inquisitive.
'Yep,' Carr said. 'Printed anything he could get a sample of. Did it his whole life. Checks, money, bonds, passports you name it.'
'Would you mind if I took a look at your file on Roth?' Lockhart said.
'Yes, I would mind,' Carr said. 'Particularly since you don't seem to want to tell me what this is all about.'
'Sorry,' said the fat man. 'I just can't do that at this point.'
'Then it's been nice talking with you.' Carr turned, walked back into the office, and sat down at his desk. He continued thumbing through a stack of intelligence reports and initialing each page as required by the agent in charge.
Kelly looked up from his newspaper. 'Who was that?'
'A private eye. He wanted some info on Freddie Roth,' Carr said.
Kelly grunted. He folded the sports page.
The telephone rang and Carr picked up the receiver. It was Calhoun. 'A white boy just showed me a sample twenty. I told him to come back in an hour. You'd better get on down here.' The telephone clicked.
'Calhoun's got one,' Carr said. He stood up and shrugged on his suit jacket. Kelly folded the newspaper and stuffed it into his coat pocket. He followed Carr out the door.
Carr steered north on Vermont Avenue toward Hollywood. At a stop light Kelly finished reading his newspaper, then tossed it in the backseat. 'I hate this paper,' he said. 'The editorials are antipolice.' He turned to Carr. 'Ever ask yourself why?'
'Why what?'
'Why a newspaper would be against the police?'
'No,' Carr said. His mind was on the chalk outline of Linda's body on the floor of her living room.
'It's because the editors are out-and-out Communists,' Kelly said.
Charles Carr drove slowly by Calhoun's hot dog stand. There were no customers. He pulled over to the curb two doors up. Leaving the keys in the ignition, he climbed out of the sedan and sauntered back to Calhoun's counter.
Calhoun spoke as if he were out of breath. 'This white boy wanted to sell me five hundred bucks' worth of twenties for a hundred-dollar bill. I told him to come back in an hour with the whole package. That was forty minutes ago.'
'Who is he?'
'I don't know his name,' Calhoun said. 'I always called him Curly. He used to be banging around here. I think he was dealing weed. A couple of months ago he must've made hisself a real good score. He started driving a sports car and I seen him with a blonde. A good-looking gal with a nice ass.'
'What does he look like?'
'Curly hair and sort of a peach fuzz beard. I figured him for a user because he's always sniffling his nose and sometimes he wears a long sleeved shirt even when it's hot as hell. He drives a white Porsche.'
Carr gave a knowing nod.
'You know the muthafucka?'
'I think so,' Carr said. 'Kelly and I will be across the street in that alley.' He pointed. 'Once you see the funny money, give us a wave. Tell him you don't like the quality and you're not interested. When he leaves, we'll follow. '
Calhoun winked.
Carr returned to the sedan. He climbed in and started the engine. As he pulled into an alley facing the hot dog stand, he told Kelly what he'd just learned. Minutes later the young man in the white Porsche pulled up in front of Calhoun's. He exited the Porsche and headed for the counter carrying a brown paper sack. After speaking briefly with Calhoun, he handed over the bag. Calhoun opened it, looked inside, and handed it back. As the young man stuffed the sack under his shirt, Calhoun's fingers made a discreet wave.
Charles Carr started the engine. The young man gestured angrily at Calhoun, then shook his head in a disgusted manner and shuffled back to the Porsche. As he drove north on Vermont, Charles Carr pulled into traffic a half block behind the sports car.
'If he sees us, he'll throw his package,' Kelly said.
Carr nodded. The Porsche turned right on Hollywood Boulevard. Carr stepped on the gas and made the same turn. The streets were crowded with the usual mixture of tourists and leather freaks, teenage whores, men dressed as women, and muggers of all races. It seemed that everyone wore sunglasses.
'We're far enough away,' Carr said. 'Let's do it.'
Kelly reached under the seat and pulled out a red light with a magnetic bottom. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter. The red light flashed. With a hook shot reach, he mounted it on the roof of the sedan. The Porsche accelerated and swerved right onto a residential street. As the driver tossed the brown bag out the window, Carr braked sharply. Kelly swung open the passenger door and retrieved the bag.
Carr floored the accelerator. The Porsche's tires squealed as it rounded another corner onto a busy street. The Porsche was almost a block ahead as the G-car made the turn. It swerved to avoid a double-parked truck and sideswiped a station wagon coming from the other direction. The Porsche vaulted a curb and crashed into the side of an apartment house.
Carr slammed on the brakes. The T-men jumped out of the sedan and approached the sports car with guns drawn. The driver struggled frantically to start the engine. Carr swung open the door and yanked the man out by his hair. Kelly frisked him and snapped on handcuffs.
'How long have you been following me?' he said.
'All day,' Carr said. Kelly led the man back to the sedan.
After the arrival of tow trucks and police cars, and the signing of various forms, they proceeded to the Field Office with the prisoner.
'I can help you guys out again if you will do something for me,' the young man said.
'We're listening,' said Kelly, who was sitting in the back seat next to him.
Carr steered onto the freeway toward downtown.
'I think I know who the printer is.'
'Who is it?' Kelly said.
'What'll you do for me?' he said.
Nothing was said for a while. The freeway signs read 'Broadway,' 'Los Angeles Street.' Carr steered onto an off ramp and headed down a hill toward the Federal Building.
'The printer's name is Paulie and he's a friend of Teddy Mora. He lives down in Ensenada. That's what I heard.'
'Have you ever met him?' Carr said.
'No. I've just heard talk.'
'Thanks a lot for the tip,' Kelly said.
'I guess that means you're not going to give me a break,' the young man said.
'That's right,' Kelly said.
'I wanna see my lawyer.'
Carr and Kelly spent the next few hours on the usual processing: taking fingerprints, filling out forms, preparing affidavits and reports. It was dark by the time they booked their prisoner into the Los Angeles County jail.
Early the next morning Carr and Kelly met in the reception area of the United States attorney's office, a handsomely carpeted room decorated with framed photographs of the president, the attorney general, and the latest U.S. attorney, a former local presidential campaign manager. During the hour they spent waiting, the receptionist, a red haired woman wearing a shapeless polka dot dress, phoned her mother, painted and blew dry her fingernails, phoned a friend and discussed a television program, thumbed through a movie magazine, and painstakingly switched stations on a tiny transistor radio several times.
Finally, Reba Partch, wearing a white skirt and sweater with yellowed underarms, hustled in the front door carrying a large straw purse in one hand and a hairbrush in the other. She applied brush strokes to her dandruffyBrillo pad as she strode to the receptionist's desk. The receptionist handed her some phone message
