This time when he’d pulled up across the street from the Night Owl diner, he didn’t see Captain Chet Belleville inside yet. So he carefully gathered up all of the photo’s and both of the little black notebooks before heading inside. He entered the front door and motioned to the hostess for the same booth as he and Chet had shared the night before and she nodded her approval. He walked over and slid into the booth and waited for the good captain to arrive. Minutes later Chet Belleville’s 1939 Chevy stopped right outside the front window and he quickly got out and hurried into the Night Owl. He sat directly across from Clive Carew and the waitress wasted no time in pouring two hot cups of fresh coffee before leaving two menus on their table. Chet Belleville cast him a curious look.
“So did you find out something Clive?”
He pulled out some photographs. First of Jimmy Royals with Annabelle Stanton and Eddie Valentine.
“Do you recognize any of these people Chet?”
He picked up the photo, his eyes slowly rose to meet Clive Carew’s.
“That’s Jimmy Royals. So you did find something out at the Palace didn’t you?” he smiled.
Clive Carew’s stern expression didn’t change.
“Chet. I never made it to the Palace today, these are photo’s I got from Annabelle Stanton’s apartment this afternoon, she’s an actress that went missing two weeks ago. Montgomery Spalding hired me to find her. Jimmy Royals and her are lovers. Now I need to know how you know Jimmy.”
Chet Belleville leaned forward.
“Jimmy Royals was one of the first cops on the scene at the Plank Road incident that I told you about last night. He was there when the rest of us arrived along with two other officers.”
Now Clive Carew placed a second photograph on the table in front of him, this time of Jimmy and his other pals that he took from Jimmy‘s apartment.
“How about these two here? Do you know them?”
Chet Belleville leaned forward. He tapped on the photo.
“Yeah that’s the other two officers from Plank Road. that’s Bradley Odom and the other fellow is Chance Bonner, Jimmy was riding alone that night, the other two were in a car together.”
“This Jimmy Royals Chet, a straight shooter was he?”
His eyes widened a bit.
“Yeah.. Jimmy was a good cop, straight as an arrow, strictly by the book.”
“Yeah? And what about them two mutts that he was swingin gates with?”
Chet Belleville shook his head sadly.
“Bonner usually kept his yap shut most of the time, only said what he needed to.. But Odom, he could be nasty. Always took the lead, always looking for a angle on everything. Never trusted him.”
“Chet I need to speak to Jimmy, do you know where he is?’
He shook his head no.
“No he up and quit the force last month, told me that he was going into business for himself. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Chet I think that I may know what was in the trunks of those two cars, but I don’t have all of the pieces of the puzzle yet.” Clive told him.
“Yeah? What are you thinking Clive?”
“I think in one trunk there was a whole lot of money, and in the other, I think that there was a whole lot of heroin. I went to a dive up on Spring St that Jimmy would hole up in sometimes, I found syringes, Sterno, some rubber tie offs and traces of a white powder in the bottom of a bureau drawer, I think that Jimmy Royals and these two cops are into this mess up to their necks. And I think our two problems are related.”
They finished with their dinner all of the while each offered possible ideas as to what was involved with the whole caper. And what they were both left with at the end of the evening was a great deal of uncertainty as to what the whole picture was going to eventually turn out to be. Clive Carew would definitely be hitting up all of his street stoolies to try to piece the rest of the mystery together. When he and Chet Belleville parted ways he knew that he still had some time to kill before he had to go pick up Shelly Dolls at the Palace. He decided that he would drop in early to hear her sing, he turned the key in the ignition of the Champion and the engine roared to life, he pushed in the clutch and moved the stick shift into gear slowly. he pulled onto Baker street and turned towards Laurel Blvd. he became lost in thought as the flickering neon lights of one of Bay City’s major boulevards slowly rolled by him.
At one end of Laurel there was Vito Mancini’s Coconut Grove night club, and at the other end lie Frankie Finch’s Palace. The Palace by comparison was the larger of the two clubs and boasted two full size restaurants, a huge dance floor, an orchestra pit and stage where the featured performers would croon until the wee hours of the morning. The Palace was lavish and glamorous and was definitely the place that most people seemed to want to be. While the Coconut Grove was much smaller and more intimate. But certainly had its share of popularity. He pulled up to the Palace just past nine thirty pm and walked across the street and entered the main showroom just in time to hear Shelly Dolls sexy voice reverberating throughout the club.
He moved closer to the stage she was wearing a bright red satin dress that clung to her perfect form, her eyes were closed, and her fingers seemed to caress the microphone. The horn section softly moaned a cool sound behind her deep rich vocals, and he could almost feel it sweep across his body like a warm summer breeze. When he raised his head to take her image in, their eyes locked, and for a brief moment in time it felt like she was singing to him and only him. She was absolutely the most incredible woman that he had ever met. She finished her set and came down from the stage to a host of cheers, but Shelly ’Satin’ Dolls couldn’t hear a thing. She moved through the crowd like a stalking lioness stopping only after she reached the place where Clive Carew was seated. They sat close together exchanging small talk until she had to return to the stage for her final set.
She performed flawlessly. Eleven thirty rolled around and he retrieved her wrap for her and they left the Palace together, and drove back to Carew’s place. Once safely inside, They felt free to talk about the strange set of circumstances surrounding the disappearances of Annabelle Stanton, Jimmy Royals and Eddie Valentine, but the subject quickly changed when Clive emerged from the bathroom to find a very naked Shelly Dolls lying on his bed. His eyes traveled up and down her perfect body as he lye down next to her. She reached up and kissed him full on the lips. And his hand expertly moved between her silk thighs.
“So.. I guess I made a pretty good impression on you huh?” He smiled.
Shelly Satin Dolls let out a loud giggle as Clive Carew reached over her breasts and turned off the lamp on the nightstand. It was going to a long night. Very long and very enjoyable. The next morning he was already up shaving and had breakfast on the stove cooking when she first opened her eyes and began to look around. He leaned in and gave her a long good morning kiss, just before she rose from the bed and walked to the shower. He went into the kitchen to check on breakfast, the potatoes were cooked, the bacon was crispy and all that there was left to do was sacrifice four egg’s to the gods of breakfast. She emerged from the bathroom moments later wearing one of Clive Carew’s own shirts.
“Well, I’ll never wash THAT shirt again.” he thought to himself.
She walked over to the front door and bent down to pick up a piece of paper off of the floor.
“Clivey hun, I think someone dropped you a message.”
She walked into the kitchen and handed him the slip of paper. He opened it, it was from Sammy Smalls, a street hood that he used for buying information. It read; “ Pier 13, today at noon, drop off the dish at the club, I need to see you alone. Sammy.”
“So now I’m a dish?” she giggled.
They ate breakfast and exchanged small talk when the mechanic called and told him that the Hudson was ready, the engine was over heating because it needed a new water pump which he replaced. They both got dressed and he drove her back to her place to change clothes so they could go pick up her car.
They parted ways at Riley Hinkley’s service station agreeing to meet up again later in the afternoon before she had to sing again that night. He had to go to pier 13 Sammy Smalls wouldn’t contact him unless it was important. He returned to the Champion and headed for the harbor. He drove along Lakeside Drive and took the Harbor lane turn off and headed for Pier 13. He saw him standing there, not real tall, kinda thin, wiry build, short cropped red hair, thin gaunt facial features lots of freckles, yeah that’s him. Just as promised there was Sammy Smalls standing on the Pier waiting for him, he carefully looked around to make sure that he was alone. He looked nervous but he was indeed alone. They exchanged greetings as Sammy moved into the passenger seat beside of Clive Carew. He stared straight ahead.
“Tell me a story Sammy, what are we doing here?”
“You gotta Protect me Clive. If I tell you this you gotta protect me from them.”
“From who Sammy?” now Clive Carew turned in his seat to face Sammy Smalls fully.
“Those two cops. If they find out what I know, I’m a goner.”
“Calm down Sammy what do you know that would cause them to hurt you?”
“I know what happened out on Plank Road five months ago.”
He listened carefully being mindful not to make Sammy Smalls any more nervous than he already was. He leaned back in the seat and listened calmly to everything he had come here to say. There was a brief silence while he collected himself.
“Start at the beginning Sammy, It’ll be ok.”
“It all started with Vinnie Spicoli.”
“One of Vito Mancini’s boys?”
“Yeah, about eleven months ago, word got out that Vinnie decided that he wanted to run a little action on the side, ya know?. Make a little extra money. Vinnie decides that he wants to get in on the local drug trade so he starts bringing in heroin that he got through his connections in Chinatown, and he starts selling it in the club in small quantities, well its slow going at first, he’s gotta start out small so Vito don’t find out. But he gets greedy, about four or five months rolls by and Vinnie decides that it ain’t enough, so he tries to expand, and he sets up this deal with some of Frankie Finch’s boys, he hooked up with Bobby Wheeling to make the deal behind Frankie Finch’s back. he was gonna give Bobby a shipment of the stuff to sell out of the Palace for fifty grand, he set up the deal to go down out on Plank Road, Vinnies crew brought the drugs and Bobby Wheeling was supposed to bring the cash in the other car with his crew. Now me? I hear about this deal goin down from one of the guys at the Palace, So I figure I could use this, maybe sell this information Ya know? make a little money for myself too. and I remembered this copper that had been coming around shakin people down, so I tell him about Vinnies deal goin down out on Plank Rd."
Clive Carew had to calm him down on more than one occasion telling Sammy Smalls to take a deep breath.
"And so anyways - this copper and his two friends see? They go out to the spot next to the field and they lay low waiting for Vinnies boy’s and Bobby Wheeling and his crew to show up. Well I’m thinking that the cops are gonna shake em down or maybe take them in. ya know? Arrest them. the Plymouth shows up and then the Packard shows up. And them three coppers they don’t arrest nobody, they pull out these gats and open up on both cars. They kill everybody and then dump them gats in the lake and clean out both trunks, the fifty thou.. The dope.. Everything.. So a little while later more coppers show up, but by now the first three had made everything look legit. They’d stashed the money, the drugs, and cleaned up everything real tidy like. So they tow the cars back into town and everybody with them. Well about a week ago that same cop pinched the guy at the palace that gave me the information, he tells the cop that I’m opening my yap all over town about what really went down out on Plank road that night. So now this copper that did in Vinnies boys and Bobby Wheeling and his crew is after me now.”
Clive Carew sat back in his seat.
“Sammy how do you know all of this is true.”
“Because I was there camping out on the lake the night that it happened, I saw the whole thing go down just like I said. I know its true because I was there.”
“ So this cop. Does he have a name?”
“Officer Bradley Odom.”
~Scratch A.B.T. copyright © 2009~
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