I buttoned up and stepped over him. I picked his pocket for the car keys and his holster for its weapon. I unloaded the weapon and dropped it into the next john. I clutched my stomach and dry-heaved my way out the door and toward the fat ranger.
“Hey,” I said breathlessly, “the soldier and I are both sick as dogs. I think it’s food poisoning. We got a buddy in the car outside. Get him. Quick, quick!”
The ranger bustled up and out a door next to the counter, the door locking behind him. As soon as he was outside, I grabbed a map and climbed over the counter. I unlocked and stepped out the back door, circling behind the cabin. I got around the corner just as J.T.’s heels disappeared into the cabin. The ranger was close behind him, snorting huge clouds of cold air.
I chugged to the car, got in, and turned the key. I eased away from the curb and slid back onto the Interstate.
The map showed a reasonably wide state road a few miles on. I took it and headed east. Toward the town where a friend from college lived.
Cockeysville. Cockeysville, Maryland. A name that stays with you. Arnie had sent a Christmas card from an address sounding residential every year since we graduated. With any luck, he still lived there, commuting to Johns Hopkins where he taught philosophy publicly and railed against the military-industrial establishment privately.
As I drove toward the town, my mind kept switching around what I knew. From the photo in the file, I was pretty certain which case Al had stumbled on. The problem was, I couldn’t see quite how. From his eavesdropping in the cellar, J.T. knew about the list, but if Jacquie had told me the truth, he wouldn’t find it. Still, he’d be able to reconstruct it, and the photo with the younger Ricker in it should tip him off. Al, however, hadn’t had access to the files, so he must have found the bad guy some other way. Since I didn’t have, or particularly care to have, access to J.T. and the Army’s computers anymore, I figured probably there was only one way for me to find Al’s killer. The same way Al had.
Whatever that was.
I hit Cockeysville and pulled up to three phone booths before I found one that had a book. I had the book open, shivering in my blanket, before I realized that I didn’t have a dime anyway. The address would do. Arnie, or Arnold. Neumeier. The D’s, the L’s, Na, Ne …
There was something there, fuzzy, vibrating in there with the headache and being muffled by it. My hands were shaking, and I was too tired to make sense of it.
I found Arnie’s address. I got back in the car and criss-crossed streets ’til I hit his. I knocked on the home’s front door just as dawn was breaking. After he got over the shock of my being there and my appearance, what little I could tell him confirmed his view of the armed services. Arnie led me in his car to an all-night supermarket eight miles south, where we parked the government car. Then we drove back to his house. Arnie fed me and loaned me fifty dollars and some winter clothes. He dropped me off at a bus station over the Delaware line and said “for chrissake” to stay in touch from now on.
I took a Trailways Scenic Cruiser to Providence, sleeping most of the way. I changed to the train and got off an hour and five minutes later at South Station in Boston. The cabbie told me it was 4:15 p.m. I thought about playing possum somewhere, but I needed more money and wanted a licensed weapon. I was willing to chance that J.T. or an allied paramilitary force had staked out my apartment.
They needn’t have bothered.
The cabbie pulled to a stop and swiveled around with a shrug. “Hey, Mac. You sure you wanted Number Fifty-eight?”
I nodded, more at the blackened rubble than at him. My whole building was gone. As in blown up and burned down.
I had him drive me to Cambridge. I got off in Harvard Square, bought a “late stocks” edition Globe and had two screwdrivers in the Casablanca, an after-work and academic hang-out for the post-mixer set. I opened the paper. My building, or rather its destruction, made page one.
The explosion occurred at 10:00 a.m. On the nose. No doubt of it, because the antiques dealer across the street was just setting a mantel clock when the blast shattered his front windows. The resultant fire raged for nearly two hours. The manager of the dry-cleaner on the street level was badly shaken. All the residential tenants save one were accounted for, miraculously out of the building during working hours. One body, badly burned, was found that seemed to match the missing tenant’s description. Police were “withholding any names until a positive identification could be made and relatives contacted.” Due to the suspicious nature of the fire, the arson squad and other authorities were investigating. There was a photograph accompanying the story. In the corner of the picture was a hulking black man I’d bet was Murphy.
The anonymous tenant was, of course, me. The question then became, who was the guy everybody thought was me?
I had two candidates.
One was Marco D’Amico. He’d gotten the Coopers. He’d try to get me. MO in the ballpark with explosion and fire. Marco just got careless with his implements.
Second choice was Curly Mayhew. Maybe doubled back, half in the tank, to rip me off. Maybe thought of something else he should have done. Marco has visited in the meantime, however, and bad timing cashiers old Curl.
I wasn’t too broken up about either candidate. Whoever it was, however, I wanted to stay dead awhile. If Marco was dead, I still had to deal with Al’s killer. If Curly was dead, Marco was alive, and I couldn’t see any percentage in advising the elder D’Amico brother that he’d shot the wrong duck.
To stay dead, however, would require some immediate action.
Twenty
IT ISN’T EASY TO get through to a ranking police officer when you refuse to give your name. I ascended the scale, slightly disguising my voice for Detective Cross when she picked up. If confidential informants help solve only a few crimes, it may be because they spend most of their lives on hold.
“Lieutenant Detective Murphy, Homicide. Who is this?”
“When I tell you my name, I don’t want it repeated by you on your end of the line, understand?”
“Shit. Mr. Lazarus, I presume.”
I almost laughed. “That’s pretty good, but at the moment my sense of humor isn’t what it might be.”
“Christ, I can’t see why. If I was you, I’d be jumping for joy about now.”
“Listen, Lieutenant, let me connect a few dots for you and then ask a favor, O.K.?”
“I’m listening.”
“Since I’m not dead, the unidentified man is probably Marco D’Amico or an Army sergeant from D.C. named Curly Mayhew. M-A-Y-H-E-W, I think. I’m not sure that Curly is his real name, but it might be.”
“Go on.”
“I figure somebody rigged my place to blow like the Coopers. Either Marco or someone else.”
I heard some background conversation at his end. Murphy lowered his voice a notch. “I got a call from an ADA named Meagher who said you had Marco pegged for the Cooper killings. Where does the someone else come in?”
“I’m not sure. That’s the favor part.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I need to stay dead a couple of days. That probably means that the lab report on the body has to be delayed awhile. Maybe lost in somebody’s in-box, but you’d know better on that.”
“Uh-unh, no way. I got Meagher on my ass about this one. She’s been calling me every two hours since the unit got word on the blast.”
“I can let her in, too. No problem. She’ll stop pressing you.”
Murphy was silent.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you help me out?”
A shorter pause. “I don’t like it. A body should be identified. Family and all.”
“I don’t like it either. But I’m not aware that Mayhew has any family, and if it’s Marco, well, his parents at worst think they have a son for a few more days.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“I don’t like a lot of things, Lieutenant. I don’t like my apartment g
etting blown up, or my neighbors left homeless, or my best friend from the Army getting killed, or—”
“Awright, awright. But I got a job to do. And a job to keep, get me?”
“I got you. But I still need a couple of days.”
Murphy grunted. “O.K. Two days. Then I’ve got to follow through.”
“I really appreciate it, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah. Listen, I want to hear from you. Use this number.”
I wrote down the seven digits.
He continued. “I want to hear from you tomorrow morning, and again tomorrow night. Got it?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Oh, Lieutenant, one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you lend me a few hundred bucks?”
Murphy laughed, a good deep roar. “Shit, man, with your present credit prospects, I wouldn’t lend you a dime unless you were a cat!”
“As in nine lives?”
“You got it.”
“Nice talkin’ with you.”
I dialed the DA’s office asking for Nancy Meagher. Telling her secretary I was Lieutenant Detective Murphy, I was put right through.
“Lieutenant?”
“Sort of.”
“What?”
“You see I was a lieutenant before I made captain, but I’m retired now, or discharged if you want to be—”
“Oh, my God,” she said, followed by a cough and a little choking sound. “Is this …?”
“Yes, Nancy. Safe and more or less sound.”
“Oh, God, just a minute.…”
I could hear her snuffling and blowing her nose.
“John?”
“Listen, I’m sorry for joking like that. I didn’t—”
“Oh,” she said with one terminal sniffle. “That’s all right. I’m … fine, now. What happened, who—”
I repeated for her my suspicions about Marco and/or Curly.
“How does the Army fit into all this?”
“I can’t tell you now.”
“What can you tell me?”
“That I was pleased to hear you were ragging Murphy about me.”
A short laugh. “Besides that?”
“Not much. Nancy, I’m sorry to have to ask this, but I need some money.”
“Sure. Your bank’ll think you’re dead, so you can’t cash a check.”
“Right. Assuming I still had a checkbook.”
“How much?”
I cleared my throat. “Seven or eight hundred dollars.”
Nancy cleared hers. “What do you want that kind of money for?”
“I’m going to have to buy some information.”
“You going to buy anything else?” she asked cautiously.
“Nancy, I believe that whoever blew up my building is still around. As long as he thinks he killed me, I’ll be pretty safe. As soon as he realizes he didn’t, I’m going to need protection. I’ve got a firearms card, remember? I won’t be breaking any laws buying a gun.”
As she considered it, I realized that I should have said I was issued a firearms card, since my wallet was probably ashes, either burned by Curly Mayhew or with him.
“O.K.,” Nancy relented. “Just don’t let this get out. I’d hate to have people know I was a shy’ for a private eye.”
“Ogden Nash would be proud of you.”
“Where are you staying?”
Nancy’s question made me realize that I couldn’t be quite over the effects of Ricker and Jacquie. I had less than carfare left in my pocket, and nowhere to sleep.
“I’m going to try the Pine Street Inn,” I said, a genuine charity that housed and fed homeless, often derelict, men.
“Forget it,” she said. “In cold weather it’s full by three p.m. You can stay at my place. Where are you now, I’ll pick you up.”
“Nancy, you don’t—”
“No arguments. Where are you?”
I told her I’d be in the doorway of Elsie’s, a Mt. Auburn Street restaurant and the most famous of the Harvard College hamburger hang-outs.
“I’ll drive by in thirty minutes. Red Honda Civic.”
“I remember.”
“See you then.”
“Nancy?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
When I got into her car, Nancy smiled, her eyes no redder than a winter’s evening should have made them. I felt the glow again as she squeezed my left forearm, then returned her right hand to the stickshift and kept it there.
“Put your seatbelt on,” she said.
We entered Memorial Drive, toward Boston.
Nancy said, “You look pretty shabby.”
“Borrowed clothes.”
She moved her head in concurrence.
We drove on in silence, halted at the Stop & Shop traffic light.
“What do you like for breakfast?” Nancy asked, glancing at the supermarket.
“Oh,” I said, “whatever you have in the house will be fine.”
The light changed. We eased forward with the surrounding traffic.
“What happened to the wise-ass PI who nearly gave me heart failure today?”
“He got nervous.”
“About what?”
“About being a houseguest.”
Nancy laughed, then caught herself. “I’m sorry, John. It’s just that … well, your place has been blown up, three or four people killed around you, and—” She shook her head. “Staying with me shakes you up.”
I squirmed a little under the seatbelt. “I’m an odd one, all right.”
“Pity there aren’t more like you.”
Nancy negotiated the corkscrew ramps up and over the Longfellow Bridge, then down behind North Station. We drove along Commercial Street to Atlantic Avenue via the nameless byway under the Southeast Expressway. The Honda crossed over the Commonwealth Pier access road and then onto Summer Street toward South Boston.
I told her she was good at avoiding traffic.
Nancy began to say, “Avoidance is …” then dropped it.
South Boston is one of the few residential neighborhoods in the city where residents can find a parking place on the street in front of their houses. Nancy maneuvered into a space, and we went inside and up the stairs.
At our footsteps, the door on the second landing opened.
“Hi, Drew,” said Nancy cheerily.
“Nance,” said Lynch in reply, closing his door.
She opened her apartment door, and I followed her in.
“Make yourself comfortable in the living room.”
“Fine,” I said, walking by her.
“Would you like something stronger than ice water this time?”
“Do you have any vodka?”
“Yes.”
“Then vodka and anything will be fine.”
“Do you prefer orange juice or grapefruit juice for breakfast?”
“Orange.”
“Then its vodka and grapefruit tonight.”
“Fine,” I repeated, collapsing into her throw pillows, registering the aches in joints and organs from drugs and batterings, train and bus rides. I felt the way over-thirty quarterbacks have described themselves at the end of the season. I closed my eyes.
I opened them as Nancy came in with the drinks, hers a Scotch and water from the look of it. I didn’t think I had dropped off, but Nancy had changed from suit to jeans and a red cowlneck sweater. A lot like Jacquie Ricker’s.
I started to stand. She pushed me back and handed me my drink.
“To life,” she said, lightly pinging her glass against mine.
“To life,” I agreed.
We sipped. She nestled down cross-legged on the floor.
“Tell you what,” Nancy said, carefully placing her drink on the low table. “Let’s pretend, O.K.?”
“Pretend?” I said.
“Yes, let’s pretend that I’ve already fed us two steaks from my freezer, and plied you with liquor, and asked you if you were re
ady for bed. Let’s pretend that you said you were and that I gave you the choice of my room or the couch and you chose the couch. O.K.?”
I grinned sheepishly. “O.K.”
“Good. Now we can both relax and maybe even enjoy each other’s company.” Nancy picked up her glass and took a long draw.
“Well,” she said, replacing the glass and cradling back on her elbows, “tell me about what happened.”
I told her. It took through dinner and beyond, but I told her. Most of it.
Twenty-One
I WOKE UP WITH a start. There was a lot of sunshine in the room. Too much. Then I remembered Nancy’s parlor would have southeastern exposure and get a lot of morning sun, even in winter. I wondered why she didn’t grow more plants. I also wondered what time it was.
I didn’t hear any stirrings in the apartment. I swung my legs out from under the covers and off the couch, sitting up. I felt about fifty percent better than I had the night before. I walked to the bay window and looked down at the street. Her car was gone.
I went into the kitchen. A pencil and a note were on the table.
John,
I’m going to the bank and one other stop. Be back by 10:30.
N.M. 8:45
P.S. I looked in on you twice. Your face is angelic when you’re asleep. Maybe you can tell a book by its cover.
I smiled and glanced up at her wall clock. 9:10 a.m. I penciled a circle around the “10:30” on her note and wrote, “So will I.”
The door to Nancy’s bedroom closet was open, and she had a couple of oversized T-shirts at the bottom of it. She probably used them as nightgowns. Beth always did.
I tugged on a couple of T-shirts for insulation and tried not to notice Nancy’s perfume nor feel like a transvestite. I pulled on Arnie’s clothes and figured I was warm enough for the short walk, even in March. There was a chance that somebody would spot me, so I rummaged rudely through Nancy’s closet shelf ’til I found a watch cap that wasn’t too feminine looking. I pulled the cap down and put the collar up.
I looked in the mirror. Only one person would recognize me. The only one who really mattered.
By the time I entered the gate, I was hungry. I walked up the main car path, then took the second right-hand walkway, as always.
The Staked Goat Page 18