by Parnell Hall
Fine by me. I slammed out of his rented, two-story frame house, being careful not to break my leg on the perfectly sound-looking porch steps that had somehow incapacitated him, got in my car and drove off.
And immediately got beeped again. This time it was the steady tone that meant Alice was beeping me.
And I hate that. I mean, it’s nice to have so that Alice can get ahold of me in an emergency. But I hate it when she does. I hate it when the beeper goes off with that steady tone. Because I always think of it as an emergency, and I always think the worst. I tense right up. God, what happened now?
I spotted a pay phone on the corner and I slammed the car into the curb, praying the phone would work. That was the worst of it—sometimes Alice would beep me, and I wouldn’t be able to find a phone right away, and when I did it wouldn’t work, and I’d go out of my mind.
This one worked. I called her and punched in our calling-card number.
She answered on the first ring.
“What is it?” I said.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. Alice is great that way. She knows I worry, so she always says that first.
“Then why’d you beep me?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. Sam Gravston called.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, but he’s all upset. He asked me to beep you and have you call him. He left a number.”
This was a little much. “Why?” I said. “Why you? Why didn’t he just have the office beep me?”
“He said he was sorry, but he didn’t want them to know about it.”
“Jesus Christ. Why the hell not?”
“Hey,” Alice said. “Don’t shoot the messenger. Why don’t you ask him?”
“What’s the number?”
She gave it to me. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think it was Sam’s home number.
I called it. He answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Sam?”
“Stanley. Thank god.”
“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“Listen. I got a big problem. My agent just beeped me. I got another callback for the sitcom. It’s down to two people, me and one other guy.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It looks like I really might get it.”
I have a slow reaction time, but that was long enough. I was getting really pissed off.
“Sam,” I said, rather sharply. “Why the hell did you have Alice beep me?”
“Oh. Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. I hate to ask you. It’s just, I’m desperate. I mean, I might get this job, but then I might not, and—Oh. I’m sorry. There I go again. It’s just I really need the money, and—”
“Sam.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It’s my uncle. You know, I told you I had a signup with my uncle. My IB case. Well, it’s this morning. Between eleven and twelve o’clock. And I can’t go. I got the damn audition.”
“So reschedule it.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t. You don’t know my uncle. He’s a really cold bastard, you know. It was all I could do to talk him into this, you know. If I change it, he’ll cancel. I’ll lose the bonus. I hate to ask, but I really need the money, and—Oh hell.”
“I see,” I said, rather coldly. “You want me to sign up the case for you, and give you the bonus.”
“I know, I know. It sounds bad. But I’m desperate. You’d get time and mileage, of course. Just another signup. I wouldn’t even ask, but—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re desperate,” I said. “What’s the address?”
He gave it to me. His relief was almost comical, his gratitude overwhelming. It was all I could do to get him off the phone.
I hung up in a foul mood. It was the type of favor that, in a perfect world, you wouldn’t be asked to do. You know how it is. There are some favors that people ask you for that, on the one hand, you can’t really refuse, but on the other, you really resent doing.
This was one of them. Jesus. Do a draggy signup to make Sam Gravston a hundred and fifty dollars. So that he can go to another audition to boot. All right, so I would get time and mileage, just like any other signup, but still ...
I had just opened my car door when suddenly I stopped dead.
Wait a minute! This was an IB case. You didn’t get time and mileage for an IB case! You did it on your own and got the bonus only if Richard took the case. Son of a bitch!
I was stomping back to the pay phone to call the office to tell them to beep Sam Gravston to tell him where he could stick his damn signup when I remembered. He’d had his uncle call in and schedule an appointment. So it was a regular signup in the eyes of the office, and time and mileage would be paid.
I resented that. Having come to the conclusion that I was getting dorked, and that therefore I had a perfect right to refuse the case, I was infuriated to realize that I wasn’t getting dorked, and therefore I had to do it. I stomped back to the car, got in, slammed the door and pulled out.
As I got on the Major Deegan and headed back to Manhattan I began to calm down somewhat. All right, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sam’s uncle lived in Manhattan, and if I’d started from there the case would have been no mileage, and two hours, tops. But I was in Mt. Vernon. That meant I could charge mileage and travel time from there, and pick up a quick three hours on the clock. And I needed hours on the clock. I was in a much better mood by the time I hit Manhattan.
And immediately got pissed off again. Sam Gravston’s uncle lived in a townhouse on East 36th Street. Try parking on East 36th Street sometime. You can’t do it. If you do, you’d better have $115 plus taxi fare over to Pier 40, where your car is going to be towed. If that doesn’t sound like fun, you’d better have $15 for a garage.
I didn’t. I had seven bucks on me. I drove around the East Side, cursing and bitching, and trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do, and the end result was I finally got a parking meter on Second Avenue and 28th Street.
It was an hour meter, twenty-five cents per thirty minutes. Which meant I’d have to feed two quarters into it, hotfoot it up to 36th Street, sign up Sam Gravston’s uncle quick like a bunny and then race back to 28th Street ahead of the meter maid, so that the parking ticket didn’t eat up all the profits of the signup. It could be done, but it was an iffy proposition. Particularly, with what Sam Gravston had said about his uncle—if he really was a cold, humorless son of a bitch, he would be apt to ask a lot of questions, take a lot of convincing and not take kindly to being rushed.
All that was floating through my head as I hurried up Second Avenue. That and how I felt about it, and how I felt about Sam Gravston, and the whole bit. And the way I felt was really hassled, and really put-upon, and really pissed off.
And it was all of those personal feelings that clouded my mind and blinded me to the obvious. Because, I must admit, it never even occurred to me. But, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, when I got there, Sam Gravston’s uncle had been strangled.
34.
“THIS IS INTOLERABLE.”
Richard was right. Intolerable was the word for it. I agreed, and I’m pretty sure Sergeant Clark and Detective Walker agreed, too.
The four of us were in Richard’s office, conducting what was rapidly becoming a ritual postmortem. Discussing how it was that I, Stanley Hastings, had happened to find another body.
It was getting ludicrous. It crossed my mind that if Sam hadn’t gotten the audition, if he’d been the one to go on the signup, his uncle wouldn’t have been murdered—that it only happened when I went out on a case.
I realized this was just paranoia. I also realized I had a lot to be paranoid about. After all, I’d just found my fourth dead body in two weeks.
As I’ve said, I’d blundered into the place without a thought in my mind other than that I had to beat the parking meter. Sam Gravston’s uncle owned the whole building, so there’d been no apartment to find. I’d gone up the front steps, banged on the
door, got no answer, cursed out Sam, tried the knob, found it open, gone in and found the body.
Marvin Gravston was lying in the living room on the first floor. He was a big man, as big as Sam, and apparently he hadn’t taken kindly to being strangled, and had put up a bit of a struggle. A coffee table and an end table had been overturned, and various vases, ashtrays and other ornamental objects had been smashed.
I’d managed, once again, not to throw up. I’d staggered, white-faced, to the front door, opened it and waved my arms, and just as I’d imagined it would happen, suddenly the place was lousy with cops. Walker and Clark had shown up ten minutes later, immediately followed by the medical examiner.
I hadn’t heard his report. After he’d arrived, I’d been stashed outside in a police car, probably, I figured, because this most recent development had once again elevated me to the position of prime suspect.
Ten minutes later, Clark and Walker had come out of the townhouse, and an officer had chauffeured us down to Rosenberg and Stone.
Where Richard pronounced the situation intolerable. And, just in case there were any doubt as to whether or not he meant it, he said it again.
“Intolerable.”
Sergeant Clark nodded. “Yes, sir. It is.”
Richard turned on him coldly. “I don’t think you understand what I mean. I am referring to your handling of the case.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Yes, of course,” Richard said. “It is intolerable that people are being killed. That goes without saying. But what I am saying is the reason people are being killed is because you botched the case. And that is intolerable.”
“I botched the case,” Clark said. “Just how did I botch the case?”
“You and your damn theories,” Richard said. “The killer is a client I wronged. The killer is a black man from Harlem. The victims will be black men from Harlem.”
“I never said that.”
“You implied it. And the thing is, your theory’s full of shit. And if you weren’t too blind to see it, this murder could have been prevented.”
“How?”
“How? How? This case has been on the books for three weeks now, for Christ’s sake.”
“Yes,” Clark hissed. “And no one told me!”
“What?”
Clark was a cold, unemotional man, who probably prided himself on his even temper, but I could tell he was suppressing rage. “No one told me,” he repeated. “I’ve been on this case since last week. I’ve been monitoring every new case that comes in. When we took over, we checked the assignment log. You know how the log is set up. It’s one page per day. When we took over, the log had two pending assignments for that day, and one for the following day, and nothing after that. How the hell were we supposed to know that if we kept turning page after blank page, eventually in the middle of next week we would find one lone assignment that had been made three weeks previously? A case that wouldn’t have normally been made so far in advance, but was only done so because the client happened to be a relative of one of your investigators. Now how the hell was I supposed to have counted on that?”
Clark paused, took in a breath and blew it out again. I assumed it was his method of remaining calm.
“Listen,” Clark said. “I have a preliminary report from the medical examiner. According to him, Marvin Gravston died sometime between seven and nine this morning.”
“What?” I said.
Clark turned to me. “Surprise you?” he said. “Or are you just trying to convince me you’re not guilty?” He turned back to Richard. “Yes. Between seven and nine. Do you know what that means? I mean in terms of my intolerable investigation. Well, let me tell you. No new cases came in yesterday for today. Everything that came in yesterday was handled yesterday. Do you know what that means? That means the goddamned assignment log was never turned to today’s page until your secretaries got in this morning. They turned the page, and there was this assignment that came in three weeks ago, and my cops saw it for the first time at nine-oh-five this morning. Do you realize how galling that is? Nine-oh-five!”
Sergeant Clark stopped and rubbed his head. “We sewed up the house, of course, and I can guarantee you no one went in or out of there from nine-eighteen until your man here went in at eleven-sixteen this morning. But a fat lot of good that does us, since the guy was already dead.”
“I see,” Richard said. He was in no way mollified. “Everything you’ve told me just makes a case for your own inefficiency. You should have known about the case.”
“You should have told us about the case,” Clark snapped.
“Me?” Richard said. “Me? I’m a lawyer, not a bookkeeper. Not a secretary. Do you think I answer my own phones? Do you think I do the paperwork? The first I knew of the case was when you told me the guy was dead.”
“Right,” Clark said. “And then you have the gall to tell me I should have done something because, ‘The case has been on the books for three weeks, for Christ’s sake.’”
Sergeant Clark’s imitation of Richard was so good I almost smiled.
My next thought was to wonder if Sergeant Clark could also do jive black.
I shook my head. What a thought. God, this case was getting to me.
Richard was ready with some terrible rejoinder, but Sergeant Clark held up his hand. “Stop. Enough. Bickering is not going to help. The question is, what do we do now?”
“Oh yeah,” Richard said. “Well, I have the answer to what we do now. We reexamine our ideas, that’s what we do. We take this theory that the killer is some black client in Harlem that I’ve wronged, and we chuck it in the river. And we take your other theory, that the clients aren’t necessarily clients—that someone is just killing injured people and phoning in appointments for them—and we chuck that in the river too. This was a bonafied client. A signup. On the books for three weeks. So that theory doesn’t hold.”
“That’s going a little far,” Clark said. “I’ll admit we have to rethink certain aspects—”
“Rethink certain aspects!” Richard said. “Come on. Give me a break.”
The argument was interrupted by a knock on the door. Sergeant Clark, preempting Richard’s authority, barked, “Come in.” The door was opened by two plainclothes cops, who ushered Sam Gravston into the office.
Sam was distraught, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was because his uncle had been killed, or because he had been unceremoniously yanked out of a crucial audition under circumstances that at best were embarrassing and at worst had probably cost him the part. I immediately regretted the thought, because Sam’s eyes darted about the room, fixed on me, and the first words out of his mouth were, “I’m sorry. Jesus, Stanley, I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” I said.
Sergeant Clark dismissed the plainclothes cops with a nod of his head. They went out, closing the door behind them. He turned to Sam Gravston.
“Sit down, Mr. Gravston,” he said, indicating one of the clients’ chairs. “I’m sorry to put you through this, but you understand we have to ask you some questions.”
Sam sunk into the chair. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Of course,” he said. “Of course.”
“Now, as I understand it, you were the one who was supposed to meet your uncle this morning?”
“That’s right. Then my agent called me about the audition. It was important.” His lip trembled. “Very important. Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
“I understand,” Clark said. “And I’m sorry we had to drag you away from it. But I’m sure the people there will understand.”
“Yeah, sure,” Sam said flatly.
“After all, this is your uncle we’re talking about.”
“I know. I know.”
I reaffirmed my first thought. Sam was obviously more upset about his audition than his uncle.
This struck Clark too. “Were you and your uncle close?”
Sam snuffled. Shook his head. “No. Not really.”
“Oh? I understand he
was your only living relative.”
“Yes. That’s true. But we weren’t close. You can’t know, you never met him. But he was a hard man to like. To get close to. And—well, he never liked me much either.”
“I see. But you had an appointment with him.”
“Yes. He broke his leg. I convinced him he could make some money out of it. That was the only language he could understand—money. He could make some money out of it, and I could make some money out of it. And he’d rather have me earn money than have to give it to me.”
“He gave you money?”
“He was my guardian. He felt some sense of responsibility to my father, his brother. Not much, but enough that sometimes I could play on his sense of guilt for a touch. On, Jesus, what a way to think of it now.”
“Yes,” Clark said, gently prodding. “But you had this appointment?”
“Yes.”
“And it was made when?”
“About three weeks ago. I’m not sure exactly.”
“I’d like the exact day.”
For the first time, Sam seemed to come out of himself.
“Why?”
Sergeant Clark smiled his thin smile. “Because, you see, we don’t know what’s important and what’s not. So we want all the facts we can get, however small.”
Sam nodded, even though it was an explanation that didn’t explain. “I see. Well, I don’t know. I have to think. Let’s see. I remember, I’d called his office, because”—he broke off, flushed—”because the rent was due, and they told me he wasn’t in, he’d broken his leg and gone to the hospital.”
“What hospital?”
“Bellevue.”
“Go on. So what did you do?”
Sam flushed again. “Well, I was working in the area, so—”
“You called on him at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“And tried to sign him to a retainer?”
“No.”
“No? Why not? Wasn’t that why you went to see him.”
“Well, yes. But, I told you, my uncle’s funny. I didn’t dare walk in there with a clipboard. He’d have been offended, and—Oh, hell.”