“I get it. I just thought I’d poke around. It’s all nothing, I’m sure, but when I get an itch, I scratch it.”
“Understood. I’ll be at your room at 8:30. We’ll see to any of your itches that are still scratchy.”
“That sounded like an indecent proposal.”
“It was more me being me.” Frieda smiled. “I get a little frisky when I’m on my feet all day. Besides, a little intrigue and innuendo are good for a working relationship.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot I was working in the theatre again. I’ll be ready at 8:30.” He turned and left, feeling her eyes on his back as he strolled down the hallway toward the elevator shaft of indeterminate length.
As Al was walking back to the hotel, he got out his cell phone and called Bud Smythe. He wanted to see if he could talk with the guy a little about Dirk and maybe ask about Mary while he was at it. It wasn’t that strange. Theatre people always talked about death coming in threes. Al thought it was usually just the fact that people talked to each other more when someone died and all that communicating got information flowing between social circles. People liked to talk about death. It was a morbid fact of life. Al supposed that’s why the obituaries were still a popular part of most newspapers, at least those that were still in print.
The telephone was picked up on the second ring, “Bud Smythe.”
“Hello, Detective Smythe. My name’s Al McNair. I’m in town from California doing a show, replacing Ralph Snider, stage name Dirk Vanderbeek. I’m a retired actor, just doing this gig for an old friend.”
“OK. Thanks for letting me in on that little detail. Very enlightening.”
“I’m also a licensed private investigator. I’ve worked with the US Marshal’s Service and with Portland Oregon’s Detective Unit-Homicide. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the Dirk thing, if you have the time.”
“Oh, yeah. I got time pouring outta my ass here. Chicago’s a little town with a very low crime rate. I usually just read Superman Comics and jerk off.”
Al was smiling. He missed Chicago, and the reasons why were coming back at a frenzied pace. “I won’t stand here and keep you from yanking your pecker. I’d like to buy you a drink, if you can pull yourself away from Superman and jerking off. I prefer Catwoman, but to each his own they say.”
Bud actually barked out a short laugh. “Today’s your lucky day, Al. I was planning on hitting a bar on the way home. I assume you’re up by the theatre. I’m at the Northwestern Police Department. Timothy O’Toole’s Pub is four blocks from here at North Fairbanks and East Ontario. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Ask for Bud. If I’m not there, ask the bartender to send me to your table when I get there. He knows me.”
“I’ll beat you there. I’ll tell the barkeep, but I’m hard to miss. Balding, big, and devilishly handsome.”
“Got it. Balding, big, and a fuckin’ liar. I’ll find ya. I don’t know what I’ve got on the Dirk thing is worth even a drink, but if you’re buying, I’m talkin’.” And the phone went dead.
Al started walking. It was nice out. Getting a little chilly. He’d have to do some shopping for clothes soon. He figured he could probably find an intern who could do that for a little extra money. Interns were always starving, and many of them liked to shop. Some of them even had a moderately good sense of style. It wasn’t often that some who lived on Top Ramen got to go blow a thousand bucks on nice threads.
He put his hands in his pockets and started to think about things. Two dead from the original company. Not much to base a conspiracy theory on. He’d look into some local talent that could do some research for him. There were plenty of law schools in Chicago and he was sure, for a little spending cash, he could find a graduate assistant willing to do a bit of research. He wanted to check on all actor deaths going back two years. He figured he would have them research back three years and probably dismiss the first year. There might be some information there, but this felt like something new.
Plus, he was bothered about two things. One was the blade positioning. He wanted to get the fingerprints off of the blade. He thought there might be something there. He knew they would be Dirk’s, but he wanted to look at the positioning of the prints relative to the final destination of the blade’s grip.
The other thing that was bothering him was why a woman who was either practicing auto-erotic asphyxiation or committing suicide would have a goddamned script open in front of her. Let alone a script that was in development--a script of hers. Did it suck that bad? Why not have research in front of her? Pictures of crime scenes would make sense. Shit, pictures of porn would make sense. A fucking developmental script?
It smelled bad and made his nerves jitter and jive. He wasn’t big on coincidences. They happened, sure. He’d been around long enough to know that coincidences happened. He’d also been around long enough to know that there were some sick fuckers in the world who liked to do repugnant shit to other people. And there was the barest thread of an MO. Two actors from way back in Wildhorse Productions history had died within a month of each other. It was plausible. He’d gently quiz old Bud about the situation. The worst that would happen is he’d be out the price of a couple of drinks and some bad bar coffee, but bad bar coffee was better than no coffee at all.
10
Frieda was working furiously trying to get everything done in time to shower and put on fresh war paint for her meeting with Al. Marty walked through the main office without saying anything, went to his office, then buzzed Frieda on the intercom and asked her to come in “for a little chat.” This was one of Marty’s behaviors that made her want to go in his office, grab his intercom, and shove it up his ass sideways. He could have just talked to her in the front office. No one was around to eavesdrop on the conversation. He did it so he could sit behind his desk and she could stand until invited (magnanimously) to sit in the chair opposite him. It was a power move made by a dick-less bureaucrat.
She went into the office, where Marty began. “Frieda, I wanted to have a word with you. Has Al talked to you about the Dirk matter yet?”
“Not yet.” She said, standing across from him at his desk.
“Do you plan on talking to him soon?” His smile was murine, mustiline, and slimy in nature.
“We’re getting together tonight. I don’t know what we’ll talk about.” She wanted to punch him.
“Where are my manners? Please sit.”
She sat and eyed the intercom. There wasn’t really a sideways to the object. It was almost a perfect cube. She still wanted to shove it up his ass.
He put a pen in front of her on the desk. “Do you know what this?”
“I’m going out on a limb here. It’s a pen.”
“Being a wise ass is really one of your least endearing traits. Yes, it is a pen, but if you turn it on, it will record 576 hours of conversation. When you are with Al, I’d like you to carry this and turn it on. If anything germane is talked about regarding the Dirk situation, I’d like to listen to it. I wouldn’t want to listen to anything private or sordid, just the pertinent details.”
“So you want me to spy on the guy who came two thousand miles to save your ass. That’s classy--even for you, Marty.”
“I just want to make sure this thing doesn’t give us a shit-load of bad press.”
She stood and regarded the pen for a moment. The pen definitely had a directionality that would denote sideways. She picked it up and said, “I’ll turn it on while I’m with him, but if he doesn’t talk to me about the Dirk situation, I can’t make him.”
“He’ll talk about it. Now run along and do your chores. I wouldn’t want you to be late for your date.”
She thought about telling him it wasn’t a date, but replied, “I will, Daddy. Don’t wait up.” Then she sashayed out of his office. She decided then and there she would neglect to turn on the pen. Fuck Marty. He needed her more than she needed him.
11
Timothy O’Toole’s Pub was the apotheosis of all Chicago n
eighborhood bars. Sinatra crooned from the juke in the corner, and a few large men played shuffleboard, swearing mightily at all shots, whether good or bad. The place was dark and had year-round Christmas lights surrounding the crown molding that framed the ancient tin ceiling. The bar was a mahogany masterpiece, and although smoking was banned in most public establishments, you could still run a joint like this with a smoking exception. All you had to do was hang a couple of signs, and the place would be filled with a stinky blue fog.
When Al walked in, he stood just inside the door, soaking up the atmosphere as if he were some kind of desiccated sponge. He was a confirmed non-drinker, but he thought a martini or twelve would go down real nice in a joint like this. He went to the bar. The barman approached, his gut arriving a full second before his face. His cheeks and nose looked as if they had been tattooed with a map of the elevated train system, the “El” as it was called, for any lost travelers. He was a happy fat man with a bustling bar who would find the time, no matter how busy, to give you exacting directions to anywhere in the city.
“Do fer ya?” the man asked.
“Tonic with a twist. Charge me for a vodka tonic if you want, but I took the pledge a few years back.”
“A man who’s taken the pledge and waltzes into this pub gets the first one free. Just be careful. These walls have seen so much of the Black poured down, it’s hard to be a Frigid Sally. Mind yerself.” The barman gave a wink and toddled off to get Al’s tonic. The old boy was Irish through and through. It was the final touch to the little pub. He got his drink, said he was meeting Bud here, and started a tab.
“I’ll be sitting in the corner when he comes in.”
“Am I to assume you’ll be paying for his Thorney Wire tonight?”
“Yup. New to town. Have a question or two. Heard he was a good man to talk to.”
“Careful, young fella, or he’ll talk you deaf as a post.”
Al took his drink and went for a high table in the corner. He had just taken the second sip of his drink when a rumpled-looking man entered the room. There were a few calls of “Bud!” and “Hey, Buddy!” Al inadvertently started singing the theme song to that old TV show Cheers in his head.
Bud went to the bar, exchanged a few words with the barman, who pointed to Al, and Al gave a friendly wave. Bud said something else and was presented with two fingers of amber liquid poured free-hand into a stout tumbler. Bud came to Al’s table.
“You’re pretty big for an actor. Built. Most actors are in pretty good shape, but you look like a dock worker.”
“Yeah. I’m retired. I lift for fun. I’m here filling in for Dirk in Macbeth.”
“Fuckin’ weird.” Bud took a sip of his whiskey and he stared blankly at the shuffle board game.
“Weird that I’m big? Weird that I’m replacing Dirk? Or weird that Dirk died.”
Bud turned his head slowly to Al and said, “Not weird that Dirk died, but how he died. I didn’t think those stage swords were able to do that. I thought they’d, like, bend or some shit. But those fuckers are stout. Looks like they could be sharpened to hold an edge.”
Al bit back the urge to present a mini-dissertation on metallurgy and which metals could actually hold an edge. He stuck with, “Yeah. If one was sharp, it would be dangerous as hell.”
“No shit. I don’t know anything about theatre.” A waitress came by with a serving tray. She deposited a bowl of peanuts, a fresh drink for Bud, and retrieved his now-empty one. “Do a lot of people get hurt in the theatre?” He was eyeing Al with a little more than casual curiosity.
“I suppose. The theatre is an inherently dangerous space. Heavy scenery is flying around or rolling across the stage. People are carrying weapons. You can rig the floor to open up. But walking down the street is dangerous, too. Busses, cars, ice to slip on, and people running around with weapons.”
Bud looked at him for a second then roared laughter. “Good one, Al! Of course, you’re right. I guess all of that is so commonplace you don’t think about it.”
“And the shit in the theatre is so common place we don’t think about it much, either. That’s when people get hurt. You fall asleep at the switch. You forget to do the theatre equivalent of looking both ways before you cross the street, and you fall off a twelve-foot platform in the dark. We spend so much time concentrating on safety that I think theatres are inherently safer places than most city streets.”
“Except when someone impales themselves on a big sword. That was so fucking weird. I mean it’s so weird, I don’t really have a frame of reference to judge how bizarre or not bizarre it is. Do people get killed like that in the theatre? I mean impaled on swords?”
Al thought a moment and took a sip of his drink. He was about to open his mouth and change the landscape of this guy’s thinking forever. “No. As far as I know this has never happened, at least not in this way.”
Bud drained drink number two. He looked shocked and tired now. “I knew this was too easy to be true.”
“I’ve been thinking, and I am pretty sure we can tell if it was a homicide or a suicide. I have a couple of very specific questions. You might have to get back to me. OK?”
“I’m about to wiggle my finger and get my third and final drink for the night. I do three a night. No more and no less. It’s kept me married a long time. Why fuck with a good thing? You have until I finish number three.” He wiggled a finger at the Barman who nodded almost imperceptibly and put the finishing touches on three martinis, a Guinness, and what looked like a Manhattan.
“I need to know if Dirk was wearing gloves when you found him. They would have been heavier leather gloves. Well used gloves.”
“Oh, yes, he was. They looked like they’d been molded to his hands.”
“OK. Were there any fingerprints on the blade?”
“Yeah. Dirk’s, but only on the handle.”
“Now think before you answer this one: Were the prints made by someone holding the blade by the grip with the handle pointing up? Imagine, close your eyes if it helps, holding a sword in front of you. Your right hand is near the blade, just under the cross piece, we call it the quillons, and your hand is positioned like you’re holding a piece of pipe. The index finger’s print would be on top, followed by the middle, then the ring, then the pinkie. Can you imagine it?”
Bud’s drink had come to the table, but Bud had his eyes closed and his brow furrowed. “I see it. Now what?”
“The left hand would be under the right and same orientation. Kind of like holding a golf club up in front of you with the head in the air before lowering it to the grass.”
Bud opened his eyes. “Got it. But no. That’s wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“The hand positions were reversed. The right hand was down by the little round weight thing…”
“The pommel.”
“Yeah, whatever. That thing. Index closest, then the middle, and so on. Then the left hand was on it the same way. At least, that was the position of the finger prints.”
“Were the prints smudged?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I remarked to one of the other guys that they were really clean. It was a slam-dunk. No other prints.”
“But he had gloves on.”
“He got the prints on the sword when he was getting ready…oh shit. The gloves would have screwed the prints up, but they were pristine.”
“Yeah, Bud. Ain’t that a kick in the head? There are other things wrong, but that’s my chief bitch. Look, I wrote a couple of numbers down for people who can vouch that I am who I say I am.” He handed a sheet of folded note paper to Bud. “The first is a guy in Portland, Oregon. His name is Detective Press Liaison Sellers; he goes by Selly. He’ll tell you what you need to know. If you still have doubts, call the other number. That’s the number of a very senior and very busy US Marshal. I’d rather he not be bothered. You can call if you want, but he can be a little mean. If I check out, can you make me a copy of everything you have on the Dirk death? Also, can
you keep it as an accidental death for now?”
“Well, I thought it was an accidental death till now, so what’s the harm? If you do find something, though, I want in. Deal?” He stuck his hand out to shake with Al.
“Deal,” said Al, performing the ancient yet comforting ritual. “Look, I gotta meet a lady in a little bit. Can you also make a copy of another file? The name is Mary St. Claire. This one is a little older, month or two, and has already been shut and ruled a suicide or accidental death.”
Bud took a small pad of paper out of his back pocket. It was perfectly molded to his ass and held a small golf pencil in the spiral binding on top. “Are they related?”
“Might be. Might be bullshit. Something just doesn’t seem really right here, and I want to find out what it is.” Al drained his tonic, grimacing at the slightly medicinal taste of the pure tonic water.
“Give me a couple of days. The St. Claire, if it’s closed, will be a snap. I’ll have to be stealthy to get the whole file on Dirk. As it is, I think I’ll raise some suspicions. We don’t often make copies of entire files just for fun.”
Al stood. “No problem. Here’s my card. I can’t be reached from 8:00am to 12:00pm, then from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. I’ll have my phone off at those times. Any other time is fine. I’d rather not have anyone find out I am looking into this. I just can’t stop…detecting.”
Bud stood and took his hand. “Got it. I’ll call with the St. Claire file first, and you can check it out. We can meet here for the drop off, chat, and you can buy me more of the good stuff.” He said the last bit with a smile.
“My business at home is running deep in the black and my expense account is mighty. It’ll be my pleasure. If you talk to Selly, give him my best, and send my love to Bear, OK?”
“Will do.” And with that, Bud was off into the quickening wind of the Chicago night.
Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition Page 7