But this was the City of Angels, where image is all, and the Bradbury was exactly right to convince clients seeking a private detective they’d come to just the right place. Hollywood surely did, as more crime and mystery movies had been shot here than in any studio in town, from Double Indemnity to D.O.A. We’d even rented out one of our old-fashioned pebbled glass interiors to I, the Jury, in 3D no less.
Meanwhile, back on the fifth floor, three of our five suites were given over to cubicles utilized by a dozen operatives (including three females), all former law enforcement; another suite was occupied by my L.A. partner, Fred Rubinski and myself (side by side in separate offices), a reception area out front with a secretary at one desk and a receptionist at the other. The remaining suite was a conference room large enough to hold a press conference or meet with studio executives.
Nathan S. Heller had come a long way from a one-room office over a blind pig on Van Buren by the El. I didn’t have to sleep in a Murphy bed in this one, either, although the leather couch was pretty comfy when a guy my age wanted a nap.
I still considered myself based in Chicago, though my longtime partner there, Lou Sapperstein, ran the day-to-day at the Monadnock Building; but I spent about a third of my time in L.A. now, and at least six weeks cumulative in New York at our Empire State Building office, overseen by Bob Hasty, also a partner. Lou and Fred both went back to my Pickpocket Detail days in the Loop; Bob I knew from when he’d done work for the A-1 through our D.C. affiliate, Bradford Investigations.
My extended time in L.A. had to do with exploiting the celebrity that had come with the Life and Look articles about our Hollywood clientele: Time, Newsweek and the wire services had also started noticing the admittedly unlikely number of newsworthy cases I’d figured in over the years. And of course it gave me an opportunity to spend more time with my son, who hadn’t said “Fuck you” to me in months.
I was behind my clutter-free desk and Fred was across from me in the client’s chair, an amiable balding bulldog whose resemblance to Edward G. Robinson came up more often than he would have liked. He was a sharp dresser, a habitué of Luigi’s Custom Tailor shop in Van Nuys, though right now he was in shirtsleeves and suspenders. He had a few years on me and retirement was his favorite subject.
But not today.
“You really think there’s anything good to be had,” he said, the cigar in his fingers furthering a thirties gangster vibe, “out of poking around in this thing?”
This thing, of course, was Bob’s murder.
“I have a client,” I reminded him. “A longtime one in Pearson, and all he wants is enough for a few columns that can get him back his liberal bona fides.”
“If he pays you,” Fred said, sticking the cigar in the hole in his skeptical expression. “Look. We haven’t had problems with the LAPD in years. We even have some ex-cops of theirs on the payroll. Why borrow trouble?”
I ignored that and flipped a hand. “You’re the one who followed the Sirhan Sirhan case in the press. I was in Chicago minding my own business. What’s your take?”
He grunted a laugh. “You were in that goddamn kitchen when the shit hit the fan. And you’re asking me?”
I didn’t say anything.
Fred put his cigar in the ashtray on my desk that was there for him and clients; I hadn’t been a regular smoker since the war. The real one.
He said, “Sorry. I know you and Bobby were tight. I got a big fat tactless mouth sometimes. I just don’t see what’s to be gained. Professionally or personally.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“What’s your take, Fred? This thing has every earmark of a police cover-up. Looks like they’re doing whatever it takes to quash any conspiracy talk.”
His shrug was slow, elaborate. “That’s easy. They’re lazy. Not the rank and file — it comes from above, the brass and the D.A. It’s a hell of a lot easier to prosecute a single individual for a crime than multiple defendants. All you gotta do is ignore evidence that doesn’t fit the story you’re tellin’, then make your conviction.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. They have one man in custody — do they want to explain another shooter or two, slipping through their fingers? Of course the D.A. wants a quick win that the public can buy.”
He threw a hand in the air. “Precisely.”
“But what about the defense team, Fred? What about that slick prick shyster winking at me? What the hell does Cooper think I’m in on, anyway?”
Fred shrugged again, not so elaborate. “You should ask him.” He held up two fingers with the cigar twirling smoke in between, Winston Churchill style. “But I’ll give you one thing — you can’t take the gun evidence too serious. Their forensics guy, this Wolf character, is famous for giving the prosecution whatever it needs. You remember the Kirsch case?”
“Didn’t make the Tribune.”
He filled me in. “Kirsch was a former Deputy D.A. who was tied up with a wife-swapping crowd in Long Beach. Some guy didn’t wanna give Kirsch’s wife back and Mister Deputy District Attorney shoots both of them in bed. His own bed, at that. It was a slam-dunk case till this Wolf character got caught sweetening the bullet evidence, and almost botched the whole thing.”
From the intercom came the voice of our thirty-year-old starlet/receptionist, who lent the A-1 a pretty face when she wasn’t doing a round of auditions.
“Your nine-thirty is here, Mr. Heller. In the conference room.”
“Thanks, Evie.”
I clicked off, and Fred said, “Your FBI buddy? Keeping things discreet?”
I nodded, getting up. “Yeah. He wouldn’t want to be caught consorting with the lowlife likes of us.”
Wes Grapp was the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Office, but before that he’d held the same post in Kansas City. That’s where we’d met, when I was working for the family in the Greenlease kidnapping case back in ’53. We’d gotten along well, sharing information with each other that helped the overall cause. For what good it had done.
Grapp had helped himself to the seat at the head of the table in the squarish room bisected by a conference table designed for a different space. The walls were bare flat plaster, pale green, no framed anything, as if to underscore the confidentiality of anything said here. The old-fashioned wooden blinds were drawn to keep sunlight and prying eyes out — after all, this nasty world of ours included binoculars and lip readers.
In his early fifties, Grapp dressed well — that gray suit was off-the-rack, but the rack was at Bullock’s Wilshire — and the pleasantness of the features on the long narrow oval of his face was compromised by a prominent nose and high forehead that rose to a dark, receding Nixon-ish hairline.
He got to his feet, extended a hand, but retained his head-of-the-table position. After the ritual handshake, firm but not showy on either of our parts, we both sat, me at his right, Daddy’s favorite son.
We exchanged small talk about family briefly, and the status of our mutual friend, Kansas City Cadillac dealer Robert Green-lease, who’d been ailing. Greenlease and his wife Virginia had endured the deaths of all three of their children, but Mrs. Green-lease was apparently finding solace in her church and charities.
“Not the best thing about our jobs,” Wes commented. “The tragedies, particularly the ones we have to sift through.”