by Parnell Hall
None of the other girls meant anything to me. Any of them might have been Jane, but I had no way of knowing.
I also counted thirteen johns, all different. No repeat performances. But why would there be? I guess once is enough for blackmail. I mean it’s not like you were gonna edit the shit, and wanted to get a good performance. As long as the guy’s face showed, he was dead meat.
None of the guys meant anything to me. I guess four or five of ’em could have been Parka, but I had no way of telling. Two of ’em might have been Gray Hair, but I doubted it. One looked flabby, and one looked dumb. Looking at ’em, the word distinguished didn’t really ring a bell.
I rewound the tape and took it out of the machine. I took a piece of masking tape, stuck it on the cassette, and marked it #1, so I could tell it from the other ones.
I took out another tape and was about to stick it in the machine when my beeper went off. I muttered some remark or other about Richard’s parentage, shut off my beeper, and called the office.
Wendy/Cheryl had a new case for me. Some guy on West 94th Street had fallen down in McDonald’s and broken his wrist. I told her I’d take it and hung up the phone.
I didn’t really want to take the case, but then I figured if MacAullif was really watching me, I ought to let him see that I was just acting normal. So I called up the client and told him I’d be right over.
I grabbed my briefcase, ran out, hopped a subway uptown, and signed up the client. It was a record signup, even for me. I never even took off my coat. I signed him up, snapped his picture, and was on my way out the door, before the poor son of a bitch even knew what hit him.
I took the subway back downtown, went back to the office, and cued up tape #2.
It was very like tape #1, except that this time Pamela Berringer appeared in three of the segments. For my money, she was the class act of the lot, but then I guess a detective is always prejudiced in favor of his own client.
I was halfway through tape #3 when I found it. Holy shit! I pushed the button, froze the frame.
Even naked, the gentleman in the picture looked distinguished. Every gray hair was neatly trimmed, and perfectly in place. He had a manicured look about him, a plastic look you normally associate with a soap opera star.
But the thing was, I knew him. I’d seen him before. I had no idea where, but I knew I had seen that face.
What makes this remarkable is the fact that I am no better with faces than I am with names. My wife and I will be watching television and she’ll suddenly grab my arm and say, “Do you know who that is?” And I won’t. Even though I’ll have seen him in something else, and know perfectly well who it is when she tells me the name, I won’t be able to place the guy. It’s partially because I have trouble transposing people from one setting to another. What I mean is, if I see the father of one of Tommie s classmates at school, I’ll recognize him as so-and-so’s father, but if I run into the same guy in the supermarket, I’ll be thinking to myself, “Who is this guy?”
All the same, I had seen Gray Hair before. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t someone I’d ever met. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t someone I’d seen on TV. Which didn’t leave many options. I must have seen his picture somewhere.
I ejected the tape and switched off the machine. I labeled the tape #3 and put it back in its box. I switched off the VCR and the TV. I put on my coat and went out.
I walked down to the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. I went up to the periodical room, waited in line, and asked for back copies of the New York Post. The guy at the counter wanted to know what issues. I didn’t know. I had no idea when I’d seen the picture, so one issue was as good as another. I decided to work backwards. I asked for the whole last week.
It turned out you could only get two papers at a time. And you had to fill out a form to get them. I filled out the form, wrote out a request for the last two days, handed it in, and the guy gave me the two papers. I took them over to one of the tables and began going through them.
On the one hand, it was fast because all I had to do was scan for pictures. But on the other, it was slow, because every two issues I had to fill out another damn request from and wait in line again. I’d filled out ten forms and scanned through twenty issues when I realized I wasn’t really accomplishing anything other than giving myself a headache.
I stopped and thought a bit, something I should have done to begin with.
Gray Hair wasn’t an actor or TV personality, but he was a prominent enough person to have gotten his picture in the paper often enough that I had seen it. And he was prominent enough that he couldn’t afford a scandal, and was thus a likely target for blackmail. Which meant he was either a very influential businessman, or a politician. If he was a businessman, it didn’t do me any good, because I couldn’t think of any common link that would be helpful. But if he was a politician, there was something all politicians had in common. They had to get elected.
I filled out another form, this time asking for two issues from November of last year.
Four forms and seven issues later, I found it. There he was, Congressman Charles C. Blaine, running for reelection. He looked a little different with his clothes on, but it was Gray Hair, all right.
I had just made the connection when I spotted him. I can’t give myself any credit for doing so. I guess it was just that I felt so good when I made the I.D., that I looked up in exultation, and the guy at the end of the table ducked back into his book.
If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have spotted him. His head was up and he was looking off into space, as if reflecting on something he was reading. He must have been watching me with peripheral vision, and I never would have noticed him, particularly excited as I was at having identified the congressman. But when my head jerked up, his jerked down, and I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye.
That sobered me right up. MacAullif, you son of a bitch.
I must admit I was scared shitless. I immediately bent my head back down and began scanning through the paper again. This was for two reasons: one, to give me time to think; two, so my friend wouldn’t think I’d found what I was looking for.
Thank god I hadn’t done what I’d been about to do, which was whip out my notebook and write down the name, Charles C. Blaine. Bad as I am with names, this was one I would have to remember. I said it over to myself a few times as I turned the pages of the paper.
I finished the paper, went back to the counter, filled in a form, and took out two papers from July two years back. I took ’em back to my table and poured through them.
I filed out five more slips for various months of various years. By then I figured I’d thrown up as much of a smoke screen as I could. Either it had worked or it hadn’t. I just had to hope.
The whole time, of course, I was sizing up my tail. He was young, say mid-twenties. He had sandy hair and glasses, and looked just like a college student doing research for a mid-term, but I knew he wasn’t. I dubbed him ‘Sandy,’ and started trying to figure out what to do about him.
Sandy was going to be a problem. Having gotten the hot lead on the Congressman, naturally I wanted to follow up on it. But, of course, I didn’t want MacAullif to know I was doing it. And it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to give him the lead to the Congressman. It was that I didn’t want to do anything that would confirm his suspicion that I was mixed up in this thing. My going through the newspapers wouldn’t have done it—he couldn’t be sure I wasn’t just doing research for Richard. But going to the Congressman would be something else. There was no way MacAullif was gonna believe Congressman Charles C. Blaine had engaged Richard’s services. Going there would be a dead giveaway.
So what was I gonna do about Sandy? The answer was incredibly simple, and at the same time incredibly hard: I was gonna have to ditch him.
I’ve never ditched a shadow before. I’m sure there are prescribed methods for doing it, but I didn’t know ’em. And the thing was, I not only wanted to ditch him, I
wanted to ditch him so he wouldn’t realize he’d been ditched. So MacAullif wouldn’t know I’d spotted the shadow. So MacAullif wouldn’t know I was wise. So I could go on playing the innocent, dumb, bumbling boob, which, aside from the innocent part, wasn’t too hard for me.
I didn’t know how to do it, and the more I thought about it the less I came up with. I decided to stop thinking and just do something. Set the wheels in motion and see what transpired.
So I took the last batch of papers back to the counter, didn’t sign out any more, went back to the table, and put on my coat.
Oddly enough, Sandy seemed to have finished his research too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him gathering up his books. I ignored him and headed for the door.
I walked over to Times Square and went down in the subway. I bought a token, went through the turnstile, and went down the steps to the Broadway uptown platform, as if I were on my way home.
I walked halfway down the platform, as I always do to get the right car to line up with the exit at the 103rd Street station. I stopped and leaned against a column. Damned if Sandy wasn’t taking the same train. He was standing four columns down the platform, reading a book. Always the diligent student.
The local pulled into the station. The doors opened, and the passengers poured out.
I went in the doors on the uptown end of a car. Sandy got in the same car, through the center doors.
The car was full enough that there were no seats, so there was nothing strange about me sliding back the door at the end of the car, and going through into the next car.
As I came through the door into the next car, I reached under my coat and switched on my beeper. “Beep, beep, beep,” echoed through the car. I threw up my hands in disgust, and stepped off the train onto the platform, just as the door closed.
I switched off my beeper, pulled out my notebook, and stepped up to the pay phone on a pillar on the platform. I was standing there pretending to make a call when the train pulled out of the station. I could see Sandy watching out the window in helpless frustration as he went by.
Having sent Sandy uptown on the IRT, I walked across the station, and caught the BMT downtown. It always pays to be careful.
19.
I’VE NEVER CALLED on a congressman before. Apparently, it isn’t easy. When I got there, there were about a dozen people seated in the outer office waiting to get in. From the looks on their faces, a lot of them had been waiting for some time.
I walked up to the receptionist at the desk.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to see Congressman Blaine.”
She smiled slightly. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, I don’t,” I told her.
“Then I’m afraid it won’t be possible. The Congressman sees people only by appointment.”
“My business is rather urgent.”
She smiled slightly again. “Our constituents’ business is always urgent.” She gestured to the people in the room. “These people also have urgent business. And they have appointments.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But I think the Congressman will still want to see me. Could you at least inform him that I’m here?”
She was getting a little annoyed at my persistence. I got the impression that she was one of those people who enjoy being able to say no.
“Very well,” she said icily. “Your name, sir?”
“Darryl Jackson.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Jackson,” she said.
She got up from the desk and went to the door to the inner office. She edged her way through the door, as if not wanting to give anyone a glimpse into the office beyond.
When she emerged a minute later there was a marked change in her demeanor.
“Could you tell me the nature of your business, Mr. Jackson?”
“I prefer to discuss it with the Congressman.”
“I understand. But, just generally, what is it you wish to discuss?”
“Publicity.”
She digested the information and disappeared once again behind the door.
I went over and sat down with the other constituents.
I needn’t have bothered. She was back in a minute. She stopped in the doorway with her hand on the knob.
“Mr. Jackson,” she said.
I got up and walked to the door with the eyes of everyone in the room on me. I have never felt so hated in my life. I nodded shortly to the receptionist, and went in the door.
Congressman Charles C. Blaine looked like he did in his photos, only more so. I swear the guy must have worn makeup. I mean, a fifty-year-old man can’t have a complexion like that. And you would have thought he must have had a barber hiding in the next room, shaving him every half hour. No stubble. Not even a hair.
He had a look of frosty reserve one normally associated with bankers. I wondered if this was his customary face for receiving constituents, or if he had just put it on for me.
He stood up when I came in. He was watching me closely, as if trying to figure out if he had ever seen me before. I could have told him he hadn’t. He came around his desk and shook my hand.
“Darryl Jackson?” he said.
“Congressman Blaine?”
He indicated a chair in front of his desk. “Please sit down.”
I sat. He retreated behind his desk and sat down too.
“Now, what can I do for you?” he said.
“Well, to begin with,” I said, “I should clarify something. I’m not Darryl Jackson. I’m Darryl Jackson’s representative. Darryl Jackson couldn’t be with us today, largely due to the fact that someone stuck a carving knife in his back.”
I was looking at him for a reaction, but he wasn’t giving me one. I guess you didn’t get to be a congressman by letting people know what you were thinking.
“Perhaps you heard about it,” I said. I shrugged. “Perhaps not. In any event, I bet you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, how bad is this gonna be? Well, not so bad. The publicity I want to talk to you about is the publicity you don’t want. I’m a private detective and I’m investigating the Darryl Jackson murder. I may be in the position to do you a service. If I can, I would expect to be paid.
“But we can discuss that later. Right now, I’d like to ask you a few questions. To begin with, does the name Darryl Jackson mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“That’s funny, since it got me in here to see you. But I’ll let that go. For your information, Darryl Jackson was killed the day before yesterday sometime between 12:00 and 1:00 in the afternoon. It might be wise for you to start considering what you were doing long about then.”
“I don’t see why, since I don’t know any Darryl Jackson.”
“Of course. Well, for your information, he was a pimp and a blackmailer. He lived at 307 West 127th Street. That’s where he was killed, by the way. Now, the police have a witness who saw you going into that building about that time. So if you killed him, it’s just too bad, ’cause they’re gonna get you. And if you didn’t kill him, it’s worse, ’cause they’re probably gonna get you anyway. At any rate, all I’m saying is, when you searched the apartment, I hope you were smart enough to wear gloves.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. I don’t either. I’m just talking. If I say anything that rings a bell, let me know.”
Congressman Blaine stood up. “You’ve said enough. Now get out.”
“That’s not the bell I was hoping for,” I said. I stood up too.
“I’m afraid it’s the one you rang,” he said. He gestured with his arm. “There’s the door.”
“I see it,” I said. “I hope I can quote you on this. You don’t know Darryl Jackson. You are not involved with any of Darryl Jackson’s hookers. You were not paying him blackmail. And you were not in his apartment on the afternoon in question.”
I started for the door.
His voice rang ou
t. It was an eloquent voice, a speaker’s voice. “Just a minute,” it said.
I stopped. “Yes?”
“What do you mean, ‘quote’?”
“Quote. You know, quote. As in repeat what someone said. Like if I’m talking to the newspapers and they ask me about the crime, I can say, well now, Congressman Blaine denied all knowledge of it.”
His eyes were hard. “You’re going to the newspapers?”
“Certainly not,” I said. “I told you before, I was talking about publicity. This is the type of publicity I’m talking about. It’s the type that I want to control, and the type that I’m sure you want to control. Now, as I said, I’m in a position where I may be able to do you a service. If I can, I will expect some compensation. Now, you relax, take it easy, have a good day. You’ve got twelve constituents waiting out there to see you, and I wouldn’t want to keep ’em waiting. It’s been very nice talking to you, and I promise you I will call on you again.”
I bowed and smiled my way out the door. In the waiting room I smiled at the receptionist, said, “Thank you very much. I believe the Congressman is free now,” turned, and walked out the door.
Outside, I assessed the situation. Not bad. I’d gotten a nibble. A small rise out of him. Basically, all the confirmation that I needed. And I’d only dropped a few hints. Nothing conclusive. Nothing that definitely constituted blackmail. And I’d left the door open for future conversations. I’d stirred him up a bit. Given him something to stew about. It would be interesting to hear what he said when I called on him again.
20.
“THE COPS have a witness.
“What?”
I was sitting with Pamela Berringer in a small cafe on Broadway. After leaving the Congressman, I’d called her and told her to meet me there ’cause I needed to talk with her. I figured it might be the last chance I’d get. Naturally, I didn’t want MacAullif to get a lead to her, and I couldn’t count on ditching my shadow again. So while Sandy was playing tag on the subways seemed like a good time.