Hollywood Tough

Chapter 23

As he followed the Rolls across town, Shane tried to call the chief and Alexa on his cell, but he must have had a weak battery or something because he couldn't get a signal. They finally arrived at Valentine's rented estate on Mandeville Canyon Road, where he was greeted by state-of-the-art security: panning cameras, punch pads, motion detectors, and a sign on a not-too-friendly wrought-iron gate that announced: VICIOUS ATTACK DOGS. Shane followed Valentine's Rolls as they headed up the long designer-brick drive. Vast lawns with lit fountains decorated the landscape while they pulled up to a huge Greco-Roman house. Stone and granite pillars held up a monstrous roof with porch dormers. Motion detectors clicked on security lights, illuminating large sections of the property as they drove past.

Shane followed the Rolls around to the back, where Valentine parked and got out. No bloodthirsty dogs. Shane guessed either the sign was a fake or Dennis had phoned ahead to have them locked up. Valentine looked down at Parelli in the backseat, then waved at Shane to come over.

Shane got out of the Acura and started toward the Rolls, but Valentine was now moving away, motioning for him to follow as he headed toward the backyard. Shane didn't know why the handsome mobster was leaving Parelli, unless the bodyguard had bled out during the ride across town and was already dead. Shane veered and followed Valentine through a side gate, past an Olympic-size pool with swim lanes set in blue tile strips along the bottom.

As they walked across the deck, more lights clicked on, illuminating their way. Valentine stopped beside a lounge chair, then motioned to it.

"Wanna get Gino out of the car. We can put him on this," Valentine said, so they picked it up and carried it back to the Rolls.

"How is he?"

"Not good. The bleeding is slowing some, but I think he's going into shock. He'd be dead if those barrio rats didn't all hold their Tec-Nines sideways like a buncha rock-video gangsters. Looks cool, but nobody can hit shit that way. Musta been a lucky shot."

When they got back to the Rolls, Parelli was trying to sit up.

"Hey, Gino, lay back. We'll do it," Valentine said, while putting on a pair of leather driving gloves to protect his skin. With a little struggling and careful tugging, they finally pulled Gino out and laid him on the lawn chair. He looked pale. A cold sweat glistened on his sallow, pasty face. With Dennis carrying the front and Shane the back, they hoisted the two-hundred-fifty-pound enforcer and lugged him back through the pool gate.

They set Gino down near the lighted Jacuzzi. Dennis told Shane to wait, then went inside the house. A minute later, he reappeared with an armload of beach towels and put one of them on Gino's bullet-shredded shoulder.

"Fucking frijolito dickheads," Gino grunted as he held it tightly on his wound.

"Don't talk. I called the doc from the car," Valentine ordered as he rolled up two more towels and placed them under Gino's feet, elevating them to help ward off shock. Suddenly he headed to the pool house.

"You got a doctor coming?" Shane asked, trailing after him, but by now Valentine was already inside, so Shane stood by, waiting. A minute later, he reappeared with a blood pressure cuff.

"Use this to check my pressure every day. Do it thirty minutes to the second after I swim my laps. I stay at exactly one twenty over eighty. Textbook numbers." He went back to Gino, who now looked unconscious. Dennis wrapped the gunsel's arm with the cuff, then pumped on the rubber ball.

"The fuck you doin'?" Gino opened his eyes and whined.

"Checking your pressure. Shut the fuck up and stay quiet. Now I gotta do it over." He pumped it again till he got a reading. "Eighty over sixty. Not so good. Too low. You're going into shock."

"Them fuckin' greasers," Gino growled. "Somebody in our crew musta ratted us out. How'd they know we was at Ciro' s?"

"I think it was my fault. I wasn't paying much attention when I left the house. They musta tailed me," Valentine said, picking up the pool phone and hitting a buzzer.

"Lynette, you lookin' for Doctor Seligman's car?" he said, then paused. "Okay, okay, open the gate the second you see him." He hung up. Gino's teeth were starting to chatter.

"Wouldn't it be warmer in the house?" Shane suggested.

"I'll get him a blanket. Last thing I need is this guy bleedin' all over my wife's ivory carpets. I fuck up her new decorating, Lynette'll start bitching like a French whore." Valentine went into the main house and reappeared seconds later with two blankets. He draped them over Gino.

Then they heard a car pull up around the side and Valentine moved quickly to the pool gate and let in a small, balding man, carrying a doctor's bag. He rushed over to Gino and kneeled down.

Only then did Valentine turn away and walk Shane over to the outdoor pool bar. He opened the cabinet, reached for an ice bucket, filled it from the ice-maker, then grabbed a chilled bottle of Taittinger from the refrigerator. He worked off the wire that held the cork, accidentally fired it into the night, then poured himself a foaming glass, dropping the open bottle into the ice bucket. "You want a glass? Help yourself."

"You got any scotch?" Shane asked.

"Scotch? You know what you're doin' when ya drink that shit? Aside from what it does to your liver and kidneys, it's like you're eating whole wheat. It's all barley grain and rye-carbohydrates. An hour after it hits your system it turns into pure sugar. Scotch is eighty, ninety proof alcohol. Alcohol makes you retain water. You're gonna bloat."

"Gimme a fucking scotch, will ya?" Shane growled, his nerves still jangled from the gunfight.

Valentine shrugged, began hunting through his liquor supply under the bar, then finally came out with some Ballantine' s. He uncapped it, smelled it, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and finally poured it into a club glass, neat. After he handed it to Shane, they clinked rims and drank.

Shane followed Valentine over to the glass-topped table near the pool house.

"Your doctor friend is going to have to report that gunshot wound," Shane said. "It's a state law."

"He's not a people doctor; he's an animal doctor, a vet. So he can report it to the SPCA."

"If Gino needs a transfusion, whatta you gonna do, give him a pint of Doberman blood?"

"Look, Scully, get outta my business, will ya? This doc used t' be a people doc, but he got busted for using drugs so now he delivers puppies and cuts off cat balls. NYU School of Medicine, so he oughta be able to handle this. If Gino don't make it, then them's the breaks, but I'm not gonna check him in at County General and have a buncha cops over there asking me why the front of Ciro's Pornpadoro ate ten pounds of lead tonight."

"Why did it?"

"Business problems."

And the way Valentine set his jaw, it was pretty obvious that was all he had to say on the subject.

"Anyway, thanks. You hadn't given me that half-second warning, I'd be decorating the inside of a coroner's wagon."

Shane nodded and sipped his scotch. It occurred to him that if he'd just kept quiet, that would have been it… No more Dennis Valentine. He could forget all this movie B. S., but he had acted out of instinct. Besides, he was a cop. His job was to protect and serve. Even assholes like Champagne Dennis Valentine got full service.

"Now I owe you my life," Dennis was saying. "Since I can't very well turn you into fertilizer anymore, I gotta find some way to come to terms with you."

"I don't want to come to terms," Shane said. "What you're selling makes no sense to me."

Dennis sat down on one of the pool chairs, leaned back, and regarded Shane carefully. The trickle of blood from the cut on his forehead had dried. "You know what my uncle always says?"

Shane shrugged.

"He says that to know how things can be, you gotta know how they were. 'Nother words, study history and it will predict the future."

"Your uncle," Shane deadpanned. The Jersey Godfather. Valentine pointed to the chair opposite him. Shane pulled it out, turned it around, and straddled it.

"So for that reason, I like reading history," the mobster continued. "You ever heard of the Browne-Bioff labor union scandal?"

"No," Shane said.

"Well, it happened right here, in 1933 and '34. It was a successful corruption of the below-the-line IATSE unions-the I. A."

"Nineteen thirty-three? Guys in snap brims and spats? Can't you find something a little more recent?"

Dennis smiled and sipped his Taittinger. Shane noticed that there was quite a lot of Gino's blood on Valentine's tan pants.

"Back then, George Browne was just some low-level union business agent for one of the showbiz locals. I forgot which one. But with Al Capone and Frank Nitti's financial and physical help, Browne ran for the presidency of IATSE. A guy named William Bioff represented Capone and Nitti's criminal interests out here, channeling money into the right pockets and laying big hurt on anybody who talked against Browne. In 'thirty-four, they finally got Browne elected president. That meant Capone and Nitti controlled IATSE. With Capone's blessings, George Browne starts cutting new deals with producers on an ad hoc basis. If a producer was willing to send a little vig to this thing of ours back East, then he got a sweetheart deal, got to make his movie on the cheap. The scam lasted almost five years till 1940, when the Shaw brothers got thrown out of power here in L. A. and a buncha reforming assholes took over. Then the cops and the D. A. finally shut it down. So what does this tell us?"

Shane shrugged again and sipped his Ballantine's.

"It tells us that history can point us to the future. It also gives us an operational blueprint. If it could be done once, it can be done again. I bought the right people inside IATSE, and the ones who didn't want to play took unscheduled vacations they ain't comin' back from. The election for the IATSE presidency was last month. I don't have to tell you our candidate won. So now I can get you a cut rate on your movie because I'm in a position to make special deals."

Shane wasn't wearing a wire, so this heartfelt confession was lost in the wind.

"Hypothetically, even if I were to believe you, I still wouldn't want to give up a percentage greater than its dollar-for-dollar value," Shane said.

"Well, maybe to get this all started, I cut you a deal on this first film because you saved my life tonight and because I'm such a Michael Fallon fan. But you gotta look at this as more than just one movie. It's a business proposition, and if you help me with one last piece of the puzzle, I'll let you be part of it."

"What piece is that?" Shane asked.

"Once I start cutting special deals, the union hotheads are gonna start bitching. They'll go to the D. A., the D. A. goes to the cops, the cops start an investigation. That means the IATSE hard-liners will probably get a forensic audit from the city or state accounting office. Then I got a lot of troublesome legal and IRS tax bullshit. Maybe somebody I already bought down there gets jittery and decides to sell me out. Once that happens, I got the D. A. up my ass. See what I'm saying?"

"I see."

"I been lookin' for the right 'rabbi' to help me downtown." Valentine took a sip of his champagne and smiled at Shane.

"By downtown, are we talking about the police department?"

"Let's say we are. I'm thinkin' maybe you might lead me to my inside man… or woman."

"A cop who'll take a bribe."

"Only it needs to be someone up high enough to cut off an investigation once it starts to get troublesome."

Shane sat there and pondered it. Of course they were both thinking of Alexa, but neither said her name.

"Would have to be somebody in administration," Shane said, then took another sip of scotch. When he looked up, Valentine was staring at him.

"Let's cut the shit," the mobster said. "You willing to ask her?"

"Look, she's upset with the department right now because of what happened to me, and because of the political backlash she's getting on this gang war. I won't deny she's pissed, but taking a bribe… I don't know."

"You said you wanted to change careers? This could put you on top in showbiz," Valentine said. "I'm not just talking about your Mike Fallon movie. You get your wife to cooperate, I'm talkin' about a piece of my piece of the whole scam. A small but significant piece. And your wife gets paid for her risk. Let's say we start with a hundred thousand in good-faith money just for her to say we all want to work something out. If nobody at the union squawks, and there's no investigation, she doesn't have to do anything and she still keeps the money. If there's a problem, and she has to go into action and fix something, I can pay by the job or the year. If she shuts down the right investigation, maybe there's half a mil in it for her." He sat there staring at his glass of Taittinger, then looked up suddenly. "But there's one big catch."

Shane waited.

"If you go to her and ask her, and then she gets froggy and takes what I'm telling you to the OCB, or the D. A… then I'll pull out of L. A. and go back to Trenton, but I'll be pissed, 'cause a lotta time and money got wasted. This happens, you, your wife and kid-the whole Scully family-go for a deep-sea stroll on the bottom of the ocean. If you talk to your wife, you gotta control the outcome."

After delivering this bone-chilling statement, Valentine just lounged there, looking at Shane, sipping his Taittinger vitamin cocktail.

"I can control Alexa. Lemme give it a shot."

"Good."

Now the doctor was heading across the deck toward them. "The bullet went through. I've stitched him up and given him antibiotics, but I want to take him to my hospital. I can't get human plasma, of course, but I can give him intravenous saline for fluid loss. With bed rest and no complications, he should make it."

Shane and Dennis carefully carried Gino back to the doctor's car, then sat him up on the passenger side with the seat reclined. They watched as Doctor Seligman backed down the long drive on his way to an animal hospital with Valentine's pet gorilla.