He repeated it aloud. “Back on the bricks. I tell ya, Jerry, I had it made at the Head Office, it didn’t matter who the Director was. They knew I was a reliable man, they knew I was loyal, they knew I delivered. ‘I don’t want excuses, I want results,’ that’s what the Director used to say, and nobody ever heard an excuse from me.”
“I know,” Jerry said sympathetically, though he could only know what Mike told him. “You got your nuts in the wringer, that’s all. That’s all that happened.”
“Retroactive,” Mike said, dealing with the word as though it were a pebble he was moving around in his mouth. “ ‘Do this,’ they said, ‘it’s your patriotic duty.’ ‘Oh, yessir,’ I said, and salute the son of a bitch, and I go do it, and when I come back there’s some other son of a bitch in there and he says, ‘Oh, no, that wasn’t patriotic, it was illegal and you shouldn’t of done it.’ And I say, ‘Why I got my orders right here, I’m covered, I got everything in black and white, this is the guy told me what to do,’ and they say, ‘Oh, yeah, we know about him, he’s out on his ear, he’s in worse trouble than you are.’ So that guy’s ass is in a sling and my nuts are in a wringer and Al Capone is up there at San Clemente in a golf cart. And who’s loyal now, huh? Who do you trust now, the shitter or the shit-upon?”
“It’s a tough racket,” Jerry said. He was a terrific sounding board, he never confused the conversation with a lot of dumb suggestions.
“You’re fuckin A,” Mike told him, and turned to point at Rodney the barman. “Twice again,” he called, and the beeper in his jacket pocket went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. “Shit,” Mike said, under the noise of the machine, and reached to shut it off.
Jerry looked interested. “The office?”
“More fuckin bald women,” Mike said, and twisted around the other way to holler over at Ricci the waiter, “Bring me a phone, will ya, Rick?”
The phone came first. Ricci plugged it into the jack under the window, then went off to get the drinks while Mike phoned the office.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Extension twelve.”
A few burrs, and then: “Agent Dodd.”
“Mike Wiskiel here. I was just buzzed.”
“Hold on, Redburn wants you.”
The drinks arrived while Mike was holding on, and he signed for them with the receiver tucked in against his shoulder. Jerry said, “What’s up?”
“Dunno yet.”
Ricci took the tab away, Mike slugged down about a third of the new drink, and the voice of Chief of Station Webster Redburn came on the line: “Mike? Where are you?”
“At the club, Wes. I spent all day on that mail fraud case, I just came in for a little late lunch.”
“Forget the mail fraud and lunch,” Redburn said, and went on to tell him what had happened. Mike’s eyes widened as he listened, and he knew there’d be no more paperwork, no more routine slog, no more bald women and low-IQ bank robbers and stolen cars, no more day-by-day boring bullshit, not for hours, not for days, maybe even not for weeks. “So get there fast,” Redburn finished.
“I just left,” Mike told him, and cradled the phone.
Jerry looked as inquisitive as a cat who’s just heard a noise under the refrigerator. “What’s up?”
“A james dandy,” Mike told him. “Somebody put the snatch on Koo Davis! Would you believe it?” And, getting to his feet, he downed the rest of his drink and trotted from the room.
I need this, Mike told himself. I gotta do good on this one. Fuzzy from that last vodka, he sped east on the Ventura Freeway while a golden future opened up before his bleary eyes; if he did good on this Koo Davis thing. Yes, sir. They’d have to transfer him back to Washington then, they’d have no choice. Back where he belonged.
Yes, sir. Old Mike Wiskiel, fucked over because of Watergate, kicked out of D.C., rescues Koo Davis from the kidnappers! Talk about your media blitz! Mike could see his own fucking face on the fucking cover of Time magazine. “Tough but tender, FBI man Mike Wiskiel counts persistence among his primary virtues.” Writing the Time article in his head, pushing the speed limit, not quite grazing the cars to left and right, Mike Wiskiel raced to the rescue.
The gate guard at Screen Service Studios gave Mike’s ID a very careful belligerent screening. Mike didn’t need this shit; he was more sober now, but the buzz of vodka was steadily souring toward a headache. He said, “Locking the door now the horse is gone, huh?”
The guard glared but made no remark, simply handing back the ID and saying, “Soundstage Four. Past the pile of lumber up there and around to your left.”
Mike grunted, and drove cautiously forward. The speed bumps weren’t that good for his head.
Following the guard’s directions, Mike soon saw a large black number 4 painted on an otherwise featureless gray wall, above a gray metal door. Several cars, most of them official-looking, were parked in a cluster along the wall, and two Burbank cops were standing together outside the door, chatting in a bored way and looking around for stars.
There weren’t any stars, not right now. Except for the two Burbank cops there was nobody in sight. Mike didn’t know those two—his acquaintanceship among the bewildering multiplicity of police forces in the Greater Los Angeles area was very low—but he waved to them anyway as he drove by, looking for a place to park. They responded with flat looks, and when he left the car and walked back these Burbank cops also gave his ID a tight aggressive inspection. Mike said, “I understand the snatch took place about three-thirty, am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then that was the time to check ID. One thing you’re not gonna get right now is the kidnappers sneaking back in here disguised as FBI men.”
They both looked sullen. One of them said, “You could be a reporter.”
“Flashing Federal ID? I’m some fucking stupid reporter.” And he went inside.
Almost any of the other agents in the Los Angeles office, with their local police contacts, would have been better qualified than Mike to be liaison on this case, except that the victim was Koo Davis; a famous name, a celebrity, and a man with lots of official friends back in D.C. No one lower-ranking than Assistant to the Chief of Station could possibly be sent to cover the first day, when legally the FBI’s connection with kidnapping—a state, not federal, crime—was advisory only; which was why it was Mike’s baby. And his big chance.
He had no idea, on walking into Soundstage Four, whether the local law would welcome him with open arms or closed faces, but it turned out he was in luck. The local man in charge, a tall leathery old duff called Chief Inspector Jock Cayzer, seemed both friendly and competent, and started right off by saying, “FBI, huh? Good to have you aboard.”
Cayzer had a hard strong handshake. He wore a brown suit and a string tie and a Stetson, and he talked with the gruff slow twang of Texas or Oklahoma, but the deep creases in his face and the knobby knuckles of his blunt-fingered hands said plainer than words that he was the real thing and not one of the million imitations spawned in the Los Angeles area. Despite the strong handshake, and the keen look in his silver-flecked blue eyes, and his strong deep voice, he was surely older than the mandatory retirement age, so his still being here, actively in charge, meant he either knew his business or knew the right people. Probably both. So Mike had better be careful with him.
He knew his business, that much was sure. He took Mike around the building, explaining the situation, and Mike could only agree with everything Cayzer had so far chosen to do. What had happened, Koo Davis had been on stage talking with the studio audience before taping his program, and on his way back to the dressing room—down this corridor, through this door, along that hall—he’d disappeared; probably out this door, leading to this alley. Presumably he’d been snatched, though so far there’d been no word from the kidnappers. On the other hand, the kidnapping (if that’s what it was) had taken place barely half an hour ago: “They might not even be gone to ground yet,” Cayzer said.