Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  I gave the cop back his riot gun. “Go arrest him, or something.”

  When Art came down a few seconds later, Hump was looking up into the circle of riot guns and saying, “Ease up, this mother ain’t going anywhere.”

  “Where’s Eddie Spence?”

  “I don’t know any Eddie Spence.” Clinton Stubbs, hands cuffed behind him, was sitting on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs and glaring at us. His face was dirt-streaked and he was wearing a t-shirt, an oil-stained pair of jeans, and loafers without socks. He was smaller and thinner than he’d seemed out in the dark yard.

  “That’s not what Chief Brunson says.”

  “Chief Branson’s a sack of shit.”

  I left Art and the other detective in the kitchen with Stubbs and went into the bedroom. Off to the right, in the bathroom, Hump was trying to get the dirt stains off the knees of his trousers. “Anything in there, Hump?”

  “Two wet towels. Either two people took showers, or he took two showers.”

  I looked around the bedroom. The blankets were kicked back in a heap, and the sheet was dirty brown. In one corner of the room there was a pile of dirty shirts and underwear. I opened the dresser drawers. In one drawer there was a neat stack of starched shorts and t-shirts. In another there were three starched sport shirts and a mass of white cotton socks. That didn’t tell me much.

  I prowled around the rest of the room and reached the wastebasket beside the bed. Among the other odds and ends I found a large, balled-up piece of brown wrapping paper. It had strips of wrapping tape on it, and it looked like it had come from a bundle of laundry. When I spread out the paper, a large piece of white paper fell out. It was a sales ticket from Bill’s Salvage Store:

  6 s. @ .20 1.20

  6 t. @ .20 1.20

  4 s.s. @ .50 2.00

  ____

  Total 4.40

  The sale was dated the day before, on the sixteenth. While I was studying the ticket, Hump came in from the bathroom. He was drying his hands on a large wad of toilet paper.

  “You know a Bill’s Salvage Store?”

  “It’s a store in the wino district. Sells laundry and cleaning that doesn’t get picked up after three or four months.” He took the ticket and looked down at it. “It looks like somebody bought six shorts, six t-shirts and four sport shirts.”

  I went back to the dresser. The starched shorts were size 34 and the t-shirts were 40’s. The sport shirts in the other drawer were all marked large. I returned to the pile of dirty laundry and dug around in it with the toe of my shoe. I speared a pair of shorts size 30 and a dress shirt with a 14 neck.

  I called Art in from the kitchen. I showed him the ticket and told him what I’d found. “Eddie left the hotel in a hurry. No time to pack spares.”

  Art nodded. I followed him into the kitchen and watched as he circled Stubbs. He grabbed the neck of Stubbs’ t-shirt and pulled it away. “A 36,” Art said to me.

  Hump and I stood around and watched while Art went to work on Stubbs. He started out on neck sizes and shirt sizes, and when Stubbs insisted that all the shirts were his, Art made fun of him for swelling up and shrinking from day to day. The topper came when Art had the cuffs taken off him. He asked Stubbs to try on one of the large sport shirts I’d found. He didn’t want to, but two of the cops put one of the sport shirts on him. He stood around and laughed at him, at the way the oversized shirt hung on him.

  After a few minutes of that, Stubbs was ready to talk. Eddie Spence had shown up at his apartment the morning after the shooting at the hotel. Stubbs said he hadn’t known about the shooting until he got to work and heard two of the other mechanics talking about it. That evening, when he asked Eddie about it, Eddie had said that one of the other cops had shot that patrolman by mistake in the dark, and they were trying to pin it on him. Stubbs had believed him, and Eddie had stayed on. And he’d bought some stuff from the salvage store because the only clothes he had were getting a little ripe.

  The last time he’d seen Eddie? This morning, when he left for work at the body shop. And that was the Lord’s truth.

  Art left one policeman in the apartment and two others in an unmarked car in a driveway across the street. Hump and I waited around while Art made the arrangements, and then we followed them down to Eighth Street, where the cars were parked. After they put Stubbs in the back of a patrol car and before they closed the door on him, I leaned in.

  “Did Spence say why he was staying in town?”

  “I told him he ought to leave,” Stubbs said.

  “Did he say?”

  “He said he had to get even with some people.”

  “Did he say which people?” I asked.

  “No, just some people.” He leaned back and crossed his legs at the knee. “What’s your name?”

  “Hardman.”

  Stubbs nodded. “I think he’s looking for you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hump said, “You keep a messy kitchen, Hardman.”

  “What?”

  “I can smell it all the way in here.”

  It was noon on Saturday, the day after the raid on Clinton Stubbs’ apartment. It was a clear, cold morning, and Hump and I had driven over to my house to pick up a change of clothing. It was oppressively hot in the living room, and I caught a whiff of it, too, but I hadn’t been sure what it was.

  “I guess I didn’t put out the garbage.”

  In the kitchen, the smell was even stronger. And then I saw what it was. The kitchen table was loaded down with pickles, olives, a couple of kinds of cheese, an open foil package of sliced roast beef, and a large mound of lox. Closer up, I could see that someone had tried the lox, hadn’t liked it, and had spit out the piece he’d been chewing. The partly chewed wad of lox was on top of about half a pound of Nova Scotia.

  “That boy’s childish,” Hump said.

  “Or scared to where he doesn’t give a damn.” I got out a large trash bag and dumped his leftovers into it. “But at least, now we know where he spent yesterday and last night.”

  When I came back from the garbage dock, Hump was calling me. “In here, in the bedroom.”

  Hump was seated at the foot of the bed. He pointed at the large dresser mirror. Spence had written a message on it, using the wet edge of a piece of soap. I DIDN’T KILL EMILY. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU. E.S.

  “This was on the floor.” Hump held up a blue denim shirt. “And this on the bed.” It was the plastic cover and shirt board from a laundry. “It looks like he swapped you a shirt.”

  The closet door was partly open. I pushed it the rest of the way, and spent a minute or two sliding the jackets and suits around. A gray Harris tweed jacket was gone, and so was a blue raincoat. “Well, he’s got good taste in my clothes. How’d he get in?”

  Hump nodded at the bedroom window that faced out into the backyard. As soon as I got close enough I could feel the cold draft from outside. A pane was missing. He’d tapped it out, reached in, and unlocked the window catch.

  “That boy’s learning bad habits.”

  I was stripping the sheets from the bed when the phone rang. It was Hugh Muffin.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for two days. You don’t watch out, I’m going to quit paying you.” He laughed. “How’s it going?”

  I told him we’d missed Eddie again the night before. He was lucky, but the luck would change.

  “I went to Emily Campbell’s funeral day before yesterday.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I let the silence say it for me.

  “Arch remembers the Spence boy, after all. He says he never was any good. The Mason police got him for drunk and disorderly while he was still in high school.”

  “That’s not the way I heard it from the Spence family. The ‘D and D’ was a frame, and a beating went along with it, to tell the kid to stay away from Emily.”

  Hugh snorted into the phone. “A dead daughter is a hell of a price to pay for keeping the blood lines neat.” He paused. “The reason I called. Ben Cole
man wants to talk to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Ben Coleman, Arch’s business manager. You met him at the Regency that time.”

  “Yeah.” I remembered him. He hadn’t seemed to care much for me at the time. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done that would make him change his mind. “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know.” Hugh gave me the number. “Keep in touch.”

  Hugh hung up, and I dialed the number. A woman answered and stirred me, and called him to the phone. “I need to talk to you, Hardman.”

  “What about?”

  “I’d rather not talk on the phone,” he said.

  “I’m busy.”

  “This is important, and it might be worth your time.”

  I didn’t like it, but I agreed to meet him for a drink. He let me pick the place, and I picked a topless bar on West Peachtree, just for the hell of it.

  I finished with the bed and then threw some underwear, socks and shirts into a suitcase. I changed into a fresh suit and put the one I’d been wearing since Thursday into the cleaning bag.

  Hump sat on the edge of the bed and smoked. “The way you were talking to old Hugh, you don’t sound as mad at Eddie as everybody else does.”

  “It’s all so fucking dumb and useless, the whole thing.”

  Hump nodded at the writing on the mirror. “You believe that?”

  “Too many people lie face to face for me to put much stock in mirror writing.”

  “But if it’s true?” Hump asked.

  “You believe him?”

  “I’ve never met the dude,” Hump said.

  “That’s the problem. Neither have I.” I lifted the suitcase, and we went into the living room. “But I’d like about ten minutes with him. I need some answers. What bothers me is that Spence might be after The Man, and he might be after me. If this whole mess goes back to a high school romance . . . ”

  “The father,” Hump said.

  “He’d be my first choice. He’s the one crapped on paradise. Arch Campbell himself.”

  “Unless we’ve got it all wrong,” Hump said. “All the pieces have to fit together, and if they don’t, that means we don’t have all the pieces.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said. I turned down the thermostat as low as it would go and we headed downtown.

  We loafed over a light lunch and a second and third beer. I pushed the plates aside and, because of what Hump had said about the pieces, I got out my pen and pad. I began to list the possibilities.

  1.Eddie killed Emily C. because of the old romance. He wants to kill The Man for the same reason. Why not Arch C. also?

  2.Eddie killed Emily C. but for some reason not connected with the old romance. He wants to kill The Man for that same reason, whatever it is.

  3.Eddie killed Ferd because he saw Ferd with Emily. That would go back to #1.

  4.Eddie killed Ferd for some reason not involved with Emily C.

  When I paused, Hump reached across the table and picked up the pad. He read what I’d written and then looked at me, his face closed and bland. “For somebody with a lot of sympathy for Eddie, you’re missing about half of it.”

  I handed him the pen. “Write a few.”

  Hump spent a few minutes writing, then pushed the pen and pad back across the table to me.

  5.Eddie did not kill Emily C. If he didn’t, then maybe he thinks The Man did, or you did.

  6.If Eddie didn’t kill Emily C., then why would he kill Ferd?

  I looked up from the pad. Hump was grinning at me.

  7.Somebody else killed Emily C. and Ferd. Why?

  8.Two different people killed Emily C. and Ferd, for different reasons. Who?

  9.Back to #6. Eddie didn’t kill Emily C. but he killed Ferd because he thought Ferd had something to do with Emily’s death.

  I closed the pad and put the pen away.

  “The first mistake was natural enough,” Hump said. “You just wanted to question Eddie about Emily. No proof of any kind that linked him to it. But he flipped out and shot the cop in the hotel alley. Then the logic got all screwed up. Eddie is a killer. He killed a cop. Therefore he also killed Emily Campbell. Therefore he killed everybody who’s been killed lately and everybody who gets killed next week.

  “We got locked into it too early,” I said.

  “Locked in tight,” Hump said.

  I bought the lunch. It was the least I could do after being stupid.

  We parked in the lot about half a block from the Pirates’ Cove on West Peachtree. It had a clapboard front painted sort of driftwood brown, and there was a topless girl in a pirate’s outfit and an eye patch painted on the sign that hung over the sidewalk. It was five of two, and the place had just opened, but there was the smell of warmed-over stale beer and cigarette smoke in the heating system.

  There were two convention types at the bar having pick-me-ups. Otherwise, it was empty. Hump and I took a table near the low performer’s platform, and the bartender came over and took our orders. When he brought our beers, he clipped us a buck and a half each for them and, perhaps to soften that, said the go-go girls would be starting up soon.

  “Why this place?” Hump asked.

  “You never see enough titties,” I said, and let it go at that.

  Ben Coleman came in around ten after two. The first go-go dancer was on, a fat blonde girl with skin that had the color and dull sheen of biscuit dough. Her breasts were like soggy dumplings that had been cut out with a quart jar top. As soon as I saw Ben Coleman’s dark hair and aggressive walk, I started clapping for the fat girl. Hump looked at me like I was going crazy, but I nodded at him and he joined in. The fat girl thought we were crazy, too, but it was better than being ignored altogether. “Whip it, sugar.”

  A waitress, one of the other dancers, followed Coleman over to our table and took his order for a Jack Daniels Black, on the rocks.

  Coleman looked irritated. “Hardman, I . . . ”

  “You mind waiting until this pretty lady finishes?”

  “Lady . . .?” He gave the blonde a sour look. “Hardman, I called you for a good reason, and . . . ”

  “Coleman, this is my partner, Hump.”

  Hump and Coleman nodded at each other. Coleman said, “Is this your idea of some kind of a joke?” His drink came and he looked at it and paid for it, but he didn’t touch it. “I’m too busy to spend my time . . . ”

  He broke off because I wasn’t listening. I was getting out a five and passing it to Hump. “Stuff her for me, Hump.” Holding the bill out in front of him, Hump went over to the fat girl, waved it at her and, when she smiled and pulled out the front part of her bikini bottom, he folded the bill and dropped it into the opening. The elastic popped back into place, and Hump came back to the table. “Fat girls appreciate little kindnesses like that,” he said, winking at me.

  “Shit,” I said, “it’s only money.”

  “It’s money I wanted to talk to you about,” Coleman said.

  “Really?” I looked at him and then away, up to the platform where the blonde was finishing up and blowing Hump and me kisses. Hump blew one of the kisses back at her, and I reached up and fielded one like a low, hot line-drive.

  Coleman was getting angry. “Aren’t you interested in money, Hardman?”

  I mugged over at Hump. “Are we interested in money this week?”

  “This is the week for trim,” Hump said. “You remember? We said last week was for money.”

  “Right.”

  “Are you two crazy or something?”

  The platform lights dimmed, and the loud music went down a notch or two. “All right,” I said, “tell us about money.”

  “That’s more like it.” He waved his glass at the waitress and I held up a beer bottle and two fingers. “Since the funeral Thursday, friends of Arch Campbell have been getting together a reward fund. The last figures I saw, it was almost ten thousand dollars, and it might go as high as fifteen.”

  “Arrest and convi
ction?”

  “Yes,” Coleman said. “That’s the way it’ll be worded.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it, Hump?”

  “I could use a cut of it,” Hump said.

  “I just thought you might want to know,” Coleman said. Then he leaned back, waiting for his drink and waiting to be thanked.

  “A lot of money,” I said.

  Coleman was expansive now. “I was at the meeting when part of the reward was collected. Mr. Campbell and others as much as said that the reward would be paid whether Eddie Spence went to trial or not.”

  “You mean . . .?”

  “He might resist arrest and get killed. If it happened that way, it might be easier for everybody concerned.”

  “Everybody but Eddie Spence,” I said. “You see, we know that Eddie killed the cop out behind the hotel. No doubt about that. But we’re beginning to wonder if he killed Emily Campbell.”

  Coleman looked astounded.

  “So far, it’s just a hunch,” I said. “Nothing to hold it down. Just a feeling.”

  “But the police seemed so sure, and you seemed so sure . . . ”

  “Right now, until we’re really sure, that reward is just a lot of blood money, and a lot of trouble.”

  “And wrong-man blood money, at that,” Hump said.

  “That kind of money draws flies,” I said.

  The drinks came. Coleman sipped at his. “What do you mean by flies?”

  Hump gestured with his beer glass. “Every small town stud who always wanted to be a private eye is going to show up in Atlanta, packing the Saturday Night Special he borrowed from his cousin. Buddy. God, it’ll almost be a convention of guys who read Travis McGee novels.”

  “That kind of money buys a Judas, and . . . ”