Pit Godzilla snarled an incisor out of the mesh and nipped Ottens where it counts. Ottens screeched; going blue, he got out, “Wax wanted. . . you. . . to. . . look after. . . dog. . . while him and . . . Phil . . . scammed a way to . . . discredit paternity . . . claims. . . I . . . I . . .”
Phil.
My old partner–I didn’t know a thing about his life before our partnership.
Phil Turkel was Sicko Sicora, his weird facial scars derived from the plastic surgery that hid his real identity from the world.
“Freeze, suckah.”
I looked up. Three big shines were standing a few yards away, holding Uzis. I opened Godzilla’s cage; Godzilla burst out and went for Chick’s face. Ottens screamed; I tossed the bucket of chicken at the gunmen; shots sprayed the dirt. I ate crabgrass and rolled, rolled, rolled, tripping cage levers, ducking, ducking, ducking. Pit bulls ran helter skelter, then zeroed in: three soul brothers dripping with soul sauce.
The feast wasn’t pretty. I grabbed an Uzi and got out quicksville.
* * *
Dusk.
I leadfooted it to Wax’s office, the radio tuned to a classical station–I was hopped up on blood, but found some soothing Mozart to calm me down, and highballed it to Beverly and Alvarado.
Waxman’s office was stone silent; I picked the back door lock, walked in and made straight for the safe behind his playmate calendar–the place where I knew he kept his dope and bribery stash. Left-right-left: an hour of diddling the tumblers and the door creaked open. Four hours of studying memo slips, ledgers and little black book notations and I trusted myself on a reconstruction.
Labyrinthine, but workable:
Private eye reports on Gail Curtiz and Linda Claire Woodruff–the two paternity suit kids Wax considered most likely to contest the Bendish estate. Lists of stooges supplied by Wax contacts in the LAPD: criminal types to be used to file phony claims against the estate, whatever money gleaned to be kicked back to Wax himself. Address book names circled: snuff artists I knew from jail, including the fearsome Angel “Fritz” Trejo. A note from Phil Turkel to Waxman: “Throw Stan a bone–he can babysit the dog until we get the money.” A diagram of the Betty Ford Clinic, followed by an ominous epiphany: Wax was going to have Phil and the real paternity kids clipped. Pages and pages of notes in legalese–levers to get at the extra fifteen million So! Bendish had stuffed in Swiss bank accounts.
I turned off the lights and raged in the dark; I thought of escaping to a nice deserted island with Basko and some nice girl who wouldn’t judge me for loving a bull terrier more than her. The phone rang–and I nearly jumped out of my hide.
I picked up and faked Wax’s voice. “Waxman here.”
“Ees Angel Fritz. You know your man Phil?”
“Yeah.”
“Ees history. You pay balance now?”
“My office in two hours, homeboy.”
“Ees bonaroo, homes.”
I hung up and called Waxman’s pad; Miller answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Wax, it’s Klein.”
His voice spelled it Out plain: he’d heard about the southside holocaust. “Yeah, ‘Oh.’ Listen, shit-bird, here’s the drift. Turkel’s dead, and I took out Angel Trejo. I’m at your office and I’ve been doing some reading. Be here in one hour with a cash settlement.”
Waxman’s teeth chattered; I hung up and did some typing: Stan Klein’s account of the whole Bendish/Waxman/Turkel/Ottens/Trejo scam–a massive criminal conspiracy to bilk the dog I loved. I included everything but mention of myself and left a nice blank space for Wax to sign his name. Then I waited.
Fifty minutes later–a knock. I opened the door and let Wax in. His right hand was twitching and there was a bulge under his jacket. He said, “Hello, Klein,” and twitched harder; I heard a truck rumble by and shot him point blank in the face.
Wax keeled over dead, his right eyeball stuck to his law school diploma. I frisked him, relieved him of his piece and twenty large in cash. I found some papers in his desk, studied his signature and forged his name to his confession. I left him on the floor, walked outside and pulled over to the pay phone across the street.