"Very cute."
"Yeah. A little big in the rear. She's Dutch," Ken said. "She's only been here a week. She hasn't heard about him."
Most organizations had a person like the Weaseclass="underline" somebody who is more ambitious than scrupulous, somebody who finds a way to make himself useful to the powers that be, while being roundly hated by everyone else. That was the case with Weasel Wilhelm.
Like most dishonest people, the Weasel believed the worst about everybody. He could always be counted on to portray events in their most unflattering light, insisting that anything less was a cover-up. He had a nose for human weakness and a taste for melodrama. He cared nothing for the truth of any situation, and he considered a balanced appraisal weak. As far as the Weasel was concerned, the underlying truth was always strong stuff. And that was what he dealt in.
The other reporters at the Timesdespised him.
Ken and I went into the central hallway. I followed him toward the coffee machines, but he led me into the library. In the middle of the floor, the Timeshad a library that was larger and better equipped than many college facilities.
"So, what is it about Wilhelm?" I said.
"He was in here last night," Ken said. "I came by after the theater to pick up some notes I needed for a morning interview I was doing from home. And I saw the Weasel in the library. Maybe eleven o'clock at night. You know how ambitious the little turd is. I could see it in his face. He had the scent of blood. So naturally, you want to know about what."
"Naturally," I said. The Weasel was an accomplished backstabber. A year earlier, he had managed to get the editor of the Sunday Calendar fired. Only at the last minute did he fail to land the job himself.
Ken said, "So I whisper to Lilly, the night librarian. 'What is it? What's the Weasel up to?' She says, 'He's checking police reports on some cop.' So that's a relief, I think. But then I begin to wonder. I mean, I'm still the senior Metro reporter. I still do a story out of Parker Center a couple of times a month. What does he know that I don't? For all I know, this should be my story. So I say to Lilly, what's the name of this cop?"
"Let me guess," I said.
"That's right," Ken said. "Peter J. Smith."
"What time was this?"
"About eleven."
"Great," I said.
"I thought you'd want to know," Ken said.
"I do."
"So I said to Lilly – this is last night – I said, 'Lilly, what kind of stuff is he pulling?' And he's pulling everything, all the old clips from the morgue, and apparently he's got a source inside Parker who's going to leak him internal affairs records. Some kind of a hearing about child molestation. Charge brought a couple of years ago."
"Ah, shit," I said.
"That true?" Ken said.
"There was a hearing," I said. "But it was bullshit."
Ken looked at me. "Fill me in."
"It was three years back," I said. "I was still working detective. My partner and I answered a domestic violence call in Ladera Heights. Hispanic couple, fighting. Both very drunk. Woman wants me to arrest her husband, and when I refuse to, says he's sexually abusing her baby. I go look at the baby. The baby looks okay. I still refuse to arrest the husband. The woman is pissed. The next day she comes in and accuses meof sexual molestation. There's a preliminary hearing. Charges dismissed as without merit."
"Okay," Ken said. "Now, you got any travel that's questionable?"
I frowned. "Travel?"
"The Weasel was trying to locate travel records last night. Airplane trips, junkets, padded expenses . . ."
I shook my head. "It doesn't ring a bell."
"Yeah, I figured he must be wrong about that one. You're a single parent, you're not going on any junkets."
"No way."
"Good."
We were walking deeper into the library. We came to a corner where we could see out to the Metro section of the newsroom through glass walls. I saw the Weasel still talking to the girl, chatting her up. I said, "What I don't understand, Ken, is why me? I mean, I got no heat on me at all. No controversy. I haven't been a working detective for three years. I'm not even a press officer any more. I'm liaison. I mean, what I do is political. So why is a Timesreporter gunning for me?"
"At eleven o'clock on a Thursday night, you mean?" Ken said. He was staring at me like I was an idiot. Like there was drool coming down my chin.
I said, "You think the Japanese are doing this?"
"I think the Weasel does jobs for people. He is a scumbag for hire. He does jobs for the studios, record companies, brokerage houses, even the realtors. He's a consultant. The Weasel now drives a Mercedes 500SL, you know."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Pretty good on a reporter's salary, wouldn't you say?"
"Yeah, I would."
"So. You got on the wrong side of somebody? You do that last night?"
"Maybe."
"Because somebody called the Weasel to track you down."
I said, "I can't believe this."
"Believe it," Ken said. "The only thing that worries me is the Weasel's source inside Parker Center. Somebody in the department's leaking him internal affairs stuff. You okay inside your own department?"
"As far as I know."
"Good. Because the Weasel is up to his usual tricks. This morning I talked to Roger Bascomb, our in-house counsel."
"And?"
"Guess who called him all hot and bothered with a question last night? The Weasel. And you want to guess what the question was?"
I said nothing.
"The question was, does serving as a police press-officer make an individual a public personality? As in, a public personality who can't sue for libel?"
I said, "Jesus."
"Right."
"And the answer?"
"Who cares about the answer? You know how this works. All the Weasel has to do is call a few people and say, 'Hi, this is Bill Wilhelm over here at the L.A. Times. We're going with a story tomorrow that says Lieutenant Peter Smith is a child molester, do you have any comment on that?' A few well-placed calls, and the story doesn't even have to run. The editors can kill it but the damage is already done."
I said nothing. I knew what Ken was telling me was true. I had seen it happen more than once.
I said, "What can I do?"
Ken laughed. "You could arrange one of your famous incidents of L.A. police brutality."
"That's not funny."
"Nobody at this paper would cover it, I can promise you that. You could fucking kill him. And if somebody made a home video? Hey, people here would payto see it on video."
"Ken."
Ken sighed. "I can dream. Okay. There's one thing. Last year, after Wilhelm was involved in the, ah, change of management over in Calendar, I got an anonymous package in the mail. So did a few other people. Nobody did anything about it at the time. It's pretty dirty pool. You interested?"
"Yeah."
Ken took a small manila envelope from the inside pocket of his sport coat. It had one of those strings that you wrap back and forth to close it. Inside was a series of photos, printed in a strip. It showed Willy Wilhelm engaged in an intimate act with a dark-haired man. His head buried in his lap.