False Negative (Hard Case Crime)

by Joseph Koenig

  “The line forms on the left,” he said.

  “Laugh now, comedian. After I’m done with you, nobody’ll be laughing but me.”

  Pelfrey dialed the police, but knew what he’d hear. The NYPD didn’t have enough men to watch over everyone. Didn’t he know that someone serious about harming him wouldn’t announce it? They advised an out-of-town vacation. Or he could bunk in jail till the threat blew over. He put down the phone, and went to set the chain on the door. Then he locked all the windows. The fire escape was a highway between the roof and the alley. Nothing he could do about that. It was high time to quit being every screwball’s sitting duck, and get started on his book.

  He put aside the manuscript, and typed notes on his run-ins with men who wanted to kill him. He’d never given a thought to writing fiction, but the voice of authenticity might make a novel an easy sell.

  The phone rang again. He stared it down before making a grab. “Stuff it, you gutless bastard.”

  “Edward, how did you know it was me?”

  “My mistake,” he said.

  “Not at all. It sounded like pillow talk.”

  “I thought you were someone else, Barbara.”

  “She’s a lucky girl, I’m sure,” Barbara said. “How are you feeling? I’d have come to the hospital, but I had doubts I was what the doctors ordered.”

  “They kept me sedated. I’d have tolerated a visit.”

  “Don’t be arch. Who did you think I was?”

  “Someone else who wants me dead.”

  The sniping brought back the last days of their marriage, when it was a question of who would move out first.

  “Are you receiving combat pay? Is that why you remain loyal to the magazine?”

  “How many times have we had this conversation?”

  “Dozens?” she said. “Hundreds? But I was your wife when we started, and you assumed I was trying to get under your skin. I’m your ex now. If you can’t believe your former spouse, where is the foundation for trust?”

  “Why did you call?”

  “The check—”

  Pelfrey shook a pain pill out of the vial, and swallowed it dry. “I brought it to the post office two days ahead of time.”

  “You’re a dear. It’s already on deposit.”

  “If it isn’t late, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s small.”

  “It’s right on the number, the same amount you receive every month.”

  “Don’t I know?” she said. “A dollar doesn’t go as far as when we were divorcing. The same amount is less than it used to be.”

  “Take it up with a judge. I’ve been fair with you. You’re asking for too much.”

  “Of course I am. Would you respect me if I settled for less? Living as you do, you don’t even respect the money. It’s fitting and proper that you take better care of me.”

  “Everything I have will be yours one day.”

  “That’s what you say—”

  “But don’t get your hopes up that that day will come soon, no matter who is sneaking past the parole board. I intend to have a long and healthy life, and to run through my last dollar living it.”

  “How very selfish of you.”

  “Good night, Barbara. It’s always a delight to hear your voice.”

  “Watch your back, Edward,” Barbara said.

  Toward the end of the week Jordan called New York to find out how Pelfrey was feeling. He dialed collect, lowered the window against a squall as he waited for the girl to accept the charges.

  “Mary,” he said, “let me talk to your boss.”

  “This isn’t Mary. I’m Amy Lund. And I’m here alone.”

  “I don’t know you. Where’s everybody?”

  “At the cemetery.”

  Jordan lit a Lucky, and sealed the windows. How come everybody picked the rottenest days to visit a cemetery? “Why?”

  “For the funeral,” Amy said. “I’m a temp. They didn’t tell me much, only that somebody tried to kill Mr. Pelfrey, and he died.”

  “He’d been stabbed,” Jordan said, “but he was getting better. It looked like he was going to make it.”

  “They didn’t take chances this time. They shot him.”

  “Who did?”

  “No one knows. Mary says we’ll probably run it as an unsolved.”

  By the grace of Ed Pelfrey he’d fielded a gig that was the next best thing to what he loved to do, and he blamed Pelfrey—poor bastard—for blowing it. An editor with ideas of his own would be brought in to run the magazines, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t work out for him. No reason to think that way—just the feeling. Joe Btfspik from Li’l Abner, who went around under a permanent black cloud, had nothing on him.

  He wanted a woman to talk to, at least to talk, but didn’t know any who’d give him the right time. Maybe one. Good-looking enough in her way, though not his type. All wrong for him, in fact. When did he ever let that stop him?

  A man picked up on the first ring. “Cherise there?” Jordan said to him.

  “What time you need her? For how long?”

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “Who’re you? Where you want her?”

  A hand slapped the mouthpiece at the other end of the line. A woman asked, “That for me? Give me the damn phone.” Then Cherise, out of sorts, but keeping her anger in check, said, “Yeah?”

  “It’s Adam Jordan.”

  “Who?” she said. “Oh. Oh, you.”

  “It’s nobody, go on, get out,” she whispered. Then for Jordan again: “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Got to give me time.”

  “Who was that?”

  “My pimp,” she said. “That what you thinking? Sorry to disappoint, but he’s my nephew. ’Scuse his juvenile humor. You don’t feel a fool for askin’?”

  For calling. And for the notion that this coarse girl could help to smooth his crash landing. “Did you find out anything?”

  “Some. I ain’t Dick Tracy.”

  Coarse—not to mention a wiseass. And his only link to Etta Wyatt. Smooth never went down easy with him anyway.

  “Still there?” she said. “I should have more by the weekend.”

  “I need it this afternoon.”

  “Promised me a feed at a high-class restaurant,” she said. “Lunch don’t count.”

  “Teplitsky’s puts out a great buffet.”

  “Was thinking along the lines of the Ship ’N Shore at Tarrantino’s.”

  “I’ll have to rob a bank.”

  “Be quick about it,” she said. “See you at Mississippi and Atlantic at eight.”

  The intersection was in the colored district a few blocks from Etta Wyatt’s boarding house. He was there on the dot, running his engine beside a pump. On the sidewalk women paraded coatless in winter’s chill. A teenager in a red dress mouthing “Wanna date?” rapped on his window. She pressed her lips to the glass leaving a hot coral bow around a wet spot where she rolled her tongue. Why meet here unless Cherise wanted him to think the worst of her? He was up in the air about whether he did.

  The teenager ran away. An unmarked cop car took her place alongside his door, the detectives watching her go, then focusing on Jordan through the smudge in the glass. Jordan knew the man riding shotgun from accidents where they’d been first on the scene. There was a delayed instant of recognition, an accusatory look before the cop nudged his partner, and the car took off through a red light.

  Spike heels clattering like castanets, Cherise jaywalked across Mississippi, stopping traffic. Her skirt wasn’t especially short or tight, her neckline scooped just low enough to make things interesting. A faux fur coat and a wig with a twisted bun achieved an effect of semi-respectability. Jordan reached over and unlocked the passenger door. Cherise powdered her nose, she tapped her toe. He got out, held the door, shut it behind her. Cherise tuned the radio to the rhythm-and-blues station, and whisked her hand against the leathery upholstery before rendering her verdict. “Nice car,” she said.
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  “I got it for a song.”

  “Threw you a compliment. Suppose to say how pretty I look.”

  He’d said it to himself. What more did she need?

  “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Spotted you a mile away,” she said. “I get all done up, and you, look at you, like you come from touting losers at the track. Would’ve hurt to put on a clean shirt?”

  Whatever was bugging her, why take it out on him? How many other women from this part of town would have steak and lobster tonight in Atlantic City’s best restaurant? He rummaged in the glove compartment for a tie, and threaded it under his collar. Cherise batted his hands away. With a strangler’s determination she crafted a fat knot and cinched it tight, then smoothed the wrinkles against his chest.

  “Live around here?” He pulled away from the curb, tromping on the brake as a couple of young women in low-cut tops ran across the street after a gang of GIs.

  “I had business to tend to.”

  It annoyed her that he didn’t ask what the business was. “Booking agent needed to talk to me about a job in Philadelphia,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  “The producer wants a private audition at his place. That’s bad.”

  The conversation stopped cold. The little they had in common didn’t include an ice-breaker. Etta’s disappearance, Francesca’s beating, Pelfrey’s fresh grave pressed on Jordan with the accumulated weight of all his other cases. Violent crime also exacted a toll on its chroniclers. If he found newspaper work again, he’d try for an assignment on the sports page, build his life around games.

  Tarrantino’s scripted in neon outshone the moon, two signs—front and back—strung between the stacks of an old Cape May-Lewes ferry tricked out with a paddle wheel like a Mississippi riverboat. As he walked Cherise on board some of the diners looked up like they’d discovered a roach in their soup. The hostess came without menus or a smile to say that reservations were required, and every table was booked solid into the spring. Jordan provided the smile. After a smoky fire several months ago he’d used the hostess’ picture with a thousand-word story, plugging the osso bucco. She brought them to Siberia, near the kitchen door. Cherise didn’t make a stink about it.

  “Greenie took me one time to Merrill’s in Chelsea Heights,” she said. “Shylock friend of his was holding their note, and swore they’d give us the royal treatment. They refused service, but not on account of me. Didn’t want Greenie’s like on the premises.”

  “I’ve never seen him embarrassed.”

  “Makes two of us,” she said. “Told me it was me they wouldn’t serve.”

  As an ice-breaker it ranked between a missing woman and a murder.

  A waitress dropped off menus. Cherise caught her wrist, and had her recite the specials. “Gettin’ off cheap,” she said to Jordan.

  “What did you learn?”

  “Not a goddamn thing,” she said. “Figured I could play you for a meal. Don’t want to watch me eat, settle the bill before you leave.”

  He ordered for both of them, lit a Lucky.

  Cherise patted his hand. “You sweet, know it?”

  “Compared to what?”

  “Don’t be sulking. Truth is, I got plenty for you. Had to be sure you in control of your ’motions, you don’t hear what you like.”

  “What don’t I want to hear?”

  “Hold your horses.” She shook a cigarette out of the pack, tapped the end against the back of her hand. “Us two, me and Etta, have the same booking agent. Slipped my mind till I was at his office. Her picture’s next to mine on the wall, ’long with his other clients, big stars, too. Be glad you weren’t there when I brought up her name.”

  She put a cigarette between her lips, leaned close, and touched the tip to Jordan’s, blew smoke past his cheek.

  “Was his opinion Etta was a rising talent. Could sing and dance, tell jokes that’d make you run home to change your pants. Even play soprano sax passable well, and some clarinet.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “Uh-uh. He can make things hard for me. Has a lawyer’s license, but more money comes in from entertainers he books into the clubs, and providing girls for private parties.”

  “You mean prostitutes.”

  The smoke went into his face. “I worked some of those parties. Etta brought me to one where I met Mr. Stolzfus. Nobody said nothing about turning tricks. I was there to dress up the room, to look available. Anything else, I was on my own. Our agent was gonna supply the girls for Mr. Stolzfus’ party that didn’t happen.”

  “Is he a Negro?”

  “He’ll let you think he is.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Ain’t read his birth certificate. Wouldn’t be the first white person I know passing for black.”

  Jordan placed his notebook on the table, uncapped his pen.

  “Never knew nobody like that?” She stopped to let him get something down on paper, but started talking again as doodles filled the margins of the page. “Ain’t making it up. There’s white folks’ll do anything to make a dollar off of Negroes—even be one. Some get to feeling that’s who they are, heaven knows why. It’d be unkind to tell ’em to go back to what they were before.”

  “He didn’t send Etta to private parties to crack jokes.”

  “Etta knew the ropes, and was okay with it. Was nobody she wouldn’t go to bed with if she thought it’d help her career.”

  “What about someone who couldn’t do anything for her?” Jordan said. “Did he stand a chance?”

  “She didn’t let herself be in love, that’s what you’re getting at. Never took her eye off the ball.”

  “Speaking of which,” Jordan said, “last time we talked you mentioned a baseball player. His name was on the tip of your tongue.”

  “Must’ve swallowed it.”

  “Hub Chase,” he said. “Sound familiar?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t mean I never ran across him. Not everybody at the parties’d give out their right name.”

  “His wife was murdered a few weeks before Etta disappeared. She was also young and ambitious.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Susannah. Suzie Chase.”

  “Miss Monmouth County? Miss Phillie Cheesesteak the year before? Redhead with a build like that Jane Russell?”

  “You know her?”

  “Knew who she was. Gorgeous girl like her, if you’re in the business of being beautiful in Atlantic City, you heard of Suzie Chase.”

  “Did you see her at any of the parties?”

  “Her husband was on the guest list, remember?”

  “They were living apart.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first gent with a beautiful wife looking for something not so beautiful. Same goes for the beautiful wife.”

  “What’s in it for her?”

  “Find the right man, she could put those parties—put Miss Phillie Cheesesteak behind her.”

  “I can’t prove it, but I think her death is connected to Etta’s disappearance.”

  “Be a special story, huh, two beauties for the price of one?”

  “Without Suzie’s killer, Etta isn’t worth anything, even if I found out what happened to her.”

  “How’s that?”

  “No one who reads my magazine gives a damn when a Negro girl is murdered.”

  Her toe barked his shin as she uncrossed her legs. He gave her a moment to make a stink, but what she said was, “Don’t I know?”

  “Not that I’m close to cracking either case.”

  “Nothing more I can do for you.”

  “Let me talk to your agent.”

  She shook her head. “He’s an important man. Ain’t got time for jawing with a lowly magazine writer.”

  “Getting important people to let down their hair is what lowly writers do.”

  “Ain’t got no hair,” she said. “Shaves his head clean.”

  “Give me his name.”

  She
stubbed out her cigarette, looking past his shoulder. “Here come our drinks.”

  Jordan didn’t turn around, afraid that when he looked back she’d be gone.

  “Try Beach,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Sound like you long-lost friends.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Didn’t think so, ’less you knew him before he was colored,” she said. “Beach, that’s his name.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “He lost it along with being white, and everything goes with it. Beach is all. Just Mr. Beach.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Please hold for Mrs. Bryer.”

  The crackle of long distance introduced a woman whose measured delivery nearly concealed a Bronx twang. “Mr. Jordan, this is Helene Bryer.” An imperious woman, dry and menopausal, though Jordan was damned how he knew so much about her from just six words.

  “I’m president of Turner Publications. Ed Pelfrey spoke highly of you.”

  “He was very kind,” Jordan said. “I’m going to miss him, really am. What can I do for you?”

  “Since his death the magazines have been more or less running themselves.” A second of open air left Jordan to consider that Mrs. Bryer was attempting a cordial tone rather than fighting a weak connection. “No obvious candidate to replace him has emerged. To be brief, I’ve called to offer you the position of editor-in-chief of Real Detective.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about magazine editing.”

  “Expectations will be modest at first.” The dry voice with overtones of umbrage, Helene Bryer informing him that he’d let Pelfrey down. “It’s not a great leap from writing. All editors have made it.”

  “It’s not for me,” Jordan said.

  “Ed didn’t mention that you were closed-minded. You haven’t heard what we’re paying and the generous benefits that go with it.”

  “I’m a reporter. I’d rather make errors than correct them.”

  “Feel free to make all the errors that you like,” Mrs. Bryer said, “and then to catch each one.”

  “As the new man on the staff, I’m the least qualified.”