Eye in the Ring

by Robert J. Randisi

  The one I found was a guy named Victor Ganetti. I found him in his regular stairwell, coked to the gills. I hoped I’d be able to get something out of him.

  “Hey, Vickie, it’s me, Miles Jacoby.”

  “Hey, Jack, buddy,” he called back, coming halfway up the stairs. “Heard you won last night, man. Attaway, José .” He started to giggle and I waited until he stopped.

  “You hear about Lucas, Vickie?”

  His sunken cheeks sunk a little more and he nodded sadly, tears coming to his already red eyes.

  “Heard, man, heard. Hot shit, hot shot, you know? Tough. Poor, poor, Lucas, man.”

  “You know where he was found?”

  “Yeah, arcade, sure.”

  “Was that a regular spot for him, Vickie?”

  “Spot? Shit, no, man. Him and me, we shoot up together, you know? Down here, man, never uptown.”

  Thirty-fourth was midtown, but I knew what he meant. They never shot up north of Fourteenth Street.

  He started to giggle and blubber at the same time, and I knew I was going to lose him. I took a second five out of my pocket and shoved it into his.

  “Be good, Vickie.”

  “Thanks, man. Too bad ’bout Lucas, man. Hot shit, hot shot, man. Holy shit!”

  “Yeah.”

  I left him and went back to Packy’s. Benny still wasn’t there.

  “Packy, ginger ale.”

  He brought it over and took my dollar.

  When he brought back the change he said, “Hey, your sister-in-law called before, looking for you.”

  “For me, or for Benny?”

  “She didn’t even mention Benny, man, just asked for you. Sounded out of breath, too, like she’d just gone a four-round exhibition with Ali.”

  In spite of myself I started having visions of Julie and me sitting down to dinner without Benny.

  “How long ago did she call?”

  He shrugged. “Hour, maybe more.”

  I checked my watch. It was almost five, and she usually had dinner on by six.

  I let my ginger ale stand where it was and left.

  When she opened the door in answer to my knock, she practically fell into my arms.

  “Oh, Miles, thank God.”

  The way she was dressed she looked like she was ready to go out.

  “Julie, what is it? What’s wrong?” I asked her, holding her tightly against me. She was shivering.

  “I tried to find you, Miles, I tried,” she said into my shoulder. “I’ve been trying to find you for hours.”

  I held her at arm’s length and asked her again, “Honey, what’s wrong.”

  “It’s Benny, Miles. He’s—he’s been arrested!”

  Was that all? Benny had gotten drunk and ended up getting himself thrown in the tank before.

  “C’mon, Julie. It’s not the first time—”

  “No, you don’t understand,” she told me, shaking her head. “He wasn’t arrested for being drunk.”

  “Then what?”

  “He—he was arrested for—for murder!”

  Chapter Seven

  She had gotten the call from the cops—Detective Hocus, she said—at about two that afternoon. They wanted her to come down to the Seventeenth Precinct. She was afraid to go alone, so she’d been trying to get me ever since then. She said she wouldn’t have known what to do down there if she had gone alone. I held her tight, telling her it was all right, until she calmed down, then told her to get her jacket. We went to the precinct together.

  I asked for Detective Hocus, and a uniformed officer guided us up some stairs to a room filled with desks and people.

  Hocus was standing at the far end and came over when he saw us.

  “Mrs. Jacoby?” he asked Julie.

  “Y-yes.”

  “I’m glad you could finally make it,” he told her, and I didn’t like his tone. “Please, come this way.”

  He led us to a cubicle and allowed us to precede him in.

  “Well, the private eye, huh?” he said to me, remembering who I was. “What’s your interest in this?”

  “This is my brother-in-law, Officer,” Julie told him.

  “That’s my brother you locked up, Hocus,” I added.

  He showed surprise.

  “I should have made the connection,” he said, as if scolding himself. “Sit down, both of you.”

  He closed the door and seated himself behind the desk in the room.

  “This office is not mine, it’s my lieutenant’s,” he confided to us, “but he’s not in today, so we can use it.”

  “Great,” I told him.

  He turned to Julie and asked her, “Are you happily married, Mrs. Jacoby?” He was mispronouncing the name, but neither one of us bothered to correct him.

  “What?” Julie asked, thrown off balance by the question.

  “I asked you about your marriage, Mrs. Jacoby. Is it a happy one?”

  “I—why, yes, but I don’t—”

  “It took you almost four hours to come down here, ma’am, after I called you and told you that your husband had been arrested—”

  “It’s not the first time my brother has been arrested. Detective Hocus,” I informed him.

  “I know that,” he told me, and held up a folder to show me why. He had Benny’s record right there. “But for murder?” He turned to Julie again and added, “I was just wondering why it took you so long to come down?”

  “She didn’t want to come down alone—” I started to say, but he cut me off.

  “I’d rather she answer the question, if you don’t mind?” he asked me.

  “Look, I don’t see—”

  “Would you rather I questioned her alone?” he asked me.

  Since the reason I had come with her was so she wouldn’t be alone, I shut up. At the same time, Julie touched my arm and said, “It’s all right, Miles.”

  Addressing herself to Hocus she told him, “I didn’t want to come down alone, Detective. I was trying to find my brother-in-law to come down with me. I also thought that he should know what was happening.”

  “Are you and your brother-in-law close?”

  “Wait a minute—” I started, unable to see the relevancy of the question.

  Julie touched my arm again and said, “Let me, Miles. Yes, Detective, my brother-in-law and I are quite close. In fact, all three of us are close. Do you find something suspicious in that?”

  “Not at all. Please, ma’am, don’t take offense. I only meant—”

  “I know exactly what you meant, and I do take offense. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see my husband.”

  “Of course,” he told her. He got up and went out to get a uniformed cop. When he returned with one he told the cop, “Take Mrs. Jacoby down to see her husband.”

  The young cop, whose nameplate identified him as Nowich, said, “Right. Would you follow me, ma’am?”

  I started to get up, and Hocus snapped, “Not you, private eye. Just her.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  I sat back down and nodded to Julie. She followed the uniform out.

  “Has he called a lawyer?” I asked.

  “He really wasn’t in shape to do much of anything,” he told me.

  “Was he drunk?”

  “Stewed.”

  “Look, what’s going on? What’s this bullshit about my brother killing somebody?”

  “That’s the charge. Is your brother given to violence?”

  “My brother is not a violent man. I’m the fighter in the family, not him. I don’t even think he knows how to fight,” I told him, and then added to myself: anymore. “Look, what the hell happened?”

  “Okay, here’s how we got it. He burst into a guy’s office today. They started arguing, the guy’s secretary got scared, so she called for a radio car. When the car got there the girl was waiting for them on the street. She said she thought your brother had killed her boss. The guys from the car went up with he
r and found her boss dead. Your brother was found in the building, apparently looking for another way out. Or maybe he was just too drunk to find the front door. Anyway, we got called to the scene and we brought your brother here. He couldn’t tell us much in his condition, but we found his phone number on him and called his wife.”

  “Has he been charged?”

  He shook his head.

  “He hasn’t been booked and formally charged, but he will be. As far as I can see,” he added frankly, “he’s guilty.”

  “Is that for you to decide?” I demanded, getting hot.

  “He’s guilty, what can I tell you?” he asked me. “There was nobody else there.”

  “Who’s he supposed to have killed?” I asked.

  “One of you guys.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean he killed a shamus, another private eye.” “Who?”

  “A guy named Waters, Eddie Waters.”

  Chapter Eight

  I’ve caught a lot of rights and lefts in my time, but that was the hardest punch I’d ever been hit with.

  My brother, arrested for killing my best friend.

  “That’s crazy,” I said, surprised at how calmly I’d said it. “That’s absolute lunacy, Hocus. Believe me, my brother couldn’t kill anybody.”

  “I’d like to believe you, kid, really I would, but I’m a cop. I’m only allowed to believe what I see, not what people tell me. What I see is the evidence,” he said, showing me one finger, “and what the evidence tells me,” he went on, showing me the second finger, “is that your brother killed Eddie Waters.”

  I quelled my first instinct, which was to argue, but how could I argue with evidence? I couldn’t, not unless I could find some way to refute it.

  After all, I was a detective, wasn’t I? At least, that was what my brand-new license said.

  “How was he killed?”

  “He was beat to death. Shit, he was a bloody mess, kid, all tore up, outside and in. He was beaten by somebody who knew what they were doing.”

  Like an ex-pug.

  I wondered if Hocus knew that Benny had been in the ring and was just waiting to see if I’d mention it.

  Well, if he was he’d wait a hell of a long time before I’d say something that would hurt Benny.

  Even if he was . . .

  “How did your brother and Waters get along?” Hocus asked, and I was grateful he’d broken into my thoughts.

  “Uh, fine,” I said, and then decided that the best thing to do for Benny would be to not get caught in a lie. Not telling him about Benny’s ring career, that was just leaving something out, but telling him that Eddie and Benny got along fine, well, that was just an out-and-out lie.

  He was watching me, waiting for me to make up my mind. I made up my mind about Hocus, just then. I figured him for a good cop.

  “Okay, so they didn’t get along all that well,” I admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “They fought—well—argued over me, mostly. Benny, he wants me to be middleweight champ of the world. Eddie can’t—couldn’t understand why I’d get in the ring and let people beat on me with their fists. He helped me get my license.”

  “How did your brother feel about that?”

  I shrugged. “He wasn’t all that thrilled, I admit, but he wouldn’t go to Eddie and—”

  “You think Waters’s secretary lied?”

  No. I didn’t think that. Missy wouldn’t lie about something that serious.

  “No, I don’t think she lied. If she says Benny was there, then he was there.”

  “And if she says your brother killed Eddie Waters?”

  “Now wait a minute, Hocus. You said that she told the men who responded that she thought my brother was killing Eddie Waters. She thought!”

  “And then they found him dead.”

  “And that doesn’t mean that my brother killed him!” I insisted.

  “Well, I’m sorry, kid. I’ll present the evidence that I have to the D.A. and I’m sure he’ll want to go ahead with an indictment.”

  “And that’s the end of it? No more investigation, huh? You’re so damned sure you’ve got your man?”

  He held up his hands and said, “Whoa! I didn’t say the investigation was over, but as far as the second part of that statement goes, yes, I do think we have our man.”

  “Shit!”

  “Do you want to see your brother now?”

  “Yes.”

  He went to get a uniform and came back with the same man as before—Nowich.

  “Take Mr. Jacoby to see his brother.” He turned to me and said, “Listen, private eye, don’t be getting any ideas about interfering with a police investigation. My investigation is still progressing. Your brother will get as fair a shake as we can give him.”

  “Sure,” I said, from a man who’s already convicted him. What kind of shake was that?

  “Keep in touch,” Hocus threw at me as I walked out of the room.

  I followed the officer and he took me to a room downstairs, where I found Julie and Benny.

  When Nowich shut the door behind me the first thing I said was, “Eddie, goddamnit!”

  His head had been in his hands, and now he raised his head and looked at me. He looked like shit, worse than he had ever looked at the end of any bender he’d been on.

  “Miles, I didn’t—I didn’t kill him, Miles, I didn’t—” he told me, stammering.

  “But you did go to his office, right?” I demanded, leaning on the table they were sitting at.

  “Miles—” Julie said, but I ignored her.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What the hell for, Benny?”

  “To talk to him, just to talk to him, I swear!”

  “You mean to argue with him. About my license, right?”

  “Miles, I— Oh, hell, I just didn’t like the idea of him helping you get it, is all. I want you to be champ, Miles. You can’t be a detective, too.” He put his hand in his hands and kept muttering, “I just wanted—wanted to—to talk—”

  “Benny, Benny . . . all the talking in the world wasn’t going to change the way I felt. You knew that. Why’d you have to go and pick a fight with Eddie—”

  “I didn’t fight with him!” he shouted.

  “Well, you sure as hell did more than talk to him!” I shouted back. “You scared Missy so much she called the cops. Now what went on there?”

  “Miles, not now, please,” Julie said, putting her hand on my arm.

  “Julie, I’ve got to—”

  “Please,” she said again, tugging on my arm. “He can’t talk now.”

  “No, he can’t talk now, because he’s still drunk,” I said with disgust. Benny looked at me, then buried his face in his hands again.

  “Ah—” I said, and walked to the door and banged on it.

  “Miles, where are you going?” Benny called out.

  “I’m going to get you a lawyer, Benny, because you sure as hell are going to need one.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You’re putting me on the spot, Miles,” Hector Domingo Gonzales Delgado told me.

  “I know it, Heck,” I replied.

  He began to tap the top of his desk with a pencil, and I waited for him to make up his mind.

  I knew a number of lawyers, all of whom I had met while working for Eddie Waters. Heck Delgado was the one I chose to contact about defending Benny. Heck was a young guy—thirty-two or so—who had his own practice and did all right for himself. He was very friendly with Eddie—who had, in fact, helped him get started—and that’s what he meant when he told me I was putting him on the spot.

  “Do you think your brother killed Eddie, Miles?” he asked.

  My first instinct was to say no, but I wanted to play fair with Heck, and I prefaced my answer by telling him just that.

  “To be fair with you, Heck, I don’t honestly know at this point. I didn’t get all that much out of Benny last night, and I can’t make up my mind until I’ve heard his s
tory.”

  “And Missy’s,” he pointed out.

  “And Missy’s,” I agreed.

  Heck stood up, giving me a good look at his three-piece suit. He was tall and athletically trim, every girl’s dream of a handsome, sexy, successful lawyer. He was unmarried, and I knew that he tried very hard to make every girl’s dream come true—just short of marriage, that is.

  He had a Ricardo Montalban accent that thickened anytime he became agitated or upset, which is why he worked very hard at always maintaining his cool, especially in court.

  “I’m giving you an out, Heck. You can say no without affecting our friendship in any way.”

  “I appreciate that, Miles, I really do, but the fact remains that your brother is entitled to a competent defense. If I said no, I would be worried that he would not get one.” He spread his hands and asked me, “Who is more competent than I?”

  “No one,” I said, giving him the answer he sought. He smiled and stepped forward, extending his hand. I took it and shook it firmly—and gratefully.

  “Of course I will defend your brother,” he told me, clasping my hand in both of his. “I will speak with him today.”

  “I’d like to sit in,” I told him.

  He held a finger up at me and said, “If I am to be your brother’s attorney, you must allow me to conduct his defense my way, Miles.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “I will speak to him alone, Miles. I do not want him to be influenced by your presence.”

  “Will you tell me what he says?”

  “Up to a point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother must be the one to hire me,” he explained. “I’ll talk to him today. If he chooses to do so, my only responsibility will be to him. I will tell you anything he agrees to let me tell you. This is the way I work, Miles.”

  “I understand,” I assured him, “but I’m going to be working on this, Heck.”

  He shook his head, walked around behind his desk and seated himself again. He made a bridge out of his hands and regarded me critically over them.

  “I would advise against that, Miles.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “You are too emotionally involved with this case, but aside from that, it is a homicide and as such is a police matter. I respect your abilities, I really do, but you have no experience in matters such as this. You might do your brother more harm than good.”