Sol and I looked at each other, and I took a deep breath. Sol pumped his fist. “You nailed him, Jimmy.”
I smiled. “We both did, my friend.”
On stage, Haskell readjusted the mike, nodded to the others on the podium, took a sip of water, and began: “Thank you, John. Distinguished guests, members of the press, I’m humbled to be standing here before you tonight…”
I started to boil inside, thinking of all the years that Al Roberts had rotted in a prison hellhole because of that bastard up there on the stage. How could a cowardly son-of-a-bitch like that receive so much adulation?
No, the hell with this! “He can bite my ass,” I told Sol. “We’re not waiting for the FBI. C’mon, let’s take him now!”
“Christ, Jimmy, wait-!” Sol exclaimed.
But I’d already started to move to the front of the hall. Sol ran up beside me as we elbowed our way through the crowd, which was still on its feet.
Reaching the foot of the stage, I shouted up at Haskell, “Hey, Earl! Yeah, I’m talking to you, Earl Lee Sims!”
Haskell’s mouth dropped. He stood in silent shock, but only for a moment. “What the hell is this? Are you out of your mind-?”
“Don’t give us any bullshit,” Sol interrupted. “We know who you really are.” He turned and faced the crowd. “This man-this imposter-is a murdering son-of-a-bitch. He killed two helpless women-and who knows how many others!”
The bigwigs on the dais jumped to their feet and stared down at us, not knowing what to do. Two big goons rushed toward us and tried to grab our arms. I recognized both from the Reagan dinner: Haskell’s bodyguards.
“Get your filthy hands off of me, you prick!” Sol snapped at one of them.
“Hey, you’re the crazy bastards that hassled me in the Beverly Wilshire restroom. Joe, Roy, get these assholes out of here,” Haskell/Sims yelled to his bodyguards.
Sol, fighting off his attacker, shouted again: “Did you kill the real Raymond Haskell too, before you stole his dog tags and assumed the identity of a real war hero?”
A collective gasp arose from the crowd as I slammed the guy trying to contain me in his gut with my elbow. He let out a whoosh and loosened his grip. I spun around and smashed him in the face. He dropped like a stone.
Sol, a hell of a strong man, was making short work of the other asshole.
A bullhorn sounded at the back of the room. “This is the FBI. Everyone hold their places.” The agent in the lead stared at us, and his jaw dropped. “Silverman, what the hell…”
Half a dozen FBI agents now started working their way through the mass of people, all standing in horrified silence.
Haskell/Sims turned his head from side to side like it was on a swivel. Then he stopped and stared, wide-eyed, at the government agents as they moved closer. Sol shouted up at him, “Hey, schmuck, we’ve compared your fingerprints. We know who you are.”
Somehow, the bodyguard being pummeled by Sol managed to pull a gun. Sol twisted his arm up behind his back. The gun went off, the bullet probably lodging in the ceiling. “You fucking coward!” Sol bellowed. “I think I’m going to beat the crap out of you.”
“Okay, okay, goddammit.” He let go of the gun. “I ain’t being paid enough to get killed.”
Hearing the gunshot, the crowd stampeded for the exits. The FBI guys tried frantically to move against the flow of the frightened horde.
Sims now made a mad dash for the stage door. I jumped up and raced after him. After flattening the other bodyguard, Sol followed.
We chased Sims down a dim corridor. I caught up quickly, took a flying leap and tackled him to the ground. Grabbing him by his scrawny neck, I looked into his eyes. No defiance now; the asshole was terrified.
“You might as well kill me right now, O’Brien. I can’t go to prison,” he whined. Tears started to flow, and he buried his head in his hands.
I shook him. “Look at me, you no-good bastard. For what you did to Al Roberts, I ought to bash your head in. But you’ll live a long time, rotting in a dingy cell. You’ll be alone, except for the ghosts of everyone whose lives you’ve destroyed. They’ll be there too, haunting your every waking moment!”
I stood and jerked Sims to his feet as Sol came up beside me. Three FBI agents moved in, arrested Sims, and led him away in cuffs.
“There goes our fearless war hero,” Sol said. “Crying like a goddamn baby.”
I laughed-it sounded more like a crazed cackle. “Do you think I was too rough on him? Maybe he won’t give me back my Corvette.”
Sol put his arm around my shoulder. “O’Brien, boychik, you’re something else.”
We moseyed down the corridor, out of the ballroom, and headed straight for the bar.
CHAPTER 45
Almost immediately, the national news wires picked up the story of Earl Lee Sims stealing Raymond Haskell’s identity and getting away with it for almost three decades. By ten that night, reporters were camped in front of my apartment. Cruising down my street, I saw the media vans parked there and didn’t stop. I drove to my office on Cecilia St. and didn’t see any reporters around, so I parked and went in.
I sat at my desk in the dark, quietly thinking about the events that had happened earlier that night at the Ambassador. I thought about that look in Sims’s eyes when he asked me to kill him. Uh-uh, killing him would be too easy. There would be no long-term suffering, no payback for all that he had done, for the lives he’d taken-for the lives he had destroyed.
Turning on my desk lamp, I started to rearrange the stuff on my desk. Mrs. Hathaway’s shoebox sat next to a stale donut. I took out the old newspaper, the Shreveport Journal, dated June 11, 1945 and looked it over again.
There was a lot of news on the front page about the war raging in the Pacific. Page two had an article about movie queen Hedy Lamarr’s new baby. But what had caught my eye back at Sol’s office was an article with photos. The Associated Press piece had been put on the national wire.
The Journal picked up the story and carried it on page three. The headline: WAR HERO AND HEIR RETURNS HOME. The picture showed a close-up of Raymond Haskell stepping off a plane in Los Angeles. The article told about his final mission and his time spent as a POW. It went on to tell how he was the only survivor of the doomed aircraft. In smaller print the article listed the names of his crewmembers killed in action. The piece also listed the dead airmens’ next of kin. Among those allegedly killed was Earl Lee Sims. His only known relative was a sister, whereabouts unknown, named Vera Sims.
Then I pulled out the page torn from the 1945 motel guest register that Mrs. Hathaway must’ve stuck in the shoebox prior to giving it to her niece. I looked again at the two faded signatures on the paper: Al Roberts-and Vera Sims.
Unfolding the two small obituary clippings, I spread them on my desk. Both had a small picture of Sims, and each said essentially the same thing. Sergeant Earl Lee Sims, USAAF, was killed last week when the B-17 he crewed exploded over Germany after encountering heavy flak. Prior to his enlistment, Sims, a native of Caddo Parish, had been in trouble with the law. He had joined the army in order to avoid a long prison term…
Sol’s PR people had scheduled a press conference for me to meet with the media the following afternoon, a Monday. He explained that it would be the only way I’d get these guys off my ass, plus the publicity would do my firm good. I liked that idea.
The conference was held in the office parking lot. Rita, wearing a dark business suit and a white ruffled blouse, stood beside me at the makeshift podium, facing the journalists and TV cameras. Mabel sat at a small table we had set up near the entrance. She handed out factsheets to the reporters as they signed in. The TV camera lights snapped on and the conference got underway at exactly 2:06 p.m.