by Ron Goulart
“Go ahead,” advised Mert. “Nothing told at these lunches ever goes any further.”
The old man sighed again. “Well, in the first place,” he said, “Carol Cinders never wrote a suicide note.”
“I saw it,” said Banner. “Segal showed me a photostat once, and it was in her handwriting.”
Myers shook his head. “Nope, that note was in a very good imitation of Carol Cinders’ handwriting.”
“You mean Segal forged it?”
“He was a gifted artist. Faking her handwriting was no problem for him,” said Myers. “It was good enough to fool Lon Destry, and he sure wasn’t going to have the darn thing checked out by a handwriting expert.”
Zarley murmured, “This gets worse and worse.”
Banner asked, “You’re absolutely certain she didn’t leave a suicide note?”
“The reason being,” said the old man, “she didn’t kill herself.”
“Huh?” Banner had been reaching for his drink and he stopped. “What do you mean?”
“She was murdered,” replied Myers. “Let me explain something. I was that gent in the Panama hat. Ben Segal wasn’t the only one anxious to improve his standing at Destry Productions. I was, too. Only I was doing it by getting in good with Mrs. Destry and, well, I was watching Carol’s house for her. Thing is, I hadn’t yet told her that her husband was actually visiting there. That I was keeping to myself, figuring maybe I—”
“Could blackmail Destry yourself?” asked Banner.
“The notion had occurred to me, yes,” admitted the old cartoonist as he folded his hands on the table top. “But she got killed before I’d made up my mind just what I was going to do.”
Zarley hunched in his chair, breathing through his mouth. “Who killed her? And why?”
“What you knew about the situation, Ty,” said Myers, “was only what Ben wanted you to know. It suited him to plant a fake version of the facts, in case it might come in handy later. Actually, while Carol really was seeing Lon Destry, she was also keeping company with Ben Segal. That was the real reason he was going up to her place, most nights anyway.”
Banner asked, “You mean he wasn’t staked out in that field?”
“Oh, maybe once or twice, when Destry was visiting her,” Myers said. “But not often. Most of what he knew about the affair he got right straight from Carol. I’m pretty sure the two of them worked out the whole thing, a variation on the badger game. Another reason I know Ben wasn’t there is that I’d station myself up there quite a bit, once I was sure she was home for the night.”
“The night she died,” said Banner, “where was Ben Segal?”
“In her bedroom with her,” the old man said. “I think she was getting tired of Ben, maybe threatening to tell Destry what was going on. Anyway, they had quite an argument, and while she was out of the room, Ben doctored her drink. It took her about an hour to die.”
Zarley said, “You watched that?”
“Yes,” said Myers. “Ben stuck around until he was certain she was dead. Then he wiped his fingerprints off things, arranged all the props the way they were when the cops found her.”
“And the suicide note?” asked Banner.
“Like I said, Ben must’ve forged that,” said Myers. “I was never sure until today, but I always knew he got his promotion by pulling some sort of deal on Destry. He convinced Destry that Carol had died because of him, and for keeping quiet about the note he got to be a vice president. And died rich.”
“And you blackmailed Segal?” asked Zarley.
“Yes, I told him what I’d seen.” He rubbed one hand over the other. “Never much talked about this before, but since Ty brought it up…”
“How could you sit up there,” asked Banner, “and watch her die without even trying to help save her?”
The old man rubbed at his hand. “Because I didn’t have anywhere near the talent Ben Segal had,” he said slowly. “But I knew he was going to rise in that studio and, if I was lucky, he’d see to it I did, too.” He turned to gaze out at the afternoon. “And I was lucky.”
PIT ON THE ROAD TO HELL, by John Gregory Betancourt
When the telephone rang, I rolled over and squinted blearily in its general direction, my head swimming from too much whisky the night before. What was this, Grand Central Station? I’d gotten more phone calls in the last week than I had in the entire previous year.
Cursing would-be friends and telemarketers under my breath, I fumbled for the handset. Though booze helped blunt the pain from my ruined legs, the side effects left a lot to be desired. My coordination was off, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.
Somehow, I got the receiver up to my ear.
“Who is this?” I rasped.
“Hello, Pit,” said a too-smooth voice.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Gulping hard, I sat up, nearly dropping the phone.
That voice belonged to Cal Tortelli—or Mr. Smith, as he now called himself. He ran an illegal gambling club outside Philadelphia. When an old college friend of mine fell victim to a blackmail scheme, I had manipulated Smith into handling the problem for us. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew the resolution had been neither legal nor pretty for the blackmailers.
Unfortunately, Smith seemed to have taken a particular interest in me. He had researched my life, even going so far as to have my phone bugged. I seemed to intrigue him…probably due to my trick memory. I could recall every name, date, face, and fact that I had ever encountered.
“Hello, Mr. Smith,” I said warily. “What do you want?”
“Don’t you ever leave your apartment?” he asked with a low chuckle.
“I try not to. Walking hurts.”
“Come outside. I need to see you.”
“You’re…here?”
“Yes.” He paused. “And bring your toothbrush, ‘Pit-bull’ Peter Geller. You’re going on a trip.” He hung up.
With an uneasy feeling, I fumbled my phone back into its cradle. I really needed to get an answering machine and start screening calls. Mr. Smith was the last person I wanted to meet again…in my book, he ranked somewhere south of doctors and lawyers.
Bring a toothbrush? Why a toothbrush, but not a change of clothes?
No sense guessing. Throwing off my blanket, I hauled the hideously scarred pieces of flesh that now passed for my legs over the edge of the bed and, with a groan and several grunts, levered myself to a standing position. From the arches of my feet to the joints of my hips, I ached with a dull constant pain. Getting up was the worst part of any day.
I eyed the nearly-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the pillow next to mine. Maybe one quick drink, just to steady my nerves? No, I had better not…Tortelli/Smith was a sharp man, and I’d need my head clear to deal with him.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced around my Spartan bedroom: bed, dresser, night stand, closet with shut doors. No pictures, no calendars, no clock—time doesn’t mean much when you’re waiting to die. Nothing had been moved; nobody had been inside while I slept.
I felt my attention starting to sharpen, all the little details leaping out at me. It had been an asset in college, a useful talent at work, but my always-racing, always-analyzing mind had pushed me to a nervous breakdown five years before. Thin blades of sunlight shining through the not-quite-closed blinds on the east-facing window meant late morning, somewhere around eleven o’clock. Not that the hour mattered; I only worked one day a month, when I made my regular pilgrimage to Atlantic City to win my monthly expenses at the gambling tables. Sometimes it helps to remember everything…like the number of aces and face-cards played from an eight-deck blackjack shoe.
I had left my silver-handled walking stick leaning up against my night table. Using it, I limped into the kitchen. Four aspirin and a glass of orange juice made breakfast. Then I returned to my bedroom, where I dressed methodically in my last pair of clean Dockers, a blue-and-gold sweater, and worn leather loafers—all remnants from better days, when I had been a
wunderkind at a Wall Street investment bank. But that had been before my always-racing mind led to a nervous breakdown. And before my run-in with the taxi.
At the front door, I paused just long enough to pull on a Yankees cap and shrug on a windbreaker against the cool October weather. In an act of defiance, I deliberately forgot my toothbrush. Then, taking a firm grip on my walking stick, I slowly limped into the hallway, then out to my building’s tiny front porch.
A cold wind gusted, stirring leaves in the gutter. Lowering gray clouds threatened rain. A long black limousine with dark-tinted windows sat double-parked in front of my door, its powerful engine purring. The chauffeur—short but stocky, sporting a military-style haircut and dark sunglasses—opened the rear door and stood stiffly next to it, waiting for me to get in.
Three careful steps down, leaning heavily on the rail, and I reached the sidewalk. When I limped over to the limo, I noticed the bulge of a gun at the chauffeur’s right armpit—which meant he was not only armed, but left-handed. Just another useless detail I couldn’t help but observe. My mind turned like a well-oiled machine now, noting everything around me and analyzing it.
Surreptitiously, I gave a quick glance up and down the block, but found no sign of life—everybody in my lower working-class neighborhood had already gone off to work or school or whatever else they did during the day: no witnesses left to see my abduction.
Carefully, grimacing a bit, I lowered myself into the extra-roomy back seat and stretched out my legs. They hurt less that way.
Mr. Smith sat inside, dressed—as he had been the last time we met—in an impeccable Italian silk suit. He wore his short salt-and-pepper hair swept back, and the faint scent of lavender surrounded him. Against my better judgment, I eyed the two glasses in his hands with interest, amber liquid with faintly clinking cubes of ice. As the chauffeur closed the door firmly behind me, Smith passed me a drink. I gulped without hesitation, then made a face. Ginger ale.
“You spoiled perfectly good ice,” I muttered.
“Alcohol kills brain cells, Pit. I want you at your best.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly. My hands started to tremble again. As subtly as I could, I placed the glass into a holder in the door, spilling just a little.
“Because,” he said, “I have a problem, and you can help me solve it.” It wasn’t a request; it was a statement.
Leaning forward, he tapped on the plastic partition separating us from the chauffeur, who had returned to the driver’s seat. Slowly we accelerated. At the end of the block, we turned left, heading toward Roosevelt Boulevard.
I half grumbled, “Why does everyone think I’m some sort of freelance problem-solver?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No!”
Smith chuckled again. “My aunt has a farm west of here. You’re going to pay her a visit and keep an eye on things for a week or so. She.…” His voice trailed off. I couldn’t read anything from his expression. “Someone—or something—may be stalking her.”
“Some thing?” I asked.
“Well.…” He shifted a tad uncomfortably. “She’s claimed to see ghosts and angels as long as I can remember.”
“Then she needs a psychiatrist, not a seedy drunken cripple!”
“Come on, Pit! You aren’t seedy. Merely depressed.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” I grumbled sarcastically. Boy, had my stock fallen. From stopping blackmailers to babysitting crazy aunts.
“Actually,” he went on, “I sent a couple of my boys out to visit her a month ago. They scared off a prowler one night—though I suppose it might have been a dog or even a coyote. It was dark; they couldn’t tell. Anyway, after that, things got quiet. As soon as they left, though, Aunt Peck started reporting disturbances again.”
I frowned. “What sort of disturbances?”
“Oh…noises at night, her possessions disappearing or moving around inside the house. That sort of thing. She thinks the spirit-world is trying to communicate with her.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you believe in these spirits?”
His eyes narrowed. “Let’s say…I have an open mind. I’ve seen a lot of odd things over the years. And believe it or not, I used to be a choirboy. Growing up in the Catholic church, you get a good strong dose of saints and miracles and superstition.”
I snorted.
“You don’t believe?” he asked.
“There are no ghosts, ghouls, zombies, vampires, werewolves, or angels prancing around farms in rural Pennsylvania!” I said it with absolute certainty.
“Then prove it!”
I looked out the window at the passing row houses. Laundry hung outside on tattered lines. Trash and graffiti spoke of a neighborhood heading downhill fast, just like my life. Suddenly I felt old and tired.
Angels.…
Once upon a time, before my accident, so long ago it felt like someone else’s life—once upon a time, when I was a good little boy, I had believed. But now.…
Frowning, I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to baby-sit a delusional old lady?
It wasn’t like Smith had given me a choice in the matter; we were already on the road, so I might as well make the best of it. Besides, maybe a change of scenery would be good. At least it would keep me from drinking myself to death for a little while longer.
Leaning back, I closed my eyes. “Tell me,” I said, “everything you know about your aunt. Start with her name and family background.”
“Don’t you want to know about the disturbances?”
“No. You’re a secondhand source of information. If I need to, I’ll question her about them.”
“Then you’re going?”
My mind was racing ahead. Ghosts…farms…noises in the night….
I sighed. I shook my head.
But I said, “Yes.”
* * * *
Her name, said Smith, was Elizabeth Peck. She was his mother’s sister-in-law: not a blood relative, but marriage meant a lot to his family. As long as he could remember, she had espoused the beneficial effects of fresh air and sunshine on children, and the Pecks’ farm—a hundred or so acres just outside Hellersville—played host to a steady stream of young relatives throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Her husband Joshua had been a lay minister, so the country visits came with generous helpings of sermons…especially to the Tortelli boys, the black sheep of the family.
After Uncle Peck’s death two years ago, Aunt Peck began renting her land to neighbors, who planted soybeans, corn, and other crops. She made enough to pay her rather modest bills.
Aunt Peck had always been an avid correspondent, and she still kept in touch with all branches of her extended family through frequent letters. Her speculations about the nightly disturbances being caused by “angels” had alarmed Smith enough to send a couple of his men out to visit her.
Their first night on the farm, moaning sounds awakened them just after midnight. They ran outside, fired a couple of warning shots into the air, and heard someone—or something—run off through a corn field. They gave chase, but whoever or whatever it was got away.
Then things got quiet. After another week, they left.
A few days later, Aunt Peck proudly wrote that the “angels” had returned. Hence Pit’s summons.
* * * *
“She may just be a crazy old lady,” Smith said thoughtfully, “but she’s my aunt, and I have to look out for her. Family duty, you understand.”
Actually, I didn’t. My parents were long dead, and I had never been close to any of my other relatives. Uncle Mark’s response to my taxi accident had been to send a “get well soon” card. And he forgot to sign it.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “whether to be flattered or insulted.”
“Flattered. You’re my big gun, Pit.”
I snorted. “Now you’re being silly. But I can’t go—I didn’t pack my toothbrush, let alone a change of clothes. You’l
l have to take me home first.”
“Nonsense. I know you don’t take instructions well, so I took the liberty of having bags packed for you. Here.”
Reaching into his pocket, he produced a set of miniature steel keys, the kind that fit suitcase locks. The tag dangling from the ring said, “My Other Car Is a BMW.”
“I didn’t notice anything missing from my apartment,” I said.
Mentally, I ran through the contents of my closet and sock drawer as I had seen them this morning. Everything had been exactly where it belonged.
“I purchased a new wardrobe for you, one better suited for farm life.”
My eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
“Seven flannel shirts of assorted colors; seven black and one white undershirts; seven pairs of blue jeans, waist 28, inseam 30; one Sunday go-to-church suit, from your usual tailor—”
“I don’t have a tailor, usual or otherwise,” I said.
He tsk-tsked. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten your account at Paolo Versacci’s, on Vine Street.” That was where I had bought an Armani suit before visiting his illegal gambling club. “You made quite an impression on Paolo. He still has your measurements on file.”
It seemed Smith’s research on me had been even more complete than I’d thought.
“One purchase does not make him my tailor,” I grumbled. “Besides, I don’t wear flannel. Or jeans. I find them too heavy and binding. And I don’t believe in churches, so I won’t need a Sunday suit.”
“Show some flexibility.”
“I don’t have to. I’m a cripple, remember.”
“That doesn’t cut it. We run an equal-opportunity underworld these days, Pit. View your clothes as part of the job—a disguise, if you will. You’ll need to blend in on the farm.” Smith took a deep breath, then continued his inventory: “Heavy wool socks, underwear, light boots, windbreaker, baseball cap, pajamas, and of course a shaving kit, complete with—you guessed it—a toothbrush.”
“You seem to have thought of everything.”