By the Balls

by Jim Pascoe

  Well known for the management’s wayward eye toward the rampant prostitution and drug use behind its closed doors, the Purple Knights was an infamous south side hot sheet. Sex and drugs added up to fun for some people, but for others they added up to a whole lot of death.

  “The papers name his killer?”

  I knew the odds were next to nil of that happening, but asking just seemed like the natural thing to do.

  “They had a bit from Duke Wellington about it most likely being the work of a jealous husband,” Pappy reported.

  “Okay, whatever,” I said. Everyone underground knew that Manny “the Rose” Flores had been after Mathers ever since he fouled up one of Flores’s drug deals.

  “Any word on the street from the Flores camp on this killing?” I asked Pappy.

  Without warning, a low voice came rumbling through the room: “If you boys were going to have a chew-the-fat party, how come you didn’t ask the boss to join in?”

  Hal Reddy, owner of the Always Reddy Detective Agency, stood just outside his office and stared at us through smoldering eyes, his hands firmly planted on his hips.

  “I didn’t think you’d have time to stand around and talk, Hal,” Manetti quipped.

  Hal strode across the room toward Manetti, moving his bulk faster than it looked like he could. He cracked the kid along the backside of his head.

  “Manetti, you dolt! I don’t got time to stand around, and neither do my detectives! Now get to work on the Gompers case!”

  Manetti nodded and slinked off, rubbing the back of his head.

  Hal looked around. “Where the hell’s Goiler?” When he didn’t get an answer, he turned toward Pappy. “Harper, how’s the Travis Kohen body dump coming?”

  Pappy spoke with reverence to Hal, even though he was more than a few years Hal’s senior. “Not much has turned up, other than the kid’s body. We know he was one of Flores’s runners, but that whole drug angle doesn’t seem right to me. I’m digging around his father’s history to see if he’s got any enemies that might—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Harper, this is a hot one!” Hal exploded. “Don’t turn this thing any more political than it already is. Forget the kid—and his father. The real meat is Flores! If you don’t got hard evidence to back that up, then get some!”

  Hal had a hot temper, but he didn’t normally lose it with Pappy; it clearly took the old detective by surprise.

  “Sure thing, Hal. I’m on it,” Pappy mumbled as he ambled off to his desk. Pappy had been a detective for well over forty years, and I could tell he wasn’t too happy to be told how to run an investigation.

  The Kohen case, one of the biggest and most sensitive ever to come to the Always Reddy Detective Agency, had Hal under a lot of pressure. Travis Kohen had turned up dead one morning, an empty heroin needle deep in his arm. But the overdose setup was betrayed by the multiple knife wounds in his chest.

  The kid’s father, Kris Kohen, a hometown crime-busting politician bucking for the senate, was determined to turn his personal loss into poll results. He openly blamed local Mexican mob boss Manny Flores for the killing and had hired the Always Reddy Detective Agency to back him up.

  One thing was certain, Pappy wasn’t a puppet detective. He’d find the real killer, and that would be that.

  “Rhoda!” Hal called out to the agency’s gal Friday. She hurried to his side, and he whispered something in her ear. Then he turned his attention toward me. “Okay, Drake, your turn. Follow me to my office. There’s some folks I want you to meet.”

  I sure didn’t want the wrath of the boss man coming down on me. I did what he said and, a moment later, shut his office door behind me.

  Two clients sat in the twin chairs in front of Hal’s steel desk.

  The woman looked like she had just come from a funeral. She wore black from head to toe: a long dress, high-heeled pumps, and a classy hat complete with a lace veil. I couldn’t make out her features through the dark shroud, but I could see she’d been crying, thanks to the tear-stained monogrammed handkerchief she grasped in a black-gloved hand.

  The man, however, looked like he’d just come in from herding cattle. Decked out in grubby jeans, a flannel shirt, a well-worn leather jacket, and dust-covered cowboy boots, he gave the impression of being a little rough around the edges, a little older than the woman, and more than a little uneasy about being in a detective’s office.

  Hal dropped down into the chair behind his desk. He grabbed a half-smoked cigar that rested in his ashtray and slipped it between his teeth. Then he did the introductions.

  “This is Sissy Hathaway, widow of recently deceased Eli Hathaway. And this is Eli’s brother Jasper.” He gestured my way. “This is one of my best men, Ben Drake.”

  I nodded a greeting and pulled up the last chair in the room, a scrawny wooden affair that creaked loudly as I put my weight on it.

  “Jasper and Sissy here are hiring us to investigate Eli’s murder,” Hal calmly spelled out.

  “That’s right,” nodded Jasper.

  “Tell us about it.” Hal struck a match and held it up to relight his cigar. Then he glanced at Sissy and changed his mind, blowing out the flame and dropping the dead match into the ashtray. The cigar remained clamped tightly in his mouth.

  “Well,” Jasper choked, “Sissy found the body late Monday night. Some thug plugged Eli in the chest four times.”

  A low moan escaped Sissy’s lips, and she began to sob. Jasper patted her hand. She pulled it away.

  I remembered reading something about this mess in yesterday’s papers. The murdered Hathaway had been some rich real estate mogul. I leaned forward and tried to put some polish on the brief statement Jasper had just handed in.

  “So if the papers got it right, you found evidence of forced entry but nothing stolen?”

  “That’s right,” Sissy muttered.

  “Do you two have any ideas on who’d want to see Eli dead?” I asked.

  “Well, if we knew that, we wouldn’t be here!” Jasper snapped. “If we knew who it was, I could take care of things myself. That’s how it’s done where I come from.”

  “And where is that?”

  Jasper’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Where is what?”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Back at the Hathaway Ranch,” he explained. “In Wyoming.”

  Sissy got her sobbing under control enough to explain better: “Horse racing was my husband’s true passion.” She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with the already moist handkerchief. “It’s in the Hathaway blood, you see. The family has a long tradition of breeding race horses.”

  “That’s right,” Jasper blurted out. “Eli took care of the buying and selling here in the city. And since I’m no good with math, I took care of the training and breeding back at ranch. I’m real good with animals.”

  “So you’re just visiting Testacy City? Vacation or business?” I asked.

  He frowned. “These questions ain’t helping you find out who killed my brother!”

  I never enjoyed dealing with people who thought they knew how to do my job. I got up and walked behind these two. Hal stared at me with confidence. I put a hand on the back of each chair and leaned into Jasper.

  “Okay then,” I spoke evenly, “what else can you tell me about your brother’s murder?”

  “Well,” Jasper said as he turned and scooted his seat away from me, “I don’t know much. I wasn’t around that night.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Insomnia, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So where’d you go?”

  Jasper stood up and threw his face at me. “There, you’re doin’ it to me again with all these questions! I went out to get some grub. Is that a crime?”

  “No, Mr. Hathaway, there’s no crime in eating,” Hal responded. “Is there, Ben?” The timbre of the big man’s voice cooled the situation. Jasper returned to his chair; I returned to mine.

 
“No, Hal, there isn’t.” I didn’t feel like pressing the brother any harder on his whereabouts just yet, so I directed my next question to the widow. “Sissy, were you at home that night?”

  “No, she was—”

  “I can speak for myself, Jasper.” Sissy turned toward me. I could just make out her green eyes piercing through the dark veil. “I was at the opera. Alone. Eli hated the opera.”

  “Okay. Was there anyone at home besides Eli? Do you know if he had any visitors?”

  “I know . . . I know that when I left to go to the opera, he was home and working in his study. That’s where I found his . . . body.” She paused a moment. “As for visitors . . . I honestly don’t know.” She sniffled. “You’d have to ask Kenneth—he’s our butler. If anyone would know, he would.”

  “Yeah, and you better check him out real good,” Jasper snarled. “We all know that butlers and murder go together like horses and horseshoes.”

  “You might rather take a closer look at Norman Gneiss,” Sissy offered.

  “And who would that be?” I asked.

  “He is . . . or was . . . Eli’s business partner at Hathaway & Gneiss. He and Eli had been fighting a lot lately . . . not to mention that Norman has, shall we say, affiliations outside the law.”

  Jasper coughed, and I expected him to add his two cents. But after he cleared his throat, he kept silent.

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll check this Norman Gneiss out. Anything else?”

  Another moment of silence filled the room before Sissy responded, “I wish I could think of more, but right now . . .”

  “Yeah, me too,” Jasper added.

  “Any more questions, Ben?” Hal asked.

  “None that spring to mind. I’ll get to work on this right away.”

  Our new clients looked at each other, then got up to leave. Jasper held out his hand to help Sissy up. She didn’t take it.

  I gave each of them a card as they left the office. “Let me know if you think of anything. My home number’s on there—call me anytime, day or night.”

  Sissy took my hand and looked up at me. Again I tried to see through her veil, and again I could only make out her eyes.

  “Thank you, Mr. Drake.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  Jasper glowered at me as he shuffled Sissy out the door.

  “What do you think?” Hal asked me after the office door swung shut. He had rapidly relit his cigar, and smoke began to fill the room.

  “Well, Jasper sure is carrying a torch for Sissy,” I said. “And I don’t think the feeling is mutual. Plus, he’s not being totally straight with us.”

  “Neither is she, Drake. Don’t fall for the helpless-dame routine. There ain’t nothing fair about the fairer sex.”

  The old man picked up the phone and barked into it: “Rhoda, you got that stuff . . . ? Well, bring it in, girl.”

  Rhoda was quick through the door. She handed him a thin folder, nodded, waited to see if he wanted anything more, then scurried back to her desk. But before she closed the door, she threw me a wink.

  “After Mrs. Hathaway came in and I saw how young she was, I had Rhoda check up on her. Smells like money to an old hard case like me.” He turned the file around and tossed it to the far end of his desk. “Have a look. The number’s not as big as I would have expected, but the broad will do all right by herself.”

  I picked up the folder and checked out its contents. Hal certainly had a point. I don’t know what amazed me more: Hal’s snap judgment or Rhoda’s ability to dig up information at the snap of a finger. Still, I didn’t buy that the girl was the bad guy.

  “Come on, Hal, take it easy. I definitely got more to find out about them. I just want to talk to both of them someplace they feel a little more comfortable.”

  “What about the butler and the business partner?” Hal reminded from behind a bluish cloud.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t need reminding. “I don’t buy the butler story. I’ll check him out later when I visit the house. I’ll play the partner angle first. See what I can’t get out of him.”

  Hal grunted a dismissal and knocked thick ash from his stogie into the ashtray.

  * * *

  The offices of Hathaway & Gneiss took up space in an expensive high-rise in downtown Testacy City. I rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor and found myself facing a classy office done up in glass, dark wood, and brass. In a way, it reminded me of the H.M.S. Pandora. Perhaps it was still too early for me to be thinking about my standing Wednesday night get-together with Pappy at the Pandora, but I couldn’t wait to talk to him about Trout Mathers and Manny Flores.

  Shaking my head, I regained focus on the present. An old man in a white uniform wielded a thin brush, meticulously painting Gneiss Property on the pane of glass in the door. Norman Gneiss certainly hadn’t wasted any time erasing the Hathaway name from the business.

  I excused myself and stepped around the old painter into a spacious reception area. The place gave off the deep smell of relaxation.

  An unctuous young man sat behind a low partition on the left side of the room, mumbling into a phone. Behind him stood a built-in bookshelf filled with thick leather-bound tomes, all identically colored in red and black.

  Just to the right of where he sat, a shadowy hallway extended back into the depths of the building. A deep leather couch squatted against the right wall, right behind a low table that held a small collection of neatly arranged architecture magazines. A few healthy-looking potted plants dotted the landscape for flavor.

  I wasn’t looking for flavor, so I strolled over to the oily fellow on the phone and stood in front of him. He did a fair job of pretending to ignore me. I didn’t mind; I’d been ignored by the best.

  “Oh please, Marion, I couldn’t possibly . . .” He tapped the table frantically with the first two fingers of his right hand as he talked. “Oh, for God’s sake. Hold on.” The tapping stopped as he sneered up at my presence. “Yes?”

  I flipped a business card in his direction and said, “Ben Drake to see Norman Gneiss.”

  He gave the card a quick read and nodded his head. A smile blossomed on his face, and his eyes brightened. “Oh, of course.” He pushed two buttons on his phone in quick succession. “He has been waiting for this.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  He looked down at the phone, as if he were addressing it directly, and switched his tone from arrogant to reverent. “Mr. Gneiss, a Ben Drake is here to see you.” He paused. “A detective.” Another pause. “Right away.” After a few more rapid button pushes, he returned his attention to me. His arrogant tone came with it. “Ever since we heard the news we’ve been waiting for someone to see us about . . . the accident,” he explained, lowering his voice to a whisper when he uttered the last two words of his sentence.

  “It was no accident,” I corrected.

  “Of course it wasn’t. But if you’re on the case, you’d know that, wouldn’t you? Just go on back.” He waved nonchalantly to the darkened corridor. “Last door on the right.”

  “Thanks. And, ah, say hello to Marion for me.” I sent a snide smile his way before I disappeared down the hall.

  At the end of the walkway, I found a thick oak door that stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into a huge corner office that overlooked downtown Testacy City. Norman Gneiss, a rotund man—well-dressed in a tailored three-piece charcoal-gray suit, complete with a blue shirt and multicolored power tie—waited for me behind a massive mahogany desk. A dozen diplomas and certificates hung framed on the wall behind him.

  He took a moment to size me up. I returned his scrutiny with some scrutiny of my own. Determining his age proved difficult. His brown eyes, deep with experience, looked like they belonged in the head of an old man. Conversely, his shiny black hair belonged on the head of a man in his twenties. His face, free of wrinkles, glowed with an infant’s healthy pink.

  He gestured a chubby hand toward an open chair. “Please,” he uttered with a deep,
rich voice.

  I slid into the cushioned comfort of the leather chair. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Gneiss.”

  “I’m a busy man, Mr. Drake,” he returned.

  “I understand that, so I promise I won’t take much of your time. I just want to ask you a few questions about Eli Hathaway’s murder.”

  “Yes . . .” He drew the end of the word out into a hiss. “An unfortunate incident indeed.”

  “Can you tell me anything about it?”

  “I wish I could help you, Mr. Drake, but . . .” He threw me a smug shrug.

  “No jealous business rivals?”

  “None whatsoever. You see, this is a very dignified profession.”

  “I don’t doubt that, Mr. Gneiss, but this morning his brother and widow came to see me—”

  His laugh cut right through my words. “His brother couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag, and Sissy,” he paused and waved a perfectly manicured hand in the air, “let’s just say she didn’t know how good she had it . . . though she certainly has it even better now, yes?”

  He rubbed his right thumb and forefinger together. His smarmy accusation made it hard to keep calm.

  “Okay, let’s say that,” I snapped. “Let’s also say that she told me you’d been fighting with Eli lately.”

  He smiled cruelly and leaned into his desk. “I see where you’re driving this conversation, Mr. Drake, and frankly I refuse to take that ride. Yes, I was at odds with Eli. We didn’t see eye-to-eye over the convention center I’ve proposed building for downtown Testacy City.”

  “Yeah? What was the problem?”

  “A simple one, really. Eli didn’t want it built. He said it would make Testacy City into another Vegas. Now I have to ask you, Ben, would that be so bad?”

  “To be honest, I’d have to say it would be, Norman.”

  Gneiss blew out a deep sigh of disgust. “Another man with no vision. So many of you in this town.”

  I decided to go for the direct approach. Beating around the bush was getting me nowhere. “Now I have to ask you—got an alibi for Monday night?”