The Original Alibi (Matt Kile)

by David Bishop

  I hadn’t been able to keep count of the seconds due to the effort and concentration of getting off the hook and onto the floor. If my jailer stayed on his prior schedule, I might be ready. I had to be ready. I didn’t want to again play punching bag to his Joe Palooka. I needed a couple more minutes to get things set up the way I wanted. In case he returned before I was ready, my hands were free and I still held the spare hook. But I wanted it to go the way I had it planned.

  My feet were still bound so I stayed in the chair and worked the tape until I got them free. I could move faster now. I took down the lamp and unplugged it. Next I yanked the cord out of the lamp. That got me a bare wire, two wires actually, holding each I pulled them away from one another stripping the wires from the insulation that had been around them.

  The lamp cord was about eight feet long and I had stripped back about six of those feet, using my teeth to bite and pull off the wrapping so I had exposed wire. I wrapped one of the two wires around the metal handle of the all metal door and the other end around the pin that protruded about a half an inch above the lower hinge. Then I put the chair near the wall socket, held the plug in one hand and the loose hook as a weapon in the other, and waited.

  *

  Axel and Buddha had only been watching Eddie’s car for about three minutes when he came out of the biker bar, got into his car and drove away. Forty minutes later, Eddie pulled into the general’s driveway. He parked in garage four of the Whittaker’s five-car garage, giving the impression he had roosted for the night.

  *

  After what seemed five minutes, the metal knob on the steel door into the room where I waited turned and the door dragged along the concrete as it swung in. When I saw clearly that it was my jailer with his hand still on the metal knob, I slid the plug into the wall socket. While I did this he noticed I was no longer impaled on the hook. But his realization lagged behind my plug in. The lamp stayed dark, but the jailer, his body now part of the circuit, went onto his toes and seemed to shimmy there. I was enjoying watching his wattage dance, but after a minute or so I pulled the plug back out.

  He dropped to the cement floor. Not moving. I pulled out the plug, then removed a gun from his waistband and went out to look into the outer room. There was no one else. I went back inside.

  For good measure or perhaps just for sheer joy, I folded the metal chair closed and slammed it into his head, then I did it two more times. I had seen this done on televised wrestling matches and it always looked to be such fun.

  He wasn’t dead, but I doubted he would give me much in the way of trouble. I put the spare hook I had used to tear my hands free into his hand and wrapped some fresh tape from the roll he had left on top the file cabinet, around both his hands. Next, I pulled the metal door over near his body and spun him around so I could raise his hands far enough to suspend the metal hook over the metal doorknob. This kept him part of my makeshift circuit, allowing me to plug him back in should he give me reason to do so. I admit to hoping he would. It wouldn’t take much.

  I went through his pockets and found a wallet and a few hundred dollars. I took the cash to tip waitresses or whatever. Hey, I took a beating from this guy. I earned it and still felt underpaid. I reopened the chair. It was bent, but it worked well enough.

  I pulled off his ski mask. He had the face of a bully, nasty, the grown up face of a lunch money thief from the seventh grade.

  I sat down to go through his wallet. The end of the cord over my leg in case he needed to be plugged back in or in case I just felt like plugging him back in. His driver’s license showed his name to be Ernest Podkin. He looked like a Podkin. I say this having no idea what a Podkin should look like. For me, from this day forward, a Podkin would look like Ernie who lay on the ground before me, the front of his Levis wet from his waist to his knees.

  Podkin was about my size, an inch shorter and a couple pounds heavier. He had huge hands with big knuckles, but his palms looked soft except for the calluses on his fingers where he would grip the handlebars on a motorcycle. Like his jacket suggested, he was a biker, maybe a friend of Cliff’s.

  After finding a box of old invoices on the floor from the company who had apparently occupied the building before vacating it, I stepped outside to find the address on the building. It matched the invoice. I called Fidge at his home, gave him the address, and asked him if he could please get down here as fast as possible. He said it would take him about thirty minutes. Podkin wasn’t going anywhere. We’d wait.

  Podkin eventually came around and opened his eyes, maybe ten minutes later. “Don’t move, I said. I have you wired to be plugged back in.” He cranked his head around and saw how I had him connected. He nodded. He understood.

  “I’ve got some questions. If you answer them to my satisfaction, I’ll let you get up and leave. If you lie or take too long I’ll put this plug in.” I held it up for him to see. “Then wait until you come around again, if that next time doesn’t kill you, then I’ll repeat my questions. We’ll continue like that until I get my answers or you drop out of the game, permanent like. Understand?”

  He nodded. His eyes followed the hook he held up to the metal doorknob and the wire from the wall to the hinge bolt.

  “Who paid you to work me over and what were your orders?”

  “I was to work you over hard. Keep you here two or three days. Then let you go. Hurt enough that you’d be down the rest of the week.”

  “Who?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I motioned toward the wall with the plug. “No!” he screamed. “No. I don’t know. I swear I don’t know. I never saw the dude.”

  “Tell me all about it.”

  “He came up on me while I slept in my bed at home. I live alone. He kept a fucking flashlight in my face and showed me your picture. Said you’d be at that office building downtown today in the afternoon. I was to follow you and take you somewheres else. He wanted you out of commission for a week, but not killed. I don’t do murder.”

  The general and his family knew I was going to the attorney Franklin’s office so it could have been any of them.

  “Sure. You’re the sensitive type. Go on. I want it all.”

  “He dropped a wad of hundreds on my chest and said, ‘If you don’t take him out of commission today, I’ll return and kill you in your sleep.’ He warned he knew me and my hangouts and he knew where I lived. He promised me eight thousand more if you were out of it for at least a week. Then he walked out of my room with the flashlight still on my kisser. After he left, I flipped on the light and counted the money. There were ten hundreds, with a promise of eight more big to come. Nine thousand for a beating, that’s good money, man. Hey, it’s not like I know you. You know?”

  “I just went through your wallet, Ernest. You had four hundred, where’s the other six?”

  “I had some bills man. Stuff I had to pay, you know.”

  Ernest was telling the truth. He had been hired by the same guy who eleven years ago had paid Cory Jackson and Tommie Montoya, using the same method. The difference being that with the economy in a tough stretch right now, Ernest would have ended up with only nine thousand when Jackson and Montoya each got ten thousand. I felt like the blue light special at K-Mart.

  I put the plug back in just long enough to make Ernest spasm. I wanted to leave it in and walk away, but Fidge would be here soon and I didn’t want him looking at me for some grade of murder. He might agree it was justifiable homicide, but I didn’t want to put him on the spot because it wouldn’t be. My killing him would not be to save myself or anyone else so the justifiable part would be too much of a stretch.

  Five minutes later Fidge came through the outer door. I went out and told him what happened, speaking low so we wouldn’t be overheard. Then I took him back to meet Ernest Podkin who had kicked free the end of the wire wrapped around the hinge pin, disconnecting the circuit. His hands remained taped.

  “Ernest, may I introduce Sergeant Terrence Fidgery.” Fidge showed him
his badge. “The sergeant has confirmed I can file a complaint for kidnapping, and assault and battery. Are you interested in avoiding the arrest?” Podkin nodded his head. “Okay, here’s how we’ll do it. If you don’t go along I’ll go down and see the sergeant and file the complaint.”

  Fidge said, “After speaking with Mr. Kile by phone, I pulled your sheet. I’d recommend you avoid this if at all possible.”

  Podkin looked at me. “What do you want from me?”

  “I keep your jacket and your hat, and you leave town. Right now, from here without speaking to anyone, even by phone. Don’t return until next month.”

  “What about my other eight thousand?”

  “Ernest. Ernest. You told me he promised you the rest if you kept me out of commission for a week. You didn’t do that. You also said he promised you a bullet if you didn’t get it done. Seems to me you’ve earned the bullet. I’d recommend you leave town rather than wait around for a bullet from a stranger. You wouldn’t see it coming. Only feel it. Briefly”

  “This guy’s bought other beatings this same way, on the cheap.” Fidge lied. “He’s never paid any of the others. He wouldn’t pay you, even if you had earned it.”

  “Podkin,” I said, “these are your choices. Take this deal, or the sergeant here hauls your ass downtown.”

  “With an added charge of attempted murder,” Fidge threw in for good measure.

  “Why do you want my jacket?”

  “Podkin, we’ve talked all we’re going to. Do you take what’s behind door number one or behind door number two?”

  Podkin stared at me; his face blank.

  I simplified it. “Jail or leave town. What’ll it be?”

  “I’ll split man. Lemme go.”

  I cut the tape from around his wrists. He took off his jacket, put it over the seat of the bent chair, dropped his hat on top, and walked out. We followed him to the door and watched him drive away in the van he must have used to bring me here from behind Russell’s restaurant.

  Chapter 26

  Fidge drove me back to the lot behind Russell’s on Atlantic. The slight movements associated with leaning as he turned corners leveraged my rib cage, delivering the trauma of each bump home to the damaged area. It hurt like hell is what I’m trying to say. On the way I explained to Fidge a little more of my plan and how it might, just might, help close his unsolved Ileana Corrigan murder case.

  In my own car, I hung over my steering wheel for a few minutes trying to find a way to breathe that didn’t make me want to stop breathing. Driving my car felt better. The holding of the steering wheel while turning made it easier. I drove slowly. I wouldn’t say life was good, but it had gotten better.

  Axel had gone back to his place, or he could’ve been at Mackie’s, or with Hillie, or a movie maybe. He had become a big fan of movies during his years in stir. In any event, he wasn’t home. I wanted to go to bed and sleep until the twelfth of never, but first I needed to try to figure who had employed Ernest to work me over. The one thing I knew, whoever it had been would fail at keeping me off the job. I’d be after his ass in the morning.

  With some Irish straight in a short glass I went out on the patio. Yeooow. Irish may be good for cleansing a wound, but in a half raw mouth it stung like riding through hell on a splintered board. I swished it around before swallowing. After a few drinks it calmed. As I saw it, or chose to see it, that addressed my need for immediate medical care. In the morning, I’d go see Doc Medford, one of my loyal readers, to learn if my rib was broken or whatever. I was hoping for the whatever.

  The person who had hired Podkin knew the doctor had given the general about a week to live, that’s why he or she wanted me off my feet for that long. The quest for who killed Ileana Corrigan was the general’s private passion. Once he died, the personal representative for the estate could be expected to leave the cold case of the murder of Ileana Corrigan in police archives. Eddie Whittaker would take over leadership of the general’s assets and he considers having been released by the court to be enough. I would be taken off the case. To solve the woman’s murder and earn my fee, I had the same amount of time left the general had.

  I was now convinced that the killer of Ileana Corrigan and the general’s unborn great grandson lived in the general’s house, an enemy within.

  *

  By two the next afternoon I had left Doc Medford and his dowdy nurse. Podkin had cracked a rib, a lower one on my left side. The doc also found a lot of bruising around my rib cage. He presented the crack as good news, saying it would hurt worse if it were broken. I doubted that, but in the end it was what it was. He wrapped it tight enough to make breathing harder. The upside being that I looked more svelte in my slacks than any time since I first got out of prison. Prison had kept me fit. I looked forward to exercise to work off the high carb foods the prison purchasing agents seemed to favor.

  “Where you been boss?” Axel asked right off when I reached him on his cell phone. He and Buddha were back tailing Eddie Whittaker.

  I told him about being abducted and worked over, that I had gotten away with a cracked rib and mushy face. He asked if I wanted him to come back and help. “No. I can manage. You two stay with Eddie.” Then I asked if Eddie had done anything suspicious since they put the tail on him.

  “No. Not really, boss. He goes to the gym, his broker’s office, has lunch, and then plays golf or whatever. Like that. Usually eats supper with some doll. All in all, he’s living the good life. Just a minute, boss … Buddha just reminded me to tell you about Eddie going by a biker bar down in Pedro, near the docks. He went in and came out in under ten minutes. Like he’d gone in looking for someone and that person hadn’t been there.”

  Eddie could have been looking for Podkin.

  “Let me know if he goes back. Where are you right now?”

  “It’s around four so Eddie’s at play. He’s over at the Skylinks course hitting golf balls on the driving range. You know, I gotta take up that game. You play, don’t you boss?” I grunted. “Like I said, this guy lives a very casual lifestyle.”

  “Stay with him. If anything happens that looks suspicious, I wanna know about it. I’ll keep my phone near me.”

  I checked in with Fidge by phone to let him know I was back at home.

  “Brenda offered to fix you some of her homemade soup. You can rest up over here. She’ll have you back in the game in a day or two.”

  I told him I didn’t have a day or two and that I appreciated the offer—and I did. I promised we’d all get together when I had this wrapped up. The best guess said the general only had a few days left, and I had the same. That without the general I would not be on the case and, damn it, I wouldn’t walk away with this half unraveled.

  I felt like shit. Axel would be out until late. I expected he’d check in with me then. I went to bed, got up sometime after hard dark and made a soft-boiled egg, drank some cranberry juice, and then went back to sleep.

  *

  Before six, the sun started sliding into the room, doing its thing, the way cream softens black coffee. I’d had enough sleep, and wasting time wouldn’t make it hurt less.

  Axel winced when he saw me, which didn’t make me feel any better. I understood because I had seen myself in the mirror. My face looked like uncooked beef Wellington with the puff pastry raw, and my eyeballs like one of those roadmaps printed off the Internet. The tissue around my left eye was purple and puffy, nearly shut. Axel had already made coffee and squeezed some fresh tomatoes in a juicer he had bought a few days ago. He sprinkled in some salt and ground pepper.

  “I left out the dash of Tabasco,” he said, “figuring you didn’t want that in your mouth right now.” The coffee was too hot. I drank the juice while I gave him more details on my time with Podkin and how I had escaped. He said nothing other than, “You shoulda burned his ass the way Clara crisps bacon.” When I asked about Eddie, he said the general’s grandson did nothing suspicious yesterday or last night. And, no, he had not returned to the bik
er bar. Then Axel left to do some shopping for us and for Clara so she’d make us another pie.

  Ten minutes later, the front bell rang. Having no reason not to open the door, I did, and found my ex-wife standing in the doorway. She had never been to my condo and, if you had asked before I opened the door, she would have been the last person on the planet I’d expect to be standing on the other side.

  “Matt, what happened?” She walked in without my saying come in, but I was about to say it. I spent some time filling her in. Then I showed her around. She loved the view from the terrace. She put a hand on my face, gently on my cheek and then the back of my neck. The look on her face told me she didn’t like what she saw. But it was concern, not one of those hey, you’re double-ugly looks. She said a few of my facial cuts and abrasions had not been cleaned properly. She took my hand. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the toilet with her using cotton balls and witch hazel and, I don’t know what, to bathe some of my wounds. She had brought the stuff she was using with her. It figured that Fidge’s wife had called her. She rubbed some ointment on several places, put a bandage on one, and said, “The others we’ll leave open to the air.”

  Helen left after inviting me to her house on Sunday for breakfast. I didn’t promise, but I told her I wanted to come. Today was Wednesday and I needed to cut some corners to bring this across the finish line while the general was still in the race. I needed to see him and give him a hang in there, I’m getting close talk. Even though I wasn’t all that sure it was true. He wanted the answer that would come at the end of my investigation. I was counting on the general soldiering through till then.

  About noon I heated up some of that chicken soup that comes ready to eat in the can. All you need do is warm it. I did. It tasted good, but I was longing for something to chew. I’m a meat and potatoes guy. I wanted to chomp on something, but my chomper wasn’t ready. While I ate the soup, more like drank the soup, I opened the DNA report I had picked up at Chunky’s the afternoon Podkin had diverted my attention. I had expected the report to be a routine thing. Investigators are always running checks or tests of some kind to confirm what they already knew. But Chunky’s report didn’t confirm anything I already knew. It didn’t even fall within the shadow of anything I already knew.