Cannon's Mouth_A Rafferty P.I. Mystery

by W. Glenn Duncan

  It took several hours to recover the cash and the truck and help the cops assemble the small mountain of paperwork they needed to put one petty thief in the slammer. A sergeant named Worthington ramrodded the job; we’d been rookies together years ago. Worthington didn’t like my wisecracks about terminal writer’s cramp.

  It was after nine-thirty that night, and the temperature was down to bearable, when I finally got away from all that heavy-duty crime busting. I had missed the planned candlelight Italian dinner with Hilda, which was bad. I phoned her a few hours back, though, and she’d suggested Whoppers and double onion rings whenever I could make it. Which was good.

  Tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to chase that stupid truck around town, which was also good. And Shanahan’s check lay heavy in my wallet. Another good.

  As the Mustang clattered along, I wondered whether the mysterious Max had enjoyed his day. I decided he could not have fully appreciated it, if only because he didn’t know how close he had come to running out of days to enjoy.

  Chapter 3

  “No kidding, Hil, it was very weird,” I said. “I was halfway zonked from the heat and …”

  I grabbed my tray and balanced my hamburger, fries, and beer can while Hilda climbed back into bed. It was a fascinating climb. The water bed sloshed and jiggled, which gave Hilda a strangely awkward grace during the maneuver. Then there was the way the bedside lamp threw highlights on to her skin and—

  “Weird certainly seems the word for it,” Hilda said. “More wine, please. And why the funny look?”

  “Mute admiration. Would you consider crawling in and out of bed like that for the next thirty minutes or so?”

  “Absolutely out of the question,” Hilda said. I poured more chablis into her glass. She ate an onion ring. I watched her and realized she was the only person I ever watched do an everyday thing like chew.

  “You’re trying to be cool,” I said, “and that’s okay. No need to admit you’re a pushover for a high-stepper with a sackful of hamburgers.”

  “You’re incredible. Let’s get back to the weird part, please. This man actually hired you to kill someone?”

  “Yeah. Well, apparently he had already hired the real guy over the phone. He screwed up the meet somehow and thought I was whoever he had talked to.” I drank a little beer and struck a pose. “Can’t figure out how he could make a mistake like that, though. What with me being such a mild-mannered, unassuming fellow …”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Ugly,” Hilda said. “If appearance was the only criterion, I could book you for two or three ax murders a week.”

  “I know the antique business is cutthroat, but—”

  “But what about the victim, this man Max somebody? Have you told the police yet?”

  “First thing in the morning,” I said. “There’s no screaming hurry. Max is okay until Thursday night at least.”

  “And you’re not going to get involved?” Hilda said. She sounded skeptical.

  “What’s to get involved with? The cops will go to Max and give him a description of the guy I met today. Max will say oh, damn, that sounds like Barney or Joe or Isran Paderewski and—”

  “Isran Paderewski?”

  “Whatever. The point is, Max will recognize the nervous guy. Zap! The guy goes straight to slammer city, whereupon he babbles out the name of his would-be hit man, soon-to-be cell-mate. Eventually, six months or a year from now, Ed Durkee will remind me I’m supposed to testify in the Whoosit case the next day.”

  “And you’ll get grumpy because you’ll have to wear a tie.”

  “Yeah, that’s the downside of the courtroom number. Damned assistant DAs always want you to wear a tie.”

  “And that’s all you’re going to do?” Hilda said. “No poking around just to see what will happen? No helping this Max person because he sounds like a nice guy?”

  “Hilda, come on! This is classic cop work. There’s nothing here for me. No fee, even.”

  “Uh-huh.” She ate another onion ring.

  I took a big bite of my double-beef-and-cheese Whopper; a dollop of sauce squished out and dribbled down my chest. As I stretched to grab a napkin, I dropped the Whopper into my lap.

  Hilda laughed.

  “I just had this great idea,” I said. “I think I’ll take a shower.”

  Hilda laughed again.

  I said, “Play your cards right, cookie, and I’ll let you join me.”

  “You never know your luck, big fella.”

  “Better yet,” I said, “let’s take a bath instead of a shower. I’ll show you how a torpedo works.”

  She shook her gorgeous head. “You’re an animal, Rafferty. An absolute animal.”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “It’s a gift.”

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday morning. I was shaving when Hilda appeared in the mirror. Well, in her bathroom doorway, really. She wore a dark gray business-lady outfit that set off her black hair. She looked great.

  “Rafferty,” she said, “you’ll have to stop at your house before you go into town. You’ve run out of clean clothes here.”

  “There’s nothing left in the drawer?”

  She shook her head. “Only a ripped Dallas Cowboys jersey and those awful cutoff jeans you wore when you cut the grass last week.”

  “And you thought I was out of clothes.”

  My house on Palm Lane was hot and stuffy, even at nine in the morning. I hadn’t been home for twenty-four hours, and the little cottage predated central air-conditioning. But then, so did my landlady.

  Mrs Jorgenson was a widow—a widder woman, old-time Texans would say—and she had firm views about air-conditioning. She didn’t believe in contraptions that sucked up all the electricity and spit God-only-knew-what into the air where innocent folks had to breathe it. Still, folks were different now, she knew that, so if I wanted to put in a window unit, it was entirely up to me, but …

  I planned to get a window air-conditioner when I could next afford one, but until then I was struggling along by opening all the windows and doors whenever it got hot. That wasn’t a bad method, actually. It was unusual for me to be home during the day, the cross-ventilation through the house was good, and there were shade trees all around.

  Come to think of it, maybe Mrs Jorgenson had the right idea.

  Anyway, the kitchen door was wide open while I was back in the bedroom changing clothes, so that’s probably how the cat got in. I found it crouched in the center of the kitchen floor. It was a good-size cat, one of the orange-and-yellow, faintly striped kind. It froze, belly lowered almost to the floor, and looked at me steadily. It was alert, not afraid. I hadn’t realized cats had such large eyes.

  “How you doing, cat?” I slowly put down the bag of dirty clothes and squatted in the doorway from the hall to the kitchen. I was eight feet from the cat. It continued to stare at me. Big, big eyes on that thing.

  Then the tip of the cat’s tail quivered briefly; it whirled and went out the back door. Fast. Okay, “in a blur” is a cliché, but the cat really was that fast.

  “Great moves, cat,” I said, three seconds behind the action.

  Five minutes later, while I shoveled clothes into the machine, there was a flash of orange as the cat came out of a bush in my yard and went over the back fence. That fence was almost six feet high. The cat’s jump was the same as me hopping from a sidewalk into a third-story window. Flat-footed. Without apparent effort.

  Later yet, on the way to the office, I decided not to dwell on that comparison. Because, never mind the third-story window, I couldn’t get over the stupid fence and make it look that easy.

  “Ed, what can I say? I’m reporting a crime. Well, a planned crime anyway. Don’t you remember the part about being my friend the policeman?”

  “Rafferty,” Lieutenant Ed Durkee said slowly, “if this is another of your …” Pregnant pause, doubtless intended to induce fear and trembling.

  I yawned down the phone at him.

  “Okay, okay,�
� he said wearily. “Go ahead.”

  “Your faith in me is touching. Now let’s suit up and do a little crime busting.” I read Ed the penciled address on the index card the nervous man had given me. “That’s half a block off Walnut Hill Lane, Ed. I’ve already crisscrossed it to a grocery store named, you should excuse the expression, Mini-Maxi Food Barn Number Three. And you’ll no doubt be happy to know there are other Mini-Maxi Food Barns conveniently located throughout the metro—”

  “The guy wrote this down for you?”

  “Yeah. He used block letters, though, so I don’t think you’re gonna do any good with a handwriting match once you nail him. Oh, and this card spent most of yesterday in two very sweaty pockets: his and mine. You may have a small problem with fingerprints.”

  “It’s never easy with you, is it?” He sighed. Ed does a great sigh. It goes well with his hound-dog jowls and rumpled brown suits. “Bring me the card, Rafferty. And expect to hang around here for an hour or so. We’ll need a full statement.”

  “I’ll be over later. Uh, you did get the timing on this, Ed? Because tomorrow night, when Max doesn’t get whacked, this guy’s going to wonder why. He might get a little goosey then.”

  “I’ve got all that. Bring the card over here.”

  “On feet of wings, mon ami. Anything to bolster the valiant blue line holding back the—” Ed hung up in the middle of valiant. He misses some of my best stuff that way.

  I hung up, too, and worked on a full report of the Bartelles surveillance. Shanahan wanted all the juicy details for his files. And besides, I told myself, if Bartelles’s lawyer had flunked Plea Bargaining 101, this thing might even get to court. Wouldn’t I look impressive on the witness stand with a typed report?

  I have to give myself silly incentives like that, because I hate writing reports. That may be because I’m not very good at reports. Correction: scratch “not very good,” insert “terrible.”

  Years ago, when I was still on the force, an ulcer-prone bureaucratic patrol lieutenant wrote an evaluation report that said I “failed to show an appreciation for the need to employ sufficiently circumspect language and phraseology in the preparation of official documentation.” No kidding, that’s what it said.

  A week later I slipped an arrest report past him with the help of a records clerk who did the lieutenant’s initials better than the lieutenant. That report meandered through the system for three days before someone read it carefully and rocketed it back to the lieutenant with an asbestos memo attached.

  As far as I could tell, the lieutenant never worked out why he had okayed my arrest report wherein his beloved phrase “apprehended the alleged perpetrator” had become “nailed that scuzzball cold.” He was sucking Mylanta bottles pretty heavily for a while there.

  It cost me another poor performance evaluation but it was worth it.

  Reminiscences like that slowed down Shanahan’s report considerably. By eleven-thirty I couldn’t stand to look at all that paper any longer. I stuffed it into my desk drawer to age, grabbed the roll of Bartelles film, and hit the street.

  First stop was a fast-photo place where they know me well enough to ask what kind of pictures are going to come out of their fancy machine. I told Ralph this was a G-rated roll. He let his daughter run it through.

  Killing time till the prints were ready, I grabbed a sandwich, then browsed through a gun shop across the street. They had a big yellow display bin of those collapsible spring blackjacks that look like fat radio antenna. The bin had a sign that screamed THIRTY PERCENT OFF at me.

  When I successfully resisted the sign, the clerk stopped polishing the glass countertop and tried to sell me a fake pocket pager that came apart to reveal a .25 automatic.

  I told him, when they brought out a fake ballpoint pen that came apart to reveal a twelve-gauge shotgun, I’d buy one of those. He grunted and went back to work on his countertop. He had a practiced, almost automatic, motion.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You used to be a bartender.”

  “Still am,” he said. “Nights.”

  You can’t fool a trained detective like me.

  Twenty minutes later I picked up the Bartelles prints and went back to the office, feeling virtuous because I intended to finish that miserable report. That afternoon. Without fail.

  Without fail, maybe, but not without pause. Beth Woodland, from the insurance office next door, stopped by with a huge chunk of angel food cake. I was gracious enough to offer both my professional opinion on the cake and a cup of coffee to go with her slice.

  Back to Shanahan’s report for an hour, then Duane made his monthly visit. Duane’s a Korean war vet, so he’s getting on now. He came back home on a DC-4, he says, one of the old four-engine propeller airlines. There were no seats on Duane’s flight. Only stretchers.

  The flight was where they lost his leg, Duane claims. He says they probably sent it to Seattle or somewhere, because that’s what they do with suitcases all the time. And how am I doing at finding it? He always asks. Am I getting any closer?

  Duane doesn’t quite have both oars in the water, of course. When his leg was blown off, the same Chinese artillery round sent a steel sliver whirling into his temple. He lives out in Garland with two unmarried daughters and makes the trip into downtown Dallas every four or five weeks.

  When Duane comes to see me, we review The Mysterious Case of the Missing Leg. I tell him I have a hot new lead and, boy, is he gonna get a monster bill when I finally find that leg. Then we talk about soldiering, cars, whatever. After a while Duane gives me a quirky grin and stumps away to catch his bus. The whole process only takes half an hour or so. What the hell, it’s probably good for both of us.

  What with coffeeklatching with Beth and chasing legs with Duane, it was almost four o’clock by the time Shanahan’s report was as good as it was ever gonna get. I borrowed Beth’s photocopier to make my copy—when you type like I do, you don’t try fancy stuff like carbons—then I put everything in a manila envelope and mailed it to Shanahan.

  Finally I went to the cop shop to see Ed Durkee.

  That’s when the day started to go down the gurgler.

  Chapter 5

  Ed Durkee’s office looked the same: DPD blond-bland decor; Ed behind his cluttered desk; Sergeant Ricco sprawled in a chair, dressed for a Guys and Dolls fantasy weekend.

  The atmosphere in Ed’s office made gloom-and-doom sound like a football cheer.

  “What the hell is wrong with you two?” I said.

  “Give me the index card, Rafferty,” Ed said. “Then get out of here.” His voice had a bitter edge to it.

  “What is this? Are you trying for a personal best in surly?”

  Ed shrugged. Ricco said, “Fuck off, Rafferty.”

  “What about that statement you wanted?”

  “Forget it,” Ricco said. “Go on, get out of here.”

  “Not yet.” I flipped the nervous man’s index card onto Ed’s desk, grabbed the empty visitor’s chair, and planted myself in it. “I want to prolong these precious moments of unbridled camaraderie.”

  Ricco sneered. “You know, Ed, the thing about Rafferty that pisses me off the most—I mean really pisses me off—is when he does that intellectual-superiority number. Like just then, with big words and a line of high-tone bullshit. It’s like he’s saying: these dumb cops don’t know what I’m talking about, so …” Ricco sighed or grunted; it was hard to tell which. He shifted his chair and stared at Ed’s windowsill.

  I said, “Ed, do you want to talk about this? Whatever this is.”

  Ed shook his head; his jowls wobbled.

  “Ed, can you talk about this?”

  Ed seemed to think about that. Ricco perked up and watched us, flicking his small eyes from Ed to me and back again. After fifteen seconds Ed shook his head again.

  I nodded. “Understood. Where’s the heat coming from? Internal, state, feds, what?”

  Ed raised one big hand, palm down, and rocked it back and forth in a six-of-o
ne, half-dozen-of-the-other gesture.

  “Well, that’s too bad, but …” I stood up and looked at Ed and Ricco. Neither of them looked back. “Hell with it,” I said, “I’ll leave you to your hemlock cups. If you survive, give me a call. I’ll spring for a beer or something.”

  It was pretty obvious what had happened. That morning I had dropped a nice, easy attempted murder case in Ed’s lap. Since then someone with clout had taken it away. Office politics. But why were Ed and Ricco taking it so badly? They’d been around long enough—

  “I have been ordered to tell you something.” Ed’s voice stopped me before I cleared the doorway.

  I said, “Why do I think I won’t like this?”

  Ed spoke in a dull monotone, like a bad newscaster with a slow TelePrompTer. “The department appreciates your report and this physical evidence.” Ed picked up the index card. The gesture was mechanical and out of phase with his words. “Our investigation is under way. A nonpolice presence would impede that investigation. Accordingly you are instructed not to go to or contact any person at or regarding …” Ed droned the address from the card, then looked up at me. “Is that clear?”

  “Why are you so goddamned defensive?” I said. “Look, it’s not my case, for god’s sake. Do whatever you— Wait a minute! Have you told this guy Max that somebody wants him hit?”

  Ed said, “Our investigation is under—”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “—way. A nonpolice presence would—”

  “One of you better tell me right now that this bullshit is not your idea, Ed.”

  “—impede that investigation. Of course it’s not my idea, Rafferty. For Christ’s sake! Now go away, will you?”

  “And stay away,” Ricco said. “This thing is already so screwed up that you’d only be—”