by Chris Wiltz
It took a while to establish control, mop up, and get back to the business at hand.
“Look, man, you gotta understand my position. I feel like I'm turning in a couple of kids, for Christ's sake!”
“But you're not,” I insisted. “The old man is paying me. I'm on his side and his son's and his son's girlfriend's. Unless they've committed murder, I'll stay on their side. I don't know what else to tell you to convince you that I'm a good guy.”
“Think of something.”
“Nuts,” I complained, “Okay, try this. Carter was spotted at the scene of the murder. That's what I know that the police don't know. If they find out, there's going to be cops swarming all over this place.”
Chase stood up and flailed his arms around. “But how do I know you're not just telling me that?”
“How do you know I'm not the king of Siam? Think of it this way: Fleming's paying me to find his books and keep his name out of a murder case. But his books, his son, and the murder victim were all too close the day of the murder. He's mad at the kid, but he sure as hell doesn't think the kid's a murderer. He didn't want me to come here; he'd blow a fuse if he knew I had. What he and no one else seems to be thinking about are the consequences if I don't get to the kid first. You think about it.”
Chase leaned his head on a closed fist and mulled it over. After a heavy-lidded meditation he said quietly, “Okay. I'm going to trust you.” His voice got progressively louder. “But I'm going to trust you because every other person who's ever been around here for the old man has been a snooping social register snob who wouldn't have sat on that sofa and spoiled his St. Laurent suit for nothing.” He wiped the slate clean.
I've been liked for some reasons and trusted for some of the same reasons and some different ones, but this was the only time I'd ever been trusted because I was willing to pin my tail on a sofa spring.
15
* * *
More About Fathers and Sons
Chase stuck to his story about the farmhouse in Connecticut. He said he was going to have to look up his friend and get directions. We took a subway to midtown Manhattan. Somehow over the roar in the tunnel I was able to think clearly enough to start wondering again why a guy like Chase would take on two starving artists. I asked him how he came to be in the protection racket, what his interest in them was.
“When I met Lise and Carter,” he told me, “they were really having a rough time. I had that big old loft so I moved them in I guess I feel more protective toward Carter than I do Lise. She's pretty tough and she's a better artist than he is. He's having trouble coping with this way of life—it doesn't take you five minutes to figure out he's a spoiled rich kid—but I admire him for trying at all. You see, Lise doesn't need anybody's protection. She would have made it anyway. Carter won't, I don't think, not even with her. I think he'll end up going back home to daddy. Maybe I hope he will.”
“So you put up with Carter because you like Lise.” “Yeah, I guess so. He can really be a little shit sometimes.” He shrugged. “I suppose I'm just jealous of him, which is stupid. The girl is too young for me. Anyway, I've got to get out of this scene, but I won't quit for the same reasons Carter will. I like change and upheaval. And I know how to make money, too. It's just that all of it, the whole thing, is really beginning to get to me.” His eyes shaded over with depression. Then he said in a low tone, threateningly, “You better mean what you say about saving them trouble.”
“Watch it. You're being protective again and you're liking the girl too much. Why don't you find an older woman?”
“I need a lecture from a private snoop?” he queried.
“Sorry,” I conceded.
It was well into the afternoon and I really didn't want this to be an extended stay. I told Chase to find his friend and get the directions while I went to the rent-a-car place and arranged for a car I made the decision to let him go by himself on raw instinct which does go wrong sometimes. But this Jones character struck me as an impulsive type, impulsive enough to trust me for my apparently obscure sitting habits and equally impulsive enough to withdraw that trust if it wasn't returned. I watched him move down the street and wondered if I hadn't had better ideas.
I went into the rent-a-car place to make arrangements and do some flirting with the girl behind the counter. After minor chitchat she told me there would be about a twenty-minute wait and I told her to send Mr. Jones over to the coffee shop next door when he came back.
I ordered coffee and sandwiches and tried to figure out what was going on between André and young Fleming. I couldn't quite see André using Fleming's son to steal the books, and, anyway, Garber must have let Carter walk out of his store with them. If, of course, the box the young man had been carrying contained the Blake books. And if the young man had been Carter Fleming III. That was the only way it made sense. The problem was that I just didn't know enough, but I was laying money and my neck on the line betting that Carter the Third had some answers.
The sandwiches came and I finished mine, ordered more coffee and smoked several cigarettes. Chase still hadn't shown. But the instinct had been so strong. I realized that senility doesn't usually strike a person in his mid-thirties so it had to be that I was losing my touch. The consequences of such a thing happening were not pleasant to think about. I brushed it from my mind. After all, I hadn't been waiting that long. I tried to remember all the things I had heard about the virtue of patience but it probably wasn't a mere thirty seconds later that I began to get fidgety with the notion that a maniac with a tattoo was going to embarrass me for the second time in a day.
I lit what I had decided would be my final cigarette when he slipped into the booth opposite. He was sporting a new haircut.
“Time for a new life and a new image,” he said.
“The little kids will be disappointed.”
“There are other images for them. Hope I'm not holding up the works.”
I told him to have a sandwich. “Did you find out where the house is?”
“It's all right here.” He tapped his shirt pocket. “But it's a little bit farther than just outside New Haven. And my buddy says that he's not sure when they're due back. Hell, they could be on the way now.” His tone was ambivalent.
“We go anyway,” I said.
“I guess I can use some country air”
I paid the check and went to get the car. I asked for a Connecticut map despite Chase's insistence that he could get us there blindfolded.
“If you pass out,” I told him, “I still want to get there.” He called me a dirty copper for not having more faith.
Chase said he had two more stops to make, the liquor store and the deli. “We gotta get supplies, man. We can't go way the hell to wherever it is we're going without supplies.” He came back with smokes, bourbon, and pastrami sandwiches.
“If these supplies are any indication,” I complained, “a little farther outside New Haven means we'll be driving all night.”
“Just sit back and relax, Neal. I'll have us there in a couple of hours flat.” He lit a cigarette and we got on the road. I sat back, but I didn't relax. I never do when I'm not driving.
“Chase Manhattan Jones,” I mused. “How did you ever manage to come up with a name like that?”
“I didn't, my parents did. They had a sense of humor.”
“The name somehow doesn't go with the artist image.”
“True. So I dropped the Manhattan from my signature this year. But it was good last year when I played cards. Instant respect. My parents had the right idea; they wanted me to start out on the right foot.”
“Sounds optimistic, but is the foot on the right track? Artist this year, card player last year What about the year before? Sailor of the high seas?”
He was puzzled for a second. “Oh, the tattoo. No, that's part of this year's image. The wild hah; the booze, the tattoo. That's what I meant about keeping up the image being a pain. Everytime I take a bath I have to put the damn thing back on. It's a hassle,
but the kids love it. Look, I'm getting depressed.” His shoulders fell and he looked straight ahead, but the moment soon passed. “Maybe I'll become a private dick in my next life,” he said somewhat cheered. “This is fun.” I got passed a sly look. “Not bad the way I got your gun away from you, either. With a little practice . . .”
“Yeah, but it might not always live up to your high sense of adventure, like when you're sitting outside some fleabag motel in the rain because a wife has gotten suspicious of her husband. I don't understand why you don't stick with what you're doing. You seem to be making out okay and maybe you're not as bad an artist as you think you are.”
“No can do. I always know when it's time to move on. I start getting depressed. Take this morning when I woke up. It was awful. When you came in I was on the verge of deciding I should be a businessman again.”
He had an inner tension that always seemed to be coiled, ready to spring. And yet there was a certain composure even though he was in continuous movement. Maybe the movement kept the tension relaxed just enough, like vibrating a piano wire keeps it in tune. He was a person who would find adventure washing dishes in a hash house because he liked life and living; in other words, an eccentric.
“What kind of business?”
“It doesn't matter,” he answered, playing with the knobs on the dashboard for no apparent reason. “I just look around and see an empty slot and move into it.”
I would have tried his approach and picked a new life if I could have forgotten some of the details about the present one.
Two hours later, because of a hard rain, we had pulled over to the side of some rural road or other in Connecticut. We couldn't see where we were going which didn't matter too much because we didn't know where we were going—we were lost.
“I must have made a wrong turn somewhere,” Chase said.
“Or two or three. Let me see the directions.” Chase gave me a hastily drawn map that made about as much sense as my palm would make if I were trying to get to Moscow. I handed it back and pulled out the map I could read.
“If I just knew which road we're on now,” he said, “I could figure out where I went wrong.”
I had seen a hand-painted sign when we had made the last turn. “That's easy enough. We're on Manning's Road which must be a private road to some farm belonging to Manning.”
I got an exaggerated look of admiration. “Gosh, Neal. What astute powers of observation and deduction. I'll have to apprentice myself to you for a while before I strike out on my own.”
“You'd have to pay me a lot,” I said.
He pored over his map. “Simple error;” he proclaimed. “I made a right when I should have made a left.”
We waited for the rain to slow up, which it showed no sign of doing, ate sandwiches, put quite a dent in the bourbon, and talked. Nearly an hour later we found the farmhouse. We parked at the side and walked up on the open porch.
Chase rattled the door and called out, “Hey, Cart, open up. It's Chase. And friend,” he muttered under his breath.
The door was opened by a girl whose beauty would rival Catherine Garber's when her face matured a bit more. Her chestnut hair fell to her waist and her large, dark brown eyes sparkled. She had on a smock. Several paint brushes showed in the long front pocket.
“Hi, Lise.”
“Chase,” she said with surprise, checking out his new attire. “What's up with you?”
“Lise, I want you to meet Neal Rafferty.” She gave me her hand as Chase draped his arm across her shoulders. “Where's Carter?” he asked as we moved into a large, homey room with a low beamed ceiling.
Carter himself came out of a back room to answer the question. He wore faded blue jeans, sneakers, and had longish brown hair. So far, so good.
“Right here, Chase. Who's the friend?” Suspicion clung to him like barnacles to the Lido Pier. Chase went through the intros again and Lise moved us over to some chairs and a couch and told us to sit down. When we were settled, she smiled at Chase and said, “Well, Chase, something's up to get you out of the city. I thought fresh air made you dizzy.”
I took over. “Chase brought me here. I'm a private investigator from New Orleans.” Before I could get out any further explanation, Carter's nerves snapped.
“You dirty son of a bitch,” he shrieked at Chase. He jumped out of his chair with his fists clenched and his face contorted into a childish snarl. He crossed over to belt him, but Chase beat him to it and landed a blow on his jaw that knocked him down. I shouldn't have been, but I was amused.
Chase leaned over Carter and dragged him up by his shirt and threw him back in the chair “Look, you insipid little bastard, you listen to what this guy's got to say before you go flying out of control again.” He gave me a smile on his way back to his seat. Fleming rubbed on his jaw and Chase rubbed on his hand while Lise looked on horrified.
I tried again. “Carter, I was hired by your father, but not to find you. That's between you and him. He hired me to find his Blake books.”
“So? So?” he yelled at me. “What are you doing here? I don't know anything about his stinking books.”
“You know where they are because you have them.”
He shut his eyes tight. “Get him out of here,” he said threateningly to no one in particular.
“What you might not know,” I went on, “is that Stanley Garber is dead. Murdered.” His eyes popped open along with his mouth and he turned to stare at me. A muffled moan came from Lise's direction. If they were acting, it was a convincing act. “He was killed in his store the morning you were there.”
“So?” His voice shook. “What are you trying to do, pin it on me? I don't know anything about it.”
“May be not, but you were seen there and once the cops get that load, they'll be breathing down your neck every second of every day.” I paused to let it sink in, but he stayed mum. I turned to look at Lise but she was staring at Carter. He wouldn't look at her.
She finally spoke. “Carter”
“Shut up, Lise.” Her mouth clamped down and her eyes began to jerk around.
“Carter, I'd like to speak to you in the other room.” She got up and walked out and after a moment's hesitation he followed.
There was some muffled conversation in a back room. I thought it sounded angry. It must have been. When they came back they were both wearing that clamped-mouth look.
“Lise,” I said, “would you like to tell me about something?” She glanced in Carter's direction, got no response, vaguely shook her head, and stared at the floor. Carter braved a glance in her direction once she wasn't looking. Chase and I passed furtive glances. And so we all sat, everybody looking at everybody else. I began to get restless.
I stood up and took a deep breath. I was tired of giving out with the same old spiel so I thought I'd jazz this one up a bit. “Okay. Let's take it from the beginning. You, Carter, were seen at the shop the morning of the murder. In fact, you were so close on it that once the cops learn you were there, you will automatically be the number one suspect. Also, take into account the rather well-known story about your problems with your father and, hence, your money problems. Now, throw into that the fact that Robert André knows you have those books. And he'll tell all about it if he thinks it will save your skin from a murder rap. For some reason, he seems attached to you,” I added. “Once he starts talking, he automatically gets himself in trouble for suppressing evidence. So does his daughter.”
At the mention of André’s name, Carter's head jerked toward Lise. She wasn't quite glaring at him, but her eyes had the intensity of Las Vegas lights in a nighttime sky.
“Seems to me,” I went on, “that if you didn't have anything to do with Garber's murder, then neither did those books. Once that's cleared up, you'll clear everyone connected with the books. I mention that in the event that you don't care about your own involvement one way or another.”
Lise's ferocious eye-hold on Fleming was slowly turning into fear, but the kid still seemed unmo
ved.
I went further. “You know, Carter, you may not be overly fond of your father right now, but he's the man paying me and I sure would hate to have to turn what I know over to the police. I would be throwing them my last lever of protection. I won't be any good to any of you after that. They're convinced that those books are the motive in Stanley Garber's murder and they're determined to pin it on someone. You're available and you're in possession of those books. There's no way you'll be able to move them now.” I was getting a little far out on the proverbial limb, but I saw Fleming's Adam's apple bobbing around in his throat. I waited a decent length of time, but I got tired of eye language. I went into my own act.
“Okay, Chase,” I said, “let's go. There's nothing for me to do but lay it on the cops.” I started for the door Chase looked confused, but he played along and came with me.
“Wait.” It was Use. She hadn't moved, but she held out a hand to stop us. “Wait.” Her voice cracked and there were tears on her long thick eyelashes. “Carter;” she said anxiously, “tell him. Please, tell him.”
“God, Lise,” he said giving her an imploring look.
“Then I will. I won't let them do anything to Robert.” She stopped, priming herself or waiting for Carter to do something, I wasn't sure which. She glanced back at me. “Sit down, Mr. Rafferty. I'll tell you.” Fleming put his head in his hands. “Carter and his father don't get along well. Carter wants to paint and his father wants him to go to school. You're right, the main battle is over money. As long as Carter won't go to school, then his father won't give him any money. Well, it is his money. Anyway, I think we can make it on our own.” This last was said with a lot of pride, maybe too much, like she wasn't sure that they could.
“Don't go into all that, Lise,” Carter interrupted.
Lise looked affronted for a moment, then resigned. “Carter took the books to sell them so he could get some money. But he didn't have anything to do with Stanley Garber's murder. You have to believe that. We didn't even know about it until you told us.”