“Please sit.”
He glared at me. Then he sat.
I squatted before him and started to tape his ankle to the chair leg. He tried to kick me.
“Hey, Jack, I’m going to do this either while you’re awake or while you’re out cold. What’s it going to be?”
I gave him a few seconds to think it over, then I taped his ankles to the chair legs.
“Now we can talk.” I pulled the tape from his mouth, letting it hang from his cheek by one end.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Why are you looking for Martin Blyleven?”
“Fuck you.”
“Where can I find Manny?”
“Fuck you.”
“Jack, Jack, Jack. I hope that’s the whiskey talking.”
I slapped the tape over his mouth, dragged him and the chair to the wall, and tipped him back so that the front legs and his feet were off the floor. I untied one of his grubby athletic shoes and pulled it off.
“Whew. Time for Odor-Eaters, don’t you think?”
I tried to peel off his sock, but I’d taped it to his leg. I took out the switchblade and clicked it open. Jack’s eyes grew wide.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to stick you. It’s not my style.”
I carefully cut off his soiled sock, revealing a stubby foot, as pale and blue-veined as a cave fish. I folded the knife and put it away. Then I opened the paper sack on the table and withdrew a small propane tank.
“Here we are.”
It was a shiny blue steel cylinder, about eighteen inches long and three inches in diameter. The nozzle poked straight out the top end for a few inches, then bent at a forty-five-degree angle. I turned the brass knob at the base of the nozzle. Gas hissed. It sounded evil, even to me. I struck a match, held it near the nozzle, and the gas ignited in a long, pale-blue flame. I adjusted the knob, slowly bringing the flame in until the tip was as hard and pointed as a blue spike.
“Perfect.”
I squatted before Jack’s bare foot. He watched me with wild eyes, breathing rapidly through his nose.
“Actually, I didn’t have to take off your shoe, you know.”
I picked it up and held the point of the flame to the sole. The synthetic rubber began to smoke and crackle and drip. It took less than a minute to burn a hole completely through. A rancid, eye-watering odor hung in the air.
“Believe me, it would stink a lot more if your foot was still inside.”
I tossed the smoldering shoe in the sink. Then I carefully set the tank and its hungry flame on the floor where Jack could see it. He watched me with great interest, all traces of whiskey fog burned away.
I was fairly sure he was ready to talk. But I wanted to be absolutely certain. Because there was no way in hell I wanted to go through with this. Not with Jack, not with anybody.
I said, “The guy at the hardware store told me the tank held enough for two hours or so. But you seem like a tough guy, and I didn’t know if that would be enough.” I lifted another tank from the sack. “So I bought two. One for each foot.”
I dragged the other chair before him and sat down.
“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll ask a question, and you answer. If I don’t like the answer I’ll burn a hole in your foot and ask it again. How does that sound?”
His eyes moved from my face to the propane tank and back. They stayed there.
“Oh, right, the tape.” I peeled it gently from his mouth, and the words spilled out.
“None of it was my idea, I was just hired to do a job, I’ve got nothing against you personally, I was just following orders, okay? Manny paid me and Wedge and we did what—”
“Slow down. Why are you looking for Martin Blyleven?”
“I’m not looking for him. I don’t even know who the fuck he is. It’s Manny’s show.”
“What’s Manny’s full name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, Jack.” I reached down for the propane tank.
“Listen to me, goddammit! I never saw the guy in my life before yesterday. He’s up here from Tucson.”
“Oh?”
“That’s all I know about him. Other than he’s connected.”
“Connected? You mean Mafia?”
Jack nodded. “They tell me he’s a stone-cold killer, although you wouldn’t know it to look at him.”
“Who’s they?”
“Fat Pauli DaNucci. His people, I mean.”
“That’s who hired you?”
Jack nodded. “Me and Wedge sometimes get business from him. Well, not him directly, but through his people. Collecting gambling debts and so on. Nothing big. You can’t get into the big stuff unless you’re a pie-zon.”
“Why does DaNucci want Blyleven?”
“He doesn’t want him. It’s someone in Arizona, the one who sent Manny. The way I get it is DaNucci is just doing a favor for this big-deal Mafia guy down there, letting him hire some of his part-time muscle. Me and Wedge.”
I knew who DaNucci was, most people around Denver did. A big frog in a little pond. Denver was more or less in the center of a vast wasteland, as far as the Mafia was concerned, with Las Vegas to the west, Kansas City to the east, Minneapolis to the north, and Phoenix (or maybe now it was Tucson) to the south. DaNucci had no real power outside of this small province. But if any of the big guys did business here, they talked to him first. He might be small, but his guns could kill you just as dead as theirs.
“Who’s the guy in Arizona?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“But you’re sure he’s the one who sent Manny.”
He nodded, glancing at the blue flame waiting patiently near his foot. “After we left your apartment yesterday, he mentioned it. ‘My boss in Tucson isn’t going to like this’ is what he said.”
“Why does Manny want Blyleven?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“And you’ve never heard of Martin Blyleven before?”
“Never.”
“What about Lawrence Foster?” The pilot.
“No.”
“Or Stan Lessing?” The chess player.
“Him neither.”
“When you were in my apartment, Manny said I’d been asking questions around town about Blyleven. Who told him that?”
“I don’t know. Well, wait.” Jack frowned. “He did say something.”
“What?”
“When we went to your place, I asked him who you were. He said he’d never heard of you before. So I asked him how he was sure you were the guy he wanted. He gave me this funny sort of smile, cold, you know? And he said, ‘Would God lie?’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“How the fuck should I know? But those were his exact words.”
“Where is Manny now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he go back to Tucson?”
“You wish.” Jack actually smirked—a difficult thing to do when you’re wrapped in duct tape, tipped back in a chair, and wearing only one shoe. “He’s not through with you yet.”
“Meaning what?”
“He paid off me and Wedge, three hundred apiece. Said he didn’t need us anymore. Said he could deal with you himself.”
“Deal with me.”
“That’s what he said.”
Swell. “But you and Wedge are out of it.”
“We are now.”
I clicked open the switchblade. “Because if I thought you weren’t …”
“Hey, look,” he said quickly, his smirk a distant memory, “as far as I’m concerned, you and I are square, okay? I hit you and you hit me. You’ll never see me again.”
I guess I believed him. Not that there was much I could do about it now. I sure as hell couldn’t turn him into the cops, not after what I’d done here. So I turned off the propane tank, set his chair down on all fours, and cut the tape from his ankles and chest.
He stood and turned sideways, holding out his taped
wrists.
I packed up my toys in the paper sack. I left Jack’s knife on the table.
“Hey. My hands.”
“If you can’t cut yourself loose, Jack, go next door and ask for help. But wait until a decent hour, all right? People are sleeping over there.”
I left him standing in the kitchen, his shoe still smoldering in the sink.
17
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING I woke up tired. Four hours sleep isn’t what it used to be.
But after half a hundred push-ups, twice as many sit-ups, a quick shower, and a shave I felt okay. I wondered how Jack felt. A lump on his head and a hole in his shoe. It sounded like a country-and-western song. I was a little troubled, though, by what I might have done if he’d refused to talk. How far would I have gone with the propane burner? I wasn’t really sure. But he did talk, so forget about it.
What mattered was what he’d told me.
The Mafia was looking for Blyleven.
And not just looking, I’d wager. They’d sent Manny to kill him. In fact, it was even possible they’d blown up the plane four years ago to get him. They’d assumed he was dead, until I started poking around and asking questions. Now they wanted to settle unfinished business.
The question was, why?
As far as I knew there were only two reasons the Mafia kills people. Money or revenge.
So what was the connection between Blyleven, a mild-mannered church accountant, and the Mafia? Had he been moonlighting as a drug dealer? Or a bookie? It seemed unlikely. But then, you never knew.
There was one definite connection, though.
Tucson.
The mob boss in Tucson had sent Manny to get Blyleven. Blyleven’s employer, the Church of the Nazarene, ran a relief organization known as World Flock out of Tucson. In fact, Blyleven had been on his way to Tucson when he died—or at least, when his plane had blown up.
There was another connection, if you could call it that. When Jack had asked Manny how he knew I was the guy he wanted, Manny said, “Would God lie?” And Blyleven’s last employer was a man of God.
Vaz would call that a stretch.
I knew a few people who were familiar with things in Arizona. Their numbers were at my office.
Before I left, though, I hunted up George the caretaker to give him a gift. Three gifts, actually—a nearly new roll of duct tape and two propane tanks, one slightly used. I found him in the backyard.
The yard is longer than it is wide, bordered by immense lilac bushes that have all but engulfed an old iron fence. A pair of majestic oaks shade most of the lawn. The sunniest area is in the rear, next to the alley. Mrs. Finch’s vegetable garden. The morning was bright and clear, and there was a fresh smell in the air. That would soon change, however. George was pouring gasoline in the tank of his ancient lawn mower.
“How’s it going, George?”
“It ain’t goin’ at all. Not until I fill her with gas.”
A comedian. “Here. I brought you something.”
He straightened up—well, as straight as his old bones would allow—and eyed the bag suspiciously. He wore overalls, a white T-shirt, a long-billed cap with a faded Mack truck logo, and thick-soled work boots. The skin on his face and arms was loose and brown and more wrinkled than the paper sack I held out to him.
“What’ve you got there?”
I opened the sack and showed him. “Can you use these?”
“I suppose I could.” But he made no move to take the sack. George always figures there are strings attached.
“Good. Take them, they’re yours.”
He squinted one eye. “Why are you giving them to me?”
“Because you can use them and I can’t.”
“What are you doing with these things, anyway?”
“I, ah, needed them for a job.”
“You didn’t do nothing up in your apartment, did you?”
“No, George, I—”
“Because I’m the one who takes care of things around here, and Mrs. Finch don’t want nobody else messing with the plumbing and such.”
“Got it.” I pushed the sack at him.
He took it reluctantly. “Just what sort of job were you doing with this, anyway?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
“Okay, I had to tape a guy up and threaten to burn his foot.”
He gaped at me. And then he burst out laughing, showing me his dentures. “That’s a good one.”
“See you later, George.”
I left him grinning from ear to ear, yanking on the mower’s pull-start. “… tape a guy and burn his foot. Hah!”
When I walked around to the front of the house, the mailman was just handing Mrs. Finch a stack of envelopes. We tenants don’t have our own mailboxes. This is Mrs. Finch’s house and, by God, she’s going to take in the mail. She likes to separate it and lay it out in neat little piles on a table in the foyer, as a service to us. Also, this allows her to see who’s getting what from whom. I had one piece—a Manila envelope with the FBI logo printed in the corner.
Mrs. Finch handed it to me. But when I tried to take it, she didn’t let go.
“I hope you remember what I told you yesterday,” she hissed, looking pointedly past me.
Sharon Hoffman was just emerging from her apartment. Today she wore skintight jeans and a loose tank top that was scooped low enough to show off the tops of her breasts. There was plenty to show.
Too young, Lomax, much too young, no matter what Sophia says.
Sharon said, “Good morning.” She gave us each a friendly smile.
Especially me. No, really.
“Hi,” I said.
Mrs. Finch went, “Humph.”
Sharon glanced at the mail on the table. “Anything for me?” She looked at me when she said it. A knowing look, too. I swear.
“Nothing,” Mrs. Finch said.
“I’m having a few people over tonight,” Sharon said to me. “Sort of a housewarming. I’d love it if you’d come.”
“Well, maybe I—”
“A party?” Mrs. Finch glared up at her. “I don’t like my tenants making a racket with loud music and such.”
“Oh, we’ll be very quiet,” Sharon said. Then to me, “Come any time after eight. Or before, for that matter.” Again the knowing look, I’m not kidding.
“I’ll try to make it.”
She looked down at Mrs. Finch. “Of course, you’re invited, too.”
“Humph.” Mrs. Finch stomped into her apartment and slammed the door.
Sharon smiled at me. “See you tonight, then?” She shot one hip. What a hip!
“I’ll try.” I walked out with my ears buzzing. Get a grip, for chrissake.
At the office the red light on my answering machine was blinking. I tossed the unopened Manila envelope on the desk and hit the playback button.
“Hello, it’s Nora Foster. I finally remembered what Larry told me about Martin Blyleven’s briefcase. Call me at noon, or this evening, if you like. I’ll be home for lunch, and then I work until five. Good-bye. Oh, it’s Wednesday morning, about seven-thirty. Good-bye.”
It was nearly nine now, but I tried her number anyway. No answer.
She’d said that her husband mentioned something peculiar about Blyleven’s leather briefcase. I couldn’t imagine what it was. A case was a case. Why didn’t she just describe it in her phone message? Too complicated? No matter, because there were a few other things I wanted to discuss with her.
I slit open the Manila envelope.
There was no note, nothing with Agent Cochran’s name on it, nothing to tie him to me. All he’d sent was a photocopy of ten fingerprints and two palm prints. At the bottom of the slick sheet was Martin E. Blyleven’s name, date of birth, enlistment date in the U.S. Army, and serial number.
The prints were useless to me. Sure, I’d had some brief training in fingerprint technique when I’d been a Denver cop—mostly lectures on where fingerprints might be found at a crime scen
e and how to preserve that area until the experts showed up. But even assuming I had a latent print from the blackmailer, it would take a specialist to make a positive comparison between the arches, loops, and whorls in these inked prints and any latent ones. Although…
I found a magnifying glass in one of my desk drawers and took a closer look at the prints.
In the center of the finger pads there were very definite whorls made up of four of five concentric circles. I looked at my own finger pad. Arches, not whorls.
Let’s say I could get the blackmailer to leave his fingerprints—don’t ask me how, maybe get him to send something to Vivian. Then I could dust the prints with powder and lift them with Scotch tape. Hell, even I could tell whether or not they had whorls similar to these. If they didn’t, then the blackmailer wasn’t Blyleven, pure and simple. Of course, if he did have whorls, it still didn’t mean he was Blyleven. It only meant I’d had to bring in an expert. In other words, the cops. And that was something that Vivian and Roger Armis did not want to do. Neither did I. At least, not at this point.
So forget about the prints.
But all was not lost. There was Blyleven’s service number. Maybe I could find out what he’d done in the Army. Like fly a plane. Or handle explosives.
I pawed through my meager bookcase looking for a particular directory.
I’m a dues-paying member of the World Association of Detectives, the Society of Professional Investigators, and the Association of Licensed Detectives (although in this state you don’t need a license to practice—which will give you some idea of what Colorado thinks of PIs). Each of these associations publishes a list of members. I’ve called some of them for help in the past. And some of them have even called me, so there you are.
One agency that came to mind was Lifkin Investigations in Washington, D.C. A few years ago Mr. Lifkin himself had given me a call to help find a child-support-owing husband thought to have recently moved to the Denver area. I did a quick check with the phone company and the post office, but the deadbeat was not going to make it that easy. He had to be living somewhere, though. And if it was a house or apartment, he had to have gas and electricity. One phone call to Public Service gave me the guy’s address.
Grave Doubt (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 5) Page 10
