12-Scam

by Parnell Hall

  “I don’t know. We’re talking it through. But go back to the idea it was easy to find the girl because Cranston Pritchert set her up and Cranston Pritchert wanted you to find her.”

  “What about it?”

  “How did he do that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he make it easy for you to find her?”

  “He didn’t have to. It turned out the bartender knew her.”

  “How did he know that?”

  “He didn’t know that. It just happened.”

  “So the girl being easy to find was not his doing. Suppose the bartender hadn’t known her. What would have happened then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I assume he would have found some way to tip me off.”

  “Makes sense,” Richard said.

  He cocked his head.

  “What if he did?”

  46.

  SANDY WAS SHAKING UP A mixed drink when I walked in. It was happy hour, and the joint was jumping. I stepped up to the bar, slid in between two attractive young businesswomen, and said, “Take a break, would you, we gotta talk.”

  Sandy dipped two glasses in salt, poured the young ladies margaritas, and said, “It’s a bad time.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m afraid there aren’t gonna be any good ones.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Five minutes, Sandy. I think you owe me that.”

  Sandy read my face, didn’t like what he saw. He called to the other bartender, “Sam, cover for me.” He went down to the end of the bar, moved two glasses, flipped the hinged part up, and came out.

  “There’s a table in the back,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Outside.”

  His face drained of color. “Look here,” he said. “It wasn’t me.

  “It wasn’t you what?”

  “Snitched to the cops. I don’t know where they get their ideas. If they think you did it, that’s their fault. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  We’d been standing close and shouting at each other. Now I took him by the shoulder. “I can’t hear myself think in here, Sandy. Outside.”

  He wasn’t happy, but he came.

  Out on the sidewalk in the clear light of day, Sandy didn’t look too good. A little pasty in the face. Almost a sickly color. Of course, standing face to face with a cold-blooded killer might have something to do with that. Though he was bigger than me, you wouldn’t have known it. It occurred to me I could play off it.

  “All right, Sandy,” I said. “Here’s the deal. I want you to talk, and I want you to talk straight. If you do that, you and I have no problem. If you don’t, we have a problem in a big way. Someone set me up to take a fall, and I’d like to think it wasn’t you.”

  Sandy looked ready to pee in his pants. “No, no,” he said. “It wasn’t me.”

  “Now, let’s be careful here. Like I said, you gotta talk straight. Maybe it wasn’t all you, but maybe just a little bit.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Sandy said.

  “Hey, no one’s gonna hurt you, Sandy,” I said. “But I got a little problem here. Let me tell you what it is. To begin with, I know where you live.”

  Sandy’s knees buckled. “Oh, my god!”

  “Hey, don’t freak out on me. This is just conversational. You happen to live on the Upper West Side. 88th and Columbus. You live there, you work here. And that’s my problem.”

  He blinked at me. “What?”

  “What are you doin’ in a topless bar on 20th Street and Eighth Avenue? It’s not near where you live. It’s not near where you work. It’s not one of the big-name joints. Why, of all the places you could pick, did you happen to hang out there?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do, Sandy. You understand just fine. I wasn’t findin’ the girl fast enough, so you had to give me a hand. Only thing I don’t know is who put you up to it. But that’s what you’re gonna tell me. And you’re gonna tell me straight.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Hey, Sandy. Look at the position you’re in. You’ve already given your story to the cops. And you didn’t happen to mention this at all. Cops don’t like that. They’ll be pissed off. They’ll be pissed off at you.” I pointed my finger. “But they won’t get nearly as pissed off as I will if you don’t tell it and tell it fast.”

  “It was her,” Sandy said.

  “Huh?”

  “It was the girl.”

  “You were in it together?”

  “No, no, I swear,” Sandy said. He looked like he was gonna cry. “I had no idea. No idea. I still don’t.”

  “Careful, Sandy.”

  “No, no. I’ll tell you what I know. It’s just not much.”

  “Whatever it is, let’s have it.”

  He took a breath. “When you came in the bar. The first time. Lookin’ for the girl. I remembered her and him, just like I said.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “But I had no idea who she was. Swear to god. It was the first time she’d been in, and I’d never seen her before.”

  “What about the topless bar?”

  “I made it up.”

  “You didn’t make it up. She worked there.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know it. I’d never seen her there. I’d never been there.”

  It was all I could do to keep my hands off him, and I think he sensed it. “Go on,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “You’re not gone half an hour when she walks in the door large as life.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all. Swear to god. Straight stuff. She comes walkin’ up to the bar, sits down at a stool, bats her eyes, says, How’d you like to make some cash?”

  My mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I recognize her, of course. And I just got through talking to you. So, I’m wondering what’s the deal. When she tells me, it floors me.”

  “What?” I said. “What’s the deal?”

  “She wants me to tip you off.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tip me off to her?”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  “Hold on. Hold on,” I said. “The girl wants you to tell me where to find her?”

  “Sure. She’s the one tells me the whole thing. She works in this topless bar. I’m to tell you I recognize her from there, bring you there, and point her out. I do that, I make some cash.”

  “How much?”

  He made a face. “That’s where she’s cagy. She tells me I’ll get it from you.”

  “What?”

  “Right. She says you’ll be happy to pay. Turned out she was right. If not, well, I knew where she worked.”

  I blinked. “So, she wanted to be found.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know why.”

  “So you say. But you’ve said a lot of things.”

  “No, no, no. It’s the truth. I swear.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “You’d never seen this girl before?”

  “No. Not before the night she was in here.”

  “And you’d never seen her again after that, and then out of the blue she walks in here and asks you to tip me off to her?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “Why essentially?”

  “I don’t know. Forget essentially. The answer is yes.”

  I put up my hand. “Sandy, you’re very nervous and you’re not taking time to think. I want you to take time to think. To make sure you tell it right. Is it essentially yes, or is that exactly what happened?”

  “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “And the time she was in here with my client—you didn’t notice anything else special then?”

  “Well …”

  “Well, Sandy? Now there’s a well?”

  “I might have seen them leave.”

  The guy
was getting so tied up in knots I was afraid to jump on that as hard as it deserved. “Uh-huh,” I said. “And when they did, was there anything special about the way they left? Anything worth commenting on?”

  “It seemed to me the guy was rather drunk and leaning on her a bit.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “That’s just how it seemed. I didn’t really have a good look. I mean if the guy was just trying to paw her, it would have looked the same way. You see what I’m saying?”

  “I see what you’re saying, Sandy. You seem to be saying a lot of stuff to try to make me think you weren’t involved. That you and the girl weren’t in this thing together.”

  “No, no, I swear.”

  “I’m trying to believe you, Sandy. It’s hard because I’m so desperate for information. So the more you tell me, the more I believe.”

  And if he bought that, the guy was more freaked out than I thought. I mean, hell, the reality was, the more he knew to tell me, the more it looked like he was involved.

  “I’m trying to help you all I can,” Sandy said. “I just don’t really know anything.”

  “Well, you knew about them leaving together. That’s something. But what I really want to know is why. Why this girl came to him, why this girl came to you, and why this girl wanted to get to me. Now, did she say anything at all when she walked into the bar that would give you a clue?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really, Sandy?”

  “Aw, please,” Sandy said. “You’re picking on every word.”

  “Because I really need this information. Now, if there was anything she said that gave you a clue, I wanna hear it.”

  “Well, she did say it wasn’t just the money.”

  “What wasn’t just the money?”

  “Why she wanted me to do this.”

  “You mean tell me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whaddya mean it wasn’t just the money?”

  “That’s what she said. She said it wasn’t just the money, there was a lot of pressure on her.”

  “Pressure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “From who?”

  “From her agent.”

  “You mean her talent agent? The dead woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  Damn.

  “Was there anything else? Anything about who was putting the pressure on? Or why?”

  “No. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but that was all I got. That there was pressure on her to do this, and it came from the agent. If someone was pressuring the agent, that’s something I wouldn’t know.”

  “And the only one who might know is dead.”

  Sandy blinked.

  If I were any less involved, I might not have caught it. But I was so tuned in to the guy, looking for anything, that that’s all it took. One blink.

  “What is it, Sandy?” I said.

  And the guy dissolved.

  “Look,” he said, “you gotta understand. I don’t want to get in trouble. I’m in bad enough already. I mean, do the cops have to know?”

  “Know what, Sandy?”

  “All of this. What I’m telling you. That I didn’t tell ’em before.”

  “That remains to be seen, Sandy. Right now I don’t know. What I do know is you’re stalling. I just got through saying there was no way to find out what the girl and the talent agent knew. And it flashed in your mind that there was. When that happened, you blinked. When I noticed it, you panicked. And now, you’re covering up. So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You ask me if the cops have to know. Well, if they do, that’s the hard way. You wanna try the easy way first, you try talking to me. But you try pulling the song and dance again, we’ll try talking to them. Your call. What’s it gonna be?”

  He put up his hand. “No, no. We can work this out.”

  “Let’s work it out now, Sandy. What is it you’re not telling me?”

  It was as if I could see the resistance actually drain out of him.

  He sighed, said, “Well, that afternoon—when she walked into the bar …”

  “Yeah?”

  “She wasn’t alone.”

  47.

  THOUGH IT WAS ALMOST NOON, the young man who opened the door gave every indication of having been sound asleep. He was rubbing his eyes, his hair was matted, and there was a pattern from a pillow on his cheek.

  “What is it?” he mumbled.

  “Jamie Pollack?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  I flashed my ID. “Private investigator. I have some questions for you.”

  If the guy had been more alert, he might have slammed the door. As it was, I lowered my shoulder, pushed my way in.

  “Hey, what the hell?” Jamie Pollack said.

  I found myself in a dark, cluttered studio apartment. It was dark because the shades were down, and cluttered because the fold-out couch had been pulled out into a bed. This left very little room to stand. I squeezed between the bed and the dresser, which left me practically on one foot. I tried not to look ridiculous, and addressed Jamie Pollack.

  “It’s about Laura Martin.”

  That woke him up. His mouth fell open. After a few seconds he said, “Who?”

  I waggled my finger at him. “No, no, Jamie. Nice try. But bad reaction time. You gotta come right in with the Who? Otherwise I can see you thinking it up.”

  He blinked. Frowned. Gradually waking up. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I told you. I’m investigating the murder.”

  “No, you’re not. I’ve seen you. You were on TV. Jesus Christ, you’re the one who did it!”

  “No, I’m not, and you got nothing to fear. If you did, you’d be dead already.”

  His mouth fell open again, and he took a step back and wound up sitting on the bed. That really panicked him, and he scuttled to his feet.

  “Hey, hey,” I said. “Don’t hurt yourself. I’m not a killer, I just wanna talk. You probably don’t wanna, but that’s good too. ’Cause I figure, most of all, you don’t wanna talk to the cops. And if you talk to me, there’s a chance you won’t have to talk to them. But if you don’t talk to me, you do.”

  Jamie blinked. Gawked at me. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t. So here’s the deal. I’ll explain it to you, and then you explain it to me.”

  “Explain what? I don’t understand. How’d you even find me?”

  I had found him the same way I hadn’t found her. The minute Actors’ Equity had opened this morning, Sandy and I had started going through stacks of resume photos. Luck had been with us—it had only taken an hour and a half.

  The resume photo Sandy had identified had shown a slightly cleaner-cut, wider-awake version of Jamie Pollack. The address on the resume was the grungy, one-room affair in which we stood.

  I didn’t feel like boring Jamie with all of that, though. I just said, “The bartender fingered you.”

  “The bartender?”

  “Yeah. From when you came in with her that day.”

  “What day ?”

  “Hey, Jamie,” I said. “I know all about it. We’re talkin’ about the bar where she met Cranston Pritchert. She went back there to tell the bartender to tip me off how to find her. You were with her. The bartender can identify you. Not that I want him to. Right now I’d be happy to keep this between us. But that’s the situation, that’s what we’re talking about. Why don’t we take it from there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m wondering how much you know.”

  He put up his hands. “Hey, hey. I didn’t do anything.”

  “I’m not saying you did. In fact, if you had, I’d be mighty surprised. But you might know something that could help me. Maybe even shed some light on who killed her. Because, believe me, it sure wasn’t me.”

  “But you had the gun.”

  “Grow up. The gun was a plant. It’s a clumsy, amateurish plant, and it’s not going to stand up in court. But it sure is fucking t
hings up right now. I can’t talk to anybody in this damn case, they don’t look like they’re gettin’ ready to duck.”

  He blinked. “The gun was a plant?”

  “Yeah, I know, that’s what they all say, but this time it’s true. I mean, come on, use your head. Cranston Pritchert hired me to find this girl. What, I’m such an over-zealous detective, as soon as I find her, I decide to kill them both? You’re an actor, right? Well, like, hey, man, what’s my motivation?”

  That jarred him. He’d probably asked some director that in exactly those words.

  “So, anyway,” I said, “just pretend for a moment I’m telling the truth. Now, the girl knew something I needed to know.”

  “Stop calling her the girl,” he said. “You didn’t even know her, you’re talking about her like that.”

  Good. He’d gotten over being afraid of me and was comfortable enough to get pissed off. Now if I could just get him talking.

  “Exactly,” I said. “You knew her. I didn’t. And someone killed her, and he shouldn’t get away with it. That’s why I need your help. For her sake. Help me. Please.”

  He blinked at me uncertainly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s the thing. You were with her in the bar. When she came and told the bartender what she wanted. About leading me to her. Now, I know she did that, but I don’t know why. Well, I sorta know why. She was gonna make some money doing it, and her agent was putting pressure on her. But beyond that I need help. She can’t help me. You can.”

  He blinked again. “Why should I trust you?”

  Great. He knew something.

  “You rather trust the cops?”

  “No.”

  “Then help me out. What do you know?”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “Who does? You think I’m runnin’ to the cops? Every time they see me, they arrest me. It’s getting to be a real fuckin’ drag.”

  He drew back again. “You’re acting kind of funny.”

  Jesus. Another one.

  I exhaled loudly, shook my head. “Yeah, I know. I’m really stressed out and I’m not takin’ it well. Help me out. Please. Whaddya know about this?”

  He furrowed his brow, seemed to be making up his mind. “That night in the bar. With the guy—what’s his name?”

  “Cranston Pritchert.”

  “Yeah. The dead guy. Well, she was supposed to tell you what happened so she’d get her bonus.”