That was the second time, someone from the Dickinson family had encouraged me to leave town in under twenty-four hours. I had received the message loud and clear, but I had to stay until I found Brad and my money.
I THOUGHT ABOUT moving rooms to a different motel but realized there was no point. If they found me once, they’d find me again. So what was the point?
Instead, I needed to heed their words but keep my end of the bargain with the Phelps family. So I went back to the True American as that was where Brad was last seen and the first place I’d felt anxious since I arrived in the state.
Armed with a pistol in my pants and a picture of Brad in my hand, I went round each shop and building near the bar hoping someone might talk. Within five minutes I was being followed by two well-built dudes. They were young enough to be in the army but the chances were their last name was Dickinson and I’d put money down the local army recruitment office also contained someone with the same name. Nepotism is a wonderful thing.
The longer the guys were near me, the less anyone would even give me the time of day. And it wasn’t like in a city where I could ditch them in the subway. This was a sleepy set of streets in a sleepy suburb where cruelty to your fellow man was the norm - at least if the man was black.
I walked down an alleyway that cut through two streets. There was no way I’d have let myself be followed into a dead end with the two goons on my tail. The usual mix of refuse trolleys, cardboard boxes for the winos to sleep in and the odd rat or two. Nothing much to speak for this track of land that ran from Berry Road to Wellford Street.
When I got to the other end, there was a welcoming committee. I swiftly looked back and saw only one of the goons behind me. Not good. Two men were standing, smoking. Others were chewing matchsticks. One had a cycle chain in his hand and was slowly moving his wrist back and forth to get the metal weapon to snake by his leg. It was not a mob exactly, but there were more than an ordinary number of men standing at the end of an alleyway for me to feel easy.
Then out of the huddle appeared a face I recognized: Gordon Dickinson, Grand Wizard of the Houston chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
“HEY BOY. I see you’re still snooping round our town.”
“Yes, still here. Someone woke me up in the middle of the night, which plain annoyed me.”
“Oh yes? That was mighty inconsiderate of them, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure would. Whoever organized for it to happen must be one prize motherfucker.” The tension in the muscles in the upper arms of those surrounding Dickinson physically increased. I was just making a point. I figured if the Klan had taken Brad, the best way to find out was to do the one thing I had singularly failed to do. The obvious thing, really. Ask the guy in charge of the Klan if they’d done it.
“But that was last night and this is today,” I added, changing my tone to a more airy aspect.
“All I need to know before I leave town is this: where’s Brad Phelps? Any ideas?”
Dickinson thought for a spell, classically rubbing his chin with his thumb.
“I see you’ve been looking in our alleyways. Did you turn up anything of interest, boy?”
“Not yet. Most of the people round here have been right unfriendly.”
“Like I told you before, we don’t like nigger lovers here.”
“And as I said to you before, I don’t care about that. I’ll be gone when I find Brad. Until then, I’m staying put.
“I understand your concerns are not our concerns and that you are a hired hand, a paid worker who must earn his money to put bread on your family’s table.” I chose not to correct his misdiagnosis of my marital status.
“You should check those alleyways a little more carefully, boy.” And with that, he walked away along with his whole entourage. I stood watching them leave until they had all vanished round the corner. Turning about face, I stared into the dark to see if a goon stood behind me, but he had left too.
Dickinson’s words rattled in my head for a minute and I headed back down the alleyway. The man had given me a clear message. He wanted me gone, but he knew I’d stick around until I found Brad or they had to kill me because I’d find other stuff instead.
When I reached the cardboard boxes, I saw a foot sticking out from under them. That was the bad news. The good news was that the rest of a body was attached to it. Despite the dried blood and dirt over the face, I could tell it was Brad.
The body was still warm. They’d had him all this time, alive. God knows what they thought they could achieve with him. Torture information out of him about Lera maybe. Who knows. Didn’t matter because he was dead now.
I called Phil and the cops showed up to put Brad into a body bag. Their idea of a house to house search involved tipping a hat to Gordon Dickinson as he stood, leaning on the door jamb of the True American.
Back near the precinct, I wired the Phelps family with the only news I could give them, but I’m sure they expected no more. Deep down they knew their son was dead even before they hired a private investigator to find him.
I stayed in town until the post mortem and I helped the Phelps make arrangements to ship the body north. Then I popped round to Phil to say my goodbyes. With no usable prints on any of Brad’s belongings, he’d had his neck broken with a single twist - unconscious at the time because he’d been beaten severely more than once.
The day after I left, a riot in Independence Heights broke out: the locals marched in solidarity with their fallen hero and matters got out of hand. I read about it in the New York Times, buried on page seventeen. One paragraph, three inches of news.
The next day I visited the Phelps to pick up my money and offer my condolences, but mainly to get my money.
PART ELEVEN
NEW YORK 1969
27
LOOKING DOWN THOSE airplane steps, with Simone’s young curvaceous body at the bottom, I couldn’t help feel that life had dragged me, trudging, to this point. Me holding someone else’s bag, filled with papers I guessed, and she, waiting to receive it, unaware of the bloodshed in its name.
Brad’s face, beaten and dried red around his bulged out eyes, flashed in my mind. And that then sparked another thought. He had been a missing person, but once I had to find a missing thing, an object.
Towards the end of the sixties, I was still based in New York and had lived there almost a decade. I was young, and the city was alive, but there was an underbelly of tension throughout Manhattan. Nowadays, everything has been Disneyfied, but back then Times Square was not the place to take your family sightseeing. Other entertainment was available for the fee paying customer.
So it was that by ’69 when the Hippies were proclaiming free love on the other side of the country, I had me an office with my name etched on the glass front door and a secretary, Madeleine. She stayed with me until after the Christina Almaguer photo shoot when I left the game, for what I thought would be for good.
Dorothea Schroder was walked into my office by Maddy looking like she was about to fall apart. To be honest, this was how most of my clients first appeared. They never visited when all was great. There was always something they needed to get off their chest. This time, Dorothea had a significantly large enough chest, both literally and metaphorically, to have a lot to confide in me.
She had come over from Holland a year or so before to make a new life for herself with Uncle Sam. Like so many immigrants, the lure of the pavements filled with gold had morphed into something which just about glistered yellow, but was ultimately very tarnished. Welcome to America.
Bottom line: Dorothea had a boyfriend. I settled back in my leather bound seat and let the sob story wash over me. This would be a tale of heartbreak and sorrow and it was all I could do to not spend my whole time staring at that chest as it rose up and down as the sobs left her eyes and moved her torso in sympathy.
My best plan was to lean my elbows on the arms of my chair, rest the fingertips of one hand on the fingertips of the other and close my eyes like I
was some kind of Bond villain. While it stopped my staring, this did nothing for my imagination and I dreamed about those breasts in slightly more detail than is appropriate for a man to think about his client.
SO DOROTHEA HAD a boyfriend called Alex Steinmann she’d met in a bar in the Village. Nothing wrong so far, I thought. They’d been seeing each other about six months and had a healthy, normal relationship. She might have been young, free and a little single, but Dorothea was still reticent to state out loud that she and Alex had sex together. That coyness sounded like it was her undoing.
Long story short: Alex had set up an Arriflex in the corner of his room, behind an air grille and had filmed them as they fucked. Needless to say, not only had he failed to mention this to Dorothea, but he intended to edit and sell the footage unless she gave him $1000. Naturally, she didn’t have that kind of dough because she came over here to make her fortune and she hadn’t quite got there yet. One year is not enough time for a toots like Dorothea to make a fortune unless she wanted to sell her titties. And she wasn’t that kind of girl, otherwise she’d be suggesting they shoot more footage and do the job properly.
This meant she had a problem. Alex was clearly no longer her boyfriend, but he had film negatives and a threat hanging over her and Dorothea wanted both to go away, which was why Maddy had brought her into my office. Unfortunately for me, the size of the sob story was a strong indicator I could not charge my top rate and I’d have to lowball my fee.
One reason for my success in the 60s was that I altered my rates so that even the poorer members of our community could hire me to snoop on their spouses. That way, I could get paid for doing something on occasions when my diary for rich people was empty. The other reason was that Maddy kept on top of chasing invoices and paying bills. I lost count of the number of times in Chicago I had to run from bailiffs or change my home address so’s they couldn’t catch up with me. Not my favorite time.
So I said goodbye to Dorothea’s chest and led her breasts and the rest of her body to the door. She told me Alex was no longer living in his apartment: he’d flown the coop but she gave me directions to his night time haunt in the Village, where she was sure I’d find him.
The clock showed only four in the afternoon and there was no point going downtown until much later, so I did the next best thing. I hopped in a cab to Times Square.
As I said before, back then the place was a shit hole, populated by a fascinating mix of winos, druggies and prostitutes. The porn industry was also thriving with a plethora of cinemas peddling XXX movies for their discerning clientele.
There were many movie theaters in the area, but they were very few people who owned those places, so I thought if I went to one or two of the flea pits, I’d be able to find out whether Alex had started to peddle his wares.
The cab driver was not happy with my destination, so I negotiated his stop on 46th and 8th and walked east to Times Square. On the opposite side of the square, on Seventh Avenue, was a large skin show theater, which was as good a place to start as any.
THE ORION HAD stood on Times Square ever since I’d lived in the city, but I had never been inside until then. The carpet was sticky underfoot, and I pretended to myself this was because they’d got the soap mix out of whack when the carpets were last cleaned. At best, spilled alcohol was to blame. For sure.
The girl at the box office was filing her nails, legs crossed, sat on a high stool behind the glass.
“Is the boss about?”
“You wanna buy a ticket?”
“No, I’d like to see your manager, if he’s about,” I spoke more insistently because she wasn’t listening. She had cuticles to deal with.
“Dunno. I’m here to sell tickets, that’s all. You wanna buy one buddy or what?”
I had three options: continue arguing with her until I lost the will to live - only minutes away - buy a ticket just to get past the dullest sentry in the world or barge through the door and hope she didn’t have a phone to call the National Guard.
The easiest option was to hand over a buck to gain entry to the Orion’s cinematic fair. I pushed open the door and found myself in a corridor with a small concession run by another girl - this time blond - who had two shelves stocked with cigarettes, chocolate bars and soda drinks.
“Hi there.”
“What you want, Mac? We got Camels, we got Marlboro. We got 100 Grand, we got Scooter Pie. We got Coke.”
“Do you know a guy called Alex Steinmann, peddles films?”
“Listen, Mac, I’m here to sell shit. What do you need?”
“No bother, no worries. Where could I go to speak to the manager, please?”
“Mac, I’m just not going to answer your questions. No need to call the manager on me.”
“No, no, no. I came in here to talk to the guy. Nothing against you, for sure. Do you know where the dude is?” Betsy, or whatever her name was, relaxed. I offered her a cigarette which she took, and I lit it for her.
“Thanks, Mac.”
“My pleasure. I’m Jake by the way.”
“Thanks, Jake. Why d’you want to talk to Frank?”
“I’m trying to find a guy I reckon might have visited him.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Alex is five eight, a hundred and forty pounds, light brown hair, blue eyes. Young.”
“Young for you or young for me?” Betsy smiled as she puckered up her lips and took another drag on her Camel. I thought for a second about what she said as I was only in my late thirties.
“Young for me. He’s early twenties. Very early.”
She sucked again on the filter tip of her cigarette and shook her head.
“Doesn’t chime with any John I’ve seen round here.”
“Shame, so do you think you could point me in Frank’s direction?”
“Sure, Jake. You can find him that-away,” and Betsy pointed to a door near her concession stand, which had a sign stating Staff Only. I thanked her and put a couple of greenbacks in her tip cup. She was a cute kid and if she ever got out from this flea pit, she’d go far, but the chances were she’d live and die in the place. Shame.
Pushed the door through to another corridor, but with a series of office entrances along the left-hand side. I ambled over to the first office and, leaning on the door jamb, I popped my head round to see if Frank was there.
“Is Frank around?” I asked a middle-aged guy, who was counting a pile of notes.
“Forty nine, fifty... What? No, not here. Try next door... Fifty one...”
So I moved a few feet further on and tried again. This time there was a younger dude sitting behind a desk, reading a newspaper. There was filing all over the place. Looked like a real mess.
“You Frank?”
“Me Frank, you Jane?”
I smiled at the fact that the guy had a sense of humor and picked me up on my curtness.
“Yes, but most people call me Jake.”
“Hi Jake, what can I do for you apart from Johnny Weissmuller impersonations?”
“Glad you asked. I’m looking for a boy,” and with that Frank’s eyebrows raised implying much more than I’d said. I smiled again though.
“We’re not in that kind of business, Jake. This is strictly a movie house.”
“And I’m not looking for that kind of boy either, Frank. This boy’s peddling home made movies ... of the kind you’d show in this theater.”
“Adult entertainment is a wonderful thing, Jake. Great product, great product.”
“I’m sure. The boy’s name is Alex Steinmann and he’s going round trying to sell a little candid camera number. Ring a bell?”
Frank thought for a second, head pointing to the ceiling.
“Maybe I can, Jake. Maybe I can. Is there anything in it for me apart from helping a guy find another guy.”
“I’m sure I can make a donation to your favorite charity.” Now it was Frank’s turn to smile and I took out my wallet and flashed some notes - and gave Alex’s physi
cal description.
“There was a dude came round yesterday offering some domestic product. Not really our market. We prefer higher production values. But he left his number in case I changed my mind. You want the number?”
“That’d be mighty upright of you.”
FRANK SCRABBLED THROUGH his piles of paper until he reached a spiral-bound notebook, flipped the pages and tore one out.
“Have it. It’s of no use to me. Get this: he tried to sell a 16mm film to a professional theater. Asshole amateur.”
I handed over two twenties and took the page with the scribbled down phone number.
“Thanks, Frank.”
“No problemo, Jake,” and he grabbed the Jacksons and pushed them into his pants pocket. I nodded and left the room, walked past Betsy, who still looked cute but, on a second look, was clearly no older than fifteen or sixteen, and left the Orion.
Now I had a contact number but no location for the guy, so I went to a pay phone and realized the last thing you should do in Times Square is go to a pay phone. There was a crumpled up excuse for a human being, with a needle sticking out of his arm, leaning on the post and a strong stench of piss around him. I walked east a block until I found Sixth and then I found a phone booth more to my liking: devoid of drugged out heroin fiends.
The phone number worked but after twenty rings I gave up because no-one was answering. Looked at my watch, but it was still too early to hit the Village, but at least I now had two possible ways of getting to Alex and the rest would take care of itself.
I swung back to my office and checked for any messages with Maddy and then tried the phone number again. Still zip. Eight is either too early or too late to do anything really useful, so I popped round the corner to my local diner, Joe’s Diner, run by a guy called Joe and grabbed a burger, fries and a cup of java. That took me thirty minutes and still it was too early to go to the Village.
The Case Page 15