Giddyup for STAR

“It’s not just that he wouldn’t kill himself. He wouldn’t kill himself that way.”

“How did he die,” I asked.

“He took poison, shot himself in the head, tied a cement block to his feet and jumped off the Santa Anita pier.”

I saw her point.

This was bad. Very bad. It was obvious to trained investigator like me that something dirty was going on. Suicides don’t jump off the Santa Anita pier. The water isn’t deep enough to do the trick. The problem was the cops knew that just as well as I did, but they still went with the suicide theory. That meant that somebody big was pushing it, somebody who could make the cops roll over like a puppy begging for a belly rub. That kind of power isn’t cheap.

That kind of power could squash me like a bug under a steam roller and with the same amount of effort. If I was going to take this case, I would have to be very careful. And who was I kidding, I was going to take the case. She cried on my shoulder; what choice did I have.

“Look, Honey,” I said, “I’ll nose around and see what I can find out, but I’m going to tell you right now not to expect too much. Whoever is behind this is big enough to buy off the cops, and even though a bad cop comes cheap, there are a lot of them, and that adds up to some real dough. The guys that have that kind of juice are hard to find and even harder to catch, so don’t get your hopes up.”

Her eyes flashed like the cheap neon sign outside my office window, “You don’t have to find the guy, Dirk. I already know who did it. Bart Wallace.”

Bart Wallace. The biggest pile of crap in a town full of piles. And full of crap. He was the reason I got out of the music business. And while it was voluntary, it wasn’t entirely voluntary, if you get my meaning. It was better for my health.

Yeah, the same way as not standing in front of a loaded gun with a hair trigger held by an epileptic is better for your health.

Bart Wallace, the one man impresario, rock star, show producer, and biggest cootie I ever saw. If you wanted to get anything done in tis town, you went through Wallace.

And you paid. God, how you paid.

Was I ready to go up against him? Was I ready to sink back into that world of slime and sleaze? Was I ready to do things that would make a porn starlet puke with revulsion?

For Honey, I was ready.

“OK, Honey. Now that I know the score, I know what has to happen next. It’ll take me a couple of days together some intel and resources so I want you to lay low. Don’t approach Wallace at all. Don’t go anywhere near him or his people. If you want me on the job, then let me work. This is the big time Honey, and the people we’re fighting would cut up that beautiful face without a second thought about destroying such a priceless work of art.”

A snarl crossed Honey’s face. Seeing something so beautiful look so ugly hurt me in a place I didn’t know I could still be hurt. “Mr.Steele, I kicked your ass all over your office. Do you think I would let some lowdown thug get the drop on me?”

I stood up from my chair, showing her the pistol I’d slipped out of my desk hideaway.

“You let me get the drop on you.”

“But that wasn’t fair! I trusted you!”

“And they won’t play fair either, Honey! They’ll play just as dirty as they like. Hell some of ‘em will go dirty just for the fun of it. So stay out of it until I call you, or I’m off the job and you can try and do it all by yourself!

“Don’t be a dick, Dirk.”

“That’s my job, Honey.”

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