by Kim Fielding
“What if I offer you something even more remunerative?”
“Such as?”
Townsend gave the type of smile a fellow might show after landing a particularly big fish, and he paused to light a cigar. “It shouldn’t be much trouble—just a little more than tracking Roy down.”
“I’ll be the judge of how much trouble it is.”
“Fair enough.” Townsend gave an amicable nod. “Fair enough. All I want you to do, Mr. Donne, is bring Roy here to your office so I can meet with him.”
Thomas stubbed out his cigarette. “Bring him here. Simple as that, is it?”
“You may need to employ your powers of persuasion. I take it, Mr. Donne, that you can be quite persuasive when necessary?”
It wasn’t that Thomas was above strong-arming now and then. He was a big man who knew how to use a weapon, and he’d employed those advantages more than once. They were, in fact, a good part of the reason he’d chosen this particular career. But he wasn’t keen on dragging boys somewhere against their will—not unless they deserved it, anyway.
“What will you do with him once he’s here?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. I told you already that he has strayed. I hope to lead him back onto the proper path.”
“You intend to preach at him?”
Townsend laughed long and hard, which set his jowls and belly shaking. “My good man, I leave the preaching to those who believe in God and other fairy tales. I believe in hard work, hard currency, and a sprinkle of magic.” He grinned for a moment longer and then his gaze hardened, his pale blue eyes going flat and opaque. “Five hundred.”
“What?”
“Bring him here today, give me a call when he gets here, keep him here until I arrive—and I’ll pay you another five.”
It was a ridiculous amount, but Thomas didn’t bother pointing that out. Townsend already knew. “You have deep pockets.”
“Roy Gage is important to me, my boy. I am always willing to pay well for things that matter.”
Rents paid on apartment and office for over a year. Cupboards and bottles filled. Enough to silence the screaming? No, never enough for that. But enough.
“All right.”
“Very good!” Townsend stood, scooting back his chair with a squeal on the wooden floor. He shook Thomas’s hand, then gathered his coat and hat in one hand while keeping his cigar between the fingers of the other. “Call me when he’s here,” he reminded.
“Yeah. I got that.”
Looking smug, Townsend sailed away.
Thomas considered stopping for lunch but decided against it. Better to get this business over with and the additional pay in his pocket. Then he could eat wherever and whatever he liked. He wished Townsend had made this request last night—the Ambassador Hotel was only a few blocks from the Jefferson but was a considerably longer walk from Thomas’s office. On the other hand, Townsend was certainly paying well enough to make the journey worth it.
The desk clerk at the Ambassador was busy with an elderly couple and didn’t seem to notice when Thomas entered. The lobby was otherwise deserted, potted ferns gathering dust in the corners and the lingering smell of coffee wafting in from next door. He strode purposefully to the elevators, and a car arrived right away.
A housekeeper greeted him in the upstairs hallway, apparently unaware or uncaring that he wasn’t a registered guest. She was carrying a tall stack of folded towels. Thomas waited for her to enter Room 402 before he knocked on 412. Nobody answered.
After a pause, Thomas pounded harder. “Gage? Mr. France sent me with a message.” A fabrication, of course, but more likely to gain a positive response than mentioning Townsend.
Still no reply. Could be that Gage was a heavy sleeper or wasn’t in the mood for callers. Or he could be out. Well, if that was the case, Thomas wasn’t going to wait in the hallway. He tried the knob, but the door was locked.
After a quick glance up and down the corridor, Thomas threw his considerable weight against the flimsy door, which immediately flew open. Thomas stumbled into the room, and what he saw made him draw his gun. The place was a disaster: mattress pulled off the bed springs and standing on its side, nearly blocking the door; bedding and clothing in heaps on the floor; all the dresser drawers open; even the curtains torn from their hooks. With his pistol at the ready, Thomas crept around the mattress… and froze.
“Aw, fuck,” he growled as he lowered his gun.
Roy Gage lay naked on the carpet, neck gaping in a grisly smile, his open eyes fixed sightlessly on the ceiling.
Thomas’s first instinct was to run and pretend he’d never been here. But the housekeeper had seen him; perhaps the desk clerk too. And Townsend—fuck him for setting Thomas up! Calling the cops would do no good, not when Townsend was so recently one of their own.
It took all of Thomas’s will not to kick the walls in a fit of rage. He was angriest at himself, at his stupidity for falling into Townsend’s trap. All it took was a few hundred bucks dangled in front of him, and Thomas had fallen as easily as a naïve child.
And there was a boy dead on the floor. Not an innocent boy by any means, but a young one who likely hadn’t deserved to bleed out on a carpet in a San Francisco hotel.
Thomas caught his reflection in the mirror—his face a hard mask of rage—and had to look away. Which is when he noticed the telephone on a little stand beside the bed, behind Gage’s pale corpse. Since no other course of action seemed open, and delaying wasn’t going to help anything, Thomas walked carefully around the body. He winced when his shoes squelched in the blood-soaked carpet.
He managed to keep his voice steady for the operator, but not when Townsend came on the line. “You son of a bitch!”
Townsend paused before responding. “Mr. Donne? Is that you?”
“What the hell are you up to? If you think I’m taking the fall for this, you’re sadly mistaken. I promise I won’t go down without a fight.”
“Mr. Donne, whatever are you so worked up about?”
Thomas ground his teeth, hard. “Murder, you bloody bastard. And blaming someone else for it.”
An even longer silence fell, and when Townsend spoke again his tone was urgent. “Are you trying to tell me Gage is dead?”
“You know bloody well he’s dead.”
“Where? At his hotel? Are you there now?”
“Look here, Townsend. I won’t—”
“Mr. Donne! Listen carefully if you wish to stay out of prison.”
Although Thomas snorted in disbelief, he didn’t say anything more, and after a moment Townsend cleared his throat. “Is anyone there with you? Is anyone else aware Gage is dead?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“Very well. Stay where you are. Don’t let anyone else into the room. I’m going to send a man to you. Detective Munroe. He’s a friend, you understand?”
“I don’t want your friends,” Thomas spat.
“Perhaps not, but you need this one. Do whatever he tells you. Then call me when you return to your office and we’ll have another talk.”
“Our last talk put me in a room with a dead boy.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Townsend’s sorrow was patently false. “But I’ll put things right.”
“You’ll bring Roy Gage back to life?”
Townsend huffed into the phone. “Wait for Detective Munroe.” Then he hung up.
Even though Thomas didn’t want to obey, he didn’t leave the room. He stepped back around the corpse, however, and used his handkerchief to wipe the soles of his shoes clean. He pushed the door closed as well, although it would no longer latch. He waited. Ray Gage made poor company.
Thomas didn’t want to disturb the scene any more than he already had, and he was out of tobacco. With nothing more to occupy his mind—except the looming probability of going to jail—his thoughts turned to corpses. He’d seen a great many of them. Hundreds at least. They’d long ago lost their shock value, and now he stared at Gage’s sad, twisted
remains with cold objectivity. Thomas had never been a religious man, but it had always been clear to him that when a person died, something fundamental left their body. A life force, a soul… he didn’t know. He’d seen with his own eyes the moment that thing departed; he’d sometimes been holding a man in his arms when it happened. The carcass that remained was heavier without the spirit.
He wondered if Gage had family to mourn him. The real end came when there was nobody to remember the departed—of that Thomas was certain.
His fingers had begun to twitch, and he’d almost decided to leave when a single soft rap sounded on the door, which swung open from the contact. The man who stepped inside was young for a detective, with a thin build and shiny black hair, his gaze as sharp as a blade. He pushed the door closed behind him.
“Mr. Donne?”
“You have a cigarette? I could use one.”
Munroe raised his eyebrows but pulled a case from his pocket and handed Thomas a cigarette before taking one himself. They lit and inhaled almost in unison.
“Hell of a mess here, Donne.”
“Murders usually are.”
“You’ve seen a lot of them?”
Thomas shrugged. “My fair share.”
“I’m told you have a valid private detective’s license.”
That wasn’t a question and didn’t seem worthy of a response. After waiting a few moments, Munroe sighed and gestured with his cigarette. “Were you the one who tossed the place?”
“No.”
“All right. What have you touched?”
“The door. I’m the one who busted it, incidentally. It was locked when I arrived. I touched the telephone. And I stepped in the bloody part of the carpet. That’s it.”
Munroe seemed to chew that over for a while as his gaze slowly scanned the room. Thomas reckoned that the detective missed very few details. “Well,” Munroe finally said, “I do appreciate that. It’ll make my job easier.”
“Your job? What exactly is your job?”
Flashing a quick grin, Munroe stepped around the upended mattress and whistled when he saw the body. “A mess for sure,” he said, shaking his head, although he didn’t seem any more shaken up over Gage’s death than Thomas was. He turned to look at Thomas. “My job is to pinch the bad guys. You know that.”
“And who’s the bad guy here?”
The grin returned. “I don’t know. But I’ve been told very specifically that it ain’t you.”
Relief made Thomas want to slump, but he kept his posture straight. For all he knew, Munroe was lying—or Townsend had something worse in mind for him than an accusation of murder. “I’ll leave you to your detecting then.”
“Hang on. I got a couple questions first. Anyone see you come here?”
Thomas put his right hand in his coat pocket and felt the weight of the pistol. “The housekeeper. The desk clerk may have seen me walk toward the lift.”
“All right then. Good. You have any idea who knocked off this punk?”
“Not really.” That was only a partial lie. Thomas had two or three leads, but nothing close to solid.
“Right. And you were calling on him because…?”
“I was hired to bring him to meet with someone.”
“Who?”
Thomas smiled humorlessly. “I don’t reveal my clients’ identities.” Not even when that client was the same man who’d sent Munroe here. Thomas didn’t know what Townsend had told the detective and had no desire to twist any lies loose.
“Look at that—an honorable man. I don’t meet too many of those.”
“Maybe you should choose a different line of work, detective.”
Munroe laughed hard at that, slapping his thigh with his hat. “I like you, Mr. Donne.”
“Am I free to leave?”
“As free as any man ever is.” Munroe waited until Thomas had the door open before tossing out one last comment. “Be seeing you around, pal.”
As soon as Thomas reentered the lobby, the smell of grilling meat from the cafeteria next door reminded him he’d missed lunch. He walked quickly in the direction of his office but stopped two blocks before arriving and entered Bianchi’s Grill. It was past the mealtime rush, so finding an open table was no problem.
“Cheese sandwich?” The waitress knew Thomas had been scraping by lately.
He gave her a genuine smile. “Two ham-and-egg sandwiches today, Bertha. With french fries. And a vanilla milkshake. Coffee too.”
“Well, look at that. All of a sudden you have the bees. What’d you do, rob a bank?”
“A bit like that.”
She swept away with a laugh, the strawberry-honey scent of her perfume momentarily masking the stronger aroma of hamburgers on the grill.
Thomas took his time over lunch, enjoying every bite. He even ate an extra-large slice of apple pie a la mode. It was a ridiculously big meal, but he was a big man. Besides, right now he was alive and free, with money in his pocket. Who knew what the future would bring?
He was almost whistling as he returned to the office. Until he unlocked the outer door and found Townsend waiting, seated behind the dusty receptionist’s desk.
Thomas yanked the gun from his pocket and pointed it at Townsend.
“It shouldn’t take so long to walk from the Tenderloin.” Townsend puffed on a cigar, apparently unperturbed to have a Smith & Wesson aimed at his face.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you. I would have poured myself a drink, but you seem to be out.” Townsend clucked his tongue. “I can get you some more if you like. Good stuff.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I’m good with locks. Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve some business to conduct and then I must get going. I’m a busy man.”
Thomas didn’t lower the gun.
Townsend balanced the cigar on the edge of an ashtray and, moving slowly and carefully, slipped a hand inside his suit coat. Although Thomas tightened his grip slightly, he didn’t pull the trigger. He let his hand drop to his side when Townsend produced another white envelope.
“Five hundred, as promised.” Townsend set the envelope on the desk and gave it a little pat.
“I didn’t bring him to you.”
“No. Although it appears you did your best to fulfill your end of our agreement. Ah, the poor boy.”
Thomas had seen people evince more genuine sorrow over a dead mouse. “So you’re paying me anyway.”
“I’m a man of my word, Mr. Donne.”
An honorable man. Thomas found that prospect as unlikely as had Detective Munroe. But he couldn’t walk away from five hundred dollars. He returned the handgun to his pocket, grabbed the envelope, and ripped it open. Five hundred-dollar bills, each as crisp as if they’d just rolled off the press. Tossing the empty envelope onto the desk, he tucked the money away. “Our business is over.”
“Our old business, yes. But now it appears as if we have new.”
Suddenly weary of games, of wondering what unpleasant news might blindside him next, of seeing Townsend’s self-assured florid face, Thomas threw himself into one of the chairs lined up against the wall. “Exactly what is it you want from me?”
“Nothing beyond what anyone might want from a private detective. I want you to find the person who killed Roy Gage.”
“It wasn’t you?”
Townsend didn’t bother to appear offended. “It was not. Had I wanted him dead, I’d have done a neater job of it.”
“Right. You’re not a sloppy killer.” Thomas stretched out his legs and leaned back. The chair creaked under him. “Why do you care who did it?”
“I told you. The boy was a sort of protégé of mine, and—”
“Cut it. That story’s as dead as Gage. Tell me the truth.”
Townsend sucked on his lips and stubbed out the cigar. He had big hands, long and wide and meaty. A laborer’s hands, except his nails were clean and neatly trimmed. His rings shone as if the stones contained flames. “It�
�s self-interest,” he said. “Gage and I were… linked, even if tenuously. I need to make sure his murder is unconnected to any threats against me.”
Thomas wasn’t sure whether he believed this, although it was more credible than Townsend as an angelic savior. But even if it was the truth, it didn’t explain everything. “You have ties to the police department. Munroe said he’d look into it. Why isn’t that enough?”
“More information is always better.” Townsend narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “And you know as well as I that even those who are connected to us cannot always be fully trusted. Also, the priorities of the police department might be different from my own.”
“So you want…?”
Now Townsend leaned forward. “Find me the murderer, Mr. Donne. His name and his location. That is all. I will pay you generously for this.”
“How generously?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
Ten grand. Thomas could buy a house and one of those new Model A cars and still have money left over. He could take a true holiday for the first time since… a very long time. The wolves would be banished for years.
He stood suddenly and strode to the window, staring out with his back to Townsend. Not much of a view from here. Only the gray building across the street, where a pigeon stared back from a window ledge. He couldn’t hear the foghorn, but perhaps the wind was carrying the sound in another direction. The fog itself wasn’t heavy today, at least not in this part of the city, and he missed it. He liked its blurring grayness.
Thomas swung around and looked at Townsend. “I’ll do it for fifteen.”
6
“You look better today.” Rosie stood in Abe’s kitchen. Today she wore a simple yellow drop-waist dress, and her short reddish hair was styled in waves with a little curl near one ear. “Did you take aspirin like I told you?”
“Yes,” he lied. In truth, he’d simply woken up midmorning to find the headache gone. Which was fortunate because he had two séances scheduled for today. The first had gone well, and now he and Rosie were seated at his little table, finishing off some sandwiches before guests arrived for the second.