I thought about asking him if he covered people dying of cancer, but I resisted and hung up. My next call was to the 26th District of the Chicago Police Department.
“Daniels.”
“Hi, Jack. It’s Phineas Troutt.”
“Haven’t seen you at the pool hall lately. What’s up?”
“I need a favor. I’m looking for paper on a guy named Lyle Tibbits.”
“And I should help you because?”
“Because you’re a friend. And because he owes me money. And because I probably won’t live to see Christmas.”
Jack arrested me a few years back, but she’d been cool about it, and we had an on-again-off-again eight-ball game on Monday nights. I’d missed a few lately, too stoned to leave my apartment. But I’d helped Jack out a few times, and she owed me, and she knew it.
“Let’s see what Mr. Computer has to say. Lyle Tibbits. Prior arrest for — It looks like trafficking kiddie porn. Did a nickel’s worth at Joliet. Paroled last year.”
“Anything about a wife or kids?”
“Nope.”
“Address?”
“Roscoe Village, on Belmont.”
She gave me the numbers, and I wrote them down.
“Nothing on Addison?”
“Nope.”
“Can you give me his vitals?”
Jack ran through his birth date, Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, and some other choice info cops are privy to.
“You coming this Monday?” she asked when the litany ended. “I finally bought my own cue.”
“A Balabushka?”
“A custom stick on my salary? More like Wal-Mart.”
“I’ll try to make it. Thanks, Jack.”
“Take care, Phin.”
I tucked the Glock into my pants, pocketed my set of master keys and a pair of S & W handcuffs, and hit the street. It was cool for July, in the low seventies, the sun screened by clouds or smog or both. I grabbed some sweet-and-sour chicken at a local shop, and then spent an hour at a place on Cermak filling out paperwork. When I finished, I hopped in a cab and took it to Roscoe Village.
Lyle’s apartment had a security door, which I opened on the fourth try. One of my first acts as a criminal had been to rob a locksmith, earning me a set of sixty master keys. They opened ninety percent of the locks in the U.S. It was much easier than learning how to use picks and tension wrenches, which is something I didn’t have the time to learn anyway.
The halls were empty, befitting midday. I found Lyle’s apartment number and knocked twice, holding my pistol behind my back.
No answer.
I got through his door on the second try, set the security chain so no one could pop in on me, and began my search.
In the living room were six double DVD recorders, all of which seemed to be running. In a box next to the TV were a hundred plastic clamshell boxes, and a spindle of blank recordable DVD-Rs. In the corner of the room were three digital camcorders and a PC. I powered up the computer, spent ten minutes trying to get his password, then gave up and turned it off.
The kitchen revealed a smorgasbord of junk food — he had enough sugar in here to put an elephant into a diabetic coma. On the counter, next to the phone, was a receipt for a glazier, the total more than five hundred bucks. Stuck to the fridge with a banana-shaped magnet was a picture of Lyle drinking a beer. I put the picture in my pocket.
In the bedroom, I found an extensive collection of porno DVDs. Bondage, watersports, S/M, and even a kink new to me: latex vacuum mummification. All legal.
I found his illegal stuff in a padlocked trunk, in the back of the bedroom closet. The lock opened with the seventh key I tried.
Child porn. Movies with titles like See Billy Cry and Maxie’s Birthday Surprise. Some of the covers had pictures.
I tried not to look.
There were also a few other illegal movies, along with a bag full of cash. Over twenty grand.
I took the money, locked the trunk back up, and left the apartment.
Satisfied that I knew who I was dealing with, I bided my time until ten P.M. Then I could finish the job.
As promised, Lyle had left the door open for me.
The house was dark and quiet, just like the neighborhood. I walked down Christiana and up the porch stairs without encountering a soul. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and held my breath, listening for sounds of life.
Nothing.
The lights were on in the living room, and I held my Glock before me and did a quick search of the first floor. The furnishings leaned towards the feminine side: pink drapes and flower patterns on the couch. On the end table, copies of Glamour and Cosmo. In the kitchen, a half-eaten container of lowfat yogurt sat on the counter, a spoon alongside it. I checked the back door, found it locked, and then crept over to the staircase.
The stairs were carpeted, but they squeaked with my weight. I paused after every two steps, ears open. I didn’t hear a damn thing.
The second floor revealed an empty bathroom, an empty guest room, and a bedroom.
The bedroom was occupied.
A woman was tied to the bed, naked. She was white, late twenties, her blond hair tangled up in the red leather ball gag buckled around her mouth. Leather straps around her ankles and wrists twisted around the four bedposts. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she screamed when she saw me, the sound lost in her throat.
There was a note next to her head.
Give it to her. And leave the gag in, or she’ll wake the neighbors.
The room was unusually well-lit. Besides the ceiling light, there were lamps on either side of the bed, one in the corner next to the mirrored closet, and an extra work-light — the portable kind that clips to things — attached to the bed canopy.
“Hello,” I said to the woman.
She screamed again.
“Shh. I’ll be with you in just a minute.”
I took two steps backwards, toward the closet, and then spun around, facing the mirrored sliding door. My free hand pulled back the handle while my business hand jammed the Glock into the closet, into the chest of Lyle Tibbits.
Lyle yelped, dropping the camcorder and trying to push me away. I brought the gun up and clipped him in the teeth with the butt.
He fell forward, spitting blood and enamel. I gave him another chop on the back of the head, and he ate the floor.
“Don’tkillmedon’tkillme!”
I put my foot on his neck and applied some weight, glancing back to check the rest of the closet. Empty. The mirror was one-way, and I could see the bed through the door’s glass. The original mirror rested against the rear wall.
“Who is she, Lyle?”
He yelled something, the carpet muffling his words. I eased up some of the pressure from my foot.
“I just met her last week!”
“She’s not your wife.”
“No! She’s just some chick I’m dating!”
“And you hired me to rape and kill her so you could videotape it. I saw the other films back at your apartment. Does snuff sell for more than kiddie porn?”
Lyle wiggled, trying to crane his neck around to look at me.
“It’s worth a fortune! I’ll cut you in, man! It’s enough money for both of us!”
I glanced at the woman tied up on the bed.
“How much money?” I asked.
“I’ve got over half a mil in advance orders! We’ll be rich, man!”
“That’s a lot of money, Lyle. But I’m not greedy. I don’t need that much.”
“How much do you want? Name the price!”
“You’re worth eighty grand to me.”
“Eighty grand? No problem! I can—”
I knelt on his back, cutting off his breath. Pressing the Glock to the back of his head, I yanked the handcuffs out of my pocket.
“Put your left hand behind your back, Lyle.”
He complied. I yanked his arm back in a submission hold, slapped on the cuffs, then climbed off.
“Let’s go into the bathroom, Lyle.”
I was a bit too eager helping him to his feet, because I hyper-extended his arm and felt it snap at the elbow.
Lyle howled loud enough to hurt my ears, and I gave his broken arm a twist and told him to shut the hell up. In the bathroom, I chained him to the drainage pipe under the sink, then I went back into the bedroom.
“You’re safe,” I told the woman. “No one can hurt you now. I’m going to call the police. Are you okay to talk to them?”
She nodded, frantic. I took off her gag.
“He was gonna kill me.”
“I know.” I picked up the phone next to the bedside and dialed 911, then placed it on the bed next to her mouth.
I walked out of the room as she began talking.
I was in a drugged haze when Jack called on my cell.
“Missed you on Monday.”
“Sorry. Been busy.”
“Remember that guy you called me about? Lyle Tibbits? He got picked up a few days ago.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It seems as if Mr. Tibbits was planning on making a snuff film, but someone came and rescued the snuffee.”
I wiped some blood off my nose. “Sounds like she got lucky.”
“She said it was a bald man.”
“Poor guy. It’s tough being bald. Society discriminates.”
“It would help the case if this mysterious bald man came forward and testified.”
“If I see him, I’ll let him know. But you probably don’t need him. If you check out Lyle’s apartment, you might find plenty of reasons to lock him up for good.”
“We did that already. Mr. Tibbits will be eligible for parole when he’s four hundred years old.”
“So why the call?”
“The woman who was saved wants to thank her hero. In person.”
An image flashed through my head of Linda, my fiancée. I’d left her because I didn’t want her to see me suffer and die.
No one should be subjected to that. To me.
“That’s not possible,” I told Jack.
“I’ll let her know. Pool Monday?”
“I’ll try to make it. Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“They holding Tibbits over at Cook County?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“General population?”
“I think so. He’s in for kidnapping and attempted murder. The state’s attorney is putting together the illegal-porn case.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
I staggered to the bathroom and rinsed the blood and powder off my face. Then I threw on some clothes, left my apartment, and staggered to the corner news vendor. The daily paper set me back a buck. I sat on the curb and read the police blotter until I found what I needed. Then I picked up three cartons of Marlboros and took a cab to Cook County Jail on 26th and California.
I spent two hours waiting before I was able to see Jerome Johnston. He was black, twenty-two years old, a member of the Gangsta Disciples. Jerome was being held for first-degree murder.
“Who the hell are you, cracker?” he said upon meeting me in the visitation room.
“I’ve got a deal for you, Jerome. A good deal.” I handed him the three cartons of smokes that the guards had already searched. “This is for your valuable time.”
“What do you want?”
“There’s a white boy in your division. Name of Lyle Tibbits. He’s a baby raper. Likes to have sex with five-year-old boys and girls.” I stared hard into Jerome’s lifeless eyes. “I want you to spread the word. Anyone who takes care of him will get twenty cartons of cigarettes. He’ll be an easy mark — he’s got a broken arm. Here’s a picture.”
I handed him the photo I’d taken from Lyle’s apartment.
“How do you know me?” Jerome asked.
“I don’t. Just read about your drive-by in the paper. Thought you’d be the right man for the job. Are you, Jerome?”
Jerome looked at the picture, then back at me. “Hell yeah, dawg.”
“One more thing. It can’t happen until tomorrow. Okay?”
“I’m straight.”
I left the jail and cabbed it back home. In my room I did more coke, ate some codeine, and stared at the eighty-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy I’d taken out on Lyle Tibbits, which would become effective tonight at midnight.
Eighty grand would buy a lot of pain relief. It might even be enough to help me forget.
I drank until I couldn’t feel Earl anymore, and then I drank some more.
When Monday rolled around I cashed my policy and met Jack at Joe’s Pool Hall and whipped her butt with my new thousand-dollar Balabushka custom-made pool cue.
Collective Noun for Blackmailers
by Stephen Ross
Copyright © 2006 Stephen Ross
Department of First Stories
Stephen Ross makes his living as a data-systems programmer for an IT company, but he has worked as both an English teacher and a technical writer, and he has a passion for music that has found an outlet in scores he’s composed for theater, a couple of short films, and a TV documentary. For the past couple of years, however, fiction-writing has been his consuming interest.
❖
It happened two years ago at ten o’clock in the morning.
(1) A guy walked into a bar.
(2) He tossed some nuts into his mouth.
(3) He pulled out a gun.
(4) He shot the solitary drinker seated at the end of the bar.
(5) He strolled out again.
The case became known as the Eats, Shoots, and Leaves Murder. It was one of the less noteworthy cases of 1950.
No one knew the dead man and no one got a good look at the shooter. The bar was not in the kind of neighborhood where people took notice of those who came and went. In fact, in that neighborhood, people went out of their way not to notice.
The bartender had never seen the dead man before that morning. The dead man was drinking gin, and apart from asking for the gin, he hadn’t said a word.
The bartender had seen the shooter come in, but he was busy answering the phone in the office at the time and he didn’t pay any attention.
There were no clues, apart from some nuts on the floor. The bullet passed clean through the man’s neck and lodged in the jukebox on the back wall — number one with a bullet, like they say. The slug was from a .45 and the nuts were roasted.
The bartender was grilled. His name was Merkon. He owned the bar and had bad breath. The phone call he was answering had been from the young woman he employed mornings as a waitress. She was an hour late and had called in sick.
The waitress was also grilled. Her name was Nancy. She wasn’t sick. She had spent the night arguing with her boyfriend and didn’t feel like working that day. The boyfriend was spoken to. His name was Bruno, he was a saxophone player — he had a bruise on his forehead where a dinner plate had hit him.
The dead man was about fifty-five. He was of medium build, had tidy hair, and was clean-shaven. He was dressed in a near-new suit and his shoes had recently been shined. There was nothing unusual about him except for his right eye — it was made of glass.
The dead man had no personal identification on him. He had a wallet — inside were two quarters and a dime. He had smoked, wore aftershave, and his fingernails were immaculate. In sum total, he was not the kind of guy you’d expect to find dead in that neighborhood.
The old man who had shined the shoes was located two days later, six blocks away. The old man didn’t know the face in the morgue photo, but he recognized the shoes; he’d shined them the morning of the shooting. Imported. Good-quality leather. The dead man’s English had been broken. He had had an accent. He had seemed impatient and he didn’t tip.
The killer was never identified and neither was the dead man — they couldn’t even trace the glass eye, although it was probably of European origin. The case had never been closed.
Anderson leaned back in his chair. The
look on his face was one of bemusement. “So, why are you telling me all this, Wilson? This was two years ago. I wasn’t even the editor here then.”
Wilson stubbed his cigarette out. “I’m telling you all this because Nancy Stillwater’s photo just made page seven of today’s edition.”
“Nancy? The waitress?”
Wilson nodded. “She had an accident. She backed over a poodle coming out of her driveway. The poodle belonged to the sister of the mayor.”
“Mayor Guthrie’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“She’s the sister with the six Picassos and the house up in the hills?”
“The very one.”
“Wrong lady’s poodle to flatten.”
Wilson nodded. “And she’s suing.”
Anderson echoed the nod. “I’ve no doubt.”
Wilson dropped a newspaper onto Anderson’s desk. It was opened out at page seven. “Nancy was photographed coming out of court. It seems Nancy and the mayor’s sister are neighbors. This is not the first time they’ve had trouble.”
Anderson stared at the picture. Even in black-and-white, Nancy Stillwater looked like the kind of woman his heart surgeon had warned him about — tall, cool, blond, dressed in a fur, with a look on her face suggesting she owned, if not the world, at least you.
Anderson grew skeptical. “Just how does a two-dollar waitress get to live in the same street as the mayor’s sister?”
“Nancy owns the house next-door,” Wilson explained. “It has eight bedrooms, and there’s a tennis court out in the back.”
There was a stunned look on Anderson’s face. “Did she come into money?”
Wilson nodded. “Two years ago, Nancy Stillwater lived in a one-room above an appliance store.”
“Okay, I see your point,” Anderson said. “Investigate it.”
Wilson smiled.
“But I want receipts this time.”
Wilson Hills was a short, punchy little man. Barely five-four in height, he had a round face and a cheerful smile. He always wore the same tie — lime green, with stripes — and favored a loose-fitting suit.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 6. Whole No. 778, June 2006 Page 8