You Can Die Trying (4 page)

2

One good thing about Matthew Poole was, he wasn’t a fancy eater. You could take him to any International House of Pancakes in town and he would feel more than sufficiently bribed. Gunner considered himself lucky that Poole, one of his few decent contacts within the LAPD, didn’t have richer tastes; homicide detectives, in general, usually charged a private operator an arm and a leg just to relate the time of day.

“Nobody’s gonna tell you shit, that’s number one,” Poole said, stuffing a sausage into his mouth with great relish. “Do you really need a number two?”

He and Gunner were part of a small, prenoon crowd patronizing the IHOP franchise on Manchester Avenue in Inglewood, only a short jog west of the Great Western Forum where the Lakers mourned the loss of Magic Johnson when they weren’t doing it out on the road. As usual, Gunner had called the detective on short notice—less than ten hours after having agreed to take Mitchell Flowers on as a client—but Poole had driven halfway across the city from his Seventy-seventh Street station environs to meet with Gunner nevertheless. His love of a free meal was that reliable.

“I was kind of hoping it would help to be on the home team’s side for a change,” Gunner told Poole, stirring some stale cream into his coffee.

“Hope springs eternal, friend, but it won’t save your ass in a pinch.”

“If I put that on a plaque and hung it up somewhere, would you charge me for the privilege, Poole?”

“Look, Gunner—I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Nobody down at Southwest’s gonna talk to you. You’re a private ticket, it’s not gonna matter who you say you’re working for.” He went to work on his eggs without missing a beat and said, “Who’d you say your client was, again?”

“I didn’t say. And it wasn’t because I forgot to mention.”

“You see? You fucking PI’s are all alike. Take, take, take, that’s all you know. You wanna ask a shitload of questions, but not have to answer any. Is that fair?”

“I’m not implying that you’d let it get around, Lieutenant, but if I were to tell you who my client is, it’s possible I could regret it later. This is a person, after all, whom some might accuse ‘of having stood idly by while a twenty-two-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department took the rap for something he didn’t do.”

“You say that as if that’s not a perfectly accurate description of what your client himself claims to have done.”

“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. I, for one, think that’s a pretty harsh way of looking at it. In any case—and you’ll notice that, unlike yourself, Poole, I make no reference to gender here—it’s my professional opinion that it’s in my client’s best interests to remain anonymous for as long as possible. Even to you.”

Poole shrugged with seemingly genuine indifference and reached for the salt. “Suit yourself.”

Gunner watched him eat for a full minute before pushing on. “So are you going to tell me where to start, or what?”

Poole looked up as a stumpy black waitress in an overinflated blue uniform made use of the full pot on their table to top off their coffees, having noticed they had shown no inclination to do it themselves. Gunner couldn’t tell whether Poole wanted to laugh or cry, but that was the way the cop’s face always worked; it was a jowly caricature of a young Walter Matthau that never betrayed a thing. It moved—here, there, sometimes in a thousand places at once—but that was all it did. Even the man’s smiles were hard to make out in certain light.

“What is it with you?” the detective asked as soon as the waitress was gone again. “You don’t understand the Queen’s English? Give the man—or the
lady
—their retainer back and find something else to do with your time. Because number one, you’re brain dead if you believe that anybody familiar with McGovern’s unique brand of police protection would pay you or anybody else a hundred-plus bills a day to clear him of the Washington kid’s killing; I don’t care what they say their reasons are. And number two, if you think what I’m doing now is turning a deaf ear to you, wait ’til you start talking to McGovern’s pals down at Southwest. You’re not gonna hear a damn thing over there but the sound of your own voice.”

“I already took the case, Poole,” Gunner said.

“Un-take it. You’re your own boss, right?”

“And what about McGovern?”

“Do I have to actually say it? Fuck McGovern. He was a bad egg, and everybody knew it. Not having to split my pension with an asshole like that will be one of the highlights of my life.”

“You two were that close, huh?”

“I never had the pleasure, actually, but I’d heard enough about the guy over the years to know I didn’t miss anything. We’re no brotherhood of saints, Gunner, but even we cops know a uniformed sociopath when we see one.”

“Then you think his dismissal was warranted.”

“Warranted? I don’t know about warranted. All I know is, the department’s case against him was ironclad, and I don’t see how it automatically becomes null and void just because one asshole—of undetermined gender—steps forward damn near a year later to say that they saw something in a pitch-black alley three other people on the scene didn’t. Give me a break.

“I mean, if the Washington kid had fired two rounds at McGovern the way your client says he did, they would’ve found a couple of slugs out in the street, where McGovern said he was standing at the time of all the shooting. Right? And the prints they found on the gun he turned in would’ve come from the Washington kid’s left hand, because he was strictly left-handed. You with me so far?”

“So far.”

“All right. Good. So guess where the two slugs they found that had been fired from the gun McGovern turned in were dug up?”

“In the alley.”

“In the ground. That’s right. And guess which of Washington’s two hands made the prints on the gun?”

“His right.”

“Right again. Two rounds fired into the ground, and fired with the kid’s weak hand around the grips. Geez. I wonder what that means.”

Gunner paused for a moment, a little surprised. “Hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Poole, but you don’t often hear a cop jump to another’s defense the way you’ve just jumped to Jack McGovern’s.”

“Heresay is inadmissible, Gunner. You see anybody around here wearing a wire?” Poole spread some butter on his pancakes and then splattered a quart of boysenberry syrup on the front of his shirt wolfing them down. “What do you want me to do? Lie to you? Tell you not to worry, those guys are gonna just spill their guts, all you’ve gotta do is lay on the charm?”

“I want you to tell me who to talk to first. Never mind all the well-intentioned encouragement to quit before I’ve even gotten started.”

“Okay. Okay. Square one for me would be McGovern’s watch sergeant. If there’s anybody over there who’d likely be anxious to see the book reopened on him, it’s the man—or
woman
, as the case may be—he worked for. McGovern was under their command, right? I’d be willing to bet whoever it is took what happened to McGovern very personally.”

“Fine. His watch sergeant first. And after that?”

Poole shrugged again. “After that, it’s a toss-up. His last partner, of course. Some of the other officers in his squad. People like that. I don’t have to tell you everything, do I?”

“What about Internal Affairs?”

Poole dropped his fork and actually stopped eating. “No. No. Forget Internal Affairs. Those guys are gonna get you nowhere fast, save yourself the heartache.”

“You don’t think they’d be willing to help?”

“Help? No. Help is not their thing. Breaking balls, that’s their thing. You want your balls broken, Gunner?”

“Not if I can help it, no. But I sure as hell can’t see how I’m supposed to find out how McGovern came to shoot Lendell Washington without reviewing the department’s own investigation into the incident. Can you?”

“I told you. This case is a dead end. Nobody’s gonna talk to you, and least of all the boys in Internal Affairs. With everybody else it’ll just be a matter of choice; with them, it’s gonna be departmental policy. Without a court order, they’re not gonna show you so much as the cabinet they keep the files in, and without a detective’s badge—a
real
detective’s badge—they’re not gonna say gesundheit when you sneeze. Are you getting the picture here?”

“What about off the record?”

“Off the record, on the record—they’re not gonna give a shit what you call it.”

“Even if the investigation in question has been closed for nearly a year?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. Once a verdict has been reached, the files are sealed; they don’t reopen them for anybody. Especially not for some black private license whose very mission in life is to prove that their investigation into an officer-involved shooting was a total fuck-up.”

That was, Gunner had to admit, exactly how they would be likely to view him.

“Nobody said they fucked up anything,” the investigator said, sweeping yellow egg yoke across his plate with a slice of blackened white toast. “It could be the conclusions they came to were essentially sound, based on the evidence they had to work with at the time.”

“Which is another way of saying, maybe they overlooked something. Or worse, were misled.”

“Is it?”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate the distinction, being accused of mere stupidity as opposed to utter incompetence. Shit!” He had picked up his coffee again and burned the hell out of his mouth, forgetting that their waitress had just been by to refill his cup.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m fine,” Poole said, brushing coffee off his tie with a napkin already smeared with syrup. “Exasperated, but fine.” He looked up to gaze at Gunner evenly. “You’ve got the thickest skull I’ve ever had the displeasure of trying to dent, Gunner. You know that?”

“When a cop follows through on a commitment, everybody calls it ‘dedication.’ When a private ticket does the same thing, they call it being ‘hardheaded.’ Why is that, Lieutenant?”

“Because we cops can afford to be ‘dedicated,’ you asshole. We’ve got something called ‘backup.’ Who the hell are you gonna call when the shit gets thick, the ACLU?”

“It’s a job, Poole. That’s all. If somebody had come along and offered me a couple grand to track down the missus, I’d be doing that instead. Believe me.”

He picked up the check and grimaced. Poole was cheap enough to bribe, it was true, but that didn’t stop Gunner from wishing he could get away with treating the detective to a breakfast at McDonald’s, every once in a while.

“Any last words of advice, Lieutenant, before we call this meeting adjourned?”

“Yeah. I’ve got some advice.” The abrupt change in Poole’s tone earned Gunner’s full attention again. He wasn’t a jocular man, Poole, but his usual, astringent professional demeanor hadn’t really shown itself until this moment. “Use your head. Watch your ass. Talk to these people like you’ve got some respect for them, and leave the snappy comebacks at home. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody’s gonna like you. Understand that up front. You’re not a member of the social club, and you’re gonna be rootin’ around in club business, a definite no-no for anybody, no matter what they say their motives are. So they’re gonna give you a hard time—if they bother to deal with you at all.
Just don’t take it personally.
Try to see the situation from their perspective, and keep a cool head at all times. You swallow your pride and show them a little deference, you might just get somewhere with somebody. You never know.”

Gunner nodded his head silently, wordlessly. He knew that what Poole was telling him to do was not far removed from kissing a little collective ass, but he also knew how much wisdom there was in the suggestion, and he wasn’t going to say anything now to make Poole think otherwise.

“Anybody asks for references, would you mind if I dropped your name?” Gunner asked instead, having waited until the last possible moment to bring the subject up.

Poole’s latest shrug was as lazy as the others, just like the muscles in his face. “If you think that’ll do you any good. I’ve spoken for you before, I guess I could do it again. We Seventy-seventh Street characters don’t carry much weight over at Southwest, but I’ll give anybody who asks for it my opinion of you, if that’s what you want.”

“Maybe I should hear what your opinion of me is, first.”

“Sure. I tell ’em, ‘He’s not half the dickhead most private licenses are, and he never makes me pay for breakfast.’”

“Whoa. Take it easy. You come on with a five-star rave like that, Poole, you’re gonna lose all your credibility in this town.”

“Hey, we’re not exactly drinking buddies, Gunner, all right? We get along, that’s all. You don’t make my job any easier, but you’ve never made it much harder, either, and that’s the most I can say for you. So don’t go rushing out to buy that engagement ring just yet.”

Gunner fell out laughing. Poole was being earnest. He was obviously having a tough time figuring out what could prove more damaging to a man of his position: a reputation for flashing in the park, or having a private investigator as a friend.

“I love you, too, Lieutenant,” Gunner said.

Poole scratched his nose with the middle finger of his right hand conspicuously extended, then got up to follow Gunner out.