by J. L. Abramo
From photos on the mock fireplace mantel, to all sizes of hung photographs, to the collage covering most of the kitchen wall.
At the center of it all was the large framed portrait our maternal grandfather, Louis Falco.
My grandfather had sailed to New York City from Sicily in 1915. He celebrated his fifth birthday on the ship that he, his mother and his older brother had boarded in Liverpool. That same ship, the Lusitania, was sunk by a German U-boat on its return voyage a month later.
They had come to join his father Giuseppi who had arrived in New York in 1909 and would be seeing his son Louis for the first time. If America was the land of opportunity it was also the land of what came to be known as the Falco gender curse.
Giuseppi and his wife Angela had four more children, all girls. Their oldest son Charlie and his wife Francesca had three children, all girls. Louis and his wife Josephine had four children, all girls. Now don’t get me wrong, my grandfather had nothing against girl children. But all hopes of perpetuating the Falco name ended with the birth of my Aunt Rosalie, Bobby’s mother, in 1939. There have been many male children born into the family since then, but they all have names like O’Leary, Diamond, Senderowitz and Leone. Not a Falco to be found. It was a tough blow to my grandfather who, as most Italians do, placed great importance on the family name.
I’m just thankful that the old man had passed away before Cousin Bobby chose Sanders instead of Falco as his screen name.
I had once asked Darlene what she thought about changing the name of the business to Falco Investigation. She told me that if she ever started getting regular paychecks she might care more about what appeared in the upper left-hand corner.
Seven
Sometimes it’s all in how you ask the question.
For instance.
If you want to know what time it is, don’t ask, “Do you have the time?”
If you are remotely interested in a quick assessment of how a person is doing, don’t ask, “What d’ya know?”
And never ask, “Did you get a haircut”, unless you want to hear that they were all cut.
Come to think of it, don’t bring up haircuts at all.
When I had asked Bobo if there was a telephone at the address where he said I would find Harry Harding, Bigelow said that there was. When I asked him to write the phone number down on the paper napkin he told me that he didn’t know the phone number.
I showered and shaved, put on my last clean shirt, passed on the carrot juice, which was beginning to turn green, and pointed the Chevy toward Alvarado Street. The address was on Sixth and Alvarado, facing MacArthur Park. I pulled up in front and was almost out of the car when I heard the gunshot.
I ran up to the front door and found it locked. I used my elbow to break one of the small glass panes in the door, which by the way hurt like hell, and unlocked the door from the inside. I ran to the rear of the house and found the back door open. I peered out but there was no one in sight. Then I heard moaning and looked down to find a man on the floor gushing blood. I saw that it was a head wound and didn’t think that he would last long. I got down on the floor and hoped he would last just long enough.
“Harry Harding?” I asked.
“Harold Harding,” he gasped.
Very helpful.
“Did you kill Jimmy Pigeon?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“Do you know who shot you?” I asked.
It took all of the energy he had left to answer.
“Yes,” he said in a faint whisper. And then he died.
Sometimes it’s all in how you ask the question.
I was planning to leave the scene after calling it in but the model citizen with a Dick Tracy complex who was out front jotting down my license plate number changed my mind. I picked up the piece of paper I spotted laying at my feet. A claim ticket from a San Francisco dry cleaners. I gave it a quick peek and stuffed it into my pocket.
I settled into a chair, lit a Camel, and waited for the police to arrive.
The way my luck had been going I was not at all surprised when the first person to walk through the door was Lieutenant Boyle, LAPD Homicide.
“What d’ya know, Jake?” he asked.
“I’ve had better days, Ray. How are you?”
“No, I mean what do you know? Like for example, who’s the stiff?”
“Harold Harding.”
“What a break. We’ve been looking all over for him.”
“So I heard.”
“Seems he popped your good friend Jimmy Pigeon.”
“You think so.”
“Found his gun, prints and all, lying right at Jimmy’s feet.”
“How convenient.”
“You sound skeptical.”
“Hey, Lieutenant, what do I know?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Now me, I don’t particularly like Harding for Jimmy’s murder. I like the evidence but I would be happier with a good motive. And as much as you’d like to think that you’re a one-man crusade, I happen to be interested in who killed Pigeon. It’s my job. And you’re not making it easier. How did you find old Harry here?”
“Got a tip from Bobo Bigelow.”
“What made you think a tip from that clown was worth your time?”
“Actually I didn’t, but there was nothing good on TV.”
“That’s clever Jake. Think about this the next time you check the local listings. Maybe if you had called me, Harry wouldn’t be lying face down in his own blood.”
Boyle could be dramatic at times, but I couldn’t deny the possibility. In fact, I couldn’t say anything.
“I have to ask, Jake. Did you kill Harding?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know who did? If the answer is yes just give me a name, it’ll save us some time.”
I guess that’s why Boyle was making the big bucks.
“Don’t know.”
“What did he say before he signed off?”
I had to admit Boyle was good.
“By the time I got to him he wasn’t talking,” I said.
I was embarrassed enough as it was.
“Were you being paid by his wife to find him?” Boyle asked.
“Lucky guess?”
“I hear things,” he said, “are you staying at the Red Rooster Inn?”
Ray Boyle and I had a history, going back to my days with Jimmy Pigeon in Santa Monica. There’s an inherent dislike of private investigators that most members of the law enforcement community seem happy to share. Guys who do what I do for a living are generally regarded by guys who do what Boyle does for a living as something stuck to the bottom of their shoe. And the feeling goes both ways. Ray and I somehow managed to keep our sparring free of physical contact.
It didn’t hurt that I had put four hundred miles between us.
The first time I had run into Ray, I was on a stakeout.
I had been talking a lot about opening my own office and Jimmy suddenly took a week off. Since Jimmy was famous for never taking a break from work, I suspected that he was giving me a chance to get my feet wet. I wound up getting soaked.
I was hired by a guy who suspected that his girlfriend was unfaithful. He wanted me to find out where she was shacking up with the other man and let him know. It was not an unusual request and I felt I was up to it. I followed her all over Santa Monica the next day and she finally led me to the Red Rooster on Route 405. I watched as a man inside one of the ground level rooms let her in. I was at a pay phone outside the place, ready to call my client with the news, when I felt the gun in my ribs.
I slowly turned and saw the LAPD badge an inch from my nose. The Detective motioned for me to follow him and I eagerly obliged. In his car I explained who I was and what I was doing there.
He told me that he thought Jimmy Pigeon had better sense.
Ray Boyle went on to explain that my client was a drug dealer under investigation
and the dealer’s girlfriend was an undercover narcotics officer meeting her partner to make her weekly report after making sure that the dealer wasn’t tailing her.
And Detective Boyle told me, in no uncertain terms, that I could have gotten them both killed.
I didn’t answer the phone for the remainder of the time Jimmy was away, and I put off setting up shop on my own for another six months.
Ray never let me forget it. He always managed to squeeze the word rooster in whenever we crossed paths.
“You said you’d be happier if you could find a good motive, Ray,” I said, taking it on the chin, “come up with any ideas?”
“Oh, all of a sudden you want to play show-and-tell. I’m on this Jake. You know me. I don’t like unsolved homicides; it’s bad for the resume. Let me worry about Pigeon and Harding. At the risk of sounding less than cordial, it’s none of your business.”
I wanted to believe he was wrong about that.
“I think I’ll be going,” I said.
“Would you like to use the phone before you head out?” he asked.
“Can I call Mexico? Tell my cousin Bobby that his carrot juice went bad?”
“Thought you might want to tell your client that you located her husband.”
Not particularly.
“Maybe I’ll just let you break it to her, Ray. You’re so good at it.”
“Maybe she already knows.”
It had crossed my mind.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m not all that sure how it works. Something to do with the tongue and the vocal chords I would think.”
Okay, so I’ll never learn.
“Did Vinnie Strings come down with you?” Ray asked.
“No, I left him up in San Francisco. Why do you ask?”
“I just thought he’d be itching to help find Jimmy’s killer, being such a helpful kid and all. And thought he might be anxious to see how he did in Jimmy’s will. Keep him away Jake. Go back home and sit on him if you have to.”
Unfortunately, it looked like it was too late for that.
“You asking me to get out of Dodge, Ray?”
“Keep me informed as to where I can find you, Jake. In case I need your help,” he said.
Boyle had rubbing it in down to a science.
“Will do,” I said, just wanting to get away from there.
I gave him my best imitation of a smile and headed for my car.
I was hungry and tired. I didn’t have a client anymore as far as I could see. It’s not that I had no feelings about what happened to Harding, a bullet in the head is not a happy fate, but who killed Harry interested me most to the extent that it could tell me something about who killed Jimmy Pigeon.
As far as the notion that Ray Boyle had planted, that calling the police earlier may have saved Harry, I tried not to let it grow.
With both Jimmy and Harding out of the way, who decided if Walter Richman was going to get his greedy paws on Ex-Con.com? If Evelyn Harding wanted to sell, there was apparently nothing holding her back now. But for all I knew she could have been on Jimmy’s side of that debate. I supposed I could ask her, but I really couldn’t see why she would think it was any of my business.
I still needed to see Dick Spencer to find out who actually controlled Jimmy’s interests. That’s if Spencer had reason to think that was any of my business.
Maybe none of it was any of my fucking business.
Except that I wanted to make it my business. I wanted to find out who ended Jimmy’s life and make sure that the guilty party didn’t benefit from his death.
He would have done the same for me.
It’s not that I didn’t trust Boyle to follow all the leads, if he could do better than I had finding any. In fact, I was glad to hear that Ray was at least professionally curious.
Only I wasn’t quite ready to become a non-participant.
I decided to go back to Plan A and pay a call on Dick Spencer. What the hell, I’d taken some lumps but I could handle a little more abuse. I’m a pretty humble guy. The way things usually go with me, I’ve learned that it’s my best bet.
And I still had it in mind to drop in on Evelyn Harding, Grace or no Grace.
I also decided that I had better grab something to eat before I went out social calling. I hadn’t had much luck in that department lately so I thought I’d play it safe and pick up a pizza. I took a large sausage and black olive to go from Pete’s Original on Broadway and brought it back to my cousin Bobby’s place.
When I arrived I found Vinnie Strings waiting for me at Bobby’s door.
Eight
“What the fuck are you doing down here Vinnie?”
“Would you believe I came to help you eat that pie?”
“I’m ready to believe just about anything within reason, Vinnie. But somehow I don’t believe you have it in you.”
I shoved him through the door, ahead of me and the pizza.
Fifteen minutes later I was trying to figure out how to make a cappuccino using soy milk and Vinnie Strings was reaching for his fourth slice.
“I’m glad you finally decided to get the mustard and beer residue off your Oakland Raiders jacket,” I said.
“Huh?”
“You must have dropped this back at Alvarado Street,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the dry cleaning ticket.
“Jesus, Jake. I can explain.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“I felt bad about letting you come down here alone; I figured you were just too proud to ask for help.”
That’ll be the day.
“So?”
“So I toyed with the idea of coming down to give you a hand. I called this guy who gets cheap plane tickets.”
“Let me guess. Bobo Bigelow?”
“Yeah. So Bigelow fixes me up, even gets me a fantastic deal on a rental car at the airport.”
“That death trap out front?”
“For nine ninety-five a day I’ll take my chances. Anyway, while Bobo has my ear he starts filling it with all this business about Jimmy leaving me a bundle and how I better watch out Harry Harding doesn’t screw me out of it.”
“Did you confirm this alleged windfall with Spencer?”
“Couldn’t find the man.”
“So Bobo tells you where you can find Harding.”
“Yeah, he gives me the place on MacArthur Park.”
Good old tight-lipped Bobo Bigelow. He tips me to Harry’s hideout, promises me an exclusive, and turns right around and gives Harding up to Vinnie. The question was, who else did he tell.
“And you drop over to have a heart-to-heart with Harry.”
“Exactly. It’s amazing how you can read me Jake.”
“Like a comic book, kid. So what happened with Harding?”
“He told me not to worry. He said nothing was going to happen with the Web Company without his say-so, and mine if I had a significant piece of Jimmy’s end. He said we could work it out as soon as he cleared up the little mess he was in, being a murder suspect and all.”
“And you were satisfied?”
“He didn’t seem like a bad guy. I guess I wanted to believe him.”
“So you shook hands on it and left?”
“More or less.”
“And he was still standing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone put a bullet in him.”
“Is he dead?”
“Dead as Abe Lincoln.”
“Jesus, Jake. What do we do now?”
“If you can tear yourself away from that pizza we could hunt down Dick Spencer and find out if you’re the benefactee that your travel agent seems to think you are. Want to try a non-dairy latté?”
“Man, am I glad you picked up that dry cleaning stub.”
“Better me than Constable Boyle.”
“Boyle was there?”
“Big as life.”
“Yeah buddy, better you than Boyle,” said Vinnie. “The jacket wo
uldn’t fit him anyway.”
“Don’t ‘buddy’ me, Strings. I am very disappointed in you.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I just wanted to protect the eggs in my basket.”
“I wouldn’t count the chickens just yet. Are you ready to get out of here or what?”
“Can I get that espresso to go?”
“Need a buzz?”
“Are you kidding. I use the caffeine to come down.”
“Would you do me a favor, Vinnie?”
“Anything, Jake. Just name it.”
“Scrape that hunk of sausage off your tooth; it’s freaking me out.”
I could hear him working at it as he followed me out to the car.
When we walked into Dick Spencer’s office suite, an accurate description of the rooms in this case, his receptionist was what I could best describe as leery.
When Vinnie walked right up to her desk, gave her a broad smile, and asked her if he had any black olive on his teeth it didn’t help to ease her mind.
“Dick around?” I asked.
“Do you have an appointment, sir?” She had to choke out the last word.
“Tell him Jake Diamond is here to see him. I think he’ll squeeze us in.”
She announced my presence on the speakerphone as if discussing a rash with her dermatologist. I could hear Spencer tell her that he would be right out and would she please block the exit door to make sure that I didn’t escape.
A minute later Spencer appeared in the reception area.
“Did you bring your checkbook?” he said.
Nice way to begin.
“I dropped it on my way into the building and it bounced down Wilshire.”
“Who’s your friend with the oregano on his collar?”
“Vinnie Stradivarius. Name mean anything to you?” I asked.
“Sure does. Come on back to my inner sanctum. Vinnie here can float you a loan for your alimony debt and a couple of new ties.”
“You think he means I’m coming into some money, Jake?” asked Vinnie as we followed Spencer down the corridor.
If it were anyone else I would have figured it for rhetorical.
“Have a seat boys,” said Spencer when we arrived at his office, “I’m going to take a wild guess that you’re here to find out if Jimmy Pigeon left a last will and testament.”