Mean Streets

by Graham Marks

  “I’m sorry…”

  “You don’t know that either?” Alex shook his head. “Right, look, when he does come back, could you tell him to call Alex Little. It’s very important.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you.” Alex heard the phone being put down and, slowly lowering his own receiver, he wondered what on earth he was going to do now.

  “Who were you talking to, dear?”

  Alex looked up to find his mom had come out into the hallway. “Me? Oh…yeah...um, I was talking to…” Alex’s brain finally slipped into gear “…I was talking to the MacIntyres, y’know, just saying thanks for having me.”

  “Very thoughtful, dear.” His mom smiled at him. “Now could you go and put anything you think you’re going to need in a valise, we’re leaving in about half an hour.”

  “Leaving? For where?”

  “The country, somewhere…friends of your father’s. Didn’t I tell you? We’re going for the weekend…”

  13 A FILE IS OPENED

  “You must be T. Drummond MacIntyre. The third.”

  The girl who was standing in the doorway was maybe an inch or so shorter than him, kind of his age, with a round, quite pretty face and brown hair cut in a bob with the straightest fringe Trey had ever seen. And her eyes were a soft yellowy green, like moss…

  “Or are you maybe some kid wandered in off the street and just happened to find themselves outside Suite 419b?”

  “No…”

  “Good, now come in quick before he hears you!” The girl grabbed Trey’s arm and pulled him into the outer office, quietly shutting the door. They stood facing each other in a small linoleum-floored room with a worn, two-seater settee, a grey, three-drawer filing cabinet, a hat-stand, a desk and a wooden swivel chair.

  “He?” queried Trey.

  “My father.” The girl’s moss-green eyes flicked to the right.

  “Your father?”

  “You won’t get far in this world just constantly repeating everything anyone says to you, y’know.”

  “I do not…who are you, anyway?” Trey looked round for the person he’d talked to on the phone, and then it clicked. “You’re Velma?”

  To his left, out of the corner of his eye, Trey saw a door open and a man appear.

  “Velma?” The man, not too tall – a kind of normal-looking guy in a suit, waistcoat and tie, with thinning hair combed back – frowned as he came into the outer office; he did not look like Trey’s idea of a Private Eye. “I told you before about inviting friends up here to the office.”

  “He isn’t a friend, Mr. Pisbo.”

  “Velma, will you please stop calling me Mr. Pisbo? You do not work for me.”

  “I do so – you pay me for what I do when I’m here, which is a lot!”

  Trey saw the man he assumed must be the owner of the business – and, if he wasn’t much mistaken, the girl’s father – sigh deeply as he raised his eyebrows. Right at that moment Trey knew exactly how the man felt: exasperated! This dumb Dora had led him all the way downtown on what could turn out to be a wild goose chase – wasting not only his valuable time but also his train fare – if her father refused to listen to what he had to say.

  “And he’s not a friend.” Velma made a “so there” face. “He’s a client.”

  “Client? What client, Velma? What have you been up to?”

  “Just answering your phone. While you were, you know, otherwise engaged.”

  “Son,” Mr. Pisbo, turned towards Trey, “why are you here?”

  “His friend’s been kidnapped.” Velma went and sat behind the desk, picked up a black ring binder and pointed at it. “I wrote it in the call log – which you never use like you should do – at five after six. His name’s T. Drummond MacIntyre III, the ‘T’ stands for Theodore, but his friends call him Trey. So, you going to invite him into your office and ask him some questions, Mr…” Mr. Pisbo looked daggers at his daughter. “Okay, okay…Dad.”

  “Right.” Mr. Pisbo distractedly rubbed his not particularly square jaw, which showed a dark, well-defined five o’clock shadow. “You,” he pointed at Trey, “you come with me and tell me what the heck this is all about, and you,” he pointed at his daughter, “you said you were talking to a friend when I got back from the washroom. So stay where you are – and leave the phone alone.”

  Velma got up, pencil and yellow legal pad in hand. “Who’s gonna take notes? Y’gotta have notes!”

  “Jeez…” Mr. Pisbo made a face that said more than words ever could, and went back into his office.

  “Well, go on.” Velma came round the desk. “We got a case to solve!”

  Trey sat in the chair opposite Mr. Pisbo (Frederick K. Pisbo, according to the nameplate on the door to his office). He’d explained everything, right from when he’d come across the Buick Monarch with the flat tyre that late August morning. Mr. Pisbo had asked one or two questions, but mainly let Trey talk while Velma took notes. On the desk was the piece of paper with the note of the kidnappers’ registration number and the two black-and-white pictures he’d developed and printed with Alex. When Trey had finished, Mr. Pisbo picked up one of the prints and looked at it very closely.

  “Who’d you say this was?” He held up the picture of the man posing by the Duesenberg.

  Trey referred to his own notebook. “Tony Burrell.” He looked across at Velma. “That’s with a double ‘r’ and double ‘l’.”

  “Much appreciated…” Velma rubbed something out with the eraser on the end of her pencil.

  “And this guy?” Mr. Pisbo indicated the second photo.

  “Mario. Alex said his name was Mario, but I didn’t get a surname, sorry.”

  “Not to worry. Now this Alex…” Mr. Pisbo cast about for something on his fairly untidy desk.

  “Little,” said Velma without looking up. “Trey said his name’s Alex Little.”

  “Right, I knew that. Now this Alex Little – you say you saw his father, who is from New York and something in construction, with a tall guy in a suit, and some goon called Frank, and they were all going to the T-Bone ranch, which is owned by someone your grandfather has a beef with called Bowyer Dunne. Correct?”

  Trey nodded.

  “Okeedoke…” Mr. Pisbo sat back in his chair and took a cigarette out of a pack of Camels, but didn’t light it; his daughter (whom he usually had every other weekend – except for now, what with her mother having gone to Saginaw for two weeks to stay with her equally noxious sister) did not approve. “There anything else you can tell me about this, kid? Anything at all?”

  “I’ve told you the lot, Mr. Pisbo, honest!”

  “What about the registration?” Mr. Pisbo picked up the piece of paper. “You remember if you saw the state, or a year?”

  “No…” Trey screwed up his face in concentration. “Can’t remember if I saw that, just wrote the number down.”

  “What colour was the plate?” Fred Pisbo tamped the cigarette on his desk, but still didn’t pick up the book of matches by his left hand.

  Trey’s face brightened. “It was blue, Mr. Pisbo, blue with white lettering!”

  Velma got up and went to the bookshelf and after a couple of seconds picked up a slim soft-cover booklet.

  Mr. Pisbo put the unlit cigarette down. “How’d you know where that was?”

  “Who reorganized your reference books so you’d know what was where?” Velma flicked through the pages, then stopped. “White on a blue background…looks to me like that’s most probably Kansas on a 1926 plate, Dad.”

  “Really?” Mr. Pisbo’s face took on a distinct “well-I-never” look.

  “So d’you believe me now, about the kidnapping? You do, right? And you’ll help?” Trey pulled the envelope with his money in it out of his jacket pocket and put it on the desk. “I can pay…”

  “Hold on a minute, whoa!” Mr. Pisbo leaned way back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “First off, are you positive your friend has been kidnapped? Did you call him to check you didn�
�t just see it all wrong and he’s at home right now with a glass of chocolate milk?”

  “No…I didn’t have time yet; I had to get here before you left.”

  Mr. Pisbo pushed the phone towards Trey. “Try now.”

  Trey looked at Velma, who shrugged. Could he have got this whole thing completely upside down? He picked up the receiver, that being the only way he was going to find out, gave the operator Alex’s number out of his notebook and waited.

  Two minutes later he put the phone down. “He’s not there. The maid said no one was there, that they’d all gone to the country for the weekend.”

  “Maybe they have.” Mr. Pisbo moved the phone back to where it usually sat on his desk.

  “The cops probably told them that was what to say,” said Velma, nodding sagely, “you know, so the kidnapping was all kept secret and out of the news? They say, once the story gets in the papers, you are in the morgue. If you’re the victim…”

  Lost in thought for the moment, Mr. Pisbo ignored his daughter’s opining. These were, he had to admit, interesting times in Chicago, especially in his line of business. These days a private investigator had to be extremely careful what he did, and who he did it for, as it had never been easier to tread on the wrong toes. If you didn’t know who the movers and the shakers were, on both sides of the law in this man’s town, then you could end up in real trouble. And Fred K. Pisbo had enough trouble on his plate dealing with an ex-wife – Velma’s harpy of a mother – to want any more, if it could be helped.

  The thing of it was, while his daughter might well be entirely correct that he was a tad disorganized, Fred was a man who made it his business to know things. And he was pretty sure that Alex’s father, whose business card no doubt purported that he was Mr. Nathan Little, was in actual fact Nate “The Book” Klein. He’d heard rumours about Nate Klein; that the American Building Corp., his successful construction business, was also a front for the Mob, used to launder millions of dollars in illegally generated funds. On the other hand, why he’d relocated from New York to Chicago he had no idea.

  But what Fred did know was that kidnapping the man’s son was a bad thing to do, if you were planning on a long and happy retirement. Whereas, getting the boy back in one piece could do wonders for your reputation, not to say bank balance.

  “Okay, son…” Fred Pisbo sat forward, smiling broadly, and stuck out his right hand. “I’m on board!”

  14 ALL DOWN TO THE TIMING

  Trey sat opposite Velma at a table-for-two towards the back of a diner called diMaggio’s; a popular place this Friday night. There was, disconcertingly, a small, but perky red rose in a cheap glass vase between them.

  This was not quite how he’d seen his evening playing out, but once he’d let slip that he was going to have to make up some story for Mrs. Cooke about why he was home early from the dinner he was supposed to be at, Velma had insisted he ate with them. Her father had agreed and put on quite a snappy hat, taking them down to the restaurant where he then said he had some work to do and he’d be back. Leaving Trey alone with a girl. One he hardly knew, and, on top of that, someone he was not at all sure what he thought about.

  It was Velma who broke the awkward silence.

  “They do great spaghetti and meatballs here. Also, the osso bucco is delicious, if you like veal that is, but then it should be as these guys who run this place are all from Milan. I think I might have the Kansas City strip steak, though, seeing as it’s Friday night and Mr. Pisbo’s paying.”

  “D’you do that often?”

  “Do what?” Velma frowned as she watched the busboy put two glasses of water on the table, along with some breadsticks.

  “Pretend to work up there,” Trey jerked his head back, “in the office.”

  “Pretend?” Velma’s mouth made a small, annoyed “o”. “I like that! I get a dollar a day when I’m there, and I earn it, buster…I put in the hours, let me tell you.”

  “But you got me down here under false pretences! Your dad might’ve not taken the case, and then where would I have been? Nowhere, is where!”

  “But he did, didn’t he. Right?”

  As Velma was, in fact, one hundred per cent right, Trey knew there was little point in trying to push the argument any further. And although an apology for leading him up the garden path would be nice, he realized one was highly unlikely. Velma, he could see, was not so big on being sorry.

  “You think he can figure this out, your dad?”

  “Sure.” Velma snapped a breadstick in two and offered half to Trey, who took it. “He’s good.”

  “He is?”

  “Why d’you sound so surprised?” Velma’s lips pursed, two sharp frown lines appearing between her eyebrows.

  “I didn’t! I meant ‘I’m sure he is’.”

  “Just seeing as I help out doesn’t mean he can’t afford a secretary…he just had to let the last one go as she was about as useful as a sieve if you were thirsty. She was blonde, out of a bottle, which also didn’t help. I think my dad only employed her to give my mother the heebies. Which it did, I can tell you. I told him to make sure the next one has a face could break mirrors, if he wants an easier life. Which you’d think he would, considering.”

  Trey watched Velma as she talked and flicked through the menu. He had never met anyone capable of carrying on, at length, like she could; truth to tell, he didn’t spend much time with girls his own age, partly out of choice and partly because Mount Vernon Academy was an all-boy institution. Which made Velma something of a curiosity. Picking up his menu, Trey wondered what it was like having parents who got on so bad they ended up hating each other and getting divorced.

  Trey and Velma were about done, having finished off the excellent ice cream sodas they’d chosen for dessert, when Fred Pisbo came back into the diner, pushed another table up next to theirs and sat down.

  “Well, looks like you two have been at the trough,” he said, pushing his hat back and looking over his shoulder. “What’s good tonight, Gino?”

  “Tutto, come sempre!” The elderly man working behind the bar waved his arms in a flamboyant, all-encompassing gesture.

  “How can I choose when everything’s good, Gino?”

  Velma raised her eyebrows. “They do this every time…he’ll have the lasagne, Gino, like he always does! So, Dad, what didya find out?”

  “Oh, this, that and the other…but I got someone coming by later who can maybe help me out some more.”

  “Who?”

  “You ever meet Shady? Shady Jones?” Velma shook her head. “No? Okay, thought he might’ve been up to the office when you were around.”

  “Who is he?” asked Trey.

  “He’s like the invisible man…as in he’s not a very noticeable kind of guy, not someone you remember so much. But he listens, got ears like a bat – not as big, mind you, but he’s a genius at hearing stuff. And, as he’s also a terrific waiter, he gets around some high-table places, not to mention low dives, all over town.”

  “Why’s he called Shady, he crooked as well, Dad?”

  “Nah. Given name’s Shadrach. Got two brothers naturally called Meshach and Abednego; they go by Shack and Abbey, Shady tells me.”

  As Mr. Pisbo explained to Velma that Shady Jones was from the South – somewhere in Alabama, he thought – then went on to enquire about her schoolwork, Trey’s attention wandered and he noticed two men come into the diner. One was short, the other tall, like Laurel and Hardy, except the big guy wasn’t fat and didn’t have a mustache. Gino behind the bar appeared extremely flustered by their arrival, acting like Trey had seen certain people act around his pop when he’d been with him on factory visits. All “Yes, Mr. MacIntyre! No, Mr. MacIntyre! Anything you say, Mr. MacIntyre!”, which was not like Gino had been with any other customers all evening.

  Trey watched as Gino shepherded the two men towards the rear of the restaurant, an episode missed by Mr. Pisbo, who was deep in conversation with his daughter. After a moment’s consideration Trey
pushed his chair back. “Excuse me, but I have to go to the washroom.”

  “Down the back.” Mr. Pisbo nodded the way Gino had walked. “They claim it’s so clean you could eat off the floor, but I would not recommend such a course of action myself… Now, Velma, about your last Math report card…”

  Trey left Velma to explain herself and set off. He actually could do with going to the toilet, but the real thing of it was his gut: he felt sure something was up with those two guys and the old man Gino. And in the last chapter he’d read of How to Become a Private Eye in 10 Easy Lessons, Austin J. Randall had been at pains to point out that a good PI had to develop his instincts and be prepared to rely on them, if he was going to have any chance of getting on in the business. Walking down the narrow, low-lit passage he made a mental note to ask Mr. Pisbo if he’d heard of Austin J. Randall. He might’ve, it being, as his gramps was fond of saying, a very small world.

  A couple of yards down, the passage turned a corner to the right and he saw a door. A sign on it said Toilette, underneath which was written Uomini e Donne. Ignoring it he carried on towards the sound of voices, which were coming from where the corridor took a sharp left. He could hear one person talking fast in a slightly whiney, high-pitched voice; it had to be Gino. Then there was another voice, slower and more emphatic. Gino was not happy, that much was obvious. Trey took a few more very careful steps, then stopped, glancing behind him to check that no one was there, and listened.

  “But Mr. Cavallo…”

  “Look at it this way, old man – it’s like ten dollars a week, and we don’t make you pay for Sunday; so you can go to church, light a few candles and give thanks that you’re being looked after so well. Everyone needs insurance, right?”

  Trey mouthed a silent, triumphal “YES!” to celebrate being right about what was going on, then immediately felt bad, as what was happening would not come under the heading of good news in anybody’s book. Gino was, after all, being shaken down by gangsters.

  “I already got insurance, Mr. Cavallo!”

  “Not like ours, Gino. Ours is very effective…the other type, something happens, they pay; this way, you pay and nothing happens. Nothing. Guaranteed. On the other hand, I see a lot of wood around, and no doubt olive oil, grappa and suchlike…what was that phrase I heard the other day, Ricco? That was it: ‘a highly combustible combination’.”