“Good. I’ve okayed the release of the body. Did Waters have family?”
“Just me and his girl. I’m letting her claim it.”
“She won’t have any problem.”
“Thanks, Hocus.”
“Yeah, I’m being nice, Jacoby. You be nice too, huh? Stay out of the way?”
“I’ll do my best.”
I hung up.
I was pleased that he hadn’t told me to stay out of the case entirely, only to stay out of his way, which I fully intended to do. As long as I stayed on his right side, I could count on his cooperation when I needed it. I had no desire to find out just how much of a bastard he could be if I crossed his wrong side.
As I hung up the phone Patrice came back to her desk with a sheaf of papers. I decided to call Julie now instead of putting it off for later. There was no point in avoiding her, since I was the only family she had to turn to with Benny in jail. I would just have to get a choke hold on my feelings.
“One more?” I asked Patrice. She shrugged and waved her hand to indicate that I should go ahead.
I dialed Julie’s phone, and she picked up on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Julie, it’s Miles.”
“Oh, Miles, hello.”
“You called a few times yesterday, but I didn’t get back to the office until late. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I don’t think that’s the truth, Miles, but I’ll forgive you if you’ll come over for dinner tonight. I—I’m not very good at being alone—totally alone, I mean.”
The tone of her voice made my throat catch.
“Julie, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry, Miles. Just say you’ll come.”
I hesitated a moment, then felt ridiculous for doing so.
“Of course I’ll come, Julie.”
The relief in her voice made my stomach flutter.
“Oh, good. At six.”
“Fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Miles, thank you.”
“I’ll see you later,” I told her, and hung up.
Patrice was watching me, sucking on the end of her pencil. When I hung up she raised her eyebrows and said, “I don’t know who ‘Julie’ is, but I think you’ve got it bad.”
“Don’t be silly,” I told her, becoming annoyed—at her and myself. “It’s my sister-in-law. Naturally, with my brother in jail I’m all the family she has.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, still staring at me.
“It’s only natural that she’d want to—to—”
“Cling to you?”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other a few moments and then she said “Uh-huh” again in that same noncommittal tone.
I gave up and said, “Thanks for the use of the phone, Patrice.”
“Sure. Any message for Dick?”
“No—yes. Tell him thanks.” “Okay.”
I left without looking at her again. I was afraid she’d still be sucking on that pencil with that knowing look in her eyes. I hoped she’d swallow her eraser.
Chapter Twenty-One
I went to Packy’s and sat in a booth with a ginger ale.
I opened the envelope Gallaghen had left for me and found the list I’d asked for. He didn’t supply the names of everyone in the fifth row, just the names of the interesting parties. None of them were interesting to me, but what he’d written at the bottom of the page was.
Jack,
Second name on the list is an old-time manager who still likes to go to the fights—only he wasn’t there that night. Somebody was, though, because his ticket was used.
Dick
I checked out the second name on the list: Corky Purcell. An old-time fight manager? How old-time? I didn’t remember his name, so it must have been before my time. Maybe he wasn’t at the fight, but whoever was might be the guy I was looking for. I needed an address for Corky Purcell, and I thought I knew where to get it.
I went to the bar and asked Packy for his phone. He set it on the bar, and I dialed the number of a friend of mine. Robie McKay was a writer for Ringtime magazine, one of the top fight mags in the business. He did an interview with me once, and we got to be pretty friendly.
“Robie, it’s Miles Jacoby.”
“Fighting Kid Jacoby,” he said. That was the title he’d used for the article a year and a half ago. “How ya doing, Kid?”
“Fine, Robie, fine. I—”
“I wasn’t at the fight the other night, but I hear you did okay.”
“Yeah, when he got tired of hitting me I knocked him cold,” I told him.
“That’s using your head,” he said, then laughed at his own joke.
When he stopped laughing I said, “Robie, I need a favor.”
“Ask.”
“Does the name Corky Purcell mean anything to you?”
“Purcell,” he repeated, “Corky Purcell. No, it doesn’t ring any bells. Who is he?”
“An old-time fight manager. Listen, could you ask around down there; maybe some of the old-timers will remember.”
Robie was a few years older than me, but it still might have been before his time.
“What info do you need?” he asked.
“I need an address, as current as possible.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be at Packy’s if you get it within the next half hour. After that I’ll be around. You can get me at this number after six tonight,” I told him, and gave him Julie’s number.
“Will I be interrupting anything?” he asked.
“I hope not,” I told him, and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Here’s your phone, Pack,” I told him. He took it and tucked it back behind the bar.
“How’s Benny, Jack?”
“Not good, Packy, not good.”
“You tell him I was asking about him, all right?”
“I’ll tell him, Packy. Give me another ginger ale, will you? No, make it a cream soda; your ginger ale tastes flat.”
“I’ll give you flat,” he retorted good-naturedly, and set a cold bottle of cream soda on the bar.
“I’m waiting for a call, Pack, okay?”
“I’ll let you know,” he promised.
I went back to the booth and drank my cream soda from the bottle. I looked at Gallaghen’s list again, wondering if it would do any good to check out the other names, too. Ah, what’s the diff, I figured. There was no hurry, anyway. This was just curiosity. What I should have been doing was something to help Benny, like some more visits to dissatisfied customers of Eddie’s. I should probably also have called the office to see if Missy was there. Or was she down at the morgue, claiming Eddie’s body?
It didn’t matter for now. I had to leave Packy’s phone open in case Robie called back, so I drank some more cream soda and waited.
When the half hour was up so was my cream soda, and Robie hadn’t called, so I decided to take off.
“I gotta go, Packy. I’ll see you around,” I called out.
“What do I do if your call comes?” he asked.
“Tell him to use the other number I gave him.”
I still had the list that Missy had prepared for me, so I decided to make some more visits before going to Julie’s for dinner.
I went to see a man who lived in a penthouse and thought that Eddie should have forced his daughter to come back home after he found her, as he was hired to do. Unfortunately for the man, his daughter was nineteen, and if she didn’t want to come home, there was no law in the world that said she had to. Eddie told Papa that the girl was healthy and fine, and that was all he could tell him. She didn’t have a permanent address, but Eddie did tell him where she was when he found her. It didn’t help the old man, because she was gone from there when he got there. The old guy was pissed good, but enough to kill? I didn’t think so.
My second visit was to a man whose wife was missing. It was one of Eddie’s failures. He couldn’t find her, but he sent the man a bill, which t
he man refused to pay. He seemed to think that the P.I. business should be run on a no-results, no-fee basis.
I got to Julie’s at six-thirty and apologized for being late.
“As long as you’re here, Miles,” she said, taking hold of my arm and gently pulling me in.
She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt, no shoes, and her hair was down, hanging to her shoulders. There was no makeup on her face, and she looked tired—but wonderful.
“You look good,” I told her.
“Ah, I look horrible,” she countered, closing the door.
Something sizzled in the kitchen, and she shouted and ran down the hall. I followed and found her bending over the oven, which was beneath the burners. Her behind looked inviting in those jeans. I felt ashamed for ogling her—but that didn’t stop me. When she straightened up and turned around I hurriedly moved my eyes to the stove top.
“What’s cooking?” I asked. “Smells good.”
“Your favorite,” she told me. “Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and plenty of gravy and Italian bread.”
“Wow, when do we eat?” I asked, widening my eyes ridiculously.
She laughed and told me that dinner would be served in the dining room in fifteen minutes. The dining room was a kitchen table with one leg shorter than the others.
“Ah, I left your phone number with someone. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Miles, of course not. Relax, will you? I’ve always wanted you to regard this as your home.”
I looked around the rundown little apartment, which seemed even grimmer than my own, and perished the thought. Except for her presence the apartment held no attraction for me.
“Any cream soda?” I asked, opening the refrigerator. It was something I did very easily in front of Benny, but I hadn’t done it with Julie in the room. I was trying to force myself to relax with her, and it wasn’t easy, not when just looking at her made my hands itch and my teeth ache.
Just then the phone rang.
“Would you get that please, Miles?”
The phone was in the living room, so I walked in there with a large bottle of cream soda in my hand.
“Hello?”
“That you, Jack?” Robie’s voice asked.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“No, I haven’t started dinner yet.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Well, I got your info for you.”
“You did? That’s great,” I said, putting the bottle down and searching for something to write on. I ended up taking Missy’s list out of my pocket and writing on the back of that.
“What’d you get?”
“A couple of the old guys down here remember Purcell. He trained a few contenders about thirty years ago. He’s about seventy now, goes to the Garden every chance he gets.”
“Did you get an address?”
“Yeah, the Roger Williams Hotel, Broadway and Eighty-fourth.”
“How recent?”
“A few months ago. He should still be there.”
“I hope he is. Thanks, Robie, I owe you one.”
“I’ll collect,” he promised, and hung up.
I tucked the list back into my pocket, picked up the cream soda bottle, and noticed that it had left a wet ring on the end table. I went back into the kitchen and confessed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Julie told me. “That junk is so old—”
She stopped short, as if she realized that she was about to complain.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
She made a show of tasting the gravy and then said, “Nothing. I don’t like to complain.”
“Why not? You’re certainly entitled,” I told her. I went looking for a bottle opener, and she came to help. Up close I could smell her hair, her skin. She wasn’t wearing perfume, and what I smelled was simply Julie.
“Here it is,” she said, holding up the opener for me. I closed my hand over hers, then took the opener. She went back to the stove and oven.
“It’s almost ready,” she told me.
The settings were already on the table, so I put down the open bottle of soda and returned the opener to the drawer.
She took out the chicken and shut the oven.
“Would you carve, please?” she asked.
While she dished out everything else I cut the chicken into parts and then put it on the table.
The dinner was strained. No matter how I tried to relax, I couldn’t seem to.
“Did you see Benny today?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“No, I didn’t—I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t?”
“Miles, the truth was, I didn’t want to.”
“Oh.”
“Is that all you can say?” she asked.
“You must have had your reasons,” I told her.
“Yes,” she said, “Yes, I did.”
I waited, but they weren’t forthcoming.
After dinner I helped her clear the table, and we put the dishes in the sink.
“Just leave them there,” she said. “I’ll do them later.”
“I’ll do them,” I offered, reaching for the faucet, but she put her hand out to stop me, and we ended up holding hands.
“Julie,” I said, wanting to say more.
She tried to pull her hand away, but I held it tight.
“Miles, please—”
“Why did you ask me here tonight, Julie?” I asked.
“What? You’re my brother-in-law. I didn’t want to be alone. Who else should I have asked?”
“Julie, let’s stop playing games,” I told her. I pulled on her hand, pulling her toward me. “I can’t go on treating you like you were a goddess, or made of glass. I can’t go on tippy-toeing around the fact that I’m in love with you.”
“Miles—”
I pulled her to me and kissed her, and she responded. Her tongue plunged past my lips and I released her hand and moved my arm around her, pulling her tightly to me. Beneath the sweatshirt she was not wearing a bra, and I reached down and pulled the shirt up to her neck. With one arm around her, I touched her breasts with my free hand. They were warm and full, wonderfully firm, and the nipples sprang to life. As I fondled them she moaned into my mouth.
Suddenly, she put her hands against my chest and pushed me violently.
“Please, Miles—”
“Julie—”
“No, I can’t. Not here, not now,” she shouted. “Please, just go.”
A repeat of the other night, when she had also asked me to leave. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind.
“Julie, we have to talk,” I told her.
She was crying.
“Not now, Miles, not now.”
She ran from the kitchen into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
I waited a few moments, and when it became obvious that she was not coming out, I did the dishes and then left.
I went back to my own apartment and began slamming things around. Nothing breakable, just some pillows, some books, a pair of boxing gloves. I had blown it. I’d moved too fast, and now I’d alienated her, just when she needed me most.
Where could she turn now?
I had just taken a bottle of Old Grand Dad out from beneath the sink, with every intention of drinking the whole thing, when someone knocked on my door.
“Shit!” I snapped, wondering who the hell was interrupting my drunk before I could even get started on it.
Whoever it was knocked again, more urgently than before, and I shoved the bottle back under the sink and shouted, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
There were three people I might have expected—Hocus, Missy or even Tracy. It was none of the three.
It was Julie, dressed as I had left her, but with a windbreaker over the sweatshirt. Her face was tearstained.
“Julie—”
She sniffled once and stared at me, then said, “I love you too, Miles.”<
br />
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Any guilt?” I asked later, while she lay in the crook of my right arm.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “How about you?”
“Tons,” I answered just as honestly. Then I asked, “Sorry?”
“No, I’m not sorry, Miles,” she told me.
“Good, neither am I. What do we do now?”
She shrugged in the darkness and said, “I don’t think we can do anything. I don’t think it should happen again.”
“I agree,” I said, telling her my first lie. Actually, it wasn’t exactly a lie. While it was true that it shouldn’t happen again, I wanted it to.
And I thought she did, too.
She sat up in bed and I asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to go home, Miles. I never should have come here,” she told me, but then she touched my face with her hand and said, “but I meant it when I said I wasn’t sorry.”
I took her hand from my face and held it.
“Julie, what was said—”
“What was said must never be said again, Miles—not for a while, anyway. Not till all this is over with, and Benny is out of jail. Then we can talk about it. I promise you, Miles, my feelings are too deep to just let this go.”
“So are mine,” I said. I let her hand go and said, “All right. After Benny’s out, we’ll talk.”
“Thank you, Miles.”
She dressed in the dark and was careful not to touch me again when she said good night.
“I’m still here, Julie, when you need me.”
“I know, and it helps, believe me.”
“Are you getting along okay with Heck?”
“Fine, Miles. I trust him.”
“Good,” I said, “that’s good.”
“I have to go, Miles. Good night.”
“Good night, Julie.”
I stayed in bed and listened to her footsteps as she walked to the door and closing it gently behind her went out. I lay back and put my hands behind my head.
At least it was out in the open, my feelings about her, and she had admitted to having feelings for me. I felt like a traitor to Benny, but I was still going to work like hell to prove him innocent, not only because he was my brother—which should have been the optimum reason—but because doing so would mean that Julie and I could sit down and talk.
Eye in the Ring Page 8