Eight Million Ways to Die

by Lawrence Block

Page 34

 

  There was a coffee shop on the buildings first floor, just a long counter with stools and a takeout window. I sat over coffee and tried to assess what I had.

  She had a boyfriend. No question. Somebody bought her that jacket, counted out hundred dollar bills, kept his own name out of the transaction.

  Did the boyfriend have a machete? There was a question I hadnt asked the fur salesman. "All right, use your imagination. Picture this guy in a hotel room with the blonde. Lets say he wants to chop her. What does he use? An axe? A cavalry saber? A machete? Just give me your impression. "

  Sure. He was an accountant, right? Hed probably use a pen. A Pilot Razor Point, deadly as a sword in the hands of a samurai. Zip zip, take that, you bitch.

  The coffee wasnt very good. I ordered a second cup anyway. I interlaced my fingers and looked down at my hands. That was the trouble, my fingers meshed well enough but nothing else did. What kind of accountant type went batshit with a machete? Granted, anyone could explode that way, but this had been a curiously planned explosion, the hotel room rented under a false name, the murder performed with no traces left of the murderers identity.

  Did that sound like the same man who bought the fur?

  I sipped my coffee and decided it didnt. Nor did the picture I got of the boyfriend jibe with the message Id been given after last nights meeting. The fellow in the lumber jacket had been muscle, pure and simple, even if he hadnt been called upon to do anything more with that muscle than flex it. Would a mild-mannered accountant command that sort of muscle?

  Not likely.

  Were the boyfriend and Charles Owen Jones one and the same? And why such an elaborate alias, middle name and all? People who used a surname like Smith or Jones for an alias usually picked Joe or John to go with it. Charles Owen Jones?

  Maybe his name was Charles Owens. Maybe hed started to write that, then changed his mind in the nick of time and dropped the last letter of Owens, converting it to a middle name. Did that make sense?

  I decided that it didnt.

  The goddamned room clerk. It struck me that he hadnt been interrogated properly. Durkin had said he was in a fog, and evidently he was South American, possibly somewhat at a loss in English. But hed have had to be reasonably fluent to get hired by a decent hotel for a position that put him in contact with the public. No, the problem was that nobody pushed him. If hed been questioned the way I questioned the fur salesman, say, hed have let go of something. Witnesses always remember more than they think they remember.

  The room clerk who checked in Charles Owen Jones was named Octavio Calder?n, and hed worked last on Saturday when he was on the desk from four to midnight. Sunday afternoon hed called in sick. There had been another call yesterday and a third call an hour or so before I got to the hotel and braced the assistant manager. Calder?n was still sick. Hed be out another day, maybe longer.

  I asked what was the matter with him. The assistant manager sighed and shook his head. "I dont know," he said. "Its hard to get a straight answer out of these people. When they want to turn evasive their grasp of the English language weakens considerably. They slip off into the convenient little world of No comprendo. "

  "You mean you hire room clerks who cant speak English?"

  "No, no. Calder?ns fluent. Someone else called in for him. " He shook his head again. "Hes a very diffident young man, Tavio is. I suspect he reasoned that if he had a friend make the call, I couldnt intimidate him over the phone. The implication, of course, is that hes not hale and hearty enough to get from his bed to the phone. I gather he lives in some sort of rooming house with the telephone in the hallway. Someone with a much heavier Latin accent than Tavio made the call. "

  "Did he call yesterday?"

  "Someone called for him. "

  "The same person who called today?"

  "Im sure I dont know. One Hispanic voice over the phone is rather like another. It was a male voice both times. I think it was the same voice, but I couldnt swear to it. What difference does it make?"

  None that I could think of. How about Sunday? Had Calder?n done his own telephoning then?

  "I wasnt here Sunday. "

  "You have a phone number for him?"

  "It rings in the hall. I doubt that hell come to the phone. "

  "Id like the number anyway. "

  He gave it to me, along with an address on Barnett Avenue in Queens. Id never heard of Barnett Avenue and I asked the assistant manager if he knew what part of Queens Calder?n lived in.

  "I dont know anything about Queens," he said. "Youre not going out there, are you?" He made it sound as though Id need a passport, and supplies of food and water. "Because Im sure Tavio will be back on the job in a day or two. "

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "Its a good job," he said. "Hell lose it if hes not back soon. And he must know that. "

  "Hows his absenteeism record?"

  "Excellent. And Im sure his sickness is legitimate enough. Probably one of those viruses that runs its course in three days. Theres a lot of that going around. "

  I called Octavio Calder?ns number from a pay phone right there in the Galaxy lobby. It rang for a long time, nine or ten rings, before a woman answered it in Spanish. I asked for Octavio Calder?n.

  "No est? aqu?;," she told me.

  I tried to form questions in Spanish. Es enfermo? Is he sick? I couldnt tell if I was making myself understood. Her replies were delivered in a Spanish that was very different in inflection from the Puerto Rican idiom I was used to hearing around New York, and when she tried to accommodate me in English her accent was heavy and her vocabulary inadequate. No est? aqu?;, she kept saying, and it was the one thing she said that I understood with no difficulty. No est? aqu?;. He is not here.

  I went back to my hotel. I had a pocket atlas for the five boroughs in my room and I looked up Barnett Avenue in the Queens index, turned to the appropriate page and hunted until I found it. It was in Woodside. I studied the map and wondered what a Hispanic rooming house was doing in an Irish neighborhood.

  Barnett Avenue extended only ten or twelve blocks, running east from Forty-third Street and ending at Woodside Avenue. I had my choice of trains. I could take either the E or F on the Independent line or the IRT Flushing Line.

  Assuming I wanted to go there at all.

  I called again from my room. Once again the phone rang for a long time. This time a man answered it. I said, "Octavio Calder?n, por favor. "

  "Momento," he said. Then there was a thumping sound, as if he let the receiver hang from its cord and it was knocking against the wall. Then there was no sound at all except that of a radio in the background tuned to a Latin broadcast. I was thinking about hanging up by the time he came back on the line.

  "No est? aqu?;," he said, and rang off before I could say anything in any language.

  I looked in the pocket atlas again and tried to think of a way to avoid a trip to Woodside. It was rush hour already. If I went now Id have to stand up all the way out there. And what was I going to accomplish? Id have a long ride jammed into a subway car like a sardine in a can so that someone could tell me No est? aqu?; face to face. What was the point? Either he was taking a drug-assisted vacation or he was really sick, and either way I didnt stand much chance of getting anything out of him. If I actually managed to run him down, Id be rewarded with No lo se instead of No est? aqu?;. I dont know, hes not here, I dont know, hes not here-

  Shit.

  Joe Durkin had done a follow-up interrogation of Calder?n on Saturday night, around the time that I was passing the word to every snitch and hanger-on I could find. That same night I took a gun away from a mugger and Sunny Hendryx washed down a load of pills with vodka and orange juice.

  The very next day, Calder?n called in sick. And the day after that a man in a lumber jacket followed me in and out of an AA meeting and warned me off Kim Dakkinens trail.

  The phone rang. It was Chance. Thered been a message that hed cal
led, but evidently hed decided not to wait for me to get back to him.

  "Just checking," he said. "You getting anywhere?"

  "I must be. Last night I got a warning. "

  "What kind of a warning?"

  "A guy told me not to go looking for trouble. "

  "You sure it was about Kim?"

  "Im sure. "

  "You know the guy?"

  "No. "

  "What are you fixing to do?"

  I laughed. "Im going to go looking for trouble," I said. "In Woodside. "

  "Woodside?"

  "Thats in Queens. "

  "I know where Woodside is, man. Whats happening in Woodside?"

  I decided I didnt want to get into it. "Probably nothing," I said, "and I wish I could save myself the trip, but I cant. Kim had a boyfriend. "

  "In Woodside?"

  "No, Woodsides something else. But its definite she had a boyfriend. He bought her a mink jacket. "

  He sighed. "I told you about that. Dyed rabbit. "

  "I know about the dyed rabbit. Its in her closet. "

  "So?"

  "She also had a short jacket, ranch mink. She was wearing it the first time I met her. She was also wearing it when she went to the Galaxy Downtowner and got killed. Its in a lockbox at One Police Plaza. "

  "Whats it doin there?"

  "Its evidence. "

  "Of what?"

  "Nobody knows. I got to it and I traced it and I talked to the man who sold it to her. Shes the buyer of record, her names on the sales slip, but there was a man with her and he counted out the money and paid for it. "

  "How much?"

  "Twenty-five hundred. "

  He thought it over. "Maybe she held out," he said. "Be easy to do, couple hundred a week, you know they hold out from time to time. I wouldnta missed it. "

  "The man paid out the money, Chance. "

  "Maybe she gave it to him to pay with. Like a womanll slip a man money for a restaurant check, so it dont look bad. "

  "How come you dont want it to be that she had a boyfriend?"

  "Shit," he said. "I dont care about that. I want it to be whatever way it was. I just cant believe it, thats all. "

  I let it go.

  "Could be a trick instead of a boyfriend. Sometimes a john wants to pretend like hes a special friend, he dont have to pay, so he wants to give presents instead of cash. Maybe he was just a john and she was like hustling him for the fur. "

  "Maybe. "

  "You think he was a boyfriend?"

  "Thats what I think, yes. "

  "And he killed her?"

  "I dont know who killed her. "

  "And whoever killed her wants you to drop the whole thing. "

  "I dont know," I said. "Maybe the killing had nothing to do with the boyfriend. Maybe it was a psycho, the way the cops want to figure it, and maybe the boyfriend just doesnt want to get roped into any investigation. "

  "He wasnt in it and he wants to stay out of it. That what you mean?"

  "Something like that. "

  "I dont know, man. Maybe you should let it go. "

  "Drop the investigation?"