Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  Her eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

  “That’s what I came to ask you. What’s the City Council got to do with it?”

  “Nothing. It’s the Department of Highways.”

  “Yes, but that’s not quite true, is it? The City Council has nothing to do with the roadway, but the situation it creates with the land around it is another matter.”

  She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “As I understand it, the highway is running through land that is zoned residential. Aren’t the councilmen voting on whether that land gets zoned commercial?”

  “Council members,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Council members. Not councilmen. There are four women on the council.”

  The sexist pig strikes again. “Right,” I said. “Council members. Well, don’t they vote on it?”

  “Yes, of course. They vote on that next week.”

  Bingo. “Well, that’s mighty interesting,” I said. “I’d sure like to know about that.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can print your denials, of course.”

  She frowned.

  “That was another joke.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe I’m an inspector sent by the mayor’s office to check up on things.”

  “Are you?”

  “No. But if you want to play guessing games, that’s as good as any. Look. What does it matter who I am? I’m a guy who wants to know about the government. Let’s talk about the zoning thing, ’cause it’s as good an example as anything.”

  “Now I know you’re a reporter.”

  “If you say so. Look. Let’s talk zoning. When the Council votes, what will they be voting on? I mean, is this a yes or no proposition? We either zone commercial or we don’t?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s an either/or proposition.”

  “Either/or?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, for the layman who doesn’t understand, why don’t you spell it out? Either or what?”

  She took a breath. “Well, you have to understand. The public is resistant to change.”

  “I’ll buy that.”

  “So, any time you’re going to change a zoning ordinance, you’ll have people in favor, people against. No matter what you do, you’re gonna offend someone. You can’t please ’em all.”

  “Fine. How does that apply to the situation?”

  “The highway’s going through and the land’s to be rezoned. They won’t rezone it all. That would create an outcry from the conservationists and the old-timers who want to preserve our historic values and all that. That’s why it’s an either/or proposition. The land in question is divided into two tracts. When the council meets, they’ll vote to rezone one.”

  “And the other?”

  “The other they won’t.”

  30.

  AFTER THAT, IT WAS just legwork. I love saying that, because it’s what a real detective would say. Or at least what a fictional detective would say—I’ve certainly read enough books with that phrase in ’em. And I know exactly what it means. It means the detective has finally cracked the case, and all that remains is the routine but time-consuming task of gathering the information, checking everything out, and confirming his theories.

  This was certainly true in my case. I had the solution now. Julie Steinmetz, the dutiful and provident daughter, had seen a chance of relieving her mother’s financial woes—and perhaps even of relieving herself of the necessity of forking over two hundred bucks a week in support payments—by the simple expedient of bribing the City Council to change a zoning ordinance. In doing so, she had incurred the wrath of someone who didn’t want the zoning ordinance changed, and who had attempted to insure the fact that it wouldn’t be by the simple expedient of having her killed. This person had gone to the elaborate precautions of arranging for a handy fall guy, in the hope of confusing the investigation so utterly that the police would never even start looking in the right direction. The fact that he had bothered to do so, meant that it was necessary. And if it was necessary, it meant his involvement in the case must be obvious if one only looked for it.

  Which wasn’t that hard. There were two tracts of land. If someone didn’t want one zoned commercial, he must want the other. This was the type of deduction even I could handle. So as I say, it was just legwork.

  It was also something I knew how to do. It was the sort of thing I did sometimes for Richard—trace down who owned a particular piece of property on which a client was injured, so Richard would know who to sue. I spent the day at the Department of Highways, the County Clerk’s office, and the Department of Taxation. I had no problem getting what I wanted. All the information was a matter of public record—anyone can ask for it.

  This is what I found: of the two tracts of land, tract A consisted of several small farms, among them that of Mrs. Steinmetz; tract B consisted of undeveloped land, eighty percent of which was owned by a single company. According to the Tax Assessor’s Office, for the past ten years the taxes on that land had been paid by Farber Kennelworth Development.

  A Manhattan firm.

  31.

  I HAD ONE MORE thing to do before I left town. I didn’t have to, I just wanted to.

  A call to the restaurant where I’d tailed POP had confirmed that Kevin Drexel had a dinner reservation for six o’clock. I timed it just right. He was sitting at the bar with the young blonde when I walked in. His face hardened when he saw me, and he took his arm from around the blonde and put his hands on the bar, clearly in preparation to stand up should the need arise.

  I dispelled the need. I put up my hands, palms out, and said in my most conciliatory manner. “Please don’t get up. This will only take a minute.”

  “No it won’t,” Drexel said “I’ve had quite enough of you. I have no comment, and I’m not answering any questions.”

  “I’m not here to ask you questions,” I said. “I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

  That got him. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. He frowned. “Apology?”

  “That’s right. For the other day. I was wrong. I was out of line. And I’m sorry.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t see anything in the paper about you taking a young woman to a motel, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And you won’t. It was a mistake. All my fault. That’s why I want to apologize. For insinuating you went to a motel for a romantic interlude with Julie Steinmetz. I was wrong. You didn’t do it.”

  Kevin Drexel relaxed somewhat. He picked up his drink. Smiled at the blonde. “See, honey. I told you there was nothing to it.”

  “Right, Miss Carr,” I said. “I want to apologize to you too. I hope I didn’t cause you any worry by suggesting Mr. Drexel had gone to a motel to meet another woman. He didn’t.”

  “Damn right, I didn’t,” Drexel said.

  “Right,” I said. “You didn’t. You went there to take a bribe.”

  Drexel’s glass stopped halfway to his lips.

  “That’s right,” I said. “A bribe to influence your vote on the City Council.” I turned to the blonde. “See, Miss Carr, there was nothing sexual involved. This was a straight case of graft.”

  Jean Carr looked at Kevin Drexel. His mouth was open and his face had gone a pasty white. She looked back at me. Then back at him.

  I smiled at Drexel. “Only thing is, you didn’t get it. Julie Steinmetz was dead when you got there, so you didn’t get the money. Tough luck. Must have been a hell of a disappointment.”

  Drexel wet his lips. He seemed to be trying to think of something to say. If so, he failed.

  “So I’m sorry. About what I said. And I’m sorry you didn’t get your bribe. Too bad. It would have told you how to vote.” I shrugged. “Now I guess you’ll just have to vote your conscience.”

  I smiled at Drexel, nodded to the blonde, and walked out.

  32.
>
  I STAKED OUT Farber Kennelworth Development at seven o’clock the next morning. I didn’t really expect anyone to be coming to work at seven o’clock, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I was also pissed as hell. And if a short little man with a stringy red moustache happened to show up, I didn’t want to miss him.

  I figured it was a good bet. (Not my missing him, though that was a good bet too.) No, I figured it was a good bet he would show. Unless he was an actor hired as an unwitting dupe, or a hit man hired especially for the propose, the bogus Marvin Nickleson had to be connected with Farber Kennelworth Development. There was no other explanation. Everything fit too well. If that wasn’t true, I might as well just pack it in. ’Cause that was my deduction, I was damn glad to have made it, I was in fact proud to have arrived at it, and if it didn’t pan out I was going to feel like a kid who didn’t get to go to the movie show. I might even throw a temper tantrum.

  Which certainly would have puzzled the early morning commuters. And by eight o’clock there were plenty of ’em.

  I was on the sidewalk outside a building on Second Avenue not half a dozen blocks from the building where I was told Julie Steinmetz worked, but which was actually the building where Monica Dorlander worked. Though, actually, I was told that it was where Monica Dorlander worked, though Monica Dorlander wasn’t Monica Dorlander. Though she was, she just wasn’t Julie Steinmetz.

  So I had come full cycle. Here I was, once again, standing on the sidewalk in the bitter cold, freezing my ass off, and just like Monica Dorlander or Julie Steinmetz or whatever, the bogus Marvin Nickleson didn’t show up.

  Which didn’t surprise me. Because much as I thought he would, I also thought he wouldn’t. Because that was the only thing that made sense. The bogus Marvin Nickleson had let me see his face. That had to mean he was counting on never seeing me again. And how could he count on never seeing me again if he worked not six blocks from the address he had sent me to stake out?

  And yet he had to. I didn’t know anything about Farber Kennelworth Development, but it seemed unlikely there was a guy named Farber Kennelworth. Probably there was a Mr. Farber and a Mr. Kennelworth. By rights, the bogus Marvin Nickleson had to be one of the two. It was the only thing that made sense.

  So there I was with two conflicting theories, both of which were the only thing that made sense.

  And by late morning, when I could assume even the most prestigious member of the firm could reasonably be expected to be there, he still hadn’t shown up.

  There was no other entrance to the building, I was sure of it. The Second Avenue entrance was it. It was a corner building, but there was no entrance on the side street. And the building didn’t run all the way through the block. And there’s no subway on Second Avenue, no chance of an underground entrance of that type. And there was no garage on the block that might have connected to the building in some way. And I’d been watching the front entrance all the time. No, there was no way the guy could have gotten by.

  I worried that he had.

  By eleven-thirty or thereabouts, since I still didn’t have a watch, I decided, screw it, I’m going in.

  I went in the lobby. I checked it out first. There was a small newsstand, some banks of elevators, and then the back wall. No entrances, no exits. No doors, locked or otherwise. Nothing.

  I checked the directory. Farber Kennelworth Development was on the seventh floor.

  I got in the elevator and checked the buttons. The bottom button was “L” for lobby. There was no “B” for basement. No lower level to take an elevator from. No, the entrance I’d been staking out was it.

  I pushed seven. The doors closed and the elevator went up to the seventh floor. I got out, walked down the hall way, and found a solid wood door marked FARBER KENNELWORTH DEVELOPMENT.

  I put my ear to the door. I could hear the sound of a typewriter within.

  Well, what do I do now? Do I go in and see who’s there? The secretary who’s typing will immediately stop and say “May I help you?” And what do I say then? Do I claim a bogus appointment with Mr. Farber or Mr. Kennelworth? That will go over big if it’s just a trade name, and there is no Farber or Kennelworth. But why wouldn’t there be? How the hell should I know? Suppose there isa Mr. Farber and I ask for an appointment and she gives me one? Or I ask to see him and she asks me, “What about?” What do I say, “Development?” Would that be stupid, witty, or exactly right? No, “a property,” that’s what you say. I wanted to see him about a property. And then she asks my name and I give her a phony one, and then she asks me to take a seat, and then she shows me in to see the guy and it isn’t him. What do I do then, say, “Sorry, Mr. Farber, I wanted to talk to Mr. Kennelworth”? That’d go over big. Or say, “Excuse me, Mr. Farber, but is your partner a dinky guy with a scraggly moustache?” That would work fine too. Jesus, and then he’s gonna ask me about the property, and what do I say? ’Cause I don’t know a thing about property. Except it comes in acres. That’s it. I say I have an acre and a half. But would that be enough to interest him? Probably not. A hundred acres. “I got a hundred acres, Mr. Farber.” What type of land, what’s it been assessed at, what do I wanna do with it?

  I got back in the elevator.

  I went down to the lobby. There was a pay phone there. I went to it, punched in information, asked for the number of Farber Kennelworth Development.

  I called the number.

  A female voice answered the phone. “Farber Kennelworth Development.”

  “Mr. Farber, please.”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Mr. Acres.”

  Asshole. Acres is what you’re selling.

  “One moment, please.”

  She put me on hold.

  Idiot. Acres selling acres. Why couldn’t you say Mr. Thompson? You could be Thompson selling acres. You can’t be Acres selling thompson.

  She clicked back on. “Mr. Acres?”

  No, Mr. Thompson. “Yes.”

  “Mr. Farber is on another line. Would you care to hold?”

  “No, I’ll call back.”

  “Would you like to leave a number?”

  “No, I’ll call him later, thank you very much,” I said and hung up.

  All right. So far so good. There was a Farber. Did it follow that there also was a Kennelworth?

  I dropped a quarter in the phone and punched in the number again.

  The same female voice said, “Farber Kennelworth Development.”

  I disguised my voice slightly. “Mr. Kennelworth, please?”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  This time I was ready for it. “Mr. Thompson.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Thompson, I didn’t recognize your voice. How are you?”

  “I have a slight cold.”

  “I could tell. One moment, please.”

  So. There was a Kennelworth. There was also a Thompson, and Kennelworth would think I was him.

  Seconds later a man’s voice said, “Hi, Charlie?”

  I hung up the phone.

  So. There was a Kennelworth and a Farber. The voice of Mr. Kennelworth was not the voice of the bogus Marvin Nickleson. I hadn’t heard the voice of Mr. Farber, but assuming he had managed to get into his office this morning without flying, he wasn’t Marvin Nickleson either.

  But now I had a new lead. Charlie Thompson. Who the hell was he? He knew Kennelworth. The secretary there certainly knew him. That should make him pretty important, shouldn’t it?

  Could he be Marvin Nickleson?

  I called information, asked them if they had a Manhattan listing for a Charles Thompson. They had six of them—did I have the address? No, I did not. And who was to say this Charlie Thompson had to live in Manhattan? In all probability, he didn’t. Which made tracking him down only slightly more unpromising than tracing five hundred POPs.

  I hung up the phone and took stock of my situation. The way I saw it, it was gonna be a long day.

  It was.

  I hung
out in the lobby most of the afternoon, trying to look like I belonged there. I don’t know if I did that great a job or not, but at least nobody hassled me. Staking out an office building in the lobby is probably a no-no in the detective biz, but I just couldn’t hack the sidewalk. I tried it right after the phone calls, and I was out there turning blue when a guy went by with a ghetto-blaster on which the weatherman was announcing a wind-chill factor of minus twenty-eight. What a guy with no gloves was doing carrying half a ton of radio in that cold was beyond me, unless maybe it was frozen to his hand. At any rate, that was enough for me. I spent the rest of the afternoon inside. And while no one hassled me, in my head I envisioned building security guards holding whispered conferences about the suspicious gentleman on the premises, and every now and then I couldn’t help glancing out the door to see if the cops they’d summoned had arrived to pick me up.

  Naturally, they never did, and the afternoon passed, and rush hour arrived. And elevators started coming down and people started streaming out, and then the lobby wasn’t the place to be anymore, ’cause someone might get by me in the crowd, whereas outside I couldn’t miss anyone coming out the door. So I hit the sidewalk again, and while it was still cold it wasn’t that bad, because there was a constant stream of people coming out to watch, so I was occupied.

  Till rush hour ended. And the people stopped coming out. At which point I was finally able to convince myself it was time to pack it up and go home.

  Except for one thing. It occurred to me I should check the office of Farber Kennelworth Development to make sure no one was still there.

  I headed for the elevators. Just as I got there one came down and a man got out. I’d never seen him before, but his coming down reminded me that stragglers were still coming down. And there were half a dozen elevators. If I went up in one, I could miss Marvin Nickleson coming down in another. But if I didn’t go up, how was I gonna find out if the office was closed?

  I started for the elevator. Stopped. Started. Stopped.

  Shit.

  I said it out loud. I do that now and then when I get frustrated. As I said, I sometimes talk to myself out loud, particularly in moments of stress. This was just one manifestation of it. I’ll recognize some personal failing in myself, or I’ll recall some past instance when I acted like an asshole, or some decision of mine which I have cause to regret, and I’ll say, “Shit.” Or if the personal failing is humiliating enough, or the past experience embarrassing enough, or the cause for regret deep enough, I’ll say, “Fuck.”