By the Balls

by Jim Pascoe

  Spence jumped up and threw a couple of bullets out of his Glock. I heard glass shattering. “Get out of here, man. It’s me they want.”

  “Christ, I know that, but I’m not leaving my new partner high and dry!” I shouted as Spence squeezed off a few more shots, emptying his clip. “And quit with the bullets already! You’re just playing into their game! Let me talk to the cops for you. We’ll let them take you in. These guys are such amateurs, we can have you out of the joint on a technicality in no time.”

  Spence pulled another clip from his waistband and slammed it into the Glock. He looked at his gun, then me, then the advancing cops, then back to me. Worry filled his eyes.

  “Stay put, and for God’s sake—don’t keep shooting at them,” I pleaded.

  He stared at me, brooding. He held his automatic so tightly it shook in his hand. “Drake, I have something to tell you about these bowling murders, something you need to know.”

  “You damn well better have something to tell. And I expect you to tell me once I get you out of this mess.”

  I started off along the fence, hoping my words got through to him. Now all I had to do was figure out how to approach the cops without them shooting me.

  I creeped past a row of cars, then turned to check on Spence. All those brains and they didn’t stop him from acting stupid in a crisis. He stood up to run toward the diner. Where he thought he would go, I had no idea. I was sure he didn’t know either.

  “Spence! What are you—” I started to yell, but as the words left my mouth the sound of guns exploded in my ears. I watched helplessly as a bullet ripped through Spence’s chest. Some son-of-a-bitch cop had shot him in the back.

  He let out a sickening cry and fell forward onto the hood of a car, hitting it with a metallic crunch. His gun clattered to the asphalt next to him. He hung on the hood for a moment, then slid slowly to the ground, landing with a heavy thud.

  “Damn!” I cursed fate, slamming my pistol into its holster as I ran over to him. I turned him over. The bullet had gone straight through him, exiting close to his heart. It was bad, one of the worst hits I’d ever seen. There was no doubt about it: Spence wasn’t going to live much longer. I slapped my hand over his wound and pressed hard, hoping he would hold on long enough for the ambulance, at the same time knowing he wouldn’t.

  “Man,” he moaned, pain cutting heavily into his voice, “where’s that double-crossing broad?” She wasn’t around. He yelled at her anyway: “Thanks for the sour persimmons, bitch!”

  My mouth rattled off some obscenities of my own as my mind swam in the thought of Spence’s blood. “Hold on . . . just hold on.”

  I was barely conscious of the booted feet that gathered around us.

  Spence’s eyes parted slowly and stared at me. “Drake.” His voice was all raspy and weak. “I have to tell you.” A spasm of coughs racked his body. Blood spurted out of his mouth and flowed freely from his damaged chest.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pushing down heavily on his injury with my hand, crouching nearer to him.

  “Everything . . .” he croaked. “Everything is all red herring.”

  “What?” I shouted at him. “What do you mean by that? Spence? Spence? Answer me, goddamnit!”

  There was no answer. Spence Nelson was dead.

  Chapter Twenty

  Backseat Driver

  I was cradling Spence’s lifeless body. His blood soaked into the fabric of my suit, thick and sticky on my arms, chest, and thighs. I remember thinking that my cleaner wasn’t going to be very happy with me.

  I felt sick. Part of me felt guilty about Spence’s death. I’d only known him a short while, but if I’d ever had a kindred spirit in this business, it was Spence Nelson. I couldn’t help but think he’d still be alive if I hadn’t been involved. But then he’d be in custody, and prison is no place for a guy like Spence. So maybe he was better off, considering the options.

  Another part of me was feeling anxious. I was worried about being caught at the scene. I was supposed to be off this case, and things would get further out of my control if Hal—or Duke Wellington—found out I’d been there.

  That was when I heard footsteps crunching across the parking lot. The sea of booted feet parted to reveal a pair of beat-up wingtips and a pair of shiny new basketball shoes.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” a voice shocked me out of my thoughts.

  I looked up into the face of the short, ape-like man ballooning out of the wingtips. He was all forehead and belly with a wide, flat nose and thinning black hair. He wore brown polyester pants and a cheap dress shirt—open at the neck—under a navy-blue TCPD vice windbreaker. It took a moment for me to realize who he was: Brad Makoff, half of the most notorious vice partnership in Testacy City. The other half, Leo Nolan, was standing right beside him. Nolan was a tall, broad, brown-haired guy in grubby jeans, red polo shirt, and the trademark TCPD vice jacket. His violent tendencies were legendary among the Testacy City underworld.

  These two had made it their personal goal to wipe Testacy City clean of drug dealers, pimps, and pushers. At least that’s what they said during press conferences. Fact of the matter is, they wanted all that action to themselves. Taking out the competition made things that much easier.

  And Spence was competition.

  “Hey, Drake!” Makoff demanded. “I asked you what you were doing here.”

  Never once did I regret upstaging Duke Wellington on the Raspberry Jack case, but every so often it was damn inconvenient to be so easily recognized by cops. It made weaving a good yarn all that much more difficult. Not impossible, though.

  Ten or so cops were huddled around Makoff, Nolan, and me. None of them said or did much. If they didn’t know my reputation, they certainly knew Makoff and Nolan’s reputation. They were a willing audience to what they probably hoped would be some good entertainment. I tried my best to ignore them.

  “Actually, Brad, you asked me what we have here,” I corrected, gently lifting Spence’s body off my knees and placing it on the pavement. “Well, I don’t know what you’ve got, but I’ve got one dead informant.”

  “An’ what were you doing, getting information from this scumbag?” Makoff poked at Spence’s motionless body with his foot.

  I stood up, brushed off my suit, and began weaving my tale. I started, like all believable fiction, with a solid groundwork of the truth: “I was working on a case.” I glanced down at Spence’s body again. A pool of blood began to ooze out onto the pavement under him. “He had some information that would’ve helped me out.”

  “Yeah? What sort of information?” Makoff asked.

  Nolan cracked his knuckles and smiled at me. It wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “I wish I knew,” I shot back. “But your boys killed my man before we got to talk.”

  “Well, that’s just too—” Makoff was interrupted by a commotion from Penny’s Lanes.

  Three officers were dragging Spence’s double-crossing customer out of the building, and they had their hands full. She was an alley-cat, kicking, fighting, biting, scratching, and spitting. It was all these three could do to keep ahold of her, let alone get her under control.

  “I did my part!” she screamed. “We had a deal!”

  Makoff looked up at Nolan. “Say, Leo, looks like there’s a little confusion as to what we promised. Take care of that, will ya?”

  “Right,” Leo nodded and strolled casually across the parking lot.

  When he reached the struggling woman, she calmed down a bit and started to say something to him. She didn’t get the chance—he smashed her in the mouth with a ham-sized fist. I saw a few teeth fly out of her head. He followed that up with a left to her temple. She went limp and crumpled to the ground. One of the uniformed cops cuffed her and hauled her off to a squad car. Nolan turned and headed back toward us, dusting off his hands like he’d just finished chopping wood.

  “Now what was I sayin’?” Makoff shoved his hands deep in his pockets and smiled. H
is smile was only slightly friendlier.

  “You were asking me about my case.”

  “Right. So how’s about it?”

  “Look, I don’t mind telling you guys anything, but do we need all these uniforms around?”

  Nolan got back over to us just in time for Makoff to say to him, “Hey, Leo, we need all these blues around like this?”

  Nolan took the hint and gestured at the assembled uniforms. “All right, guys, we’ve got it from here,” his big voice boomed with authority.

  The ten cops standing around us looked at each other, nodded, and murmured to themselves before rapidly dispersing.

  “That make you feel better?” Makoff asked, flashing his teeth.

  “Yeah, much. Thanks,” I returned. “Now what do you want to know?”

  “Who ya workin’ for?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” This client-confidentiality bit came in real handy sometimes. If it didn’t get me killed first.

  Makoff frowned. Nolan went back to cracking his knuckles.

  I shifted my strategy slightly. “Okay, let me tell you this. I’m working for a concerned party that wants to stop drugs from getting into Testacy City’s high schools.”

  “And you thought Spence was the source?”

  “Well, actually, I was looking for his source.”

  This got them interested.

  “And what did you find out?” Makoff drilled, almost drooling.

  “Before we get into that, let’s make a deal,” I said with trepidation. I hoped my deal was better than the one Spence’s stool pigeon got.

  “What ya got in mind?” Makoff squinted his eyes to slits, as if he were trying to see through my game.

  “It’s like this: I give you Spence’s supplier, and you keep me out of your reports.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  The two cops looked at each other, nodded, then turned their attention back to me.

  “Deal,” Makoff agreed. “Now tell us who you got.”

  “Okay, here it is: Spence gets—well he used to get—most of his goods from Jack Walker.”

  “Who’s that?” Nolan blurted out. “Some kinda bowler?”

  “No! What’s wrong with you, man!” Makoff barked. “Jack Walker, the ball bearing guy!” He turned toward me. “You sure about this?”

  “Not one hundred percent,” I admitted. “I was meeting with Spence tonight to confirm it.”

  “And you think he’d tell you the truth?”

  “Yeah, I do. We had a rapport going, something that took me a long time to establish, something you guys erased with a bullet.”

  “Well I’ll be . . .” Makoff said pensively. “Okay. Give us everything you got, and we’ll forget you were here.”

  It took me another hour to spell it all out for them, how Jack Walker, millionaire industrialist, was up to his eyeballs in drugs. It was hot and juicy gossip, the stuff that made vice cops all quivery inside. And it was all a big, convoluted lie. I figured it was the least I owed my old pal Jack.

  Finally, their greed satisfied, they let me go. I wasn’t all that sure they’d keep their end of the deal, but I was hoping they’d keep it long enough for me to close this case.

  I headed for the Galaxie 500, dog tired. The events of the last few days had left me drained, and I felt as if I were running on fumes. After Spence’s death and the subsequent grilling and creative truthing, my brain was all cloudy.

  I didn’t really feel like doing anything but going home and collapsing. Either that or going back to Penny’s Lanes for a couple of stiff drinks at the bar. I certainly didn’t feel like going home to play with Suzi. But she was waiting for me, and she had information I needed.

  I closed my eyes and once again resisted the urge to return to the bar. But there could be no turning back now, there could be no rest. Very soon this business was going to come down, and I was going to follow it right to the bottom.

  My hand paused a moment on the door handle of my car. I got in and concentrated: Drive home. Get Suzi. Eat. Find out what she knows. Relax and sort it all out later.

  I started the engine and pulled away from the curb. The cool night air blowing in my open window kept me awake.

  I twitched when I suddenly felt the chilly touch of a cold steel barrel against my occipital ridge.

  “Oh, come on! I can’t believe this!” I said aloud. I thought garbage like this only happened in the movies.

  “Keep driving, cretin.” With an accent like that, it could only be one person; actually, it could only be one of two persons—Butch or Schultz.

  “Ouch, you trying to hurt my feelings? Besides, I’m surprised they taught you ‘cretin’ in your ESL class.” This was one ride that was going to end with a lot of pain. If I didn’t start acting tough now, I was dead. I might be dead anyway.

  He pressed the barrel tighter against my skull.

  I continued: “So, you want me to take you anywhere special? Grandma’s house?”

  “The quarry,” he grumbled.

  “A party at the quarry? But I forgot all my ball bearings at home. Have any on you?”

  “It’s no party. Mr. Walker wants to see you in private.”

  “Say . . . this wouldn’t have anything to do with the Biggs murder, would it?”

  I was starting to have fun, but it ended when his left hand wrapped around my throat with a grip that could have ended me right there.

  Both my hands instinctively left the steering wheel and tried to break his hold. All I succeeded in doing was making the car swerve all over the place until it skidded to a stop on the shoulder. Thankfully, there was no one else on the road.

  He released his grip on me. My head snapped back as I gasped for air. He spoke directly into my ear: “No more talk. Drive.”

  I did as I was told. We hit the highway and sped out to the old quarry, about forty miles west of the city. I kept quiet the whole way.

  The night was pitch black as we neared our destination. I had no idea where I was going. Suddenly my hulking passenger told me to turn left. My headlights revealed a small dirt road immediately in front of me. I would have completely missed it had I been driving alone.

  I slammed the wheel hard to make the turn, and the Galaxie fishtailed across the dust-covered road, tires complaining. The new road was pretty straight, and up ahead I saw a single white light that could only be our destination. I felt steel prod the back of my skull. I cruised ahead. A rumble from the backseat told me to stop the car underneath the light, which turned out to be a bright floodlight hanging off an old crane. Nice and convenient.

  Even with the cone of light coming down, it was so dark that the moon and the stars cast a blue glow over the landscape.

  The lummox in the back dragged me out of the car. Before I could adjust my eyes to the darkness, I smelled the pipe smoke. Then all I remember were fists to my head and body. It wasn’t the worst beating I’d gotten in the last few days, but it still took me to my knees.

  “Enough,” Jack Walker’s voice cut through the pain. As much as I hurt, this rich, pompous bastard made me angry enough to forget my pain.

  “Bring me here to kill me, Jack? Like you killed the others?”

  “No, Drake. If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. No, I brought you here . . .” I saw his dark silhouette move out from the black toward me. “I brought you here, Drake, to give you the answers you need.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Red Herring Syndicate

  “Answers? What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, crouched on my knees beneath Walker. I didn’t like being at his feet like this, but I doubted my ability to stand.

  “It means that I’ve had my eye on you, Drake, from the moment you took this case. If you suspect me of having my hands in more things than the manufacture of ball bearings, you’re right—though don’t for a moment think that you can pin anything on me.”

  “Like the Biggs murder?”

  “Da
mn you, Drake, listen for once instead of shooting off your mouth!” He stepped closer into the light, pointing a neatly manicured finger at me. “I’m telling you that I don’t have anything to do with either of the dead bowlers!”

  “Yeah, okay. You get your goon to drag me out to the middle of nowhere to tell me you’re innocent?”

  “No. You were dragged out here so I can tell you who the killer is.”

  I wasn’t ready to buy this load of laundry. My insides felt empty, like after having dry heaves. I had nowhere to turn. I pushed: “Are you saying you have a name for me, Jack?”

  “Yes, I have a name for you, but it’s not exactly what you’re expecting.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just this: Joe Biggs’s death wasn’t the result of some petty act of vengeance. Rather, it was part of a complex plan designed to muddy the waters, so to speak. More specifically, perhaps, to confuse and confound a certain detective, namely you.”

  “You’re telling me some guy was killed to throw me off the fact that he was killed? What kind of nonsense—”

  “No, no, no, you buffoon. He was killed to throw you off the trail of something bigger than a dead bowler—and I don’t mean that literally.”

  I pushed harder: “Give me the name, Jack.”

  He lifted one of his legs and knocked out his pipe against the sole of one of his Bruno Maglis. He placed the pipe in the outer breast pocket of his suit. When he was damn well ready, he said: “You’re looking for an organization called the Red Herring Syndicate.”

  Spence Nelson’s dying words immediately echoed in my mind. “The Red Herring Syndicate?”

  “The Red Herring Syndicate, yes. It’s an underground crime organization in Testacy City. Many people are aware of their activity; a small handful have heard the name. Nobody knows anything else. This concerns me only in that this Syndicate continues to . . . interfere with some good opportunities that come my way.”

  “Uh-huh.” I felt like an old-style phone operator who’d just had all her plugs pulled from the switchboard; I could almost see the lights flashing as I scrambled to reestablish the connections. “So, how does Suzi Biggs fit into all of this?”