Loren D. Estleman_Amos Walker 02

by Angel Eyes

  “Janet Whiting. Maybe you heard of her.”

  Something stirred at the back of my head. “Keep talking.”

  “She was in show business, kind of. Until she got hooked up with a guy named Arthur DeLancey. Could be you heard of him too.”

  I didn’t answer. Arthur DeLancey was a very famous federal judge when he took off in a twin-engine plane for a fishing trip to Canada some years ago and never came back. Part of the wreckage was fished out of Lake Superior a few days after the craft was reported missing, but no bodies were ever recovered. I’d heard a couple of other things as well: That he’d been Phil Montana’s chief legal adviser until the two had a falling out during the Grand Jury thing. And that Janet Whiting had been DeLancey’s constant companion, the most famous great man’s mistress since Marion Davies.

  “Let me guess,” I ventured. “The ring belongs to Janet Whiting.”

  “DeLancey and I were still friends then,” Montana said with a nod. “He had his eye on a Supreme Court appointment, and the publicity about his relationship with Janet was killing him. He proposed, and I had Chester Wright whip up the ring as an engagement present. The papers were notified that he was seeking a divorce from his wife. We broke up soon after that over some bad advice he gave me, and then he was killed in that plane crash.”

  “I remember you took some heat about that.”

  He made a disgusted noise. “The only thing they haven’t tried to hang around my neck in the last fifteen years is the ’67 riots, and I’m sure someone considered even that. It was about that time— the time of the crash, not the riots—that my wife died. You might say Janet and I were kind of thrown together by circumstances.”

  “Kind of,” I reflected.

  “It wasn’t much of an affair, didn’t even last long enough to make the papers. But we parted friends. We kept in touch until I got sucked in on that trumped-up assault charge and I warned her to steer clear or take the risk of being hauled in as a material witness. The press was just beginning to leave her alone after two years. I never heard from her after that, but I fielded a few rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  It was his turn to sit back. “You can’t buy much for a dime these days, Walker.”

  “I got a call from a dancer at The Crescent,” I obliged. “That’s a disco joint in a hole on Cass, run by an Arab named Krim. The dancer said her name was Ann Maringer. When I got there she told me she expected to disappear soon and hired me to find her. This made me a tad curious, but before she could say more she got her cue and asked me to meet her at her place after closing. She gave me the ring to keep me interested. By the time I got there she had blown, leaving behind a very untidy stiff. But you know most of this already, since you had Bingo Jefferson keeping an eye on her. As for my involvement, you would have gotten that from the cops.”

  “My connections downtown are spotty since I got out,” he replied. “I didn’t know you were involved until you told me. I assume you’re the suspect they had in custody after Jefferson was killed.”

  “And I assume that you think Ann Maringer and Janet Whiting cast one shadow between them.” I described her, right down to the borrowed blue eyes. He nodded gravely.

  “Janet was in trouble. She dropped out of sight last year, about the time DeLancey’s heirs started legal proceedings to have him declared legally dead in order to benefit from his will. I had men out looking for her, but nothing turned up until she was seen dancing at The Crescent. I figured she was in Dutch and sent Bingo to look after her until I could get out from under all this strike crap. That was last night. When you showed up with the ring I thought you were in on the snatch and were holding me up.”

  “Any idea who killed Jefferson or why the woman vanished?”

  “If I had I wouldn’t have agreed to see you, ring or no ring.”

  “Jefferson tried to mug me for the sparkler,” I said. “Why?”

  He looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t tell him to do anything like that. It must have been his idea. Did he have his baseball bat?”

  “For a while.” I drained my glass, placed it on the edge of the desk, got up, and reached down to pick up my hat. I missed the first time. I’d forgotten about not having had lunch. “You’ve given me a lot of information, and maybe I owe you this.” I adjusted the brim. “The money you paid Franklin Detwiler to skip town after he let Jefferson take his place didn’t take. He and his girlfriend were picked up by the cops at Metro this afternoon on their way to California. You’d better get ready for visitors.”

  He cursed. “They were here once today already. I said I didn’t know what Jefferson was doing over there at that time of night. Now I suppose I’ll have to throw them the truth.”

  “That works sometimes. What sort of heirs?”

  He had been brooding. “What? I’m sorry.”

  “You mentioned that Judge DeLancey’s heirs were maneuvering to have him declared legally dead. What sort of heirs?”

  “His wife Leola. A fourteen-carat bitch. One stepson, Jack. Hers from another marriage; I don’t remember his last name. He’s your age, or maybe a little older. They were living together last I heard. I’ll have Bill get you the number. What will you do now?”

  “If I can, find Ann Maringer, or Janet Whiting, or whoever. I’ve only used up one day of my three-day retainer. Which reminds me.” I picked up the box containing the ring, replaced the lid and the rubber band, and dropped it back into my coat pocket. I hesitated. “It’s none of my business. Was the assault charge really trumped-up?”

  The lines around his mouth tightened. “Thirty years ago, even twenty, it would never have come to trial. Back then a bust in the nose was something between men. That was before everyone got so concerned with stamping out violence. Television programming is too brutal. War isn’t worth fighting. We’re breeding a nation of innocents who have forgotten how to make fists. Meanwhile, that tiny percentage that feels no compunction about using violence watches. And waits.”

  “I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

  “I had eight long months to do it in,” he said.

  “Some of your supporters seem to hold the same opinion. That was some tussle out in the parking lot this morning.”

  He sneered. “Dissidents, they call them. I call them a royal pain in the ass. I’m busy trying to settle our differences with the steel mills reasonably and they’re out busting heads. You know what they’re so worked up about? Voluntary overtime. Cost of living increases. Money, for chrissake! Forty years ago we fought for survival. This bunch would kill for another coffee break.”

  “You went to prison over a money dispute,” I reminded him.

  “That punk I decked was stealing from the union. No one does that while I’m in charge. Not one Goddamn pencil. What’s your fee?”

  I picked up his drift finally and told him. He considered.

  “I’ll pay double to have Janet back in one piece. And to have the man who murdered my friend and bodyguard.”

  “No thanks, Mr. Montana.” I buttoned my coat. “In this business, a man has to have certain rules. The first is one case, one client. Thanks for the drink.” I paused at the door and went back. He looked up at me, gray eyes unblinking. “Do you know anything about a blond guy in a checked coat who’s been shadowing me?”

  “No. Is there any reason I should?”

  “None I can think of. Except that he wasn’t following me until after I spoke with your secretary over the telephone.”

  “I’ll have the phones checked out,” he said.

  “There’s that.”

  Bill Clendenan was sitting at his desk when I came out. His intercom buzzed and Montana told him to give me the surviving DeLanceys’ number. He found it in his Rolodex, wrote it out on a three-by-five card, and handed it to me without looking at me or speaking. I thanked him graciously. He said you’re welcome and kindly go to hell. The speaker was playing “Give My Regards to Broadway.”

  The thunderhea
d was still an ominous mass over the river when I hit the lobby. Despite the filters the air was hot and heavy, like a hand reaching from the darkness to grasp and smother. My ears wanted to pop.

  As I rode down in the elevator, I decided that I couldn’t blame them.

  8

  AT GROUND LEVEL I used a public telephone to call the number Montana’s secretary had given me. When no one answered after eleven rings I hung up. Outside, the pressure had stopped building, to hang on the edge of something like a drop on a faucet, quivering but lacking the impetus to plunge. In the country, birds would be flying crazy and ants would be busy erecting dikes around their holes. Farmers would be corraling the livestock. Their wives would be hurrying to get the wash off the line, if any were left who didn’t own electric dryers. In the city we sit still and let the people who get paid for it do what has to be done. Like me. I climbed into my car and swung my nose west. There was no sign of my shadow, which meant exactly nothing.

  The downtown branch of the Detroit Public Library in Centre Park occupies the site of the only execution under American Law to take place in Michigan. The spectacle of wife-murderer Stephen G. Simmons swinging from the end of a rope in the presence of a festive crowd and a lively band on September 24, 1830, led to the abolition of capital punishment sixteen years later. For some reason the executed party was on my mind as I entered the stone building and crossed from old habit to the microfilm room, where they keep the photographed copies of the News and Free Press going back to their founding.

  The News carried an impressive spread on Judge Arthur DeLancey the day he was given up for dead. The front page featured pictures of the wreckage of his airplane and of the Judge himself in happier days, looking dignified and concerned in crisp white hair and handsomely creased face inclining to the oriental and a three-piece suit, no carnation. The names of the pilot and aide who were lost with him were mentioned. I didn’t recognize them. Inside, two pages were devoted to his controversial career. A photograph showed him whispering into Phil Montana’s ear during the Grand Jury investigation. The labor leader had dark hair back then, but DeLancey’s was already white. It happens earlier to some of us, as I well knew. Another caught him at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, his coat over one arm and his wife Leola on the other. He looked weary. She, taller and thin as befitted a former fashion model, with graying hair skinned back and clasped behind her neck, was facing the camera with a tight-lipped smile, as warm as a mortician’s handshake. The caption said that they had just arrived from a trip out West, where he had spent much of his time fishing and exploring. His reputation as an outdoorsman had been part of his legend.

  In a third picture, he was sitting in a restaurant booth with Janet Whiting, the woman responsible for much of the controversy that had surrounded him. I recognized the three-quarter view of the woman I knew as Ann Maringer, looking elegant in a fur stole thrown back on her bare shoulders and a shift that looked as if it had been pieced together from two sheets of muslin and probably ran into three figures. In black and white her eyes lost some of their innocence, but she still resembled a Barbie doll. They were holding hands, which may have explained why he appeared uncomfortable. The picture would have been taken after their affair became common knowledge.

  The text dwelt on his rise from part-time truck driver and charter member of United Steelhaulers while attending law school to his appointment to the federal bench, glossing over his brief and rather tepid career as a union mouthpiece. I grew bored with it quickly and switched to the microfilmed Free Press account.

  This time there was no feature stuff. An exclusive photo taken the day of the illfated flight posed DeLancey, in old clothes, Windbreaker, and peaked cap, in front of the twin-engine Cessna with his aide and the pilot. The former, a pudgy, balding youth named Pelke, appeared to have reached an uneasy truce with his outdoorsman’s outfit. The pilot was wiry and capable-looking in a quilted jacket and canvas trousers and appeared familiar. I squinted at his narrow, dark face, at his hooked nose and large black eyes and glossy black hair, read his name, Lee Collins, squinted at his face again, and sat back and wished for a smoke.

  If Lee Collins and Krim, the Arab who ran The Crescent, weren’t the same man, they were brothers. Either way it was worth looking into.

  9

  THE NIGHT WAS still holding its breath as I approached the unmarked entrance to The Crescent. Shadows, emboldened by the evening’s youth, clung to the inside of the niche as if tensed to spring. The joint wasn’t scheduled to open until eight, but a thin blade of light showed beneath the door. I descended the concrete steps and tried the handle. It gave.

  Fluorescent tubes I hadn’t noticed on my last visit caught the place naked. Beams that looked like heavy old oak by phony candlelight were painted plywood. Walls that seemed thirty feet apart during business hours were closer than twenty, painted blue at the bottom to match the floor and to add depth. There were ratholes in the corners. Under a baby spot, bombarded by the shifting glare of an electric light show, it all came together, but at this stage the establishment looked like a hooker the morning after.

  The storeroom was in back, behind the bar. I threaded my way between tables the size of smoking stands with chairs overturned on top of them to the door marked authorized personnel and pushed it open. My hand was inside my coat, gripping the unregistered Luger the cops had failed to find in the secret pocket of the trunk when they impounded my car. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of walking into that storeroom unarmed a second time. It was empty except for the stacks of wooden crates, cobwebs, and the smells of liquor and rotting wood. All the broken glass had been swept away.

  I closed the door and turned and froze. From behind the bar I could see a shelf containing a corroded metal cigar box, the kind saloonkeepers use to store the nightly receipts before locking them away in a safe. The lid was open and it was empty.

  Which added up to zero. Whoever was responsible for banking the cash could have removed it for that purpose and forgotten to close the lid. That’s what I told myself as I crept the length of the bar, looking for something to go with the discovery.

  I nearly tripped over him. A gate designed to prevent undesirables from sneaking up on the bartender from the other end cast a shadow that concealed everything but his shoe. I stood there for a long moment, breathing air that had suddenly gone foul, though of course there wouldn’t be any noticeable stench. Not yet. Then I reached over and swung open the gate. Light poured into the section.

  There was blood, a lot of it. It formed a dark brown oval on the scuffed linoleum all around the body, where it had dried hours before. His head was twisted so that its smashed profile, and particularly the bold nose, stood out sharply against the stain. It was spoiled by a clotted dent in the temple, from which black blood and gray matter ran in spidery lines over his cheeks and down his neck into his collar, all but filling the socket from which his one visible eye stared at everything and yet nothing. He didn’t look much like Valentino anymore, and it was a shame about his expensive suit. Gingerly I nudged his outthrust leg with my toe. Steel girders should be that stiff.

  I glanced around, searching for the weapon, but nothing looked suitable. If one of the bottles on the shelves behind the bar had been used, the floor would be littered with broken glass. The wound wasn’t shaped right to have been made by the edge of the cigar box, and anyway the box was neither stained nor damaged. The hell with it. Finding the instrument of destruction is rarely as important as it’s made to be in fiction.

  If thoughts were actions I was out of there already and not going through his pockets, I wouldn’t know that he carried the usual stuff: loose change, a ring containing what looked like a key to a Mercedes among others, a ticket to Saturday’s performance at the Fischer, a flat wallet stuffed with fifties and a driver’s license made out to Rahman Hassim Ibn Krim. I would be back home typing up résumés to send to personnel managers in shoe stores. If thoughts were actions, there was no way I would still be in that room s
tanding over a murdered corpse when someone came to the front door.

  I heard the handle rattling and vaulted back into the storeroom, where I pushed the door almost shut, leaving a crack just wide enough to observe the newcomer. It was the thickset black I had seen pushing a broom on my last visit. Wearing a greasy jacket over his green work suit, his glowering features all but obscured beneath the bill of a soiled cloth cap, he entered in mid-grumble, muttering about the weather and the condition of the streets and the mayor and life in general with the singsong litany of a man who begins bellyaching in the morning and doesn’t stop until he’s turned out the light to go back to sleep or had his first drink. He was still at it as he drew near the storeroom. I noticed too late that I was sharing quarters with his broom. Releasing the knob gently, I flattened against the wall and pulled out the Luger.

  His footsteps stopped suddenly. I waited for them to resume. They didn’t. I remembered then that I’d left the gate open at the other end of the bar and that the body was in plain sight of anyone who happened to glance in that direction. He didn’t scream or gasp. They don’t, in that neighborhood. He stood still for a space, the way I had, and then his crepe soles kissed the floor swiftly going away, toward where his boss lay. I put away the gun and then, easing open the door to keep the hinges from complaining, crept up behind him on the balls of my feet. He was standing with his back to me and his head bowed, ogling the corpse and breathing like an asthmatic. At the last instant he sensed something and began to turn.

  I clamped my left arm across his throat and slammed him hard against me while gripping his right wrist with my right hand, wrenching it back and up. He made a single, guttural noise of raw animal fear, a chilling sound. I choked it off.

  “I can crush your windpipe or I can splinter your arm like a bamboo pole,” I whispered in his ear. I managed to keep from slipping into the North Vietnamese dialect, but just barely. “Do you believe I can do that? Nod if the answer’s yes.”

  He nodded. His neck was sweating and I could smell the corruption of panic. Something solid in his hip pocket was pressing against my pelvis. I asked him if that was what I thought it was. He nodded again.