Hard Prejudice: A Hard-Boiled Crime Novel: (Dan Reno Private Detective Noir Mystery Series) (Dan Reno Novel Series Book 5)

  Hard Prejudice

  A DAN RENO NOVEL

  _______________________

  DAVE STANTON

  LaSalle Davis Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Steve Whan

  Copyright © 2015 Dave Stanton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0989603148

  ISBN 13: 978-0989603140

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922810

  LaSalle Davis Books–San Jose, California

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  ALSO BY DAVE STANTON

  Stateline

  Dying for the Highlife

  Speed Metal Blues

  Dark Ice

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  For the hardcore rock n’ rollers: Steve Ertzner, Jerry Kisling, Ernie Salle, and Steve Whan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  More Dan Reno Novels

  1

  By all accounts, Alex Newman’s life began in unfortunate circumstances and went downhill from there. Raised in lower-middleclass white suburbia, he dropped out of high school after his alcoholic parents divorced, and embarked on a career as a small-time crook. His record was littered with shoplifting and petty theft collars, and along the way he’d developed a particular fondness for rock cocaine. Now, at age thirty-four, he was a full-time addict. I’d learned of Alex Newman when his bail bondsman contacted me. Newman had skipped on a breaking and entering charge after his mother scraped together a five-thousand-dollar bond. Good son that he was, Newman flew the coop the minute he was released from lockup.

  It didn’t take long to find him. He lived in an oversized camper shell bolted to the bed of a rust-bucket Toyota pickup. A dealer he’d burned for fifty bucks put me onto him, said he’d probably be parked in one of a few out-of-the-way places.

  I spotted his rickety contraption sitting on the dirt shoulder of a dead-end road under a cluster of oak trees that partially hid the camper. Beyond the trees, the terrain dropped into a rock-strewn gully that led into the forest. Five thousand feet up, the pine-studded peaks of the Sierra Nevadas were resplendent in the midday sun.

  The camper’s windows were taped over with cardboard. I got out of my rig and walked around the vehicle. No one was in the cab, but I could hear a faint tinkling of music from the camper. I went to the back door and jerked the handle. It was locked.

  “Alex Newman, open up,” I said. When nothing happened I pounded the door with the meat of my fist. “Open up, or I’ll bust it in.” I waited for a minute in the pleasant shade, until it became clear he hoped I’d just go away. It was a bad strategy but probably the best option he had.

  As I returned to my truck for a crowbar, I heard scuffling and turned to see a man climbing from the gulley. Dirt coated the fronts of his blue jeans, his hollow cheeks were two weeks unshaven, and his long black hair looked stiff with grease. About six feet and a bony 160.

  I ignored him and started back to the Toyota with the crowbar.

  “What you think you’re doing?” he asked, his eyes wide and dilated. No doubt whacked on meth or coke.

  “You friends with Alex Newman?”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “Stand back, please.” I swung the weighted end of the bar and punched a big crease in the aluminum door.

  “Hey, you can’t—” he started, then the words became strangled in his throat. He froze for a moment, and I could almost hear his brain synapses misfiring. In his condition, any decision would likely be the wrong one. He confirmed it by coming up behind me and launching a roundhouse punch that was both ill-timed and weak. I blocked it and cracked him in the nose with my elbow. His eyes went dull, and he sat down hard and held his dirt-caked fingers to his face. I pulled a plastic tie from my pocket, shoved him facedown into the ground, and cinched his hands behind him. “You prick, you lousy bastard,” he moaned.

  I left him lying in the dirt and swung the crowbar into the door again.

  “Last chance, Alex. Open the goddamned door.” I waited a few seconds, then jammed the bar into the slot along the frame and jerked hard. The lock mechanism snapped, and the door flew open. “Fuck you!” a shirtless man rasped, his head big over his scrawny white torso. Crouching, he thrust a lit blowtorch at my face.

  I dodged the blue flame and swung the crowbar. It banged into the canister with a loud ping, and the torch fell from Newman’s hands. He scrambled back, but I reached forward, snatched him by his greasy hair, and yanked him out of the camper. His knees hit the ground hard, and he tried to get up and run, but before he could I kicked him in the ribs, the blow just enough to take his wind. He fell on his side and stared up at me with pleading eyes.

  “Party’s over,” I said, and slapped a pair of cuffs on his wrists. I looked into the camper, where his crack pipe lay smoldering amid a slew of beer bottles, porno magazines, and dirty ashtrays. Propped against one of the bottles was a syringe.

  “Let’s go,” I said. I pulled Alex Newman to his feet and pushed him toward my truck. When we got there, I sat him in the front seat and chained his wrists to a D-link installed in the passenger seat floor. Hunched over, he looked up at me. “I was gonna clean up. I was gonna get a job.”

  “Tell it to the judge,” I said, watching the skinny, long-haired dude stagger to his feet and jog off, his hands still cinched behind him. I shut my truck door, called 911, and asked South Lake Tahoe PD to send a tow truck. Then I called the bail bondsman and told him I’d recovered his fugitive. Alex Newman didn’t have much to say after that. I suppose he knew the routine.

  • • •

  The parking lot was packed when we arrived at the police complex. I parked in a red zone and led Newman to the side door for booking. While I waited for the jailer, my eyes wandered out the window to the courthouse across the street, where there was some sort of commotion. At least a hundred people were assembled on the lawn, holding signs, their voices a low rumble.

  Once I’d signed the prerequisite paperwork and they took Newman away, I walked out toward the courthouse. A van from the local television station had pulled up, and a woman with a shoulder-mounted camera was filming the gathering. I stopped on the sidewalk at the edge of the throng. The crowd included men and women of mixed ages. In front of me, a group of younger guys wore deck shoes and polo shirts tucked in their jeans, and two who were probably related had tan faces framed by tousled blond hair. One turned, and his profile made me think of country clubs and sports cars.

  How bizarre, I thought. South Lake Tahoe is not a large
town—and not a place where I’d ever seen an organized protest. People visited here for the casinos and to ski or hike or go boating on the lake. The permanent residents made a living catering to tourism, for the most part. The most controversial local issues usually involved nature preservation, which rarely resulted in serious debate.

  The front doors to the courthouse building swung open, and two lawyer types in dark suits stepped out, followed by a young black man flanked by a pair of uniformed officers. The volume rose to a shouting level as the crowd pressed forward, their signs thrust in the air.

  “You’re a rapist!” a woman’s voice near the front of the pack yelled, and everyone began screaming and waving their fists and signs. And then a loud male voice shouted, “We’re gonna take you down!” I felt the remark reverberate through the crowd, and the hostile energy shifted to high gear. The mob began closing in on the five men, who were trying to follow a path to two squad cars waiting at the curb.

  The young black man was tall, his hair razor cut close to the scalp, his dark face shiny in the sunlight. He wore a red necktie, and a blue tattoo crawled up from beneath the collar of his dress shirt. His eyes were half-lidded and his gait was jaunty, and though his face was an island of black in a sea of white, he surveyed the threatening horde with seeming indifference. No doubt he was from an inner-city ghetto, I surmised. Probably split his time between dealing drugs and performing gymnastics on a basketball court. Sure, it was a racial stereotype. But being politically correct isn’t a big priority in my job.

  A balding man in slacks rushed at the suspect but was intercepted by a cop. The black man smirked and widened his eyes in mock fear. In a second three more guys from the crowd leaped forward, and the cops pulled their billy clubs. In a panic, the lawyers tried to run, but one was shoved to the ground. A young man from the crowd took a billy club to the head, and blood streamed into his eyes. He swung wildly and hit one of the cops flush in the mouth.

  From the courthouse entrance, Sheriff Marcus Grier and two deputies burst from the doors and sprinted into the melee. They started pulling and pushing their way through the mass of humanity, but, as if by plan, a cluster of about forty people surrounded the cops and closed in until the officers could no longer move. I saw Grier’s face one moment, his mouth wide in a silent shout, and then he was gone.

  “Shit,” I said. Grier was my friend and a decent guy. Of course, he sometimes was an asshole, but what cop isn’t? I fought my way to where the crowd had pinned the policemen down, and started throwing people aside. A woman clawed at my face, and someone punched me in the kidneys. I saw Grier again and made eye contact, and I’d almost reached him when five helmeted officers stormed into the mob. Within a minute the protesters disbursed, and I saw the tall suspect duck into a squad car along with the suits. The car took off with a screech, and the cops scanned the remaining people, uncertain whom, if anyone, to arrest.

  Grier put his smashed cap back on his head and blew out his breath.

  “I know people are pissed, but I didn’t expect this,” he huffed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Not much, besides coming to your rescue.”

  “Don’t overrate yourself.”

  “I’m good at that, I’m told.”

  “Go help her,” Grier said to one of his deputies, pointing to an overweight woman with mussed makeup sitting on the grass and holding her ankle. As soon as the deputy left, a pretty, fortyish lady in tight jeans and jogging shoes walked to where we stood and pointed a red fingernail in Grier’s face.

  “Where’s the justice?” she said. “That’s what I want to know.” She stomped her foot like a petulant child, her large breasts bouncing under her top. “Where’s the goddamned justice?”

  Grier straightened his collar and crossed his arms below where a button had been torn from his shirt. Behind his back, fellow cops sometimes referred to him as a black Pillsbury Doughboy. Grier battled his weight on a daily basis, but his natural physique would not be denied its puffiness. His arms were too thick for his shirt and looked ready to blow out the seams, and his gun belt rested on a thick paunch that rose from his crotch. His ass was like a medicine ball, and his cap sat high on his jumbo-sized head. We weighed about the same, and I was five inches taller than him.

  “Yeah, I know, you’re just like all the other dipshits running our fucked up court system,” the lady went on, her eyes ablaze. She waved her arm, and the large diamonds on her fingers flashed like glittery weapons.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am,” Grier said.

  She pulled her blond hair away from her face. “I’ll convey that to Lindsey Addison. I’ll let her know the whole fucking South Lake Tahoe Police Department is really sorry.”

  “Blame the courts, not the police,” I said, and instantly wished I hadn’t.

  “Who are you?” she snapped.

  “Dan Reno, private investigations.” I tried for a smile and handed her a business card.

  She looked at my card for a brief moment, then folded it lengthwise and thrust it at me. “Tell you what, Dan. Stick it up your ass.”

  • • •

  The next morning I woke late to an empty house. I had driven Candi, my live-in girlfriend, to the airport in Reno the night before. She was off to visit her folks in Texas for two weeks. I walked to my kitchen in sweats and a T-shirt and started a pot of coffee. Candi had moved in almost a year ago, and people were starting to ask if we planned to get married.

  When the coffee was ready, I poured a cup and went out to my deck to read the paper. Candi had given my modest home a makeover—new furniture, paintings, and such—but I preferred the scenery outdoors, especially on a warm, sunny morning. I pulled my picnic table out of the shade cast by the huge pine tree in my yard. The grass surrounding the tree glistened silver in the early sun, which was already high over the mountains that rose from the alpine meadow behind my back fence.

  Before I could take a sip, I heard my cell ring in the house. I set my cup down with a sigh and went back inside.

  “Investigations.”

  “Yes, Dan Reno, please,” a woman’s voice said.

  “You got him.”

  “My name’s Cassie Longfellow. I work for Ryan Addison.” She paused for a long moment, long enough for me to sense she anticipated a certain type of response. Like, Oh my God, you mean the Ryan Addison?

  Instead, I said, “Who?”

  “Ryan Addison. The actor.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. Grier had mentioned him the day before. “Wasn’t he in some movies?”

  “Mr. Addison’s been in many movies, as well as a leading TV series.”

  “He was in one of those reality shows, right?”

  She gave a little gasp. “Absolutely not,” she said, frost edging her voice.

  “Sorry, I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

  “Apparently not,” she sneered, as if it was an insult. “Mr. Addison would like to meet with you this morning. Can you be here in an hour?”

  “What for?”

  “He’d like to discuss hiring you.”

  I walked back outside into the warmth of the sun and brushed my foot at a scattering of pine needles on the deck.

  “Where?”

  She gave me a local address. “Don’t be late,” she said.

  • • •

  The Internet hasn’t revolutionized detective work by any stretch, but it’s a convenient way to find information on people, especially those with a public persona. Sitting at the metal army surplus desk in my spare bedroom office, I Googled Ryan Addison, and the first hit provided a complete summary of his career, and then some.

  He had spent his early acting years in supporting roles and B-class movies. Ten years ago, he played his first leading part in a film about a man struggling through a divorce, when his daughter is kidnapped for ransom. The movie was a minor success and led to a role as an FBI agent breaking up a Wall Street Ponzi scheme. That role resulted in an Oscar nomination for best actor. A
fter that he was in a sitcom I’d never heard of and also starred in a string of films, none of which I recognized, except for a pretty decent cowboy flick. I’d seen the movie and thought Addison played a convincing tough guy.

  The summary also contained a long paragraph about Addison’s personal life. He’d had three wives, and his divorces were scandalous messes, complete with public accusations of infidelity and sexual peccadilloes. Addison had apparently also developed a booze problem, which culminated in two drunk driving busts, the second photographed by paparazzi who followed him from a bar. The pictures of Addison grabbing his crotch and waving his middle finger during the arrest were published in leading gossip magazines. Rather than hurting his career, the incident gained him a cultlike notoriety. In his last two movies, he had played quirky, counterculture characters, and the critics had reacted favorably.

  As for his family, Addison had a son and a daughter from his past marriages. His daughter, Lindsey, was the alleged victim in the rape trial that had resulted in the protest at the courthouse. Also notable was Ryan Addison’s father, Troy Addison. He was an old-school actor who made the transition to politics in the 1990s. Now seventy-five, the senior Addison was a senator in Arizona.

  I would have read more, but I still had to shower and shave. I did so in a hurry and put on a fresh pair of jeans and a blue, wrinkle-free shirt I favor because I hate ironing. Before leaving, I opened a can of food for Smokey, the fuzz ball cat Candi had brought home last winter. Then I backed out of my driveway and drove through the neighborhood out to Highway 50, the main drag of South Lake Tahoe. I turned right, toward the California-Nevada state line two miles east.

  Ten minutes later I accelerated up a steep, curvy road, past a number of expensive vacation homes. At the end of a cul-de-sac was the most impressive of the bunch, a modern Tudor in dark wood, probably five thousand square feet, with a massive river-rock chimney presiding over its peaked roofs. I drove down a long driveway columned by fifty-foot Italian cypress and parked near a stone walkway leading to the front door.