The Hired Man

by Dorien Grey

  The one thing I sure as hell wasn’t was satisfied. Maybe I’d read one too many old-fashioned detective novels, but part of me really wanted to have a dramatic confrontation.

  I could imagine everybody together in the Glicks’ vast living room—Iris in a black floor-length gown, the men all in tuxedos, sipping brandy and smoking cigars around the fireplace. I stood before them in a wool sweater with a cowl collar, smoking a Sherlock Holmes meerschaum pipe (cherry tobacco), which I would use as a pointer to emphasize important points, and awing them all with my brilliance.

  I could envision eyes darting nervously from one person to the next as I laid out the evidence, narrowing down the suspects. Everyone trying to look calm and sophisticated but breathless with anticipation. Richman and the cops, guns drawn, standing just outside the door waiting to burst into the room when they heard me say: “And, ladies and gentlemen, the killer is…”

  Unfortunately, life just ain’t like that.

  My little scenario did give me an idea, and I called the City Building Annex and asked for Lt. Richman’s extension. It was barely 8:00 a.m., but I knew from past early-morning breakfast meetings that chances were good he would be there. Luck was with me.

  “Lieutenant Richman.”

  “Lieutenant, I need a favor,” I said, and I told him everything.

  It took some convincing, but he put me on hold while he checked with Captain Offermann then came back on the line.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked. “It would be a lot simpler if we just brought both of them in for questioning here.”

  “I don’t think that would do it. Without something more solid than what I gather you have now, this case could drag out for a long time, and you still might risk letting a killer go free.”

  Richman sighed. “Okay,” he said, “go for it.”

  I hung up and immediately dialed Matt’s number, hoping he would be home. Again, luck was with me.

  “Matt, it’s Dick. I just talked to my contact at the police department, and…well, you and I had better talk right now. I’m afraid they’re getting ready to issue a warrant for your arrest for all three murders, but I convinced them to hold off until I could talk to them in person. I have an appointment at noon, but I think I’ve figured out a way to prove you didn’t kill those three people if I can just verify one thing. Can you come over to my place at, say, ten o’clock? There are a few things I have to check on first.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll just take off?” he asked.

  “Not unless you want to prove beyond a doubt that you are guilty,” I said. “And I’m sure you’re not.”

  There was only a slight pause before: “Okay, I’ll see you at ten.”

  We hung up, and I dialed Gary’s number, fairly sure he’d still be home. The phone rang four times, and I heard his answering machine kick in.

  “You’ve reached…” Shit!

  I was just about to hang up when I heard the receiver being lifted.

  “Gary here.”

  “Gary, Dick,” I said, vastly relieved.

  “Sorry, Dick,” he said, “I was in the shower. Something else you need to know?”

  “Yeah. I just got a call from my contact at police headquarters,” I said, with no little sense of “this is a recording.” “I’m afraid they’re getting ready to issue a warrant for your arrest for all three murders, but I asked them to hold off until I could talk to you. I think I can change their minds if you could just verify one thing. My contact wants to see me in his office at noon, and he’s giving me until then. Can you come over here at nine-thirty, say? I’ve got to make a few phone calls and tie some things together between now and then.”

  There was a long pause, and I was afraid he sensed something and wouldn’t come. But then he said, “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  “Great! I’ll see you then.”

  My stomach was holding a butterfly convention, but it was too late to back out now.

  As I hung up, the door buzzed, and I went to ring them in and open the door. Richman had worked quickly.

  When a heavyset guy in work clothes appeared, carrying what looked like a large tool box, I motioned him in.

  “Set it up wherever you want,” I said.

  He looked around the living room then went to work. When he left, I walked over to the window and looked down at the street, watching as he got into a blue van parked at the curb. It did not drive off.

  *

  At 9:35 the buzzer rang again.

  Show time!

  I opened the door and stepped aside as Gary strode into the room.

  “You want some coffee?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “No, I want to know what’s going on. What’s all this bullshit about an arrest? What do they have they didn’t have the last time they tried to arrest me?”

  I realized I had to do some fancy footwork to stall for time.

  “I don’t think it’s what they have,” I said. “They didn’t tell me, but I think it’s a who.”

  I thought he was about to explode.

  “That fucking son of a bitch!” he spat.

  I gave him a quick traffic-cop halt gesture.

  “Hold on just a second,” I said. “You don’t know that it’s Matt, and I don’t either. That’s why I wanted to have you both over here. I wanted to—”

  “He’s coming over, too? I told you I don’t want anything to do with that sick bastard!”

  I motioned him to the sofa, but he shook his head and just stood there, his fists unconsciously clenched. But when I went over and sat on a chair facing him, he apparently changed his mind and moved to the sofa and sat down on the edge of the cushion.

  “I understand,” I said. “But things have reached a point where the only way we’re going to resolve all this is for me to talk to you both at the same time. So just be cool, okay?”

  The buzzer sounded again, and I got up to answer. When I opened the door, and Matt saw Gary, I thought for a moment he was going to turn around and walk away. But he cautiously stepped inside, and I closed the door.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Matt demanded. “Is this another part of the setup? You two little fuck buddies getting together to screw me? Well, it ain’t—”

  I raised my hand.

  “Calm down, Matt,” I said. “Nobody’s out to screw anybody. If we’re ever going to be able to figure out what’s going on, you two have to talk to me! So, let’s all just sit down and talk this out, okay?”

  Matt reluctantly sat down. His eyes had been locked on Gary’s since he came in, and even without the matching scowls, I could feel the tension between them.

  Gary was on the couch, Matt in the chair I’d just gotten out of. I moved the other chair so I could face both of them and sat down.

  “Okay, guys,” I began. “Now, here’s the way I see it. It’s all pretty sketchy, and it gets a little complicated, so please, hear me out all the way before you say anything. Let’s start with the knife set.

  “Gary took it after Anderson died—”

  Gary leaned forward on the couch and opened his mouth to say something, but I raised my hand to cut him off.

  “Bear with me a second here, okay? I don’t know for sure what happened, except that Anderson ended up dead.” I addressed myself to Gary, although I could still see Matt out of the corner of my eye. “You must have been pretty pissed at him. If I were to guess, it would probably be because he was planning to abandon his kid the way Iris abandoned you. And I’d guess his trying to hide the fact he was bisexual by taking off his wedding ring when he was around gay guys ticked you off, too. That’s probably why you shoved his ring up his ass after he was dead.”

  I could see Matt’s eyebrows rise in a look of surprise. He hadn’t known about the wedding ring, of course.

  Gary sat back, staring at me with those beautiful sea-green eyes.

  “The fact that you’ve got pretty expensive tastes probably influenced your taking the knife
set in the first place, and I’m not going to speculate on why you decided to plant it in Matt’s apartment. But it was probably after…after Billy’s death.”

  I was amazed I could be sitting there talking about these things as calmly as I was.

  “Again,” I forced myself to say after a moment’s pause, “I don’t know the circumstances of Billy’s death, and I don’t need to, but I’d imagine it was after Billy died that you decided to plant both the knife set and the pillows. The fact you hadn’t been concerned with the police having taken the pillows from your bed—old pillows on a new bedroom set—meant Matt was right about the reason you wanted to switch.”

  I didn’t think there was much point in bringing up the whole scheme to kill Arnold and Iris, or Gary’s intention to blackmail Matt into signing on to it. That was between Matt and Gary. My purpose now was just to lay out the facts of the deaths.

  I shifted my attention slightly to include both of them.

  “But I couldn’t figure out why Gary would kill Laurie Travers,” I said, looking from one to the other but really speaking more now to Matt. “He didn’t have to. He’d planted the evidence. So, why kill Laurie Travers?”

  Both of them sat motionless, expressionless but almost radiating hostility. There was no answer to my question, so I answered it myself.

  “Simple. He didn’t.” I said.

  I now turned my full attention to Matt.

  “You said you found the knife set after Laurie Travers was killed, and that one of the knives was missing. But it couldn’t have been. Gary planted the knives the day he came over with the pillows; he was setting you up in case the police came after him. He couldn’t have removed one of the knives before he planted the set; that would have meant he intended to use it to kill someone else, and there was no reason for him to do that if he’d already framed you for the first two.”

  Both of them were staring at me now. Kind of disconcerting, but I forged ahead, again looking from one to the other as I talked.

  “Matt, you always said Gary’s being with women didn’t bother you, but Gary said it did, and I strongly suspected he was right. You wanted Gary all for yourself. And believe me, guys, as a dyed-in-the-wool Scorpio, I can attest to the power of jealousy. Gary said he was sure you had been following him around. I believe that, too.”

  Matt’s face remained expressionless, but I could swear he was blushing. I turned back to Gary.

  “Matt found the knife set undoubtedly just as he said he did, just not when he said he did. He realized it would frame him for Anderson’s death, so he decided to turn the tables. He knew you liked hookers, so he probably followed you, taking one of the knives with him, until he saw you pick up Laurie Travers and drop her off. The he picked her up, took her somewhere, and killed her, leaving the wiped-clean knife near her body to ensure the killing would be directly linked to Anderson.”

  The flush on Gary’s face was not from blushing but from anger. His eyes narrowed and all but bored holes through Matt, who returned the stare calmly.

  “Murder’s what you read about in books or in the newspapers. It’s what other people do, not people you know. I know you two, at least a little bit. I found it really difficult to think that three people were dead because of something you did…” I shook my head. “Well, anger and jealousy and a really fucked-up past can combine in pretty strange ways.

  “Matt, I imagine you probably felt sure the fact you’re gay would rule you out as a suspect in Laurie Travers’s death and, because the knife was a direct link to Anderson’s death, throw it all on Gary. That rationale worked pretty well with me, too, for a while.

  “But then I realized her murder might not be related to having sex with her. If so, the sex preference of the killer wasn’t important.”

  To be honest, I was amazed I’d gotten as far as I had without some sort of outburst from one or the other, but they just sat there listening. And that made me increasingly nervous. Still, I wasn’t about to let them know that little fact, so I kept right on talking, addressing myself to Gary again.

  “Matt probably thought the cops would pick up on the connection to you a lot faster than they did,” I said, “but luck was strongly on his side when he dropped the knife set into the Dumpster behind your building. If it hadn’t been for the garbage strike, the Dumpster would have been emptied long before the police got the search warrant for your apartment.”

  I’d just about run out of steam, and I was even more aware they were now both looking at me like a cobra watches the guy with the flute. Not a pleasant feeling.

  As if on cue, which in fact it was, the phone rang. I got up from my chair.

  “Excuse me, guys,” I said. “I’ll take it in the bedroom.”

  I then walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind me, feeling a little lightheaded. It was Richman, of course.

  “Want to listen?” he asked.

  “Yeah, please.”

  There was a pause, a bit of static, and then an oddly hollow sound. And then, in a voice obviously held low but more than making up in intensity what it lacked in volume, I heard Gary.

  “You stupid, stupid son of a bitch!” he hissed. “You were stupid the day I met you, and you’re still stupid. We could have had everything…everything…and then you had to blow it all by killing that fucking prostitute!”

  “So, I was just supposed to sit back and let you frame me for that Anderson guy and Billy?” Matt asked, his voice equally low but calmer.

  “I’d never have done that!” Gary answered. “Anderson was an accident! I was pissed at him for being such a ball-less bastard who would throw his own kid away but was too high and mighty to suck cock. Well, he sucked it. I didn’t mean to kill him. And how the hell did I know Billy had asthma? We had an argument when I wanted to fuck him without a condom, and he started to wheeze a little, so I put on the damned condom and turned him over on his stomach and took the condom off when he wasn’t looking.

  He must have sensed it, because he started to turn over, but I just pushed him down and did my thing. After a few minutes, he relaxed, and I thought he was enjoying it. But he was dead, for chrissakes!”

  “So, you planted that evidence on me just in case, huh?” Matt said. “If you think I’d buy that for one second, I’m a hell of a lot stupider than you claim I am. You think I wanted to kill that girl? When I found out what you’d done to me, I didn’t have any other choice.”

  There was another moment of silence, and then Matt said, “So, what do we do now?”

  Another brief pause, then Gary’s voice.

  “Nothing right this minute. We can’t kill Dick right here and now…”

  Jeezus H. Kryst! I felt a wave of panic so strong I almost didn’t hear Matt say, “What the fuck are you talking about?” His tone of voice echoed his incredulity. “I’m not going to kill Dick! Maybe you’re developing a taste for murder, but I sure as hell ain’t. One was way, way too many for me!”

  “Dick is the only one who knows enough to tie all the ends together. With him out of the way, we’ll just stick to our stories, and they won’t be able to prove anything.”

  “For chrissakes, Gary, you’re insane!”

  “No, I’m not. We can’t just do it here, but it’s got to be done before he goes to the police at noon. Let me think…”

  “Lieutenant?” I said into the phone, hoping he could hear me. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here, Dick,” he said. “Hold on just another minute till we find out what Gary comes up with then go back in there. And be cool.”

  Oh, sure, I thought.

  Gary was saying something.

  “…how you hot-wired Jamison’s car at Pendleton? We’ll leave here, you go to that office building parking lot a couple blocks away and get us a car. I saw Dick’s car parked on the street. When he comes out to get into it, we’ll do a hit-and-run. I’ll follow you, you ditch the car, and we’re home free.”

  “You don’t seriously think that will work, do you?
”

  “What choice do we have?”

  Richman said: “Go.”

  I hung up the phone and returned to the living room, trying very hard to pretend I hadn’t just heard these guys plotting to kill me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “A client.”

  “So, what happens now?” Matt asked again.

  “Well,” I said, “to be honest with you, I’m hoping you’ll turn yourselves in. Kind of stupid of me, I know, but it will go a lot easier on you if you do. Even if you stick to your stories, one or the other of you will go down eventually.”

  “Well,” Gary said, “I think we’ll just let them earn their money.” He got up from his chair. “Nice try, though.”

  Matt got up, too.

  “Gary’s right, I guess,” he said. “Maybe they’ll never be able to get enough hard evidence on either one of us. I don’t have to tell you I wish none of this had ever happened.”

  “I know,” I said, and odd as it may sound, all things considered, I firmly believed him.

  As Gary reached for the doorknob, he turned and gave me a big smile.

  “Take care of yourself, Dick,” he said.

  There was a knock at the door.