Cat on a Cold Tin Roof

by Mike Resnick

  “Well, believe me, he’s loaded,” she said. “He wouldn’t have to steal the damned thing. He could buy it with his pocket change. Probably some deadbeat sold it to him for cash and then put in a phony claim with the insurance company.”

  “That’s not the way it happened,” I said. “This is serious business, Mitzi. You’re almost certainly going to be called to testify before it’s over.”

  “Testify that a gentleman friend gave me a present?” she said. “Like it’s never happened before?”

  “It’s never happened in quite these circumstances,” I answered. Then I figured I might as well shoot for the moon. “Tell me, Mitzi, did your friend—”

  “Ex-friend,” she interrupted me.

  “My mistake. Did your ex-friend Abner come into possession of a cat at about the time he gave you the ring?”

  “How the hell would I know?” she shot back.

  “He didn’t mention it?” I said. “Nothing about a cat?”

  “No,” she said adamantly. “Are you going to accuse him of being a cat thief as well?”

  It’d sure make life easy if I could, I thought.

  “No, it’s just something very peripherally related to the case.”

  She glared at me and finally spoke: “I hate cops.”

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. “I’m private.”

  “Big difference,” she snorted. “I hate you too.” She paused. “You working for the insurance company?”

  Since I didn’t know who the hell I was working for—Velma, myself, the Chicago mob—I nodded my head and told her that she was right.

  “Figures,” she said. “Maybe Abner should have bought an insurance company along with all that other stuff.”

  “Can I ask why you broke up with him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  I frowned. “I thought you just told me—”

  “You think I’d break up with a man the same week he gave me a sparkler like this?” she said, holding her hand out so the light hit the diamond. “I ain’t that kind of girl.”

  “So he broke up with you?” I said. “The same week he gave you the diamond. Why?”

  “His wife was sniffing around. She knew he was seeing someone, but she didn’t know it was me.” She shrugged, which too was eye-popping. “How the hell could she? We’ve never met, and he had enough brains not to leave my number lying around the house.” She grimaced. “So he said we couldn’t see each other for half a year or so, until the coast was clear, and then we’d go off to live on an island in the Pacific.” Another grimace. “I’ve heard that kind of shit before, although not from anyone who could afford it until Abner showed up. But I could tell he never planned to see me again, or if he did, it was going to be even more on the sly, just a bunch of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am nights. I figured hell, the ring ain’t hardly an emotional keepsake under those circumstances, so I might as well sell it and pay some bills, get some new clothes, maybe take a trip to the Big Apple and start auditioning.”

  “Not to LA?” I asked. “A girl with your looks?”

  “Hollywood is loaded with girls with my looks,” she said with the kind of smile men kill for. “We’re a little rarer in New York.”

  “Would you happen to have his address?”

  She gave it to me, and I scribbled it down in my notebook.

  “He’s not much to look at,” she said. “Small, kind of chubby, going bald. But he can be a really sweet guy.”

  “I’m sure he can,” I said. “One last question: Where did you meet him?”

  “At the Shoe.”

  “The Horseshoe Casino?”

  She nodded. “I’m attracted to big plungers. They don’t have to win. I mean, hell, no one wins all the time. But if they can afford to make big bets, the odds are they’re good for it.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said. My own limit was five dollars at the Shoe and ten at River Downs.

  “Anyway, Abner was a plunger. Or he was when I met him. He didn’t mind being seen with me at first, but for the past few months we stayed away from the Shoe. I think he was afraid some friend or maybe even a relative might spot us.”

  I got to my feet. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mitzi.”

  “And I can keep the ring?”

  “For the time being,” I said. “If you can’t, someone else—someone a lot more official than me—will be by to pick it up.” I paused. “In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Abner I was here.” Why let him know anyone was on his trail until we’d amassed enough evidence to nail him?

  “I won’t be talking to him again, and he sure as hell ain’t calling me,” she said. “Hell, I just might take an extended vacation.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t stop you, but I wouldn’t advise it. If what you’ve told me is true, you are innocent of any of the crimes connected with the diamond.”

  “Crimes?” she interrupted.

  “It’s very complex,” I answered. “Anyway, I’d advise you to remain innocent. You leave town, and I can almost guarantee there’ll be a warrant out for your arrest in a day or two. Innocent is the best policy.”

  She walked over and gave me a hug. She felt as good as she looked and smelled even better.

  “What was that all about?” I asked when she stepped back.

  She smiled at me. “It’s been a long time since anyone said I was innocent.”

  I chuckled, walked out the door, and was driving back to my apartment a minute later. When I arrived I was just about to unlock my door when I became aware of the fact that I wasn’t alone.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cominsky.”

  “I’ve been reading mail all afternoon,” she said. “I’m afraid to go outside.”

  “You think you’ll run into the mailman bringing another load?”

  She frowned. “Don’t be fallacious.”

  “You mean facetious?” I asked.

  “Whatever.” She looked around, but there were no perverts hiding in the second-floor corridor. “This town is filled with liars and sex maniacs!”

  “And that comes as a surprise to you?”

  “Have you read these things, Mr. Paxton?”

  “No. You’ve got ’em all.”

  “I’ll give you some of the filthiest ones.”

  “I shock easily,” I said. “You keep ’em.”

  “Well, I did give some to that nice Mrs. Garabaldi. She said you told her I needed help going through them.” She paused. “We spent an hour today exchanging the most outrageous ones.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve figured out who found and returned the cat yet?”

  “Cat?” she said. “What cat?”

  “The object of the exercise,” I said.

  “Oh! The cat” she said, suddenly nodding. “I’m working on it.”

  “Well, keep at it,” I said.

  “Oh, I will,” she promised. “I will.”

  She marched off—I almost said “toddled off,” but she hadn’t toddled in thirty years—and I opened the door.

  Go away, said Marlowe, opening one eye.

  I got the leash. “Come on,” I said. “I know your bladder is stronger than mine, but even you need a walk now and then.”

  He growled but let me put the leash on him. A freezing rain started to fall the instant we were outside, and three minutes later we were back. As I was kicking off my shoes the phone rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hi, Eli,” said Jim Simmons. “I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

  “What’s up?”

  “We traced your Joe Smith fingerprint.”

  “Unless it was Jim Smith,” I said. “What did you come up with?”

  “His name is Tupak Morales, and he’s wanted in seven different South American countries, five of them for murder.” He paused. “We owe you, pal. You found us a big one.”

  “Have you picked him up yet?”

  “He and his partner are out grabbing a late lunch or early dinner now,” answered
Simmons. “We’re tailing them, and thanks to you we know where they’re staying, and we’ll pick him up tonight.”

  “So with a little luck, you can deport them all in chains, or at least cuffs, in a day or two?”

  “Two of them for sure,” he answered. “The one we’ve already got and Tupak. I’ll be surprised if the other hasn’t also got warrants out for his arrest all over the hemisphere.”

  “Good,” I said. “Glad I was able to get that print.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Uh, Jim . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “On the off-chance that you have nothing on the third, or that this Tupak character can somehow make bail, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him how you identified him.”

  “You got it, Eli.”

  “Well, that solves one problem, anyway,” I said, hanging up.

  Marlowe stared at me as I walked over to sit on that portion of the couch he’d left for me.

  You don’t really think it’s going to be this easy, do you? he said, and somehow I knew he wasn’t talking about taking back my couch cushion.

  19.

  I met Sorrentino at seven. He spent fifteen minutes trying to decipher the menu into known dishes. (Hell, I say that as if I’m some kind of sophisticate. I didn’t know what they were either, but given the prices—he was still paying—I figured all the dishes must be pretty good, so I just picked the one that sounded the best when I tried to pronounce it.)

  “So,” he said, “any progress?”

  “Not much,” I lied. “Spoke to a couple of minor-league fences, but they hadn’t heard anything. And you?”

  He shook his head. “They haven’t shown up on either coast, or in Chicago or Miami.”

  “I do have some news,” I said, feeling I had to toss him something before he got too suspicious.

  “Oh?”

  I nodded. “They’ve identified two of the Smith brothers,” I replied. “They should be on their way back to Bolivia, in cuffs, in a day or two.”

  “And the third?” he asked.

  “They’re working on it.”

  “That makes us two-thirds safer, but it doesn’t get us any closer to the damned diamonds,” he said. “If I didn’t know from other sources—my friends in Chicago—that he really did swipe millions from them, I’d say our info was wrong and all he had was a million . . . but damn it, he said he had ten million on the collar, my organization says he skimmed between ten and thirteen mil off the Bolivians, and I can’t imagine they’d send three hit men here for less. So why the hell were they only insured for a million?”

  I smiled. “That was the longest speech you’ve made since we met.”

  “It’s driving me crazy!” he said. “I know he skimmed at least ten million! He himself admitted it. It’s not in any account he had access to, and we both know if it was in a safety deposit box or somewhere else where Velma could get her hands on it, she’d have grabbed it and blown town five minutes later.”

  “It’s probably with whoever killed him,” I suggested.

  He considered it, then shook his head. “Ten diamonds worth maybe a million bucks. Where’s the rest of it?”

  “That’s what we’re being paid to find out,” I said, and then smiled. “Except that nobody’s paying us, at least not until we find it.”

  The main course arrived, and we stopped talking and dug in.

  “Not bad,” said Sorrentino after a couple of bites. “What’s yours like?”

  I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. Some kind of meat in some kind of sauce, with some kind of vegetables and bread mixed in. Damned good. And yours?”

  “Mostly fish,” he said. “I think.” He paused a moment. “Good, though.”

  We concentrated on eating, were too full for dessert, and made arrangements to meet at a burger joint at noon. He picked up the tab, and we went out to our cars.

  I assume he went back to his hotel. Me, I drove down to police headquarters and hunted up Bill Calhoun. I figured I needed to know a little more about Delahunt before I confronted him.

  “You’re too late if you’re looking for Simmons,” he said when he saw me.

  “You’ll do just as well,” I said.

  “Uh-oh!” he said. “The last time I did just as well, I wound up with two guys shooting at me.”

  “Ancient history,” I said, since it had happened almost four months ago. “I don’t need you to leave the office for this one.”

  He stared at me suspiciously. “Spell it out, Eli.”

  “I want you to turn on your computer and hunt up some information for me.”

  “If it’s confidential you’ll have to get—”

  “Who said anything about confidential?” I interrupted. “I just need you to pull up some stuff.”

  “There’s Jim’s computer,” he said, pointing at the machine on Simmons’s desk.

  “I see it.”

  “So sit down and hunt up your info,” said Calhoun.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t know how to work a computer.”

  He sighed deeply. “No cell phone. No GPS. Yeah, it figures.” He started typing on his own machine. “Okay, what do you need?”

  “Anything you can find on Abner Delahunt.”

  “Delahunt?” he repeated. “Isn’t he that real estate mogul? Got offices all over the East Side of city?”

  I nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “Well, let’s see what Wiki has to say about him, if anything.”

  “Who’s Wiki?” I asked.

  He shot me a look of pure pity. “Wikipedia,” he replied. “It’s an online encyclopedia.”

  “I don’t know if he’s done anything to merit being in an encyclopedia.”

  Another similar look. “You’d be surprised at who’s in Wikipedia.” He began typing. “Yeah, here he is: Abner Delahunt, age fifty-six, married to Lorraine, two children, both grown and out of the house. He’s got degrees from Cornell and Stanford.” Calhoun frowned. “Both coasts. I wonder how he wound up in Cincinnati? He’s a little too young for ’Nam and too old for Iraq, but he helped bring Truth, Justice, and the American Way to Granada.” He paused as more information came up on the screen. “Went into real estate in the eighties, seems to have made a couple of fortunes, big donor to his church and the Republican Party.” He stopped typing and looked up. “Sounds like a good upstanding Cincinnatian.”

  “Anything’s possible,” I said.

  “You didn’t ask me to look him up if you didn’t think there was some kind of problem with him.”

  “There may be,” I said.

  “Well?” he said. “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  He grimaced. “It would help if you’d tell me what the hell you’re looking for.”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “Just anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Well, let’s see if he’s ever been arrested for anything.”

  “Wiki-whatever has stuff like that for the general public?” I asked, surprised.

  He chuckled. “No. But this is a police computer.” He began typing. “No, never been arrested.” Suddenly he frowned. “Now, that’s curious.”

  “What is?”

  “He’s got a couple of lawsuits pending against his organization.”

  “His real estate company?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Who’s suing?”

  “One of his landlords,” said Calhoun, bringing up more information on the screen. “Seems he’s way behind on his rent on . . . let me see . . . seven of his offices. And it looks like he’s written a couple of bouncers on a pair of leased cars, a Mercedes and a Lincoln.” He shrugged. “So much for being a tycoon.”

  “Is that information up to date?” I asked.

  “Within a week or two, I’d say.” He stared at me. “Does the guy owe you money?”

  “No.”

  “You’re gri
nning like the cat that ate the canary.”

  “Am I?” I said.

  “May I assume Mr. Delahunt is the canary?”

  “Could be,” I said. “How long do you plan to be here, Bill?”

  “I started at eight tonight. I’ll be knocking off at four-thirty, unless Bob Hess oversleeps again.”

  I shook my head. “Not long enough.”

  “Not long enough for what?”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Either leave Jim Simmons a note or check it out yourself when you show up tomorrow . . . but I’ll bet that information you just gave me is out of date.”

  “You think he owes more?”

  “I think he’s paid them all off.”

  “Yeah?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “And why do you think so?”

  “I’ll tell you when I know so,” I replied. “Thanks for your help.”

  Before he could ask me any more questions I was heading to my car, and fifteen minutes later I was walking Marlowe over to Mrs. Garabaldi’s petunias.

  “Yeah, Asta,” I said to him. “I think we cracked the case, and I don’t even have a Nora.”

  He looked at me, and his expression seemed to say: I ain’t Asta, you ain’t Nick, Nora left you years ago, and nothing’s as easy as you think it’s going to be.

  20.

  I got up at nine, walked Marlowe, opened a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup for him, paused in the hall long enough for Mrs. Cominsky to explain that these letters were too filthy for our good, upright, honorable police force to read, and that she’d be keeping them safe and sound against the day of Final Retribution. When I gently suggested that Final Retribution rested with a higher power, she assured me that she had gone to church and told God exactly where to look for the letters.

  Once away from the apartment, I got into the car and drove over to Hyde Park and started doing a little checking.

  The first thing I found was that Delahunt had put his house up for sale four months ago—and had taken it off the market three days ago.

  I asked a couple of rival realtors about his empire. They admitted that he’d been Mister Big in luxury real estate properties for quite a few years, but the current economy had hurt him more than most. He’d already closed four offices in the less affluent areas, and he was losing staff in some of the others, not that anyone was buying them off, but that the word being whispered on the street was that even when they made a rare sale of a million-dollar property, he was late paying his agents’ commissions.