The Quality of the Informant by Gerald Petievich Read Free Book Online Page A

his usual bow tie and long-sleeved white shirt, wiped his wire-framed eyeglasses on his sleeve. He put them back on. "Charlie," he said, grabbing a Scotch bottle. He poured a drink and set it down in front of Carr. "Lady sheriff detective ask about you last night. Big blonde," he whispered. "She want to know if I have your address since you transfer back. I thought maybe I give her my address. Maybe get her in bed with me and lay her before she know what happens!" He gave a high-pitched laugh.
    Carr smiled and shook his head.
    Still laughing, Ling poured more drinks and rushed to the other end of the bar.
    "How long did he have you in his office?" Kelly said.
    "About two hours."
    "Same here," Kelly said. "Christ, you'd think we'd killed Linda." He shook his head sadly.
    "That's just the way he is," Carr said.
    Kelly set his drink down. "You're right there. He's the same pipe-smoking, ass-kissing, i -dotting, mama's boy bureaucrat he always was. Over the years I've had dreams about kicking the shit out of him. Literally pounding his friggin ' head in."
    "I know what you mean," Carr said. He gulped fully half of the Scotch-and-water and put the glass down. Neither man said anything for a while.
    "Linda was getting careless," Kelly said. "She'd done too many cases. She shouldn't have brought the guy over to her apartment. It was a stupid thing to do."
    "She had a lot of guts."
    "We don't have anything to go on," Kelly said. " LaMonica could be anywhere by now."
    "We'll find him," Carr said after a while. "And when we do we're going to play catch-up."
    Carr and Kelly spent the next day standing around in the hallway outside judge Malcolm's courtroom waiting to testify. The case was a leftover that predated Carr's transfer to Washington. Because of assorted technicalities, Judge Malcolm had granted twelve defense motions for continuance in almost two years. Carr wasn't particularly surprised by the delay because he had seen the defense lawyer use the same strategy in other cases.
    At 4:00 P.M., Assistant U.S. Attorney Reba Partch , a harried young woman with thick glasses, wiry hair, and an oversized rear end, strode out of the courtroom. She wore a black velvet jacket with a matching tie and a huge dandruffy collar. "You two are excused," she said gruffly. "I let him plead to one count for straight probation." She dug a package of cough drops out of her jacket and popped a couple into her mouth. "It's a weak case anyway, and I'm sick of making court appearances on it. There've been a million continuances. Even the judge is sick of the case." She maneuvered the cough drops around in her mouth.
    Kelly's face reddened. "Since when is a confession a weak case?" he said. "He told us he did it. Not to mention the fact that he had a stack of phony twenties in his pocket when we arrested him. The jerk has a record a mile long."
    "If we went to trial on him and lost, then what would we have?" she said.
    "The same thing we have right now," Kelly said. "Nothing. "
    Her tongue arranged the cough drops so she could speak. "You people are completely out of touch with reality," she said, cough drops rattling against her teeth. She flung open the door and bustled back into the courtroom.
    Kelly was still talking about the incident that night as he drove south past fog-shrouded motels and fast-food stands along the Pacific Coast Highway, a two-lane road that wound through the beach cities. "Her daddy raised her, paid for her law school, and juiced her way into a federal prosecutor's job with a nice fat political contribution. The only thing he couldn't do for her was try her cases."
    "You don't become a judge by taking cases to trial," Carr said. "You might lose. Sally told me that Judge Malcolm never tried a case during his days as prosecutor. He had a perfect record when he was appointed to the bench."
    "I don't want to talk about it anymore," Kelly said as he swung the G-car into a parking lot next to a smallish building. A flashing marquee on