The Brimstone Murders jo-2 Read online

The gun was gone. I spent the next twenty minutes rummaging through all the desk and cabinet drawers with no success. Someone must have come in here and snatched it. And if someone had taken my gun, what were the odds that it was used to murder Hazel Farris? If it was my gun that killed her, then that meant someone was trying to set me up for sure. Who… and why me?

  I had to go back to my apartment and face the heat like a man, like an officer of the court, like a person who believed that our system of justice sooner or later would make things right. Without the law, who was I? Just another two-bit hustler out to make a buck off some poor sap’s misery. But what’s the use? Hammer would be gone by now and my apartment would be destroyed.

  I got in my Corvette and drove home.

  When I pulled up to the curb this time, sure enough, the cops were gone. The patrol cars had left, but Rita’s yellow Datsun was parked there. I climbed out of the Vette but didn’t bolt up the stairs like before. I felt downhearted, and it would show. I wanted time to improve my attitude before seeing Rita. I was her mentor, after all, and I had to be strong.

  As I climbed the steps, I wondered why she’d stopped by. But I was glad she did. Maybe I just needed to see a friendly face, someone on my side for a change.

  Reaching the top step, I stood still and thought for a moment. Other than Rita and Sol, I really didn’t have many friends. Oh, there was Bobby Pollard, my buddy all through high school, but when he graduated from college he got a job with an insurance company and moved to Chicago. The last time I talked to him, he tried to sell me a whole-life policy. Double benefits if I got run over by a train.

  The front door was open. Rita stood in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips surveying the damage. My TV was smashed, stuff overturned, furniture torn apart. The kitchenette-the bit I could see out of the corner of my eye-had been ransacked and looked as if a tornado had hit it. A tornado named Hammer.

  Rita turned when I walked in. There was a moment’s silence, a warm acknowledgment of our friendship.

  “Oh, Jimmy, your apartment is a mess.”

  “Cops,” I said.

  “I know. They were still here when I arrived. Hammer gave me a copy of the warrant. I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

  “Hey, Rita, I planned on doing a remodel job anyway, and now it’s done-Early Cop.” I laughed an empty laugh.

  “They’re looking for your gun.”

  “They knew it wasn’t here. They were looking for something else too, a fishing expedition. But I’m really worried now. I looked in the office, and my gun is gone. Someone stole it.”

  “Jimmy, this could be trouble.”

  “Yeah, I know. The gun all of a sudden goes missing, and a woman is murdered with the same kind of weapon. I don’t like coincidences.”

  “My God,” she said. “Do you think someone took your gun and shot Robbie’s mother with it?”

  “I don’t know, Rita. I don’t know what to think.”

  “You didn’t just misplace it?”

  “Nah, I put it in my desk drawer a few months ago. Haven’t touched it since. But I know one thing.”

  “What?”

  “If my gun is the murder weapon, as sure as I’m standing here, it will turn up.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I woke up tangled in the sheets, the blanket in a heap on the floor. Stumbling into my kitchenette with the sheet draped around my middle, I rooted through the junk scattered all over the floor and found the coffeepot. I glanced up at the open cupboard; the cops had dumped out my Yuban. A small heap of coffee was on the floor next to a broken jar of strawberry jam. I wasn’t upset about the jam, it was moldy anyway, but I was pissed about the coffee. I scooped up enough for a cup and called the office while it brewed. No one was there, but Rita had left a message on the answering machine.

  She had an early appointment scheduled with a Deputy D.A. in Pacoima and would touch bases with me later in the day. I was to leave my client’s file with Mabel, and she would review it before she phoned the guy. She wished me a good day and said, “Keep smiling, boss. It will work out.” Yeah, I’ll keep smiling, I mumbled, and poured myself a cup of freshly brewed dirt.

  I drifted into the bathroom, showered, shaved, and after dressing-chino pants and a sport shirt-I left the apartment.

  I called the office again from a payphone outside of Dolan’s Donuts. This time Mabel answered. I told her where to find the client file for Rita and said I would be tied up for a while. She said, so what, I didn’t have any client appointments anyhow. Before hanging up, I asked her if she’d seen my gun anywhere, and of course, she said no.

  After the call, I headed north on the Santa Ana Freeway toward Chatsworth, then made the transition to the Ventura Freeway. The traffic was a breeze, and forty-five minutes after I’d left Downey I turned off at Winnetka Boulevard.

  Gene Krupa, the great jazz drummer, told us a long time ago that the big wind blows and brings the big noise from Winnetka. There were no big noises coming from this Winnetka-just a lot of small noise, traffic noise, busy people being busy noise, and the noise of strip malls going up on every corner. I was in the San Fernando Valley, not Winnetka, Illinois.

  On my right, halfway between the freeway and Devonshire Avenue, just past Nordhoff, I saw a closed-up White Front store that had been converted into the Divine Christ Ministry Church. The plain vanilla-white building, with its huge arch soaring over the entrance, was set back beyond a million acres of cracked blacktop, the old store’s vast parking lot. There were only a few cars scattered around there, but I imagined on Sunday the lot would be jammed and overflowing. Salvation was a hot ticket these days. Parked at the front, in the shade of the building, was a black Mercedes 600 stretch limousine.

  I pulled up to the main entrance, parked next to the limo, and glanced up at a new sign mounted over the doublewide doors. Painted in red letters on a white background was the church’s name, Divine Christ Ministry. Directly below that in script were the words: A day without Jesus is like a day without sunshine. I wondered who came up with that slogan. It seemed a bit trite. I shook my head. Hey, we are talking about the Almighty here. It seemed to me they could have picked something a touch more magnanimous, something like, “Give money, or go to Hell.” Tell it like it is, I always said.

  Walking to the building’s entrance, I noticed the limo driver, a giant of a man, leaning on the fender reading a newspaper. I nodded when he looked up. He pinned me with his hard eyes.

  I pulled open one of the doublewide glass doors and entered the building. A long hallway led to the main auditorium. A few pictures hung on the walls, photographs of dour looking men, and farther down at the end of the hallway was a large portrait of Jesus-his beard was trimmed and neat, his long hair styled and combed to perfection. He had the look of a movie star. Like he might’ve bought his cloak and tunic at Sy Devor’s on Vine Street.

  Several doors were cut into the hallway. I tried the one marked Office, but it was locked, so I continued on to the end of the hall which opened into a large auditorium.

  The place didn’t look like any church I’d ever been in. It looked more like a basketball arena, high exposed-beam ceiling and wood floors, but there were no hoops in sight. And unlike a basketball court, the floor was covered with row upon row of gray metal folding chairs. At the north end, a large stage extended the width of the auditorium.

  Up on the stage a small group of men and about a dozen young and attractive women stood in a circle. A guy standing in the middle of the group, wearing a pinstriped double-breasted suit, seemed to be getting all the attention. I walked purposefully toward the stage, as if I belonged there. One of the men, a tall, long-limbed guy dressed casually in denim pants and a short-sleeve white shirt, saw me coming.

  “May I help you?” he called out.

  I kept walking toward the stage, about thirty feet away. “Looking for Reverend Snavley,” I hollered back at the guy.

  “I’m Reverend Elroy, Elroy Snavley, but we’re a little busy right now. Do
you have an appointment?”

  “Just need a second of your time.” I skirted the front row of chairs and moved to the center of the room. Nearing the edge of the stage, I looked up at the group. “Hey, I like your slogan, outside on the sign.” A little friendly banter to break the ice.

  The other man, the one in the suit, stopped talking and made an irritated, shooing gesture directed at Reverend Elroy. He obviously wanted the reverend to get rid of me.

  Elroy came to the edge of the stage and, squatting, looked down at me. He was about forty; a pleasant-looking guy, lightly freckled face, disheveled sandy hair, but his nose was too large to fit comfortably between his close-set eyes, which kept blinking.

  “Oh, do you like my slogan?” he said. “I paraphrased Cicero. You know, ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’”

  “Kinda sounded a little like the Gallo wine commercial, too,” I said. “You know, ‘A day without wine…’”

  “Yeah, that too,” he said with a hint of irritation.

  I didn’t want to tell him what Sol’s friend, a comedian, had said: ‘A day without sunshine is like night,’ didn’t want to get on Elroy’s bad side right out of the gate.

  “Hey, Elroy, can we get on with this?” the man with the suit demanded.

  The reverend glanced at the suit, then quickly back at me. “I’m sorry, sir, but as you can see I’m busy.”

  The man in the suit stood stiffly with his chest puffed, glaring at me. He was in his mid-fifties, a little paunchy, and he had a large head with an abundance of silver hair, leonine in its grandeur. The man had an expensive barber, and his suit cost more than my car. The limo outside must be his, I presumed.

  “It’s about Robbie Farris,” I said.

  Elroy bolted upright and swiveled to Mr. Suit, the man obviously in charge.

  The suit glared at me. His gaze felt like a blast from a hot furnace. “Come on, let’s talk,” he said.

  CHAPTER 12

  The rich guy’s name, I found out, was J. Billy Bickerton. I’d heard of him. Who hadn’t? He owned a string of evangelical TV stations across the nation. These religious, nonprofit stations made a lot of money, and Bickerton was very rich indeed.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s get to the point here. Just what do you want from us?”

  I ignored Bickerton and addressed Reverend Elroy. “Reverend, I’m a lawyer, a member of the bar, and I’m defending Robbie Farris.”

  The good reverend blanched. “I don’t know anything about him.”

  Reverend Elroy’s plain, threadbare-carpeted office wasn’t much, maybe twenty-five feet long and about twelve feet wide with a small wood desk jammed at one end. We sat at a card table at the opposite end, away from the desk. Bickerton, the big shot, took a seat across from me. The Reverend was perched in his chair, on my right, nervous like a twittering finch.

  “Hey, Mr. O’Brien, he doesn’t know the guy. So I don’t see how we can be of any help to you.”

  “He knows Robbie, all right.” I turned to Reverend Elroy. “And I need a little information.”

  “Yes, I knew him.” The reverend’s eyes darted around the room. “But I had nothing to do with him. But I hear he’s in trouble, disappeared.” He paused and when I didn’t say anything, he added, “Hey, it was in the papers.”

  “He came here for help, and you sent him away.”

  “Now look here, O’Brien,” Bickerton said. “You come waltzing in here all bent out of shape about some kid. Telling us you’re a lawyer, member of the bar and all that crap. I hate lawyers, leeches. May I call you Jimmy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, Jimmy. Now what’s your fee? What do you charge for your services?”

  “Fifty dollars an hour.”

  “Same price as a Vegas whore.”

  “Plus another fifty for Rockin’ Robbin.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My pimp.”

  He let out a guffaw. “I like your attitude, young man, but, you see, we’re real busy around here. Tell him, Elroy. Tell Jimmy just how busy you are.”

  “I’m putting together a TV special,” Reverend Elroy said. “Very exciting, it will teach troubled kids that Christianity can be fun, more fun than drugs and rock ’n’ roll. But the show will have the type of entertainment they can relate to. Mr. Bickerton has agreed to air the show on his network.”

  “Tell him about the dance number you wrote for the show, Elroy. Don’t be modest.”

  The Reverend’s eyes blinked. “It’s called ‘Get Down and Funky With Jesus.’”

  “It’s a hoot, I’ll tell you that,” Bickerton added. “All those cute little Christian gals shaking their booties for the Lord. Can’t miss.”

  “That’s nice, Reverend,” I said to Elroy. “But didn’t you advise Mrs. Farris that her son would be better off going to a drug treatment center?”

  Bickerton jumped in again. “Are you here to cause problems for Elroy? He’s already told you he had nothing to do with the kid.”

  “I don’t want any trouble. I just want information about Robbie, his connection with the church, stuff like that. Might help in my search for him.”

  “It’s a sad case, yes indeed, very sad.” Reverend Elroy shook his head. “But when he came here, he was too far gone, beyond even my ability to save him. As a last resort I recommended the intervention center to his mother, Mrs. Farris.”

  “Jimmy, Reverend Elroy would rather not discuss any of this, isn’t that right, Elroy?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  Bickerton went on to explain that going public about Robbie, talking about his membership in the drug rehab program, would not only be embarrassing, but it might jeopardize the church’s ability to acquire corporate sponsors whose cash was desperately needed to help save wayward teens. He said the reverend’s failure with Robbie was unique. Reverend Elroy Snavley worked with hundreds of teens, and one was bound to slip through the cracks. Why jeopardize the entire program because of one incorrigible misfit?

  “Yes, Robbie doing those crazy things… well, it just might make Elroy look like a failure,” he added.

  While he rattled on, I wondered what a big shot like Bickerton was doing here at this nothing Van Nuys church in the first place. I’d read in the L.A. Times that his outfit, The Holy Spirit Network, was huge, with forty or more stations, and they were looking to acquire an additional broadcasting outlet or two in the lucrative Southern California market. But why was he here now with Elroy Snavley? Anyway, I was getting a little tired of him jumping in every time I had a question for the reverend.

  “Reverend Elroy,” I said, “just what does Mr. Bickerton have to do with all of this stuff about Robbie? Why is he in this meeting?” I glanced at Bickerton. “No offense, sir.”

  Bickerton dove in again. “Oh, I understand your concerns, Jimmy. But we’re all friends here. Nothing to hide. Isn’t that right, Elroy?” He pulled a cigar, a huge one, from his suit coat pocket. “Here, Jimmy, have a cigar.” He leaned forward and handed it to me across the table.

  The cigar was the size and shape of Fat Boy, the atom bomb used in World War II, and from the looks of it, had probably cost as much. “Thanks, Billy. I’ll smoke it later.” I slipped the thing into my shirt pocket. I’ll score a few points with Sol when I hand him this baby, I thought.

  “Nonsense!” Bickerton pulled out two more cigars. “We’ll smoke them now. You don’t mind do you, Elroy? Of course not. We want to loosen up and have a nice chat with Jimmy, here.” He tore the wrappers off, slid one to me, jammed the other in his mouth and talked around it while he patted his breast pockets. “Elroy, dang it, get me a match.”

  Elroy jumped up, dashed to his desk, grabbed a lighter from a drawer, rushed back and torched Bickerton’s cigar. He came around to me. What the hell, I stuck the thing in my mouth. Elroy held the flame under it while I puffed. It felt good.

  Bickerton and I leaned back in our chairs, gazing at the ceiling, puffing away. The room, filling
with blue smoke, had the polite smell of money burning. Elroy let out a cough, which he tried without success to stifle.

  After a few seconds I leaned forward, took the cigar in my hand and held it in front of my face, examining it. “Hmm,” I said, as I’d seen Edmund G. Robinson do many times in the gangster movies on the Late Show. “Hazel Farris is dead. Murdered, see.”

  Elroy cried, “What!” He gawked at me, slack-jawed. “Dead?”

  “Yep, murdered.” I kept my eye on Bickerton, who toked on the stogie. The news didn’t seem to faze him.

  “Happens,” Bickerton finally said. “What does that have to do with Elroy here? Maybe you’re a little off base, Jimmy. He knows nothing about any murder.” Bickerton faced Elroy. “You don’t, do you, Elroy?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  Hazel’s death probably had nothing to do with Reverend Elroy, but he was the one who’d recommended the drug intervention center to Mrs. Farris. I needed the name and the address of the place, and I needed a knockdown to the person in charge of it. Maybe Robbie went there when he escaped, or maybe he had a friend there he’d confided in. Or maybe there was a connection between the center and the black Ford van-the van that allegedly picked him up outside the court. Or maybe it was nothing, just a lot of maybes, all smoke and maybes, like the smoke that filled the office with every puff we took.

  But if people at the center were involved in Robbie’s escape, I doubted I’d get any cooperation from them. Of course, the van thing was a long-shot; a story told by a phony blind guy. A phony that I didn’t even believe. Anyway, why would people managing a drug intervention center want to help an escaped murderer? It didn’t add up. But here’s what did add up: my ass was on the line and I had to find Robbie, and the center seemed like a good place to start looking.

  “Hey, Elroy,” I said, “why don’t you tell me about the drug center?”

  Elroy paced the room, wringing his hands, mumbling words I couldn’t hear.

  Bickerton shook his head. “No way. Can’t give any info out. Confidential.”