Double Dealer

by Max Allan Collins

  “Except for occasionally getting lost, neither do you.”

  Warrick took that as the compliment it was.

  “In fact, I think we've earned a break,” Grissom said.

  “Huh?” Sara said.

  “I think we should go check out the new video rentals,” Grissom said.

  Warrick, pushing off from the roof of the Taurus, said, “Might be some interesting new releases, at that.”

  Conroy stayed with the Taurus, at the residence, while Brass piled into the Tahoe, in back with Sara, with Warrick and Grissom in front.

  From the backseat Brass said, “If you'd like me to drive, I do know the way.”

  “I came up with this address,” Warrick said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “I'll do the honors.”

  Barry Hyde's video store was close to his house, just a few turns away and onto Wigwam Parkway. Glad he had his sunglasses on, Warrick turned into the Pecos Legacy Center parking lot, where glass storefronts reflected bright afternoon sunlight. A-to-Z Video—a typical non-chain store of its kind with a neon sign in the window and movie poster after poster taped there—sat at the far end of the strip mall, a discount cigarette store its next-door neighbor.

  Brass led the way into the video store, Grissom hanging back, in observer mode. To Warrick, it looked like every other non-chain video store he had ever been in—new releases around the outside wall, older movies in the middle. DVD rentals filled the section of the wall to the right of the cash register island, which was centered between the two IN and OUT doors. At the rear of the store was a door that presumably led to the storage area and the manager's office.

  Behind the counter, in the cashier's island, stood the only person in the store, a petite American Indian woman of about twenty, a blue imitation Blockbuster uniform over slacks and T-shirt, her straight black hair worn short. Her name tag said SUE.

  Fairly perky, and perhaps a trifle surprised to have customers, she asked, “Hi—welcome to A-to-Z Video. Are you looking for a particular title?”

  “Sue, I'm looking for Barry Hyde,” Brass said. He didn't get out his badge—this seemed to be a toe in the water.

  The cashier smiled. “Mr. Hyde is out for the day. May I be of assistance?”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “I'm sorry. He's not going to be available until after the weekend.”

  Now Brass displayed his badge in its leather wallet. “Could you tell me why he's not available?”

  Seeing that badge, the cashier's cheerfulness turned to mild apprehension. “Oh, well—I'd like to help you, but I'm just . . . uh, maybe you should talk to Patrick.”

  Brass's melancholy face twitched a sort of smile. “And who is Patrick?”

  “The assistant manager. He's in charge until Mr. Hyde gets back.”

  “I'd like to talk to Patrick. Is he around?”

  “In the back,” she said. She pressed an intercom button and said, “Patrick, someone to see you?”

  The intercom said, “Who?”

  “I think it's the police. . . . I mean, it is the police.”

  Patrick said, “Uh . . . uh, just a minute, uh . . . I'll be . . . uh . . . right . . . uh . . . out.”

  Four minutes later, more or less, Grissom was prowling the store like each video was potential evidence; but the others—Warrick included—were getting impatient.

  Warrick realized that mid-afternoon wasn't a busy time for any video rental store; but this place seemed particularly dead. He noted the posted rental rates—they weren't bargains.

  Brass leaned against the counter. “Sue—would you rattle Patrick's cage for me again?”

  The cashier was about to touch the intercom button when the door in the back opened and ambling out came a zit-faced kid who seemed younger than the cashier. Bleached blond with a dark goatee and black mid-calf shorts, he had a sharp, short nose, small lips and green eyes with pupils the size of pinheads; but for the blue polo shirt with A-to-Z stitched over the breast pocket, he looked like a guitar player in a metal band.

  As the kid stepped by him, Warrick noticed Patrick (as his name tag confirmed) smelled like a combination of Tic Tacs and weed. Which explained their four-minute wait.

  The assistant manager said, “Can I . . . uh . . . like, help you?”

  Brass seemed to be repressing a laugh; they'd sent for a manager and got back Maynard G. Krebs. “Are you Patrick?”

  He thought about it. Then, without having to refer to his name tag, he said, “Yeah. McKee. Is my last name.”

  “Patrick, we'd like to talk to you about your boss—Barry Hyde.”

  The kid's sense of relief was palpable in the room and Warrick turned away to keep from laughing out loud. He pretended to study the new DVD release wall so he could still listen to the conversation.

  Patrick asked, “What about Mr. Hyde?”

  “He's out of town?”

  Nodding, Patrick said, “Until Monday.”

  “Is Mr. Hyde out of town a lot?”

  The kid had to think about this question for a while, too. Finally, he managed, “Some.”

  “For how long? How often?”

  “He's been doing it since I've been here.” Shrug. “Uh . . . eight months.”

  Brass shook his head. “That's not what I meant, Patrick. I mean, how long a period of time is he generally away?”

  “Sometimes a couple of days, sometimes a week.”

  Warrick pulled a DVD box off the shelf and pretended to read the back—Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market. He knew Hyde couldn't be gone for long stretches, because the man had rarely missed his regular Monday and Wednesday visits to the Beachcomber.

  Patience thinning, Brass was asking, “Do you know where Mr. Hyde is now?”

  Patrick thought about that one for a long time too. “No. I don't think he said.”

  “What if there's an emergency?”

  The kid's face went blank. “Emergency?”

  “Yeah, emergency. He's the boss. Don't you have a number to call if you get robbed or a customer has a heart attack in the store? Or maybe a valuable employee, like you, has a family crisis?”

  “Oh, sure,” Patrick said.

  “Could you give us that number?”

  “Yeah—nine-one-one.”

  Brass just looked at the kid. Then he blew out some air, and called back to Grissom, at the rear of the little group. “You want to take a crack at this?”

  Grissom put his hands up in surrender.

  Warrick put the DVD box back—100% Multi-angle!!! —turned, and stepped forward. “Why don't you guys wait outside. I'll talk to Patrick.”

  Sara's eyes met Warrick's—they were on the same wavelength. She said, “Yeah, guys—I'll stay with Warrick.”

  Grissom, sensing something from his CSIs, turned to look at Brass, shrugging. “Any objection, Jim?”

  “All right,” Brass said. He said to Grissom, “Why don't you run me over to the house.”

  His car and Detective Conroy were there, after all.

  “Sure,” Grissom said. Then to Warrick and Sara: “Pick you up in fifteen.”

  Once the homicide cop and Grissom had left, Warrick turned to the assistant manager. “Okay, Patrick, truth or dare—just how stoned are you?”

  The eyes widened; however, the pupils remained pinpoints. “No way!”

  Sara said, “Cut the crap, Patrick. Dragnet has left the building—this is the Mod Squad you're talking to. . . . We know there's stoned, and there's stoned.”

  Patrick seemed to have lost the ability to form words. He stood there with his mouth hanging open.

  “Why don't the three of us,” Warrick said, slipping his arm around the skinny kid, “go into the back office, and just chill a little.”

  “Not the back room. I mean . . . uh . . . it's . . . uh . . . private.”

  “That's why we're going to use it,” Sara said. “Because it's private—customer comes in, we won't be in the way.”

  The beleaguered Patric
k looked to the cashier for help, but she turned her back, suddenly very interested in sorting returned videos. “Uh . . . I guess so . . .”

  “Cool,” Warrick said. He led the way to the back and was the first one through the door. The cubicle reeked of weed, even though the kid had lit three sticks of incense before he'd come out front. The “ office” consisted of a shabby metal desk, a cheap swivel chair, some two-by-four-and-plywood shelves piled with screener tapes, and walls decorated with video promo posters, mostly for XXX-rated tapes.

  “Sorry,” Patrick said, coming through the door next. “It's kind of . . . uh . . . grungy back here.”

  “And,” Sara said, just behind him, “it smells like Cheech and Chong's van.”

  “On a Friday night,” Warrick added.

  Unable not to, the kid grinned at that.

  She wide-eyed the porno posters. “You actually carry this trash?”

  Patrick's silly grin disappeared and professionalism kicked in: he was the assistant manager of A-to-Z Video, after all. He said “American Booty and The Boner Collector are our top two adult rental titles. You have to reserve them a couple weeks in advance.”

  “I'll pass,” Sara said.

  “So, then,” Warrick said, sitting on the edge of the desk, “store does a pretty brisk business, huh?”

  Patrick snorted. “Yeah, right, whatever.”

  Sara asked, “Is it always like this—tumbleweed blowing through the place?”

  “Lot of the time,” Patrick admitted. “We do pretty good on the weekends sometimes, but there's a Blockbuster on the next block, and the supermarket, at the other end of the mall? They rent tapes, too.”

  “Does Mr. Hyde seem concerned about business?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if it's slow, do you have meetings—pep talks, try to figure out strategy, lower your prices. . . .”

  “No, not really. Barry's pretty cool for a boss. He's got a wicked sense of humor—really dark, man, I mean brutal.”

  I'll bet, Warrick thought.

  Patrick was saying, “He doesn't give us a lot of shit . . .” He glanced at Sara. “. . . trouble about stuff.”

  “Does Hyde come in every day? When he's in town, I mean?”

  “Yeah, yeah, he does. He doesn't stay very long, most days. He comes in, maybe orders some tapes, checks the books, goes and makes the deposit from the night before. Oh, and sometimes he brings in munchies like doughnuts and stuff.”

  “How many people work here?”

  “Besides Mr. Hyde, four. Me, Sue—she's out front now—Sapphire and Ronnie. Me and Sue are usually paired up, Sapphire and Ronnie, same. We trade off every other week working days and nights. This week we're on days, next week we'll work nights. We don't get bored that way, and then everybody can kind of, like, have a life, you know?”

  “That does sound cool,” Warrick said. “We just work the night shift.”

  “But it's day,” Patrick said, shrewdly.

  Sara said, “We like to think of it as flex hours. How much do you make, working here, Patrick?”

  “Eight-fifty an hour. Me and Ronnie, I mean, 'cause we're both assistant managers. Sapphire and Sue are makin' seven-fifty an hour.”

  “Not bad pay,” Sara said, “for sitting here getting stoned.”

  Patrick tried to parse that—nothing judgmental had been in Sara's tone, but she was with the cops—but finally he said, “I only do that if it's real dead.”

  “Which is a lot of the time.”

  Patrick's shrug was affirmative.

  Warrick, feeling Sara was getting off track, asked, “Do you remember, exactly, when Mr. Hyde has been out of town?”

  “Oh, hell—all his trips are marked on the calendar.”

  Warrick traded glances with Sara, then asked, “What calendar is that, Patrick?”

  “This one,” the kid said, pointing to the July Playmate, who loomed over the desk.

  “Mind if I have a look?” Warrick asked.

  “No, but . . . don't you need a warrant or something?”

  Warrick's reply was casual. “Not if you don't mind.”

  “Oh, well. Sure. Go ahead.”

  Flipping the pages with a pen, Warrick read off the dates and Sara copied them down. When they finished, she used the little camera from her purse to take shots of the calendar, just in case.

  Patrick became a tad nervous, when Sara started shooting the photos, and Warrick put an arm around the young man. “Patrick, I'm going to make you a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  “Yeah, if you don't tell Mr. Hyde that we were here asking questions, I won't bust your ass.”

  “Bust my ass . . .”

  “You know—for felony possession.”

  “Felony? I've only got half a . . .” Patrick froze as he realized what he was saying. His eyes looked pleadingly from Warrick to Sara. “I mean . . . I thought you guys were cool. . . .”

  Warrick's voice went cold. “Patrick, have we got a deal?”

  Reluctantly, Patrick nodded. “Yeah.”

  Outside in the sunshine, Warrick said to Sara, “There's something not right here.”

  “More than pot smoke smells in there,” Sara agreed. “The manager's never around, doesn't worry about business, and lives in an expensive new house in an upscale neighborhood.”

  “And he's gone from time to time—just short hops.”

  “Like maybe the Deuce isn't retired, you mean?”

  “That does come to mind. We better go do some research about Mr. Barry Hyde.”

  That was when Grissom swung in, in the Tahoe; and on the way back, Warrick driving, they told their supervisor what they'd learned—and what they thought.

  “I want that list of dates,” Grissom said, “when Hyde was out of town.”

  Other than that, however, Grissom said nothing. Which always made Warrick very, very nervous.

  Culpepper was waiting in Grissom's office, the FBI agent having helped himself to the chair behind the desk, his feet up on its corner. “Hey, buddy, how're you doing?”

  Feeling his anger rising, Grissom breathed slowly and stayed calm. “Why, I'm just fine, Special Agent Culpepper—and how are you?”

  Brass came into the office, saw the FBI agent, and said, “Our government tax dollars at work.”

  Culpepper's feet came off the desk and he sat up straight, but he said nothing for several endlessly long moments. At last, he said, “I hear you guys got something on the Deuce.”

  Grissom kept his face passive, though he wondered where Culpepper got his information. “You heard wrong.”

  “I've been waiting here for half an hour. Where were you, Grissom?”

  “Lunch. I don't remember having an appointment with the FBI.”

  “I heard you were so dedicated, you don't even find time for lunch.”

  “Today he did,” Brass said. “With me. We would have invited you, but you didn't let us know you were coming.”

  Grissom said, “Was there a purpose to your visit, Culpepper, or are you just fishing?”

  The FBI agent's smile was almost a sneer; he straightened his tie while he stalled to come up with an answer. “I stopped by to tell you that we heard the Deuce has left the area.”

  Grissom allowed his skepticism to show through a little. “If you think he's gone, why are you still nosing around here?”

  “Just covering all the bases, buddy. Like you, this is my turf—keeping my fellow law enforcement professionals informed. You should know that.”

  “Covering your what?” Brass asked.

  Culpepper rose and came around the desk, stopping in the doorway. He beamed at Grissom. “Too bad you didn't come up with anything, buddy. I figured if anybody would catch this guy, it would be you. They say you're the number two crime lab in the country . . . not counting the FBI, of course.”

  “Yeah,” Brass said, “your lab's got the reputation we're all longing for.”

  Culpepper made a tsk-tsk in his cheek. “Must
be hard not being number one.”

  “We try harder,” Grissom said.

  The FBI agent nodded. “You'll need to. Good luck, gentlemen—keep the good thought.”

  And Culpepper was gone.

  “Damnit,” Brass said, leaning out into the hall, making sure the FBI agent wasn't lingering. “How did he know?”

  “Maybe he doesn't.”

  “Maybe he does.”

  Grissom shrugged. “You talked to the county clerk, the utilities, and I don't know how many other agencies.”

  “He's not helping us, is he? He's watching us. Why?”

  “Easier than solving the case himself maybe—steps in and takes the credit.” Grissom shook his head, disgusted. “What a backward motivation for this line of work. . . . Until just now, I was tempted to give him the list of dates Warrick gave me.”

  “Of times Hyde's been out of town this year?”

  “Yeah. See what unsolved murders or missing persons cases match up to those dates.”

  “Give me that list, and I'll do what I can.”

  Grissom did.

  “You think the killer's still active?” Brass asked.

  Grissom got back behind the desk, sitting. “We know he is—he shot Dingelmann. Maybe he stopped doing mob-related work and his contracts are with individuals now. That could be the reason he hasn't turned up on the FBI's radar in the last four years.”

  “Are you convinced Hyde is the Deuce?”

  “No. Too early. Hell of a lead, though. Warrick gets the MVP of the day.”

  On cue, Warrick appeared in the office doorway, Sara just behind him; Grissom waved them in.

  “The esteemed Agent Culpepper looks steamed,” Warrick said.

  “Good,” said Brass.

  “Saw him in the parking lot,” Sara said. “What did you say to him?”

  Eyes hooded, Brass said, “We just did our best to share as much with him as he shared with us.”

  Warrick said, “Bupkis, you mean.”

  “Oh, we didn't give him that much,” Brass said.

  Shifting gears, Warrick fell into a chair across from Grissom, saying, “Something stinks about that video store.”

  “Besides cannabis?” Grissom asked innocently.

  Warrick and Sara smiled, avoiding their boss's eyes.

  Brass picked up on the train of thought. “You're referring to that horde of customers we saw in there today.”