Void Moon

27

JUST before getting to Los Angeles, Jack Karch pulled off the 10 Freeway at the Ontario airport exit and followed the signs to the long-term parking lot. He cruised up and down five long lanes of parked cars before he came upon a Towncar that was the same make and model as his, and with California plates. He double-parked behind the car and left the engine running while he got out with the battery-powered drill that was among the tools recovered by Grimaldi's thug from the air vent in room 2015.

The drill worked beautifully. Karch had the plates off the front and back of the Towncar in less than a minute. He shoved them under the front seat of his own car and drove toward the exit. He had been in the parking lot so briefly that the cashier at the pay booth told him he had made it under the ten-minute grace period and didn't have to pay a thing. He asked Karch if he had a spare smoke and Karch was happy to oblige.

He had made good time from Vegas, traveling at a steady 100 mph until he hit traffic close to L.A. The last fifty miles took him a frustrating hour to cover. He decided that people in Los Angeles drove the way people walk through casinos: oblivious to the fact that somebody else might be on the road and need to get somewhere. In downtown he branched off the 10 to the 101 and headed northwest toward the San Fernando Valley. Though it had been at least a couple years since the last time, Karch had been to L.A. plenty times enough to know how to get around. When it got down to specific streets and places, he had a Thomas Brothers map book in his briefcase on the seat next to him. It was a few years old but it would do. He was headed to the Valley because the cell phone number Grimaldi had retrieved from Martin as being the contact number for Leo Renfro had an 818 area code and Karch knew that covered the Valley, the city's northern suburban sprawl. It was his assumption that Leo would be found in the confines of his cell phone's area code.

He got off the freeway at the Ventura Boulevard exit and drove until he saw a gas station with a pay phone. He opened his briefcase on the passenger seat and withdrew the folded piece of Cleopatra Resort stationery with the name Leo Renfro and the cell phone number written on it. Below the fold was the name of the contact Grimaldi had in L.A. but Karch had no intention of calling the man. Under no circumstances did he plan to allow a perfect stranger – no matter who vouched for him – to have knowledge of his business and activities. That would just be stupid and he wasn't about to turn stupid. The same reasoning prevented Karch from using his law enforcement contacts to run traces on Leo Renfro and Cassie Black. This job had to be done without leaving a trail.

Surprisingly, the pay phone had an intact phone book. Karch pulled it up and started with the white pages on the unlikely chance that Leo Renfro was actually listed. He wasn't. Karch then turned through the commercial business pages until he came to the advertisements for cell phone service providers. Judging by the size and quality of their advertisements, he made a list of the bigger companies and their service numbers. He then used the edge of the shelf under the phone to crack open a roll of quarters he had bought at the change cage at the Cleo and made his first call.

The call was answered by a machine that offered a variety of pathway selections. Karch chose what he wanted and was transferred to billing inquiries, where he was put on hold for two minutes before a human voice picked up.

"Thank you for calling L.A. Cellular, how can I help you?"

"Yes," Karch said. "I've been called out of town indefinitely and I want to cancel service on my cell phone account."

After listening to a sales pitch for out-of-the-area service, the phone representative got down to business.

"Name?"

"Leo Renfro."

"Account number?"

"I don't have that handy at – "

"Cell phone number?"

"Oh, okay."

Karch glanced down at the paper and read off the number Martin had provided during his interrogation by Grimaldi.

"One moment, please."

"Take your time."

Karch heard the sound of typing on the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry, sir, I'm not showing an account with that name or – "

Karch hung up and immediately dialed the number of the next company on the list. He repeated the story over and over and finally hit the right company on the seventh call. Renfro had his account with a company called SoCal Cellular. When the service operator pulled up the account information on her computer, Karch immediately went in for the final con.

"I'm going to need you to send the final bill to my new address in Phoenix, if you don't mind."

"Not at all, sir. Let me first set up the close-out screen."

"Oh, sorry."

"No problem. It will just take me a second."

"Take your time."

Karch let a few seconds go by and then started in again.

"You know, I just realized I'll be back in L.A. at the end of next week for a few days to clear up some things. I may need the phone then. Maybe I should wait and do this after."

"It's up to you, sir."

"Uh… tell you what, let's wait, then."

"Okay, sir. Do you want to wait on the address change, too?"

Karch smiled. It always worked best when the victim prompted the con.

"No, let's do – tell you what, maybe I should wait. My mail's being forwarded from my old place anyway. But wait a minute, I forget offhand, which address does the bill go to? My home or office?"

"I don't know, sir. Four thousand Warner Boulevard, number five-twenty. Which is that?"

Karch didn't answer. He was writing the address down on the letterhead.

"Sir?"

"That's the office. So everything is fine. Let's leave it as is and I'll take care of it after next week."

"Okay. Thank you for calling SoCal Cellular."

He hung up the phone and went back to the car. He looked up the address in the index of the map book and learned he had been correct. The address was in the 818 area code. But it wasn't Los Angeles. It was Burbank. He started the Lincoln and checked the digital clock on the dash. It was exactly five o'clock. Not bad, he thought. He was getting close.

Fifteen minutes later the Lincoln was at the curb in front of a private mail drop and packaging shop at 4000 Warner Boulevard. He was not too disappointed. It would have been too easy and suspicious if the address he'd conned out of SoCal Cellular had led directly to Leo Renfro's front door.

He checked the business hours marked on the door. The shop closed in forty-five minutes but another sign on the door announced that clients had twenty-four-hour access to their boxes. Karch thought for a while about what to do and decided that Renfro was the type who probably checked his box after hours anyway to avoid becoming familiar to the people who ran the shop. It was in that thought that a plan suddenly sparked in his mind.

Karch entered the shop and saw that it was shaped like an L, with the counter at the end of one branch and the other branch lined with postal boxes. To the left of the door was a counter with a stapler, a tape dispenser and several plastic cups with pens and paper clips and rubber bands in them. Karch saw a man working on something on the floor behind the counter. Above him was a roll-down security fence that allowed for the business side of the shop to be closed and locked while still allowing customers with a key to the front door access to their mailboxes twenty-four hours a day.

Karch glanced to his left and noticed that the postal boxes were the kind with little windows through which holders could just glance in to see if they had mail. He walked into the box alcove and quickly found number 520. He had to bend down to look into it. He could see one envelope lying flat at the bottom of it. He glanced back to the right. There was a mirror positioned in the upper corner over the door that allowed the counterman to see into the mailbox alcove but he was still down behind the counter working on something.

Karch pulled a small penlight from his shirt pocket and turned it on. It lit up the interior of box 520 and he could read the writing on the front of the envelope. It was addressed to Leo Renfro. There was no return address on the upper left corner but there was a set of initials. He leaned closer to the glass to try to read them and realized they were numbers: 773.

Because there was already a piece of mail in the box, Karch thought for a moment about whether he needed to proceed with his plan. He decided to go ahead. His plan, if it worked, would still have the aspect of confusing the target, knocking him for a bit of a loop.

Karch walked around the corner to the counter. Behind it there was a man in his early twenties who was dumping little Styrofoam balls into a large box on the floor behind the counter. He spoke without looking up from his work.

"What can I do for you?"

This sort of impersonal service always annoyed Karch. He saw it all the time in Las Vegas but this time he was pleased because he didn't want the clerk to pay much attention to him.

"I need an envelope."

"What size?"

"Doesn't matter. Normal size."

"Number ten?"

The clerk left the box he was filling and walked to the wall at the rear of the service counter area. There were several boxes and envelopes of varying sizes mounted on the wall. Below them was the inventory arranged on shelves according to size. Karch scanned the envelopes and saw the number 10 size.

"Yeah, ten is fine."

"Padded, unpadded?"

"Uh, padded."

The clerk grabbed one off the shelf and came to the counter announcing in a high, whiny voice that Karch owed fifty-two cents including tax. Karch paid with exact change.

"Nice hat," the clerk said.

"Thanks."

Karch took the envelope to the counter by the door. It occurred to him that the clerk might actually have been making fun of his hat, but he let it go.

With his back shielding the clerk from viewing what he was doing, Karch reached into the pocket of his suit coat and took out the envelope containing the ace of hearts playing card he had found on the floor while searching room 2015 at the Cleo. He took the card out and slid it into the envelope he had just bought, then stapled it closed.

Using the thickest Magic Marker he could find in the plastic cups, he addressed the envelope to Leo Renfro and put down the postal box address and number. In large letters he then wrote DO NOT DELAY! and URGENT! on both sides. On the lines provided for a return address he wrote 773 and on the back he wrote Leo Renfro's cell phone number.

He went back to the service counter and saw the clerk was now taping shut the box on the floor. Again he did not look up. This time he didn't even ask what was wanted. Karch could see the name tag pinned to his shirt said STEPHEN.

"Excuse me, Steve, do you mind putting this into the proper box for me?"

The young man sullenly put down the tape and walked over to the counter. He took the proffered envelope and looked at it as though there was some question as to whether he could accomplish the request.

"I need it to go in there now because this guy always checks his box first thing in the morning."

The kid finally decided he could handle the assignment and headed behind a partition that apparently led to the mail room.

"And it's Stephen," he called back out to Karch.

Karch stepped away from the counter and went around the corner and down to box 520. He watched through the little glass window as the envelope he had just given the clerk was shoved into the box on top of the other piece of mail waiting for Leo Renfro.

Karch had left the shop before the clerk made his return to the counter. As he walked to his car, he said out loud, "That'll be fifty-two cents… and it's Stephen."

Once inside the Lincoln he said it again and again, working on the pitch and getting an approximation of the right sullen tone and whine into it. When he had it down close enough he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

To make the call he couldn't use an open pay phone with background traffic noise. He drove around Burbank for ten minutes looking for the proper venue. He finally spotted a restaurant called Bob's Big Boy and parked in the rear lot, backing into a slot next to a Dumpster.

Inside the restaurant he found a pay phone in the alcove leading to the rest rooms. He dropped in coins and called Leo Renfro's cell number. He realized the chance he was taking. Renfro's mailbox was a blind drop. Though it obviously was in his name, there was no way for Karch to know whether the operators of the shop would have Renfro's cell phone number. But his plan had a built-in contingency for that.

The phone at the other end of the line was picked up after two rings but no one said anything.

"Hello?" Karch finally said, his voice the best approximation of a high whine.

"Who's this?"

"Mr. Renfro? This is Stephen at Warner Post and Pack It."

"How'd you get this number?"

"It's on the envelope."

"What envelope?"

Karch concentrated on his voice.

"That's what I am calling about. You got an envelope today. It's marked urgent and says do not delay. Your phone number is on it. I don't know, I thought I'd call you. We're closing up and since you didn't come in, I thought I should call you in case, you know, you were expecting some – "

"Is there a return address?"

"Yeah – I mean, no. All it says there is seven-seven-three."

"Okay. Thank you. But do me a favor, don't ever call here again."

Renfro abruptly hung up. Karch kept the phone to his ear as if giving Renfro the chance to get back on and ask more questions. Finally, he hung up. He thought it had worked. He felt confident. His impression of Renfro from the conversation was that he was a cagey guy. That meant it could be a long night ahead.

Back in the restaurant he went to the counter and ordered two hamburgers well done with ketchup on the side and two black coffees to go. While the order was being prepared he walked out to the parking lot. He got the stolen license plates out of his car and replaced the rear tag of his car with one. The Dumpster provided cover while he worked. He then got in the car, pulled out of the parking slot and pulled right back in forward.

He changed the front plate. Cassie Black's drill made the job a breeze. He decided he was going to keep the drill when the job was finished. The drill and a few other things.