glared at Morris. “Don’t be smart with me. I’m not a dog person. Okay? You’re making another assumption that just because I don’t know anything about hitmen don’t mean I can’t help you. Back in 1984 I heard something through the grapevine that might help you figure out who that guy is.”
“What do you want in return?”
“For you to bring someone to me. You ever hear of an actor named Benjamin Chandler? I want to talk to him, but the problem is I’m having a tough time finding him.”
Even if Morris hadn’t caught the glimmer of anger that flared in Penza’s eyes when he mentioned Chandler’s name, the way the muscles bunched around the mob boss’s mouth would’ve been a dead giveaway by itself.
“I’m not going to find a guy for you so you can rough him up or worse.”
“That’s not what this is. I only want to talk to him. Face-to-face.”
“What about?”
Another flare of anger, but it died out quickly. “It’s personal,” he said.
After drinks with Bogle, Morris had researched Penza on the internet and knew the mob boss had married a girl last year young enough to be his granddaughter. He’d found pictures of her. A gorgeous blonde who showed this funny Cheshire cat smile in each of the photos. Morris understood why Penza had gotten the hair plugs and dye job, and why he was now trying on a young man’s suit.
“It’s about your wife,” he said.
Penza seemed surprised by what Morris had said. Scared also in a way. “Did you hear something?” he asked.
“Not a word. But I’ve been a detective almost as long as you’ve been a criminal. I may not have been a math major in college, but I can figure things out, especially what one and one adds up to. I can’t be a party to you hurting Chandler.”
Penza deflated right then. Not a lot, but enough to make his face craggier, so that he looked every bit his sixty years. If anything, his full head of yellow hair only made him look older.
“I’ll level with you,” he said. “When I first heard about that scumbag and Melanie, I wanted to disfigure him so no woman would ever again look at him as pretty.” Penza’s eyes wavered, and something close to fear showed in them. “But now I just want to talk to him. I swear that’s all. It can even be someplace public. I don’t care.”
Morris understood him. A frightened, aging man who desperately wanted to hold on to his much younger wife, even if it meant debasing himself. He said, “If I find him, you’ll have to agree to safeguards so that no one gets hurt.”
“Yeah, sure.” Penza jutted out his chin as he regained some of his bluster. He pointed a thick, heavy index finger at Morris. “But Brick, if I find him before you do, the deal’s off and the information I got stays bottled up for good. So you better do your bulldog trick and be fast about it.”
Parker let out an annoyed grunt as if he’d just been insulted.
Morris asked, “How do I get in touch with you?”
“Hand over your phone.”
Morris did as asked, and Penza keyed a phone number into Morris’s contacts.
“That’s for a burner, so don’t be cute and give the number to organized crime. It won’t do them any good.”
Morris took the phone back. “How come you’re so hard to find?” he asked. “I had my computer guy try to get a home address or phone number for you, and he came up empty. He never came up empty before.”
Penza smiled. “A secret,” he said. “Maybe I’ll tell you if you bring me that actor.”
For a reason he couldn’t explain, that annoyed Morris. “Want my advice about the suit?” he asked.
Penza gave him a quick look up and down. “Fashion advice from someone dressed like you? I don’t think so.”
He turned back to the three-panel mirror. As far as he was concerned, they were done. That was just fine for Morris also. Given the way Parker grunted, it was just fine with him too.
Chapter 16
In Bobby Gallo’s opinion, the redheaded chick who answered the door could’ve used a few pounds on her. That was the problem with Los Angeles: all these skinny-assed broads who preferred to look like sticks instead of real women. She had a pretty face, though. He had to give her credit for that, especially with how scared she was looking. He couldn’t blame her for that even though he hadn’t done anything yet to frighten her. A minnow should be scared when a shark approaches. Before she could say a word, Gallo had a hand covering her mouth and was walking her back into the Venice townhouse. Tommy Stanton closed the door as he followed them inside.
Gallo whispered into the woman’s ear, “Unless you want me to break your neck, you don’t make a sound, understand?”
She understood. Tears welled up in her eyes. It was quite a trick the way she seemed nearly weightless, putting up no resistance as he walked her into the living room and sat her down on an expensive-looking mauve-colored satin sofa. She was proving herself smarter than some of them, at least so far. This was the seventh place he had gone looking for Chandler, and while he hadn’t killed any of the others he had to get violent with three of them to shut them up.
He kept her company on the sofa while Stanton searched the townhouse. She refused to look at him and sat stiffly tugging at her fingers like she was trying to pull them off. Her face had crumpled badly, and her lips were quivering up a storm. She didn’t make a sound, though. Smart girl. She had a nice set of pearly-white teeth, and it would be a shame if he had to slap them out of her mouth. He looked her over more carefully and appreciated better why she was one of Chandler’s fuck buddies. She might’ve been skinny, but she also had nice, long legs that looked like they could wrap tightly around a man. Pert breasts also. He thought briefly about taking off her clothes and giving her a try to see if she deserved the comments Chandler had written about her in his little black book, but he quickly shot down that idea. He didn’t have time for fun and games. He needed to find the pretty boy actor before Big Joe did. What a mess this was becoming. But to be fair, it could’ve been so much worse.
He was lucky Vinnie Scalise made such a bonehead play. After he used Scalise’s own knife on him, he and Stanton took Scalise to a private location where he had all the necessary tools to make Scalise talk. It took some work, but in the end he was able to make Scalise spill his guts, both figuratively and literally. He found out about that sneaky prick Rothman taking pictures of him and Melanie outside the Santa Monica bungalow. He had no idea anyone had followed them there. The thought of Rothman selling those photos to Big Joe still made him shiver, but fortunately that lowlife scumbag had other plans for them—plans he never got to put into motion. He also found out about Scalise killing Rothman and Frank Colgan and burying their bodies, and he gave a version of that story to Big Joe so he could justify killing Scalise to him. The version he gave Big Joe was that Scalise killed Rothman and Colgan so he could steal twenty grand he got off of Rothman. Big Joe was skeptical since the story made little sense—in order to believe it you’d have to believe Scalise was a complete idiot, but Gallo was able to tell him where the bodies were buried and hand over to Big Joe the twenty grand he had gotten from a hidden cache Scalise had told him about while his guts were spilling out and he was begging to be put out of his misery.
It
