Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (13 page)

"Bad company?"

"Yes, and I assumed Thomas Chase to be the company of which he spoke. Nicky feared that his usefulness in this country would soon be questioned. When I
 
pressed Angelique on this issue, she promised me that Nicky was not the focus of their investigation."

"Wait, wait a minute,
Cherche
. Angelique actually told you that—"

"No
no
, not quite that direct. She merely reassured me that Nicky was in no danger because of Thomas, that other matters concerned Thomas, business matters, and that he merely hoped to gain business access in Russia."

"But you said 'investigation'—that's what you said, the focus of their investigation."

"Yes, well, you see ... I knew that they were together in an investigation because I am well familiar with CIA."

I said, "Jesus,
Cherche
, why are you giving me this line of bullshit?"

That hurt her, if her face was honest about it.

      
But I guess it wasn't the "moment" for me to get the full, unvarnished truth from
Cherche
.

The young bartender came stumbling back into the room at that very instant.

He had blood all over his shirt and his eyes were wild.

"I need help!" he gasped. "She's hurt!—bad hurt!"

"Who's hurt?" I growled.

The kid was about to pass out. "Angelique," he croaked. "At the gate. She's . . ."

I was already on the run.

As a "moment," this one had become a total disaster.

Chapter Eighteen

She was more
bloodied than damaged, though someone had obviously beaten the hell out of her, and I found her staggering along the walk toward the house in a daze.

I scooped her up and carried her inside.
Cherche
and the kid, Jimmy, met us at the door and steered me upstairs to
Cherche's
apartment. We cut the bloodied white sheath off of her and put her to bed, then I went to work with cold compresses to staunch the bleeding and hopefully to control the swelling around the eyes and lips.

I'd seen worse beatings, much worse—suffered a few myself—but there's something particularly pitiful about this kind of damage to any woman, and I had an emotional involvement with this one, so the feelings were really intense.

I was glad that
Cherche
was there. She is a strong woman—I mean internally strong—and knew exactly how to handle the situation. I figured she'd handled

similar situations in the past. She again sent the bartender home and took full charge. I gladly yielded my role as medic and stepped back to give her room with the patient.

She carefully cleaned the hurts and examined each one closely, then told her, "Not so bad, darling. This will mend. And if there are scars, then these can be made to disappear as well. Do not be concerned for that."

Toni had said not a word, and she responded to that prognosis with eyes only, a tired fluttering that seemed to be saying, "Just leave me alone, please."

She had not wished to talk to me or anyone else at the moment, that much had been clear. I could understand and respect that. Getting beat up is a lot like getting raped, to a woman, and maybe it's exactly the same. I'd seen enough of it in an official capacity to have become sensitive to the feeling, something like a sense of shame or degradation. I understood it.

Cherche
pulled me into the sitting room and told me, "Not to worry, Joseph. I think there is no need for medical attention, which would be better in our situation. But I shall watch her closely, never fear, and I will not hesitate to summon help if that seems wise."

I growled, "I last saw her with your Nicky, just a few hours ago. I want his home address."

She gave me about a ten-second, unreadable stare, then went to a desk and consulted her personal directory, scribbled an address on a card and brought it to me. "Do nothing foolish, Joseph. These things occur. She will mend and forget."

      
 
"Not me," I muttered, and went out of there without further ado.

      
I am not a "bad ass." People have called me that all my life, but it's not true. I'm as housebroken as any man I know and I really have a very gentle nature when people leave it alone. I never bullied and I never trespassed on another man's turf except when the need was unavoidable and the reason was clear. I've always been conscious of my size and strength, never liked to throw it around or to intimidate with it unless maybe that could take the pressure off a more dangerous situation.

But there do come those times now and then in a man's life when he feels plain
baaad
and the civilized constraints lose all meaning in the overpowering need to kick some ass.

The address
Cherche
gave me was one of the glitzy new
highrise
apartment buildings on Wilshire, and the bad was growing in me all the way there. I flipped my private badge at the doorman and growled, "Security inspection," in a tone not to be denied and went right on through without giving him a chance to think about it.

It was five
a.m
. and nothing was stirring but me as I punched the elevator to the sixteenth floor, found the door with the right number, leaned on the button of a built-in intercom and held it down until someone responded. I could feel eyes on me, spotted the little circle near the intercom that was the lens of a closed-circuit

television system. I looked at it hard and said, "Open up."

A thickly accented male voice growled back, "Go away."

"The hell I will," I told it, and started kicking at the door.

It was beginning to splinter when I heard the mechanism moving and Big Ivan threw the door open. I read no hospitality in that angry gaze so I just kept right on kicking, first to the groin and then to the chin. That did not put him all the way down so I tried another to the groin and two more to the chin. That put him on his back. I stepped across and went on through, found Nicky standing in a bedroom door in pajamas and robe, alert and worried. He had a little auto in his right hand, one of the smaller
calibres
, and it was pointed my way.

I told him, "You'd better be an expert marksman with that thing, expert enough to place a shot squarely between my eyes or else directly into the heart. Because if you're not, I'll have that thing shoved down your gullet before you can get off a second."

He replied in tones meant to reassure, "Why would I shoot you, Joe? I believed we had an intruder."

"You believed right, that's what you've got. I came to talk about Angelique."

"At this hour? Couldn't it wait?"

"Not really. I just put her to bed, at this hour. She was very badly used, Nicky. That upsets me a lot. I do hate to leap to conclusions, but you're the last one I saw

her with. Now she's damaged. I came to damage you back, if you're the one."

He looked genuinely distressed at the news more so than the threat, said something under his breath in a language I don't understand, then asked, "What happened?"

"She was beat up and dropped at
Cherche's
gate."

Gudgaloff
came on into the living room and rather absently deposited his gun on a table, dropped into a chair, said, "I did not do that, Joe."

I had to believe it.

But I still felt bad.

Ivan the Terrible had struggled onto his knees and closed the front door, came lumbering over in a half crouch, misery in the eyes; he felt bad too, yeah. He also looked a bit confused and was seeking direction from his boss.

I asked
Gudgaloff
, "Does he speak English?"

"Very little," was the dispirited reply.

"Tell him I'm sorry. He should've been more hospitable. I'll make it up to him somehow."

The KGB chief gave me a small smile then relayed the message in appropriate lingo. He must have said more than that, too, because Ivan went out without a glance at me.

"That's twice," Nicky said to me with the same small smile. "I fear you can never make it up.
Ilyitch
is a very proud man."

"That's his name? He's Ivan the Terrible to me. Tell

him I said that. And tell him I'm the kick-boxing champion of North America."

"Are you?"

"No. But tell '
im
anyway, maybe it'll salve his pride."

"Very well. But what of Angelique? Is she badly hurt?"

"Mostly where it doesn't show," I told him. "But she won't feel like kissing anyone for a while. Lip's busted, eyes are a mess. She wasn't like that when you left her?"

"Of course not. She was perfectly well."

"When was that?"

"Shortly after two o'clock. She asked me to drop her at a house in Brentwood Park. I watched her go inside and then I departed."

"Remember the address?"

"No.
 
She . . . did not give an address, merely directed the way."

"Could you find it again?"

"I could not, no. Perhaps my driver . . ."

"Call him."

He gave me a go to hell look but seemed to think twice about it, went to the telephone, spoke with someone very briefly, came back and told me, "Off the San Diego freeway at Montana, west to Woodburn, turn right the second corner, somewhere near the middle of the block on the left side, a white frame cottage with brick posts and planters."

I jotted it down and said, "I'll look into it."

"Will you let me know what you discover?"

"Sure. Did you notice if she rang the doorbell or. . . ?"

"It appeared that she admitted herself."

"How long have you known Frank
Dostell
?"

He was like thunderstruck for a moment. He got up then and went to a desk, found a cigarette and lit it, didn't offer one to me, just blew the smoke back at me as he said, "That is none of your business, Joe. How do I make friends with you if you persist in . . . ?"

I said, "Your secrets are safe with me, Nicky, if you're not using them against me. Why did your boys pick me up Wednesday morning?"

He frowned but replied, "You were the miscreant. I wanted my property. And I wished to talk to you concerning your reasons for taking it."

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Can we have a mutually advantageous dialogue, Joe?"

I said, "Sure."

"Very well. We knew where to find you because we knew where to find Angelique. Now you tell me—"

"No, hold it, that's only half an answer. Doesn't qualify. How did you know where to find Angelique?"

He studied my face for a moment, then replied, "Angelique had been under surveillance."

"Had been?"

"Yes. Since—well, that's another question, for later. Now my turn. Why did you take my property?"

I helped myself to one of his cigarettes but didn't light it, just let it dangle from my lips. Sometimes that's

almost as good as lighting up when it's all stress and no action. "Someone hoped it would keep his ass out of jail."

"Did it?"

"Apparently not."

"I see. So where is the property now?"

I sucked on the dead cigarette for a couple of seconds, then told him, "I think the feds have it."

"The FBI?"

"Yeah."

That was unhappy news indeed for our Nicky. He didn't seem to know how to continue immediately so I figured it was my turn again. "On the way into town that morning, the feds pulled us over and I transferred to their car."

"Is that when they took the property?"

"No, before that. If you had Angelique under surveillance, how come your boys didn't stick with her instead of hanging around and waiting for me?"

"It took them a while to locate Angelique. By then. . ."

"Locate? First you say surveillance and now you say locate. Are we talking electronic surveillance?"

He smiled. "Very perceptive. Yes. There was a tracking device on her car."

I said, "That's bully. So you had two cars out there."

"Yes."

"And shortly after I transferred to the FBI car, that second car came alongside and blew it off the freeway."

"You have that wrong, Joe."

"Sure about that?"

"I am sure about that. The second car was already back in Los Angeles and keeping Angelique in sight."