Cactus Garden Page 2

  “Does it hurt a lot, hero?” Charlotte Rae said, wincing a little in sympathy as the doctor wrapped the bandage tight around Jack’s ribs.

  “The ribs are fine, but the crushed aorta’s a bitch.”

  “You should not laugh, sir,” Dr. Whani said, his dark eyes flashing humorously. “You are so very lucky you did not puncture an organ of importance. The car driver has perhaps suffered brain damage.”

  “He had that before the crash,” Charlotte Rae said.

  Jack laughed. She was a real surprise, nothing like he had thought when they were watching her cruising through the streets. She was fast, funny in a hip actressy way, the kind of girl who could riff and keep up with the bad boys. It was better when you liked them on a case; you didn’t have to act so much.

  “So, Sir Galahad, where do you come from?” she said, rubbing a finger across her lips.

  “Back East,” Jack said. “The Big Apple. Came out in January.”

  “Lucky for me,” she said and batted her eyes in a comical way. “You going to tell me what you do, or is it top secret?”

  “Do whatever I can to pay the rent,” Jack said. “Met some theater people where I was tending bar and thought I could maybe do some acting.”

  “Ahh, bitten by the bug,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a worse addiction than drugs. Take it from a girl who knows.”

  “You too, huh? Aahhhh.” Jack groaned as the doctor wound the tape tighter.

  “I am certainly sorry,” the doctor said. “But you will need this for support. And please restrain all future impulses to perform heroism.”

  “Don’t worry, I get an irresistible impulse to save someone else, I’ll beep you, Doc,” Jack said.

  “I wouldn’t let him do it anyway,” Charlotte Rae said, rubbing Jack’s forearm with her index finger. “He’s my personal hero and I never learned to share.”

  She put a hand in Jack’s, and he felt an electrical charge shoot through his skin.

  “You out of work, then?” she said, smiling.

  “Got a little tending-bar gig right now,” Jack said.

  “Sounds awful,” she said. “You know my husband is producing a film right now. A low-budget action flick. Maybe he could find a couple days work for you. When this is done, why don’t you come home with me? I know he’ll be dying to talk to you.”

  “Oh, no,” the doctor said. “My patient will sleep. No visitors. Tomorrow he will feel serious arm pains.”

  The doctor smiled as if he were happy about the fact and walked off toward a man who had just been wheeled in. The guy had a pearl-handled knife sticking out of his chest, but the vacant look in his eyes said it didn’t look like it was hurting him much anymore. Three nurses wheeled him behind a blood-spattered curtain.

  “Cheerful, isn’t he?” Jack said. “Look, I appreciate it, but I don’t want a handout. I can keep my bartending gig until they start throwing three-picture deals at me.”

  “You don’t know Buddy,” she said, laughing as though at some private joke. “It won’t be a handout, you can count on that.”

  C.J. was heading toward him now, stuffing a piece of paper in his slacks pocket. The nurse’s phone number, no doubt. “How you feeling, baby?” C.J. said.

  “Like you care,” Jack said. “I’m drowning in my own blood and you’re out in the hall hitting on the nurse.”

  “I figured you had you a thing happening here”—C.J. smiled—”so why shouldn’t this fine-looking black man help liberate one of the uptight middle-class sisters?”

  “Whoever said it was right,” Charlotte Rae said, laughing. “Men are all pigs.”

  “Who did say it?” C.J. said.

  “Everybody’s said it,” Jack said. “It’s been said so many times now it’s folk wisdom, like ‘calm before a storm’ and ‘the bigger they are …’ “

  “ ‘—the dumber their kids’,” Charlotte Rae said. “Listen, Jack, I insist you meet Buddy. He’ll want to thank you personally.”

  She punctuated her remark with a killer smile.

  “How come I get the feeling I don’t have much of a choice,” Jack said, smiling back.

  “You don’t,” she said, scraping his arm with her long red nails. “Nobody turns down Buddy and lives to tell the tale.”

  “Better do like she says,” C.J. said. “That man is got the best commercial onna’ tube. They showed ‘em in the movies, I’d stand in line. Come to think of ‘em, haven’t I seen you in a few of them?”

  Charlotte Rae pretended to blush and waved her hands like she wanted to disappear behind them.

  “Yeah, I did see you,” C.J. said, “and wearing next to nothing. Oh, my my my … look what fate has tossed our way.”

  He gave a wicked grin, and Charlotte Rae shook her head.

  “I stand convicted. Hey, I’m an actress, okay?”

  Jack flashed C.J. a look. The man was a genius of jive.

  “We’re shooting at a soundstage in Burbank,” Charlotte Rae said. “Right on Riverside. Can you make it?”

  “Only if you’re gonna be in it wearing a bikini,” Jack said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “This one is a little too low budget even for me. I’m grabbing a producer credit. But come anyway. It’s a suspense-action thing. Called The President’s Cabinet. I think you’ll be amused.” She opened her buckskin fringed bag and pulled out a card and an over-fat, midnight-blue, ballpoint with a little golden filigree of stars painted on it.

  “Here,” she said. “Shooting starts at seven, but we’ll be there all day.”

  The doctor suddenly reappeared, carrying a little package for Jack.

  “Codeine and Tylenol,” he said. “Good for you. Will make this all seem like a dream.”

  “Maybe it already does,” Jack said.

  He looked at her again, and this time their eyes locked and he felt a shadow pass between them. She looked away fast, helping steady him as she and C.J. got him off the examining table and sat him in a wheelchair. C.J. pushed him toward the swinging door, and she walked alongside him, her hand lightly brushing his neck.

  “Tell me you’ll come,” she said.

  Her tone had changed suddenly; she sounded like a scared little girl, pleading and plaintive. The transformation was so sudden that it took Jack’s breath away. Maybe she could act after all.

  “Okay, sure. I’ll stop by,” he said, trying to keep his own tone light, “because I can see that you’ll hound me every day for the rest of my life if I don’t.”

  “You got that right,” she said. Her voice was butter.

  C.J.’s van was parked just across the street, baking in the midday heat. Suddenly, Jack felt a small panic in his stomach. They had come from the crime scene in the ambulance, but what if she asked for a ride home?

  Now she leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thanks for my life,” she said. “I owe you. And I never forget a debt.”

  She turned and walked away; Jack blinked and saw a long, black limo waiting across the street.

  “Jesus, that woman is a woman,” C.J. said.

  “Yeah, how ‘bout that?” Jack said. His mouth felt dry, and he was suddenly conscious of himself staring after her, saw himself sitting in the wheelchair staring at her hard, tanned legs, the way her ass moved under her skirt. She got to the car, turned, and gave him a little toss of her golden hair, then slipped inside, flashing her muscular tanned thighs, and shut the door. The limo cruised off down George Burns Boulevard, and Jack gave out a little whistle. The doc was right. His ribs had already begun to send out a singing, radiating pain, but when he thought of her face, her body, he didn’t mind it so much.

  “Come on, kid,” Jefferson said to him, wheeling him toward the sun. “Get that thing outta your mind, ‘cause we gotta call the Director. We gonna have some serious explaining to do.”

  Chapter 3

  “So what you are telling this committee, Walker, is that you had to ram the car into Mann’s Chinese Theater, destroying their ticket
booth, not to mention their antique dragon?”

  Jack sat at the end of the long conference table next to C.J. He rubbed his hands over his temples. He felt like getting up and walking out of the briefing, out of this sterile, gray room. His ribs were so badly bruised that he had trouble breathing, his head felt like a crushed cantaloupe, and he was sick of Assistant Director Ted Michaels staring at him in his officious way. Michaels and Jack had been at loggerheads from their very first meeting. They were, Jack sometimes thought, temperamental opposites: Jack freewheeling and improvisatory by nature; Michaels the cautious, maneuvering insider. But there was more than that between them. Michaels seemed to enjoy harassing Jack; it was almost as though he were trying to prove to the others that Jack didn’t have what it took to be an agent.

  “I asked you a question, Walker,” Michaels said.

  “I know,” Jack said. “And a brilliant question it was too, Ted.”

  At Jack’s right-hand side, C.J. Jefferson sighed heavily. This was going to get ugly. There was no doubt about it. Michaels bit his thin lower lip as he spoke.

  “If you think being a wiseass is going to help your cause, you’ve made a serious miscalculation, Walker,” he said.

  “Oh, well mercy me,” Jack said.

  “I’m sure Jack tried to keep the car off the sidewalk, Ted.”

  The speaker was the other assistant director, Richard Brandau, an expert in the domestic demand for drugs. Brutally divorced four years ago, Brandau had taken refuge in food and had gradually put on a lot of weight. Formerly a linebacker at Notre Dame, Brandau had begun to look like too many old jocks in their forties—red-faced, bloated, the perfect heart-attack victim. There had been a time when his drinking had threatened his career and his health, but recently Brandau had managed to put his life back together. Jack credited his renaissance to Brandau’s charming new girlfriend, Suzie Chow, a court stenographer, who kept him from his dark moods. Suzie, in her spare time a budding screenwriter, had rekindled a taste for life in Brandau, and in what little spare time he had, they frequented art openings, clubs, and restaurants. Jack was happy that the good-natured Brandau had survived his divorce; it had been touch and go for a while.

  Professionally, Brandau had one of the toughest jobs in the Agency. He spent half his time trying to stop the off-loaders of drugs inside the U.S. borders, and the other trying to educate teachers, families, and the local police concerning ways to prevent drug dealers from infiltrating a neighborhood. Everyone knew that the latter job was a useless task. The poor did drugs because they felt helpless, the rich did drugs because they were bored, and both groups dealt them because they could make a lot of quick, easy money, and no amount of tough-love talks, neighborhood watches, or scare tactics was going to change a thing. But Jack respected Brandau for his Herculean effort and his seemingly endless supply of optimism—and appreciated his support in the briefings.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re so certain, Richard,” Michaels said. “But it seems to me that Walker has continually flouted Agency policy, and acted recklessly and without regard to the possible negative publicity that the Agency would incur.”

  “Excuse me,” Jack said, his voice rising in anger. “But the perp had a double load aimed at Miss Wingate’s charming face. I didn’t exactly have time to write a position paper on the case.”

  This got a small cough-laugh from Bob Valle, intelligence director of the West Coast DEA. Valle was a short, aggressive, blunt-faced Sicilian in his early forties. Normally, Valle was a great joke teller and general all-around bullshit artist, but lately, Jack noticed, Valle had lost his sense of humor. Jack considered Valle a friend and had tried talking to him about what was eating him but had gotten nowhere.

  Now Michaels stared hard at Bob Valle.

  “I don’t really see what you find so funny, Bob,” Michaels said. “I’m very serious about this.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to step on your toes, Ted,” Valle said, immediately backing off.

  “Then, listen to what I have to say,” Michaels said.

  “I am listening, Ted,” Valle said, “and I don’t need any lectures from you. Okay?”

  Jack was surprised at the hostility in Valle’s tone. He hadn’t seen him much since he started staking out Charlotte Rae, but judging from the controlled fury in Valle’s voice, he was still very angry.

  “Sorry, Bob,” George Zampas said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Just trying to move this along.”

  Valle nodded and grumbled, “That is exactly what I’m trying to do too.”

  Jack felt the tension growing exponentially in the room, but Zampas ignored Valle’s bad mood.

  Zampas was the director of West Coast Intelligence for the Agency. He loomed at the far end of the table, a man with a large head and a shock of curly black hair. Zampas’s thirst for life was legendary. He was a great cook, ate prodigiously, drank too much ouzo, loved jazz, cars, and Cigarette speedboats. Women found him irresistible. As a result, it was rumored, his long-standing marriage to ex-actress Ronni Hart was on the rocks.

  The affection between Jack and Zampas went well beyond professional affability. A friend and trainee of Jack’s father, Zampas had known him since Jack was a kid. Jack had thrown his first baseballs to Zampas, been taken to Lakers games with the big Greek. In many ways, Zampas had been closer to him than his father, Dan Walker. Zampas had been easy to talk to and sympathetic when Jack’s mother died.

  Not that any of this did Jack much good in these meetings. Sometimes his closeness to the Director actually worked against Jack. Zampas was a warm and exactingly fair boss and had no intention of playing favorites. The truth was, he partially agreed with Michaels. Jack was a daredevil, a risk-taker, the kind of guy the Agency couldn’t do without, but also the kind of agent who had to be carefully monitored. Now Zampas poured himself a glass of sparkling water and shook his head.

  “This isn’t a tribunal, Ted,” he said. “And, Jack, just give the answers without the attitude, okay?”

  “Right,” Jack said.

  “You know, Jack, there is one thing that worries me.” The speaker was Brandau, and Jack cocked his head. “What’s that, Richard?”

  “What are the chances that this was a setup?” Brandau said. “I’ve already considered that possibility, but it doesn’t seem likely, for a lot of reasons. Number one of which is that C.J. and I didn’t start tailing her until five days ago. Even if she made us, say … on the second or third day, I doubt that Wingate could come up with anything this elaborate in such a short time.”

  “Yeah, and why would he bother?” C.J. said. “No, this is real … I’d bet my pension on it.” Michaels sighed.

  “I don’t think this is a setup either,” he said. “That’s not what worries me. It’s this whole cowboy play of Jack’s. I don’t understand why you attacked the guy at all.”

  “Wait a minute, man,” C.J. said, coming quickly to Jack’s defense. “What was he going to do, let him blow her away?”

  Michaels turned and glowered at C.J.

  “He didn’t know if the car-jacker was going to shoot her or not. Jack’s job and yours too, C.J., was simply to perform surveillance. This play could have totally compromised Operation Cactus.”

  The short, pugnacious Valle shifted in his chair. Then stuck a blunt finger across the table at Michaels.

  “You know, Michaels, Jack could have turned this whole thing into an opportunity, you ever think of that, goombah?”

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “She wants me to come to Wingate’s set tomorrow. I go, maybe I get inside. Find out a few things.”

  Michaels sighed and shook his head.

  “But this wasn’t designed to be an undercover operation. Not yet.”

  “Well, why not change the fucking design?” Valle said.

  Ordinarily, Jack appreciated Valle’s support, but his anger—anger that Jack was certain had nothing to do with what they were talking about—was probably doing Jack’s case more harm than good.r />
  “Look, with all due respect,” Jack said. “Wingate is a careful man. You can’t get him with the usual sting methods. He won’t deal with the new drug dealers, which is why we’ve been having zero luck nailing him.”

  “That’s true,” Valle said. “That’s been Wingate’s strength as a dealer. He only does business with very old connections.”

  “That’s only true up to a point,” Michaels said. “We intended to try a new strategy to get him next month.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said quickly, looking imploringly at Zampas. “But by that time, he could have done his big number. Look, all I’m saying is, let me try. Maybe the Discount King’s grateful I saved his little sweetie’s butt and he lets me hang out. Maybe I learn something about his next big deal. The truth is, sometimes in an investigation you get breaks, and if you don’t ride with them, you lose momentum.”

  “You got it,” Valle said.

  “I think Jack’s onto something too, Ted,” Brandau said. He tapped his pipe ashes into the ashtray and smiled. “She’d be dead meat now, and I think we all know that this wasn’t any ordinary car-jacking. The perp was probably working with Pedro Salazar’s boys. They’ve been trying to muscle in on Wingate’s action for the last six months.”

  “I’m aware of the history, thank you,” Michaels said. “But let me remind you, the perp hasn’t admitted any such connection. We aren’t really sure he’s part of Salazar’s crew.”

  “Come on,” Jack said. “Salazar is trying to scare the shit out of Wingate, so he can take over his business.”

  Valle nodded and pulled at the cuff of his new sport jacket.

  “Hey, Ted, let us not forget that somebody firebombed Wingate’s Studio City store just last week,” he said. “We got every reason to believe it was Salazar’s crew who pulled that one. It’s their style. Intimidation before assassination.”

  Zampas cleared his throat, and all of them turned toward him.

  “C.J.,” he said, “what’s your take on this?”

  “I think Jack’s right. The Salazar people have been upping the ante every week. Wingate might be getting a little nervous. I think we got the ball, and we run with it. Let Jack go in and see what he can dig up.”