The Immortal Game

by Mark Coggins

  “That’s quite the vivid image you’ve painted for my predicament. And I’ll thank you to keep your opinions about my lifestyle and personality to yourself.” Bishop paused. “But I do appreciate that you’ve invested the case with all the physical vigor and intellect you possess. I further appreciate that there is insufficient time for me to engage another detective. So, I suggest that we leave the name-calling aside and focus on solving the problem at hand. What are your next steps?”

  “Translation: you’re an idiot, but I’m stuck with you. Way to kiss and make up, Bishop. I really ought to walk from this job. I really ought. But pass that. Next steps, you said. What do you know about a Todd Nagel, construction worker and Daly City resident?”

  “Nothing. Should I know anything about him?”

  “Not particularly. He just spent yesterday afternoon trying to crawl into my back pocket. What about Jodie and Lisa? Where do they fit into this mess?”

  “Jodie and Lisa?” Bishop sounded flustered. “I wasn’t aware they had any involvement. Apart from holding the same... general position as Terri, of course.”

  “So neither is a particularly good friend of Terri-or to turn it around-is on particularly bad terms with her?”

  “Well, Jodie came to us through Terri. That is to say, I hired Jodie on Terri’s recommendation. I assume they are somewhat close. Lisa I hired as a replacement for Terri. I don’t think they even know each other.”

  “What was Jodie’s reaction when you fired Terri?”

  “She expressed regret, but I believe she understood my reasoning. There had been repeated provocations with Terri, so I don’t think it came as much of a surprise when I finally let her go. What’s the point of these questions? Are the other girls implicated in some way?”

  “No,” I lied. “I’m just trying to cover some bases I probably should have covered at the outset. But it would be disconcerting to think that all your cuties were in league against you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Riordan!”

  “Relax. You were owed a bit of needling. Now I’m headed out to have another go at finding McCulloch. Unless you have another inspirational message to impart, that is.”

  Bishop didn’t rise to the bait. We said strained good-byes and hung up.

  Gretchen came in a minute later and told me that the word from The Power Station was that Mistress Tamara was not on call. That meant I was making a not-so-sentimental journey back to East Palo Alto. But before I left the office I opened the only locked drawer in my desk and pulled out a nine-millimeter Glock automatic in a shoulder holster and strapped it on. I was tired of showing up at gunfights armed only with a winsome smile and a hardy handshake.

  BLOCKED PAWN

  NOT MUCH HAD CHANGED ON WOODLAND AVENUE since my last visit. The apartment windows still needed washing, the Chevy Impala was still on jack stands, and the liquor store up the street was still happy to take my money. I bought a stale roast beef sandwich, coffee, and a pint of bourbon and pulled the Galaxie into a choice spot across from the building.

  There was no reason why Terri McCulloch shouldn’t be home, except that the way my luck was running I couldn’t imagine myself walking up to the door, ringing the bell and having her buzz me in. I went through the motions anyway-with the expected result. I went back to the car and sat, sipping the too-strong coffee and chewing the leathery sandwich.

  A female postal carrier came up and used a key to let down the front panel on the apartment mailboxes. She shoved mail into the individual boxes in a desultory fashion until she came to a large envelope that wouldn’t fit. She tried rolling, folding, and wedging it, and finally yanked it out of the box in disgust and dropped it on the front door step. She slammed the front panel shut, and wheeled her little satchel carrier past my car, muttering under her breath.

  I said, “I guess that deal about rain, sleet, and dark of night goes right down the tubes when you get a big envelope.”

  “Bite me,” she said, and kept on going.

  I tuned the radio to a jazz station for a while, but eventually killed it when they started to play too much fusion and I got worried about running the battery down. I smoked a cigarette and swigged some bourbon. An old guy with two miniature schnauzers straining at the leash went by. He called them “Duchess” and “Duke” and gave them biscuits from his pocket. Tenants drove up in beat-up cars and sat idling while the automatic gate creaked open to let them into the parking area. They parked, walked back up the ramp, and activated the gate behind them before checking their mail and going into the building.

  Several hours passed and it grew dark. Then it began to rain- hard. Water seeped in through a window on the driver’s side that I could never get to roll all the way up. The bourbon gave out shortly thereafter and I was forced to bury the bottle at sea in the puddle of water that had formed at my feet.

  By 11:30 I was ready to pack it in. No one who vaguely resembled Terri McCulloch had entered or left the building, and no lights were visible in the back window of the apartment I figured to be hers. I had my hand to the starter key when the headlights from a dark-colored BMW raked the windshield of my car. I ducked instinctively, then watched as the BMW angled into the parking spot directly in front of me. The driver killed the motor, fumbled around inside for a moment, stepped out into the road. It was Roland Teller.

  Teller paused to turn up the collar on his raincoat and then slogged across the street to the entrance of the apartment building. Instead of buzzing to be let in, he surprised me by producing a key that unlocked the door quite handily. I tracked him through the glass panels of the lobby as he climbed the stairs. He disappeared down the second floor hallway, and a short time later a light came on in the back window I had been watching.

  I played a little game of water polo with the whiskey bottle before deciding to go over and see what Teller was up to. After grabbing my set of burglary tools from the glove box, I pushed open the car door and sprinted across the roadway to the eaves of the covered parking area. I slithered over the gate and landed with a splash. A sheet of rainwater was advancing across the concrete floor, turning the mounds of oil-soaked cat litter under many of the autos into grimy little islands. I walked along the carport to the back of the building and went up the fire escape stairs to the second floor platform.

  If I was hoping the damage from the other day had gone unrepaired, I was in for a disappointment. Not only had the doorknob been replaced, but a cheap-looking dead bolt had been installed above it. The pry bar would buy me exactly nothing, so I knelt in front of the door and began gouging away at the keyhole with a pair of lock picks. For a professional working in a dry, well-lighted setting, the miserable dead bolt would have taken about two minutes to open. For me-working by the light of a bare 30-watt bulb in a driving rainstorm-it took fifteen. By the time I lurched through the door, my suit jacket was plastered to my back and my knees were permanently tattooed with the sharp diamond pattern from the rusted metal flooring.

  I rambled down the dimly lit hall, dripping water, caroming off walls. I reached Terri McCulloch’s apartment and stood in front of it. Pausing to slip the 9mm automatic from its shoulder holster, I twisted the knob and nudged the door open slowly.

  Roland Teller stood in the middle of the apartment facing the wall unit, his back towards me. In one hand he held a bottle of beer, in the other a framed photograph. I said:

  “Simon says act surprised and foam at the mouth.”

  Teller probably didn’t jump three feet. The photograph flew from his hand, cracking as it hit the floor. Beer from the bottle splashed him in the face. He stood tensely for a moment, then slowly craned his neck around to look at me. “Damn you, Riordan,” he said sharply. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Good job on the surprise, but I know you can foam better. A more important question is what are you doing here? Did you come back to renegotiate your deal with Terri McCulloch?”

  Teller turned full around and pulled out a handkerchief to w
ipe his face. “You’ve got yourself figured for a real smart monkey, don’t you Riordan? You’ve always got some wise-ass comment to make, or clever little stunt to pull. Well, you’ve just reached the limit with me, bucko. This one’s going down on account for repayment.”

  I was wet, frustrated, and more than a little drunk. It struck me later that Teller and I had more to gain by putting our heads together than duking it out-but that was later, much later. I shoved my automatic back into the holster. “If you’re looking for trouble,” I said, “I’m ready to introduce you.”

  Teller glanced behind me and smiled maliciously. “Meet some yourself.”

  There was a quick movement at the edge of my vision that I tried to dodge: no sale. Somebody landed a blow on the back of my head like a mine shaft collapsing. My knees buckled under me then and I tumbled down into the darkness of the mine, Teller’s harsh laughter echoing as I fell.

  TELLER LEAVES THE BOARD

  “ARE YOU DEAD, OR WHAT?”

  I pried open my eyes and squinted up in the direction of the querulous voice. I was lying on my back in the middle of Terri McCulloch’s living room, the obese landlady from downstairs standing to one side, prodding my temple with her foot. She was wearing a loud green bathrobe that made me think somebody’s shower curtain was missing. A wave of nausea rolled over me.

  “Get lost, Broomhilda,” I growled, “you’re making me sick.”

  “You’ve done plenty on your own to make yourself sick, I imagine.” She kicked a little harder at my temple. “I was leaving anyway. I’ve got to go down and open the front door for the cops.”

  I watched her trundle out of the room and then rolled over on my side and levered myself up on all fours. My head throbbed like an oriental gong, and my stomach did the dipsy-doodle as I turned. I felt like a passed kidney stone. With a supreme application of willpower, I sat back on my haunches and surveyed the room from an upright position.

  If I wasn’t completely sure why she had done so before, I now gained a full insight into the landlady’s decision to call the police. Roland Teller’s dead body lay smeared across the carpet not three feet away.

  One arm was wrapped across his chest, the other, bent at the elbow, lay above his head. His legs were tangled in the cloth of his raincoat-a garment he hadn’t been wearing when I surprised him. His face was a death mask done in white paraffin, the dull, half-open eyes like slits torn in a pillowcase. The obvious cause of death was a pair of neat bullet holes that pierced his thick, muscled neck just above the collar. The carotid artery had been cut, spilling rivers of blood onto his shirt and suit as he died.

  Dark red blood. Not the shiny pink stuff Hollywood stunt men make from food dye and corn syrup, but the real stuff that flows out of wounds and clots and gets black and ugly and turns your stomach to look at. That kind of blood.

  I didn’t have the time or inclination to make a thorough search of his clothing, but I forced myself to pat down the pockets of his raincoat and suit jacket. I found a cellular phone, car keys, a roll of mints, a pocket comb, and oddly, a sealed business envelope with what looked like a ticket or coupon inside. I didn’t know whether it was a ducat to this Sunday’s Forty-Niners game or twenty-five cents off my next package of dental floss, but I folded the envelope over and shoved it into my hip pocket.

  Two uniformed bruisers on patrol car duty were the first to arrive. They swept into the apartment with revolvers drawn, arms extended, and knees slightly bent, barking “Freeze, police” at the top of their lungs. I was waiting for them in the middle of the room with my hands already laced behind my head.

  “This is as cold as I get,” I said cheerfully.

  They showed me how much they liked that by shoving my face into the wall and putting a gun to my ear. The younger one patted me down, finding my 9mm in its holster and the set of lock picks I had used on the back door. Fortunately, he overlooked the envelope I’d taken off Teller. After cuffing my hands behind my back, they frog-marched me over to the dinette set and pushed me into a chair.

  I gave them the Reader’s Digest condensed version of the story, keeping Bishop’s name and the exact reason for my visit out of it. Now that I was safely under wraps, the patrol cops listened and spoke with polite reserve, but their faces said they believed the things I told them about as much as they believed I was the King of Prussia. I had been through the story only one and a half times when two detectives walked in with the landlady in tow.

  The one named Holtzman was short, red-faced, and chunky. He had wispy blond hair and looked more like a donut cook than a police detective. Stockwell, his partner, was better typecast. He had a tall wiry frame, gray-flecked brown hair, and a face set in stone. His chin in particular looked hard enough to split logs. After speaking for a time with the patrol cops, Holtzman pulled the landlady into the kitchen for questioning and Stockwell came over to give me the benefit of his sunny disposition.

  Stockwell wasn’t a big fan of Reader’s Digest, and evidently wanted something more along the lines of War and Peace. “Look Riordan,” he said flatly, “I don’t have time for hand-holding cheapie private investigators who are squeamish about giving out their client’s name. Unless you supply the name of the person you’re working for and the real reason you came up here, I’ll be more than happy to let you take the fall on this one. We cops are kinda old-fashioned in our ways. We find two guys in an apartment-one dead and the other carrying a gun under his arm-we just assume that the guy with the gun might’ve had something to do with the other guy being dead. It’s crazy, but that’s how it works.”

  “Come on detective, you know my gun hasn’t been fired. Besides, those holes in Teller’s neck weren’t made with a cannon like mine. That’s the kind of damage you get with a .22.”

  “So you brought a pea shooter in your sock and tossed it out the window just after you plugged him.”

  “Then there is the little matter of my being found unconscious by the landlady.”

  “Easy enough to fake for a clever Joe like you. And one thing you aren’t gonna talk your way around is the lock picks we nabbed you with. That’s breaking and entering and unlawful possession of burglary tools. I can have your license pulled for less than that.”

  I was beginning to see this was an argument I couldn’t win. “Okay, I give,” I said. “But do me the courtesy of keeping my client’s name out of the papers. This is already enough to put me in real tight. I don’t need to have him reading about himself tomorrow morning at breakfast.”

  Stockwell shrugged. “I’ll see what we can do, but no promises. Now spill it.”

  I told him how Bishop had hired me to recover his software and how Terri McCulloch and Teller were involved, and about the conversation I had with Teller in his office. I explained that I hadn’t been able to locate McCulloch, and that a lot of her friends were doing their best to make sure I never did. I left out a few details here and there, such as the fact I had broken into Terri McCulloch’s apartment on my first visit and found a .22 caliber revolver and that I had a piece of potential evidence sitting in my back pocket. Stockwell was particularly interested in my conversation with Teller. He had me go over it several times and asked me repeatedly if I was sure that Teller had identified Terri McCulloch as the individual he’d bought the chess game from. I assured him that Teller had picked McCulloch, but emphasized that he had apparently thought he was dealing with Bishop’s legitimate agent.

  When I’d finished telling the story for the third time, Stockwell rocked backed in his chair to think. Then: “You got any ideas on this?”

  “None that you haven’t thought of. If Teller was duped into buying the chess game from Terri McCulloch, then it figures he would go to see her about getting his money back once I tipped him to the play. He was probably waiting for her when I walked into the apartment. She arrived a minute later and bopped me over the head. Teller and she argued over the money, then Teller got too rough for her to handle. She shot him down and left me holding the bag.”r />
  “Yeah, the deck’s stacked pretty heavy against her right now. I also like her for using the .22 caliber. That’s a woman’s gun.”

  It might even be this woman’s gun, I thought. Sometimes I didn’t know when to keep my own mouth shut. I said, “There’s still a couple of things that don’t quite figure though.”

  “I’ll bite,” said Stockwell.

  “Well, first of all, how did Teller get a hold of the key to Terri McCulloch’s apartment?”

  Stockwell dropped the front legs of his chair to the floor abruptly. He leaned his forearms on the table. “That’s easy, Riordan. They were playing house together. She gave him a copy of the key a long time ago. You said yourself that the landlady was complaining about all the visitors she had.”

  “Okay, point to you. His being hooked up with Terri McCulloch would also explain why he seemed so at home in the apartment-guzzling beer from the fridge and all. But the other thing isn’t so easy to get around. I don’t see her hitting me on the head from behind. One, she didn’t have any real motive for it, and two, that’s about the last thing in the world I would expect a woman to do in that kind of situation.”

  Stockwell chuckled. “You don’t like the idea of it being a woman that knocked you out, that’s all. Besides, she had a great reason for sapping you. She knew you were onto her game, so she wanted to make sure you weren’t around to question her or stop her from pumping two quick ones into her boyfriend.”

  Holtzman had come back from the kitchen and was trying to get Stockwell’s attention, so I decided to give it a rest. Stockwell got up to compare notes with Holtzman, and then the two detectives herded me and the landlady out of the apartment, down to a pair of waiting patrol cars. Several newspapermen converged on us as we came out of the building, but the detectives weren’t talking for publication. A flash from one of the press cameras went off in my face just as I was being shoved-hands still cuffed behind my back-into the lead car.