by Jim Pascoe
“Who’s calling?”
“Benjamin Drake. I’m a private investigator. I’d like a few moments of Mr. Walker’s time to—”
“Hold on.” Her sigh, barely discernible, started to drift my way before the line cut off, and I found myself listening to the soothing sounds of Testacy City’s Light FM. I would have expected—and preferred—a classical station. Adult contemporary never made me happy. I’d use that unhappiness to my advantage.
The assistant returned. “No, I’m sorry, he’s all booked up.”
“Well, never mind. I just wanted to congratulate him on keeping his name out of the papers—you know, with Suzi Biggs’s husband dead and all. Wish him good luck in the future for me.” I paused just long enough to see if she’d take the bait. She did.
“Oh, he just finished his meeting. Ah, hold on a moment.” She returned me to the “easy listening” music. There was nothing easy about it. Thankfully, she came back quickly. “We can fit you in today at noon.”
“Great! Are we going to have lunch at the commissary?”
“No sir. Twelve in his office.”
Too bad, I thought, I’d always heard the Walker Industrial commissary was top-notch. “Noon it is, then.” I made the receptionist happy by hanging up.
I got down to a little paperwork. I heard a door slam, reminding me that Hal Reddy was always here. I was tempted to give him the lowdown on what I’d found so far, especially since the last time we spoke I’d had to admit that I came up short on my previous case. But I knew he’d knock me down a couple rungs by asking me if all my information added up to knowing who the killer was. I’d have to admit no. Letting him know all I had were a few leads wasn’t worth that. It certainly wasn’t worth enduring the stench of his cheap cigars.
Paperwork got dull, and I found myself at Elizabeth Biggs’s place with a bag of eclairs.
“Hello, Benny! I was just frying up some Jimmy Dean. Can I get you some?”
Oh, brother. I declined the sausage, since I’d already had breakfast; I didn’t mind helping myself to an eclair, though.
I was there to fill her in, but felt a little strange. A bunch of information had fallen my way since we last spoke, though none of it amounted to an answer. I settled on the simple truth—that I was making good progress.
She had been watching television and invited me to join her. We watched one of those daytime talk shows that the nighttime talk show hosts often make fun of. Now I knew why.
As casually as possible, I asked her about Jerry Iverson. She told me he was like a kid brother to Joe.
“Is he helping you out, dear?”
Iverson was helping me out all right. It was clear she didn’t know anything about him and Suzi; if she had, I’d have heard it.
She kept deflecting my questions, either offering me coffee, asking if I was getting enough sleep, or remembering trivial anecdotes from her life raising Joe.
I wondered aloud if Jerry had been to see her.
“No, he hasn’t. But so many nice people have sent me cards and flowers. I’m sure his is among them. Would you like to see all the lovely cards they sent me?”
I went through the cards. She was right, they were lovely.
The morning was slipping away from me. I wanted to stop home and run some water over my body before I had my encounter with Jack Walker. I knew Elizabeth wouldn’t mind if I used her phone, and I’d save time if I could call the office to check my messages.
Rhoda told me that Dino from the bowling alley had called a couple of times saying he had something that might help me out. I instructed her to tell him that I’d stop by the alley as soon as I could.
I didn’t have time at that particular moment. After all, I didn’t want to keep Mr. Walker waiting.
Chapter Ten
Mr. Walker
I was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, and I would’ve been comfortable if not for the two muscles from India standing on either side of Walker’s mahogany desk. I knew they were Jack’s bodyguards, but to me, they were pure punishment in suits.
The room was silent.
Jack Walker knew how to keep his distance. My chair sat a good ten feet from his desk, and the desk itself was a generous three feet deep.
Behind this distance loomed the curly haired presence of a man with power. He wore no glasses. His face was clean-shaven, exposing his strong rock of a jaw. His affluent lifestyle provided him with a youthful vigor. It was impossible for me to determine his age, but I remembered reading somewhere that he was in his fifties.
The smoke from the pipe he held between his clenched teeth gave the air a rich, woodsy smell. Maintaining the silence, he leaned back in his chair. Through the smoke, his eyes were fixed on me—eyes that were deep-set below thick tufts of black eyebrows. Unable to resist the urge, I fidgeted slightly.
He knew what he was doing, and just as I was about to break this verbal standoff, he spoke.
“Is there something I can do for you . . . Drake, wasn’t it?”
“That depends.” I hoped that by speaking slowly I could mask my uneasiness. “Depends on what you know about bowling. And it depends on where you were early Monday morning, between one and nine a.m.”
“Look around you, Drake. Do you think I’m a man who goes anywhere or does anything without a paper trail?” He made a new cloud of smoke with his pipe; a thin, distinct line rose from its bowl. “I can tell you I wasn’t bowling.”
“Nobody thinks you were bowling.”
“And what do people think I was doing? Oh, excuse me—what do you think I was doing? Let’s cut to the chase so I can throw you out of here.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “All right, here it is: having an affair with a girl whose husband shows up dead—that doesn’t look too good, Jack.”
Not the kind who ruffled easily, he took the accusation in stride. I was more concerned with how his two heavyweights would take it. The expressions on their brown, sandstone faces remained frozen in permanent snarls. They were practically twins: both wore dark suits with purple sashes around their waists like cummerbunds, and both had the hair growing off their chins greased into traditional upturned Jheri curls. I half-expected them to have scimitars hidden somewhere.
“Your proof, Drake? I notice you’re not here with the police.”
“I’ll get proof when I need it. And if you think you keep such a clean trail, then how’d I find out about Suzi, smart guy?”
I eyed the two pairs of Indian fists. Clenched, they looked like jackhammers.
Walker was still playing with me when he asked, “Please do tell me, how did you find out?”
“Uh-uh, that’s a secret. I’ll be in touch.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Get him out of here.” He leaned forward to write something on a legal pad. Without looking up he added, “Butch and Schultz will show you to the front.”
The Indian muscles moved like robots. I got up before they could grab me.
They came with me as I rode the elevator down to the garage, one standing on either side of me. It was a tight fit. I had no idea which one was Butch and which one was Schultz. I was tempted to ask them about their decidedly non-Indian names. I decided against it, having caused enough trouble here.
* * *
Driving away from the Walker Industrial offices, I didn’t have much time to think about my encounter with Jack Walker, because I soon noticed a black Lincoln (my guess: Butch and Schultz) doing a rather sad job of following me. Apparently, I was not going to be so easily dismissed.
I had some fun trying to shake them, but even with their sloppy driving, they managed to stay with me. I could excuse the bad driving; the poor tailing technique was another matter. Obviously, these guys needed a little crash course in the Ben Drake rules of shadowing.
I started to lead them into the maze-like streets of Testacy City’s west-side hills. Before I got there, the fuel gauge caught my eye: the needle was just kissing the E. The last thing I wanted was to run out of
gas on some residential street. I decided to try a different approach. Lepke’s was right up ahead. I figured I’d grab a bite, maybe get one of the waitresses to set up a distraction for whoever was tailing me, then bolt out of there.
More important, though, Jack hadn’t bought me lunch. And that left me mighty hungry.
When I turned into the parking lot, the Lincoln quickened its approach. I scurried to get to the entrance, and the big car nearly smashed through the front door in a successful attempt to intercept me. Simultaneously, Butch and Schultz erupted from the car and started toward me. As big as the car was, it seemed too small to hold both of them. I hadn’t expected them to make a play for me, especially in broad daylight.
“What’s shaking, guys?” I began walking slowly backward. This was going to be ugly.
“Mr. Walker’s got a lot of affairs that are very delicate, affairs that a guy like you could really mess up,” one of them said, cracking his knuckles. “We’re here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
With speed I hadn’t expected from their enormous size, one thug walloped me but good in the stomach. Then, out of some violent sense of balance, the other one knuckled me as well with a heavy punch upside the head, right behind my left ear. This second blow brought me to my knees, breathless. My head got all soft-fuzzy, and a high-pitched wail began sounding from somewhere deep in my brainpan.
“Consider this an advance on a beating to come,” a coarse voice rumbled.
When my eyes regained their focus, I looked up to find the gorillas’ car speeding away behind a thick cloud of desert dust. It was then that I realized the ringing in my ears was really the droning of a police siren.
I managed to pull myself to my feet just in time to greet the squad car that pulled up beside me. I waved the cops on, hoping they got the message I was okay. They didn’t. Two boys in blue jumped out, ready for action. Too bad all the action here was finished.
“All right, buddy, you’re coming with us,” the taller of the two said.
I looked around, then laughed, even though it hurt.
Chapter Eleven
Police Interview
The only thing I could get out of the jokers at the police station was that Duke Wellington wanted to talk to me. Already, I’d been in the holding room for close to two hours. Various officers occasionally brought me Styrofoam cups of what passed for coffee along with a promise that they’d be right with me. It all left a bad taste in my mouth.
Finally, a cop I knew came to see me. Mark Weisnecki, a tall, mustachioed lunkhead of a detective who had the pleasure of being Duke Wellington’s partner. I trusted precious few of the police in this town, and Weisnecki was no exception. But at least he was easier to talk to than Wellington.
“Sorry about this, Ben.”
“Don’t be. Just tell me what the hell this is all about. Better yet, tell me when I get to leave!” Raising my voice brought back the pain in my head.
“The main man wants to ask you some questions,” Weisnecki said, apologetically.
“That’s no good, and you know it. I want some answers.”
The door flew open, banging loudly against the wall behind it. “I’ll give you answers!” Duke Wellington stormed in, waving his arms, not stopping until he was inches from my face. He was in a dark gray suit, maroon shirt, and a silver tie. The smell of musk pushed its way toward me.
He continued yelling at me: “You want answers? Fast and furious, I’ll give you answers, answers with big question marks at the end of them! How about this answer: what in God’s good name are you doin’ messing around with Jack Walker?”
“Who?”
I was tired and beat, but I always had a bit of extra energy available to yank this guy’s chain.
Weisnecki intercepted, “Ben, don’t give him a hard time and then expect us to cooperate with you.”
I snapped back at him: “I don’t want you to cooperate with me!”
Duke Wellington was pacing the room. He grabbed a chair, pulled it over to where I was sitting. He spun it around and straddled it backward.
“Okay, Drake, let me break it down for you.” He rolled his head on his shoulders as if he were warming up for some exercise. Motioning to Weisnecki with his chin, he said, “Mark, break it down for him.”
Mark did. “It’s like this, Ben. We’ve been trailing you since you left Iverson’s. We know you met with Walker. We know his goons were trailing you.”
“Do you know who killed Gentleman Joe Biggs?” I had little patience left.
“No,” Weisnecki blurted out.
“Then the truth is you want me to cooperate with you. Well, I got news for you and DW: I’m not a cop. I don’t get paid to help you out, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to do it for free.”
Duke Wellington’s loud mouth went off again: “Are you asking for a payoff, you dirty little—”
“Come on,” I said. “This is entrapment!”
Weisnecki continued what he was trying to say: “We know Walker’s goons were trailing you. You must have had something pretty irksome to say to him. How about telling us what you were doing at Jack Walker’s office and what bit of information you gave him?”
I didn’t feel like answering. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have.
We stayed like that for a while: Duke Wellington sitting right in front of me, trying his best to stare me down; Mark Weisnecki leaning his hulking body against the wall; me just sitting there.
Duke Wellington was the first to start up again. “We’re not threatenin’ you, Drake. You’ll know when we’re threatenin’ you.”
“Oh, will I?”
“You’ll know, you’ll know. What we’re doing here is trying to cooperate. You and us, see? Cooperate. We’re trying to do our job. We’re just a pair of honest cops.”
I glanced at Weisnecki. He turned away.
“Give me a break.”
“What were you doing at Walker Industrial, Ben?” Mark was sounding like a skipping record. He wasn’t getting any happier. “What’d you tell him?”
“The fact that you want to know so badly makes me want to tell you all that much less. And,” I pointed at the hothead detective sitting in front of me, “you’re the last person I’ll tell anything.”
Wellington sprang up and tossed his chair to the side. “Maybe you’ll talk to my fists!” He came at me.
I was up to meet him. “Maybe my fists’ll talk to you!”
Before we could get to swinging, the calmer detective rushed over and pushed his partner out of the way. Weisnecki then took two fistfuls of my lapels and lifted my 180 pounds high enough from the ground that only my toes remained there.
He growled, “Let’s get something straight: I don’t want to be wasting the night with you any more than you want to be wasting it with us. You’re not here to find out what we know, you’re not here to ask us questions, and you’re goddamn not here to throw fists at my partner.” He put me down, but he kept ahold of me. “You’re here to answer a few simple questions.”
He walked to the back of the room and leaned against the wall, right next to the No Smoking sign. He pulled out his Marlboro Reds and tossed one into his big wet mouth. I licked my lips. It was going to be a long night.
“Now, how about telling us what you were doing at Jack Walker’s office?”
Chapter Twelve
Girl Trouble
It was late when I left the police station. I was glad finally to be out and able to smoke. Smoking made it easier to think. The cops didn’t get anything out of me. In fact, I learned a bunch of things from them, the most important being that they hadn’t known about the Jack Walker–Suzi Biggs affair. They still didn’t.
Another thing: they had Jerry figured as their key suspect, but for all the wrong reasons. As near as I could tell, they had him playing the jealous boyfriend role. I didn’t buy it. I wasn’t ready to clear Jerry, but he had too many women following him to bed for him to whack a fellow bowler, and a big brother figure at t
hat, out of jealousy.
Spence Nelson’s name didn’t come up, though they made several references to the drug scene at the bowling alley. If they knew that Spence was their man, they’d probably be cooking up some cockamamie scheme to shake him down and see what he knew. I had plans to get to him before that. He liked me, maybe even trusted me. He was going to be my pigeon before he’d be one for the cops.
I had enough of thinking about murder for the day. The police detention had left me drained of everything I had, and mighty hungry to boot. My eyes glazed over, focusing on an indiscrete point on the open road as I thought about ways to relax. Maybe I’d fall back in my chair with a tall drink and an LP spinning.
I picked up a pastrami sandwich to go. As hungry as I was, I was so much more looking forward to the alcohol I had waiting for me at home.
Finally I arrived at my door. My tired hand fumbled with the key, eventually finding the keyhole. It was an effort even to turn the lock. I was beginning to feel I should pass on the pastrami and head straight for the cool comfort of my bedsheets. After I flipped on the light switch, however, I knew that possibility was gone like the darkness in my room.
Suzi Biggs, who’d been sleeping in my favorite chair in the darkness, was startled awake by my entrance.
Detectives come to expect the unexpected, but this . . . All I could say was: “How’d you get in?”
She yawned casually, like she belonged here. “I flirted with the landlord. Oh, Ben, I’m so glad you’re home.” She said it like it was her home too.
I shooed her out of my chair. She jumped up. I plopped down. The sandwich bag fell to the floor.
“What are you doing here?”
She grabbed a chair, pulled it over to where I was sitting, and in a move far too reminiscent of Duke Wellington’s, spun it around and straddled it backward. “Oh, Ben, I don’t want to be alone, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
I wanted to ask her why she didn’t go to Jerry’s, but a lot of the fight had been taken out of me, so I didn’t.
“Well all right, then. Want a drink?”