Practice to Deceive

by David Housewright

  “What?” I asked breathlessly, the Beretta in my hand. She just pointed. All four tires were flat, an ice pick still imbedded in one of them.

  I BOUGHT FOUR steel-belted radials from the Goodyear shop down the highway. Saturn put Cynthia’s car on a hoist, mounting and balancing the tires. The dealer was very apologetic, claimed that nothing like that had ever happened on his lot before. He didn’t charge me for the work.

  Cynthia waited in a small room with a television and about ten thousand magazines, none of them current. She was surprisingly calm. At least that’s the way she played it. She said only one word.

  “Why?”

  I replied in three words.

  “I don’t know.”

  I PUT CYNTHIA in her car and sent her to her office. I watched her leave the lot, catch Highway 61, and drive south toward downtown St. Paul. No one followed. Then I left, also heading south, driving to St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center for some work on the CIBEX machine to strengthen my quads. It hurt like hell—I refused to take pain pills since the mysterious visit from the pizza man. I figured it would be healthier to keep my head clear.

  After I finished, I drove to the newspaper and had them pull the ad offering my house for sale. The woman behind the counter apologized profusely. She claimed such a thing had happened only once before. Seems a couple of weeks ago someone had run a bogus ad selling a house near Mississippi Boulevard. She hoped it wasn’t the beginning of a trend. And no, she couldn’t identify the person who had placed either of the ads.

  I went home. I had planned to go to my office, go back to work. But my leg was throbbing, and quite honestly I was exhausted; I felt like a wet rag. I went to bed early.

  IT WAS TWO-FORTY A.M. when the phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not getting away with it,” someone told me. The voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a long sewer pipe.

  “Excuse me?”

  “This is just the beginning.”

  “Whom are you calling?”

  “I’m calling you, asshole. And I’ll be calling again.”

  With that the caller hung up, leaving a buzzing sound in my ear. I fumbled around in the dark for a few moments, trying to return the receiver to the cradle, then heaved myself out of bed and hobbled downstairs. My caller ID unit was attached to my kitchen telephone. The display read: PAY PHONE, only this time it listed a number, one with a 644 prefix.

  I jotted down the number and returned to bed.

  FOURTEEN

  I WAS AWAKENED at 6:20 by the sound of sirens. I recognized them immediately. Fire trucks. I listened as they tore along Cleveland Avenue, expecting to hear the sirens fade as they passed my house. But they did not pass. I rolled out of bed and hopped on my good leg to the window. The Roseville Fire Department was parked in my front yard, looking for smoke. When they didn’t find any, they charged me two hundred and fifty dollars for a false alarm.

  THE BUILDING MANAGEMENT had piled all my mail into a brown box and set it inside my office door. Attached to the box was a note telling me to inform them the next time I went on vacation. I set the box in the middle of my desk, next to Sara’s cell phone. I took it up, punched out her number. Steve answered.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” he told me. “Did you get my card and flowers?”

  I told him that I did, thank you. He wanted to know who shot me, asked if it had had anything to do with Field, and wondered what happens next. My answers weren’t particularly illuminating.

  “Can you do me another favor?” I asked him. “I’ll pay for this one.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to work your magic with the telephone company; get me the exact location of a pay phone.” I gave him the number.

  He told me he’d call me back. And he did, about ten minutes later.

  “It’s on the corner of Marshall and Cretin in St. Paul,” he said. The address placed the phone in the Midway district about a half mile from the Fields’ residence.

  “What’s going on?” Steve wanted to know.

  “Payback is what’s going on,” I told him.

  THE PRESIDENT OF the Dakota County First National Bank was astonishingly cooperative. He could have told me to go to hell, probably should have. Instead he told me everything I wanted to know. I guessed he wanted to make sure that no one blamed him or his bank for Field’s death.

  “I handled the transaction myself,” the president told me.

  “You knew Field was coming?”

  “No. I was here because I like to work Saturday mornings; fewer distractions, I can get a lot done. He walked in a little after nine A.M.—we’re open from nine till one Saturdays—and told the cashier what he wanted. The cashier came to me.”

  “A man can just withdraw two hundred eighty-seven thousand dollars in cash?”

  “Why not?” the president asked. “It’s his money.”

  “Did you ask him why he wanted it?”

  “Yes, I did. I told him no legal business transaction required cash.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it was personal.”

  “Didn’t you try to talk him out of withdrawing the money?”

  “Of course we did. We tried to get him to take a cashier’s check. He wanted cash.”

  “Do you usually have that much on hand?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a bank.”

  “And you gave it to him?”

  “He was an important client; this isn’t the biggest bank in the world, you know. If he says he wants cash, we try to talk him out of it. If he insists, we ask him how he wants it. He wanted twenties.”

  “That’s what? Ten thousand …”

  “Fourteen thousand three hundred and fifty twenty-dollar bills,” the banker rattled off the top of his head.”

  “You have that many on hand?”

  “No. He had to take sixty-three thousand in fifties.”

  “How many packets?”

  “Fifty-seven of five-thousand dollars each and one more worth two thousand.”

  “Where did he put it?”

  “In a black briefcase.”

  “Just like the movies,” I suggested.

  “If he didn’t have his own briefcase, I would have given him mine. That kind of money, what? You expect him to carry it in a grocery bag?”

  “After you gave him the money, what then?”

  “Then I made him sign a Currency Transaction Form for the IRS, Form 4789. That’s mandatory anytime you’re dealing in amounts over ten thousand.”

  “OK.”

  “Afterward, a guard and I escorted him to his car.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he call anyone?”

  “Not while he was here.”

  “After he got to his car, did he lock the briefcase in his trunk?”

  “No. He set it on the seat next to him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I waved good-bye.”

  “When was that?”

  “At exactly ten-oh-five A.M.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I insisted that the guard note Field’s departure in his book.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I just had a bad feeling about the whole deal.”

  THE BANK PRESIDENT did not wave to me when I left. Just as well. I activated my stopwatch and maneuvered the Colt out of the bank’s parking lot and into traffic. I caught Highway 110, followed it to 35E, went south to Shepard Road, and followed that to Mississippi Boulevard and the street where Field lived. Twenty-two minutes.

  I drove back to the bank, this time taking Cretin Avenue to Randolph, then east to 35E. Eighteen minutes. And the lights were against me.

  Finally, I went the long way, taking 35E to I-94, 1-94 west to the Cretin-Vandalia exit, Cretin south about a mile, two rights and a left to Field’s driveway. Twenty-six minutes.

  I made a few notations in my notebook: Field leaves bank at 1
0:05. Arrives home at 10:50 (according to police). Trip takes maximum twenty-six minutes, minimum eighteen. Nineteen to twenty-seven minutes unaccounted for.

  “YES? CAN I help you?”

  “My name is Holland Taylor,” I told the man through the screen on his front door, flashing my ID. “I’m investigating the Levering Field murder.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “I was told that an officer might come by to ask follow-up questions.”

  He opened the screen door, and I went inside the house. It was one of three where a man working in his front yard could wave at Field as he moved from his driveway to his door. I had guessed right the first time.

  “May I offer you a cup of coffee, Officer?”

  “No, thank you, sir,” I answered. Obviously, he was under the impression that I was a cop, and I thought it would be bad manners to correct him.

  “Well, then, how can I help?”

  I consulted my notebook. “You indicated that you saw Mr. Field arrive in his car—”

  “Yes.”

  “And walk into his house—”

  “Yes.”

  “At approximately—”

  “At exactly ten-fifty A.M.,” he said confidently. “Like I said, there was a program I wanted to see at eleven, and I was keeping track of the time.”

  “The program was …?”

  “The X-Men. Yes, I know it’s a cartoon. But I’ve been a fan since I was a kid reading Marvel comics. I still read them. Course, they’re more expensive now, but I can afford it,” he added, waving a hand at his opulent home. “My wife thinks I’m nuts.”

  “I was into Spiderman myself,” I confessed.

  “Yeah?”

  “And The Avengers.”

  He nodded his appreciation.

  “One more question, sir,” I said.

  “Hmm?”

  “When you saw Mr. Field move from his car to the house …”

  “Yes?”

  “Was he carrying a briefcase?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “He was empty handed.”

  UNDER ORDERS FROM the assistant county attorney, Anne Scalasi wasn’t supposed to speak with me, and I didn’t want to push her luck. So I contacted Martin McGaney. McGaney had been promoted to the Homicide unit from Narcotics, as I had. It was about the only thing we had in common, but it was enough.

  “Taylor, what are you doing?” he wanted to know.

  “Levering Field put the money in a briefcase and put the briefcase on the passenger seat in his car when he left the bank,” I reminded him over the telephone. “You did talk to the banker, right?”

  “Are you looking for an obstruction charge, ’cuz the ACA—”

  “Field did not have the briefcase when he entered his house.”

  “Who says?”

  “The neighbor who saw him. The question is—”

  “Are you sure?” McGaney asked.

  “The neighbor’s sure,” I answered. “The question is, did he leave the briefcase in his car?”

  McGaney didn’t answer.

  “Martin?”

  “Why would he leave two hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars in his car?” he asked tentatively.

  “Jesus Christ, didn’t anyone bother to look?”

  “We never checked his car,” McGaney admitted.

  “Where is it now?”

  “His wife must have it.”

  “I see,” I said trying hard to make the words sound like, “Sloppy!”

  After a moment I added, “Tell me. While I was in jail expanding my circle of friends, did anyone bother to ask Mrs. Field where she was Saturday morning, say around eleven o’clock?”

  “She claims she was shopping with her daughter.”

  TOMMY SANDS WAS a big believer in the maxim “No pain, no gain.” And since I wasn’t grinding my teeth in agony as I worked out on the CIBEX machine, he decided to increase the resistance. I ended up breaking my promise and downed a couple of pain killers. They didn’t seem to help much. Yet, although I felt like something the dog dragged in and the cat dragged out, Tommy was pleased. I was making greater progress in my therapy than he had hoped.

  “Tomorrow we’ll move on to the adductors,” he said, smiling like it was the most fun we could have.

  I USED TO believe only wimps drive an automatic clutch. After I pulled into my garage and shut down the Dodge, I wondered how I’d managed so long without one.

  I was hurting. My leg was throbbing, and so was my head. Not to mention my confidence. Zilar was out there. Somewhere. Waiting. Watching. Looking for an opportunity to strike. He wouldn’t get one while I was driving. I was careful about that—driving defensively, guarding against tails. My house was a different matter. It was a static target. Vulnerable. And so was I when I was in it.

  I dragged myself out of my car, shifting my weight from my right leg to my crutches. I stood at the gaping door, hiding in the shadow, looking out. I didn’t see any plastic pop bottles anywhere. I hit the automatic garage door button, then ducked down and moved forward quickly before the door could shut on my head.

  The back door to my house was inside a three-season porch made mostly of glass; three concrete steps lead to a metal and glass door. I hobbled to it slowly, putting some weight on my left leg but not much. I climbed the steps and opened the door. Inside, on a rubber mat embossed with the word WELCOME, I found a cat. It was dead, its white fur stained with blood, its body torn and ripped, its eyes open.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, stooping, holding the doorframe to keep from falling, and stroked the dead animal behind the ears. Its body was still warm.

  I backed away, lost my balance, and fell off the steps, landing on my right knee and tearing a hole in my jeans.

  “Shit, shit, motherfuck, shit …!” The obscenities flowed loud and fast as I fought to keep down the contents of my stomach. After a few minutes, I pulled myself to my feet, leaning heavily on the crutches. I looked back at the porch but did not go inside, wondering who the cat had belonged to. “Bastards!” I spat at whoever had mutilated it.

  The huge lilac bushes that separate my neighbor’s property from mine rustled noisily. I turned toward the sound and saw a body trying to push through. I dropped my crutches—both of them—putting weight on my right leg, reaching for the Beretta on my hip. My leg couldn’t support the weight, and I went to my knee again as I brought the Beretta up, pointing it at a young girl carrying a basketball.

  Tammy looked at the gun, frowning like this sort of thing happened to her frequently. Tammy Mandt, the daughter of my neighbor, the girl who had given me Ogilvy. “What’s the matter?” she wanted to know.

  “Dammit!” I yelled too loud. The sound of my voice startled the eleven-year-old. “Sorry,” I added quickly. I returned the Beretta to its holster, then used the crutches to get to my feet.

  “You OK?” Tammy asked.

  I nodded. “Listen. I want you to do me a favor. Keep Ogilvy for a while longer.” As I spoke I slipped my money clip out of my pocket and peeled off two twenties.

  “Sure,” she said, then added, “What’s this?” when I handed her the bills. “You don’t have to pay me to take care of Ogilvy.”

  “That’s for food and litter,” I told her. “Keep the change.”

  “OK.”

  “Something else. I want you to keep away from my house. Don’t go near here until I tell you. No shooting hoops in my driveway. All right?”

  Tammy stared at me for a few beats, a concerned expression on her face. Then she asked again, “Are you OK?”

  I flashed on the dead cat in my porch, but did not mention it. “Just stay away for a while,” I said. “Oh, and watch out for strangers. Tell your mom if you see anyone suspicious hovering about.”

  Tammy promised that she would, then added, “You’re in trouble again, aren’t you?”

  FIFTEEN

  IT WASN’T THE explosion that woke me at three-thirty in the morning. Or even the flames. It was the squealing tires of a car as i
t accelerated out of my driveway. I bumped my sore leg as I went to the window, but I did not have much time to contemplate the pain. The front of my house was on fire!

  THE FIRE NEVER actually reached the structure; it stopped about a half-yard short of my stucco walls, consuming instead the hedge of shrubs and low-growing trees that Laura had planted and a fifteen-foot wide oval of grass. The Roseville fire crew doused the front of my house just the same—better safe than sorry. A deputy chief sidled up to me while I watched. He was holding the neck of a broken beer bottle in his gloved hand. It reeked of kerosene.

  “This landed about six feet short of your house and blew backward,” he told me. “Whoever threw it had no arm whatsoever. You were lucky.”

  Funny, I didn’t feel lucky. Especially after the Roseville cops arrived, followed by the media.

  The cops wanted to know if the attack had anything to do with Levering Field’s murder and my subsequent arrest. “Probably,” I told them, but not much else. They weren’t pleased by my reticence and did not go away happy.

  The media was not happy, either, but for an entirely different reason—the fire had been extinguished before their trucks arrived; there were no action shots of the Roseville firefighters to be had. One cameraman asked the firemen to start the blaze again. He was genuinely upset when the firemen told him to go to hell. But not as upset as me. I had to stand there, leaning on my crutches, shivering in the thirty-two degree morning temperature, answering questions, trying to explain that it wasn’t a hate crime, suggesting that it was probably just a kid’s prank, that April Fool’s Day was—what? Tomorrow?

  The only way to make the news media go away is to give them a story. If you try to stonewall them, try to argue your rights to privacy, they’ll stay camped on your doorstep until hell freezes over. That’s just the way they are. So I stood outside, answering their questions until dawn. To my general astonishment, no one asked about my leg, no one said, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who was arrested for murder a couple weeks back?” And I certainly wasn’t about to volunteer the information. Still, I felt a little like day-old bread.