accused of was a capital crime. No one had ever even hinted at it.

Finally, after many minutes went by, during which no one uttered a single sound, I managed to say something. “How do you figure it’s a capital crime, Sergeant?”

“Whoever killed him was lying in wait. It’s a special circumstance that gets you the big D.”

“I didn’t kill him, so I didn’t lie anywhere.”

“Somebody did,” he said.

Spritz broke in. “There’s no point in telling him anything more, huh. He hasn’t told
us
anything we didn’t already know. He won’t even tell us who Chen is.”

It seemed like it was time to bargain. I’m a world class bargainer. It’s what I do for a living.

“Sergeant, suppose I tell you something you
do
want to know,” I said. “And then you tell me something I want to know.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, I think Simon was counterfeiting the
Ides
.
There are at least two high-quality fakes floating around.”

“You mean,” Spritz asked, “like the two we found when we searched your suit jacket after we took you off the plane? The one in the clear envelope and the one in the red envelope? Those two?”

“Those aren’t mine.”

“Sure, sure. They were just visiting your pockets. Somebody else counterfeited them. Not you.”

I felt like an idiot.

It was Drady’s turn again.

“Now we’ll keep our end of the bargain,” he said. “Here’s what you wanna know, I bet. Right next to where Mr. Rafer was killed, there was a depression in the thick carpet. Shape of a stretched out body. Like somebody lied there. Waiting for him.”

I decided to skip telling him the proper past tense of “to lie.” And to just shut up again. Finally and completely. No exceptions. And I wouldn’t need to keep quiet much longer. Fernando had been weaving erratically in and out of traffic, and we weren’t very far from downtown.

Drady addressed Spritz. “Detective, what say we just tell him the other tidbit? Maybe he’ll plead guilty after he hears it.”

“Sure, go ahead, Sergeant,” Spritz said. “You tell him.”

“Well, Mr. Fancy Lawyer Who Doesn’t Know Anything About Anything,” Drady said, “you remember that pinstripe suit jacket of yours, the one Detective Spritz here took from you the morning of the murder? Well lucky you, the nice blue fibers from your jacket match the nice blue fibers found in that depression in the rug. Where whoever killed him was waiting. Which was you, of course. That’s why you’re gonna fry.”

“They don’t fry them anymore,” Spritz said. “Never did in this state.”

“Well, whatever they do.”

I felt like throwing up. And then I did. In a great heave. Half-digested pieces of the bagel from breakfast, plus peanuts, pretzels and whatever else I had gobbled down on the plane. I don’t really know whether it was the erratic driving, or the fear, or some combination, but whatever it was, it was all over Spritz, a lot on Drady and the seat back, and only a little on me. Although it was running down my nose.