by Chris Wiltz
He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, and when he saw me he didn't spike the coffee or run off to the refrigerator for a beer. I thought that was a good sign. The house was quiet. The coffeepot was still on the stove wanning in a pan of water. I got a cup and sat down with him.
“Where's Ma?” I asked.
He jerked his head toward next door. “She and Reenie and the kids went with Mrs. Tim to a wake. One of Mrs. Tim's friends. You know how they are, Neal. They're always up for a wake.”
His mood was easy. Maybe what he needed was more time alone.
I pulled out the books and gave him some of the background on the case. I told him I'd had a hunch that had paid off in New York.
“Yeah. I talked to Rod'rick yesterday. He told me you went to New York.”
I wondered what else Uncle Roddy had told him, but he wasn't saying anything so neither did I.
I told him about the trouble between Fleming and his son. It was a pointed conversation -- I was interested to hear what he would say.
He shook his head. “What would he want to go all the way to New York for?”
I had just told him why the boy was in New York, but I couldn't expect miracles. I let it go on by. I told him that since I had found Garber's body while I was looking for the books, I was still interested in the case.
“Rod'rick told me you found Garber,” he said.
“I'd like to find out where this Lucy McDermott woman is, talk to her.”
“Rod'rick's got an APB out on her.”
I wished Uncle Roddy would butt out.
“Yeah,” I said, “I'm sure that'll turn her up before I could. It'd be a real coup, though, if I could do it first.”
He agreed. I explained to him that at this point the best leads on McDermott were Catherine Garber and her mother and that I was one up on Uncle Roddy because I had been able to talk to them before anyone knew Garber had been murdered. I told him that part of my interest in the case was my interest in Catherine Garber.
“She interested in you?”
I didn't know but I said she might be.
He nodded. “I'm sure she is, Neal. How could she not be? What surprises me is that you're interested in her.”
I thought about that a moment. I really hadn't wanted to be with anyone since Myra, and I knew that he was making his general assumption that any woman would want me because I was a tough Irishman, but what I didn't know was why he was surprised that I was interested in Catherine. He might have meant that he was surprised that I was finally out to get any woman, or it might have been a slur. I knew the way he and Uncle Roddy talked. Uncle Roddy acted like the old man was still with the department. He gave him all the details of the “good” homicides. He had probably given the old man a pretty accurate description of both Garber women. And the old man might have been making a slur about me being interested in someone classy for a change. But things were going too well between us for me to jump to bad conclusions, and, anyway, I hoped he was right this time. I didn't care why she was interested in me, I just hoped she was.
We talked some more until I thought I'd better be getting the books over to Fleming's office.
“You still thinking about what I said the other day?” he demanded as I was leaving.
I nodded, just so I wouldn't ruin the morning. I would have considered things perfect if he just hadn't said that.
19
* * *
William Blake Finds a Good Home
I called Fleming's house from the Channel, not expecting him to be there, but to make good my promise to Mrs. Fleming. She answered my call rather icily. I figured she had decided not to like me because she had told me too much but it could have been that she was one of those rare women who don't like to talk on the phone. I told her that her son wasn't exactly holed up in the Plaza Hotel, but that he wasn't in a tenement either, and that his roommate was a mature fellow who was going into business. I made Chase sound like a dedicated career type by insinuation, and I didn't mention that there was another roommate, female, nor that I had gathered the information myself. I did mention that the word was that her son was a rather decent artist. She didn't ask who I was quoting. In fact, she didn't say much at all except thank you and we rang off.
I parked my car in the garage of my office building and walked over to Fleming's office with the bundle. I entered a thickly carpeted reception room, decorated in muted greens accented with blue. A sweet brunette with curls falling softly around her rosy cheeks gave me the welcoming smile from behind her semicircular, completely cleared desk. I told her I wanted to see Fleming and she poked a fingertip that looked as if it had just been dipped in day-old blood at a button on the phone. In response, a striking woman of about thirty, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, emerged from an inner office. She introduced herself as Miss Taylor, Mr. Fleming's confidential secretary. Her makeup was perfect --so perfect that her face could have been cast in stone. Lack of facial expression intensified the image. Her amethyst eyes bit into my face.
“Mr. Fleming sees no one without an appointment,” she said as if sneering at my colossal nerve.
I let my eyes travel at will over her handsomely cut suit. An angry flush strayed onto the cheekbones of her mask. I smiled. “He'll see me without one.”
Air rushed through her nose. “I'll be glad to make an appointment for you, but the earliest possible time will be at the beginning of next week.”
I shook my head emphatically. “You just tell him I'm here now.”
“He's engaged on an important telephone call,” she said. The air turned frostier.
“I'll wait,” I said and slid the box off the brunette's desk and made for a low couch against the opposite wall. Miss Taylor waited until I turned back toward her so I could note the displeasure on her face before she went back inside. The receptionist and I did smiling exercises before she pulled out the paperback she had stashed under the desk.
And wait I did. The revenge of La Frigida. She finally appeared at the door and curtly told me that Mr. Fleming would see me now. I grinned as I slid past her. She flared her nostrils in response.
“Come on in, Rafferty,” Fleming bellowed from the back of an office which would have dwarfed a party of twenty, “and shut the door behind you.” I went to his desk, depositing the books on a comer of it. He was so busy writing something that he didn't notice that I hadn't come empty-handed. I tried to make myself comfortable in the depression of a modem white barrel.
He glanced across the paper-strewn desk at me. I'd been given friendlier looks before. “Go ahead with your report, Rafferty. I'll be finished here in a few minutes.”
“Your books have been recovered.” He slapped his pen down on the desk and showed me a lot of teeth. I gestured at the box.
“Goddamn good work,” he shouted and came around the desk. He pounded me on the back and opened the box. He stroked the covers fondly. “Never thought I'd see these babies again. That was damn fast work, Rafferty. Damn,” he reiterated ecstatically, caressing the Illustrations as if the book were a lover he hadn't seen in months. He stood so long with a lopsided smile of joy that I began to get embarrassed. He replaced the books in the box with a pat and faced me. “I want to hear all about it. Every detail. But first,” he paused until he reached his chair and sat down, “there's the matter of your fee.” He pulled out a checkbook and wrote ferociously, then with a pleased expression he handed me the check. It was for five thousand smackers.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Well, I told you I would be generous if you found the books in a hurry. Less than forty-eight hours is fast by my standards, and I'm a man of my word, Rafferty. Now, tell me all. Who had them?”
He was going to hate it. “Your son.”
He fell back in the chair as if a bullet had hit him and he was too stunned to feel the pain. The way his chest was depressed as he sat there made him look small and vulnerable. A flash of pity drifted across a few of my brain cells and found its wa
y out again.
“My son?” It was a small voice, stricken with acute disbelief. He continued to stare at an invisible spot on the front wall. When he finally remembered I was still there and I figured he'd had enough time for the news to sink in, I gave him a rundown of the activities of the day before.
“Can he hate me that much? That he would blackmail a man to strike out at me?” It was funny that from my objective rendering of the facts he possessed enough insight to realize that it wasn't purely a question of money.
“It was an act of desperation,” I said for lack of anything better to say.
“Yes, I can see that,” he mused. “Rafferty,” he said suddenly, “you don't think that -- would he be desperate enough? . . .” He trailed off, wiping beads of sweat from his upper lip, his face drained white.
“No, I don't think he killed Garber.” Unless he's a mighty fine actor, I thought to myself, remembering that the time of death Uncle Roddy quoted by no means cleared him.
“What should I do? Should I go get him?”
“Don't do anything. The police are busy with another lead. Anyway, if they decided to look for him, it would take them a few days to find him. They won't bother once the murderer's been found.”
Fleming, being a man of action, had to take some somehow. He made a speedy decision. “Rafferty, if you'll stay on the case and find Garber's murderer I'll double what I just gave you over and above your fee and expenses.” Now that money was in the picture, he was his blustering self again.
“I was planning to stay on the case anyway, Fleming. You've paid me quite well for what you hired me to do. Why don't you buy one of your son's paintings instead? He wants your approval more than he wants to hurt you.”
I expected a tirade about minding my own business and I wouldn't even have resented one. Instead I got a thoughtful pair of eyes focused on me.
“Do you really think so? Maybe I'll do that.” I stood up. He came around the desk again and pumped my hand, patted his box, squeezed my shoulder, and gave me some other signs of his approval. I didn't want to end up a mass of bruises so I extricated myself, closing the door behind me and arriving in Miss Taylor's office. She gave me a look that would have frozen the whiskey around a St. Bernard's neck.
“So long, ice cap,” I called to her; waving, and ducked out the door in case she decided to throw her office manual at me.
20
* * *
Somebody Don't Like Me
I walked back over to the office, stopping on the way for a cup of coffee and the Picayune. I was fumbling for my keys at the door when I saw the article. Curly's had burned down the night before. Details were scarce, but the possibility of arson was being investigated. I wondered where Murphy was today. Still reading, I scraped the Yale lock looking for the keyhole, found it, went to plunge the key into it and the whole lock fell on the floor. I dropped the newspaper and cursed my stupidity for having left my .32 at the apartment. Cautiously I opened the door, hoping that someone wasn't sitting behind my desk with my .38. No one was sitting behind the desk -- it was turned over on its side. The waiting room was a shambles, chairs turned over, tables upside down, stuffing falling out of cushions. I picked up one of the tables to thrust with its legs in case the vandal was waiting on the other side of the wall in the inner office. He wasn't. He'd done his work and been long gone. The filing cabinets had all been knocked over and anything that was movable or breakable had been moved and smashed. Even my folding screen had been slashed. The smell of alcohol lingered in the air. Behind the turned-over desk was a broken bottle of Scotch. My merrymaker had apparently taken off with an unopened bottle of bourbon. It was the only thing that seemed to be missing. The metal cabinet housing my gun had been toppled but not unlocked. It looked like it had been beaten with a baseball bat. I summoned up my strength and put as much as I could back in order and called for the building maintenance man to replace the lock. Then I tried to get Catherine Garber on the phone, but no one was at home. I sat back and looked around the office; it didn't look so seedy anymore. Destroyed, but not seedy. I went through the mail and called the Garber house again, but still got no answer.
I waited around to try the number a couple more times, then I packed the .38 in its holster, taking no chances even on a seemingly innocuous piece of legwork. I went over to the post office in the area of Lucy McDermott's apartment. She hadn't left a change of address and I hadn't really expected the police to have overlooked the possibility. While I was in the neighborhood, I thought I'd go over by Mrs. Parry's and get the name of the landlord in case he had a previous address for Lucy.
I pressed the bell and waited for the answering buzz but didn't get one. A group of tourists on their way to the Café du Monde for morning coffee passed by, chattering about ironwork and cobblestones. In the midst of their clatter I thought I detected the flap-flap of Mrs. Parry's rubber sandals. I peered through the small iron gate in the door and saw her slowly making her way down the narrow entrance alley.
“So it's you, is it,” she said as she stood on her toes to get a good look at me. “Did you bring any whiskey?”
“I promised, didn't I?” I held the Jim Beam up to the grating. The last couple of tourists straggled by as Mrs. Parry fumbled with the lock. Just as the door started swinging open, a gunshot exploded, wood splintering as the bullet embedded itself in the middle of the door above my head. I pushed the door open enough to slide through and shoved Mrs. Parry out of the way. The women tourists were screaming and scuttling down the street like a bunch of ferrets. I drew my gun and took a tentative look through the grating. Judging by the angle of the bullet, the shot must have come from a second-story window or rooftop across the street, but my vision was hampered by the design of the grate.
Mrs. Parry recovered herself from the bout of hacking that had been brought on by the excitement. “Hey, what's this?” she croaked. “Someone's shooting at you,” she said as if the first light of dawn had just seeped through.
“Sure looks that way,” I agreed, craning my neck trying to catch sight of my assailant.
“Haven't seen this much excitement since last night on ‘The Rockford Files,’” she said coming up behind me.
“Look, Mrs. Parry, take the bottle and go upstairs and calm your nerves,” I suggested, even though she looked as calm as a crocodile basking in the sun. “I'm going to open the door a bit and see if I can spot anybody.”
“And maybe miss something?” she demanded. “Not on your life, Rafferty.”
I started getting irritated. After all, I couldn't very well try to draw the culprit out with her in the way. “Well, then., move back there,” I pointed toward the stairway. She drew back not quite as far as I would have liked, but at least leaned up against the wall.
I opened the door a fraction. Everything was deathly quiet. A few curtains flapped in open windows across the street, but I couldn't see anyone in any of them. I opened the door some more and started going out, gun first. A bullet whisked by my hand so close that I felt the heat from it. There was nothing to do but retreat. I couldn't see well enough to tell exactly what direction the shots were coming from, but wherever it was, the person behind the gun had a perfectly good view of me. I tried edging out again and again a bullet smacked into the brick wall inches away from my gun hand. I heard sirens in the distance and counted on them drawing the attention of the assailant for a moment and dashed across the sidewalk, taking cover by a parked car. A bullet hit the concrete. I raised my head and peered diagonally to the right, which seemed to be the direction the bullets were coming from, judging by the angle of the last three. Another shot glanced off an iron pole supporting a narrow balcony. I ventured up to take a return shot and saw a movement on the roof to my right. Someone had quickly backed off. I stood up, aiming for the spot, but whoever it was had decided to leave, since the sirens were a bit too close for comfort and a getaway still had to be made. I tried to calculate where he would come down, but with the rooftops connected as they were, i
t could be on any of four different streets. I waited for the police, hoping they would be in time to surround the block and catch the would-be killer making his escape.
Police cars were suddenly swarming over the area. I walked down the street, still in the cover of the parked cars and with an eye on the roof. Several uniformed policemen jumped out of cars and took cover. I saw Rankin alight from an unmarked car on the cornet He saw me coming and waited, arms akimbo.
“Wherever there's trouble there's you, huh, Neal,” he said as I walked up. Fonte, as usual, was leering at me from behind his shoulder; his mouth working hard on a piece of gum.
“I always like to be where the action is. But it's all over now. Whoever it was took his pot shots at me from up on that rooftop.” I pointed. Rankin shouted instructions at the men to surround the area.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“Nope. He managed to stay out of sight.” He told Fonte to go down the street and ask the tourists if they had seen anyone.
“Any idea who it might be?”
“Who could possibly want to knock off a nice guy like myself?” I asked. He answered with a sardonic grunt and slung a thumb in his belt.
“Sure,” he said, “some guy just sees your mug and decides he should take a few shots at you. Thinks maybe one might be lucky. Why? ‘Cause he can't stand the sight of your face. Saw you from across a crowded cafeteria and just’ hated your guts.”
“There are a lot of loonies running the streets, Uncle Roddy.”
He stared at me through narrowed eyelids, made a few clucking sounds, and moved on down the street. I went back to where Mrs. Parry was incautiously standing in the open doorway.
“Did they get him?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Somebody sure don't like you, Rafferty.” She swallowed a small mouthful of bourbon and screwed the top back on quite carefully. I declined her offer to stand me a few during the afternoon movie and found out that she paid her rent to a realtor located on Royal Street. Before I could bid her a pleasant afternoon, she managed to cop the better part of a package of cigarettes from me. There just aren't many like her. She flapped back to her television set in the same red pedal pushers she'd had on two days before.