Dead Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 5)

by Phillip DePoy

  “So why am I here, really?” I set the cup down on the floor. “There’s no pretty boy.”

  “Okay.” She settled in. “This guy comes in a couple of nights ago all coked and corners me in the ladies’ room. I guess he’d been watching me, and followed me in. He pinned me in a stall, covered my face with his arm and had his zipper open before I could get a good look at him. The light’s out, been out for days — you know the deal with the Clairmont. Anyway, luckily, I got out my machete.”

  She produced, like a thin steel rabbit in a junkie magic act, a stiletto from her sleeve. It would have convinced me to move to South Philadelphia for a little safety — not to mention away from her if I were menacing her in a ladies’ room.

  “Machete?” I watched her handle it.

  “Or whatever you call these things.” She looked down at it. “It convinced him to hustle his little two-toned shoes out of my life. That’s all I could see — his shoes. But I could see them leaving pretty fast.”

  With a flick of her wrist she made the evil needle disappear again.

  “Looks to me like you can take pretty good care of yourself,” I said. “I don’t see you needing a guy like me getting in between you and your little adventures. And why, by the way, didn’t you just tell me this in the first place.”

  “Because I thought you’d help the waif-done-wrong type before you help the find-this-guy-so-I-can-kick-his-ass type.” Short shrug. End of story.

  I had to admit it: “You’d be right.”

  “And you’ve got to be willing to help, since I’ve got no jack.” Then: a lightbulb. “Unless! I can help you. You want to keep tabs on Jakes. I can do that. He comes to the bar every night, he sleeps in the hotel every day. I can be your … what do you call those guys?”

  “Operative?”

  “That’s me.” Bright as a penny. “That’s your payment for helping out: tit for tat. Barter system. Plus.” She lifted a finger just like a judge. “Check this out: I was so pissed at the guy, when everything went down, that I came flying out of the bathroom to give him what for. When I did, he was gone. But Jakes was right there, see? So it comes to me just tonight when you walk in looking for Jakes: ‘What’s this all got to do with our Mr. Tucker?’ See? I’ve got an instinct.”

  “Is that right.”

  “I can help!” She sat bolt upright, eyes wide — a kid again.

  “Help what?”

  “You. I can help you.” Even more excited.

  “Look,” I started.

  “Hogan’s always talking about what you do, but she got especially graphic when I started complaining to her about my masher. And then I asked around about you.” She said it like she had connections. What those connections would be, I didn’t even want to consider. “You find people.”

  “In the first place,” I went on, “Hogan doesn’t know what I do. In the second place I don’t need anybody else helping me — I’ve got enough color as it is. And in the third place, at the moment, I can’t even find my own …”

  “… what if you need protection?” She went for her blade again.

  “Tell me that you haven’t had to use Betsy or whatever you call your slinky sticker.” Kids often name their blades.

  “As a matter of fact, I call it Fang. And it’s tasted blood, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “What I’m asking,” I began, trying not to slight her braggadocio, “starts with why you’d even give this a second thought and ends with what you think you’d do.”

  “Okay.” She slung herself back on the bed and stared at a corner of the room for a while. “I know how to use the blade, I have good friends, and I know three cops by name. I’ve been through a grade-C slasher film’s worth of crap in my life so far and I’ve lived to tell the tale.” Her lids narrowed. “And when I see a rat, I want it dead — that way I don’t have to worry is the rat going to snap at my jugular when I’m asleep. Kill it now, sleep tonight — that’s my motto, and it’s served me well. It’s gotten me this far.”

  It had gotten her through sixteen years, into a nightmare job at the Clairmont Lounge, a terrible apartment in a more dangerous part of Midtown, and awake at four in the morning confessing her fears to a man she didn’t know anything about.

  After a moment’s reflection, I thought it was actually quite far, and I admired her even more for it. Because for every kid like her awake and alive, there were twenty-five that hadn’t made it. I’d known a few of those, too.

  “I can be your eye and ears,” she went on, “in parts of this town you don’t even know exist.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s just stick to the Clairmont, at the moment. Look: Why do you want to do this? You don’t have enough bad juju in your life as it is?”

  “I want to be just like you when I grow up.” You could have sold that attitude, if you’d found a big enough package to wrap it in. She saw my reaction. “I mean it. It’ll be cool playing detective, sneaking around.”

  “I don’t need a partner. It’s against my code.” I heard myself say that like it was somebody else talking, since, to my knowledge, I did not have a code. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll try to see where the rat went, and spray a protective ring of poison around you. Preventative medicine.”

  She fell back on the bed again, exasperated. “You’ll shoo him away? You’ll be my knight? No thanks. Don’t need a dad, if it’s all the same to you.”

  I took that in. And she was right. She didn’t need someone to watch over her. I was a little embarrassed that I’d even thought it — even while I was having some very conflicting parental thoughts.

  “You’re right.”

  She perked up at that. “So?”

  “So, let’s think of how you can help me. And if we happen to find a rat, you and I can mess with him so that he feels scared, and then we let him go so that he’ll scamper on back to his Dumpster and think twice about shaking up the next kid who looks like easy prey.”

  Her grin took up most of her face. “That’s it. Scare the bastard back to Ratsville. Teach him a lesson he won’t soon forget. That’s the ticket. Theatre.”

  “Theatre.” I was impressed with her grasp of the subtle possibilities. “Exactly.”

  “So we’ve got an arrangement?”

  “Of a sort,” I agreed, largely just to get out of the situation. “Of a very loose sort.”

  My expression must have betrayed a little of my thinking. She leaned my way. “You see now that there’s more to me than meets the eye. And you’re more impressed.”

  “I was impressed when I saw Fang.”

  “But the difference now is” — she lowered her voice and leveled her gray eyes right at mine — “now you’re reconsidering my original offer.”

  And before I could even consider for the first time whether or not she was right, she’d moved far enough toward me to plant a serious kiss on the hard part of my jaw.

  7. Ratsville

  I left the kid’s place about three minutes after that kiss. She gave me her home phone number and a typical description of the offender: sweaty hands, scary moves, funny smell. In other words, nothing I could use. I gave her my number and told her to call if she had anything. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect to hear from her at all.

  The next morning I was over at the Clairmont Hotel asking questions. I usually avoided the whole place in general, and the hotel part in particular. So it was somewhat disconcerting to visit two times in as many days.

  “You talking about Jerky Jakes?” The man slumped in the heavily stained overstuffed chair still had his eyes closed, even after at least two minutes of our question-and-answer session.

  “I think the moniker is Jersey,” I told him politely, “but, yes, that’s who I’m talking about.”

  “Jerky I call him,” the man insisted with mustered menace, thrusting one hand in the air to swat at a fly, eyes still tight.

  “What’d he ever do to you?” I had to know.

  “In and out at all hours, lat
e pay, dirty mouth — don’t like him.”

  “I see.”

  “But he does stay here.”

  “Which room?”

  At last Rip Van Winkle opened his eyes. “You a cop?”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “That’s right.” His lips parted in something that might one day, long ago, have passed for a smile. “Just wanted to see what kind of a dick you were.”

  “The kind that prefers to avoid being called a dick.”

  He looked me up and down, then, in a way that made me feel like he was an undertaker — and I was a potential client. “You’re Tucker.” He closed his eyes again. “Seen your picture in the Urinal and Constipation.”

  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was known by many such names — especially to those who did not care for its reportage.

  “So you’re not going to tell me what room Jakes is in.”

  “You got it.”

  “Not for a hundred dollars.”

  “You ain’t likely to give me a hundred dollars.”

  “That’s right.” I stepped closer to him. “I just wanted to see what kind of a concierge you were.”

  He opened his eyes again. “Is that so?”

  Just as I was about to explain what kind of a concierge I thought he was, Jersey Jakes walked in the front door.

  “There’s a coincidence for you,” I told the old codger. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Jakes,” he called out. “There’s a fellow in here asking about you. His name is Tucker. Don’t know what he wants.” Then he looked at me. “That’s the kind I am: take care of my customers … whether I like them or not.” He sniffed. “I’m a professional.” And then he went promptly back to sleep.

  Jersey smiled. “Hey, Flap.” He seemed tired.

  “Hey. I’ve got a favor to ask. Do you have a minute?”

  “A favor?” Jakes looked around. “You talking to me?”

  “That’s right, wise guy. I think you can be of service.”

  He cocked his head quickly once to the left.

  I motioned him away from the oldster and out into the parking lot in front of the place. I was pretty sure no one could overhear us there. Not that I had anything of tremendous import to say, I just didn’t like the idea of nosy denizens of the Charles Bukowski Room or the William S. Burroughs Suite there at the Clairmont knowing even one iota of my business.

  On the blacktop, noisy traffic zipping by, I continued my tale. “You know the vampire kid who works downstairs? My waitress last night?”

  “Drucilla?”

  “Close. Lucrezia, she calls herself.”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, “but she’s feeling a little threat to her God-given right to be her own person — in the form of some weasel who tried to pin her in the ladies’ room just recently.”

  “Some guy cornered her in the can downstairs? At the club?” He blew out a short disgusted breath. “What kind of a person … even I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Hence” — I patted his arm once — “my confidence in you.”

  “You think I might have seen the guy because I’ve been hanging around here for a while, and I’m a little more observant than you originally thought I might be. And you think I might also know this rat based on the takes-one-to-know-one school of detective work.”

  “Not just that. She says he was eyeballing you.”

  “Really? Zips a kid in the can then stalks me. This guy — he’s a real schmoburger. I’ll keep my eyes open.” He flicked his hand at me. “And I do this as a professional courtesy, see? One dick to another.”

  “You overheard the concierge call me that.”

  “I did.” He looked down at the asphalt.

  “Even before you walked in the door?”

  “Well,” he began slowly, “when I saw you in the lobby, I stood at the door and listened for a minute or two. Especially when I heard you mention my name. Thanks, by the way, for trying to set the guy right about that. He’s a little hard of hearing, I guess.”

  “Personally I think his whole head has hardened up pretty solid,” I said, “but maybe mine would too, if I had his job.”

  “Yeah,” he told me. “You and me, we got it lucky. You’ve got to love your work.”

  “So — you’ll help me. You’ll do me this favor.”

  “I will.”

  “Mr. Jakes.” I held out my hand.

  “Mr. Tucker.” He shook it.

  “So now will you tell me something?”

  “Depends.” He folded his arms in front of him.

  “I don’t want you to tell me what you’re doing for Ms. Oglethorpe. I think you made your stand on that clear last night and I’m going to respect it. But I would like to know if she’s in any real trouble or danger — I’ve seen the notes.” And I nodded wisely, like I knew all about everything.

  It was a good enough bluff. I should have thought of it the previous night in the bar downstairs. A really righteous bluff is something that is true but implies more than the rest of the truth can actually support.

  As fate would have it, he was fairly foggy himself, continuing to inspect the pavement in the parking lot. “She’s okay, Flap. She’s just got to get out from under some old business. Something she don’t care for you to know about, see? And she don’t want you to get riled or worried or whatever it is you do when you deal with somebody close. She needs a stranger’s help. Me, as I was saying last night, I’m a stranger and don’t really have any such person to be close to me, so I don’t exactly know what she’s talking about when she tells me she’s worried about you. But I wouldn’t mind having a dame like her be concerned about my welfare. Not a bit. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.”

  “Is it my imagination,” I asked him, “or are you and I getting along?”

  “I’m not as smart as you are,” he started, still looking down, “or as nifty in any way, really. But I’m not a bad guy at the end of the day, and you’re just beginning to know that.”

  “You can always find me at Easy. How will I get in touch with you?”

  His eyes darted to the hotel behind us. “Room 212.”

  “I’ll tell you” — I looked out at the traffic — “I’m glad Dally’s got you in her corner. I’d had it in my mind — last night and even today — to try and corral a real answer or two about what it is you’re doing for her — and why. But now I think I might just let things ride for a little while. It’s not even close to the end of my day, and you already don’t seem like such a bad guy.”

  “For a rat.” He looked up.

  “For a dick,” I corrected him. “I think that’s the word you’re groping for.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled and grabbed his belt. “Grope for this.”

  In the land of the rat, the laughing rat is king — and almost anything passes for comedy.

  8. God’s Boiled Water

  Next stop was Easy. I told myself another daytime visit would stir things up. It was getting close to an hour when normal people eat a little thing called lunch, so I sauntered into the place. Marcia’s Gourmet Chili was advertised on the sandwich board outside — which I thought amusing after the pious day’s exchange about just that. Still, hot chili — and corn bread with honey — is the perfect midday summer’s repast. When it’s hot, eat spicy food.

  The place was relatively crowded for the middle of the day, I thought, and there was only one seat available at the bar. Hal was slammed, and only nodded. The noise level was pleasant to me, and the sounds of clinking dishes and idle chatter fell happily on the ear.

  Hal brought me a glass of the Puy Blanquet that I’d been saving, and a hand-scrawled piece of paper that was supposed to pass as a “special menu.”

  Marcia had printed, in big capital letters, GOURMET CHILI, NOT FOR EVERYONE, and underneath she had listed the ingredients, which included anise seed, oriental peppers, dill, garlic, no meat of any sort, and white beans called cocos she claimed had arrived th
at day from Provence. Down at the bottom, in parentheses and a different pen, she’d dashed off: “Perfect with Puy Blanquet.”

  I looked up. She was smiling at me through the open window to the kitchen behind the bar. I lifted my chin in her direction. She disappeared.

  I snagged Hal. “Tell me that this so-called chili isn’t just yesterday’s cassoulet with more spices.”

  “If Marcia heard you say that,” he said patiently, “she would cleave your hide and you’d be the special tomorrow. You do realize that.”

  “You’re still not telling me …”

  “… it’s all fresh today, Flap.” Hal was rarely in a hurry, and never out of sorts with my banter. I got the impression it wasn’t just the crowd that was prompting his discomfort.

  “I’ll have some. And no hurry.” I thought that would ameliorate the scene.

  He didn’t even give me a glance on his way to the order window.

  I drank my wine and listened to the spot talk all around me. Someone was worried about selling his Lexus, somebody else had a kid in college who was majoring in music education; a young woman was quitting her job if her boss didn’t stop hitting on her, and an older man was considering assisted living instead of moving in with his oldest daughter, who was a saint but you couldn’t live with her.

  Which ought to give anyone an idea of how diverse the general crowd at Easy can be, of a summer’s day.

  And over the din, I could hear a voice coming from Dally’s office. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was agitated. It was a voice I was still trying to place when Hal brought my chili.

  “Somebody’s giving Ms. Oglethorpe a hard time?”

  Hal stopped for a second, didn’t look at anything, then moved on when someone else at the bar mentioned something about her check. She had a nice smile. A twenty-six-year-old woman with a nice smile beats an older regular with a rumpled suit — in any bar in the free world. I put a spoon into my chili.

  The flavors were perfectly balanced, and the taste was like nothing else on earth. It was manna.

  At about the fifth spoonful, big noise erupted from Dally’s office. This time it was shouting and furniture slamming.