“I did love her,” he said, his voice barely audible, “although I had great difficulty showing it.”
“Well, it must have been difficult. I understand she blamed you for her mother’s death. That couldn’t have made it any easier for you.”
“Her mother was a whore, but I could not—I would not have her find that out.”
“So you sent her away.”
“She wanted to go, and I agreed, as I told you in New York.”
“Mr. Saberhagen, Cross killed your daughter, didn’t he?”
He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”
“How did you find out?”
“He came to my hotel. He wanted to sell me a tape, a videotape of a movie he said Melanie had made.” He closed his eyes and squeezed his hands together very tightly. “And then he showed it to me.”
“I know what was on the tape.”
“Filth!” he said, separating his hands and bringing both fists down on the desk. “I was supposed to pay him for it that night, but when I got there the door was open and he was on the floor in the bedroom. He had been badly beaten, and he wanted me to call an ambulance.”
He stopped, opened his hands, and examined the palms. I decided not to push him.
“I guess he thought I wasn’t going to, because he started babbling. He told me how he hadn’t meant to kill Melanie. He told me that he loved her, but that she was going to leave him.”
Alan Cross loved Melanie Saberhagen? Wouldn’t that be ironic if it was true? Cross the pussyhound falling for a young, confused girl he’d recruited for porno movies. I didn’t believe it for a minute. I thought it infinitely more likely that Melanie had wised up and not only wanted to leave, but wanted to blow the whistl on Cross. Maybe he slapped her around a couple of times and maybe the little girl who had been studying karate for years had decided to fight back. Cross might not have intended to kill her, but people have been known to get killed even during sparring sessions, when contact is forbidden. This would have been nothing like a sparring session . . .
Anyway, they were both dead, so who would ever know the truth?
“I couldn’t believe my ears,” he said, “and then I couldn’t believe my eyes, because the next thing I knew my hands were over his mouth and nose, cutting off his air, and he was too weak to fight me.” He looked at me through tortured eyes and said, “I am not a physical man.”
“The circumstances were extraordinary.”
“Yes, they were,” he said, “they were. I knew I had killed him, and I left quickly. That night I tried to think what to do, and the next day I hired you to find Melanie. It was the only thing I could think to do. Then I came home and waited for you to call me and tell me that you found her body.”
“Which I did.”
“I tried to seem unaffected by her death.”
“You succeeded admirably,” I said, remembering the distaste I’d felt for him at the morgue.
“I did not want to seem as if I had a motive, just in case . . .”
“Apparently you thought it out very thoroughly.”
“Yes, but you were right a moment ago, Mr. Jacoby, when you said that I couldn’t just forget . . . killing someone. I remember that, and I still feel the shame of denying loving my daughter.” He stared at me and said, “Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been hoping you—or someone—would come for me?”
“Sure, I’d believe you, Mr. Saberhagen.”
He nodded, then picked up his phone and buzzed his secretary.
“Miss Hall, would you please get me two tickets on the next flight to New York?” He listened a moment, then said, “First class, of course.”
Of course.
Thirty-Nine
Lee was out when I went to Wood’s place to give him the tape.
“You don’t know how I appreciate this, Jack,” he said, holding it tightly in both hands as if he was afraid I’d try to take it back. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you did.”
“Let’s talk, Wood.”
“About what? A fee? Hell, man, I’ll pay you as much as—”
“Not a fee, Wood. I want to know what happened between you and Cross.”
He stared at me for a few moments, tapping the tape against the knuckles of one hand.
“I lost it, Jack,” he said, finally. “For the first time in my life I really lost control. Cross was making remarks about Lee—” he stopped there and started pacing the room. I knew he was going to tell me something that he normally wouldn’t.
“I love that woman more than anything, Jack. I think you know that.” I did. “When he started talking about her I couldn’t stop myself. I started beating on him and I couldn’t stop. He tried to fight back but he was no match. Dammit it, Jack, I wanted to kill him!”
“You didn’t,” I said. “Saberhagen took care of that for you.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one that made it happen. I’m not proud of that, you know, but I really think that if it all happened again, I’d do it the same way.” He looked down at the tape and said, “I’d never let anyone hurt her.”
I was about to say something when we heard a key in the door.
“It’s Lee,” he said, with something akin to panic on his normally placid face. “Stall her while I stash this?”
“Sure,” I said. I was enjoying this side of Wood, a side I was not normally privy to. I could picture him running around the apartment trying to find someplace to hide the tape, for which he had suffered through a lot.
I went to stall Lee for as long as he needed.
With the case over I finally had time to do something I’d been wanting to do—spend time with Alison. She got a Sunday night off from Billy, but as it turned out we spent it at Bogie’s, eating dinner and listening to a guest speaker at one of Billy and Karen’s “Sinister Sundays.” The speaker was an author named Mallory, who was also signing copies of his book Kill Their Darlings.
Alison wanted to hear all about the case. I told her how Hocus had hit the ceiling when I returned from Detroit with Saberhagen, because I had gone without telling him first. He had calmed down when all the facts became known—and that was when Vadala hit the ceiling. But in spite of the way he felt about Wood—and me—Vadala was a good cop and he was glad to have been saved from sending an innocent man to jail for life.
I didn’t tell her that after Hocus had calmed down, I’d asked him check with Vice to see who was doing business in porno movies. My plan had been to give whoever it was a call and whisper “Piper” in his ear, but when I found out that the “man” was Cagey Carl himself, I decided to forget it. If Piper was taking a bite out of Carl Jr.’s action, I wished him luck. They’d butt heads eventually anyway, and without my help.
As for Robert Saberhagen—well, Heck had himself another client.
“Did you take a fee from your friend Wood?” Alison asked.
“He sent me a check, but I sent it back to him in pieces.”
“That was nice of you.”
“Not really. As it turns out, I also got a check from Paula Bishop as a token of her appreciation. That one I cashed.”
“It sounds like you did a wonderful job, Jack.”
“There was a lot of luck involved.”
She put her hand on mine and said, “I think you’re being modest.”
She was a nice girl, maybe the kind I wouldn’t have minded spending some time with.
“How about helping me out with this?” I asked, showing her the real estate section of The New York Times.
“What’s that for?”
“I think it’s time I found an apartment of my own and got out of Billy and Karen’s back room.”
She made a face and at that point Karen came walking over, smiling her matchmaker smile. When she saw the newspaper her expression changed.
“Since when do you read the Times?”
“Since I started looking for an apartment—”
“That’s nonsense—”
“No it’s not,” I argue
d. “It’s time I found my own place.”
“But we like having you around,” Karen said, “don’t we, Alison?”
Alison looked at me and said, “Very much.”
“I’ll still be around,” I said. “I’m, uh, going to have to give up my office on Fifth Avenue. Can’t handle the rent anymore.”
It was true. I was sorry to have to give it up, since that had been the only office Eddie Waters had ever had, but Fifth Avenue rent was just too much for me to make every month.
“That means I’ll need some place to use as an office from time to time. Think Billy would agree to that?”
Karen smiled her lovely smile and said, “Why not? If we let you sleep there, we’ll let you do anything—well, almost anything.”
Somebody called Karen’s name and she said, “See you two later,” and hurried off.
“Well,” Alison said, taking part of the real estate section, “Since that’s settled I guess we’d better start finding you an apartment.”
“Yes,” I said, staring at her while she frowned over the paper, “I guess we’d better.”
Afterword
The first two Jacoby novels—Eye in the Ring and Beaten to a Pulp—were published by Avon as paperback originals. The books suffered from a few missteps. An editor “forgot” to use a blurb from Elmore Leonard that was worth killing for. And the art department seemed to have no idea what a “pulp” magazine was—a handicap when portraying the second novel’s MacGuffin. I decided the third Jacoby should go elsewhere, and make the leap into hardcover. We managed to convince St. Martin’s Press of that, as well.
Once I signed the contract with SMP I was very happy. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly. The lady editor who bought Full Contact promptly left and was replaced by a very young man in his first editorial position. He was, however, enthusiastic and sent the book out for as many good blurbs as we could get.
Shortly before the galleys were due I ran into Harlan Ellison at the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. Harlan—who I have no bad stories about—told me he enjoyed my boxing mysteries, and if my editor wanted to send him the galleys of the new one he’d be happy to supply a blurb. I was elated and immediately gave his address to my editor. The galleys were sent to him, and we didn’t hear a word until one day he called my editor and said, “I was going to drop you a postcard and tell you and tell you I didn’t have time to read the book, but then I made the mistake of starting it.” He said he couldn’t put it down, and gave us a very nice quote. Thank you, Harlan.
Of course, my editor also sent the book to Robert B. Parker for a quote and when I asked what Parker’s reply had been he said, “You don’t want to know.”
So far my experience with St. Martin’s had been very good. I had very specific ideas about the cover, which I eagerly expressed to my editor. The book not only featured my boxing P.I., but also had a karate connection. So I proposed a cover that showed the cliché P.I. in his fedora and trench coat, but the coat should be open, revealing a karate gi underneath, complete with black belt. I thought that was brilliant.
Finally, when they had the artwork done my editor sent a photo copy of it. It was a completely black cover with a seemingly disembodied hand performing a karate chop. That was it! I expressed my dismay, of course, but he said that was what the cover was going to be, period.
The book came out, got nice reviews, but sales were such that SMP and I decided I should create a new series.
Miles Jacoby went on hiatus after three well received but not best-selling books.
Robert J. Randisi
About the Author
Robert J. Randisi, recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, is a publishing phenomenon. With more than five hundred novels under his belt, he shows no sign of slowing down. His latest work includes The End of Brooklyn, which Booklist in its starred review called “dark, brooding and thoroughly compelling.” The six-volume Miles Jacoby series, reissued by Perfect Crime, brings back the prize-fighter PI in novels as infused with the harmonies of New York as a Canarsie cab driver. “If [it] moved any faster you’d have to nail it down to read it,” said Elmore Leonard of the first Jacoby book. Described by Booklist as “the last of the pulp writers,” Randisi has published in the western, mystery, horror, science fiction and men’s adventure genres. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., and from 1973 through 1981 was a civilian employee of the New York City Police Department, working out of the Sixty-SeventhPrecinct in Brooklyn. After forty-one years in New York, he now lives in Clarksville, Missouri, with writer Marthayn Pelegrimas in a small house overlooking the Mississippi.
Also by Robert J. Randisi
THE GUILT EDGE
232 pages. $13.95. ISBN: 978-0-9825157-3-0
THE BOTTOM OF EVERY BOTTLE
186 pages. $12.95. ISBN: 978-09825157-1-6
THE SHAMUS WINNERS VOLUME I (1982-1995)
336 PAGES. $14.95. ISBN: 978-0-9825157-4-7
THE SHAMUS WINNERS VOLUME II (1996-2009)
282 pages. $14.95. ISBN: 978-0-9825157-6-1
Available at bookstores, Amazon, and at ww.PerfectCrimeBooks.com
Full Contact Page 23
