“Why’s he doing that?” Eddison’s face was twisted with incomprehension.
“Because I told him I could get the job done faster and easier than he could. Now, if I can’t, he’ll send some of his associates back to talk to you again.” I leaned forward slightly to emphasize my next point. “You’ve met one of them already—wouldn’ t you rather speak to me instead?”
“But I don’t have Marsha’s money,” Eddison wailed. His voice was shrill with fear. “I swear it.”
“I never said you did. I just think you know something about it.”
“But I don’t.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t buy that. You’re acting like someone with a guilty conscience.”
Eddison bit his lip.
“You know, one way or another the truth is going to come out,” I told him. “The way it does is up to you.” Then I waited to see what he’d say next.
“She was blackmailing me,” he finally mumbled. “I was giving her money.”
“Come again?” This was not the answer I’d expected.
“Marsha said she needed it.” He started wringing his hands again. “She said this was her last chance and she was going to take it.”
“Her last chance for what?”
“Happiness.”
The folly of the middle-aged female, I thought, rubbing my arms. The temperature was falling and the drizzle had penetrated my shirt. It felt cold against my skin. “What did she have on you?”
Eddison turned his head away, but not before I had a chance to see his eyes brimming with tears. I felt ashamed for him and for me. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he whispered. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Exactly what didn’t you mean to do?” I asked.
Eddison swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Estrella and I ... we had sex,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“How did Marsha find out?”
“Estrella told her.”
“Why did she do that?”
“Because she thought it would be funny.”
“I bet Marsha didn’t think so.”
“Marsha was going to report me. I was going to lose my clients. Maybe even go to jail. It’s taken me so long to build up my business ... I just couldn’t bear the thought of its disappearing.” His voice rose. “It wasn’t like Estrella wasn’t willing either because she was. She was the one who came on to me. She said she liked older men.” From the little I’d seen of Estrella, I thought Eddison was probably telling the truth. He looked up, his eyes pleading for absolution. “Everyone is entitled to a mistake once in a while, aren’t they?”
“I guess it depends on what it is,” was the best I could do. “How much did Marsha want?”
“Five thousand.” I couldn’t help thinking that was a lot of money for a couple of fucks. I hoped Eddison had enjoyed them. “She wanted five thousand dollars,” he repeated.
“Or?”
“She was going to go to the authorities and complain.”
“What else?” I said. From the look on his face I knew there was more.
“She wanted to look at my files.”
“And you let her?” Screwing Estrella had been bad, but somehow this was worse.
Eddison’s shoulders slumped under the accusation in my voice. “What else could I do?” It was the kind of question weak men have asked down through the ages.
“What did she want with them?”
Eddison shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Whose files did she look at?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I showed her where they were; then she told me to leave, so I did. When I came back about three hours later she was gone.” Eddison started rubbing his hands together. “What I did wasn’t so bad, was it?” A glint of hope blossomed on his face. I killed it with my next words.
“As compared to what?”
Eddison pulled back as if I’d struck him. Then he wordlessly turned and hurried into his house, closing the front door behind him as though it could be trusted to keep the world at bay. I knocked on it, proving him wrong.
“Go away,” Eddison cried.
But I didn’t. I asked for his client list instead.
“I can’t do that,” he replied.
“Oh, yes you can.” After all, he’d done it once, he could do it again. “I’ll pick the list up tomorrow afternoon.”
“And if I don’t give it to you?”
“Does the phrase talking to Fast Eddie mean anything to you?”
“Oh, God.” I heard a muffled sob coming from the other side of the door. Then I heard another voice and Eddison shushing it.
“Who else is in there?” I asked.
“No one,” Eddison answered.
I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t going to press the issue. There was no point in doing that when I could just repark the cab and wait and see who came out of his house, so I said good night and walked back toward my cab. My encounter with Eddison had left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t like him, and more importantly I didn’t like myself too much either—but I guessed that would pass. It usually did.
I hurried to the cab as much to get out of the rain as to get away from him. By now the fine mist had turned into thicker rain drops, and I watched them reflect under the streetlight while I dried my hair off with a paper towel that was lying on the passenger seat. Then I started the cab, drove around the block, parked out of eyeshot of Eddison’s house, and settled down to wait.
It didn’t take long.
Ray Diamond emerged thirty minutes later.
Like Ichabod Crane, Estrella’s boyfriend seemed to belong to the night. When I’d seen him during the daytime he’d been a skinny, awkward-looking, twenty-five-year-old man with a bad case of acne, but now as he loped toward the car, his gracelessness was gone, discarded like the husk of an insect.
As he pulled out I wondered if he’d been talking to Eddison about Estrella and if so what he’d said. It was with an eye to answering that question that I decided to follow him. I was hoping to catch Diamond as he went in his house, but he didn’t go home. Instead he took a right on Comstock and headed toward East Genesee Street. I followed him anyway because I was curious to see what he was up to.
Diamond drove like a man in a hurry. The speed limit on East Genesee in the city is thirty miles an hour, and he was exceeding it by a good twenty; but then so was everyone else on the road. The unmarked police car that patrolled this particular stretch was only there in the mornings. The rain was still falling, and it gave the shuttered buildings on either side a forlorn quality. As we passed by Wegman’s Supermarket I noticed a shopping cart slowly drifting down the margin of the road on the other side of the street. Maybe it had just decided to see the world.
I almost lost Diamond when he turned at Fayetteville Mall. Because I assumed that he’d keep on going straight I wasn’t paying strict attention, so it wasn’t until the last minute that I realized he’d veered off to the left. A car honked at me as I switched lanes. A couple of miles later Diamond took a right onto a country road. I tried to stay far enough back so he wouldn’t become suspicious and close enough so I wouldn’t lose him; but it was difficult to do, and I found myself either riding the brake or pumping the gas.
Occasionally I’d spot another car in my rearview mirror, and for a few seconds I entertained the fantasy that he was doing to me what I was doing to Ray; but then I decided I was just being paranoid and forgot about it. Instead, as I sped along I thought about Marsha’s request to Eddison. The five thousand I could understand, but the request for his client list was a little odder. Was she on a fishing expedition, looking for new information? Or was she looking to confirm something she already knew? Too bad I couldn’t ask her.
A few minutes later the road broadened out and we hit a clutch of stores. Diamond slowed down and pulled into a gas station on the right side of the road. I didn’t want to follow him in and call attention to myself, so I par
ked about one hundred feet down and checked out what Ray was doing from my rearview mirror. First he pumped some gas; then he went inside, paid, came out and made a phone call. Whoever he was speaking to must have angered him because when he got back in his car he roared out of the lot, missing an incoming car by a matter of inches. In another minute or so we were back on the open road.
I was wondering if Diamond was taking a back road to Cazenovia, one of those quaint towns where everyone has a fit if you plant the wrong color petunias, when he made another turn. It’s a good thing I was paying attention because otherwise I never would have seen the turnoff. It was narrow and obscured with trees. In the daytime it would have been difficult to see, but on a moonless night such as this one it was impossible. I pulled in and killed the engine and the lights. There was no way I could drive in and not have Ray be aware that he was being followed. I could hear his car up ahead, and then I didn’t hear anything at all.
I whispered for Zsa Zsa to stay in the car. Then I got out. I took care to close the door as quietly as possible, but the silence magnified the sound, making it louder than it would have otherwise been. The same was true of my footsteps. Every twig I stepped on crackled in the dark. To make matters worse, the path I was on was extremely rutted and I kept tripping over rocks and branches. Water from the trees dripped on my head and shoulders as I walked. I was cold and wet and uncomfortable. After about ten steps or so I decided it made more sense to come back in the daylight when I could see something.
And anyway I had something I wanted to do besides trip over rocks in the dark and fall and fracture my wrist. I wanted to break into Eddison’s office.
Chapter 31
I’d been toying with the idea ever since I’d left Eddison’s house. Even though I was pretty sure Eddison would give me the names of his clients, I’d decided as I’d been sitting in the car outside his house that I needed more than that. I needed to see what was in the files. Who knew? Maybe Marsha had found a juicy little tidbit and was blackmailing someone else besides Eddison. I knew I was playing a long shot, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look. Of course, I could have just asked Eddison for them, but I didn’t think he’d say yes. Or maybe I was hoping he wouldn’t.
Besides, it wasn’t as if the building his office was located in was going to be that hard to break into. It was set in an industrial park well off Erie Boulevard. The other buildings around it were also office buildings. Most of the people who worked in them had cleared out by six o’clock, eight at the latest. The only people who would be coming by would be the security patrol, and they probably did a round every one or two hours at the most. As I headed back toward Syracuse I decided to drop Zsa Zsa off at the house, then drive over and check out the situation. I didn’t want to take the chance of having her bark at a patrol car.
Wide Waters Plaza was deserted. I could have killed ten people—slowly—and their screams wouldn’t have brought anyone running. I didn’t see another living soul as I drove through the industrial park. There were no cars in the lots or patrol cars on the road. I began to feel as if there had been a terrible disaster and I was the only person left alive in the world. Or at least in Syracuse. When I got to Eddison’s building I stopped and did a pro forma inspection of the front doors. They were locked and alarmed as I’d expected they’d be. That didn’t concern me. I wasn’t planning to go in through the front anyway. I was banking on the fact that this type of building usually had a fire escape in the rear and that I could climb up it and get in through a window. Of course, the windows could be hooked up to the alarm system, too, but I was betting on the fact that the management hadn’t wanted to spend the money.
I got back in the car and drove around to see if I’d been right. I was. The back did have a fire escape. Even better there was a Dumpster just underneath it. I wouldn’t have any problem at all. I could just climb up on the Dumpster and go from there to the fire escape and from the fire escape to a window. My biggest problem was going to be where to leave the cab. I didn’t want to attract any more attention to myself than necessary. Finally I decided to park it a couple of buildings down. That way if the cops found it, at least I’d have a little more time to get out. And if they turned up later at my door I could always claim the cab had been stolen.
I jogged back to the Dumpster, took hold of the chain around its lid and worked myself up. Now comes the hard part, I thought as I jumped up and grabbed on to the slats on the bottom of the fire escape. The metal cut my palms. For a moment I just dangled there. Then I pulled myself up. It took all my strength, and my shoulders ached liked crazy when I finally got there. I wondered if I’d pulled something as I climbed the ladder to the third floor and began trying windows. None of them budged. I was just starting to think I’d have to break a pane of glass when I found a window sash that moved. I pushed it all the way up and slipped inside. I was standing in a bathroom.
My heart was fluttering as I walked across the bathroom, opened the door and peeked outside. No one was in the hall. Of course. I was just suffering from a bad case of the heebie jeebies, I decided as I stepped out and scanned the numbers on the wall. Eddison’s office was down the hall to the left. I made my way to it as quickly as I could. The lock on his door looked simple enough. I hoped it was because that was the only kind I could pick. I took my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket, pried out the nail file, and inserted it between the door frame and the lock. Then I pressed down. I heard a click and the lock gave.
As I entered I wondered why Eddison had bothered with the lock at all. It gave the illusion of safety and nothing more, but then that’s all any of us ever have anyway, I decided as I made my way through his waiting room into his private office. It was furnished the same way his waiting room was—cheaply. I skirted his desk and headed straight for the cabinet on the far wall, figuring that’s where he kept his patient files. The top drawer was full of business-related items such as rent receipts, insurance forms, and telephone bills. Nothing of interest to me. I opened the second drawer. Except for a folder lying on the bottom it was empty. I took it out and looked at it.
A Mr. William Dean was afraid of flying. Recommendation: hypnosis to reduce anxiety. I threw the folder back in the drawer and slammed it shut. While I’d been following Ray, Eddison must have come up here and moved his files. He’d figured out what I was going to do and beat me to it. I was so mad I kicked his desk, but all I got for my troubles was a sore toe. Even though I knew it was useless, I checked the other room anyway. The files weren’t there. As I closed the door to his office I decided that maybe Eddison had more scruples than I’d given him credit for, a fact which, given the situation, annoyed the hell out of me.
I climbed down the fire escape and walked to my car without encountering any difficulties. I roared out of the parking lot and sped down Erie Boulevard. I knew I should slow down, but I didn’t want to. I was too pissed. Instead, I went faster. I was doing fifty in a thirty-mile zone when the cop pulled me over by Springfield Gardens. He gave me a ticket and a long lecture which put me in an even worse mood than I was already in. As far as I was concerned the whole evening had been a waste of time and I hate wasting time. Although truth be told, it was ridiculous for me to feel that way. If I hadn’t been following Ray around and breaking into Eddison’s office, I would have been sitting home watching TV. Oh, well, I decided as I turned onto Genese Street. Maybe next year I’d work on my social life.
When I got back to the house I took care of the animals and listened to the messages on my answering machine. There were three. Two were hang ups and one was a call from George telling me to call him. I did, but the line was busy, and after a second try I gave up and went to bed. Somewhere along the ride home my anger had given way to fatigue. My legs were aching and my eyes felt as if pieces of grit were lodged under my lids. I had to sleep. As I was drifting off I realized that one of the reasons I was so exhausted was because I hadn’t eaten anything since twelve o’clock in the afternoon.
Next morning when
I woke I was ravenous. I ended up finishing the only thing I had in the house—a package of Oreos—before I got dressed and went to work. Once I opened up the shop and reconciled the drawer I made myself a pot of coffee and called George. The line was busy. I tried again at ten. This time there was no answer. It looked as if I’d missed him. I was just about to leave a message when Enid Garriques walked in.
“Do you think it would be possible to set up the aquarium today?” she asked when she reached the counter.
This was typical Enid, I thought as I hung up. Delay, delay, delay, and then, Bam. Do it now.
“I know it’s short notice,” she said as she shifted the clutch she was carrying from one hand to another.
“No problem,” I replied, even though it was. Then I reminded her that we couldn’t put the fish in today.
Enid nodded. “Yes, I remember.” She opened her pocketbook, extracted a check from her wallet, and gave it to me along with her keys which she told me to leave in the mailbox when I was done.
“Where do you want me to put it?”
“In my husband’s study over by the wall opposite the bookcase. I’m sorry I can’t be there,” she explained, “but I have a doctor’s appointment. That’s the problem with having diabetes. You have to spend all your time in doctors’ offices. Or at least I do.” She sighed. “Then I have to go over and have lunch with my mother and my aunt.” She wrinkled her nose, indicating she wasn’t going to enjoy that too much either. “I hope I don’t get like them when I get older.”
“It’s scary, isn’t it?”
She gave a genuine smile, the first I’d ever seen. “Yes. It sure is. Why do families want to hang on to you so tightly? Why don’t they want to let go?”
“Sometimes the other way isn’t so good either,” I said, thinking of my experience.
“I guess you’re right,” Enid replied, but she didn’t seem convinced.
In Plain Sight Page 22