Stand-up

by Robert J. Randisi

  “What do you know about Hocus?” Sandoval asked her.

  “He’s a good cop. If he says this guy is okay I’d believe him.”

  “Do you want to cut him loose?”

  “We don’t need him getting underfoot.” Sandoval looked at me and said, “You can go, but I want you at the precinct tomorrow.”

  “What time?”

  “Four.”

  “Not earlier?”

  Sandoval shrugged.

  “You keep finding your bodies on the four to twelve.”

  “I didn’t—” I started to say, then decided to forget it. “Okay, I’ll be there. Thanks.”

  As I headed for the door, Sandoval asked, “Where are you headed?”

  “Why?”

  “I just wouldn’t want you to find any more bodies.”

  “At least not until the twelve to eight tour starts,” Yearwood said.

  “I’m going home.”

  “Good,” Sandoval said, “stay there.”

  I frowned. Was he telling me not to look for Ray anymore?

  “Find something to watch on TV” Yearwood said.

  “Quantum Leap,” Sandoval said.

  “If he’s got cable,” Yearwood said.

  I looked at Casey, who was staring back and forth between the two partners, a confused look on his face.

  “I can take a hint,” I assured them, and left.

  30

  I went home, but I had no intention of watching TV. First I called Hocus and thanked him for the support.

  “Yearwood asked me about the possibility of you beating a girl to death.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her she never saw you in the ring or she wouldn’t be asking me that question.”

  “You told them I used to be a fighter.”

  “You forgot.”

  “They didn’t ask me.”

  “It works in your favor,” he said. “It’s more likely if you did beat anybody to death you’d use your hands, and from what he told me your hands are unmarked.”

  “Virgin.”

  “What’s Ray gotten himself into, Jack?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”

  “Well, I like Ray as much as the next guy, but don’t stick your neck out.”

  “He’s my friend, Hocus.”

  “Okay, so don’t stick it out too far.”

  “I’ll watch it.”

  “And let me know if you need any help.”

  “You helped already. Thanks again.”

  When I hung up on Hocus, I called Heck and told him what had happened.

  “This is getting decidedly ugly.”

  “I want to talk to Pesce, Heck.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I haven’t, yet. Because maybe I’ll ask him something you didn’t think to ask.”

  “All right,” Heck said, taking no offense. “I’ll arrange it. Nine A.M.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry about the girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  I hung up and, just as an afterthought, dialed Ray’s number. When I brought up his messages, there were two.

  Beep.

  “Ray, I heard Joy had an accident. Too bad.”

  Jesus, the nerve of the guy, whoever he was. Well, this message might help to clear Ray once I told Sandoval about it. I waited, and the second message came up.

  Beep.

  “Jack, I don’t need the help. Stay out of it.”

  I stared at the phone. That message was from Ray.

  Normally, if Ray Carbone ever told me that he didn’t need my help I’d back off, but not this time. I had the feeling Ray was into something heavy. Maybe he didn’t know he needed help, or just didn’t think so, but he was going to get it anyway.

  Next I dialed Packy’s. I had two phone numbers, one of which I used for my P.I. business. Geneva, Marty, and Ed all knew not to answer that phone. After the fourth ring, my machine picked up, and after my message I pressed my code and picked up my own messages.

  There was just one.

  “Mr. Jacoby, this is Andrea Legend. Please call me. It’s urgent, so please reply as soon as possible. Thank you.” She gave her business number, and home number, and hung up.

  Maybe it was urgent, but it wasn’t so urgent that she’d drop her business manner.

  My telephone work was done, and it was still early. I had several options. I could go to Packy’s and hang out until closing. Or I could check out some more of Ray’s hangouts. Or I could go and try to get into Stan Waldrop’s apartment. What were my priorities? Both cases now involved murder, and while Ray was my friend, I had taken money from Waldrop.

  I decided to try Andrea Legend’s home number:

  “Hello?”

  She had a distinctive voice even while speaking one word.

  “Andrea? It’s Miles Jacoby.”

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised. “I didn’t expect you to call me . . . here.”

  “You left your home number and said it was urgent.”

  “I did, of course, I, uh, just didn’t expect you to call this late.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, no, actually it’s not that late. In fact, if you would like, you could come up here now.”

  “What’s so urgent?”

  “Well . . . I wasn’t completely honest with you this afternoon.”

  “About what?”

  There was a long hesitation period, and then she said, “I do have a key to Stan’s apartment.”

  I didn’t ask her why she had lied.

  “Can I have it?”

  “Well, yes, of course. Can you come and pick it up tonight?”

  “Give me your address.”

  She rattled it off. It was uptown, on the east side.

  “Give me about half an hour.” That would get me to her door at about nine.

  “Yes, all right. I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up and thought about going uptown to see a beautiful woman in her apartment.

  It was better than watching Quantum Leap.

  31

  Andrea Legend’s building was on East Eighty-first Street between York and First avenues. It was a modern high-rise with a uniformed doorman. He called upstairs for permission to let me in.

  “Take the elevator to the eleventh floor, sir. Apartment eleven-fourteen.”

  “Thanks.”

  I rode the elevator to eleven, the ride hardly taking any time at all. This was the kind of building Heck should have had his office in so I wouldn’t have to ride that slow-moving rattletrap that masqueraded as an elevator in his building.

  I walked to 1114 and pressed the doorbell. When she opened the door I thought that if she had dressed so as not to give me any ideas, she had gone the wrong way.

  She seemed to be wearing some sort of stay-at-home outfit, a black teddy under a long, black, robe-type thing. I was willing to bet she could have worn it to all kinds of parties and no one would have known it was night wear. It was black, but filmy, very low cut in front to reveal a deep, pale cleavage, and it reached to the floor. It was just tasteful enough so that I couldn’t swear she was flaunting it, but sexy enough so that she could claim she was.

  “Come in,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Thanks.”

  I entered, and in moving past her caught a whiff of her perfume. It matched the outfit perfectly. It was appropriate for the office, and yet would not have been out of place in the bedroom.

  What was the story here?

  I decided the best move was to ask.

  “Have I interrupted something?”

  She turned from the closed door to face me. Her makeup was perfectly applied, as it had been in her office. Perhaps the only difference would have been a little more blush applied to her cheeks. Still, I had seen her toward the end of the day, and the blush could have rubbed off.

&nb
sp; “No. Why would you ask?”

  “You seem a little overdressed just to give me a key. I figured you were expecting company.”

  “No,” she said, thinking fast, “no, no one . . . just you. . . .”

  “Not dressed like that.”

  “Why not?” Her tone was defensive.

  “Because I’m not on your menu, Andrea. The price is too low.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do. You thought if you dressed like that and talked sexy I’d fall into bed with you.”

  “I don’t want you—”

  “That’s true enough. You don’t want me in your bed, which makes me all the more curious why you’d pull this seduction act.”

  She stared at me for a few moments until I thought she was going to crack, but then she sucked it up and decided to brazen it out.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Jacoby.” She walked to a small table near the door with an oriental vase on it and picked up a key.

  “Here’s the key to Stan’s apartment.”

  “Why did you tell me you didn’t have one?”

  “I . . . forgot.”

  “Was there anything going on between you and Stan, Andrea?”

  “Of course not.”

  “No little extracurricular bedroom athletics going on?”

  “This is insulting.”

  “What about you and Allegretto? You two looked pretty cozy last night.”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave, Mr. Jacoby.”

  “What happened, I thought we were on a first-name basis?”

  She pulled the front of her outfit closed to hide her cleavage. I got the feeling she was embarrassed about her botched seduction attempt.

  “Please leave.”

  “Thanks for the key, Andrea. If you decide you want to talk—I mean, really talk—give me a call.”

  She just stood there as I let myself out, her arms crossed over her breasts, staring down at the floor

  In the elevator I wondered what the hell that was all about. First she lies about having a key, then she gets me to come to her apartment to pick it up, planning some sort of seduction scene . . . but for what?

  Maybe I should have just kept quiet and waited a little longer before asking her.

  32

  Stan Waldrop lived in an apartment building on the corner of Eighth Avenue and West Fifty-third Street. While it wasn’t in the same class as Andrea’s—there was no doorman—it was certainly beyond my price range.

  I went inside, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and let myself in with the key. Waldrop’s place was on the back side of the building, so his view was of the backs and tops of other buildings. It was a small three-room, one-bedroom place that would have been too cramped for me—especially at a high price. I looked around the living room and kitchen briefly, and then went into his bedroom. There was a small writing desk by the window, with a computer on it. The setup looked to me to be in five pieces. There was the computer, the TV-type monitor the keyboard, a telephone with another device next to it that I assumed was a modem, and a printer. I stood staring down at it, realizing that there would be no point in my turning it on. I didn’t know the first thing to do, and with my luck I’d touch one key and wipe the thing clean.

  What I needed was someone who knew computers.

  I took another look around, this time opening and closing drawers. In one of the desk drawers I found a stamped and used airline ticket to and from Las Vegas. Apparently, just before hiring me Waldrop had played Vegas. I guessed that it was when he returned from there that he’d discovered the theft of his jokes.

  I put the ticket in my pocket and kept looking around. In the living room was another phone with an answering machine connected. There were no new messages waiting for him, but since I had gone to the trouble of taking Ray’s tape and playing it back with Geneva’s microrecorder, I decided to do the same with Waldrop’s. I popped it out of the machine and dropped it in my pocket. I didn’t think I needed to bother with replacing it. He wouldn’t be getting any new calls.

  Just as an afterthought I picked up the phone and dialed Andrea Legend’s home number.

  “Hello?” She answered after four rings.

  “Are you still mad at me?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then she said, “Furious.”

  Just from the tone of voice in that one word I realized that she had regained her composure.

  “Want me to come back?”

  “No, I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

  “I blew it, huh?”

  “Decidedly.”

  “Well, maybe next time.”

  She didn’t reply. Go ahead, make me sweat.

  “Listen, Andrea, I need to ask you something about Stan.”

  “What?”

  “Was he in Las Vegas last week?”

  “He was.”

  “And it was when he came back that he discovered someone had stolen his jokes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was he playing in Vegas?”

  “The Aladdin.”

  Not top of the line, but not bad either.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all. Go back to sleep, or whatever you were doing, with whoever . . .”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Oh.”

  “There was nothing between Stan and me, Miles.”

  “Okay, if you say so.”

  “And there’s nothing going on between me and Bill Allegretto.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t sleep with my clients.”

  “Okay.” There was nothing else for me to say.

  “You think I’m a cold bitch, don’t you?”

  “One out of two.”

  A pause.

  “Which one?”

  “Guess,” I said, and hung up.

  Let her sweat.

  33

  At nine the next morning I presented myself at the Tombs in downtown Manhattan. Heck had made the arrangements, and before long I found myself in a room with Danny Pesce sitting across a table from me.

  Pesce was tall and slender, with long, lank black hair that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days, maybe longer. He looked to be in his early forties. Instead of looking at me he stared down at his hands, picking skin off the fingers of the left one.

  “Danny, I’m Miles Jacoby, an investigator working for your lawyer, Heck Delgado.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m also a friend of Ray Carbone’s.”

  “Did you find him?”

  “Not yet.”

  He looked at me now.

  “Ray’s gotta come in, man. He can get me off.”

  “What was Ray’s involvement, Danny?”

  Pesce shook his head and went back to looking down at his hands. I could see that a couple of fingers had small scabs on them, so apparently he picked at the skin until it bled.

  “I ain’t sayin’. Not to you, anyway.”

  “Talking to me is like talking to your lawyer.”

  “I ain’t told him, either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a stand-up guy, man. I ain’t rattin’ Ray. He’s gotta come in on his own.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “I know what I’m gonna do if that happens.”

  “You’re going to give him up?”

  Pesce didn’t answer

  “You know, if you wait any longer nobody’s going to believe you.”

  “Nobody believes me now that I didn’t kill nobody. They’ll believe me, though, when Ray comes in. He’s my witness.”

  “Is that all he is, Danny? A witness? If so, why’s he on the run?”

  “I ain’t sayin’.”

  Danny Pesce was small-time, but it had been drilled into him since childhood that you didn’t rat anybody out—not if you could help it. I had no doubt that if the time came for him to go to trial, and Ray hadn
’t turned up, he’d give Ray up—but for what?

  “Danny, did Ray kill Michael Bonetti?”

  Pesce shook his head stubbornly and said, “I ain’t sayin’.” He pulled a stubborn piece of skin off his thumb and a small bead of blood immediately appeared. He put the thumb into his mouth.

  “Okay, then help me find Ray, Danny. Where can I look for him?”

  “You said you was his friend.”

  “I am. I checked some of the places he goes to, I checked his apartment.”

  “Check with Joy.”

  “I did.” I watched him carefully. “I saw her once, and then when I went to see her again she was dead.”

  His head came up, and his thumb popped out of his mouth with a wet sound.

  “What?”

  “Joy’s dead.”

  “How?”

  “Somebody beat her to death, just like Michael Bonetti.”

  “Oh, Jesus . . .”

  “Tell me something that will help me help you, Danny.”

  “I got nothin’ to tell you.” He spread his hands helplessly. “All I can tell you is you gotta find Ray. Ray’s gotta come in and clear me.”

  “Danny, even if I find Ray there’s no guarantee he’s going to come in.”

  “He’s my witness, man, he’s gotta come in.”

  “Will coming in and talking incriminate him? Because if it will, he probably won’t do it.”

  Pesce suddenly slammed both of his hands down on the table and stood up.

  “You gotta find him, man. You gotta! That’s all I can tell you.”

  “All right, Danny, all right. I’ll keep trying.”

  I ran into Heck outside.

  “Here to see him?”

  Heck shook his head.

  “Another client, but I thought I’d check in with you. Anything?”

  “He wouldn’t—or couldn’t—give me anything that would help me find Ray. He wouldn’t even tell me exactly what Ray had to do with the murder.”

  “I’ll talk to him again,” Heck said, “but he’s been taught since he was a child—”

  “I know, you don’t rat anybody out. Be a stand-up guy.”

  “It’s important to men like him.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said, “but only up to a point.”

  We separated and I went outside. What was it that was making Danny Pesce keep silent? Was he just being a stand-up guy, or was he afraid of something? Or somebody? And what about Joy? What did her death have to do with Bonetti’s death?