Dead Clown Blues

by R. Daniel Lester

  DEAD CLOWN BLUES

  A Carnegie Fitch Mystery Fiasco

  R. Daniel Lester

  PRAISE FOR R. DANIEL LESTER

  “The thing about R. Daniel Lester’s writing is it’s boiling just under the surface. You ride along through his stories, enjoying how he has all the right things in all the right amounts. But where you can’t see it, tension is rising. Fangs are being bared. It’s boiling. And when it gets to the surface, he’s got you where his talent wants you when it hits.” —Ryan Sayles, author of the Richard Dean Buckner thrillers

  Copyright © 2017, 2019 by R. Daniel Lester

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dead Clown Blues

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Preview from Polo’s Long Shot, a Nick Polo mystery by Jerry Kennealy

  Preview from Les Cannibales, a crime novella by DeLeon DeMicoli

  Preview from Bolt Action Remedy, a Trevor Galloway thriller by J.J. Hensley

  This is dedicated to William Witham, the grandfather I never met.

  To me, you always sounded like quite the character.

  1

  The diner was Deadsville with a capital “D.” I ordered breakfast for lunch and headed for my usual back booth. The only other customer in the joint was propped up on his elbow at the counter, snoring Zs over a bowl of Boston clam chowder. Harry drove a bus and had one ex-wife, two mortgages, three kids and rumour had it, personally slit the throats of four enemy soldiers at Incheon. Whatever the case, now he just looked on the other side of the knife.

  As for staff, Greek Benny, the diner’s owner and main grill man, was in the kitchen busting a gut over the funnies and Glenda, the knockout waitress, was putting on lipstick and making little kissy faces into a hand mirror. She gave one last smooch, placed the mirror back under the counter and then came over with the coffee pot.

  “Cup of joe, Fitch?” she asked, already pouring.

  I was on my third cup when Taffy Pook entered the diner and made a beeline for my booth. We weren’t best friends, to say the least, but each of us played nice because we could get something out of it. It was a good system. Scratching backs meant less time for holding knives.

  Taffy squeezed himself in, sucking in his breath to make the fit. He had the wide waist and protruding stomach of the gainfully employed glutton. As an in-house investigator working fraud cases for Best Life Insurance Corp. he had all the perks, like respect, an expense account and a big fancy desk in a big fancy downtown high-rise. In contrast to an entrepreneur like myself, with what I had: second hand suits, a rooming house eviction notice on two-month rotation and an office on the corner of Skid and Row.

  “Want that?” he asked.

  “All yours,” I said.

  Taffy snatched the last strip of bacon off my plate with one hand and pushed a manila envelope at me with the other. I opened the envelope. Inside was half payment for a new hide-and-click surveillance job, along with a thick file for one Bartell Rightly. Now, in matters of Big Insurance versus Regular Joe, I always tended to root for David not Goliath. However, a job was a job, and a soft spot for sad sack scammers who didn’t have the plain sense to stop doing things they claimed they couldn’t was never going to get the landlady off my back or keep Glenda pouring the good stuff. Besides, when Best Life was happy, Taffy Pook was happy. And when Taffy Pook was happy, so was my wallet. And that was fat city, the place to be. I inhaled. The money smelled good.

  “You want I should leave you two alone?” Taffy asked.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but that’d mean getting paper cuts in a bad place.”

  Taffy grunted a laugh and licked the bacon grease off his lips.

  “Why the above-market rates?” I asked.

  “Let’s say your sense of timing is excellent.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “See, my other guy, Nelson, he fell out of a tree yesterday and busted up his back pretty good tryin’ to get a pin-up shot of this redhead babe layin’ poolside.”

  “Fraud case?”

  “Nah. Hobby.”

  “Ah. What’s the picture?”

  “He said she was tall with a body like—”

  “I meant the prognosis on Nelson. He out of action for a while or…?”

  “Yeah, a while.”

  “Too bad.”

  Taffy grinned. “You asking ’cause of the work?” My silence was answer enough, so he put on a fake serious face and fake cleared his throat. “I’m drowning in flim-flam right now and you, Carnegie Fitch, are my life raft.”

  “Wow, didn’t know you were so poetical, Pook.”

  “Why, Fitch ol’ buddy, I’m full of surprises.” He was right about that. Full of gas and halitosis. Taffy scooted out of the booth. His stomach got wedged in there for a second, but he got it sorted. “And speaking of surprises, none of that artsy crap, okay? Last time, half the roll was useless.”

  “I know, you gave ’em back to me, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah, like always. Just listen to what I’m sayin’.”

  “I’m listening. Don’t pop an artery.”

  Taffy felt his forehead, feeling for the vein that always bulged out when he got upset. It wasn’t, but I liked to kid him about it. Sometimes that got him riled up enough to actually get the artery going. It was a chicken and egg thing.

  “Asshole,” he said.

  2

  The rooming house where I hung my hat was an okay place if you were half blind and your nose didn’t work so good. For the rest of us, it took guts. Dingy hallways led to dingier rooms and there was one bathroom for each floor, which were clean if you considered zoo cages clean. Once a week, the landlady threw a bucket of sudsy water in there and left it up to gravity to do the rest.

  When I reached my floor, I nodded at Mrs. Henry, who was sitting in a chair at the payphone in the hallway. I had to hand it to her, stellar work ethic. She put in a solid eight hours on that phone every day, week in, week out, rain or shine. As I walked by, I overheard her saying something about someone’s pound cake, how it was too dry, too flaky, not at all like her pound cake, the one that was so moist and succulent. Breaking news no doubt.

  Next, I removed the eviction notice that was attached to my door, crumpled the paper into a nice round ball and then walked one apartment over. Ms. Crawley, the landlady, opened her door without me even knocking. She had her eye to the peephole like Mrs. Henry gabbed on the hallway phone—always and forever.

  “Well, well,” she said, “if it ain’t Mr. Fitch. To what do I owe this honour?”

  I thought about cracking wise, my tried-and-true, but the w
oman had no sense of humour and even less faith in humanity. She also didn’t accept IOUs scrawled on cocktail napkins, which just went to show there was no pleasing some people. I handed her the eviction notice along with a few folding dollars from Taffy’s advance.

  She slowly counted the money, licking her finger each time. Wafting out of her apartment was the smell of cabbage and nicotine. No surprise, considering she looked exactly like a head of Savoy smoking a cigarette. Eventually, she liked the sum enough to nod with grim acceptance and smooth out the eviction notice for the next time she’d have to tack it to my door.

  Free and clear on the landlady front for another few months, I went to my apartment. The air felt slow and heavy inside. A couple of houseflies flew lazy circles in the dead space. I opened the window in hopes they’d leave, but instead they invited some friends in to join them for a fly jamboree. I shrugged, live and let live, and took off my shoes, stretching out on the bed. If I was a cat, I’d’ve purred. Even despite the incessant buzzing it was golden, considering I’d spent the last few nights at my office, snoozing in a chair with my feet up on the desk, skimming the surface of sleep never getting down too deep.

  Lids heavy, I looked around the small space. Didn’t have much but what I did was mine. And compared to my life six short months ago, where all I had was what I could carry over my shoulder, I was practically a pack rat, what with a table, a chair, a hot plate and a dead plant. Undoubtedly, Better Homes and Gardens would be calling soon.

  An hour or so later, after a short nap, and with Ms. Crawley probably eyeing me from her window and Mrs. Henry still talking on the phone, I left the rooming house. It was late afternoon and the sun burned high in a blue sky with a thin layer of haze. And the pavement was a grill on low—not quite hot enough to fry an egg but enough to hear the sizzle.

  I turned right on Hastings, heading towards Main Street and what they called the Four Corners. Downtown Vancouver, where the magic happened. Not like uptown, Granville and Georgia, where the squares frolicked in their business suits and briefcases. Here if you saw a square in a suit it was because he had trouble on his mind and a wad of paycheque burning a hole in his pocket. Which, as it happened, were two things the local establishments were more than happy to ease a man of. Some gently, coaxing, one watered-down drink at a time. Some more roughly and, when the money was gone, it was out the back alley door with your pockets turned out, pants around your ankles and lipstick on your collar.

  But the Four Corners always looked so different in the daytime—exposed, embarrassed—like a starlet caught in the crossfire of paparazzi flashbulbs outside a supper club when the shades were down and the sun was up. No, it was nighttime, razzle-dazzle time, when the neon signs glowed and Hastings Street came alive and really popped.

  At my bank, the teller did this double-take like he’d seen a ghost. I contemplated going, “Boo!” but decided it was best to keep it on the level. Plus, the half-man-half-corpse security guard was sound asleep on his stool parked inside the door so I didn’t want to wake him. After depositing a few bucks for leaner times, I picked up a bottle of single malt at the liquor store, stopped in at the diner for a pastrami-on-rye to go and then headed for my rented office/broom closet. It had a trash bin view, a flickering, cobwebbed light fixture and a desk with a suspicious crimson stain on it, but the price was right. And it was mine. Also, it was conveniently located right across from the bathroom.

  The plan was to burn the rest of the day to the ground nursing a few whisky shots on their way to the grave and imagining a secretary and an expense account and big oak desk that hadn’t been used for pagan animal sacrifices. Then, over the next couple of days, I’d quickly wrap up the insurance scam thing and get another roll of film to Taffy. And if Nelson had a busted back it’d be months before he was up and sleazing around again. Enough work and a man could be back on his feet in no time. Fat city.

  As I climbed the stairs and rounded the corner to my office, I saw the new janitor for the building, an old timer with a smoker’s cough and a thousand-yard jailhouse stare, mopping down the hall. I watched him from the doorway. He was good and practiced and displayed an economy of movement. No wasted effort. No floor left untouched. Left to right. Right to left. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  I went to my desk and opened the drawer, taking out two glasses. I re-arranged the telephone on the corner of the desk just so and then took stock of the whole scene. Beauty. Just like a real gumshoe, I had an office, a telephone, booze and even a glass for a client. The janitor was now mopping in front of my door, so I asked him if I looked legit. He stopped and leaned on the mop, assessing the situation. Then, wiping his forehead with a dirty handkerchief from his back pocket, he said, “That telephone has no cord.”

  Jeez, fella, way to burst a bubble. I laughed and said not to worry about the details, but to look at the big picture. He stared at me again.

  “Looks like you belong in this neighbourhood,” he said, “that much I can say.”

  A real comedian this one. He knew as well as I did the neighbourhood was ripe with pool hustlers, abortionists, crooked lawyers and fly-by-night accountants. I told him my name was Carnegie Fitch but that most people just called me Fitch. He said his name was Jim and left it at that. I poured a finger of single malt in each glass.

  “How about a taste, Jim?” I asked.

  Jim said nothing, only stared.

  I didn’t know if he didn’t hear me or what. It was not a comfortable silence. I cleared my throat.

  Jim wiped his forehead with a dirty cloth from his back pocket. “What’s the celebration?” he asked, finally.

  “Five o’clock p.m., Jim. We made it again.”

  Jim walked slowly in the office and stood in front of the desk. He stared down at the glass. “I don’t know. That Moyer watches me like a hawk.”

  Cleveland Moyer was the building manager. He was a skinny beanpole with bad jokes, bad skin and a penchant for chewing tobacco. All in all, a powerful combination.

  “Well,” I said, “even field mice need to stay hydrated.”

  “I suppose,” said Jim, the outer edges of his smile cracking the plain exterior of his face like the tide washing up on a rocky shoreline. One could get the idea that not too many smiles had ventured that far north in a while. “Not sure I have much fight left in me, the week I’ve had.”

  I raised my glass. “Well, then, to the field mice,” I said.

  He picked up his. “To the field mice.”

  The single malt went down like it tends to—smooth start but a mule kick at the end. I poured another shot for myself and offered one to Jim, too. Seemed like the polite thing to do. Besides, I was feeling grand today and slightly fraternal towards the old guy. Looked like he could use a pal, even if it was only for a few quick belts. He nodded. I poured. And down the hatch it went. Content to nurse a third one, I poured two and kicked my feet up on the desk, leaning back in the chair.

  The florescent light hummed. The delivery truck in the alley honked its horn. The world turned.

  “Where’d you do your time?” I asked.

  Jim didn’t seem surprised by the question. A Dixieland band could’ve suddenly paraded through the room and he wouldn’t have flinched. That’s how transfixed he was by the amber surface in his glass, like the whisky was waiting to whisper hidden secrets. Then, without missing a beat, Jim said, “Did my stretch back east” and swigged that whisky down.

  The results weren’t pretty. Jim went from sober to drunk like a teenager in a hot rod went from green to red. One belt got him in the door. Two belts lit up his eyes like he was finally home after being away for years. The third belt was the one that tipped the house on its side. For a little while, I had to admit, it was amusing. Like a windup toy that dances around and you clap and laugh because it’s funny to watch. But after a while, if the toy doesn’t stop, gets verbally abusive, steals your pastrami sandwich, throws it on the floor and then grabs a bottle of whisky off the desk a
nd starts waving it around in a threatening manner, well, it gets annoying and a little dangerous.

  “Okay, you can have that, Jim,” I said.

  “Goddamn right I can have it,” he said, already drinking from the bottle. “It’s mine.”

  “Well, not really. Sure, maybe in the eyes of the law, nine-tenths and all, but…”

  “Law don’t have nuthin’ to do with it, pipsqueak. It was here and it was mine. Here. All that time. I did it and it was here.” He took another big gulp. A trickle of whisky went down his chin. Jim didn’t mess around. He was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. I had to respect him for that. He was demons hid away or out front, on display for all to see. But I didn’t want to see anymore. I had my own demons and I didn’t want them to see how much fun Jim’s were having out of the cage. The bottle was nearly gone when I finally had enough. I tried to help him off the floor, but he slapped my hand away.

  “The hell away from me,” he said, slurring his words. “I can do it. I can find it. It’s mine. Mine.” He stumbled out the door. I heard him slapping the walls as he left. The whole time shouting, almost incoherently, “In here. In here. Don’t you understand?”

  3

  Bartell Rightly’s rathole rancher was in a race with the garden in the front yard as to which could go to seed faster. Crooked doors. Peeling paint. Shingles missing from the roof. And if weeds were currency, Bartell could have been a millionaire and given up on the insurance scam racket altogether. I’d flipped through the case file that Taffy provided and found this story: man gets in car accident and claims the chronic back pain and depression from said accident means he can’t work the five a.m. shift at the bakery anymore. In fact, he can’t work at all, anywhere, anytime. Only this man has a less than stellar reputation seeing as he’d been written up several times for drinking on the job and suspected, though not charged, of stealing giant bags of icing sugar. So, safe to say, Best Life was a tad suspicious of the man’s claims, which was where I came in.