The Quality of the Informant (5 page)

Linda Gleason came out of the bedroom, a sheepish look on her face. Paul
LaMonica
stared at her the way inmates stare at prison guards: enmity without expression.

Carr sat in the backseat with
LaMonica
on the way to the Field Office for the usual processing.

LaMonica
was slouched down in the seat. "I
wanna
do a deal," he said.

Carr was looking out the window at nothing in particular. He didn't answer.

"I know what you're thinking,"
LaMonica
said. "You know my record. I've never cooperated in the past, so why should I now?" He squirmed.

Carr nodded.

"It's because I have enemies at Terminal Island this time. If you send me back there it's the death sentence. I'll get
shanked
in a week. One of the prison gangs has a contract out on me."
LaMonica's
eyes were wide. "That's why I had to escape. It was a matter of survival."

Carr reached across the front seat and pulled a booking form from above the visor. He took a pen out of his pocket and filled in
LaMonica's
name.

LaMonica
stared at the form. "I have something to offer, but once you book me it will be too late. Can't we just pull over and chat for a few seconds?"

Carr wrote "Camel's-hair sport coat, brown pants" under a column marked "Prisoner's Clothing." "Mr.
LaMonica
wants to chat," Carr said without looking up.

Kelly laughed.

"I've got a hundred grand in twenties stashed here in L.A.,"
LaMonica
said.

Kelly stopped laughing. His eyes met Carr's in the rearview mirror. Carr nodded. Kelly steered off the freeway and into a supermarket parking lot. He stopped the car and turned off the engine.

"Where's the stash?" Carr said.

"It's less than ten minutes from here,"
LaMonica
said. "I'm willing to surrender it only in exchange for your promise to let me do my time somewhere other than Terminal Island. Leavenworth, McNeil Island, I don't care. I just can't go back to T.I."

Carr folded the booking card and stuffed it in his coat pocket. "I can't guarantee-"

"I know the program," the prisoner interrupted. "You can't guarantee anything, blah, blah, blah. I also know that for you feds, a prison transfer is no big deal. All I'm asking is that you go to bat for me."

Across the street a Cadillac pulled up to a black woman sitting on a bench at a bus stop. She was wearing a blond wig. The driver of the Cadillac spoke to her through the passenger window. The woman looked around furtively and got in. The car drove off. Shaking his head in disgust, Kelly muttered, "Right in broad daylight."

Carr lit a cigarette and tossed the match out the window. "So you saved some paper for insurance in case you got caught."

"Whatever,"
LaMonica
said with a look of resignation.

"If you lead us to the stash I'll do what I can to keep you out of Terminal Island," Carr said. "That's the only deal I'll go for. No more, no less."

LaMonica
leaned his head back against the seat and exhaled. "Okay," he said. "You've got a deal."

"Where to?" said Kelly.

"Head down Hollywood Boulevard,"
LaMonica
said. "It's in a bank safety-deposit box."

Carr dragged on the cigarette. "The key?"

"My wallet,"
LaMonica
said. He leaned toward the window. Carr pulled a wallet from the prisoner's rear pocket. Inside it was a brass key.

"Okay, Jack, now we head for Hollywood," Carr said. Kelly started the engine and got back on the freeway.

LaMonica
gave directions to the bank with panache. 'Right turn here, please ... Left turn here, please." With manacled hands he pointed to a restaurant with a neon lobster on the roof. "Best lobster in L.A.," he said. "With a little luck I'll be back in
there
cracking shells in a year or two. Do you figure I'll get much more than that?"

"Depends on the judge," Carr said.

Kelly guffawed. "If you get some pussy like Judge Malcolm he'll probably let you go and put us in jail," he said.

LaMonica
pointed out the window. "There's the bank."

Kelly slowed down. The bank was a brown brick structure sandwiched between a health-food store and a shop with hashish pipes displayed in its window. Kelly applied the brakes. He backed into a parking space and turned off the engine.

Carr opened the door and got out.
LaMonica
slid across the car seat and struggled, handcuffed, to pull himself out of the vehicle. Carr reached down and cupped the prisoner's elbow to assist.
LaMonica
sprang to his feet and slammed his handcuffed wrists into Carr's face. The agent fell backward onto the sidewalk, his eyes blinded by a stiletto of pain.
LaMonica
bolted. Kelly ran past, shouting. Carr's eyes came back into focus. He was on his feet and running down an alley next to the bank. The warmth of blood spread across his forehead. Wiping it off with his hand, he turned right and trotted quietly along the alley behind the shops. Kelly burst through a store's rear entrance and almost knocked him over. The agents bumped into one another running back in the door. It was a narcotics paraphernalia shop. The bearded man standing behind a cash register looked sheepish. Carr grabbed him by the collar and pulled him across the counter to within an inch of his bloody face. "Where is he, you son of a bitch?" The man's eyes rolled to a door at the other end of the store. Carr shoved him backward as Kelly yanked the door open. They rushed into a roomful of boxes. The only other door led to the street. It was ajar. They ran outside.

"Radio for help!"
screamed an out-of-breath Carr. He continued his hunt up and down the street, in and out of stores, into alleys. Finally, he returned to the government sedan. Kelly barked instructions and a description to two uniformed officers. They jumped back in their cars and sped off in opposite directions. A car full of special agents arrived and divided into teams of two. Having pinned gold badges to their suit coats, they searched the storefronts on the opposite side of the street, running around like madmen.

****

Chapter 5

LINDA GLEASON flicked the television and the living room filled with the organ music leading to "The Days of Our Lives." She plopped down on the sofa. As soon as she found out whether Rex was returning to Samantha or flying off to Africa with Claudia, she would wash her hair. She lit a cigarette.

There was a casual knock on the door.

Probably Charlie Carr with the reward money, Linda thought. "Coming," she said. She jumped up and opened the door.

It was Paul, and his face was red. He punched her fully on the point of her chin. Her head hit the carpet. She wanted to scream, but couldn't. Was her jaw broken?

"Did you bail out?" she mumbled.

Ignoring her, he closed and locked the door. Violently, he pulled off his belt. His eyes were wide in anger. She vaulted off the carpet and ran into the bedroom. The nightstand phone was in her hand. She dialed 0.

He was in the room. "You stabbed me in the back, you rat-bitch-snake,
cunt
, dirty bitch..."

"Operator," said a pleasant female voice. Something was around Linda Gleason's neck. She couldn't speak. It was his belt! The receiver dropped from her hand. No air. Her eyes felt as if they were popping out. She had this odd picture in her mind: her eyes and contact lenses actually popping completely out of her head and dropping on the carpet near the front door.

It had grown dark. The streetlights came on.

Carr sat on the fender of his sedan like a conductor without a train. Using a blood-spotted handkerchief, he dabbed for the hundredth time at the throbbing wound on his forehead. The last of the police officers had given up the search and departed. Across the street, the remaining Treasury agents piled into a G-car. The driver waved at him and drove off.

Carr was light-headed, thirsty, and slightly nauseous.

Jack Kelly wandered out of an alley down the block carrying something in his hand. "
Looky
here," he said before coming to a full stop. He handed Carr a pair of handcuffs with a key sticking out of one of the ratchet locks. Kelly pointed behind him. "Found '
em
in the alley behind that coffee shop. Can you believe that sneaky bastard carrying a handcuff key? Talk about
planning ahead.
He must have had it in a shoe." The bearlike man was staring at Carr's forehead. "You're going to need stitches," he said.

"Not yet," Carr said. "I'll call Linda. We'll have to find a place for her to stay until we catch him." He dug a dime out of his pocket and made his way to a pay phone at a newsstand down the street. He dropped in the dime and dialed. The line was busy. He walked back to the car and got in.

Kelly started the engine. "Only you would think of a goddamn informant before yourself," he said, pulling the sedan into traffic.

Carr knocked on the door of Linda's apartment. The blinds were closed and there was no sound inside.

"She's not home," Kelly said. He jiggled change in his pants pocket.

Carr rang the doorbell.
Still no answer.
An older woman wearing a floral-patterned housecoat and a turban of hair rollers shuffled out of the apartment next door. Her arms were folded across her chest. She stared at Carr's forehead. He opened his coat and displayed the badge on his belt. "Federal officers," he said. "Have you seen Miss Gleason?"

"She's in there," said the woman. "One of her many
boyfriends
was just over; he came and left in a taxicab."

Carr felt like someone had slugged him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He was in Korea again, shells bursting; soldiers were screaming. He grabbed the door handle and turned. It was unlocked. He pushed it open. Linda was lying in a fetal position in the middle of the living-room floor, her hands clutching a man's belt around her neck. Her face was ashen and her eyes open, staring. Carr dropped to his knees next to her.

"Holy mother of Christ," Kelly said. He crossed himself. Taking out a handkerchief, he reached for the phone on the coffee table.

"Use the car radio," Carr said.

Kelly rushed out the door.

With two fingers, Carr closed Linda's eyes. He traced the tiny crow's-feet. He pulled his hand away.

The woman in rollers edged in the door. Her hands flew to her face and she started to wail. Carr waved her back. She retreated like a wounded animal.

Carr felt cold. He rubbed his eyes for a moment. He was drained, exhausted after twenty years on the street.

Carr sat on the edge of a paper-covered examination table in the hospital's emergency room. Outside the room a nurse kept telling a sobbing child not to rub something or it would get worse. There was the smell of witch hazel.
A young woman doctor with a nose that protruded almost as much as her ponytail stood in front of him holding a curved needle.
She said, "This is going to hurt a little," as she took a stitch in his forehead. She was right.

Kelly barged in through a set of swinging doors. "
LaMonica's
key fit one the safe-deposit boxes in the bank," he said, "but as I'm sure you've probably guessed by now, the box was empty."

"Don't move your head,
dammit
," the doctor said.

"Sorry," Carr mumbled.