Mean Streets

by Graham Marks

  “Truth is, I don’t know.” Mr. Pisbo shifted gear. “Shady and I couldn’t find even a whisper about a kidnapping…but, if Alex’s father’s involved with Mario Andrusa, that isn’t such a surprise. They’d be likely to keep a very tight lid on something like this. But if he has been snatched, then getting him out of Chicago is what whoever was stupid enough to do it would do. It’s all the clue we’ve got and I think it’s worth checking. Hence the day trip.”

  “Okay…” As Trey sat back to think things over for a moment he noticed Shady Jones; he was fast asleep with his hat over one eye. “Um, Mr. Pisbo?”

  “Yup?”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be letting Mr. Jones off somewhere?”

  “Dang!” Mr. Pisbo hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “He wanted to get out miles back. Looks like Shady’s gonna have a day in the country, whether he likes it or not…”

  It was not turning out to be a good start to the day. Neither Detective Mahey nor Sergeant Lynott was feeling particularly chipper as neither had managed more than an hour or so’s sleep on a couple of cots at the station, and now they were standing in the hall outside the apartment on the tenth floor of the Tavistock; it was 9.55 in the morning.

  Their knocks were answered by the woman Detective Mahey recognized as having shut the door on him last night. Only this morning she was somewhat neatened up. “Excuse me, ma’am…”

  “If you came to see young Mr. MacIntyre, you’ve missed him, officers, he went to see a friend.”

  “D’you have the address of where he’s gone, ma’am?”

  “No, I do not. I cook, I keep the house, I don’t run a diary service, young man.”

  “Right…” Mahey smiled, even though he didn’t at all feel like it. “Might we come in, ma’am? We have some questions about last night that Mr. and Mrs. MacIntrye, and your good self, might be able to help us with, even if the boy isn’t at home.”

  “Mr. MacIntyre is away and won’t be back till later today, Mrs. MacIntyre has yet to come downstairs and,” Mrs. Cooke pointed at herself, “it was me that was there, saw everything! So you ask away.”

  “Could we come in, ma’am?” Detective Mahey asked. “Inspect the scene of the crime, see if anything’s been taken?”

  “Don’t think so.” Mrs. Cooke looked both men up and down. “You can come back when Mr. MacIntyre’s here, if you want; I would suggest after 8.30 this evening.”

  For the second time, Detective Mahey found himself looking at the brass numbers on the door. He glanced at his partner. “You were a lot of help there, Sarge.”

  “You should see me when I got a warrant…”

  22 FOX LAKE

  When Alex finally woke up he could not believe it was well after ten o’clock – almost half past, according to the clock on the mantel. Then he remembered that he hadn’t actually gone to bed until sometime after two in the morning. He and the other kid who was at the house for the weekend (a girl, but nothing was ever perfect) had been allowed to stay up, basically until they fell over. He’d outstayed the girl, Arianna Something-or-Other (he hadn’t been paying attention) by a good quarter of an hour.

  Splashing some cold water on his face and getting dressed lickety-spit, Alex got himself downstairs in no time. On the one hand, he was ravenous and did not want to miss out on breakfast, and on the other he wanted to find out what had been going on last night. Tony, Mario and his father had been in huddles all evening, Tony being called away a couple of times to take phone calls. Whether any of this toing and froing had anything at all to do with Trey he didn’t know, but he was determined to find out.

  The dining room was empty when he got there, but on the sideboard he found heated, silver-domed platters of everything from pancakes, sausage links and Canadian bacon, to three kinds of eggs and grilled tomatoes. A maid came in and took his order for toast and a glass of orange juice, and Alex was loading up a plate when his father came into the room, dressed casual in tan slacks and a light blue open-necked shirt, with a dark red jumper draped over his shoulders.

  “Didn’t expect to see you up this early, son.”

  Alex sat down at a freshly set place at the table. “You either, Dad. What time you go to bed?”

  “True to say, not long after you. Long day.”

  “Dad?” Alex put a forkful of strip bacon down.

  His father looked over from the sideboard. “Yes?”

  “You got any news about what’s happened to Trey? I know stuff was going on last night…”

  “I saw you eyeballing the proceedings, keeping tabs.” Nate Klein brought his plate over and joined his son. “Far as I know, there were people on his building, the Tavistock, all night and there’d been no other news by the time I went upstairs. If anything’s happened, Tony’ll know. I presume you asking me means you haven’t seen Tony yet?”

  “I’ve not seen anyone.”

  “Not even Arianna?”

  “Not even.” Alex stopped eating. “Why?”

  “No reason…” Nate sprinkled salt and pepper on his food.

  “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Why should anything be ‘going on’, Alex?”

  “You and Mom don’t ever say ‘no reason’ for no reason; what’s up?”

  “Nothing terrible.” Nate sprinkled some Worcestershire sauce on his grilled tomatoes, then reached for the mustard.

  “You going to tell me, or just keep on putting stuff on your food, Dad?”

  “You guys have to take a trip for a couple hours, is all.”

  “Which guys?”

  “You and Arianna, and your mothers. It’s nice round here, plenty to see.”

  “I doubt that. It’s country, all looks the same.” Alex shook more ketchup on his hash browns. “Why don’t you want us here?”

  “There’s a meeting come up unexpectedly. Let’s leave it at that, all right?”

  Alex knew his father well enough to know when to stop pushing. From what he understood of the conversation he’d witnessed in the smoke-filled room last night, he’d bet the “meeting” was going to be with the man who’d sent those two goofs to Chicago – the ones who’d grabbed him by mistake. Bowyer…Bowyer Dunne, that’s what his Uncle Mario’d called him. By the look in Uncle Mario’s eye when he asked for someone to bring him a phone, this get-together was not going to be a friendly chit-chat.

  “Sure, Dad, anything you say.”

  Nate, who’d been expecting more of a set-to, glanced at his son. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll say.”

  The moment they were informed they were going to have to go on a drive, both mothers put an expensively shod foot down, maintaining that there was no way they were leaving without getting dressed for the occasion; plus, they wanted a hamper containing the wherewithal to have a decent picnic lunch somewhere with a view. Alex had heard his mother say she required chilled champagne, and some caviar at the very least and his dad saying that was fine, it would happen, but could she hurry up?

  Alex had used the time to track down Tony Burrell, who he eventually found out by the garages; jacket off, sleeves rolled up, leaning under the raised hood of a dark blue Lincoln Roadster.

  “You know how to fix an auto, Mr. Burrell?”

  Tony came up from under the propped hood to see who was talking to him. He smiled when he saw who it was. “Morning…” He wiped his greasy hands on a cloth. “You want a piece of advice? Don’t rely on other people to know how to fix your things; they more than likely won’t be around when you really need ’em.”

  “I’ll remember that, Mr. Burrell.”

  “Call me Tony.”

  “Okay.”

  “Guess you want to know how things are, back in Chicago, right?”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “He’s okay, your friend. Nothing to worry about.”

  Alex looked inside the auto, at the polished wood fascia and the hand-stitched leather seat
s. “False alarm, then?”

  “Oh I wouldn’t say that… You want to have a sit in her?” Tony opened the driver’s door. “Be my guest.”

  Alex stepped up onto the running board. “Something happened…what?”

  “They caught one of the guys came up from Topeka, the other one got away.” Tony looked at his watch. “Look at the time, I gotta go clean up…and aren’t you s’posed to be going for a ride with Guido Vittrano’s daughter and her mom?”

  “Yeah…” Alex’s shoulders slumped.

  Tony laughed and mussed Alex’s hair. “Coupla years or so, you’re gonna be doing anything you can to be sitting on the back seat of some car with that young lady!”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Believe me.”

  Twenty minutes later, as Davis put the last of the picnic bits and pieces in the trunk of the car, Alex, who had chosen to sit up front, saw a motor coming up the drive and caught a glimpse of a man with coppery-red hair. Mr. Bowyer Dunne. Alex looked across at the mansion and saw Tony Burrell, now in a different suit, waiting with a couple of other men. The welcoming committee, though no one was smiling.

  Alex had a pretty good idea why they’d all been sent for a drive: he’d heard stories about how ugly it could turn out when Uncle Mario got mad, and this Mr. Dunne had seemingly made him fit to spit bricks…

  23 STEPS ARE TAKEN

  While finding Fox Lake had been a breeze, pinpointing which of the fairly numerous large houses thereabouts was the one they wanted turned out to be not quite so easy. Shady, who was less than impressed at being so far from home, now said he only thought it was called The Pines, or something like that, and refused to be more exact. Trey had never seen a grown-up sulk before.

  As the last thing Mr. Pisbo wanted to do was sneak into the wrong place, quite a bit of driving up dead ends and reversing back down narrow lanes was called for in the search for The Pines. Trey was beginning to think they’d never find it, and the day would’ve been a complete waste of time, when Shady leaned over and tapped Mr. Pisbo on the shoulder as they drove along a road Trey was sure he recognized.

  “Twelve Oaks, Pisbo.”

  “Say again?” Mr. Pisbo slowed the car down.

  “You deaf? I said ‘Twelve Oaks’, on the gates you just went past a ways back.” Shady relaxed, nodding at Trey. “That the place. Knew it was to do with trees or somesuch, like I said.”

  Mr. Pisbo pulled the car over and stopped. “You said The Pines…” He turned round to look Shady Jones in the eye. “You sure about changing your mind?”

  “Came back to me,” Shady smiled, “soon as I saw the gates.”

  “Least he remembered, Dad,” Velma said. “Are we stopping long enough for me to let Banjo out? He just woke up.”

  “Sure, but keep him on the leash.”

  “You got a banjo?” Trey gawked, a confused image popping into his head. “On a leash?”

  “It a darn dawg.” Shady shook his head. “’Less they’s chasing round the track after a rabbit, or whatever, I got no time for ’em. Not me, no sir.”

  “You have a dog? Where?” Trey shot forward. “You never said, where is he?”

  “You like dawgs too, huh?” Shady said. “You kids made for each other.”

  Velma ignored Shady, turning to open her door to get out. “He’s been asleep the whole time down by my feet, that’s what he always does in the car. Come and meet him, he’s a sweetie.”

  “If he’s such a sweetie, why didn’t your mother take him with her?” Mr. Pisbo switched the engine off. “It’s her dog.”

  “You know Aunt Selma doesn’t like dogs, Dad.”

  “I don’t like dogs. Your mother ever take that into consideration?”

  “He’s no trouble, are you, Banjo?” Velma pushed the door open. “And he’s such a clever boy!”

  Astonished at the dog’s amazing ability to sleep, Trey got out and scooted round to the roadside. As he got there a small pug-faced black-and-white dog, with pointy ears, jumped onto the grass verge next to Velma. “What is it?”

  “What it look like, boy…a duck?” Shady, leaning out of his window, rolled his eyes. “You leave your brains back at your house?”

  “For your information, Mister Shady Jones,” Velma stood, hands on hips, “he’s a Boston terrier.”

  “Should go back there, you ask me.”

  “Well I didn’t.”

  “Cut it out, you two…”

  A couple of hundred yards or so down the road, back the way Mr. Pisbo had just come, the hood of a smart two-tone, dove grey and black four-door Packard appeared from the driveway of Twelve Oaks. This went unnoticed, back up the road, due to the attention being paid to a small Boston terrier.

  The Packard stopped while the driver, Davis, checked for traffic. He saw the parked up vehicle, caught a glimpse of some kids and a dog, but thought nothing of it; no one else in the car with him noticed. The road being clear, he then turned left and smartly accelerated away in the opposite direction.

  Half an hour later, having packed everyone back in the car and made as much of a circuit of the Twelve Oaks estate as was possible on four wheels, Mr. Pisbo found the kind of spot he was looking for. Pulling off the road, he parked in the shade of some black walnut trees. He had seen all he could from the road (which was, admittedly, not a lot) and knew that the only course of action open to him now was trespass.

  But, first things first.

  “Time for lunch…” Mr. Pisbo made a thing of checking his watch, “…pretty much at lunchtime, too. Trey, do me a favour and get the couple of bags in the trunk, would you?

  Trey went round the rear of the car, opened the trunk and saw two brown paper grocery bags packed in an old orange crate; he figured so they wouldn’t get thrown around during the journey. “Want me to bring the rug as well, Mr. Pisbo?”

  The call came back, “Sure, why not.”

  Trey put a red-and-green plaid rug on top of the crate and picked it up, surprised how much it weighed. He took it round to where Mr. Pisbo was sitting on the running board, next to Shady Jones, on the side facing away from the road; they were watching Velma playing with Banjo. “Big lunch, Mr. Pisbo.”

  “You brought the toolbox – the crate’s full of spanners and wrenches, son!”

  “Oh…I didn’t know.” Trey felt himself blushing, and waited for some clever remark from Shady, which never came. He put the crate down, put the rug on the grass and took out the two paper sacks, revealing the ballast of various hunks of greasy metal hiding underneath.

  “You one cheap dude, Pisbo, you know that?” Shady got up. “Here, boy, I’ll get the toolbox back where it belong, you put the lunch out. Lord know, the food no doubt make-do and hand-me-down, too. Bright side…if it ain’t fit for human consumption, leastways the dawg won’t go hungry…”

  The food was a perfectly acceptable selection of Monterey Jack cheese and baloney (with mustard and mayo) white-bread sandwiches; there were apples for dessert and soda pop to drink – and Velma, it turned out, could belch like a stevedore. It was a skill that, even though he knew it shouldn’t, highly amused her father and made him feel inordinately proud.

  Once the feast had been consumed and cleared up, Mr. Pisbo had exchanged his suit for a pair of old brown twill trousers, a faded blue work shirt and a worn flat cap. He got a canvas satchel from out of the car and slung it over his shoulder. “I shouldn’t be long,” he said. “You two stay right where you are and don’t give Shady any trouble.”

  “Eh?” Trey frowned. “Where you going, Mr. Pisbo?”

  “To have a look at this Twelve Oaks place, see what’s what.”

  Trey looked at Mr. Pisbo, his jaw set in a bulldog fashion. “What about me?”

  “You? You stay here with Velma and Shady.”

  “And why you bringing me into this, Pisbo?” Shady, still sitting on the car’s running board, leaned back and folded his arms. “You think I’m some kinda nursemaid?”

  But I should be coming with you,
Mr. Pisbo.” Trey could feel an important opportunity about to slip through his fingers. “I can be your assistant, help you find out what’s happened to Alex!”

  Exasperated, Mr. Pisbo grabbed his cap off of his head. “Look, all of you—”

  “What did I do?” interrupted Velma.

  “Nothing, sweetheart, I meant these two.” Mr. Pisbo indicated Trey and Shady. “It was not my intention to have either of you with me today, and, seeing as how it’s your own fault you’re here, Shady, you can quit complaining—”

  "But—” Trey tried to cut in, except Mr. Pisbo didn’t give him a chance.

  “And don’t you give me any more of that ‘I’m the client’ stuff, Trey.” Mr. Pisbo jammed his cap back on and strode off.

  And that was it. Under a cloud of disappointment, Trey found himself watching Mr. Pisbo go through the stand of trees towards the wooden fence at the back of the Twelve Oaks estate. Having started to think of himself as “part of the team” the last thing he wanted was to be left behind with Velma, Shady and Banjo the dog. He was desperate to find out if this was where they’d brought Alex – not to mention that this was his big chance to see a real private detective at work, for heaven’s sake! There had to be a way for him to sneak off…

  “Penny for them?”

  Trey, aware that he’d been staring off into the wild blue, glanced at Velma. “Nothing…”

  “Sure.”

  “You kids wanna play cards?” Shady butted in, producing what looked like a fairly new pack from his jacket pocket. He shook the cards out and snapped them so they made an “angry wasp” sound. “Gin, brag, cribbage…maybe old maid, happy families more your style?”

  “Poker, five-card, jokers wild.” Velma put her hand out. “I’ll deal.”

  Shady winked at Trey as he handed the cards over. “That Pisbo a bad influence, you ask me.”

  “I didn’t.” Trey could feel the slow burn of anger and frustration in his stomach.