If You Really Loved Me Part 36

David returned. The man was a pigeon, Steinhart thought. It was fitting he was sitting in the Birdcage. David was locked up now because he had been trapped by the wire on Cinnamon, but Steinhart saw no suspicion at all in his eyes. h.e.l.l, David thought Steinhart was Superman, Bruce Lee, and the Hessians all rolled up together. Good old Thurston loved this too much to suspect his loyal bodyguard/hit man. His Goldie.

David hadn't missed a trick on his first visit to his dentist. He had memorized the whole d.a.m.n place. He described the exact layout of the "miniplaza" where his dentist's office was. The front entrance on Tustin, the computer store, the doctor's office, the emergency treatment center, the walkways, the parking area. The walkway was hidden from the street; no one could see when the shooting started.

David had it all figured out. The deputies usually radioed the dispatcher when they turned into the driveway of the miniplaza to let him know they were arriving. "You knowa" whatever their language isa"'Everything's okay and we're here.'. .. Both deputies sat in front and I sat in the back of the patrol car. . . . They walked me to the office . . . but first the driver got out. He walked up to the front parking lot, walked around, came back, and told him okay."

"So he does use a lookout first?"

"Correct."

David had noted that the deputies had checked all the areas around the dentist's entrance on his last visit. Then one walked ahead of him and one behind. "They both walked me in through the lobby. The dentist and her husband take me back without the deputies watching."

"What's that tell you?" Steinhart breathed with just the right touch of triumph.

"Man," David said, grinning, "that's why I'm telling you."

The deputies had locked David in the lobby and checked 405 all the rooms. "When the dentist called me back to the chair, the deputy said they could just watch the door."

"Okay. So you don't have no problems," Steinhart said grimly. "I may have to kill a cop or two, and I just wanted to let you know."

"I realize that... I realized it all along. Better them than me."

They worried over the plan, the lookout points, the layout of the dentist's office. David gloated over each detail.

"All right, good deal," Steinhart said. "Well that makes it okay. I'm going to ask you somethinga"professionallya" and you got toa"I just have to ask you this. See where your head's at. The two copsa"the DA'sa"you want them dead ... or hurt?"

David smiled at the ridiculous question.

"Dead."

David was concerned about other, more important, questions. For instance, he had not gotten his lunch. And he wanted to be sure that Steinhart understood that the real reason he had to escape from jail was for "my little girl, and I didn't see any hope."

"Right on," Steinhart said. "I'll get you out."

"Promise?"

"I promise. I will get you out of this."

"Guaranteed?"

"Guaranteed ... as long as you can live with yourself after I kill the cops. As long as you can live with yourselfa""

David laughed. "They won'ta"but I will."

"All right, you smart a.s.s." Steinhart chuckled. "I think you like this."

"No, I don't," David argued. "But when it comes down to survival... Okay, I'm not egotistical at all. I think you know that. But I think I'm worth more than they are."

And then two box lunches were delivered to the Birdcage. David was delighted to discover he had been given four packages of cookies. He and his very best friend discussed Australia and going to Disneyland, and pizza and Pee-Wee Herman and guns.

l3avid Brown almost choked up as he bade farewell to Richard Steinhart. Whether he was playing Steinhart as he had played everyone in his lifea"or whether he truly loved hima"was an interesting question. In all their further conversations, which were also taped, David expressed affection for the big biker. He spoke to Steinhart as he might have spoken to a women he was enthralled with.

If David was depressed when "Goldie" Steinhart left, at least he rea.s.sured himself that Steinhart was out there working for him, orchestrating his escape and the destruction of his enemies. In reality, of course, Richard was locked up tooa"in the Huntington Beach Jail. The phone he talked to David on was wired to record. And Jay Newell would monitor every call.

"We had a cold phone connected in the Huntington Beach Police Department," Newell recalled. "That's a phone that absolutely cannot be traced. When David thought he was calling collect from the Orange County Jail to his good buddy on the outside, he was really calling the Huntington Beach police."

And so it began. Newell was about to become an information conduit between the man who had agreed to kill him and the man who wanted him dead. Although Steinhart wouldn't be free, he would have to report facts and details to David that made it sound as if he were out there circling Orange County, setting up the arson and murders that David had ordered. Steinhart also had to make David believe that the escape plan was in the works.

Since all Steinhart would "see" would have to come through the eyes of the DA's Investigator Jay Newell, Newell would, in essence, be helping to set up his own sudden "death." Sure, it was all play-acting, but it cut close to the bone. The thought of what might have been if Irv Cully hadn't tattled never quite went away.

In every sense, this scheme was going to be a double reverse-twist, end around, gotcha.

Jay Newell was a big man, but he seemed somehow larger than he actually was, his stride as long and true as any rancher's back in the Oklahoma of his youth. He moved effortlessly, deliberately unhurried, silent. It was long-ingrained habit. He doubted that anyone would spot him as he strode across the Orange County Water Department land in the dark winter night. Employees had long since left the little service building at the end of the dirt road a hundred yards north of him. He had no company beyond an occasional wild creature startled into flight by his footfall. If anyone should approach him and question him, he carried ID that would satisfy the questioner.

Even so, on this mission he preferred to be invisible and anonymous. He was at his best on nights such as this. Newell was essentially a watcher, a listener, a quiet man by nature and by avocation. Silence had always served him well. He had reached this drab oasis in Anaheim by driving west along Ball Road, across the bridge that traversed the Santa Ana River, past factories and car lots, beyond the cement plant with its silos and chutes, and then suddenly turning right off the main drag onto a dirt road few knew about. He had parked his dark car on the hardscrabble sand and gravel of county property. Another eight seconds and he would have eased onto the ramp that led to the 57 North Freeway, the "Orange."

Now, he scarcely heard the steady hum of Ball Road as it merged with the roar of the Orange Freeway, a throbbing sound that never ceased. Every so often, there was a m.u.f.flerless engine as noisy as a helicopter or a scream of brakes that set his teeth on edge and his heart running double. With that background cacophony, there was no reason for him to walk quietly, nothing more than instinct.

Where Newell walked now, the night air smelled of almost-spring, car exhaust, fresh water from the reservoir beside him, orange blossoms, and burning rubber. Even though the homes ahead of him cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, they were continually dusted with the black powder of disintegrating tiresa"patio furniture and hibiscus alike sprinkled with rubber grit.

He could taste rubber, bitter on his tongue. Newell was not afraid. He avoided nasty surprises by being one step ahead of his adversaries. To the best of his knowledge, he was still ahead. He had scouted these acres in the daytime, but not as close up, and the dark made them alien. The slope toward the water was gentle, but half of its circ.u.mference was covered with broken rock and concrete, a quick way to break an ankle. He knew he would have to clamber up an eight- to ten-foot berm of earth just before he got to the backyard of the house.

His eyes adjusted to the dark as Newell drew nearer to his destination. The place loomed ahead like a fortress, a compound protected as if an a.s.sault were expected. Well, the a.s.sault had come and gone on the morning of September 22. And he had been part of the first enemy onslaught.

Chantilly Street South. A nice, upper-scale family street. He had gazed at 1166 Chantilly from the front and it looked only like a big pale-blue barn. Inside, it had been the samea"square and dull. Now, Newell had to view David Brown's latest home as if Richard Steinhart's eyes stared through his own. Steinhart couldn't be here, but he would have to describe it board by board to Brown.

Their plan had Steinhart approaching from the rear of the property. From Newell's present angle, he could see that almost all the houses on the east side of the street were shrouded with trees and bushes and protected from four-footed and two-footed predators by a high chain-link fence along the reservoir property. Brown had gone even further and erected a cement-block wall inside the steel mesh barrier. A ridiculous barrier. A man with any vestige of muscle could easily heave himself over both the fence and the wall and into the backyard.

Newell cased the property from where he stood. The second home in the compound, the guesthouse that Brown had designed for his parents, had been almost completely invisible from the front. It was big enough to house a separate family. Most of the backyard s.p.a.ce was taken up with a pool, and the rest with cement paving. Two white statues of Grecian maidens in togas stood beside the pool, glowing in the moonlight. California Cyprus trees grew close to yet another fence, this one ensuring privacy from the street side of the property. He could make out tables with umbrellas, faded flowers in brick planters.

The place seemed abandoned, vacant. The lights were off in the guesthouse, and he could perceive only a dim glow deep inside the big house. Newell had to estimate how accessible this place might be for an arsonist. He had to find a way in, and a speedy way out, for the torch. There would be no second chance if his information didn't ring true. Brown was so cunning that he would catch Steinhart if he faltered in his descriptions.

Despite the property's abandoned appearance, Newell was sure that Manuela and Arthur still lived there with Krystal, and maybe with Heather too. He grimaced to think of what tragedy might result if he came away with flawed information. Brown would find himself another firebug, one Newell didn't know about. He saw that the expensive new motor home was parked snug against the guesthouse. If it went up, its carpeted walls soaked with gasoline, it would take the guesthouse, the main house, and maybe half the street with it. The resulting inferno would make all those cars on Ball Road and the Orange Freeway rear-end each other as the drivers braked to gawk.

Total destruction wasn't really what Brown had in mind; he had indicated on the tapes with Steinhart that he wanted the houses intact. The insurance payoff on the motor home would be adequate for the first payments to his "hit man."

But if it all went, Brown wouldn't be that upset. All of it was insured. The whole shebang. If the fire burned out of control, he would simply come into a great deal of cash from property that was no longer of any use to him. The money would only add to the wild time Brown planned to have cruising Australia with "Goldie" Steinhart.

A chill flicker of wind picked at the water of the reservoir, and Newell accelerated his survey, shivering. Okay, it was possible for the big blue house to be approached initially from the front; in the dark, if he was quiet and careful, "the arsonist" could slide past the palm trees growing close to the north side of the house. But he would have to be able to get out fast by vaulting the two fences and dashing around the reservoir. The neighbors were curious too. Strangers stood out. Newell made a mental note to remind Steinhart to mention the nosy neighbors.

He counted two cars, but there were supposed to be three. Did that mean the house was empty now? Or did it mean that only Arthur was out? Newell wondered if Brown really cared if the fire he planned took more with it than the motor home and the two houses, perhaps even his mother and father, and his two small daughters. The insurance money seemed all-important to him. It would provide professional fees, premium pay for the most dangerous crime of all.

Murder for hire.

It grew late. Even the cars on the freeway were few and far between. Newell retraced his own path, back through the dried-up oleanders, past the spill of broken concrete, close along Ball Road to the spot where his car waited. He would report back to Steinhart, and in the morning Steinhart would wait for another collect call from David Brown.

Newell looked back at the blue house and was seized with a grim vision of what could have happened. If Cully hadn't snitched Steinhart off, it might well have been Steinhart himself here now. Maybe only the motor home would have burned. Maybe the whole compound of blue buildings would have gone up like a pile of creosoted logs, the Grecian maidens cracking and tumbling into the lonely pool. A total loss.

As he picked foxtails off his socks and pants legs, Newell felt a slight tightening in his gut. When he was in this mode, he did not often allow himself to think about any of it with emotion. He was far too caught up in the layers and twists necessary to make his own plans work. But sometimes it got so intricate, so convoluted, that the players blurred and changed. He was dealing with people he had no reason to trust. He was spending most of his time with an avowed hit man. All it would take would be one misstep to invoke disaster.

He shook his head sharply. He didn't let it get to him often. But now he did. The bleak irony of it caught Jay Newell unawares as he drove home too late to say goodnight to his kids. If this had all worked out the way David Brown planned, Newell himself would have been right there on top of David's list, slated to be the first to get blown away when he least expected it.

Number one to get a bullet in the back of his head.

Richard Steinhart had been given no promises by the DA's office. He had only exchanged one jail cell for another. He had used people for years, but he had never set out to destroy them totally. For Steinhart, the frustration of David's killing plans became a kind of crusade. He did it all with words, using the details Newell had given him.

Steinhart proved to be a superb actor. He had lived by his wits for years, and he was good at it. Although he talked on the phone with David Brown from the Huntington Beach Jail, he sounded, always, as free as the wind. Sometimes Steinhart pretended that he was just coming in from a hot date; sometimes he pretended to be eatinga"pizza, of course. David missed pizza most of all the foods he was denied in jail. Steinhart yawned during some calls, as if he were talking in bed, and he pretended to trail the phone after him as he walked to the "kitchen" to get a beer out of his imaginary refrigerator.

And all the time he was in jail, surrounded by cops, wWking with Jay Newell to thwart David Brown. David called collect to the "cold phone," and Steinhart or one of his "buddies" or "girlfriends" always accepted the calls. Every word was recorded.

David was anxious without Steinhart to talk to. He called him the day after he "got out"a"February 3, 1989. He recognized the exchange as Huntington Beach and that worried him. He hadn't expected Steinhart to be in that area. "Who was that who answered the phone?" he asked suspiciously.

"Huh? That's Animal's old ladya"I'm at Animal's house. He's good people."

"Had me kind of nervous to tell ya the truth," David said.

"Oh, you jerka"you stoopa"you getting dumb on me or what? It's Animals' housea"ah, Jackie's son. So what's happening, man?"

David had a tale of woe. The "district" guy was tormenting him. Now, there was going to be a custody hearing on Krystal.

"Well," Steinhart commiserated, "do you want me to do anything special to him? Give him an extra one for you . .. ?"

"No, no. I justa"I'm starting to smile at the thought."

The tapes of the conversations between David and Steinhart revealed a paradox. For a man who had achieved a miraculous success in the business world, David Brown had not the slightest clue how to carry on repartee with another man. His world before jail had been dependent young women, family, and sycophants. They had all danced to whatever tune he played, and David seemed to have truly believed that he was larger than life. He still dida"but he came across as a computer nerd bantering with a popular, macho man.

Almost. There was a sinuous stream of undiluted evil in David's conversation.

David boasted continually about what a funny guy he wasa"what "a ham," if given half a chance. "The life of the party, man." But his jokes, his attempts at bonding, all revolved around pizza and beer, with an occasional perverse reference to oral s.e.x. This man who was such a card in his own domain demonstrated no more wit than the wife he was so determinedly trying to kill.

Steinhart laughed at the feeble pizza jokes, and then he asked how the "monies" were coming along. David a.s.sured him he was working on it.

"I ran into a snag," Steinhart explained. "I was out doing my homework. ... It appears that the motor home you havea"that, er, you're going to 'lend' me? It's really close up against the house."

Steinhart was playing it well, letting David think they had to talk in code. He, of course, had not been out to look at the motor home or the Chantilly Street house, or anything else the night before. Jay Newell had. Now, Steinhart sounded as if he knew the place by heart. The guesthouse and the big blue house were only forty feet apart, he said, sounding just a touch concerned. "You're talking pretty high intensity fire there, boss."

David a.s.sured Steinhart he would have his parents stay away from the house the next day. Steinhart sounded relieved and described more of what he had "seen" the night before. "I was standing right across from the reservoir .. . went over that little chain-link fence."

"Right." David relaxed. Steinhart was taking care of business.

David listed the cars that should be parked in front. "There's a silver station wagona"a Nissan Maxima, and a black-tinted-window Taurus____That's my newest toy. If one or the other of them is gone, they're not home."

"Okay. Now who all lives there?"

"Just my mom and dad are staying there, watching my s.h.i.t, and taking care of my kid at my house."

Jay Newell, monitoring the calls, saw how clumsily David Brown planned. He could envision how it must have been with Cinnamon and Patti; David was always in a tearing hurry to have "things" happen, but he didn't track very well. Steinhart was smootha"mostly agreeing to everything, a.s.suring David he was "cool."

Steinhart did bring up a vital area that David had completely overlooked. "I thought about this the other night," he said. "I don't have a f.u.c.king idea what they look likea"your two buddies?"

"Well," David began slowly, "I don't know if you've ever done it before or nota"but there's an old professional thing that I've seen in the movies, where you go to the librarya" and look up old newspaper clippings?"

David referred to Jay Newell as "the little guya"not physicallya"but I mean the least important."

Steinhart covered the mouthpiece and grinned at Newell.

However, David had seen an article in the Orange County Register about Newell's being named "California DA's Investigator of the Year." There had been a picture with that.

"What about the other guy?" Steinhart asked.

That was easy. The other guya"Jeoff Robinsona"was in the paper continuously, David said. Every week, at least, with a picture too. Steinhart shouldn't have any trouble spotting him.

Steinhart pushed for physical descriptions, and David struggled to remember what his preferred targets looked like. Both of the "two cops" he wanted dead were over six feet tall. "The first one is brown eyes, mustache, well-groomed, ex-football playera"but he's getting a bit of a tummy. You can tell he hasn't played for ages."

(In fact, Robinson's eyes were blue-green, and his stomach was flat as a board.) Jay Newell got shorter shrift. "The other one is older,"

David began. ". . . Ugly as sin. Looks like a giant rat. Late forties, early fifties. Ugly mustache. Not as smart a dresser as the other one."

Newell was forty-two, and a good-looking man. But not to David Brown.

David suggested that Steinhart look in the yellow pages for their addresses. Steinhart rolled his eyes; David had much to learn in the murder-for-hire game.

David described his wife, Patti. "She's in K-14. They moved her. Bubble nosea""

"Bubble nose?" Steinhart asked, mystified.

"Yeah. It looks like two ball bearings stuck on the end of her nose. . . . You know, one of those real bony, gristly type noses . . . real dishwater blonde .. . Ah, her most gracing feature is her big lips . . . skinny ... ah, blue eyesa""

"How much does she weigh?"

"From what I understand now, she's right at a hundred, maybe hundred and five tops."

Patti Bailey was a pretty woman. But she had become totally dispensable to her husband. He wanted her gone, as soon as possible, and had nothing kind to say about her.