SERIOUSLY...?: A Lou Fleener Thriller

by Duane Lindsay

  “She wouldn’t. That’s my point.”

  “I agree, says Monk. He’s got a yellow mustard stain on his white shirt and is probably the only man in the ballpark wearing a tie. The tie has a ketchup stain. “She wouldn’t.”

  “Soooo…?” says Lou.

  “She’s been taken.” Monk has listened to Lou’s report, digested it and drawn conclusions. “It’s too much of a coincidence that she comes to us with the story about Nazis living next door, then Lou gets attacked by a large Germanic fellow and she disappears.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We?” asks Monk. “You. You go back and ransack the large German fellow’s house. This time, with any luck, undisturbed or violated.”

  “I thought you said I shouldn’t break and enter anymore?”

  “Things change. Breaking and entering is part of the required skillset of your chosen profession. It’s getting caught that you have to cut down on.”

  “So breaking in is ok, getting caught is a no. Got it. What am I looking for in this fellow’s house? I know he has a gun; the one he tried to shoot me with. It’s a German Luger, which leads to the Nazi supposition.”

  “Lou? Why are you talking like him?” Cassidy’s looking around for a beer vendor. Another complaint against ball parks; why are they so expensive? Thirty-five cents for a plastic cup full of beer you can buy at corner Mom-and Pop store for a nickel.

  The vendor quicksteps over, takes her dollar and a quarter for three cold cups and hands back change. She lets him keep a nickel as a tip and he smiles at her.

  “I don’t know. Force of habit, I guess.”

  Monk accepts his glass with a friendly, “Thanks,” and tells Lou, “You’re looking for anything that lends credence to the Nazi story. Memorabilia, ribbons, medals, photographs. Perhaps a passport that would tell us where he’s from, who he is. Military uniforms or helmets, guns…”

  “Got it, Monk. Look for Nazi stuff. What if he’s just a war buff? A collector? Maybe a dealer of old war gear?”

  “True.” Monk thinks for a moment. “It’s possible,” he says after a while. “We’ll need to keep that under consideration. In the meantime, I suggest we have another hot dog.”

  Later that evening the Cubs lose nine to four, dropping them to fourteen games out.

  “I’m coming with,” says Cassidy.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’ll be the lookout,” she says. “Drive the getaway car. Toot the horn twice if I see him coming. That sort of thing.” She smiles and Lou can’t help it; he smiles back.

  “Fine. But in the car, not in the house. In case he does come back, I’ll need all the room I can get if there’s a rematch.”

  “Lou; are you afraid of this guy?”

  “Afraid? No, not afraid…no.” He shakes his head. “Wary, I suppose. I think I could handle him outside, but if he gets me in one of those bedrooms where I don’t have any room, I’m pretty sure he’d hurt me.”

  “So take a gun,” Cassidy suggests, a first.

  “I’m not gonna take a gun.”

  “Lou; take a gun. You might need it.”

  “Never have before.”

  “You never lost a fight before,” she reminds him.

  “I didn’t lose this one. Beside; I don’t have a gun.”

  Cassidy gives him a look, like—how long have I known you?—and says, “Well, I do.” She takes one from the drawer of her desk, a shiny little automatic, checks the clip and puts it in her purse.

  “Ready? Shall we go?” She smiles happily and heads for the door.

  A few seconds later, a stunned Lou Fleener follows.

  “That’s the place, huh?”

  “Yep.” They’re sitting in the Bel-Air on the side of the street opposite the neighbor house. It’s ten in the morning and The temperature is around ninety. Cassidy’s leaning across him to see out his window.

  “You smell nice,” Lou comments.

  “Not now, Lou,” she says, then, “Thanks,” and gives him a kiss. His hand is on her bare shoulder, making gentle circles. “I don’t think there’s anybody in there. You should go now.”

  The circles stop. “Fine.”

  Lou untangles himself from her and slips out the door, walks across the street—there’s that thousand eyes watching feeling again—and goes past the front door to the back yard. He picks the lock as easily as before, steps in and listens to a whole lot of silence

  The kitchen looks the same and the living room, last seen as the site of a major battle, has been put back together. The drawer in the armoire is missing though.

  He begins his search in the bedroom. Going through the drawers of a dresser, finding the usual; shirts, socks, underwear. He checks the closet with three business suits on hangers, Lou wondering, why does anybody need three suits? Four if he’s wearing one now. Who is this guy?

  That he finds out in a drawer in the nightstand. There’s a passport with the name William Klein and a picture of the blond-haired man Lou fought a couple of weeks ago. Issued from the US, says the date of birth is September 11, 1920…born in Frankfurt…local address is here. It looks legit, but Lou hasn’t seen enough US passports to know if it’s real or a phony. He knows people who could tell him— hell, he knows people who could make one—but he decides to leave it.

  He’s thinking about this book he’s reading as he opens boxes on the shelves of the closet, carefully returning them so they don’t look moved. It’s this spy novel called Dr. No by this guy Fleming, about a secret agent named Bond. James Bond. In it, the spy’s got all these gadgets, like a tiny camera, could take a picture of the passport easy. Lou wishes he had one, wishes he’d brought his big Speed graphic with him. If he took maybe a dozen shots with various F-stops and film speeds, maybe he’d get a decent one.

  There’s nothing incriminating in the closet. Lou’s been hoping to find a Nazi officer uniform on a hanger, polished jackboots on the floor, but all he’s got is the suits and…wait…

  He goes back to the closet and goes through the pockets. Pants, coat, don’t forget that inside pocket…on the third coat he feels something small and hard and he takes the coat off the hanger and pokes around. Whatever it is it’s on the lower seam and Lou isn’t finding it in the pocket so he puts on the coat and tries again.

  The jacket’s big enough to cover a rhinoceros with room for an elephant or two. Lou feels like he’s wearing a tent. He probes the pockets and his fingers find a tear in one of them. Aha!

  He pulls off the coat and presses the fabric until he finds it at the bottom seam. The pocket has torn and something—a clue?—has fallen into the lining. Lou tosses the jacket on the bed , takes out his pocket knife and delicately slices the bottom hem of the jacket. A small piece of jewelry pops into his hand.

  It’s a tiny gold six-pointed star and Lou feels an immense sadness as he realizes he’s seen it before.

  Irina’s necklace.

  7 - The Cops Won’t Care

  “Lou, what happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I have.” Lou slips under the wheel of the Chevy and hands Cassidy the gold star.

  “What’s this?” she says. “This isn’t…Irina’s?...no, Lou; it can’t be.”

  “Yeah, Cass; it can. It’s hers.” There’s a large leaden ball in his chest, like something’s going to explode and he’s having trouble breathing past it. “She wouldn’t go anywhere without it. I found I in the lining of one of Erich’s jackets. I think she’s dead.”

  It feels odd saying his name out loud, like it makes him more real. Lou looks at the tiny star in Cassidy’s palm. And less human.

  “What are we going to do?” Cassidy lets a tear fall on the star and Lou thinks, it’s as good a eulogy as she’s going to get. He wants a rematch with this Erich guy, wants to hit him a lot harder, and more often, than the last time.

  “We should go to the cops,” he says slowly.

  “Okay,” says Cassidy. She seems to be having the same trouble b
reathing. “Okay. I know a couple. Forty-Seventh precinct, down near your old office. Bristol and Cassowary.”

  Bristol’s a short wiry guy with an unlit cigar and new wire rim glasses added since the last time Cassidy saw him. He and his partner had taken the meeting when Lou got kidnapped. He didn’t believe her before and don’t seem to be believing her now.

  Cassowary, slightly taller, is an overweight Italian guy who chews too much Double Bubble pink bubble gum at any one time, making his jaw swell like he’s got the mumps or he’s swallowing a hamster. His desk is littered with Bazooka Joe comics. He’s got Irina’s star in his palm.

  “Help me out here. This lady,” he looks at the notes he’s written on a reporter’s notepad. “Irina Podalack, comes to you with a cockamamie story that she’s got a Nazi for a next door neighbor. Not the kind of Nazi I got living next door, thinks he’s the neighborhood police, always saying what we can can’t do…”

  “I got one of those guys on my block, too,” says Bristol. He’s leaning in across his own battered green metal desk here in the detective bullpen. Both he and Cassowary were promoted after helping arrest Duke Braddock two years ago. “Always out on his driveway with a hose, washing his car or watering flowers, yelling at the kids.” He mimics an old guy. “Hey, you darn kids; get offa my lawn. I’ll call the cops!”

  Bristol looks at Cassidy. “But does he call the cops? I ask you. I am the cops and he doesn’t tell me bubkiss. There’s a Nazi for ya.”

  “I know what you’re saying,” says Cassowary. “My guy? Old fart, gotta be eighty, he’s a day, he’s got signs up in front of his lawn say don’t step on the grass, and no dogs allowed, like the ones at the park, he’s always out there yelling at people…”

  “Guys,” says Cassidy. “Oh, fellows!” She puts two fingers in her mouth and shatters the room with a shrill whistle. Lou’s always wished he could do that. He tries, he just gets spit.

  But the cops, Bristol and Cassowary, it gets their attention for sure.

  “What?” demands Bristol, annoyed. He dropped his cigar when she whistled and he doesn’t want to go searching the floor for it in front of her. Maybe later.

  “The matter at hand?” suggests Cassidy. “Missing old woman, presumed dead?”

  “Well,” says Cassowary, leaning back in his chair. “I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, what evidence do you have?”

  “Her house is empty,” says Lou. “Her necklace is in the coat of the neighbor she thinks is a Nazi.

  “She could have moved,” says Bristol, looking like a man without a cigar. “People do that. Even old people.”

  “Sure,” agrees Cassowary. “And the star thing could belong to anybody.”

  “It’s hers,” insists Cassidy. “I saw it on her.”

  “You saw a star,” says Bristol. “Doesn’t mean it’s the same one.”

  “Hell of a coincidence, though, don’t you think?”

  “Sure. But coincidences do happen.”

  “Sure they do,” says Cassowary. He turns to Bristol. “Remember that time we busted that guy? What was his name?”

  “Nelson Foxworth Junior,” says Bristol. “Arrested him for robbing a liquor store over on Melrose. Big black guy, Nelson; swore he was innocent but there were beer cans in his car and he was driving around no more than two miles away.” He explains to Cassidy. “We got three eye-witnesses say he did it.”

  Cassowary laughs. “So we bring him in, him swearing up and down he’s innocent, like we don’t hear that every day, and two weeks later we get a call that the thirty-second’s picked up a guy named, get this, Nelson Foxworth Junior who’s confessed to the liquor store heist.”

  “So there you go; coincidence.”

  “The eye-witnesses,” says Cassidy. “They were wrong? All of them?”

  “Every one,” says Cassowary. “They all said it was Nelson Foxworth Junior, the big black guy when it turns out it was Nelson Foxworth Junior, a short fat white guy, lives a block away.” He shakes his head at the mysteries of the world.

  Lou says, “I bet those witnesses ID’d him when you showed him the black guy’s picture, huh?”

  “Sure,” says Bristol, suddenly suspicious. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m getting at you figured it’s a black guy, show people pictures of a black guy, you arrest a black guy. Nobody mentions the perp’s white.”

  “Hey,” says Cassowary. “You got a beef with us?”

  “No,” says Lou. “No beef. But just wondering; are you gonna help us?”

  “With what?” Bristol’s eying Lou like he’d like to haul him in for something. “You got a woman, maybe missing, maybe not. You got a story about Nazis in America.”

  “There aren’t no Nazis in America, folks. That’s just something out of the funny papers.” This from Bristol, glancing down under the desk, looking up like he could maybe chew on Lou instead of the cigar. Where was the damn thing?

  Lou gets it; there’s no help here. He gets up. “C’mon Cassidy; let’s beat it.”

  She gets up too, but she’s not happy about it. “You guys,” she says with withering scorn. “You didn’t believe me when I said Duke Braddock kidnapped Lou here. It turns out I was right all along and you busted him and now here you are, sitting in your new desks, big shot detectives. “Well, maybe I’m right this time, too. Nazis, boys. Right here in the Windy City.”

  She turns and walks away, head high, skirt swaying. Lou smiles at the dumbfounded detectives.

  “My girl,” he says proudly, and follows her out.

  Dinner with Monk. They’ve been coming to this little Italian place on Fullerton and Lincoln lately. It’s just a hole in the wall, maybe six table inside and a high counter where you order spaghetti, calzones, ravioli; but they have three metal tables with red and white checked tablecloths out on the sidewalk and most evenings it’s cool enough to eat outside.

  Plus, they let you bring your own wine.

  The plates are cleared, the sun is down, the temperature is in the mid-seventies for a change and a gentle breeze is keeping the mosquitos at bay. A candle in a red bowl gives off a nice glow. Monk pours glasses of a California red wine into glasses Cassidy brought and they all light cigarettes.

  “Any progress at the office?” She asks.

  “As far as clients? No.”

  “As far as anything else?”

  “No.”

  “So it’s on track,” says Lou.

  “Exactly,” says Monk. “I’ve had a couple of the temp girls Cassidy set up for the receptionist job, but they didn’t work out.”

  “How come?”

  Monk shrugged. “Don’t know. Just didn’t fit, I guess.” He sips the wine, rolls it around like it’s mouthwash, finally smiles and swallows. “That’s pretty good wine.” He looks at Lou. “Cassidy says you didn’t make much progress with the local police.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” says Lou. “I would say more accurately that we made no progress whatsoever. Cassidy, though; she made a hell of an impression.”

  “I can imagine.” Monk considers a bit as Lou and Cassidy smile at each other. They’re holding hands and whispering and Monk sometimes gets a little tired of being the third wheel in their lives. He hasn’t had a real date in a year, and the one he had went like all the others. The women went out for him for his looks, fled from his personality. Lou, pre-Cassidy, had the opposite effect. Women ignored him for Monk, and fell for him hard when he showed them around the dance floor. As well as Lou could fight, he could dance even better. Monk explained—at great dull detail—that it was part of the same gift. “Photo-eidetic cell retention,” he called it, just before people fell asleep.

  Now he says, “You can’t really blames them. Nazis in America is a little hard to swallow.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s hard to swallow” says Cassidy. “Did you see that wad of chewing gum in Cassowary’s jaw? Christ, Monk; you could patch tires with what he had in there.”

  “A vivid image, Cass,�
� says Monk. “Seriously, I think we need to do some research on this Nazi phenomenon before we proceed. “

  “Yeah, you do that. Me, I’m going to stake out that bozos house and follow him until I know him better than his mother. If he did something to that old lady…”

  “I’ll come with you,” says Cassidy. “A stakeout! It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun,” says Lou, looking to Monk for help. He can’t recall any stakeout ever being called fun. But maybe with a woman… “Sure, Cass; you can put up curtains in the car and we can talk about relationships.”

  “Lou” she says seriously, “You are a sexist pig.”

  “I am,” he agrees. “A product of my environment.”

  “I’ve seen your environment,” says Cassidy. “Without me in it, it’s a sty.”

  “But oh, so comfortable,” says Lou and they smile at each other. Monk looks away, feeling left out again.

  Lou says, “There’s something, Monk. When I was fighting Erich…”

  “Erich?”

  “Yeah; he’s got a name. When I was fighting him, I tore his shirt off. In his left armpit he had a couple of tattoos.”

  “Really?” Suddenly Monk is sitting up straight and looking very intense. “Let me guess. A four digit number, in blue, above a very small skull, in black.”

  “That’s right. How did you know?”

  “Those are tattoos of the Nazi SS. The Storm Troopers. The number is the blood type and the skull makes him a member of the SD.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The SD was the elite branch of the SS, a group that made up most of the Einsatzsgruppen—the special task forces. They were considered the worst of the worst. Imagine the nastiest thing you can think of about the war, then double it. That’s the SD division.”

  “I can imagine a lot of bad things about the war,” says Lou. “We served in Korea, but my Dad was in the war in Europe. He never talked much about it, but I got interested on year in high school and read a lot. The Storm Troopers were evil.”