Sol whispered to me, “Bodyguards. He gets them from Pinkerton.”
We continued to follow the three men down the hallway.
When we came to a men’s restroom, Haskell turned to his bodyguards. “Stay outside and block the entrance. I don’t want anyone interrupting us.”
The heavyweights folded their arms across their chests and took a position on each side of the door.
We entered the restroom.
An attendant waited with a towel folded over his arm and a whiskbroom in his back pocket. Haskell slipped the guy a twenty and told him to go buy himself a cup of coffee. “And stay away for ten minutes,” he added.
When the attendant left, Haskell dusted an insignificant piece of lint off the satin lapel of tux, saying, “Mr. O’Brien, do you like sticking your nose in other people’s affairs?”
“Not as a rule.”
Sol jumped in. “Don’t get smart, Haskell. He’s just doing his job. We’d like to have a friendly chat, that’s all. And ten minutes will be more than enough time.”
“Rudin pressured me to meet with you gentlemen. I agreed, so let’s get this over with.”
As far as I was concerned, Roberts was going to be set free, so there wouldn’t be any need to get heavy with Haskell. I figured we’d just ask him a few general questions about the case and that would be that.
I decided to take the opportunity to set the record straight regarding his brother, Charles. “Mr. Haskell, do you realize your brother died of natural cases? Roberts had nothing to do with his death.”
“Yes, it seems I heard about that. However, I don’t understand what my brother’s heart attack has to do with anything.”
What did he mean, he doesn’t understand? I started to get hot. But I tried to stay calm. “The man is rotting in jail because he figured he’d be blamed for his death. And you knew all along that he had nothing to do with it?”
“It’s my impression that he confessed to the murder of a prostitute,” Haskell said, then added in a low voice, almost to himself, “But she was going to die anyway. She was a druggie, and had TB-final stages. She didn’t have long.”
Sol asked, “How do you know she was a whore?”
He turned to Sol. It seemed he sniffed the air before he spoke. “Mr. Silverman, the woman was no good. From what I was told, she tried to run a confidence game on my father. Her death was meaningless.” He brushed his lapel again.
I hadn’t heard about any scam. What was Haskell talking about? Roberts couldn’t have known about Vera running a con on Haskell’s father, or he would have told me about it.
“What kind of scam did she try to pull?” I asked.
“Ancient history. Forget about it.”
“What was your father’s phone number back in ’45?” Sol asked.
“How could I possibly know that after all these years?”
Sol tossed out a bunch of old phone numbers with the old exchanges Madison, Vermont, and Popular. Haskell just shook his head and kept saying no, no, no.
I knew what he was referring to: the list of phone numbers, the calls Vera had made from the motel room.
Then Sol asked him, “How about: Crestview 6-5723?”
Haskell paused for a moment this time before saying no. The pause gave him away. He recognized the number.
Without seeming to discern Haskell’s hesitation regarding the last number, Sol came right back with, “Does this number ring any bells: 555-1212?”
“Are you being funny? That’s the number for time of day.”
“Just wanted to see if you knew any phone numbers.”
“What’s all this nonsense about, anyway?” Haskell asked.
“Just a hobby, old telephone exchanges.”
“I haven’t got time to play games.” He started for the door.
“Mr. Haskell, just a couple of more questions, please,” I said.
He stopped moving and glanced at the ten pounds of gold on his wrist that held his watch. “Make it quick.”
“Did Frank Byron, the Los Angeles District Attorney back then, keep your family fully informed during the investigation?”
Haskell shrugged. “Sure, why wouldn’t he?”
“Then Byron left public service and picked up a cushy job with your big rich foundation?” Sol asked.
That seemed to give him pause, although only briefly. “What do you want from me, anyway? I had nothing to do with all of this. Christ!”
“Maybe you killed Vera,” Sol said. “You said she tried to pull a scam on your father. Maybe you decided to take care of the situation. Be a tough guy in the old man’s eyes. He liked tough guys. Is that how it went down, Haskell?”
Sol practically accused him of murdering Vera and he just shook his head with a tight, thin-lipped smile stretched across his angry face. “You’d say a thing like that! I was a war hero. I went toe-to-toe with those Nazi bastards. Flew a B-17 in World War II, shot down over Germany, taken prisoner. Toe-to-toe! I risked my life for this country. You son-of-a-bitch.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Your old man was a crook,” Sol said, “and so are you.”
So much for keeping it light. But Sol was pissed, and so was I-the cold bastard.
“Roberts spent the war playing the piano. He’s a bum and he murdered that woman. How dare you!”
“Your father was a slimy son-of-a-bitch, owned the largest illegal wire service in the nation. Big-time operator with ties to the mob. His company fed bookmaking parlors across the country race results in real time. Against Federal and state law.”
The pretense of a smile faded. “Hold it right there, you son-of-a-bitch-!”
“Let me finish. Your old man’s thugs put the squeeze on the poor bastards who owned the joints until they had to pay more than they could afford. He even had a few bookies bumped off when they didn’t cough up the dough. Good for business. Needed some examples. The basis of your fortune, Haskell, is steeped in blood.”
Haskell ran his hand through his silver mane. “There’s a rumor to that effect, but I wouldn’t know. I was barely twenty-eight when Father died. And who gives a damn about all that rubbish now?”
“Maybe, I do,” Sol said.
“Now you listen to me; I came back from the war in ’45, worked hard and built a one-hundred percent legitimate business empire-publishing, banking, real estate, oil. My refinery in Long Beach employs over a thousand people-”
Sol moved in closer to him. “Big fuckin’ deal. You got the money to start your company because your old man killed people for it.”
“I made more money than my old man could even dream about, all on the up and up. And now I’m giving it away: underprivileged kids, hospitals, you name it. With my money they may find a cure for cancer someday. What have you done with your life, Silverman? You’re just a fancy peeper. A snoop in a pinstripe suit looking in bedroom windows.”
Haskell turned away and muttered something. Though barely audible, I’m sure Sol heard the anti-Semitic remark the empire builder had expressed.
“Yeah, you built a business with your old man’s dirty money and Mafia connections, all right. Took all the bows, your name on buildings. People kissing your ass all over town. But there’s one problem. One really big problem.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“The money wasn’t yours. It was your brother’s. He was the first-born, first in line for the inheritance, and he died only a month before your old man croaked. Very convenient.”
“Bullshit!”
“Suppose you had a hand in your brother’s timely demise. Could’ve happened that way. You could’ve hired someone to do the deed.”
I jumped into the fray. “And suppose Frank Byron buried the evidence like he buried Roberts away in a cell for almost thirty years. Suppose he made your brother’s death just appear to be caused by a heart attack.”
“No statute of limitations on murder,” Sol said.
“What the hell’s the matter with you two?” Haskell’s face turned cherry-red. “You’re playing with fire talking like that. I could break you-”