by Jim Stevens
“Doris worked for him?”
“Tax dodge.”
“The oddest of all of it, Sherlock? He pays his taxes in advance.”
“If he’s losing all his money, why would he pay future taxes?”
“Odd, remember, I said odd.”
I am perplexed. More pieces of the puzzle, yet none fit together. “Could he be stealing from himself?”
“I thought of that, too.” Herman says. “But why would a guy with millions steal millions from himself?”
“Tax dodge?”
“I just told you he paid them in advance.”
I sit back, the chair creaks as if it will break any second. “Could he being doing this out of spite for the rest of his family?”
“Why not just cut them off and leave them out of his will?”
“How about the accountant? Wouldn’t he know all this was going on?”
Herman sits back. His chair is silent. He knows which one to sit on. “You sure would think so, wouldn’t you?”
My head is spinning. There are a million questions to ask, but I can only come up with one. “Can you use that computer of yours to find out if Alvin had any offshore accounts?”
“Do you have a number?”
“Number of accounts?”
“No, the number of the account,” Herman specifies.
“No.”
“Then, no.”
My chair creaks to its breaking point. Herman can easily see I am at my wit’s end.
“How am I supposed to follow the money when there is no money?”
“A guy like Alvin, there’s always money,” Herman corrects me. “You just have to find it.”
I’ve had enough of this peculiar brilliance. I’m up and heading for the door. “Do what you can, would you, Herman?”
“For you, no problem.”
Before opening the door I notice on his computer screen similar blinking numbers to those I saw in Alvin’s office. “What kind of year you having, Herman?”
“Lousy, I’m only up only seven.”
“Seven what?”
“You really want to know?”
“No.” I’m out the door.
“Don’t forget to tell Tiffany I’m the real sensitive type.”
I had parked my car under an oak tree up the street, and the birds defoliated my windshield. I get in, see the clock, which is about five minutes wrong either side of the hour, and figure it is a good time to call.
“Yes,” she answers on the fifth ring.
“It’s Sherlock.”
“I already know that.”
“I really should invest in an id system for my cell phone, uh?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Is this a good time to call?”
“I wouldn’t have picked up if it wasn’t.”
Alexis’ phone manner has an innocent quality. If she gets old and fat and is demoted to a phone-sex prostitute, she will still be able to make a good living.
“I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
She sighs. “Good.”
“Your Redblond invoice for personal services was listed for payment in Alvin’s estate documents.”
She waits.
“The bad news is,” I sigh, “there’s a lot of invoices ahead of yours.”
“Is it possible he’s tapped out?”
“I only know what I read in his papers.”
She’s angry. “How could he be broke? The guy was loaded. I fuck other guys at the Board of Trade that have lost thousands to Alvin Augustus. It can’t be.”
“All the financial documents spelled it out. Alvin blew off the floor and took everything down with him.”
“No way.”
Her breathing picked up before she spoke again. “I need that money.”
There was a long spell when neither of us spoke.
“Alexis?”
“What?”
“When you used to do Alvin, did you do him in Nick’s apartment?”
“Of course not.”
“Then where did you do him?”
“At his place.”
“You went all the way to Kenilworth?”
“No,” she snaps back, as if I’m an idiot. “The condo on Astor.”
“He had a place on Astor Street?”
“Sherlock, what kind of a detective are you?”
“Not a real good one, lately,” I confess. “You know the address?”
“No, it was a brownstone, two doors north of Goethe.”
“East or west side of the street?”
“Lake side, second floor.”
“Nice?”
“The place was on Astor.”
“I got to go.”
“You get my money, Sherlock. Get my money.”
___
Astor is well named. It is the most expensive, exclusive street in Chicago, maybe even the Midwest. One classic home next to another, refurbished and decorated with little respect for budget restraints. The accumulated wealth of the residents would tally the GNP of Angola. The archbishop of Chicago lives on Astor Street, not bad for a guy who took the vow of poverty.
On the second building from the Goethe corner, lake side of the street, there is a wrought-iron gate with a buzzer system. No name is listed for the middle, second-floor unit. I write down the names of the first and third floor residents. I step back. I try, but can’t see through the leaded-glass windows. I walk around the corner, down the alley, to the back of the building, where an old car is parked in the spot labeled “No Parking.” I have caught a break. There is a mop in a pail on the second-floor balcony, next to the open back door. I walk back to the front of the building and ring the buzzer.
“Jess,” comes out of the small speaker.
“I need to show you extra cleaning that needs to be done.”
At the word, “cleaning,” the door buzzes open. I hurry through and up the stairs to the maid opening an oak door with a cut-glass window front that must have cost more than my Toyota when it was new.
“Jess?”
I flash my badge in her face the instant the door opens, “INS.”
Another break, she doesn’t have a heart attack.
I push inside before she has the chance to protest. “Green card?”
She may not speak English, but she knows “Green Card.” Beads of sweat form on her brow.
“Get your things, señorita.”
The woman, Mexican, Guatemalan, whatever, resigns herself to the inevitable. She picks up her cleaning supplies, places them in their proper place and comes back to stand before me. “Pleeze,” she begs.
I lead her to the backdoor. “Your car?” I ask.
“Sí.”
“Go,” I point. “I’m only going to give you a warning this time.”
She doesn’t understand.
“Vámanos!”
She hurries down the stairs, into her car, and takes off faster than a tardy Domino’s pizza-delivery driver.
I stand on the porch until she can no longer see me, come back inside, lock the door, and go to work.
I take a quick tour through all the rooms, taking a mental snapshot in each. Nice place, I should live so well.
The condo is the direct opposite of the house in Kenilworth. It is built and designed for comfort, with soft couches, comfortable chairs, leather right off the cow. The art on the walls is modern, fun, full of colors and shapes. The carpet is plush, ottomans rest in front of chairs. A fully stocked wet bar, refrigerators for wine are filled to capacity. Light pours through skylights, illuminating the soft colors on the walls. The dining room table is set for four with fine china. A built-in hutch stocked with Waterford everything.
There are three bedrooms, one huge, one regular, and one small. The furniture is polished, the computer screens clean, and the beds sport duvet covers and silk sheets. A cedar chest rests at the foot of each bed.
Enough sightseeing.
I pull each painting away from the wall and, on my
fourth, I find a wall safe. I check the storage areas, and in the master’s closet discover a floor safe, bigger than the one in the wall, but too small to hold too much cash. I go up, under and through each dresser drawer. I remove shirts, underwear, and sweaters -- all nice and expensive. In the walk-in closet there are a number of suits covered in dry cleaner plastic. The waist of the pants would fit Alvin.
Except for the bathroom where a shaving kit is in the cabinet next to the sink, the place lacks personal items. No pictures, photos, knickknacks, stationery, or notes from mother on the refrigerator door.
I search under the beds, behind the sinks, at the secretary desk, and find nothing of interest. There is no phone in the unit; but a burglar alarm that I sincerely hope the cleaning lady shut off. An antique chest is used as a coffee table in the front room to the left of the marble fireplace. Inside of it are game pieces, playing cards, a roulette pad, poker chips, and a baccarat set.
I retreat to the master bedroom. At the foot of the bed is a large, antique cedar chest. I reach down to open the chest. Locked. I nudge the edge to see if I can move it. I can’t. I have found what I’ve been looking for.
In the kitchen I take a knife from a wooden block holder along with the long slender knife sharpener. Back in the bedroom, the lock pops open in less than a minute. Maybe I was Houdini in a past life. I raise the lid and beneath two blankets, I find the cedar chest filled with stacks of new, crisp, Benjamin Franklins.
Voila.
14
Assignment Tiffany
Money is the root of all evil; but a man needs roots.
Clean, crisp, hundred-dollar bills, stacks maybe twenty high and twenty across. I use my handkerchief to remove one of the packets. The bills have consecutive serial numbers. This is good. Uncirculated is easier to trace than circulated. They smell great. It is true you can smell new money.
There is a lot here, but not a million. A stack of a million one dollar bills would be taller than the Empire State Building. I’m figuring four- to five-hundred thousand in the chest.
In the kitchen I find brown paper, shopping bags with handles and the logo of Treasure Island Foods on their sides. I fill four with what I quickly count-out to be forty or so wrapped stacks. I pull off another full layer of the booty, and fill an additional two bags. I take the latter two bags into the second bathroom, and place rolls of toilet paper on the top to disguise the contents. I place both bags in the cabinet beneath the sink. If there is not a run on toilet paper the money should be safe.
Back in the bedroom I do my best to relock the chest where the remaining loot remains, and wipe off all fingerprints, and probably prints of others before me. The next set of hands that touches this wood will be a leading candidate for murder. I leave the rest of my fingerprints scattered around the condo as a calling card.
Exiting out the back door, I lock only the doorknob and continue quickly through the alley, around the corner, and to my car. I resemble a city shopper, trudging home with sacks of groceries. I place the bags in the trunk, hop in, fire up the Toyota, and head west on Division to Bucktown, where an old factory, redesigned as a self-storage business, offers the “First Month Free;” and where I stash my grocery bags in the smallest totally secure space available.
___
Tiffany is thirty minutes late for our lunch meeting at Butch McGuire’s, the Northside tavern reported for years by Butch to be the first single’s bar in America. She shows up wearing the darkest sunglasses ever manufactured, and a wide hat that hangs low over her face. Underneath, her skin is as pale as a peroxide blond.
Tiffany doesn’t bother to greet me. She signals the waiter, and gives instructions in no uncertain terms: “A bloody, extra shot of Tabasco, extra shot of Worcestershire, lemon wedge on the side. Quicky, quicky.”
“Rough night?”
“I’ve never worked so hard in my life, Mister Sherlock.”
“Maybe you should put in for workers’ comp?”
“What’s that?”
Her drink arrives. She holds the waiter by his apron, sucks the drink empty like a thirsty Bedouin, saying, “another,” and releases her grip.
“Maybe you should go home and rest.”
“No,” she gathers herself as best she can, “the case awaits and I have information.”
“Do tell.”
“First, if you want an excellent example of a disgusting slime-ball, Herman McFadden is the ideal candidate.”
“I warned you.”
“An air raid siren couldn’t prepare you for that guy.”
I don’t bother telling her that Herman is sweet on her, or that she has a career in porn if she wants it.
“Secondly, Clayton was a lot easier to track than his brother, Brewster.”
Tiffany takes a break to sip her second Bloody Mary. “I picked this place,” she confesses, “because of their bloodies. Best in town.”
“I’ll remember that.”
She twirls the drink on the table with her right hand. “Clayton is a hound.”
“A hound?”
The color seeps back into her cheeks; but she seems reluctant to continue her thought.
“I don’t like to say what kind. I have my morals.”
“Tiffany…”
“Clayton dated Maureen Osteen.”
“Okay.”
“Nobody dates a ho like Mo O who isn’t a cunt hound.” She stops, “Whoops, damn, I didn’t want to say that.”
“Cunt hound?” I repeat for effect.
“I hate that word.” She pulls her hat down even lower on her head. “Shhhh.”
I whisper, “Hound.”
“Clayton Augustus has stuck it in places, devils would fear to tread.”
“I bet Clayton and Herman would get along great,” I say.
Tiffany soldiers on, “Some of the people I talked to think he does it to spite his old man, sticking it in his face.”
“Sticking what in his face?”
“That was a figure of speech.” She places her drink on the table. “Clayton held the record for detentions in high school, picked up a number of times for drunk and disorderly, and has blown enough breathalyzers to rival Mo O.”
“I checked. He hasn’t been arrested once.”
“Thank God for rich parents.”
I glance at the menu. Butch’s has great beef sandwiches. “So, Clayton thumbs it in the old man’s face, but daddy is always around to bail him out of trouble.”
“Rumor also has it, he has an account at the Northside Women’s Clinic.” The bloodies are doing their job. Tiffany is regaining her bluster and blarney. “His victims get ’no appointment necessary’ treatment.”
“Anything on the girl he was with the day of the murder?”
“No. Do you have any idea of how many non-blond blonds there are in this town?”
“Tell me about Brewster.”
Before she begins, we order lunch. Me: roast beef, coleslaw and a cup of soup; her, a salad.
“Why don’t you get something a little more substantial? It will make you feel better,” I say in fatherly tones.
“I have enough sugar floating through me right now to put me on the fast track to diabetes. I need to flush it out, not stop it up.”
I give up on dietary advice. “Brewster?”
“From all I could finagle, Brewster’s pretty much a momma’s boy. Went to Latin for the first twelve years, then to Denison on the six-year plan.”
Latin is the crème de la crème of K-thru-12, private education in downtown Chicago. Denison University is where rich kids who couldn’t get into the Ivy League end up.
“Perfected his drinking in college, did drugs, usual rich-boy education.”
“Seems a little out of character being a drunk and a momma’s boy, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Continue, please.”
“After he got out of school, he screwed around for a few years, worked for his old man shoveling bullshit, got sick of that and went o
ut on his own.”
“Did you find out if his old man funded him?”
“He might have paid him to leave. They didn’t get along in the unfriendly confines of Augustus, Incorporated.”
“Women?”
“They come, they go. Mostly sluts, except mom.”
“Isn’t that nice.”
The lunch arrived.
“Find anyone who saw them together on that Friday night?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“No. It’s a Friday night; everybody is wasted.”
I sit silent trying to process all the information.
“Your turn, Mister Sherlock, what have you found out?”
“Not much,” I say, “but I do have another assignment for you.”
“Does it include drinking?”
“No.”
“Good, I don’t know if my liver could take two nights in a row.” Tiffany sighs a breath of relief.
“Stakeout.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“So, I have time for a spa treatment and massage?”
“I wouldn’t schedule it any other way.” I remember one last item on the agenda. “Tiffany, what about the check? Would it clear?”
“Darn,” she says, “I knew I forgot something.”
___
I was waiting in the Toyota, when her Lexus stopped alongside. I pull out of the parking space and she pulled in. Leaving my car running with the emergency flashers on, I went back and got in the Lexus passenger seat. Handing her the camera, I ask, “You know how to work one of these?”
“Duh.”
I pointed to the Astor Street condo. “That’s the place. We need to know who goes in and who goes out. It is the second floor that we care about.”
“Why?”
“Neighborhood survey.”
“Mister Sherlock, tell me.”
“It’s Alvin’s home away from his home with his wife.”