Death on the Rocks (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 1)

by Michael Allegretto

  I phoned the Pub.

  “Is Tiny there?”

  “Nope.”

  “You expect him in later?”

  “Maybe.”

  I hung up and drove home.

  I packed my gym bag with binoculars, a thermos of coffee, and a couple of sandwiches. Then I rode the bus to a Budget Rent-A-Car on Colfax. The Olds was lousy for stakeouts. It stood out like a zebra at a rodeo. However, the six-year-old dark brown Plymouth I rented was so nondescript you had to blink twice to see it.

  I drove to Donnelly’s Pub and parked on a side street across Thirty-eighth Avenue. It was just after five. The street was jammed with rush hour slowdown. I focused my binoculars through the traffic and had a good view of the front entrance and two-thirds of the parking lot.

  I waited.

  I drank coffee.

  By six-thirty the parking lot was half-full. I hadn’t seen Tiny. He might not even show up tonight. I ate a sandwich and drank coffee.

  By eight o’clock the lot had filled with bikes and trucks and vans. There was one three-wheeler. The guy who parked it was big, but he wasn’t Tiny. I drank coffee and ate the other sandwich.

  By nine-thirty my thermos was empty and my bladder was full. I left the car and stretched my legs and walked two blocks down Thirty-eighth to a Conoco station. The guy wouldn’t let me use the rest room. Customers only, he said. I bought a Mounds bar and a pack of Luckies and a fan belt. He gave me the key. I left the cigarettes and the fan belt in the rest room, and ate the candy bar on the way back to the car.

  There was now a second three-wheeled bike in the lot across the street.

  By midnight more people were leaving Donnelly’s than arriving.

  By one the parking lot was nearly empty. The big guy with the first three-wheeler was long gone.

  At one-thirty Tiny came out.

  He was with two men and a woman. She was skinny as a snake and coiled around one of the guys. The four of them talked for a few minutes, then split up. The snake lady went with the two guys. Tiny waddled unsteadily to his bike. He got on, fumbled around, and turned a key. The engine roared to life. I started the car.

  Tiny pulled out onto Thirty-eighth. I followed.

  We went east on Thirty-eighth, then south on Federal. There wasn’t much traffic, so I stayed back a few blocks. Tiny was drunk, but he knew how to avoid unnecessary hassles. He drove straight and steady and well within the speed limit. Gloria Ruiz was right. He looked like a fat kid on a tricycle. A murderous fat kid.

  We drove past fast-food restaurants and liquor stores and service stations and old houses and apartments—all closed tight for the night. We crossed over Colfax. Half a mile later, Tiny turned right. After a few blocks he turned left into an alley. I guessed he was close to home.

  I left the Plymouth at the curb and hustled down the alley.

  Tiny turned into a yard about halfway down the block. By the time I got there, he’d pulled up to the rear of a four-plex and shut off the engine.

  The building was part of a government-financed, low-income housing project. It had looked shabby when it was new, and that was twenty years ago.

  Tiny lifted a heavy chain from the back of his bike. He wrapped it around the frame and secured it to a clothesline pole with a thick padlock. Unfolding a tarp, he covered the bike like a mother tucking in her child for the night. Then he stepped up to one of the back doors, the second from the left. He dropped his keys and cursed loud enough for me to hear him from the alley. It took him a full minute to work the key, so I figured there was no one inside to open up.

  Finally, he got the door open and went in. A light came on.

  I went through the yard and looked in the window. A kitchen and a dark doorway. No Tiny.

  After I checked the back-door lock, which looked easy enough, I read the license number of Tiny’s bike. Then I walked back to the Plymouth and drove home.

  The next day was Friday. I called Monroe.

  “Everything’s cool,” he said. “Far as anyone can tell, the Denver Po-lice have impounded one near-new, totaled-out Jag.”

  “I owe you, Monroe.”

  “That’s a fact, my man.”

  “What do you have on this?” I gave him Tiny’s license number.

  “Wait a sec.” Clickety-click went his plastic keys. “Okay, that’s a sixty-one Harley, belonging to one Herman Blatt, age thirty-seven, five foot eleven, three hundred and thirty mother lovin’ pounds, Jesus, Jacob I hope you ain’t plannin’ on messin’ with this dude.”

  “The bigger they are, Monroe.”

  “Yeah, the harder they fall on you.”

  Just after one I called Ted Horn at KMTN. He said he and his voice man were still working on the tape. He told me to call back in a couple of hours.

  At four he said the cassette was ready. I drove to the station. Ted met me in the reception area and led me back to his office. It was slightly larger than a phone booth and crammed with a desk, a couple of chairs, boxes of tapes, and stacks of albums. The walls were papered with posters of rock groups. There was an old one of the Stones. They were the only group I recognized.

  Ted had a cassette player on his desk. He popped in the tape.

  “The first part of the tape is untouched. We recorded our finished cut right behind it.”

  He hit “PLAY.” Phillip Townsend’s voice began abruptly in midsentence. I’d heard this before.

  “… ank and Trust. Sincerely yours, etcetera. Um, Yvonne, please type this by noon. I’ll sign it before I leave for lunch. Thanks.”

  There was a muffled click—Townsend switching off his recorder. Then, almost at once, there was another sound on the tape. At first I thought it was static. It was a soft rasping noise. Someone was breathing into the microphone, struggling for breath. When he spoke, there was no question who it was. It was Townsend. I leaned forward to listen.

  Afterward, the tape continued to turn. Ted switched it off. There were goose bumps on my arms. I could almost see Townsend on the floor of his car, struggling with the microphone.

  “Let me hear it again.”

  Ted replayed the tape.

  “Unbelievable.”

  Ted looked pained. “I thought it sounded fairly realistic.”

  “No, it does. I mean, it’s incredible.”

  “Oh.” He smiled briefly. “Thanks. My voice man will be glad to hear that. He wanted to know what it was all about. I told him it was a practical joke on a couple of lowlifes.”

  “That’s more or less true.”

  “I figured.”

  I took the tape home and played it on my portable recorder. The sound wasn’t as good as it had been on Ted’s machine. But it still sounded real. At least, to me. I didn’t know how it would sound to Herman Tiny Blatt.

  CHAPTER 34

  AT 6:00 A.M. I slipped the backdoor lock of Tiny’s apartment.

  Last night, after I’d seen Ted Horn, I’d staked out the apartment. Tiny had arrived, drunk and alone, just before 2:00 A.M. When he was safely tucked inside, I’d gone home and packed my bag with a few essentials. Then I’d grabbed some sleep and let Tiny do the same. I didn’t want him too drunk.

  I stepped into Tiny’s kitchen and softly closed the door.

  Faint snoring drifted in from the next room.

  I set my bag on the kitchen table next to plates painted with yesterday’s egg yolks, an empty jug of Gallo Vin Rosé, and a Baggie with some poor-quality grass. Seeds and stems. I put away the metal strip I’d used on the lock. I took out the .357 magnum. It would impress Tiny more than the snub-nosed .38.

  I looked in the bedroom.

  He was on his back on top of the sheets. He wore dirty white socks, boxer shorts, and a sleeveless T-shirt that rode up over his enormous stomach. His face was turned away from me. He’d undone his ponytail, so his hair fell, greasy and black, on the pillow. There was no pillowcase. His massive belly rose and fell, rose and fell.

  I quickly checked the rest of the apartment. The living roo
m featured an old couch, a battered TV, and no carpet. The bathroom had clothes on the floor, ants in the sink, and grime in the tub.

  I stepped to the bedroom. Tiny hadn’t moved.

  “Wake up,” I said in a loud voice.

  His snoring missed a beat.

  Then he was off his back and sitting up with his feet on the floor so fast it made me step back. He reached down under the bed between his legs.

  “Freeze!” I said, sounding stupid, like some actor-cop, weeknights on Channel 7.

  But Tiny froze. He stared into the muzzle of the magnum. He put his hands on his blubbery knees and smiled at me. Dead lion tamers had seen that smile. I was in Tiny’s cage.

  “That can’t be the popgun you shot me in the ass with Monday night.” His voice was hoarse from booze and interrupted sleep.

  “I wondered who I hit.”

  “It hurt like a motherfucker. And just what the fuck’re you doing here?”

  “Keeping your wounded ass out of the gas chamber.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to turn state’s evidence on Leonard Reese.”

  His smile was gone. “What’re you talking about?”

  “The murder of Phillip Townsend.”

  Recognition showed in Tiny’s face. And something else. Worry. He was fully awake now.

  “Who’s Phillip Townsend? And hey, put away the piece. You’re making me nervous.”

  “You and Reese killed Townsend. I know it. You know it. And pretty soon the cops will know it.”

  Tiny shook his head. “Never heard of the guy. But let me grab my pants and we’ll go out in the kitchen and talk about it.” Again, he reached between his feet under the bed.

  “This is loaded with hollow points, Tiny. You pull out anything but clothes and I’ll open your head like a melon.”

  His hands came out empty. His pants were in the corner of the room.

  “What’s under the bed?”

  “Nothing but a shotgun.”

  “Get dressed.”

  He did. I marched him out to the kitchen, where he eased his bulk into a chair. I told him in detail how Townsend had been set up, blackmailed, and murdered. Tiny paid close attention. He denied nothing.

  When I was through, he said, “Let’s say all that’s true. How come the cops haven’t busted me and Reese?”

  “Because the cops still believe Townsend’s death was an accident. You two did a good job. Almost perfect.”

  “Almost?”

  I kept the gun leveled at his sternum, opened the bag, and took out the cassette player.

  “Townsend had a tape machine installed in his car. He dictated letters to his secretary while he drove to work. I went to Triple-A Auto a few days ago and dug this out of the Jag.”

  I rewound the tape to the beginning and hit “PLAY.” Townsend began talking to Yvonne.

  Tiny said, “What the fuck is this?”

  “Shut up and listen.”

  Tiny looked bored. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the walls. The tape played on. He looked at the countertop. There were some dirty dishes. And a butcher knife. He shifted in his chair. Then the last part of the tape came on.

  “… Reese, no … I’ll pay … please … Tiny, stop … don’t push me over … Oh God, no … Reese … Tiny … Oh God!”

  There was a grunt of exertion, apparently from outside the car. In the distance, a jet moved through the night sky. Then came the grating of metal against rock, followed by glass smashing and a yell from Townsend that ended abruptly, as if the air had been knocked out of him. The crashing continued, now with a thudding that sounded like something heavy and soft being slammed around inside the car. Then, suddenly, silence.

  Tiny stared at the recorder.

  “Before you got the car over the cliff, Townsend switched on his recorder. Maybe by accident. It doesn’t matter. Listen.”

  I played it again.

  When it was over, Tiny said, “That don’t mean shit. That could be anybody talking.”

  “Oh, there’s no question it’s Phillip Townsend. You’ve talked to him. You know what he sounds like. Besides, this tape’s been verified by a voiceprint.” A lie, of course. “And as of three years ago, verified recordings are admissible in court.” A second lie. “Also, the cop lab technicians can prove that this recording was made on Townsend’s machine.” A third.

  “It still don’t mean it’s me he’s talking about. There’s lots of guys named Tiny. And lots of guys named Reese.”

  “Don’t be stupid. How many of them filmed Townsend with a whore named Bunny? How many of them spent over eighty grand in a month? And how many of them left the country the day after Townsend died?”

  Tiny stared hard through half-closed lids and tried to make me go away. He didn’t like what he was hearing. He cleared his throat with a cough.

  “So why tell me?”

  “When I leave here, I’m taking this tape to the cops and I’m going to tell them everything I know about you and Reese and Townsend. They’ll be on you like flies on garbage. You’ll both take the fall for Townsend’s murder.”

  “I said, why tell me?”

  “Since there’s no eyewitness or confession, you can’t get death. Probably just twenty years with no chance for parole. Let’s see, you’re what, thirty-seven? When you get out, you’ll be almost sixty, Tiny. An old man.”

  “I said, why tell me, goddammit? Why aren’t you feeding this bullshit to the cops right now?”

  “I’ve talked to a cop. An inspector in Jefferson County. I told him I’d be bringing him Townsend’s killers today. He’s already had the Denver cops impound Townsend’s car. Why don’t you call and check it out?”

  Tiny frowned, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then he lumbered to his feet. He squeezed past the counter, near the knife, but didn’t try for it. We went into the living room. I told him AAA Auto, and he looked it up in the book. He dialed, using his pinky, the only fat digit that would fit in the holes. He listened to what the guy had to say about Townsend’s Jaguar.

  After he hung up, he kept his paw on the phone. “He says the cops took it. So what is he, a friend of yours?”

  “If you don’t believe him, call the cops.”

  Tiny thumbed through the book again, and dialed. He was transferred twice before he got the right section. They answered his questions. He hung up. He stared at a stain on the wall.

  “Did you leave any prints on the Jag, Tiny? Or maybe a thread from your clothes? If you did, those techs will find it.”

  “I need some time to think this over.”

  “You’re out of time.”

  “I need to think.”

  He waddled back to the kitchen, with me close behind. We sat at the table.

  And Tiny slammed the table up in my face. It knocked me out of my chair and onto the floor and he grabbed the butcher knife from the counter while I shoved the table off me and scrambled through broken dishes on the floor for the gun and Tiny rumbled toward me with the knife held low and I rolled to the side and fired a round past his ear into the ceiling. The blast was deafening in that small room. Tiny stood perfectly still. Plaster dust snowed behind him. The magnum was pointed at his left eye. He dropped the knife. I got to my feet.

  “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “That was your one and only chance, Tiny. There’s no way you can stop me from going to the cops. And where’s a fat boy like you going to hide?”

  He said nothing. He just stared at the gun. My hand was shaking. I picked up the recorder from the debris on the floor and put it in my bag.

  “I don’t give a damn about you,” I said. “It’s Reese I want. And you’re going to help me get him.”

  “Like hell.” He didn’t sound too sure about that.

  “If you don’t, the D.A. goes after you and Reese as partners in murder. Add this tape to the pile of circumstantial evidence and you’re a cinch to be convicted. And believe me, the judge will give you the maximum.
You didn’t snuff some bum, Tiny. You killed a rich man. That’s a serious offense in this country.”

  “Let’s say I help you.”

  “If you testify for the prosecution, Reese gets the gas chamber. I’d like that. So would Townsend’s widow. So would the D.A. Everyone wants a life for a life. It evens things out.”

  “And what about me?”

  “A couple of years. You can do that standing on one pudgy leg.”

  Tiny frowned and struggled with his thoughts.

  “There’s only one thing that could go wrong with all this,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Reese might turn state’s evidence on you.”

  “What? How do you figure?”

  “Think about it. You know the kind of guy Reese is. He’d burn his own mother if he thought it would save himself.”

  Tiny scowled at the floor.

  “It could be you in the gas chamber, Tiny. You ever seen someone die that way? I have. It wasn’t pretty. They strapped the poor slob in the chair and dropped a pair of cyanide eggs into a bowl between his knees. When the eggs hit the acid, the gas started rising. We watched him through little windows in the chamber. The poor bastard held his breath for almost two minutes.”

  “Why don’t you shut up.”

  “When he finally breathed, his eyes bulged out and he went into convulsions. Shit all over himself. It took him a long time to die. I’ll tell you the truth, Tiny, no one deserves to go like that. It made me sick to my stomach.”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  “It’s your choice.”

  He glared at me. When he spoke, his lips barely moved.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Go to the police with me now, make your best deal, and sign a statement.”

  “I want a lawyer there.”

  “We’ll get you one. I’ll call now and set it up.”

  I walked Tiny to the living room and sat him on the couch. Then I phoned the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. I hoped Ives worked on Saturday. He did.

  “Remember that piece of hard evidence you asked for?”