McKesson looked to Police Chief Parker.
“Van Nuys?” He queried, glumly. “Isn’t that O’Connell’s…”
He never got the opportunity to finish his question because Parker spat a vitriolic, disgusted single syllable at him.
“Yes!”
“All my enquiries of your department, Mr McKesson,” Franklin Lovell went on blandly, “as to the whereabouts and welfare of my client, and of Mister Weston, his co-accused in the matter of the alleged, as yet unspecified charges, of murder relating to the death of the two ‘Troubadour fire bombers’ have drawn a complete blank at the Office of the Los Angeles District Attorney, and with the Los Angeles Police Department.” He nodded respectfully to the silent, hard-eyed Clyde Tolson. The Associate Director of the FBI remained almost, but not quite impassive, his lip curling minutely in a suggestion of contempt. “It is only due to the good offices of Mr Tolson and his colleagues at the Federal Bureau of Investigation that I was finally able to track down my client and to gain intelligence as to where the District Attorney’s Office, the LAPD and the California Department of Corrections may have ‘last seen’ Mr Weston alive.”
Clyde Tolson stirred.
People who did not know him were often surprised by the quiet menace the man generated on those rare occasions when his gander was up. It was also the case that because he was, who he was, when he spoke with menace his voice carried real and very substantial threat.
“Have any of you gentlemen any idea what is going on under your noses?” He asked the three Los Angelinos in the room in a coldly unforgiving voice.
There was a brief silence.
“Director Hoover has asked me to personally supervise the investigation of racketeering, money-laundering, and the practice of turning a blind eye to organized criminal activities in this city. The starting point of that investigation will be a thorough forensic investigation of your roles in allowing the current disappointing situation to arise in the first place. I won’t beat about the bush. I have to tell you that the speedy fashion in which you expedite the resolution to the specific situation that we are here today to address, will have a major bearing on the conduct of my subsequent inquiry.”
The threat could not have been more brutally delivered to an audience that understood that they had just been told that if they did not play ball there would be very, very bad consequences for each of them personally.
“I hope you are not attempting to intimidate me, sir?” McKesson cavilled because lawyers always thought that they were above the law.
Clyde Tolson said nothing.
He was not trying to intimidate anybody.
What he was doing was threatening to unleash the whole weight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a ruthless inquisition into every aspect of law enforcement in Los Angeles County.
Franklin Lovell retook the floor.
“You should be aware that Samuel Brenckmann is the son of the newly appointed US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Captain Walter Brenckmann, USN. Captain Brenckmann was the man who tackled the mad woman who attempted to assassinate the President at the end of the Battle of Washington. Mr Samuel Brenckmann’s father is therefore, the man who saved the President’s life last month.”
He let this sink in.
“Neither Captain Brenckmann nor the President has yet been troubled by the sordid details of this matter in Los Angeles. I think it is in the County of Los Angeles’s best interests that this situation is resolved as soon as possible.” He smiled. “Might I suggest that my client and Mr Weston be released without charge before midnight tonight,” he smiled, “always assuming you know where they are?”
“What if we can’t locate them?” Police Chief Parker grunted sulkily.
Clyde Tolson had heard enough.
“Let’s put it this way Chief Parker,” he drawled, breathless with anger. “If the two men in question are not placed in the custody and protection of my agents by one minute past midnight, my agents, assisted by Secret Service Officers and Federal Marshalls will be alerted to start knocking on your door and the doors of several of your senior confederates, and on the doors of senior officers of the District Attorney’s Department’s homes. Please do not misunderstand me. If what it takes to get the wheels of justice turning in this State is the arrest and indictment of every senior official of the Mayor’s Office, the LAPD and of the District Attorney’s office then that is what will start happening in the early hours of tomorrow morning.”
Franklin Lovell grimaced.
“But I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
Chapter 51
Captain Reggie O’Connell of the Los Angeles Police Department had awakened in the holding cell with one of those hangovers where you were afraid to open your eyes in case you bled out. Despite the humid warmth of the grubby little room he was shivering even though perspiration soaked his armpits and dripped off his temples. He badly needed a drink and was beginning to get used to the idea that none of his friends was coming to his rescue any time soon. The people who had rousted him from his bed at one o’clock that morning had been his own Van Nuys cops! Now that he had had time to think about it and to get his bearing in this new and changed reality that was the worst thing. The Feds had stayed in the background, no doubt smirking behind their hands as he was walked out into the circle of headlamps on Mulholland Avenue. Loretta going missing ought to have been his cue to run but she had walked in and out of their marriage — such as it was — a lot the last year and honestly and truly he had hardly noticed her absence the last couple of days.
O’Connell sat on the hard cot and brooded.
At least the bastards had not put him in with the spics, deadbeats and druggies in the big holding cage at the back of the station. The cell he was in was one of two reserved for suspects who needed to be kept separately from the normal human detritus that washed through Van Nuys; usually for their own safety or because his detectives did not want to advertise the presence at the station of the occupant.
His detectives…
Past tense, now.
The days when Reggie O’Connell owned anything in particular were, he realized, gone forever. It was for this reason that when the cell door suddenly opened he was working through the options of how best to go about cutting a deal with the District Attorney. It had not occurred to him that nobody would actually want to ‘cut a deal’ with him.
“Follow me,” a stranger, a tall lean blond guy in his twenties in an off the peg lightweight grey suit demanded. In the corridor there were other men in crisp suits.
O’Connell was in a daze as he stumbled through the station that up until yesterday afternoon he had owned and out into the balmy, overcast evening. A hand pressed down his head or he would have smacked his face against the frame of the door of the dark sedan into which his minders had guided him. It was not until he was on the back seat of the car squashed between two minders that he realized that somewhere between leaving his cell being bundled into the vehicle his hands had been cuffed behind his back.
“Where the fuck are we going?” He croaked. It was a feeble protest and it was ignored as the car sped off into the sunset. “I’m entitled to a fucking telephone call!”
It was at this juncture that the man in the front passenger seat twisted around and viewed the prisoner.