The Puppet Master

Avenue. I turned north, my heart rate about a hundred and sixty.

31

THE WORLD TURNED

UPSIDE DOWN

I'd planned to drive to the office and deliver Myers. I'd also figured to call Joe and tell him what I'd learned. But that morning's bombing, and the encounter with Steinhorn and Masters, had shaken me. I didn't trust my assumptions anymore. It might be dangerous to go to the office. It was hard to imagine that SVI would start an actual shooting war with us, but they'd already blown up a building and killed a lot of people.

Tooling north up Vermont, I decided to leave Robert off somewhere first. If there was an ambush waiting for us near the office, I wanted him safe. Molly Cadigan's wasn't too far; I'd see if she'd keep him for a few hours. When the police got the cube, SVI would soon be out of business.

I turned the short wave on to the police band. It was way too soon for Arnette to have arrived at the LAPD's Rampart Station, but when they broadcast a bulletin to watch for SVI's people, I wanted to be sure to catch it. Maybe, I thought, I should call LAPD headquarters and tell them about Masters. Maybe they could pick him up at the wreck. I'd do that, I decided, at the next stop light, when I had a break from dealing with traffic.

As luck had it, the next several signals were green. I was on the Hollywood Freeway overpass when a police broadcast grabbed my attention. It wasn't what I'd expected. Three cars were ordered to watch for, and arrest for questioning, a black Hispanic male named Hector Duncan, height about five-eleven, weight about 170, believed to be on foot in the vicinity of the CBS studios on Sunset Boulevard. And to bring him downtown to detective headquarters!

'Hector Duncan?' I said aloud. The description and locale were right. 'Are they talking about our Duncan?'

Myers nodded, forehead furrowed. I thought: What the hell?! Had they picked up Arnette on his way to the station? Maybe he'd seen a patrol car and flagged it down. But why arrest Duncan? The same call would alert the beat officers in the vicinity. KCBS building security would get a call, too.

Seconds later they broadcast an all-cars bulletin to arrest for questioning Martti Seppanen, white male, age 33, height about 6 feet, weight about 230, hair brown, eyes blue, build stocky and muscular, last seen driving an aquamarine four-door Ford sedan traveling west on Sixth near Vermont, license plates unknown.

They hadn't learned that from Arnette. The only ones who could have told them that were Steinhorn and Masters! I had gooseflesh crawling over me in waves, and I expected to hear sirens and see flashers coming behind me any minute. I got myself together and had the car's computer copy the microcube into memory.

Luckily for me, the LAPD is chronically undermanned. We reached the Hollywood Hills with no sign of having been spotted. I'd just started up Hollycliffe when we heard a patrol car report that they had Hector Duncan in custody and would be heading downtown on the one-oh-one.

If they had Arnette and Duncan both, then they also had both of the microcube copies I'd sent. Most importantly, they had the one I'd sent to KCBS.

When I got to Molly's place, I drove a couple hundred feet past it and turned up a little dead-end lane, parking by a 'For Sale' sign on a picket fence. Then we backtracked to Molly's on foot. When I rang her doorbell, I half expected a uniformed policeman to answer. That's the shape my mind was in. Instead I heard Molly's voice trumpet, 'NEVER MIND, KATEY! I'VE GOT IT!' Seconds later she opened the door. 'Martti!' she said, as if I was an old and dear friend. Then Myers registered on her. 'Both of you! Come in!' She bustled us through the door and closed it behind us, then we sat down in a sunroom with a view across the L.A. Basin. 'So,' she said to me, 'who's your friend? And what brings you here today?'

There was something about that brass voice, red hair, and complete integrity that settled me down. I introduced Myers, then I told her about his statement, and Arnette, and Duncan, and seeing Masters—all of it, wondering if I was giving her too much too fast. She grew a crease between her eyes, and clenched her jaw, jutting her chin out.

'You know what the hell's happened, don't you?' she said when I'd finished.

'Masters and the LAPD have something going together.'

She nodded. 'Damn straight they do! That's the only explanation. D'you have the foggiest idea what?'

'I think so,' I answered. And told her, the picture developing for me as I talked. The biggest crime organization in L.A. is the so-called Spanish mafia. It's bigger than the Sicilian or Korean, even bigger than the black. None of them is actually an organization. Each is a group of so-called 'families,' with loose agreements on what are sometimes called franchises. Anyway, in the Spanish mafia, the three biggest, most troublesome dons had disappeared during the past three years, which had thrown the families into serious disarray. With discipline impaired, factions distrusting each other, fighting each other, it wasn't surprising that their morale, security policies, and agreements had gone down the tubes. The LAPD had arrested dozens of family members, and the prosecutor's office had sent most of them to prison.

In major crime syndicates, the leaders, the dons, are protected by layers of underlings—protected from violence, protected from informers, protected from getting their own hands dirty in ways the police could use to put them away. And if the heat did get bad, they'd bop across the border into Mexico. Take a vacation for a few weeks or months till things cooled off.

But starting two years ago, Luis 'El Grande' Lopez, Eddie 'Yaqui' Macias, and Johnny 'Numero Uno' Guzman had dropped from sight, one after another, as if on one of those vacations. Only they hadn't reappeared. After this long, it was doubtful they'd be back, doubtful they were alive. Matter of fact, I'd pretty much forgotten about them.

How it looked to me was, the LAPD had gotten used to hiring Prudential, for example, to handle a lot of their more demanding investigation load. It was more economical: didn't require as much staff, as much organization, as much facilities—as much pressure. Now, it seemed to me, they'd gone a step, a long step, further. They'd hired an Ensenada-based criminal organization, SVI, to assassinate selected underworld leaders who seemed legally untouchable.

I asked Myers if I was on the right trail. He smiled a small, wry smile. 'I'm your witness on that, too,' he said.

'What're you going to do about it?' Molly asked.

'First of all, I was hoping you'd hide Robert here till I can pick him up again. He's our principal witness. Beyond that, I've got some resources I have to check with before I can make any explicit plans.'