by Reason of Sanity (31 page)

Flush with our insurance reward money, I think it’s time to go shopping. Last year I told the broker at Purcell Yachts to keep his eye out for us. We’re looking for a Grand Banks 50 that’s in good shape. Suzi could easily write a check for the fiberglass model, but with me being forced to carry my end, we still can’t afford one of the newer ones, but there are quite a few beautiful old ‘woodies’ out there that have been meticulously maintained.

N ow that Purcell thinks I can actually afford to buy a boat, his search has miraculously found a few for me to look at. Combining the reward money with everything I’ve got in my bank account and his giving us a decent amount for the forty-two footer we’re now living on, I think we should just about be able to swing what a wooden Grand Banks will cost.

The Californian we’re now on is a nice boat but there’s nothing like a 50-foot Grand Banks, complete with parquet floors, raised pilothouse, extra staterooms and lots and lots of room. We stayed on one for a while last year that was inherited by Stuart, but thanks to his letting the I.R.S. think he was the invisible man for about ten years, they decided it would be nicer in their Marina than ours.

Purcell wants me to come and look at one nearby, so I’m on the way. I see that the lights are on in George Clooney’s boat. I leave word with the kid that if George stops by while I’m gone, to tell him that I’ll be back in less than an hour. I surely want to be on the boat in time for the six o’clock news, so I can see how Myra’s appearance came off. Suzi is sitting there waiting. She wants to watch too.

Myra looks great on camera. It loves her almost as much as she loves it. There she is. The camera is shaky as it’s being hand-held and quickly carried through the double doors leading into the courtroom, following Myra and the reporter – and then there’s Myra making her announcement to Handelmann and bossing everyone in the courtroom around. She really knows how to take control… especially when I arrange to give it to her. I see that the reporter kept up her part of the bargain. I’m nowhere to be seen. It’s all Myra’s show.

Next we see the camera follow her out of the building. Handelmann is rushed into a waiting squad car and whisked away. The reporter knew in advance what station Handelmann would be taken to, so I’m sure she arranged to have another crew standing by to see him brought out of the squad car and into the Van Nuys jail. The ‘perp walk.’

Myra did a grea t job with her outdoor press conference. She explained how during the trial, her investigation led her to believe that there was more to the case than just Harold Blitzstien, but that Seymour didn’t want to hear any of it. Great! She took a little shot at him. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Finally, and at my express instruction, the reporter asks her about her campaign plans. Myra really sticks it to Seymour by explaining that the office of the District Attorney should be more open to the policy of not getting too locked in on any one suspect – even after charges have been filed. That’s not fair to the people accused of crimes or to the public at large. She then does a beautiful job of explaining what’s wrong with the way the District Attorney’s office is being run now and how she intends to reform it after she takes office. Also as agreed, she praises the cooperation of Lieutenant Evans and his men, in her ongoing investigation and the arrest. Now I’m even with him. It’s nice to be able to pay off debts.

Myra gets a million dollars worth of publicity and another bad guy gets brought to justice. At this point, even if Snell is watching her statement, there’s no way he can figure Handelmann as the third gang member, because at this time he doesn’t even know that Blitzstien and Drago were in the gang. I love it when a good plan comes together.

I’m a little shor t of the full price for the Grand Banks I just made an offer on, so it’s probably a good time to get my finances in order. The time sheets on the Blitzstien case have been amended to include investigation hours spent in clearing him and finding the real killer. The court shouldn’t mind those extra hours, especially when it resulted in bringing in a real bad guy. That should cover my trip to Hawaii with Myra and still leave enough left over to almost cover the boat.

The FBI’s twenty-five grand for fingering Handelmann will finish the new boat’s purchase price. I’ll send the Blitzstien portion to his family. The Drago share of the reward will be distributed between Suzi and Jack B. They put all the information together and they deserve it.

Now that I can give Snell an address that I’m sure Handelmann will be at for a while, his documentation package is complete. Jack B. will hand-carry it to the FBI office for me.

I’ve got some time to pack for Haw aii. We’ll be leaving in a couple of days and I want to get ready for this romantic vacation with Myra. The room reservation has already been made there at the Pioneer Inn. I bought the plane tickets the same afternoon that Blitzstien’s not guilty verdict came in. Myra’s ticket was given to her while we were on the way to the Federal Courthouse.

I take some time to go through the travel brochures, lining up a bunch of things for us to do during the day while we’re in Maui. This time, I want to make sure we get to take one of those evening dinner cruises. We’ll also be renting a jeep for the curvy drive over the mountain to reach Hana, a secluded place on the farthest east end of the island, and also stopping to walk through the park that has the IAO Needle, a twenty-five hundred foot tall volcanic spire. While I’m at it, I might as well reserve some scuba gear. A fellow member of the Lahaina Yacht Club has the video concession on a large tourist dive boat, so we’ll probably spend a day out there with him. I don’t think I’m the only one on the boat who’s interested in Hawaii, because this morning I see that the travel brochures on the dinette table are not in the same order that I left them in last night.

Myra likes to play golf. Not being from a family with money and plenty of time to waste, I never got around to learning it. If I’m going to use a stick to make a small ball move around, it won’t be on a golf course with a bunch of fat old white guys, it’ll be in a pool hall, where the real men go. There’s no quiche served in poolrooms.

When I was a kid back in Chicago I used to work at a bowling alley that hadn’t yet converted to that new automatic pin-spotting equipment, so they employed boys like us to set the pins several nights a week when the leagues were bowling. If you were a pin-spotter, you were allowed to play pool for free during the afternoon. After a while I got pretty good at it – good enough to work my way through high school by doing a little hustling in between jobs playing piano at weddings.

After a couple of years in smoke filled rooms, you get pretty good at spotting hustlers and con artists of every kind, and that knowledge has served me quite well over the years. I had no problem spotting Handelmann and Seymour as people to avoid doing business with. Vinnie still gives me a slight problem, but Olive and Stuart have rehabilitated him nicely, so I think he’ll be okay as long as he stays away from trees.

Special Agent Snell calls. He is not a happy camper. “Sharp, are you crazy? We checked out the addresses you gave us on those remaining three gang members. One of them is the County Morgue and the other is the Van Nuys Division of the Los Angeles Police Station. Is this a joke?”

“No joke Agent Snell. That’s where they are. Handelmann is the guy you saw getting arrested in court the other day. If you hurry, you can still catch him in Van Nuys. After tomorrow, he’ll be transferred to the County Jail downtown, to await trial. The County Morgue is where Vlad Drago and Harold Blitzstien are and if you hurry, you can still catch the bodies. After another day or so, you can have the ashes.”

“And you expect us to give you fifty thousand dollars for turning in two dead bodies and a city jail prisoner?”

“No, I expect you to give me fifty thousand dollars for providing you with their identities, proof of their involvement in the bank robberies and their present addresses.”

“This sucks.”
“Sorry Snell, but if you work things right, you can still get some good press coverage out of it. After all, if not for my work on getting Handelmann busted for insurance fraud, he would have used the one point three million dollar fraudulently obtained settlement to bail out the other gang members. You know what would happen then… they’d skip bail and turn up in some other location where banks are located on the first floor of large office buildings.
“Your work on this case has put an end to that. You should be getting a medal of some kind and when I talk to a certain reporter I know, your name will be prominently mentioned. I’m sure she’ll be contacting you for an interview, so make sure you’re Bar Mitzvah suit is pressed. Blue looks really good on camera.”
“Okay Sharp, you’ve got a point there. By the way, is she the one who you brought into court for the Handelmann bust?”
“Yep, she’s the one and she owes me big time, so when I tell her about you, an interview is a certainty.”
“When do you think you might be speaking to this reporter friend of yours?”
“I’ll be telling her all about you at the dinner I promised to take her to. She picked a really expensive restaurant, but I can’t afford it without that reward money you’ll be sending me. The sooner you authorize that payment, the sooner I can tell her about you.”
Snell doesn’t sound too happy about our conversation, but I have a feeling that the reward check will be coming in shortly.
I think that the best place to entertain the reporter will be on our boat, so I’m working on a new pasta recipe.
Myra calls to tell me that she had to change her flight plans. She has an important interview the morning of our flight to Maui, so she’s booked a later flight and will meet me on the Island, either late that night or early the next morning – and I’m not to worry about transportation because she’s arranged for a car service to bring her the twenty-seven miles from the Maui airport to Lahaina.
That’s a disappointment, because it means we’ll be spending one less night together in my hotel room. Oh well, I guess you can never really have everything you want.
I spend my remaining time here on the mainland laying out my island wardrobe and packing. As usual, I’ll be using a car service to take me to the airport. They send a Lincoln Town Car to pick me up and the driver usually gets here at least fifteen minutes early and calls me on his cell phone to ask if I need any assistance in bringing my luggage up to the car. This car service thing is really a class act. When you get into their vehicle, a brand new bottle of some expensive foreign water is waiting for you, and it’s personal, door-to-door service.
A dock neighbor who’s really into computers has shown me the proper way to access my email, so I’m also packing my laptop. I’m sure the kid will want me to check in with her a couple of times each day. Stuart has offered to stay on the boat to keep an eye on her. She would probably rather stay alone, but Stuart insisted, because she’s helping him brief his cases for the law classes he’s taking. He already told me that some day soon he intends to be my law partner. I can’t wait. That’s just what I need – another person to take part of my hard earned fees.

The phone rings and my caller ID display shows a familiar number – the Van Nuys Police Station. Thinking it’s Lieutenant Evans, I pick up the phone with a happy greeting. It’s not Evans – it’s Handelmann.

“Hello Sharp, how’s the bail bond business?” “I don’t owe you any explanation or apology. You broke the rules and I nailed you. What do you want?”
“I need a favor.”
“And you think I’ll do it for you?”
“Yeah, because I’ve got something to trade.”
“I’m listening.”
“I can’t go into details, but I’ve made a deal with the Feds. They’re going to take me out of here soon.”
That figures. He’s been flipped and will now rat out his other clients, so the feds will put him into some witness protection program. I know he’s a con man, but I’m still curious to know what he’s going to offer me for whatever favor he wants. I tell him I’m still listening.
“I know that you’re getting a nice reward for turning me in and the favor I’d like is for you to deposit some money into my wife’s inmate account. She may have to serve a year or two before I can get her out.”
“And why would I want to do this for you?”
“Because I know that your ex-wife, the ballbusting broad who’s prosecuting me, is running for D.A. and my conviction on her record will look really good to the voters.”
This guy may be a criminal, but he’s one smart cookie. If I get his drift, he’s offering to plead guilty to the charges Myra’s bringing against him because he knows he won’t have to serve the time.
“Okay Handelmann, let’s say just for conversation’s sake that I go along with your program. What exactly do you have in mind?”
“First, I call her up and tell her I want to make a plea. Then she comes and visits me and we both sign the plea agreement. I plead guilty to whatever she wants. After the deal is signed, you deposit the maximum one thousand to each of our three accounts. That’s it. Your squeeze gets a fast conviction and gets elected as District Attorney and we have plenty of money to spend on candy and cigarettes until I can spring us.”
“Okay, go ahead and make the call, Handelmann. When your conviction is entered on the court’s record, I’ll deposit the two thousand to their accounts and when you’re transferred over to the Feds, I’ll make the last deposit to your account. And you’d better make it quick, because if Snell takes you out of there before the plea bargain is signed, our deal is off.”
The deal is done. Now I wait to see Myra on the evening news, announcing that she got the confession and guilty plea. I call the reporter and give her an anonymous’ tip about the upcoming plea. I’m sure that in her report she’ll refer to me as a ‘highranking associate of the district attorney.’ Seymour will be pleased to hear that.

Myra makes her announcement on the evening news. The timing is perfect because the next day Lieutenant Evans calls to tell me that the Feds came and took Handelmann away. He wasn’t disappointed. This means there’ll be one less prisoner to spend money on clothing, housing, feeding, and taking through the judicial system. Evans got his press coverage out of it, so he’s happy.