Send Out The Clowns (Frank River Series)

by Harry Hoge

  Bigley continued, "I would have been here sooner, but the funeral took forever. Well, it wasn't actually the services... Aunt Mabel insisted that the procession stop by the insurance office..." laughs... "Then the dating service... She said there was no need making two trips..." Good reaction... "We did talk her out of stopping at the Cadillac dealer."

  Even Frank chuckled at that one.

  "I sure miss my uncle though. We used to talk a lot. He just had one leg, and he'd tell me about how he'd get phantom pains in his toes, even though they were gone. Made me think... Those subliminal messages I've been getting must be from my foreskin."

  Frank could feel the rapport with the audience building.

  "Speaking of cars...I got a new one a couple months ago. Nice car, but I'll never use that finance company again. At least, that's what they said.... Talk about a bunch of two-faced people. When I bought the car they were so nice, and now, just a couple months later, I'm getting these hateful letters from them. 'Dear sir: Perhaps you've forgotten...' Stupid! They know damn well I haven't forgotten. Anyway, they said they'd repossess the car. I told them I'd like to see them try... Anybody going toward Pasadena after the show?"

  The comic seemed to be on a roll. Frank wondered if he would be the next one to turn up in a parking garage in a clown suit.

  "Hey, any of y'all ever go over to the casinos in Louisiana?" The crowd reacted with mumbling in the affirmative.

  "I went to one of the boats at Lake Charles the other day to play the slots. Only found one machine that was paying off, and it quit after a while. I finally figured out it was the ATM... I've got this friend that's always telling me I should stop wasting my money over there, and invest it in the stock market. I told him it's the same thing, except his broker doesn't give him free drinks."

  Bigley hit a roll and the audience hooted and cheered at the end of his act. Some even stood as they applauded. When the ovation settled to a low buzz and the house lights came up, Chuck Wood announced there would be an intermission. Some people filed out to the restrooms and others motioned for the waiters to bring new rounds. Some headed for the bar to speed up the services. After a slight rush subsided, Frank indicated to Gretchen that he wanted another beer. When she delivered it, he asked.

  "Where's Mars tonight."

  "Called in sick." Gretchen frowned. "If I was sick as often as that girl is, I'd begin to worry about funeral expenses. She's usually shacked up with Buddy when she don't show up, but he's here, so maybe she really is sick."

  Frank took a sip of his beer, making a mental note to review the information he had on Marsha, and dig a little deeper into her past. Actually, he decided to dig a little deeper into the background of all Rankin's employees.

  Chapter 15

  After leaving The Fashion Center, Gerry stopped at the railing and looked down on the floors below. Even though the Galleria might be considered past its prime, age-wise, it still impressed a girl born and raised in the fourth ward. She felt her cell phone vibrate in her jacket pocket.

  "Hey, Frank. Where are you?"

  "I just left the Ha Ha House. I'm sitting here in the car wondering where to go next. Anything important happen today?"

  "As a matter to fact, I got some good stuff looking into OD's from peyote. We need to discuss it."

  "Where are you now?"

  Gerry looked around and decided it wasn't a good idea to tell Frank she was at the Galleria. He was too quick not to suspect she was messing in his relationship with Pauley.

  "Doing some shopping is all." She cringed. "Want to meet?"

  There was silence for a moment before Frank answered.

  "Unless you say otherwise, I think it can wait until morning. We've both had a long day. I'm beat."

  "Must be hell to get old," Gerry laughed, fighting not to let her relief affect her voice.

  "Yeah, I'll let you know when that happens." Frank's voice sounded peeved. He was tired.

  Gerry didn't reply.

  "Get some sleep. We can fill each other in early tomorrow."

  "Keep smilin'," Gerry answered and broke the connection. She almost skipped after she pocketed the phone and headed to the far end of the mall, happy that her partner hadn't wanted to meet and talk about the day's work. It wasn't often she had a date, and was looking forward to meeting Roger Harrington.

  When she reached the hall that led into the Twin Oaks Hotel, she went back to the rail and scanned the food court. Roger sat near the barrier to the skating rink, reading a newspaper with a cup of coffee in his hand. If she hadn't known who he was, she wouldn't have made him for a cop. He wore dark gray slacks, a gray and black silk sports jacket and a white Henley shirt. He may have looked like a stock broker, but his training and experience brought his head up, and his eyes focused directly on hers the moment she saw him. No smile. Only a slight, nearly imperceptible nod.

  She smiled and headed for the escalator. By the time she reached the lower level, Roger had disposed of the newspaper and had two fresh coffees sitting on his table. He smiled and rose to greet her.

  "Been waiting long?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "No. I hadn't even reached the point where I expected you not to show up." He kissed her on the cheek and pushed her to arm's length. "You look stunning."

  She blushed and waved him off as she slipped onto the chair and reached for the coffee.

  "You look pretty handsome your own self."

  Roger sat and leaned back with one arm hoisted over the back of his chair. "So, how did things go with Miss Heyer?"

  "Went well. She's a neat lady. I can see why Frank's trying to hang on to her."

  "Think he will?"

  Gerry took a sip of her coffee, shaking her head. "No. I don't think they have a snowball's chance in the long haul."

  "She jealous of you?"

  "No. At least I don't think so. She doesn't like Frank being a cop, and she's paying special attention to her own career right now."

  "You think she resents Frank being a cop, or just that he's in homicide?"

  "I'd guess it's the homicide part. No woman likes her man dragging murder close to them. But I don't think she understands it that way. At least she's not putting it that way. She's more in tune with her need to worry about his safety than she is about fear for herself."

  Roger seemed satisfied about Paulette's welfare. He took a gulp of coffee and leaned forward with his arms on the table. "You hungry?"

  "Starved. Lunch was more than seven hours ago." "Feel like going to a Pappas' someplace? I've been craving seafood."

  "Sounds good." She looked down for a minute. "Do you mind driving to the one on the Northeast Freeway in Kingwood?" She gritted her teeth and looked embarrassed.

  Roger smiled. "Since there are Pappas' all over town, you must want to kill two birds, and do a little work."

  "Nothing big time, but I got a lead today from Smoky Bones and thought I could do a quick follow up. Shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes tops."

  "Old Smoky Bones. I didn't know he was still alive."

  "He sure is, and he hasn't lost a beat. He invited me into his home for afternoon tea."

  "His home?"

  "A neat spot behind a cyclone fence down near the Southwest Freeway."

  "What did he give you?"

  Gerry finished her coffee and stood.

  "Come on. I'll fill you in on the way."

  Frank drove into the parking area at his apartment, sat for a moment after the car had stopped and thought about how tired he was. He pulled his hand across his face and looked up at the window to his flat. The lighting, or rather the lack thereof, told him Pauley wasn't home yet. He sighed and climbed out of the car, went to the trunk and removed his briefcase and a six-pack of Keystone, and trudged to the front steps. The flight up seemed steeper than usual. He waved at Senora Coneger who lived next door and would be watching from behind her blind, and inserted the key to unlock the door. The morning paper was still on the mat, telling him not only that P
auley wasn't home, but that she had left early that morning.

  He dropped the paper on the table in the kitchen and put the briefcase on the seat of the chair nearest the refrigerator. When he opened the refrigerator door to deposit the Keystone inside, he discovered one beer can remaining from earlier. He grabbed it with a smile and popped the top. The phone by his chair was flashing - he had messages. After enduring the whine of an insurance salesman, a man who wanted him to accept a new low-interest credit card and some political survey probes, Pauley's voice caught his attention.

  "Hey, Cisco, welcome home. I know you're tired after working all day, so I'll be brief. There's an important dinner meeting at that new restaurant in Katy with the group that needs to approve my new contracts. It will no doubt run late. Don't wait up. You need your rest. See you later. Bye."

  Frank deleted the messages and carried his beer to the back balcony. One of the reasons he had rented this apartment was the luxury of having two small balconies: one off the main bedroom facing north and another off the kitchen looking east. He had stood on each of these, depending on his mood, and looked at the sky and the lights of the city. The north facing one was his favorite. Less light pollution, allowing him to view a few stars, and have more solitude, even if it was more illusion than fact.

  That was the one he chose tonight.

  He took a sip of beer before placing the can on the wooden railing and stepping back into the bedroom long enough to turn on his CD player and select "I'll Be Seeing You: The Best of Big Band Ballads." Steve Wingfield wasn't his choice of the modern Big Bands that reprised the days of his father's youth, but Pauley had bought it for him and it seemed best suited to his present mood. The first cut was "In a Sentimental Mood." Got that right, he thought. He went out onto the balcony and picked up his beer.

  Off to the right he could see a huge commercial jet approaching Bush Intercontinental, its headlights dwarfing the colored running lights on its wings. It settled into the pine trees and disappeared silently onto the runway.

  There were probably more than three hundred passengers shuffling in their seats, ready to meet loved ones or business associates or no one, but all relieved to be landing in Houston. Three hundred individual souls, their lives filled with grief, happiness or anticipation, beginning a new phase in their awareness, and uninterested in the murder of a clown or two, or in his tribulations with Paulette Heyer.

  Don't wait up.

  He forced his thinking away from Pauley's message to growing up with his father. Senor Riojas had built a good business in Brenham, Starting by mowing lawns and expanding to a full service lawn and landscaping service that he turned over to a brother to manage so he could develop an interior remodeling enterprise, his first love. Frank considered his father an artist: cabinets; floor tiling, especially Saltillo tiles; decorative facing for fireplaces and the like; roofing; decking; re-plastering; and any kind of framing that upgraded houses throughout the area. Often he would send crews or go himself to Houston for contracts. Frank never experienced near poverty conditions like Gerry. He had grown up in an upper middle class family. The memory brought a grin.

  He tried to take a sip of his beer and realized the can was empty. He went in to the kitchen and retrieved the new six-pack. Back on the balcony, he placed the package on a slatted redwood table and dropped into a webbed lawn chair. He popped open another beer and leaned back and shut his eyes, picking nonchalantly at the side of the can.

  A shiver coursed through him when "Here's That Rainy Day" came out of the CD player. He told himself he had forgotten that selection was on this CD, but he knew it wasn't true. He questioned whether that was the real reason he had played this particular album. There was no way he could hear the music without thinking about Pauley and the last time they broke up. They had been dancing on New Year's Eve at the Pavilion Ball Room at the Warwick Hotel downtown. Pauley's body had suddenly stiffened in his arms. She looked up at him and said, "Sorry" and walked off the floor

  He tried to think about the case, but had lost the ability to make his mind go where it didn't want to go. That had been the beginning of the first rift. This, apparently was the beginning of the second one. He felt helpless to do anything about it. He sipped his beer and listened to sentimental music, watching the lights of airplanes in the active Houston sky.

  Don't wait up... Too late for that.

  Get some rest... Always the concerned Pauley.

  The last sound he remembered was hearing "At Last" from the CD player and the plop of a half-full beer can as it slipped through his fingers and landed on the balcony deck.

  Chapter 16

  Frank woke with a start. He had reverted to an earlier habit of waking at first light, bolting to a sitting position as if dawn was a crashing Chinese gong reverberating through him causing his head to throb and his chest to wrench like a twisted rope. The headaches were always from overuse of alcohol, and the wrenching chest a form of guilt for wasting time by lying in bed.

  He hadn't experienced the rude awakening since he and Pauley had gotten back together. He fought to clear his head. He couldn't remember coming in from the balcony, but he must have. He was in bed with his clothes on, and the quilted comforter was wrapped around him like a misshapen tortilla. No need to look toward Pauley's side of the bed to see if she was there. When she was in the apartment, he could feel her presence, an ethereal pulse broadcasting her spirit. The room was clammy and hollow. He eased his legs over the edge of the bed and placed his feet on the floor. He sat there waiting for his head to finish protesting the subtle move.

  When he felt he could stand without passing out, he stripped off his clothes and padded into the bathroom. A long hot shower did wonders for his recovery. A glance out the bedroom window told him it was a gray rainy day, so he dressed in chinos, a blue button down shirt, a paisley tie, and Wellington boots. He grabbed a waterproof windbreaker and headed for the kitchen. Orange juice and coffee would have to do for breakfast. He drank a tall glass of juice, standing in front of the open refrigerator before moving to make a pot of coffee. The juice tasted wonderful, reviving his dehydrated body tissues. He frowned at the slow working coffee pot, impatiently waiting for it to be coffee, the magic elixir.

  "Watched coffee pots never brew," he mumbled, and went to the front door to retrieve the morning Chronicle. Unable to wait for his coffee any longer, he pulled the carafe away and held a mug under the drip. When it was full, he grimaced at the bubbles that splashed onto the hotplate before he could replace the pot. The odor of the singed coffee made his nostrils flare in protest, but he ignored the minor nuisance and took a sip of the hot liquid as he walked to the table. Feeling more human now, he spread the newspaper and cradled the warm mug in his hands. A headline below the fold destroyed all hope that this would be a normal day.

  BIZARRE CLOWN MURDERS STUMP HPD

  The byline was Julia Brewster. Frank didn't go so far as to label her a yellow journalist, but she was well known for her imaginative portrayals of crime cases and vigorous disdain for law enforcement. Frank scanned the article, deciding Brewster had gleaned the facts out of the press releases and concocted her own wacky interpretation. Normally, Frank would find such off the wall allusions amusing and ignore them, but Brewster had evidently consulted a psychic and spent half the article quoting evidence from the metaphysical realm.

  He dug in the pantry for a stainless steel thermos, drained the carafe into the bottle, shrugged into his jacket, folded the newspaper, then grabbed his briefcase and the unfinished mug and bolted for the door. He wanted to be snug in his office before Sumbitch came to work.

  Rain made the commute treacherous. As usual, the early morning traffic was a damn mess, and everyone trying to beat the rush only served to make it worse. Frank drank coffee and fought the gridlock. Less than halfway to his exit from I-10 he wished he'd used the bathroom before he left. Three quarters into the trip, he began to worry about soiling his clothes. When I-10 merged with 1-45, he beat a tattoo on the st
eering wheel and squirmed in his seat as he tightened his sphincter muscles and hummed, hoping he had the wherewithal to make it inside the office building. "Oh Boy," he declared out loud when he finally turned north onto North Main.

  The drive had taken longer than he hoped, but there was no sign Lieutenant Barker had arrived yet. Gerry's car was in the lot, which surprised him, and Captain Holloman was obviously at work, which didn't. Holloman had a reputation of never going home. The quintessential over-achiever.

  Frank pulled the briefcase after him as he yanked the door lever and bolted from the car. He walked as fast as he could, holding the briefcase over his head. He was afraid of running, for fear it might jolt his bulging bladder into action. Fortunately, there was a men's room near the front door. His wet shoes slipped on the waxed tile floor, making the last few yards an act of painful determination.

  When Frank pushed into the squad room, feeling relieved but still hung over and several percentage points below his game, he was greeted by Gerry's sparkling smile. Although he felt refreshed, he apparently still looked bedraggled because his partner's smile drooped in sympathy.

  "Tough night, Partner?"

  "You might say that, but I'll live. It was one of my unpredictable but periodic efforts to destroy myself by abusing my body with alcohol."

  "I take it things didn't go well with Paulette?"

  "Hey, you couldn't be more wrong. We didn't have a single disagreeable word."

  Gerry decided not to press. She turned her attention back to a cluttered desk. Several piles of folders were arranged next to each other, with different colored post-its on the top of each pile.

  "You look like you're getting ready for court, Detective," Frank laughed, trying to sound humorous. Gerry sighed.

  "The captain's called a major meeting for this morning. He wants us to be ready to brief him on all we know about the clown case." Richard Wallace Holloman had earned the rank of Captain by being a no nonsense cop. Whenever he called a "major meeting," Frank knew he had better be ready to answer penetrating questions. Holloman had no patience for whining or excuses.