'I do,' I said.
Chapter 54
I SAT ON the front porch with my Winchester rifle leaning against the porch railing beside me, and talked on the portable phone to Samuelson in L.A.
'You got any surveillance on Tannenbaum?' I said.
'Me? No.'
'Organized Crime Unit, maybe?'
'Don't know. Lemme call you back.'
I punched off, and sat and looked at the angular desert plants for awhile. Up the hill from the house, with a view of the road, Bobby Horse was taking his turn with one of the little black-and-yellow walkietalkies we'd bought. In the house Cholla had the other one. As Bernard J. Fortunato had explained, being murdered in our beds would suck.
Peripherally I saw movement in the brush at the right corner of the house. I put down the cell phone and picked up the Winchester. A deer came delicately out from the cover, stopped short, and stared at me with its enormous dark eyes. I put the gun back down. The deer twitched its oversized ears a couple of times. I didn't move. After more staring and twitching, the deer ate a leaf off of one of the dry desert plants, then did a big leap into the woods and vanished.
The portable phone rang. It was Samuelson.
'OCU's got nothing going on with Tannenbaum,' he said. 'But the Feds do.'
'FBI?'
'Yep.'
'And?'
'And they are not sharing it with us.'
'Nice cooperation,' I said.
'You got anybody who'll whisper it to you?'
'Maybe, but then I got to whisper stuff to him.'
'Okay,' I said. 'I know a guy.'
'I was sure you would,' Samuelson said, and broke the connection.
I went in the house and looked up a number in my address book and came back out and sat and dialed it up. A man answered on the first ring.
'Yes?'
I said, 'Ives?'
'Who's calling?'
'Spenser.'
There was a pause while Ives processed me through his memory banks.
'Well,' he said. 'Lochinvar.'
'I need a favor,' I said.
'In which case you will then owe me one.'
'There's a guy named Morris Tannenbaum. Runs most of the rackets east of L.A.'
'Really?' Ives said.
'The Bureau has surveillance on him,' I said. 'I need to talk with someone who has access to it.'
'Our cousins at the Bureau are not usually forthcoming with surveillance data,' Ives said.
'Gimme a guy to talk with,' I said.
I waited.
'Wilbur,' he said. 'Wilbur Harris.'
I waited.
'I'll call Wilbur, give him a heads up on your behalf.'
'Got the phone number?'
He gave it to me.
'Call Wilbur in half an hour,' Ives said, and broke the connection.
Bernard J. Fortunato came onto the porch carrying a street sweeper.
'Lot of firepower for a guy your size,' I said.
'Fifty rounds of twelve-gauge shotgun shells,' Bernard said. 'Automatic. Vinnie showed me how to modify it.'
