Pimp for the Dead

by Ralph Dennis

  April 7, 1973: Harry came to Sunday supper and I cooked fried chicken. Carol left right after supper to go to a double feature at the Hilan a few blocks away. I appreciated her leaving us alone. It was good to be alone with him and while we were in bed I asked him if they’d done anything about Ed Buddy. He said for me to forget about that completely. I asked him why and he said knowing too much could get me hurt. I asked why and he hit me in the back of the head and said because he had told me to. It didn’t hurt that much but I cried for a time and he was gentle with me. He said it was for my own good and had he ever done anything that didn’t have my best interest at heart. I said he hadn’t and by the time Carol came back from the movies we were lovers again.

  April 12, 1973: Something happened last night and I don’t know what. Harry came by at midnight and picked me up. He was shaking and he said the attempt to teach Ed a lesson had not worked. Some people had been hurt and he thought Ed Buddy would try to find out who had sent the men after him. He said we ought to stay put and act like we didn’t know anything. I said that would be easy because I didn’t know anything. He said yes I did and that I had fingered Ed Buddy for them. And if he knew he was not going to like me for that reason. But I knew better.

  After the second reading I stuffed the decoded pages into the diary and hid it behind the cigar box in my closet. With Hump sitting shotgun, I went back up to the terrace and planted the rest of the garden, including the Chinese cabbage. After I wet the garden down with a thin coat of water, I looked around, and there was that mama cat taking a crap right where I’d planted the Chinese cabbage. Hump doubled up laughing, but I said, “Go ahead, fertilize the corn and the squash, too.”

  After a slow shower and another beer, I gave the decoded pages another reading. By that time, it was late enough to call Art.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Art dropped the large clasp envelope on the kitchen table and looked past me, toward Hump. “I think this is what you want, Jim.” He continued to look at Hump, and Hump grinned and one-armed a bottle of beer for him. Art gulped at it and watched while I shook the contents out of the envelope. “Sooner or later,” he said, “you’re going to have to explain this to me.”

  “Later,” I said.

  “Sooner,” he said.

  “All right.” I went into the bedroom and returned with the diary and the address book. “How are you at codes?”

  I read the clipping from the Atlanta Constitution first. It was dated April 13, in the margin, with blue ballpoint ink.

  SHOOTOUT AT CITY MOTEL

  A midnight shootout at the Executive Motor Hotel in downtown Atlanta last night led to the death of two unidentified men. The two men died in a hail of gunfire that rocked the parking lot and damaged a dozen cars parked there.

  Robert Clemmons, a visitor from Sumter, S.C., said that he was in bed when he heard the first shot. ‘I thought it was a backfire or a firecracker at first and then it turned into a full-scale war. I think it was shotguns and rifles and pistols all going at the same time.’

  A nearby car with the engine still running and the doors open had been rented at Hartsfield International to a Randolph Carson of Kansas City, Missouri …

  I stopped reading the clipping and put it aside. Under it were a stack of police photographs of the parking lot after the shootout. One body was face-down on the asphalt, dark blood pooling around him. The cut-down, pistol-like grip of the sawed-off shotgun was near a clenched fist.

  A series of photographs established the manner of death of the second man. A trail of blood which began about twenty feet from the car led to the driver’s side. This man had probably been wounded at a distance from the car. He’d made it back to the car and collapsed. He’d been trying to crawl into the front seat when somebody stepped up behind him and blew off the top of his head. His knees were on the asphalt and his upper body lay across the front seat. It looked like he might have been praying.

  The next exhibit was a copy of the official report of the investigating officer. It didn’t tell me much that the newspaper and the pictures hadn’t. It did stress the fact that the killer or killers weren’t known. It was suggested that more than one man had been involved in the ambush. Shell casings found in one area of the parking lot led the police to believe that a .45 caliber submachine gun had been used, as well as a shotgun and pistols.

  Art looked up from the diary with a puzzled look. “What the hell is this, anyway?”

  “The Barrow girl’s diary.” I pulled out the decoded pages that Marcy had done for me the night before. “These are the sections that deal with Ed Buddy.”

  I gave him time to read it through. “Understand it now?”

  “Where the hell did you …?”

  “Don’t ask,” I said. “Just be glad I got my hands on them, and be glad I’ve got a girl who’s willing to spend all this time …”

  “Ripped it off from the girl’s apartment,” he said, “and I’m supposed to be grateful?”

  “The other thing,” I said, handing him the address book, “is a john list she’d been putting together. Buddy’s name is in there, but no address is given.”

  “What else did you steal from the apartment before you called me?”

  “Nothing.” I gathered the clipping, the official report and the photographs into a neat stack and shoved them back in the envelope. “Something’s missing here. Two men killed in a parking lot the night before Carol and Joy Lynn get hit. You get makes on the dead men?”

  “It wasn’t pressing. Some hoods kill each other, so what? We had some people who thought it was a shootout over a drug shipment.”

  “But you got makes?”

  “Sure we did,” Art said. “Hours after the prints went off to Washington, we had the word on them. They were two medium-priced hit men, operating mainly in the Midwest until this time.”

  “The kind of money involved, it seems they might have afforded top talent,” I said.

  “Top talent wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “That bother you, too?”

  “They got sold,” Art said. “I’ve heard of professional hit men getting it while they’re trying to get past a door, and I’ve heard of them missing and getting done in, but I’ve never heard of them not even getting across the parking lot.”

  “And the next day, Joy Lynn gets hers.”

  “Maybe Ed Buddy does some thinking after the shootout, and he decides Joy Lynn has been kissing and telling.”

  “And after Joy Lynn, this Buddy guy goes on and wastes Harry Falk, because he’s involved too?”

  Art gave me a thin smile. “It’s certainly neat that way.”

  Art left with the diary and the address book and an explanation of how the code worked. I told him I wanted the diary back later, if that was possible. I wanted to read some more in it, so I could decide whether it ought to be passed on to Mr. Barrow. Probably not, but I wanted that option open.

  “This bother you as much as it bothers me?” Hump had followed me into the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed while I knotted a tie and selected a light spring jacket.

  “What?”

  “The whole damned thing. Mostly it’s this stud, Ed Buddy, if anybody really has a name like that. We’ve been running around him, and we don’t know one damned thing about him.

  “We know two,” I said. “He’s around forty, and virile as a man half his age.”

  “That’s not a hell of a lot.” For the first time, Hump realized I was getting ready to go out. “Where now?”

  “Two stops. Come along if you want to. I want to see if I can find Willie Whitman, and I want to have a few more words with Wash Johnson.”

  “Willie know more than he told you the other night?”

  “I didn’t ask the right questions. And he’s broke, and needs the call-back business.”

  “How does Willie look?” Hump asked.

  “That farmer wiped the honest look off his face.” I got the .38 P.P. out of the cigar box and stuffed it in
my jacket pocket until I could store it in the glove compartment.

  “And Wash Johnson?”

  “Last time I talked to him, I didn’t even know about Ed Buddy.”

  Hump took a few seconds to dig around in my stack of ties and settled on one that offended him less than the others. I tied it for him, and then we drove over to the Strip and parked on Peachtree Place. We walked in the direction of the Hollywood Bar. It was getting dark, and all down the street the hawkers were pushing the underground paper, The Bird, and the sex-ad magazine, Dolls for Guys.

  We had a couple of beers before Willie came in. The bartender was the same one from the time before, and he asked me if I still had my woman under control. I told him some shit and tipped him a couple of times, and we were friends for life.

  Willie saw us, and he was going to pass us by. I did my act and waved at him. “Hey, you remember me from the other night?”

  He blinked at me. “Sure,” he said, like he really didn’t.

  I wagged a finger at the bartender. “Beer for my friend here.”

  “I won’t turn that down,” Willie said.

  After the bartender moved down the bar, Willie and Hump did their short nods that meant they knew each other. While Willie gulped at his beer, I leaned toward him. “I need something. It’s worth a hundred.”

  “Ask,” Willie said.

  “Ed Buddy. I need to find him.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s the one with the muscle who’s pushing the pimps into line.”

  “In that case,” Willie said, “I am now on vacation.”

  “You can ask around,” I insisted.

  “A hundred dollars won’t buy a funeral.”

  “Two hundred then.”

  “I am back from vacation.” Willie looked up at the clock over the bar. “Check back with me around eleven.”

  “Right.”

  “And I could use a ten in advance. Might have to buy a few beers while I’m asking around.”

  I got out a ten and tapped him on the leg with it. “Keep your head down. These people play with the rough side of the cob.”

  “I plan to.”

  I waved at the bartender and bought Willie another beer on our way out.

  At 590 West, the seats on both sides of Wash Johnson were taken. He didn’t see me. He was taking his usual long look down at the night streets. I let a waitress lead us to a table near the center of the club. We ordered J&B on the rocks and, while I waited for the drinks, I went over and tapped Wash on the shoulder. He looked up. He recognized me and frowned.

  “Have a drink with my friend and me.”

  “I’m comfortable where I am,” he said.

  “I want to talk to you about a buddy of yours.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ed.”

  The bartender moved down to face me. I guess Wash was a tipper, and he didn’t want Wash bothered. He was trying to decide whether I was annoying him enough to deserve the bouncer. Before he had time to decide, Wash got up and walked away from me. Behind us, the bartender put a glass with some ice cubes and some mix where Wash’s drink had been on the bar, his way of saving the seat for him.

  Wash heard the introduction of Hump but waved it aside. “What’s this about? You could get us in a lot of trouble.”

  “The police know about Ed now.”

  “We know about the try on Ed that failed,” Hump said.

  “And the fact the two hookers got it because of that try,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The Barrow girl fingered Ed, and he must have guessed it,” I said.

  “What do you want out of me?”

  “A way to get to Ed. It’s just a matter of time, anyway.”

  “He might not think that.” Wash waved at the waitress and ordered another Bloody Mary.

  “How can I reach him?”

  “I can’t help you,” Wash said.

  “You’re paying off, aren’t you?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m paying. After what happened to those two girls, and then to Harry and that other girl, what would you do?”

  “Then you must know how to get in touch with him.”

  The waitress brought Wash a Bloody Mary. He told her to put it on his tab at the bar. He swirled the drink with the celery stalk and then bit off an inch or so of it. “I don’t get in touch with them. They get in touch with me.”

  “How?” Hump asked.

  “They call me, and they tell me where to meet them and when.”

  I leaned in. “Is it usually the same place?”

  “Not usually. One time it was the bus station, and another time it was the reference room at the downtown library.”

  “Who makes the pickup?”

  “Both times it was a different guy. I put the envelope on the table in front of me, and a guy comes in, says hello, and slides the envelope toward him.”

  “How much is your payoff?”

  “Four hundred.” He shrugged his shoulders at me. “Now you know I run four girls.”

  “When’s the next one due?”

  “It might be tomorrow. It might be the day after that.”

  “I want you to do something for me,” I said.

  Wash shook his head.

  “As soon as you hear from them, I want you to call me and let me know when and where the pickup is.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said.

  “Come on, you know it’s the best way.”

  “It’s trouble for me,” he said. “I could get dead.”

  Hump leaned in. “Four hundred a week for fifty-two weeks … that’s a lot of money.”

  “Your girls are rolling their asses one night a week for him.” I chewed on a chip of ice. “Just for him.”

  “You think I like it?”

  “That must make a lot of points with your girls, too,” Hump said.

  Hump’s remark sliced him some. The big thing a pimp has going for him is his balls. Take that from him, let his girls begin to doubt him, and he’s just another john out there on the street.

  “You have anything to do with the try on him at the Executive Motor Hotel?”

  His head jerked up and he reached across the table and caught my forearm with a hand like a set of vise-grip pliers. “Jesus, don’t you have any sense at all, Hardman? Talking like that?”

  “Somebody must have taken up contributions to pay the two hit men,” I said, “and if that happened, some of you had to donate.”

  “It wasn’t me.” He released my forearm, and I could feel the blood begin to flow again. “Not a nickel, not a dime, not a dollar.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I didn’t even know about it until it was over.”

  “Hard to believe that,” I said.

  “They might have tried, and couldn’t reach me.”

  I shook my head at Hump and he laughed, a low rumble that made fun of the whole idea.

  “Believe what you want to,” Wash said.

  “Drop that, for the time,” I said. “You going to call me about the pickup?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Hump looked down at his drink and then over at me. “The way I see it, Jim, we can trace it back to Ed Buddy in two ways.”

  “Tell me about them,” I said.

  “First of all, the way we’re offering him right now. We can set up around Wash here, and watch the payoff and follow it back to him.”

  “That’s the one I like,” I said.

  “It’s got some drawbacks. You see, if we follow the man making the pickup, it might take quite a bit of time. He’ll be doing a number of pickups, and the longer we have to follow him the more chance he’ll have to spot us.”

  “The other one?”

  “Wash’ll think this one isn’t friendly, and it’s not.” He took a deep breath and eased it out at Wash. “Right after I leave here, I go to Sport’s Place and I talk to a couple of players I know. I say something about how I know th
at Wash Johnson organized the try on Ed at the Executive Motel, and how he contacted the hit men himself.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Wash said.

  “The hell he wouldn’t,” I said.

  “And then I’d make a few more stops, and drop the same handkerchief.”

  I nodded. “It’s got good possibilities. We just watch Wash here until somebody punches his time clock for him, and then we follow them straight back to Ed.”

  “That’s damned cold-blooded.”

  “That’s the way it is,” I said.

  “It’s a bluff,” Wash said.

  “I can drop the first handkerchief in half an hour. Maybe less than that.” Hump pushed his drink toward the center of the table. “You going to call us, Wash?”

  “You two aren’t even human.”

  “Might be,” Hump said, “but we don’t sell ass by the pound, either.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  I shook my head. “That’s not good enough.”

  “You get to him, and he’s going to know somebody set him up. I can’t take that chance.”

  “He’ll make a guess, but he won’t be sure. Say he makes a dozen or twenty pickups on this day. Is he going to waste a dozen or twenty people to get the right one?”

  “We bust him up, and it won’t matter what he knows or what guesses he makes,” Hump said.

  “He can reach out of jail.”

  “He’ll cut his losses. It won’t be worth his time.”

  “All right.” He dipped his head. “I’ll call you.”

  “I’m in the book.”

  At the elevator, waiting, I looked back over to the bar. He was back at his regular seat, head angled away, looking down into the streets where his girls were. I think we’d broken his balls. We’d know in the next day or two.

  At eleven, we reached the Hollywood after an hour or so of wandering around, wasting time. The bartender waved a hand at me, and I stopped and hooked a foot on the bar rail. “That little guy you bought a couple of beers for … I think he did himself in tonight.”