Wrong Place, Wrong Time Page 20

  It had not been easy to convince the uniformed cops that Ed and Ricco would like to know I was sitting in a holding cell. Finally I told them I would confess, but only to Lieutenant Durkee. They went for that. It was late afternoon now, growing dim outside, and the general mood in Ed’s office wasn’t much brighter.

  I said, “I wonder when Tasot decided to shift gears? Originally, he wanted to kill me—”

  “No,” Ed said. “Originally, you were only the fall guy.”

  “Okay. But after he knew I was looking for him—even if I didn’t know who he was—he wanted to kill me. Then he changed his mind and made me kill him. When? And why?”

  Ed shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Ricco pulled a toothpick out of his mouth and peered at the frayed end of it. “I told you before,” he said. “The guy was a fucking nut.”

  “Thank you, Sigmund Freud.”

  Ed pawed through the pile of papers on his desk. “Ricco’s an animal, but he’s right. I’ve got a report here somewhere from that consulting shrink we use. Tasot’s been loony-tunes since he was a kid. Sociopathic, the shrink says, with a fancy alphabet-soup subtitle.” He gave up the search and leaned back in his chair. “The point is, there won’t be any charges or any hassle for you. It was a good shoot.”

  “No kidding. But thanks, Ed.”

  Ed looked up. “Did you know he’d offed the cab driver? Body was in the trunk.”

  “No. When did he do that?”

  Ricco said, “Some time after ten-thirty this morning, going by the cab company dispatch log.”

  “Did you find out where he’s been hiding?”

  “No.” Ed stretched. I heard a joint pop. “What scares me is that next week somebody’s going to call and say they haven’t seen their neighbors since the night when those firecrackers went off. Then we’re going to find a house full of bodies.”

  “Could be,” I said. “Damn! When he flipped out, he went all the way, didn’t he.”

  “I told you,” Ricco said. “He was—”

  “… a fucking nut!” Ed and I yelled at him.

  “Yeah, right,” Ricco said.

  We sat there for a while, not saying much. Ed and Ricco were probably trying to work up the energy to attack the paperwork. I wanted to find Hilda and several drinks and a meal, in that order. Just as soon as I could get myself started.

  Ed’s phone rang; we stared at it. It kept ringing anyway. Ed answered it, then handed the receiver to me.

  It was Beth Woodland, all but incoherent with rage and frustration. “Thank god! Those damned … I’ve called everywhere! They kept transferring me—Is Thorney all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “He’s in jail!” she wailed. “And I can’t find out why or where or …” She caught herself and said in a tight voice, “Please help me, Rafferty.”

  “Sure. Where are you?”

  “At the office. Please hurry. I’m worried about him.”

  “Sit tight. Five minutes.”

  It’s nice to have friends on the force. In three minutes, not five, Ed had learned that Beth was right. Thorney was in jail.

  A hysterical neighbor had called the emergency number, shrieking that a “big man was attacking her ten-year-old son.”

  So that’s the way the call had gone out. On the scene, though, the uniformed squad saw that Thorney had only spanked one of the firebugs—he was faster on his feet than I’d thought—and anyway, his arson complaint easily trumped the neighbor lady’s bitching.

  It would have ended there, just another neighborhood feud, if Thorney hadn’t gotten on his high horse. He took a poke at one of the cops.

  It was only an old man’s wobbly swing and all it did was knock the young patrolman’s cap off, but keeping the peace is keeping the peace, so the bottom line was: Thorney went to the slammer.

  “Look,” Ed said to me, “they put him in to cool him down. That’s all. The officer doesn’t want to file charges on him; I can bounce the old guy out from here. Go get him and take him home, okay?”

  I phoned Beth and told her. “Oh, thank God! What do I have to do?”

  “Meet me in the jail office, schweetheart. We’ll bust da big man out before you can shay Malteesh Falcon.” It really had been a long day; my Bogart was even worse than normal.

  “Okay,” Beth said. “I’ll be right there.”

  I beat Beth to the jail office and I was glad I had. When I arrived, they were booking in an unrepentant sex offender. That wasn’t very pretty. And a siren yelped somewhere close, and somebody kicked over a mop bucket, which turned half the lobby into a skating rink. Then a half-dozen sweating, cursing officers wrestled a screaming junkie down a corridor and into a room somewhere. “Hill Street Blues” in western boots.

  Things had just calmed down when Beth rushed in, red-cheeked and nervous, balanced between the embarrassment and the excitement of getting Thorney out of jail. I waved her over; we stepped up to the counter together.

  When I told the desk man who we wanted, the quiet chill was worse than all the jailhouse sounds I’d ever heard.

  “Look, I hope he’s okay,” the desk man said. “I’ll call Parkland in a minute, when the ambulance has had time to get there.”

  Beth gasped and sank talons into my arm. “What happened?” I said.

  The desk man’s eyes were very old for his years. “We’re still trying to work that out. He had an attack of some kind. Heart, maybe, or a stroke. But nobody cut him or anything like that.”

  “He was sitting quietly in a cell and he keeled over? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” My voice had somehow become high and strained.

  The second man behind the counter opened a desk drawer and put his hand inside while he watched me closely.

  “No,” the man at the jail desk said. “There were eight or ten other people in the holding tank, too. Like I said, I don’t know for sure yet, but one prisoner says a junkie pestered the old man for smokes. They argued and the, um, Mr Thorneycroft … fell down.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry. He’s probably all right. I hope so.”

  “You damned well better.”

  Eleven minutes later Beth and I ran into the emergency room at Parkland Hospital to find a fuzzy-cheeked resident writing up the report.

  Thorney had been dead on arrival.

  Chapter 45

  I wanted to post bail for the junkie, then beat him up. Hilda talked me out of that. She was right about that. She usually is.

  A week later they read Thorney’s will in a lawyer’s office downtown. He left me his sextant.

  I have never used the sextant at sea, and I guess I never will. Every once in a while, though, I get it out and take a sun sight. Most times, my calculations don’t make sense, but occasionally they do, and when that happens I think of his—my—sextant guiding Thorney across the South Pacific.

  And just last week, during a boring stakeout, I looked up and recognized a navigational star Thorney showed me.

  He sure was an ornery old goat.

  I miss him.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from the next Rafferty P.I. mystery,

  CANNON’S MOUTH

  Chapter 1 - Cannon’s Mouth

  It was stinking hot in Dallas the week I followed a tobacco and candy delivery truck around town. The truck driver was a guy named Bartelles. He was either crooked or a born loser.

  “Goddamnedest thing you ever saw,” Shanahan had growled. “Three times so far, and he’s due again, I’m telling you. Any day now that son of a bitch is gonna come in here with some song and dance about how he was mugged, or kids swiped product from the truck, or a pickpocket must have lifted the big wallet with the company cash. It’ll be bullshit, every word of it, but if I fire him, I’ll be up to my ass in union troubles. Unless I can prove he’s shitting me.” Shanahan leered at me over his Manager—Transport desk sign. “Go prove Bartelles is shitting me.”

  I quoted Shanahan a flat price for a week-long tail, with a bonus for hard
evidence. By three o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon I knew I’d screwed up. There should have been another zero on the end of that weekly rate.

  We were downtown then, Bartelles and I, deep in the broiling bowels of the inner city. The sun was still high. And hot. There was no breeze. Rush hour loomed large on the automotive horizon. The Mustang’s air-conditioner was broken again. I had a soggy shirt-back, a knifing headache, and a helluva thirst, but nothing on Bartelles.

  It was the kind of day they should videotape in living color and Sweat-O-Vision, and show it to anyone tempted to answer one of those BE A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR! ads.

  And what the day lacked in comfort, it more than made up for in boring. So far I’d watched Bartelles lug cartons of smokes and candy bars into maybe fifty grocery stores and newsstands and bars and bowling alleys and … you name it, we stopped there. The damnedest thing was, Bartelles was doing all the work, not me, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him. He was a short, jaunty guy who trotted everywhere.

  Just one more day of this, I decided, or another three degrees. Either one, and I could learn to hate this guy.

  On the fifty-first, or maybe it was the eighty-first, stop, I slipped into a loading zone half a block back from the parked tobacco truck. Up ahead bouncy little Bartelles rattled up the truck’s roller door and grabbed another box. He walked toward a hotel service entrance, moving first through a shimmer of heat haze, then out of sight. Abracadabra! And for my next trick …

  I leaned forward slowly; my shirt came away from the vinyl seat-back with that slimy, cool pull that feels like it should make a loud noise. I creaked and grunted and levered myself out of the Mustang and trudged across the sidewalk to a postage stamp-size park wedged between two buildings.

  Good move, Rafferty. A light breeze somehow meandered through the surrounding buildings and drifted through a shadow just my size. It was a good ten degrees cooler than the Mustang. Ahh, bliss.

  I was not alone in the little oasis. There was also a man in a short-sleeved white shirt. He stayed out in the sun, the dummy, where he paced around in tight circles and glanced warily at me every five or six seconds. He had a rolled-up magazine in one hand. He alternated whacking the magazine against his leg and waving it around like he wanted me to notice it. Or notice him. He smiled at me. It was a nervous, hopeful smile.

  I do not need this, I thought. Of all the things I definitely do not need, this is a biggie.

  The man paced. I ignored him. I thought about cold beer and dinner that night with Hilda Gardner and how wonderful she looked whenever she—

  “Great magazine, huh?” The man finally stopped pacing. He stood a careful six feet from me and held up his magazine like a talisman. Or a shield. It was one of those quasi-military magazines. They’re aimed at ex-soldiers, I guess, but I’ve always wondered how many of their readers are wannabees, guys who think they, too, could be a gen-u-ine hairy-chested mercenary soldier if only they could figure out which end of the gun goes bang.

  “What do you think?” the man said. “Good ads, right? I think so.” He was forty-five, give or take, with a comfortable roll of fat around his middle and pale indoor-worker skin. He had thinning dark hair and a round chin. His hands shook; the magazine fluttered. He was sweating as much as I was, but I thought he had a different reason.

  I glared at him. Okay, so it wasn’t my very best glare. I was tired and hot; it had already been a long day.

  “Look, I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. His voice rose sharply at the end; he caught it, swallowed and started again. “I’m sorry. I was … detained. I’m not used to this.”

  “How are you on busted noses?” I said. Talking to him was a mistake, I knew that, but I figured if I came on strong, he’d get the idea and take a hike. Then it suddenly occurred to me that he might grin and offer me money to beat him up. Uh-oh.

  Neither of those things happened.

  “Good,” he said. “You were right. In your ad, I mean. Aggressive. And look, never mind what I said; it’s all right about the price. I’ll pay it. I’m here, aren’t I?” His face clouded briefly, and he said, “You’re sure there won’t be any problems? I mean, for that much money, there shouldn’t be, but …”

  Down the block the delivery truck wavered in the heat. There was no sign of Bartelles.

  “No problems,” I said to the nervous man. I reached across my chest to peel the clammy shirt away from my left side. He jumped back a half step, then seemed to realize I wasn’t practicing my quick-draw technique. He sighed and came a little closer.

  He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Okay, then. Thursday night. The day after tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. Make it look like a robbery. He’ll be alone. And for goodness sake, don’t do it if there are customers in the—oh, yeah, you wouldn’t want any witnesses, would you?”

  I shook my head slowly and scowled. That felt good; the guy winced a little. Okay, the glare is out; the scowl is definitely in. I felt vaguely disassociated and tried to remember when I had last had anything to drink.

  The man shuddered and turned his head away. “I just wish there was another way,” he said. “But like I said on the phone, I can’t think of anything. It’s gone too far. We’re about to go under. Without the cash from the keyman policy, I—” He braced himself and said harshly, “Just do it, all right? Do it.”

  Then he turned and slowly walked in a circle until he was back where he’d started, facing me. “Only, uh, can you do it without hurting him? Well, I know killing him is … but … do you know what I mean?”

  I showed him another scowl.

  He sighed. “All right,” he said; then, “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his shirt pocket, tugged at something, couldn’t get it free, dropped the magazine, picked up the magazine, and finally came up with a three-by-five index card. He handed it to me. His hand shook quite a bit now.

  The card had an address written in pencil and a brief description of someone. Five nine, balding, long ears, bushy eyebrows.

  “I wrote down what Max looks like,” the man said. “So you wouldn’t make a mistake.” Then he seemed to think about that and blurted, “Not mistake! I didn’t mean mistake. I just meant so … so you’d be … um, to help! I wrote it down to help you, that’s all.”

  I scowled a third time. Hey, if something works, I stick with it. To go with the scowl, I tried for a voice somewhere between Jack Palance and Lee Marvin. “How do I reach you?” I said. My voice came out at least four tones too high; more like Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.

  “At the same number,” he said. “At least until Thursday morning. Uh, should we go now? Before someone sees us together?”

  Oh, damn. Down the block Bartelles had returned. He was closing the truck door.

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  Bartelles sauntered around the truck and hopped into the cab. Why right now, for god’s sake?

  “I’ll leave first,” the nervous man said. He peered around the corner, then scurried away. He kept close to the buildings and darted rapid glances over his shoulder every five or six steps. He blended in with the other pedestrians about like Dolly Parton in the Cowboys’ locker room.

  But let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly Mr Cool myself. I followed the man for a few steps, then stood in the middle of the sidewalk with my head flopping back and forth. I didn’t know whether to stick with the man who wanted Max murdered or continue my tail on Bartelles.

  Down the block, the truck wheeled into traffic with a blurt of diesel smoke.

  In the other direction the nervous man scuttled around the corner.

  Make up your mind, Rafferty.

  Well, hell, I didn’t know who the nervous man was, but I knew where and when the hit was supposed to be. Whoever Max was, he’d be okay until Thursday night. The cops could take it from here.

  Besides, I had a lot of sweat invested in the tobacco caper.

  So I followed Bartelles.

  When I screw up, I screw up big.

 
Chapter 2 - Cannon’s Mouth

  Two cigarette deliveries later, Bartelles began to work his way out of the central business district. Way to go! We were going to beat the rush hour. Bartelles might be crooked, I decided, but he was no dummy.

  We went up McKinney toward Lemmon. When we went past Gardner’s Antiques, I looked for Hilda. Too much sun glare; I couldn’t see anything through the shop windows.

  The air coming through the Mustang’s lowered windows was warm and soupy, but it moved and that was a big improvement. So was a quart of orange juice I bought at a mom-and-pop grocery while my little buddy dropped off smokes at their competitor’s across the street.

  It was still hot, but the sun had begun to lose some of its bite. And I wasn’t as dopey as I had been. The nervous man who wanted me to kill his employee or his boss or his business partner—whichever category Max fit into—seemed a trifle out of focus now. I decided I hadn’t played that encounter as well as I might have. At the time I was more strung out than I’d realized.

  Dehydration, probably. Maybe I should carry a water jug on these summer stakeouts. And a bucket of ice to keep the water—or, hey, juice—cool. Better yet, an ice chest in the backseat, with a couple of six-packs—

  And then we were on the move again, trundling up Lemmon Avenue toward Love Field.

  Two more stops on Lemmon, then Bartelles turned left into a sparse industrial area. We made a series of turns that didn’t seem to be taking us anywhere logical. The truck slowed, sped up, then slowed again. I dropped way back now; this was no time to spook him.

  Eventually the truck braked sharply and slewed to a sloppy stop, half-on and half-off the wrong side of the road. Bartelles got out, stood by the truck with his hands on his hips, and slowly looked around.