Jackpot (Nameless Dectective) Page 6

  “This guy Welker doesn’t operate here, does he?”

  “No. Northern Nevada. He lives at Tahoe.”

  “Then he’s hooked into the gambling business?”

  “Right. He owns pieces of two casino-hotels.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Coliseum Club in Reno, Nevornia in Stateline.”

  “Uh-huh. The Coliseum Club was where David Burnett won his big jackpot.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Good question.”

  “Hell,” Eberhardt said, “the Mob’s got its claws in more than a couple Nevada casinos. But the gambling is strictly legit, you know that. No way would Welker come down on a citizen for winning any amount of money. They love it up there when a big hit happens. Brings new suckers in in droves.”

  “Sure. But there’s got to be a connection somewhere. You find out who Manny is?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody by that name works for Ek-hem.”

  “Maybe for Welker in Nevada, then.”

  “Could be. His file’s thin here. He pretty much confines his operations to the other side of the state line.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Who was in charge of the Burnett suicide?”

  “Harry Craddock.”

  “I don’t think I know him.”

  “He’s fairly new. Good man.”

  “You talk to him?”

  “No. He’s working the four-to-midnight this week. Go down to the Hall from here, you ought to be able to catch him when he comes on duty.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Just take it easy, huh?” he said.

  “With Craddock?”

  “You know what I mean. Word is that Welker’s rough goods.”

  “I’ll walk soft. Thanks, Eb.”

  I headed out to my car. But he wasn’t done with me yet; he tagged along and said as I opened the door, “So what did you and Bobbie Jean talk about while I was upstairs?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just curious. Well?”

  “You,” I said.

  “Yeah, I thought so. She tell you I asked her to marry me?”

  “Four times, she said. Mr. Persistence.”

  “You don’t approve, huh?”

  “Sure I approve. If you really love her.”

  “What the hell kind of crack is that? Would I ask her if I didn’t love her?”

  “You asked Wanda.”

  That made him mad. His affair with Wanda Jaworski of Macy’s footwear department had been a disaster, mainly because he hadn’t been able to see past her gargantuan chest to a mind of the same lima bean proportions as Bobbie Jean’s first husband. “Always throwing Wanda in my face,” he said. “I made a mistake, all right? You never made a mistake?”

  “Lots of them. But never one like Wanda.”

  “Get out of here,” he said, glaring. “Go play games with the goddamn Mob.”

  “Does this mean I don’t get to be best man if Bobbie Jean finally says yes?”

  “You don’t even get an invitation,” he said, and put his back to me and stalked off in a huff.

  I watched him into the garage, thinking: I hope you do love her, Eb. Because she’s right for you, because she loves you. And because in my own way, so do I.

  Chapter 7

  INSPECTOR HARRY CRADDOCK was a heavyset black guy in his mid-thirties, very serious about his work, very intense. He smoked long, thin cigarillos with plastic mouthpieces and had trouble keeping his hands and body still, standing or sitting. Classic type A personality. If he didn’t fall victim to a coronary or a perforated ulcer, he would probably make captain before he was fifty and chief or deputy chief before mandatory retirement. You only had to spend five minutes with him to know that he was a first-rate cop.

  When I first approached him he allowed as how he’d heard of me, being noncommittal as to what it was he’d heard, and said he could give me fifteen minutes. We went to his desk in the squad room. Things were relatively quiet here for a Saturday afternoon; we were able to converse in more or less normal tones.

  I told him why I was interested in David Burnett’s death, keeping it brief. When I was done he said, “Well, if you think it was anything but suicide, you can forget it. Kid killed himself and no mistake.”

  “In a motel, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Place called the Bay Vista, off the Bayshore north of Candlestick. Used to be a hot-sheet motel, but it changed hands a few years ago. Fairly respectable place now.”

  “He checked in alone?”

  “Right. About seven the night he died.”

  “Night clerk remember him?”

  “Said Burnett didn’t say much, acted withdrawn.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Maid. Past noon the next day, when she went in to clean. Door was double-locked; she had to use both her keys. Both windows locked too.”

  “What time did he die?”

  “Coroner says sometime around midnight.”

  “Is it possible he had a visitor between seven and midnight?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Craddock said. “But nobody saw one, and there was nothing in the room to indicate one.”

  “I understand he left a note.”

  “Handwritten. Burnett’s handwriting.”

  “What did it say, do you remember?”

  “Two lines: ‘This way is better for everybody. Karen, Allyn, please forgive me.’ ”

  “Cause of death was an overdose of sleeping pills?”

  “Nembutal. Compounded by alcohol. We found an empty pint of bourbon anchoring the note. Dutch courage. When he got drunk enough he took the pills—almost a full bottle.”

  “You know where he got them?”

  “Off a small-time drug dealer named Niko,” Craddock said. “Burnett bought grass from him a few times.”

  “What did Niko have to say?”

  “Oh, we had a nice little talk.” Craddock grinned and I grinned back at him. “He sold Burnett the Nembutal two days before the kid checked into the Bay Vista.”

  “Did Niko ever sell him any other drugs?”

  “Just grass. He said it was the first time Burnett had ever asked for anything else.”

  “What about Burnett’s motive?”

  “For doing himself in?” Craddock shrugged. “Never know what goes on in people’s heads, but in this case it seems clear-cut enough.”

  “Losing all his jackpot winnings and running up a big debt besides.”

  “Right.”

  “You find out which sports books he made his bets with?”

  “Nobody seems to know. He was secretive about it.”

  “You might have run checks,” I said mildly.

  “That’s right, we could have. But why? Kid committed suicide, that’s definite. And there are dozens of sports books in Nevada. And I’ve got a caseload that would break a camel’s back.”

  “I’m not blaming you,” I said. “It’s just that a hundred and fifty thousand bucks, give or take a few thousand, is a hell of a pile to wager on horses, boxing matches, and baseball games.”

  “Been known to happen.”

  “Sure. But Burnett had no history of heavy gambling.”

  “So he caught the fever,” Craddock said. “Hitting a Megabucks jackpot for two hundred grand can do that to a man—make him want to parlay a small fortune into a big one.”

  “The friend Burnett was with when he hit the jackpot, Jerry Polhemus—you talk to him?”

  “Briefly. Why?”

  “I spent a few minutes with him this morning. He didn’t seem to like it when I brought up Burnett’s name. Acted nervous, scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “My investigation, maybe. I had the feeling he was covering up something.”

  “Such as?”

  “No idea yet.”

  “I didn’t get that kind of hit off him,” Craddock said. He lit another cigarillo, glanced at his watch; my fifteen minutes were almost up. “Your best friend kills himsel
f, it makes you think about your own mortality. Could be he just doesn’t like the idea of you opening up old wounds, and you misread him.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “You check him out?”

  “No reason to. He was up at Lake Tahoe the night Burnett died.”

  I told him about Ekhern Manufacturing, the Mob angle, the name Manny. He thought it over, but it didn’t impress him. “So Ekhern’s a clearinghouse,” he said. “The kid picked a Mob-owned sports book to make his bets with, and paid off his losses here. Either that, or he lied about Vegas and Reno and dropped his pile with an illegal book in the city, one with Mob ties.”

  “I thought of that too. But why would they take his marker for thirty-five grand—a kid like him, with no way to raise the money?”

  “Somebody screwed up, maybe.”

  “Maybe. Here’s something else: I think he may have taken his jackpot payoff in cash.”

  “You kidding?”

  “No. He told his fiancée he authorized the Coliseum Club to send a payoff check directly to his bank. But there’s no record of a deposit to his checking or savings accounts. Or anything to indicate that he had a secret account somewhere.”

  Craddock had grown fidgety. He looked at his watch again. “Why the hell would he take cash?”

  “People do stupid things,” I said. “Or maybe he had a good reason, one that has nothing to do with gambling. Maybe he didn’t blow all his winnings on sports events after all.”

  “What did he do with the money then?”

  “How about a large drug buy?”

  “Oh come on, man. There’s no evidence Burnett was into that kind of scene. I told you what Niko said about him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What were you thinking? He didn’t kill himself, he was murdered in some kind of Mob drug burn? Well, you can forget it. He committed suicide—period. I’d stake my badge on that.”

  I didn’t pursue it any further. He was right—it was an off-the-wall theory. Instead I said, “Okay, just one more question. Was Burnett ever in trouble with the law?”

  “Picked up once for drunk driving three years ago. First offense, damn judge gave him a slap on the wrist.” Craddock scowled as he said that; he didn’t like judges who were lenient with drunk drivers, even first offenders. For that matter, neither did I. “That’s all. Considering what it’s like on the streets these days, he was just your average city kid—maybe a little above average.”

  “Sure. Except that he won and lost a small fortune and then killed himself a few months before he was supposed to get married.”

  “Compared to most of the stuff that crosses my desk,” Craddock said, “that’s so tame it doesn’t even make me raise an eyebrow.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  But I was far from satisfied.

  UNTIL RECENT YEARS, when some dealerships moved to the Auto Center out on 16th Street, Van Ness Avenue was the place San Franciscans went to buy a new or used car. A dozen or so lots and showrooms still line the busy avenue, from near the Opera House north toward Lombard Street. One of them was Benoit Chevrolet, where David Burnett had bought a brand-new Corvette three weeks ago. His sister had told me that when I called her from the lobby of the Hall of Justice.

  It was a few minutes shy of five o‘clock when I walked into the Benoit showroom. At five on the nose I was sitting in a glass-walled cubicle with an assistant manager named Kamroff. He wasn’t the salesman who had first waited on Burnett, but he’d been in on the second round of dealings. And he was not averse to talking about it. Most car salesmen suffer from diarrhea of the mouth; Kamroff was no exception.

  “Things like that don’t happen much,” he said. “Not here, they don’t. Young guy comes waltzing in off the street, plunks down fifty thousand bucks for a new ‘Vette, drives it for a week, puts a couple hundred miles on it, and then brings it back and says he wants a full refund.”

  “Did he pay the fifty thousand in cash?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir. Stacks of fifties and hundreds in a Giants tote bag. Can you believe it?”

  “He say why he was paying cash?”

  “Told Lloyd Adams he won the money in Reno, big slot-machine payoff. Well, why not? It’s none of our business where they get the money to buy a car.”

  “So then he brought the Corvette back a week later.”

  “That’s right,” Kamroff said. “Says something came up, big emergency, he’s got to have the fifty thousand back.”

  “What sort of emergency, did he say?”

  “No. But he was all worked up over it. Even more worked up when I explained the facts of life to him. We couldn’t have refunded the full purchase price if we’d wanted to. You can’t sell a car as new when it’s got mileage on it—that’s a state law. You have to market it as used, which means a price reduction even if it is brand-new and only has a couple hundred miles on it. I did what I could to oblige Mr. Burnett, got most of his outlay back to him; we try to please our customers, even the wacky ones. He didn’t like it, but that’s life. You take the good with the bad.”

  “Did he ask for the refund in cash?”

  “At first he did. We convinced him to take a cashier’s check.”

  “Can you tell me whether he cashed it or signed it over to someone?”

  “Cashed it.”

  “For currency or another cashier’s check?”

  “Currency. The bank manager mentioned it when I spoke to him the next day.”

  So David Burnett had taken both his jackpot winnings and his refund in cash. Which meant what? Why would he want to risk carrying around all that green?

  MY OFFICE was only a few blocks from Benoit Chevrolet, on O’Farrell Street, so I made that my next stop. For one thing, I needed to prepare an agency contract for Allyn Burnett to sign. And for another, I wanted to get hold of Joe DeFalco—Chronicle reporter, poker buddy, and expert on gambling and related matters. There were a couple more theories I wanted to explore, one reasonable and the other off-the-wall.

  Eberhardt had closed up last night and for a change he had remembered to switch on the answering machine. No messages, though. I called DeFalco’s home number. His wife said he was out on some sort of assignment but that he was due home by six. I asked her to have him call when he showed up.

  I used my old portable to fill out one of the standard contract forms. Then I took a look at Saturday’s mail, which consisted of two bills and a catalogue of “the latest in professional and security control devices” from some company in Kentucky. Eberhardt was always after me to upscale the agency, outfit ourselves with modern technological advancements that would, he claimed, make our job easier. So I opened the catalogue and paged through it.

  Miniature cameras and “camera systems.” Mini-stethoscopes. A variety of bugs and bug monitors. A thing to detect whether or not somebody you were shaking hands with was wearing a covert listening device. Bulletproof briefcases and tote bags made of something called “ballistic polypropylene” that was guaranteed to have five times the strength of steel in stopping slugs fired at point-blank range. Some gunk you could spray on letters to turn the envelopes translucent, thus allowing you to read the contents without muss or fuss. But the gunk wasn’t the best little privacy-invader offered in the catalogue. No siree. That honor belonged to a glittering gem of advanced technology called the Night Penetrator.

  What the Night Penetrator did was to electro-optically amplify starlight or other ambient light into phosphor green images that literally let you see in the dark. With this cameralike baby, you could read license plates in unlighted garages, peer into shadowy corners; and if you happened to have a voyeuristic bent, why, you could even look through your neighbor’s bedroom window when you suspected he might be humping his wife or girlfriend. It came with an optional hand-held image intensifier, and an infrared spot for greater clarity, and a tripod, and a pistol grip. The Night Penetrator cost a paltry four thousand dollars, and you could get all the accessories for another twelve hundred. And the
best part about it was that it was government-approved and perfectly legal to own.

  I threw the catalogue into the wastebasket. Alienation, fear, paranoia, distrust, deceit—that was what life was all about nowadays. Every man for himself and to hell with anybody else and his right to privacy. I couldn’t live that way, wouldn’t live that way. Caring too much could be a curse, but it was far better than caring too little. Far better, too, that the meek should inherit the earth than the paranoids and hard-core paramilitary “patriots” with hideout guns in their clothing and Night Penetrators tucked into the trunks of their cars....

  The telephone bell put an end to my brooding. Joe DeFalco.

  I said, “Joe, I’ve got some questions about gambling. Can I pick your brain?”

  “Go ahead, shoot.”

  “Is there an illegal gambling and booking operation in the city, one with Mob ties, that’s set up to handle six-figure bets?”

  He took some time to think it over before he said, “Officially, the answer is no.”

  “How about unofficially?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be quoted.”

  “That’s a laugh, coming from a newshound. Don’t worry, I don’t reveal my sources.”

  “Then the answer is yes. But the ties are loose.”

  “Man named Manny wouldn’t happen to run it, would he?”

  “No. Manny who?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “Nobody named Manny connected with it that I know of.”

  “How about Frank Garza? Or Arthur Welker?”

  “Nope.”

  “Either of those names mean anything to you?”

  “Garza, no. Welker’s a Nevada underboss—Reno and Tahoe.”

  “Know much about him?”

  “Not much. He keeps a low profile.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Do me a favor?”

  “Depends.”

  “You’ve got sources. Find out if one David Burnett made any big bets with the local combine—upwards of a hundred grand— within the last month. If so, see if you can set up a meet with somebody who knows the details.”