“You gotta be kidding me!” I exclaimed, but neither Art, nor Dave, were listening.
Dave scrambled off, slipping on the wet rooftop, for the shotgun that lay a few yards away. He retrieved it, cocked it, and advanced for a better angle, but not before our man gathered his length of rope to suit him, and leapt from the roof. I just made it to the edge in time to see him swing over toward the next building. The height he lost with the distance swung put him along the side of the other building, stories above the ground. He carried his momentum by running along the brick outside. That took him better than halfway across the broad structure, where he grabbed the rail of a fire escape, hopped onto it, and popped his rope to dislodge his grapple. As it swung down, he hurriedly gathered the rope, caught the metal end as it swung to him, and was gone.
“Hurry, John!” Dave shouted at the back of me.
I snapped to it, and took a step, and then stopped.
“You know what?” I nearly shouted. “If we catch that guy, he’s gonna kill us, Dave.”
Dave had found his .32, and tried feverishly to clear the sticky netting from its works.
“We can catch him if we hurry,” Dave said, turning for the stairs, still working on his weapon.
I took a few steps forward, and found my knee was as good as done for the night. I shouted to Dave, to hold.
“Dammit, Dave, he might have used that rope and hook to swing down to the street. He’ll be three blocks away by the time we get to the sidewalk.” He stopped, but kept working on the pistol. I assumed he was listening, and went on.
“I’m not so sure he couldn’t have killed us both with his bare hands right here, whenever he wanted to.”
He gave up on the gun. His shoulders dropped and he looked up into the stormy sky.
“How, then, do you suggest we catch him?” he demanded.
I hobbled over to my .38 and collected it, stuck it in my pocket, still sticky, and passed Dave on the way to the stairs to get out of the rain. I called back behind me.
“Think of something. I’m calling it a night.”
Dave didn’t like it, and after a ginger but brisk walk back to the sedan, we road in silence until he dropped me off at my apartment, and went on his way.
I pulled myself up the banister to my place, and set to licking my wounds. The knee was the worst of it, so I applied some ice and elevated it with a pillow, and laid out on the bed, fully dressed and a little damp, and tried to find somewhere to put my arms that didn’t land on a sore spot. My shins ached from trying to kick and getting blocked, and on a more painful trip to the bathroom than I’d expected, I noticed some discoloration around my right eye that threatened to turn full shiner. I hadn’t even remembered being dealt the blow during the combat.
After a while spent taking inventory of my bumps and bruises as I worked my clothes off, the sleepless night before began to catch up with me. The bed felt pretty good, and as my body relaxed, I started to think about the thing.
I know you all come to me to watch us figure out who the bad guy is, but that was as good as solved. Art, the son of the outcast Mable, was on a revenge tour against Don Barbingola, whom he held responsible for his dear mother’s mistreatment. Simple enough for motive, but the means were looking like something else.
Where had Art learned to fight like that? Another thought came to me. He had killed the men at the Padrona Mercato Motel silently, with knives or possibly wires, yet we hadn’t been presented with any blades. I turned over at the uncomfortable idea that what he had done to Dave and I was spare us. The shotgun was either because he thought we had something for him, or he had just intended to hold us with it.
My shoulder felt funny, so I tossed over to the other side. If we run the revenge angle out to its completion, I thought, then it must end with Barbingola dead, somehow. Presumably, Art hadn’t had a good opportunity to do the deed. Perhaps he deemed Barbingola’s building too difficult a fortification even for him. The place was sure to lock down extra tight once we gave our report on things.
Just as my eyelids began to get heavy, a final thought occurred to me. What would Dave cook up to capture such a man? My eyes popped opened, and I swung my feet out onto the floor, removed the ice from my knee, and started redressing to go. I had to get to Dave’s place, and stop him before he did something that would make us just as much the bad guys as Barbingola.
I let out a groan as I put my arm through my overcoat sleeve, and since I was vocal anyway, said to myself,
“I will not be a party to using an old woman as bait for her boy,” and went back out, and down to the street.
13
By the time I’d walked the couple miles of cold middle of the night sidewalk to Dave’s apartment, my knee had loosened up and felt much better. The rest of me was dog tired however, so I decided no matter how it might go with Dave, I’d be sleeping on his couch. Hell, I’d take the hallway floor.
The all night front desk man in Dave’s building was nowhere to be seen as I made my way through the lobby. I pulled the door beside the elevator, and climbed the few flights of stairs to Dave’s floor.
“That racket’s been going on for an hour,” I heard someone complain, as I stepped into the corridor.
The doorman was there, standing in front of Dave’s apartment door, and beside him was the complainer, dressed for bed. I approached as the attendant delivered a series of forceful knocks on the door. With the knocks done, I could make out the racket that had roused the neighbor.
Thuds, like dropping sandbags, could be easily heard, and with each one, an accompanying grunt. I pulled the front desk man to me by his collar, and spoke quickly.
“You’ve got to open this door. We’ve been after a dangerous man, and he could be beating Dave to death in there right now.”
The man’s eyes went wide, and he turned loose of me, and began to rifle through a ring of keys on his belt. In a moment he had one in the door and turned the knob. I took his hand from it, and brushed him out of the way. I patted my pocket for my pistol, but then remembered I hadn’t cleaned it yet.
“You got a gun?” I whispered to my hallway partners.
They both shook their heads that they didn’t, but since they didn’t run off, I figured, surely three of us could handle Art. I turned the knob and opened the door.
Dave was there alright, and in no danger. His apartment is a much more complete floor plan than mine, with separate bedroom, kitchen, and sitting area. It was in the sitting area, just as you enter, that Dave often sets up shop for whatever queer thing he can come up with. Tonight, he’d rearranged his furniture, been down to the alleyway for a garbage can, and started his own private dojo.
“Will you keep it down, DeGrabber?” shouted Dave’s neighbor. “We’re trying to sleep.”
Dave had stopped beating the makeshift practice dummy as soon as we came in, but held a combative stance. Now he relaxed it, and glared at the three of us.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh.
The neighbor huffed, and went, and the building employee shook his head and left down the hall, closing the apartment door behind him.
I made my way over to Dave’s little implement.
“Got it weighed down pretty good, huh?” I observed, taking a brick off the top of the trash can full of them. He had some pillows tied to the sides as well, for the can’s protection. I dropped the brick back in, and sat myself down in a desk chair by his old roll top in the corner.
He delivered a short sweeping kick to the side of the trash can’s knee, saving the grunt this time, then folded his arms in front of him, and asked,
“What brings you, John?”
I scratched my head, found it tender and stopped, then said,
“I got to thinking that I told you to come up with something to catch our mob killer, and I figured if I thought of it, then you probably had too. Now that I’m here, maybe I should just keep it to myself and let you go ahead and earn your black belt, like you’re doing.”
&
nbsp; “So, you have visited me for no reason at all?” he said, obviously still sore about my not running blindly into the night after the killer.
I ignored it, and continued.
“I figured you’d want to get your hands on old lady Mable, and hold her till her boy showed up, at which time he, and probably both of them, would be killed or captured. I came tonight to put my foot down against it.”
“It is a sound strategy,” he commented.
“Sure it is. And so is the police’s idea of letting the killer go free, as long as he’s killing mob guys, but it’s not right. You said it yourself. That old woman’s been through enough, so I say we leave her out of it.”
“I agree.”
“It’s bad enough we’re working for Barbingola in the first place. What?” I had to check that I’d heard him correctly.
He grinned ever so slightly at my surprise, and assured me.
“John, do you think me so unscrupulous as to hold a geriatric hostage against her own child?”
I shrugged and let my tired head roll around on my shoulders.
“Dave, I often can’t make heads or tails out of your scruples. I figure you’re not just exercising for its own sake. Have you thought of anything?”
As it turned out, Dave had thought of quite a few things. I would recount them for you, if I could, but as he began to outline the territories of various Chicago criminal outfits, I sat back, and finding the old spindle backed chair to be quite comfortable, fell asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, a noise disturbed me, and since I was somewhat conscious, relocated to the couch across the way, where I probably sawed logs well into the midday. I awoke to the sound of a phone ringing. After about four ear splitting chimes, I figured Dave must have been out, so got myself upright and went to get it.
“DeGrabber residence, John Trait speaking.”
“Damn,” Dave’s voice said from the other end. A strange way to begin a phone call.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
I heard him make a kind of annoyed sound, and he said,
“Since you’re still there, they’ll likely collect you. I would have liked for you to deliver-“
“Hold on, Dave,” I stopped him. “Someone’s at your door.”
“This is the Police. Open up.”
I bobbed my head in understanding, and put the phone back to my ear and told Dave my ride had arrived.
“Very well,” he said sullenly, and hung up.
Another hard knock on the door. I moved, saying,
“Alright! Keep your shirt on.”
I plopped on the couch and started getting my shoes on. I couldn’t remember removing them in the night, but I must had. Before I got the left one laced, Dave’s front door came open, and there in it was the same night clerk as before with keys in hand, and a Chicago Police officer that I recognized as one of Tucker’s men.
I pulled the loops on my shoe lace, showed them my hands, and said,
“I told you, I’m coming.”
The officer spoke.
“John Trait. You’re wanted downtown.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“You can be.”
I puffed some air out, appreciating his frankness. I smiled, and said,
“Well, I guess I’m riding with you, pal.”
He moved to let me go ahead of him, leaving the building attendant to lock up after us.
A car ride through Friday traffic, that even the black and white couldn’t hurry, brought me again to Michigan Avenue, and the CPD headquarters. They led me inside, and sat me on a chair in a high traffic area, near a desk clerk checking things and people in. I could have spent the next two hours asleep at Dave’s for all I accomplished. The bright spot was the sandwich I had for lunch, brought to me by young Officer Stevens who took notice of my purgatory.
Just when I was beginning to think I was a ball dropped from the hands of justice, a procession consisting of Dave, Detective Scott, and Tucker, approached.
“Stand up,” Tucker commanded.
I didn’t care for that, so I kept my seat and looked to Ben and Dave.
“Come on, John,” Ben said, much more affably. “We’ve got to talk.”
I tilted my head, and moved to stand, and just about fell over. My knee was as stiff as I could imagine it could get, but I played it off that it didn’t bother me, so as not to give Tucker the satisfaction.
Ben led the way around to the interrogation rooms, this time picking the friendliest one that they use for people that don’t know they’re about to go down big. It was roomy, with padded chairs, and a nice conference table. Dave and I were set up on the far side from the door, with Ben and Tucker on the other. If a triangle set up had been available, Ben might have opted for that. The two colleagues looked more at odds with one another, in a passive sort of way, than Dave and I to the Police this time.
It was time to get started, and Ben looked over to Tucker, maybe to see if he wanted to lead off, but Tucker just glowered at us with his chin jutting out. Ben shook his head, ever so slightly, turned back to us, and began.
“Sorry that you had to sit so long, John. We had a hard time rounding DeGrabber, here, up.”
I had no comment, so he went on.
“Last night, a call came in of gunshots on a rooftop by the river. We answered, naturally, and retrieved a weapon from the scene that had not been fired, and a .32 caliber casing.”
Dave sat with his arms folded and his head down. A look that would indicate he paid no attention, if you didn’t know him. I just held my face blank, waiting for an appropriate time to say something like, “No kidding,” but it wasn’t quite the spot. Ben continued.
“The report was written, and looked like there woudn’t be anything to it, until we began canvassing the area.”
Tucker piped up.
“That’s when we busted up the brothel.”
“You don’t say?” I said.
“I do,” Tucker raised his voice, and menaced, “Took em’ all in too. Another set of girls in the same week, and here we are talking to the two of you again.”
Dave spoke calmly, simply stating,
“As you surely know, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Trait and I were not fruits of this latest ensnarement. I fail to see our connection in it.”
Tucker slammed his hand on the table, and stood, shoving his chair back. Ben rolled his eyes, shifted his mustache over his lip, cleared his throat for attention, and spoke.
“The connection, DeGrabber, came this morning.” Ben took a page from a folder before him, turned it on the table, and slid it to Dave. He leaned forward and looked over the handwritten sheet while Ben explained further.
“Along with the girls, and a few johns, we brought in an older woman. This note demands her immediate release under threat of violence against the force. We figure it’s Edward’s killer, to be so bold, and since you say we’re after the same man, we thought you might have a line on him.”
Dave got to the bottom of the page, slid it to me to read, crossed his arms again, and said rhetorically,
“You did release the woman, yes?”
If you don’t think that set Tucker off into orbit, then shame on you for skipping over our previous meeting with him.
“This is the end of you, DeGrabber!” he shouted, leaning clear over the table. “If the D.A. doesn’t get you for aiding a fugitive, then, I swear, I’ve got a dozen cases to make you for.”
“Will you shut up, Tucker?”
That was Ben. Dave and I looked at him in open shock. Tucker straightened, stamped a circle around from the table, to the door, and back, apparently trying to work out if Ben’s treachery was worth leaving over, then spun his chair around and retook it, deciding to stay for further abuse. Ben watched the whole procession from the corner of his eye, and once Tucker was still and quiet, went on to Dave.
“DeGrabber, you know we can’t just let suspects go. We certainly can’t cow to threats. Every mother whose son robbed
a store would send us letters tomorrow, if we did.”
Dave was looking inattentive, staring down at the edge of the table. Ben cut his eyes to me after a moment, and Tucker worked his jaw further forward. I started to open my trap to kill time, when Dave offered,
“I’m not sure you have much option, Detective.” He considered a second, and added, “This man’s capabilities are exceptional. If you plan to hold the woman here, per protocol, then he will surely retrieve her, likely at the cost of some of your subordinates.”
Tucker exploded again.
“DeGrabber, that is bull-“
“Shut up, Tucker!” Ben shouted, stifling the diatribe. Back to Dave. “You’re going to have to, at least, let us know what we’re up against. I suppose this guy’s got access to numbers?”
Dave shook his head at the law men pityingly, and said,
“I suppose I must explain,” and he did so.
Ben and Tucker listened, with only a few outbursts from Tucker, as Dave emptied the bag on everything we knew, so far, about Art, Mable, and their connections to Barbingola. He hedged some, here and there, in the unlikely case of the masked killer being some person unknown and unconnected to the other parties, but it was just Dave’s way of being thorough. At the end of the story, Dave closed it with a final word on how the only course of action was to give Art his mother back, for now, and let him work on a way to capture him. He seemed pleased with himself, but the moment was fleeting.
“Well, we still can’t just let her walk,” Ben plainly stated.
Dave tilted his head up, just enough that they could see his narrowed eyes beneath his shaggy bangs, and mumbled,
“Then is there anything further that you need us for?”
Ben tipped a hand lazily, and said,
“I guess not.”
I was out of my chair in a flash, and making my way to the door. Tucker grabbed the back of his chair, and squeezed till his knuckles turned white, but two shut ups had seemed to be enough for him. I stood by the door and waited for one of our hosts, so as not to temp Tucker to arrest me for trying to escape.
After a moment, Ben stood, and so did Dave, and we were let out to be free, once again.
Work at Odds Page 10