Stand-up

by Robert J. Randisi

  That brought his head up quickly.

  “You found him?”

  “He found me. I woke up to find him in my kitchen.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “I don’t know. He said he was leaving town.”

  He sat back in his chair and gave me all of his attention.

  “I have got to hear this.”

  I gave him my conversation with Ray almost verbatim. He listened calmly and quietly until I was done.

  “Will you testify?” he asked when I finished.

  “About what?”

  “About what he told you?”

  “I will, but it would be hearsay.” He waved that away.

  “I know, but I’d want a jury to hear it anyway.”

  “Well . . . sure.”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What else is there?” he asked. “You’ve told me he’s gone, and that he confessed.”

  “To manslaughter, not murder.”

  “That doesn’t matter to me. I know he’s your friend, Miles, but I’m concerned with my client, not with him.”

  “I understand that.”

  “I wish I had him in court, but I’ll have to make do with what I have.”

  “What about Tyler?”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, according to Ray he and Pesce were in business together.”

  “That’s not against the law.”

  “That depends on what business they were in.”

  “I won’t be bringing that up in court.”

  He was taking the news very calmly.

  “You knew all of this, didn’t you?”

  “All of what?”

  “Pesce told you everything. He told you it was Ray who killed Bonetti.”

  “Miles—”

  “You wouldn’t have taken the case unless he told you everything.”

  “Miles, I can’t say any more—”

  “You don’t have to.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt at the moment. I would like to have known that from the start, but would I have believed Pesce? I didn’t know.

  “Bill me for your time, Miles.”

  “I will.”

  “At our rate, not Walker’s.”

  “We’re not partners yet. Not until I sign the partnership papers.”

  “Oh, yes, the papers.” He picked up the brown envelope the papers had been in and held it out to me. “They look fine to me. I think this is a good deal for you, Miles.”

  “Yeah, so do I.” I took the papers. “Thanks.”

  “There were a couple of tapes in the envelope,” he added as I headed for the door. “Missy has them.”

  “Fine.”

  “I know you’re angry—”

  “Then you know more than me,” I said, “because I don’t know what I am.”

  I left his office and stopped at Missy’s desk.

  “Is anything wrong?” She was studying my face.

  “No, nothing.”

  “I put everything in this envelope.” She handed me another brown envelope, fat and heavy with papers.

  “Is this everything that was on the disk?”

  “Except for that password file.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your tapes are in there also, and the disk. In fact, there are two disks. I made you another copy.”

  “That was smart,” I said. “Thanks. As a matter of fact . . .”

  I fished the other disk out of the envelope and handed it to her

  “Will you hang on to that for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just put it in with the rest of yours. No one will know the difference.”

  She pulled over a plastic file case that was filled with disks and slid that one in among the rest.

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “Is everything all right, Miles? I mean, between you and Heck?”

  “You’ll have to talk to Heck. I don’t know if he’s happy with my work on this case.”

  “Did you find Ray Carbone?”

  “Talk to Heck, Missy. He’s real careful about what he lets slip these days.”

  She wanted to talk more, but I didn’t.

  I was out of there.

  55

  Vegas seemed the logical next step. I wasn’t getting anything from anyone in New York, and I was depressed about what had happened with Ray. I was wishing he’d stayed to fight it out, and probably just a little disappointed in him for not doing so.

  I’d call the airline later to get a ticket for Vegas. On such short notice the cost would be an arm and a leg, and I was paying for it out of my own pocket, but what the hell. I’d gone this far, and now I’d be able to devote all my attention to the one case.

  I went to Packy’s to tell Geneva what my plans were. I also told her about Ray’s visit that morning.

  “You feelin’ bad?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “He’s doin’ what he thinks is best for him, ain’t he?” she asked. “That’s disappoints you?”

  I rubbed my hand over my face and said, “I guess.”

  “You’d fight, huh?”

  “I’d like to think so. Life on the run doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “So what’s gonna happen in Vegas?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “I don’t know. I’m not finding out much here, unless there’s something in here that changes my mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stuff that was on Waldrop’s computer. I’m going into the office to read it, and to call the airline.”

  “Get a charter.”

  “What?”

  “Get a charter,” she said again. “Call a travel agent and get a charter. It’ll be cheaper. You’ll have to fly to and from on their days, but you’ll save money. This is comin’ out of your own pocket, isn’t it?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “Give it a try. You might be able to get a Sunday flight.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “Hey, I been to Vegas.”

  “I didn’t know you were a gambler.”

  “I’m not. There was a bodybuilding competition there last year. I saved a lot of money flying on a charter.”

  “Do you remember which travel agent you used?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do, ’cause I used them again after that. I’ll get the number for you.”

  “Okay, then I’ll give it a try. Thanks, Gen.”

  I went into the office and sat at my desk. 1 undid the clasp on the envelope Missy had given me and pulled out a sheaf of papers. They had come off a printer and were still joined. I didn’t see any reason to separate them.

  At first glance there wasn’t much there. Some letters to people I’d never heard of, the contents of which did not seem germane to the incidents at hand. He also used a file for his phone book, and there were a lot of numbers there. Among them I found the number for the Healy Agency, and also Andrea Legend’s home phone number. Sammy Friedlander was also there, along with Lenny James and, surprisingly, William Allegretto. I had not gotten the impression that night that Waldrop and Allegretto were friends. I tried to remember if I had asked either Allegretto or Andrea about it, but couldn’t.

  He had addresses in there for Billy Crystal, and Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams and Paul Reiser, but they were all “care of” addresses, usually listing the name and address of an agency beneath it. It was the kind of thing you’d do if you wanted to feel like you knew those people. It was more than a little sad.

  I found myself wondering how good a comic Stan Waldrop had really been. His uncle didn’t think much of his jokes, but he must have worked fairly often, or else why would Jonathan Healy keep him on as a client? Or did the comic keep the agent? Relationships between agents and clients always confused me. I mean, was it like a lawyer and client, where the client could fire the lawyer, but the lawyer could also refuse to work for the
client? Would Waldrop fire Healy, or the other way around?

  There were a couple of short stories among the papers, which surprised me. Nobody had said anything about Waldrop being a writer. I read a little bit of each and hoped he was a better comic than he was a writer.

  I was sitting back in my chair, rubbing my temples, when Geneva came in.

  “Headache?”

  “The start of one.”

  “Too much reading.”

  “I think so.”

  “There’s not much to read here,” she said, handing me a small piece of paper. On it she’d written Travel Well, and a phone number.

  “Thanks. I’ll call them.”

  “Are you gonna go and see Marty this morning?”

  I tried not to let show that it had completely slipped my mind.

  “Yeah, this afternoon.”

  “I saw him before I went to work out,” she said. “He’s feeling better. They might let him out tomorrow.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I’ll bet he could use some help paying the hospital bill.”

  “Come on, Gen. Of course I’m going to pay his bill.”

  “I never doubted you, Boss,” she said, and left the office.

  Yeah, right.

  Twenty minutes later I was booked on a charter flight from New York to Vegas, via St. Louis, for Sunday. The only problem with it was that I’d have to fly back on Thursday, or get stuck there until the following Sunday. I didn’t feel that my business there would take four days, but booking a commercial flight would have cost almost twice as much, and I did have a dead client, didn’t I? Couldn’t very well submit a bill for expenses, could I?

  With that done, I put away the papers from Stan Waldrop’s computer. I’d have plenty of time on the flight, and in Vegas, to go over them. Instead, I took out the partnership papers from Walker and read them over. Then, with Heck Delgado’s assurance that they were in order, and since I hadn’t found anything I objected to, I signed them. Now all I had to do was get them to Walker so that the partnership was signed, sealed, and delivered. I thought about sending a messenger over to his office—his old office—with them, but then decided to do it myself.

  I didn’t have much else to do before my flight, and that was two days away.

  56

  I went over to Walker’s office without calling first, but I was in luck and found him in. There were boxes all over the place, filled with files, as he got himself ready for the move. I wondered if I was supposed to bring any files with me. I hoped that wasn’t a deal breaker, because I didn’t have many.

  I was standing in the outer office when he came walking out.

  “Hello, Miles. As you can see, we’re getting ready.”

  “I can see.”

  He looked at the envelope in my hand and asked, “Are those the papers?”

  “Yes, they are.” I handed them to him.

  “I hadn’t heard from you. I thought perhaps you were changing your mind.”

  “No, actually I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “You took on some cases?”

  “More like they took me on.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  I hesitated.

  “I hadn’t called you because they were sort of odd cases, and since we hadn’t signed any papers—”

  “Why don’t you come inside and tell me about them?”

  “Okay,” I said, “okay, maybe talking about them would help. Maybe you can come up with something I haven’t, so far. Actually, one of them has sort of solved itself . . .”

  “And you consider this case with Ray Carbone solved?” Walker asked when I finished talking.

  “Ray’s leaving town, Walker. Would you call that solved?”

  “Well, I know Ray Carbone, but not as well as you do.”

  I waited a few seconds and then said, “But?”

  Walker shrugged. “He never struck me as the kind of man to run.”

  “Not even if it was the smart thing to do?”

  “Men rarely do the smart thing, Miles. I’m sure you’ve noticed that.”

  “Noticed it? I’m a prime example.”

  “Then what makes you think Ray Carbone is going to do the smart thing?”

  I stared at him for a long time.

  “He was scamming me.”

  Walker shrugged. “Maybe. Think about it. Now this other case intrigues me. I wish you had called me sooner.”

  I started to explain again why I hadn’t, but he waved the explanation away.

  “We started out thinking some jokes had been stolen from a computer, but it’s obvious now that we’re dealing with something much more serious.”

  We? Maybe this partnership stuff was an even better idea than I’d first thought.

  “Let me ask you something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Do you think Stan Waldrop thought there was something more at stake than his jokes when he first came to you?”

  I frowned. “He seemed sincere, but considering I was scammed by a friend in Ray—”

  “Put that aside for now. Think back to your initial interview with Waldrop.”

  I sat back and closed my eyes, envisioning Stan Waldrop sitting across from me.

  “There was real panic in his eyes, Walker. He thought his stand-up career was going to be over because someone had stolen his act.”

  “So even if there is something more serious afoot, and even if he was part of it, he was there that day simply because of his, uh, jokes.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “I believe so.”

  “So by hiring you he apparently frightened someone enough to make them kill him. Somebody thought that by poking around looking for his jokes, you were going to turn up something else.”

  “Then why not kill me?”

  “Too risky, perhaps. They thought it better to kill him before you could even get started on your investigation. They had no idea you’d be tenacious enough to continue, even after your client was dead.”

  “Okay, all of that could be true, but what was he really into? What was it that got him killed?”

  “Perhaps your trip to Las Vegas will turn up something. Do you have the disk and the message tapes with you?”

  “Yes.” I had stuck them in my pocket out of force of habit before leaving Packy’s.

  “Why don’t you leave them with me while you go to Vegas? My computer equipment is still set up. Maybe I can break into that password file.”

  It was a good idea, so I took them out and gave them to him. He set them aside on his desk.

  “By the time you return, we will be in our new suite up on the fifteenth floor.”

  “Fifteen,” I said, wondering if I’d get nosebleeds working at that height.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, no,” I said, “I’ve just never had that kind of view of the city before.”

  “What about your bar?”

  “My bar? What about it?”

  “You do intend to keep it, don’t you?”

  “Well . . . I hadn’t decided yet.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, I didn’t know how you’d feel about being partners with a bar owner.”

  “That’s nonsense. If you like running it and want to keep it, then you should. You probably have an office in the back.”

  “I do, but it’s nothing like this, nothing like what we’ll have on the fifteenth floor.”

  “Miles, just because we’re partners doesn’t mean I expect you to come in here every day.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. You are not my employee. You come in when you want—as long as we’re making money, that is.”

  “Of course.”

  “As long as we both bring in cases, and we are profitable, this partnership will work. I think you should keep the bar—Packy’s, isn’t it—as long as you like. You might even be more comfortable working out of there for a while. You could . . . ease into your office on
the fifteenth floor.”

  “That might not be a bad idea.”

  “I wish I could help you more with these cases, Miles. Perhaps I’ll know more when you get back from Vegas.”

  “You’ve already helped a lot, Walker.” I stood up. “Thanks very much.”

  He stood up and we shook hands.

  “Have a good trip . . . partner.”

  57

  Oh yeah, Walker had helped me a lot. He helped me realize what a boob Ray Carbone had made of me. Of course he wasn’t leaving town, he was just trying to throw me off—and he’d succeeded, up until now.

  And I’d given that sonofabitch my emergency stein money.

  I found a pay phone and called Heck Delgado’s office. It was my lucky day. His court appearance had been cancelled and he was in.

  “Miles, I’m sorry if you left angry this morning—”

  “Forget it. You can make it up to me with a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  I explained about thinking that Ray Carbone had been conning me, but I didn’t tell him that it had come from Walker: I wasn’t trying to protect myself from looking stupid—okay, maybe I was—I was just keeping the explanations down to a minimum.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t want you to tell anyone about my meeting with Ray.”

  He hesitated only a second and then said, “Done. Are you going to continue to look for Ray?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll need him by next week, Jack.”

  Shit. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d be in Vegas all next week.

  “I might have something for you tomorrow, Heck. Why don’t you give me your number at home so I can call you if something breaks?”

  “All right.” He gave me the number and I wrote it in my notebook.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

  We hung up, and I stood there a moment wondering why I had, in effect, just given myself the rest of today and all of tomorrow to find Ray when the only time I’d seen him all week was when he found me.

  I had to find Ray before I left for Vegas, there was no two ways about it.

  Just for a minute I thought about going home, or going to Packy’s to call Nick Delvecchio about Truman Tyler, and then decided just to do it right from the pay phone.