Full Contact

by Robert J. Randisi

  “To Brooklyn. I don’t know exactly where, but I can guarantee you wouldn’t find him there. They never used the same place twice.”

  “You had never been used at the same place twice,” I said, “but that didn’t mean it was never done.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know Brooklyn, so I couldn’t begin to guess where it was.”

  “How many other people were present?”

  “There was always just Cross, Brown, and a cameraman, as well as the people who were . . . performing.”

  “Who was there this weekend?”

  “Just me and Brown. He set the camera up to work automatically.”

  Was Brown really taking over, or was he just trying to get some kicks for himself?

  “Has Brown mentioned Cross since he was killed?”

  “No. Do you really think he killed him?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got to find Brown. Somebody has to be able to give me a lead. What about the cameramen?”

  “I never knew any of their names.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I wish I could help you, Mr. Jacoby. I really wish I could. I would like to be free of this. If it ever got out, I’d be ruined.” She turned to me suddenly and put both hands on my arm, gripping so tightly I could feel her nails right through my sleeve.

  “I’ll hire you, I’ll pay you to get me out of this. Find the films I made and destroy them.”

  “How many films have you made?”

  “Five, but they weren’t entire features, just portions. I think they pieced them together.”

  And who knew how many prints of each had been made up?

  “I’ll pay you double your regular fee to help me, Mr. Jacoby,” she said, desperately.

  I almost said no, but then I realized that I had been working without a fee since Melanie’s body had been found. Besides, Paula Bishop could certainly afford me.

  “All right, Paula. I’ll do the best I can, but you’ve got to help.”

  “Anything.”

  “If Brown calls you, you must call me. I have to get to Brown if I’m going to break this thing open. I’ve got to find out who he and Cross were working for.”

  “I don’t think there was ever any doubt about who was in charge. Cross always treated Brown like an employee.”

  I stood up and she asked me to help her to her feet.

  “Maybe you should have a doctor look at those ribs.”

  “He just punched me around a bit,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s done it before.”

  “To others as well as you.”

  She walked with me to the door, where I once again assured her that I would do my best.

  “I hope you’ve told me everything, Paula,” I said, just before leaving. “I can’t help you if you’re holding anything back.”

  “I’m not, I swear.”

  “Just make sure that if you hear from Brown, I hear from you.”

  “You will, I promise.”

  In the elevator I wondered how many others Cross had been blackmailing as well. If I knew the number, then I’d know how many more suspects for his murder I’d just come up with.

  Then there was Brown. Had he taken over Cross’s blackmail business as well as his movie business? If that was the case, then it was not only possible that he was the killer, but the possibility now existed that he could also turn up dead.

  And what about Paula Bishop? Hadn’t she just built herself up as a prime suspect for Cross’s murder? Technically, however, she was now my client, and it wouldn’t have been ethical for me to throw her name to Hocus to add to his list, a list that right now had only one name on it anyway: Brown.

  Brown was at the top of my list, too. He was the key to the whole thing. I wouldn’t be able to unravel this mess until I could put my hands on him, and on top of that I owed the man a few lumps, for myself and for Henry Po.

  I grabbed a cab on Fifth Avenue and told the driver to take me to the corner of Mott and Hester, where I found Ray Carbone watching Knock Wood Lee’s apartment.

  “Hey, Jack. Checking up on me?”

  “No, Ray, I’m calling you off.”

  “The job’s done?”

  “My part isn’t,” I said, “but your part is. I don’t have the cash with me right now, Ray—”

  “Hey, forget it. Pay me when you have it, that’s all. You’re good for it.”

  “I appreciate what you did, Ray.”

  “Anytime,” Ray said. “Anytime you need help, you got my number.”

  We shook hands and I watched him walk toward Canal Street, hoping that I was doing the right thing. For some reason, however, I had believed Piper when he said he’d leave Lee alone. I had the feeling that he hadn’t been lying when he said that he’d missed her.

  I was about to leave when I looked across the street and saw Lee standing in the doorway.

  I walked across and she leaned against the door frame with her arms folded, shaking her head at me.

  “Taking away my babysitter, Jack?”

  “You spotted him, huh?”

  “If living with Wood has taught me anything, it’s to keep my eyes open.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I’d ask you why you pulled him off, but I’m more interested in why you put him there in the first place.”

  “For protection.” I didn’t mention the two goons who’d jumped me.

  “From whom? Piper? If that’s the case, I could have told you that you were wasting your money.”

  “Maybe, but it gave me peace of mind.”

  “And now why’d you pull him off?”

  “I spoke to Piper and he told me he’d leave you alone.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “He impressed you, didn’t he?” she asked, with something close to pride in her voice.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, he did, and as I see it, you made an impression on him that he hasn’t quite been able to shake.”

  She got a faraway look in her eyes and said, “Maybe.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “More important than that, how are you doing?”

  I gave her a brief rundown on how things were going, right there in the doorway. It never seemed to occur to either one of us to go upstairs.

  “Then everything seems to depend on your finding this guy Brown.”

  “Right—which I’m not doing standing here talking to you,” I said, stepping out of the doorway.

  She put her hand on my left shoulder with her forefinger laid alongside my neck and said, “Thanks for the bodyguard, Jack, but it wasn’t necessary. I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s right,” I said, reminding myself, “you know some karate too, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody in this damned case knows karate,” I said, walking away. When I got to Canal Street I stopped short and said, “Everybody but Paula,” so loud that a few people walking by turned to glance at me.

  Did Paula Bishop know karate? If she didn’t, how could she have beaten Cross to death? She couldn’t have, and she probably couldn’t have beaten a younger, stronger Melanie to death, either. I didn’t think that Fallon or Ginger could have killed Cross that way. In eliminating them from my suspect list, I realized for the first time that they had been on it.

  More and more it looked as if Brown was the killer, and more and more it became imperative that I find him.

  When I got to Bogie’s, Billy gave me a St. Pauli Girl and a message.

  “A girl called for you.”

  “Which one?”

  “Fallon. She’s not the one you were here with, is she?”

  “No, she’s the roommate. What’d she want?”

  “She wanted to talk to you and sounded pretty excited about it, too.”

  “I’ll call her from the back.”

  “Hey,” he called as I started away from the bar.

  “What?”

  “When are we
going to get back into a training routine?”

  “This case has me beat, Billy, but when it’s all over we’ll get back to it.”

  “Well, we’re not as far behind as we might have been. You did have that time at the institute.”

  I recalled then that Bayard had told me twice to get back to him when the case was over. I wondered how Billy would feel if I told him I was going to study with Bayard, and then chided myself for it. Billy was my friend, and he’d be pleased for me whichever way I went.

  “When we do get back to it you won’t be getting any more of that stuff, so enjoy it while you can.”

  “Right,” I said, taking a swig and then rolling my eyes in mock ecstasy.

  I went into the office and dialed Fallon’s number.

  “It’s Jacoby. What’s up?”

  “I remembered something, and I’m not sure if it’s important,” she said, tentatively.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s just something that happened once when I was in the car with Brown.”

  “What?” I asked, wondering if I was going to have to drag it out of her.

  “We were driving one day and when we stopped for a light he pointed to a window in a building and said, ‘That’s where all Cross’s secrets are hidden.’”

  “Did you question him about it?”

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t say anything more and I forgot about it. I just remembered it today. It’s important, isn’t it?”

  “It is if you can remember where that building is.”

  “That’s the only problem . . .”

  “Fallon—”

  “I remember what it looks like, and I think we were on the West Side driving north.”

  “All right, so it was Sixth Avenue, or Eighth, or Tenth, maybe—”

  “I think it was Eighth or Tenth.”

  “Okay, tell me what the building looked like, and anything else you can think of.”

  She described a square, stone building about four stories high, dark, dirty brown in color. She said it looked like one of those foreign embassies you see in the movies, only there weren’t any flags or flagpoles.

  “What floor was he pointing to?”

  “That part’s easy. It was the top floor, toward the front. I think he was sorry he said anything almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Do you think he might be hiding out there?”

  “He might, but even if he’s not, there still might be some answers there for me.”

  “Maybe for all of us.”

  “Yeah, maybe for all of us,” I said, thinking of her and Ginger and Paula Bishop . . . and Knock Wood Lee, most of all.

  All I had to do was find the damn place!

  Thirty-Three

  As it turned out, the building wasn’t all that hard to find, even though Fallon had steadfastly refused to go with me out of fear of Brown. I decided against renting a car, because I didn’t want to be burdened with one when I finally found it, so I left Bogie’s, hailed a cab, and gave instructions.

  “You’re kidding,” the cabbie said.

  “Just keep the meter running, pal. I’m not kidding. Up Eighth Avenue, and then up Tenth Avenue, and we keep going until I say stop.”

  We started at Fourteenth Street, and when we reached Ninety-first I told him to forget Eighth and try Tenth. I found what I was looking for at Tenth and Sixty-first.

  “Stop.”

  There it was, just as Fallon had described it, looking like some foreign consulate that had been abandoned years ago.

  “Do you know what that big square building is?” I asked the cabbie.

  He was a white man in his fifties, with gray hair and tired eyes. He looked at me in the mirror and said, “I think they rent space.”

  “Space? For what?”

  “You know, storage space. They’ll rent you any size room you want and you can store anything you want, as long as it don’t piss or shit.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “My brother’s got one.”

  “In there?” I asked, hopefully.

  “Naw, his is in a building downtown.”

  “Oh.”

  “You gonna get out here?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  He stopped his meter and I paid him and tipped him well, giving him a ten.

  “Hey, thanks. You wanna do the East Side tomorrow?”

  “No, thanks, this is good enough.”

  He drove off and I walked up to the front door of the building. It wasn’t until I reached the doorway that I saw the metal plate mounted on the wall, explaining what the building was. It was owned by something called Space, Inc., and there was a phone number given for anyone interested in renting. There was no address given, and when I tried the glass doors I found them locked. Peering inside told me that there was no one there, not a guard, not a clerk, no one.

  I stepped out of the doorway, looked up and down the block for a pay phone, and finally located one across the street.

  “Space, Inc.,” a woman’s voice answered when I dialed the number that was on the metal plate.

  “Yes, I’d like to rent some space—”

  “In which building?”

  “Uh, the one on Tenth Avenue and Sixty-first Street—”

  “How much space would you need?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Well, I’m afraid we have none available in that building.”

  “Then why did you ask me how much I needed?” I asked, becoming annoyed with the constant interruptions.

  “It’s simply a question I’m required to ask, sir,” she explained, as if she were speaking to a child.

  “Look, could I have the address of your office—”

  “I’m afraid it wouldn’t help for you to do that, sir—”

  “Would you stop interrupting me! This is a police matter!”

  “Police?” she said, sounding nervous.

  “I would like the address of your office so I can come down with a warrant to search your building.”

  “I, uh—”

  “What is your name, please?”

  Instead of giving me her name she rattled off the address of the offices of Space, Inc., which were located on Park Avenue South and Twenty-first Street.

  “Thank you,” I said, and hung up.

  Now all I had to do was convince Hocus to get a warrant.

  “This wasn’t an easy thing to get, you know,” Hocus said as we rode up the elevator to the offices of Space, Inc.

  “I appreciate it.”

  “We normally need something more concrete to get a warrant from a judge, but I was able to use a little leverage with my captain, and he was able to talk to the judge—”

  “Are you trying to tell me that your head is on the block, here?”

  “No, I’m just trying to tell you that we’d better not come up empty.”

  “We won’t.”

  I let Hocus handle the whole thing once we got to Space, Inc.’s office. He showed his I.D. to a secretary, who passed us through to see the manager, a little man with slick black hair who reminded me of a seal.

  “You want to search the entire building?” the little man asked.

  “No, not the whole building,” Hocus said, “just one of the front rooms on the fourth floor.”

  “That floor only has one front room,” the man said, “extending the width of the building. It’s the rear that is broken up into compartments.”

  “That makes it easier, then,” Hocus said. He handed the manager, Mr. Littell, the warrant and said, “The front room.”

  Littell read the warrant, then said, “I’ll get the keys and come with you.”

  “I’d also like the name of the renter.”

  “Of course. Just give me a moment.”

  He went to his files and pulled out a card. He said, “It was rented to a man named Andrew Collins.”

  “The same initials,” I said, and Hocus nodded. We were both aware of the fact that people who used phony
names almost always made them up using the same initials as their real names.

  “How long ago did he rent it?” Hocus asked.

  Littell looked at the card again and said, “Just under six months ago.”

  Why did that length of time ring a bell with me?

  Littell returned the card to his file and started to say, “Shall we—” when he was cut off by the phone. “Excuse me.”

  He answered the phone, listened for a few moments, and then became agitated.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Hocus and I exchanged glances, wondering if this was going to hold us up.

  “What is it?” Hocus asked.

  “It’s that building,” he said, holding the phone down by his side.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s on fire!”

  Hocus looked at me and I said, “Shit!”

  When we got there in Hocus’s car the place was ablaze, and there were several fire trucks clogging the streets, battling the fire. Hocus pulled his car to the curb and when the fire chief tried to make him move he showed the man his I.D.

  “All right,” the uniformed man said. “Who are they?”

  “They’re with me,” Hocus said. “This is Mister Littell, he’s the manager of the building.”

  By not introducing me, Hocus created the illusion that I was his partner, and the fire chief accepted that.

  “Just stay out of the way,” he told us. “The fire marshals should be here soon.”

  “Do you know anything yet?” Hocus asked.

  “Only that this was no accident. Excuse me.”

  I looked up at the fourth floor and saw flames shooting out of the windows.

  “I wonder where it started,” I said aloud.

  Hocus looked at me, and then looked up to where I was looking.

  “Well, I guess this justifies the warrant,” he said.

  “Big deal.”

  We decided to stay around as long as we could, hoping that they would get the fire under control and we’d still be able to get inside for a look.

  Watching the firefighters doing their work reminded me of another time, when my apartment had been firebombed with my brother inside.

  “Are you all right?” Hocus asked.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking . . .”