Fiddle Game

by Richard A. Thompson

  I opened the vinyl case, pulled out the stack of bonds, and dropped them on the counter. She took each one in turn, shoved it in a machine that stamped the date and time, then manually logged it into a green, hardcover day book. The Cox bond was the last one in the stack.

  “You might be sticking your neck out a bit on this one,” she said. “He only got arraigned this morning, and already I’ve heard about him. If he was any nuttier, they’d chop him up and make Snickers bars.”

  “Just a high-spirited kid, Jan. Misunderstood. Doesn’t like Luds. Or maybe he does like them, I forget which way it works.”

  “Like Timothy McVeigh didn’t like concrete?”

  “McVeigh was a flat-earther, as I recall. Didn’t like anything vertical. But he did like really big bangs. The two guys are nothing alike.”

  “You’re right about that. McVeigh knew enough to keep his mouth shut in court. Not Cox.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now, anyway. The bond is paid for, and I can’t refund it, so you might as well go ahead and log it in.”

  “Your funeral. I’m just saying, watch this one. You want me to have him mustered out through here, so you can meet him, maybe give him a little pep talk?”

  Her eyes flashed wickedly. What she really meant was that she would give me a chance to slip a tracer bug into the guy’s pocket. It was something she never officially knew about and I never officially did. Afterwards, I sometimes took her out to a fancy candlelight dinner, just to keep her feeling unofficially rewarded. It pays to have friends in the working end of the power structure. Better than in high places, any day.

  “Thanks anyway, Jan, but they’ve probably already pulled him out of the lockup. His sister just got run over by a Ford tank, and they’ll be looking for somebody to ID the body.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Happened right out there, less than an hour ago.” I pointed at the now-deserted street.

  “Oh, wow, that one? I was outside having a smoke, and I saw the paramedics come. That was the Monkey-boy’s sister, huh? What a funny world. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  “It made Amy Cox stop thinking.”

  ***

  It didn’t have that effect on me. The Sheriff’s office was not the place for heavy meditation, though, and neither was my own place. I mumbled some kind of farewell to Deputy Janice and wandered back out into the rain. Five blocks and three corners later, I found myself at the entrance to Lefty’s Billiard Parlor.

  Lefty’s is a real, old-fashioned pool hall, where you buy time on the tables from a teller, rather than constantly stuffing coins in a slot. That means you can still play straight pool, and you can abide by the classical rules for scratch shots, whatever game you play. The place is also one long flight of rickety, dark stairs up from street level, a tradition in pool halls that I’ve never understood. A regulation table weighs over a ton, so why put it on the second story, where you have to reinforce the floor and hoist the table in through a skylight, with a crane? Maybe it makes it harder to break the lease, is all I can think. And it damn sure discourages anybody from stealing a table.

  Anyhow, Lefty’s is a walkup joint, in strict violation of the federal handicap access laws, and it’s as good a place as I know to go practice on a quiet corner table and let the click of the balls knit your unraveled thoughts back together. Unlike Ames’ in The Hustler, it also has a bar and a decent grill, though Lefty will watch you like a hawk and charge you if you spill grease or ketchup on his precious green felt. Beer he doesn’t seem to mind. There’s also a sign by the upper entry that says, “This is a Smoke-Free Establishment. Any Smoke You Find Here is Absolutely Free.” Lefty isn’t real big on regulations, other than his own.

  It was late afternoon by the time I walked in, and some guy I didn’t know was tending bar and keeping time on the tables, all by himself. I ordered a shot of vodka and a Guinness. I downed the shot and took just a sip of the stout, to give it a bit of after-flavor. Dark brews, I have always thought, are for sipping and contemplation. If your pint doesn’t get up to room temperature before you finish it, you’re drinking it too fast. White liquor, by contrast, is for impact, to start the negotiating process with the back of your mind. It has no other qualities, and there’s no point in savoring it.

  I got a rack of balls for an empty table by the windows and another shot to take with me. I told the bartender to take his time getting me a California burger with extra onions and some lattice fries. Then I laid out the balls on the table, planted my drinks on the window sill, and picked out a house cue from a rack on the wall. It was a bit heavier than I usually like, but it was only warped in one direction and looked like somebody had actually chalked the tip now and then.

  Two tables over, Wide Track Wilkie was shooting a game of nine ball with some Asian kid, while the kid’s girlfriend watched. He looked like he was doing some serious hustling and didn’t need any interference, which was fine with me. Wilkie is a three-hundred-plus pound movable barrier of African and Puerto Rican descent, with more in the mix. I was just as glad he was in St. Paul, because I occasionally like to hire him as a bounty hunter. Besides that and hustling pool, I have no idea what he does for a living.

  In another part of the room, some teenagers were doing a bad imitation of playing snooker, and clowning around about their own ineptitude. Otherwise, the place was empty. There was no jukebox or piped-in Muzak, just the click of the balls and the whir of overhead fans and whatever the players had to say. In that respect, Lefty’s is just like Ames’. You want to be surrounded by sound, go to a rave.

  I put the belly of the warped cue stick downward and stroked a nice, clean break. Not a money break. I almost never sink anything on the break, and I’ve given up trying. That’s why I like the longer games—rotation or straight pool—where there’s time for a few wild cards to emerge and enough pauses to work the opposition’s head a little. I studied the spread after the break for a while and decided I was shooting eight ball. Ten shots later, my burger came, in a cute little basket that looked like it was made for holding a fancy wine bottle. The no-name bartender put it down on the window sill, next to my drinks, along with another basket that had napkins, salt and pepper in heavy glass shakers, and ketchup in a wide-mouthed jar instead of one of those plastic squeeze bottles. Lefty’s is a classy place.

  I ate about half of the burger, punctuating the last chew of each mouthful with a little bit of alcohol and foam. It was good stuff, and my body was grateful for it, but my eyes kept wandering back to the table. I didn’t consciously decide to put the food down, but pretty soon I was back to staring down the cue stick, sizing up a long, single-cushion shot on the ten ball. Going into my spatial meditation mode.

  Shots with a lot of open green are a kind of Zen thing for me. At first, I can’t see the angle and can’t compute my way to it, either. Might as well shoot with my eyes closed. But if I wait, take my time, and sort of identify with the space of the setup, suddenly the line will reveal itself to me and I absolutely can’t miss. When I drop the ball, it will look like a lucky fluke, but luck has nothing to do with it. I did a few practice strokes and waited for the line to appear. Did luck have anything to do with Amy Cox? A lot of long green on that table. Much less on Jimmy Cox’s bond. Eighteen K is little people’s dreams, not the stuff of conspiracy or murder. Sixty gets a bit more interesting, but whoever killed Amy wouldn’t actually get their hands on even the eighteen, much less the big money. Did I use enough chalk? You have to put it on before you go out in the rain. Otherwise it won’t stick, and you’ll wind up like…Jesus, where did that come from? And why couldn’t I see the line yet?

  The felt turned a slightly darker shade of green, and I looked up to see two guys blocking the light from the window. Closest to me, looking as if he expected something, was a big, shapeless, forty-something guy with an oversized head and puffy, babylike features. The kind of guy that will still look like Baby Huey when he’s eighty. Scowl marks by the
mouth and eyes told me that he worked a bit too hard at overcoming that image. The other guy was smaller in every dimension, with dark, stringy hair and a gaunt face that looked like a poster for European famine relief. As if he had read my mind, he made a show of eating the rest of my burger.

  Both guys had brimmed hats pulled low and semi-respectable topcoats that were bulky enough to hide all kinds of hardware. And they were both working very hard at looking mean and serious. Was I about to be leaned on? What the hell for? I looked over to where Wide Track was still shooting with the Asian kids. If he had picked up on the situation, he made no sign, but then, he wouldn’t. Hollow Cheeks spoke first, while Babyface continued to stare me down.

  “Good burger. Get me another one, will you?”

  “You think so?” I said. “I put it down after I thought I saw something moving in the onions, but maybe that was just my imagination.”

  “Bullshit.” Obviously, not the captain of his high school debating team. I continued to bend over and sight down the pool cue, only now I was visually measuring its length against the distance between me and the big guy.

  “You Herman Jackson?” Babyface, this time.

  “Who’s asking, exactly?” Too far. I needed to get about two feet closer, for a really effective swing.

  “Detective Evans, Homicide. My partner over there, with the tape worm, is Stroud. We gotta show you our badges?”

  “If we’re talking business here, that would be the professional way to proceed, wouldn’t it?” I stood partway up, but I didn’t let go of the cue stick.

  Evans made a show of looking put out, but he pulled a gold badge out of an inner pocket and gave me all of a three-second look at it. His partner gave me an even shorter look at his. I tried to think of a recent homicide case that I had carried a bond on, but I was coming up empty. “Did one of my customers show up missing?”

  “Not as far as I know. We’re here about the woman who got killed in front of your office today.”

  I finally let go of the cue and stood up. “Amy Cox,” I said. “You’ve decided to call it a murder?”

  “Yeah, we call it murder. But we don’t call her Amy Cox. And we’re very interested to know why you do.”

  “How about because that’s who she is? Get a clue here, detectives. Haven’t you talked to her brother yet?”

  “We talked to a James Cox, recently released on a bond provided by you.”

  “And?”

  “He says he doesn’t have a sister.”

  “What?” Now it was my turn to say “bullshit,” but I didn’t want to sound just as lame as Detective Stroud. “Did you make him go look at the body anyway?”

  “You’re not too bright, are you, Jackson?” Stroud was shifting away from the window, towards me. I think he was trying to be menacing, but he didn’t have the stature or the presence for it. “If he doesn’t have a sister, he can’t exactly tell us if that’s her, can he?”

  “We made him look,” said Evans, ignoring his partner.

  “And?”

  “Says he never saw her before.”

  “Then why would she hock her heirloom violin to bail him out?”

  “Well, we don’t really know that she did, do we?”

  “No,” said Stroud, now moving around so he and his partner flanked me at the table. “Alls we know is what Jackson here told the officer at the scene.”

  “Officer Krupke?” I said. That wasn’t the officer’s name, of course, but it seemed like a clever thing to say.

  “Yeah, Krupke,” said Stroud. “Good cop, but he don’t always know to ask the right questions.”

  Oops. If that didn’t clinch it for me, it should have.

  “So we’re thinking,” said Evans, “that you maybe ought to just show us the contract you had the woman sign.”

  “And maybe the violin you say she gave you for security, too,” said Stroud.

  “And maybe you’d like to show me a warrant,” I said.

  “Maybe we could get one.”

  “Maybe you couldn’t, too. What do you think you have probable cause to suspect, anyway, issuing a bond to the wrong client?” I bent back down and took the shot on the ten ball, missing it badly. Wait for the Zen moment, Jackson? But the new lie of the balls gave me an excuse to move out from between my new friends and take a stance by the opposite rail. As I moved around the table, I looked over at the ongoing nine ball game. Wide Track Wilkie was nowhere to be seen. I began to get a very bad feeling in my gut that had nothing to do with Lefty’s onions.

  “Murder,” said Evans.

  “We agree about that,” I said, bending down to sight the new shot, again measuring the geometry of space and bodies. “So why aren’t you guys out checking body shops and outstanding traffic warrants?”

  “Because the car didn’t kill her,” said Stroud.

  “Excuse me all to hell,” I said, mentally adding you dumb shits. “I was there, remember? I saw them put her in a body bag.”

  “Oh, she was dead, all right. Wasn’t she, Detective Stroud?”

  “Dead, Detective Evans. Broken neck. But it wasn’t broken by any car. According to the M.E., somebody did it to her with his hands, real up-close and personal, like.”

  “We think maybe it was you,” said Evans. “So, like we were saying, we think maybe you better show us that contract.”

  “And that violin,” said Stroud.

  The room was starting to feel very small. “I think you’re both so full of shit your eyeballs are brown,” I said. “I don’t believe the M.E. has even looked at her yet. I want to see the medical report.”

  “Oh, we’ll do better than that,” said Evans. “We’ll take you down to the Morgue, and you can see for yourself. We’ll go there on our way to the precinct, to talk it all out.”

  “After he gives…” began Stroud.

  “Shows,” corrected Evans.

  “…yeah, shows us the violin.”

  They were single-minded goons, I had to give them that. “Am I under arrest?” I said.

  “You want to be?”

  I thought about it for a minute. Forcing them into one more formality might slow them down a bit, but I didn’t need the extra handicap of wearing cuffs. And I now had no doubt that I was going to have to go with them, whether I insisted on formalities or not. “No,” I said, “but I want to call my lawyer.”

  “Be our guest.”

  They would say that, wouldn’t they? Especially since we all knew we weren’t going anywhere near any cop station. I went over to the bar and asked non-Lefty for a phone. He produced one from somewhere in or near the sink and plonked it down on the polished top with his dishwater-wrinkled hand, saying, “No long-distance.”

  “The least of my needs,” I said.

  I figured they’d notice and cut me off if I dialed 9-1-1, so I called my own office instead, and mentally cursed when I got my voice mail. After the piercing little beep, I said, “Listen, Agnes, get ahold of the cops as fast as you can. I’m about to be abducted from Lefty’s Poolhall by a couple of thugs posing as police detectives.” I gave her a quick description of my companions, including the names they were using. “After the cops, call Nickel Pete and tell him not to give the Amati to anybody, including me, unless I’m alone. Then call every damn bounty hunter we ever use and tell them…”

  “Done yet?” Evans loomed over me like a glacier about to calve.

  “Not quite.”

  “I think you are.” He pushed the button on the receiver cradle, and the phone went dead. I hung up and shrugged into my trenchcoat, which he had thoughtfully brought from the back of the hall, and we proceeded to the door. There wasn’t a lot else I could do. I began to wonder if I had any of my electronic tracer gizmos in my pocket. They wouldn’t help my present situation much, but I thought it might be nice if somebody found my corpse.

  Chapter Three

  The Zen Moment

  The stairway to Lefty’s is too na
rrow for three people to go abreast, so the skinny guy went ahead of us while Babyface Evans stayed tight to me, on my left and slightly behind. He didn’t poke a gun in my ribs, but I figured he had one handy, if not already out. Stroud didn’t use the handrail, and I thought about how easy it would be to reach my foot out, tap the back of one of his knees, and send him crashing down the rest of the flight. Then I would only have the big guy to take out.

  Tempting. A lot of people assume that since bonding is a nonviolent, even sedentary profession, all of us are flabby little wimps who haven’t been in a fight since the age of seven and would faint dead away at the sight of a gun. In a lot of cases, it’s true. “Nothing but Milquetoast, on the gravy train,” is the saying.

  I grew up in a neighborhood where people thought The Godfather was a sitcom. Becoming a bondsman was a way of graduating, not running away, from my own violent past. If these two thugs didn’t know that, it could give me a significant edge. But only once. Not yet, I decided, since I couldn’t see what Evans was doing until I was already committed to a move. But soon. It had to be soon, or it wouldn’t work at all.

  We clumped down the sloped shaft and out onto the street, where both the daylight and the rain were running out of juice. Somewhere in the distance, some noisy pigeons were announcing the end of the deluge. I don’t know if any of them had an olive branch in his beak. Parked at the curb was a massive Chevy of the kind the cops use a lot, a Caprice or some such model, but without the extra bells and whistles. What it did have was a right rear tire that was flatter than my Aunt Hannah’s bra. When Evans and I came out the door, Stroud was already looking at it, fists on his hips, as if he had never seen such a calamity before. Evans acted more like he had seen a lot of them and took them all as personal insults.

  “Look at that, man. Is that all we need, or what? I mean, my God.”

  “I see it, Stroud. I’m sharp on that kind of shit, you know? Picked right up on it.”

  “So, what do we do?”