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Deadwood and Beyond
Deadwood and Beyond
Deadwood and Beyond
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Deadwood and Beyond

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A former LAPD detective sergeant, Roland Rollo Michaels is a self-assured, overcaffeinated, wry-humored divorc. Hes doing his best to be a dependable part-time father to his two teenage children while keeping the lights on in the humble offices of his Los Angeles private investigation firm, Michaels & Associates.

His associates are a diverse blend of loyal men and women who handle personal challenges with drink, love, verbal banter, and an occasional hand gesture. Everything goes crazy when Rollo is arrested at a murder scene in Deadwood, South Dakota. Rollos friends and his own hubris lead him from the Black Hills to Beverly Hills, the shores of Long Island to the cliffs of San Simeon.

The backstory of the sometimes failed Federal Witness Protection Program and Rollos fathers association with New York wiseguys lend depth and intrigue to this character-driven tale. Enjoy the ride as Rollo Michaels confronts lying clients, a professional hitman, and a homicidal sociopath while antagonizing law enforcement officials of five different agencies from Los Angeles to Deadwood and Beyond.

LanguageEnglish
PublisheriUniverse
Release dateSep 11, 2017
ISBN9781532027635
Deadwood and Beyond

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    Book preview

    Deadwood and Beyond - Kip Meyerhoff

    Copyright © 2017 Kip Meyerhoff.

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

    This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

    iUniverse

    1663 Liberty Drive

    Bloomington, IN 47403

    www.iuniverse.com

    1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    ISBN: 978-1-5320-2761-1 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-5320-2762-8 (hc)

    ISBN: 978-1-5320-2763-5 (e)

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911750

    iUniverse rev. date: 10/05/2017

    Contents

    Prologue

    Chapter 1 Dead in Deadwood

    Chapter 2 Soldier’s Story

    Chapter 3 About Three Weeks Earlier

    Chapter 4 Teamwork

    Chapter 5 Linda’s Friend

    Chapter 6 Getting to Know You

    Chapter 7 My New BFF

    Chapter 8 Hiring Help

    Chapter 9 Mrs. Scarsdale

    Chapter 10 Families

    Chapter 11 Client Relations

    Chapter 12 Developments

    Chapter 13 Showbiz

    Chapter 14 Weekend Dad

    Chapter 15 Quality Time

    Chapter 16 Susan Cochran

    Chapter 17 Political Incorrectness

    Chapter 18 Dinner with Friends

    Chapter 19 All in a Day’s Work

    Chapter 20 Mental Health

    Chapter 21 Much Maligned

    Chapter 22 Friendly Skies

    Chapter 23 New York

    Chapter 24 Sweet Dreams

    Chapter 25 The Fort

    Chapter 26 Brooklyn’s Eighty-Third Precinct

    Chapter 27 Expense Accounts

    Chapter 28 Mom

    Chapter 29 More Lies

    Chapter 30 Rabbi Heuer

    Chapter 31 Revelation

    Chapter 32 Reunion Day

    Chapter 33 Familiar Ground

    Chapter 34 Deadwood Law

    Chapter 35 Soldier Warm and Fuzzy

    Chapter 36 Charges Dropped

    Chapter 37 Soldier Moves

    Chapter 38 Elk Creek

    Chapter 39 Soldier Finds Jesus

    Chapter 40 Hearts Break

    Chapter 41 Beware the Feds

    Chapter 42 Bad News

    Chapter 43 Love Rekindled

    Chapter 44 Disappointment

    Chapter 45 Cliff-Hanger

    Chapter 46 Marvelous Marvin

    Chapter 47 Equal Justice

    Chapter 48 Revelations

    Chapter 49 Plan B

    Chapter 50 And Beyond

    Epilogue

    Acknowledgments

    Door.jpg

    There’s no telling what’s coming through the door next.

    Prologue

    Boston gangster Whitey Bulger was long feared by his fellow criminals because every one of them with a working brain knew that to cross Whitey could get you killed. So those caught with their pants down did the time, refusing to rat on Whitey and his crew. Well, most of them anyway. Some gave it up to the feds with a promise of a new life in the witness protection program.

    Ironically, Bulger was a snitch himself who traded information about his rivals in exchange for a certain amount of protection from law enforcement. This corruption eventually led to Bulger becoming one of the first gangsters to penetrate the FBI’s informant rolls. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be the last.

    John Smiley, known in his previous life as John Smiling Jack Cochran, felt secure in the new life provided for him by the witness protection program. He didn’t think that day would be his last. He had plans. He was in control. That morning, he’d tipped his barber five bucks for a little off the sides and a squared-up back. He joked with the manicurist about maybe a bright red on his left pinkie instead of the clear. His mood was high because he had a date that night with Cindy, the hot cocktail waitress from work. The next day, a Harley ride to Sturgis, maybe with Cindy hanging onto his waist. Next month, he had a two-week vacation coming, a trip to Seattle in the works. In spite of being two thousand miles from his Long Island home, life was good.

    Like most in the life, Jack spent considerable effort suppressing thoughts of his own demise. Women and booze were his choices to keep his mind busy, and dealing cards provided him the wherewithal to indulge both. He’d learned to do card tricks as a kid, and after serving a two-year stretch in Attica honing his skills, he’d become an accomplished card cheat for the outfit. They used him to fleece many a mark in crooked games set up to do just that. In one such game, the mark caught on to Jack’s bottom dealing and called him on it. Jack just smiled and stuck a knife in the guy’s heart.

    Impressed with Jack’s decisiveness, the boys let him do a couple of contract hits in Far Rockaway and another in the Bronx. With the addition of button man to his card-shark résumé, Jack was a mob up-and-comer. Until he got caught.

    Faced with a lifetime of doing card tricks for fellow Attica inmates, Jack became a rat for the feds. And who could have blamed him? But after a couple of Salerno family bosses were sent to federal prison, the mob’s suspicions focused on Jack. Word on the street had it that a $10,000 contract was the reason for a botched attempt on Jack’s life. So when Jack disappeared into the promised safety of witness protection, many wondered if Jack had paid the ultimate price for his treachery. Fish food? Cement barrel? Landfill? Speculation was rampant, but the bosses knew different. They had no doubt Jack was being protected by the feds. The mob would feel the pain when the feds netted forty-six La Cosa Nostra underlings in August 2016 mostly on info Jack had given to his FBI handlers.

    Ensconced in maximum security, Slats Salerno and his second in charge, Dino Mendolia, were no longer able to safeguard their interests. Soon, the Salerno operation was in chaos. The Russians were moving into the Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports, MS-13 gangsters were pushing dope all the way from the Bronx to Montauk Point, new labor problems arose on the docks, and the garbage contracts in Nassau and Queens were expiring. Dino’s cement business was also being threatened by unwanted competition. Worst of all, tribute payments from all the wannabe wise guys ceased with the guilty verdicts passed on Salerno and Mendolia.

    A Salerno lieutenant, Vincenzo Big Vinnie Costello, ruled Suffolk County with an iron fist. No one dared a move against any Salerno interest in which Big Vinnie had a part. Great bodily injury or worse could ensue. When La Cosa Nostra appointed Costello caretaker of the whole Salerno operation, Vinnie vowed Smiling Jack would pay for his treachery. But truth be told, he was grateful to Cochran for his promotion. How else would he have moved up?

    Fortunately for Cochran, all of Big Vinnie Costello’s attention was required to restore order, thus moving Cochran way down his to-do list. Four Long Island counties saw an increase in their homicide and missing-person rates. Beating and gunshot victims kept emergency rooms busy, and arson fires and a few bombings increased overtime costs for emergency responders. Big Vinnie’s efforts had a positive impact on Long Island’s economy, which President Trump took credit for.

    It would take six months of guile, diplomacy, and muscle for Big Vinnie to complete his consolidation work. His reputation for violence grew with the territory he regained and controlled, and all the talent in Vinnie Costello’s crew soon made him the mob’s biggest moneymaker from Montauk to Staten Island. Big Vinnie decided it was time for Smiling Jack to get his due. And Vinnie knew that even his top enforcer, Sean Soldier Boy Mahan, could use a little help from a friend. Hello, Rollo Michaels.

    Chapter 1

    Dead in Deadwood

    Hey! I shouted, reaching for my Walther.

    Both men flinched, but the gunman managed to squeeze off a double tap, and the man I was following went down. The shooter swung the business end of his weapon toward me and fired twice more as I ducked between parked cars for cover. A woman screamed. I popped up over the trunk of a Buick and let go two of my own, and then the shooter was gone. I heard more screams. A man shouted, Look out! He has a gun. Call the cops!

    I worked my way up the aisle, cautiously sneaking peeks over, under, and around the many parked vehicles. I heard a car alarm blaring from the floor below and the footfalls of people running from the parking structure. It seemed like it took forever to get where John Cochran lay between two cars. He looked up at me, fear in his eyes and blood spurting from a hole in his neck. I reached down to stem the flow.

    Older, he whispered between broken teeth as the last of his life seeped through my fingers.

    The wail of approaching sirens soon drowned out the blaring horn and sharpened my focus as I stood over the lifeless body. The smile was gone from Smiling Jack’s face, having been removed by the two bullets pumped into him only moments ago. I felt guilty about something but didn’t know what. Jack was dead fifteen minutes after I had met him, and I was left there holding the bag.

    I’d followed Cochran from the casino where he dealt cards to get a visual on his vehicle and maybe tail him to his residence. I was staying back so as not to spook him when up popped the shooter to take Jack’s life and ruin my plans.

    My name is Rollo Michaels. Though my ID says Roland Michaels, I prefer Rollo, but I’ve been called many other things—some nice, some not. But I usually answer no matter. I’m an ex-LAPD detective sergeant pensioned off because of a work-related injury. A couple of years of feeling sorry for myself killed a twelve-year marriage that had blessed me with a daughter and a son. Child support and alimony pretty much ate up my monthly disability checks. Periodic personal security gigs kept me in beer money, but even all the celebs in Los Angeles couldn’t employ all the hired guns running around La-La Land. Mounting debt and indulging bad habits made finding steady employment a necessity.

    Desperate, I teamed up with my divorce attorney and another retired cop to open a PI shop along LA’s Miracle Mile. We were surprised by the number of clients who quickly signed on. We paid the rent, leased nice cars, and enjoyed the excesses that were both the best and the worst of Los Angeles.

    Our team specialized in finding people, and one of the cases I was currently working had added about six thousand frequent-flier miles to my account. It was a long way from LA’s Miracle Mile to the second floor of the Deadwood City Parking Garage, but there I stood, a dead man at my feet, a gun in one hand, and blood dripping from the other. I was sure the sheriff of Deadwood, South Dakota, would want to know what the hell was going on but no more than I did.

    I heard footsteps coming up the ramp. Freeze! Drop your weapon! was a line I’d used on many occasions. I complied by dropping my Walther on the lifeless body at my feet. I sure as hell wasn’t going to drop my best friend on the concrete.

    The two deputies were pretty good at roughing me up, probably their first homicide. They weren’t interested in what I had to say about the shooter; they were content with having me cuffed in the backseat of their cruiser, case solved. While we waited for the detectives, the crime scene was quickly becoming a tourist attraction.

    The first person of authority to show up was right out of central casting—white Stetson, snakeskin cowboy boots, and pearl-handled Colt six-shooter riding low on his hip. His star said sheriff, and a thick handlebar mustache didn’t hide his frown. He huddled with the two deputies whose heads kept nodding as his forefinger pounded their chests in cadence with the expletives I could read on his lips. Once they had established control of the crime scene, the detectives and coroner arrived to take over.

    The detectives jerked me from the cruiser, bagged my hands, and turned me back over to the chastised deputies, who were then instructed about gunshot residue and blood-splatter evidence. I was put back in the car, that time more gently, and transported to the station. There, I was swabbed, strip-searched, and left in a holding cell with only my socks, my Hanes tagless T-shirt, and my boxers. A request for a phone call got me a scowl. Hard guys these. Like I’m the reason the sheriff chewed your asses out.

    More than two hours passed before Sheriff Bullock showed up with one of his detectives. My bladder was about ready to cry uncle when they gave me a pair of paper slippers and an orange jumpsuit with PRISONER stenciled on the back. After a pit stop, I was taken to Bullock’s office. The contents of my pockets were laid out on his desk. My retired LAPD ID, California private investigator license, and California driver’s license were neatly fanned out for the sheriff’s perusal. Noticeably missing were my Walther PPK and seven rounds of hollow-point ammo. I was directed to a chair in front of the desk by the escorting detective. The sheriff dismissed him with a Thank you, Bubba.

    Coffee? he asked as he poured a cup for himself. I nodded. He poured a second and placed it before me. So, Michaels, what are you doing at the scene of our first homicide in over two years?

    Doing my job finding a missing person, I answered, wondering if he could hear my stomach rumble. Where’s my Walther?

    Booked into evidence. Tell me about your so-called job, he said as he sat in his very big chair.

    Make more coffee. It could take a while.

    Chapter 2

    Soldier’s Story

    You can run, but you can’t hide especially if you’re somebody like Smiling Jack Cochran and a stone killer named Sean Soldier Boy Mahan is coming for you. Those in the profession referred to Soldier as the Terminator and describe him as your worst nightmare.

    Mahan was a veteran of the first Gulf War who returned home with a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and the scars of war, mental and physical. But like many of his comrades, he was without the job skills necessary to ease back into civilian life.

    He had joined the army right out of high school with his best friend, Richie Salerno, the only son of Slats Salerno, a high-ranking Brooklyn gangster. War changes all who are touched by it. Killing the Iraqi soldier whose bullet had ended his friend Richie’s young life had changed Mahan’s world forever.

    A patriotic Slats gave Sean Mahan the Soldier Boy handle and a job of collecting for his loansharking operations. Soldier’s size, scars, and reputation made him a very useful and proficient employee. Over time, Slats entrusted him with more and more of the heavy lifting required to grow the business. With Slats in the joint, Soldier’s loyalties were pledged to his new boss, Big Vinnie Costello. Vinnie wished he had ten more just like Mahan.

    Soldier Boy’s experiences had taught him that things rarely went as planned. He had waited in the casino until the PI had braced Smiling Jack. He knew Jack always ran, so he went to the parking lot where Jack kept his car and set up his kill zone. He had acquired an old MP model .38 six-shot revolver for the job. The front sight had been removed so he could slide a plastic soda bottle over the barrel as a silencer. He stepped from between two parked cars as Jack put the key into his car door.

    Soldier pointed the gun at the back of Jack’s head and was squeezing the trigger when someone shouted, Hey! changing things in the blink of an eye. He and Jack flinched. That caused the first bullet to tear through Jack’s neck instead of his head. The second shot caught Jack in the jaw and knocked him to the concrete.

    Soldier turned toward the source of the shout and saw Big Vinnie’s PI standing at the top of the ramp. He fired twice more to make the PI seek cover, his instructions having exempted the PI from harm. As he turned back to finish what he’d been sent to do, two more shots rang out. The one that hit him spun Soldier around and sent him over the rail to the lot below. He landed on the hood of a parked car, setting off its alarm to mix with the cacophony of screams and shouts.

    He rolled from the hood to his feet and ran two blocks down an alley, throwing his revolver, hat, shades, wig and fake beard into a couple of the half-dozen Dumpsters lining the alley. His shoulder burned from his wound as blood began to seep through his jacket. He was not being followed, so he slowed to a walk and placed his handkerchief inside his jacket to soak it up. That it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot allowed him to keep his cool. In fact, it was the third—Kuwait, Brooklyn, and now Deadwood. It came with the territory, a hazard of his chosen profession.

    Soldier entered the backdoor of a bar and walked through to the street where he had parked. He was just getting into his rental when a sheriff’s car came screaming by, emergency lights and siren assaulting his senses and adding more adrenaline to his system. He pulled slowly from the curb and drove away as bar patrons poured to the sidewalk to partake in the excitement.

    Back in the safety of his hotel room, Soldier took out his traveling hospital. He flushed his wound with antiseptic Irish whiskey. The pain of using his Old Kilkenny for that purpose hurt as much as the wound did. Again, luck had been with him. The .38 slug had dug a quarter-inch furrow through two inches of skin on the outer part of his shoulder. He was glad the PI hadn’t been carrying a weapon with a little more pop. He took a healthy swig from the bottle to calm his adrenaline and steady his hand. He threaded a needle and sewed up his gash, tying off and snipping a stitch, sipping some of the Old Kilkenny, and repeating seven more times.

    He thought of his luck in Kuwait when he and his best friend, Richie Salerno, found themselves lost in the desert with their platoon sergeant, their Humvee mired in sand up to its axles. An Iraqi patrol stumbled upon them and opened fire, wounding Sarge and him but killing his friend Richie. Soldier killed three of the enemy and captured two. The rest dropped their weapons and fled. After his prisoners dug out the Humvee, Soldier had them lift his dead friend onto the vehicle. Soldier saw his dead friend’s bulging eyes staring at him, turned to the prisoners, and shot them both dead. Sarge put him in for a medal.

    He washed the blood from his arm, smeared on some antibiotic ointment, and covered the wound with gauze and tape. He thought of Brooklyn, collecting for a loan shark and the debtor’s brother shooting him in the ass, forcing Soldier to forgo the money and kill both men. His boss, Slats Salerno, took him to Dr. Janet Arroyo, a Brooklyn veterinarian indebted to the Salerno operation. While the vet tended to the wound, Slats had his fun.

    Tell me, Doc, any brain damage? Neither Soldier nor the doc found it funny. Undeterred, Slats pressed on jokingly threatening to take the lost revenue out of Soldier’s pay. The rule dead men can’t pay was a major tenet of the loan shark’s code.

    Satisfied with his handiwork, Soldier washed his hands and face, combed his hair, and put on a clean shirt. He bagged his bloody clothing along with the soiled washcloth and towel. Donning another jacket, he was good to go. Exiting the hotel out the back, he disposed of the dirty laundry in another Dumpster. Reinvigorated by the crisp night air, he drove back to the scene of the shooting. A crowd of gawkers had gathered and were milling around the entrance to the parking structure.

    What’s all the excitement? he asked an onlooker.

    Someone’s been shot during a stickup, said a woman who filled out a Welcome to Deadwood T-shirt she was wearing under a pink hoodie.

    Cops arrested some dude, took him away in cuffs a couple hours ago. Coroner just pulled out a few minutes ago, said her male companion from under his No Deadwood Here cap.

    Soldier crossed over the street to a vacant bus bench and made the call.

    It’s done. Your PI buddy got himself arrested for it, but the only person he shot was me. Being nice can get a guy killed.

    You okay, right?

    I’ll make it, Big Man. I was thinking ’bout sticking around a few days, see the Badlands, see what happens with your buddy. Okay with you?

    Yeah, sure. See the sights, but not too long. You got other work to do. Ciao. The call ended.

    The FBI wiretap logged the call on 4/21/17 1847hrs.

    Soldier Boy Mahan didn’t have a clue it was a month into spring. He had little use for calendars; he tracked his time in yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. His seasons were summer and winter; the nuances of spring and fall eluded him. That it was starting to snow in the hills of South Dakota said it was just another winter’s night to him. Since Desert Storm, Soldier didn’t feel the cold. In fact, he didn’t feel much of anything except a lot of lonely.

    The wind kicked up a bit and carried the sounds of laughter, clinking glasses, and cowboy music, sounds he knew could

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