“Pfister got me down here on the promise Hoyt would be in his office around eleven-thirty this morning. All he wants for this act of doing his civil duty is a cut of the insurance dough. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but something will. The question is, what does Hoyt have in store for us?”
“Do you not believe he will be there, Charlie Floyd?”
“I’d say the odds are heavily against it. Pfister’s a rat and I think he’d drop a dime on his mother. As smart as Hoyt is I find it hard to believe he’d trust Pfister and be so careless as to show up at his place when he knows we’re on his tail.”
“But you will be there anyway?”
“That I will. If Hoyt is just toying with us, jerking us around, and this is his idea of a joke, that’s okay. It means he’s thinking about us and maybe we can turn it around on him. I’m curious. I want to see where this goes.”
“Be careful, Charlie Floyd. Francis Hoyt is a man who is capable of doing anything to further his criminal enterprise.”
“I’m not worried, Manny. He doesn’t have a history of resorting to physical violence and even if he did I don’t think Tommy Pfister’s office would be the ideal spot to try something.”
“Remember, I saw him up close. I felt him up close. There was evil in those eyes. It is true that he did not harm me, that he just used enough force to escape my grasp, but I could see in his eyes that he would have gone as far as was necessary to obtain his freedom. He is a man without conscience.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. And I’ll see you tonight, right?”
“Yes. I will be renting a car at the airport and I shall most certainly see you tonight, my friend.”
“Maybe I’ll have some good news for you when you get here.”
“That would be lovely, Charlie Floyd. Just lovely.”
Charlie Floyd
I recognized the smell as soon as I got within a couple of feet of the door to Tommy Pfister’s office. There was no doubt what it was.
Gunpowder.
Trust me, when there’s the smell of gunpowder in the air, nothing good follows.
I unhooked my shoulder holster, pulled out a handkerchief from my jacket pocket. From force of habit, I used it to carefully twist open the doorknob, so as to preserve any fingerprints or DNA that might been deposited there. I pushed the door open and entered slowly, my right hand resting gently on the butt of my pistol. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need it, but why take a chance?
The room was empty of anyone except for me and Pfister. One of us was standing, the other was either napping with his head on his desk or dead. I already knew which one it was. His head was resting in a small puddle of blood. As I got closer I saw the puddle had already begun to dry, which meant Tommy had been dead at least a half hour. His eyes were wide open, as if he’d seen it coming and tried to look away. As I moved around to the side of his desk, I could see the bullet hole right in the middle of his forehead. Only one hole, from what I could see, but that was enough.
Tommy Pfister was stone cold dead.
I walked back to the front of the counter to see if there was anything missing. Jewelry and watches were still under glass, all in pretty much the same position I’d seen them in a couple hours earlier. I checked the file cabinet to see if the drawers had been tampered with. Nope. I turned my attention back to Pfister. I knew better than to touch the body, but I did notice his wallet sticking halfway out of his back pocket. Apparently, the only thing amiss was the late Pfister.
One bullet, strategically placed. Nothing taken. Looked to me like a professional hit.
I pulled out my cell and punched in nine-one-one. I told the operator who I was, where I was, and why I was calling. “No hurry,” I added. “He’s not going anywhere and neither am I.”
“Are you sure, sir?” asked the operator.
“Believe me, ma’am, I know a dead man when I see one.”
After I hung up I went into the hallway, closed the door behind me, and waited patiently until the cops arrived.
I was impressed by New York’s Finest. They showed up in no more than fifteen minutes after I made the call. Two burly, uniformed cops and one plainclothes detective dressed in jeans and an NYPD blue T-shirt, his badge dangling over his chest, emerged from the elevator.
The detective did all the talking. He asked me who I was. I showed him my defunct investigator’s ID from the state of Connecticut. He asked me why I was there. I told him I was supposed to meet Francis Hoyt. They’d all heard of Hoyt. It seemed pretty much everyone had, except for me. He asked if I thought Hoyt had done it. I said I didn’t know. I said it was possible, but if he had committed murder I couldn’t quite figure out why. And besides, I said, it wasn’t part of his criminal profile. He was a thief, not a killer. But what I didn’t tell him was that I don’t believe in coincidences. I’d let them figure that out for themselves.
We’re living in a world where everyone and everything is documented, whether it be on video or audiotape. This crime was no different. I waited while one of the cops called downstairs to the building manager to see if there was any video from the lobby and the elevator. There was. While one cop remained stationed in front of Pfister’s door until a forensics team arrived, I accompanied the detective and the other uniformed cop to the building manager’s office to view those tapes. Since the murder had to take place between the time I left, about nine-forty-five, and the time I arrived back, around eleven-thirty, it didn’t take long for the cops to see who got off at Pfister’s floor, then got back on the elevator a few minutes later. That’s all it would have taken. Not much turnaround time. I didn’t figure there was much conversation between killer and victim. No howdy-do, how’s your old lady stuff. Just one shot right between the eyes and Pfister was no longer among the living.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the killer. He was wearing a dark, slouch hat pulled down over his face and a dark trench coat. Since it wasn’t raining and it was well past overcoat weather, the outfit was surely meant to hide the killer’s identity. After viewing the tape one thing was certain. It wasn’t Francis Hoyt. The killer was at least twice Hoyt’s size, both in height and width. So, whoever pulled the trigger and killed Tommy Pfister was not Francis Hoyt.
I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, although it might not always seem reasonable. There is cause and there is effect. That evening, over dinner, Manny and I tried to figure out the cause and effect of Tommy Pfister leaving this mortal coil.
“You think Hoyt found out Pfister was about to roll over on him and had him killed?” I asked Manny, thinking out loud.
“That is certainly possible, Charlie Floyd, but the more intriguing question would be why would Tommy Pfister suddenly decide to turn on Francis Hoyt,” asked Manny.
“Money’s a pretty good motivator and Tommy knew there was a reward,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.
“I suppose that is also possible, but that would have meant he was willing to live with the knowledge that everyone knew he was a snitch. It would mean that he could not continue to work as a fence, and in fact it most probably would have meant he was willing to go underground for the rest of his life. Or at least until Francis Hoyt was safely behind bars.”
“True. And chances are he wouldn’t have lived long. Snitches usually pay the ultimate price, just like Tommy did. Besides, he couldn’t know for sure how much he’d wind up with or if he’d have wound up with anything at all. Frankly, I don’t think he gave a shit about the money because he knew his life wouldn’t have been worth much after Hoyt was nailed. That was just something he used to explain why he wanted me down there, why he was willing to give up Hoyt. There’s more to it than that.”
“It is, of course, possible that the murder of Tommy Pfister had nothing to do with Francis Hoyt.”
“I think both of us have been at this long enough—” I flicked my nose with my finger, “—to know when something doesn’t pass the stink test.”
Manny smile
d and mimicked my gesture.
“So, let’s assume for the moment that Hoyt instructed Pfister to get me down there. And then let’s assume Hoyt had something to do with Pfister’s untimely demise. Then we’d have to ask ourselves why? What did he stand to gain from having Pfister killed? And why would he want me to find the body?”
“I believe it could have been done for the sake of revenge.”
“That’s possible. But Hoyt got out of the joint over two years ago. If he had such a hard-on for Pfister he had two years to act on it. Why now? Besides, Pfister was at least three degrees away from Hoyt getting pinched. It was the fault of those two fuck-ups he had to take along with him. Why not go after them? And if not them why not the mob guy who forced them on Hoyt?”
Manny shrugged. “The criminal mind is not always logical, Charlie Floyd. But you are correct. Where Francis Hoyt is concerned, there is always a reason for what he does or does not do. It is up to us to find out what it is. In the meantime, what did you have planned for us tomorrow?”
“I haven’t given it much thought. This kinda changes things, don’t you think?”
Manny nodded.
“I believe we could add accomplice to murder to the charges against Hoyt.”
“Yes,” said Manny. “Now all we need do is find him.”
Francis Hoyt
“Francis, baby, you’ve been in town for over two weeks and this is only the second time I’ve seen you.”
“Gimme a break, Mel. I’ve been busy.”
I grabbed her by the waist and planted one on her. She tasted good. I’d been looking forward to this so I was hoping she wouldn’t fuck it up by asking a lot of stupid questions and making stupid demands. I like things simple.
“Too busy to make time for me?”
I told her to meet me on 59th Street on the park side across from the Plaza Hotel and now we were walking into the park. I figured it was a nice day so we’d head up to the Boathouse and have some lunch and maybe, if I was in a particularly good mood, take a rowboat out on the lake. I put my arm around her and pulled her close. She smelled good. Some kind of flowery smell. I always liked the way Mel smelled. Sometimes I put my face close to hers just so’s I can smell her hair. I once asked her what she put in it to make it smell that way and she laughed and said, “It’s only the shampoo I use, Francis. It’s not like I spray perfume in it or anything.”
Whatever it was, it worked.
I hated this part of it. The whining, the complaining, the explaining. Why couldn’t the part of me I gave them be enough? Why did they always want more? Some people might say, “What the hell are you doing, Francis? Why can’t you just pick one woman and settle down? Hell, you’ve got more than enough dough.”
They just don’t get it. I don’t want to settle down. I don’t want just one woman. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s all about fear of commitment. You don’t think I’ve heard plenty of that psychoanalytic bullshit all my life. That’s what they do when they don’t know what to do with you. They send you to a shrink. I been to more shrinks than they have in all of Vienna. Not one of them told me anything I didn’t already know. Not one of them changed the course of my life.
“I told you when we started this thing that it wasn’t going to be easy. I told you that, right?”
“Yes, but…”
I squeezed her arm. “No buts, Mel. There are no buts. I told you right up front what to expect, that I wouldn’t be around all the time, that I might disappear for long stretches, that I wouldn’t always stay in touch as much as I should, but that I’d be there when you needed me. I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Then I don’t think this conversation should go any further.”
“You’re saying I can’t expect things will ever change?”
“You want change, go to the bank and cash in some bills because it’s unlikely you’ll get it from me. I am what I am and that’s all that I am. Who said that?”
“I think it was Popeye.”
“Yeah. That’s right. Popeye. From the cartoons. What was his girlfriend’s name?”
“It’s because I love you, Francis. It’s because I care about you.”
“Olive Oyl. That’s it.”
“Francis, did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah. I heard.”
“What do you say to that?”
“I know what you want me to say. You want me to say I love you, even if I don’t mean it.”
“Not if you don’t mean it.”
I shook my head. She was trying to fight it but she was close to tears. That’s the last thing I needed, a woman crying. They do it just to control men. I hate that shit.
“I don’t know what the fuck love is, Mel. We sure didn’t have it in my house.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t be sorry, dammit. I’m not sorry. It was what it was. You don’t hear me crying about it, do you?”
“No. And you’re scaring me a little.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” I took her arm and kissed her on the cheek. Maybe I loved her a little, maybe I didn’t. How would I know? I don’t even know what love is, how it feels. All I knew was I liked having her around. But not when she talked like this. When she talked like this I wanted to toss her into the fucking lake that was behind Bethesda fountain that we were approaching. What was that book we had to read in high school about the guy who tosses his pregnant girlfriend into the lake and drowns her? Oh, yeah, An American Tragedy. That was it. Pretty good book. I remember at the time I was kinda surprised they’d make us read something like that. About a murder. Of course, I didn’t much like the ending with the guy getting convicted and having to sit in the hot seat. He was dumb, though. He didn’t have to get caught. It might even have been an accident, though I didn’t think so. But he felt guilty about it so he practically led the law to his door. Poor, dumb asshole.
“Let’s just get to the Boathouse and have some lunch. I’m sure we can find something better to talk about,” I said.
We walked a little further with neither of us talking. But I knew that wouldn’t last long.
“I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way,” she said. “I just know how I feel about you and I just want us to be happy. I’ll just have to do a better job of accepting you as you are.”
I wanted to punch her in the face. I didn’t want her to fucking accept me. I don’t need anyone to accept me. I just want people to respect me. I want people to give me my due, as they say. I don’t want people trying to walk all over me because if they do they’re going to learn pretty quick that Francis Hoyt is no pushover. He pushes back when he’s pushed. Don’t fuck with Francis Hoyt because if you do you’re going to regret it.
That’s what I want.
That’s all I want.
Charlie Floyd
“You wouldn’t happen to be Melinda Shaw, would you?” I asked of the woman I knew was her. Matthew Cohan had phoned in the information yesterday, telling me not only where Melinda Shaw resided but also where she worked and who she worked for. She was “special assistant to the Vice President” of a textile company located in the Garment District, Seventh Avenue and Thirty-Eighth Street. This probably meant she was little more than a secretary with a fancy title to make up for being underpaid. But that was her business. Mine was to try to convince her to turn on her lover, Francis Hoyt.
Rather than just march up to her place of business and ask to see her I decided to ambush her as she got off the elevator after work. So, I planted myself in the lobby at a quarter to five in the evening, leaning against a wall while I made like I was reading a newspaper, and waited patiently for the elevators to empty out.
At precisely five-thirty, one of the elevators opened and out walked Melinda Shaw. She was prettier than her photograph, even after a day’s work in the rag game rat race. She was of course surprised to be accosted by a complete stranger who knew her name.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re Melinda Shaw, right?”
“Who’s asking?”
“That would be me.”
“Very funny. Who are you and why are you stalking me? I could call the cops, you know.”
“You most certainly could. I like the cops. I used to be one of them. But I think you’d have a tough time convincing them I was stalking you since this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on you.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, who are you?”
“My name’s Charlie Floyd and I think we have something to talk about. I noticed a little diner across the street and I doubt this time of day anyone else would be in there. What say we hop across the street and we can talk.”
“About what?”
“A friend of yours.”
“What friend?”
“Francis Hoyt.”
She started to walk away but I followed her.
“I think talking to me might be in your best interests, Melinda.”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“You’re wrong. I suspect you have plenty to say. But why don’t we just see by humoring me. I don’t think this’ll take more than ten, fifteen, minutes tops. After that, I’ll be out of your hair forever.”
She stopped and turned to face me. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
I smiled. “You’ve got me pegged.”
“And if I do speak to you for ten minutes you’ll leave me alone forever.”
“Forever and a day, Melinda.”
This time she was the one who smiled. The Floyd charm was starting to work its magic.
“You know, I never admitted I know this person you’re talking about,” she said as we sat across from each other in a quiet booth near the back of the diner, two cups of black, inexpensive, nondesigner coffee in front of us.
“Since I’ve only got ten minutes, Melinda, I don’t think it’s useful to waste any of them with this kind of nonsense.”
Second Story Man Page 19