Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  The Man looked at Hump and me. “It was a close one.”

  “I can read it from here,” I said. “The black at the bottom of the stairs . . . ”

  “Horace,” The Man said.

  “ . . . Horace went out for some reason . . . ”

  “Collecting,” The Man said.

  “ . . . and he was picked up, and they tried to use him to get to you, to get past the door. But something went sour.”

  “Horace warned us.”

  “They’d come this far, so they tried to go on with it. The white with the machine pistol blew open the door and got off a burst or two before the pump gun got him.”

  “I keep forgetting you were a detective,” The Man said.

  “I’d say there was at least one other involved. One man doesn’t try this kind of hit. It takes two or three.”

  “The other one hauled ass when the one on the landing got his.” The Man nodded at the black with the pump gun. “J.T. thinks he’s carrying lead too.”

  “What hit you?”

  “Flying glass from the bar.”

  The doctor finished the taping and stepped away. He scribbled on a prescription pad. “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble with it, but it’ll stiffen overnight.” He put the prescription blank on the table and dropped the pad into the bag and closed it. “Get this filled. It’s for the pain.”

  The Man got up and draped the smoking jacket over his shoulders like a cape. The doctor followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. The doctor waited beside the bar while The Man went into the bedroom. The doctor caught me looking at him and looked away. The Man returned, and the doctor took the wad of bills uneasily, not liking to do it in front of me.

  “Call my office tomorrow,” the doctor said, going out and down the stairs. That’s how doctors got rich, the unreported income. But I had a feeling this particular doctor might be busy the next time The Man called. There was too much blood and guts out there on the staircase.

  “No police?” I asked.

  The Man shook his head. “You two are my police.”

  “You know the one with the machine pistol?”

  “No,” The Man said. “I’d guess he was from out of town.”

  There were noises on the staircase, and J.T., the black with the pump gun, cracked the door and then swung it wide open. I stepped around him and saw two blacks in coveralls loading Horace into a movers’ wardrobe box. Beyond them, I could see a van truck flush against the outside door. I went out to the landing and turned the dead white man over on his back. I pushed the machine pistol aside, and got my hands bloody doing it. I wiped my hands on the dead man’s topcoat and spread it open. There was a .45 automatic in the waistband of his trousers. I pulled out the .45 and passed it back to Hump. Then I went over the dead man’s clothes. In one pocket I found a money clip of bills and some change. I passed the bills and the change back to Hump. Hump handed them to The Man. I’d finished my look when the two blacks in coveralls came up the stairs with another wardrobe box. I straightened up and stepped away.

  The Man stood watching the two blacks work, the bills fanned out in his hands. “Around four hundred dollars.” He folded the money again and put the clip on. “Ape.” One of the blacks looked up. “Split this up.” He tossed the clip of money.

  J.T. closed the door on their thanks. The Man moved to the bar and got three glasses. He poured out three heavy shots of scotch. He was waiting.

  “Pros,” I said. “No shop labels in the suit or the topcoat. From the weight of the topcoat, I’d say they were from out of town, maybe from the Midwest, where the winters are colder. Chicago or Detroit.”

  The Man nodded.

  “The machine pistol’s German, World War Two, probably brought back as a souvenir. Almost no way to trace it.” I put out my hand and Hump put the .45 in it. “I’d make book that this is clean, too. The police might be able to trace it for a ways, but it would be a dead-end.” I dropped the .45 on the bar counter and took the shot of scotch. “Who wants you dead this bad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know,” I said.

  “I wish I did.”

  “Who was Emily afraid of? Who wants you dead, enough to pay the long-distance rates?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That won’t wash.” Hump looked over the rim of his drink at The Man. “Late Monday night, a beginner tries Hardman. Two days later, the pros come after you. If the same man paid for both tries, then he must have learned you can’t bank on beginners. He’d make a call early Tuesday morning, and the pros would be on the plane that afternoon. From Tuesday afternoon or evening to now, that’s not much time to set things up.”

  I jumped into it. “That could mean two things. Whoever it is is in a hurry. They want you dead yesterday. Not next week. Otherwise, why storm the fort? The percentage isn’t good. The percentage calls for a rifle on a rooftop, all neat and clean and safe, when you come out of the backdoor, or while you’re walking across the parking lot to the car. Number two. Somebody knows your setup here. Somebody laid it all out for the two pros. Must have known when the collections were made. The whole hit hinged on picking up your bagman and using him to get inside.”

  The Man’s face didn’t show a thing.

  “My guess is that it was somebody who hadn’t been here the last few days. Probably didn’t know about J.T. and the pump gun. That was the missing detail that screwed it up.”

  “They got the day’s take,” The Man said.

  “How much?”

  The Man shook his head. “Too much.” The Man went into the kitchen and began dialing numbers and talking in a low voice. After a few minutes, he turned. “Horace got about halfway through the route.”

  “That backs it up. Somebody knew the whole route and picked the best spot, one where Horace could be taken without much risk.”

  “Hardman, it looks like somebody is after my operation.”

  I laughed at him. “Shit!” I said, “you’re a funny man.” And then I laughed some more. He didn’t like it. To get rid of us, he said his shoulder was beginning to bother him. “I think I’d better go to bed.” I said I’d stop by the next day. Maybe he’d have some sense by then. He didn’t like that remark, either.

  Out in the parking lot, we passed a panel truck with Acme Cleaning and Repairs on the side of it. Three blacks were taking a door from a frame on the side of the truck. That would replace the splintered one upstairs. I was sure they’d also scrub down the stairs when that was done. Unless I missed my guess, as soon as the stairs dried, they’d get a coat of paint.

  A couple of blocks from The Man’s apartment, I stopped at a closed service station that had an outside pay phone. Hump’s car eased up behind me. I got Art at his department number.

  “You pick up somebody with lead in them . . . probably a shotgun wound?”

  “Why?” When I didn’t answer right away he said, “Involved with you?”

  “I think so.”

  “You shoot somebody tonight?”

  “No.”

  Art snorted. “I’m getting tired of this one-way street we’ve been running on. I’m not sure I can do it much longer.”

  “Come on, Art, I’ve told you all I could.”

  “I doubt that.” There was a long pause. “Had a call about half an hour ago. Patrol car picked up a white male, around thirty, limping out along Whitehall. Good part of his side and hip were blown away. He says somebody shot him from a passing car. Said he didn’t know who it was. Then he passed out.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Grady emergency, last I heard.”

  “You looking into it?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t planning to, but . . . ”

  I said I’d meet him in the parking lot next to the emergency wing.

  Hump got out of his car, stretching. He leaned on the door and watched as I walked over to him. “Any news?”

  “They found the other gun, I think.”

  “So
oner or later,” Hump said, “you’re going to have to tell Art about The Man.” I shook my head. “The later it is, the madder he’s going to be.”

  “I can’t do it yet. When this breaks wide open, he might not care.” I told Hump I was going over to Grady. He could head on home and I’d call him later, after I’d seen the other gun.

  Art was waiting for me in the strong glare of light at the emergency entrance platform. He looked like he’d been working himself up into a rage. I took my time walking up to him, stopping once to light a cigarette. That didn’t help.

  “All right, Hardman, tell me what it’s about.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I saw that Art wasn’t going to move until he got some kind of story out of me. I shivered and turned up my topcoat collar and began the tale I’d put together on the drive over to Grady.

  “Had a tip . . . ” I began.

  “Where’d the tip come from?”

  “Let me tell it all the way through. The tip said there were two pro guns from out of town. Chicago or Detroit . . . some place like that. They’d come to finish what Mullidge didn’t. They were going to take me out tomorrow morning, when I stepped outside for the paper. But there was bad feeling between the two . . . over a girl, I think . . . and they got drunk and had a shoot. One got killed, and the other one was hit bad.” I tossed the cigarette out into the parking lot. “That’s all I heard.”

  “And you want . . .?”

  “I want to know who’s bringing the tourists in.”

  “God, you’re a terrible liar,” Art said.

  Art showed his I.D., and one of the nurses on duty pointed him toward a screened area in the far right corner of the emergency room. A uniformed policeman was standing with his back to the screen, staring at the big rear-end of one of the nurses. When he saw Art approaching, he straightened up and became very official.

  “How is he?” Art asked.

  “Touch and go, the doc says.”

  Art stepped around the screen and I followed like a shadow. It was crowded back there. Two doctors and a nurse leaned over and the man on the table. Past an opening between their heads and shoulders, I could see the chewed-up, pulpy left side and hip. There was the strong smell of blood and guts, even over the stench of the disinfectant. I moved a couple of steps to the right, so that I could look down at the man’s face. It was a dark, pockmarked face with blue-black five o’clock shadow. His eyes were closed, the lips barely quivering.

  One of the doctors stepped away from the table and dropped a probe in a pan. He turned toward Art and Art flipped his I.D. “How is he?”

  The doctor shook his head. “Hard to say. He almost bled to death before they got him here. I’ve done all I can here. We’ve called in an operating team.”

  “The chances?”

  “Fifty-fifty.”

  “Can we talk to him a minute or two?” Art asked.

  “If he’ll talk to you,” the doctor said. “He wouldn’t even tell us his name.”

  The doctor nodded at the other doctor, and they went around us and out through the screen. The nurse remained behind, moving here and there, straightening up.

  Art leaned over the man on the table. “Gunner.”

  That surprised me, and then I realized that that was as good a name as any to get his attention.

  “Hardman’s here, the one you were supposed to kill.”

  The man’s eyes blinked open. He had trouble keeping them open, as if he couldn’t focus them.

  “Gunner . . . ”

  “Call me John Doe.” The lips curled.

  “This is Hardman, the one you were after,” Art said.

  “Who’s . . . he?”

  “You not after him?”

  I stepped closer to the table. “Who paid you?”

  The eyes shifted from Art over to me. “Just . . . passing . . . through town.”

  “Who paid you?” Art said.

  “Fuck you.” The man closed his eyes and turned his face away from us. Art asked some more questions, but it was just wind down the tunnel. As far as the man was concerned, we weren’t there. Or he’d passed out. Either way, we didn’t get any more answers from him. Art gave up. It would have to wait until he was either better or very much worse.

  From the desk, Art called the department and asked them to send over a fingerprint man. “He’s probably got a record as long as a leg.” Before I left, we went over his things. It was just like it was with the dead man on The Man’s landing. A wad of bills, some change, a pack of cigarettes and a wickedly sharp switchblade.

  Art followed me out to the parking lot. “That tip say where this shoot took place?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Call back and ask. There’s a body missing.”

  “I don’t know where the tip came from.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” Art said. “It takes all the fun out of guessing, when you tell me something.”

  “Sorry.”

  “If I don’t get some answers soon, your old friend, the cop, is gonna leave town. The next time I talk to you, I’ll be the cop who used to be your friend.”

  I nodded.

  The nod made him mad. “Don’t just nod at me. This town looks like a fucking Asian war’s going on in it. And you’re not helping.”

  There wasn’t anything I could say.

  When I drove away, he was still standing in the parking lot, head back and, I thought, cursing. It was a mess and, as he’d said, I wasn’t doing much to improve it. It wasn’t hard to understand how he felt.

  The radio was giving the eleven o’clock news when I drove up the driveway and parked. From outside the door, I could

  hear the TV. news going, and I found Marcy curled up on the sofa. She uncoiled and stood up in her stocking feet, waiting for me. “See how patient I am.”

  I swept her up and kissed her and walked her into the kitchen. “It’s been a bad evening,” I said when I released her, “so I’m glad you are.”

  I opened the Inglenook Chablis, and she got out the shrimp and the sauce, and we ate while I told her what had happened. At a break, while Marcy made coffee, I went into the bedroom and made two calls. Hump said he wasn’t surprised that the gunner wouldn’t talk. That was part of the contract. And, with his story about being shot from a passing car, he wasn’t guilty of anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The Man sounded relieved. “I guess I can relax for the moment,” he said. “If they’re going to try again, it’ll take time to set it up.”

  I agreed. “But the body count being what it is, if they do make another try, it’ll be the safe way, a high-powered rifle at a distance.”

  “Hardman, you don’t go out of your way to reassure me, do you?”

  “If you want to be dead,” I said, “I’ll lie to you.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh. “I’ll have to think on this overnight.”

  I got out the bottle of five-star Metaxa to go with the coffee. Marcy seemed subdued. Perhaps it was the way I’d told my story and then left her to think about it while I made my phone calls. “I guess this is what they call a late supper in all the movies,” I said.

  She sipped at the Metaxa and looked at me like I’d said nothing at all. “So that’s the kind of work you do now, Jim?”

  “Yes, and it’s pretty dirty at times.”

  “It doesn’t sound exactly honest,” Marcy said.

  “Sometimes it’s not.” I topped off my Metaxa. “But it’s not like pimping, or working full-time for a mob.”

  “The Man . . . whoever he is . . . he sounds like the Black Mafia. You’re working for him.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” I said. “I’m not a bagman for him. I’m investigating a murder. It’s The Man’s personal life I’m involved in, not his business life.”

  “You believe that, Jim?”

  I grinned at her and shook my head. “It started that way. Now I’m not sure. Maybe there are two parts here that aren’t co
nnected. The murder of Emily Campbell might have nothing to do with the other killings around The Man. But I think they do. I just don’t know the connection.”

  “And when you know the connection?” Marcy asked.

  “Then I throw it all to Art, and stand back and watch.”

  “Or help him.”

  “Or, if he wants me to, I help him,” I said.

  Marcy rinsed her cup and left it in the sink. One hip against the kitchen counter, she sipped at the Metaxa. “You didn’t drink this before, when you were going with me?”

  “An old Greek man I met in a bar said it was good for your virility. At least, I think that was what he said.”

  “Really?” She smiled at me, licking her lips. “You?”

  “It was just a theory. I never tried it out.”

  Marcy stayed the night and left early the next morning by cab, while I was still asleep. I found a note on the dresser, weighted down by some change. Only two shopping days until Christmas. Marcy

  I was on my third cup of coffee when a man from one of the messenger services came by. For my signature, he gave me a thick, sealed envelope with my name and address on it. Though it was something like paying too much for a grab-bag prize, I had him wait while I got a dollar for him from the bedroom.

  At the kitchen table I opened the envelope, and a sheaf of cash and a note fell out. I put the cash aside and read the letter.

  “After the trouble last night I’ve decided to take a vacation. I’ll be out of the country for a time. Now and then an associate, a Mr. Wenzel Brown, will contact you for a progress report. I do not plan to return until the trouble has cleared up, or until I am sure it has died down. Though I trust you to some degree, I feel my whereabouts should be kept secret from everyone not in my organization. The enclosed money should retain your services for another period of time. Other cash, as needed, will be available from Mr. Brown, and we will settle up any differences when I return to town.”