Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Page 2

  Left smiled and stood up, went to the door, called back over his shoulder to the other, "Show the man your credentials, Larry."

  I saw it coming out of right field but not soon enough to evade it, a haymaker with a pistol held flat in the palm of the hand. It crashed into the side of my head and sent me rolling across the floor. I would probably still be rolling if the wall hadn't been there, and I couldn't see very well with all those fireworks blazing through my skull but I heard Mr. Right okay as he bid adieu.

  "Get smart for once in your life, Joe. Stay out of things that don't concern you."

  His ass I would.

  I knew now that I had myself a case.

  So did those guys, and I was going to be all over their case ... if I could just get my feet under me once again.

  They were feds, all right.

  But not FBI.

  Those guys were deputy United States marshals, and I knew it even before I passed out, the briefly-flashed and quickly-glimpsed credentials flaring up out of the memory and leading me into beddie-bye.

  This time I dreamed, and it wasn't of Jeannie. It was a

  make-work dream, one of those problem-solving exercises that the right brain loves to frustrate us with, and it made no more damn sense than anything else that night.

  But even in the darkness of the dream I knew that I had myself a red meat case. And I was going to eat some, if I could just find my feet again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I woke up the second time that morning in my own bed again with a headache to end them all and dried blood in my nostrils, a naked woman lying beside me. She was very pretty but a total stranger and it took a moment for me to clear the fuzzies from my head and comprehend the situation. Not that I've never awakened beside a strange woman but this one's wrists were handcuffed to her ankles—picture that, if you can, left wrist to left ankle and ditto the other side for a highly vulnerable configuration— and her mouth was taped, eyes bulging in terror. The sweet-sickening odor of chloroform hung faintly in the air and someone was trying to break down my back door, which opens directly into the bedroom.

  I was trying to assure my uninvited bed partner that things were not as they seemed when the door gave and two uniformed county cops entered with guns drawn.

  So what the hell. It was a setup, sure, but how was I going to convince anyone of that? Those bastards had gone out and snatched a woman off the street somewhere, chloroformed her and put her in my bed trussed for Sadian

  delights while I snoozed under a light concussion, then tipped the cops.

  They'd even used my handcuffs and the victim had not seen her abductors. She'd been grabbed from behind and knew nothing else until she awoke in my bed.

  I was booked on charges of kidnap, assault and attempted rape and it was late that night before my lawyer could spring me. By then it was too late and I was feeling too sick to do anything else so I went home, repaired my door, and went to bed. Didn't even check my answering machine. I hadn't eaten anything all day—didn't feel like I could—and I’ll have to say that I felt something like a whipped dog.

  But don't get me wrong. Someone had shown me their power, sure, and I had to respect it. I am not, after all, Don Quixote so had never felt tempted to go out and fight with dragons. Didn't even have any impossible dreams. I guess what I am is a realist. But this thing had become intensely personal. I was no longer casually curious about the people in La Mancha, I was now ragingly curious about the march of intrigue that had seen me shot at, bullied by federal officers, then setup on very serious criminal charges.

  Beside being a realist I am also a pretty well trained cop. I knew that I could not allow myself to start thinking like a victim. What had happened to me was purely incidental to whatever else was going down. I had to become the cop in the case. Hell, I had to. Otherwise I was just another victim, and victimhood is not a comfortable state with me.

  So I wasn't giving up anything.

  When I went home and took to my bed that night, I was actually girding for war.

  And it's a good thing I slept well because I would not be doing it again until the war was over.

  Strange thing about police work, even private work—you can go for months in the most boring routine imaginable, then suddenly the job can explode all over you without warning and you find yourself barely able to keep pace with it. In a matter of—what?—eight hours or so?—I had gone from yawning routine to battered jeopardy and still not even understanding what for. And I was still in the dark after another twelve to fourteen hours of humiliating and dehumanizing "legal process" which certainly had been designed to encourage me to remain in the dark forever where this case was concerned.

  What case?

  See?—it was even that dark. I didn't know what the hell was going down. It was fairly obvious, though, that it was very important to someone. Important enough, for sure, for someone to go to a lot of trouble to keep me out of it.

  So the next morning I used my private little jiffy printing press to make a business card identifying me as a representative of Actors Equity Association and I paid an official visit to the East Foothills Dinner Theater to check their equity waiver status. The waiver is a special dispensation to small theater groups allowing them to pay less than scale.

  I discovered that although the theater occupies hotel property it is independently managed by another group, none of whom were present at that time of the morning. The office wasn't even open but I found a beautiful gal

  in one of the back rooms who introduced herself as the director of the current play. She could not have been older than thirty and had the lithe, graceful body of a professional dancer, dark eyes that flashed with warmth and intelligence, and a very winning smile. Her name, she said, was Judith White.

  My bogus card produced a soft frown, however, and an impatient toss of the pretty head as she complained, "Isn't twice in one month something like harassment?"

  I frowned back and muttered something apologetic about overlapping responsibilities. Td just like a quick scan of your players," I added, "then I’ll be on my way."

  "This could all be moot in a few days anyway," she said, still resisting. "A new producer is coming in to package this show for a national tour."

  "You're not closing the theater."

  "Oh no, of course not. We're casting the next show right now." She glanced at her watch. "Well, in about ten minutes the tryouts start. You've really caught me at a bad time."

  I said, "Just show me the file and IH be out of your hair in five minutes."

  She did even better than that. She handed me a bulging expando file, murmured "Excuse me" and left me standing there with it while she went on stage to greet a few early arrivals. The expando was labeled Man of La Mancha— Cast File and contained a sheaf of resumes complete with photos.

  I didn't go through it there, just took it down the street to a QuikPrint and copied it on a self-serve machine. I was gone no more than fifteen minutes, left the file on her desk

  and let myself out again. Meanwhile the theater had filled up with hopefuls and the beautiful lady director was totally absorbed in casting the next play, probably wouldn't even remember that I'd been there.

  I didn't know what I was looking for, you understand, didn't know that I would recognize it if I saw it. But you have to begin an investigation somewhere. I figured this was as good a place as any, in the dark, so I took the copied file home for a close study.

  I'd forgotten entirely about the man in Minnesota so I was a little surprised to find the Federal Express package at my door. I scooped it up and took it inside but it was not very high on my list of priorities at the moment so I just dropped it on my desk for a later look.

  What I was hoping to find, very quickly, was the identity of my mysterious "client" in the La Mancha case. She'd said "we took up a collection" which would mean, it would seem, that I had more than one client—but the whisperer was my contact and I wanted a look at the entire cast on the off-chance that I w
ould find something familiar or recognizable before another contact. There had been two more messages waiting for me when I returned home from jail the night before. I knew that because I had checked the machine before leaving home that morning and decided to listen to them later; a third had been recorded while I was out gathering the cast file.

  I studied the file for an hour and a half—it's a big cast- memorizing names and connecting them to career histories and photographs, then I listened to the messages.

  One was from Minnesota. The package was on the way. Hooray.

  The other two were from the whisperer.

  One said, "When are you going to get to work? I expected to see you in the audience tonight." That's all.

  The other, recorded at nine o'clock that morning, which is about the time I invaded La Mancha, said: "It's too late. They're playing for keeps. Forget it. Keep the money. Good luck to you."

  Good luck, yeah.

  I'm up for kidnap and attempted rape, so forget it and good luck.

  I opened the package from Minnesota.

  Didn't recognize the name, but the photo was sure familiar. I'd just memorized that face from the cast file— darker hair, darker skin, but all the planes and angles were the same.

  "Someone is trying to kill our star," the whisperer had said to me in the darkened lounge.

  The folks in Minnesota would be very worried to hear that.

  I still had at least one client, it seemed, and I figured it was time for me to meet the man of La Mancha.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At first glance he appeared to be a man in his sixties with white hair and goatee, comically dressed in knickers and knee-socks, floppy vest and rumpled shirt, but of course he was costumed as Don Quixote, the improbable knight with the impossible dream, and that first glance was very deceiving. Behind the grease paint and false whispers stood an imposing figure of handsome virility no more than twenty-five years of age with sparkling eyes and genial disposition.

  The players were getting ready for their matinee performance, chattering and clowning around with each other as they applied make-up and warmed up their voices. Very young, all of them. A couple looked like high school kids but I knew better. This was professional theater, don't misunderstand, primarily distinguished from Broadway by the amount of money invested in the productions and the lack of big-name talent, not the lack of talent itself.

  The star and I shook hands in self-introduction and moved to a quiet corner of the busy dressing room, which was shared by all the male members of the cast, as I asked him, "Does my name mean anything to you?"

  The voice was warm and his manner entirely open as he replied, "I'm sorry, no, I'm afraid it doesn't. Should it?"

  I handed him one of my legitimate business cards and said, "Maybe not, but I've been hired to save your life."

  The eyes narrowed just a bit at that and stayed that way as they examined my card but otherwise his manner remained the same. "Thanks, no offense intended, but my life is going pretty well right now."

  "You know nothing about threats or attempts to kill you?"

  The man of La Mancha chuckled and said, "Someone has played a practical joke on you."

  "It cost them a thousand bucks," I told him soberly and produced the envelope with the money. "I came to return this. Who do I give it to?"

  It was hard to ruffle this guy. He just grinned and said, "You can give it to me if you'd like but I don't know anything about it."

  "Maybe someone else in the cast," I suggested.

  He turned to regard the confusion of the dressing room, then looked at me with a sort of pitying grin. "There's not a thousand dollars between them," he said. "We work for carfare, not limousines."

  I said, "Maybe it's a confusion of identities. Are you from Minnesota?"

  The eyes gave a telltale little twitch. "No. I'm from Wisconsin."

  "Close enough," I said. "Were you at the University of Chicago until a few months ago?"

  Another twitch. "I studied in New York. You have the wrong man."

  I returned the money to my coat pocket. "Guess you're

  right. Sorry to bother you. Uh ... but why don't you call home, Al. All is forgiven and they worry about you."

  No more twitches. He just stared at me in silence. I nodded my head in farewell and went out.

  The man from La Mancha was Alfred Johansen, no doubt about it. He was on the bill for La Mancha as Craig Maan.

  And his twitches knew more than his mouth did.

  I swiped a cast photo from the lobby and took it away with me, went straight to the post office and express mailed it to Minnesota, then went downtown to the FBI building for a talk with an old pal who shall remain nameless here. We'd worked together on a kidnap case in San Francisco years back, became friends despite the natural hostility between our respective agencies, and had kept in touch over the years. Due to a physical disability, he'd been confined to a desk in Los Angeles for several years working liaison with the local police departments in the area. We got together occasionally for a beer and Monday Night Football but that had been the extent of it and actually I hadn't seen him for about a year.

  I asked him, "How's the ticker?" and he replied with a grin, "Not quite strong enough yet for the Rams versus the Forty-Niners."

  We repaired to the agents' lounge and got some coffee, sat down across a small table and brought each other up to date on our personal doings, then I asked him, "What do federal marshals do these days?"

  He smiled and replied, "Anybody they can. Why? You thinking of applying?"

  I said, "Hell no. But there are a couple I'd like some words with. Bobsey twins, look alike, dress alike. One might be named Larry."

  He sniffed and said, "Sounds like Dobbs and Harney. Don't mess with those guys, Joe."

  "No?"

  "Uh huh."

  "That bad, eh?"

  "Pure poison. Stay out of their way."

  "Can't. Couple of nights ago they snatched a woman off her front porch, chloroformed her, stripped her, and left her manacled hand to foot in my bed. I happened to be in it too, unconscious from a blow to the head, when the sheriffs busted in. Now I'm up for kidnap and attempted rape."

  My FBI pal carefully set his coffee down and quietly said with no surprise whatever in the voice, "Yeah, that's heavy. They could do something like that, sure. Point is, why would they?"

  "That is exactly what I am trying to find out, pal."

  He said, "Sit tight," and went out.

  He was gone about ten minutes.

  When he returned he poured fresh coffee for both of us, sat down heavily, told me, "Don't push it, Joe."

  "I have to push it."

  "No you don't. Case will never get to court. Your victim will recant as soon as the other issues are resolved and all charges will be dropped."

  "What other issues?"

  "Can't talk about that, Joe."

  "But the charges will be dropped."

  “Yeh."

  "Does the victim know that?"

  "Sure. She cooperated."

  "You're saying there is no victim."

  "That's right."

  "Dobbs and Harney, eh?"

  "I shouldn't have given you that. I'm asking you to drop it."

  I said, "Okay, it's dropped. But make me feel better, huh."

  He stared at me through a long silence then muttered, "It's a hot case. Politically sensitive. Feel better?"

  "Not much better. Hit me again."

  My friend sighed, toyed with his coffee, finally hit me another tiny lick. "Federal Witness Protection Program."

  I started breathing again long enough to say, "Oh shit."

  "What?"

  "Maybe I bulled my way into the china closet."

  "Not yet," he assured me. "But you were getting close."

  I said, "Yeah but I've been busy since then. Sent a package to Minnesota today by overnight mail. If their program has anything to do with Don Quixote, they'd better move their man fast."


  "Don who?"

  "Quixote, the man of La Mancha. It's a play at a dinner theater out my way."

  "Oh that."

  "That, yeah. Tell 'em. HI be home in an hour. Tell 'em to come see me. But this time they shouldn't bare their fangs, I might kick 'em out."

  I got up and walked out, left my man sitting there staring at his coffee with a "what did I do?" look on his worried

  face.

  By an act of congress, the federal government some years back began protecting prosecution witnesses who may be subject to retaliation by bigtime defendants. Sometimes that means secluding the witness in a safe house while the heat is on and until the testimony can be given. Sometimes it means later giving the witness a new name and a new life in a new place, a life on the lam under constant jeopardy, especially in organized crime cases.

  My friendly informant at the FBI had used the words "hot case" and "politically sensitive." Yeah.

  I was worried too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They were already waiting for me when I got home. Not Dobbs and Harney but two FBI agents. I pulled around them and into the garage. They sat in their car until I got out of mine, then met me at the front door of the house. Even if I hadn't been expecting the call I would have known what these guys were.

  "Mr. Copp?"

  “That's right."

  They introduced themselves and gave me plenty of time to examine the credentials, then asked if they could talk to me inside.

  Very respectful, see, and by the book. I enjoyed the contrast and made a mental note to mend my own sometimes brusque ways in the future.

  They were Special Agents David Shenks and Melvin Osterman, very sharp. I read them right away as easy and friendly, felt comfortable with them.

  We went straight back to my office and I tried to make them feel as comfortable with me. They declined an offer of refreshments, wanted to get right down to business.

  So did I.