The Quality of the Informant (2 page)

The man gave a moan and soon became erect. He whispered things for her to do, positions to assume, and she complied. None of the requests surprised her. It was the usual bill-of-fare fantasy cock-worship act that always excited men. Hurrying like an adolescent, he was on top of her, rutting, sweating, exercising his ugly abdomen, and Linda made periodic joy-yelps to help him along. Finally, his eyes closed and he gave in to orgasm. As the man groaned in a wave of pleasure, Linda glanced at a clock on the nightstand. She made an expected
aaaah
sound. With a wet kiss, he rolled off her in exhaustion.

Linda snuggled next to him. Her hand danced gently across the hair of his chest for a while. "
Mmmm
," she said. "It's nice to be with someone who turns me on."

Paul fondled a breast. "I don't come to L.A. very often," he said. "The feds here are looking for me."

Linda's neck tingled. She had guessed right. "Why?" she asked.

"Funny money." He flicked her nipple.

Hiding her excitement at the remark, Linda took his hand and covered it with little kisses.

"When are you leaving town?"

"Tomorrow night," Paul said, looking at the ceiling.

During the next half hour or so, they showered separately and Paul dressed.

While Linda stood drying off in front of the bathroom door, Paul said something about using the telephone. Tucking in his shirt, he went into the living room.

Linda tiptoed to the half-closed door as he was dialing the phone.

"This is Robert French," she heard him say. "May I speak to Mr. Lassiter please?"

Linda put her ear to the crack of the door.

"Hello, Robert French here," Paul said. "I ordered thirty reams of safety paper and some inks yesterday. Would you check and see if the order is ready?" Nothing was said for a while. Then, "Fine," Paul said. "No, that won't be necessary. I'll be in to pick it up. Thanks." He hung up the phone and made another call. "Yes, for one month only," he said. "I want you to answer: 'International Investigations Incorporated.' I'll call in for messages once a day. Whoever calls, just tell them I'm out of town." He hung up the receiver.

Linda dashed to the closet and grabbed a robe. Paul came back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. He started putting on his shoes.

"Sounds like you've got something cooking," Linda said, fearing to be any more direct. She ran a brush through her damp hair.

"You might say that," Paul said. "Matter of fact, I'll be needing a female backup in a week or so. Interested?"

Linda shrugged and continued to brush. She wished she'd had a chance to look through his wallet. "Tomorrow is my day off," she said, sitting down next to him on the bed.

"How about coming over before you leave. We can barbecue steaks." She nuzzled his ear. "And maybe I can have a repeat performance before I let you go," she whispered, giving his crotch a squeeze.

"Why not," he said proudly. He stood up and threw on his camel's-hair sport coat. Linda followed him to the front door.

He patted her on the bottom and
said,
"See
ya
tomorrow," in a confident tone. Linda Gleason winked. The man walked outside.

Having closed and bolted the door, she found her purse on the kitchen counter, dug out a pack of filter tips and lit up. Plopping down on the sofa, she grabbed the phone off the coffee table and dialed.

A sleepy-voiced man answered. "U.S. Treasury Field Enforcement."

"I'm trying to get in touch with Special Agent Charles Carr," Linda Gleason said. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke.

"He works the four-to-twelve shift. Would you like to leave a message?"

"I'll call later, thanks."

The phone clicked.

It was 3:00 P.M.

The apartment's solitary bedroom was bare except for a bed with a suitcase opened on it and a dresser. The second-story view from the window was of another apartment house. In Santa Monica, a blocked ocean view was the sign of an affordable address.

Having shaved, showered, and donned slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt with a frayed collar, Charles Carr fastened a holster to his belt. He realized as he dressed that he had taken the shirt with him to Washington, D.C., when he'd been transferred there from L.A. two years ago. Unable to find his handcuff case after rummaging through the suitcase, he hung the cuffs over his belt at the small of his back. He shoved his .38 into the holster.

While shaving, he had momentarily considered leaving the stubble on his upper lip to begin a mustache. A lady bartender he'd dated in D.C. had once told him it would make him look younger. He had quickly scotched the daydream and shaved clean. So he looked like a fifty-year-old man with a barroom flush on his cheekbones-so what? The Treasury Department's requirements had been for veterans with 20/20 vision and "no distinguishing traits." Though his looks, dress, and general demeanor might keep him from making it to the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly, he figured he still filled the bill as a street-level T-man.

He emptied his suitcase of the personal items he always seemed to cart along with him from transfer to transfer: a grainy Treasury Agent Training School class photo with everyone wearing hats; old bullet pouches and
scribbly
address books; a printed invitation to a 101st Airborne reunion decorated with a map of Korea; a news clipping about his shoot-out with the hired killer Clyde Reno; a dog-eared photograph of his mother and father sitting on the front porch of their tiny home in Boyle Heights; a stack of letters from Sally Malone. He stuffed the items into dresser drawers.

Because his belongings were being shipped by government bill of lading (known to federal civil servants as the Wagon Train), he had no utensils. At the kitchen sink, he rinsed out a Styrofoam cup he found in the cabinet and drank two cups of water. He left the apartment and headed downtown.

A tepid Santa Ana wind swirled in the open windows of Charles Carr's sedan as he sped east along the Santa Monica freeway. The breeze had wafted the city's stultifying layer of smog to sea, revealing a panorama of chaparral-covered foothills and mountains extending from Hollywood east past Cucamonga: nature's infrequent reminder that without neon, asphalt, Chevron stations, and tract homes with television aerials, Los Angeles was a desert basin touching an ocean.

Years ago he had chased a counterfeiter at more than a hundred miles an hour along the same freeway. Each of the familiar exit signs stirred other such memories; a rooftop chase along
LaCienega
;
a three
-week surveillance on Sepulveda; a shoot-out in front of a bank on Robertson Boulevard. Hell, he had chased paper pushers and passers around the city for so long that few streets were unfamiliar to him. It was no secret that he thrived on the big-city action: the bizarre people, the jungle politics of the underworld,
the
challenge of trying to beat the counterfeiters and hoods at their own game.

Off duty, his activities centered
around
police watering holes, maudlin retirement-and-promotion parties, barroom celebrations after big cases, and Dodger games. Though his attachments to women were usually characterized by casual dates and one-night stands, this was due to no particular creed or philosophy.

Certainly by any normal standards his existence could be described as neither wholesome nor particularly fruitful. But for a man who more than twenty years ago had
volunteered
for the army-the 101st Airborne, and combat in Korea-it was not without its rewards.

At Vermont Avenue he pulled into the slow lane and took the turnoff. He headed north through a crowded business district. At the edge of Hollywood, he pulled up in front of a fast-food stand, a four-
seater
operation fashioned out of sheet metal that had been painted bright red. On the awning over the stools was a crudely painted sign of a hot dog dripping with mustard: "Calhoun's" was lettered on the bun. Charles Carr parked his sedan and got out.

"The Snake has returned," Calhoun said as Carr straddled a stool. The 260-pound black man wore a white T-shirt and trousers, apron, and a paper chef's hat. Without using tongs, he plopped a frankfurter into a bun. Having loaded the bun with relish and mustard, he wrapped the hot dog and set it down in front of Carr. Calhoun wiped his fingers on a rag. The men shook hands. "Kelly told me you'd transferred back," Calhoun said. "I've been waiting for you to stop by."

Carr picked up the hot dog and took a bite. He chewed and swallowed. "What's going on?" he said.

"There's some twenties and phony driver's licenses around," Calhoun said. "Nothing really hot and heavy, you understand.
Just the usual.
If you want it, it's out there."

"Money talks," Carr said casually. He took another bite.

"You got that right," Calhoun said. "Just wave a little of that green shit around a few people, and a man can get exactly what he wants. Hell, yesterday the dude who lives next door told me he could get any brand of TV I wanted. It'll be stolen, but I could actually order the brand I wanted ahead of time. Can you believe that shit?"

Carr nodded. He finished the hot dog.

Calhoun plopped another frankfurter into a bun. Carr gestured no, and Calhoun tossed the frank back in the steamer.

"How's your son doing?" Carr asked.

Calhoun shook his head. "Tyrone's gotten worse since I wrote you that letter," he said. "He won't listen to me and he calls his mother names. It's all because he moved into an apartment with a bunch of jive-ass niggers. A couple of weeks ago I drove him down to the army recruiting office. A sergeant gave him a real nice talking-to. He actually got him to fill out all the papers and take a physical. He was ready to go. The wife and I were all set to have a real nice going-away party for him-a barbecue in Griffith Park." Calhoun adjusted his cap and shook his head again. "Then those jive-ass punks he's been hanging around with talked him out of it. They told him he was an asshole for wanting to go in the army and be a paratrooper. They're dope dealers, a bunch of jack-jawed no-good hophead
motherfuckers
. I know they're into funny money too. I heard my boy whispering on the telephone about it. At first I figured I'd go over there and cave their damn heads in, but I'd be taking a chance at ending up in San Quentin my own self. I'm afraid that once I got started I wouldn't know when to quit. You know how I am."

Carr nodded.

A gray-faced old man wearing a filthy baseball cap and T-shirt sat down at the counter. Calhoun served him a hot dog and a cup of coffee. He returned to Carr. "Them jive-ass punks my boy is living with all drive
Cadillacs
. I raised my son in the Baptist Church. I saw to it that his ass was in Sunday school all the way through the tenth grade. But now he's eighteen years old and he's met some punks that deal dope and have enough money to drive their bitches around in
Cadillacs
." He slapped the counter violently. "Damn! And to think my boy came within an inch of being an airborne trooper. He
woulda
been a second-generation paratrooper instead of a goddamn hophead."

"A person can't even eat a bog dog in peace," said the old man at the counter. He stood up angrily and walked away with his frankfurter and coffee.

Calhoun tipped his hat at the man.

"On second thought, maybe I will have another," Carr said.

Calhoun winked. He prepared a hot dog and handed it to Carr. "Tyrone just don't know any better. He's grown up in the city and it's all he knows. He's at the age where he needs a change in environment ... to find out that
there's
other people in the world besides the punks that live around the corner. I was the same way when I was his age. I know what I'm talking about."

"The boy needs to jump out of an airplane," Carr said.

Calhoun folded his arms and leaned forward over the counter. "Or have the jumpmaster kick his ass out the door," he said.

Carr took a bite of the hog dog. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Still wearing '
em
?" he said.