A Bad Deal in the Valley - Recap

Karen Styles, a long ago girlfriend, looks Jim up and they go to a restaurant for a nice dinner. When Jim was in prison he met Karen’s father, Sam Styles, who encouraged Jim to look up his daughter when he got out. He did, and they had a fiery romance that left them both a little singed. She seems recovered but he isn’t. And he’s a little unclear why she contacted him. She comes on strong, saying she even looked in the phone book to see if he was listed as “Mr. and Mrs.” before she came down. She asks to move closer to the fire and continues: she’s in real estate now, well established. She made a quarter million dollars in profits. It’s fun and enjoyable work for her and now that she’s better situated she decided to look Jim up. She offers him one of her two tickets to a tennis match the next day and tells Jim to pick her up around noon. Then she remembers an appointment in Pasadena at 10:30 that will keep her from making it. But she could make it if Jim kept the appointment for her. All he has to do is drop off a case containing escrow papers.

The next morning Jim gets the case and takes it to Jack Chilson at the real estate office. As he’s about to leave Chilson suggests he wait for a receipt. It seems to take some time for the receipt and Jim eventually has Chilson’s assistant find out what the delay is. That’s when Sergeant Brenner and Detective Michaels enter the office and place Jim under arrest!

At the police station Jim talks to Dennis Becker. The case contained no escrow papers. What it did contain was a hundred thousand dollars – in counterfeit currency! Jim protests that all he did was deliver the case, but he’s all the police have so he’s not getting out of it that easily. Especially after Karen Styles claims she gave him a hundred thousand dollars of real money. Dennis books Jim for possession and passing of counterfeit money. Worse than that, Solly won’t put up Jim’s bail. He’s stuck until he can solve the problem. He realizes that Karen Stiles is on the con but can’t do much about it from prison. Then, after just a few hours, Dennis Becker informs Jim he’s free to go. Just like that? Just like that, Dennis confirms. Jim is suspicious but also knows he can’t fix this mess from prison, so he goes.

Jim returns to his trailer. Rocky is there and doesn’t understand why the police cut Jim loose. Jim doesn’t understand it either and that worries him. He concludes the police know something he doesn’t and resolves to find out what after a shower, a shave and a change of clothes.

Jim goes to see Karen Stiles, catching up with her at a tennis court. He reasons that since she built the frame around him she can explain why. She claims she didn’t set him up and that she told him he was delivering escrow papers and not money because she didn’t entirely trust him. Jim gives her a look and tells her she’s “awfully good.” But he’s not buying it; he’s been around a confidence game or two in his time and knows one when he sees one. She gives up what she says is the real story.

One of her clients bought a hundred acres of desert land and paid in cash. Irregular, but the man is going through a messy divorce and he’s a good friend, so she thought she was doing him a favor by helping him hide assets. But the client stiffed her with a hundred thousand in phony money. She used the phony money to exercise the real estate option. Jim doesn’t buy this story either but demands the name of the client so he can check it out. She supplies the name Tony Lederer.

Karen doesn’t know where Tony Lederer is so Jim has only one idea – take her to the police and have her explain the story. Their conversation gets heated and the tennis pro comes to see what the problem is; she slips into the clubhouse. Jim asks the man if there’s another way out but the man clearly thinks Jim is forcing his attentions on Karen. His only answer is a stony stare. Jim goes around to the front of the building and Karen finally does emerge. Jim escorts her toward his car as a sedan pulls up. Two men emerge from it and hit Jim over the head, then force Karen into the car and drive off.

Jim goes to the station and reports the kidnapping to Dennis Becker. Dennis learns the crooks used the girl’s own car to snatch her but has no idea why she was taken. The best suggestion he has is that she has hung with shady characters her entire life (her father was a criminal, after all) and perhaps one of them kidnapped her. Dennis has nothing on Lederer except a burglary, and Lederer was the victim! Jim reads the report and learns that someone broke into the Lederer home and stole a half millions dollars in jewelry. Dennis snatches the report away before Jim can take any more notes, claiming the case is very active and Jim should stay well away from it.

Jim has the address of the Lederer home so he goes there next. The home is expansive, and has horse stables. Clearly the Lederer family is wealthy. Jim finds Mrs. Lederer at the stables and introduces himself as Arthur Hagel from the insurance company, investigating the jewelry theft. She tells him she’s already shared everything she knows but he reminds her of the size of the theft and tells her that the company wants the facts checked and rechecked. She agrees to answer his questions. From her Jim learns the robbery occurred when no one was home and that the safe was blown up with dynamite. He also learns that all of the wealth and property belongs to her. Her husband is penniless. She suspected he was cheating on her, hired a private detective, and got proof. Now she intends to divorce him. Jim wants to know where he might find her husband but she has no idea and less interest. Jim then asks her whether she believes her husband could have stolen the jewels himself after learning of the divorce. She does not. Finally he asks her if there is another way out of her property and she tells him about a little used back road. Taking this road, Jim loses his FBI tails.

Jim finds Dennis again and asks if Federal agents got him sprung. Dennis dances around the question, telling Jim that even if he knew he couldn’t tell him. Finally it becomes clear to Dennis that Jim lacks a key piece of information. Dennis tells Jim that Karen’s father Sam Stiles was in prison for kiting checks when Jim met him, but that he was more infamous as one of the top plate artists in the country. So when Jim shows up in the company of Sam’s daughter with a hundred thousand in funny money, Federal men got interested in a hurry. Jim concludes that Karen knew about the funny money from the outset and that the kidnapping was staged.

Jim calls Sandy Lederer and adopts an oily southern accent to pose as Sergeant Jim Dennis of the Los Angeles Police Department. He tells Sandy the police may have recovered her jewelry and asks if she could come to the Wilshire station at 5:00pm to identify them. She agrees. Jim returns to the Lederer home knowing Sandy won’t be there and employs a little social engineering on the maid. He learns the name of the private detective Sandy Lederer hired to find out whether her husband was cheating.

Jim goes to the Wilshire Boulevard office of Murray Slauson intending to trick Slauson into telling him where Lederer can be found. But Slauson only reveals that Lederer was having an affair. It seems knows exactly who Jim Rockford is from “studying his competition, such as it is.” Jim tries to put pressure on Slauson and Slauson doesn’t take it well. He stands up, revealing he’s bigger and heavier than Jim. Jim quickly moves to leave but Slauson cuts him off. It seems that Jim’s going to take a beating, but he surprises Slauson by dropping a heavy case on Slauson’s toes, grabbing Slauson by the tie, and administering a left cross that snaps the immobilized man’s head back and drops him like a stone.

Jim leaves the office and picks up a tail. Driving fast and hard, he tries to evade the men but they corner him when Jim reaches a spot where the road is temporarily closed. Pulling up behind him, they tell him they’ll take him to Karen. He follows them to her in his car.

Jim’s angry. He knows Karen set him up and fed him to the cops. He knows she laid a false trail for the government using him. She wonders if he’ll even hear her out and admits she hasn’t been too fair. She then tries to play on old times again. Jim gives her a gold star for effort but tells her bitterly that old times only buys her one ticket and she cashed that in already.

She reveals that after her father died the phony money became hers. She had entered into a deal with Lederer to buy some property. She found the deal and Lederer was supposed to put up a hundred thousand to buy it. Then they’d split the profits. Then Lederer disappeared on her and now she wants Jim to find him. Jim tentatively agrees; he was looking for Lederer for his own reasons before this.

Jim leaves but keeps thinking about the whole affair. The pieces don’t seem to fit. Then he remembers that Karen’s Uncle Charlie was a top box man – a safecracker – and could easily have taught her how to crack a wall safe. Jim’s next destination is an old friend.

The Preacher is another of Jim’s prison contacts. Jim tells him he needs a fence to handle a half million in hot ice. The Preacher gives Jim the name Louie Montana. But Jim has already been to Louie. He has also been to see China Sam, Big Frank and Fat Richard. None of them have what he needs.

Jim’s next stop is a jewelry store and a man working there, Mr. Appleby. Jim tells Appleby he wants to see a half million in hot ice; Appleby gives him an appraising look and tells him he didn’t take him for a Fed. Jim assures Appleby he’s not a Fed and offers a bona fide: the Preacher sent him and said he might help with some info. Appleby allows that he has seen a half million worth of hot stones – if they’d been real. But all they were is pretty paste. Jim wonders if the woman who brought them in had a name and Appleby obliges him. It was Karen Stiles.

The next stop is Mr. Braverman’s office. Braverman represents the insurance agency handling the claim. Jim offers to locate the jewelry for a ten percent finder’s fee. And access to Braverman’s files on the Lederers.

Jim goes back to Karen with what he knows. She was Lederer’s lover. She found the real estate deal and told him about it, and he offered to buy in. Their plan was to purchase the property for two hundred thousand and then resell it to a syndicate Karen set up for two million. They’d pocket the profits. Lederer told her the only way he could get the money is if they stole the jewels. They did it and she found out they were paste when she tried to fence them to Appleby. Somewhere during the robbery Lederer switched the stones and left her without her share. This is the real reason she wants to find him. She offers Rockford ten thousand dollars for Lederer’s whereabouts.

Rockford takes her to a lake front home he found by tracing Lederer through the Power and Light Company. He tells Karen the two of them will go in alone so as not to spook Lederer. She has her two goons wait outside. But Lederer still rabbits as soon as they knock; Jim follows him down the pier. Lederer can’t get his boat started and in a panic hits Jim with an oar. But that doesn’t take Jim out of the fight and one punch later Lederer is in the drink and gasping for air. Jim hauls him back into the house.

Karen wants her share of the gem money or else she’s going to have Jerry and Fred take Lederer out on the lake and use him for an anchor. He tells her the gems were never real. Jim puts it together. Lederer switched the gems long ago. Lederer confirms this and tells them the money is in a Swiss bank account. He knew during the divorce it would come out that the gems were fakes so he needed to make them disappear before he was arrested for theft. He conned Karen into blowing the safe and stealing the gems. What she took was what had been in there for months.

Karen realizes she can’t let Jim go because if she does she’ll go to prison for robbery. On the other hand, if Jim disappears she can split the Swiss account with Lederer. She almost reluctantly orders her men to take Jim out, a task they approach with gusto. But Jim had an ace in the hole: the entire conversation has been bugged! Jim reaches into his coat and pulls out... a transmitter, in pieces. It seems Lederer’s oar did some damage after all. Jim seems resigned to his fate but sucker punches one of the goons and holds his own with the other until Dennis Becker and several uniformed police burst in.

Jim escapes another frame but his past fiery relationship has reached out to scorch him one last time.

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