by Sam Roskoe
There was only one name I could put to the description Duncan had given me.
“Kay Martin.”
“Yep.”
“I know her.”
“Nobody knows Kay Martin. They cross paths with her.”
“She crossed my path last night.”
I heard the drink being sloshed around in the tumbler.
“And?”
“She said we shouldn’t cross paths again.”
“There you go making enemies again, Elliot. I don’t suppose she was the first and I’m guessing she won’t be the last while you’re in town.”
“Heard of a studio boss called Elsnick?”
“That isn’t really a question is it now? Everybody has heard of him. I mean you really would have to be renting rooms under a rock if you didn’t know who he was. I’m guessing he knows who you are by now?”
“Yep. Told me to leave town.”
“And are you going to, if that’s not the stupidest question I’ve ever asked?”
“The address, Duncan, do you have it or not?”
There was a rustling of papers.
The sloshing of a drink in a tumbler.
Then Duncan came back.
“So you really think our favorite lush would come back here with all the heat on him?”
“I won’t know until I check, will I? The address before I hang up and come over there to show you how heavy a typewriter can be.”
“You know, you shouldn’t threaten a lawyer, Elliot, especially one who’s going to give you what you want.”
“I know and I should always go to bed with hope in my heart and no bad words on my lips. The address.”
“Fine, fine, keep your shirt on,” he said then gave me the address in Beverly Hills where Tarquin Meriwether had called home, or at least the place where he slept off his hangovers.
“Was that so hard?” I said.
“Harder than you think, I’m about to leave for Rio and you’re getting in the way of my pre-flight buzz.”
“Rio?”
“Lawyers get vacations too, Elliot, once in a while we’re almost human.”
“I’ll take someone else’s word on that. What about Tarquin Meriwether, are you just going to leave a client behind?”
“I think you’re laboring under some kind of misrepresentation. The man came to me, but I didn’t want anything to do with any of his troubles and I told him as much. He’s not my client, nor will he ever be.”
“So you sent him to me?”
He laughed.
“What are friends for?”
“One day I’ll figure that one out,” I said.
“When you do, give me a call, or maybe you can come over for a drink or two.”
“I’ll bring a typewriter with me.”
By early evening I was in Beverly Hills searching for the address Duncan had given me.
Beverly Hills was everything I’d ever expected somewhere real empty to be. Big houses hid behind big trees at the end of big paved drives where big cars were parked out front. House to house, mansion to mansion, nothing repeated except the quiet emptiness of it all.
Everything in Beverly Hills screamed look at me! Look how tall these bushes are, and look how many cars are in my drive. And just look at the fountain here with a gold cherub at the center, isn’t that the bees knees. I’m rich, don’t you know. Richer than you could ever imagine. Richer even than my rich, rich neighbors.
The battered gray Chevy parked outside of Meriwether’s slice of Beverly Hills real estate wasn’t so rich looking.
It looked out of place and would have looked out of place in a shady back alley in San Francisco. The tires were threadbare, the paint flaked away to reveal rust beneath and the soft-top was soft enough to let in water when it rained.
I drove on past and parked up around the corner, then returned on foot for a closer look.
There were a collection of dime store magazines on the rear seat that showed half-naked women in the clutches of fully-clothed men, while gun-toting heroes waited nearby. A half-eaten BLT nestled on the dash. A rumpled gray Fedora sat on the floor near the gas pedal. It looked like it had been stretched out by something big like…like…
…the head of a Neanderthal-looking Private Eye named Johnny Jackson.
I couldn’t help but smile.
The brute had found his way to the very same spot as me at the very same time. What he lacked in brains he obviously made up in perseverance. And now that brute was going to spoil everything before I even had a chance to get a fresh list written up.
I couldn’t have that.
Tarquin Meriwether was still my client, no matter how much I wished he wasn’t. He’d hired me to do a job, and that job I would do.
Black iron gates closed over each other and barred the way onto Tarquin Meriwether’s property, but there was a handy tree nearby that reached a limb over the grounds.
I took a quick look around for anybody who might be watching, but the streets were as quiet and empty as everything else.
Like a ten year old I shimmied up the tree, and then like the thirty-five year old I was, I fell back down again.
Three tries later I was hanging over the garden wishing I’d brought a lock picking kit along so I wouldn’t have to break my neck.
Remember the old Army motto, I told myself.
But I’d only been in the Army long enough for Duncan to stop a typewriter falling on me before the War ended and I was out of uniform. The only Army motto I could remember was something about “Do or Die.” The problem was I didn’t fancy dying that evening, especially not at the hands of gravity and my own clumsiness.
Instead I closed my eyes, whispered “Geronimo,” to myself and let myself drop.
I landed in a ball, rolled forward and popped up onto my feet. For a few moments I stood impressed with my own cat-like agility and wondering if I shouldn’t climb that tree again and take another go, when a light went on inside the mansion.
From my position near a clump of conifers I could see a shadow moving in the light coming from the bottom-right window.
Shadows.
There were two people inside.
One of them was waved about like he was on the deck of a boat in the high seas.
The other was a squat, brick of man.
I moved closer, using the trees as cover.
At the edge of the drive I lowered myself into a crouch and tread as lightly as I could on the red tile that wound itself around to the side of the house.
The shadows took form as I neared.
There was no doubt in my mind that the seasick silhouette belonged to Tarquin Meriwether. It couldn’t be anybody else.
The other man had to be Johnny Jackson, had to be.
But what the hell was he doing inside? What was going on in that room?
I moved in closer still.
Beneath the window was a flowerbed crammed with sweet lilacs. I crouched as low as I could and hopped off the red tile path and into that flower bed. Inching forward, I reached a point to where my head was just below the lip of the window. With only a little push up on my calves I would be able to see much more than shadows and hear exactly what was going on.
Had Johnny Jackson called the police? Would the whole place be swarming with black-and-whites before too long? I didn’t want to be here when that happened, but I couldn’t back out, not when I was so close.
I pushed up. The muscles in the back of my legs burned and screamed for me to extend out to my full height, but I resisted.
I held my breath as I cleared the edge of the window and saw that the latch was down, the window shut. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I didn’t need to hear.
I could see.
Johnny Jackson turned.
He had that mean .45 in his hand, his finger on the trigger.
He pointed it at Tarquin Meriwether’s head.
He cocked the hammer.
And smiled a big, ugly smile.
Chapt
er 10
You should never wake a sleepwalker or tease a dog with a bone. That rule applies to big men with big guns in their big hands who just might enjoy more gunplay than is normal for any sane human being.
Since I’d met him, I’d never pegged Johnny Jackson, Private Eye, as anything but a thug who’d found a way to push people around on someone else’s dime. But I hadn’t pegged him for any kind of cold-blooded killer either.
Or so I’d thought.
With the gun in his hand, Johnny Jackson was a different man. There was a cold fever in his eyes that hadn’t been there during our encounter. A mean streak I’d seen in the eyes of other men.
He’d killed before. I was sure as I was that my buttered toast always landed butter-side down when it was dropped. What’s more, he’d enjoyed the feeling and he wanted some more.
Just why he wanted to get his thrill-kill with Tarquin Meriwether was a question that would have to wait until I wiped the smile off of that big Neanderthal face of his.
It wouldn’t happen from where I stood.
The impact from a .38 slug would knock out the glass for sure, but that’s where the journey would end. I’d have to pump off a few more rounds and hit dead center if I wanted to knock down the brute.
I was a keen enough shot, not keen enough to claim any shiny trophies at the range though, and I couldn’t risk that Johnny Jackson could scratch his itchy finger quicker than I could mine. It would only take one punch from a .45 slug to make sure that Tarquin Meriwether never drank again.
What I needed was a diversion.
Something big enough to dampen Johnny Jackson’s bloodlust.
A howitzer or a B-52 fully laden with bombs would do. I didn’t have either. But I did have a finger and I could remember being a mischievous kid clear enough.
The idea was silly, it couldn’t work, there was no way Johnny Jackson would be stupid enough to fall for such a childish prank.
It was the only option I had.
I crept away from the window and rose to my full height when I reached the front door. My finger shook a little as I reached out for the buzzer. I pressed.
In the interior of the cavernous mansion the bell rang out.
But I couldn’t leave it at just one. I had to stay and push it again, at least a few more times if I was to gain Johnny Jackson’s attention.
I pressed again and held the button in for about two weeks.
The bell rang on and on. There was no cheery tune, just a protracted whine that seemed to grow louder with every passing moment.
A bad idea, I thought, my eyes darting over to the side window where moments earlier I’d been crouched like some particularly well-dressed lilac.
All he has to do is look out of that window and see me and…
Then what?
He won’t put a slug in you now. One dead body is fine, there are plenty of places to put a lonely corpse, but two is just one too many. What’s that saying about too many cooks? Well it goes double when you’ve got corpses on your hands.
Arguing with myself wasn’t doing a damn thing to help my overall mood. My stomach felt like the floor of a Tango school just after the music had stopped. My fingertip had turned snow white.
Come on you sonofabitch, come to the door and then…
…then I run away like I used to when I was a kid.
Great plan, Finch, great plan, I told myself. It’s right up there with tying feathers to your arms and jumping off a clip while flapping your arms. You’ll probably receive a Nobel Prize for how well you thought this thing through.
I let go of the bell. The blood ran back into my fingertip. I readied myself for one last press, and then stopped.
Footsteps echoed in the mansion.
Was Johnny Jackson going to answer the door? Was he that brave or stupid? Or had he seen me through the window? Did he know who’d come knocking and had himself an excuse ready and waiting?
Or a bullet.
I couldn’t discount the idea that my too-many-corpses theory was out of whack with Johnny Jackson’s world view. You didn’t ride any more lightning for two than you would for one. Besides all that, the grounds of the mansion were big enough and far enough away from prying eyes that he could spend a week landscaping the place with mine and Tarquin Meriwether’s limbs and nobody would be the wiser.
The ten-year old in me knew exactly what to do.
I ran.
Back under the window, I caught a breath, and then inched up to see what effect, if any my prank had had.
The effect wasn’t what I’d hoped.
I’d thought maybe, just maybe Johnny Jackson would slip that .45 out of sight when he heard the bell. I’d thought it would give me enough time to smash the window and put just enough slugs into the man for him to forget about his plans for murder. Maybe forever.
I’d never thought the room would be empty.
It was.
As I peered into that empty room I realized what had happened. It wasn’t Johnny Jackson coming to answer the door. No he wasn’t as stupid as he was brutal. It had to be Tarquin Meriwether, with the nasty end of the .45 pushed into the soft part of his spine, Johnny Jackson just behind.
Dead man walking.
Dead man about to answer the door.
I’d jammed myself up and wasn’t sure what I should do.
I couldn’t just hang around in the lilac patch hoping to pass for a flower. And if I broke the window to get inside, the sound would bring Johnny Jackson and death not far behind.
I was beginning to think Johnny was right when he’d called my .38 a pea-shooter. A .45 in my hand would have made the game fair. Or maybe a Howitzer.
I could always run, I told myself. Take it on my heels like that ten year old me that was having all my great ideas of late.
And then what?
Come back when it was all nice and peachy keen? There was nothing about what was going on inside the mansion that would hint at any kind of peaceful resolution.
Maybe I should just show myself, I thought. If I’m around then Jackson might not go through with what he has planned. I mean, he might be crazy but he wouldn’t be crazy enough to—
Who was I kidding?
I knew one thing for sure. That look in Johnny Jackson’s eyes was the look of a killer. He was going to put Tarquin Meriwether six feet under. Maybe not immediately, but soon and he would enjoy the deed.
The only thing stopping him would be me and my .38.
It was time for me to stop playing kids games and do this the right way. I had to take a chance that my finger would be quicker than Johnny Jackson’s when it came to the draw. But I couldn’t play it like a fool.
As the door to the mansion opened I launched the butt end of my pistol at the window.
A spider web crack appeared in the glass.
“Hello, anybody there? Hi-de-ho.”
It was Tarquin Meriwether’s slurred voice calling out into the early evening. If he feared for his life, I couldn’t hear it in that voice. He’d probably drowned his fear in Bourbon the first thing that morning, if I knew him at all.
I didn’t know him. I’d met him once and read enough about him in the papers to put him in with all the other pigeons that drank too much and told too many stories but never did a God damn thing in their lives. He was a lucky stumblebum who’d made enough money and was known enough in the public eye for someone to finger him as the right guy for a very wrong thing.
His luck was running out fast.
Just like my time.
Johnny Jackson had to be on his way, had to be after he’d heard the first strike. I had two, maybe three more chances to break that window before Johnny broke it for me with a slug from the .45.
I launched the butt end of the pistol at the window.
The spider web spun out a few more strands, but not much more.
What the hell was the glass made out of anyway? The way it reacted I’d need to do this thing in shifts with a two man crew before I even saw a cra
ck wide enough to fit the snub-nose of the .38 through.
I didn’t have time for shifts or to call up any of my friends.
I pulled my arm back like a pitcher one strike away from winning a pennant. I didn’t care about the noise any more, just getting the damned window open before Johnny Jackson had a chance to point his .45 in my direction. With all the power I could muster, I let the window have it one last time.
One way or another I knew it would be the last chance I got.
The spider web spread and cracked like ice as it thawed. I watched the slow motion spread of the web as it first ran up toward the top of the window, then spread out at the sides, finally a thin tendril of breaking glass ran the center to the bottom lip of the window.
And stayed that way.
Whoever had made the glass for the window deserved some kind of prize. A trophy at the very least. Maybe I could call up Nobel and he’d figure it all out for me.
I stood there and watched as Johnny Jackson entered the room from a side door.
In the cracked window, Johnny Jackson was a split man, a jigsaw forced together out of mismatched pieces. All those pieces were coming toward me with a gun drawn.
There was no time to think. No time for boyhood pranks or to run. Instinct took over and I raised the .38.
I squeezed off two shots before I heard the roar of Johnny’s .45.
The window shattered.
Might have been my doing, but I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t thinking about who’d done the most damage in that moment. What I was thinking about was the coldness spreading beneath my chin.
I’d felt the same touch before. It was a rainy New York night in a back alley behind a club called the Black Boa. A sixteen-year old kid had figured he’d could become an adult quicker if he just took the life of one.
Me.
He’d taken me by surprise with a little hipster .22 at point blank range. Seeing what he’d done, the blood spreading out across my clean white shirt like an ink stain, he’d dropped the gun and taken it on his gams.
He left me to die in that alleyway. To feel the cold touch of death spread across my body.
The slug had felt like a punch going in and was the second level of hell as a surgeon pulled it out of me in the hospital. Between was a land that I could barely remember. A hazy place where time stopped and stretched out forever, a land where I wasn’t Elliot Finch, Private Eye any longer but Finch, café owner and full time avoider of trouble.