Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle

by Rob Cornell

His gaze scanned the bar until he spotted me. He shook his head as he headed over. “You son of a bitch.”

  “I should have done a better job with my research,” I said and shrugged.

  He dropped into the booth and did a little drum rolled on the table with his hands. Then he pointed at me. “You are a dumb ass. You really thought that gargantuan excuse for a home was mine?”

  “Why not? People change.”

  “No they don’t. They just sometimes show you a different side you never seen before.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Wow, that’s deep.”

  He tossed up a hand. “You see? I’ve always been a philosopher. You just didn’t know it.” He crossed his arms and leaned back. “After all these years, why the heck would you want to see me?”

  “Eddie Arndt.” I left it at that.

  He squinted while his signature smirk stuck to his face. “That kid whose dad went crazy with a gun? What about him?”

  “You two have issues back in the day?”

  “Issues?” He shot air out the side of his mouth. “I had issues with everyone back then.”

  I remembered. That’s why he ended up in detention so often. Warren had liked to pick fights. “So nothing special with Eddie?”

  He looked around at the bar. “You know I used to use a fake ID to get in here?” He jerked his chin toward the bar. “Think that same guy served me at least a dozen shots before I got busted.”

  “I never saw you around.”

  “I never saw you around neither.”

  Valid point. I tried to avoid the High Note as much as possible back then. Once I hit my teen years, my parents found it a lot harder to dress me up and force me on stage to impress their friends and the occasional celebrity musician that stopped by on their way from Detroit to Chicago.

  “Places looks different now,” he said. “I read about the fire in the paper.”

  Nice of him to say fire instead of explosion. “My fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “It true you’re a detective now or something?”

  “Yep,” I said and realized he had slyly driven the conversation down a different road than the one I had started on. “Which brings us back to Eddie.”

  Warren rolled his shoulders. His back cracked. He let out a contented sigh. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”

  “You know why I want to talk to you?”

  “No. But I figure it’s about some trouble you think I caused. I got a good job, takes care of the room and board and gives me enough money for beers and an occasional trip to the antique bookstore.” He pointed at me again. “There’s another side you didn’t know about. In fact, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. That includes the fact I stay out of trouble these days. Everybody still makes assumptions, though.”

  “I don’t assume anything,” I said. “I just want to ask some questions.”

  “About Eddie Arndt. I guy I haven’t seen or heard about since high school.”

  “You sure about that?”

  His smirk gave way to a sneer, but only for a second. “Thought you weren’t assuming.”

  “Eddie tells me you two had problems back in the day, thinks you might still be holding a grudge.”

  “He thinks that, huh?” He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “You tell Eddie, if I’m holding a grudge, he’d fucking know it, not think it.”

  The edge in his voice tweaked my defensive instincts. While for the most part he could hide it well, Warren was dangerous. I had no doubt. “I guess you’re right. People don’t change.”

  “What’s Eddie think I did?”

  “Who says he thinks you did anything?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Come on. Obviously he hired you because someone hurt his feelings or some shit, and so you’re going around grilling anyone who might not have liked him.”

  “You still haven’t told me what happened between you two in high school.”

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “I want to hear your side.”

  He rested his head against the seatback and puffed his cheeks as he exhaled. “I decked his books or something. No big deal. Next day, the little fucker sneaks up behind me and pushes me down the stairs on my way to the lunchroom. Broke my arm and sprained my ankle.”

  “He pushed you down the stairs?” Eddie had told me he had pushed him. He left out the part about the stairs.

  “I was out of school for a week, which wasn’t so bad. But I hurt like a mother.”

  “What happened to Eddie?”

  “You mean, did he get suspended or something? Nah. I said I slipped. That way, after I healed up, I could kick the crap out of him.”

  That part, Eddie had shared. Including how Warren had bent back Eddie’s arm until it snapped. “And broke his arm in return.”

  “Damn right. He got off easy. I didn’t touch his ankle.”

  I’d never heard anything about this. But outside of detention, I didn’t run in either Warren’s or Eddie’s circles, so that wasn’t very surprising. What did surprise me was the venom in Warren’s eyes even after all these years. But did that make him a killer? I couldn’t picture a high schooler—even one as bitter as Warren—pulling off a triple murder and so masterfully covering it up.

  “You have any more run ins with Eddie after that?”

  He seemed to think about it, as if he couldn’t remember. “No. He got the message. Stayed away from me. And I forgot all about him.”

  I decided to throw out one more from left field. “You ever been to the Grand Canyon?”

  “I never been rich like you people from the north side. Couldn’t never afford vacations.”

  On my way to Detroit the following morning, I replayed my conversation with Warren. The guy was full of contradictions. I wondered if he hadn’t been toying with me, throwing out lies just to prove I didn’t know him. The antique book shopping felt like a stretch. Who knows?

  Still, it seemed ludicrous to imagine Warren tracking Eddie throughout his lifetime, killing off relatives, all in the name of revenge over a twisted ankle and a broken arm.

  Amanda Lanski, formerly Warbler, had an equally innocuous confrontation with Eddie about a week before his family tragedy. Apparently, they were dating. According to Eddie, during a make out session in her parents’ basement, he got a little too hot for her tastes. She scratched him across the face when his hands got too friendly. They broke up and that was that.

  After talking to Warren, though, I had a feeling Eddie had left out some key details like he had about the whole pushing Warren down some stairs. I did not, however, expect the drastic difference in their stories about that night in the basement.

  “He raped me.”

  We sat at her kitchen table, half of a decimated birthday cake between us. In the next room, the squalls from a dozen six and seven year-olds playing pin the tail on the donkey nearly vibrated the walls, and were loud enough to make me question that I’d heard Amanda right.

  “Eddie did?”

  She looked at me like I had licked the frosting off the cake right there in front of her. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  A collective squeal of record decibels cut through the wall separating the kitchen from the neighboring room. The other adult at the party, presumably one of the partier’s mothers, hushed them with little effect.

  I cringed, not at the ruckus, but because I had interrupted the birthday party for Amanda’s son so that she could dredge up the kind of memories best left alone. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “He said he got pushy, but…no.”

  “Pushy. Right.”

  “You never reported it?”

  She hooked her lower lip against her teeth. Shook her head. “We were dating. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  I didn’t know how to go on. If what she said was true, I had a whole new spin on Eddie Arndt to deal with, including the question of whether I would continue working for him. I had to
admit, though, that Amanda’s motives to torture Eddie with the murder of his loved ones had more oomph than Warren’s. It still seemed unrealistic, though.

  “Can you tell me anything about what happened?”

  “What more is there to tell? He raped me, got me pregnant, which meant I had to get an abortion so my parents wouldn’t kill me.” She gazed at the birthday cake as if looking upon a dead loved one. “He wrecked my life. It took me a long time to get back on track.”

  “That explain the troubles with the law?”

  Her gaze lifted from the cake, back to me. “You know about that?”

  “It’s public record.”

  A round of giggling erupted from the other room. Amanda cringed as if the sound hurt her. In the context of our conversation, it probably did. “That’s all behind me now.”

  I poked at different questions with a mental stick to see which one might not explode in my face when I asked it. I didn’t want to make her feel like I was sticking up for Eddie, or discounting her experience with him. But in the name of following through on the case, I couldn’t let it go as is.

  “I imagine you still hate Eddie,” I said.

  She shook her head slowly as if daydreaming about another time. “I loved Eddie. I never expected him to do something like that to me. He was so gentle.” She pulled her lips in. Her eyes tightened, trying to hold back tears. “It was almost like he was a different person. Possessed.”

  Her gaze floated across the table, from the cake to the stack of brightly wrapped presents, to the Thomas the Tank Engine balloon with “Have a puff-erfect Birthday” lettered above Thomas like a puff of steam from his funnel. The balloon twisted slowly on its ribbon tied to one of the chairs at the table.

  I tried to gently prod her, sensing she had something important to say. “Do you think something was bothering him? Made him irrational?”

  Her gaze snapped back to me. “Why? So you can make excuses for him?”

  Not gently enough. “I’m not making excuses for him. What he did to you…it’s unforgivable.”

  “No it’s not. I forgave him a long time ago. You asked me if I still hated Eddie. I never hated him. That’s what hurt the most. Even after what he did, I still loved him.” She took a deep breath. “Which made me think there must be something wrong with me. My life went downhill from there. I believed I was a bad person, so I acted like one.”

  “How did you pull yourself out?”

  “I met James. He…believe it or not, he was a client, a John. He had a sense of humor I never noticed with any of the other guys. Most men who use prostitutes come off as desperate and depressed. Like they know they’re doing something wrong, but can’t help themselves.” She smiled. “Not my Jimmy. He picked me up on a dare from some college buddies. I’d never laughed so hard on the job.”

  “He’s your husband?”

  She nodded. “The day I met Jimmy is the day my whole life changed.”

  “And you’ve since forgiven Eddie? Honestly?”

  “If I hadn’t, his memory would have poisoned all that I’ve gained.” She laughed. “Can you tell I went through therapy?”

  She sounded sincere. I couldn’t pick up any sense that she was putting up a front to cover a simmering hatred for Eddie that could fuel a lifetime’s worth of vengeance. Besides, if I were Amanda and I wanted revenge against the man who had raped me, I would go straight to the source and end it with him. That didn’t mean she couldn’t still help with the case.

  “I really appreciate you letting me talk with you, and I’m sorry for interrupting your party. Can I ask just a few more questions?”

  “I remember you from school. That’s why I let you in. Before I got together with Eddie, I had a crush on you.” Her face flushed. “I went to all the musicals you were in just so I could listen to you sing.”

  A nice little ego stroke. I tried not to let it inflate my head too much. “Thanks.”

  “My curiosity got you in the door. Now it’s keeping you here. So you have to answer some of my questions before I answer any more of yours.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Why all the questions about Eddie?”

  “I’m working for him.”

  Her brow creased. “Working how?”

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  “I thought you were—”

  “A singer. I get that a lot. I haven’t sung professionally in a long time.”

  She bit her lower lip again and gave me a concentrated stare. “What does your investigation have to do with me?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “And I can’t get into details.”

  “Okay.” She stood. “Nice seeing you again, Ridley. I guess.”

  “You won’t let me ask a few more?”

  “Not if you won’t answer mine.”

  I rapped my fingertips on the table. How to do this without making it sound like I suspected her of killing off a bunch of Eddie’s relatives? “He wants me to look into what happened with his family.”

  She paled, eased back into her chair. “That was awful. Happened a week after he…you know. I almost went back to him. In my mind I had mixed it up, thinking that’s why he hurt me, because he was so distraught about the murders. But it happened after, of course. I just wanted to make excuses for him.” Her eyes lit and her gaze screwed tightly to my eyes. “You asked me if something was bothering him that night. Do you think he knew somehow, what was going to happen?”

  Even after all this time, she wanted to believe he had some right to rape her. I didn’t want to pity her. She deserved better than that. But I wasn’t a therapist. I couldn’t fix her anymore than I could fix all my own looming issues. Pity was the best I could do. “What can you tell me?”

  “It’s like I said. He wasn’t himself. He’d always been respectful of my boundaries. Wasn’t like I was a prude or anything. But he knew how far I was willing to go. It’s like he forgot about all that, and when I wouldn’t go along, he snapped.”

  “Did the two of you talk at all that night?”

  “When he first came over, he was all sulky. I tried to find out what was wrong, but all he’d said was…how did he put it?”

  The shouting and laughing from the kids in the next room cut with an eerie suddenness, as if they had overheard our conversation and now waited for what Amanda would say next. The silence lasted a handful of seconds, then a boy growled like a dinosaur, which triggered the rest of the kids to let loose with their screeching voices and mad laughter.

  Amanda swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. “He said, ‘Everything is about to explode.’ Wait, not everything. Everyone. ‘Everyone is about to explode.’ God, that’s freaky. I never saw the connection until now.”

  I wasn’t sure there really was a connection to be made. I did know I had found another corner to peel back. One that Eddie had stood on to keep me from noticing. How many times had he held back key information? The stairs. The rape. Now this. The first two he obviously left out to keep himself from looking like an asshole, though he had to figure I’d find out eventually. Maybe this last meant nothing. If it did, he would have told me about it, right?

  The philosophical musing of Warren Keats had proved partially true—you never saw all sides of a person. It took merely a glimpse of an unknown side to change a person before your eyes like a magic trick.

  Amanda had proved the other part of his theory wrong, though. People did change. Some of them even for the better.

  “You’ve been a great help, Amanda. I won’t take up any more of your time.” I stood.

  She followed suit. “How come you became a private investigator? Everyone always thought you’d follow in your parents’ footsteps.”

  “My parents thought so, too.” I shrugged. “No one bothered to ask me.”

  Chapter 12

  The whole drive back, I fumed. Why, I wondered, did clients always have a propensity to lie to their investigators? It reminded me of something Bobby’s dad, Mort Quinn—who hir
ed and mentored me as a PI—used to say. Assume everyone is lying, then find out why they’re lying.

  It didn’t matter what the lies were, he explained. What mattered was why.

  So I drove straight to Eddie’s to find out why.

  When he answered his apartment door, I shoved my way inside and kicked the door closed with my heel. Eddie staggered back, eyes wide, as if he thought I was going to deck him. I hated liars. Unlike Mort, I didn’t want to believe everyone lied—not about the important things at least. If that made me naïve, fine. I could live with naïve. What I couldn’t live with was someone who I was trying to help lying straight to my face.

  “Tell me about the stairs,” I said, stalking toward him while he scampered back.

  “Wh—what do you mean?”

  “How about the rape? You want to tell me about that?”

  He held his hands out in front of him and cringed, waiting for that punch. I cocked a fist back for show. I’d let him tell his side of things before I bloodied his nose. He didn’t need to know that, though.

  His back eventually hit the wall beside the entrance to his kitchenette, no where left to go. He cowered as I closed in.

  “Talk, Eddie, before I lose my temper.”

  “I made some mistakes, all right? I’m not proud of them.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that. Raping your girlfriend isn’t a mistake. You can’t accidentally force yourself on a woman.”

  “Rape? Is that what Amanda told you?” He parted his quaking hands to show his face. “Do I look like a rapist?”

  I let my fist go, striking the wall next to his head. “Why would she make something like that up?”

  “Can you back off so I can explain?”

  “I don’t want to hear excuses, Eddie. I want to know why you lied to me.”

  He tipped his hands away from his face, palms up, making him look like an obsequious beggar asking for alms. “Because of this. You’re reaction. I didn’t think you’d help me if I told you about that.”

  “And pushing Warren down the stairs?”

  “He bullied me. All the time. Relentlessly. I got sick of it. He deserved that push.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I deserved to know about it. You can’t send me out chasing clues when I don’t have all the facts.”