Three Shirt Deal

Chapter 22.

IT WAS ELEVEN-THIRTY WHEN I PULLED OUT OF THE UNDERground garage next to Secada's loft apartment. Technically I knew she was correct about my protections under Rule Six of the Police Bill of Rights. Anybody in the department below the rank of captain could be compelled to serve as my defense rep unless unusual circumstances were present. I knew that Alexa could invoke the Unusual Circumstances clause because, as a division commander, she had greater responsibilities. On the other hand, maybe she would hang in there with me. I wondered if it would be possible, or even fair of me to ask her to take on my Board of Rights with everything else she was facing. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the idea of Alexa defending me had a lot going for it. Getting it to happen was going to be another thing altogether. Tomorrow my gun and badge would probably go into a holding locker, and as far as the job was concerned, I would be up on blocks. If I wanted to have any further effect on Tru's predicament, I had to get busy and bust a pretty good move in a hurry. I got on the freeway and twenty minutes later was back on Penrose Street parked across from Cartco. The up-lights illuminated the building's poured concrete facade and the large, ornate company sign. Here goes nothings I thought, and drove the MDX into the parking lot and up to the guard gate. There had been no guard on duty in the afternoon, but the night shift was protected by a rickety old, white-haired guy with a sagging gun belt and a light blue uniform. I showed him my badge. I even let him hold it for a second. Tomorrow, it wouldn't be mine anyway. "LAPD Homicide," I announced. "What's this about?" "Murder," I said, theatrically. "I need to talk to the head of security." The old man picked up the phone and called a number. "Kit? It's Leo at the front gate. LAPD Homicide dick is out here askin' for you." He listened for a moment, then hung up. "Park over there." He pointed at a guest spot. I parked the Acura as instructed. All of the spaces in front of the Administration Building were empty. After a minute, I heard the electric hum of a golf cart and looked over as a four-seater with a fringed roof and security seal on the hood rounded the corner and came to a stop next to the driver's side of my car. Behind the wheel was a middle-aged man with a buzz cut wearing a lightweight suit. His sloping, weightlifter's shoulders and muscular neck told me that he took his job seriously. "Hi. Help you?" I showed him my badge and he looked it over carefully before handing it back. "Okay, Detective Scully. I'm Doug Carson. Ex-L. A. Sheriff. Back when I was on the job everybody called me Kit. I run night security. So what's up? Who died?" I didn't know if I should lay all this out. Especially to somebody who wanted to be called Kit Carson. But I was out of time. "Alright, Kit. I'm working on a murder out of Homicide Special. On the surface it looks like a nothing killing over a six-pack of beer, but the deeper I dig, the more I think the real motive was the theft of one of your high-dollar contest packages." "A rare." "Exactly. I was here this afternoon and talked to Roger Dahl." I saw him relax a little at the mention of a familiar name. "So what do you need?" "I need to know how it works. The contests, who knows about them. All about the security. Anything you know about those promotions would help." "Guess there's no harm in telling that. It's all been written up in the press." "Good. I wouldn't ask you late at night like this, but I have a major case review in the morning. My supervisor's a real asshole about having every single detail down in the murder book." "Man, do I know that type. I had a Loo on my old bank squad who would take your head off if you didn't have every damn case fact on your daily I-report." "Then you know my problem." "Okay. We print the rares over in E-Building." He pointed at the big warehouse structure with the loading dock and all the topflight security I'd witnessed earlier. "Mr. Dahl showed me that security system this afternoon," I said to further loosen him up. "Pretty impressive." "Right. Security to get in there is bulletproof. Can't get inside unless you're on the approved list." "Okay, what else?" "Each prize package is hand-delivered to randomly selected distribution points. A distribution point is like a market or a store where the rare is put on a shelf by a bonded member of Promo Safe." "Who?" "Promo Safe. They're an independent company we hire that guarantees the integrity of the contest. Cartco employs them to watch the rares." I grabbed my notebook and started to write. I would have used a tape recorder, but this was off the record, and it always spooks people when you shove a mic under their nose, so I stuck with the spiral pad. "Promo Safe. Okay, what do you need them for?" I asked as I wrote. "Why not just watch the rares yourself?" "On these big national promotions the company putting up the prize always does a lot of advance advertising on radio and TV to alert the public they're giving away millions in prize money, or whatever. The idea is to get everybody to think they're gonna win so they'll buy more product. In your case, beer." "Makes sense." "But lots of times, the rares will get bought by somebody who has no idea the beer company, or whatever, is having a contest. They bought the prize package, but because they didn't know, they just throw the package away when they're done with it and they don't claim the prize. If nobody wins, then inevitably there's people out there who'll say, 'You guys never had any prize packages in the marketplace to begin with. The whole contest was just a lot of promotional B. S.' " "I see. So the Promo Safe guys protect you against that kind of claim." "Exactly. They hand-carry the prize packages to the stores, then stand in the aisle and watch for as long as it takes until the rare is purchased. They follow the buyer home and log the address. Then they fill out an affidavit. That way, if the purchaser of the prize package doesn't know to scrape off the number and there's a complaint that no prize was won, there is somebody from Promo Safe, a totally independent company, to certify that he witnessed the purchase of the prize-winning package, who purchased it, and where he or she lives. That way everybody knows the contest was on the up-and-up. Promo Safe employs security agents who are ex-FBI or Treasury guys. They're all bonded." "There's no way somebody else could turn in that prize package?" "No, sir," Kit said. "In most of these contests, the rules mandate that the actual buyer has to claim the prize. The rare can't be passed to someone else. If we don't get the signed affidavit back here from Promo Safe attesting to those facts, then the rare is judged invalid, or if a prize claim comes in that doesn't match with the name and address of the person who the affidavit says actually bought the package, it's also invalid." "I see." I didn't like where this was going at all. It bitched up my beautiful theory. If Tru Hickman bought the six-pack, and he already told me he did, and if Wade knew an agent from Promo Safe would be in the store to watch him do it, then what good was Hickman to Wade Wyatt and Mike Church? Tru would have to be the one to collect the money. Tru never said anything about a rare, so my guess was they hadn't told him, which meant he wasn't in on the scam. But how did that work? According to Kit, if he didn't turn in the rare himself, the prize would be disqualified. Something was definitely out of whack. I stood next to the security golf cart and thought for a minute. "Listen, Kit. I assume you have computer clearance. Do you think you could take a peek at that recent Bud Light contest from last August and tell me who won?" "Man, you should really talk to Mr. Dahl about that in the morning." "Except in the morning, after my supervisor is through with me, my badge is gonna be pinned to the inside of my colon." "Yeah, I remember how that went." He looked at me for another half a minute, still trying to decide if he was going to take a chance. Then he glanced at his watch. I could read his frown. Too late to call Mr. Dahl and ask. "Come on. Favor for a Brother Officer," I pleaded. Still nothing. "Can't you just go into the office, pull up the computer file, and sneak a peak?" "Jeez. Go through files in the office?" "This isn't exactly confidential material, is it? The winner was undoubtedly announced in the paper. Just look it up for me. I'd get Mr. Dahl to do it in the morning, except my review is at eight o'clock." He heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. I thought I'd lost him, but then unexpectedly, he said, "Okay. Get in the cart. But you better not you give me up on this." "I'm cool," I assured him as I got in. We zoomed off in the direction of something called the Administration Annex. He pulled up, then used his keys and let us both inside. The annex was next to the business center and was a less impressive, neon-lit, two-story shoe-box-shaped building, laid out in long corridors with doors on both sides. He walked down a carpeted first-floor hallway to an office door marked promotions, took out his key, and opened it. "Come on in. Close the door." "Thanks. This is really a huge help," I told him. I took a seat across the room while he sat behind the desk and booted up the computer, then typed in his password. "What was the contest again? What beer company?" "Bud Light." He searched for a minute, and then said, "Okay, here it is. We did that one nine months ago. Ten rares were in the market, all worth different amounts. Five came up as winners." He started scrolling down the page on the screen. "One in Newark. Third-tier winner. Guy won a Hummer. One in Tulsa, second tier, half a mil in prize money. One in Odessa, Texas, a grand-slam million-dollar winner; Ashland, Oregon, a Hummer; and the one here in Los Angeles." "In the Valley? Little mini-mart in a strip mall on Sepulveda Boulevard, right?" "Yep. That's the one. Guy won a million in cash." "And the six-pack was bought by Truit Hickman, right?" I was getting a little ahead of myself. Kit Carson shook his head. "Nope," he said, then leaned in and squinted at the screen. "The winner lives in Valley Village. Somebody named Tito Alonzo Morales."