Pimp for the Dead

by Ralph Dennis

  Hump came out looking shaky. They’d put a short cast on his left wrist. They’d also shaved his hair in several places, and I could see the bristle of some stitches.

  I took his arm. “You sure you don’t want to stay overnight?”

  “I’m sure.”

  A police cruiser was pulled up in front of my house. A uniformed cop with a riot gun met us when we got out of my car in the driveway. He wasn’t pointing the riot gun, but it was at the ready.

  “You Mr. Hardman?”

  I said I was.

  “Maloney said for us to wait for you, and then check the house and yard.”

  “Glad to have you,” I said.

  One policeman checked the house with me while the other one searched the backyard. There wasn’t any sign that anyone had been in the house after I’d left for Hump’s apartment. Before they left, they said a cruiser would be checking by every hour on the hour. I thanked them and saw them leave.

  Over Hump’s protest, I gave him the bed and made up the sofa for me. It was after four when I got into bed. It took me a long time to drop off. There was too much working around in my head, and I had to take the time to empty it out.

  Hump was in the kitchen having a cup of coffee when I woke up. I padded in barefooted and looked him over.

  “How you feel?”

  “Like a bad Sunday morning.”

  “Dizziness? Sick at your stomach?”

  He shook his head. “Like a toothache in my wrist.”

  “You might live,” I said, “but you’re not going to be pretty for a month or so.”

  “Who wants to be pretty all year ’round?”

  Breakfast just about cleaned out my refrigerator. I was putting the breakfast dishes in to soak when Art called.

  “Odd thing,” Art said. “I told you those four didn’t make a call the other night after the brawl at the Book Store … when they were taken to the station and booked. That’s true enough. But it turns out that a lawyer showed up later, without being called, and helped set up the bail.”

  “Who was the lawyer?”

  “Denton Hughes,” Art said.

  “That one.” I didn’t know Hughes. I’d heard of him. He had the reputation of being a racket lawyer. He seemed to specialize in defending night club owners against state and city attempts to revoke their liquor licenses. In most of these cases, the state and city contention was that criminal money was involved in the ownership, and that the license holders were merely front men. Of course, none of that proved he was a racket lawyer. As long as a defendant had a right to a trial, he had a right to a lawyer. But it was getting clearer and clearer that he was being touched by the pitch.

  “What are you going to do?” Art asked.

  “I might go visit him.”

  “No rough stuff.”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  I shaved and showered and dressed in my best spring suit, a light tan one that I’d sent out for cleaning when I’d seen the spring coming. Near the end, I went into the kitchen and got the black shoe polish and the shine rag from the clutter drawer. Hump watched me put on a slapdash shine.

  “You got fancy business this morning?”

  “Going to see the lawyer who was representing the four muscle men.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Hump said.

  “You up to it?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ll scare the hell out of him.”

  “Isn’t that what it’s all about?”

  I had another cup of coffee while Hump dressed. When he was ready, I drove downtown to the First Federal Building. We parked in the lot across the street and rode the elevator up to the tenth floor, to the office of Denton Hughes and Associates.

  The secretary in the outer office, pigeon proud and haughty, started the snot right away. “If you don’t have an appointment with Mr. Hughes, it will be impossible for him to see you. Mr. Hughes is a very busy man.”

  “Tell him it’s about the four men he represented in the fight at the Book Store.” I clutched the rolled-up paper bag under one arm.

  “I’m certain he won’t …”

  “Try him,” I said.

  It was a money office. If you didn’t know already, you knew when you saw the office. It said things like, it costs money to hire this man, or a hundred dollars won’t buy you much here. Decorator-done, with all the stops pulled. Dark panel walls that looked like they might have come out of a mansion in this country or a castle somewhere else. Moody hunting prints kept the somber tone. A small alcove faced the secretary’s desk. There were four black leather chairs near a low table. On the low table, not the usual waiting room magazines, but a scattering of Christmas coffee-table books, the ones created for gift-giving at twenty-five or fifty dollars.

  The secretary didn’t use the intercom. She got up and showed us the kind of hips I call armchair-stuffed and the legs and ass of a ballet dancer. She opened the door to the inner office only wide enough to slip through sideways.

  She was back in two or three minutes. She eased the door closed behind her and said, “Mr. Hughes does not understand why you wish to see him, but if you wish to make an appointment he may be able to see you in a few days.”

  “Is that right?” I took the paper bag from under my arm and began unrolling it. “When do you think he might have time for me?”

  “I would have to check his calendar, but I think we might find fifteen minutes for you in a week or ten days.”

  I opened the bag and reached down into it. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “Of course, it may be later,” she said.

  “I can’t wait that long.” I wrapped my fingers around the three-foot length of hoe or rake handle and dropped the bag. “I think now will be just fine with me.”

  Her eyes took in the length of oak handle. She put up an arm to bar the door, but Hump reached out a long arm and caught her by the back of the neck. He jerked her out of the doorway. I hit the door with an elbow and walked in.

  Denton Hughes looked up from behind about two thousand dollars worth of desk. Dark hair peppered with gray, a full but neat mustache, and a suntan from a health club or spa. A lean five-ten, and about fifty years of age. All that money could buy and had bought.

  He hesitated for the count of about five. He blinked a couple of times, and then he leaned forward and reached for the telephone on the front corner of his desk. I moved in fast and swung the piece of oak handle. The phone shattered at the grip. I missed his hand by an inch or two.

  “I think we ought to talk today,” I said.

  Hump stepped into the office, pushing the girl in front of him.

  “The gentleman with me is Hump Evans.” I held out the oak club. “This was used on him last night by four of your clients. He’s got a broken wrist and some other lumps. We’d like to talk to your four clients.”

  He did it easy, leaning back in his chair and drawing back the hand that he’d frozen near the phone. “That should be easy enough.” He lifted a large address book from the corner of his desk and placed it directly in front of him. “I assume you’re talking about the gentlemen who were in the brawl at the Book Store Bar?”

  I nodded.

  He flipped the book open and his finger traced its way over a page or so of listings. He looked up at me. “The address is 2112 King’s Court Road.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not good enough. It’s a deserted house.”

  “Is that so?” He shook his head slowly. “That’s odd.”

  “I think so too.” I reached out and tapped the front edge of the desk with the oak handle. It didn’t chip, but I think it dented. “Try again for us.”

  “It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you,” he said.

  “It doesn’t bother you that they’ve jumped their bond?”

  “Not really. The bondsman is the one who took the risk.”

  “Just as long as you got your fee ahead of time.”

  He nodded.

  “They don�
�t sound like your kind of client,” I said.

  “They may not be, but any man charged with a crime deserves the best possible defense. It’s not a lawyer’s job to prejudge them.”

  “It sounds like high morals and ethics, doesn’t it?” I looked around at Hump.

  “A good high sound to it,” he said.

  “Since I can’t help you …” He indicated the door with a nod of his head.

  “Maybe you still can.” I decided I might as well go ahead and run the flag up, and see how he reacted. “I know Ed Buddy hired you to handle it for them. How do I get in touch with him?”

  “I don’t think I know …”

  “Sure you do. He’s from out of town. Chicago, I think.”

  He lowered his head and flipped some pages back toward the front of his address book. He lifted the book and held it toward me. “See? No Ed Buddy listed here.”

  “Maybe it’s under his real name,” I said.

  It was just a flick off the top of my head, but I thought I saw it run home. The startled look on his face for just a brief second, and then covered over with a smoothness. He closed the address book with a loud bang and pushed it away from him. “I think you’ve wasted enough of my time.”

  “You thought it was a waste? I didn’t.” I winked at him and then walked to the doorway and picked up the paper bag. I dropped the oak club in it and rolled it up. “In fact, I really appreciate you seeing me.”

  “You realize I could have you arrested …” He looked at the shattered phone. “… for forcible entry and assault?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Miss Forbes said your name was Jim Hardman. I assume you have an address, and the police will be able to find you?”

  “I don’t live on King’s Court Road,” I said.

  Hump and I went out into the hallway and rang for the elevator.

  “A waste of time,” Hump said as we drove out of the parking lot.

  “Not really.”

  “And maybe we’ve got cops looking for us right now.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “I think he’s too busy kicking himself in the ass for the slip he made back there.”

  “About Ed Buddy’s real name?” He got out a cigarette and held it unlit until I stopped for a red light. He drew on it and blew out a short puff of smoke. “What’s that worth?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.”

  Hump hadn’t been paying much attention to the direction I had taken. Now he looked around and recognized the neighborhood. “Where’re we going?”

  “Your place. Thought you might want to pack a bag.”

  “Good idea.” He leaned back.

  “And that Austrian shotgun the Cleveland fans gave you on Hump Evans Day.”

  “Why the shotgun?”

  “I could say it’s to keep the birds out of my garden.”

  “But the truth is …?”

  “You win some and you lose some. I found out something back there. At the same time, we might have convinced somebody that we know enough to be dangerous.”

  Hump mulled that over in silence until I pulled up at the curb outside his apartment. He pushed the door open and looked over at me. “The next time you do me a favor, I wish you’d warn me ahead of time, so I could decide whether I want that favor.”

  “We forting up for the spring?”

  He’d pushed the shopping cart through the aisles at Cloudt’s while I piled in a few days’ worth of groceries. I threw in everything from lox to a crown roast. At the end, I added a case of Michelob.

  “Maybe.”

  “I see,” he said. “You did it on purpose. You let them believe we knew something we don’t, so they’d have to come out after us?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it ever since we left Hughes’ office. I think it was a mistake, and now I’m scared shitless.”

  After we unpacked the groceries and stored the beer in the refrigerator, I checked the shotgun and loaded it. I propped it in the corner, near the doorway that led from the kitchen into the living room. Hump eyed the positioning and nodded.

  The seed packages were still on the kitchen table. I sat down and spread them out in front of me. “You ever do any gardening, Hump?”

  “A city boy like me?”

  “While we’re waiting for somebody to stop by and kill us, I thought I’d get the garden planted.”

  “Something to live after us, huh?” He grinned. “If it’s that, I’d rather have a tree.”

  “We’ve got corn, two kinds of squash, butter beans and Chinese cabbage. No trees.”

  I left him looking over the seed packages and went into the bedroom. I dialed Marcy’s number.

  “Jim? I’ve been trying to reach you for more than an hour.”

  “We were out.”

  “We?”

  “Hump’s with me.”

  “Oh?” She paused. “Can you guess why I called?”

  “How many guesses?”

  “None. I found Ed Buddy in Joy Lynn’s diary.”

  “What did you find out about him?”

  “Not very much,” she said. “At least it didn’t tell me much about him.”

  “I’ll come by for the translation.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “I’ll drop them by. I’ve decided to work this afternoon.”

  “You get much sleep?”

  “A couple of hours,” she said.

  “Sorry about that.” Then, remembering, “About that Chinese cabbage …?”

  “I thought it looked pretty.”

  “You want me to plant it?”

  “No,” she said. “I want you to frame it and hang it in the bathroom.”

  “Oooops.” I waited a second. “We’ll be back in the garden.”

  I dug the shallow hills and planted the two rows of summer squash. I was putting in the two rows of zucchini when Marcy came up the driveway and around the side of the house. Hump leaned the shotgun against the wall and stood up. She was dressed for the office, her hair pulled back tight and every hair in place. She was wearing a kind of mannishly-tailored pants suit and sensible heels. The diary was in one hand, with the pages of her translation stuffed in the center of it.

  I waved at her, and went on and seeded the rest of the hills before I straightened up and stepped down from the terrace. Marcy let me nuzzle her, and then she stepped away and looked at Hump’s cast, the battered shape of his head and face, and the shotgun.

  “Something’s been going on?”

  “Something,” I said.

  She placed the diary on the stone terrace wall. “I decoded every entry where Ed Buddy is mentioned.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “I’ll stop by on my way home,” she said.

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “What?” But her eyes slipped past me and saw the shotgun in a whole new way.

  “It might get rough around here. You get a good night’s sleep. I’ll call you.”

  She didn’t argue. I could see that she wanted to, but she choked it back. She reached up and I leaned down and kissed her. “Call me at six-thirty, if you can.”

  I watched her leave. I went back up and put in the second row of zucchini and covered them over. By the time I finished, it was lunch time, and we went down to the house and made some sandwiches and opened a couple of bottles of beer.

  After I finished the sandwiches, I opened a second bottle of beer and carried the translations into the living room. I sipped at the beer and read through the decoded material twice.

  Feb. 7, 1973: (Note from Marcy in the margin: “This is the first mention of Ed Buddy. The rest of the entry does not apply to him.”)

  I found a new man tonight who might end up on my john list. His name is Ed Buddy and he told me he had recently moved to Atlanta from the midwest. He is forty or so but he is virile as a man half his age. And he seemed to like me and he said I tu
rned him on.

  April 2, 1973: An odd thing happened today. I was up early today because there was no work yesterday. Went shopping by myself. Looked in Davison’s and Rich’s but did not see anything I liked. Went to Lennox Square to Saks. Saw a dress I liked but did not want to spend that much. I bought some make-up instead. Around lunchtime I drove by Harry’s apartment. I just wanted to see if he was there. I saw Harry in the driveway in front of his duplex and Ed Buddy was talking to him. I don’t understand how they know each other. I have put Ed on my john list. I don’t know if I can ask Harry. He will be angry and he might think, because I know Ed Buddy’s name, that I have been chippying on him. I will have to wait until the next time I see Ed.

  April 4, 1973: Ed Buddy came by last night. It was chilly and slow on the street. As usual he was very nice and he took me to his suite at the Executive Motor Hotel. He calls it his hideout. He does not live there but he uses it as a business office. He has never told me what his business is. Afterwards, while I washed up and freshened my makeup, I asked him if he knew Harry. He said Harry who? And when I told him he said he did not know him. Then he asked me why I asked and I told him I thought I’d seen him talking to Harry the day before. He said it could not have been him because he had been out of the state the day before. I said I guess I’d made a mistake and it must have been somebody who was built like him.

  April 6, 1973: Harry was in a bad mood last night. He came by just as Carol and I were about to leave for work. He said we were going to have to shake our asses a lot more. I said why? He said there are some bloodsuckers in town. What kind of bloodsuckers I wanted to know. A bloodsucker who is putting a head tax on all the girls. It was a hundred dollars a girl a week. I asked who this was and he said it was an out of town hood named Ed Buddy. Ed Buddy? I said. Harry asked if I knew him and I admitted I did and that I tricked with him now and then. About once a week. Harry said that he and some of the other players wanted to put it to Ed but they did not know how to reach him. So I told him about the suite Ed Buddy had at the Executive Motor Hotel after he said all they wanted to do was scare him so he’d give up the whole idea of taking our money. He got excited and he was on the phone when Carol and I left.