Peeper

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Better not. Might make someone suspicious.” Standing to one side of the window, he peered out between the curtains.

  “Ralph, what’s wrong?”

  “To begin with, wieners come in packages of ten and you can only get eight buns to the bag.”

  “So?”

  “So no matter what you do you wind up with either two extra wienies or six extra buns. There ain’t no way around it and the rest of life’s just like it.”

  “I can fix you something if you’re hungry.”

  “Naw, the Ding Dong spoiled my appetite.”

  “Could you repeat that? I just got back from class and my head’s still full of Abnormal Psychology.”

  “Mine too. What time is it? I got coffee grounds in my watch.”

  “A little after six.”

  He turned on her portable TV set. The news was full of election campaigns and other natural disasters. “This just in,” said the announcer.

  “Ralph?”

  “Sh.”

  “The owner of an adult bookstore downtown was discovered dead in his apartment an hour ago, the victim of an apparent strangling. Vincenzo Capablanca, age fifty-one …”

  April stared at the live footage of Ralph’s building. “Isn’t that—?”

  “Shut up.”

  “… a tenant, who summoned the police. Police pursued a suspect from the building, who escaped in a late-model red Buick Riviera.…”

  “Ralph!”

  “… suspect’s name has not yet been released. We will return after this with an update on that scandal involving Democratic State Senator Graver Greene and the Clawson girls’ curling team.” The announcer’s face dissolved to a close-up of Ed McMahon holding a package of Little Soldier condoms. Ralph turned off the set.

  “You didn’t do it, did you?” April asked.

  “I ain’t been to Clawson in months.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Some geek named Carpenter did him in my apartment. The old lady from upstairs seen me moving the body.”

  “Today?”

  “Couple of days back. It just never come up in conversation.”

  “Does this have anything to do with my sister?”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No. Every time I’m there she’s under sedation. It does have something to do with her.”

  Ralph scratched under his left arm. “Listen, you wouldn’t happen to have a can of Black Flag in the house.”

  “No. Answer me.”

  “Lysol might do it.”

  “Ralph!”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. This monsignor bought the farm in your sister’s bed. I got rid of the body for her and now this Carpenter guy that works for the bishop wants to do me. Your sister and my landlord just got in his way.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since I found out that what happened to your sister wasn’t no accident. Burn this, okay?” He took off the jacket and held it out.

  She didn’t take it. “You knew all along and you didn’t say anything.”

  “It was too complicated. Listen, I’d burn it myself, only I can’t go out.”

  “What are you doing, blackmailing the bishop?”

  “Me? Hell no.” She was quicker than he’d expected.

  She unlocked the door and flung it open. “Get out of here.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll yell rape.”

  “I was going to yell that last night, only I didn’t have enough wind.”

  “Rape!”

  “If I go out, they’ll nab me for Vinnie’s murder.”

  “Rape!”

  “When O’Leary and Lieutenant Bustard find out, they’ll hang Lyla on me too.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Okay, okay!” he said quickly. “I was knocking a little off, who wouldn’t? Now the bishop’s dead too. I’m pretty sure I know who sicced Carpenter on him and Vinnie and Lyla, but I don’t know why. I can’t find out till tonight, which is why I got to hide out here.”

  The campus officer Ralph had seen downstairs came to the door with his revolver in his hand. He had gray hair and a beer belly and a face like a doubled fist. “Who hollered rape?”

  “Me,” Ralph said.

  The officer covered him. “This guy try something, miss?”

  “April—”

  “Be quiet, you! What about it, miss? We’ll put this guy in County with Big Cecil Norden. He ain’t had a woman in two years.”

  “You ought to introduce him to this guy Warren in the Wayne lockup.”

  “Shut up, you! Miss?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “Nobody yelled rape here.”

  “You sure? He looks like a prevort to me.”

  “You ain’t no Broderick Crawford yourself, Jack.”

  “I’m sure. Thanks for checking it out, Officer.”

  “No problem.” He put away the weapon. “Sorry about that, bub. We get some maggots here sometimes.”

  “You’ll know what to do with this, then.” Ralph held out the jacket.

  The officer left without taking it. To April, Ralph said, “That mean I get to stay till tonight?”

  “I want to find out who hurt my sister.”

  “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You’ve got the post for it.” She smiled.

  Uh-oh, thought Ralph.

  She took the jacket from him, opened the window, and hurled it out. Then she plucked off his hat and threw it after the jacket.

  “Hey!”

  “Rape,” she whispered.

  On the sidewalk in front of the house, a scraggly-bearded man in patched trousers and a pair of dark glasses held together with a Band-Aid set down his scuffed cello case, picked up the jacket, looked it over, and put it on. Then he retrieved the cello case and strolled away, scratching himself and leaving the hat where it had landed. It was still there when Ralph came staggering out three hours later.

  Chapter 20

  The driver Ralph drew on his way back to Detroit wasn’t a born-again Christian or any other kind, judging by the fact that the name on his license was Muhammed Daktari. The radio station he listened to played nothing but reggae, which had Ralph’s head beating in counterpoint by the time they reached Romulus. An updated news report identified Ralph by name as the suspect wanted for questioning in the murder of Vincenzo Capablanca and provided a description that depressed him deeply. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind to keep his face in shadow from the moment he got into the cab.

  He got out three blocks away from Lovechild Confidential Inquiries, tipped more than his customary quarter so that the driver wouldn’t have reason to remember him, and walked the rest of the way. It was a bitterly cold night, one of those glaciers-approaching evenings that Michigan gets halfway between the sopping heat of August and the sterile polar blasts of January, and it caught Ralph in his shirtsleeves. Even worse, he lengthened his journey by crossing the street whenever another pedestrian appeared on his side. Once a police cruiser turned into his block and he clucked behind a hedge on the front lawn of a funeral home, not ten minutes after somebody’s dog had made a stop on the same spot. When he resumed walking, his nose was running and he stank to heaven, and it wasn’t even Saturday night.

  “Ralph!”

  The name rang off the walls of the shallow portal to the Lovechild offices. Ralph was halfway down the block, running hard, when he realized it was Neal English who had called to him. He reversed directions and climbed the steps to the door a second time. Neal was huddled in the shadows of the entryway, hands in the pockets of a light topcoat with a fur collar. He looked like a statue of Lincoln.

  “Man, you got guts. They got the bloodhounds out looking for you.”

  “I think I just missed one.” Ralph scraped his heel on the edge of the top step.

  “So did you do it?”

  “Hell no. It was somebody’s mutt.”

  “I mean your landlord. Couldn’t you make the
rent this month?”

  “That was Carpenter.”

  “This the same Carpenter did the bishop and tried to do the hooker?”

  “Ain’t one of him enough?”

  “What’s he got, a bad case of piles?”

  “He whacked Vinnie on account of Vinnie and Carpenter both showed up in my apartment at the same time looking for the film. I think he whacked Steelcase because Steelcase was fixing to buy me off. I figure he’s running his own game, or else he’s in with Willard Newton.”

  “The secretary of state?”

  “The attorney general. Jesus Christ.”

  “The guy on the news said a witness saw you with Vinnie the last time anyone saw him.”

  “That was Mrs. Gelatto. She’s blind as a boot. Vinnie was already dead then. I was moving him from my place to his.”

  “That’s two bodies in one week. You in training for the coroner’s office?”

  Ralph stamped his feet. “Where the hell is Waverly with that key? We’re tripping over brass monkey balls out here.”

  “You’re too hot to be cold. I think you just set a new record for deep shit.”

  Chuck Waverly joined them moments later. The young operative’s red hair was touseled and the cold had reddened his cheeks. He looked just like Howdy Doody.

  “Mr. Poteet! I wasn’t sure you’d show up. Did you know the police are looking for you?”

  “It was Carpenter.”

  “Who’s Carpenter?”

  Neal said, “Carpenter’s the one did the bishop and tried to do the hooker.”

  “What hooker?”

  “All I know is it’s got something to do with Willard Newton.”

  “The ambassador to Norway?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ralph said. “Open the fucking door. My ass has got icicles.”

  Waverly produced a key and unlocked the glass door, then threw an arm in front of Ralph when he started inside. “I’ve got to disarm the burglar alarm.”

  Ralph watched him press a sequence of buttons on a keypad on the wall inside the door. “I didn’t know the place had a burglar alarm.”

  “Mrs. Lovechild had it installed right after she fired you.”

  “I quit.”

  “We can go in now.”

  Ralph and Neal accompanied Waverly through the deserted reception area and down one of the pastel corridors. When the young man reached for a wall switch, Ralph stopped him.

  “It’s all right,” Waverly said. “I have clearance to come in after hours. It isn’t like we’re breaking in.”

  Neal peered at Ralph through the gloom. “Is he putting us on?”

  “The only thing Chuck ever put on was his shorts; the kind with little teddy bears on them. Come on, kid.” He put an arm across Waverly’s shoulders. “Let’s you and me and Neal go shoot some clams.”

  The computer room was lined with dials and rows of colored panels, with a lagoonlike space in the center where one person could sit comfortably at a console with a screen and a keyboard. Neal swept past Waverly as the young man was explaining the system, claimed the seat, and began working the keyboard like Lon Chaney at the organ. The rapid clacking of his fingers striking the keys reminded Ralph of the set of battery-operated teeth he had given his wife for their third anniversary.

  “Entry code,” Neal demanded.

  “Watson.” Bathed in the green glow of the screen, Waverly’s face was little-boyish.

  Neal tapped out the password. The screen flashed instructions Ralph couldn’t read. Neal’s fingers hesitated only briefly, then flew over the board.

  “Security access.”

  “Marple.”

  More clacking. The letters on the screen looked like little bugs to Ralph; but then his good eye wasn’t much better than the glass one at night.

  “Secondary security access. Jesus.”

  “Spade,” Waverly said.

  Neal paused. “Who programmed this system?”

  “Mrs. Lovechild.”

  “I’m starting to see why she chose this line of work.”

  Ralph said, “She even looks a little like Bulldog Drummond.”

  “Speaking of dogs, did one take a dump in here?”

  Ralph looked down at his shoes. “Hell, I bet I left a trail of shit all the way.”

  “Why should tonight be different from any other time?” Neal entered the code. “Okay, boys and girls, we’ve got the full power of six miles of electronic pasta behind us. Now we’re going to try and break into the Justice Department files. If we’re in luck, the security code on their end will have something to do with Willard Newton, the Justice Department, or the attorney general’s office. If we’re not, some junior clerk programmed the street address of the first girl he ever fucked and we can be sitting here running possibilities from now until the next time the Tigers win the World Series. Start spitballing.”

  “We don’t have to,” Waverly said. “The system has a decoding system and memory banks full of current events updated to the first of this month. Enter any one of the three headings you mentioned and it will run all the combinations quicker than you could read them.”

  Neal whistled. “What’d your boss do, hit the lottery?”

  “She’s running an account. I figure she’ll have it paid off about the time someone donates the system to the Smithsonian.”

  “Beats the hell out of my Kaypro.”

  “Kaypro’s overrated. You can get all of this year’s features on last year’s Apple and eat for a week at the London Chop House on the difference.”

  “Fellas?” Ralph said.

  “I had an Apple. That’s why I went to Kaypro.”

  “You must’ve got a bad one. I’m coming up on three years on mine without a service call.”

  “Fellas?”

  “I had nothing but,” Neal said. “One time a cloud passed in front of the sun and I lost thirty pages of actuaries into the stratosphere.”

  “You must’ve done something wrong. I bet you hit the Delete key by accident.”

  “I didn’t even have my hands on the keyboard.”

  Ralph placed two fingers in his mouth and blew. The whistle that resulted wasn’t as shrill as he’d hoped, but the other two stopped arguing and looked at him.

  “This shit is fascinating, I mean, really,” Ralph said. “Hey, I got a hard-on just listening. But right now some guy in Washington’s sitting on his fat butt behind a big desk drawing steaks and chops on my picture, and you can jam your Kaypro up your Apple for all I care whose is bigger. Can we get back to work?”

  “There isn’t a steak or a chop on you, Ralph. You’re all rump roast. Here goes.” Neal entered WILLARD NEWTON, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, and JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, then sat back and folded his arms.

  “The computer in Washington will tell us when we’ve hit the right code,” Waverly said.

  The screen went blank for a moment, then began to fill. Ralph, who still couldn’t read the jade-green letters, was transfixed by the little square dot that towed the lines across the screen, left to right, left to right, row after row. Whenever it finished pulling out a line it had to run back and pull out the next. He felt a kinship with that little square dot.

  When the screen was full, it went blank again and started over, presumably with fresh code words. It filled sixteen times in the first half hour by Ralph’s count. He had no idea how many times it filled within the next, because by the end of it his attention had wandered. Modern detective work, he decided, was as interesting as scratching one’s own balls, with none of the satisfaction.

  Twenty minutes into the second hour, the little dot stopped as if to rest, flashing on and off.

  “Crapped out,” said Neal. “Any other suggestions?”

  “Try ‘Federal government,’” Waverly suggested.

  “Uh-uh. We’d be here for a month.”

  “‘Carpenter,’” said Ralph.

  The screen tripped out information for thirty seconds.

  Neal said, “Ten Carpenters with
the D.C. regional office. Six file clerks, two of them women, two couriers, a field operative, and an assistant regional director.”

  “Try the field operative.”

  “Carpenter, Howard P.” Neal tapped out the name, waited. “‘Deceased 3/10/87.’”

  “Shit. Try the assistant director.”

  He did. “‘Carpenter, James A. Born Camden, N.J., 9/22/38, father—’”

  “Too old. The couriers.”

  One was in his early twenties. The other was black.

  “I thought they couldn’t put nothing about race in a personnel file.”

  “The applicant doesn’t have to,” Waverly said. “The interviewer can, for statistical purposes.”

  “What’s left?” Ralph asked.

  “Four male file clerks, from the first names,” said Neal.

  “Run ’em.”

  Of the four, two were black. The third, Christian name Morgan, was on maternity leave for six months. Alvin Carpenter, the one remaining, matched the Carpenter Ralph knew in race, sex, age, and height, but not in weight.

  “He looked like he’s been sick. Ask it where he is now.”

  The screen changed. “It says he’s on temporary reassignment to Anchorage.”

  “A blind. Feed in Bishop Philip Steelcase, see do we get a match.”

  “Interface,” Waverly corrected.

  “In yours, you little pisspot. What’d I do to you?”

  “Computer terminology, Mr. Poteet.”

  “Oh.”

  Neal said, “The machine says it doesn’t know Steelcase from Fred’s donkey.”

  “Cover-up,” said Ralph.

  “Who would use a file clerk to commit murder?”

  “Who’d send one to Alaska? What’s he going to file, polar bears? He’s no more a file clerk than I am.”

  “Mr. Poteet, you are a file clerk.”

  “Not since Lucy Loveapples fired me.”

  Neal said, “I thought you quit.”

  Ralph pointed at the screen. “How do we get this thing to spill its guts?”

  “Enter ‘Dismas,’” Waverly said.

  Neal looked at him. “What’s that?”

  “It isn’t a what, it’s a who. Dismas was the thief who died on the cross with Christ. He’s the patron saint of thieves and clandestine activities.”

  Neal went on looking at him.

  “I mean, since we’re talking about the Church.”