The Quality of the Informant (20 page)

Half an hour later the receptionist's phone rang. She answered it,
then
set down the receiver. "You can go in now," she said.

Carr and Kelly headed down a hallway. They stepped into
Partch's
office. She was on the phone. They sat down. On the wall behind her
was
hung a USC diploma and a framed photograph of
Partch
and three other equally unattractive young women wearing T-shirts and jeans. They were sitting in a rubber raft next to a dock. Everyone held up beer cans.

"
Gotta
run,"
Partch
said and hung up the phone.

Carr started to speak.
Partch
held up her hand,
then
dialed the phone again. "Service department, please," she said. After a lengthy discussion concerning shock absorbers and how much she needed her car by tonight, she hung up.

Carr started to speak again.

"Reports," she said as she made a "
gimme
" motion with her hands.

Carr bit his lip and handed her the reports. She stuffed a handful of cough drops into her mouth and rattled them around against her teeth as she read. Having turned all the pages, she handed the reports back. "Lack of sufficient evidence to prove criminal intent," she said.

"Even though he threw the counterfeit money out the window of his car when he saw us following him?" Carr said.

"In court he could take the witness stand and say that he thought the bag contained narcotics or some other such contraband. Without some proof that the defendant knew that the bag contained counterfeit money as opposed to any other kind of illegal goods, the judge would throw the case out. The counterfeiting statutes require proof of
specific
criminal intent. As usual, your case is weak because you won't reveal your informants." She made a smile similar to the one in the raft picture. "So you'll have to release your prisoner."

Charles Carr took back the reports and folded them. He and Kelly stood up.

Reba
Partch
said, "Any questions?"

Without a word, Carr and Kelly headed out of the office to the elevator. The elevator door opened and they stepped inside.
Partch
rushed out after them. She posed angrily with her hands on her hips. "Must you people really be so rude?" Kelly pushed the elevator button and the door closed. They returned to the Field Office without discussing the incident.

****

Chapter 18

THERE WAS the smell of coffee in the boardroom. The executives drank the beverage without clinking their cups. All, including Omar T. Lockhart, avoided the neat piles of sweet rolls. It was the usual Wednesday meeting, attendance mandatory, fresh notepads in front of every handsome leather chair.

Lockhart responded to the chairman's nod by sitting up in his chair. He opened a folder full of typed memoranda. "I've completed the preliminary negotiations," he said. "It's going to take sweetening the pot some from our offer of twenty five thousand, but I'm convinced we'll be able to buy the checks." He had practiced saying this.

Every eye in the room was on him. Lockhart prayed that he wouldn't break into one of his uncontrollable sweats.

The chairman uncapped his gold ink pen and scribbled on a pad. "Number one," he said, "I'll authorize fifty thousand to 'sweeten the pot,' as you put it. Not a cent more. Number
two,
we'll not be going to Mexico for the final transaction. It's too dangerous. They will have to come to meet us on U.S. soil. Number three, Just who in the hell are these folks?" He looked up.

Lockhart cleared his throat. "I've been able to develop some valuable information along those lines. I checked police records and visited the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Treasury Department "

"And what have you learned?" the chairman interrupted, his tone impatient.

Lockhart's neck and forehead suddenly felt damp. He referred to his memoranda. "Uh, I've learned that there was, in fact, a Freddie Roth and that Roth was a convicted counterfeiter of checks, bonds, and currency. Roth was murdered by another underworld type a year or so ago. At this point it hasn't been established whether he had a girl friend. He was married you see, and this was probably something he would try to hide from his wife . . ."

The chairman of the board frowned. "I find the whole matter disgusting," he said.

Everyone at the long table gave concerned nods.

"Let's move on to the next item on the agenda," he said.

The phone rang.

Carr sat up in bed. He snatched the receiver off the nightstand.

"Why didn't you call me?" the woman said. "You said you would."

"I've been busy." He had no idea who she was.

"I've heard that one before," she said, "But please don't think that you just got lucky in the middle of the night. I don't call men. They have to call me."

Carr rubbed his eyes. He had a headache.

"You really have no idea who this is, do you?" she said. Carr didn't answer.

"The reason I called is that a dyke just got booked here for attempted murder and she says she has some information for you. Her name is" there was the rustling of papers 'Rosanna
DuMaurier
. Her a.k.a. is Rosemary Cramp."

Carr forced himself to open his eyes. "I'll be right down," he said. "Uh, thanks for the call."

The phone clicked. Carr staggered out of bed and into the shower. He turned on the cold water and groaned as it startled him into consciousness. Having dressed, he headed for the L.A. women's jail. By the time he reached City Terrace Drive and accelerated up the hill, it was daybreak. After parking his car in the visitor's lot, he approached a large guard booth and held up his badge and I.D. card to the glass. The gate in front of him buzzed, and he pushed it open. Carr took a familiar path along a cement courtyard toward the visiting room. He passed through another set of doors,
then
followed a yellow line on the floor down a corridor to a window made of bulletproof glass. A blonde in a tight fitting khaki uniform sat behind the window. She was close to his age and had a sheriff's gold badge mounted on her left breast. She made a kiss movement at him.

"Remember me now?" she said. "Chinatown on payday night? Bob
Tomsic
, the Secret Service agent, was with my girl friend. She was wearing the Mickey Mouse T shirt." Her voice emanated from a speaker below the window.

"Of course I remember," Carr said in a tone of sincerity. "Who booked Rosemary?"

"L.A.P.D." she said. "A couple of Hollywood patrol officers. I know one of them. He told me she stabbed her girl friend through the arm with a vegetable knife. She was hysterical when she came in, but she's calmed down now. She begged me to call you; said you'd know what it was all about." The deputy pressed a button. A hydraulic lock snapped, and a steel door to Carr's left slid slowly open. The blond deputy made another kiss and offered a laconic smile. Carr smiled back. He stepped into a room full of long, Formica covered tables. A few minutes later Rosemary Cramp, wearing a prisoner's denim sack dress, opened a door stenciled INMATES. She shuffled to the table and sat down across from him.

"Sorry to hear about your problem," Carr said.

"Are you still interested in finding Paul
LaMonica
?" she asked.

"Yes."

"If I tell you where you can find him, what will you do for me?" she said tersely.

"What do you want done for you?" Carr rubbed his temples. The hangover would not go away.

"I was booked on attempted murder," she said. "I want the charge dropped to assault with a deadly weapon. That's all I'm asking."

"What kind of injuries on the victim?" Carr said.

Rosemary Cramp's chin quivered. Deftly she used an index finger to wipe a tear out of each eye. "The whole thing was a misunderstanding. She was high. We were arguing over someone and she threw a clock radio and just missed my head. I grabbed a knife. I don't remember what happened exactly. All she has are a few cuts on her arms." She looked at the ceiling for a moment.

"I can talk to the D.A. and to the judge if you're convicted ... let '
em
know you cooperated on a case," Carr said. "Of course you know that's no guarantee that anything can be done."

She folded her hands and stared at them. "You can find Paul
LaMonica
at a bar called Teddy's in Ensenada. It's a place where all the American fugitives hang out. It's down by the ocean. The last time I spoke with
LaMonica
he told me that's where I could find him. He floats back and forth across the border, but he uses phony I.D. that he makes himself. Your only chance of catching him is down there." She combed her hair with her fingernails.

"What kind of car does
LaMonica
drive?" Carr said.

"All different," Rosemary Cramp said. "He rents '
em
with counterfeit I.D., drives '
em
for a couple of weeks, and then dumps '
em
."

"Friends?"

"He's a one hundred percent lone wolf," she said. "Take my word for it, the only chance you have of busting him is in Ensenada. The owner of the bar is a coke dealer named Teddy Mora. He owns some property in Hollywood. All I know about him is that I once fronted him a couple of phony bonds and he never paid me for '
em
." She wiped her eyes again and sniffled.

"Thanks for the tip," Carr said. "And I'll see what I can do to help."

Rosemary Cramp nodded without looking at him. She pushed her chair back and stood up.

"Just a sec," Carr said. He tilted his head in the direction of the blond deputy. "Do you know that deputy's name?" he asked.

"Betty Sanders," Rosemary Cramp said. "She was working the max unit when I did time in here a few years ago.

"Thanks again," Carr said.

Rosemary Cramp turned and shuffled to the inmates' door. She walked out of the room without looking back.

Charles Carr glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost 8:00 A.M. On his way out, he stopped at the bulletproof window. The blond deputy looked up from a pocket novel.

"How about breakfast?" Carr said.

"Not unless you can remember my name."

"Betty Sanders, how could I forget!
"

Betty Sanders smiled. "We'll have breakfast at my place." She pulled a ballpoint pen from the flap pocket above her badge and wrote something on a notepad. She tore the page off the pad and shoved it through a slot below the window. Carr saw that it was an address in Highland Park. "I wouldn't expect you to still have my address. You probably threw it away. Cops always throw ladies' addresses away." She looked at her watch. "See you there in an hour." She made another mock kiss.

Carr gave a little wave. He found his way through the jail courtyard and a guard allowed him to exit the front gate. At a bank of pay telephones in the corner of the parking lot, he dropped in a dime and dialed.

"Homicide, Higgins."

"Charlie Carr...A cutting in Hollywood last night...the suspect was booked for attempted murder under the name Rosanna
DuMaurier
..." Carr spelled the name. "She's working for me. I need the beef dropped to assault with a deadly weapon. Can you help?"

"I'll see what I can do," Higgins said. He spelled the name back.

"Appreciate it," Carr said and hung up.

The house was an older stucco construction with a red-tiled roof and arched doors and windows; one of the handful of two- and three-bedroom architectural designs that had multiplied,
amoebalike
, across Southern California to form its chaotic suburbia.