Just then the buzzer sounded twice. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket, knowing he was taking a chance removing it, went back to the coffee table and closed the book, careful to put it back exactly as it had been. He quickly looked around to make sure he hadn’t noticeably disturbed anything, and then went out the front door. Between the third and second floors he passed a youngish looking though middle-aged man with shoulder length hair. Lowell tried to turn his face away so the man wouldn’t recognize him if they met again. He didn’t seem to take any interest in Lowell whatsoever.
When he got outside Mort grabbed his arm. “That was him, you know.”
“I assumed so.
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t think he was paying much attention.”
“No,” said Mort, knowingly, “he was too worried about money to notice anything.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
They grabbed a cab and returned to the office.
“Top priority,” Lowell said, as he sat at his desk. “I want to know everything about Marty Winebeck, and I mean everything. Can you hack into his PC and get to his email?”
“It depends on which server he uses, but most likely I can.”
Lowell turned back to his own computer. “Well, do so. And I want you to find out what you can about the eight people this email was sent to.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I understand you went to the Meadowlands last night.”
Lowell took the coffee cup from Sarah.
“Yeah, the girls wanted to try our luck, and, well, Mort told me I might win. He said to look for the number five, and that I could hit a big one.”
“So how did you make out?”
“Oh, you know, okay I guess. We had a good time, that’s all that matters.”
“Did you win any races?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But one of my horses was scratched so I got my two dollars back.”
“No number fives?”
“Un uh.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t blame Mort. It was my decision to go.”
“I understand.”
“But,” she said, “it’s weird.”
“What is?”
“He also told me that I would meet a redhead whose name begins with a B or a D, and that she could help me in some way.”
“And…”
“As we were getting ready to leave I met a woman in a flowered dress with red hair, just like mine. Her name was Barbara and she’s an agent for commercials on TV. We started to talk and she said I had a look, and to call her.”
“That part of Mort’s prediction was right on the money.”
“Speaking of money, how come he can get that right and can’t pick a god damned horse? Not a single number five came up all night.”
“Karma,” replied the astrologer.
She took a handful of losing tickets from her purse and began to tear them up one by one. “You know what you can do with your karma, don’t you?”
“You have her card?”
She reached back into her purse and pulled out a business card. “Right here. It has her name, the name of the agency, her email and her phone number. Two one two, eight seven four, five, five, five…” she stopped and looked up at Lowell. “…five.”
“I’d call her, if I were you.”
***
Lowell was alone when the phone rang. Sarah was out getting lunch and he thought about ignoring it, as he often did when she was away from her desk. He hated dealing with the public, and screening his calls was one of Sarah’s most important jobs. But on the fourth ring curiosity got the better of him and he picked up the receiver.
“Starlight Detective Agency.”
“If you want to know who killed those rockers come to 312 Summer Street in Soho at eight o’clock sharp tonight. And bring that Younger dame with you or the deal is off.” The voice was muffled.
“Who are you?”
“Just be there on time.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come?”
“What?”
“What if Ms. Younger chooses not to accompany me?”
“Are you crazy? Just bring her. And don’t be late.”
“I’ll try. What was that address again?”
There was an exasperated sigh at the other end. “312 Summer Street. Now stop screwing with me.”
Sarah came in a few seconds after he’d hung up and saw the look on her boss’ face. “What’s going on?”
“Rewind the tape to the last call.”
She went to her desk and opened the top right hand drawer. Inside was a taping device that was attached to the office phone line. It automatically recorded every call that came in. She rewound the tape. Together they sat and listened to the exchange.
“I kept him on the phone as long as I could. Hoped to recognize the voice or hear something in the background,” he said, after they’d heard it several times, “but I can’t.”
“You’re not going, are you?”
“Of course I am.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not ready to look for another job at the moment.”
“You’re sure it’s a trap?”
“Aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Sure. Why else would I be going?”
“Well, you’re certainly not going to endanger Vivian Younger,” Sarah said, defiantly.
“No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Thank god you have some common sense left.”
He was looking at her in a strange way.
“What?”
“Huh? Oh nothing. How tall are you?”
Sarah looked at him askew. “I’m five seven, why?”
“Um hmm, and let’s see. Maybe a hat, or a scarf?”
“Oh no, no you don’t. I’m not going to be your dummy.”
“Now, Sarah, would I ever put you at risk?”
“No sir, my mother only raised one fool, and she lives in Jersey.”
“Sarah…”
“No!”
“I’ll pay you extra.”
“Not a chance in…how much?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“A thousand. And you better not get me shot.”
“All right, a thousand.”
“Up front.”
“Sarah, don’t you trust me?”
“Are you kidding? I’m going out and spending it today. I’ve had my eyes on a pair of seven-hundred dollar shoes for months. If I get bumped off tonight I’m sure not getting screwed out of my good time, too.”
“Seven-hundred dollar shoes? What are they made of?”
“It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.”
“That’s got to be the worst Bogie I’ve ever heard.”
She giggled. ”Maybe so, but it’s the stuff that my dreams are made of.”
Sarah had a closet full of shoes that she fawned over.
He took the money from the wall safe and paid her in cash. She immediately went downtown to 8th Street and bought her shoes.
To Lowell they were just that, shoes. But to Sarah and every woman she could think of to call and tell about them, they were apparently something else, something with the ability to make women, including Sarah’s mother, envious.
***
Sarah’s disguise had to be convincing enough from a distance. Lowell had no intentions of letting her get any closer than was necessary. They picked up a blond wig, a paisley scarf, and large sunglasses.
She put on her outfit in Lowell’s dressing room and looked at herself in the mirror. “I wouldn’t be fooled for a minute.”
She came out of the dressing room and presented herself to Lowell.
He looked down at her feet, blue pumps. “No good. Sneakers.”
“What? They won’t go with what I have on.”
“So wear blue sneakers. Sorry to ruin your ensemble, but I insist.”
Andy was waiting when they walked out of the building at seven-thirty.
“Okay, boss.”
They got on the FDR Drive at 79th Street. What a strange city, he thought. This antiquated roadway was obsolete the day they opened it in the 1930s. Today it can’t carry half the load expected during rush hour. They continue to expand the city, yet they spend virtually nothing on the infrastructure. How long before the wear and tear in the underbelly of this city causes it to all fall apart?
The city flew by, uptown became midtown, which morphed into downtown. They got off the drive and headed west on Houston. When they got to First Avenue the detective said, “Stop here, Andy. Stay nearby.”
Lowell and Sarah exited the limo and waited until it drove away.
“Why did you have him drop us here instead of at the address?”
“One should always approach an unsure situation carefully.”
“You do have a gun, don’t you?”
“Gun? No, I don’t like the nasty little things.”
She stared at him, wondering if she’d ever get to wear her new shoes.
They walked a few blocks west on Houston. At Broadway there was a large fruit stand. Lowell picked up a few melons, squeezing each, and finally chose a large, green, rather unripe looking honeydew.
“What are you doing picking fruit out? Have you lost your mind?”
He ignored her. He next picked out about a dozen small, unappetizing looking nectarines. He had the salesman put the fruit into three bags and then paid him. Sarah grabbed one of the nectarines.
“Couldn’t you at least get something we can eat? This thing is as hard as a rock.”
He took it back from her and replaced it in the bag. “Just pay attention. We may have to act quickly.”
Sarah was not happy. She had no interest in being a hero. Her boss was a good man, he paid her much more than she would make anywhere else, and for that she was thankful. But he was strange, and his clientele was strange, and his friends were strange, and now she was going to get killed in a meeting with a stranger.
They walked another block and then turned right. At the second light they went down a dark side street.
“This is the block,” he said, as her grip on his arm grew tighter.
They found the number and he was about to ring the bell when he noticed two men at the end of the street eyeing them. Sarah saw them too.
“Oh my god,” she muttered quietly.
The men began to move slowly toward them. She stiffened and began to shake.
He took her hand. “Everything’s going to be fine. All I have to do is get close to these guys and explain things. They’ll understand.”
“Understand? They’re going to chop us up”.
By now the men had moved closer. Lowell took her and placed her in the deep recess of the doorway.
“Stay here,” he implored, “no matter what you think is going on, wait here. Just trust me.”
He walked down the three steps to the street and approached them, stopping about five feet away. One was short, maybe five seven, but had a mean look that more than compensated for his stature. The other was a giant of a man, about six five, with dark brown hair and a scar across the left side of his face.
“Do we have a problem here?” He didn’t recognize either of them.
“No, we don’t have a problem buster, you do.” The little guy pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it at the astrologer, just as Lowell swung his right arm in a wide arc. The bag containing the unripe melon left his hand. It hit the man on the left side of his head with enough force to knock him to the ground. His skull cracked on the cement.
The big man reached his gigantic hands toward Lowell who threw the two remaining bags of fruit into the man’s face. He was off balance as he put his hands up for protection, allowing Lowell to sweep his feet out from underneath him, causing him to tumble to the ground. He tried to stand, but before he could get his footing, Lowell took hold of the man’s wrist with one hand and placed the other on his elbow, and turned his body to the left, twisting the arm violently. The man fell back to the ground writhing in pain.
Sarah came down the steps and they hurried past the wounded men and down the sidewalk toward the better lit and more populated avenue. Sarah was happy that she was wearing sneakers.
A blue sports car that had been parked down the street had come to life.
As Lowell and Sarah got to the end of the street and were crossing to the other side, the driver suddenly revved his engine and appeared not to have any desire to stop at the light. Or at them.
Lowell pulled Sarah back just as Lowell’s limo drove into the crosswalk from the avenue. The blue car swerved violently and slammed into a fire hydrant on the curb. The air bag deployed, and water bubbled up through the car’s engine, now parked firmly on top of the hydrant.
Andy hopped out of the limo. “Are you two okay?” He pulled the back door open and Lowell and Sarah dove in. Then he got behind the wheel. “Boss?”
“I think we should get out of here. Who knows if there are more of them? Call Lieutenant Roland and tell him what happened.”
“That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said, once they were secure in the limousine. “Where did you learn to fight like that? And what was that thing with the fruit? I mean, where the hell does someone learn tricks like that?”
Lowell took a deep gulp of cold water from a bottle from the fridge and slowed his breath. “You know I’ve studied aikido for many years. I’ve mentioned it before. It was a combination of that and common sense. I was greatly influenced by a book I read in the eighties called Shibumi, written by Rodney William Whitaker, under the name Trevanian.” he replied. “You should read it someday.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about many things, including finding one’s proper path in life, and learning to use what’s available to you at any given time on that path to make a situation work out best.” He wiped the condensation from the bottle onto a napkin. “And it helps to have back-up like Andy.”
Chapter Fifteen
Roland paced angrily in his office.
“It thought we had a deal. We were going to keep the other informed of what was going on. Then I find out you put your life at risk running around last night playing Batman. Why didn’t you call me before you went downtown?”
“They wouldn’t have shown themselves if you had come,” replied Lowell.
“They showed themselves all right, and almost knocked you out of commission. And it‘s bad enough that you put yourself in harm’s way. But you took poor Ms. Palmer here and risked her safety as well.”
Sarah was sitting on a chair, her legs pulled up under her, looking very stylish in her new seven-hundred dollar shoes.
“Oh Lieutenant, I was so scared I didn’t know what to do,” she said, in a little girl voice.
Lowell shot her a quick scowl.
“You might want to consider different employment.”
“I have, Lieutenant.” She stroked her shoes. “Believe me, I have.”
“Can we get to the important issues here?” Lowell re-knotted his ponytail, which he did whenever he was perturbed. “What did you get on the men who attacked us?”
“Nothing. They were all gone by the time you bothered to call us and we could get someone down there.”
“What about the car?”
“Stolen. Just what you’d expect. It was a dangerous thing to do, and you didn’t get anything out of it.”
“Quite the contrary. I now know that I’m on the right track. I’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest, and now it’s a question of locating it. One of the leads we’re following is the right one, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken a run at us. So let’s see what we’ve got.”
“Okay,” said Roland, “what about this Winebeck character?”
“His chart does show that he has a temper, and he’s overly emotional,
but then he is a musician. His Mars Uranus opposition could make him react violently at times, but it takes a lot to plan and carry out such a gruesome attack. Also, I don’t know if there’s really a motive.”
“You said he and Freddie had a fight?”
“That was over twenty years ago.”
“I’ve seen people hold a grudge for longer than that. What happened?”
“Well, Freddie threw him off a stage in Buffalo and broke the guy’s leg. Then Freddie ostensibly had him blackballed so he couldn’t get work in the music business for many years.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said the Lieutenant, snidely, “just because a guy breaks your leg and ruins your career you don’t think that’s a good enough reason to kill him. What exactly would be a motive in your mind?”
“This isn’t the way someone would go about doing it if he was holding in his anger all these years. He might wait until Freddie was alone and pop him. And what about the other two murders? How do they fit in?”
“I told you, the other two have nothing to do with Freddie. I’m going to concentrate on this killing and once we get the murderer you’ll see I was right. What else you got on this Winebeck guy?”
As difficult as it was going to be to explain how he came into possession of them without admitting his own legal circumvention, Lowell reluctantly gave the email and the photographs of the bizarre scrapbook to the policeman.
The Lieutenant looked at the photos, read the email, and then whistled. “This is enough for me.” He hit the intercom and screamed: “Murphy, get in here.”
A moment later a tall, sandy-haired man entered. “Yes sir?”
“I want you to go to this address and pick up one Marty Winebeck for questioning.”
“If he doesn’t want to come?”
“Well, just see to it that he does.”
“Lieutenant, I really think you’re jumping the gun here,” said Lowell. “All you’ve got is circumstantial evidence. That email could be about anything.”
“Yeah, and these pictures could be from his vacation to the Grand Canyon, but they’re not. Look, I won’t ask you how you got this, and I don’t want you to tell me, but let’s stop bullshitting each other and bring this bozo in to answer some questions, all right? Are you in possession of this macabre memorabilia?”
Death in the 12th House Page 9