by Chris Wiltz
“Hm,” said Rankin.
We sat around the dining table. “Can I get you boys something to drink? Coffee? Or how about something a bit stronger—if you're going to be calling it quits for the night soon?” I have never seen Rankin turn down a drink.
“A Scotch and water for me,” he said. Fonte nodded agreement. I went into the kitchen and fixed two drinks.
“This is Sergeant Fonte, Neal. He's going to be working this case with me.”
The only acknowledgment I got from Fonte was when he popped his wad of gum at me.
“Sergeant,” I said and handed him his drink.
Rankin smiled at me, a tired, almost affectionate smile.
“Well, Lieutenant, your disposition seems somewhat improved since we last met. I suppose Carter Fleming is responsible for that.”
The smile vanished. “Don't get snide, Neal.”
Fonte spoke. “Why don't we take this guy in, Lieutenant. I'm sure he'll be real cooperative down at headquarters.” Rankin shot him a glance that clearly stated shut up.
“Look, Neal, let's level with each other. If we pool our information, we'll get Fleming out of the hot seat a lot faster.”
“I didn't know that Fleming was in any hot seat. You must know more than I do already. All I know is what Fleming told me. What did he tell you?”
“He didn't have much to say to us.”
I chuckled. “I told you Fleming wasn't going to like you charging in on him like that. He likes things his own way.”
Rankin did a short deep-breathing exercise. “Hell, Neal, I know Fleming's big stuff in this city and has a lot of connections, and that a little guy like me should tread lightly and all that crap, but he's in the hot seat as far as I'm concerned. Look at it my way—he hires a private dick because he has some gripe with Garber. Garber is found murdered and so far we don't know of anyone else with a gripe against him. I ain't sayin’ we got anything on him. I just want to know why he hired you. You wanted to talk to him, he wanted to talk to you, the Garber women are in no condition to talk at all and I've got a job to do. Hell, if you don't tell, then he's gonna have to and he ain't gonna like that one bit and I'll be the one to catch it if we have to bring him in.”
“That might be fun to see.”
He brought the glass that was halfway to his mouth down heavily, sloshing Scotch all over the table. “You gonna tell me or not, Neal?”
“Sure, I'll tell you. I'm just getting back for that dig you made earlier. You know.”
His eyes got that dopey look. “Yeah. About your license.”
“No. It was the dig before that.”
He gave no indication that he knew what I was talking about. And he knew well enough that I wasn't going to say anything about Myra in front of Fonte. So I told him about the Blake editions. I told him I had gone to Garber's house, that Catherine had told me Garber had been missing for a week, and that it was the wife who hadn't wanted to go to the police. I said that I had talked to Catherine long enough to convince her to give me the key to the store.
“You know what happened after that,” I finished.
“Are the books in the store?” he asked.
“No, and I don't think they're at the house, but I could be wrong.”
“Why do you think the old lady didn't call us?”
“I don't know. The daughter said she didn't know.”
He looked like he thought someone ought to know. “How come you're so sure those books aren't at the house?”
“I'm not sure, but it doesn't make sense that they would be. Fleming called over at the house several times. If the books had been there, why wouldn't they just give them to him?”
“Maybe Garber stole them.”
“I don't like that either. Like I told Fleming, it would have been a stupid thing to do.”
“Stupid enough to get Garber killed.” It galled me. He could imply that Fleming would kill for his books, but he never would admit that Angelesi would kill to save his hide. To him Angelesi had always been just a regular guy. It was Fleming's enormous wealth that made him a suspect.
“Well, Lieutenant, these are all just speculations. Right? What we need are some facts. Like what was Garber shot with.”
“A twenty-two.” He finished off his drink.
I pushed myself away from the table. “If it's alright with you, Lieutenant, I'm going to New York tomorrow. I was hired to find those books and it's possible they never left there.”
Rankin seemed to like that idea. It got me out of the way for a while.
I saw the gentlemen out. Rankin went out into the hall first. As Fonte passed by me, I said softly, “Give my regards to Raymond.” He gave me a look that wished me behind a double set of bars.
I never did make it out to see Murphy that night.
12
* * *
The Man with the Mallet
It was late at night and dark. I was in New York City but I didn't know where, not even what section I was in. I couldn't see any street signs. All around me were old crumbing warehouses. And everything was deathly quiet. I had just run a block and stopped, out of breath. I didn't even know why I was running. My head hurt. I felt the back of it. It was pulpy with dried blood and my tentative touch sent sharp pains down the network of nerves in my back and shoulders. I tried to remember how it had happened or how I had come to be where I was. My thinking was foggy and the concentration made my head ache more. Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by an animal instinct that told me I was not alone, the same one that had told me to run. I moved down the street a few yards and stopped, my body tense, nausea grabbing at my stomach, my ears straining for the sound that had aroused the instinct but unable to hear for the rushing of my blood. I leaned against a low iron balustrade fronting a building, my head bent down to make the rushing stop. When I raised it up again I could see a street sign on the next corner, but when I tried to focus on the letters, my eyes went liquid.
The sound again. This time cleat; unmistakable, feet moving in my direction and the sensation of more than one person trying to surround me. More sounds of movement, but everytime I peered in the direction of one, another would come from a different shadow. I started walking, quickening my pace to get to the street corner where there was more light. I centered myself between the four corners, in the middle of the street and turned to face the street I had just run through, naked without my gun. I waited for a move by my pursuers. There was nothing, nothing but the deathly silence.
I stood tense and still for a long time, still hearing nothing. I turned and continued down the same street, the muscles crawling in my back. As soon as I had cleared the intersection by several yards someone broke into a run behind me. I wheeled around and saw a big man with a heavy mallet in his hands. He was gaining fast. I sped toward the comer, aware that someone else had joined the chase. Each time my feet hit the ground an explosion went off in my head. I rounded the corner, adrenaline pushing me forward. Another man with a mallet came out of the shadow of a building in front of me. I stopped, looking for an escape route, my throat pounding, I saw an alley behind a stack of debris on the opposite side of the street. I ran to it, hoping it wasn't blind, and kicked aside a garbage can blocking the entrance. There was a clearing looming up at the end of the alley. I got a feeling of exaltation that died abruptly when I reached the clearing and saw that I was pinned into it by surrounding brick walls. But the wall opposite the alley was lower than the rest, so with a swift running start I scaled it, with remarkable agility considering the shape I was in. From the top I could see another alley across an identical clearing leading to the street. I jumped down, the pain from my head bombarding my entire body. But there wasn't a moment to lose. I picked myself up and stumbled to the alley's entrance half blinded by the pain from the jump. As I stepped between the buildings a hand reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder with such force that my arm went numb. A hideous grin on a face I recognized bore down on me. The man I'd left on the floor of Lucy McDermot
t's apartment lifted a sober and sinewy arm above my head. As the mallet came down, I heard a ship's horn blast in the distance.
And I woke up. In my thrashing around I had knocked the alarm clock to the floor but it was still obstinately blasting at me. I pushed back the bed covers and leaned over to shut off the alarm, the cool air in the apartment chilling my perspiring body.
“Hell of a way to wake a man up,” I muttered at the clock as I put it back on the bedside table.
With an effort I got out of bed and took a hot shower to take the stiffness out of my back and shoulders. I came out with the appetite of an Oregon lumberman, which reminded me that I hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. After a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs I started feeling more like a human being.
I dressed in my best dark blue pinstriped suit with matching blue tie and white shirt with nonmatching gun and holster and felt worthy of Barrow's Auction Exchange.
I rode the elevator to the lobby. When the doors parted a stoop-shouldered woman with a mass of red curls, each balanced on the edge of the one below it like a giant red plant growing toward the sun, got in before I had a chance to get out. She had on a crumpled blue dress and black stockings. I wondered what my apartment building had come to, decided I couldn't afford to care, and went out the back door to the parking lot.
I got in the car and drove to the airport.
13
* * *
Gumshoeing
I arrived at La Guardia at ten-thirty after a tedious flight. Flying is not one of my favorite activities, but I find it relaxing under certain conditions, those conditions including flying in a straight line, not sitting next to a cigar smoker, and not having my ear bent. The particular isolation of being encapsulated at thirty thousand or so feet influences my disposition so that social amenities become irritable as well as boring. As usual, I got a gabber in the next seat. Most of them withdraw if you don't grunt in the right places, but this one poured forth a steady stream of life history into my oblivious ear and grunted for me. She was enchanted to have made my acquaintance, she said as we disembarked. She would have been enchanted with the company of a chimpanzee.
As soon as I got in the terminal, I headed for the phone booths and got Barrow's address from the Manhattan directory. That done I went out to the procession of Scull's Angels and other assorted taxis, glad that I didn't have to face the baggage claim. I gave the driver the address on East nd. Forty minutes and two traffic jams later I got out at Barrow's.
It was hot and, remembering that most New York buildings are under-air conditioned, I was only hoping for a decrease in humidity inside Barrow's. I didn't get the blast of cold air like you get in New Orleans, but it was cool and comfortable and strictly first class. A small group of dark-suited men and sophisticated ladies smoking long cigarettes talked in hushed tones at one end of the lobby. Men in black suits were scattered at significant posts. I stood just inside the door looking for confirmation that I was at an auction exchange and not a mortuary.
One of the black suits came up to me. “Can I be of assistance, sir?” he asked the way a butler would if he caught a guest snooping around the parlor.
I gave him a card. “Who was in charge of the auction about two weeks ago when the William Blake books were sold?”
“One moment, sir.” He disappeared behind a closed door carrying my card with two fingers on the edge like he was carrying a dirty postcard.
The group of bidders at the end of the lobby ignored several sand-filled ashtrays, stubbed their cigarettes out on the immaculate tessellated floor, and went through a heavy double door. My helper came back.
“This way, please, sir.” He led me through the same door he had just so carefully closed behind him, past a secretary, into a large office. After announcing me to a wiry man sitting behind a desk, he discreetly left.
“How do you do, Mr. Rafferty. I'm Roland Engels. Please, sit down.” His clasped fingers flew off the desk and breezed through the air, showing off diamonds. After he watched with concern as I sat down and was satisfied that I had made it okay, he asked, “Now, how can I help you?”
I told him I represented Carter Fleming and asked him who was in charge of the auction in question. “Well, ultimately, of course, I am in charge of everything.”
“Fine, then, Mr. Engels, you know of the auction I refer to?”
“But of course.”
“And are you acquainted with Carter Fleming?”
“Certainly. We are always very pleased when Mr. Fleming visits us. We inform him by mailed notices of all important auctions. He is especially interested in paintings and rare books—a fact of which you are aware, I'm sure. Exquisite taste. And his lovely wife. She is very fond of antique furnishings. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that the Victorian period is her favorite.” My hips uncomfortably remembered the Victorian parlor. “But,” he cleared his throat, choosing the right words, “is there—has there been any—problem?” His reserve was touching. “I mean, if you are here, there must be . . .”
“Relax, Mr. Engels. This is a routine inquiry.” By his expression you'd have thought I'd hurt his feelings. “Just a few answers to a few questions should clarify everything. Did you send the set of books personally?”
“Not personally, but of course, I supervise all operations.” Such a bureaucratic-minded person should work for the government, I thought.
“Do you know for a positive fact that they were sent?”
“Yes, I do know for a positive fact that they were sent.”
“How do you know?”
He sighed. "Mr. Rafferty,” he said with infinite patience, “let me assure you that we are an entirely reputable business firm and an internationally known auction house. It has never been necessary for anyone to make routine inquiries into our methods of procedure.”
“Call it a nonroutine inquiry if you prefer. But let's cut the fancy talk, Engels. You've convinced me that you are in charge, and that this is a reputable, international auction house. What I want to know, specifically, is how you sent the Blake books to one Carter Fleming of New Orleans. And what proof you have that they were shipped. If that's classified as top secret under your methods of procedure, maybe I should go to the Pentagon for clearance.”
I got a cold, nasty look. He pressed a button on an intercom to his left and spoke into it without taking his eyes off me. “Karen, would you bring in all of the receipts for the books shipped to Mr. Carter Fleming in New Orleans. That would be about two weeks ago.” We waited for Karen and the receipts in complete silence. He had nothing more to say to me, for the moment.
Karen whisked in playing Miss Efficiency of the Year, with her blue-gray hair flipped out on one side and tucked under on the other, her glasses suspended around her neck on a black cord.
“Here are the receipts, all of them, shipped August 15, the same day as the auction, Roland.” Roland pointed the finger at me. She handed them over. “Is there a claim being made?” she asked me.
“No,” I said. “This is a routine inquiry.”
Roland's eyes closed in silent prayer. “That will be all, Karen,” he added to the amen.
I examined the evidence. All the receipts were there alright. The books had been insured for five thousand dollars through UPS. Fleming also had them insured for appraised value on his own policy, according to the typed information he had given me.
Engels’ hands slappped down on the desk. He pushed himself out of the chair on them and leaned forward.
“If,” he spat, “there is no claim being made, would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
I shook my head mournfully. “Gee, Engels, I'd like to, since you've been so cooperative and all, but discretion is of the utmost importance.”
He looked at me in disbelief. “You mean you're not going to tell me?”
“I'd like to, really,” I assured him, “but it wouldn't be—prudent.” I got up and put the receipts on his desk.
His hanging mouth snapped shut. �
�Then, if that's all . . .”
“Not quite. Who was Fleming with at the auction?”
He didn't answer.
“Was he with his wife?”
Still no answer.
“Was he with his son?”
“Well, now, maybe I shouldn't tell you. It might not be discreet.”
He started to straighten up smugly, but I grabbed one lapel. “One more time. Who was Fleming with?”
“His son,” he sputtered. I hoped he wouldn't cry in front of me.
“That's very good, Engels. Thanks very much.” I smoothed his coat. “You've certainly been most cooperative. I won't forget it.” I left him shaking his shoulders and brushing off his lapel.
I stuck my head into the auction room before I left. The auctioneer asked quietly who would start the bidding for a crusty closed chest at an outrageously high figure. A hand raised, a head nodded, a folded magazine lifted thirty degrees by the side of an aisle chair. The low voice said the price had gone up three thousand dollars.
14
* * *
Chase Manhattan Jones
The cabby who picked me up outside Barrow's wound over to Seventh Avenue in silence. The drive was relatively uneventful, the qualification being lane changes only at the slimmest opportunity and slamming of brakes at red lights that had turned red a block away. I was on the verge of figuring that I would make it to Broome Street in one piece when the cab pulled up to a red light at 42nd Street. The driver must have seen something that riled him because he started expounding on life in the jungle and the unsavory types inhabiting what he considered to be his backyard. I wouldn't go as far as to say that what he was commenting on didn't have a certain glimmer of truth, it's just that I wasn't listening—I was too busy keeping myself upright on the seat. He was talking at me through the protective shield that, as one guy told me a few years back, keeps the passenger from robbing the driver and the driver from molesting the passenger, craning his neck around so that I could hear him through the hole on the side. He swerved to avoid an opening car door, barely missing the cab in the next lane. He slipped into a hole between two fenders, passed the car ahead of us, moved back into the same lane, and slammed on his brakes to keep from plowing into the back of a truck that had abruptly stopped in front of us. At that point he interrupted his monologue long enough to curse at the truck driver and change lanes again, missing a parked car by inches. So that I wouldn't dwell on the tenuousness of existence, I tried to calculate how many extra miles a day the twelve thousand cabs in the city add to their meters by constantly changing lanes.