Never Street

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I make no apology. The brain is not a mechanical device. You can’t just identify the defective component and replace it. Which in a roundabout sort of way brings me to the reason I’m here.”

  “One of your guests skip out on his bill?”

  “They are all accounted for,” he said pleasantly. “My problem is with a former employee. His name is Miles Leander.”

  He spelled it. I wrote it on my telephone pad. “Canned or quit?”

  “I had to let him go. He was an orderly on my staff. He developed a hostile attitude and it was communicating itself to the guests. That was two weeks ago. Now he is attempting to extort money from me.”

  “Extort how?”

  He leaned forward, propping his cigar on the edge of the ashtray. The afternoon sun canting in through the window behind the desk made opaque circles of his spectacles. “I must assure myself of your confidence. Some of the people I help at Balfour House are public figures. I will not remain in practice for long if they misjudge my motives.”

  “I wouldn’t be in business a minute longer if I went around repeating what’s said in this office.”

  He was still for a moment. Then he nodded. “I record some of my sessions with guests on videotape. It’s purely for my own use, for reviewing later. Gestures, expressions, body language often reveal much about a person’s emotions and thought processes that words do not. I find it useful to examine them for these things in private, without distractions.”

  “Do the patients—excuse me, the guests—know you’re filming them?”

  “Absolutely not. People behave differently when they’re aware their words and actions are being recorded. By the time I subtracted suspicion and self-consciousness, I wouldn’t have much left to work with.”

  I doodled on the pad.

  “No one views the tapes but me,” he went on. “When I am not watching them I keep them locked in a fireproof vault I had built into the closet in my office. I possess the only key. I put them away, I take them out. No one handles them but me.”

  “How many are missing?”

  He hesitated. Then he nodded again. “I suppose I had no business coming to you if I did not expect you to behave like a detective. Forty-eight tapes are gone, Mr. Walker. They represent ninety-six one-hour sessions spent with a total of thirty guests. Some were prominent, many were not. The one thing they have in common is they are no longer guests at Balfour. The tapes were removed from the rear of the file, where the old case records are stored prior to destruction, and replaced with blanks.”

  “That’s a lot of tapes to smuggle out all at once. What kind of security do you have?”

  “The doors and windows are wired to alarms, for which the orderlies have codes. Gordon oversees a staff of four to discourage promiscuous comings and goings. These precautions are merely to keep the guests from coming to harm outside; I do not treat dangerous cases, only nervous disorders. It’s my opinion that Leander spread out his theft over a long period to avoid attracting notice. He stole from the defunct file because I would not be likely to review those tapes. What I cannot figure out is how he got into the vault. That key is never out of my possession.”

  “Anyone can take an impression of a lock and have a key made to fit. When did you find out the tapes were gone?”

  “I suspected nothing until ten days ago, when he sent me a copy of one, along with this note.” He removed a fold of ruled paper from his inside pocket.

  I took it. It was ordinary drugstore stock, with holes punched along the left margin for a ring binder. There were five lines block-printed in soft pencil:

  DOC NAHEEN’S GREATEST HITS

  $50,000 IN SMALL BILLS TO MR. BELL

  15001 VERNOR, DETROIT

  SALE ENDS AUGUST 31

  OR WAIT AND TAPE THEM OFF TV FOR FREE

  “Mr. Bell?”

  He made a face and picked up his cigar. “My office is equipped with an old-fashioned sash-pull. It was there when I moved in and I decided to keep it as a charming alternative to the impersonal electronic buzzers one finds in institutions. Whenever an orderly is needed I tug on it and a bell rings at the other end of the house. Leander obviously chose the alias to mock me.”

  “What about the envelope?”

  “It was a common mailer, addressed to me at Balfour in that same hand. It bore a Detroit postmark.”

  “That bell thing is shaky. What makes you so sure it’s Leander?”

  “He was bitter when I dismissed him. He called me a fraud and a charlatan and said it was about time the rest of the world knew what he knew. I have questioned the other orderlies and I’m satisfied none of them had anything to do with the theft. I have no doubt.”

  “I suppose you checked out the Vernor address.”

  “It belongs to a private messenger service, Spee-D-A Couriers. The person I spoke to on the telephone knows nothing about a Mr. Bell, but said I could check back Thursday when the manager returns from vacation. That’s tomorrow.”

  “Being a trained detective I probably would have figured that out. Any idea where Leander is now?”

  “He rented a room in one of the older homes on the island, but the owner informed me he moved out the day after he left my employ, without leaving a forwarding address. The employee application he filled out two years ago listed his sister as next of kin at eleven hundred Sherman in Detroit. When I tried to call there a recording told me the number had been disconnected.”

  I entered the address among the doodles. “What exactly do you want me to do, Doctor?”

  “Get back the tapes, of course. I have no intention of paying fifty thousand dollars for my own property, even if I had that sum.”

  “That’s a tall order. Even if I find him, he won’t have the tapes with him. Even if he does, I can’t separate them from him without committing theft.”

  “But they’re my property!”

  “The cops may not see it that way at first. He might call them just for spite. By the time it’s sorted out, the tapes will be public record. Since your guests didn’t sign releases allowing you to film them, you’re in violation of federal law. Losing your license to practice psychiatric medicine will be the least of your headaches.”

  He scowled through a dense cloud of smoke. “What do you suggest?”

  “Pay the fifty thousand.”

  “I don’t have fifty thousand. Most of what I bring in goes into the upkeep of Balfour House and my malpractice insurance. I could not possibly raise more than twenty thousand, and I will not pay that to a thief. There is no use pressing me.”

  “How much will you pay?”

  “Ten thousand. No more. But I must have every tape and every copy he may have made.”

  “Nobody can guarantee the last part,” I said, “unless I deal with him directly.”

  “And if you do?”

  “Then our options broaden.”

  Twenty-six

  SITTING BACK IN his chair, with one hand resting on one of his heavy thighs and his cigar pointed at the ceiling, Naheen was in listening mode. It would be the attitude he adopted when one of his guests was stretched out on the green leather couch in his office.

  I swiveled away from him, got up, and slid the window up as far as it would go, sucking in the greasy air from the diner down the street, which was fresher than the smoky air inside the office. I propped open the sash with the discarded barrels from a sawed-off shotgun someone had once tried to kill me with—an item of personal expression the doctor had missed—and sat back down, swiveling to face him.

  “I could put the fear of God in him,” I said. “Make him see how lucky he is to have ten thousand dollars to spend on something other than traction and physical therapy. If he comes back on you later with copies to sell, he can count on all of that with interest.”

  “Do you think that would work?”

  “Ask your head orderly. You don’t get to be Gordon’s size in his line of work without having had that kind of conversation a couple of times.” />
  “Why do I need you, if I have Gordon?”

  “You came to me. You didn’t need six years of medical school and a year of residency to come up with the same scenario I just sketched out, so I assume you thought you needed someone with a couple of skills Gordon doesn’t have, like chewing with his mouth closed and tracking down Miles Leander in a city of a little less than a million. How soon can you get the ten grand together?”

  He inhaled through his nose. The cloud actually shrank. “I can have it next Monday.”

  “Friday would be better. The less time Leander has to think about it, the better for us.”

  “You both seem to think my finances are more liquid than they are.”

  “Maybe he’s heard the same rumors I have.”

  I could see his eyes now, large and brown and floating in the magnification of his thick lenses, like olives pickled in their own juice. “What rumors are those?”

  “Your camcorder’s a pretty big secret for such a small island. I was there less than two hours before I heard that you videotape your sessions and then use what’s on the tapes to shake down your guests after they return to the outside.”

  “I’ve heard those rumors. Mackinac is a resort community. The people who run it advertise it as a place to escape from the complexities of the twentieth—and soon the twenty-first—century. The presence of a loony bin in their precious Shangri-La is a distinct irritant. They will do and say anything to discredit me. I am proud to report that Balfour House is the only structure on the island that conforms to all the local building and safety codes. If it did not, I would not still be in business. Unannounced inspections are frequent and remarkably thorough.” Using his finger, he carefully broke off a two-inch column of ash in the tray. “It would not surprise me to learn that Miles Leander is behind most of the rumors. Our relationship has not been cordial since I was forced to upbraid him sharply for his lack of courtesy toward certain of our more troubled guests.”

  “And yet you kept him on for two years.”

  “I am a patient man. Perhaps too patient at times for my own good. It comes with the territory.”

  “Then you deny you’re a blackmailer.”

  “I know nothing about that enterprise beyond what I’ve seen in cheap melodramas. Common sense suggests a blackmailer would be a most difficult person to blackmail. One expects him to take the precautions his victims overlook.”

  “Funny thing about scavengers. They spend so much time angling to put the bite on other people they never think someone might be angling to take a bite out of them.”

  He leaned forward again and pressed out the cigar in the bottom of the ashtray. His expression was pleasant. “I could spend the rest of the afternoon protesting my innocence. Possibly in the end you would be convinced. Meanwhile the reputations of thirty unsuspecting people would have moved that much closer to destruction. I am sworn to regard their suffering as my responsibility. Are you prepared to share it?”

  “Just because no one ever asked me to raise my right hand doesn’t make it any less true for me, Doctor. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me their names.”

  “That would be a serious breach of ethics. Will you accept the job?”

  I glanced at the Auto Show calendar. “Next Thursday’s the thirty-first. With any luck I’ll have this wrapped up by Monday. Give me a thousand for a retainer. It’s something to wave under Leander’s nose if I turn him before you can raise the other nine.”

  He adjusted his glasses, uncapped a fat fountain pen, and wrote out a check in a folder with a marbled leather cover: green, to match the decor of his office. He blew on the ink to dry it, then passed the check across the desk. He had a fine, calligraphic hand.

  He rose. “I’ll be at the Westin until this is resolved. I’ll call you when I have the cash in hand.”

  “Who’s minding the store?”

  “The vacation season is always quiet. The orderlies can manage the few guests on hand, who are there mainly for the rest. The horses, you know: clip-clop, clip-clop. One wonders where the Victorians went for respite.”

  “The Khyber Pass comes to mind.”

  I escorted him to the outer office, where Gordon stood up quickly from the upholstered bench. The springs were slower to react.

  “Thank you, Mr. Walker.” Naheen held out his hand. “You impressed me upon the occasion of our first meeting as a man of wisdom and discretion. I’ve seen nothing today to make me change my mind.”

  “Whatever.” I took the hand and gave it back.

  I waited long enough for them to reach the second landing, then used the smoking stand to prop open the door to the hall and disconnected the pneumatic closer on the inner door. When the place smelled a little less like a bus station in Havana, I closed the doors and went back to the desk.

  The mailer I’d picked up from under the slot was still waiting to be opened. I pulled the tab and tilted it over the blotter. My unlicensed and unregistered Luger slid out.

  I peered inside the envelope. A rectangle of white paper clung to the lining. I reached in and pulled out a half-sheet of Detroit Police Department stationery containing John Alderdyce’s thick scribble:

  You Owe Me.

  Twenty-seven

  THE HOUSE WAS IDENTICAL to all the others on that block of Sherman; not that it had been planned that way, as in a suburban tract, with architects, developers, and builders working in harmony to present a soothing uniformity to a postwar world, but in the way that old people from different families and varied nationalities grow to look like one another from years of being forced to coexist under a communal roof. The sidings, once painted a variety of colors, had puckered and gone a monotonous shade of gray, all the panes in all the windows peered out through a milky opacity created by decades of discoloration, like cataracted eyes, and the squares of lawn, although recently cut, shared the malnourished sepia brown of winter-killed wheat. The cancer came from within. Give the houses a fresh coat of latex, replace the windows, fertilize and manicure the grass, and within a season everything would have reverted to what it was before the improvements. It would be like painting the leaves of a dead tree.

  I parked against the curb and walked up the front walk, which had begun to crumble like cake. The day was hot but not sultry; the sun felt good on my back after the air-conditioned chill in the car. The front door was open. Through the screen I saw the oblong glow of a black-and-white TV and heard the soporific voices of a pair of announcers discussing the recent play in a Tigers game as if it were a shard of pottery discovered in a dig in Ethiopia. I rapped on the screen door’s wooden frame.

  Someone cursed, got up with a grunt from a deep chair, and scuffed up to the door carrying a sawed-off length of baseball bat. He was white, a rarity in that neighborhood, with dirty gray hair, hammocks of skin under his eyes, and white stubble on his chin. He was wrapped up in an old green bathrobe too heavy for the season. A sour smell of medicine and mildew crept out through the holes in the screen.

  “Miles Leander?” I asked.

  He coughed into his fist, a deep, hollow lung-rattler, dripping with congestion, and cleared his throat. “Who wants to know?”

  I pressed one of my cards against the screen. “The name’s Walker. I’m not with the police or the city. I’m not working for a collection agency. All I want is talk.”

  “What about?”

  “That depends on whether your name is Miles Leander.”

  A sly look swam up to the watery surface of his eyes. “I’m Leander.”

  “I doubt it. You’re kind of old to be prying epileptics off the floor of Ha-Ha High.”

  “You’re kind of new to this neighborhood to be calling anybody a liar.”

  A woman’s voice came from the back of the house. “Who is it, Roy?”

  Neither of us reacted at first. Then a baggy leer spread across the stubbled face.

  “Aw, hell,” he said. “I guess the cow’s clear out of the corn.”

  A new face appeared ove
r his left shoulder. The woman’s dusty-copper hair was ratted straight out from her scalp, giving her a surprised appearance. The set of her tired features said it was artifice, that there wasn’t much left that could surprise her. I decided neither of them was as old as I’d thought at first, that we were almost contemporaries. I felt nothing about that at all.

  She squinted at my card, then opened her eyes to read my face. “Can we help you?” She sounded doubtful.

  “You can if you’re Miles Leander’s sister,” I said.

  “I’m Susan Thibido. This is my husband, Roy. Miles is my brother, but we haven’t seen him in days. He stayed with us a couple of days last week, but I don’t know where he is now. Is he in trouble?”

  “Tell him not to come to us if he is,” Roy said. “We got trouble enough to last.”

  “We wouldn’t if you’d go back to work.”

  “I’m sick.” He coughed, providing evidence. “I been sick three weeks. How’s a man supposed to look for work when he’s sick? I don’t see you bringing home no steaks.”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  He made a noise in his nose. “Delivering papers. Scab work. All the regulars are on strike, or didn’t you notice?”

  “You’re a steamfitter. The steamfitters aren’t on strike.”

  “They ain’t sick, neither.” He coughed again.

  I scraped the screen with the edge of the card, just to make noise. “Miles isn’t in trouble yet. He might be if I don’t talk to him soon. He’s playing a dangerous game.”

  “Drugs?” Her voice dropped an octave.

  “Not to my knowledge. He’s got a chance to climb out from under and make a couple of bucks besides, but the clock’s ticking. I won’t be able to help him once the cops come in.”

  “I told him not to take that job. You can’t work around crazy people without it rubbing off. Is it about the job?”

  “Kind of. I’m doing some work for his old boss. There’s a sum of money involved. For you, too, but only if I get to speak to him. Are you sure you don’t know where he is?”

  “How much money?” Thibido asked.

  “He’s always been independent. We only see him when he needs a place to sleep. He might be staying with one of his old girlfriends, but I don’t remember any of their names. Some of them came and went so fast I never knew what they were called. Is this money honest?”