Chasing Charlie Chan - Special Edition: Includes Catching Water in a Net

by J. L. Abramo

  “No idea,” said Jimmy.

  “A case you were working on? Something particularly sensitive or dangerous?”

  “Nothing I was involved in,” Jimmy said. “Nothing Lenny told me anything about.”

  “Did you usually work separate cases?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “So, you can’t really help us on this.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I learn anything.”

  “Mr. Pigeon, it would be much better for all concerned if you left this to us.”

  Not much better for Lenny.

  “I didn’t get your names,” Jimmy said. “I thought I knew all of the Santa Monica homicide detectives.”

  “I’m Detective Raft and my partner is Detective Tully. We’re LASD,” said Raft, handing Jimmy a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department business card.

  “Oh?” said Jimmy.

  “We were handy,” Raft said. “Can you tell us anything about Mr. Archer’s next-of-kin?”

  “He had none,” said Jimmy.

  “Here’s the ME,” said Tully. “I’ll take him up.”

  Tully started toward the Ford that had pulled up in front of the building. An ambulance turned onto Fourth Street. Tully led the Santa Monica Medical Examiner into the building. Solomon Meyers, a familiar face.

  “When can I get back into the office?” Jimmy asked.

  “Hopefully by early this evening. Is there somewhere I can reach you before then?” Raft asked.

  “I’m not sure where I’ll be. You have my card. You can reach me at the office number, hopefully by early this evening. Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” said Raft. “I think that’s all for the time being. You have my card, if there’s anything we can do.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know,” Jimmy said and he quietly walked away.

  Raft returned to the office. The medical examiner was studying the corpse, the ambulance drivers were waiting for the ME to release the body, the crime scene investigators were dusting, collecting, shooting photographs. Detective Raft called Detective Tully out into the hall.

  “Do you think Pigeon knows anything?” asked Tully.

  “I don’t believe so,” said Raft. “Archer and Richards both said no. But Pigeon is a snoop and from what I hear a very good one. And he has a poor fucking attitude. We’ll need to keep a close eye on him.”

  “Do you think they’ve found Richards yet?”

  “I’m sure they have,” Raft said. “I imagine that’s why the Santa Monica PD was too busy to take this one.”

  Pigeon spent the remainder of the day alone. He sat for hours at the Santa Monica Pier, watching the ocean. He dropped into a few bars along Third Street, nursing more than one drink in each saloon. A toast to Lenny Archer. At a table in the rear of Murphy’s Saloon four men in military uniform, all in their late sixties or early seventies, sang patriotic songs and tipped drinks in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy. It was too much celebration for Jimmy to handle. He left the bar and treated himself to a steak dinner before returning to his office.

  Someone had tried valiantly to scrub the floor, most likely the building superintendent, but a large faint stain remained. The strong scent of bleach had taken the place of the hideous smell of fresh blood. The office was still in shambles. He knew he would need to call someone in to pick up, to fix the glass pane on the door, maybe drop an area rug down. He knew he wasn’t up to it himself.

  Jimmy went over to Lenny Archer’s desk and opened the top drawer. In the top center drawer of each of their desks sat a small ceramic change bowl filled with coins and paper clips. Imbedded into the bottom of each bowl was a remote switch, a small button which started the tape machine that recorded sound through a microphone hidden in the ceiling light fixture. The tape recorder was hidden in the wall behind a metal vent cover. Jimmy emptied the bowl in Lenny’s drawer.

  The record button was depressed.

  Jimmy went over to his own desk for a screwdriver. He detached the metal grill and he pulled out the machine. He carried it back to his desk and rewound the tape. He lit a cigarette and pressed the play button.

  Pigeon could not identify the voices but he could tell there had been two men in the office with Lenny. The dialogue was audible, as were the background noises. The first gunshot followed by a close second. The awful sounds of the beating Lenny had taken. The brutal interrogation, a name mentioned more than once. Richards.

  Ed Richards.

  Something to go on.

  They had found what they came looking for; Lenny had been of no use to them.

  And then the final fatal gunshot.

  Pigeon replaced the tape recorder and switched on the small portable TV hoping to catch the late local news. He pulled the pint of bourbon from his desk and drank from the bottle. Jimmy caught the lead story, a Santa Monica author and journalist found shot to death in his beach house. The place had been ransacked. The Santa Monica police suspected a robbery turned felony homicide.

  The name of the victim was Edward Richards.

  Jimmy turned off the TV, slipped the bottle into his jacket pocket and left the office. He stopped at the front entrance to check the mail. He unlocked the box and found two bills and a postcard. The card had been addressed to Jimmy at his sister’s place in South Carolina, but the street address had been transcribed incorrectly and the postcard was stamped Return to Sender. On the front of the card was a photo of the Santa Monica City Hall Building and on the back side of the card was an eight word message to Pigeon.

  Chasing Charlie Chan.

  Wish you were here.

  Lenny.

  VINNIE STRINGS

  Jimmy Pigeon had another bout with sleep, the restless night plagued more by elegy than allergy. Pictures and sounds. Lenny Archer’s battered face, the clamor of his brutal punishment. Lenny, who only a week earlier, sat at his desk laughing at Jimmy’s inability to master call-waiting.

  “Fuck, I lost the first caller.”

  “You need to get a desk telephone with a hold button,” Lenny had said. “Meanwhile, just let the answering service pick up the second call.”

  “If you got your nose out of that book for a minute maybe you could pick up the phone once in a while,” said Jimmy. “What the hell is it that’s so damn interesting?”

  Lenny held up the large volume for Jimmy to view.

  Homes of the Hollywood Stars, History and Mystery.

  “Looks riveting.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Do me a favor, Lenny. Take that thing home with you and leave it at home so you’ll have both hands free here in the office while I’m out of town.”

  “I might not even bother coming in while you’re gone,” Lenny had teased.

  As Jimmy dragged himself out of bed Tuesday morning he thought about Lenny’s banter. Staying away from the office would have been a smart idea, Lenny. What the hell were you up to? Pigeon made a mental note to look for the book Archer had been so absorbed in.

  An hour later, Jimmy walked over to Meg’s Café on the Third Street Promenade and took a seat at the counter. In the blink of an eye, Margaret Kelly rushed out of the kitchen to greet him.

  “You look terrible, Jimmy,” she said.

  “Nice welcome home, Meg.”

  “Your eyes are all puffy. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you’d been crying.”

  “I still haven’t purged the South Carolina ragweed,” Jimmy said. “How about coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  Meg placed a ceramic mug on the counter and reached for the coffee pot.

  “I guess I’ll skip asking you how you enjoyed your vacation,” she said as she poured.

  “Lenny Archer was murdered.”

  “No.”

  “Sometime late Sunday or very early yesterday morning. In the office. Shot and beaten and shot again.”

  “Who? Why?”

  “No clue.”

  “My God, Jimmy,” Me
g said, resting her hands on the counter for support. “He was here Friday evening. I sat with him for a while. How horrible.”

  “What did he talk about?”

  “Nothing important. Lenny had his face buried in a book; he kept showing me pictures of houses. Errol Flynn lived here, died in the saddle. Jean Harlow lived here; Clark Gable planted the rose bushes. Not my idea of priceless information, but Lenny could make just about anything seem vital. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “Did he mention Charlie Chan?”

  “Charlie Chan the Oriental sleuth?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jimmy, pulling the post card from his jacket. “Lenny sent this.”

  Meg looked at both sides of the card.

  “No, Jimmy,” she said. “Charlie Chan didn’t come up. What are you going to do?”

  “Find out who did this to Lenny and why. Do you mind if I use your telephone?”

  “Of course not,” she said, grabbing the wireless hand set and passing it to Jimmy.

  Vinnie Stradivarius was a lanky twenty-year-old with a mop of red hair. Two years out of high school and still living with his widowed mother in a house near Echo Park just west of Dodger Stadium. Vinnie had no work other than the odd jobs Jimmy Pigeon tried to throw his way. Pigeon had been strapped with Vinnie since Sarge Stradivarius fell or was pushed off the roof of a seven story building in downtown Los Angeles when the boy was fifteen.

  Vinnie’s father had been an insurance investigator and a compulsive gambler, famous for being behind in payments to loan sharks from one end of the county to the other. Jimmy and Sarge met at a high-stakes poker match in LA and got to talking after the game. Later, Sarge engaged Pigeon occasionally as outside consultant on insurance fraud cases and Jimmy came to know the family. When Sarge went off the roof his own employers tried to default payment on the life insurance benefits, alleging suicide. Frances Stradivarius reached out to Jimmy. With assistance from a friend in the LAPD and a resourceful attorney, Jimmy managed to have the cause of death officially ruled as accidental and the widow collected double-indemnity; although Jimmy always suspected Stradivarius was assisted over the ledge by someone he owed money to. Over the sixteen months it took to win the case, Vinnie adopted Jimmy as a replacement father.

  Vinnie Stradivarius inherited three things from his late father. The subsidy of a substantial life insurance settlement, the nickname Strings and the gambling gene. It took a good deal of effort on Jimmy’s part to keep the kid out of the same sort of trouble Sarge had fallen into time and time again until his time ran out. Pigeon found keeping Vinnie busy was most effective.

  Vinnie Strings owned no alarm clock; he woke up when he woke up and rarely before noon unless his mother had a reason to yank him out of bed. It was nine in the morning when Pigeon phoned the Stradivarius home from the counter at Meg’s Café.

  Vinnie’s mother took the phone call and went to roust her son. She opened the door to his bedroom, where all of the windows were covered by dark shades. Pitch black, the only light coming in from the hall.

  “Vinnie, wake up.”

  Strings half opened his eyes, the silhouette of his mother standing in the lit doorway looked like something from The Exorcist. Fran switched on the ceiling light.

  “Vinnie, wake up,” she repeated.

  “Jesus, Mom,” Vinnie moaned, blinded. “What time is it? It feels like the middle of the night.”

  “Jimmy Pigeon is on the phone,” she said.

  Vinnie came wide awake and found the receiver of his bedside telephone.

  “Jimmy. What’s up?”

  “I need your help here, Vinnie,” Jimmy said.

  Vinnie loved to help and occasionally managed.

  “I can be there in an hour,” Strings said.

  “Make it two; meet me at the office at eleven.”

  “Can I fix you something to eat?” Meg asked when Jimmy handed her the phone after the call to Vinnie.

  “Just some rye toast,” Pigeon said. He picked up his coffee mug and a newspaper from the counter and moved to a booth at the café window.

  The death of Edward Richards made page one. Richards had reported for the Santa Monica Outlook for less than a year, after three years on the staff of the Beverly Hills Weekly. Richards had published several non-fiction books, most notably a biography of the British movie actor Leslie Howard, best known for his role in Gone With The Wind and his heroic death in a downed RAF bomber during the Second World War. Funeral arrangements for Richards were noted. Lenny Archer’s death made page twenty-six. There was nothing reported to suggest any connection between the two homicides. There was nothing about funeral plans for Lenny Archer.

  It suddenly dawned on Pigeon that since Archer had no family, it would be up to Jimmy to handle the details.

  Meg came over with the rye toast and the coffee pot.

  “What now?” Meg asked as she poured coffee. “You look worse than you did when you walked in.”

  “I was thinking about Lenny, how alone he was.”

  “Lenny was far from alone, Jimmy,” Meg said, taking a seat. “He had plenty of friends and plenty of women and he always had a good time.”

  “And no one to bury him.”

  “I’d bury him, Jimmy. He was your friend and partner. Why would you need to look further than that? If Lenny had no wife or children to lament his passing, it was entirely his choice. Lenny was a charming, funny guy. He is going to be missed and remembered. What’s really bothering you, Jimmy?”

  “Maybe it has me wondering who will remember me.”

  “You are unforgettable, Jimmy. Stop being so morbid. I’ll help you with the funeral and burial, but what makes you think Lenny’s brother wouldn’t want to take care of it?”

  “Lenny hadn’t spoken with his brother in years.”

  “That doesn’t mean his brother isn’t interested. He should at least be notified of Lenny’s death.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for him.”

  “Jesus, Jimmy, you’re a detective. Stop moping. Eat your toast,” Meg said and she headed back to her cooking.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy returned the empty plate and the coffee mug to the counter. Meg came back out front from the kitchen.

  “I’m heading over to Lenny’s apartment before I meet Vinnie at the office. I’d like to locate the book Lenny was so wrapped up in and, while I’m at it, maybe learn something about how to find his brother.”

  “Good, that’s more like the Jimmy Pigeon I know and love. Why don’t you let me feed you tonight? I have the evening off; I could fix dinner at my place.”

  “Eight?”

  “Perfect,” Meg said, “and Jimmy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Find out who killed your friend and partner. Lenny would have done the same for you.”

  Jimmy Pigeon met Lenny Archer at an annual conference of the California Association of Licensed Investigators in San Francisco three years earlier. At the time, Jimmy was living in Los Angeles and working out of a Westwood office. At the CALI conference, Lenny Archer moderated a seminar in surveillance. That night, Jimmy cornered Archer with some questions and they spent hours talking shop; Jimmy sipping bourbon and Lenny guzzling orange juice.

  Jimmy complained that business was slow in LA; there was too much competition from ex-cops and larger agencies. Lenny complained he had more work than he could handle.

  Two months later, Pigeon’s name was added to the door of Archer’s Santa Monica office.

  Jimmy arrived at the office ten minutes before eleven. He had visited Lenny’s apartment. After letting himself in with the spare key he carried in his wallet, Jimmy had searched for the book on celebrity homes. No luck. Pigeon hadn’t thought to look for it in the office the day before; he hoped Lenny had ignored his advice about taking the book home. Jimmy did find some documents that might help settle Archer’s affairs, but nothing to help locate Lenny’s brother.

  Jimmy was combing the office when Vinnie pushed the
door open. Strings looked into the room and then back at the cracked window.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  “Lenny was murdered.”

  “Jesus, Jimmy, that’s fucked,” was all that Vinnie could think to say.

  “I need you to clean this place up, Vinnie. You know where all the files go. Then I want you to find someone to replace that glass.”

  Vinnie finally noticed the large stain on the floor.

  “Oh man, is that blood.”

  “And I need you to find a rug to cover that up,” Jimmy said. “Nothing too fancy.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A book. And I can’t fucking find it anywhere.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You can get started picking up, Vinnie. There’s two hundred dollars on my desk for any expenses. Do you think you can handle this?”

  “Yes, I can handle it. I’m not an idiot,” Vinnie said and quickly began picking up folders from the floor.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Vinnie. I’m sorry. It’s been a really bad week.”

  “No sweat, Jimmy, I only want to help.”

  “And I appreciate it, Vinnie,” Jimmy said. The room was beginning to close in on him. He had looked everywhere imaginable in search of the book. “Listen Vinnie, I need to get out of here for a while. I’ll check back with you later this afternoon.”

  “No problem. And Jimmy,” Vinnie said as Pigeon moved for the door.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll keep my eye out for a book.”

  “That would be good. It’s a big book, Homes of the Hollywood Stars.”

  “I love that kind of stuff,” Vinnie said as Jimmy left the office.

  Jimmy walked over to the newly remodeled main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library on Sixth Street. The young man at the service counter was scanning books he pulled from a large wheeled canvas bin.

  Jimmy doubted Vinnie would stumble over the book Lenny had been reading; Jimmy had gone through Archer’s place and the office thoroughly. Pigeon was hoping the library owned a copy so he could at least get a look at.