by Ralph Dennis
“Better than that,” I said, “why don’t you ride out to my place with us? You can pick up your wallet and I can take another look at that cut.”
“I don’t know …” He let it trail off.
“Some problem?”
“I don’t know you two,” he said evenly.
“There’s not much to know. Big guy there is Hump Evans. Used to play pro ball.”
“Hump’s not your real name?”
“It’s the one I answer to most of the time.”
“And I’m Jim Hardman. Ex-cop.”
The bartender came over and looked at Edward’s empty glass. Edward shook his head. “This isn’t a question I usually ask. Maybe you won’t mind. What do you two do for a living?”
“As little as possible,” I said.
“Odd jobs,” Hump added.
“But not murder?”
I wanted him to believe me. “No. Murder is not an odd job. It’s a profession.”
He bought it. “I’ll ride out with you.”
While he was at the back table talking to Rat, I called the bartender over and paid for another large pitcher of draft, to be taken back after we’d left.
I made a wide loop on the way home. At the seafood market on Ponce de Leon I bought three pounds of shrimp. On down a few blocks I stopped at the Royal Bakery. I walked in among the huge high racks of cooling bread and picked out a loaf of French.
First thing after we arrived at my place, I gave him the wallet. While he looked at it, I went into the kitchen and started peeling the shrimp, leaving the tail on, and deveining them. I was trying out a new method. I used a new ejector razor blade and it worked pretty well after I got over the fear that I’d slice off a finger or two.
Hump and I switched to Scotch on the rocks. Edward settled for a beer. While I peeled and deveined, Hump got him to take off his shirt. Hump pressed a wet cloth to the Bandaids before he tried to take them off. It wasn’t necessary. Edward had taken it easy in the last day or two. The edges of the cut were growing together well and a thready crust was forming.
Even with the ejector blade slicing along, three pounds of shrimp takes a bit of time. “You’ll stay to supper, Edward?”
“Scampi al burro?” He’d seen me take out the garlic, the green onions, and the lemons.
“Good guess.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“It’s settled, then.”
“There’s one thing, though. I get a kind of feeling about you and Hump, that you’re not being entirely honest with me.”
“You read it right.” I was getting down to the last third of the shrimp and I didn’t want to stop. “I didn’t know how to get in touch with you so I ran an ad in the paper. You didn’t see it but the family lawyer, Foster, did.”
“And?”
“I got the tour of the old home place and I met your father and I talked to your sister.”
“I thought it might be something like that.” He didn’t sound angry or disappointed, just tired.
“You mind if I finish these shrimp before we talk about it?”
“No. I’ll have another beer.”
Hump got it for him and I started the downhill side with the last pound of shrimp.
“I’ve got to make a call. You can come with me.”
He sat on the edge of the bed while I dialed the number Foster had written on the card for me. I had to work my way through two people before I got Beth Fanzia on the line.
“Yes, Mr. Hardman?”
“You make the overseas call?”
“An hour ago.”
“And?”
“He is not in Venice. My son, Rudolph, is in the country with an aunt. I spoke to the housekeeper. She said the count is in Rome but she doesn’t have a number where he can be reached.”
“Is that usual?”
“You don’t know my ex-husband’s sexual appetites.”
“Sorry.” I looked over at Edward. He didn’t even seem to be listening to my part of the conversation. “Did she say when he left for Rome?”
“Four days ago.”
“Then he could be in this country?”
“I don’t think he’d come without calling me,” she said.
Like shit. Like cow shit and horse shit mixed together. “We can check it out. How’s he listed in his passport?”
“Count Alfredo Fanzia.”
“Thank you, Beth.” I tapped Edward on the shoulder. “Edward’s here with me. He’s staying to supper. Would you like to talk to him?”
“Yes. But what should I say to him?”
“Whatever you want to. But I’ve got a feeling he’d rather not buy this deal I made with you and Foster.”
“Let me speak to him.”
I passed the receiver to Edward and went back into the kitchen. I melted the butter in a skillet and added a few drops of olive oil so the butter wouldn’t burn. Then I browned a few cloves of garlic and the green onions, tops and all. While this worked off, I turned on the broiler and arranged the shrimp in a shallow baking pan. Right at the end I added lemon juice and salt and pepper.
Hump uncorked the bottle of Riesling I’d put out on the back steps to cool. “How’s he taking it?”
“His sister’s talking to him. If she doesn’t carry the right weight, we might be out of a job. Or we’ll have to watch him from a distance, against his will.”
“That’s the hard way.”
“And the risky one,” I said. I poured the butter sauce over the shrimp and ran them under the broiler. After a couple of minutes I checked them. The shrimp were turning and curling. I used a spoon to turn each shrimp and then I basted the shrimp once more before I put them back under the broiler.
Edward came back from the bedroom while I was giving them a final check. “Well?”
“Beth makes a good argument.”
“But not good enough?”
“I can’t go along with it.”
I lifted out the pan of shrimp. “No way to change your mind?”
“Not unless you kidnap me.”
“That’s not an odd job either.” The room filled with the scent of butter and garlic and onions. “Let’s have supper anyway.”
I portioned out the shrimp, about a pound to each of us, and poured the butter over them. We drank the wine and ate and used the still-warm French bread to sop up the sauce.
Hump stacked the dishes in the sink while Edward and I sat over coffee. I needed some new way to convince Edward to change his mind, but I couldn’t come up with one. From all accounts there’d been two attempts on his life. If that didn’t shake him, I couldn’t think of anything that would.
“It’s a mistake, Edward.” I knew how lame that was.
“I’ve been a private person for a long time. It’s too late to become someone else now.”
“You’ve set yourself up. It’ll be easier for whoever wants to kill you.”
“I think I’m old enough to die,” he said.
He wanted us to drop him at the Parkland Deli. We were half a block away when I saw the red flashing light on the top of a police car. It seemed to be parked in front of the beer joint. I drove past and turned onto St. Charles and parked. The three of us walked back to the Parkland. There were a number of uniformed cops and a couple of plainclothes men I recognized. One of them was Art Maloney. I told Hump and Edward to wait and I went over close enough to call to Art.
He broke away from the group. “What you want, Jim?”
“What happened? Another brawl?”
“Worse,” he said. “A dead man out in the back parking lot.”
“Who?”
“Some wino. Nobody knows his real name. They call him Rat.”
“How?”
“Knifed. But that was later. Looks like somebody broke his arm and a few of his fingers.”
“Put some questions to him?”
“Might be. Why are you interested?”
“I’ll call you.”
“No.” He caught my arm. �
�Now.”
I pulled my arm free. “I’ll call you in an hour.”
“You’d better.”
I pushed through a crowd of watchers. Before I could explain what had happened, the men from the meat wagon pushed the front door open and wheeled out the stretcher bed. There was a covered body on it.
“You know who that is?” I asked Edward.
He shook his head.
“It’s getting rough. That’s your friend, Rat.”
“Why? Why would … ?”
I caught one arm and Hump caught the other one. He didn’t protest as we walked him down Highland and around the corner to the car. Once we were inside, I lit a smoke and blew some of it out the window. I had to make the choice sooner than I’d planned to. And the parts were scattered and hard to bring together.
“It looks like kidnaping is all that’s left.”
I kicked the engine over and pulled across the street into the A & P lot to make my turn. We headed back down Highland past the Parkland Deli. When we were level with the meat wagon, one of the attendants slammed the back door shut. It seemed, for some reason, a gesture with a lot of finality to it.
CHAPTER FOUR
It might have been the first motel ever built in Georgia. At least it looked that way. Instead of the solid bank of rooms shoved together it was a series of small clapboard cabins yards and yards apart. Huge old pines towered over the cabins. The office might have been just another of the cabins except for the lighted sign above the door. “PINEVIEW MOTEL. REASONABLE RATES.”
If the blonde woman in her forties was surprised that she had guests registering, she hid it well while I filled out the card. I put down a new name. Jim Harper. It was close enough so I’d answer to it. And a new address, 641 Bellevue Drive, Anderson, South Carolina. Why not? I’d never been to Anderson and I didn’t know anyone else who had either.
She turned the card so she could read the name there. “How long will you be staying, Mr. Harper?”
“One night, I think.”
I could see that she was peering out at the driveway. I’d parked out of the window sightlines. I’d put down the right make of the car but I’d transposed some when I’d written down the license plate numbers. I didn’t think she’d notice but if she did, who knew their own phone number or license plate that well?
I paid for the first day in advance and got the key and the directions to unit six, and the information that there was a restaurant about half a mile down the road.
The cabin was larger inside than I’d thought. Two single beds, a couple of chairs and a battered black and white television set in the main room. In back there was a small bathroom with a shower stall. All the walls were real knotty pine.
Edward looked around and then sat down on the edge of one of the beds. “I don’t think I understand this.”
Hump came back from his check of the bathroom. He stood in the doorway and waited. I could see that he had his doubts too, but he hadn’t said anything so far.
“Simple enough. Before they killed Rat, they probably asked him some questions.” I said. “The big question they might have asked was where you were. Did you tell him?”
“I told him who you were and that I was going with you to pick up my wallet.”
“Then it’s better than even money they’re fucking around my house right now.”
“What happened to Rat?”
“You don’t really want to know that.”
I walked to the door. Hump followed me.
“I’ve got to run into town for an hour or so,” I said. Hump raised an eyebrow at me. “To get some underwear for all of us, some sandwiches, and something to drink.”
It wasn’t the whole truth but it was close enough to satisfy Edward if he asked the same question.
It must have been the scare hour at pawnshops, the hour when all the robberies take place. The clerk behind the counter jumped at the sound of the bell on the door. I gave the bell another shake before I closed the door and walked over to him.
“Paul in?”
“Does he know you?”
“He knows me,” I said.
He led me through a doorway and down a dark hallway to an office in the bowels of the building. Paul was at a table in the corner of the room, heating himself a can of soup on a one-burner hot plate. He looked at me and grinned and I said, “Tell your man here I’m not going to knock over the place.”
“It’s all right,” Paul said. “And close the door after you, John.”
Paul’s a dapper man. He looks like my idea of what a headwaiter disguises himself as on his day off. Maybe he’d wanted to be a headwaiter at one time, but his father had died and left him the pawnshop. There’s money in that, either way you played it, honest or under the table. Paul did a bit of both.
“Some soup, Jim?”
I shook my head. “With your money, you ought to be eating at the Midnight Sun.”
“It’s not the money,” Paul said. “I like to dine alone.”
I laughed with him and pulled back a chair and sat down at one corner of his desk. “I need two pieces, Paul.”
“Could be.” He turned off the burner and carried the pot to the desk. He placed the pot on the blotter and ate from it with a small spoon. “Do they have to be A-1 clean?”
“Nothing that can be traced.”
When he nodded a dribble of soup ran down his chin. “.38’s?”
“Short barrel. Belly guns.”
“Wait here.” He took another spoonful of soup to hold him and then he went out and closed the door behind him. I leaned across the desk and stared down at the soup. Chicken noodle, of course.
He returned a couple of minutes later. He carried a wadded up brown paper sack under one arm. He placed the bag in front of me and walked across the desk and began eating his soup again.
“Shells?” I said without looking into the bag.
He leaned over, almost out of sight behind the desk and brought up a box. He reached out and placed the shells next to the bag.
“How much?”
“Both are good as new and the price is up.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred.”
“Two fifty,” I said.
“Two seventy-five.”
I got out the wad of bills and counted it out on the desk top. He counted it with me and when I’d reach $275, he doubled them and shoved them in his pocket. “For this price, if they don’t work, I’ll come back and jam one up you.”
“They work grade A. My word on that.”
I stood up and dropped the shells into the bag with the guns.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Jim.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said.
At a store on Whitehall, one that ripped off blacks, I bought each of us a package of T-shirts and shorts. I had a pretty good idea what Hump wore but I had to guess with Edward.
And then I went looking for a pay phone.
I kept it short and simple to Art. At the end I could almost see Art’s doubting grin. “Where are you now, Jim?”
“I’d rather not say. But not at my house.”
“I could send a cruiser to sweep your place.”
“Wouldn’t do much good. I’m going to be moving. Old man Templeton looks toward the end. He’s living on balls alone. It can’t be but a couple of days. Until then, I’m going to be everywhere but where we’re expected to be.”
“If I can help, call me.”
“One thing you can do. After Edward and his sister, the next in line to inherit is a grandson who’s now in Italy. I’ve been checking and the kid’s father isn’t where he’s supposed to be and there’s no way of finding out where he is. He’s ticketed for Rome but he might be in this country. Any way to check that with Federal Immigration?”
“Give me his name.”
I did and then I headed back out of town. On the way I stopped at an all-night joint and bought some sandwiches and a case of under-the-table beer.
Edward wa
s asleep in one of the beds. Only the light in the bathroom was on. I put the case of beer on the floor next to Hump and went back and got the underwear, the sandwiches, and the bag with the two pieces in it. From across the way, in the motel office, I thought I saw a flash of light, as if a shade had been drawn back. The old broad was checking us out.
Hump popped the tabs on a couple of beers. I left the sandwiches with him and carried my beer and the bag with the iron in it into the bathroom. I sat on the john cover and took out the shells and then the first piece. It was wrapped in heavy plastic. I unwrapped it and found that it was a Charter Arms piece, the one they called the Undercover Model. It had a two-inch barrel and weighed about a pound. It was chambered for five rounds.
Whoever’d packed the piece had made sure there was plenty of oil on it. I took a wad of toilet paper and wiped it clean. It looked to be in good shape: no rust, a few scratches but no damage I could see. More than likely it had never been fired. Probably a gun somebody’d bought to keep at home. And when the house got ransacked, the gun went along with the color TV and anything else that wasn’t bolted down and had some value. The gun went to the same fence that handled the TV set and the other junk and, through an underground chain, it ended up in Atlanta.
I loaded the cylinder and put it aside.
The other piece was an S. & W. Centennial, a .38 on a .32 frame, with a two-inch barrel, double action only, chambered for five rounds, and it weighed a few ounces more than the Undercover Model. With the oil wiped away, it showed a bit more use, a few specks of rust. I loaded it and carried both pieces into the bedroom. I held them out to Hump. “Your choice.”
“What’s the difference?”
I held out the Charter Arms Undercover Model. “This one you can fire single action or double.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, hell.” I put the Undercover model into my jacket pocket and passed him the S. & W. Centennial. “This one you just point and pull the trigger.”
Hump put it on the table near his elbow.
“Your next choice. Sleep now for four hours or take the first watch?”
“First watch,” Hump said, “while the beer is still cold.”