Columbo: The Hoffa Connection Read online

  He parked the Ferrari a block from Mickey’s flat and armed the security system.

  At Mickey’s door he knocked gently at first, then harder. No response. He wanted to get in without damaging anything. When the cops found the body, they shouldn’t see a busted lock. So he worked patiently on the lock.

  He was good with locks. He’d done a lot of locks in Cleveland, when he was working his way into the organization. The lock yielded, and he entered the darkened rooms.

  Where would he be? In the bathroom? He wasn’t there, and he wasn’t on the bed, and he wasn’t on the couch.

  A sudden stab of fear stiffened Johnny. If they’d found him and taken him out already, they might very well be watching this place! He opened a bedroom window and dropped to the ground. He went through a couple of backyards, then out on the street.

  And here came Mickey, ambling along, shaking.

  8

  After he’d taken his fix he didn’t make much sense. He’d used tapwater, not distilled, and Johnny wondered how that would play.

  "You're telling me you shot a guy?”

  Mickey nodded. “I couldn’t help it. Shot him in the leg. Didn’ kill ’im.”

  “What’d you do to your hand?”

  “Gun blew up.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my pocket,” Mickey mumbled. He pulled it out and dropped it on the floor. The cracked cylinder fell out of the pistol as it struck the floor.

  “We’ve gotta get rid of this,” said Johnny. “Could the guy identify you?”

  “Maybe. Also his girl.”

  “Girl!”

  “Johnny. I had to have the stuff. I tried to make it without it. Well… I can’t. I’ve just got to have it. You ought to understand that.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I—I don’t know. Why didn’t I?”

  “Listen, man. You and I are in deep. Deep. Somebody saw us, and whoever that is, they’re playin’ games. You gonna help me, or are you not? You wind up in the slammer, you’ll go cold turkey for sure, climbin’ the bars.”

  “Yeah, Johnny. Jesus, I never thought I’d get so low I’d use a gun.”

  “Well, you did. So what’s next?”

  “I’m good for a day or two. I can handle a day or two.”

  “Then we got a day or two for what we gotta do.”

  “You already tried, Johnny. I saw it on TV. You must be the guy who tried to take out Bob Douglas.”

  “You think you can do better?”

  “Christ— Do we have to do things like this?”

  “If you don’t wanta climb the bars, Mickey. If you don’t want to climb the bars.”

  Mickey drifted off.

  Johnny sighed. With a partner like this… Jeez, with a partner like this. He found a beer in Mickey’s fridge and sat down to ponder how he could best take advantage of his one asset: that he knew the whole story of the old man, the way nobody else did.

  Thirteen

  1

  Columbo trudged along the corridor toward the squad room and his desk, dreading the chore he would have to perform when he sat down: filling out the forms to account for his travel money. He carried a rolled, tattered white bath towel.

  “Hey, Columbo,” said a detective sergeant known to Columbo as something of a smart-mouth. He was the picture of neatness: creased slacks, a white shirt, necktie properly knotted, Beretta hanging in a holster under his left arm. “What ya got there, a new raincoat?” Columbo smiled wanly. “Naa. It’s my gun.”

  “Your gun? How come you’re carrying it rolled up in a towel?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Well… y’ see, I flew in from Italy yesterday, so I went to bed early. I got what ya call jet lag. Like, I got up at six o’clock in Marino di Bardineto, to drive to the * 7

  airport in Milan in time for my flight. Now, six o’clock in the morning in Italy is ten o’clock the night before in California. So, it was like I’d been up since ten o’clock and got no sleep at all a whole night.”

  “Columbo—”

  “You asked. So, when Captain Sczciegel called, I was sound asleep, and my wife took the call. The message was, be sure to bring in your gun this morning. So here I am, with my gun. Y ’ satisfied?”

  • “You never cease to amaze us around here, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, well— Y ’gotta match?”

  2

  Inside the closed door of the captain’s office, Columbo stood awkwardly, without his raincoat—in fact, without his jacket, his head tipped, looking with pronounced skepticism at the harness of nylon webbing wrapped around his body. A canvas holster hung in his left armpit.

  And now Captain Sczciegel ceremoniously shoved a new 9mm Beretta automatic into the holster. “There!” he said. “Now you look like an LAPD homicide man.” Columbo grimaced at the deadly looking pistol. “Hey, is that thing loaded?”

  “No, but it’s gonna be in a minute.” The captain turned toward Martha, who was standing there grinning. “Show Lieutenant Columbo how to load his Beretta and how to set the safety on it.”

  “Y’know, I ought not to carry it loaded until after I qualify with it,” Columbo suggested.

  “Martha…”

  She began to shove 9mm cartridges into the clip. “Y ’ see, Columbo,” she said. “Easy as pie. Then you shove the clip in like this, cock the gun, which puts a round in the chamber, and set the safety to on, like… this. Here y’are.”

  Columbo accepted the automatic and shoved it into his holster. He shook his head. “Well, I…” He shook his head again and cast a glance at the revolver lying on the white towel on the captain’s desk. “Y ’know, I really hate to give up that gun. I mean, you know how it is. Y ’got something that does a good job for you year after year, you kinda develop a sort of affection for it. I kinda feel that way about that gun.”

  “It served you well by lying under hats and scarves on a closet shelf for all those years, Columbo,” Captain Sczciegel said severely.

  “Yeah, but I always knew if I needed it, it was there. Y’ know?”

  “What good would it have done you? You didn’t have any ammunition.”

  “I coulda got some. It’s just that— Well, that gun there is trusty. Like I know how it works. This one—”

  “That’s your regulation sidearm. Lieutenant, and I expect you to carry it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  3

  Betty D’Angelo sat in a small office crowded with three desktop computers.

  “Sorry I didn’t get to ya sooner, Betty,” said Columbo. “After telling you what a big hurry I was in, I took off for Italy.”

  “No problem, Lieutenant. Have a seat.”

  She was an exceptionally pretty young woman, in an appealing, innocent way, and men around headquarters found excuses for dropping by her office to see her. People said there was nothing she couldn’t make one of her small computers do.

  “Did you find anything?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not a check written to anyone named Corleone. No checks to Johnny, none to Giovanni. I haven’t found anything in her checking account that looks like wages paid to a houseboy. A maid, Rita Plata, yes.”

  “Did you look for checks that came up every week or every month, the same amount?”

  “Right. And found what she paid the maid. Also, she paid in withholding and Social Security for Rita—none for anyone else.”

  “Corporate account and personal account?”

  “Corporate account and personal account,” Betty D’Angelo agreed. “The corporation had a payroll, of course. But no one named Corleone was on it.”

  “Well, I thank ya. That’s every interesting, and very helpful.”

  “Anytime, Lieutenant Columbo. Anytime. Always glad to be able to help.”

  4

  As soon as he was a block or so from headquarters, Columbo pulled over to the curb. He took off his raincoat and jacket and removed the sho
ulder holster. He wrapped the straps around the holster and pistol and shoved that tight little package under the front seat of the Peugeot.

  He drove to Beverly Hills, to the mansion where Regina had lived and died. A car belonging to a private security company blocked the driveway. He parked and got out.

  “Hiya,” he said to the uniformed man in the car. “Columbo, LAPD homicide. Anybody home?”

  “Corleone is in there,” said the guard in the pale-blue uniform.

  Columbo nodded. “Good. That’s who I want to see. You gettin’ any business?”

  “Yes, sir. If we didn’t guard this place, guys’d break in and strip the place clean. It’s more than just the fans now. Anything that was hers is valuable. Would you believe a guy offered me a thousand bucks just to let him go in there and pick up some of her underwear?”

  “That’s the way it goes,” said Columbo. “I was at her funeral. You wouldn’t believe.”

  The guard grinned. “To tell you the truth, I’ve give a hundred bucks myself for something she’d worn: a pair of her shoes, even a bra or a pair of panties, I guess. Hell, my wife’d buy a little glass or lucite showcase and seal it in there.”

  Columbo waved and walked on up toward the house. He rang the doorbell, and Johnny appeared shortly.

  “Hey, Lieutenant! Glad to see you. Anything I can do for you?”

  “Let’s go out to the pool and sit down, where I can smoke a cigar,” said Columbo.

  “Sure. Can I get you anything: coffee, a drink?”

  “Not this morning, thanks.”

  Johnny opened the folded umbrella over a glass-topped table, and they sat down.

  “I figured out somethin’,” Columbo said as he fumbled through his pockets, looking for a match. This time he found one and lighted his cigar. “I, uh—” He paused as he puffed to get his cigar going. “I figured out you were not really Regina’s houseboy.”

  Johnny smiled. “I knew I couldn’t fool you with that one. How’d you figure it out?”

  “Well, you gave us some blood for a DNA test—”

  “Saying there were bloodstains on her robe,” Johnny interrupted. “I knew better than that.”

  “I knew I couldn’t fool you with that one,” said Columbo. “But it wasn’t bloodstains I wanted to match. Y’see, we found something else. That is to say, the medical examiner found it during the autopsy. There was somethin’ in her stomach. Something from you.” Johnny frowned. “Uh…”

  “You know what I mean?”

  Johnny drew a deep breath and lifted his chin. “She swallowed it,” he said.

  Columbo nodded. “That means that within an hour or so before her death, you and Regina were, uh, intimate.”

  “I don’t think many people—people who knew us well, that is—bought the houseboy bit. I bet people you’ve talked to have told you I was no houseboy.”

  “I guess there’s a little skepticism about it,” Columbo said.

  “Okay. So you know. We were lovers. What she did for me that night… she was an artiste. Do you remember what Marilyn Monroe is supposed to have said—that now she was a big success, she’d never have to do that again? Well, Regina didn’t feel that way. She was a big success, and she still did it. For any man she liked—or a man she wanted to influence.”

  Columbo turned down the comers of his mouth and scratched his right ear. “Y’ know,” he said, “I think I will have a drink. Say a Scotch. Just a shot, with maybe a glass of water for a chaser.”

  “Sure, Lieutenant, sure. This kind of talk does give a man a thirst. I’ll be right back.”

  While Johnny went into the house, Columbo walked around the pool, staring up at the house, at the windows, the balconies. He walked to the diving board. The palm at the comer where the wing joined the main house did block the view of the diving board from Mickey Newhouse’s room. But it blocked more than that.

  Johnny returned with what Columbo had asked for: Scotch in a shot glass with a tumbler of water for a chaser. He brought what looked like a gin and tonic for himself.

  “All this explains a little thing that’s been botherin’ me,” said Columbo. “Y’see, a look through Regina’s checking account shows that she paid the maid regular wages, but she wrote no checks to you. But then, you wouldn’t get wages, would you?”

  “No. She gave me money. But it was always cash.”

  Columbo tossed back his Scotch and chased it with water. “She must have given you a lot of money,” he said.

  “Yes, it came to a good deal. I was a kept man, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

  “Gonna have to find a new deal.”

  “Yes. I’ll have to move out of here before long. I thought I’d stay until you solve the case.”

  “Uhmm… Well… Shouldn’t be too long.”

  “I’m giad to hear it.”

  “What time is it? I got a lunch appointment.”

  “About eleven-thirty.” Johnny checked the Vacheron Constantin watch.

  “Oh, yeah. Gotta be on my way.”

  “Well, it’s been real nice to see you again, Lieutenant. If there’s anything I can do—”

  “I’ll call on you,” Columbo finished the sentence. “I’ll sure do that.”

  Wrapping his raincoat around him, against a stiff breeze that had begun to blow, Columbo strode off toward the gate that opened on the front of the house and the driveway.

  Suddenly he stopped. “Oh, say, Johnny. There’s a dumb little idea I got. Maybe you wouldn’t mind—”

  “Anything you say, Lieutenant.”

  “Well… This is a little thing and kinda embarrassin’, but you notice the guy that’s guardin’ the premises, the guy from the security company?”

  “Sure. Nice guy.”

  “Well, I was talkin’ with him, and he told me his wife would be grateful for any little memento she could have of Regina. I mean, you figure you could come up with a handkerchief or something?”

  Johnny grinned. “No problem. Hang on a minute and let me run inside and pick up something.”

  Johnny strode off toward the house. Columbo walked back to the table. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, picked up the shot glass from which he’d drunk Scotch, and wrapped the glass in the handkerchief. He dropped the glass and handkerchief in a raincoat pocket and walked back toward the gate.

  5

  From a window, Johnny watched Columbo give the security guard a half-used bar of Savon Fin, Gardenia Passion, aux sues de laitue 2%. It was from his own bathroom, and Regina had never touched it; but the man and his wife would never guess that and would—the fools!—cherish it as a bar of soap with which Regina had washed herself.

  He picked up a phone and punched in a number. The number answered. “Marty? Johnny. I can make a deal. You say twenty thou? You’ve gotta do better. Sure, I know, but you have to understand I can’t remove so much stuff it’s obvious and causes an inquiry. Look— Here’s what I got. Here’s what I can do. Eight pairs of panties she’d worn and never had laundered. Got the girl’s smell on ’em. Six pantyhose, the same. Four bras, likewise. Okay? Stuff that’s been laundered’s not worth as much, but I can do about the same numbers, laundered. Shoes, I can do six pairs, all worn. I got two combs with her hair in it. I got a razor with itty-bitty bits of hair on the blade. Don’t ask me what she shaved. I got a couple bars of soap, used. Listen, I gotta have fifty. No way twenty-five. No way thirty. Thirty-five is robbery, but I can use the money. Cash. This afternoon. Deal.”

  Laughing to himself, Johnny went in his bedroom and gathered women’s underwear off his bed. For three nights he’d slept on these items from Victoria’s Secret, so they did stink of sweat. He took the collection into her suite, dripped Gardenia Passion into a wad of toilet tissue, and rubbed the tissue on the garments until each faintly exuded the distinctive scent. The odor was unique: the combination of his own perspiration and a whiff of the priceless perfume.

  Ha! Thirty-five fuckin’ thousand!

  6

&
nbsp; Adrienne Boswell waited in a booth in the paneled dining room of the Press Club. Today she wore tight and nicely faded jeans, with a white golf shirt. This time she denied Columbo a view of her spectacular legs displayed in spectacularly short skirts. The knit shirt displayed something else interesting. Columbo tossed his raincoat in a comer of the booth and bent down to bestow the kiss on the cheek she very conspicuously extended. He did not recognize the scent she favored, but it was as distinctive as the one Regina had worn.

  “I appreciate your hospitality,” he said. “Seems like I’m always accepting it. My, this is an elegant place.”

  “In my line of work, I live for lunch,” she said. “I write mostly for morning papers, and lunch is when I pick people’s brains to get material I use in the afternoon. Don’t worry about the hospitality. The car was paid for, whether you rode with me or not, and so is this lunch.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” he said. “Anything I said, y’ understand would have to have come from me, and it’d be obvious I’d told you what I hadn’t told anybody else.”

  “We’ll call it a backgrounder, Columbo. Nothing for attribution. Anyway, I’ve got something for you. What’ll you have from the bar?”

  “Technically I’m on duty.”

  “Let’s not live by technicalities, oF buddy. Technically, I should be grabbing a bite in the office canteen— or at least I should most days. I can’t think of anything so sterile or counterproductive.”

  “I like to get out for lunch,” said Columbo. “There’s a place where I shoot pool and eat chili. It’s great.”

  “I’ll join you sometime,” she said. “You shoot a mean stick, Columbo?”

  “That’s what some people tell me.”

  “So do I, I’m told. It’ll be fun.”

  “Burt’s chili is so hot it’ll melt the wax in your ears and bum the lint out of your belly button,” Columbo said with a broad grin.

  “Anyway—” She nodded toward the waiter. “Scotch,” he said. “And soda.”