Three shirt deal

Chapter 19

Tito Morales and Wade Wyatt both came out of the headquarters together about fifteen minutes later. I shot some more film as they talked. After a minute in the parking lot, Tito got into his Mazda, Wade into the McLaren, and they took off in separate directions. I stuck with Wade Wyatt and the half-million-dollar McLaren because Morales was probably just heading back to the courthouse.

The Mercedes left Van Nuys and took the 101 Freeway heading east. As I drove through a warm summer afternoon, I was glad that the Alaskan cold front had finally passed through. Angelenos are spoiled by our weather, and this magnificent day was one of the reasons. The usually brown San Gabriel Mountains were cloaked with emerald green from recent rains. They framed the north side of the Basin, rising majestically into a cloudless, smog-free sky. Tonight, people all over the Valley would be snatching the canvas covers off their barbeques. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be one of them.

Wade transitioned onto the 5 Freeway and once he neared Sun-land, he shot down the off-ramp north of the Glendale-Burbank Airport. We were driving through a manufacturing district. In the forties, this was all World War II factory space where B-25's and other aeronautic weaponry had been designed and built under these same bow-truss roofs, then trucked a few miles to Burbank Field to be test-flown before being shipped overseas. Many of the same old structures remained, but most had been refaced and today looked almost new. The area was now zoned for light manufacturing, but the shoulder-to-shoulder placement of the buildings remained. They were lined up along Bradley Avenue like soldiers at parade rest.

Wade seemed to know where he was going and took all the corners way too fast, turning off Bradley onto Penrose Street. Then he slowed down before flipping the silver McLaren carelessly into a large, gated factory parking lot that fronted a line of new concrete, tilt-up buildings identified by a sign that said:

CARTCO

SERVING AMERICA'S CONTAINER NEEDS

WORLDWIDE

Wade Wyatt had his own parking place in the executive section. He lifted the McLaren's exotic gull-wing door and stepped out. The front gate remained open during business hours, the guard shack, empty. As a result, I pulled in unmolested and parked. The rear end of my Acura still looked like I'd just lost an elimination event at a destruction derby.

I watched as Wade, in his rock star leather pants and sports coat, entered a two-story structure marked business center-administration building.

This case was touching one of L. A.'s major power brokers, so caution now dominated my impulsive brain chemistry.

Wade had told me that his uncle owned this place. I certainly didn't want to add Aubry Wyatt's brother to my crowded I. A. case, but I was running out of time. If I wanted answers, I was going to need to take a few chances.

I looked at the huge container factory, which had to be at least ten acres under roof. I wasn't sure what I was after. Maybe this would turn out to be an elaborate dead end, but I learned long ago that when working a case, you should never force a result. The best things happen when you just follow your leads. I searched my memory for an old case that I could plausibly sling at these people to gain access without tipping them to my real motives.

Then I remembered the Four-thirty Bandits from five years ago. Three idiots were robbing mini-markets in one section of town at a few minutes after four-thirty every afternoon. I finally guessed that the reason for the four-thirty timeframe might be because they all got off work at four-thirty and went directly to the closest liquor store and stuck it up. It turned out I was right. By showing police artist sketches compiled from descriptions by the mini-market managers, to people who worked at companies in the vicinity of the robberies, I quickly located the automotive center that employed the gang and got the collar.

To make my ruse work, I needed a few props. I took a photo six-pack from a just-cleared murder case out of my briefcase, along with its incumbent folder. Then I walked around to the side of a loading dock where three skip-loaders were hefting pallets of raw cardboard sheets and stacking them next to a door.

"Help you?" somebody called out. I looked up and saw a man in a hardhat standing up on the dock off to my right. I went for my badge and flashed it quickly, not giving him any chance to read the ID card.

"Hi. Van Nuys Robbery Division. Talk to you?"

"Sure. Use the steps over there."

I climbed up and faced a stout, muscular guy who didn't shave. Before I even started talking, he was impatiently tapping his clipboard on his leg in frustration.

"I need to ask you about some robberies that are happening at local mini-marts in the area. I wondered if you would look at this identi-kit and tell me if…"

He immediately held up a protesting hand, interrupting me. "Don't show me. You gotta talk to Miss Pascoe in Operations."

"She around?"

"Hang on." He crossed the loading dock to an interoffice wall phone, dialed an extension and, spoke softly to somebody. Then he hung up and said, "Wait here. There'll be somebody by in a golf cart in a minute. Miss Pascoe's over at the D-Center."

I had no clue what a D-Center was. Demonstration? Development? Defecation? I waited to be surprised while he went off to supervise some guys stacking cardboard. Why couldn't I get a nice low-stress job like that?

While I waited for my ride, I watched several people enter the factory area. It had security worthy of the Pentagon's E-Ring. First, the employee would hold his or her ID pass up next to their face and stand in front of a camera lens. Then they placed a full palm and five fingers on a glass photo plate for a scan. Next the employee punched in a security code and spoke their name loudly into a mike before the lock buzzed and the door opened. All of this to protect a bunch of cardboard cartons? Go figure.

The golf cart finally arrived with a young girl in jeans and a sweatshirt driving. She motioned to me.

"You the cop?"

"Just the facts, ma'am," I said to prove it. She frowned at me like I'd just thrown up in the pool. I guess Dragnet wasn't one of her iPod downloads. I got in the cart and off we zipped.

"Miss Pascoe is in with Mr. Dahl right now, so you may have to wait," she told me tartly.

"Who's Mr. Dahl?"

"Who's Mr. Dahl?" Like I'd just asked who Brad Pitt was.

"Yeah. Who is he?"

"He's the owner. Duh. Roger Dahl. He started this place in seventy-three when he was only twenty. Roger Dahl like designed and manufactured the first FedEx package."

"I thought Aubrey Wyatt's brother ran this place," I said.

"Mr. Dahl is Aubrey Wyatt's brother-in-law," she replied, clearing up Wade's genetic connection to all this.

"Yeah," I said. "Guess that's what I meant." Then, to get on her good side, I added, "I've certainly heard of Aubrey Wyatt though. He's pretty famous in L. A." Didn't work. Her frown only deepened.

"Everybody should know about Mr. Dahl, too," she snapped after a few seconds, sounding almost like she had a crush on him. "He's like famous in packaging."

"I must have missed that issue of People."

She sighed and pulled up in front of a very attractive, greenish-beige office building. It was architecturally pleasing, if a little avant-garde. But the effective landscaping softened its modern look. Shrubbery in all the right places, a nice strip of lawn that was well-watered. A sign said: design center. So now I knew.

I followed my escort into the building and was told to wait. I chose a hard, chrome-frame red leather chair. Like a lot of places that sold design concepts, this lobby showcased minimalist design with cold, uncomfortable furniture. It was a triumph of form over function. The floor was shiny terrazzo and there were at least twenty windowed alcoves cut into three lava rock walls. A plate-glass fourth wall looked out onto a Japanese garden.

Each of the lighted alcoves featured some cardboard container that Cartco had manufactured. There were McDonald's cartons and the original FedEx box. Video cassette boxes and DVD packages were on display. The alcoves also featured all kinds of food and consumer containers. Everything from 7-Up to Pampers.

I was looking at the displays when the side door opened and a willowy, attractive, blonde woman entered. She wore an expensive, cream-white, tailored dress that hung perfectly on her athletic frame. She was followed into the lobby by one of those tall, executive, squash-player-type guys dressed in gray slacks and a dark blue blazer. He was in his early fifties, with a great head of silver-gray hair, and a robust health-club tan. His sculpted jaw parted the air like the prow of a Viking ship and framed a square, handsome face.

"We can't afford to put too many of those manufacturing bays in one design mode," he was saying as they entered the lobby.

"I'll have graphics draw up new estimates and get us a fresh set of D costs," she responded.

"Make sure everything is run past the entire development committee. I don't want a design kickback because of some needless boardroom squabble."

She turned and spotted me while he pulled out a new Black-Berry, just like Wade Wyatt's. Then he squinted and started poking manically at the keys.

I was hoping the goddess in the cream outfit would turn out to be Miss Pascoe and my luck held. She crossed to me.

"Are you the policeman?" she asked pleasantly.

"Yes, ma'am." I flashed my tin. Fast, but effective. If I was lucky, I'd get out of here without anybody knowing who the hell I was.

"I'm Dorothy Pascoe, Head of Operations. How can we help?"

I unwrapped the egg foo yung and let 'er fly. "What time does Cartco end its workday?" I began.

"We let the day shift off at four-thirty. There's an hour of maintenance and cleanup, then the night shift starts at six."

I nodded gravely, as if I'd just received her terminal biopsy report.

"Is that a problem?" she asked.

"Markets are being robbed all around this area and these robberies are happening at about four-thirty in the afternoon," I said solemnly. "Now we find out that your company lets out at four-thirty."

"Yes?" She seemed puzzled as to how her factory shift times had anything to do with my robberies.

"Maybe the reason all these holdups happen at four-thirty is because one of the robbers is an employee of this company and doesn't punch out until then." She just stood there, so I said, "We wondered if you could identify any of these people as employees?" I handed her my photo six-pack from the old murder case.

"We have almost five hundred people on our day shift. Of course, unless they're very new, being in operations, I'd probably recognize most of them." She took her time studying the six faces. "Sorry, I don't think so," she finally said and handed them back.

The squash player broke away from his text messages and came over. He'd obviously been eavesdropping because he said, "Let me see."

I showed him the six-pack and waited while he studied them. When interviewing people, you always get more with praise than punishment. We all have a pass key that opens us up. For instance, A-type corporate guys who build and run things, for the most part dearly love to talk about them. If this was the esteemed, but rarely recognized, Roger Dahl, maybe I could lure him into a broader conversation.

"Sorry," he said, and handed the six-pack back. "Don't think so." He turned to leave, so I took my shot.

"Excuse me, but aren't you Roger Dahl?" I asked, letting a little gee-whiz seep into the question. He spun back, smiling like I was holding a plate of Russian caviar.

"Why, yes. Do I know you?"

"No, but my goodness, I've certainly read all about you. Didn't you start this place in seventy-three when you were in your early twenties, and then build it up from nothing after you designed the first FedEx package?" Using up the extent of my knowledge in one compound, complex sentence. I looked around at all the products shining under an array of alcove tinsel lights, gawking like a six-year-old girl at a Barbie exhibit.

"Just goes to show you what a good idea, carefully pursued, can accomplish," he said proudly.

"Man, what is this place, like ten acres under roof?"

"Eleven point six." Then, because most people like to work their fan base, he said, "Wanta see something? Since you're interested, come here, follow me." He led me through a back door, leaving the striking Miss Pascoe tapping an expensive Prada sandal in cream-white exasperation. We walked down a narrow hallway into a small design office where several architectural concepts were pinned up on a cork wall.

"This is what we're planning next year. It's going to be built down in Louisiana. I call it our two-fer because it helps create new badly needed jobs for people in New Orleans since Katrina, and we get to put our buildings on fifty acres of cheap land. Acreage down there is still in the crapper because of the hurricane. We're gonna do all our manufacturing for the East Coast from this new south Louisiana site. Alleviates a manufacturing crunch here and cuts our clients' shipping costs in half."

"Nice," I said, admiring the pastel renderings of a modern-looking factory complex, embellished with colorfully sketched trees and slender, pencil-thin executives walking in and out of clean-lined buildings or strolling on manicured walkways, carrying wafer briefcases. "So you just make the packages, stuff like that?" Throwing up a jump ball. No clue where I was going.

"Yeah. Client companies hire us to make their packages, containers, shipping crates. Anything that holds their products."

"So that's like almost everything, then."

"Well, not cars or heavy equipment. We're cardboard manufacturers. That determines what we can do."

"I saw the incredible security system you have outside. Pretty damn impressive." More bread on the water.

"That's just on the E-Building because that's where we make the rares."

"Right. The rares." No idea what he was talking about. He picked up on my confusion.

"Prize-winning containers." I was still lost. "In a promotion, a rare is what we call a prize package," he explained. "As opposed to, for instance, a common, which is just a regular carton." I must have still looked confused, because he added, "It's a prize. A scrape-off. Some of the companies we make containers for put on big, national promotions, which they advertise in magazines and on TV. In these promotions, they often give away big prizes. If somebody buys the rare and scrapes off the winning number, they could win a car or even in some contests, up to a million dollars in cash. Since some of the containers we make have million-dollar scrape-offs on them, we had to put in all that top-shelf security to protect the integrity of the contests."

"Got it."

"Employees working in areas making or distributing rares have to be logged in during contest weeks. We even give lie-detector tests."

"Makes sense."

He looked at his gold watch and appeared startled by what he saw there. He'd already wasted too much valuable time on me. "Well look, good luck catching your robbers. Sorry we couldn't help. Gotta go."

As soon as he was gone, I hurried out of the room and back down the hall into the lobby. It was empty. Miss Pascoe had left. Only a faint wisp of her perfume remained behind to tease me. I started looking in the glass windows of the alcoves containing the Cartco products.

I was halfway around the room, when I stopped. Looking very frosty and inviting, sitting under its own pin light, there it was: A million-dollar, prize-winning, six-pack of Bud Light beer.