The Dead of Winter (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 3)

by Michael Allegretto

  “Did Stephanie Bellano go for your line as quickly as those two?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He knew.

  He turned to leave. I grabbed his arm.

  “You met her in here, didn’t you, Stan?”

  “Let go of me before I knock you on your ass.”

  I let go, but not for that reason. I’d just seen Ken Hausom walk through the door.

  “We’ll talk, Stan.”

  He walked away, pushing through the crowd toward the door.

  Meanwhile, Ken was making his way down the bar, slapping hands and saying howdy. He had his eye on the only empty stool, the one next to Rachel. I got there as he prepared to deliver his line. His smile was wide enough for me to see the temporary caps on his front teeth. They looked like Chiclets.

  “Hi, babe. Is this seat—”

  “Yes, it’s taken,” I said, stepping up close to him so he wouldn’t have room to demonstrate his karate kicks.

  His lip dropped over his shiny fake teeth.

  “You’re dead meat,” he said, almost too low for me to hear.

  “Can we talk first?”

  “I could’ve crippled you last week, but I went easy. This time will be different.”

  Rachel looked at me questioningly.

  “Look, Ken,” I said, “I just want to talk to you about Stephanie. Now I’ve been to Wray and—”

  “Let’s take it outside,” he said, “where we’ve got more room.”

  “I don’t want to fight.” I didn’t, either.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said, “but you don’t have a choice.”

  “Will you cut the macho routine for a minute?”

  We both looked at Rachel.

  “You can fight him later, Ken, but—”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  “—but first we need to see Stephanie Bellano.”

  “What?”

  “We need to make sure she’s all right,” Rachel said. “Her mother is worried to death. You can understand that, Ken, can’t you? We’re not going to take her away from you. We just want to talk to her. Okay?”

  Ken had been looking at Rachel as if she were speaking Portuguese. He turned to me with one side of his mouth pulled up in a question.

  “She with you?”

  “We came here together,” Rachel said.

  “What the fuck’s she talking about?” Ken asked me in all sincerity.

  “I traced Stephanie to a farm in Wray,” I said. “I was told she left there a few days ago with a man. I figure that man was you.”

  Ken shook his head and smiled with his mouth closed.

  “Must be some other man.”

  “You’re lying,” Rachel said.

  “Hey, fuck you,” Ken told her. Then he poked me in the chest with two fingers, hard as wooden dowels. “And you, you’re coming outside with me now, or I’m going to take you right here.”

  “He knows where Stephanie is,” Rachel said angrily. “He’s a damn liar.”

  “Rachel, please, my ears,” I said.

  “Oh, brother. So now what?”

  “Me and Lomax go outside,” Ken told her. “And when I’m finished with him, you and I can get better acquainted. Tell you the truth, I prefer getting it on with older women.”

  “Get it on with this,” she said, and slapped her beer bottle down on the bar.

  “Do your students know you act this way?” I asked her.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “We’re all leaving,” Ken said.

  Rachel and I moved through the crowd toward the door, Ken following. Rachel touched my arm.

  “You’re not really going to fight, are you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  When we got out to the front parking lot, Ken turned around, ready to do me in. I put one arm around Rachel and stuck my other arm out, palm forward.

  “Hey, wait a minute, okay? At least let the lady get out of the way. And let’s go around the side of the building. You want a cop to drive down the street and see us? Here,” I said, handing Rachel my keys. “Wait in my car. This won’t take long.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Reason with him.”

  “Let’s do it, Lomax,” Ken said, his breath foggy in the cold air.

  Rachel walked toward my car.

  I followed Ken between parked cars toward the side of the building. But I kept my distance. I didn’t want him demonstrating his little spin kick. We kept an eye on each other all the way around the corner of the building.

  There was a yellow arc light about halfway toward the rear. It was fastened high up on the outside brick wall. Ken stopped under it and turned around. He grinned. The light made his teeth look like fangs. He went into a karate stance—one leg forward, hands up, fingers curled. Then he shouted something like “Heeyiiah” and shuffled toward me.

  I took the gun out of my belt holster. I’d been carrying it since yesterday when I drove to Wray. It’s a small piece, a Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special with a two-inch barrel. Still, it is a .38. I showed it to Ken.

  “Hee-ya, yourself.”

  He stopped and blinked. “Oh, fuck.”

  “That’s right, Kenny.”

  “Oh, fuck, don’t shoot.” His hands were still up, but his fingers had lost their karate curl.

  “Where’s Stephanie Bellano?”

  “Oh, fuck, don’t shoot me.”

  “Come on, Kenny, it’s cold out here, and my trigger finger’s starting to cramp. Where is she?”

  “Stephanie? I told you, man, I don’t know.”

  “You drove to Wray and brought her back here.”

  “No, man, honest to God. I’ve never been to Wray in my whole fucking life.”

  “You’re starting to make me mad, Kenny.” I raised the gun so he could look down the barrel.

  “No! Look, Jesus, I’m telling you the truth! I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since May. Honest to God. Okay, look, if this is about child support, if she’s carrying my kid and she wants money, fine. Is that what this is about? I mean, I can pay. Whatever she wants.”

  “It’s too late for that,” I said.

  I guess he’d misinterpreted my statement, because he screamed, “NO!” Then he turned and ran for his life.

  I walked back to my car.

  Rachel had the doors locked and the engine running. She let me in. The air was warm. It smelled faintly of her perfume.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, just peachy,” I said, and pulled out onto Wadsworth Boulevard.

  “You look … strange.”

  “I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “So … what happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t fight?”

  “No.”

  “Well, thank God for small favors.”

  “Right.”

  “What about Stephanie?”

  “Ken doesn’t know anything,” I said. “He hasn’t seen her since May.”

  “How do you know he’s not lying?”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “Trust me, okay?”

  “So where is she?”

  “I don’t know. I need a drink. You want to join me?”

  “You need a drink?”

  “Okay, I want a drink.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I TOOK SIXTH AVENUE west to Simms Landing.

  Rachel and I walked through the restaurant, past the bar, and down some steps into the lounge. It had lots of heavy ropes and ships’ fittings. The ocean’s only a thousand miles away.

  The piano player wasn’t too loud, which was nice. The nicest part, though, was the view. We sat high up on the western edge of the city. The windows faced east over a vast carpet of tiny lights. Beyond the city stretched the plains, black as the void.

  The waitress brought our drinks—one scotch, one vodka with a twist. Rachel asked me what I was going to do now about finding Stephani
e. I told her about the four customers in Bellano’s shop and the possibility that Stephanie had run from one of them.

  “I’m going to take a closer look at all four,” I said, and sipped my scotch.

  “Do you think Stephanie may have phoned one of those men from Wray?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Rachel said. “If Stephanie ran from one of them, she wouldn’t call him, would she? Or wait for him to come pick her up?”

  “I don’t know. But right now I’ve got nothing else to go on. Stephanie knows something about one of those men. Or he knows something about her. When I know it, then maybe I’ll know where she is.”

  We were silent for a moment. The candlelight from the jar on the table made her eyes dance.

  “Do any of them seem likely to you?” she asked. “I mean more likely than the other three.”

  “Right now my money’s on Stan Fowler. That was him trying to hustle your two students tonight.”

  “That bastard,” she said, as if they were her children. Which, in a way, they were.

  “Yes, he is. There’s a good chance he met Stephanie in the Lion’s Lair. I’m just speculating, but if he somehow found out she was pregnant, then threatened to tell her father—”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “For sex.”

  “God.” She’d looked disgusted. Then she downed part of her drink and shook her head. “How can you do this?”

  “What?”

  “This kind of work. I mean, where you have to deal with people like Stan Fowler and that other one. Ken.”

  “It’s a living.”

  She didn’t smile. “Have you considered another occupation?”

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “Astronaut.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. The pay’s good, the view’s spectacular, and you only have to work a few days a year.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Well, what about you? Do you always want to be a teacher?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Astronaut.”

  “See?”

  She was smiling now. “Really, though, how did you ever become a private investigator?”

  “Well, I was a cop first, and then I sort of fell into it.”

  “You were a policeman? Somehow I can’t picture you in a uniform.”

  “Are you kidding? I was quite the dashing figure.”

  “I’m sure. Were your parents proud of their son the policeman?”

  “Well, they’d both died when I was still in college.”

  “Oh. Oh, I didn’t mean to …”

  “No, it’s okay. Actually it was a blessing when my mother passed away. She’d fought cancer for years. My father never got over her death, though. His health declined until he finally died of a heart attack. At least he went quickly.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

  I nodded. “Anyway, after college I kicked around for a few years, moved here and there, tried this and that. I finally tried being a cop.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Maybe I wanted to help.”

  “Help whom?”

  “I don’t know. Just help.”

  “Why aren’t you still a policeman?”

  “I changed.”

  “Not completely,” she said. “Even I can tell that much.”

  “What?”

  “You still want to help.”

  “I suppose. But on a smaller scale.”

  We were silent for a few moments. Her smile was long gone.

  “The other three men who were in the barbershop,” she said finally. “Are they as sleazy as Fowler?”

  “They’ve all got points in their favor,” I said. “Johnny Toes Burke is probably the most evil of the four. If you believe in that concept.”

  “I certainly do.”

  “Plus Johnny Toes works for a gangster who had reason to kill Joseph Bellano. It wouldn’t surprise me if Johnny Toes had a hand in the car bombing. Then there’s Gary Rivers. I think he’d do just about anything to further his career. Or protect it, for that matter. He volunteered to help me find Stephanie.”

  “He what?”

  “Probably to use it in his next special: ‘Runaway Girls’ or ‘Daughters of Dead Bookies.’”

  “Not funny,” she said.

  “Sorry. The fourth man, Mitch Overholser, is the only one I haven’t talked to. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Rachel was frowning and picking at the small paper napkin under her glass.

  “What is it?”

  “I was just thinking,” she said. “If Stephanie’s in Denver, she must know by now that her father’s been killed.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then why hasn’t she come home? Or at least contacted her mother?”

  “That worries me, too. I can think of only two reasons, and neither one is very heartwarming.”

  Rachel nodded. “Either she doesn’t want to, or she can’t.”

  We finished our drinks. I asked her if she wanted another. She didn’t. It was a school night. I drove her home and walked her to her door. I was hoping she’d ask me in for coffee.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said.

  “My pleasure.”

  “Call me, won’t you? If you learn anything at all about Stephanie. Or …”

  “Yes.”

  “Or if I can help.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I went home.

  On Friday morning the sky was patchy blue, and the temperature had shot up to thirty-one. I had to wear shades to see my way down West Colfax, past motels and restaurants and lots filled with cars, new and used.

  Honest Harry had a cracker-box office with a peaked green roof and forty used cars. The special of the month stood above the rest of the wrecks on a knee-high stand in the corner of the lot—a four-year-old black Firebird with a cracked side window and smooth rear tires. There was only one salesman. But then, I was the only customer. He finished telling the shag boy to wipe all the snow off the cars; then he walked over to me.

  “Time to trade in the old heap, eh?” he said, nodding toward my primo-condition, fully restored, aqua-and-white Series 98 pride and joy, with Rocket V-8 engine, Jetaway HydraMatic drive, power steering, dual horns, courtesy lights, padded dash, Deluxe steering wheel, and electric clock—with hands on it, for chrissake, not digits—plus a heater that could roast marshmallows.

  “Thank you, no,” I told him. “I’m looking for Mitch Overholser.”

  “You found him.”

  He was in his late thirties, with thinning brown hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and a weak chin. He would’ve been about my height if he stood up straight. I guessed he’d recently lost some weight; his overcoat, though expensive, was one size too big.

  “I want to talk to you about Stephanie Bellano.”

  “Who?”

  “Joseph Bellano’s daughter.”

  Overholser squinted at me. “What are you, a cop?”

  “Private detective. I was hired by Joseph.”

  “Say, now, wasn’t that something about Joe? Got blown up in his own car.” He made a clucking sound, as if Bellano had merely lost his license.

  “Why don’t we go inside and talk.”

  “Let’s don’t,” he said. “Inside is my brother-in-law, Harry, counting his money and looking out the window to see if I’m earning him more.”

  “Then let’s sit in one of these cars. I’m cold.”

  We sat in a big white Lincoln. Overholser started the engine and turned on the heat.

  “Only eighty thousand miles on this baby,” he said, “and she runs like a dream.”

  “You were in Bellano’s barbershop the day his daughter disappeared.”

  “I was?” He blew into his hands and rubbed them together. Ther
e was a wedding ring on his middle finger and a feint dent where it used to fit on his ring finger.

  “Two weeks ago today,” I said. “She came in the shop mad as hell, then ran out scared to death.”

  “Oh, sure, I remember now.” He put his hands on the wheel as if he were ready to drive. “So?”

  “She hasn’t come back.”

  “So what’s that got to do with me?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “I don’t get you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I watched him closely.

  “Why is Stephanie afraid of you?”

  “What?” He let go of the wheel and turned in his seat to face me. “Afraid of me? You’ve got to be kidding. I’m a father, for crying out loud. A family man. Well, sort of. My wife took the kids. Ex-wife. But I’ve got a daughter, for crying out loud, exactly the same age as Stephanie.”

  “How do you know exactly how old Stephanie is?”

  He blinked once. Then he licked his lips and smiled.

  “Very good,” he said. “Okay, I know Stephanie. She and my daughter were friends in high school. She’s probably been over to my house a half-dozen times.”

  “Is she there now?”

  “At my house? Why, hell, no. Say, what’re you getting at?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Look, I don’t know anything about Stephanie. Sure, I heard she’d run away, but that’s all. Joe called me the day after she ran out of the barbershop. Called my wife, too. Ex-wife. Neither one of us had seen her. That’s all there is to that.”

  I was inclined to believe him. Then I remembered he sold used cars.

  “What can you tell me about the other men who were in Bellano’s shop that day?”

  “Who remembers?”

  “Stan Fowler.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Gary Rivers.”

  “Never heard—Wait, the TV guy? He was in there?”

  “Didn’t you recognize him?” I asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “What about Johnny Toes Burke?”

  “What about him?” Overholser’s voice had hardened.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I know who he is. I owed his boss money once.” He worked the muscles in his jaw. “Never again,” he said.

  “Bad news, right?”

  “You wouldn’t even believe it.”

  “Then I don’t blame you for feeling desperate.”

  “Desperate?”

  “About the possibility of Bellano selling your markers to Burke’s boss, Fat Paulie DaNucci.”