The Dirty Book Murder

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by Thomas Shawver


  “If you say so. Uisce fe talamh.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an old Irish phrase meaning ‘water under the ground.’ My grandfather was fond of using it to describe secret currents, hidden matters. But it really is absurd to think that goofball barista and Violet could be involved.”

  “Every peach has a stone,” she said, slipping her shoe back on. “A favorite phrase of my grandfather.”

  “Ahh, the wisdom of our elders. You planning to go somewhere?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to go down to the Gumbo to finish a story.”

  “Does that mean I can stay here?”

  She picked up her notebook. “For another day, but only if you behave.”

  “Thanks, Josie. I have another favor to ask. I need to know how my daughter is doing. A production assistant on the set named Laura Dowell may have heard from her. Would you check for me?”

  “You can’t call Anne yourself?”

  “She and Langston are Quist’s houseguests. We’re not communicating these days.”

  I gave her Laura’s telephone number.

  “I’ll check it out,” she promised. “Now, get some sleep.”

  “Okay, but first why don’t you tell me what your editor really told you on the telephone.”

  She looked at me warily.

  “It wasn’t my editor, but a confidential source. It doesn’t matter who.”

  “And what did this person have to say that made you blush?”

  “It’s why I have to go now and find more information. It’s also why I’ve decided to let you hide out here another day.”

  She checked the top button to her blouse, then looked back at me. “He said the police found Gareth Hughes’s wallet. It was in a bag under the passenger seat of your jeep Cherokee.”

  “You didn’t plan on telling me?” I asked, once I’d unrolled my tongue from my throat.

  “There’s nothing you can do right now. Just get some sleep. You’re going to need it. I’ll find out what I can and get back to you.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You poor guy,” she said after a chaste kiss. “I’m not going to let you down. And somehow, some way, I’m going to bring you and Anne together again.”

  After she left, I slept for about two hours before the nightmares caught up with me.

  I stepped into the living room, grabbed a paperback by Hermann Hesse off the radiator, sat on the sofa, and started to read about a man who thinks he’s a wolf. Seven pages later the narrator was getting right to the heart of all humanity. That’s when I reached for what was left of my beer and saw a notepad lying next to the telephone.

  Obviously, Josie had an artistic bent. The pad was covered with charming drawings of fairies, goblins, and flowers along with telephone numbers and cryptic notes. Intrigued by the doodles, I flipped the pages and saw what I wasn’t supposed to see. Next to a willowy drawing of an Arthurian knight was the name “Eddie Worth.” Below it were the initials “M.Q.,” followed by a telephone number. It was time to improvise.

  I called the number and a woman who identified herself as the housekeeper said that Mr. Quist was not in at the moment.

  “I was hoping to get a message to him or Ms. Majansik.”

  There was no hesitation at the other end at the mention of the names. The woman’s voice even lost its matter-of-fact, frigid tone.

  “We don’t expect her back until tomorrow’s party. If you care to leave your name and number I’ll be happy to tell Mr. Quist.”

  “The name’s Toby Bing,” I lied. “I’m from out of town and can’t leave a number, but I’ll see them at the party. Is it set for eight P.M. still?”

  “Some guests will be arriving earlier, Mr. Bing, but, you know, things never heat up before ten.”

  “Right! How could I forget? And the real action doesn’t start until midnight.”

  The maid giggled. “I guess you’ve been to one of these before.”

  “Only once and it was a while ago. On second thought, I think I’ll surprise Martin and Josie. Would you mind not mentioning that I called?”

  “Sure. And don’t forget your mask, Mr. Bing.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know, for the black-and-white masked ball. It’s going to be awfully exciting with Mr. Langston being here.”

  “Will you be wearing a mask as well?”

  “Oh, no. I’ll be serving the guests. But I get to wear a costume.”

  “What might that be?”

  “A French maid’s outfit.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “Can’t wait to see it.”

  “Oh, Mr. Bing.” She giggled. “There won’t be much of it to see.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Well, well, well. Caesar may have had Brutus, but Josephine Majansik had to rank right up there in the treachery department. Trusting soul that I am, how was I to know that the object of my affections was sharpening her claws the whole time? Just when I was getting used to falling in love again, too.

  My nerves settled down after a few minutes, morphing into a cold calm enhanced by an edge of sharp bitterness and aroused curiosity. Looking at the seedy apartment with clearer eyes, I saw it as nothing more than a hooker’s playpen; a place for a few drinks followed by a roll in the hay and a wad of twenty-dollar bills discreetly dropped in a basket by the front door.

  In her bedroom closet I discovered a stack of hard-core videos under a pile of People magazines. One of the tapes had no label and wasn’t marked, as if it were an amateur homemade job. I put it in the VCR and watched with sick apprehension as grainy black-and-white images crackled across the screen. The opening shot presented the back of a woman with short dark hair walking into a dimly lit room where she casually disrobed. The compact body seemed achingly familiar as she lay facedown on a bed.

  Any hope I’d held that the performer wasn’t Josie evaporated when her face filled the screen with an absurd expression that slowly morphed from complacent restfulness to fear. I couldn’t help noticing that her talent as an actress matched her inability to carry a tune.

  Possibly the only thing worse than the subject matter and Josie’s role in it was the abysmal editing that changed focus and even color tone with every scene shift. It was bad, Plan 9 from Outer Space bad, and when the camera focused on two men standing at the door in white cotton briefs, I would have laughed if I’d been watching this travesty at a fraternity house a quarter century earlier.

  One of the men was lean and swarthy. The other, not nearly so lean and pale as a February moon, wore his long greasy brown hair in a ponytail. They walked stiffly toward the bed as if taking directions. The swarthy one was the first to leap into action, pinning his supposed victim down before straddling her head with his knees. She pretended to struggle, but the man tightened his grip to stop her resistance. The beanpole with a ponytail stripped off his shorts and stood rampant for a moment before joining in.

  Close-ups of the sickening climactic scene looped over and over until the camera zoomed in on a tight shot of Josie’s tear-stained face. The tape ended on that sad note, all the more terrible because her final look of anguish was not in the least bit convincing.

  I pulled another beer from the refrigerator and chugged it without leaving the kitchen. Two beers later I was thinking clearly again and dialed the Brush Creek Gumbo.

  “Josie Majansik, please,” I said to the receptionist.

  “Who is that again, sir?”

  “Majansik. A reporter who’s been there six months.”

  “One moment,” she said.

  I heard the shuffling of papers at the other end.

  “Don’t you have the number of her extension on your computer?” I asked.

  “No, sir, she’s not on the computer. Oh, wait a minute.”

  More paper shuffling.

  “Yes, here it is on this other sheet. She’s on special assignment with the police beat.”

  She connected the number for me, but all I got was Josie’s recorded voice message. O
n a hunch, I dialed the receptionist again and asked for an old law client at the paper who covered the music scene.

  Jason Harper was up against a deadline, but took the call when he heard my name. Years ago, when fresh out of J-school and working as an impoverished stringer for the daily newspaper, he’d accumulated ten parking tickets within a three-month period while covering concerts downtown and in Westport. I got them thrown out for no fee and gained a friend for life.

  “What’s up, Mike?”

  “I’m looking for one of your colleagues at the Gumbo named Josie Majansik?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “I heard she was working the police beat.”

  “What police beat? We’re a weekly alternative. The only things we write about are sex, rock ’n’ roll, and the latest inanities of the city council.”

  My next question was interrupted by the clicking of high-heeled shoes on the tiled hallway outside. Hanging up the phone, I snatched an ice pick from a drawer in the kitchen and rushed to the door. A man and a woman were quietly arguing on the other side of it. The muscles in my forearms tensed when I heard the jangling of keys, but just as quickly relaxed when it became apparent the couple intended to enter the apartment next door.

  I plopped on the bed after grabbing another beer and tried to imagine what Josie planned upon her return. Given what I’d seen so far, the odds were good that Rolf Kramm would be with her to dispatch me. I looked at the ice pick that I’d laid on the floor. Most likely, Josie would enter first. In that event, I would shove her aside and go for Kramm’s throat. But then what? If Josie were to pull a weapon, would I use the pick on her as well? No need to worry about that if she had a gun. It would be too late anyway.

  On the other hand, she might be alone, still confident of my naiveté and planning to string me along in the hope of gaining more information for Quist. If that were the case, I might try to play along. But she would see through me soon enough. All I knew for sure was that when Josie returned, with or without Kramm, the result was going to be ugly if I remained in the apartment.

  The clanging, bonging, whooping cacophony of a car alarm outside the bedroom window suddenly interrupted these depressing thoughts. After an eternity waiting for it to stop, I went into the bathroom to let out some of the beer.

  Great revelations have been known to come to men at such moments. And so it was with me.

  While standing over the toilet, my mind buzzed with thoughts of that particular alarm. It was better than thinking about a lifetime prison sentence, Josie’s double-dealing, and my daughter’s dalliance with some very unsavory characters.

  I wondered what set it off. Would it turn itself off eventually or go on indefinitely until the owner returned or the battery died?

  I remembered how my jeep’s alarm had shattered the Saturday morning peace in Brookside and how Weston Preston had reminded me that there was a second key in a magnet box under the front wheel base. Weston knew how to get in my vehicle, which I always locked. No one else did.

  And what had he told me just before leaving the shop today? One of those mindless admonitions I generally ignored. But this was about the “vee-hickle” needing an oil change. “Twenty thousand miles,” he had said, meaning he’d recently seen my odometer.

  “Jesus,” I muttered after connecting the dots. Weston killed Gareth Hughes, then set me up by putting the victim’s wallet in my jeep.

  Another revelation swiftly followed. Other than a talent for auto mechanics and making cappuccinos, the lamebrain barista didn’t have the gumption to do this without the backing of my only other employee: Violet Trenche.

  Josie was straight with me about one thing—the couple, as mismatched as Two-Buck Chuck in a Steuben crystal decanter, actually did seem to have something going between them. I still couldn’t believe that in Violet’s case it was love, but I didn’t doubt that Weston would do anything for her, even go so far as to commit murder.

  I left Josie’s apartment with a thousand thoughts jumping in front of me, feeling unable to handle any of them. Still, I had enough sense to use my cell phone to call Pegeen Flynn at The Peanut.

  “I need your help,” I said when she answered.

  “Boy, I’ll say. You’re all over the news.”

  “I know who set me up, Peg. I need to borrow your car.”

  “Ah, jeez, Mikey, let the cops handle this, will ya? You’re gonna get yourself shot. Whether it’s the cops or the bad guys it won’t matter. They all want a piece of you now.”

  “Still driving the old Saab?”

  “Yeah, and what of it?”

  “Nothing of it. Maybe I’ll talk your boss into paying you more if I get out of this mess.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  “You don’t think I have a chance?”

  “Maybe. You’ll just never get that cheap bastard to give me a raise.”

  “Maybe you won’t need it. Maybe I’ll marry you and you can live off me.”

  There was a nervous laugh at the other end of the line.

  “I keep telling you, boyo, I’m not the marryin’ kind. Not according to the laws of Missouri anyway.”

  “More’s the pity.”

  “I’ll put the key under the mat. There’s half a tank of gas in it.”

  “Thanks, Pegeen. One other thing. A reporter named Josie Majansik knows I might contact you. Don’t talk to her. She’s not on my side. Not anymore.”

  “Understood. Take care and please try not to get the car shot full of holes. It’s paid for.”

  I ran an easy mile from Josie’s apartment to the Peanut parking lot where three pickup trucks, a couple of Harleys, and a 1992 Saab convertible waited for their owners. After leaning against a telephone pole to steady my heartbeat, I walked to the Saab and climbed in. Pegeen had set back the driver’s seat to accommodate me. The considerate act meant a lot. Too bad she wasn’t the marryin’ kind.

  It took a few jiggles on the ignition before the old car coughed into action, but as the sun dipped under the horizon I was steering it to Midtown for a chat with Weston Preston.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Weston Preston lived a block north of Thirty-ninth Street in a three-story firetrap.

  I parked Pegeen’s car around the corner and walked past a twenty-four-hour Laundromat with no customers, a liquor store that specialized in forty-ounce malt liquor, and a purple-painted shack with a starry sign on the porch that promised someone inside would read my fortune for “$10, 24/7, holidays included!”

  The entrance to Weston’s palace had a buzzer lock, but not wanting to announce my arrival, I waited downstairs for someone to come out.

  After a few minutes, a slender girl wearing a keffiyeh draped around her shoulders bounded down the stairs, fumbling for keys that dangled on her purse. I nodded a greeting as she held the door open for me, her comely face smiling shyly as we edged past each other.

  Weston’s name and apartment number were listed on the postbox in the lobby. I walked quietly up the uncarpeted staircase to the second floor and apartment 2C. The overhead bulb nearest his door had burned out so that the only illumination came from another one at the far end of the hall, where someone in a kitchen was having a love affair with garlic and onions.

  I heard movement within his apartment, but when I knocked there was no response, just more of the shuffling noise and then quiet. I knocked again.

  “Let me in, Weston. It’s Mike Bevan.”

  No answer.

  The door was one of those cheap composite things the landlord must have bought on sale at Home Depot. I steadied myself, placing weight on my right leg, and raised the left one preparatory to knocking the door off its hinges. I must have looked like a Doberman pinscher about to relieve itself when someone opened it without my help.

  The apartment was dark, with a low-wattage light coming from somewhere to the right.

  “Good timing,” I said as I lowered my kicking leg and, gaining my balance, stepped inside. My eyes were sti
ll getting used to the dimness when I noticed the long, bony face of Rolf Kramm instead of my 155-pound coffee barista standing in front of me. I instinctively threw a straight right, very fast and well sprung, but he stepped inside it, fast, cool, and clever, and delivered a roundhouse to the left side of my head that sent me sprawling to the floor.

  I reached for the doorknob to pull myself up, but a hard chop to the back of my neck ended that business. An instant later, I was kissing the shag carpet with Kramm on top of me trying to disconnect my spine.

  Just when I thought the big Afrikaner would succeed, his weight shifted from my lower back to my shoulders. I felt a gun barrel nudge against my right ear. Turning my head slightly, I saw the hard face staring at me with the expression of a deadpan comedian.

  “We will now get up.”

  I didn’t argue, but I was in no hurry until he tapped the gun against my skull.

  “Move in there, to the kitchen.”

  I followed his orders, gingerly stepping over empty wine bottles, Fritos wrappers, and a dozen other things Weston hadn’t bothered to pick up that week.

  A bare bulb flickered above a Formica-topped table. Next to it, a hook that had once held a flower basket now supported the rope that, in turn, supported much of Weston Preston by his scrawny neck.

  The rayon cord, tied in a slipknot, had expanded his jugular veins to the size of Vienna sausages. His hands were tied behind him and a dish towel had been stuffed in his mouth. He trembled precariously on tiptoes atop the rattling table. Adding to the surrealistic scene, the light created a shadow that covered his distorted face from nose to brow, giving it the hollow-eyed cast of a skull.

  “Look who has joined us,” Kramm said, tugging on Weston’s belt, setting his shaking legs further off balance. “You will now have a witness to your execution.”

  Unintelligible noises gurgled through the towel.

  “Why do this?” I asked, sickened.

  “Because he has something to tell me.” Kramm jerked the rope so that it cut deeper into the pale skin above the Adam’s apple. The added pain caused Weston to open his swollen eyelids, revealing a spider’s web of broken capillaries.

 

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