They pulled up in front of the Harbor View hotel just before five pm. And Clive Carew along with Sammy Smalls walked by the desk clerk without so much as a second glance. Same guy as before too. They went up to the fifth floor and proceeded to room eighty five. They turned down the long corridor and almost at the end Clive Carew heard sounds of a struggle, he quickened his pace and told Sammy Smalls to hang back. When he reached room eighty three he kicked the door open and there on the bed he saw a man smothering someone with a pillow, he ran for the bed and tackled him knocking him to the floor, when they landed he saw that it was Chance Bonner. Sammy came into the room and snatched the pillow up and there on the bed dead was Vinnie Spicoli. Clive was leaning into Chance Bonner who was yelling at the top of his lungs “I’m A Cop! I’m a Cop!” Clive Carew popped him with one last uppercut that landed him back first on the floor. He stood over him both fists were clenched loaded for bear.
“Yeah Bonner.. I know you’re a cop. A filthy dirty Cop. And a murderer to boot.”
“You back up Carew! You’re in big trouble.” Bonner wailed.”
He picked him up off of the floor and landed a hard right into his gut, so hard his bladder let go and he peed himself.
“No Bonner.. You’re the one that’s in trouble.” he turned to Sammy Smalls.
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Sammy along with a dime.
“That’s the number of the eighth precinct, you take that dime to the payphone downstairs and dial it up and ask for Captain Chet Belleville, if he answers, you tell him where we are and what room we’re in, tell him to get down here alone. If he don’t answer, hang up the phone and you high tail it back up here. You got that Sammy?”
Sammy Smalls left the room and closed the door behind him leaving Chance Bonner alone with his biggest nightmare. Bonner was quivering in the corner when Clive Carew knelt down in front of him.
“You see Bonner, I know you think that I’m the one who’s screwed here, but see.. Chet Belleville and me, we’ve been working together on this little caper of yours and Odom’s. And this morning out at the lake? I did a little diving and I found Jimmy Royals and Eddie Valentine’s bodies. Right along with them choppers that you tossed right after you and Odom killed Bobby Wheeling and them boys out on Plank Rd.”
He drew closer to Bonners face.
“You’re gonna get the chair Bonner.. Eight counts of first degree murder? Nine counting Spicoli here. Hell yeah.. You’re gonna fry. Captain Belleville’s coming down here to arrest you and then you’re gonna fry!”
A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and then a slight pause and then Chet Belleville stepped through the door with Sammy Smalls. He closed the door behind him and shot a quick glance over at the bed. He looked back at Sammy Smalls and nodded towards the bed.
“Who’s the stiff?” He asked.
“Vinnie Spicoli, officer Bonner there suffocated him with that pillow as we came walking in.” Sammy Said.
“Captain no!” Bonner Squealed. “It wasn’t like that he was already dead when I got here and this mug here attacked me while I was trying to save him!”
Chet Belleville pulled up a chair six feet from Bonner and Clive Carew. He looked back at Sammy Smalls and then the other two.
“Lock the door there Sammy will you please?”
Sammy smiled and locked the door. Chet Belleville sat down in the chair and folded his hands in front of him all of the while staring down coldly at Chance Bonner.
“Well, officer Bonner. Seems we have ourselves a predicament here. You see my good friend Clive here and I came across a very curious sight this morning. We found the bodies of our fellow officer Jimmy Royals and that crooner Eddie Valentine swimming at the bottom of the lake with cement loafers on, along with the three choppers that were used in the six murders out on Plank Rd. We’d really like you to tell us how they got there, because we think you really know.” Chet Belleville told him.
Bonner was now almost to the point of panic.
“Cappy! I swear I didn’t have nothing to do with that!” He whimpered.
Chet Belleville looked up at Clive Carew who was still hovering over Bonner like a hungry lion waiting to pounce.
“Well now that’s unfortunate for you m’boy. You see two hours ago we arrested Bradley Odom on corruption charges. Now we got him in a cell tonight. And he’s thinking about it. And in the morning we’re going to take him in a room and we’re going to interrogate him. And he’s going to tell us the truth even if we have to beat it out of him. So now I ask you Chance Bonner, is he going to tell us that you weren’t mixed up in this? Or is he going to say that this was all you’re doing and he was just there doing whatever you told him to?”
His eyes nervously darted back and forth between Clive Carew and Chet Belleville slowly he raised his hands, noticeably shaken he was considering his options.
“No Captain! It wasn’t like that at all, if Odom tells you that he’s a dirty rat liar I tell ya!”
Clive Carew knelt down in front of him.
“Then why don’t you tell us what really happened Chance. If you don’t we gotta take Odom’s word for it. Just start at the beginning and give it to us strait or we go with Odom’s story.”
Annabelle got caught up in the nightlife too and soon her and Jimmy Royals became lovers. All of which was discovered by Bradley Odom and Chance Bonner after the fact. The booze as it turned out, wasn’t strong enough to kill Jimmy’s demons and the guilt from his part in the Plank Rd incident was eating him alive so he turned to using heroin to kill the nightmares. Annabelle Stanton vowed to help him get off of it. One night after he got juiced up, Jimmy went to Annabelle and told her that he couldn’t take it anymore and he told her the whole story about the Plank Rd incident. Unknown to either of them Eddie Valentine was nearby and overheard Jimmy spilling his guts to Annabelle and Eddie decided that he wanted a piece of Bonner and Odom’s action and he tracked them down and tried to blackmail them. Thinking that he had them over a barrel he told them everything that he heard Jimmy telling Annabelle, and now Eddie Valentine wanted ten thousand dollars or he would tell the police everything.
Odom and Bonner tried to kill Eddie but he escaped and made a beeline right back to Jimmy to warn him, Odom and Bonner followed him to Jimmy’s snow bin and ended up killing both of them. From there they took Eddie and Jimmy’s bodies back to Bradley Odom’s cellar where they encased both of their feet in cement and left them set up over night. The next morning they rented a row boat to take them out into the middle of the lake, but the row boat flipped on them before they got far enough out from the shore so they had to leave it and both bodies where they laid in twenty feet of water and hope that they would never be discovered. In the meantime they had spent the rest of the following two weeks looking for their last loose end to get rid of, namely Annabelle Stanton. Meanwhile Vinnie Spicoli finally agreed to buy back what was left of the dope, only when Bonner came calling to set up the deal Vinnie decided to back out again and he and Chance Bonner got into a fight where Bonner knocked him unconscious and in a fit of rage finally suffocated him.
Clive Carew had begun to pace back and forth playing out the entire caper as Bonner recalled it to he and Chet Belleville. Jimmy and Annabelle, Eddie Valentine, the Guns The Money and the dope. And everything else. So far everything was adding up with one exception. Annabelle Stanton was still missing. And Bonner wasn’t moving from his story that he and Odom couldn’t find her. So where was she? Was she alive? Was she dead? And what could she possibly tell them to seal the fate of Bonner and Odom. He turned and sat back down directly in front of Chance Bonner.
“So what you’re saying is that you and that mongrel Odom never found that Stanton dame? Two hardboiled coppers such as yourselves couldn’t catch up to one dame? is that right?” Clive asked.
“We searched high and low for that dish, and its like she disappeared right into the scenery, thin air or something. Looked high and low, everywhere. It’s just like Odom said. Them movie people they trained her real good with that smoke and mirrors stuff.. And yeah.. She’s really good. We couldn't find her. In our own city.” Bonner answered.
Clive Carew raised an eyebrow.
“What do you mean.. smoke and mirrors stuff?” he asked.
“Well you know, they can make a person think that something is one thing when its really something else.. Like in the movies.” Bonner replied.
Captain Chet Belleville stood up Chance Bonner and instructed him to place both hands behind his Back. Clive Carew watched intently.
“C’mon, its over Chance. Time to put on the bracelets and go face the music.” Belleville Said.
“So where is the dope and what’s left of the money now?”
He hung his head knowing that it was really over.
“They’re still in Bradley Odom’s cellar.”
Clive Carew walked him down to the car along with Belleville and Sammy, once there they called the coroner’s office to come and get Vinnie Spicoli’s body. Clive Carew leaned up against the building with Belleville as they took Bonner away.
“So when do you plan on really arresting Odom Chet?” He asked.
We’re stopping by his house on the way to the station. And we may as well snag the money and the dope while we’re there. Don’t ya think?”
Clive Carew chuckled.
“That was a great bluff.. Now I know how you made it to Captain.”
They loaded Vinnie Spicoli’s body into the ambulance and Clive Carew watched them slowly disappear into the night time traffic. He still had one problem. Where was Annabelle Stanton?
~Scratch A.B.T. copyright © 2009 ~
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