Prudence Couldn't Swim

by James Kilgore

  I reached into the glove compartment and grabbed the Ziploc bag.

  “Come here,” I said to the boy, “I’ve got a present for you.”

  He looked up at his father, not sure what to do.

  “It’s okay,” said the father.

  The little boy let loose of his father’s leg and took two steps toward the door. I held out my arm and gave him the Ziploc.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” I warned the man, “and make sure that kid gets some more milk and a good steak in his belly.”

  I drove off, feeling a little better anyway. I looked in the rearview mirror long enough to see the man jumping up and down and throwing me kisses. A different breed altogether from the “associates” of Prudence I’d soon have to face. They were corporate tycoons. About as close as I ever got to those types was Dr. Robson’s fiftieth birthday party. I didn’t even know how to dress for a meeting with them.

  Somewhere south of San Jose I decided to do the logical thing, just drop the whole affair. It was all driving me crazy and nothing could bring Prudence back. Even if it could, she was on the verge of moving out. If she didn’t care enough about me to even let me know of her plans, why should I be taking risks to solve the mystery of her death? I could go on for the rest of my life happily believing she just got drunk, slipped and fell in the pool. I didn’t owe her a thing.

  A few miles later, my mental pendulum swung back in the other direction. It was the violation thing. Once you open yourself up to that kind of abuse, it never ends. If prison taught me anything, that was it. I’m small and not all that strong but no one ever punked me. No one. If they’d tried, they knew I’d fight back. I’d catch them when they were asleep or sitting on the can and slice open their liver. It kills every time. I never had to do it but people thought that I could and I did too. That’s all that mattered. Now someone had invaded my territory. Life threw you tests and this was one of mine. I couldn’t let those Oakland hills get in my blood. I had to fight back for me, not for Prudence or her family. My manhood was on the line. Pure and simple.

  As soon as I got back to Carltonville, I called Red Eye for a strategy session. We finished off a bottle of Wild Turkey trying to figure out how to tackle these millionaires. Red Eye didn’t go down well in a suit. His tattoos and prison-built bulges would make him look like a bull wrapped in silk. I would have to be the one to talk to these guys.

  “Why don’t you go through your house for clues?” he asked. “You know, DNA and all that stuff.”

  “We need a crime lab for that, a CSI operation,” I said.

  “I’ve got a hookup,” he replied. “Billy Trout works for some crime lab company. He owes me.”

  “Won’t work, bro,” I said. “I swept and hosed down the pool area. Luisa scoured the house with disinfectant. Bless her little heart.”

  “Maybe she knows something about Prudence and her men.”

  “I already asked. She told me Prudence’s life was all a secret. Not wrong there.”

  “So you want me to forget about Billy Trout?”

  “For now, yeah.”

  All roads kept leading back to me interviewing Jeffcoat and Newman. The problem was that if one of them killed her, they’d know me. They might even have killed her over jealousy because I was married to her. If I was the next target, doing an interview could be walking into the lion’s mouth. We racked our brains trying to think of anyone else who could do it.

  “Back in the day,” said Red Eye, “we were convicts. Today you can’t trust anyone.”

  “If they’re not a rat,” I said, “they’re so high on crank they blab to everyone anyway. Same difference.”

  After we finished whining about the demise of the convict code, we accepted the inevitable. My best pinstripe suit would have to go to the dry cleaners.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Red Eye. “We’ll tell them Prudence left a will and that they were the beneficiaries.”

  “She had nothing,” I said. “These guys are millionaires. She was hitting on them for money.”

  “She won the lottery, Cal.”

  “Then what?”

  “You found the winning ticket in her purse.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “This is as crazy as the scheme with the Super Bowl tickets.” Red Eye had bought fifty tickets from a scalper for the Super Bowl the year the 49ers made it. He figured he could double his money. The tickets turned out to be fake and a bunch of Niner fans got arrested trying to get into the stadium. Some of them came looking for Red Eye. Eventually, the charges were dropped and it all calmed down but Red Eye still never goes near a Niner game. You don’t anyway if you’re Raider Nation.

  “This is way different,” he said. “Just listen. She won the lottery. And you, being an honorable man, did the right thing with the ticket. Collected the seventeen million and put it in an account to be distributed to those mentioned in her will.”

  “Then what?”

  “You read them her will. Each beneficiary gets a third. Jeffcoat, Newman, whoever.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You want to convince a man of anything, start off by telling him he’s got the biggest dick in town.”

  “And they’ll think they got the money because they were bonkin’ her the best,” I said.

  “Now you got it. Just got to iron out the details. They’ll be drooling at your feet over that money.”

  We spent the better part of a second bottle of Wild Turkey on those details. Red Eye had an ex-con friend who was a paralegal. He was ready to write up the will and dress it in all the right jargon.

  “Then you’ll go and meet these guys individually,” Red Eye added, “read the will and test their response. Use that English butler accent of yours.”

  “I’m through with the Prince Charlie act,” I said, “but I will buy some new ties. Brown, gray. Whatever. Do these guys wear hats?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “you’re the one who lives in Carltonville.”

  “I try not to look at them.”

  We discussed how to read their expressions, how I’d know if I’d stumbled into the office of the killer.

  “You’ll get a gut feeling,” he said. “These guys aren’t pros. Their nerves will crack if you push the right button.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “rich dudes know how to cover their tracks. That’s why they don’t pay taxes.”

  “Trust me,” said Red Eye. “You’ll know.”

  “Maybe they used a hired killer.”

  “Too sloppy,” he replied. “A pro doesn’t take a chance with drowning. Too slow. Too risky. And there was no sign of a struggle. She probably knew the guy. Otherwise there’d have been pushing and shoving.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “Prudence would have fought back.”

  “It’d be a trip bustin’ a fuckin’ millionaire. I’m just lookin’ forward to seein’ him squirm.”

  “We should cut the prize down to four or five million. Seventeen is a little hard to believe.”

  “Whatever works,” said Red Eye.

  I phoned the numbers Mandisa had given me for Jeffcoat and Newman. Both were business lines. I got the street addresses from their receptionists. In the meantime, Red Eye’s paralegal friend completed a will plus a cover letter from a lawyer explaining the lottery ticket. The lawyer wrote that the executor of the will, Mr. C. Winter, would be contacting them to “discuss the matter.” Using my real name took a little edge off the hustle but we agreed if the thing unraveled or one of them knew me, a false identity would dig us into a deeper hole.

  Red Eye and I financed a couple of throwaway cell phones, one for the lawyer, another for me as the executor. If I could just keep them straight, we’d be in business.

  I started with the white guy, Jeffcoat. He ran some kind of financial services company from the fourteenth floor of the Oaks Building, not far from Jack London Square in downtown Oakland. I phoned his secretary and made an appointment to talk about some investmen
t opportunities.

  The elevator got to the fourteenth floor in about three seconds. The office could have been a set for one of those soapies about tycoons. A thirty-foot-wide floor-to-ceiling window looked out over miles and miles of the central region of the city. From the fourteenth floor even Oakland looked spectacular. I always thought of my city as somewhat like myself, not much to look at but loaded with character. Jeffcoat had a different perspective, I’m sure.

  He had the body of a marathon runner, topped by a micromanaged wave of brown hair with dignified streaks of gray. His charcoal suit no doubt came from some tailor in an exotic land. He’d have preferred jumping out of an airplane at thirty thousand feet without a parachute to being caught in an off-the-rack.

  “Mr. Winter,” he said after a chilly handshake across his desk. “This is a highly unusual situation. Can you please fill me in on the details? As briefly as possible please. I’ve got clients waiting.” At least he didn’t seem to recognize me. He straightened a pile of papers on his massive desk, then straightened them again while I made him wait for my reply. The guy was straight OCD. All the edges of those papers had to be perfectly even or the sky would fall.

  I’d already explained Prudence’s death over the phone, providing the exact amount of detail I wanted him to have. I could hear his voice tense when I said the sum he stood to inherit was likely to go “well into seven figures.”

  “Apparently you were a friend or associate of one Deirdre Lewis,” I told him to kick off the interview. “She also seems to have gone by the name Prudence.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “In what capacity were you acquainted with the deceased?”

  “To expedite matters, let’s say we had a business relationship. She was a client, albeit on an informal basis.”

  “So there’s no official record of your transactions?”

  “I do everything above board, Mr. Winter, though I fail to see how that’s relevant here.”

  “I’m not in any way trying to impugn your character, Mr. Jeffcoat. It’s just unusual for a somewhat distant associate to be named a beneficiary. We have to be careful.” I had his attention for the moment. I’d always wanted to use the word “impugn” in a sentence. Jeffcoat looked impressed. The bait was bouncing against his lips. He’d be opening wide in a minute.

  “I assisted her with some financial matters,” he replied. “Investment advice. I assume she’s returning the favor. Her investments did well.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t expect to be leaving you such a substantial sum. No one calls buying a lottery ticket an investment strategy.”

  “A lottery ticket?”

  “That’s right,” I said as I reached down to get my briefcase. The will was at the bottom of a pile of papers bearing forged letterheads.

  “According to the figures here,” I said, “the payout is $4,523,000 and some change. You will receive about one third of this, a little over $1.5 million.”

  “We are all saddened by the death of this woman of great potential,” he replied sounding as if he was talking to a press conference. “I’m deeply touched by this gesture she has made of remembering me and our time together. In this day and age, gratitude is a rare commodity.”

  “Yes, it is” I said. “It’s remarkable. You must have made quite an impression on the young woman.”

  Jeffcoat fiddled with his tie for a moment before he let loose with his next words of wisdom: “In the course life one never knows who is touched by your actions. It’s what makes it all worthwhile.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. I should have brought a mirror to give Jeffcoat a better chance to admire himself. As it was, his reflection in that thirty-foot window would just have to do. Running this con was a new test of my power to endure the arrogance of the mucky-mucks. I was nearing the vomit threshold, but knowing I’d have the last laugh helped settle my stomach.

  “I have only one more question for you, sir,” I said. “Do you know anything about her family? We haven’t been able to contact them.”

  “She never spoke about that to me,” he said.

  “Didn’t she even tell you where they lived?”

  “I assumed they were in London, where Miss Lewis grew up.”

  “I see. Thank you, sir. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Once I’ve spoken to all the beneficiaries, we will have to meet again.”

  “If it’s necessary” he said. “I’m a busy man.” He stood up to facilitate my departure.

  “Surely the amount of money involved would make it worth your while.”

  “Of course, but I loathe unnecessary meetings, they consume our most precious resource—human capital. Where possible I prefer electronic communication. Clean and quick, with a clear trail. Superfluous meetings are a hallmark of ineffective business practice.”

  “I can appreciate that,” I said, standing up to shake his hand. I suspected he had a series of prepared speeches on ineffective business practice ready to unleash at any time. Lecture one was enough for me.

  As I neared the door, I stopped to look at a picture on the wall. Jeffcoat’s high school football team. There he was in the back row, number fourteen.

  “I played quarterback,” he said, “all-conference for three years.” Next to him was number seventy-four, a towering kid with a tomato nose and an old school harelip like mine. Tore halfway up to his nose. You don’t see ‘em like that any more. Modern surgery has made us into dinosaurs.

  “Oh, there’s one more thing,” I said, “just so you can be forewarned. This case may attract a little publicity. There’s a lot of human interest here: dying woman wins lottery, leaves millions to relative stranger. It will prick the paparazzi.”

  “I hope we can avoid that, Mr. Winter,” he replied. “I cherish my privacy and that of my family. The less said to anyone, the better. No rational man advertises when he’s won a million dollars. The parasites come out of the woodwork. I hope we agree on that.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I replied, “but I can’t give you any guarantees. There’s always someone willing to come forward with a story if there’s a little money on offer.”

  As he sat back down in his chair, for the first time I felt some nervousness from this eminent creature of the fourteenth floor. I don’t think he wanted me to leave just yet but he couldn’t figure out how to get me to stay and extract the information he wanted. I paused for a moment to enjoy watching his butt fidget in that big leather chair of his before I left the office. He’d spend the next twenty minutes straightening those papers trying to figure out what this little harelip dude pretending to be Santa Claus was actually up to. There was always the chance that he was onto my scam but I didn’t think so. I can read a mark. I grew up playing the monte, moving the red card and the black card faster than the eye could see. I’ve done my share of pool hustling as well. Never lost much, only got beat up once. That was all before I learned how to convince immigration cops that I didn’t have anything in the trunk of my car or the back of the mobile home. I can read people. That was what made the con so much fun. Marks always know something is a little bit off, but when they smell that money and power they can’t help themselves. When Jeffcoat got done straightening those papers, he’d probably start patting his dick and praising its powers. I bet that useless pecker of his couldn’t last thirty seconds.

  I almost wished he had committed this crime. I enjoy watching the well-oiled take a fall. A young woman left him a million dollars and he was worrying about wasting twenty minutes of his precious human capital in a meeting. What bigger problems did the world face than the “ineffective business practice” that seemingly tormented this undeserving heir to a million bucks?

  Despite finding him a despicable character, I wasn’t sure Jeffcoat had the balls to kill Prudence or even order the hit. I hadn’t encountered many inhabitants of fourteenth-floor offices so maybe I misjudged his character. I just didn’t think he could pull it all off that smoothly. They say the wealthy are ca
pable of almost anything when it comes to protecting their money, so maybe I underestimated his capacity for deceit. All I could do was hope that Newman seemed like more of a killer.

  CHAPTER 13

  When I arrived back at my place after seeing Jeffcoat, I found a note from Carter under the door, one of those little old school forms that come in a tablet. He’d checked the “stopped by” box and the one that said “please call back.” On principle I didn’t return messages from the police. No cop ever stopped by my house with good news.

  Carter had also left two messages on my machine. On the second one he said if I didn’t phone him by the end of the day, he’d have me “down at the station for questioning.” I drank a shot of Wild Turkey. I’d think about calling him the next morning. I had to get my papers in order and rush off to visit Newman. First things first.

  As it turned out, the muscle-bound Newman operated on a different level from Jeffcoat. He ran a trucking company out of the converted garage of his five-bedroom house in North Berkeley. A gold Jaguar sat in the driveway, late seventies, with tinted windows in mint condition. Almost as cherry as my Volvo.

  He’d tiled the garage floor and added a couple of windows and a skylight but it was no Oaks Building. The man himself projected a youthful, sporty image—state of the art hi-top basketball shoes and Levi 501s. His shaved head held a high gloss. Looked like he touched up that thin moustache to hide the gray.

  He’d loaded his office with Oakland Raider souvenirs and memorabilia, including a four-by-six-foot silver and black “Raider Nation” flag on one wall. The Raiders were a little rough around the edges for Jeffcoat. Probably a 49er fan if he followed football at all. Golf was more his speed, Freddy Couples or Bernhard Langer.

  A picture on the wall behind Newman’s desk showed him smiling in front of a fleet of thirty cabs with the logo “serving all of the West Coast” written on the doors. Not that catchy but those trucks were more than enough capital to finance a nice little blackmail payment to a desperate African girl.