Monday, January 30, 2006

The Queen of Peru

Rockford & his client, Mr. Califer from Boston Fire & Casualty, are at a meet out in the sticks with a gang of theives who've stolen the Borland Diamond & want to sell it back. Rockford is unimpressed with the ski-masked bandits. He thinks the jewel heist was more than just a two-man job, & wonders if the two ski-masks are just a couple of opportunists who heard about the job & want to cash in on it. Flustered by Jim's deadpan bargaining, they arrange for a time & place for the exchange.

That night, the two theives are attacked. Jim was right; the real muscle of the gang catches the two in a parking garage & blasts them. One gets away & hides the diamond in Jim's bbq outside his trailer. The other can't get away & spills his guts. Now the gang, headed by a shotgun-toting, overcoat-wearing Australian, is after Rockford & Califer.

Early the next morning, Jim is awakened to a family of tourists in a mobile home, making a ruckus in the parking lot outside his trailer. They introduce themselves as the Ronco's, travelling the California coast on their vacation from Peru, Indiana. Their RV, the "Queen of Peru", what with the generator, dirtbikes & outboard motor in tow, keeps Jim from getting any sleep.

Back at Boston Fire & Casualty, we learn that Califer only hired Rockford because his predecessor signed Jim on a retainer contract. Califer, a wanna-be soldier in the National Guard, is gung-ho going into the exchange, at an abandoned amusement park. When they get there they find only one ski-mask, who says his partner is watching them through a rifle scope. Califer wants Jim to help attack the guy in a "pincer move". "Easy, Rommel," Jim snaps. "There could be another turkey in the straw with a 30-06!" The ski-masks tells them where the diamond is. Califer stays with the money while Rockford heads home for his bbq. When Jim gets home, it turns out that the Roncos have stolen his grill. Back at the exchange site, the ski-mask has no trouble punching Califer's lights out & taking the money.

At the station, Rockford has to have Rocky bail him out, while Califer walks away scot-free.Turns out he & Lt. Chapman are in the same regiment in the National Guard. The sleazy lifeguard stationed by Jim's trailer, who was trying to pick up the Ronco's dughter, tips Jim off to where they've headed for. Jim sets off to find the Queen of Peru. Unbeknownst to him they've dumped the ashes of his bbq, along with the diamond, on the side of PCH on the way to Solvang. The jewel theives kidnap Califer at gunpoint from his training excercises, despite his protests: "We're in the middle of an invasion!" With Califer in tow, they're now racing Rockford to find the Queen of Peru.

Rockford spends the night driving PCH, putting the word out on the CB that there's a reunion picnic for Indiana tourists. Sure enough, he gets a hit, & the Ronco's show up. Jim only gets madder when he learns that not only have they dumped the ashes. On top of everything else, another family of travelling Hoosiers backs their RV into Jim's Firebird, smashing the front driver's-side rim. Jim needs the Ronco's to drive him, but papa Ronco is an insurance man himself, & demands a cut of the reward in exchange.

As soon as they're on the road, the theives catch up to them & open fire. Jim grabs the wheel of the RV & uses it as a bulldozer, pushing their car off the road & flipping it down onto the beach. Back at his trailer, Jim, Califer, & the Roncos have found the diamond. The only catch is, Roncos insurance company handles Boston Fire & Causualty's auto policies in Indiana. As an employee, Ronco is ineligible for the reward. Rockford is feeling good about things again, until the Queen of Peru blows a flat before the Roncos can leave. Now they're stuck right in front of Jim's trailer again, even closer this time, & Jim braces himself for another sleepless night.

This one had Chapman, Becker, Beth, & Rocky, but no Angel, & they were only in it during the scene where Jim & Califer are being questioned at the station. Jim's blue bathrobe made another appearance, too.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Hotel of Fear

Rockford's no-goodnik prison-buddy, Evelyn "Angel" Martin, is coming home to the fleabag hotel he's staying at. He stops by the building mailbox, & steals a bunch of soap samples that are in the junk-mail bin. As he reaches the stairs, he hears a gunshot...a woman, clutching her stomach, stumbles from the hallway & falls down the stairs. A man in a suit, wearing leather gloves & holding a pistol, walks out after & sees Angel standing there, dumbfounded. Angel comes back to his senses when the man opens fire on him, throwing his mail in the air & running like hell. The man calmly waks down the stairs & picks up Angel's discarded mail. He gets his name from a letter from a collection agency; now he knows who Angel is.

Rockford is awakened by a frantic Angel pounding on his door. Grumpy & clad in his bathrobe, he reluctantly opens the door to his trailer & Angel runs in, terrified. Jim fixes him a drink & is trying to calm him down when the police show up, to pick up Angel. Back at the station, Angel is bewildered; he doesn't understand why the police knew to look for him. An annoyed Lt. Diehl explains that Rockford is #1 in Angels' "known associates" list, & reminds Angel that it's a crime to not report a murder.

Angel denies witnessing a murder, not wanting to get drawn into any part of a police investigation. An FBI man is at the station, with a keen interest in the murder. The killer is a man named Dell Kane, who the feds have been after for a while. Angel is finally coerced into ID'ing the shooter. At a lineup, after repeatedly being reassured that none of the suspects can see him, Diehl asks Angel if he recognizes anyone. Since everyone except the killer is a policeman posing as a suspect, career-criminal Angel recognizes all of them...one of them has lost weight, but he recognizes him from the Hollenbeck Division. Another one Angel recognizes as a member of Narco, now working Robbery/Homicide, etc. An exasperated Diehl asks Angel if he sees the shooter, & Angel admits that yes, he's in the lineup, & IDs him. The FBI agent is jubilant...it turns out Dell Kane is contract killer out of Jersey, with 19 notches on his gun, including the girl. Angel is mortified. He's just ID'd a notorious hitman who knows who he is. The police agree to place him in protective custody.

Jim visits Angel at a posh hotel, where Angel has been hiding under police watch, lounging around drinking champagne. Angel is loving it; he's been making the most of the hotel's luxurious facilities & room service. He's also hired a ghostwriter to help him write an autobiographical account of the ordeal. Jim is nonplussed at the title page: "Hotel of Fear", by Angel "the Cobra" Martin. Angel has a few other working titles ready: "The Martin Papers" & "Witness for the Prosecution". Both Jim & Angel's ghostwriter remind Angel that this last title has already been taken. Angel doesn't care; maybe some people will get confused & buy his book instead...so what? Jim leaves, disgusted. Diehl has angrily reminded Angel to stay away from the window, & sure enough, as Angel is toasting his own promising literary career, someone shoots through the glass door & shatters his champagne glass.

Rockford does some digging around. He learns from a friend of the murdered woman that she was a prostitute who was dating Dell Kane, & was killed by him out of jealousy. He also learns that Dell Kane had been hanging around with a "gambling" friend, & that the dead woman had tried to buy a gun from a local fence, to protect herself from the unstable hitman.

Angel's attitude changes when he learns that Dell Kane is out on bail. Now he realizes how much danger he's in. When Jim visits him again, they've changed hotels & Angel is disguised as a police officer. When room sevice arrives, Diehl looks at the tray first & tells Angel he can't have it. Rockford sees it too, & agrees that Angel shouldn't have it. Angel, complaining of being shot at & now starved to death, grabs the tray & finds that instead of his expensive lunch, it's a decorative "angel" ornament, with it's neck snapped. A gloomy silence comes over the room.

It gets worse. Dell Kane has requested an arraignment by judge, not jury. Tstate makes a good case, but the judge has been paid off by Kane's employers, & he gets off scot-free. He calmly follows Jim & Angel to the parkinglot & writes down Jims license plate #, right in front of them. The only protective custody available to Angel now is the county lockup, which he adamantly refuses, saying he'd rather be dead than back in jail.

Rockford steps up his investigation, realizing that his ex-cellmate, & possibly Jim himself, are now living on borrowed time. The local fence turns out to be a former "associate" of his, who tells Jim, off the record, that Dell Kane is out of control & losing friends in the underworld. But who's the "gambling" friend?

Unbeknownst to anyone, the mob is concerned about Kane's itchy trigger-finger, & want to stop using him. But that would be bad for Kane's reputation, & no one wants to be the one to give him the bad news. They're trying to figure a way to get him, Rockford, & Angel off their hands. Now that thepolice are involved, Kane's killing spree has become a huge liability.

Meanwhile, Jim & Angel are holed up in a motel in the valley. When Rocky brings them breakfast, he mentions that he also brought Jim's toothbrush. Jim is horrified..."You didn't stop by my trailer, did you, dad?" Afraid that Rocky may have been followed, he asks him to leave quickly, & tells Angel to pack again. Angel has to be coaxed out of the motel room, & Jim angrily realizes that Angel's waiting to see if the hitman kills Jim on the way to the car. Finally, Angel runs out & dives headfirst though the passenger-side window of the Firebird. His head is down on the floorboards, but before he can right himself, Dell Kane is on their tail, trying to run them off the road. Car-chase-savvy Jim has no problem eluding him, & ends up chasing the killer instead. The pursuit is broken up by a patrol car, & the hitman gets away. But now, Jim has Kane's license #. Also, Jim has to shove a carsick Angel to the curb before he can ruin the Firebird's upholstery.

Now the pieces are falling into place. The car belongs to the ambitious, mobbed-up junior partner of a local bookmaker. Jim suspects, correctly, that Kane is in town to kill the head of the gambling operation, making way for the local mafioso to take control. He goes to warn the bookie, but it falls on deaf ears. The junior partner is there at the time, & has no trouble convincing his boss that Jim has it all wrong. On the way out, Angel can't resist making a $30 wager on a 30-1 horse.

Right away, Angel gets a call saying that his horse came in. Jim doesn't buy it. He knows it's a setup. "Where did they ask you to go to collect your winnings, a deserted warehouse in the middle of the night?" Angel is mesmerized by the $900 payout, & says he'll go stay with his brother-in-law. Of course he goes straight to the bookie. And of course, it's a trap. The junior partner & Kane are there, & plan to kill Angel, Rockford, & the bookie. Sonce they only have Angel, they tie him to a pillar underneath the Long Beach Freeway and tell him they'll kill him quickly if he'll just tell them where Jim is, otherwise they'll "take him apart piece by piece."

Right about here, I got a call about a job interview, so I missed the very end. I've seen this one before, of course, & my general recollection is that at the last second, Jim & Becker show up & save a hysterical Angel. Deux ex machina. I think the FBI guy was there, too. I'm sure there was more to it but that's the general idea.

This was one of the rare episodes where Rockford didn't execute a trademark j-turn during the mandatory car-chase. No Beth Davenport, either. The guy who played the mobbed-up junior bookie has been in a bunch of other episodes, he always plays a mobbed-up kind of guy. Oh yeah, & the FBI guy looked like Rick from Simon&Simon. Don't know if it was really him, though.