The Tin Collectors Read online

  “He’s a crook…I know it. Some legacy, huh? No wonder I get into so much trouble.”

  “Hey, Chooch, criminal behavior isn’t genetic. You don’t pass it on, father to son, like blue eyes and freckles. You can make whatever you want of your life. It’s up to you. Your father’s mistakes are his. Everybody gets to make their own.”

  “That’s what you keep telling me,” the boy said. Then he gave Shane a rueful smile. “And you don’t ever lie, right?”

  “Right,” Shane said. Then without really knowing why, but realizing it was the right thing to do, Shane finally unburdened himself of something he had kept hidden for years. “You wanna know why I never mailed the letters?”

  Chooch nodded.

  “ ’Cause I don’t know where to send them.”

  “It says Florida.”

  “I don’t know where he is, or even who he is. I was left at a hospital. ‘Infant 205,’ in 1963. I got named by City Services. It’s silly. I write the letters when I need to get my thoughts down. And my father…” He stopped, unable to finish for a second. “My father is an idea I can talk to.”

  “Somebody you wish you had, who can be whatever you want him to be,” Chooch said, knowing exactly what Shane meant, feeling all the same things…the loneliness, the disenfranchisement, the emptiness coming from the same hole in their personal histories.

  “Yeah.” Shane’s voice was husky.

  “I wondered why you agreed to take me. That’s why.”

  “I don’t know why, Chooch. I don’t know what I was looking for.”

  The waitress came to the table and asked them if they wanted anything.

  “Yeah,” Chooch said. “But I don’t think you’ve got it in the kitchen.”

  Shane smiled. “Let’s get going. I’ve got an errand to run. You want, you can come with me.”

  He paid and they left the Little Bruin and headed to the brown Taurus parked at a curbside meter, dazed by what had just happened.

  “Thanks for telling me about your dad,” Chooch finally said.

  “I won’t tell about your dad if you won’t tell about mine,” Shane said.

  “Deal,” Chooch said, and smiled. They got in the car and left Westwood, both wondering what this strange new connection held for them.

  28

  Connecting the Dots

  The fifteen-story steel-and-glass building on Lincoln Boulevard was named the Two Thousand Building by a large monument sign that marked the entrance. Under that in gold letters:

  A SPIVACK DEVELOPMENT

  It was also on top of the building in five-foot-high lit letters, leaving no doubt about who owned the place.

  Shane and Chooch parked in the underground garage, got out, and moved to the elevator, taking it up to the management floor at the top of the building. They exited into a huge architectural lobby decorated in monochromatic colors, dominated by too many sharp edges and angular lines. Steel-and-glass furniture dotted the interior. Futuristic recessed lighting laid down a cold blue-white glow. A huge gold sign behind the receptionist again announced that this was:

  SPIVACK DEVELOPMENT

  CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS

  Shane left Chooch by the elevator and approached a striking, unfriendly white-blond receptionist who looked cold enough to have been delivered with the furniture. Shane opened his wallet and took out his police business card. Since he didn’t have his badge, the business card was the best he could manage. He was hoping it would get him past the blond goddess who was guarding the floor, stationed behind her huge, semicircular, two-inch-thick green glass desk, like a turret gunner.

  “What’s this regarding?” she asked, speaking coolly, not intimidated by his card or manner.

  “Police business,” he replied.

  “Mr. Spivack isn’t here. Perhaps someone else can help you?”

  “How about Calvin Sheets?” Shane said, wondering if Logan Hunter’s head of security was also working for Spivack.

  “He’s down at the city council meeting with Mr. Spivack. Sorry…”

  “The Long Beach City Council?”

  She ignored his question and smiled an icicle at him. “Would there be anybody else…?”

  “Coy Love.”

  “We don’t have a Coy Love.”

  “I’m not doing too well, am I?”

  “Sometimes if you make an appointment in advance, it works wonders.” Freon.

  “I may just have to get a search warrant and start emptying everyone’s desks…. Do a couple of body searches.”

  “Anything else?” She had grown tired of him.

  “Pamela Anderson Lee wouldn’t happen to be around, would she?”

  “Just left.” But at least this earned him a smile.

  He picked up his business card, tucked it into his wallet, then took a Spivack Company brochure off the glass desk and walked across the lobby, the ice-blonde watching him all the way. He retrieved Chooch, got into the elevator, and went down. He left the teenager in the lobby, then found the staircase to the basement. It took him five minutes to find the service utility room. Inside was a huge gray panel box with a dime-store lock that took Shane less than thirty seconds to pick. Now he was looking at a startling array of colorful wires. “Shit,” he said, then slowly went to work unraveling the building’s complicated alarm system.

  “I wonder where the city council meets. Probably city hall,” Shane said as they settled back into the Taurus. He picked up his almost fried cell phone, called Information in Long Beach, and got the address for city hall on Front Street just before the phone quit.

  They drove away from the Two Thousand Building and, with some help from a gas-station attendant, found Front Street. The huge domed city building loomed two blocks ahead….

  As they pulled up the street, they could see quite a demonstration in progress—thirty or forty pickets were congregating around in front of city hall. It was a strange mixture of people. Some were old men in American Legion uniforms, holding duplicate hand-lettered signs that read:

  VETERANS AGAINST LONG BEACH

  LAND-FOR-WATER DEAL

  Other pickets carried more traditional union placards:

  AFL-CIO OPPOSES NAVAL YARD WATER SWAP

  THEY GET THE DOUGH, WE GET THE HOSE

  Others protested with:

  GIVE US JOBS, NOT SOBS

  SPIVACK-EVACK—WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE

  WE SAVED THE WHALES—YOU SAVE OUR JOBS!

  Shane and Chooch had to park a block away in a city parking lot and, after locking up, moved across the shimmering, heated asphalt to where the demonstration was taking place.

  “What’s going on?” Shane asked a tough-looking woman with inch-long hair wearing a plaid shirt and carrying a sign that read:

  BEACHFRONT FOR H2O?

  OUR CITY COUNCIL SUCKS!

  “These idiots are trading the Long Beach Naval Yard to Los Angeles County for a bunch of fuckin’ water rights,” she growled.

  “Naval yard? I thought the navy shut it down years ago.”

  “Yeah, they did, and now we’re giving it to L.A.”

  “Isn’t it federal property?” Shane persisted.

  She shot him a withering look. “Where you been, buddy? This is all over the fuckin’ news.”

  “I don’t have a TV,” Shane answered.

  “It was leased land. Now Long Beach’s gonna trade it for some dumb water rights.”

  Shane moved past her and, along with Chooch, climbed up the steps and entered city hall.

  The Long Beach Municipal Building was a large brick structure that had been built in the forties. It had a high, two-story rotunda, now overflowing with TV news crews who had set up there for a press conference.

  “I’m gonna try and find this guy Spivack,” Shane said to Chooch. “Stick close, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  Shane moved past the news crews but got stopped at the door to the City Council Chamber by a uniformed Long Beach police officer.

  “Sorr
y, we’re maxed out. Fire regs,” the cop said.

  “LAPD, I’m working.” He handed the cop his business card.

  “Okay, Sarge, but it’s a madhouse in there.”

  “He’s with me,” Shane said, indicating Chooch; then they entered the meeting hall.

  The council room was a theater-sized, cavernous hall with a sloping floor and raised dais. The room was packed. They could hear a contentious argument being staged over microphones:

  “How the hell can you say that the property can’t be used by Long Beach?!” a woman yelled from the floor. “I worked at that yard, I was an employee of the Metal Trades Council for thirty years. I thought we were being reamed in ’94, when the government closed the only profitable shipyard in the navy. But that’s nothing compared to what’s going on here. You’re taking a huge city asset and trading it for chump change!”

  The crowd shouted its approval. The president of the city council banged his gavel for order, then replied, “To begin with, the yard was closed in ’94 because it was badly situated, too close to the big refitting yard in San Diego. What’s going on here now is good for the city of Long Beach. Mr. Spivack is going to clear all the old military buildings off the site, regrade the property, and develop it. Okay, it’s going to be ceded to the city of L.A., but I might remind you that the shipyard borders L.A. on the north and Long Beach on the south, so it’s contiguous with them as well as us.”

  “Who cares? I’m not talking about geography. I’m talking about jobs!” the woman fired back, to a chorus of cheers.

  The city council president was prepared. “Long Beach residents will get the jobs because the yard is much closer to our main workforce than to L.A.’s. There’ll be hotels, shopping malls, restaurants—all employment for Long Beach citizens. And we don’t have to float bond issues or construction loans to develop the site. We won’t have to pay for its construction; L.A. will. But we will get the major work benefits, plus much-needed water from L.A.”

  Shane was looking for Anthony Spivack somewhere down front, not paying much attention to the argument going on between the Long Beach City Council and its angry residents. He had the Spivack brochure open to a picture of the CEO. Spivack was a heavyset man with a thick head of close-cropped, curly gray hair. The woman at the mike raised her voice in response, cutting through the background noise with electronic shrillness. “And who, may I ask, gets the municipal tax revenue on all this commercial property, Mr. Cummins?”

  Shane spun around and looked up at the president of the Long Beach City Council. He was a slender, hollow-chested man with horn-rimmed glasses, identified by a plaque in front of him on the elevated dais:

  CARL CUMMINS

  PRESIDENT, LONG BEACH CITY COUNCIL

  “Son of a bitch,” Shane said.

  Chooch looked at him. “What is it?”

  Just then, some kind of disturbance seemed to be taking place in the back of the hall. A chant began: “AFL-CIO…Tony Spivack, you must go.”

  About thirty protesters had broken into the hall and were trying to march down the aisle, carrying placards. The agitated audience soon picked up the chant.

  Carl Cummins started banging his gavel, trying to regain order. “We can’t conduct this hearing under these conditions!” he said, screeching it into his mike, getting loud boos and electronic feedback. “The discussion period on City Resolution 397 is concluded. The board will retire to chambers to take its vote. We’re adjourned.” He angrily banged his gavel and rose.

  The chorus of boos grew louder. Suddenly people in the front rows stood up and started throwing fruit at the stage; pulling oranges and plums out of carry-bags, brought in anticipation of this demonstration.

  Carl Cummins and the nine other members of the city council bolted from their chairs as they were pelted with fruit, making a hurried exit from the stage.

  The pushing and shoving was getting increasingly intense in the auditorium, threatening to turn into a riot.

  “Let’s go!” Shane said, grabbing Chooch. “Stay close to me. Hold on to my belt.”

  He felt Chooch grab hold of his belt in the back, and then Shane pushed through the melee to the fire exit on the same side of the room that Carl Cummins and the city council were using as a retreat. By now most of the frightened council members had left the stage.

  Shane got to the fire exit, but it was guarded by another Long Beach cop. “Sorry. This is an alarmed fire door,” the policeman said.

  “Long Beach Fire Marshal,” Shane bullshitted. “I’m authorized to open it under Regulation 1623. Excuse me.”

  He handed the startled cop his official LAPD business card and jostled him, hoping he couldn’t read it in the commotion. In that moment of hesitation, Shane pushed down on the silver bar and opened the door. The alarm bell sounded. People were panicking as fruit continued to fly. Shane pushed past the Long Beach cop, dragging Chooch into the hot sunshine.

  Up ahead, he could see a black limousine waiting with several chase cars. Then Shane spotted Anthony Spivack beside the limo. With him were several of the men Shane had photographed in Arrowhead. He assumed one of them must be Calvin Sheets. The people with Spivack started piling into cars. Carl Cummins arrived with one of the other council members and jumped into Spivack’s limo. Like the last politicians leaving Saigon, they slammed car doors and squealed away from the angry mob pouring out of the doors behind them.

  “Stay with me!” Shane said, trying to get an idea which direction the fleeing cars were headed while simultaneously sprinting for the Taurus, parked almost a block away.

  He and Chooch finally reached the car. Both were out of breath as they jumped in. Shane put the car in gear and sped across the lot, cutting between parked cars. He bounced over the curb, shot out onto Front Street, and took off heading south, after the speeding limo and its four chase vehicles.

  “What’s going on?” Chooch asked.

  “Some of these guys were in the house up in Arrowhead,” he said, fearing he couldn’t catch up with them.

  Shane had lost sight of the cars but was now driving along a frontage road that bordered the Long Beach Airport. On a hunch, he turned into one of the executive terminals, past an open bararm at the end of a ramp, driving out onto the tarmac that bordered the runway. As he sped along past a row of FBOs (flight base operators) that lined the west side of the field, several ramp attendants and cargo loaders started screaming and waving their arms at the brown Taurus. Shane just ignored them, racing past parked Lears and Gulfstreams.

  He thought he saw the black limo in the distance parked near a large Sikorsky helicopter, idling with the rotor turning slowly.

  He drove around more executive jets—transportation necessities of the megarich.

  Finally he could see the helicopter more clearly. Spivack and Cummins were getting into the idling chopper with the rest of the men from the Arrowhead house. He was close enough to the helicopter to read SPIVACK DEVELOPMENT on the side door as the huge green-and-white nine-passenger Sikorsky lifted off.

  Shane got there half a minute too late. He watched in frustration as the chopper hovered for a minute a few feet above the tarmac, then the rotor changed pitch, and the helicopter streaked away, climbing to the north. Soon it was just a speck in the bright blue cloudless sky.

  29

  Tail Job

  At a few minutes before five in the afternoon, Shane was back inside the Appaloosa, watching a cockroach trying to hide under the molding that framed the tabletop, one feeler reaching out, tentatively tapping the Formica. He was in the same cracked vinyl booth in the back, nursing a Coke grudgingly supplied by the same greasy-coated Mexican waiter. “Das all chu gonna haf?” the man said.

  “Yep,” Shane said. “Working.” The waiter left. Shane kept a wary eye on the barricaded cockroach and while “Malaguena” played through ruptured speakers, he was thinking about Chooch, whom he had left ten minutes earlier at the Spring Summer Apartments with the TV blaring. Shane had convinced Longboard to stop
by the Venice house, get Chooch’s book bag with his homework assignments, take it to the apartment on Third, and stay with the boy until Shane got back. In return for this service, Shane had given up his Lakers-Trailblazers tickets for the weekend. He made a mental note to call by six to make sure Longboard had gotten there okay.

  Surprisingly, with trouble and chaos swirling around his own life, Shane found himself worrying about Chooch’s back homework assignments as well as his emotional well-being. Something about this newly found concern for someone else’s future seemed to settle his own emotions in a way he couldn’t understand. Underneath the boy’s grumbling and bitching about the extra supervision, Shane suspected that he appreciated the concern. Earlier in the hectic day, when Shane had turned around unexpectedly and caught Chooch staring at him, the expression on his face was one of wonder. It said more than any words could convey.

  Perhaps Shane could work out something more permanent with Sandy. She had her hands full right now with the DEA, but after that, she’d change teams and be on to some other predicate felon. He, on the other hand, was in the checkout line. If he didn’t end up in prison or the grave, he was certainly through being a cop. Once he was off the force, he could devote more time to Chooch, stop farming him out to Longboard. Chooch didn’t know who his father was, and although Shane couldn’t fill that role, he sure as hell could be a big brother. Then he looked up, and she was coming through the door.

  Alexa stood backlit in the late-afternoon sunshine, holding her briefcase under her arm, the shoulder strap tucked inside. She let her eyes adjust to the cavelike darkness of the windowless bar-restaurant. Finally she spotted him and moved across the room, her hips swaying seductively with the motion.

  She slid in and smiled wanly at him. “Our spot,” she said dryly.