If You Really Loved Me (46 page)

David boasted continually about what a funny guy he was—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 sex. 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 assured 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 have—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 assured 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 wagon—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 shit, 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 smooth—mostly agreeing to everything, assuring 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 fucking idea what they look like—your two buddies?"

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

David referred to Jay Newell as "the little guy—not
physically
—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 guy—Jeoff Robinson—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 player—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 nose—"

"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 eyes—"

"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.

She was as good as dead.

38

T
he plans grew more precise, the phone calls more frequent. Steinhart, under heavy surveillance, went outside a jail cell for a short time on February 4. He met Tom Brown in back of Bennigan's restaurant in Westminster and collected the $1,700 David promised him for expenses and to buy two "throwaway guns."

And then he went back to jail.

David called Steinhart—collect—three times on February 3, four times on February 4, and twice on February 6. His goals never varied; he seemed to enjoy fine-tuning the details. Robinson and Newell were to be shot in the back of the head. As soon as that news reached the newspapers, Patti was to be killed. Steinhart assured David that he had arranged to put a woman into the Orange County Jail women's section who would kill Patti.

"Will it be self-inflicted?" David asked.

"No, I think she's going to back up on a knife."

"Okay! That's good, good! That's what I want!" David's voice was jubilant.

Steinhart explained that he had to have $10,000 right away. It would serve a double purpose. First, all he had to do was
show
the female hit-person the money, so that she would know it was waiting for her when she got out of jail after murdering Patti. Then he would use the same $10,000 to pay off Animal (who was played by Huntington Beach detective Bob Moran) and a second "hired killer" after they shot Robinson and Newell.

David arranged for his brother Tom to get another check from Joel Baruch. Baruch was allegedly told it was needed to buy rare coins for David's collection. David was working frantically to get the money freed up, and he was immensely frustrated. He was a man who had once had three phone lines at his right hand constantly. Now, he had to wait in the day room for a free phone and worry about the guards listening in. The logistics of keeping in touch with Steinhart and Tom Brown
and
his attorney were exhausting. He was used to being able to snap his fingers and have any amount of money he needed in hand.

"I hate having my life controlled by other people," he complained to Steinhart.

David didn't want to alienate Steinhart. He loved the guy, and he needed him. Steinhart with his "Plan A"'s and "Plan B'"s. Hell, Steinhart was even telling him that his biker buddies were making fun of him, calling him soft because he was doing so much for David—for nothing. David had to give him something back.

So he gave Steinhart
half
of the directions to his desert treasure. He had lied to Steinhart before about where the money was. "I tell everyone, you know, that it's out by Barstow?"

"Right," Steinhart said, waiting.

"It's not—it's only
up
that way. Do you know where Yucca Valley is?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Are you familiar with the road up the hill that you take to get to Yucca Valley? Do you go the Palm Springs route?"

"Yes."

David went into specifics. Steinhart was to follow Flat Land close to the windmill generators. After he passed the K Mart, he was to look for a bowling alley on the left, and then a "monument thing" that was either marked "29 Palms" or "Joshua Tree." "That's where you turn left—and that's where my property is."

Steinhart waited for the rest, but that was all David was going to give him for the moment.

* * *

Newell and Borris decided it was time to think seriously of getting Steinhart out of jail. He was being held as a material witness only. Newell didn't think that Steinhart was going to run on them, or on Rick King's case. He had kept all his promises so far. By now, Newell doubted that Steinhart had ever killed anyone. "He had a core of good in him all the time, but he tried to hide it."

On February 7, Steinhart appeared again before Judge David Carter. With Deputy DA Rick King's approval, he was released on his own recognizance. He was out of jail, under the California protected-witness program.

David Brown remained
in
jail, but he did not expect to be there long. He was smug in his faith in Steinhart. In fact, he felt that Steinhart was deferring to him more, that his ability to plan had impressed the hell out of him. Every time he got to feeling antsy, he reminded himself of that.

Things were dovetailing beautifully. They were almost ready. But Steinhart and David had to have two women to wipe out Patti as a witness—one to kill her, of course, and one to refute any of her taped statements and the transcripts of her preliminary testimony against David. In essence, even dead, Patti might still be a threat.

David waited eagerly for a visit from the woman Irv Cully called Smiley and Happy Face. She would pretend she had been in jail with Patti and testify that Patti was a liar.

On February 8, things really started moving. Even from jail, David felt that his executive ability was getting the job done.

First of all, David's brother Tom delivered $10,000 to Steinhart and "Animal" in the parking lot of Bennigan's at five minutes after three in the afternoon. Tom Brown, who worked as a foreman at All West Plastics, huddled behind the steering wheel as the big detective and the martial arts veteran approached his car. Animal leaned in to talk to him, while the guy with the ponytail and the biker's vest counted the money.

The transaction was recorded by hidden video cameras.

And at six-thirty that evening, David had a visit from Smiley. He marveled that Cully's girl had found him the perfect witness. In reality, the "Smiley" Newell had selected was a policewoman, an undercover narcotics agent, with a wire transmitter tucked in her bra. She smiled shyly as she told David that she had
already
been in jail with Patti, that she knew Patti slightly. That was great as far as David was concerned. There was no need for her to lie about being with Patti!

Smiley thanked David profusely for the $500 and said it had really helped with her rent. (In truth, Irv Cully's girlfriend had kept it.)

David was thrilled to see that Smiley was a looker. In fact—as Smiley asked him for details of how she was supposed to testify—he kept interrupting her with suggestive comments. He casually dropped the information that he was worth over five million dollars. "Every million of it is in cash right now. . . . The thing is, I didn't want to remarry until I find somebody I like. That's one of the things I like about you. What I heard—okay—is that your
preference
is a lot like my wife's were."

"Oh, really?"

"We had a dynamite marriage, I'll tell you."

He was speaking of Linda, his dead wife, not Patti— whom he denied ever marrying.
"She's
deceitful. She forced my real daughter to kill my wife . . . her little shtick was that
I
told them to. I
didn't
tell them to. I loved my wife."

Smiley played it dumb. Even her grammar was that of a woman who'd spent more time in jail than in school. She asked again and again for David to explain exactly what she was to do. Slowly, it seemed to dawn on her. "Okay," she repeated. "I tell them that when I was in jail, I talked to Patti and she told me that you're innocent and that she lied?"

That was it. David asked Smiley to repeat certain details, to expand on her "friendship" with Patti. He didn't want her to lie really, but he told her she would be saving an innocent man and returning him to his child. He would be so grateful if she would talk to his attorney soon and arrange to testify on his behalf.

"And there's no way that they could trace it back to me at all?" Smiley asked. "How about if they want to put me on a lie detector?"

"It is not admissible in court," David said confidently. "Tell them, Fuck off, fella!' "

Smiley was worried about being recorded. She wondered if there were little wires in the phones they talked on as they looked at each other through plate glass. David laughed and shook his head. "No, they can't. I hope they don't have a reason to—because that's why I arranged to have my kid here." He gestured to where Krystal was waiting with Manuela to visit him.

"Why
did you have your kid here?"

God, the woman was dumb, he thought. That was okay. She was the best-looking thing he had seen in months. "Because, hopefully, they won't record me talking to my kid—you know, 'I love you, Dada, I love you, Dada, come home, Dada,' and that."

Krystal was only four; already her father was using her.

And then, business over with Smiley, David turned on the charm. "You're beautiful. . . . If you want to get to know me a little better, I could take care of you for the rest of your life. I take care of people; that's how I've managed to get ahead."

Smiley pretended to say a reluctant good-bye, letting David believe she would be back. She left the visiting booth and went immediately to have her hidden wire removed.

The net was tightening around David Arnold Brown.

He didn't know. Instead, David was elated. He had a new woman. He was convinced she found him attractive and that she had been interested when he mentioned the extent of his fortune. The next day, he called Steinhart to crow: "I have a woman interested in me, real interested." He seemed more excited about that than he was about using Smiley to destroy Patti's credibility.

Steinhart feigned enthusiasm and told David that the second female, the hit person, had been dropped off at the Orange County Jail. She was, at that very moment, in Patti's module, ready to carry out her hit—just as soon as "the two cops" were killed. "Fortunately, this girl's done this—on the professional side . . . she's got a track record."

Patti Bailey's death was a fait accompli to David, almost old news to him now. He wanted to talk more about his new woman. "She's a good-looking gal."

"Right on." Steinhart laughed.

"She's got a mouth that God designed for blow jobs," David whispered.

Steinhart laughed. "Right on. Well, hey, we'll have to go out on a date when we all get out."

In his conversations with David, Steinhart sounded as laid-back and cool as ever. But in truth, he was not faring well on the street. His old weaknesses were tripping him up. Within twenty-four hours of his release, he was back with his woman, a woman who was beautiful—but heartbreakingly addicted to speedballs, a deadly combination of heroin and cocaine.

Steinhart stayed with her for three days and nights, all the while keeping up his wired phone calls to David, and his reports to Jay Newell. But he was losing ground. The woman was out of control, and Steinhart could feel himself slipping back. Moreover, Hessian bikers had located him, and they roared past the motel where he was staying, their engines a loud warning.

Newell shook his head remembering. "We were halfway through our phone trap with David Brown. We had to move Richard out of the first motel in the middle of the night because the Hessians who were looking for him had located him. Then he called us from the new place and said he needed help. When we got there, there was blood all over the walls, in the bathroom, in the bedroom. Steinhart's girlfriend was mainlining.

"He turned her in to save her life. It just about killed him. I spent a whole day either sitting in my car or in a coffee shop, with Richard crying and me trying to convince him he'd done the right thing."

And yet, talking to David, Steinhart sounded as controlled and happy-go-lucky as always. He missed only part of one long, bad day. Animal had to take his calls from David. Detective Moran—as Animal—growled at David, leaving him convinced that Steinhart truly had hired a killing machine.

By February 10, Steinhart had a new motel, and two new roommates, Newell and Tom Borris, who moved into a motel on the Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach with him.

It was almost time to trip the net release.

Newell, Borris, and Steinhart had a two-room suite. The hotel was instructed to accept collect calls from David Brown and put them on Steinhart's bill. When David called, his voice sounding more and more elated, Newell and Borris were listening in and taping his calls.

David Brown, the master manipulator, could never have imagined that his great and good friend Goldie was sharing a motel suite with his archenemies. But then Jay Newell had never imagined that he would be voluntarily sharing accommodations with the man who held a contract on his life. The hunted and the hunter had become friends, a friendship forged in the middle of a grueling investigation. Now, they slept in connecting rooms. Newell never had a nightmare.

Tom Borris did. Or rather, he would have had he been
able
to get to sleep. He woke Newell just before dawn the first morning and said he hadn't slept all night. He pointed to a figure standing in the open doorway between the two rooms, a figure silently watching them. "It was spooky the way he stood there," Newell recalled. "We figured either Steinhart had flipped or someone had managed to get into our suite."

One hand on his gun, Newell turned on the light.

The "assassin" was only their suit jackets hanging there in the doorway.

Officially, Newell and Borris had to be sure that Steinhart didn't disappear on them, while at the same time protecting him from a number of people who stalked him. Unofficially, the three men got along amazingly well. "I gave him a pair of shoes," Newell remembered. "All Richard had was thongs, and it was cold—our feet were the same size."