“Exactly.”
“But, but,” I sputtered, sloshing iced tea over the rim of my glass and suddenly wishing I had stayed in L.A. So what if Allison had gotten just about everything we had built together in the divorce agreement, at least the weather was good. At least out there I didn’t have to face the ugly side of life every day when I went to work, like my father and uncle did.
I tried to get myself under control and speak calmly. “Uncle Brick, you told Dawes we’d leave him alone, but that doesn’t work for me and it shouldn’t for you, either. He has to pay for what he did to my father, to your own brother!”
“Slow down, sonny. He’s going to pay, don’t you worry about that.”
“But you told him we wouldn’t pursue him.”
“That’s exactly right, and the reason I said that is because our first obligation is to our client. You remember our client? I assume you do, since you were staring so hard at her in the office I was beginning to think you were going to propose to her on the spot.”
I felt my face redden. Sure, I had stared at her, but I didn’t think I had been that obvious. And besides, what was I supposed to do? She was beautiful, sexy and vulnerable. And I’ve been divorced for, heck, months now.
My uncle let me squirm for a moment and then took pity on me. “Ah, so you do remember her. Well, junior, she’s the only good guy besides us involved in this thing who is still alive. As much as I want to get Harold Dawes, we have to be smart, if only to protect Mrs. Billingsley. If Dawes felt too threatened, he wouldn’t hesitate to take her out, then follow up with us, just to be thorough.”
“Okay,” I agreed grudgingly. “Where do we go from here?”
“We call Mrs. Billingsley and set up a meeting.”
Now that I had heard the plan, I couldn’t help agreeing it was a good one. I didn’t quite follow where Brick was going, but I thought seeing Maggie Billingsley again was definitely a step in the right direction.
***
This time, when our client walked through the door and into the offices of Callahan Investigations, I was ready for her, so there was no repeat of the mouth half-open, feet stuck on the desk foolishness she caught me with on her first visit. And I only ogled a moment. I’m sure she didn’t even notice.
For today’s meeting, Maggie Billingsley was dressed in a pair of white jeans and matching white sweater. I wondered about the wisdom of wearing a sweater in the summer in Boston, then decided the last thing the woman needed was fashion advice from a guy who dresses out of the Lieutenant Columbo Collection. She looked like an angel, and that was all that mattered, at least as far as I was concerned.
I was determined not to let Uncle Brick get the jump on me this time, so as soon as I saw the office door swinging open, I was on my feet, sliding a chair around for her to sit in. She swept in, sat gratefully, and faced Brick’s desk. “My,” she said, “you work fast. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“There was no reason to waste time,” Brick answered. “You were right about your husband getting killed because of things he discovered. I want to assure you that you are in no danger and that the persons responsible for Robert’s death will be punished. It might not happen as quickly as we would like, but it will happen.”
“Was it someone where he worked? Was Robert killed by a coworker? How could someone do that?”
Brick, as he had the last time Maggie Billingsley had visited the office, once again knelt before her and gently took her hand. I wished it were me, but since I had no idea what my uncle was going to say to reassure her, decided it was best to sit this one out. “Please believe me when I tell you it is in your best interest not to know any more than you presently do. As I said, you are completely safe, but if I were to tell you everything you want to know, it is entirely possible you could be in as much danger as Robert was, and I think it’s safe to say he wouldn’t want that.”
Sitting back on his heels, my uncle smiled warmly at Mrs. Billingsley and continued. “The time will come when we can share everything with you, and when that day comes, rest assured that my nephew and I will call you and set up an appointment at your earliest possible convenience to fill you in. Until then, try to put the circumstances of Robert’s death behind you, if you can, and know that he died loving you and wanting to protect you.”
Once again I was stunned at the sensitivity my uncle was capable of expressing when he chose to. Maggie Billingsley thanked us—okay, mostly she thanked my uncle—then rose and glided out of the office.
“All right,” I said to Brick. “We’ve taken care of the Maggie problem. She seemed satisfied that we will bring her husband’s killer to justice. So . . .” I waited for him to start explaining the plan, but no explanation was forthcoming, so I soldiered on. “So, how are we going to punish Robert Billingsley’s killer, and more importantly, to me at least, how are we going to punish Dad’s?”
“We’re going to pay a little visit to Jimmy Kills.”
***
To say that Jimmy Kilpatrick lived in a palatial estate would do the place a grave injustice. His home was located in the Wellesley Hills, a tony suburb west of Boston where even the maids and housekeepers seem to drive Beemers and Audis. The only difference is that the working folks’ luxury sedans are two or three years old, rather than brand new.
Jimmy Kills’ house was nestled among a grove of birch trees, set at the back of a lot roughly the size of the town I grew up in. To reach it, we had to wind our way up a driveway that seemed to be about three miles long.
We did this, of course, only after we answered a series of questions at the base of the driveway asked by some goon talking to us through a loudspeaker hookup that reminded me of the old contraptions you used to have to hang on your car’s window at the drive-in so you could hear the movie.
The goon, whose voice sounded like a tinny version of Andy Kaufman playing Latka Gravas on the old show, “Taxi,” was reluctant to buzz us in, but eventually did so after being threatened by Brick. My uncle told the poor dolt that Jimmy Kills would eat the guy’s heart for breakfast the next day if Jimmy found out we were turned away, after he heard what we had to say.
That seemed to do the trick, because the next thing I knew, the massive cast-iron gate was swinging open. We swept past it in Brick’s Mercedes and I turned to watch the gate clang shut behind us. “Uh, what makes you so sure Jimmy Kills won’t eat our hearts for breakfast?” I nervously asked my uncle.
“Nothing, really. Just a clean conscience and a sunny disposition,” he answered. “Plus, it’s closer to dinner time than breakfast.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “So there’s no pressure then.” I knew we were in trouble when my uncle was starting to make sense.
We finally arrived at Kilpatrick’s house after a long drive through a heavily wooded area. We burst out of the primeval forest onto what looked like the eighteenth fairway at Augusta National. I mean, Jimmy Kills’ place was immaculate. The lawn was emerald-green, and the walkway leading from Jimmy’s cobblestone driveway up to the front door of his southern-style mansion was swept so clean you could eat off of it. I didn’t see any groundskeepers, but I had no trouble picturing them cutting the grass in three-piece suits and spit-shined wingtips.
Brick parked his car at the top of the circular driveway and as we approached the front door, it swung open and a butler wearing a shoulder holster with a weapon conspicuously displayed ushered us in. I wondered briefly how many guns had been trained on us as we had walked from the car to the house before deciding I didn’t really want to know.
I’m not sure what I expected Jimmy Kilpatrick to look like, but the man who strode across the living room and into the foyer to greet us looked more like a retired professional athlete—maybe a pro golfer or tennis player—than a cold-blooded mob kingpin. He was dressed in a crisp blue golf shirt and tan slacks, his steel-gray hair swept back from a tanned forehead.
My uncle’s real name, the name his parents hung on him when he was born, is
Brian Richard Callahan. He absolutely hated the name Brian, for reasons which mystify me but are very real to him, so from a very young age, he started going by B. Richard Callahan. That moniker got reduced to B. Rick, and from there it was only a matter of time before people started calling him Brick. The name fits him like the glove should have fit O.J., and Brick is the only thing I’ve ever heard him called. Until today.
Jimmy Kilpatrick grabbed Brick’s hand and shook it enthusiastically, telling him, “Brian, I was so sorry to hear about your brother.”
I took half a step back, ready for a classic Brick Callahan explosion. It’s not an exaggeration to say that nobody calls my uncle Brian. I’m sure that when he gets to the pearly gates, St. Peter will contemplate calling him Brian, then decide the hell with it and follow the path of least resistance and use Brick, like everybody else.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when my uncle squared up his shoulders and simply accepted the words of sympathy from Jimmy Kilpatrick. Unlike when we met Harold Dawes, Kilpatrick’s words seemed sincere and well-intentioned.
Jimmy Kills continued, “Obviously, your agency and my organization are not always on the same side of the fence, legally speaking, but I had the pleasure of dealing with Dennis Callahan on more than one occasion, and I always found him to be a gentleman of honor and integrity. Even though I didn’t often see eye to eye with him, I respected him and I felt he respected me as well. His passing is truly a tragedy.”
Kilpatrick then led us into a small sitting room, where three settings of tea and coffee sat waiting on a sterling silver serving tray, steam curling into the air out of the delicate porcelain cups. He indicated we should sit, and played the perfect host, preparing our drinks before sitting himself.
Finally Kilpatrick sat and took a sip of his tea. “My man who operates the front gate is not easy to intimidate. Please accept my congratulations on browbeating him, although you should know I almost never eat heart for breakfast. For dinner, sometimes, but never breakfast.”
My uncle laughed like we were sharing jokes with David Letterman. I thought, and not for the first time, that Brick Callahan was either the bravest or most foolhardy man I had ever met. He said, “I’m sorry for intruding on your day, Mr. Kilpatrick, especially at home, but when you see what I have to show you, you will be glad you agreed to see us.”
“And what do you have to show me?”
Brick reached into his breast pocket, handing the bogus MP3 player to Jimmy Kilpatrick. “If you would connect that to your computer, Mr. Kilpatrick, you will see that one of your employees has been a very bad boy.”
Jimmy Kills reached under the table on which the tea and coffee was set, pulling out a laptop computer. While we waited for it to boot up, the mobster and my uncle traded small talk about various members of the community, both on the law enforcement and criminal side of the fence, that they both knew. They had a surprisingly large number of people in common.
When the computer was ready, Kilpatrick connected the seemingly innocent music player to a USB port. A few seconds later, he was studying the data on the screen like a Hollywood actor learning his lines. Gradually his face hardened as what he was reading began to dawn on him.
He reached under the table again, pulling out a calculator. My uncle said, “I can save you the trouble. I’m sure you’ll want to double-check my numbers, but when you do you’ll discover that Mr. Dawes has skimmed almost two million dollars off your account over the past several years.”
The mobster sat in silent contemplation. All of a sudden he looked a lot less like a retired golfer and a lot more like a ruthless crime figure. Finally he spoke, asking, “How did you get this and why did you bring it here?”
My uncle answered, “There was an accountant working for Dawes by the name of Robert Billingsley who discovered this double-bookkeeping quite by accident. When he confronted Harold Dawes he was murdered for his trouble, but not before giving this evidence to my brother for safe keeping. Dawes found out and killed Dennis too, but was unable to locate the hard drive.
“My nephew and I are looking for a little justice, both for Mr. Billingsley’s wife Maggie, who brought the entire affair to our attention, and for my brother. If we involve the police, I fear Mrs. Billingsley will become a target—the wheels of justice move so slowly sometimes, and I think Dawes would take her out just for spite. Also, the only direct evidence we have was his admission of guilt to us and that would simply be our word against his.”
Jimmy Kills absorbed this information as an uncomfortable silence descended over the room. My coffee was getting cold and I could feel what I had drunk sitting in my stomach like acid. At last he composed himself and rose, extending a hand to Brick and then to me. “I would like to thank you for bringing this to my attention,” he said. “You can rest assured justice will be served. Again, please accept my condolences on the passing of Dennis Callahan.”
As he finished speaking, the sitting room door swung smoothly open, and the butler with the sidearm escorted us through the house and out to Brick’s car. How he knew the exact moment to enter I have no idea. He stood watching us as we drove out the way we had come in. As we reentered the thickly forested area between the house and the street, I turned around in my seat and saw Jeeves standing stock-still, staring impassively into the distance until we were out of sight.
I found myself shaking a little. Brick looked like he was out for a leisurely drive.
***
It must have been a week or so later when we heard the news we had been waiting for. Brick and I were hanging around in the offices of Callahan Investigations. He was explaining to me the basics of tailing a subject without being discovered for probably the tenth time because I was having a little trouble mastering it. I know, it sounds simple, I used to think so, too, but you try following someone, keeping them in sight at all times while remaining unseen yourself. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.
Anyway, while we were talking the television was on in the background, tuned to a local news report. The breathless blonde anchor was describing how, for the second time in less than a month, an employee of Higgins and Dawes, a local accounting firm, had been run down by a cement truck.
“In this morning’s accident,” she told us, “the victim was the firm’s owner and CEO himself, Harold Dawes. Police spokesman Greg Lemillo tells Action News that an emergency inspection of the brakes on all city construction vehicles is under way after this latest tragedy, which appears unrelated to the one three weeks ago that killed another Higgins and Dawes employee, accountant Robert Billingsley. Stay tuned to Action News for the latest developments in this and all the stories we are following for you.”
The report was accompanied by a video feed of the accident scene, which of course showed nothing more than a nondescript city cement mixer parked at the side of a busy road, emergency beacons busily flashing. This visual warning was too little, too late for Mr. Dawes, of course, but made for a colorful addition to the live report and was thus included. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn the truck looked a little off-kilter, tilted a bit like it was parked on top of something. Or someone.
My uncle and I fell silent, neither of us speaking until the report ended. The irony of Jimmy Kills using the same method to dispose of Harold Dawes that Dawes had used on Robert Billingsley contained, I thought, a certain poetic justice, in an Old Testament, eye for an eye sort of way.
After the blonde newsbabe had finished the story, Brick reached for the telephone and handed it over to me. “I’ll bite,” I said. “Who am I calling?”
“Why, Maggie Billingsley, of course,” he replied. “Or would you rather I set up the appointment?”
I pictured the willowy brunette with the long legs and the tight white sweater and the story we could now tell her. “I’ll handle this one,” I told Brick.
He nodded and smiled. “I thought you might.”
Uncle Brick and the Little Devilz
I had so much fun writing
the first Uncle Brick story that I knew immediately I would make the characters into a series. A few months later I started writing “Uncle Brick and the Little Devilz,” an adventure featuring a teenage runaway, kidnapping, murder and strippers. This story first appeared at Mysterical-E exactly one year after the first, in the Summer, 2010 issue. I hope you enjoy it.
Have you ever wondered how many revolutions a ceiling fan makes on the low setting as it pushes the stifling summer air around an un-air conditioned second floor office? In Boston? In July? I hadn’t, either, until I started working in my uncle’s Boston-based PI firm, Callahan Investigations.
A little background: My Uncle Brick Callahan operated the agency for decades with my father Dennis, while I went off to Los Angeles to seek fame and fortune—okay, mostly fortune—as an accountant. Then my wife divorced me, taking most of my money and all of my business, and my father managed to get himself murdered thanks to an investigation gone horribly wrong.
I returned to Boston, ostensibly to keep an eye on my now-eighty year old uncle but really because,
A) I had nowhere else to go,
B) Boston is three thousand miles away from LA and my ex-wife, and
C) I was determined to solve my dad’s murder.
It turned out my Uncle Brick needed absolutely no one to keep an eye on him, certainly not me, but he did agree to allow me to work with him in the agency until I could get back on my feet. Oh yeah, and we were able to solve my dad’s murder, turning the tables on the upwardly mobile mobster who killed him. That cold son of a bitch is in the ground now.
I can’t say evening the score on my father’s behalf made me feel any better about losing him, but the sense of satisfaction I got from seeing Harold Dawes get what he deserved was one sweet reward, despite the fact that I nearly ended up face down in the dirt myself, and on my very first case, no less.
Postcards from the Apocalypse Page 14