by Ralph Dennis
“I don’t know.”
I shrugged and came around the chair and sat down. Across from me Beth crossed her legs at the knees. I could see the edge of her underpants. No girdle. And there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on the back of her thighs. So much for the woman with the fat running down her legs like ice cream.
“I’d like to see the will.”
“That’s not possible,” Foster said.
“Then you’re asking me to blunder around in the dark. The best way to keep Edward alive is to find out who wants to kill him and stop it at that end.”
“I think I can outline it for you. The bulk of the estate, after the provisions for Mrs. Fanzia, goes to Edward. If Edward dies before his father, then Mrs. Fanzia is the heir.” Foster spread his hands and looked at them. “It is really quite straightforward.”
“And if both Edward and Beth die before Mr. Templeton?”
Foster blinked. I could see that I’d hit some sensitive place beyond the reserve. It was better than saying crap or shit. “In such a case, the estate would go to his grandson, his only grandson.”
“My son, Rudolph,” Beth said. “He is ten now.”
“Where is he now?”
“With his father in Venice.”
“Is his father still in Venice?”
“I suppose so,” she said.
“I’d like to be sure.”
Beth stubbed out her smoke in a crystal ash tray. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do. People kill for a lot of reasons. Mainly they kill for love and money. There’s enough money involved here so we can forget about love. It’s money. Assuming you don’t want Edward dead, I think we ought to concentrate on your husband …”
“My ex-husband,” she said.
“Ex-husband, then.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’d like for you to call your ex-husband. I’d like to be sure he’s still in Venice.”
She nodded.
“I’ll call you later,” I said.
“The number isn’t listed.”
Foster took a card from a small leather case and wrote on the back of it. He passed the card to me. “When will you call?”
I looked at Beth. She said, “I’ll try to reach him in an hour or so. If you’ll give me your number, Mr. Hardman, I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
“You can call me at Edward’s place.” I got out my pad. “I’ll need his address.”
I saw the blank look on her face but I didn’t understand it.
“We should have told you, Mr. Hardman, we don’t really know where Edward lives.”
That tore some of it. Still it fitted with the rest of the kooky setup. “Then I guess the first business is to find him.”
“Of course.” She stood up and held out her hand again. I had to walk over a few steps to touch it. I had the funny feeling that I was supposed to kiss her on the knuckles.
“I might need to talk to you again,” I said.
“Any time you need me,” she said.
Foster walked out with me. At the doorway I looked over my shoulder at her. There was a faint tracing of a smile on her face. I guess I’d said the right thing to trigger her vanity. Without meaning to.
Foster rode the elevator down with me.
“We haven’t talked about money.”
“I knew we’d get around to it sooner or later,” I said.
“I don’t think there will be any problem.”
“It’s a hundred a day for me and a hundred a day for my buddy.”
“This is the Evans that Roger mentioned?”
I nodded. “And expenses, of course. If it gets hairy, we might be moving around quite a bit. That would be pretty expensive.”
We stepped out into the lobby. The two security guards turned and watched us as we walked toward the main doors. “I’ll send you a check for a thousand dollars this afternoon.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like it in cash. Twenties. If it gets hot, I won’t have time to cash checks.”
Foster understood that. “Call me in an hour and tell me where you want the money delivered. I’ll have Roger bring it to you.”
The Continental, with Roger holding the passenger door open, waited at the driveway curb.
CHAPTER THREE
After we dropped Foster at Colony Square, the huge new development of office buildings and apartments that covers a block on Peachtree between 14th and 15th, I gave Roger Hump’s address and we headed back downtown. At 11th Street we caught a red light and I got out and moved up front and sat next to Roger.
“I can’t stand success.” I said. Roger grinned at me. “And back there I’d expect people to throw rocks at me.”
“Different strokes,” he said and I knew he was talking about Foster.
The light changed and we headed through the Strip, once a hippie and street people hangout, now dying on the vine and turning to dust. “You know Edward Templeton?”
“Some,” he said.
“How long?”
“About as long as anybody.”
I got out my smokes and lit one and held the pack toward him. He shook his head. “How long is that?”
“A month. Since he showed up in Atlanta.”
That bounced around in my head for a few seconds. It kept bouncing about a foot out of my reach. “I don’t understand.”
“I thought they’d tell you. Edward ain’t been heard of for years and years and years until a month ago. I guess he heard his Daddy was sick and he came back to see him.”
“How many years?”
“You’d have to ask them to be sure. The way I heard it, a lot of years.”
“Where’d he been?”
“I didn’t hear,” he said.
I didn’t see an ash tray so I found a button and got the window down and tapped some ashes out into the slipstream. “What do you think of him?”
“Straight?”
“Straight.”
“He’s a strange dude. Looks at you like he don’t care if you’re black or white or red or purple-striped. And there’s something inside him, like he’s at peace. Like he’s been studying one of those Eastern religions.” His eyes wrinkled at the corners. “Take you. This ain’t putting the bad mouth on you. Hump runs with you and that’s good enough for me. That is a grade A stamp. But you’re always aware. I feel it. You know you’re white and you’re talking to a black and it’s like you’re always watching to see how your white is getting along with my black. Not that Edward dude. He just jumped past that somewhere.”
“It’s a good move if you can make it,” I said. And because there was a lot of truth in it, I could feel the sweat start under my arms.
“It sure changes the ground rules,” Roger said.
“He sounds like some kind of saint.”
“He might be.”
I got tired of the slipstream. I tossed out the butt and closed the window. “Who’s trying to kill him?”
“Man, I don’t know.”
“But you know somebody is?”
“Heard you talking to Mr. Foster over at your place,” he said.
“No guess before that?”
“Maybe one.”
“Tell me about it.”
“One day he was over at Mr. Foster’s office and Mr. Foster told me to drive him wherever he wanted to go. Sat right where you are now. I noticed he kept rubbing his shoulder and I asked him about it. Lying just ain’t in that man. He said a car almost hit him and he had to dive to get out of the street.”
“When was that?”
“Two or three weeks ago.”
That nailed it. Two attempts on his life that we knew about. The mechanical one hadn’t worked, so they had gone to the blade and the hand-to-hand. “He say anything more about it?”
“That was it. To him it was just something that happened and he’d accepted it and forgot about it except for the shoulder.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“Hard night?”
“It show that much?”
“Like a birthmark,” he said.
A few minutes later he dropped me in front of Hump’s apartment.
Hump blinked at me through the partly opened door and said, “Shit, the next party don’t start for another twelve hours.”
“Business.”
He swung the door open and stepped aside. By the time he’d finished with the shower, I had a couple of cups of coffee made. His cooled some while he dressed. He came in carrying his socks and shoes and sat down at the kitchen table. He sipped the coffee and put on his socks and shoes while he listened me out.
“Lord, I love those fairy tales,” he said at the end of it.
“It’s got that flavor.”
“You mean that old wino is going to be worth millions?”
“If he lives that long,” I said. “What do you think about the job?”
“It’s better than pimping for a living.”
That was a joke. So far Hump hadn’t gone into that. He’s six-six or seven and two-seventy and black and at one time he was one of the best defensive ends in pro football. He played for Cleveland, until he tore up a knee and lost a couple of steps. For the last few years he and I have been doing odd jobs for a living. Anything that stops short of killing. To Hump, pimping is a bit worse than killing.
Roger brought over a thick envelope of twenties an hour later. I answered the door and waved him inside. Hump looked out of the bathroom with shaving cream on his face and waved at Roger. I dropped the envelope on the kitchen table and asked him if he wanted a coffee.
“Why not?”
I heated up the water and made him a cup of instant. “One thing that got lost in the confusion,” I said. “Nobody told me where Edward lives.”
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Nobody knows where he lives.”
Oh, shit. That meant we’d really have to find him before we could start trying to keep him alive. “No guesses?”
“Just one. It might be over in that section near Ponce de Leon and Highland.”
“Why?”
He sipped the coffee and made a face. “That’s godawful coffee.”
“So don’t marry me.” I waited. “Why?”
“One time he had me drop him at the bus stop. I had to circle the block. When I came back by, he was getting on a number 2 bus. It was the number 2 Ponce de Leon and Frederica bus that don’t go past Highland. It’s not like the Ponce de Leon and Decatur bus.”
“Good eyes,” I said.
“And another time, when he knew me better, he let me drop him at that bar, the one where you met him the other night.”
“The Parkland Deli.”
“That’s the one.”
“It’s a place to start,” I said.
When Hump was ready, we walked out together. Out on the street we stopped next to the Continental. “You got a phone where we can reach you?”
“I’m in the book. The Roger Brown on Boulevard.”
“It gets rough, we might need a hand.”
“I’m not a pro.”
“It gets rough, it might not matter.”
Roger looked past me, toward Hump. Hump said, “Jim’s taught me everything I know about the business. It took him all of five minutes.”
“Call me then. I kind of like that Edward dude.”
It was the same bartender from a couple of nights before. It was still early but there were several tables of winos hunched over their beer glasses. When the bartender brought our Buds, I watched the way he walked. He was still ball-sore from the kick the fat man had put on him. Otherwise he didn’t seem to be marked.
“Quite a brawl you had here the other night,” I said.
“You here for that?”
“At the bar.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Yeah, I remember you now.”
“You know the fat guy started it?”
“He’s not a regular.”
“And probably won’t ever be,” I said, grinning at him.
“Not if I see him first.”
“Figured as much.” I waited a beat or two and then, trying to keep it as casual as I could, I said, “When the fight broke out, I was talking to one guy here at the bar. A guy about forty-five or fifty, wearing a red plaid shirt. Had a hoarse voice. You know him?”
“Sure. Eddie comes around now and then.”
“Every day?”
“Mostly.”
I could feel the surge of distrust. I’d seen it in enough bars. Bars are homes for some people and all the skiptracers and bill collectors end up at the bars in time, looking for this guy or that one. And all bartenders have a way of protecting their regulars. “You know where he lives?”
He shook his head.
“In the area?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not tracing or collecting,” I said. “And it’s important.”
“I don’t know him that well.”
“Who would?” I swung around on my bar stool and looked at the tables of winos. “Any of those?”
“You straight with me?”
“It’s important and I’m not after him for anything.”
“I thought you were a cop,” he said.
“Not anymore.”
He nodded toward the last table, the one nearest the back entrance. “The skinny one in the red shirt. I’ve seen him talking to Eddie some. He might know, if he’ll talk to you.”
“What’s his name?”
“They call him Rat.”
“What are they drinking?”
“Pabst draft.”
I got out a five and dropped it on the bar. “Draw me a big one.”
Rat looked up at me when I stopped in the aisle next to the table. There were three of them at the wino social, Rat on one side of the table and two others facing him. Up close, Rat’s eyes seemed to come within a red hair of matching the color of his shirt. On the center of the table there was a small pitcher with about a half inch of beer in it.
“You got room for this?”
The two I wasn’t talking to, eager, pushed the almost empty pitcher aside to make room. Rat just looked at me. “Why you giving away beer?”
“I thought you might do me a favor.”
I put the pitcher down and the other two filled their glasses. One lifted the pitcher and pointed the spout at Rat’s glass but he put his hand over the rim and shook his head. “What kind of favor?”
“I need to get in touch with Eddie.”
“I don’t know any Eddie.”
“You know him.”
“Sure, you know Eddie, Rat,” one of the others said. I looked at him. He was about forty, red glint of whiskers and a couple of dirt pimples on his nose.
“Maybe you could help me then,” I said to the one who’d spoken.
“He don’t know any Eddie either,” Rat said.
“You know Eddie got cut the other night.”
“I might know that,” Rat said, “if I knew anybody named Eddie.”
“I’m the one with the ash tray.”
His eyes registered that. He knew about it.
“And I was the one put a couple of Bandaids on the cut.”
Rat looked past me toward the bar where Hump was. “That the black guy who was with you?”
“That’s him.”
Rat lifted his hand from the top of his glass. The one with the dirt pimples poured him a shaky glass of beer. “What do you want with Eddie?”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Maybe he don’t want to talk to you.”
“That might be, but you could ask him.”
“I might.”
“Call him,” I said.
“No telephone.”
“If it’s far I’ll pay the cab fare.”
He lifted the beer glass and poured the whole glassful down in one steady stream. “It about the other night?”
I nodded.<
br />
He pushed back his chair. “I’ll be back.” He moved away from the table and then came back. “Don’t follow me.”
“And leave my beer?” I looked at him like he was crazy.
When Rat passed the bar, Hump turned on his stool and dropped his feet to the floor, ready to follow Rat. I shook my head at him and he turned and planted his elbows on the bar again. I returned to the bar and ordered two more Buds.
He came in quietly. I didn’t know he’d arrived until the bartender leaned right past me and said, “You drinking, Eddie?”
“A draft,” he said in that rasping voice of his.
I turned and looked at him. He was dressed about the same: gray work pants, a faded denim shirt, the red plaid shirt with the tail out and the heavy work shoes.
“Join us,” I said. “How’s the side?”
“Itches like the devil,” he said.
“I heard somewhere that means it’s healing.”
Eddie paid for his draft. “Rat said you wanted to see me.”
“You left your wallet at my place the other night.”
“I wondered where it was.”
“It’s got money and credit cards in it.”
“You looked in it?”
“Far enough to know the name’s Templeton rather than Temple.”
He stared at me, trying to read in my face whether Templeton meant anything to me. It was a trick I knew how to handle. I looked him right in the eyes and thought of boiled cabbage. When that didn’t work anymore, I’d think of baked eggplant. Or chick-peas.
“Appreciate you bringing it down to me.”
That was my cue to bring the wallet out, if we were what we seemed to be, nice guys going a little out of our way. So far I hadn’t figured how to tell Edward we’d been hired to protect him until his father, the old man, died. I had a feeling that it wasn’t an arrangement he was going to care much for.
I turned to Hump and lowered an eyelid at him. “Let me have the wallet, Hump.”
“Huh? I haven’t got it.”
“You had it last. Right before we left my place.”
“I thought you picked it up,” Hump said.
Good man. He’d played it well without very much warning. I eased back around to face Edward. “A fuck-up of sorts.”
“I heard.” He tossed back the bottom third of his beer. “You can drop it by the next time you’re in the area. Just leave it with the bartender and I’ll get it.”
