Money was what St. John was all about. He hoped the bastard would have to support his bitter ex-wife for the rest of his days.
At two forty-five, a quarter hour earlier than he had expected, St. John drove his glitteringly restored Maserati Bora coupe between Galaxy Way’s artful emerald plantings in Century City. His briefcase was on the seat beside him, his suit jacket neatly folded on top of it. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, hummed a snatch of “ La donna e mobile ” from Rigoletto. He was superbly satisfied with himself.
Dooley and Valli-sounded like a dance team-had been pathetically eager to sign with his new firm. They had even shaken hands at the end of the lunch. He’d have them working together in no time. Which called for a very personal sort of celebration. A quick stop back at the office for his meeting with the mysterious Mr. Green, an hour of paperwork that would become four hours billable, then a call to Charriti HHope…
He turned down the ramp into the massive echoing concrete garage under the high-rise office building where St. John Associates-Attorneys at Law had their offices. His yearly rent could have housed the homeless of Long Beach, but front was more important in The LaLa than anywhere else on earth.
He slid his card into the slot, the gate went up on the monthly parker lane, and he drove down into the bowels of the building. His reserved floor was a huge low-roofed echoing concrete space filled with almost endless rows of high-priced cars, mostly foreign. The slot with his name on it was only a dozen paces from the elevator; he had been one of the first tenants after the building had been completed.
He parked, took his key from the ignition, then just sat there for a moment, savoring his day. Dooley and Valli would bring other dissatisfied creative people into the new enterprise-creative people were always dissatisfied, always looking for a change. He was well and truly on his way to freedom.
They always said, once in, never out: but it wasn’t as if he was cutting Mr. Prince and his associates out, after all-they would still be silent partners in his very lucrative law firm. But he was branching away from them personally, to make a mint of money they’d never see a dime of. The perfect revenge. Sweet Molly would be proud of her daddy for doing something about her murder. Proud in the way she had been proud only of Dalton.
He opened the door and swung out his elegantly clad legs. A gloved hand touched the snout of a Jennings J- 22 pistol to the bridge of his nose and the forefinger convulsed inside the trigger guard.
St. John died happy.
At five minutes to three, Dante drove into the underground garage of St. John’s office building to hear an attendant yelling about some guy shot to death in his car. Goddammit! Without even knowing why, Dante jumped out and flashed his badge-who knew, San Francisco or L.A.-to get a look at the dead man sprawled halfway out of the car with the top of his head missing.
He was standing well clear of the open door of the Maserati when the first units of LAPD’s finest arrived.
“His name is Skeffington St. John,” he told the blunt-faced middle-aged plainclothesman who had beaten the blues to the site. “He’s an attorney in this building who-”
“Who the hell are you?”
Dante showed him some ID. “I was on my way to see him in connection with a case I’m working up in San Francisco.” He suddenly snarled, “Five goddam minutes-”
“Yeah. Tough tit but you gotta suck it.”
Dante explained he thought it was an organized crime caper, thought it might have been a New Jersey hitman named Ucelli who had done it, if they hurried maybe… but cops don’t like their jurisdictional toes stepped on, and who the fuck was he, anyway? Maybe he was tied up some way with the whacker even if he was a cop. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Even after a few calls to Sacramento and San Francisco had confirmed he was some sort of supershit crimebuster from Baghdad by the Bay, it was over an hour before the first bulletins went out to the airports with Ucelli’s description.
What with the paperwork and all, it was the final flight from Burbank that Dante caught to SFO. He spent the flight playing “what if” with himself. What if he had reversed his investigations, gone to St. John first? St. John wouldn’t have been there. Literally out to lunch. Besides, he’d have had nothing new to pry at him with until after his talk with Gloria. But what if he hadn’t had that second cup of coffee…
At Dante’s urging, the FBI finally had called Ucelli’s house in New Jersey. Nobody home. Not Ucelli, not his wife-the kids were grown, the two boys having graduated into the lower rungs of the Mafia like their father before them. Only a Puerto Rican maid whose English seemed to consist of “Not home” and “Leave numero ”
The Feebies would check back, of course, but all they’d get was an injunction from a mob attorney like the one that had recently come through to keep Dante away from Kosta Gounaris. No probable cause to harass Popgun Ucelli, that upright citizen.
But Dante knew. One up the snout with a $75 pistol in. 22 caliber which had been dropped on the floor beside the car. Sprayed with Armor All. No topcoat given to a passerby, but there were no passersby in that garage, and who wore topcoats in L.A. anyway? He had tried to scare St. John with the possibility the mob might come after him; now it had happened.
Driving home on the 101 freeway from SFO, he heard a news report about the “shocking death” of a “prominent attorney” and in a momentary time/space warp thought they were talking about St. John. Relaxed when he heard the man had been blown up in a gas-leak explosion in a slum redevelopment project.
But then he heard the name. Otto Kreiger.
Otto fucking Kreiger? Known associate of Martin Prince in Vegas? Attorney of record for Jack Lenington, recently deceased? Now himself killed in an accident? On the same day St. John was hit down in Los Angeles?
Dante called Homicide right from his car to learn what time it had gone down. Before noon. Possible. Very possible. Lure Kreiger to his death, hop a shuttle to LAX, pop St. John, head out of town. And Tim wasn’t at Homicide. Still at the Kreiger scene. So Tim wasn’t so damn sure it was accidental, either.
But at Clown Alley for a postmortem, he was.
“We figured it could have been some crazy attaching himself to the radical homeless rights outfit that’s been harassing Kreiger, so we wanted to take a real good look. Nothing there.” He gave his huge openmouthed laugh, eyes ashine for the upcoming intake of fat and salt. “And then here you come again with fuckin’ Popgun Ucelli! Popgun, planning an elaborate fake accident for Kreiger? Gimme a fuckin’ break, chief!”
“So somebody else planned it,” said Dante, thinking Raptor. He was getting desperate or punchy, he wasn’t sure which.
“Okay, St. John I might give you-Ucelli’s trademark way of doing business.” Tim pointed his finger at Dante and worked his thumb, bang! bang! “That’s our Eddie. But hell, chief, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve never turned up anything between Kreiger and Gounaris or Atlas Entertainment. St. John was attorney of record for Atlas, not Kreiger.”
“Yeah, Skeffington St. John-who just happened to get his head blown open in L.A. this afternoon. Just enough hours after the gas pipe went up on Sixth Street for the same man to do it. Tim, there has to be a connection.”
Tim broke in with his big belly laugh once again, and slathered on the extra mayonnaise he’d asked for before slamming shut his cheeseburger. He waved greasy fingers in the air.
“Only in your diseased brain, chief.”
Dante had already admitted to himself that Tim was right, but he couldn’t give up that easy. Raptor rode his shoulder like a hooded falcon waiting to swoop on its prey.
“Kreiger was in Vegas along with Gideon Abramson a week before Spic Madrid was hit. Abramson was in Greece in the fifties and staked Gounaris to his first freighter-”
“So what? If the Abramson connection was vital, it’d be his brains on the car seat, not St. John’s. Drink your fuckin’ decaf and go home to Mama, little fella’s had a long day.”
Which, in the end, Dante meekly did.
There was just nothing to tie the two deaths together. But he would take a good long look at Kreiger anyway. See if he was connected with any of the other principals besides the dead Lenington in ways Dante hadn’t uncovered yet. But who were the other principals? He kept going around in circles, learning who was important only after their deaths made them so.
When he got home, there was a message from Raptor waiting. The voice was airy, British comedy stuff, actorish-perhaps even an American doing British.
