2 Grand Delusion

by Matt Witten

  I gave them a big fat grin. Suddenly I wasn't feeling so old and tired anymore.

  But I guess the chief was, because he sighed wearily and sat back down in his chair. There were frown lines at the corners of his mouth I hadn't noticed before. "Lieutenant," he said, "erase the tape."

  "Yes, sir," Foxwell replied.

  "But my gosh, Chief," I asked breathlessly, putting my hand on my heart, "are you sure that's legal? I wouldn't want you to get in trouble."

  "And when you're done with the tape," the chief told his lieutenant, "throw this prick in jail. Murder one, take two. And this time," he said, straightening his back as he turned toward me, "lots of luck getting out on bail. What with being a repeat murderer and all."

  Then the chief smiled.

  I didn't.

  There was a commotion out in the hall. At first it didn't register. I was too busy gulping for air as I contemplated spending a year or two without bail, dodging from large under-educated men with bad teeth. But then I heard someone call out, "Hey, stop!" and suddenly Chief Walsh's door crashed open. My favorite three-hundred-pound lawyer burst into the room.

  Young Crewcut raced in right behind. "I tried to stop him—" he began.

  "Jake, your wife called," Malcolm said. "Are you all right?"

  "Not exactly. We're booking him for murder," Chief Walsh replied. "Right now, I have to ask you to leave. You can see him after he's processed—"

  I broke in, speaking loudly over the chief's attempts to interrupt me. "They kept interrogating me even after I asked for my lawyer." I pointed at the video lens. "The whole thing is on tape. That's why they want to get rid of you—so they can erase it."

  Malcolm's eyes gleamed ferociously as he turned on the chief. "Is this true?"

  "We hadn't yet arrested him," the chief replied smoothly, "so we weren't legally required to let him call his lawyer."

  "He was doing something illegal, or pretty damn close," I threw in quickly, "because he told his henchman here to do the erasing. In fact, Chief Walsh telling him to erase the tape is on the tape."

  "How intriguing," Malcolm said with barely suppressed glee, rubbing his triple chin. "Let's have a look at this tape, chief, shall we?"

  The chief pointed an angry finger at Young Crew-cut. "You twit, the next time you buzz someone in the front door, don't just sit on your ass and let him waltz right by you!"

  "He's so fat, I didn't think he could run that fast—"

  "Get out!" the chief exploded, and Young Crewcut zipped out as fast as he could. Then the chief shoved a finger at Foxwell. "You, too." The lieutenant gave him a hurt look, then eased out with as much dignity as he could muster.

  Finally, with just the three of us in the room, Chief Walsh turned to Malcolm. "What do you want?"

  "My client's freedom."

  The chief snorted. "Can't do that and you know it. I suspect him of committing his second murder in six days. What if he grabs a machine gun tomorrow and shoots up City Hall, for Christ's sake?"

  "What evidence do you have to suspect him of this second murder?"

  "Don't be absurd. I can't tell you that."

  "He's just bluffing—" I began, but Malcolm said, "Shut up," and I did.

  "I have plenty of evidence, believe me," the chief declared.

  "That's a lie—" I began, and Malcolm said "Shut up" again, but this time I didn't. "All he has is the fact I live next door. That's it."

  I was looking hard at the chief's face while I said this, trying to determine if I was really right or if he did have more. He stared me down for a few moments, but at last he looked away and I knew I had him. Malcolm knew it, too.

  If I were Malcolm, I'd have messed with the chief's mind now. But Malcolm surprised me; he picked this moment to soften up. Settling his oversized frame into one of the chief's comfortable chairs, he said gently, "Chief Walsh, I sympathize with how difficult this situation is for you. But if you book him now with insufficient evidence it won't do you any good, since I'll be able to spring him right away. And besides," he shrugged casually, "if you decide not to book him, I'll be glad to forget whatever . . . indiscretions . . . are on your videotape."

  The chief scowled, probably thinking the same thing I was: That videotape contained my allegations of police corruption, and he had no desire for them to be made public. Especially since at least some of them were true.

  Finally he waved his hand magnanimously. "All right, Malcolm," he said, "take your boy out of here."

  My lawyer got up out of his chair. "Thank you, Chief. And I want you to know, Jacob and I sincerely hope that you find the killer, or killers, as quickly as possible, and if there's anything we can do to assist you—"

  "I appreciate that," the chief cut in, "but don't worry, we already have the killer. We've got all the evidence we need on the first murder, and we'll get it on the second one too, I guarantee."

  Then his eyes narrowed into slits and his voice went cold. Eyeing me up and down like he was looking for the right spot to insert a pitchfork, he said deliberately, "It's just a matter of time."

  "Let's go," Malcolm said. I stood rooted to the spot, hypnotized by the venom in the chief's voice. Malcolm took my arm. "Jake, let's go."

  We went.

  16

  "It's just a matter of time."

  He was right.

  My weak link was Dave. When the chief and his minions got around to questioning him—which they would, if only because Dave was a neighbor and they'd be questioning all the neighbors—he would feel duty bound to give me up.

  And when he told the chief about my knife-wielding, I'd be tossed in the hoosegow pronto, lawyer or no lawyer.

  But maybe if I got to Dave first, and explained the whole situation . . .

  "Give it up," Malcolm ordered me as we headed for his Volvo.

  "Give what up?" I asked innocently.

  "What happened between you and that Waldo guy."

  "Nothing happened between me and—"

  "Sure, and Deep Blue is really a little green man from Mars."

  "Malcolm, I didn't kill the man."

  "No, but you did something." We got in the car. Malcolm had to jiggle and squirm to fit behind the wheel. "Correct me if I'm wrong," he said as we pulled away from the police station with a cop car right on our tail, which I doubted was coincidence, "but are you doing some investigating on your own?"

  I didn't answer. I guess I should have had faith in my lawyer and told him everything, but lately I was so used to not trusting anyone that it had become a habit. Malcolm banged the steering wheel in frustration. "Damn you, Jake, I'm hiring professional investigators this week. Please, let them do it. I know you got lucky and solved a murder once, but lightning doesn't strike twice. If it does, chances are you're the one who's gonna get fried."

  "Relax, I won't do anything stupid. I just want to go home and get some z's."

  So he drove me home. I lay in bed with my exhausted, frantic wife and rubbed her back until she finally succumbed to a troubled sleep. But I didn't fall asleep myself. Instead I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. It was still only 4:30 a.m., and I'd slept a total of maybe twelve hours in five nights, but no matter. It was time for Macho Man to get moving.

  Dave's car still wasn't in his garage, and when I called him there was no answer. So where was he?

  I didn't know much about Dave's love life. A few months back I'd tried setting him up with my friend Madeline, who owned Madeline's Espresso Bar in town. I felt something of a personal obligation to get Madeline hooked up, since in a roundabout way I'd been responsible for her last relationship falling apart. But unfortunately, Dave and Madeline didn't seem to light each other's fires.

  The first person I tried was Dave's ex-wife, who still lived in Saratoga. They'd been divorced for five years now, but hey, cops in TV shows are always sleeping with their ex-wives, so maybe Dave was, too. I remembered her name, because who could forget a name like Polly Esther Fiber? Even worse than Waldo. In the phone boo
k, she just listed herself as P. Fiber. I couldn't say I blamed her.

  Her phone rang six times, then finally a sleepy, irritated voice answered, presumably P. herself. "Hello," she snarled.

  "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, but it's an emergency. I'm looking for Dave Mackerel—"

  Slam.

  Ah, well.

  There was one other obvious possibility: Dave's mom, who was the only black woman in the town of Hadley, he'd told me once. Hadley was just half an hour north; maybe he was spending the night there for some reason. Doing his laundry. Mrs. Mackerel answered her phone in the middle of the second ring. "Hello?" she breathed, her voice quavering—with fear, I realized. Must be hard being a cop's mom.

  "Mrs. Mackerel, I'm sorry to bother you in the middle of the night, but it's an emergency." She sucked her breath in sharply. "No, don't worry, Dave's fine," I said quickly, "it's something else. My name's Jacob Burns—"

  "Jacob Burns? The writer?"

  Grateful that she hadn't said "The murderer?", I answered, "Yes, that's me—"

  "Davy and I talk about you all the time. I tell him and I tell him, you didn't kill anyone, of course not."

  Hurray, someone who actually believed in my innocence! "Thank you very much, Mrs. Mackerel. I just hope Dave agrees with you."

  There was a silence on the phone that I wasn't too wild about. Finally she responded as tactfully as she could, "Well, I'm working on him, Mr. Burns."

  "Call me Jacob. Actually, I need a little help from Dave right now. Do you know where I could find him?"

  "Certainly. He was here until pretty late helping me with my weather stripping, then he went to go see his girlfriend."

  A girlfriend? This was news. No wonder he hadn't been interested in Madeline. "Do you know her name?"

  "Sure. It's Madeline."

  "Who?"

  "You know, the girl that owns that fancy coffee shop."

  What a riot! So they were playing games with me, huh?

  I thanked Mrs. Mackerel, then called Madeline. Her machine picked up, her voice said the usual boring stuff, and then the thing beeped at me. "Madeline," I said, "could you put Dave on the phone? Hey, the jig's up, kid. I know he's there . . ."

  Oh God, what if he's not? What if he's with some other girlfriend? "Dave, could you pick up the phone, please . . . Dave . . ." This is the pits, I thought. What if Madeline figures out from my phone call that Dave's not at home, and he's out screwing around? Had I just busted up another one of her relationships?

  Well, but if he's cheating on her, it's best that she find out now, I tried to reassure myself. I shouldn't feel so bad . . . "Okay, well, uh, sorry to bother you, Madeline—"

  I heard a click. "How'd you find me?" Dave's pissed-off voice came over the phone. Hallelujah.

  "I'm an ace private eye, you should know that by now. So what's the deal with you and Madeline playing it so close to the vest?"

  "Look, what do you want?"

  "Man, I'm hurt. I introduced you, you should've told me."

  "Are you in trouble again?"

  "Who, me?"

  "Jake—"

  "Don't move, I'll be right there," I said, and hung up. I was at the door to Madeline's apartment, upstairs from her espresso bar, about three minutes later. She opened the door before I even knocked. Dave stood right behind her, with a hand on her shoulder.

  Weird. I was the guy who set them up in the first place, but as I saw them standing together in their night clothes, I have to confess I was taken aback. It hit me in a flash why they hadn't told me or any of their other friends (so far as I knew) about their relationship. Black men and white women get so much grief when they couple up, Dave and Madeline probably wanted to make sure it was the real deal before they went public.

  "What's up?" Dave asked.

  "Listen, I just want you guys to know, I won't tell anyone."

  Madeline and Dave both nodded. Their heads were synchronized, I noted—always a good sign for a relationship. "Come in," Madeline said.

  "Dave, something happened tonight," I began, but he held up his hand.

  "I have a bad feeling," he grumbled. "A bad feeling you're about to tell me something I shouldn't be hearing."

  "But if you listen to me anyway, I'll be your lawn care slave for life."

  Dave put his hand on the shoulder of Madeline's nightgown. It was virginal white with pink flowers, but that still didn't keep me from getting lascivious thoughts. "Honey," he told her gently, "maybe you should go back to the bedroom."

  She didn't like it, but she went. "So, okay," Dave asked me when we were alone, "who'd you kill this time?"

  I gave a start. "Funny you should put it that way," I said. "Remember that guy I pulled a knife on? There's this theory going around that I killed him. Totally false, I hasten to add."

  Dave groaned and rubbed his hand through his hair. "Zapper is dead?"

  "That's what usually happens when most of your face is shot off."

  "Why don't you shut up and start from the beginning."

  I didn't shut up, but I did start from the beginning. I told him the whole story, complete with a visual aid: my tape of the payoff, which I stuck in Madeline's VCR. Since my microcassette recorder was busted, I narrated the part where Zapper and Cole were discussing the bribe.

  Dave and I sat on the sofa, watching the tape. On the tape, Zapper had a face. Now he didn't.

  If I hadn't made this tape, would Zapper still be alive?

  Beside me, Dave whistled through his teeth. "So Cole is taking over Pop's accounts."

  I translated silently to myself. Accounts, that meant bribes. "Dave," I asked, "are all Saratoga Springs cops this crooked?"

  "I'm not."

  "Is that unusual?"

  He pushed the pause button on the remote, just as Cole was in the middle of stuffing the hundred bucks in his pocket. "Look, I really don't know how many Saratoga cops are crooked. There's forty of us, and for all I know, it's just these two—Pop and Cole."

  "You're forgetting Chief Walsh. I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut he knew what Pop was up to, but he didn't do a blasted thing to stop it."

  "Maybe he couldn't. Or maybe he just didn't think it was worth the trouble. That doesn't make him crooked."

  "Sure, it does."

  "Look at it from his perspective." Dave stood up from the sofa and paced the room. "There's always gonna be a certain amount of dealing in Saratoga—we're the biggest city in the county. People come here all the way from Galway and South Corinth to score their drugs. Pop worked it so the dealing is confined to just three houses. Everything's relatively quiet, no turf wars or shootouts. And instead of wasting our time on penny-ante bullshit, busting dealers on one block and having new ones spring up on the next, the police are free to spend our time on more important things."

  "More important things? Like what?"

  "Like robbery, like rape—"

  "Cut the crap. The reason the police department doesn't bother to bust these dealers is because they're on the West Side. Nobody in city government gives a squashed turd about anything that happens in our part of town unless somebody forces them into it."

  "Get off the soapbox. The question is, who killed Zapper and Pop if it wasn't you?"

  "You know damn well who killed Zapper," I said.

  He waited.

  "It was Manny Cole." Dave raised his thick eyebrows. I kept going. "Zapper called him last night, and told him about me putting the squeeze on him. Cole got scared Zapper would crack and spill his guts to the D.A. So he solved the problem by killing him."

  Dave frowned. "I don't buy it."

  "Why not?"

  "The thing is, killing Zapper still wouldn't solve Cole's problem. It wouldn't get rid of that incriminating videotape. So why bother killing him?"

  I'd had plenty of time to think this through. "Because Cole had another teensy little problem he was worried about. A case of homicide that Zapper happened to witness."

  Dave scratched his ne
ck thoughtfully, then looked over at the TV set, which was still showing Cole stuffing money in his pocket. He turned the TV off. "Only one flaw in your theory."

  "What's that?" I said belligerently. I hate skeptics.

  Dave threw up his hands. "Okay, let's say you're right and Zapper got smoked because he witnessed Pop's murder. Sounds good, I'll buy it. But that still doesn't mean it was Cole who smoked Pop and then Zapper. Could have been anyone. Could even have been you.

  "In fact," he went on, "I'm not saying I necessarily believe this, but if I were Chief Walsh, I'd say you made that tape to blackmail Zapper so he wouldn't testify against you at your murder trial. And then when he refused to let himself be blackmailed, you killed him."

  I slumped back against the sofa. Madeline came out of her room. "How you guys doing?"

  "Peachy," I told her. "Just peachy."

  17

  Dave was right, hypothetically it could have been anyone. But Cole was definitely the guy with the motive. To quote that famous old 70s proverb, Follow the money. Who benefited the most from that bullet hole in Pop's neck?

  Manny Cole.

  The way Dave and I estimated it, tallying up figures on a page from Madeline's phone message pad, Pop was clearing at least five hundred bucks a week from his various West Side hustles: a hundred from Zapper and Dale; a hundred apiece from his other two drug dealer tenants; a hundred from his prostitutes; and a hundred from his tenants that sold stolen goods or whatever it was they did. Add to this any cash Pop was scamming from Arcturus, plus other sleazy deals we might not be aware of, and who knows? The weekly take could easily go as high as a grand.

  Which worked out to between twenty-six and fifty-two grand a year. Not bad. Since it was tax free, even the low end would just about double a Saratoga cop's regular salary.

  Was it enough to kill for? I'd have to study up on Cole's finances, see if he was having trouble paying off a mortgage or something.

  One thing I did know: The timing fit perfectly. One and a half months ago, according to Dave, Cole was assigned to weekend foot patrols on the West Side. And he was probably asked, either subtly or in so many words, to look the other way from Pop's tenants' activities.