Fiddle Game

by Richard A. Thompson

  “Let’s put that aside for a minute. It seems to me he had already done a lot of wheeling and dealing with Yonkos before you ever got there.”

  “Dead on.” God, I love a smart woman. “I think they knew each other long before Amy Cox ever walked into my office. I think Yonkos was a bigger boss than I thought, had his fingers in Gypsy doings and their dealings with crooked cops as far away as my humble little town.”

  “Or if he didn’t play an active part, he at least knew about them.”

  “That’s more likely, I agree. Either way, when Evans lost me at the shopping center, he probably went to see his old buddy Stefan for some advice. He must have been blown away by his own good luck when he found out I was on my way there, too.”

  “Or horrified at it,” she said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, Evans was a cop. If he was trying to keep his ties to the Gypsies a secret, he had to know that game was going to come apart when you came here. Maybe that’s why he wanted to kill you.”

  “That would fit, all right, but that wasn’t his reason.”

  “How do you know?”

  And suddenly, I did know. “Because of his shoes,” I said.

  “Huh?” She made a cradle out of her folded fingers and dropped her chin into it with a look of wide-eyed bewilderment. “Maybe I need that score card, after all. I thought I was doing great, up to then.”

  “Think back on the scene in the basement, Rosie.”

  “Must I?”

  “Well, maybe not all of it. But try to picture Evans’ shoes.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s a pretty ordinary pair of shoes.”

  “Expensive?”

  “Are you kidding? Discount store. Plastic soles. Not even a good big-brand knockoff. His suit, the same thing.”

  “That’s what I think, too. It’s not just a matter of taste. This was a guy who never bought anything that wasn’t cheap to start with, and on sale besides.”

  “What I said. So?”

  “So how do you get to be a plainclothes cop?”

  “Is this a test? Do I get a prize if I guess right?”

  “You already got your prize.”

  “Oh, dreadful macho vanity there. What’s your point, slick?”

  “My point is that you get to be a detective by putting in your time in a uniform first. And uniformed cops, just like you when you were waiting tables, get to appreciate good shoes. So this detective goes on the take to a bunch of con artists, risks his badge and his pension, even. I’m saying that even if he is too smart to make a big splash with his ill-gotten extra money anyplace else, he at least buys himself a really good pair of shoes.”

  She thought it over for a minute. “Okay,” she said. “So he wasn’t on the take, had to scrape by on a mere fifty-five thou a year, or whatever cops make, poor baby.”

  “But he was definitely in cahoots with the Rom on the fiddle scam, all the way. He even accused the young guy, Jimmy, of screwing it up.”

  “You’re arguing with yourself, Herman. People pay therapists a lot of money to deal with that, you know.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m saying Evans was in on the con, and probably others as well, up to his badge, okay? But not for the money.”

  “What else is there?”

  “I’m surprised at you, Rosie. You of all people, to ask such a question.”

  “Are you telling me that he was Amy Cox’s lover?”

  “Bingo. It makes everything else fit, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess. And he wanted to kill you because…”

  “Because he really did think I had murdered her. That was where all the rage came from.”

  “Good grief,” she said. “So he wound up almost killing you and getting killed himself, all because he wasn’t a very smart detective.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “And we’re right back at square one.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said. “But that’s where we’re going.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Looking Backwards

  Even in a real war, they don’t campaign every day. Sometimes they have to wait for the Lost Patrol to find itself or the supply lines to catch up with the advance columns, and sometimes they just have to stop and figure out what the hell is going on. I needed a day for Wide Track to sniff around and find out if I could come back to St. Paul without a lawyer at my side. And to be honest, I still didn’t know where I would go when I got there.

  We went to a different hotel that night, a huge new highrise down by the Chicago River, either because I don’t like leaving an easy trail or because Rosie just liked the looks of it. Maybe both reasons, plus the fact that she was still working at running up such a huge tab on her plastic that she wouldn’t ever be tempted to go back to the diner in New Salem.

  She had noticed the place from down on the lakefront, and she wondered if the rooms right under the massive lit-up sign would be bathed in flashing red light, just like in an old cheap-detective movie. They weren’t, as it turned out, and the desk clerk said he got really tired of people asking him about it. But we booked a top-floor room anyway, with another Jacuzzi and a view of the lake and the city skyline. In the morning, we had eggs benedict and fresh fruit brought up by room service and watched the morning sun burn off picture-postcard layers of orange and magenta clouds over a lake that looked like lead glass.

  “Is this how it feels to be rich?” said Rosie.

  “No, this is how rich people thought it was going to feel. By the time they get there, they can’t remember the feeling or the reason anymore. Then they get a little deranged.”

  “That’s pretty cynical,” she said. “Are you speaking from experience again? You have millions stashed away that you haven’t told me about?”

  I smiled and poured myself some more coffee. The thin, crisp-edged porcelain cups with the hotel logo on them reminded me of the ones Yonkos and I had used, and I thought of the way his sightless eyes had seemed to light up when we talked about the Amati. It was his only display of weakness.

  “There was a time,” I said, “when I chased the big bucks as hard as any other idiot. But I’ve made and lost enough money since then to say that of all the phony dreams they sell you in this country, the joy of being rich is the phoniest.”

  “Yeah, huh? Well let me tell you, being poor isn’t so hot, either.”

  I smiled again. I’ve been there, too. Bought the tee shirt, rode the tour bus, did the whole scene. She was right: It sucked.

  “Too true,” I said. “Either poverty or wealth can own you. The trick is to stay in the middle, where you might actually find out what’s important.”

  “And that is…?”

  “Did I say I knew?”

  “You know more than you think, Herman.”

  I certainly hope so.

  ***

  To kill some time until I could call Wilkie again, we went out and acted like typical tourists for a while, strolling through the downtown parks and shopping in the Loop for things we didn’t need. Rosie bought me a watch, with more fancy dials than anybody could read and a lot of extra buttons. I’ve owned cars that cost less.

  “I don’t need that,” I said.

  “Your old one looks like a dime store Timex.”

  “It is a dime store Timex. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You’re a successful businessman,” she said. “You should look like it.”

  “Back in the real world, what I am is an officer of the court. A coat and tie are my work clothes, but it’s actually better if they’re not too flashy. Successful businessmen these days dress like wannabe bums, except that they have designer labels sewn on the wrong side of their rags and cell phones grafted to the sides of their heads. I wouldn’t look like that if you threatened me. I was proud, the first time I could afford a real suit.”

  “Be proud again. Wea
r a nice watch.”

  What do you say to something like that? I decided to be proud. I should have also drawn a conclusion, but I didn’t.

  ***

  We went to a yuppie coffee bar downtown, and I used one of their public PCs to check in with Agnes again. The coffee there was three to five dollars a pop, even in a paper cup, and their pastries were so expensive they kept them in a locked case, like fine jewelry. But the Internet time was free. I’m not sure how it all balanced out.

  I sent Agnes a short message, telling her I was all right and would be talking to Wilkie later in the day. She gave me a cheery little acknowledgment and added that nobody had been around looking for me recently, except for Wilkie with the chores I’d given him, plus a deranged, babbling street preacher, whom she had thrown out. Served him right. Holy mission or not, the Proph shouldn’t be bothering my secretary. There wasn’t any other incoming traffic right then, which made me wonder if Evans had been the author of some or all of my earlier e-mails, and hence there would be no more of them. I had Agnes forward me a copy of the sales offer I had told Wilkie to send under my name.

  Re: Amati violin

  Your offer is accepted in principle, but the minimum price is $75k.

  If this is acceptable, where and when do we meet to conduct the sale?

  H J

  I had been right: Agnes knew exactly how to write it. I wouldn’t have changed a word. There was no printer in the coffee shop, but I also had her forward me the earlier messages again, and I reread them, making a few notes. The one that was signed “a friend” did not offer to sell me back the Amati, I noticed, merely to sell me some information on how to get it. So the writer didn’t have it but claimed to know where it was. He or she also told me Gerald Cox was very bad news and much to be avoided. Interesting. A falling out among thieves, maybe?

  The writer claiming to be Gerald Cox, on the other hand, flatly stated that he knew I had the violin, which suggested to me that whoever he was, he was not Amy Cox’s killer. Or did it? Maybe he was just upping the ante for the anonymous “friend.”

  I tried to think of another scenario, one in which the same person had sent both messages, to see which one I would bite at, but I couldn’t quite make it all hold together. While I was busy knitting my brows over it, the reply came back to Wilkie’s message, and Agnes dutifully forwarded it to me at once.

  mr. jackson again

  you should have accepted my offer when i made it. now there is blood involved, and what you have to offer is worth much less on the open market. i suggest that i would be doing you a favor by simply taking it off your hands, but i will be magnanimous and give you the fitting sum of $18,000.

  time and place to follow.

  how do you like beautiful downtown skokie, by the way?

  g c

  Oh shit flashed into my mind, but that didn’t begin to cover it. Somebody—probably somebody very bad—not only knew how to reach out and touch me here on the road, he also knew just way too damn much about my affairs. I wondered if it was even safe to go back to the hotel. The cold feeling in the pit of my stomach was starting to feel like a familiar but unwanted guest. I grabbed a notepad off the counter and copied down the message verbatim. Then I looked at my fancy new watch. Still almost two hours until it was time for my call, and not a single useful thing I could do before then. I collected Rosie from where she was ogling the pastry case, and we went off for another casual stroll. If we talked, I have no idea about what.

  We had a junk food lunch, Chicago-style hot dogs and fries from a street vendor. The hot dogs had about a pound of veggies and onions on them and dripped with sauce, and I wondered if they sold the same kind at the baseball games there. If so, they must hose down the bleachers after every game. After we ate, we washed our hands in a public drinking fountain, while a couple of monumental bronze statues frowned down on us in disapproval. Then we went back to the hotel to pick up the car and drove until we found another pay phone.

  “Praise Yah, okay?” Wilkie’s voice carried a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  “He’s got you saying it, too?” I said.

  “He wouldn’t let me answer the phone unless I promised to. You believe that?”

  “I don’t believe you actually did it. You got anything for me?”

  “I got a lot, but not all of it exactly in my hot little hand. The military records you wanted are all paper. We could get some PFC clerk to fax them, if we had a fax number that would stand up to a hard look, but that’s as high tech as they can go. We can’t use the Internet for it.”

  I thought for a moment and got one of my rare inspirations. “Go over to the County Sheriff’s office, across from the Courthouse,” I said. “See a deputy named Janice Whitney and tell her I need a favor. She’ll probably give you their fax number and even pick up the stuff for you, if you ask her nice. She owes me one.”

  “Is she cute?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “I seem to make out better with broads who aren’t cute.”

  “You’re not supposed to make out, you’re just supposed to get a fax number. And yes, she’s cute.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Would I hire you for something easy? What else have you got?”

  “Well, the big news is, our good buddy the shady detective has got himself dead, no less, in some ‘burb outside Chicago. Shot.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  “I figured.”

  “How’d you find out?” I said.

  “Hey, I called his work number. Thought I’d say I got a postcard from you from Ixtapa or some such shit, ask him did he want the address or wasn’t he interested anymore? And somebody told me he checked out.”

  “They tell you if they’re looking for anybody special for it?”

  “They’re not looking for you, at least not yet. Not much being given out, but it sounds like a hell of a complicated mess. I took one of the lower-downs in the department there out to lunch, a very much not-cute gal named…”

  “Spare me.”

  “Okay then, this person I know says we got three people dead, all with some kind of bad history or other. Some major turf war going on between cops, too. The locals think our boy was bent, so how can his own people be trusted to investigate his killing? But our people think all the cops over there in Illinois are bent, so how can they be trusted to investigate the price of free doughnuts? They’ll probably never get it all straightened out. You don’t know a thing about any of it, right?”

  “A check of my credit card records will show that I was on a train to Seattle,” I said. “And the ticket clerk should remember me, too.”

  “Good deal. How is it in Seattle these days?”

  “Windy. I’m thinking of coming back.”

  “I would say that’s not a problem. According to the Prophet’s computer, you’re not on any wanted lists.”

  “I was,” I said, “but maybe they were all put out on the personal authority of our one guy. When he died, so did they.”

  “Yeah, could be. And as far as the thing in Chicago goes, there’s not enough of you to make a good suspect.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, it’s just the guy was shot by at least three different people. I guess I didn’t mention that before. I mean, he really knew how to piss off a lot of very bad actors.”

  “Are you sure about that, Wide? You’re absolutely sure it was three, not two?”

  “Hey, that’s one of the few things everybody agrees on in this case. Three shooters: one with a three-eighty, one with a nine, and one with a seven millimeter. The seven is why everybody remembers it. You don’t see a lot of them.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said. I had that strange feeling again, as if that should tell me something really important. I think I hung up without saying goodbye.

  I went back to where Rosie was sitting behind the wheel of the Pontiac, ready to do another fast getaway should
the phone suddenly turn into a monster or a cop. I slid into the passenger seat and tried to make some sense of what I had just heard.

  “Rosie,” I said, “back when you found me at the fortune-telling parlor…”

  “Rescued, Herman. The operative word is definitely ‘rescued.’”

  “Okay. Back when you were the cavalry and I was up to my ass in bloodthirsty Indians…”

  “Oh, much better. Yes, back then, what?”

  “How did you open the trap door?”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s not the reassuring reply I had been hoping for.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “It was already open. It was a hole in the floor, with your voice coming out of it and some goon all covered with blood at the bottom of it. I didn’t open anything. How would I?”

  “Good question. So who did, I wonder?”

  “What difference does it make? It was open, okay? I mean, it had to be…” She stopped and turned to look at my face.

  “No, Herman. Damn it all to hell, no.”

  “No what?” I gave her what I hoped was an innocent look.

  “You’ve got that look, like a doctor about to give out one of those awful good-news-bad-news things. Don’t tell me what I can see you’re about to tell me.” I switched to faking a reassuring smile, but that obviously didn’t work, either.

  “It’s crazy and it won’t accomplish anything,” she said.

  “Then just drop me off, okay?”

  “You know about how likely I am to do that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “So let’s go.”

  “We are talking about the same thing here, right? For some utterly insane and self-destructive reason, you want to go back to the Gypsy officia?”

  “That’s the plan, yes.”

  “The plan sucks.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? Hit it.”