Dead Ringer

by Michael A. Black

  He slid out of the booth and stood. “You need a ride home?”

  “Valet parking,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

  Again, he seemed disappointed.

  Then it dawned on me. “Oh,” I said with sudden realization. “A contract. I almost forgot. I’m sure you’ll require a contract and a retainer, won’t you?”

  “I’ll draw up one of my standard contracts and send it to you,” he said as we made our way to the front of the restaurant.

  “Wonderful,” I said, digging in my purse. “Let me give you my card.”

  “I still have the one you gave me before.”

  When I looked up and smiled, I caught another unreadable expression on him. “Great,” I said, thrusting my hand out.

  He stared at the hand for a moment before we shook, as though the gesture surprised him. That surprised me. He gave a slight smirk.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Shade.”

  “Ron.”

  “Ron,” I repeated. “I look forward to working with you.”

  Ron Shade

  And so it goes, I thought as I walked along State Street under the streetlights. A handshake instead of a kiss. Still, the evening hadn’t turned out to be a total washout. I’d obviously misread Ms. St. James’s “interest” in me as something more than professional. A good lesson, and after all, it wasn’t such a bad thing if your ego got an ass-whipping every once in a while. I reminded myself of my original expectation of hoping to have a nice conversation with a pretty girl over dinner. Nothing more, nothing less. I’d certainly gotten that, and a new gig as well. Bodyguarding her on this homeless story—it sounded like something I could do in my sleep, and it would give me some extra cash to go shopping for that new car.

  I was wondering how her boss—Bass, she’d called him—would react when he found out about the Firebird’s history. But it wasn’t like I’d sold him a lemon, or anything. Hell, I hadn’t even gotten rid of the extra baggage myself. Memories of Paula and now Ken floated in my thoughts as often as the moon in the sky.

  Tomorrow I’d hit Manus Corporation bright and early, and then corral good old dentist whatshisname about the “positive ID.” The more I thought about it, the more this case was like being under a pier and noticing that half the underpinning was rotted away. A few well-placed taps and the whole structure could come tumbling down. I just had to figure out where to tap.

  Chapter 11

  Ron Shade

  There was no need to skimp on the roadwork the next morning because I’d been in bed right after Letterman’s Top Ten List. I ran at a brisk pace, as if to outrun the hint of disappointment that still lingered from my date. I had failed to impress her, that’s for sure, and I realized that I’d misread what I thought were clues in her asking me to dinner. For her it had been a business thing. Nothing romantic. I’d let my oversized ego bounce around the ring talking trash, while reality crept up and delivered a knockout punch.

  Well, I thought as I ran up Miss Agony. Perhaps it had been a unanimous decision rather than a knockout. Maybe a majority one . . . Her eyes had lit up a few times at a couple of my witticisms. But in the end, the result was still the same. She didn’t seem that interested.

  But new tasks awaited, and I was champing at the bit to go after the Manus Corporation. After all, I was the guy who could cost them more than the guy on that old Lee Majors TV show.

  Alex St. James

  “So how do I tell Bass that his new baby, the Firebird, was involved in one homicide and another attempted homicide?” I asked.

  Jordan sat across from me in my office, a bemused expression on her café-au-lait face. “What are you, crazy? You don’t tell him none of that. Make something up. Tell him that this Shade guy is independently wealthy and . . . this is . . . chump change to him.”

  “You know that won’t work.”

  She took a moment to stare out the window over the Chicago River, giving the view a wry shake of her head.

  “What?” I asked with more than a little annoyance in my voice.

  Turning to me, she kept up the head shakes. “You are just too honest, girl. You need to develop some lying genes or something. All that do-good, tell-the-truth shit is going to get you in trouble.”

  “It already has.”

  She didn’t ask what I meant. She knew. We’d discussed Detective Lulinski’s supposition that Nicky Farnsworth had arranged for the little altercation under the bridge, and we both agreed the theory had merit.

  “So . . .” she said, leaning forward, eyes sparkling, “how did the rest of it go?”

  “The rest of what?”

  “Your big dinner last night. With the private investigator.”

  “Actually,” I said, “it went great. I hired him.”

  Her dark eyes went flat. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I knew what she meant. “Jordan . . .”

  She didn’t heed the warning—she pressed up against my desk to give me the lecture. “Just because you had some bad luck with men recently . . .”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “That’s all it is. Just a string of bad luck,” she said. “If you go thinking it’s more than that—if you go thinking it’s you that’s the problem—then you will never have a chance.”

  I held a hand up. “Okay, you’re right.”

  She sat back, pleased with herself.

  “But,” I amended, “that doesn’t mean I have to be interested in every eligible man I meet.” I furrowed my brow, thinking.

  “What?” she asked.

  It hadn’t even occurred to me to find out if Ron Shade was available. “I just wasn’t thinking of him that way.”

  She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers. “What about a wedding ring?”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t notice.”

  “Girl, you are so out of practice. Did he ask you anything personal? Like ‘Are you seeing someone?’ ”

  “Of course not.”

  She twisted her mouth, surprised. “Okay, then, no big loss. He’s probably taken. Or gay. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook.”

  I laughed. “No?”

  “Uh-uh. I’m making you my project. I’m going to find you a man by—”

  Bass broke into the conversation, bursting into my closed-door office without knocking.

  Jordan took one look at his face, stood, and inched her way out with a wide-eyed “Glad it’s you and not me” expression. She said, “Looks like you don’t have to worry about ruining his good mood with your news, sweetie.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Bass asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Guess what I found?” he said, waving several sheets of paper in the air over his head.

  “Shush,” I said. “You’re shouting.”

  “Of course I’m shouting. Look at what that Ron Shade character sold me.” He thrust the pages at me.

  A quick glance told me that Bass had been busy researching news articles on the Internet. These were printouts of stories run several months before in the local papers. Four articles in all, each told the same story of Ron Shade’s Firebird being involved in a shooting on the city’s southwest side. Ken Albrecht had taken a bullet to the brain, just like Shade had told me last night. I flipped through the stories twice. No mention of Shade’s girlfriend, Paula, and her troubles with the car.

  “Has the car been giving you trouble?”

  “No, but—”

  I handed the sheets back to him. “I don’t see the problem then.”

  Bass snapped his fingers against the pages. “He didn’t tell you any of this, did he? I knew it.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “he did.”

  I wished I had a camera to catch Bass’s expression. Total shock. “He did?” he asked in a small voice.

  “Yeah,” I said. I pointed to the chair Jordan vacated. “And now that I’ve done your dirty work, why don’t you have a seat? There are a couple of things we n
eed to discuss.”

  Ron Shade

  After making the trek to the northern suburbs once again, I circled the building that housed the Manus Corporation three times, writing down plate numbers and checking the place out. There were only half a dozen cars in the lot, which struck me as odd for a company that was listed as one of the up-and-comers in Crain’s Chicago Business. Of course, the most recent millions had been forked over by MWO, rather than earned. Maybe Bob Bayless had been worth a lot more to them dead than alive, in which case they might not be too happy to see me. I parked the Beater on the far side of the lot, so if anybody looked out of the big sparkling glass windows, my car would be obscured by theirs.

  The building had kind of an artsy design to it. It was only one story, but it sort of reminded me of the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Beverly. A triangular roof, with one side sloping down sharply, contrasted by an elongated slope on its other side, squatted over a dark brown building. Lots of nice, big windows. The sidewalk curved in a semicircle through some lushly maintained grass, and a row of well-trimmed hedges stood guard along the front, next to the front entrance. I pulled on the door and it opened with oiled precision, accompanied by a single, semi-strident beeping sound.

  Inside, a pretty woman glanced up from a thin computer monitor that faced away from the door, and smiled at me. She had brown hair to her shoulders and very nice teeth.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  I was impressed enough by the surroundings, and her professionalism brought it up to a new level. Her dynamite looks didn’t hurt any, either. “Hi, I’m Ron Shade.” I handed her one of my cards. “I need to speak to someone about Robert Bayless.”

  She looked at the card and I thought I saw a glimmer of something. Recognition? I’d never seen her before. Maybe she was impressed with the card. Or me. After all, I had run about four miles that morning.

  “I can see if Mr. Prince will talk to you,” she said. “Since you don’t have an appointment.”

  Scratch her being impressed. Maybe I need to get a few more workouts in with Brice, I thought.

  She purred into the phone in a tone so low that I could barely discern what she was saying. But I was virtually certain she’d said something like, “It’s the private detective, Ron Shade . . . About Mr. Bayless’s death.”

  She hung up quickly and smiled up at me again. “He’ll be with you shortly, sir. You can have a seat in our waiting room. Would you care for a cup of coffee while you wait?”

  I shook my head and retreated to the area she’d pointed at. It was a good-sized room on the right. A television playing CNN at a low volume from a wooden cabinet, and several comfortable-looking chairs formed a small semicircle in front of it.

  I stood behind one of the chairs and pretended to watch TV as I slowly checked the room out. It was set up to look like a library of some sort, with a bunch of leather-bound volumes lining some built-in bookshelves. The book spines all had the token look of a set of The Great Books. Made for decoration and not for reading just like at MWO. The floor had several Persian-design rugs over finely polished wood. Directly in back of me a doorway framed a small corridor and farther back, I could see more rooms. If anyone was working in them, they must have been in stealth mode. I listened for the traces of floating conversation, the ringing of phones, the tapping of fingers on keyboards, but nothing. The place was as quiet as a morgue.

  “Mr. Shade,” a voice from my left said. I turned and saw a thin, blond-haired man in his mid-thirties moving toward me with an extended palm. “I’m James Prince. CEO here at Manus. What can I do for you?”

  I shook his hand and was surprised at his grip. He either had a bit more strength than his sparse body appeared to have, or he was trying to impress me. Or maybe he was nervous. I squeezed back with slightly more returning pressure than I normally use to let him know that I was not easily impressed. I caught a minute wincing on his face.

  “I’m doing some follow-ups for Midwestern Olympia Insurance. About the death of one of your employees.” I waited a few beats to gauge his reaction to the name. “Robert Bayless.”

  His eyebrows rose simultaneously and his eyes shot down and to the left. “Good old Bob. Shame what happened to him. Real shame.” He looked back at me and smiled. “Perhaps we’d be more comfortable in my office. Would you care for some coffee?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “Your secretary already asked me.”

  I thought I heard her murmur “Administrative assistant” under her breath as I walked by.

  Jim Prince’s office was down a second hallway, and I estimated that the long corridor that we turned onto was the extension of the one I’d seen from the waiting room. The place was far from labyrinthine. He sat behind a neatly arranged desk, with a telephone, a date book calendar, and a paper-thin computer monitor. Numerous plaques hung on the wall behind him, and two padded chairs were off to the side. He motioned me toward them and I sat. On the opposite wall were several pictures of Prince with a group of men and women on what appeared to be a south-of-the-border fishing trip. In one they held the body of a swordfish. In another they held some longneck beer bottles. I recognized one of the men in the pictures as Robert Bayless. I asked him about it.

  “Yeah, that was good old Bob, all right.” He clasped his hands together and leaned back slightly. “Our company trip to Cancun. Lots of good memories on that one.”

  I studied the photos for a telltale blonde in the vicinity of Bayless, but saw none.

  “How long after that one was taken did he die?”

  Prince’s eyebrows rose again. “You know, I’d have to think on that one a while. The whole thing was such an awful event, I’ve tried to replace it with happier memories.” He unclasped his hands and pointed toward the photo array. “Hence the photos of the Cancun trip. That’s how I’d like to remember him.” He heaved a sigh. “I assume you’ve lost people close to you, Mr. Shade?”

  “A few.”

  “Then you know how hard it is to talk about certain things, I imagine.”

  I could think of about ten million reasons why he wouldn’t want to talk to me. I merely nodded in agreement.

  “So let me ask you this,” he said, leaning forward in his big padded chair. “What’s MWO’s renewed interest in this? I thought the whole matter was settled. We deposited the check a while ago.”

  I’d planned on this question, so I shot back my cryptic answer. “Just routine. Making sure all the i’s are crossed and all the t’s dotted.”

  It took him a moment, then he made a snorting half-laugh sound. I grinned back. Two mid-level corporate buddies, sharing a good joke, each one knowing the other was about to toss some bullshit.

  I glanced from one wall over to the next. “What exactly did Bob do around here, anyway? I’m assuming you took his place?” I figured multiple questions, like a good punching combination, would keep him off balance.

  “Why, yes, I did replace him,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “You see, I’d been his assistant, so it was only natural that I take his place.”

  “As CEO?”

  “Right.”

  “So, what exactly does a CEO do here at Manus?”

  He exhaled loudly through an accompanying smile. “Way too much,” he said, and punctuated it with a forced laugh. “We’re basically in medical supply. We have numerous accounts and work with all kinds of doctors, hospitals, and medical research facilities.”

  “Medical supply?”

  “Correct.”

  “That’s a tall order.” I glanced around again. “The place doesn’t look that big. Where do you keep your inventory?”

  He did the exhaling smile again. “We’re not that kind of a company.” His head canted slightly to the right. “If I had to make an analogy, I’d say we’re more like a middleman. When a doctor needs some sample drugs, test results, or basic office examination equipment, he or she calls us. We’re familiar with the market, know which vendors to approach, order the stuff and ship it to him.”
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br />   “Or her,” I said.

  “Right.” He made an agreeable nodding gesture. Sort of like a trained seal.

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper for the doctor to go to the vendor himself?”

  His mouth twisted with a mild case of the “I’m getting irritated” look and he shook his head. “Not if you understand the way the system works. Believe me, we know how to get the best products, the best deals. Our clients love us.”

  I figured I’d softened him up enough with the jabs. Now it was time to follow up with a straight right. “What was Bob Bayless doing so far downstate when he was killed?”

  The question hit him like a body blow. After a few beats he responded. “I wish I knew. I think he was going to check on some colleges in that area. His son was about that age.”

  “Nice kid. Athletic.”

  “He is.” He was back to nodding agreeably.

  “Bayless was a good family man?”

  “The best.”

  “Funny . . .” I went for effect as I raised my eyebrows in a look of confused skepticism. “I heard he was banging his secretary.” I cocked my head toward the front of the building. “She still work here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Was she let go, or did she quit?”

  “Mr. Shade,” he said slowly, “we’re a small company, although we’d like to cooperate with MWO, our employees do have certain expectations of privacy.” He glanced at his watch. “It wouldn’t be ethical for me to talk about her.”

  “Then don’t. Just steer me toward her and I’ll do the talking.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “Because?”

  He started to say something, then stopped, sighed again, and smiled. “All right, I can tell you this much. Candice is no longer with the company.”