by Ralph Dennis
“I’ve got to find a way to reach Ben Pride,” he said.
“Shit.” I could feel it tearing apart. “If we knew that we could walk right over and …” I stopped when I saw the got-you grin on Bill’s face. “Go on, Bill.”
“Ben Pride’s in a hole now. He’s waiting to see if the Tiflon scam gets tied to him. It does and he stays in his hole. It doesn’t and he can walk out free and easy. But a man like Ben’s got to have places where he can be reached and still be in his hole. So, he’s got post boxes. It might be a bar in Trenton, a hotel in New York, a pawnshop in Denver. You leave a message there, he calls and gets it and calls you. And it wouldn’t do any good to lean on the man takes the messages. He won’t know where Ben is. All he knows is that Ben calls every day or two.”
“You know that much you got any ideas how we locate this post box?”
“Somebody with good racket connections could find it for us.” Bill pushed back his chair. He carried his cup to the sink and rinsed it and placed it on the counter. Knowing we were watching him he walked to the refrigerator and swung the door open. He bent down and stared into it. About half the shelves were filled with throwaway bottles of Bud. There wasn’t much else. Part of a carton of eggs, some bacon. Some wads of tinfoil that held lord knows what.
Still holding the refrigerator door open, Bill said, “This is the lousiest collection of nothing I ever saw in my life. You put some cash on me and I’ll do some shopping.”
No reason to walk around it. “How do you feel, Bill?”
“Better than you two think I do.”
That made sense. I left them in the kitchen and went to the bedroom closet. I got down the shoe box and counted out two hundred and fifty. Hump was in the doorway when I turned around. I handed him the cash on the way by. “Find him an apartment and see about the phone. Take him by Cloudt’s. Anything he wants.”
“When does he move into the apartment?”
“When he needs to. Not before. It might be a few days.”
“There’s a place empty across the hall from me. Easy to watch. A girl lived there got busted for selling drugs.”
“Not there. Somebody might remember that’s where you live.”
He saw the sense to that. I stood around the living room until they left. Then I went into the bedroom and dialed Art’s home number. He answered it so fast I knew he was already in bed.
“You sacking in?”
“For five hours or so,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ve got to con you into something.”
“That won’t be easy. I’ve heard all your cons.”
“That’s why I’m going to let you sleep now. I need the time to come up with a new one. And I want you in a good mood.”
“Three this afternoon at your place,” Art said. “And it better be a new one.”
“I might shine up one of the old ones.”
“It won’t pass.”
He hung up on me. My next call was the number Frank Temple had given me. The same man with the stuffed-up sound took my message. I wondered when he slept but I didn’t ask.
Temple called back five minutes later. I told him that the trip to Tiflon had paid off with a name. That fox in the chicken house had three or four names and now we were trying to play a game with him. To do that we needed somebody with a hand in the rackets who’d be able to find where this man received his messages.
“A drop box?”
“I guess you could call it that. You know anybody who can work from that end?”
“One or two,” he said.
“I’ll need this in a day.” I went into the kitchen and got the slip of paper. I read him all the aka’s Ben Pride had.
“I’ll try,” he said.
“You find you can’t, let me know. I’ll have to try some other way.”
Temple said he would. “If you’re getting close, I’ll fly down.”
“Not yet.” I didn’t want him in the way. “I’ll tell you when.”
“This week’s running out.”
I said I knew that and he was quiet for a few seconds, waiting to see if I had anything to add. When I didn’t, he said he’d get back to me and broke the connection.
The refrigerator didn’t seem to belong to me anymore. Bill filled it with soft drinks and steaks and cheese and a couple of kinds of juice. He had to take out two six-packs of beer to make room for it all.
They had looked at two apartments. One was too shabby and the other wasn’t shabby enough. After lunch I sent them off to continue the search. I didn’t want them around when I had my talk with Art Maloney.
By three-ten I’d finished my pitch to him.
Art sucked on a beer and finished it about the time I ran out of words. “What’s in it for me?”
I knew he didn’t mean money. Some other cop and I might have read it that way. But Art was a hell of a lot more honest than the bottom row of cops I’d known while I was on the force. “The guy who killed Joe Bottoms.”
“You sure?”
“Good chance,” I said.
“That all?”
“One more possibility,” I said. “Tied up with the same ribbon we might have the man who ran the check scam in Tiflon.”
“That’s a big package,” he said. I passed him the list of aka’s and he copied them into his notebook. “Houston, you say?”
“It’s what I heard.”
“There might not be a picture.”
“If not, we’ve got a problem.”
“You skated around it,” Art said. “You didn’t say why you need the photo.”
“Caught me,” I said. “The truth is I don’t know. It’s some con Bill Heffner’s running. He hasn’t even told me what he wants with it. Hell, for all I know he hasn’t decided yet.”
“Bill Heffner? I heard he was on the street.”
“He’s coming back. He’s Hump’s project for the year.”
Art stood up and closed his notebook. “I always liked that slick son of a bitch.”
“He probably loves you too,” I said. That was my con for the day.
The house was on Charles Allen Drive, one of a series of wooden frame houses, relics out of some past or other. It was the area that had been taken over by the street people, the hippies, after they got pushed out of the Tenth Street haven. Now they’d moved on and the section of town was changing back. There was even a neighborhood association that was campaigning for clean streets and neat lawns and new paint jobs on the houses.
The apartment that Bill had rented was on the first floor of a house that had been renovated back in the spring or summer. It had been painted white with a dark green trim. There was the gleam of new gutters and a downspout. But nothing had been done about the high ceilings. It would be hell on the heating bill.
It was apartment 1, the first apartment on the right as you entered the downstairs hallway. The living room was the size of a postage stamp. The tired old sofa had a shine to it that meant the cloth was one strain away from letting the springs through. Straight ahead there was a kitchen and dining room combination about half the size of the living room. Off to the right was the bedroom. The bed just about filled it and the mattress was covered with a zip-on plastic sheet that crackled when you touched it. The one window had a rolled-up paper shade and no curtain. The bathroom looked like an outhouse that had been moved indoors.
I agreed it was shabby enough. A down-at-the-heels scam man might live there while he planned the score that would free him of it. It had incentive built into it.
On the way out I stopped on the porch and looked in both directions. I wanted to know the street well. If it got under way, when it got under way, somebody would be spending a lot of time in a parked car out there. I could only hope the bad weather held off as it was supposed to.
The fourth day. I ticked them off on my fingers. One day looking for Bill. The second day in Tiflon. The third day going after the pieces of the puzzle and finding the apartment. The fourth morning I wanted to sleep in. I
might have if Art hadn’t called.
“I’m going off shift and I’ve got something for you.”
I said I’d put on the coffee water.
Art let himself in about twenty minutes later. When he reached the kitchen doorway he said, “If this gets back to me I swear that I will …”
He stopped and had his long look at Bill. Whatever he’d heard about Bill being on the street hadn’t prepared him for what he saw. Bill had shaved and showered and he was still using the Brut as though he thought smelling good was important.
“Art, how are you?”
Bill turned from the stove where he was cooking himself a big breakfast. He looked healthy and clear-eyed and if there was a shake left in his hand it didn’t show.
“You sure this is Bill Heffner?”
“You can call me William. I’m a new man.” He scooped eggs and bacon into a plate and sat down.
I gave Art a cup of coffee. He pulled the cup nearer to him and dropped a 6 1/2 by 9 1/2 brown envelope next to the sugar dish. “That’s your plunder, Jim, and it better not reach back to me.”
I opened the clasp and drew the picture out. “Get your promises out of Bill. He’s the only one knows what’s going on.”
It wasn’t a mug shot. It was more like a candid. It had probably been taken through a two-way mirror in the interrogation room. It was either a tight bust shot or it had been trimmed to that. It matched the descriptions we’d gotten in Tiflon except for one detail. Ben Pride had been wearing his hair black in those days. I passed the photo to Bill.
“So that’s how he looks?” Bill braced the photo against the sugar dish and stared at it. “Look at that baby honest face. Tell me you wouldn’t buy a bridge from him.”
“Maybe a used washing machine,” I said.
“It’s a good size,” Bill said. “I won’t have to have it blown up. That’s one less step in the process.”
“Make me feel good,” Art said. “Tell me how you’re going to use it.”
“I’m going to make myself a Wanted poster.”
“So, keep it to yourself,” Art said.
“No, I really mean it.” Bill replaced the picture in the envelope and started on his eggs. “And there won’t be any sweat about it getting back to you. After I use it, I’m going to put it in my scrapbook.”
“You keep a scrapbook?” I didn’t know when to believe him.
“I’m starting one,” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was shaving when the phone rang. I gave my face a last two or three sweeps with the blade, wet the end of a towel, and caught the phone on the eighth ring. I could hear Art and Bill laughing it up in the kitchen. I hadn’t known those good old days had been that funny.
It was Frank Temple. “You know what day it is?”
“I’m counting just like you are.” I used the wet end of the towel to wipe away the lather. “And that’s all the more reason I need a location on that drop box.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I had some people asking around and it wasn’t easy information to get. Jackpot is a bar called Donovan’s on Sixth Avenue in New York.” He read me off a street number and a zip. “It turns out the bar is owned by a retired con man used to work some with Ben Pride.”
“That makes the package,” I said. “I’ll get back to you.”
“I’m coming down.”
“Look, I’m not even sure this con will work. Save yourself the trip. It might be gloomy down here.”
“You mean you’ve wasted four days on …?”
“I hired the best I could. Like you do, right? Well, I’ve got to give him his run at it.”
“My man, Tip, could be helpful,” Temple said.
“It’s not that kind of deal. I don’t need any bones made or any arms broken.”
“I’m flying down today.”
I stood and turned. I threw the towel through the bathroom doorway. It hit the front edge of the basin and bounced back. I’d thrown it that hard. “It’s your air fare and if you come down I want you to have a good vacation. Take in Stone Mountain and Six Flags but I don’t want you two mixing in this. You could queer it.”
“People don’t talk to me that way.”
“It’s one or the other. You stay out or I’m out.”
I waited out the silence at the other end of the line. If I hadn’t had my ear close to the receiver, I might have thought he’d hung up on me. “If that’s the way it has to be,” he said finally, “then I’ll stay out of it.”
“That means Tip too.”
“All right.”
“And I’ll need some more cash. It’s spending fast.”
“I’ll bring some.”
I waited. He didn’t have any more to say. I told him to call me when he’d checked into a hotel. I’d drop by and see him then. After that, I wouldn’t expect to see him until it was done.
I dropped the slip of paper with Donovan’s Bar and the address on top of the brown envelope. Bill, who’d been washing dishes, dried his hands on a paper towel. He nudged the envelope until the paper slip was at an angle where he could read it. “If this is what I think it is we’re in business.”
“That’s the last piece,” I said.
Art leaned in and read over Bill’s shoulder. “Of course, you’re not going to tell me this either. I don’t expect it, but what the hell is Donovan’s Bar?”
“The place to drink in New York,” I said.
“It’s where I send the Wanted poster,” Bill said.
“Shit, I need some sleep,” Art said. “This ain’t making sense to me.”
I walked to the front door with him. “I owe you one.”
“And I’ll collect.”
“I expect it.” And I did.
Bill wanted the kitchen to himself. I wandered through now and then to make a cup of coffee. He seemed to be doing some kind of layout. He had paper and pens and a ruler. I didn’t lean over his shoulder. I left him to it. I sat in the living room and read the Constitution page by page.
After an hour, Bill came in with a folder. He placed the folder on top of the TV set. “It’s done except for one part. I need the phone number of the apartment on Charles Allen.”
“Oh, shit.” I’d let that slip and it might be where the whole plan fell apart. Southern Bell wasn’t exactly speedy about putting in new phones. Sometimes it took a week or ten days.
“Hump’s working on it,” Bill said.
“How?”
“He said he knew a black beauty at the phone company.”
He did. I remembered her from a time before. There’d been a lot of her to be beautiful. I think I’d said she looked like a busted bale of hay.
Around noon Hump called and read off the new number to Bill. He added that to his folder and knotted his tie and put on his suit jacket. “I’ll need your car for a couple of hours and about seventy-five dollars.”
I tossed him the keys and counted the seventy-five into his hand. After he drove away, I sat there and thought, yes, he is a con man. A good one. He’s not exactly cured and there he is floating about in this big city with my car and a chunk of my cash.
Dumbass me. Perhaps.
That six bits would buy a lot of wine.
It looked like a parody of a Wanted poster from one of those Saturday afternoon flicks you saw as a kid. And I’d seen a lot of them. My memories went all the way back to Buck Jones and right up to Lash LaRue.
It was a good job. He’d paid high money to get the type set at one of the shops on Spring Street and he’d taken the camera-ready copy to a good print shop. The photo of Ben Pride was centered on it. Across the top the type was almost an inch high:
WANTED
FOR THE $640,000 SCAM
IN TIFLON, GA
And below the photo, in smaller type:
Ben Pride
aka Fred Maple
aka Charles Benson
aka William Priest
aka Edward Carson
aka Edmund Frost.
Contact Bill Heffner, area code 404-872-6141.
He’d only had a few copies made. I returned the poster I’d been reading to him. “You mailing this?”
“It’s already mailed,” Bill said. “To Ben Pride, care of Donovan’s Bar.”
“That ought to shake them.”
He nodded. “It’ll be in New York tomorrow. I sent it special delivery and every damned thing else I could think of.”
“When do you expect … ?”
“It might be a day or two. It’s according to Ben Pride’s schedule, when he takes his messages. I’ll move into the apartment tonight. I don’t want to miss the call when it comes.”
“You seem sure.”
“He’ll call.”
In the late afternoon I ran him by a Kroger’s where he did some basic shopping. I helped him get settled in. I was at home watching the network news when Frank Temple called to say that he’d arrived in town.
“It won’t work.”
This time Temple had checked in at Stouffer’s Inn on West Peachtree. I met him at 590 West, the bar and restaurant on top of the building. While we waited for drinks, he passed me an envelope. The cash was in hundreds and I guessed, without counting it, that it was at least two thousand. And then, after we’d had first sips of our drinks, he’d wanted to know what the operation was.
I told him as much as I wanted him to know.
Tip sat at the table with us this time. He sat there like a brooding cloud, a harsh presence. He hadn’t said a word yet and that got on my nerves.
“It might.”
“I don’t like mights.”
I slugged back the rest of my J&B and water and pushed the glass toward the center of the table. I choked a word or two down and looked at the lights and the low skyline outside our side of the building. When I could talk it came out straight and level. “I don’t work this way. You find him yourself.”
“Even if we find this Ben Pride, how do you know he’s got that group of checks?”
“I think Eric Pender is with him. I think Pride used him in the scam. Pender ran the machines so he’ll know where the checks are.”
He didn’t have an argument against that. He shifted ground. “We do this together.”