“I think Janet left some club soda. That OK?”
“That’s swell.” Gill got it out of the refrigerator and poured some over ice for Al. “I meant what I said about fight call. I don’t want you feeling shitty. We gotta get our dance steps right.”
“I’ll be OK, Al. I just drank too much too fast, then the news about Dave made my tummy flip flop. That’s all.” He brought Al his club soda, went into the living room, and collapsed into a chair. He indicated to the room in general and said, “Sit where you like, Big Al. Long way from the old apartments. Sharing a two-bedroom apartment with six guys and the only furniture was chairs that had been stolen from people’s patios.”
“Oh, shit! I’d forgotten about the chairs.” He sipped his club soda and let the silence play out for a little while. Then he said, “Bullshit.”
“What’s bullshit, my eloquent friend?”
“The news about Dave fucked you up. You weren’t anticipating bad news, but when you heard his name, you knew something bad had happened. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Al, come on, man. My woman moved out, I’ve been drinking too much, this show, you know…”
“Gill!” Al didn’t yell his name as much as he aimed it. Gill stopped talking with his mouth hanging open. “I know you, man, and this is utter bullshit. You know something, or think you know something, and you’re scared. Tell me what this is about, and I’ll do what I can. I make a living helping people that are jammed up. You seemed pretty jammed up, pal.”
Gill’s shoulders sagged and his head hung in front of him. “Man. It’s just Dirk and now Dave and…”
“And what?” Gill didn’t look up. “Did you know Mary?”
Gill looked like he’d been slapped. “No.”
“I didn’t even say her last name. I’m sure you know at least one Mary.”
“I don’t, Al. Not one person named Mary. Happy?” Gill was glaring at him now. The alcohol was starting to talk, and Al didn’t want to end the night by slapping the shit out of an old friend.
He finished his club soda and set it on the coffee table. “I’m looking into all of this Gill. I’m really good at what I do, so if you have anything to add to this little conversation, do it in the next twenty-four hours, because if you know something that can help solve this little conundrum and you just sit there with your thumb up your ass while another person in the Chicago theatre community gets hurt or killed, I’ll make sure you suffer for it. Somehow, someway, I’ll fuck you up. If your silence causes someone else pain, you’re a coward. I never knew you to be a coward. I hope time hasn’t done that to you, Gill. It would be a shame. I’ll show myself out.”
As Al was leaving, he thought he heard Gill say something under his breath. It sounded suspiciously like “asshole,” but Al decided to let it slide. He knew Gill was hiding something. He could beat it out of Gill right now, but thought he should give it a day. He wanted to check out Dave Parcel’s watery grave and the file on Mary’s death. If they looked as funky as he thought--knew--they would, he’d check with Edith and compare notes. If enough stuff floated up to the surface, and Gill stayed quiet, he’d have a Chicago-style chat with Gill. It was how things got done here, after all. It was in the DNA of the city, and it was in Al’s genes as well.
22
Al was up earlier than usual the next morning. He went to what was becoming his Tai Chi morning spot after visiting what had definitely become his morning coffee spot. Their coffee was powerful and tasted good. Al wasn’t a coffee snob. The coffee in AA meetings was always burnt, and Al had put in lots of “One day at a times” together in the hallowed halls of AA. He only went once in a while now, mostly to catch up with some of the old guys. Sobriety wasn’t his problem. He had a living problem. Alcohol worked like a pause button for Al; when life got to be too much, he used to just hit the pause button. It worked great until he started to try to live his life with the pause button glued down. He was missing everything. It was this key concept that kept Al sober.
He got to the theatre early and checked his watch: 8:25am. He went to the elevator and pushed the up button. He wanted to ask Frieda about Dave Parcel, but was stopped before ascending to the theatre’s nerve center when he spotted the cleaning guy in the lobby. Al decided to go ask the guy a question or two. He didn’t remember Bud telling him about the cleaning guy, but Al had seen him around a few times and figured there wasn’t much to lose.
“Hey, pal!” Al called across to the guy. He had an eyepatch and a serious scar that traveled from his forehead, behind the eyepatch, and continued on his cheek. Al thought it looked like a nasty knife cut. The fellow looked up, and for just a moment, Al thought he saw something feral, calculating, and infinitely crafty behind that one eye. The look was gone as fast as it had come, and Al attributed it to his keyed-up imagination. His mind was working double-time these days.
“Are you talking to me, sir?”
“Yeah. I’m Al.” Al stuck out his big paw, and the guy shook it.
“Oh, yeah. Uh, hiya. I’m Leonard Tolbert. I like it when people call me Lenny. I-i-it’s more friendlier that way.”
Al smiled. Lenny seemed like he was somewhat of a simple guy working an honest job. Al liked that. He thought he could grow to like Lenny. Al had worked with a bunch of “special needs” people throughout his life. He didn’t know if Lenny was qualified as a special needs person, but he seemed to have an IQ that hovered around room temperature. “It is much more friendlier that way. I was wondering if you were around the night or the next day when Dirk…you know.”
“Oh, my yes. Oh, dearie me, yes. He was a sight to behold. Not a sight for sore eyes but a sight that makes your eyes sore. Who’da thought that old Dirk woulda had so much blood in him? Oh my. Lots of it. When the policey men were done here, Lenny cleaned it as good as he could. Oh, he did. But there was, oh, so much blood. I have to follow rules if I clean up blood. I have to use smelly old bleach. That’s so I don’t get the really bad kinda sick that comes in the blood sometimes.”
“So you cleaned up?”
“Yes, sir. Shrek had the girls paint over the top when I was done. The policey men left a lot of dirt on the rugs, too. Miss Callow told me to wait till Monday and give the rugs a shampoo. I’ll do it, too. Cuz that’s my job, and I do what Frieda wants. Oh, my, yes. You should do what she says, cuz she’s close enough to the top to spit in the old man’s eye. Yes, sir. I like my job. Lenny is happy here. Don’t want no trouble.”
“Did you see anyone around that shouldn’t have been here before it happened?”
“Nope. Nobody new till you walked in after Dirk died. You think he’s in heaven, Al?”
This took Al by surprise. “I certainly hope he went there if that’s where he wanted to go.”
“Well, I hope to shout he’d wanna go up and sit next to Jesus. I sure am gonna go sit with Jesus and God. I’m scared of the ghost that’s supposed to be there, but Jesus will keep me safe.”
Al figured Lenny meant the Holy Ghost. “He sure will, Lenny. Can I ask you one more question, Lenny?”
“You can sure! Ask away.” Lenny said this with the enthusiasm of a third-grader.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want. I’m just curious.”
“OK.”
“How’d you get that cut on your face, Lenny?” Al asked it kindly, but his gut told him to ask.
Lenny lifted his hand up absently to the eye patch. “I was a kid. I got in a accident in a car. No seat belts. I cut my eye and Mommy said that’s when God decided to make me one of the simpler folks. Simpler folks get less worries than complicated folks. That’s what Mommy used to say. Are you a complicated guy, Al?”
Again, that shadow of a crafty look passed like a cloud’s shadow over Lenny’s face. Lenny was a big guy. Al couldn’t tell how built he was, but his face was essentially lean, and his one-piece coverall looked packed pretty full of beef. “I suppose I am a little complicated, Lenny. Just a touch. Hey, I gotta go see Miss Callow. It’s 8:30
, and I have to start work at 9:00.”
“Oh, my. I was heading to my next job when you flagged me down. I got distracted by our talk, and I don’t want to be late. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Al. I hope we can jaw a little some other time, OK?” He picked up his bucket of cleaning tools.
“That sounds great, Lenny.” Al clapped Lenny on the shoulder. When he did, Lenny tightened up like he was ready to fight, and Al felt just how solid the guy was. It felt like he had patted a brick wall. The moment was over quickly; Lenny’s face was back to being slack and easy, so Al started off to the elevators.
As he rode up in the elevator to Frieda’s office, something Lenny had said popped out at him. Who’da have thought that old Dirk woulda had so much blood in him? That was pretty damn close to one of Lady Macbeth’s lines. Her line was Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. Was that some sort of odd coincidence? Al thought about it, then figured he was just jumping at shadows.
The elevator stopped at the top floor, and Al walked into the main office. Frieda was sitting at her desk, sorting through her inbox. “It’s funny. If you leave shit in your inbox long enough, it turns to trash. People always e-mail and call in addition to sending memos. I guess we all just hate trees. How was date night?”
“Peachy. The meal was good, Sunny was fun, and Gill is…Gill. Has he been acting weird lately?”
She considered this briefly. “Now that you mention it, he is acting a little weirder than usual. He does a few shows a year here. He seems wound up kinda tight this show. Was he acting strange last night?”
Al shrugged and ignored the question. Instead, he asked, “You know a guy named Dave Parcel?”
“Yeah. He’s a lighting jobber. Sometimes, we call him in to do a lighting design if it’s going to be quick. Saves us money and gets him work. He’s one of the old Chicago guys.”
“Old Chicago guy or old Wildhorse guy?”
“Both. I don’t know if he was around at the beginning of all of this, but he’s been around for years and years. Since way before my time. Why?”
“I don’t know yet.” Al answered. He was still distracted by Lenny. “What can you tell me about that Lenny guy?”
“He’s just a simple guy who works for the cleaning service we use. He does a good job. Always asks what he can do and checks to see if he’s done a good job…” She trailed off.
“What?” Al asked. He was curious now.
“Well, shit. I feel like a real asshole saying this, but he makes me uncomfortable.”
“Why? Because he’s slow?”
“I don’t want to say yes to that, because it makes me into a reprehensible person. And it isn’t really that. Sometimes he seems like, I don’t know. It’s just stupid.”
“Spill it. I’ll tell you what I thought when you’re done.”
“You’ll show me yours if I show you mine?”
“Something like that,” said Al, returning her lobbed innuendo with an effortless backhand.
“Sometimes I feel like he’s ghosting me.”
“Ghosting?”
“Slang of my youth. It’s when someone underplays themselves either physically or mentally to gain an advantage over you. Usually in a game or some other competition.”
“Ghosting. Hmm. I think I’m going to steal that one. I usually say playing possum, but yours is much more descriptive.”
She smiled, “Brilliance creates.”
“Genius steals.”
“Anything else? I’m swamped today. I am free for dinner, though.”
“I may not be. Tell you what. You usually eat dinner at around 8:00, right?”
“About then. Sometimes 8:30.”
“OK. Order Chinese, enough for two…well enough for you and me. That’s probably more than two. I’m starving. Save the receipt. I’ll come to your room after I’m done fucking around. If I’m gonna be late, I’ll call and can just swing by and pick up what’s left.”
“You plan on telling me what’s up?”
“Sure, but tonight. After I know something. I gotta talk to Bud, that detective. I also have to talk to Edith and give her some specific stuff to look up for me.”
“Wow! I feel like I’m in an Agatha Christie mystery.”
Al was walking toward the door. “I’m far more attractive than Miss Marple.”
“Have a good rehearsal. Don’t forget to be perfect. We called you out here to be an actor first, sleuth second.”
“I’m multi-tasking.” He walked to the elevator and started to warm his voice up. He still had fifteen minutes before rehearsal. He could finish his vocal warm-up and be ready to go at 9:00. Fight call was after lunch break. He thought by then Gill might not smell like a brewery.
He was almost done with his articulation exercises, tongue twisters mostly, when Sunny came in. She looked like she meant business. Her face was stern and she was walking briskly. They made eye contact, she glanced around briefly to make sure no one was looking, and dropped him a salacious wink. She admitted to him at lunch break she sometimes acted a little brusque to keep everyone on their toes. It was a stage manager trick she’d picked up in grad school.
Rehearsal went well. Fight call was a little rough. They were reviewing all of the individual fight choreography for the show. He’d do the beginning and final group-fight scenes, battles scenes, in another rehearsal, but there were several one-on-one confrontations that Al wanted smooth as a baby’s ass ASAP. Speed was never the goal. Smooth work got fast all by itself. The note he gave the most as a fight director was for people to slow down. You could actually do a fight so fast that it ceased to tell a specific story and just disintegrated into a generalized miasma of sword noise and grunting.
Gill was there and, aside from looking a little green, he did well. He was giving Al the cold shoulder, but Al didn’t give a shit. This was business. All he needed from Gill was for him to do his fucking job and try to be part of the solution. If he couldn’t manage that, the least he could do is not be part of the fucking problem. His work fell within those parameters.
They broke for the day at 4:45pm. Everyone was spent, and no more positive ground would be covered for the day. Al suggested to Sunny they hit the bricks early and Sunny agreed. Al helped her neutralize the space before they left for the night.
“You’re good at this.” Sunny said with a smile. Her gruff exterior had melted away when the last of the cast had evaporated for the night.
“Thanks. I spent a large portion of my life doing this.”
“No. Seriously. You just kicked ass on that fight call. We covered more ground in that one rehearsal than we would have covered in four with Dirk the Dingus.”
“Are you speaking ill of the dead?” Al asked with a wicked little grin. It was one of the first real sentiments he had heard anyone volunteer about Dirk.
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
“So Dirk was a dick?”
“Of the first water.”
“Enough so that someone might want to kill him?”
Sunny looked at him with her head cocked at a 45-degree angle for a full thirty seconds then said simply, “Yes. Yes, I believe that, Al, is a fact.”
“Things just get more and more interesting around here. You wanna get a bite on Sunday night?”
“You mean you want to try my cooking?” She was close and he could smell her skin and sweat. She smelled spicy with a hint of coconut. It was intoxicating.
“Yes.”
“I may be stuck here, but I’ll know more tomorrow. We only have a half-day tomorrow. Saturday. What are you doing tomorrow after rehearsal?”
“I have some research to do. Then I’m going to finish learning my lines.”
“You are completely demoralizing the rest of the cast. You’re almost off-book already. I know Lady M is scared shitless. It’s entertaining to no end.”
“I’m glad I can be, at least, entertaining. Now, I have to go see a man about a bathtub.”
“A bathtub?
”
“Rumor has it I could submerge myself in this tub, and nothing would be sticking out of the tub but my head.”
“I suppose that would depend on who was in the bathroom with you.” She kissed his cheek then ran off giggling like a school girl.
Al shook his head and started walking toward the outer doors. He was going to call Bud and get this party started. He was really having a great time at the theatre, but this case, it had turned into a full-fledged case, was starting to bother him. He thought something else bad would probably happen before everything was wrapped up. But in Al’s world, if blood wasn’t spilled, he was working on a rare and often boring project.
23
After his conversation with Al in the lobby, Eric, aka Lenny, was equally shaken and motivated. The computer research he’d contracted out should be done by now, and he wanted to know exactly who he was dealing with. He got in his van with the large magnetic sign on the side that read “STEVE’S MAINTENANCE.” The words looked like they were standing on a small expanse of soap bubbles.
As part of his plan, Eric had made up several fictitious businesses. Steve’s Maintenance was one of two companies that did work cleaning theatres in Chicago. Steve’s Maintenance had only one employee, Lenny, and the other company, Express Cleaning, only had one employee by the name of Clint. Clint was shorter and heavier than Lenny--Lenny had lifts in his shoes--had a darker complexion, and was balding with a fringe around his head. The Express Cleaning magnetic logo had bubbly letters with a feather duster woven in and out of the loops of the “g” at the end of the name. Coincidentally, both companies had off-white panel vans. Both vans were late model Econoline vans. No distinguishing characteristics. Eric had gotten out of the joint about a week after his cell mate, Josh, had been released. He gave Josh $400 to register the white Econoline van in his name. This way Eric couldn’t be connected to the van. Josh just said if he got caught doing something funky in it, to promise to say he’d stolen it. If “either van” got scratched, the scratch was quickly painted over with touch up. It was all window dressing.
Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition Page 12