One item of information about him I got from another source. Apparently he was pretty well-off financially, because Sol Rubin told me he paid $25,000 in cash for the delicatessen. Why, with that kind of money, he chose to go into the delicatessen business in the heart of a ghetto area was never clear to me; but again, perhaps the $25,000 was all he had, and he felt that a small business that wouldn’t require strenuous work would provide security for his old age. Despite his reserve, it was apparent the man took a personal liking to me, and I grew to like him quite well too. This caused me some mental struggle, because I felt I ought to warn him that the delicatessen was a favorite target for heist artists and burglars; but Sol Rubin was a good friend too, and that might have spoiled his chance to make the sale. In the end, I solved the dilemma simply by following my lifelong policy of minding my own business.
Sol Rubin and his wife bought a farm near Fresno with the proceeds from the delicatessen. When they vacated the apartment over the store, Mr. Olem moved in there.
The deal cleared escrow in the second week of August. As soon as he became the legal proprietor, Mr. Olem closed the place for a couple of days in order to do a little reorganizing, and also because he had a van of furniture and personal possessions scheduled to arrive from back east. The delicatessen opened for business under its new management on Monday, August sixteenth.
Like Sol Rubin, Mr. Olem planned to stay open until nine p.m. I dropped by Monday evening shortly after I went on duty at eight.
The sign on the window had been changed from Sol’s Delicatessen to Olem’s Delicatessen, but otherwise I could see no noticeable change in the place. The same tempting array of cooked and smoked meats, cheeses, salads and relishes was on display, and the same spicy odor of dill and garlic filled the air.
Mr. Olem, wearing a spotless white apron, was waiting on a woman named Mary Conners whom I knew because she used to ride my bus to work. Both of them threw me friendly smiles. She said, “Hi, Tony,” and Mr. Olem said, “Good evening, Mr. Martinez.”
I returned both greetings and waited while he finished waiting on his customer. When she left, I asked, “How’d it go today?”
“Business has been quite good,” he said in a satisfied tone. “Surprisingly good, in fact. I think I’ve made a sound investment.”
Now that it could no longer hurt Sol Rubin, I saw no point in continuing to keep the new owner in ignorance of the hazard from criminals in this area. I said, “Just hope the hooligans around here let you keep your profits. Sol Rubin was both held up and burglarized several times, you know.”
Mr. Olem nodded. “Nine holdups and four burglaries, I believe. He could no longer get theft insurance. As a matter of fact, I can’t get it either.”
I was surprised that he knew about the previous owner’s misfortunes, and was even more surprised that he had bought the place anyway. I said, “Well, maybe the Merchant Patrol will discourage some of these punks.”
“It was a factor in my decision to buy out Mr. Rubin,” Mr. Olem said. “It should cut the local crime rate.”
I said, “It already seems to be doing that. At least none of the protected businesses has been stuck up or broken into this past week. I’ll check you again about closing time. Just before nine was when poor Sol usually got hit.”
“Well, thanks, Mr. Martinez. I appreciate your concern, but even if I get held up, the robber can’t get very much. I’m only keeping enough in the cash drawer to make change. Every hour I’ve been transferring the bulk of the receipts to the safe in back.”
I said dubiously, “Sol did that, too. But they always made him come up with the key to the safe.”
“Oh, but I got rid of his old-fashioned safe and bought a new one. Come, I’ll show it to you.”
He led me through a swinging door into the back of the building. The first room we entered was the kitchen. There was a storeroom off one side of it and a small office off the other. Mr. Olem led the way into the office and switched on an overhead light. In one corner was a small but substantial-looking safe.
“So what’s different from the old safe about it?” I asked after examining it.
“A couple of things. First, it’s bolted down from inside. Mr. Rubin was lucky his was never carried away. Second, it’s a combination safe.”
After thinking this over without seeing what advantage this had over a safe that required a key, I said, “So?”
“There’s no key to produce,” he explained. “If I simply refused to open it, what could a robber do?”
I stared at him wonderingly. I could think of a number of things, such as holding lighted matches to the soles of his feet.
Then I decided that such thoughts mast have occurred to him, too. With his broad background of experience all over the world, he must have encountered enough violence during his life to be aware of the unpleasant possibilities that might ensue if he refused some bandit’s order to open his safe.
Examining him more closely, I realized that beneath his formal but rather amiable reserve there was a hard core of stubbornness. Perhaps he couldn’t be forced to open it; I suspected that in his quiet way he could become as immovable as a stalled tank.
The trouble was that the courage to endure torture probably wasn’t enough to beat the average modern hoodlum. The widespread use of drugs made it at least an even bet that anyone who stuck up a store would be hyped to the eyebrows, and a gunnie riding high on smack was quite capable of pumping bullets into a stubborn victim out of spite, even though that would kill all chance of learning a safe’s combination.
I said, “Well, let’s just hope you never get stuck up.”
As we went back into the kitchen, I noticed that a long, wide net made of tough-looking cord completely covered a side wall. On wooden pegs protruding through various places in the net were hung a variety of odd items that looked as though they might more appropriately have been displayed in a museum.
Halting when he saw me looking that way, Mr. Olem emitted a self-deprecating little laugh. “The visual record of my ill-spent life,” he said. “That rope and branding iron are souvenirs of my cattle-punching youth, and also that broad-brimmed hat. That shoulder pack is called a tucker-bag, and I carried it in the Australian bush. That short-handled pick dates back to my gold-prospecting days in New Guinea. About all I salvaged from that venture, incidentally. What little gold I mined I had to use to ransom my life when I was captured by headhunters.”
I looked at him wide-eyed. “That must have been some experience.”
“It was,” he assured me. “I also lived with a friendlier native tribe for a time, in a Negrito village. The headhunters were Papuans. Sometime when we both have more time, I’ll tell you more about it.”
“You’ll have a willing listener,” I told him. “You’ve certainly led a fascinating life.” I looked more closely at the huge net. “Is that a fishing net? The holes seem too big.”
“It’s what’s known as a gill net,” he said. “The way you use it is to attach lead weights at intervals to the lower edge, then hook buoys to the top edge. That makes it set in the water vertically, sort of like a tennis net. Fish attempting to swim through it get their gills entangled in it. It’s quite effective, except that it grabs everything that comes along, without distinguishing between fish and inanimate objects. I’ve pulled up everything from beer cans to tree stumps, even a full keg of nails once. When it grabs hold of something, it doesn’t let go.”
“It makes an interesting wall decoration,” I said.
“Well, I really hung it there because it will rot unless it’s stored wide open like that, and I didn’t know where else to put it. I don’t know why I’m saving it. I’ll probably never use it again, and I can’t sell it because they’re a glut on the market. Commercial fishing on the Great Lakes is rapidly coming to an end. Lake Erie is already dead from pollution, and the rest of the lakes are dying.”
From the front of the store the musical chime that signaled the entrance of customers sounded three times. He pushed open the swinging door and I followed after him.
The customers who had come in turned out to be three members of the Street Tigers, a juvenile gang whose members ranged in age from about sixteen into the early twenties. I had known all three since they were born, and they were now all approaching twenty.
Joe Ramirez was a thin, swarthy boy with dark hair just long enough to cover his ears. Tommy Coster was a burly youth with an Afro haircut. Jimmy Elias, whose father had recently kicked him out of the house because the boy was busted for marijuana possession, was tall and lean and wore his hair to his shoulders. All three wore the hip-hugger, bell-bottomed slacks, black leather jackets and yellow-lensed sunglasses that were the uniform of the Street Tigers.
I happened to know that all three also were on probation for various offenses ranging from pushing to assault. They seemed surprised and a trifle disconcerted to see me.
Jimmy Elias, the customary spokesman for the group, said with a touch of diffidence, “Hi, Mr. Martinez.”
“Hello, boys,” I said. “What’s on your minds?”
“We just come in to look around, sort of,” Jimmy said with a curious air of defensiveness. “To see if Mr. Olem was stocking anything different from old man Rubin.”
I let my eyes narrow. “If that’s all you want, why are you acting like I caught you with your hand in the till?”
“Well, geez, you’re looking at us like we’re ax murderers or something.”
Mr. Olem said equably, “Customers are welcome just to look, Mr. Martinez. I don’t have any new items in stock yet, boys, but I plan to offer a few of my personal specialties as soon as I have time to make them up.”
“Like what?” Joe Ramirez asked.
“Well, I make a pretty good hot potato salad and some tasty homemade sausage, just to mention a couple of my specialties. I also have my own recipe for Boston baked beans.”
“Are you still going to handle some kosher stuff like old man Rubin did? I always liked his kosher corned beef,” Tommy said.
“I’ll have kosher-type food. It won’t be real kosher.”
“You mean it won’t be blessed by a rabbi?” the youth asked with a grin. “I don’t think old man Rubin’s was either. There aren’t any orthodox Jews around here, so all his customers cared about was the taste.”
Jimmy Elias, who had been gazing around contemplatively, suddenly seemed to tire of the conversation. Abruptly he said, “Come on, you guys, let’s split out of here.”
When they were gone, Mr. Olem asked, “Do you know those boys well, Mr. Martinez?”
“I used to tan their bottoms for cutting up on my bus when they were in grammar school,” I said. “They’re pretty wild kids. They didn’t come in just to see what changes you’ve made.”
“You think they planned to rob me, and your presence discouraged them?” he asked with raised brows.
I shook my head. “They’re probably not above armed robbery, but they’re too well-known in the neighborhood to risk it so close to home. They may have planned to bully you into offering them a free treat. They sometimes came in and smarted off to Sol until he’d make them free corned beef sandwiches or something just to get rid of them. They always played it cool enough so that they couldn’t be charged with extortion. They just hung around and got in Sol’s way and made wisecracks until he voluntarily paid off with a snack.”
“I see,” Mr. Olem said. “The way the long-haired boy was gazing around, it occurred to me they might have come in to case the layout with the idea of later trying a little burglary.”
“That’s a possibility,” I conceded. “They’re probably not above burglary either. I’ll have a private word with them the next time I see them.”
“About what?”
“Burglary. I’ll let them know that if any of the protected businesses in the neighborhood are knocked over, I’ll suggest to the cops that they look their way first. They’ll listen to me. The memory of those tannings I gave them as kids still lingers.”
As it happened, I didn’t run into any of the three during the next few days. I inquired about them whenever I ran into another member of the Street Tigers, but no one else seemed to have seen them either. Finally I ran into a gang member who said he thought they were out of town, because he had overheard them discussing hitchhiking up north to Oxnard to look for work. Since the only work any of them had ever done was to push grass and smack, that seemed to me unlikely. I thought it more probable that they had made one of their periodic runs down to Tijuana to buy a few bricks of grass.
A week later I dropped by the delicatessen in the daytime when my landlady happened to be there also. She was all enthused over Mr. Olem’s hot potato salad. She asked me if I had tasted it, and I had to admit I hadn’t.
“You should, because it’s delicious,” she said. “What gives it that sort of tangy taste, Mr. Olem?”
“A certain spice packaged in Vienna, Mrs. Martin. I wrote for a supply when I first began negotiating with Mr. Rubin.”
“Oh, you have relatives in Vienna?”
Mr. Olem shook his head. “Just friends.”
She waited hopefully, but when he failed to elaborate, she finally asked, “What’s the name of the spice?”
Mr. Olem smiled. “That’s my secret, Mrs. Martin. If I told you my recipe, you could make your own potato salad instead of buying from me.”
“I probably would,” she admitted with cheerful candidness. “I don’t suppose you want to give out the recipes for your sausage and baked beans either, then.”
Mr. Olem shook his head again. “Sorry. Those are more of my secrets. But I will tell you that there’s real maple syrup in the beans and one of the spices in the sausage comes from Hong Kong.”
“Oh, you have relatives there?” Mrs. Martin asked interestedly, still grabbing at every opportunity to attempt to pry information about his background from her ex-roomer.
“Again, merely friends,” he told her.
“You sure have friends lots of places,” she said, giving him up and turning back to me. “Tony, have you tried Mr. Olem’s baked beans or sausage?”
“I haven’t tried anything he makes,” I said.
“Well, you should. I never tasted anything as good as his specialties.” The reason I hadn’t tried any of the delicatessen food was that I seldom ate at home, although I had what Mrs. Martin euphemistically called a ‘bachelor apartment.’ There was only one room, but an alcove contained a sink and apartment-size refrigerator and stove.
I sometimes made my own breakfast, though. After Mrs. Martin’s sales talk, I bought a half pound of the sausage and tried it with eggs the next morning. As my landlady had said, it had quite a unique flavor. I found it delicious.
The second week of the Merchant Patrol went as uneventfully as the first. I liked to think that word about the patrol had gone out over the underworld grapevine and had discouraged criminals from picking on any of the protected stores. Then that bubble burst during the third week the patrol was in existence. Three protected stores got knocked over the same night by the same pair of bandits.
Fortunately none were on my beat, but they were all only a few blocks away. A supermarket, a gas station and a movie box office were all held up within an hour by two tall men dressed all in black and wearing Halloween witches’ masks. The total take from all three jobs was around fourteen hundred dollars.
Two nights later a grocery store and a tavern in my area were hit by the same pair only fifteen minutes apart, with a total take of another nine hundred dollars. I wasn’t on duty yet, the first robbery taking place about seven-thirty and the second at a quarter to eight, but another member of the patrol was on duty, which gave us all a black eye. It sort of made us feel as though the bandits weren’t very impressed by us.
That was the last heard from that particular stickup team, though. Apparently the five stickups gave them enough of a stake to move on somewhere else. There wasn’t another holdup or burglary reported by any of the protected businesses during the next two weeks.
Then I ran right into the middle of an attempted burglary.
It was about eleven-thirty on a Thursday night. I was cutting down the alley behind the stores in the block where Olem’s Delicatessen was, checking all the rear doors and windows giving onto the alley. When I shined my light on the delicatessen’s back door, I saw it was standing wide open.
At that moment there sounded from inside a peculiar series of thuds, as though a number of heavy objects were falling to the floor more or less simultaneously. This was followed by the sound of a lot of threshing around and a considerable amount of cursing.
From the sounds, I decided the intruders were in too much trouble to be very dangerous. So, instead of heading for the nearest phone, as I was supposed to, I drew my gun, went over to the open door and shined my light inside.
Two figures were writhing around under the gill net I had last seen draped against a side wall. Apparently Mr. Olem had changed its location, for it must have fallen over the intruders from the ceiling. Its edges were weighted by heavy lead sinkers at intervals all the way around, which accounted for the thuds I had heard.
The overhead light flashed on, and a moment later Mr. Olem, in pajamas and a robe, stepped from the doorway of the staircase that led from the kitchen to the upstairs apartment.
When he saw me, he looked momentarily startled, but then he said cheerfully, “Good evening, Mr. Martinez. We seem to have caught some fish.”
The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack Page 11