Eye in the Ring

by Robert J. Randisi

  “I came here depressed at the way my life is going, Jack,” she told me. “Your friend Eddie is dead, your brother is in jail, and you’re about to go looking for a man who kills people for a living.” She looked at me and said, “I’m not doing so badly after all, am I?”

  I touched her hand and said, “I never thought you were, love.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  When I woke up the next morning I felt a touch of panic.

  Eddie’s funeral was early that day, and it was in Queens; but what I really wanted to do was go and see Hocus with the info I’d gotten on “Max the Ax.”

  I also remembered that I was supposed to meet Heck Delgado at ten o’clock to go and see Benny. If I didn’t, Benny and maybe even Heck would be disappointed in me. If I missed the funeral, Missy might never speak to me again.

  I decided to go to the funeral, for two reasons. One, I wanted to see my best friend off and two, Missy needed someone there with her, and she had no one else but me.

  I’d overextended myself with things to do that morning; but Heck and Benny would have to understand, and seeing Hocus would have to wait until later in the day.

  What I did, however, was call the Seventeenth Precinct and leave a message for Hocus to meet me in Queens if he possibly could. I added that it would be well worth the trip. I left him the address of both the funeral parlor and the cemetery.

  I stayed by Missy the whole time while silent tears rolled down her cheeks. There wasn’t much of a turnout, as Eddie hadn’t had all that many friends; but there were a few other P.I.’s there who had worked with him over the years, and even some of his old clients showed up.

  I didn’t know Walker Blue, the P.I. who was working for Heck Delgado, personally, but I knew what he looked like and was surprised to see that he had also attended the services. Eddie knew him, but not all that well. I wished I could go over and talk to him, but I had to stay by Missy. I had a feeling that she would be fine as long as I was right there beside her. I hoped to be able to catch Blue after the ceremony at the cemetery.

  Hocus hadn’t shown up by the time we were ready to leave the funeral home, and my impatient hope was that he’d make it to the cemetery before we finished there.

  As Missy dropped the first handful of dirt on Eddie Waters’s coffin to signify the end of the ceremony, Hocus still hadn’t arrived.

  “Do you want me to come home with you?” I asked Missy, walking her to the limousine.

  “No, Jack, there’s no need for that. The limo will drop me home. You can catch a ride back to the city with someone here,” she told me. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will,” I told her, opening the door of the big car for her. “I’ll call you later.”

  She nodded and got into the limo. I shut the door and watched it drive away.

  “Mr. Jacoby?” I heard a man’s voice call from behind.

  I turned to find a tall, gray-haired, distinguished-looking man who I knew was Walker Blue.

  Blue was the most flamboyant private investigator in New York City, and possibly in the country. His fees were high, but he consistently delivered what he was paid to. Many of his court appearances as a witness for either side had been well publicized, and he had turned many courtroom procedures into circus events.

  The suit Blue was wearing must have cost him more than my entire wardrobe, and his graying hair was neatly trimmed. He had a long-jawed face which was just starting to show the wear of his age, which had to be over fifty. Eddie had always said that Walker Blue looked like a Fancy Dan, but when it came to getting down and dirty, he was a mean mother.

  “Mr. Jacoby, my name is Walker Blue,” he said, extending his hand. I accepted it and we shook hands somberly.

  “Hector has explained the situation as regards your involvement in this case,” he explained, “and I can’t say that I agree with him. However, I will not attempt to argue the point. I only wish to inform you that I work alone and I consult with no one. When I have results, I will report them to Hector. It will not be necessary for you and me to have any contact whatsoever about this case. If you should come across some information you think is noteworthy, you can give it to Hector and he will add it to mine.”

  I was at a loss as to how to react to the man and his speech. I had been willing to work with him, and he had made it perfectly clear that he was not willing to work with me.

  Well, then fuck him.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he told me, “and it was good to meet you. I’m afraid I have to be going.” With that he turned on his heels and walked away.

  “You could have fooled me,” I said to his retreating back, but if he heard me at all he chose to ignore the remark.

  “He’s a little hard to take,” a voice said from behind me. I turned and found Detective Hocus standing there looking at Walker Blue’s back.

  “You’ve dealt with him?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Once or twice. His attitude is shitty, but there’s no denying he’s a brilliant investigator,” he commented.

  “Yeah, well, he’s got a lot to learn about being a human being,” I told him.

  “I agree. You need a ride to the city?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I do, thanks.”

  We walked to his car, and I waited until we were on the L.I.E. heading for the city before I brought up the subject of “Max the Ax.”

  “Ever hear of a hit man called Max the Ax?” I asked.

  “What’s his last name?” he asked.

  “Collins.”

  He thought a moment, then shook his head.

  “No, can’t say that I have. Where’s he work out of?”

  “Detroit.”

  “Well, we can check it easily enough. Is this info reliable?” he asked.

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “All right. When I get back to the precinct I’ll send off a message to the Detroit P.D. and see what they have on Max the Ax. Jesus, what a name!”

  “What does this mean to you?” I asked him.

  He glanced over at me.

  “Honestly?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want an honest answer,” I told him.

  “It doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.”

  “Doesn’t it raise a question?” I asked.

  “It sure does. It raises the question of who this guy is here to hit.”

  “You don’t think he’s made his hit yet?”

  “If he had, Jacoby, he wouldn’t still be here,” he told me. The answer made too much sense for me to like it; but it was honest, and that was what I had asked for.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I had Hocus drop me off as soon as we came out of the Midtown Tunnel, with intentions of walking over to the hotel where Louise told me she had spotted Max the Ax.

  I was halfway to Fourteenth Street when I realized that I had not gotten a physical description of the Detroit hit man from her. I had simply never thought to ask.

  I thought about what Hocus had said about Walker Blue being a brilliant investigator. What would Hocus, or Blue, have said about my standing there in the street with egg on my face? What was I going to do, ask the desk clerk if a hit man from Detroit was registered there, and by the way, could he point him out to me?

  I found a pay phone and dialed Knock Wood Lee’s phone number. When Tiger answered I asked for him, and she told me he wasn’t there.

  “Maybe you can help me, Lee.”

  “I’d love to try,” she teased.

  “I need a location for a hooker called Louise. I need to talk to her again.”

  “Didn’t you see her last night?” she asked, sounding puzzled. “Wood won’t like it if she stood you up—”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that. She showed last night, but there was something I forgot to ask her. If you could just tell me where she’s working—”

  “She wouldn’t be out this early, Jack. She’d still be home, probably asleep.”

  “Sweetheart, I
hate to ask this, but could you let me have her address? Or her phone number?”

  “The phone wouldn’t do any good,” she told me. “She unplugs it when she goes to sleep.”

  She went silent, and I knew she was thinking over my request, so I gave her all the time she needed.

  “Does this have to do with Eddie Waters,” she asked, “and your brother?”

  It might, I thought, but I said, “Yes, it does.”

  “Okay, Jack, she’s got an apartment over on West Twelfth at Eighth Avenue, above the bookstore. Don’t tell Wood, okay?”

  “You’re a doll. I’ll wait a week and then call Wood and ask for your hand in marriage.”

  “I’ll hold my breath.”

  I hung up, knowing full well that I wouldn’t have to tell Wood, because she’d do that herself.

  I hoofed it over to Eighth Avenue and Twelfth Street and easily found the bookstore Lee was talking about. It was done up in red neon against a black background, with a sign in the window that glowed: Foul Play. It was a bookstore that dealt exclusively in mystery books.

  Very appropriate, I remember thinking, not realizing how appropriate it really was.

  I found the door to the second floor unlocked, and inside there were two mailboxes. One was empty, and the other had a couple of envelopes in it, so I figured I’d try that one first. The mailbox with the envelopes in it had a large F pasted on it, so I assumed that meant “front.”

  I started up the creaking stairway, trying to ignore the stench of stale urine, and knocked on the first door. When there was no answer I experienced a strong feeling of déjà vu. I stepped aside before knocking again, harder this time, but there was still no answer.

  Wrong apartment, I told myself, try the other one; but I reached down for the knob and it turned freely.

  I didn’t want to go in, because I was afraid of what I was going to find. I stood there in the hall for a few minutes, my heart pounding, just staring at the door as it stood a couple of inches ajar. Finally I took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed the door open.

  There was blood everywhere, and I took two quick steps to my left and threw up. Not having eaten that morning, it was mostly painful dry heaving, with a touch of green bile thrown in for color. When it subsided I steeled myself and looked again.

  There was a bed in the center of the room, and Louise was lying on it face up. Blood stained the ceiling and the sheets, and her eyes were wide open and staring with a puzzled look in them, as if she were trying to figure out who the hell had bled all over her ceiling.

  I walked into the room and got just close enough to see the large, gaping wound in her throat. It looked like it might have even been done with an . . .

  Jesus Christ!

  It looked like it could very well have been done with an ax!

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I called Hocus direct, preferring not to fuck around with a 911 phone call.

  “What am I, Jacoby, your favorite cop?” he asked in a tired voice.

  I told him if he only had dimples I’d marry him, and could he hurry up and get his ass over here. He said he’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  When he arrived I was sitting out in the hall on the floor, on the other side of the door from my puddle of bile. He looked at me and then at the puddle and then back at me.

  “So I’m not so hardboiled,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders. “She’s in there.”

  “M.E.’s right behind me,” he said, and walked into the room. “Jesus!” I heard him breathe.

  Dr. Mahbee, the M.E., came up next and repeated Hocus’s performance.

  “In there,” I said, flicking my thumb.

  He went in, and I didn’t hear any audible reaction from him; but then blood was his business, wasn’t it?

  As the rest of the troops arrived I directed them all to the proper room from my seated position on the floor. I didn’t have the strength in my legs that was needed to stand up.

  Wright, Hocus’s partner, was the last one up, and when he walked in he reacted the same way his partner had.

  I became aware that there was some arguing going on inside the room, but I couldn’t make out what it was all about. A few minutes later Hocus came storming out, breathing fire. He stepped over me, then joined me in sitting on the floor.

  “What’s the beef?” I asked him.

  “That asshole captain in there wants me to put the cuffs on you.”

  “On me? What the fuck—is finding bodies against the law now?” I asked. “Jesus, at least I report the damned things!”

  “Jacoby, you have kind of been getting involved with one or two too many these past few days. I mean, you personally found two, and you’re involved with two others.”

  “So here,” I said, extending my wrists, “I’ll make it easy for you.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said, again sounding tired, even more so than he had on the phone. “This is a Homicide investigation, and I’m in charge, not that asshole in blue.”

  “Oh.”

  We sat in silence for a while, and I finally broke it by saying, “Jesus, this is starting to scare the shit out of me.”

  “I don’t blame you. Somebody sure sawed that broad wide open. Who was she?”

  I explained who she was and why I had come to see her.

  “Max the Ax,” he said.

  “What’s the M.E. say?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. We’ll ask him when he comes out.”

  “What’s with this captain?”

  “He’s a stickler for department policy, a by-the-book jerk,” he commented.

  At that moment Mahbee came out, looked around, then looked down and stared at the both of us sitting on our rumps on the dirty floor. He seemed to consider something, then he shrugged, stepped over both of us and joined us on the floor.

  “What’s the verdict. Doc?” Hocus asked, seated in the middle.

  “Something cleaved her open good,” the East Indian replied.

  “An ax?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.

  He looked at me kind of puzzled, then nodded slightly and said, “No, I don’t believe so, although I can see where you might think so.”

  “What then?” Hocus asked.

  “A sharp knife and a strong man,” he replied. “The cut went from right to left,” he said, illustrating with a swipe at the air, “indicating the possibility that the killer was left-handed. You tend to slice across your body,” he told us, demonstrating by whipping his right hand from left to right, with his thumb extended, as if braced against the back of a blade.

  “No ax,” I said quietly.

  “Looks like an ax,” Hocus commented.

  “I could see where you might think so,” Mahbee said again.

  I looked at Hocus and he looked at me.

  “Maybe that’s where the name came from,” I suggested.

  He nodded, saying, “We don’t have anything back from Detroit yet—or at least, we didn’t when I left. Maybe when I get back we’ll find out.”

  At that point the captain came walking out, and when he saw the three of us seated on the floor in the hall—well, it must have offended his by-the-book sensibilities. If looks could kill he would have had three more corpses right there in the hall.

  “I’m conducting an investigation, Cap,” Hocus told him. The captain was a short, pale-skinned, red-haired man, and he compressed his lips until they turned white, then turned on his heels and stalked down the steps.

  Dr. Mahbee’s men came out of the room next, with the body all wrapped up and ready to go.

  Struggling to his feet, Mahbee told Hocus, “I’ll let you know more after I do an autopsy.”

  As he started to leave I remembered something and almost jumped out of my skin calling after him.

  “Doctor!”

  “Yes?”

  “Ah, the body from the Roger Williams Hotel—” I began.

  “Purcell?” he asked.

  “That’s the one. What was the ca
use of death on him?”

  He looked at Hocus first, who probably nodded his head, and then told me, “His heart, it simply failed, apparently while he was being tortured.”

  “Then you wouldn’t say he was deliberately murdered?”

  He shook his head.

  “I would say that someone was attempting to get some information from him, and he simply died on them.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He nodded to both of us and followed his men down the steps.

  “I meant to tell you that,” Hocus told me, “but we got involved.”

  “That’s okay,” I assured him.

  “You were wondering if Purcell might not have been on Max’s hit list?” he asked.

  “It was a thought.”

  “I guess.”

  “Here’s another one.”

  “What?”

  “If Max the Ax had nothing to do with Corky Purcell’s death, then who the fuck were the two guys I ran into at his hotel room?”

  He shrugged and replied, “Just a couple more loose ends.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hocus and his partner went back to the precinct to check the Teletype messages for an answer from Detroit. I went to Packy’s for a few quick beers, then used his phone to call Heck Delgado. I wanted to make sure he understood the reason I hadn’t been able to meet him that morning.

  After I’d explained he told me, “I understand, Miles, but you’ll have to explain it to your brother. He thinks you’ve abandoned him.”

  “That’s just fucking stupid,” I told him, getting angry at my brother. “Didn’t you tell him that I was working for you? Shit, the cops are starting to look at me funny because I’m turning up so many goddamned stiffs. Some asshole captain wanted to lock me up today for reporting another body.”

  “Another body?” he asked, puzzled. “You mean, aside from the one you found in the hotel?”

  “Yeah,” I told him, then explained how and why I had discovered the dead hooker in her apartment.

  “You think this hit man from Detroit killed her because he knew she had spotted him?” he asked.