Play It Again

by Stephen Humphrey Bogart

  “All right, I see what you’re saying. But if he kills me I’ll still be dead, R.J., even if he’s killing me just to piss you off.”

  “You got a point,” R.J. conceded. “And he might try again.” A thought occurred to him. If this guy knew where Casey worked… “I think I’ll take you home,” he said.

  Casey stared at him with disgust. “I’m a big girl, R.J.” she said. “I’m not going to wilt and get all weepy. I’ll be fine.” She stood up.

  “I’m sure you will be,” he said. “But if he’s waiting for you at your apartment, this could be my best shot at catching him. I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh. I see what you mean. Uh, actually, I’d love some company.”

  They caught a cab down to the Village, dodging Wanda’s dirty look on the way out. The midday traffic was as bad as ever, and the trip took almost half an hour.

  They got out in front of Casey’s building, and R.J. took her arm and led her to the front door. She unlocked it and started in, but R.J. gently pushed her back. She raised an eyebrow as he stepped in the door ahead of her.

  “We have to assume he was watching the street,” he said. “So he knows we’re here now.”

  “If he’s here.”

  He gave her a quick hard smile. “Let’s assume the worst,” he said, reaching back to the hollow of his spine. He pulled his gun, feeling just a little better already, just to have that solid, reassuring weight in his hand.

  “What is that thing?” she asked, slightly amused in spite of the tension.

  “That’s the Big E,” he told her. “Stay behind us.”

  She obediently stepped behind him, but not without muttering under her breath, “R.J. Rambo.”

  Going up the stairs he hugged the wall, using extra caution at the landing. A staircase can hold some nasty surprises. He knew that, not just from his work, but from the tony private boarding schools his mother had stuck him in.

  Kids in places like that had no mercy. No mercy at all, but plenty of imagination, and generally enough money to make their mean little dreams come true.

  But this was no kid’s prank. This was a killer, and the things his school chums had done, as bad as they had been, weren’t even in the same league.

  Arriving at the door to Casey’s floor, he motioned her to stay put and went up one more flight. Nothing. He went back down.

  Again signaling without sound, he waved her several feet back, away from any possible line of fire from the door.

  Crouching low, he swung the door open and rolled through, gun ready.

  Nothing; the empty hallway sneered at him.

  The carpet was old and dirty too. R.J. found he was lying in a spot of some kind of grease. It smelled like somebody had cooked a wet dog and poured out the grease afterward.

  Casey stuck her head around the corner. “Hey, James Bond, is it safe to come out?”

  R.J. stood up and brushed himself off. “It’s safe,” he said. “Stay close to the wall.”

  He kept her about ten feet behind him as he inched along the wall, trying to look everywhere, anticipate every possibility.

  If it was me, I’d get in the doorway right across, he thought. And he kept his gun in that direction.

  But then he thought, But it’s not me. This guy is a loon. He could be anywhere.

  He paused a few feet away from Casey’s door.

  Something looked wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on what, but something was just a little off.

  The downstairs door thumped as somebody came in or went out. A slight breeze moved down the hall.

  Casey’s door trembled and then opened slightly.

  R.J. felt his heart thundering. The killer had been here.

  He waved furiously at Casey to move back. She cocked her head as though she didn’t quite get it. He waved harder, and she shrugged and moved back.

  Crouching again, R.J. duck-walked slowly and quietly toward the door. Reaching out his left hand, he pushed the door open all the way.

  The place was trashed.

  The couch had been flipped onto its back and slashed open. The canvas chairs were shredded. Piles of Casey’s clothes were flung in the center of the room. All the food and drink from the refrigerator had been poured over them.

  “R.J.? What is it?”

  “Get back!” he hissed at her. He straightened and flattened himself to one side of the doorway. He looked up and down the hall quickly.

  “I’m going in,” he said softly. “If you hear anything at all—anything—just pull the fire alarm.” He pointed his gun at the alarm on the wall beside her. “That’ll get them here fast and make a lot of commotion too.”

  He could see her take a breath, then whisper to him, “Good luck.” Then he was through the door.

  R.J. was reasonably sure the killer was gone already. But he knew plenty of guys who’d wound up with a tag on their toe from a sure thing.

  So he moved slowly and carefully through the rooms, trying to keep his gun barrel moving from one possible point of danger to the next.

  The closet.

  Window curtains.

  Under the bed.

  The shower.

  Nothing.

  The guy was gone. But he’d done a very thorough job before he left.

  There was not one piece of furniture, article of clothing, or item of food that he had not touched, ripped, slashed, soaked, flung, stained. He was a meticulous maniac, thought R.J.

  When he was certain the place was empty, he stepped back into the hall.

  Casey was watching the doorway with fierce concentration, one hand on the fire alarm.

  “It ain’t pretty,” R.J. told her, “but it’s okay to come in now.”

  She came inside, turning to look with amazement at her totaled apartment. “Holy shit,” she said. “Holy fucking shit.” She bent and picked up her bathrobe, shook it. A small shower of rice and a glob of yogurt fell off onto the floor.

  “Everything,” she said. “Every fucking thing I own. Oh well.” She turned a tattered chair over and sank into it. “It’s only stuff.”

  R.J. was more astonished by her reaction than by anything else he’d seen in a long time. “That’s it?” he said. “You’re not going to start screaming and kicking things? Jesus, Casey,” he said, shaking his head, “you really are something. If it was me, I’d be yelling and breaking anything that isn’t broken. I thought you’d have a shit-fit.”

  She shrugged. “R.J., it’s just stuff. Things. Some of them are nice, but it’s not that important. What matters to me is my work, and nobody—Oh my God!” She lurched up off the couch to her ministudio.

  “Shit,” she said, “shit shit SHIT.”

  “What? For Christ’s sake, what?”

  She turned to R.J. “They’re gone. The tapes are gone.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Sorry, Brooks,” said Lieutenant Kates, but he didn’t sound sorry; it’s hard to sound sorry with a sneer on your face. “I don’t see anything that connects it. It has all the earmarks of a standard B&E. That’s what my report will call it.”

  They stood in the ruins of Casey’s apartment. The lab crew had been over everything with magnifying glasses, dusted every possible surface for prints, run dozens of small tests. Like Kates said, they’d found nothing.

  “There’s no fingerprints on this either,” said a voice behind R.J.

  He turned to see Boggs with a smirk on his face and a pair of Casey’s panties held up on the end of a pencil. “No fingerprints at all. You slowing down, Brooks? Losing your touch?”

  R.J. stepped right into Boggs’s face, putting his foot down hard on the cop’s toes. Boggs grunted with pain.

  “If you’ll leave your badge with the lieutenant for a minute,” R.J. said, an inch from his nose, “there’s a few things I’d like to show you out in the hall.”

  “Knock it off, Brooks!” said Kates. “Boggs, try hard not to be an asshole. Just for five minutes, okay?”

  Boggs didn’t look at Kates.
“Any time, any place, Brooks,” he said under his breath.

  “I’ll be right there waiting,” R.J. told him and stepped away.

  R.J. turned to Kates. “That’s it, huh? That’s your theory? This was an unconnected break-in, just your garden-variety B&E?”

  “That’s what goes in my report,” the lieutenant said.

  “But that’s not what you think,” R.J. said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “You want to share that one with me? I could use a laugh.”

  Now it was Kates who moved close, getting up into R.J.’s face. “I’d love to share it with you, smart-ass. And we’ll see if you can laugh it off.

  “I think you and the bimbo did this yourself.”

  R.J. blinked. “Are you serious?”

  “Very serious, Brooks. Go ahead and laugh. I think you did it so you wouldn’t have to hand over the tapes. And I think you and that broad are up to something funny, and this is all aimed at getting publicity.”

  “Come off it, Kates.”

  “Brooks, everybody knows you’ve had your problems with booze, and probably drugs. And then you toss in that high-class bloodline you got. Guys like you get hungry for the spotlight. Especially when you start hitting the bottle again. How come you’re not laughing now, Brooks?”

  R.J. shook his head. “Freddy, I always knew you were meaner than a snake, but I never took you for stupid. But if you seriously believe that, I’m going to have to rethink some things.”

  “Start by rethinking what you’ll do for a living when I yank your license for conspiracy to withhold evidence,” said Kates, turning away.

  R.J. watched him go. I should have seen it coming, he thought. Kates’s been looking for an excuse to nail my ass for years. If I don’t give him a reason, he’ll invent one—and he thinks this is it.

  He ground his teeth. Let him think what he wants. I’m not getting sidetracked, or scared off, or stopped. Not this time.

  R.J. went out into the hall. Casey was there, getting a thorough grilling from Angelo Bertelli. At least R J. assumed it was a grilling. Something about the way Bertelli placed a hand on her shoulder, the flash of his teeth as he asked her questions, made him think Bertelli was doing a little more than conducting an investigation.

  But even worse was the way Casey smiled back at him, touched his hand as she answered; the way she stood just slightly too close to him for someone being questioned by a cop.

  And why should that matter? R.J. wondered. It’s a free country, and I don’t have any claim on her. But he still ground his teeth.

  Bertelli looked up when he saw R.J. and beckoned him over with a twist of his head.

  “Sorry about all this, R.J.,” Bertelli said, folding his notebook closed and stuffing it into the inside pocket of his elegant charcoal-gray suit.

  “Don’t tell me, tell Miss Wingate,” R.J. said.

  “I did. And I mean it. To both of you.”

  “Do you think the two of us did this ourselves, for publicity?” R.J. asked him.

  Casey gasped in outrage. “Did Kates say that?”

  “He did,” R.J. told her.

  “And you think that too, Angelo?”

  Bertelli shook his head. “No, I don’t. That’s mostly what I’m sorry about. But…” He gave a helpless shrug. “It don’t much matter what I think. The lieutenant is the boss on this task force. So what he says goes.”

  “Which means this whole thing gets turned over to Robbery. Which means nothing happens.”

  Bertelli shrugged again. “That’s about the size of it. Like I say, I’m sorry.”

  R.J. swore under his breath, but Casey patted Bertelli on the arm. “I know you mean well, Angelo. What is it you guys say? Fugget aboudit.”

  He gave her a wink. “Thanks. You going to be all right? If you need a place to stay for a few days, ’til this gets cleaned up…”

  R.J.’s blood boiled, but Casey was already shaking her head with a warm smile.

  “I’ll be fine, Angelo. Don’t worry about me. I’ll hole up in a hotel, hire a cleaning service.”

  “Okay,” Bertelli said, looking at her long and hard. Then he turned to R.J. “Keep an eye on her, huh?”

  “Sure, Angelo. That’s easy. You got the hard job.”

  Bertelli cocked an eye at him. “What’s that?”

  R.J. nodded toward Kates and Boggs, huddled inside and talking in low voices. “Keeping those two clowns from shooting themselves in the ass. Let’s get out of here, Casey.”

  He turned and started for the stairs. Casey came right behind him, pausing briefly to say goodbye to Bertelli. In a few moments they were out on the street.

  “I’m hungry. How about a bite to eat?” he asked her.

  She shrugged. “All right. Where to?”

  He looked around. “Anyplace good around here?”

  “There’s a Mexican place a few blocks away.”

  R.J. shuddered. “No thanks. Mexican food in Manhattan is like French cooking in London. There isn’t any, and you don’t want to try the stuff they’re saying is.”

  Casey snorted. “From what I knew about you, I didn’t think you’d be so fussy.”

  “Well, I am about Mexican food. That’s how I was brought up.”

  She looked at him curiously now. “Belle brought you up to be fussy about Mexican food?”

  “Belle didn’t bring me up at all.”

  “Then who—”

  He took her arm again. “Come on. Let’s get some food and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  They found a place a few blocks away that was quiet and said they could do a pretty good omelet. It was in between a store selling leather pants and a jewelry shop that advertised a special on nipple-piercing. But the restaurant looked clean, and the smells coming from the kitchen were pretty good. Besides, R.J. was hungry enough to eat almost anything.

  The waiter, a thin, middle-aged man with a neat mustache, flirted outrageously with R.J. But what the hell; it was the Village.

  The omelet was pretty good; so was the coffee. R.J. had a ham, cheese, and onion omelet with hash browns, pumpernickel toast, and a pot of strawberry jam.

  Casey ordered a cream cheese and caviar omelet. The sound of it made R.J. wince, but when it came it looked and smelled good, and he ended up finishing it when Casey had had enough.

  While they ate, R.J. told Casey about his Uncle Hank and a lot more. She was a good listener, giving him all her attention and prompting with small questions, always at the right time. She seemed to want to know all about him, which was not all that surprising. After all, it was background for her story.

  The surprise was that he wanted to tell her.

  “So he’s not really your uncle,” Casey said when he had told her about Henry Portillo.

  “More like my father,” R.J. said.

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “A boy needs a man to teach him how he’s supposed to behave. How to be a man—besides just shaving every morning, although that’s important to learn right too. But with my father dead and my stepfather kind of temporary, I didn’t have anybody to smack me when I did something stupid and tell me what I should have done. Until Uncle Hank.”

  “So he smacked you a lot?”

  R.J. grinned. “Sure. I needed it a lot. But he took me to see the Dodgers too. Taught me how to use my fists and when it was right to use them. And more important, he taught me how to make fajitas al carbon.”

  She was looking at him like she expected more, so he shrugged and said, “That’s about it. Except whenever I really need a friend, Uncle Hank somehow knows about it and shows up.”

  “Your mother said he was a good family friend.”

  R.J. grinned. “He was that. And a lot more than that too. He was the kind of friend most people never have in Hollywood. He never gave a shit about how big a star somebody thought they were. All he cared about was what was right.

  “I don’t think Belle realized how much he did
for us. But I’m glad she noticed that much.”

  They finished eating, had a last cup of coffee. R.J. felt he had talked a lot, more than he could remember talking to a woman before. This woman was getting to him, opening him up, making him feel things he hadn’t felt in a while. He wasn’t sure what he thought about that, but he knew he didn’t want to go back.

  The check came. R.J. reached for it automatically—but found Casey had darted a hand out and grabbed it first.

  “Hey,” he said. “What gives?”

  “It’s on me,” she told him.

  “Like hell it is. Give it here.”

  He held his hand out for the check. She smacked it away. “Knock it off,” she said. “I said it’s on me, and I mean it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” she said. She stuck a credit card on top of the check and handed it to the waiter, who gave her a half-bow, winked at R.J., and slithered away.

  “What was all that?” he asked her.

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t pick up the check?” she demanded.

  “I was going to.”

  “Because you’re the man, and you think you’re supposed to.”

  “That’s part of it,” he said.

  “What a load of horse shit,” she said. “What did you make last year? Forty? Fifty?”

  “None of your business,” he said. But she was close—a little high, but close.

  “I make a lot more than that, R.J. So why shouldn’t I pay for dinner? I ate too, didn’t I?”

  “That isn’t the point,” he said.

  “What is?” she demanded.

  “When I take a woman to dinner, she shouldn’t have to pay the check.”

  “She didn’t have to. She just is.”

  “Well, I just was.”

  “Because of your masculine pride?” she asked.

  “For God’s sake, Casey.”

  “Because it isn’t natural for women to have money?” she went on, pushing him. “Because it’s not right for women to spend money on men?”

  “Lay off,” he said, giving up. “And maybe I’ll let you buy me a Cadillac.”

  They stood up to go.

  “I need to get a few things and find a room,” she said.