No art or personal effects hung on the walls, no family pictures, citations, or anything like that. But someone had nailed a giveaway business calendar to the wall. It advertised a company called Executive Aviation, located at Long Beach Airport. The calendar had a picture of an airplane on it, a Lear Jet flying among puffy cumulus clouds. The page hadn’t been turned in a while. Although it was August, the Lear Jet was the plane of the month for April.
I rushed over to the filing cabinets and tugged on the drawers. Locked. I turned and checked the desk. I saw nothing of interest on top of it, just an ashtray overflowing with cigar butts, a half filled cup of cold coffee with a dead fly floating on the surface, and a few pieces of paper that looked like lists of garbage routes.
A shadow filled the room. Something outside moved across the window. I flattened myself against the wall. Trembling slightly, I glanced out the filthy window that overlooked the yard. A truckload of rotten cantaloupes rolled past the window. I watched as the truck dumped the slimy melons into several gray metal bins. But, thank God, I didn’t see anyone coming toward the office.
I turned from the window and moved rapidly back to the desk to see if I could spot anything that might shed light on the Sacramento flight. I opened the top center drawer. It held some pens, a few pencils mostly with broken tips, and a dozen or so unwrapped cigars. I quietly closed it and opened the narrow drawer to the right. A.45 automatic sat on top of a small stack of invoices. I wanted to examine the papers, but I didn’t want to touch the gun and leave my prints on it.
As I stood there frozen, staring at the gun, I heard a car door slam. Christ, I thought as I shoved the drawer closed.
Quickly scanning the room, I spotted another door to my left. I was almost through it when the front office door burst open. I slipped into the next room, a small kitchen. Dark green oilcloth covered the windows.
I heard voices coming from the room I had just left, three men talking shop. Damn, I had to figure a way out. I sidled along, inch by inch, my back to the wall, feeling with my hands in the dim room. Perspiration soaked my shirt and my heart pounded in my chest. I thought, what a fool I’d been. If caught here, the charge would be breaking and entering. At best, I’d lose my law license. I didn’t want to think about the worst that could happen.
Finally, I reached the back door. I knew the kitchen had to have one, and I felt a moment of relief as I twisted the knob slowly and it turned. I gently pulled and prayed that the hinges wouldn’t squeak as it opened. I needn’t have worried about the hinges; the door wouldn’t budge.
I pulled harder; nothing. Panic set in. I yanked on the door with both hands. Sweat gushed from every pore of my body. No use, the door wouldn’t open. It must be dead bolted, with no key in the lock. Definitely a building and safety code violation. Perhaps, if I were caught here, I could make a deal with these guys. They’d let me go and I wouldn’t turn them over to the building inspector. That ought to bring them to their knees.
I stood as still as I could, breathing slowly, in and out. I hoped they couldn’t hear the drum beating in my chest. After a few minutes, I moved along the wall back toward the door to the front office. I figured I’d wait them out. The light was too dim in the room to read my watch, but I knew it must be close to five. Wasn’t five quitting time? The freeways were jammed at five, people heading home. But that was just dreaming. No telling how long I’d have to wait, and every minute I waited was a minute closer to being caught.
I was now close enough to the door to hear the voices. One guy did all the talking; he spoke with a nasal wheeze. It had to be Karadimos, the boss, because all he did was bellyache. I could hear two other guys, both grunting.
Karadimos continued to rant, complaining about the lack of payment from a number of his deadbeat customers. He bitched about the ineffective collection efforts of the two guys in the room.
“God damn it, I want that money. Explain the situation to ’em. Hell, use a little finesse; try the two-by-four approach.”
“Okay, boss,” The other voices said in unison.
“All right then, get on it tomorrow,” Karadimos said.
“Anyway, the men must be through unloading the stuff. Let’s go check it out.”
I didn’t hear the front door open, but I heard it slam shut. I didn’t know if all three guys had left, but I couldn’t wait around any longer. I had to make my move. Peeking through the opening, I didn’t see anybody in the office, so I made a dash to the front door, where I stopped. I didn’t hear a car drive off. They could be standing right outside the office.
I opened the door about an inch and looked around the edge. Nobody in sight. I slipped into the yard and crouched down behind a black Mercedes, my pulse racing. I took a couple of deep breaths, then glanced over the hood of the car.
The three men walked with their backs to me toward the bins of rotten cantaloupes.
I duck-walked along the side of the Mercedes and stopped at the rear bumper. I eyed the expanse of wide-open land between the yard and the gate; no cover. But I couldn’t stay here. Maybe I’d draw less attention if I just stood and calmly strolled across the yard to the exit.
I was wrong. Halfway there someone shouted, “Hey, who the hell are you?”
I spun around. Two guys came rushing toward me, a heavy guy wearing a dirty tan jumpsuit, and another guy who looked a little like Elvis Presley. He had a pompadour and bushy black sideburns; he even had on the same kind of gaudy peach-tinted sunglasses the King used to wear.
“Whaddya doing snooping around here?” the big guy said, shoving me in the chest.
“I’m not snooping. I came to see the owner.”
The heavy guy shoved me again, this time hard. I stumbled back a little, but quickly regained my balance. “You touch me again and I’ll knock you on your fat ass,” I said.
I didn’t know if I could knock the guy down, but I was pissed. Amazingly enough, my threat seemed to work, because he backed off a little.
“Leave him alone, Willie,” Elvis said to the guy in the jumpsuit. “We’ll take him to the boss.” He pointed toward the office. “Let’s go, O’Brien.”
I tensed. Jesus H. Christ, these guys know who I am.
“Who’s O’Brien?” I tossed out the question like I was asking a stranger for the time of day.
“Knock it off, asshole. We know all about you,” Willie said.
“Yeah, the boss’s been waiting for you to show,” Elvis added.
I walked back toward the office, the two guys crowding each side of me. The door wasn’t locked. I opened it and went in.
“You like wandering in my yard, O’Brien? Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong? Keep it up, shyster, and you’ll find out who you’re messing with.” Karadimos was about the size of Rhode Island, but not nearly as pretty. He stood behind the desk panting like a rabid hyena. Someone had turned on the air conditioner jammed into one of the windows, and it pumped full blast. The room was cold, yet Karadimos’s face glistened with a sheen of moisture.
“I need information about Senator Welch,” I said.
Karadimos charged around the desk and stopped when he was close enough for me to feel his hot breath on my face. He moved fast for a man his size. “You stay away from him! I got money in his campaign and I don’t want you messing around.”
“I have to talk to him, that’s all. He might know something about the Graham murder.”
“Listen, punk, I don’t want you screwing around with any of my politicians. I bought ’em, I own ’em, and I intend to keep ’em in office where they can do me some good. You hear me?” Karadimos jabbed his finger in my face. “It’s a disgrace what people like you will do to tarnish the reputation of our public servants.”
I didn’t say anything. Karadimos returned to his desk and snatched a Kleenex from a dispenser. He mopped his forehead and threw the tissue on the floor.