The Blackmail Club

by David Bishop

  www.davidbishopbooks.com

  david@davidbishopbooks.com

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  An excerpt from David Bishop’s next novel, The Original Alibi, begins on the following page. For a list of David’s other novels and their release dates, please see the front of this book.

  The Original Alibi

  A Matt Kile Mystery

  By

  David Bishop

  Prologue

  “I believe that’s your cell phone, dear.” The woman’s husband said.

  “Hello, Mrs. Clark,” said a voice into her ear. “I see you are enjoying your first evening walk on the beach with your new puppy. How lovely. Have you and Mr. Clark named the pooch?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stay on the line after what is about to happen, happens.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Clark demands, “Who are you?”

  Right then the leash Mrs. Clark held went limp, their white poodle falling to the sand. “Bobby, what happened? Snookie is, I don’t know, she’s just . . . down.” Mrs. Clark held her cell phone as if she no longer knew she had it in her hand.

  Bobby, her husband bent down, his knees displacing the sand next to Snookie. “She’s dead, Mel. I think Snookie’s been shot.”

  Melinda Clark began to bounce on her toes, her hands waving spasmodically. She dropped her phone onto the beach, bent down to Snookie and began to cry. She went to her husband; he held her.

  Several minutes later, Bobby Clark picked up his wife’s cell phone, shook off the sand, and started to close the top when he heard a loud voice. He held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

  “I’ve been waiting. Sorry about Snookie. It was necessary. You should know I took no pleasure in it.”

  “Did you do this?” Mr. Clark asked. “Who the hell are you?”

  “To your left, near the partially burnt log I’ve left a box for you to use to take Snookie home. It’s the right size. The inside has a soft new towel. It should do nicely.”

  “You shot Snookie? Why?”

  “Take Snookie home and bury her in your yard. You will hear from me. In the meantime, be glad you were not walking your newest grandson, Bobby, named after you, I presume. Your wife sometimes walks the little tike on a leash just as she today walked Snookie. I will know if you say anything about this, to anyone. If you do, Bobby Junior will be my next target.”

  “But what do you want? Why us?”

  “All that will be made clear. Do not fret needlessly. There will be no more violence if you do as you’ve been told. What will be required of you will not be difficult. It will not cost you any money. And it will be painless, if you follow orders. We’ll talk soon.”

  The phone went dead.

  The Original Alibi

  Chapter 1

  Eleven Years Later:

  “Don’t forget boss, we got a ten o’clock appointment. Its eight now,” Axel said, as he handed me the morning paper, and put down a tray holding a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a buttered English muffin.

  It was pleasant enough sitting on the balcony, a little chilly but that’s why they make robes.

  Axel started working for me only a few days ago, but we’d known each other for years in a very different setting. We were cellmates during my four years in state prison. I looked up. “Isn’t that my shirt you’re wearing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And my belt, why are you wearing my belt?”

  “You wouldn’t want your pants to fall down, would you, boss?”

  “No, of course I wouldn’t. And before you set up any more of these appointments, let me remind you I write mysteries. I don’t handle cases in real life.”

  “You was a homicide dick and a good one from what I hear. And you got a PI license.”

  “I just wanted to prove I could get one after the governor pardoned me. I’m a writer now, end of story.”

  “Aren’t you cold out here, boss?” Axel wrapped his arms around himself, gripping his biceps. “You wanna go inside?”

  “It’s a little nippy, but I’ll stick for a while. But I do wish they made robes in various lengths. No reason they can’t.” I’d been six-three since the eleventh grade but over the years robes keep getting shorter. Probably for the same reason two-by-fours are no longer two-inches-by-four-inches.

  I helped Axel’s parole along with the promise of a job. He had been inside for thirty years, during which he became as sweet a senior citizen as you’ll ever know. A half a million dollar payroll had been taken by a lone gunman, without violence. The jury had found Axel guilty. Axel had never changed his claim of innocence, but he had sometimes winked at me when the subject came up. It was likely why they held onto Axel while letting out younger hardasses because of the overpopulation of prisons. So I did what I could to grease the wheels.

  In these first few days, his duties included trips to the dry cleaners and doing the home laundry. Unfortunately, we wore the same size clothes, or near enough for Axel who was an even six feet. For each wearing, he hand-altered my slacks by rolling up the pant legs. He also adjusted for our different waist sizes. I wore size thirty-eight and, I’m guessing, his waist size at thirty-six, maybe thirty-four. My guess was based on his having my belt cinched up two notches tighter, which meant there would now be his and mine cinch marks in the leather.

  “Boss, you remember that movie where Jack Nicholson’s character said, ‘never waste a boner and never trust a fart. Well, that man was a prophet.” Then Axel rushed inside. The Bucket List was a wonderful movie but I didn’t like him quoting that line while he was wearing my slacks. I settled back and looked at the paper with an eye out for Axel’s return.

  A few minutes later, Axel came back out. I felt some relief as he was still wearing the same pair of my pants. “You helped save Clarice Talmadge,” he said, as if he had never left the conversation. “I kept up with that story before you got me sprung.”

  I looked over at a gull that was circling past the balcony just off the railing. “I didn’t get you sprung. The parole board was about to release you anyway. You’d been in long enough. I just tossed a job offer in the mix. That’s all.”

  “That’s what tipped the scales.” Axel looked over at the gull that squawked while making its third pass.

  I knew why the gulls, there were three now, were squawking. Axel sometimes threw pieces of bread out over the rail and he hadn’t this morning. This was why feeding the birds was against the building policy. I’d have to speak to him about it, but for now I couldn’t deny him the kind of small pleasures he had been denied for decades.

  “You got out because you were no longer a threat to society, maybe to my wardrobe, but not to society.”

  “Well, that don’t change the brilliant way you saved Clarice Talmadge’s ass and, from what I’ve seen in the hallway, hers is an ass I’m glad you saved.”

  “Clarice was different. She was a neighbor and a friend accused of killing her husband, Garson. I just handled the investigation for her defense attorney.”

  “This case’ll be different too, boss,” he said while picking up the coffee carafe.

  “How many times I gotta tell you to stop calling me boss? It’s not necessary.”

  “Seems right to me, after all I work for you.”

  “You can’t call me Matt, but you can wear my pants?” I held up my empty cup.

  “Now you got it, boss.” He filled my cup.

  “The appointment, fill me in.”

  Axel took a seat and poured himself a little coffee. “Not much yet to tell. This guy, Franklin’s his name, Reginald Franklin III, how’s that for a handle, he’s an attorney with a client who needs your help. He freely admitted his client specified Matthew Kile as the investigator he wanted. Admitting that up front told me that money’s not an issue. I told him it would be a grand for this morning, just to talk to you and see if you’ll
handle the case. He understands that money’s gone whether or not you join up. He didn’t quibble. He’s bringing the check.”

  I expected Axel would be around during the Franklin meeting. Axel didn’t really have a set schedule. If I needed him, I told him and he’d be there. Otherwise, he came and went as he pleased and when he wasn’t around I shifted for myself. I think Axel saw himself as my Kato or Dr. Watson or some such character. If I could have my choice, I’d prefer him as Archie Goodwin, the able assistant of Nero Wolfe, but then I would fail in comparison to Wolfe. My waistline was likely only half of Wolfe’s girth, not to mention my falling well short of his genius.

  “So what do you have going today?” I asked.

  “After our meeting with Franklin, I’ve got a few errands then I’ll have lunch with the fellas at Mackie’s. Don’t worry, boss, Franklin won’t know I’m around unless you call for me.”

  “You think Franklin could be the real client?”

  “No way, he’s fronting for someone. I could tell by his voice. He wasn’t uptight. He did tell me it was some old case the cops have tossed aside. The dude’s a smoker too, so get him out on the balcony if he tries to light up. A pipe, I think. I could hear him inhale and bite down on the stem.”

  After thirty years in the big house, as Axel still called prison, he had mastered reading the tone and pace of people’s voices. He can read body language or faces, cons or bulls. All the old timers could do it, at least the ones with an ample helping of brains and judgment.

  “The odds say I won’t take it.”

  “Why not? You’ve about done up the book you was working on. And, hey, a grand’s nothing to sneeze at. You know?”

  The Original Alibi

  Chapter Two

  It was the eighteenth of December, when I parked my new Ford Expedition in the turnaround in front of the home of General Whittaker, the client of the attorney, Reginald Franklin III. His home, an elegant place that looked to be about six thousand square feet, located south of Long Beach, backed up to the Pacific Ocean. The door was opened by a man about fifty in a white shirt with a starched collar, the rest of his dress being black. His pants were hitched up closer to his neck than his navel. His ears reached out from his head like they were expected to catch balls rather than words.

  He looked me up and down without disclosing the impression he gleaned from having done so. “Good evening, Mr. Kile. You’re expected.” Seeing my surprise at being recognized, he added, “Your picture is on the dust covers of your books. My name is Charles, Mr. Kile.”

  Few people called them dust covers any longer so Charles was a reader and, apparently, one not yet converted to reading eBooks.

  “Please follow me.” Charles was an average sized man in his late fifties. He looked fit and confident in his ability to do his job. He led me into a wide junction in the hallway, next to a wonderfully decorated Christmas tree, tall enough to grace both the ground floor and the second story which was open overhead. “Please wait here, Mr. Kile, while I let the general know you’ve arrived. Some slight noise or movement caused me to step beyond the tree and look up the stairwell to my left.

  From the balcony, a nubile woman wearing a black something that aggressively fell within the category of lingerie, said, “You must be Mr. Kile.” It wasn’t a question. Not the way she said it.

  I smiled and nodded. Having always believed that seeing a woman in skimpy lingerie meant, at the very least, that the relationship automatically advanced to a first name basis, I said, “Call me, Matt.” We exchanged smiles only they weren’t equal. Hers was framed in red and had a gloss that reflected the top light on the Christmas tree.

  “Well, Matt,” she said, “Charles sat a tray on the side table when he went to answer the door. Would you be a sweetheart and finish bringing it up?” She added, “Please,” while leaning her forearms on the banister. At least I assumed her forearms were on the banister. I wanted to be a good sweetheart so I picked up the tray which held one glass and a decanter of something you and I would both guess was alcoholic and started up the stairs.

  “This is a lovely home,” I said after advancing a short distance.

  “Yes it is. During the general’s career, toward the end when he was a member of the joint chiefs, this home entertained two U.S. presidents and one pope.”

  “With you wearing a much different outfit, I’m sure.”

  “I was living with my mother then,” she said, “and a little young during those years to wear something like this.” She stood straight, bust out, and turned slowly to be certain I had fully grasped, figuratively speaking of course, the composition of “something like this.” I actually preferred her adorning the banister, but if that sounded like a complaint, it lacked substance. I had come not expecting to see anyone more attractive than a long-retired general.

  I was ten steps from her when Charles silently arrived beside me and took the tray. I stopped, wishing that Charles had waited for me at the bottom of the stairs.

  “The General will see you now, Mr. Kile. Please follow me back downstairs to the study.”

  As we turned, she revealed her platform heels and red toenails by coming down the stairs far enough to take the tray. She was old enough to realize that platform heels and skimpy lingerie went together like me and a warm feeling. Had I worn a hat I would have held in front myself as she came closer. She and I exchanged one of those smiles that meant the kinds of things that smilers in such situations are never sure about. Then I switched my attention to not tripping and rolling down the stairs.

  Over my shoulder, she said, “I hope we can continue getting acquainted some other time.” I held the railing and turned to see her again displayed on the banister.

  “I’d like that,” I said. Then I followed Charles down the stairs, well, I did after wishing I might one day be reincarnated as a banister, but not just any banister, her banister.

  “Matt.” I turned back and looked up at her. “Ditch the tie. You can do better.” Then she turned her head, tossing her blond hair across her shoulders, and she was gone.

  “Charles, who was the lady?”

  “Karen Whittaker, sir, the general’s daughter. She’s thirty-five, in case you’re curious about that. The general was a late poppa.” His tone did not disclose disapproval, but I did detect a slight shake of his head.

  “Why, Charles, I understood it was bad form to talk about a woman’s age.”

  “Yes, sir. But not Karen. She’s proud of being thirty-five and looking twenty-five. She works at it. Hard.” We shared those brief looks that men share. I’d explain, but the guys would kick me out of the club because they would know some ladies would read this.

  General Whittaker rose from his chair, slowly, but agilely for his age. His body was now slighter than it looked in pictures of him from his robust years, yet he still had a military posture. A burgundy colored jacket, not exactly a smoking jacket, but not a sport coat either, covered a long-sleeved khaki shirt. The jacket tailored to expose a matching measure of shirt cuff on each of his arms, which were thin enough that the garment hung as cleanly as it would on a store mannequin. He was well dressed and neat except for a crop of white hair freely growing from his ears. His wrists were frail. The skin on the backs of hands, mottled. Still, his handshake remained mildly firm, yet cool to the touch.

  “Mr. Kile,” he said, “as you stated in one of your books, I like people better than principles, and people without principles best of all. And from what I’ve learned you should be one of my favorites. And I like your tie, but you didn’t need to wear one on my account.”

  So far I had learned that my ties were a matter that could divide families. I agreed with the general, I liked the tie, but I doubted I would ever wear it again. Women who show cleavage don’t fully realize the power they possess and please don’t tell ‘em.

  “Are you married, Mr. Kile?”

  “Once.”

  “Divorced?”

  I nodded without hiding my irritation at h
is questions.

  “Too bad.”

  “My ex-wife would disagree with you.”

  “Kids?”

  “With due respect, General, that’s enough of that. This isn’t a lonely hearts meeting.”

  He smiled the kind that said he didn’t do it much.

  “Before we get started I want to return the check your attorney, Mr. Franklin, gave me yesterday.” I put it on his desk. “I can’t help you with your case.”

  He left the check lying there and flicked his wrist a few times as if shooing a fly. I took this as an invitation to sit down; I did. After looking at his pocket watch, likely the one the articles reported he had carried since his youth, he said, “You are on time; I like that, sir.”

  His study was as elegant as the rest of the house, though decidedly more masculine. A massive mahogany desk sat between us, a wall of glass behind him showing off the Pacific Ocean like it flowed simply to grace his home. The moon glazing the night fog sitting on the horizon gave the sheen of a protective coating. The way the sky looked, we might have another hour of good visibility, depending on the wind. The light in the study had been designed to be soft and indirect. According to that daily column in the newspaper that announces the ages of people they figure the rest of us care to know, the general was eighty-seven. One of the articles on him that I read before coming said he suffered from chronic uveitis, an inflammation of the eye. The condition would explain the subdued lighting.

  The sidewall of the general’s study closest to his desk was mostly bookcases, with some wall area left for photos from his career; the wall on the other side crowded with more photos and plaques. One four-shelf bookcase held only VCR tapes. He noticed my looking and said, “Family events mostly, I’ve had the older ones originally in film converted.”