As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  "I walked right by her 'n' she didn't even twig I was there," the twerp said.

  "What was she doing?" Katy said.

  "Opening a post office box, what else?" Sara said.

  "Don't suppose you got the number," I said. "I thought you'd wait till she left, then check it out."

  "Didn't have to, stoopid," she said. "There's eight rows of boxes, twenty-five in each row, and she was three rows down and six boxes in, meanin' number fifty-six to you."

  "Why, what a coincidence," I said. "Guess which number is missing in the following: "Karat, Isobel. P.O.B. something, Atwood, CA, USA. 4/G $1,644.44.CC."

  "I give up," Benny said, deftly passing a pickup and swinging neatly back in a few vehicles behind the Joneses. Katy giggled.

  "Three and a half?" she ventured.

  "Not three and a half, dimwit," I said. "Fifty-six, if you want to know."

  "What I want to know too is what you wanted me along for," she said. "Something dangerous, I hope. Maybe I could seduce somebody."

  "You could seduce me in a couple of years," I said, "and probably Benny right now. Benny, it's probably Corona next, according to the map, then it looks like Riverside, Woodcrest, Edgemont, and then the 215 to Perris, least that's the way I'd go." I turned my attention back to my seatmate—the human one, that is. "Kids," I told her. "Who'd be suspicious of kids, except parents maybe and teachers and owners of Five and Dime stores. But not to follow people around into post offices, who'd suspect a kid of that? That's why I occasionally have to use Sara here, I mean, look at her, who'd suspect her? Now that her punk period is over, anyway. And I would like at least three or four sightings of the Joneses in action before I figure out what to do next. I can't trail them around, because I am such a splendid figure of a man and also Tex knows me, but you can and Sara can and Benny can twice, easy. That is why, my child."

  "Oh," Katy said. "When do we get to eat our picnic? I'm hungry."

  "Me too," Sara said.

  "Me three," Benny chimed in.

  "Me four," I said, "and King five, but either when they do or after three more stops."

  Benny, without cap and glasses, went in after Tex in Corona, with equally fortuitous results. Katy nipped in before Tex, in Riverside, and hung about as if waiting for a parent who was inside buying stamps. See, in case there are some few among you who do not know precisely what a post office box is, it is a long, narrow metal box, usually with a glass insert in the front so you can see if there's anything inside or not without opening it. To get one, you pay the postmaster, if that's the right title of the guy in charge of a post office, some paltry sum like ten bucks a year, tell him (or her, if it's a postmistress, which sounds like a lot more fun) what name you want it in, hand over the dough, then he hands you the key, and it's yours for a year. Post office boxes in larger towns and cities are to be found in small rooms inside the entrance, separated from the post office proper—although obviously connected by things called doors—so they are easy of access. In the sticks, I do not know where they put their post office boxes and neither do I care.

  Anyway, a success for Katy, too, and then a final triumph for Benjamin in cap, glasses, and a natty blue windbreaker borrowed from I, with a frisky King in tow. Then we all watched as the Joneses drove away to pick up the eastbound Riverside freeway again, then we caught the half of the freeway that went in the other direction and shortly thereafter, just outside Woodcrest, stopped at an attractive picnic area in a grove of trees and, finally, had our picnic, which was marred only by Sara's complaints that I hadn't brought enough pickles, to which my only response was to outreach her for the last of one of Fred's chopped liver sandwiches.

  At some stage in the proceedings Benny, I think it was, asked me how Mrs. Jones had set it all up and how had she been able to get away with it for so long. I told him I figured it went something like this:

  Onto the desk of the secretary who opens all the mail there arrives the news that pensioner X, say, has unfortunately expired, whether peacefully at his home in Parched Throat, New Mexico, surrounded by his loved ones, or by drinking himself to death on wood alcohol in a Pittsburgh gutter, it matters not. First, Mary has to check that X fulfills the three requirements of (a) having a large enough pension to make it worthwhile, and (b) said pension or part of not being transferred on his death to a surviving spouse, and (c) obviously X should not be someone who has recently worked at head office or have been a top executive somewhere else, just in case X's name is familiar to one of the very limited number of people who might notice it, i.e., the secretary and the equally unfortunate Jonathan Flint.

  Then all she has to do is enter a change of address for X in the system, instead of erasing him, said address being a post office box somewhere within a couple of hours' driving range of LA and to not forget to make sure X's checks are henceforth to be the instantly cashable certified ones. Then she or Tex rents a box in a suitable town in X's name, and rub their greedy hands with glee forever and ever. Benny wanted to know what kind of money we were talking about here. I told him at the most, $5,325,000, but to reach that total Mary would have had to start milking all twenty-seven accounts at roughly the same time, seven years ago, which wouldn't have been possible, so maybe something like five million would be nearer the mark.

  "Did you ever meet her?" Sara said.

  "No," I said. "Funny to be building a case against someone I've only seen a couple of times in the distance trotting in and out of post offices." I gave King the last of the sandwich, which was mostly crust anyway.

  "To start with, she had luck," Benny said, clearing up the used napkins and empty cole slaw containers and what-all from the wooden tabletop we were picnicking on. "She stumbled into a situation where IMM's limited-access policy, which is typical of corporation paranoia, left her wide open to do pretty much what she wanted, as long as the Joneses were moderately careful how they used the money." Katy took the bagful of garbage from him and deposited it in a nearby bin.

  "To end with, she ran out of luck," I said. "Jonathan Flint must have spotted some name he recognized, against all the odds, someone that he knew was dead. Maybe someone who worked upstate with him, outside Oakland, where his wife told me they were before. Who knows or will ever know, although if I sent a copy of the list to Mrs. Flint, who is now back home in dear old Hutchinson, which in case you didn't know is about fifty miles west of Minneapolis, and asked her if she knew any of the people on the list, maybe she would."

  "This guy Flint," Sara said, "what happened to him?"

  "Darlin', he's gone where all good actuaries go," I said, giving her wispy hair a good tousle, "and it is up to you to decide whether that be Heaven or Hell."

  "How about six months each?" she said, making Katy giggle again.

  "Come on, you lot, wagons roll," I said. "We can't sit around here jawing all day, some of us have work to do."

  When we were, some hour and a half later, back again in civilization, to use the word loosely, Benny the Boy dropped me off at my office and down to work I got, after letting King nag me into a walk around the block first. I dug out, rearranged, and then wrote down every tidbit of information about Tex and Mary I had picked up in my travels by keeping alert—which is something I recommend you do from time to time, kids—from all the various sources—Tom 'n' Jerry, Debby Flint, the police, the Met reports, Frank the vodka drinker, plus bits of gossip, plus a few surmises, plus some more or less logical deductions, and plus of course the personal observations re post office boxes carried out that very day by myself, Katy, Benjamin, and my own, my very own bowlegged irregular S. Silvetti. It took me about an hour and a half before I was jotting down the last jot. Then I was just about to try R. Howieson at his home when who should come a-scratching at the door but Injun Joe. With one finger I beckoned him to enter. He did so. While he was stooped over saying an affectionate hello to King, I couldn't help noticing his once-proud finery, entirely bankrolled by me, you will recall; had somehow managed in a week or so to self-d
estruct down to the abysmal level of his wardrobe before I played Santa.

  "Hey, chief," he said, straightening up carefully. "How come pancakes can present a TV show?"

  "They can't," I said.

  "Yeah, but they does," he said. "I was watchin' TV over at Lil's and this guy said the progrum was bein' brought to us by some pancakes."

  "It wasn't the pancakes that was doin' the bringin', Joe," I said, "it was the friendly folks who make the pancakes."

  "So why didn't they say so?" he said.

  "I do not know," I said. "Anything else important on your mind, Joe?"

  "Well," he said, looking down and scuffling his large feet, "tell the truth, I could use a couple of bucks till payday, chief."

  "You got it." I extracted a fiver from my wallet and handed it over. "Got some news for you, Joe. That fence? It's coming down one of these days."

  "No kiddin'? Terrific, chief. So it worked, eh, all that what we did?"

  "It sure did," I said. "And, speaking of work . . ."

  "I get 'cha," he said. "I'm outa here." He paused by the door. "So long. Oh. Know what? It was her, that big blonde. She's the one who thumped me, can you believe it? Wham, bam, and I was gone. I didn't tell Lil some dame beat me up, how would that look? OK, chief, OK, I'm gone." And, slowly, he was. King saw him out, then lay down on his blanket again.

  "I'd like to see some dame try that on me," I told him. "Especially that there Ms. Garrison, woo-woo."

  I tried Mr. Howieson at his home number. His wife said he was taking a nap, and was it important? I told her that I was afraid it was. She asked me what my name was. I told her. A minute later, Mr. Howieson, not sounding in the least sleepy, said, "Mr. Daniel. Good important or bad important?"

  "Bad," I said.

  "How bad?"

  "Could be five million bad," I said.

  "Mr. Daniel," he said after a short pause, "five million bad isn't bad, it's disastrous."

  "Yep," I said. "I didn't want to spoil your weekend, but I figured you'd better know."

  "You've just spoiled my year," he said, "fuck the weekend. Jesus. What a mess. You sure?"

  "Sure enough," I said.

  "So now what do we do?" he said. "After I recover from my hysterical fit, that is."

  "All I can think of is to set up a meeting as soon as possible involving you, me, maybe your legal advisor, someone from the LAPD who's either Fraud or Grand Theft or both, and a certain Sergeant Brav, who was the responding cop that night back in March when your ex-employee Jonathan Flint passed on."

  "Oh, God," Mr. Howieson said. "I never even thought of that side of it; didn't want to, probably."

  "Who does?" I said. "Monday morning is likely the soonest we can set it up, and I suggest here, because you don't want cops prowling around your offices before they have to, as Mrs. Mary Jones might just wonder why; the time for the cops to show is when they have been delivered of the proper warrants to hit both Joneses simultaneously and irrevocably. Nor do you and your legal beagle particularly want to be seen at this time in your friendly neighborhood police station."

  "Or any other time, for that matter," Mr. Howieson said bitterly. "Shit. What a mess."

  "So all in all," I said, "better let's make it here."

  "Better let's, better let's," he said. "I don't care. Make it on the fucking moon, better let's."

  "Better let's you be the one to contact the various cops, too," I said. "LAPD Central will tell you what station Brav works out of and who to contact in Fraud or whatever."

  "Why don't you chase those fuckers down?" he said. "You don't think I have enough on my mind already?"

  "If you were a cop, Mr. Howieson, whose word would you take that there was something rotten in the state of Norwalk, some seedy private eye in Studio City yet—and you know how most cops adore us in the private sector, why, I get love letters from them regularly—or an upstanding, reputable, golf-playing, high-exec type like you?"

  "Hate the game," he said. "Always did. It's probably a coincidence my father was California amateur champion three times and rucking amateur champion of everywhere else, too."

  "Also," I said, "cops do not generally like it when some run-down gumshoe comes up with a possible motive for a crime they haven't, let alone a whole passel of contributing evidence."

  "All right, all right, all right," he said. "Monday at ten at your office, wherever the hell it is, unless I call and tell you different. By the way—well done, I suppose."

  I thanked him, told him where the hell my office was, and replaced the receiver. What I didn't tell him were the main reasons I wanted the rendezvous at my place, which were threefold: It is a rare pleasure to have cops at your beck and call, instead of the other way around, which makes onefold. It is a rare pleasure to have mighty executives at your beck and call, which makes twofold. And threefold, I'm lazy.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once in a while I buy a beer for the fat bartender,

  And once in a while the fat bartender does the same for me.

  MONDAY MORNING, NINE-FIFTY-SIX. I was checking out my skin tone in my office's bathroom mirror; for some reason my skin was so dry the flakes were the good news. Then all my guests arrived in a bunch, the five of them—two cops, two lawyers, and one exec. The cops' names were Sergeant Brav, and, in plainclothes, from Fraud, Lieutenant Roth; the lawyers Messrs. Galanti and Mouton; the exec, Mr. Howieson, and in the chair, V. (for Victor) Daniel. Also attending in a watching brief was K. Daniel. When everyone had been introduced to everyone else, and all were seated (three of them in chairs borrowed from the Nus' chop suey joint next door) and the small-talk done, I opened the folder containing my notes, cleared my throat, and called the meeting to order.

  "Thank you all for coming on such short notice, gentlemen," I said. Mouton, the pudgy lawyer in the wig, opened his briefcase, took out a spiral notebook, then an expensive-looking fountain pen from his breast pocket, then held the pen poised at the ready. Sergeant Brav slumped in his chair and stared at his feet. Roth from Fraud switched on his miniature tape recorder. Galanti straightened his already straight tie. Howieson just sat there looking tired. "Of course take notes all you want," I said, "but in case it might help, I've made copies of most of this stuff" (here tapping the folder) "I'll hand around later. I suppose this meeting falls into two parts, one involving the fraud of the five million or so by Mrs. Mary Jones from IMM, and the second, the possible homicide by a member of the Jones family of a member of the IMM family, I thought I'd go into with Sergeant Brav here after the rest of you have departed to consult together and tear your hair and arrange warrants and prepare press statements and God knows what else."

  "And leave for Rio," said Mr. Howieson glumly. "My wife's already packing. Hope she remembers the sunscreen." Sergeant Brav grinned. Mouton looked shocked. K. Daniel stood up, turned around a couple of times, then lay down again. I wonder why dogs do that? I know why cats do, they're copying dogs, who they know are smarter so they figure there must be a good reason.

  It didn't take me long to outline to my extremely attentive audience the details of Mary's scam, as I have heretofore outlined it to you, friends, albeit in fits and starts, in bits and pieces. I did not, however, remind them how easy the cellular system employed had made it for Mary; it was all too evident to even bother to suggest that a slight modification or two in the system would not be amiss.

  Except for a question or two from Roth, Fraud, and a couple of self-mocking interpolations from Ralph Howieson, they heard me out in silence. Then I handed out copies of things like the list of twenty-seven, and the detailed report I'd typed up of Saturday's adventures concerning the U.S. Postal Service, and so on, which got glanced at and then tucked away in various pockets and briefcases.

  "End of part one," I said. "Unless there's something else?" Mr. Howieson raised his eyebrows in the direction of his legal department.

  "Not from me," Galanti said.

  "Me neither," Mouton said.

  "If there is,
I'll get back to you," Roth said. Mr. Howieson got to his feet. So did Galanti, Mouton, and Roth. Considerable handshaking followed. Then I politely showed them to the door. Ralph Howieson stood back to let them all leave first, then he looked down at the dog, then up at me.

  "What's it worth?" he said.

  "What's what worth?"

  "What you did."

  "Forget it," I said. "Anyways, I already got a client, you'll never guess who."

  "I firmly doubt that I will ever forget these past three days," he said. "Nor will I forget the fact that you may have saved us untold further millions of bucks." He slapped me on one arm, and took his leave. And nor did that excellent gent forget; two days later there arrived by special delivery a whopper of a check from good old IMM. Shyness prevents me from revealing how much it was for, but along with it came a note, which said, quote, "For Special Services, a one-time-only payment of $25,000.00. With thanks."

  After the rest had gone, Sergeant Brav shifted himself over to my spare chair, which was slightly more comfortable than the Nus' fold-ups, but not much. "So what have you got that might interest me, Daniel?" he asked in a neutral tone of voice.

  "First, thanks for showing up," I said. "But Debby Flint said you were a nice, considerate man, so I hoped I could pass on everything I've picked up about her husband's death without you thinking I was trying to show you up."

  "She said that, eh?" he said. "Well, she's a nice woman. OK, Daniel, I'm all ears."

  "Besides," I said, "I don't know what else to do with all this info; if anything could be proved at this late date, I doubt I could do it, working alone, with no power of search, even if wanted to. You guys, maybe."