Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Read online

  I'll call the company "PowerTron," and tell you that if I used the real name you'd recognize it instantly. It's one of the biggies in the business with fingers in all of the defense pies and annual revenues into the several billions of dollars in California alone. The Los Angeles division of the company had been fined repeatedly in recent years for contract abuses and some of its key management figures accused of kickback deals involving Pentagon officials and subcontractors.

  It seemed a good place to start, yeah. Even the largest company in the world is, for all its corporate dignity and prestige, still no more than a collection of highly competitive people all working for a price, and the things they are willing to do for their price must increase as the price increases. If the lady is a whore at a million bucks then she's a whore at heart, and the same goes for these so-called white-collar criminals whose only game is win and whose only sin is lose. If they'll steal from their country for one reason they'll steal again for another, with little more than opportunity and reward deciding the name of the game.

  So the name of this game was treason and I was looking for players. You don't solve crimes, you uncover criminals—that was my particular game and I had good enough reason to believe that I knew it fairly well. I was about to learn that I still had a lot to learn.

  Morris Putnam was a VP at PowerTron, in charge of finances. He was 52 years old, held degrees in both law and accounting, was married with three kids in college, had a nice place in the hills above Pasadena, been with the company for sixteen years. He was caught cheating three times in the past year by the GAO but each time it was another poor sucker under him who took the blame for the "errors" and got sacked. Putnam was the darling of the board of directors and was considered to be next in line as CEO.

  George Delancey, another Veep, was in charge of contract administration. He was only forty but a rising star with PowerTron, a mere two years out of the Pentagon as a civilian procurements officer, and it shows the corporate mindset here when you know that Delancey left Washington under a cloud and barely escaped indictment over irregularities in his procurement programs. Gordon Maxwell, a retired brigadier general and chairman of PowerTron, couldn't sign this guy up fast enough, which shows also how insider influence is valued and rewarded when billion dollar contracts are at stake.

  I put all this in the record at this point because these are principal players and this is the basic setting for this story. We'll be moving away from it at lightspeed in just

  a moment and I want you to understand for sure where it all began. It began in venal minds in an atmosphere of governmental corruption and corporate sleaze. Remember that. And remember that treason, as it is most often encountered at home these days, is just another exercise of the criminal instinct. In this case, it was also quite a refinement of it.

  You don't have to be a cloak-and-dagger guy to get away with it, any good second-story man would find the place a piece of cake. I went in at just a few minutes before the close of business hours, signed in at the front desk and asked to see the attache for cultural affairs. I also handed over one of my bogus business cards identifying me as a movie and television producer, and it played very well—maybe because a lot of business had been going down between Hollywood and Moscow of late. I was sent right up. Didn't go all the way up though, only to the roof of the automatic elevator cage, and I came prepared for a long stay in that elevator shaft. Don't know if anyone ever missed their Hollywood producer or if anyone looked for him. The cage made about a dozen trips up and down during the first couple of hours then settled at ground level and stayed there until I bailed out just past midnight.

  The building had been quiet as a tomb for hours when I slipped back through the manhole and sent the cage to the second floor. I programmed it to go on to the top and to stop at each floor along the way, just in case

  someone was watching the indicators in the lobby, but I guess even that little touch was unnecessary.

  Nothing was stirring on the second floor. Gudgal- off’s office was locked but the door yielded quickly and quietly with the gentlest persuasion and I had twenty good minutes in there before Ivan came along, apparently on a routine check of the building—plenty of time to rifle the desks and file cabinets. Actually I could have done it in about a minute because the little black book was waiting for me in the first drawer I opened. It looked too easy so I kept searching for other bits and pieces—and came up with quite a bit, in fact.

  All the stuff was tucked away and I was ready to call it a night when the big guy came lumbering in. He didn't seem startled or even surprised to see me there, just went straight for my head and he would have had it in one massive hand on the first lunge if my reflexes had been one shade off. I evaded the grab and went straight for my equalizer, a neat little nonlethal device no larger than a flashlight. It packs 47,000 volts of stunning energy and could stop a charging buffalo in its tracks. As I think I mentioned earlier, I had to hit this guy twice to take him down, and by now the commotion had alerted the nightwatch and alarms were ringing all over the building.

  Tom had given me a detailed verbal layout of the place and its security apparatus so I knew pretty much what I was up against. I knew there was no way out if I should get caught in the act. The plan had been to spend the night in the elevator shaft and make a casual exit the next day, hopefully unnoticed among the other visitors, and I had every reason to believe that I could pull it off successfully.

  But now . . . well, as I said earlier, there was no other way—so I took the only exit possible. Sometimes, I think, I have an angel on my shoulder and this must have been one of those times because I went through that window with absolutely no expectation of a successful landing. It was just a wild-ass act of total desperation—sort of like saying, "Okay, God, here's your chance to get me for all the fuckups all these years," and instead He reaches out with a soft hand and an indulgent smile.

  I went through some kind of an umbrella-shaped tree, or maybe one of those giant California shrub things like oleander, maybe, with many slender branches and leathery leaves. Whatever, it cushioned my fall and I came down feet first through one side of this thing astride several yielding branches and hit the ground running, much to my surprise, with nothing broken but scratches everywhere.

  It's a corner building and sits right on the streets, no grounds, no walls, so I was back in America in one leap and home free if I could just keep moving. Nobody was shooting at me, no dogs were nipping at my scratched ass, and I couldn't hear any approaching sirens, so I figured my chances were pretty good for a clean break.

  But this car screeches away from the curb about a half a block away as I am crossing the street, and it's

  coming at me full tilt. I've got nowhere to go now, see— it's just the street and the sidewalks and tall buildings to either side—so I haul out my old blunderbuss, a Smith & Wesson model 57, and I'm lining up in firing stance to meet that charge when the car does a sudden one- eighty on smoking tires and rocks to a halt. This incredibly pretty woman with Siamese cat eyes throws a door open and yells at me, "Come on!"

  I'm just standing there wondering what the hell, one eye over my shoulder toward the consulate and the other trying to figure the woman. Then I see the fucking dogs coming around the corner like straight out of hell— biggest goddamned Dobermans I've ever seen, I think four of them, having the time of their lives—and the mental debate ends right there.

  The car was moving again even before I got there. I dove inside about four G's and that whole scene was far behind before I could get straightened around and upright in the seat.

  "That was close," she said coolly, one eye on the rearview mirror.

  I was breathing too hard to reply, but I had nothing particularly cunning to say anyway.

  It was a safe harbor, I hoped—for a moment—and God himself couldn't have sent me a prettier pilot.

  But this lady was a lot more than that.

  Chapter Three

  Yeah, she worked for old pal
Tom Chase but insisted that he knew nothing about her presence outside that consulate. Something had "gone wrong" and there was no one else to send, so she'd taken it on herself to backstop my play. Said she'd been out there less than an hour when the second-story window shattered and things came flying out of it, had no idea I was one of those things until she saw me limp into the street, figured then she'd better close fast and lend aid.

  I was entirely grateful for that, since I had not decided to change my name and fate to Alpo.

  "What went wrong?" I asked her.

  "Tom was arrested," she replied, without even a glance my way.

  "Arrested for what?"

  "Espionage."

  I said, "Oh God."

  She said, "He'd intended to back you up but the FBI came for him just as he was leaving for the stakeout."

  "What time was that?"

  "Little after ten," she said coolly. "He told me you'd be especially vulnerable for the first hour after midnight, so . . . did you get it?"

  "Get what?"

  "What you went to get."

  I shrugged, decided to play a little dumb, told her, "Not sure what I got. Bits and pieces mostly."

  She was getting fidgety. "Did you find Nicky's book?"

  "Whose book?"

  "Wasn't your assignment to find Nicholas Gudgal- off’s networking book?"

  I smiled, purely for my own benefit because she hadn't looked directly at me once from the minute I entered her car. "I don't know from assignments," I told her. "Just doing a favor for a friend—or didn't he tell you that?"

  "I know that you were policemen together." She had a curious accent, just barely, a very light touch of something that I couldn't quite pigeonhole. I supposed that it could sound very nice under the proper circumstances. At the moment, she was coming cold and distant—as though she either didn't like me or didn't trust me, maybe both. That was okay because I didn't entirely trust her either, and I hadn't yet made up my mind if I liked her.

  "Nicky, huh," I said thoughtfully.

  "All his friends call him that."

  "And you are one of those."

  "Of course, or so he thinks. What's the matter with you?"

  "Whattaya mean?"

  "Are you on board, or not?"

  "On board what?"

  She was beginning to sound very perplexed. We were just driving aimlessly around the town until it seemed safe to return to the general vicinity of the scene of the crime. My car was parked a block over from the consulate, and it had not seemed advisable to try to pick it up while fleeing the area.

  "On board what?" I asked again.

  "Never mind," she replied coldly. "Give me the evidence and I will take you to your car."

  I said, "No dice, kid. I got it for Tom, I'll give it to Tom."

  "You can't do that now!" she cried. "Don't you understand? He's been arrested!"

  "So I'll turn it over to his lawyer," I told her.

  She was mad as hell now and starting to drive that way. "I am the only friend he has left," she said, emphasizing each word and now tossing me angry glances as she sped recklessly along the deserted street. "Give me the evidence so that I may develop the case for him. Otherwise . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "Otherwise there is no hope."

  "No hope?"

  "No hope, that is what I said."

  "It's that bad?"

  "Yes. Will you give me the evidence?"

  "I'll think about it," I told her. I was hurting like hell, all over, and this kid was doing nothing for me. Okay, so maybe I was taking the pain out on her when I should have been licking her all over in gratitude, but what the hell . . . ? Things were happening too fast.

  I said, "Take a right at the next corner, but slowly. I parked a block north, just look for the prettiest car on the street."

  "We must settle this first," she said stubbornly, but she did slow and take the turn I'd requested.

  "It's already settled," I told her. "I'll keep the stuff until Tom tells me from his own mouth what to do with it. It's the Cadillac, next block. Drop me and—huh-uh, keep on going, be cool and keep on going, don't look at the guy."

  I had spotted another car parked on the cross street just below the Cad, hell, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning and here's this car parked nowhere with a guy sitting in it doing nothing but peering at passing cars. We passed another at the next crossing and still a third idling on the ramp of a closed parking garage and ready to roll on instant notice.

  "What is it?" she asked anxiously.

  "My car is staked out," I told her. "And those aren't Russians, they're L.A. city cops. So what the hell is going down here, lady?"

  She looked scared for the first time, definitely flustered. "I don't know what it means," she assured me. "But I'm sure Tom didn't . . ."

  "Didn't what?"

  "Break already. How could the police know about you?"

  "How could anybody?"

  "Indeed."

  Indeed, sure. I get it later that her name is Gina Ter- rabona. Don't ask what kind of name that is, I have no idea—sounds sort of Italian, doesn't it, but she told me that she was American-born to an American father and Israeli mother. The marriage failed a few years after she was born and her mother returned to Israel and took Gina with her. She grew up over there, educated there, served in the Israeli army and worked in military intelligence, came back to this country and claimed her birthright as an American citizen, worked at the Pentagon for a while—again in intelligence—got the job with PowerTron through her Washington connections.

  See, this is all starting to sound too damn squirrely and I am starting to wonder if I am caught up in Tom Chase's weird idea of a practical joke. Meanwhile I am scratched and bruised all over, I think maybe I have a wrenched back and definitely a tender ankle, and my head is beginning to throb.

  The kid is starting to fall apart. She's crying silently and her knuckles are white she's gripping the wheel so hard. I'm feeling like an ungrateful bastard but still I'm clinging to the hostility I'm feeling deep down inside

  somewhere and I am wondering what in the hell I am doing in this fucking mess. I'm a private cop, for God's sake, and maybe my license to make a living that way is on the line—forget that, maybe my freedom to sleep where I want and eat what I want is on the line. It was all for nothing anyway, the goddam guy was guilty as sin—always knew he was too ambitious for his own good, and then that wife of his just made it doubly worse. If she didn't want to be a cop's wife then why the hell did she marry a cop?—it's dumb, he went crazy for that snooty little bitch and sold out his country and now he's sold me out—he was in jail and I was going to be right beside him—Jesus Christ, an accomplice to espionage!—I couldn't believe this shit!

  I told the sniveling kid from Israel, "Get ahold of yourself, God dammit, and get ahold of this car too! You're weaving all over the God damned . . . aw shit— forget it, forget it—look, we'll work this out. Don't cry, dammit, we'll work it out!"

  She really did have great eyes. Like I said, Siamese- cat eyes—you know that color?—and set into the head sort of that way, too, real slanty, but not an Oriental look, I mean not a human Oriental look but like the cat—and that skin as smooth as silk and just begging to be touched.

  So maybe I'm a jerk and I would let Mata Hari herself walk away free if she dropped a couple of tears my way, but I really had no reason to be shitty with this kid, not yet anyway, and I did have a lot to thank her for. It was a damn gutsy thing she did for me back there

  with the hounds at my heels, and I hadn't even thanked her.

  "I don't know what to do!" she wailed.

  Well, hell, neither did I.

  But I patted her arm in what was meant to be a comforting way and told her, "Just go home. I'll handle it. Trust me. I'll handle it."

  "Where will you go? For now, I mean? You can't go to your car. And if they are watching your car . . ."

  Yeah, I got that. I couldn't go home, either. Shit, I didn't
know where I could go. Blind, maybe.

  But I'm a guy, see—I'm big and I'm tough when I need to be—and there's a certain image to maintain, for us guys. So I just shrugged and told her, "Don't worry it. I've been here before. I'll be here again. Meanwhile . . ."

  "Come home with me," she said quietly.

  I didn't give it a second thought. I just said, "Okay."

  But it wasn't okay. Not at all. It was sheer hell.

  A guy was waiting for her in her apartment. She spotted the crack of light at the bottom of the door and whispered to me, "I left no lights on."

  So I took the key from her and pushed her clear, un- leathered the 57 and let it lead me inside.

  The son of a bitch fired first, without warning, and with a bit too much fingerjerk to the pull. His bullet hit the wall beside my head and already I was reflexing the reply. The big round hit him squarely at center-chest and punched him backward into a chair.

  He was dead before I could touch him with my hands.

  Fairly nice looking guy, well dressed, about my age.

  "Do you know him?" I asked the Israeli.

  She shook her head in mute, wide-eyed response.

  So I went for the pockets, found his wallet, found a second wallet—a very familiar looking second wallet—opened it, and it was my turn to go mute and wide- eyed.

  Talk about "deep," pal.

  I had just shot to death a Special Agent of the FBI.

  Chapter Four

  I here was no search warrant that I could find | and nothing appeared out of place in the apartment. The credentials found on the body identified the dead man as Walter Mathison and if the address on the driver's license was current he lived in Burbank and he was 38 years old. So, dammit, that probably meant a widow and kids left behind and it all seemed too damned pointless at the moment.

  I heard sounds of voices in the hall as I was examining the scene, stepped out quickly because I knew what it was—two big guns had been fired in that building and it is not the sort of thing that goes unnoticed in the middle of the night. A man and a woman were standing in front of the next apartment, both dressed for the bedroom and talking excitedly until they saw me. Then both clammed up real quick and were giving me the scared look, so I yelled down, "Did you hear it?"