Late Payments

by Michael Z. Lewin

  The waiter bowed, silently accepting the responsibility. He retreated.

  “Are you vegetarian. Lieutenant?” Wendy Winslow asked.

  “No,” Powder said.

  Miller explained, “Lieutenant Powder has a reputation for eccentricity.”

  “Lieutenant Miller is saying I’m a nut case, Ms. Winslow,” Powder said.

  Winslow smiled brightly. “Good. Let’s talk about your idea.”

  “I figure,” Powder said, “a program focused on missing people could help you and could help us. It’s got human interest; it’s got drama; it’s got mystery. It’s also topical, with the extra attention missing people have been getting lately. But the special element we can offer is a potential personality, actually from within the section.”

  “Would that be you?”

  “Certainly not. You remember a few years ago, the policewoman who was shot and paralyzed waist-down following a stakeout of some armed robbers?”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Winslow said.

  “Gorgeous woman to look at, articulate and tough, good brain. The media all picked her up at the time. She even had a TV news offer, but she turned it down to stay on the force. On the other hand, our enlightened police brass was reluctant to let her back on active duty—you know, the paralysis—but after all the media pressure they caved in and compromised by putting her in Missing Persons.”

  “I see,” Winslow said. She glanced at Miller, whose steady return gaze effectively confirmed Powder’s account.

  “At this point Missing Persons would fall apart without her. When I retire, which might not be very long from now, she’s a shoo-in to make lieutenant and be put in charge. But she’s not that everything-mapped-out kind of person. She thrives on challenges. So what I was thinking was this—a widely advertised pilot, then a spot every week for a while. If that went all right, ultimately a spot on the news every day, like the weather.” Powder looked earnestly at Winslow. “It could be a real puller for you,” he said. “And the point is, this little gal is genuinely right in the middle of it.” Powder sat back, finished.

  Wendy Winslow nodded slowly. “It sounds intriguing, but have you ever actually watched CCC’s cable output in Indianapolis?”

  Fleetwood was out when Powder returned to the office. There was nothing in the log and neither Swatts nor Haddix remembered her saying where she was going.

  Not bothering to ask Noble Perkins, Powder sat at his desk for a while and ruminated.

  Finally he settled to work and pulled out the file of outstanding case reports he considered as candidates for inclusion in the next “Have You Seen Them?” sheet.

  Almost as a reward for good behavior, Fleetwood rolled in through the office door.

  She looked worried.

  Powder watched thoughtfully as she made her way to her desk. She dropped her purse on it, pushed a few papers around, then leaned back, still.

  Powder rolled his swivel chair along a path between desks to sit beside her. “Speaking cripple to cripple,” he said, “you look upset.”

  Fleetwood did not respond at first.

  Gently he asked, “Come on, what’s up, kid?”

  She looked at him. “You won’t like it. You won’t think it’s anything.”

  “Two for the price of one. How can I lose?”

  “Jules is not at home,” Fleetwood said.

  Powder waited. There was no amplification. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. I went over at lunchtime and he wasn’t there.”

  “Was he expecting you?”

  “Not exactly. It wasn’t stated.”

  “But it was understood.”

  “Yes.” She seemed to think. She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Does he have a car?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t there.”

  “So ...?”

  “So sure, maybe he went somewhere. But it feels wrong to me.”

  “He’s probably just come in to see Tidmarsh.”

  She looked at him. “What about?”

  “Tidmarsh thinks there is reason to doubt the statistical significance of Mencelli’s conclusion. Tidmarsh called him this morning and Ace was supposed to come in this afternoon to talk it over.”

  “I see,” Fleetwood said. She thought about it.

  Powder watched her for a while. He reached back to his telephone and called Tidmarsh. But Jules Mencelli had not yet come to see him.

  “Let me know when he does appear, will you?”

  “OK,” Tidmarsh said.

  Powder dialed Jules Mencelli’s home number. There was no answer.

  “So Where’s he gone?” Fleetwood asked.

  “He’s your friend. You want to ask around, go do it.”

  Powder worked through a pile of paper. He also considered whether he could open Jules Mencelli formally as a Missing Persons case without seeming absurd. He decided he couldn’t.

  Then he felt angry with himself for having given it a moment’s thought. It would have been trying to placate Graniela. Powder hit his right hand hard with his left. Smack hands for being naughty.

  Sue Swatts noticed Powder hitting himself. She didn’t understand, but she didn’t ask.

  In the course of the afternoon Noble Perkins gave Powder more sheets of paper. They included a short resume, with little new information, about Leisure Services, the company that owned East Haven Bottling. Also a file on Joseph Miles which listed many convictions and much time in jail, all for frauds and misrepresentations.

  Powder also read about the Husk brothers. He’d received their basic records before being summoned to Graniela’s office but had not had a chance to look at them.

  Mister Jimmy’s file, in particular, interested him, being long on descriptive material involving numerous suspicions of criminal activities and associations for Indianapolis’s version of a Neiman-Marcus gangster. But the record was short on convictions, with none in the past seventeen years. And Mister Jimmy, it seemed, had never been in jail.

  While he was into paper work. Powder asked Perkins for the available information on Gale Heyhurst and The Promised Land.

  When later Perkins reported that there was none, Powder even managed to find that fact interesting.And then asked for information on Dolf Manan, the man Sunny Sweet had run away with.

  Fleetwood telephoned at four-thirty. “You’re going to tell me Jules is sitting there in front of you,” she said.

  “No, I’m not,” Powder said. “I haven’t seen him and there’s been no call from Tidmarsh.”

  “Oh.”

  Fleetwood had had a frustrating afternoon. She’d been unable to get any positive information at all about Jules Mencelli. Lots of “didn’t see him,” along with a sense that his neighbors did not think very highly of him and were glad of an opportunity to tell someone so.

  Nor had anything been turned up on his car.

  She had gotten into his apartment. There was no sign of struggle. No note. No absence of clothes. Nothing, in fact, that was in itself suspicious. Except that Mencelli was not there.

  She was depressed by her lack of progress.

  Just before five, as Howard Haddix returned to the office after an errand, he declared he felt faint and dropped onto one of the chairs provided for people waiting to be seen.

  Sue Swatts dashed to his side immediately and then went for a glass of water. Powder and Noble Perkins offered no aid or support. Perkins, arguably, hadn’t noticed.

  Haddix’s infirmity did not prevent his leaving for the weekend on time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Powder went from work to see Robert Sweet.

  The boy answered the door only after Powder rang a second time. He was visibly enervated and when Powder got to the living room he found a collection of cans and wrappers clustered around an easy chair facing the television.

  “Have you been to school today?” Powder asked.

  “Yeah, I went,” Sweet said. “But I didn’t feel good, so I came home early.”

  Powder t
urned the television off and stood in front of it. “What the hell are you watching crummy talk shows for?” he asked. He marched to the chair. He kicked some cans. “You make me angry, kid,” he said.

  Sweet, roused enough to become uncertain, asked, “Why, Mr. Powder?”

  Powder pointed a finger at him. “He’s only been gone since Monday. What right have you got to give up on him already?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “I haven’t given up on him.”

  “It’s just that the man sounded so, kind of, final.”

  Powder stood. “What man?”

  “There was a man come to the house last night. He was asking about my dad.”

  “What was he asking?”

  “Was Dad here? When did I see him last? Did I know where he was?”

  “What did he say about your father that sounded final?”

  “It was just the way he talked. He wrote stuff down but he was all cold about it, like he was washing the dishes or something. Like he didn’t give a . . .” The boy filled suddenly with emotion. “He talked like Dad was dead and didn’t nobody care.”

  At first Robert Sweet tried not to cry. But he gave in quickly and clung to Powder, who held him for minutes. Powder thought. Let it out, son, let it out, but said nothing until Sweet had grown quiet and relaxed his hold.

  “What was the man’s name?” Powder asked.

  “He said something Smith.”

  “Did he say where he was from? Who he worked for? Why he was asking?”

  “He said he was an old friend of Dad’s and he’d heard he was gone.”

  “Didn’t say how he heard?”

  “No.”

  “Or what kind of friend?”

  “No.”

  “Did he leave you a telephone number, or an address?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t he say he wanted to know when your dad came back?”

  “No.”

  “I wish you’d called me, Robert.”

  “I did,” the boy said. “After he left. But you wasn’t home.”

  Powder remembered where he’d been, what he’d done, who with. “I was out till late last night.”

  “I tried a couple times,” Robert Sweet said. “But I didn’t know if it was all that important.” Looking up, “Is it?”

  “I just wonder who this man Smith is,” Powder said. “And how he came to hear that your dad wasn’t around.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you eaten?” Powder asked.

  “Not a meal. But I’m not really hungry. I kind of had bits of stuff.”

  “I’m hungry,” Powder said. “What say you make me some food?”

  “Really?”

  “I cooked yesterday. It’s your turn.”

  “I can make something.” The boy left the room, only to return moments later. “What do you want?”

  “You decide.”

  Sweet frowned but went to the kitchen.

  Powder spent several minutes clearing up in the living room. Then he went to the kitchen door and knocked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s the vacuum cleaner?”

  After eating. Powder showed Robert Sweet a copy of the individual picture of his father which had been extracted from the wedding photograph.

  “That’s your dad, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Sweet said quietly.He looked at it for a moment.Without lifting his eyes he said, “Can I keep this?”

  “Sure.”

  Then, “He looks funny.”

  “Just younger,” Powder said.

  “And he has a moustache now.”

  “Does he? What kind?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like droopy or thin and little or what?”

  “Oh, it’s kinda ordinary. It covers above his lip.”

  “Is there anything else different about the way he looks now?”

  Sweet looked again at the photograph. “I think his hair starts farther back now. Not as much as yours, but some.”

  “All right.”

  “Where did you get it, Mr. Powder?”

  “It’s from when your parents got married.”

  The boy looked up. “Yeah?”

  Powder took out the original wedding pictures and passed them to the child.

  “I never saw these. God, Mom looks pretty, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Powder said.

  “Hey, and this guy”—he showed Powder—“that’s Mr. Smith from last night.”

  Powder picked out a copy of the individual blowup he’d had made of the heavyweight basketball player. “This man?”

  “Yeah! Hey, you knew about him all the time!”

  “Yeah,” Powder mimicked quietly, self-mockingly.

  Before leaving. Powder sat Robert Sweet down in the living room.

  “You know you’re a problem for me, don’t you?”

  Puzzled frown, “What do you mean?”

  “I told you before. I’m supposed to have let official people know that you’re on your own here.”

  “But they’d take me away!”

  “Probably, yes. But you are living alone, and you’re under age.”

  “I can do it all right.”

  “You can, but you shouldn’t have to. There’s enough being alone that you can’t avoid when you get older.”

  “I like it alone.”

  “No, you don’t. Look, I’m not going to say anything for a day or two yet. Not till next week. But you’ve got to help me.”

  “How?”

  “You’ve got to keep the house straight. And you’ve got to keep your head straight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean not getting like you were when I came today.”

  “I won’t,” Sweet said, perhaps too easily.

  “Have you got friends you play with?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, no sitting around the house looking at the tube all day. Play with your friends. Get out. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “When you go out, leave a note for him. He knows about notes. Tell him where you’ve gone.”

  “All right.”

  “And if he calls, he’ll call again.”

  “Yeah, OK.”

  “And the Indians are home to Oklahoma this weekend. I’ll see if we can’t catch one of the games.”

  Inside his mailbox at home Powder found two things.

  One was a note from Agile Johnson. “Come when convenient,” it said.

  The other was a dead rat.

  Powder disposed of the rat, then showered and changed his clothes. As he dressed, he took his revolver from its holster. He emptied the chambers, then cocked and dry-fired the weapon. He loaded it again, and reholstered it. He thought about visiting the firing range.

  Before he left the house he put a load of dirty clothes in to wash.

  He went to Johnson’s.

  The fat man had his spoon in a trough of ice cream when Powder entered the stock room. Johnson looked up and nodded acknowledgment of Powder’s presence. He said, “Ice cream. My downfall.” Without hurrying, he finished the carton. Pulling a yellow cloth napkin from a trouser pocket, he wiped his mouth and hands. He put the napkin away. He offered Powder a drink. “Or coffee, if you prefer. One of the girls will make it.”

  “Thanks, no,” Powder said.

  “You got my note?”

  “Along with a calling card from my anonymous visitor. A large rodent, deceased.”

  “I . . .” Johnson began, dragging the word out to make it clear it was a metaphorical use of the pronoun, “I saw something being put in. Couldn’t tell exactly what, but it was done this afternoon, about three, three-fifteen.”

  “I see.”

  “You know, Mr. Powder, there is another matter I have been wanting to talk to you about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There is a boy I am concerned for. Not family!” Johnson held up his hands to em
phasize the non-nepotic nature of his interest.

  “But the child of good area people. The Gorwins. Do you know them?”

  Powder thought.

  “On Spring, near the corner of Miami.”

  “Ah, the liquor store robbery on Thirtieth Street.”

  Gravely, Johnson said, “That’s him. Lambert, his name. The boy in trouble, Lambert Gorwin. I’ve known him from a little child.”

  “He hit someone, didn’t he? With a bat?”

  “No one contests what he did.”

  Powder waited.

  “There is some problem with the bail.”

  “I see.”

  “It has been set too high. Far too high.”

  “They must be afraid that he wouldn’t come back for the trial,” Powder said.

  “The boy will face his trial.”

  “Or that he will commit other crimes.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” Johnson said.

  “May I ask why not?”

  “He knows he did wrong.”

  “Has he been in trouble before, Mr. Johnson?”

  “Yes. But circumstances are different now.”

  “How is that?”

  “The boy’s mother is dying.”

  Powder considered. “Was the judge told this?”

  “No,” Johnson said. “Not the kind of thing they wanted to say, you know?”

  “I see,” Powder said.

  “It would be a comfort to her to have him there to talk to.”

  Powder looked at Johnson, saying nothing but asking him to underwrite the risk.

  Johnson said nothing, staring back, accepting it.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “That would be much appreciated all around.”

  Powder nodded.

  “And for you, Mr. Powder, I have an address.”

  “I see. Was it difficult to get?”

  “No no, just a matter of following behind.”

  “Were you seen?”

  “No. She just went to your mailbox, pushed the item through, and walked back home.”

  “She?” Powder asked.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fleetwood balanced on crutches at her door.

  Powder nodded slowly. “Showing off again, huh. Sergeant?”

  “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

  “That expression dates you.”

  “My birth certificate dates me too.”

  “Do I get invited in, or are you going to wait for me to rot on your doorstep?”