1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader

by Jim Stevens

“Brewster does chores?”

  “Theresa’s day off.”

  “Hector’s probably busy shooting a few of his own bullets.”

  I move into the bushes, see exactly where the shooter stood. “Tell the techs to search here for shell casings, although they won’t find any.”

  “Mister Sherlock, you’re beginning to sound like me.”

  Tiffany’s right, I better start thinking before I speak.

  “Are we going to walk all over the lawn like we did last time?” She asks with definite lack of enthusiasm.

  “Nay, nay,” I sound like I’m still at the horse show.

  Tiffany and I go inside.

  Brewster sits uncomfortably on the uncomfortable couch. His feet are up on a chair from the dining room set, saving the glass coffee table a smudge. He has an icepack on his forehead, his skin color is bright white, and the wet spot on the front of his pants is nearly dry.

  “Fun day, Brewster?” I ask.

  “He could have been killed out there.” Doris interjects. “Where is the police protection in this town?”

  Norbert shrugs his shoulders.

  “This is a conspiracy against my family,” she yells at poor Norbert. “I could be next.”

  A certain selfish element always seems to surface in the Augustus family at the most inappropriate times.

  “Did you see him, Brewster?” I ask.

  “Of course, he didn’t see him,” Doris says. “The killer was laying in wait.”

  “That’s amazing,” I say.

  “What?” Doris continues to yell.

  I focus on the boy. “I didn’t see your lips move once when you said that, Brewster.”

  Brewster moans.

  “Your attitude, with my son’s life hanging in the balance, leaves much to be desired, Mister Sherlock.”

  “By the way, Missus Augustus, any progress on my retainer?”

  “I’d be more than happy to pay, but a certain little chickie won’t release my money.”

  Tiffany smiles and says, “That would be me.”

  I sit on the couch next to Brewster. “Almost enough to get you to give up drinking?” I ask before I see an open can of beer tucked between cushion and his thigh.

  “It isn’t funny,” he tells me.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m walking back toward the house and all of a sudden this machine gun opens fire. I hit the ground, cover my head and crawl to cover while the bullets fly around me like I’m in the middle of some Middle-East war.”

  “They only found two slugs in the wall,” I inform him.

  “Tell them to look harder,” he orders me.

  “Do you usually take out the trash?”

  “No.”

  “Mom ask you?”

  “What the hell kind of question is that?” Doris asks.

  “Good one, I hope.”

  “Somebody just tried to kill me, Sherlock,” Brewster says.

  Tiffany interrupts, “Excuse me, but did you see your whole life pass before your very eyes when it happened?”

  The question stops everyone cold.

  “I saw this TV show about near-death experiences and I wondered if one happened to you?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Darn.”

  I ask, “Why would anyone want to kill you, Brewster?”

  “I told you,” Doris answers. “It is a conspiracy.”

  “Damn, if your lips didn’t move again, Brewster.”

  “To get my portion of the twelve million, why else?” Brewster says.

  “So it would have to be one of the people on the money list? Three of which are related to you.”

  “I was in the kitchen when it happened,” Doris tosses in.

  “Congratulations, Doris,” Tiffany says, “you’re off the hook.”

  “That brings the total down to two.” I conclude. “Which one should we send Norbert out to arrest?”

  “The one who did it,” Brewster says.

  “Norbert will get right on it.”

  “No problem,” Norbert says.

  I get up and off the couch. “Sorry to leave you in such a state, but we have a stop to make on the South Side before it gets too dark.”

  I wonder if the comment will get a rise out of Doris, but the best she does is blink twice, which is hard to constitute as a reaction since her face is rock solid.

  ___

  The traffic is light going down the expressway. Tiffany has question after question.

  “Did somebody really try to kill Brewster?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then why did he get shot at?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did it have anything to do with him getting busted for dope?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Maybe drug dealers scaring him into paying up?”

  “Tiffany, you watch too much TV.”

  We arrive at Clarence’s house in an hour. My little friend must be busy with some other type of illicit activity, because he doesn’t run up to the car with his hand out for cash.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re going to leave me here in the car, all alone in this neighborhood?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you do that, Mister Sherlock?”

  “What would you rather do, talk to a guy who has killed hundreds of people? Or stay here and listen to the radio?”

  “Don’t be long, okay?”

  Clarence peers out the corner of the thick blanket he has covering the front windows before he opens the door.

  “What?”

  “I came to pay back a favor,” I say as he unlatches the heavy chain lock on the door.

  I step inside. The Sox are on his big TV. They’re losing eleven to four in the sixth.

  “You get hundred dollar bills for your last gig?”

  Clarence gives me an odd look. It is as good as an answer.

  “Careful where you spend them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m not positive; but if they are out of a certain stack, the serial numbers are on watch. Anybody laying down two or three in a bank is going to be pulled in for questioning.”

  Clarence, aka Preston Bird, contemplates the problem. “Sure wouldn’t like that.”

  “They’re warm and getting warmer.” I pause and give some advice. “And if you got a place to go, it wouldn’t be a bad time for a vacation.”

  Clarence watches the third out of the inning, “Thanks.”

  I turn to leave. “You missed twice?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, bizness bad enough.”

  26

  You'd be surprised, it happens

  “She likes me, Sherlock.”

  “Herman, she’s gay.”

  “Yeah, but I bet I could turn her.”

  I hang my head and shake it slowly back and forth, pretending I didn’t hear what I just heard.

  “Did you figure out where all Christina’s money went?”

  “No and never will.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because whoever stole it, got her password; and once you got a password, it’s pretty much lights out.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Not yet,” Herman says as he pulls on a number of his double chins. “I figure she’s good for a couple more visits to my place before I have to come clean.”

  “Interesting choice of terms, Herman.”

  “I need a little more time than most guys to show her my suave side.”

  “And your review of Agent Romo Simpson?”

  “One star. The boy has no second act.”

  “Did he give you the stuff on Alvin?”

  “It’s over there.” Herman points to a stack of papers a foot high, resting on his couch. “I asked him to score me some of that FBI confiscated porn.”

  “Good for you, Herman.”

  “Told him I was working an alternate angle on the case.”

  “You figure out how Alvin scammed the Bo
ard yet?”

  “I’m not sure he did.”

  “Herman…”

  “I can’t find any trades, especially losers, although his account at First Options was in arrears.” Herman pauses. “Sounds gay doesn’t it?”

  “What sounds gay?”

  “Arrears.”

  “You going to figure out how he did it?”

  “If I can.”

  I take out one sheet of paper from my coat pocket. “I got one more guy for you to run numbers on.”

  “What do I look like, a laptop?”

  “No, you look like a walrus with a three-day beard.”

  “You don’t have to be mean.” Herman reads what I wrote on the paper, “Horace Heffelfinger?”

  “I know he was skimming, find out how much.”

  “How did you get his social security number?”

  “I stole it when I went through his desk.”

  “What a guy.” Herman’s face scrunches a tiny bit; he leans his body to the left, resting his bulk on one butt cheek, and emits a long stream of thunderous, undiluted flatulence.

  “I love pigs in a blanket, but they don’t love me.”

  ___

  I never worked vice. I avoided it like the plague. It is the purgatory of a police department.

  Vice cops have the most difficult job of any detective on the force, because they not only have to catch the bad guys and girls, but have to decide what’s bad enough to be considered a crime. This is much more difficult than it seems, because cops have feelings, too.

  Some poor sucker wants an hour of escape from his lousy life, so he books a hooker who is more than willing to help him relieve a very human pressure. A couple of hundred bucks are exchanged; the deed is done in less than an hour. Everybody leaves happy, but the vice cop’s job is to bust all involved.

  What’s the point? If the cop does his job, the poor jerk gets busted, hauled in, mug shots are taken, and from that point on he is vilified as a degenerate. The hooker gets tossed in the clink for a few hours, is bailed out, goes in front of the judge, promises not to do it again, and is forced to come up with a viable excuse to reschedule her regulars. It’s pointless.

  If it was up to me, prostitution would be: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Heck, if it works for gays in the military, how can it not work for horny guys and willing women? Or make it legal like liquor, cigarettes, and state lotteries that ruin lives -- and tax it to the max, although it might be difficult securing the tax dollars.

  Jonas, the CPD detective has set me up with Ernie Shevers, one of the more seasoned vice cops on the street.

  “You ever get the urge, Ernie?” I ask as we enter the lobby of Chicago’s famous Hancock Building.

  “Oh, sure. Some of these women are past gorgeous.”

  Ernie is mid-forties, hair thinning, muscles sagging, body mass relocating from chest to stomach. He flashes his badge at the doorman and we are buzzed through the glass door to the elevator bank.

  People assume that Chicago’s second-tallest building is a mass of offices for an insurance company. Not true. The basement and first couple floors are restaurants and retail, then forty floors of ad agencies, real estate firms, lawyers, and whatever. The forty-fifth floor is the concierge floor complete with party room for rent and the most expensive grocery store on the planet, nine dollars for a can of peanuts. There is also a health club, pool, and a lobby where the wealthy tenants hang out when they have nothing better to do, which for a lot of them is most of the time. The next forty-nine floors are overpriced condominiums until the Ninety-Fifth Floor restaurant. On floor number ninety-six is the observation deck where “you can see three states on a clear day.” If you want to avoid paying the price of observatory entrance, merely go to the bar at the Ninety-Fifth and buy a couple of drinks; the view comes along free of charge.

  “Business has changed a lot in the last few years,” Ernie tells me on the way upward. “Used to be down-on-their-luck girls trying to make a few bucks, but now they’re the college sweethearts who can make five grand a weekend, and spend the rest of the week working on their acting skills or their tans.”

  “And this is a good thing?” I ask.

  “Girls don’t consider sex sacred anymore. With all the porn and skin out there, you can see why.”

  I immediately think of my daughters and say a silent prayer.

  We get off on the eighty-seventh floor. “Nick’s not a bad guy, he pays his taxes.”

  Ernie knocks on 8713. It takes a while, but the door opens.

  “This is a surprise,” Nick says.

  “Surprise is part of my job.” Ernie enters without being asked. “Nick, meet Sherlock.”

  We shake hands. He is not what I expected.

  Nick eyes me suspiciously. “We talk before?”

  “I’m only human.”

  “I thought so.”

  Nick is a dolt, the kind of guy who never had a date in high school and hasn’t had too many more since. He’s maybe five-nine, twenty pounds too many, acne scars, no wedding ring, maybe forty, but could pass for fifty. A headset, with the wire that plugs into a computer/phone system dangles down his left side.

  The telephone rings in the room down the hall. “Got to get this,” he says and we follow him into a second bedroom, converted office. “Check-in time.”

  The view is straight south; I can see smoke rising from the U.S. Steel stacks in Gary.

  Nick plugs his cord into the port on his computer/phone terminal. “He showed up?” Pause. “Relax, he’s harmless,” Nick speaks into the headset. “And get the money up-front.” He pauses, “And no second cups of coffee without another two hundred.” Nick clicks off the connection.

  Ernie and I sit on a couch behind Nick’s desk and computer screen and wait until he turns back around.

  “New girl?” Ernie asks.

  “You wouldn’t think a porn star would get nervous,” he says.

  “Who is she?” Ernie asks.

  “Melinda Bad Manners.”

  I make a note to ask Herman for a review of the starlet.

  Nick leans back, crosses one leg over the other. “I have a feeling this isn’t a social call.”

  “My friend Sherlock needs a little information on a couple of your girls.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Nick asks.

  “No,” Ernie answers.

  “Diane and Alexis,” I say.

  “She’s a pain in the ass,” is Nick’s immediate reaction.

  “Which one?”

  “My ass.”

  “Which girl?”

  “Diane. She’s constantly late, complains about the quality of the men, only wants to work days, and has more periods than a short story.”

  “And Alexis?”

  “She’s not as bad, but she’s learning from Diane.” Nick sees a call come in on his computer screen, but doesn’t answer.

  “Real names?”

  “Those are trade secrets in my business.”

  “Make an exception, Nick,” Ernie says.

  Nick pulls up a different screen on the computer. “Clair Elise Robbins of Elkhart, Indiana, and Donna Epson of Downers Grove, Illinois.”

  “Hometown girls?”

  “Good solid, Midwestern stock,” Nick says. “Alexis is always worried she’s going to have to do some guy who sits in front of her in church.”

  I give him a skeptical look.

  “You’d be surprised, it happens.”

  “And when it does?”

  “The guy usually can’t wait to come back for more.”

  “How long they been working for you?”

  “Diane’s been here over two years; Alexis, maybe a year. I’m sure both were in the business before me.”

  “They do well?”

  “They’d do better if they’d quit complaining and just lie down and do their job.”

  I lean toward the screen and write down the information. “These really their social security numbers?”

  “I report them
as independent contractors, so I really don’t care.” Nick says. “No offense, Ernie, but the IRS is scarier than you.”

  “No offense taken.”

  “These girls ever freelance?”

  “They’re not supposed to,” Nick says, then asks, “You know something I don’t?”

  “Hope so,” I say, then ask, “Was Alvin Augustus a client of yours?”

  “Come on, guys, let’s not play that game.”

  “He’s dead,” I tell him. “He won’t care, anymore.”

  Nick takes a deep breath. “Was.”

  “And his boys?”

  Ernie gives me an odd look.

  “Sons,” I say, a little better put.

  “Was.”

  “When did they quit?”

  “About six months ago,” Nick says. “I was sorry to see them go.”

  I finish copying down the information on the screen. “One more question.”

  Nick waits.

  “Did either of them go out on a job the night before Alvin died?”

  “Friday, the eighteenth,” Ernie says.

  Nick pulls up the calendar on the computer. “Diane was off, big surprise, but Alexis had two calls.”

  “Alvin’s?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ernie is up out of his chair.

  “You like your job?” I ask for the hell of it, as his phone rings.

  “Believe it or not, it’s lonely sitting up here in the clouds all day, hooking people up.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “I have a strong aversion to real work.”

  ___

  Norbert, Steve, Jonas, and I sit in the back booth of the Red Lion Pub on Lincoln. It is a Monday night. Colin, the Irish owner, stocks a case of Guinness in the cooler and Jose, the Mexican cook, removes a box of sausages from the freezer. There are a few regulars at the bar, sipping light beers. Except for the London phone booth and the greasy bangers and mash, the place is refreshingly Chicago, with the Cubs on TV and photos of the two Daley mayors adorning the walls.

  Tiffany joins us late, wearing a pair of latex gloves, carrying an office trash can, desk lamp, and computer keyboard. “Here,” she says, laying the bounty on the table.

  “Scavenger hunt?” Norbert asks.

  “I hid in the hallway until the cleaning lady went into the other office, and made my move. A good set of prints has to be on something here.”