The Last Private Eye

by John Birkett

  “I got a twin to go with it if you keep on talking and tell me what I want to hear.”

  “Tammy somethin’. Irish last name. The Hideaway Bar and Grill. Over on Seventh Street Road. Little bitty broad. Too young for me.”

  “Carl likes the young ones, huh?”

  “Shit, Carl likes ’em young and old and in between. And every other fucking way, too. Carl is a wild dude, man.”

  “Carl gamble?”

  The kid cracked up. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  “Who’s he gamble with?”

  “Anybody that’ll take his money. Mostly with a dude named Marvin.”

  “I know Marvin,” Rhineheart said.

  “Everybody knows Marvin.”

  “You got any idea where Carl might be?”

  “Be?” The kid looked puzzled. “Is he gone somewhere?”

  “He hasn’t been to work since Thursday, has he?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of the dude’s hours, man. Now that you mention it, I guess he ain’t been around in a couple of days.”

  “You know any reason why he’d blow his job and disappear?”

  “Maybe he just went out and got drunk and is sleeping it off somewhere.”

  “Three days is a pretty long sleeping it off.”

  The kid shrugged. “Carl a pretty wild dude, man. He be capable of a whole lot of shit.”

  “What about around here? Anything happen to him that might make him want to leave?”

  “John Hughes jumped all over his shit last week, but that ain’t nothin’ new. He jumps in everybody’s shit regular.”

  “What’d he get on Walsh for?”

  “I don’t know, but it was a bad scene. Lots of shoutin’ and shit out behind the barn. They almost came to blows.” The kid looked around. “Hughes come back and find me bullshittin’ with you, and he’s gonna jump in my shit. This ain’t the best job in the world, but it’s the only one I got. You know what I mean?”

  Rhineheart gave him the first twenty, plus another one. “Thanks, kid, you been a big help.”

  “Anytime, Magnum.”

  Rhineheart started to walk away.

  “Hey, Magnum.”

  Rhineheart stopped and turned around.

  “Shea. That’s her name. Tammy Shea.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rhineheart pointed the Maverick east out of Louisville on I-64. A sign on the side of the road read LEXINGTON 73. Open countryside rolled away from the highway on both sides. Fields. Farmlands. Woods. Clumps of tall, dark green cedar trees dotted the side of the road. The only buildings he saw for long stretches were farm structures—sheds, tobacco barns, silos, farmhouses. The sun, straight overhead, beat down on the Maverick as it rolled past signs announcing approaches to different small towns—SHELBYVILLE, WADDY-PEYTONA, LAWRENCEBURG.

  He passed through Shelby and Franklin counties and turned off I-64 onto KY 60. He was in Woodford County now, the beginnings of thoroughbred country. He cruised through Midway, a drowsy little place in the road, and turned left on the Versailles Road. Just inside the Fayette County line he turned left again onto one of the side roads that led off the main highway. A few miles down the road he pulled over and came to a stop in front of the main entrance to Cresthill Farms.

  The entrance was flanked by stone pillars six feet tall, bearing the Kingston name. Through the wrought-iron gate, across a stretch of ground the size of a city park, Rhineheart could see a redbrick Georgian-style mansion with tall, slim, white columns that formed a portico. It sat atop a small hill above a grove of ash trees. There might have been better words to describe it, but stately was the word that came to him.

  Rhineheart got out of the car and rang the bell that was set into the side of one of the pillars. After a moment the gates swung open. He got back in the Maverick and drove in, onto a blacktop road that was lined with pink and white dogwood and magnolia trees. Off to the right, on the other side of a running creek, stood a cluster of horse barns and farm buildings. The barns and buildings were frame or clapboard and were painted royal blue and green, the Kingston racing colors. On each side of the blacktop, white oak-plank fences stretched off into the distance. On a sweep of lawn near the mansion a group of workers was putting up what looked like huge tent poles.

  The road twisted through a corridor of ash trees and burr oaks and ended in a cemented parking area at the rear of the mansion. Rhineheart eased the Maverick into a spot between a black Mercedes and a steel gray Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.

  He got out of the car and stood there for a moment, looking up at the house. It was a hell of a place. The old plantation. It made him feel like a sleazy private eye. A guy who made a couple of hundred a day when he worked and drove a twelve-year-old Maverick with a bad clutch. Someone who lived in a furnished apartment. Someone who drank too much and slept with a lot of waitresses.

  What the hell, Rhineheart thought, that’s what I am.

  He walked around to the front door and rang the bell. A thin, sour-faced black woman answered the door.

  “Yes?”

  “You one of the slaves?” Rhineheart said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Honky humor,” Rhineheart said. “Pay no attention. The name’s Rhineheart. I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Kingston.”

  “Come in, please.”

  In the entrance hall, Rhineheart tried to be cool and not gawk at the crystal chandelier, the winding staircase, and the gilt-edged mirror that took up most of one wall.

  “This way, please.”

  He followed the maid down a short hallway, through a couple of tastefully furnished rooms, into a longer hallway where she stopped in front of a massive mahogany door.

  “Mr. Kingston’s library,” she said, knocked, and departed back down the hallway.

  “Come in,” a voice said.

  Rhineheart opened the door and more or less sauntered into the room. John Wayne, he thought, strolling into the Last Chance Saloon. It was a spacious, high-ceilinged room lined with books on three sides. A long conference table that looked like it belonged in some corporation boardroom stood in front of the fireplace. The fourth wall was a wide pair of French doors that looked out on an elaborate garden with trellised arbors and stone sculpture.

  There were two people in the room. One was an enormous goon in a business suit who stood near the windows, as if he were guarding them. He had meat hooks for hands and a mean half-witted look on his otherwise blank face. The other one, the rich-looking bastard sitting behind the polished mahogany desk, Rhineheart was sure, was Duke Kingston.

  Kingston had a crop of thick, silver hair, dark eyebrows, clear cold gray eyes, and a lean handsome face. He was trim and tanned and looked about as sophisticated and wealthy and aristocratic as it was possible to look. He stood up and came around the desk with his hand out.

  “Duke Kingston.” The accent, Rhineheart noted, was Deep South, a plantation owner’s drawl.

  “Michael Rhineheart.”

  “Supah. Supah,” Kingston said, as they shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rhineheart.” Kingston jerked a thumb at the goon. “This here’s Mr. Borchek.”

  Borchek nodded like someone who had been trained to nod.

  “Mr. Borchek’s one of my security consultants,” Kingston said.

  Bodyguard, Rhineheart thought. Arm breaker.

  “What kind of name is Rhineheart?” Kingston seemed genuinely interested. “German?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m a great admirer of the Germans,” Kingston said. “Very industrious group of people, don’t you think?”

  Rhineheart made no reply. He wasn’t about to get sucked into any yessir-nosir dialogue.

  “There’s people,” Duke Kingston said, “not unintelligent people, who say we should’ve got together with them during World War II and went after the Communists.” Kingston pronounced it Common-ists.

  “You ask me here to talk about history?” Rhineheart said.

 
Kingston looked surprised, but managed a laugh.

  “Mistah, you got a sense of humor.”

  “That’s what your wife said. She seemed to think I’d need one.”

  “She did, huh? Well, that sounds like Jessica, all right.” Kingston indicated a leather wing chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  Rhineheart sat down and looked around the room. “Your wife not going to join us?”

  Kingston shook his head. “You look disappointed, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  “I am.”

  “Too bad. Jessica is off somewhere, as usual, attending to something or other, some social function or civic meeting. It’s in the nature of women to occupy themselves with such things. Frankly, I’m glad she’s not here. We have some weighty matters to discuss, and I always find that when you’re talking about something truly important, women just tend to get in the way. How you feel about that, Mr. Rhineheart?”

  “I don’t agree,” Rhineheart said.

  “No?” Duke Kingston raised an eyebrow. “Well, I got to admit that comes as something of a surprise to me. You don’t look like the kind of man who takes much shit from women.”

  “I don’t take shit from anybody,” Rhineheart said.

  “Not even a little bit, huh? Well, that’s good to hear, Rhineheart. That’s the kind of man I would like to have working for me. Someone who doesn’t take any shit. I’m tired”—tired came out tard—“of all these ass kissers and brown nosers I’m surrounded by. I think you and me going to get along just supah.” He walked back behind the desk, sat down, reached over and flipped open an elaborately carved cigar box. “Have a cigar, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Go ahead,” Duke Kingston urged. “They Cuban. Got a friend in the Diplomatic Corps keeps me supplied.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Duke Kingston showed Rhineheart a mouthful of even, white teeth. “You a very polite young man. That’s good to see. You don’t meet folks with a lot of manners anymore.”

  “Actually,” Rhineheart said, “my manners aren’t all that great.”

  Kingston nodded. “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Rhineheart, neither are mine. Don’t let this place and all these trappings fool you. Behind these expensive clothes, I’m just a rough ol’ countryboy with simple tastes. I like simple things and plain talk.”

  Why don’t you stop bullshitting around then, Rhineheart thought, and get to the point. “What exactly did you want to see me about?” he asked.

  “Well,” Kingston said, “for one thing, I’d like to know how your investigation’s proceeding.”

  “What investigation is that?”

  Kingston flashed more teeth. “Mr. Rhineheart, I keep abreast of things. Particularly when they involve either me or projects I’m interested in. I know you’re looking for one of my employees, Carl Walsh. I know that Kathleen Sullivan hired you. I even know what she’s paying you.”

  “You’re pretty well informed, huh?”

  Kingston nodded.

  “Yeah, you could put it like that. The truth is, I’m a majority stockholder in that television station Miss Sullivan works for. Now, I’m not crude enough to suggest that I’m the one paying your salary, but you might could say I have more than a little interest in the matter. Particularly, when you consider that Carl Walsh works for me.”

  Rhineheart decided to play along a little. It was possible he might learn something from Kingston. “What is it you want to know?” Rhineheart asked.

  “You got any leads yet on where Walsh might be?”

  Rhineheart shrugged. “Not really.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I haven’t got any leads as you call them. I’ve just started my investigation,” he said. “I need to look around, check out some things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Things,” Rhineheart said. “Nothing worth talking about. Yet.”

  Kingston sniffled. “You not very responsive,” he said. “What’s the problem? The station not paying you enough money?” Kingston grimaced, as if the thought of anyone making as little as Rhineheart was too much to bear. “I admit two hundred and fifty a day ain’t much. It doesn’t take me that long”—he snapped his fingers—“to make two fifty, but still and all, it seems like a lot to pay someone and get no real results.”

  He wagged a finger at Rhineheart. “You going to have to do better, Mr. Rhineheart, if you want to keep your job. Take it from me, I know this Sullivan woman’s reputation and she won’t tolerate no half-ass performance. She wants results, and she’s a tough woman to please.”

  The man, Rhineheart thought, is trying to make me angry. “The way I figure it,” he said pleasantly, “if Ms. Sullivan’s not satisfied, she can always fire me.”

  Kingston looked glum. He rose from his chair and walked over to a sideboard that held whiskey bottles, decanters, glasses. His back turned, he began to mix a drink. “You like bourbon, Mr. Rhineheart?”

  “Love it,” Rhineheart said.

  “I thought you looked like a drinking man,” Kingston said. “As a matter of fact, someone told me you liked to drink a little.” He turned and held up a bottle. “Eight-year-old hundred-proof bottled in bond suit you?”

  “I’ll pass,” Rhineheart said.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Rhineheart? I thought you said you were a bourbon man.”

  “I gave it up for Lent,” Rhineheart said.

  Kingston snickered. “I believe you having me on, Mr. Rhineheart. But that’s all right. What’s life without a little joke, huh?” He returned to the desk with a tall glass in his hand. “You don’t mind me having one, do you?”

  “Knock yourself out,” Rhineheart said. He jerked a thumb at the goon. “Maybe Mr. Borchek would like one.”

  “Mr. Borchek doesn’t drink. At any rate, he’s on duty.” Kingston sipped his drink, set the glass down on the desk, and cleared his throat. “Let’s get down to cases, Mr. Rhineheart. One of my stable hands is missing, disappeared into thin air, and this TV lady decides to hire a private detective to find him. That’s fine, but all this occurs in the midst of the most important week of the year. It’s only six days to the Derby. You got any conception what winning the Kentucky Derby means to a horseman, mistah?”

  Rhineheart nodded. It was, he knew, the stuff that dreams were made of.

  “I’m going to be brutally honest with you, Mr. Rhineheart. The Derby means more to me than just about anything. My lifelong ambition is to win it. I’d do just about anything to accomplish that goal. Maybe Jessica’s already told you that. There’s people say I’m something of a fanatic when it comes to the Derby. They may be right. I’ve entered horses in it that didn’t have a prayer or a blind hope. All ’cause I wanted to win it so bad. Now, for the first time in years, I think I got a decent shot at it with Royal Dancer. I know the so-called experts don’t think much of his chances, but he’s the best horse I ever owned, a genuine stakes winner, and I want him to have his chance. I don’t want any kind of disruption. That’s why I’m prepared to double whatever salary this woman’s paying you and offer you an additional ten-thousand-dollar bonus if you can find Carl Walsh before Thursday.”

  “Why Thursday?” Rhineheart asked.

  “Thursday,” Kingston said, “is the day they draw for post for the race. It’s also the day of Jessica’s big Derby party. I want everything smooth from then on out.”

  Rhineheart wanted to get it straight. “You asked me out here to offer me this?”

  Kingston nodded. “Ten thousand dollars is a hell of a lot of money.”

  Rhineheart nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “it is, isn’t it.”

  Kingston smiled. “I thought you might think so.” He took a cigar out of the box and rolled it between his fingers. “And here’s the thing, Mr. Rhineheart . . . I don’t see any need to inform Mizz Sullivan about this. Or Jessica. It can be a little arrangement between us.
A confidential matter.” He paused. “What do you say?”

  It was, Rhineheart knew, way too early in the game to be laying down any cards. “I’ll give it some thought,” he said.

  “Fair enough,” Kingston said. He stood up. “Get back to me on this, Mr. Rhineheart, and we’ll work something out.” He gestured to Borchek, who walked over and opened the door and stood there holding it open.

  It looked as if the interview or meeting or whatever the hell it had been was over. Rhineheart stood up and walked over to the door. He had to look up to meet Borchek’s eye. The goon was three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier, and standing next to him, Rhineheart could feel the man’s brutality emanating from the man, like body odor.

  “Tell me something,” Rhineheart spoke to Kingston.

  Kingston waved the cigar expansively. “Anythin’.”

  “What do you think happened to Carl Walsh?”

  “I got no idea, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  “You think Howard Taggert might know?”

  Kingston looked surprised. “Howard Taggert?”

  “You know who Howard Taggert is, don’t you?”

  “Sho. As a matter of fact, Howard and I are old friends.”

  “You happen to know if Carl Walsh ever worked for him?”

  Kingston shook his head. “Why don’t you go and see Howard and ask him your ownself?”

  “I might just do that,” Rhineheart said. He started to leave, then stopped. “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t mind if I talk to your stable help, do you?”

  “Not at all,” Kingston said. “Talk to anyone you please, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  Rhineheart stepped out into the hallway. The library door swung shut. The maid appeared at the end of the hallway and as he followed her back through the house, Rhineheart remembered the photograph of the Kingstons he had seen on Walsh’s wall. They said pictures never lied, but he couldn’t see much resemblance between the handsome smiling couple in the photo and the two people he had met this afternoon.

  CHAPTER TEN

  On the drive back to Louisville Rhineheart thought about the case, trying to form some picture of it in his mind. What it reminded him of was the design of a crazy quilt he had once seen, a mixture of elements and ingredients that didn’t seem to fit, yet appeared to be somehow related.