The Ninth Man

by Dorien Grey

  The site occupied a good half of the block, but five or six houses still remained, looking as though they were being shouldered out of the way—which, in fact, they were. I chose the house closest to where 9312 would have been and knocked on the front door.

  A little old lady, her hair in a bun and wearing—I swear—a black knit shawl over her neat but shapeless black housedress, appeared at the locked screen door. She looked like an ad for Ellis Island.

  “Ja?” she asked, inspecting every inch of me from top to bottom.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, for some reason feeling like a twelve-year-old paper boy trying to make a collection, “but I’m looking for a Mr. Klaus Schmidt who used to live at ninety-three-twelve. I wonder if you could help me.”

  Her face, which had been a study in suspicion, suddenly burst into a full-sunrise smile.

  “Klaus? You are a friend of Klaus Schmidt?”

  “Well, not exactly,” I said. Then, taking a cue from her reaction, I added, “But I understand he’s a wonderful man.”

  “Vonderful? Vonderful? Klaus Schmidt iss a saint! Forty-two years Klaus Schmidt liffed on this street und forty-two years he iss best friend to my dear Otto, bless his memory.”

  I sincerely hoped she was blessing Otto’s memory and not Klaus Schmidt’s.

  “Vot you vant from Klaus Schmidt?”

  “I, ah…I represent a company that has a proposal Mr. Schmidt might find interesting—and very profitable,” I lied. “Do you know how I could get in touch with him? It’s really very important.”

  She looked me over again, slowly, from head to toe then back again. Apparently drawing a satisfactory conclusion, she nodded once, curtly.

  “Sure,” she said, decisively. “Sure. You vait here. I get you hiss address.”

  I watched as she moved through the small, cluttered-but-neat living room to the archway-adjoined dining room. Opening the top drawer of a solid-looking, hand-carved mahogany credenza, she searched it for a moment then came up with an envelope. Holding it in front of her like a lady-in-waiting with a fan, she carried it over, unlocked the screen and opened it just wide enough to hand the envelope to me.

  “Dis I got from Klaus last veek. Ve write often, now my Otto iss gone.”

  I took the envelope and looked at the return address: 4851 W. Winchester, Chicago, Illinois.

  “He liffs now in Chicago,” the old lady said. “Two years ago now he sells his house here. Klaus iss getting old, he vanted to be near his niece.”

  “He lives with his niece now?”

  Her laugh was warm and rich, not at all what I might have expected.

  “Ach, no! Klaus, he liffs mit no one! He iss much too…how iss the vert…independent. He hass hiss own house there, ja, but near enough hiss niece so she can look after him.”

  “Do you know if he has a phone? Perhaps I could call him.”

  She shook her head.

  “Nein, nein. Klaus cannot hear so goot any more. No phone.”

  “How about his niece?” I said, hoping. “Would you know her number—or her name?”

  The old lady thought a moment.

  “Mueller. Krista Mueller. But her husband’s name I do not know, and for sure vere they liff I am not certain.”

  There were probably ten pages of Muellers in the Chicago phone book, I was willing to bet. Still, I had Schmidt’s address. The key was almost in my hand. I hoped!

  “Thank you so much, Mrs…” I looked at the envelope “…Breuner. You’ve been a great help.”

  She opened the screen door again and extended her hand for the envelope, which I returned to her.

  “You vill go to see Klaus?”

  She was one step ahead of me, but she was right.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I will.”

  “You giff him a big hello from me, ja?”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” I said, backing away from the screen door. “Thanks again.”

  She smiled her goodbye, locked the screen door, and disappeared into the house.

  *

  “Chicago?” Ed said, and I hoped I detected more than a little enthusiasm in his voice. “You’re kidding! That’s great! Tell you what…let me pull a few strings around here, call in a few favors owed. Maybe I can get you a comp flight.”

  “Hey, no!” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Ed. That’s not why I called.”

  Ed was, fortunately, insistent.

  “Look, buddy, I haven’t worked fourteen years for Pan-World not to be entitled to a few perks. Just leave it to me. We can probably go on the same flight, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’d really like that. You’re sure it’s no—”

  “Just leave it to me, I said. You want to come by my place tonight? I should be home around six.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was already four-thirty.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll just have time to run home and change. I must smell like a laundry bag full of dirty sweat socks by now. I’ll see you about six, then. S’long.”

  It sure is nice to have friends in high places, I thought as I hung up. Still, I felt a little guilty. I really hadn’t meant to impose on Ed’s position with the airline. But I was glad he’d offered. God knows I needed to get out of town, even for a day, and the prospect of traveling with Ed didn’t exactly sour my mood.

  I was just getting ready to leave for home when the phone rang. Hoping it wasn’t Tim with news of another body, I picked up the receiver. “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “Hi, handsome.” Tim sounded reassuringly cheery. “It’s me, but don’t worry—your blue-eyed friend hasn’t shown up. Just thought I’d pass on the latest poop.

  “Lopez’s death still leaves the cops standing firmly on Square One. They haven’t come up with a single thread connecting the victims other than their all being gay. I get the impression they’re all holding their breath for the murders to stop so they can slam the whole thing into the ‘unsolved’ file and get on with meeting their parking ticket quotas.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, wiping the sweat off my forehead in the same motion.

  “They’re not the only ones holding their breath,” I said.

  “Anything new from your end?” Tim asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “A lot, finally. I’ll fill you in on the details later, but I may be going to Chicago for a day or so. All eight of the victims lived in the same building about four years ago. I tracked down the owner of the building, and he’s living in Chicago. He’s an old guy and apparently deaf, so the only way to find anything out is to go there and see him in person.”

  I omitted mentioning Ed, his offer, or the prospect of our traveling together.

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Tim said.

  “Do that. And I’ll call you the minute I get back to town.”

  “Hey…”

  I waited through Tim’s pause, and appreciated the sincerity in his voice when he finished the sentence.

  “…you take care of yourself, hear?”

  “Thanks, Tim. I will. Talk to you soon.” I hung up and left for home.

  *

  “It’s all set,” Ed said as he handed me a drink and sat down beside me. “I hope you don’t mind my doing all this without checking with you, but we’re right at the peak of a rush period, and I didn’t have much choice.”

  He looked at me for approval, and I gave a lead-on gesture with one hand. He looked relieved.

  “Good. Anyway, we catch the twelve-fifteen tomorrow, do a quick stopover in Omaha, and get into O’Hare at six-twenty-two. If you wouldn’t mind our staying together…” He looked at me again, and I just shook my head and grinned. “…the airline has an arrangement with a couple hotels, so we could stay for practically nothing. You prefer the airport area or downtown?”

  I shrugged.

  “Whichever,” I said. “Pick one.”

  He gave me a quick, embarrassed grin.

&nb
sp; “I already did,” he said. “The Wellington Inn on the near north—it’s new, and it’s my favorite. But I’d have changed it if you’d had anything specific in mind.”

  We each took a belt from our drinks then sat in comfortable silence for a minute or two.

  “So, what happens when you find him?” Ed asked.

  “Who?” I asked, puzzled. “Klaus Schmidt, the kid with the ice-blue eyes, or the murderer—assuming we’re talking about three people rather than just two?”

  He took another sip.

  “The killer.”

  I sighed and stared into my glass.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Well, on whether I really do find the killer, for one thing.”

  “You will,” he said confidently.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I suppose I will. In that case, it depends on the situation—whether I ever actually come face-to-face with him or not. Look, getting a name is one thing; finding the guy it belongs to might be another problem—he could be anywhere. And then actually proving that he did it…

  “Obviously, the thing to do is the minute I get his name, turn it over to the cops and let them take it from there. But if I were to do it that way, I’d probably never find out why he killed those guys, and I really want to know. I’d like to at least talk to him, if I could.”

  “Did you ever consider that might be kind of dangerous?” Ed asked, watching me.

  I grinned again.

  “Yeah. I guess it might.”

  “Well,” he said, “this might be pretty presumptuous on my part, but if you need any help when the time comes, I’d sort of like to be there.”

  I met his eyes and locked on them.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied.

  His hand was resting on my leg, and I found myself reacting, as I always did, to his touch. He looked down at my crotch and smiled.

  “I think I know how I can help you with at least one of your immediate problems,” he said.

  “Yeah?” I asked, knowing the answer full well. “How’s that?’

  He proceeded to show me.

  *

  The flight to Chicago was smooth, on time, and thoroughly enjoyable. For Ed, it was like a family reunion. He spent almost half the flight joking with the stewardesses—and with the stewards, at least one of whom was, I got the definite impression, something more than a casual acquaintance.

  As an airline employee traveling on company business, he couldn’t drink, but he saw to it that I was pleasantly high by the time the plane touched down at O’Hare. I was all for taking a cab to the hotel until Ed pointed out just how far O’Hare is from downtown Chicago and suggested we take an airport bus, which would drop us off right in front of the hotel. We took the bus.

  The Wellington Inn, as I might have guessed from knowing Ed even the short time I had, could have been designed with him in mind. Modern without being garish, comfortably elegant without being snobbish, efficient without being impersonal, it was what a hotel should be and so few are. Our room, on the 28th floor, overlooked a good part of the city. The fact that it had a single king-size bed wasn’t lost on me, although Ed feigned mild surprise. I had, in fact, the impression that this whole thing had been set up for my benefit, and I was duly flattered.

  We hadn’t discussed my return flight, though with luck I could wrap up my business with Klaus Schmidt—and, hopefully, the entire case—the following day. My excitement at the prospect of finding the kid with the ice-blue eyes and the killer made me uncharacteristically hyper, and I was vaguely annoyed with myself for having such a good time.

  After we’d unpacked, Ed suggested we have dinner at his favorite Chicago restaurant, a place called the Carriage House. He could have suggested McDonald’s and it would have been all right with me.

  A quick (for me) shower took care of whatever remained of my booze high from the plane but didn’t do all that much to calm me down. Thoughts were flashing through my mind like fireworks, all coming and going with such speed and in such disarray I couldn’t make any sense of any of them. Rholfing, Phil, the painting of Gary Miller and the actuality of Gary Miller, a little dog named Big Kano, Brad the tattooed day manager at the El Cordoba, the phone number that led to my meeting with Ed, the kid with the ice-blue eyes—everything zipping, whizzing, and spiraling through the night sky of my mind.

  “How do you do it?” Ed asked, looking at me from the corner of his eye as he made clean, smooth paths through the shaving cream on his face with deft strokes of his razor.

  “Do what?” I asked, rubbing vigorously with a towel.

  He rinsed his razor in the hot water flowing from the sink faucet.

  “Stay in there so long and not come out looking like a prune,” he said, returning his eyes to the mirror and the progress of his shave.

  “I think someone in my family was part duck,” I said. “Besides, showers are my only vice. This one was practically an in-and-out.”

  He snorted and swept the last remaining swath of shaving cream from his face. Leaning closer to the mirror and jutting out his chin, he made a careful visual and fingertip inspection of his cheek, chin, and neck. A quick frown announced the finding of a few stray whiskers in the vicinity of his left sideburn, which he dispatched quickly with a few short strokes. Another finger inspection, a satisfied nod to the mirror, and he was through.

  “I called for reservations while you were in the shower,” he said. “Think we can make it in forty-five minutes?”

  “How far is it?”

  “Three blocks.”

  “We’ll make it,” I said.

  *

  The Carriage House turned out to be just that—a small but very nice little restaurant in a converted carriage house behind a former mansion now used as offices by several prestigious law firms. The whole place sat exactly sixteen people; the ground floor also held a small bar with six stools. We had to wait about forty-five minutes then were led upstairs to our table. The clientele, though mixed, was predominantly what Tim refers to as “Our People.”

  We ordered a bottle of wine while we looked at the menu, and when the waiter had left with our order, I raised my glass in a toast.

  “To tomorrow,” I said.

  Ed raised his glass and touched it to mine.

  “To many tomorrows,” he amended.

  Neither of us said anything for a few moments, but looking at Ed’s face, I could tell he had something he wanted to say.

  “Something the matter?” I asked.

  He looked at me and smiled.

  “No, not really… Well, I don’t know.”

  He had me puzzled.

  “So talk,” I said. “God knows I’ve done enough of it in the past several days.”

  I’d never seen him look like that before—his face reflected a mixture of doubt, determination, and trouble. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t for a long moment. Then he heaved a deep sigh and plunged in.

  “Dick, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now—since shortly after I met you, as a matter of fact, although I guess that hasn’t been all that long, really, has it?

  “Anyway, I know this may not be the right time or the right place—you have a lot on your mind right now, a lot of problems with this case you’re on. I just want you to know that, no matter how it turns out, I…”

  I watched him struggle with his words, and my stomach and chest were full of butterflies.

  “Damn it, Dick, I’m not some fluffy-sweatered, lint-brained little twink. I don’t go bouncing around from one little faggot-novel romance to another. I don’t gush, and I don’t bullshit.

  “I told you I’ve only had one lover in my whole life, and when I lost him, I swore to myself I’d never have another. I don’t—shit!…I don’t quote love unquote you—you can’t love somebody until you really know them and we just haven’t known each other that long yet.

  “But, damn it, I li
ke you better than anybody I’ve met in a long, long time. Since Glenn. I care about you. I don’t know why, but I do, and you’ve got to believe that.” Abruptly, he picked up his glass and drained it. “I just wanted you to know.”

  My ears heard him, but my head felt as though it were a balloon on the end of a long, long string. I tried to say something, but nothing came out. Finally, I did manage a typical Hardesty bit of wisdom.

  “Wow,” I said, and drained my glass.

  I poured us both another. I could tell Ed was almost excruciatingly embarrassed, but I kept my eyes on his face. He had trouble meeting my eyes, but after several tentative split-second contacts, our eyes finally locked on each other.

  “I didn’t do that very well, did I?” he said with a quick, weak little grin.

  “You did it just great,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it better myself…and I would have said exactly the same thing.” I hadn’t felt this giddy since I made it with the captain of my high school swimming team in a cornfield when I was fifteen. “I’m not a gusher or a bullshitter, either. I’m not much of a talker, when it comes right down to it. Let’s just say I feel we’re going in the right direction, and I’ll be damned happy to go just as far with you as either of us wants to go. Deal?”

  Ed smiled, and I felt the same way I had when Gary Miller smiled at me—only Ed’s was even better.

  “Deal,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  I was awake, as always, at six-thirty. Ed was dead to the world; he’d left a wake-up call for seven o’clock with the front desk. I lay there beside him, staring at the ceiling, searching for faces in the textured plaster as I’d done with clouds when I was a kid. I wanted a cup of coffee and a cigarette, but the comfort of being where I was outweighed my urge to get up.

  I found myself watching Ed sleep, my eyes moving slowly over his hair, his face, his neck, down his chest, partly exposed where he’d tossed back the covers in his sleep. I had the strangest sort of ache in my chest. I’d always thought he was handsome, but as I watched him sleeping, I suddenly realized I thought he was beautiful.

  He rolled over in his sleep and draped one arm across my chest, murmuring strange little animal noises that made me think of a hibernating bear.