12-Scam

by Parnell Hall

  “My, my. If this was dumped, you sure filled it up again fast.”

  I reached in the wastebasket, pulled something out.

  “Well, well, what have we here?”

  What we had was a cut-up copy of today’s Post. The dumb boob hadn’t even gotten rid of it.

  I looked at him, shook my head. “I cannot believe you left this here for anyone to find.”

  Pritchert glared at me a moment. I could see his mind going, trying to figure if there was any way at all to keep up the pretense.

  Apparently, he couldn’t come up with one. He exhaled, said, “Damn.”

  I spread my arms. “So there you are. That’s why I’m here. I don’t like being played for a sucker. If you’d like to clue me in, I’d be glad to listen. Otherwise, I believe my services to you are over.”

  Pritchert put up his hands. “No, no. Please. You’ve gotta help me.”

  “Under the circumstances, that’s a little difficult.”

  “No, no. I can explain.”

  “You sent the letter?”

  “I didn’t send it.”

  “I understand. No one sent the letter. But you made it up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mind telling me why?”

  “It was your attitude.”

  I blinked. “My attitude?”

  “Yeah. I told you my story. I told you I needed help. I told you what I wanted you to do. But you talked to the bartender, and you let him talk you out of it. You came back, told me looking for the girl was a lost cause. But you’re wrong. I’ve gotta find her.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, I could tell you weren’t taking this seriously. I felt I had to do something to get your attention.”

  I looked at him. “You rigged the phony extortion letter to make me more diligent in my pursuit of this girl?”

  “I know it sounds bad when you say it like that.”

  “No kidding. But that’s the fact?”

  He took a breath. Exhaled. “That’s the fact. You saw my partners out there. You see what they’re like? They thought you were a client of mine and they dived right in. You know what they’re looking for? A loophole to steal you away.”

  “I thought you were all working together. I’m not just hiring a broker, I’m taking on a whole firm.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” Pritchert said. “But you could be a major investor. And you know what a major investor is?”

  “What?”

  “A potential stockholder. A lot of our clients, they start investing with our firm, eventually they wind up investing in the firm itself. Sure, the money the clients bring in is all partnership assets. But if you become a stockholder, it suddenly makes a huge difference which one of us your allegiance is with.”

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “But the point is, you lied to me, you tricked me, and as a result I spent a lot of time and energy running around after a false scent. If you’re not happy with the current situation, well, I’m not happy with it either. So, if you want to fire me, fine. The way things stand, it would probably be a relief.”

  Pritchert set his chin, glared at me. Made me wait.

  “I don’t want to fire you,” he said.

  I exhaled. Shook my head.

  “Too bad.”

  12.

  SANDY THE BARTENDER GAVE ME the fisheye when I walked in. I ignored him, elbowed my way through the happy hour throng to the far end of the bar. The place was packed. The clientele on the whole seemed well-dressed and young. The men outnumbered the women by about two to one. The women were generally attractive, though none seemed exotic. The spectacularly endowed young blonde obviously wasn’t there.

  On the other hand, it occurred to me, if she had been she would have stood out, especially in a tight tank top. So anyone who’d been there that night ought to remember her.

  I’m sure there were a lot of ways to play it, and a TV detective would have had no trouble coming up with one bullshit line or another. But I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wasn’t likely to get me punched right in the nose. I mean, this wasn’t a gay bar—a guy wasn’t apt to appreciate another guy asking him if he came here often.

  Which is why I fell back on that old standby, the truth. I took out my ID, flopped it open in front of a guy at the end of the bar, and said, “Excuse me, I’m a private detective. I’m trying to locate a witness. I wonder if you could help me.”

  The guy, a young salesman type in a gray suit, didn’t appear too thrilled, but the woman sitting next to him said, “Ooh, a private eye. What’s this all about?”

  “I’m trying to find someone. I’m looking for people who were here around this same time last Thursday night.”

  The woman was young, relatively attractive, and wore a lime-green something or other—I’m terrible with clothes—but I think it was a pants suit with a sort of half jacket, half vest thing on top. Anyway, she frowned, which made her look younger, gave her an almost schoolgirl pout, and said, “I wasn’t here Thursday. Were you?”

  The young man hesitated, and I immediately knew his dilemma. He hadn’t been here, but hated to say so and lose importance in her eyes, and was toying with the idea of claiming to have been here and trying to bluff it through.

  I wasn’t about to let him. “No big deal,” I said. “I’m just trying to find someone who was here that night.” I turned and flopped the ID in front of the guy to my left. “How about you—you happen to be here Thursday night?”

  The guy, a broad-shouldered macho type, regarded me with hostile eyes. “What’s it to you?”

  “No big deal,” I said. “Just trying to locate a witness. I’m looking for people who were here last Thursday night.”

  “He’s a private eye,” the lime-green woman said.

  Macho man looked at her. I could see his mind going. Maybe he could ace out the guy she was sitting with. “Were you here Thursday night?” he said.

  The salesman type put up his hands defensively, which gave him a petulant look. “Hey,” he said. “This is nothing to do with us. None of us were here that night. Let’s let it alone.”

  “Yeah, but someone must have been here that night,” the lime-green lady said.

  Macho man picked up on it. “Absolutely,” he said. He pointed to her. “Maybe we should ask around.”

  “Yeah, but ask what?” she said. She turned to me. “Who are you looking for, and what do you want with him?”

  “Actually, it’s a her,” I said.

  “A woman?” Macho man said. “You’re looking for a woman?”

  “Of course he’s looking for a woman,” the salesman said. “He just has a new approach. Look, this happened Thursday night. I wasn’t here. He wasn’t here. Why don’t you ask someone else?”

  “Not till he tells us what this is all about,” the lime-green lady said. “You can’t just ask the question and leave it like that. Suppose we’d been here Thursday night—what then?”

  “I would ask you if you’d seen a particular woman.” I smiled. “Since you weren’t here, I can’t ask.”

  “But why do you want to know?” she persisted.

  “He can’t tell you that,” the salesman said. He looked at me. “Right? You’re working for a client, it’s confidential, you can’t tell us a thing.”

  That was exactly the case, but wasn’t about to win me any popularity contests. I smiled again. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder.

  I turned around, looked up into the eyes of my buddy, Sandy the bartender. Without the bar between us, he looked bigger, broader, more imposing. Macho man might have taken him, but I sure couldn’t. Things did not look good.

  “You bothering these folks?” Sandy said.

  Macho man got up from his bar stool. I had the sickening realization he was going to defend me, a humiliation I could have done without.

  Sandy forestalled it. He put up his hand. “No trouble, folks. No trouble at all. You and this gentleman can discuss any
thing you like. I just need to have a few words with him first.” He smiled. “Bartender’s prerogative, right?”

  With his hand on my shoulder, he piloted me away from the bar and into an alcove near the telephone. In that particular establishment, it was as secluded as you could get.

  “All right,” he said. “You’re here looking for the girl?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You recall me telling you not to do that?”

  “I believe you made that suggestion, yes.”

  “And you came back anyway.”

  “I have a job to do.” I took a breath. “Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sandy said. “So your client made you come back here, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s not going to quit till he finds this girl?”

  “So he says.”

  “And you gotta listen to him, that’s why you won’t listen to me?”

  I exhaled. “I told you how it is. I’m trying not to make trouble. Just between you and me, those people I was talking to didn’t seem threatened at all. They thought it was great fun.”

  “Oh, they did, huh?” Sandy said.

  “Well, actually, only two out of three. The guy in the middle’s trying to hit on the girl. He thinks I’m a pain in the ass. But the other two think it’s fun.”

  The bartender’s eyes were hard. “It’s not fun. It’s business. You got your business, I got mine. Unfortunately, they conflict.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say?”

  “You’re telling me you won’t quit?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You mean your client won’t let you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Because he wants to find this girl?”

  “Right.”

  Sandy frowned, pursed his lips.

  “What’s it worth to him?”

  13.

  I SAT ACROSS THE TABLE from Darren Carter and watched him drink his incredibly expensive beer.

  Darren Carter was Sandy the bartender. The beer was incredibly expensive because we were in a topless bar.

  It was a fairly grungy affair around 20th Street and Eighth Avenue. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t hang out in topless bars, so I couldn’t tell you what an upscale one was like. But even with no means of comparison, this one was the pits.

  It was a second-floor walkup over a fish store, and the odor had a tendency to seep up. That was for starters. The place was also filthy. The floor was strewn with sawdust. In some bars that’s classy. Not here. Here it replaced sweeping. I didn’t even want to think what must be under it.

  The bar was poorly lit, except for the stage, where harsh lights glared. That’s where the girls performed. They wore high heels and garters and not much else. The high heels were so you could look up their crotch. The garters were so you could stuff money in. That’s what the guys next to the stage were doing.

  Sandy and I were not next to the stage. I told him if he wanted to sit there he was sitting alone, and any money he stuffed would be his own. Sandy didn’t seem to mind. In point of fact, he seemed somewhat embarrassed to be there.

  “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “You know, like I hang out in these places all the time. It’s not like that.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t.”

  He looked at me sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I exhaled. Shook my head. “It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not here to judge you. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. Like I said, I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. I just broke up with my girlfriend, see. Almost two months now. The thing is, I’m a bartender. People get the idea, bartender in a singles bar, the women are all over him. They see Tom Cruise mixing drinks in a movie, so that’s the expectation, right?”

  “I’m with you there,” I said. “When I tell people I’m a detective, all they know is what they see on TV.”

  “Exactly,” Sandy said. “So you know. There’s this image to live up to. Unrealistic, you know. So I’m a bartender in a singles bar, what does that mean? I bust my ass mixing drinks. By the time I get off work, the girls that are looking for action have been hit on and are long gone.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” I said.

  The reason we were discussing Sandy’s sex life was we had already exhausted the more pertinent topics. Such as how come he hadn’t owned up to knowing the girl before. His answer, though somewhat incomplete and unsatisfactory, was probably true: a natural reluctance to divulge where he knew her from coupled with a disinclination to get involved in a customer’s personal life.

  His reason for aiding me now was also twofold: if I wasn’t going to let the matter drop, the quickest way to get rid of me was to give me what I wanted. And if anyone was going to profit from that, it might as well be him. Per agreement, Sandy stood to pick up a hundred bucks of Cranston Pritchert’s expense money if I scored.

  As for me, I was making fifty bucks an hour for looking at women’s breasts. Ordinarily, my favorite occupation. But there are breasts, and there are breasts.

  The way I understand it, the reason for the recent proliferation of topless bars was partly in response to the AIDS epidemic. As actual sex had become too risky, it had been replaced by the fantasy. Trust to the American entrepreneur to give the customer what he wanted. Topless bars answered the burning question Where can I see a naked woman without having to actually sleep with one?

  The only thing was, as soon as topless bars became big business, show biz took over. If big breasts were nice, huge breasts must be truly wonderful. So break out the silicone and full speed ahead.

  I don’t know if that’s universally true, but it was certainly true here. Big was the main selling point. The bartender had a microphone hooked up to a scratchy PA system, and as each new girl hit the stage he would announce, “Here she is, Wendy Whoppers,” or, “Here she is, Jessica Jugs.” And each new girl was bigger than the last.

  As soon as the novelty wore off, there was little joy in looking at what I knew was basically plastic.

  As I sat there, watching woman after woman parade by with beach balls on her chest, it occurred to me, that would be the ultimate torture. To be forced to sit and watch until one was conditioned to hate breasts.

  Which seemed a distinct possibility. “Here she is, Marla Melons,” the bartender said, and here came another young blonde down the runway. Nice face, decent figure, but breasts that stuck out like torpedoes. They didn’t hang down like flesh, they jutted out like styrofoam.

  I shook my head, wondered what could induce an attractive young woman to disfigure herself like that.

  Sandy nudged me and pointed.

  “That’s her.”

  14.

  IT WAS ELEVEN-THIRTY WHEN she came out the front door. Sandy was long gone, having sauntered off with a hundred bucks in his pocket and a smile on his lips. Shortly after which, it occurred to me what a great scam that would be—the guy takes me to a topless bar, points to any large-busted blonde at random, and walks out with the cash. While I didn’t think the guy would really do that, on the other hand I didn’t know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t. It was an unsettling thought.

  Another was whether I’d recognize her when she came out.

  I did, but just barely. She was wearing a full-length yellow rain slicker, a felt hat, and dark glasses. As I have indicated, I am not particularly fashion-conscious. Still, I wondered why one would combine a rain slicker with a felt hat.

  The dark glasses I understood. It was the cultivated incognito, or I-am-a-celebrity look. Slightly pathetic under the circumstances.

  I observed all this from across the street behind a parked car. Hopelessly theatrical, to be sure, but the strip joint had a bouncer out front, and I’d been doing my best not to let him know I was staking the place out. So far so
good, and I didn’t want to blow it now. I wasn’t going near the girl until she was safely down the block.

  Unfortunately, she stepped out in the street and hailed a cab.

  I hailed one too and lucked out. The driver didn’t bat an eye when I said, “Follow that cab,” just pulled out and tailed along. The driver, who was a Pakistani or some such nationality—when it comes to pigeonholing people I am ethnically challenged—was totally cooperative, but wanted to talk to me, and his accent was so thick I couldn’t understand what he said. We were all the way uptown before I realized what he was asking me was if this was a stunt for the Letterman show.

  Good lord. Not at eleven-thirty at night, mister. But let him think what he wanted as long as he played along.

  We followed the girl’s cab up the West Side, through the park at 86th Street, then across 84th Street to Third Avenue and up Third to the corner of East 85th. She paid off her cab and got out just as I got out of mine.

  I walked up, put on my most engaging smile. “Excuse me, miss.”

  Her response was immediate. “Fuck off, mister! You get the fuck away from me!”

  To a New Yorker, that’s practically an endearment. I put up my hands, said, “Please. I just want to talk. I saw you at the bar.”

  “Yeah, well, you got the wrong idea. You keep away or I’ll scream.”

  “Don’t scream. I’m a private detective. Look. Here’s my ID.”

  “I don’t care who you are, you keep away.”

  My cab had driven off. Hers hadn’t. Now the driver got out. He was one of the largest black men I’d ever seen. As he strode around the cab and got between her and me, my first thought was, he’s her pimp. My second was that that was a horribly racist perception.

  My third was that he was going to kill me.

  “You botherin’ her?” he said.

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m a private detective, as you can see.” I held the ID in front of me like a shield. “I have a few questions for the young lady. She’s under absolutely no obligation to answer them unless she sees fit. But if she doesn’t let me ask them, she won’t know what they are.”