Front Page Fatale: The First Ida Bly Thriller Read online

  FRONT PAGE FATALE

  Daniel Fox

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Clippings

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Clippings

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Clippings

  Chapter 53

  About The Author

  PROLOGUE

  It had taken eleven men.

  Two years of planning and watching. Night stakeouts of the bank - making notes of when lights went on and off, marking down when janitors and security guards made their rounds.

  It had taken seven smaller thefts – snagging the security alarm plans, slipping the locks out whole from the banks’ doors quietly and quickly, one at a time, so a locksmith could make them keys for quick in-and-outs on the big night, then slipping the locks back into the doors.

  Nearly a hundred practice runs, first in a mock-up bank in an abandoned warehouse, followed by runs in the actual bank. They had learned to bop in and out, to dance around the security guard sweeps. It had almost become a game.

  And after all that, there had been five additional months of brutal boredom, waiting for the score to be worth it, big enough, one for the ages. They’d been aching to get to the action, but at the same time afraid of getting the call.

  Month six of the long wait had been the charm. They got the word that multiple payrolls had come in. They rigged up uniforms matching armored car drivers, added gloves, rubber-soled shoes for quiet movement, Halloween masks.

  It had worked. Holy shit had it ever worked.

  They had used the duped keys, rolled right on in like they owned the place. They surprised the bank employees who were busy counting the payroll stacks. They also got the drop on the five security guards. One of them had been mouthy, probably saw how Cary Grant or Fred MacMurray handled himself in a movie and thought he could play hero. A gun-butt to the mouth cut that short and left the guard crying and wiggling loose teeth with his tongue.

  They had marched in at seven p.m. on the button. They walked out with over one-point-two million in bills and another one-point-five and change in securities.

  As they drove away the boss, Jacob “Books” Byrne told them they had probably just pulled off the biggest bank job in American history. And they had done it clean.

  ***

  Now they were gathering again, here in the woods in the middle of bumfuck Bucks Lake, some eight boring hours north of the life in L.A.

  Paulie “Threads” Gulczynski slapped at his neck. He thought there were mosquitoes everywhere. He could feel them crawling on him. And who knew what the hell else was out here? Bears? There were probably bears. And maybe mountain lions. Threads was a city boy through and through, this rough country life was for the birds.

  But he had to be here. This was it. The money split. The big pay-off. Two years of brain-numbing work came down to tonight. To this meeting, here behind the inside man’s hunting cabin.

  Books had called every step in the plan “phases”. There had been thirty-seven phases altogether.

  But Threads figured there were really only three phases that mattered. The bank job had been Phase One. This meeting was Phase Two – splitting the money while everybody played it cool. They were all going to go their separate ways after this – if someone was going to throw down on the rest of the group it was going to happen here, tonight.

  And then there was Phase Three – nobody going spend-crazy, drawing attention to themselves, and once pinched, giving up the rest of them.

  Not Threads. He had his own plan. He was going to head south, wherever there was some high-end culture in Mexico. Find a pretty Mex chicana to take care of him. Make babies. Keep quiet.

  If tonight went alright. Threads pulled the thirty-two from his pocket, checked it for the umpteenth time – fully loaded. He had become close with the other guys over the two years, but over two million in securities and cash money was a big enough wedge to get between just about anything and anyone.

  Books pulled in right on time. More drove in over the next half hour, late. Books was pretty steamed at their tardiness by the time they got started, but nobody really noticed. All eyes were on the duffle bags.

  Everybody stayed cool. No threats. No jokes. Just quiet as Books handed out the party prizes.

  Threads took his bag last. It was heavy. The weight made his heart hammer.

  The first shot came tearing out of the woods off to his right. A shotgun, loud and bright. It took off Books’ right arm off at the shoulder, the meat slapping into Threads’ chest. Pellets shredded Books’ back, carrying on to pepper into Threads’ left hip and leg.

  He screamed. Dropped. Books fell on top of him, this stupid look of surprise on his face.

  More shots from the woods, from more angles. There were more shooters, shotguns all around. Threads didn’t know how many – he was blinded by gun-flashes, deafened by gun-blasts – it turned out a gun fight wasn’t anything like they showed in the pictures.

  The other guys from Threads’ crew that were still standing tried to fight back but they were out in the open, no cover. They were getting ripped apart.

  Threads flopped over and dragged himself around the cabin on his belly, trying not to moan, hoping nobody in the woods noticed him.

  He was sure the air was filled with red mist. He was certain he was getting coated in the guys’ blood.

  He made it around the cabin. Crawled for his car parked off to the side of the dirt lane.

  Footsteps behind him. He dug into pocket, pulled the thirty-two. Flopped over onto his back, raised the piece. It was slapped away.

  A shotgun barrel was held to his face. There was an overwhelming smell of hot metal and cordite.

  Goddamn backwoods nowhere.

  Snipped from The Los Angeles Clarion: June 18, 1947

  Turn Into The Skid: Skid Row’s Clean-up Misses Some Corners

  By IDA BLY

  Feature Writer

  LOS ANGELES – 9,000 people. 50 city blocks. 0 dreams left. Welcome to Skid Row, the last stop for ex-bankers, veterans, washed-up doctors, nurses down on their luck – blue collar or white, if someone has nowhere else to go, they land in the Row.

  One can say this for the Row – it doesn’t discriminate. Indian, Mexican, Negro, Chinese, Japanese, Jew, Greek, Italian, and every flavour of Caucasian, they can all be found stru
ggling to make it here through another day.

  According to L.A.P.D.’s Assistant Police Chief Theodore Pointe, Skid Row is also responsible for at least 50 per cent of the greater city’s crime.

  Every kind of crime can be found on the Row. Want to get robbed at knife point for a buck? Come to the Row. If you have a desire to lose your shoes to a game of dice, the Row will welcome you with open arms. And here’s one for the gentlemen – if you’d care to lose your reputation to a woman as grey as the concrete that surrounds her, yes, you’ve come to the right place.

  This lawlessness radiates out from Skid Row into the surrounding Los Angeles, angry red branches infecting the city. The L.A.P.D. and the Powers That Be had two options laid before them to deal with the Row and its crime – seek a method to improve the lives of its denizens so that they wouldn’t have to resort to crime, or flush the Row out and promise that the rats would never return. Our city’s officials chose the latter.

  To this end, the L.A.P.D.’s head honcho Chief C.B. Horrall ordered what he termed a “blockade raid”, a massive police effort coordinated to remove all criminal elements from the Skid Row area. The results were undeniably impressive – the L.A.P.D. reports that over 350 suspects were detained as a result of the raid. Three of that number were wanted for charges of murder.

  Of the remainder, those that had previous police records but were not facing current charges were allowed to choose between spending 180 days in jail with a charge of vagrancy or leaving town. Multiple inside members of the L.A.P.D. told this reporter that the majority took Option Number Two.

  The L.A.P.D. and City Council are declaring victory. Assistant Police Chief Theodore Pointe has gone so far as to say that he expects this will mark a significant and long-lasting downturn in crime rates for Los Angeles for decades to come. “The law-abiding citizens of East Central Los Angeles and its surrounding neighborhoods can expect a much-improved quality of life.”

  However, this reporter remains skeptical. My own ongoing experience with the criminal element has indicated that crime is not a river flowing one way, it’s a tide. What has washed out will soon return. To switch metaphors, Chief’s Horrall’s much ballyhooed blockade raid merely treated the symptoms, but the illness remains and will flare up once again.

  CHAPTER 1

  Ida Bly was lying on the road, 6th southeast of Crocker Street, one foot up on the sidewalk, the other in the gutter. The scar on her left cheek, running from the corner of her mouth to just below her ear, was turned down to the ground. Her eyes were closed, her skin just about frying on the cracked asphalt.

  People gathered. Homeless, nearby residents, eventually a uniformed patrolman telling everybody to get back, to give her room, to give her air. People on Skid Row were used to bodies on the ground, but this lady’s nice working-class clothes said she wasn’t from the area.

  The cop shielded the lady from the sun with his body best as he could, patted her hand. Checked her for injury.

  “Anyone see what happened?”

  One man, dirty winter coat in the middle of June, raised a hand. “Just lay down there all on her own.”

  “Lay? You mean fell?”

  “Naw boss, just lay down like she was done.”

  The uniform had been afraid to run off to call it in, he didn’t want to leave this woman with her decent clothes alone, not here on the Row. He sent others off to call for help, not knowing if it was going to do any good or not. But at least one of them did their duty, thank God and praise be, and an ambulance nudged its nose through the crowd.

  The paramedics came around, eyeing the people. The older paramedic nodded to the cop. “What’s the story here?”

  “I should know? I get here, she’s already down, nobody knows noth-”

  Ida sat up. Pulled a ticking stopwatch from her purse. Used her thumb to hit the button. “Twenty-four minutes.”

  “Stay still honey.”

  Ida got to her feet, waved the cop off, brushed at her skirt. “Twenty-four minutes for medical attention.”

  The paramedic looked at the cop. “The hell is this?”

  Ida fished in her pocket, shoved a press badge at the men. “Ida Bly, Los Angeles Clarion.” She turned and showed it to the crowd.

  The cop was turning red. “Is this a stunt?”

  “It’s an investigation.”

  “You were lying there like meat.”

  “I was lying there like a person in need of aid. Which took how long again? Oh yeah, nearly a full half-hour.” To the paramedics: “Would you care to comment? I’ll need your names and ambulance number by the way.”

  The older paramedic flipped her the bird. “There’s my number lady.” He waved his partner back into the ambulance. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “Lady, hey!” The cop grabbed her arm, spun her around. “You know you can get in trouble for making false emergency calls? Not to mention you’re gonna get yourself robbed or worse around here.”

  “It sounds like you feel Chief Horrall’s sweep of the area might not have cleaned up crime quite so thoroughly as the boss would have led us to believe. Would you care to give me an official quote Officer...”

  The Officer turned, walked off. Called out back over his shoulder: “Gonna get yourself hurt, you stupid bitch!”

  “Can I get your badge number?”

  The officer made the corner, walked out of sight.

  Ida turned to the crowd. “Did you all catch my name? Ida Bly, from the Clarion. Check out tomorrow’s morning edition.”

  She turned, heading south. The crowd let her go. All except one guy, skinny, dirty, yellowed wife-beater under an unbuttoned long-sleeve.

  She sped up. He sped up. She made a left. He followed. She started looking around for help, but this was the Row, and minding your own business was practised at Olympic levels here.

  “Hey lady.”

  Ida kept moving.

  “Lady? You really from the Clarion?”

  “I am the Clarion.”

  “I got something you might be interested in.”

  “We don’t usually do life stories.”

  “It’s not about me. It’s something else.”

  “How much would this ‘something else’ cost me?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to a couple of bucks.”

  “Is it about emergency services in this part of town? That’s what I’m working on.”

  “It’s about gunfire.”

  Ida kept moving. “I’ve got to think gunfire is common enough around here.”

  “Not like this. This was shotguns. This was forty-fives. Around here it’s thirty-twos on a good day, home-made shanks and broken bottles the rest of the week.”

  “You saw something?”

  “Heard it.”

  “You can tell guns from the sound?”

  “I’m a vet. France.”

  “Super.”

  “Come on lady, have a heart, huh? Folks got scared. People were skulking around, then a couple of blocks over all hell breaks loose. World War Three, no lie.”

  “I imagine skulking is the preferred form of transportation in this neighborhood. And if things got bad, I mean really bad, somebody would have called it in.”

  “We did call it in. A lot of us. Nobody came.”

  Ida stopped at a car. “This is me.”

  “So you gonna look into this or not?”

  “I work features. I pick stories that are going to impact the city as a whole, you know? This is...”

  “Beneath you.”

  “It’s just not my gig. Call our crime desk, maybe they’ll want it.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” The man turned, walked back into the Row.

  Ida hesitated for a second, another, considered calling the man back. Then got in her car and drove. Broke speed laws on her way back to the office.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sgt. George Schuttman checked around the corner for the umpteenth time, wondering when someone was going to make the go-call.

  He
was on loan to Robbery from Homicide. When a detective wanted a big body in the room during an interrogation, they called in Schuttman. When they wanted help busting loud union mouths, they called in Schuttman. Schuttman was scarier than the bad guys, other police loved having him on their side.

  On the flip side, none of them called Schuttman when they needed a new take or a fresh eye, real detective work. Then they called on Schuttman’s partner Wally Clemp. But Wally was M.I.A. for three weeks running now, since before the Skid Row raid, and George was getting run ragged trying to work the caseloads of two men. Especially without Wally’s big brains running the show.

  He checked his watch. This waiting, this time lost, it was giving him heartburn. He patted his pockets, must have left his antacids back at HQ.

  He looked back down the street. Robbery detective Herbert Fortier was seated in an unmarked, scoping the second floor of the target two-story with binoculars, looking for God knows what.

  In the separate apartment of the brown two-story walk-up: three known perps, known to Robbery for taking four small banks north of the city. Their last gig in Palmdale jumped to murder when they put two in the chest of a security guard that decided to play hero. Witnesses said they did not hesitate, not even when the guard survived the first round and begged for his life.