Ask the Right Question

by Michael Z. Lewin

  By three thirty I got up again. By four I had eaten an orange and some potato chips and I was sitting at my desk in the office. Showing off. And thinking about whether maybe I ought to get married again. It might be the time. My woman was feeling sorry for me and she might give in over her better judgment. Besides a wife, I would be gaining another daughter. Her girl is twelve.

  At four fifteen I had company.

  A rather subdued teen-ager, a girl, opened the door and walked right in.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. Without a moment’s hesitation she sat down in my very, very dusty client’s chair.

  “Nowhere else, honey,” I said. I was much more relaxed than I had been the first time I talked to Eloise Crystal. So was she, until she started looking me over. I was redecorated, though I try to hide it. A little cast for the right arm here, a little brace for the ribs there. Very fetching, and fortunately impermanent. I’ve even found that it’s harder to drink orange juice left-handed.

  “I didn’t realize you were still—”

  “Trussed up? Yeah. For a while yet. They had to get me out of the hospital because my insurance only went through ninety days.”

  “You mean you have to pay?”

  “It’s not settled yet. My man says that I was on police business. The police say that I’m not a cop. We’re playing it safe. I’m out of the hospital and we’re not talking about it all until after I’ve testified in the trial. But how are you? How have you been?”

  “OK. Pretty good.”

  She was lying of course, as children will. I knew she had had a hard time, physically on top of mentally. With her environmental mother dead and her father in jail they had kept her in a guardianship home for two weeks. Then, when I got around to asking Miller about her, I suggested that they put her in Mrs. Forebush’s house. When they checked it out, they found Mrs. Forebush had been down at the station asking about the child every day since the story hit the papers. She had come to the hospital too, only she came before I was seeing anybody. It was a month before I was allowed to see anybody besides immediate family and cops. And you know what that meant: 99 percent cops.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  She gave me a smile, a decent one. “It’s Saturday.” We sat and looked at each other.

  “Happy birthday,” I said. “A little belated, but I haven’t forgotten.”

  Before I knew it she was next to me and crying. I rose to meet her and took her in my arm. I pulled her close, and I seemed to squeeze tears out. I knew I wasn’t hurting her. I was still too weak to hurt people. The pain was inside, and it was raw and it was sore and it was not healing very fast.

  How can you comfort someone who has been hurt worse than you ever have? A poor little girl, who would always be beautiful to me, and young, and daughtery.

  She cried and cried and cried. I didn’t get tired, standing there, holding her, and listening to her heart.

  And to mine. When she finally subsided we sat down again and she pulled the chair over to mine. We sort of knew where we’d been and where we were going. We each had a new family, of sorts. I would teach her to drink whiskey, in time. A couple of weeks at least. When she got married, she would invite me and my other daughters to come and take a trip on her yacht. I don’t know; it’s clear enough to me.

  When she left to go back to Mrs. Forebush’s, it was about five thirty. My nap time. But instead I went into the back room, clanked around until I found my field glasses, and trotted, as well as I was able, to the office next door. I rested on the window ledge. I didn’t open the window to lean out, but she had crossed the street and I could watch her walking, slowly, in the general direction of the circle and the bus out to Fiftieth Street. You have to be nostalgic sometimes; you have to round out the old times to get yourself ready for the new.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Albert Samson Mysteries

  1

  It was a busy morning. I got a phone call. Since I believe in miracles, I answered it. “Albert Samson.”

  “Samson,” said a very loud voice, a lady’s voice. “Here it is. What I wanted to know was your rates. How much you charge for investigating on a case.”

  “That depends on what sort of case and who I am working for.”

  “My name is Mrs. Jerome.” She emphasized the “Mrs.” so that she would be sure to qualify for my married lady’s discount. “And I don’t appreciate being fenced with. You must have a basic working rate you figure from.”

  “Thirty-five dollars per eight-hour day plus expenses.”

  “I see,” she said. “And the eight-hour day, how do you count that? Is it what you actually spend working? Or do you include the time you take getting to and from places? And does it include payment for a lunch hour?”

  With or without burp? “I never take an hour for lunch, Mrs. Jerome.”

  “No need to be flippant. And references? Do you have references?”

  “Should I agree to take your case and you require them, I can provide references.” I write them myself.

  “I see. Thank you, Mr. Samson. I have twelve more agencies to call, and when I have gotten their particulars, I shall make my decision.”

  “I just hope it’s not a matter of life and death, Mrs. Jerome.”

  For the first time she hesitated. My right ear appreciated the rest. Then she said, “In one sense it is a matter of life and death. But my daughter is not a wealthy woman, and I have to do the best for her that I can.”

  I finished talking to Mrs. Jerome at ten minutes past eleven. I tried to estimate how long it would take her to find out that I am the cheapest private detective among the thirty odd of us listed in the Indianapolis Yellow Pages. Unless some new threadbare has opened up in the last couple of months. Long enough, what with busy signals and misconnections, for me to close up shop and spend the rest of the morning on physical therapy.

  I did take other variables into consideration. The building elevator was out of order, and it had been a long time since a client walked up three flights of stairs to consult me. Also, it was a lovely day. And I do have an answering service.

  So I walked down to the car and drove over to West Lockfield Gardens. At thirty-eight one may be past one’s basketball prime, but with concentration there are ways to compensate for the physical deterioration. Craft. Finesse. Overview.

  By two o’clock I was working my way back up the stairs—taking them one at a time—and I was burned. On such a lovely day, too. Why the hell are people the way they are? Especially young ones.

  When I got to my floor, I went straight to the office suite next to mine. Through some quirk of plumbing history it is equipped with a rather comfortable bathtub, while my office has only a cramped shower stall. For the three-odd years the suite has been untenanted I’ve been using the facilities. I find baths much more suitable places to cool down. When I am burned.

  Just as I was slipping into the murky brine, I heard the phone ring on the other side of the wall. Four rings, and then it was taken by the service. So there would be a message when I got back. Having an answering service is just like getting extra mail deliveries.

  I presumed it was Mrs. Jerome. I wondered if she was calling to ask whether I’d go to thirty-two dollars and fifty cents per nine-hour day with seventeen minutes for lunch. Probably I would.

  I soaked until I was wrinkly, till the steamy warmth had soothed my aching legs and back. Basketball is a game of legs and back. They are the parts which wither first when you don’t play for a while.

  I’d been missing this left-handed reverse lay-up off a trot when I’d noticed a kid watching me. Young, maybe ten. About five feet even. It wasn’t that I was an intrinsically fascinating spectacle, but at midday on a mid-May Monday I was the only available spectacle.

  “OK if I shoot with you, mister?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, you want to play a game, mister? One on one? We can play for money.”

  Every star needs game action t
o bring out his best. “I’ll play,” I’d said, “but save your lunch money, kid.”

  I wrapped myself in the bath mat for the trek home, having neglected, in my passion, the foresight which provides a towel.

  Back in the back room I dried off and then called the service about the call I’d heard them take. “It was a wrong number, I’m afraid, Mr. Samson.” Dorrie, the girl on the service, is upset when I check in and she hasn’t taken a call for me. If you can’t inspire loyalty in the people you employ, I suppose pity is better than nothing.

  Damn smart-aleck kid.

  I made some lunch and spent the rest of the rest of the afternoon contemplating. I am trying to find some sideline, something that I can make or do in my spare time around the office to bring in a little extra money. But it has to be something which can be left for days at a time when I have a case.

  At five twenty the phone rang again. It was Mrs. Jerome. “Mr. Samson, I’m glad to have caught you still at the office. Working late on a case, no doubt.”

  “No doubt. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve found out that you are the lowest-price detective in Indianapolis. Does that reflect on the quality of the investigative service you give?”

  “I’m a bargain, Mrs. Jerome. As long as you understand that I am a one-man show and as long as your job is suitable for a one-man show.”

  “I’d like to have a look at you,” she said.

  “OK.”

  “I would like to talk to you about the problem. Actually it is my daughter’s problem, but after all, she is my daughter, so that makes me concerned.”

  “No doubt. Shall I come to you or will you come to me?”

  “I, that is, we live at 1634 Wolfe Street. It’s the seventh house on the left, north of Sixteenth Street”

  “I’ll find it. When would you like me to come?”

  “Tonight, please. At eight. My daughter and I will be waiting.”

  I would have offered to bring those references, but two and a half hours is pretty short notice.

  2

  I didn’t have a lot of idea what to expect. The west is my weakest side of town, but from her ease in giving orders I had expected to find Mrs. Jerome reasonably well-to-do.

  I was surprised when I pulled up in front of a small frame house which was at least as decayed as the rest of the neighborhood. There is a style: narrow, covered wooden porch running the width of the house in front of the door and the two single windows which flank it. Swing hanging on one end of the porch. Half a dozen plank steps up to the porch from ground level. It’s the sort of house you find in small Indiana towns. They’re not that common anymore in the big city.

  Not that it couldn’t have been a perfectly pleasant place. It just wasn’t. The swing was down and resting askew. A mud track led around the house at the right, presumably to the garage. The expanse of long grass at the front was interrupted by muddy depressions. It was as though someone had been digging in the yard for treasure, long ago. The paint blisters on the house were visible in the streetlights.

  I sat in the car for a few minutes. Not that it is really my business to try to prejudge people and circumstances. But following a little unasked-for but sympathetic publicity I’d had over the winter, I had been getting more offers of work from private parties than I had had in all my previous eight years in business. Most I’d had to turn down. The same case that got me the publicity had put me in hospital for three months, and until the last few weeks I hadn’t been up to even routine work. Now that I felt better my fame had faded, but at least I’d had a chance to look at the sort of people who hire private detectives. And what I was sitting and thinking about was the contradiction between this house and that sort of people.

  I got out of the car no wiser. I had to walk from grassy island to grassy island because there was no formal path to the porch.

  I rapped on the glass pane in the front door. There were lights on, but heavy lacy curtains obscured images.

  “Who is it?” I was asked from inside.

  “Albert Samson.”

  The door was opened by a short woman. Maybe five feet. And heavy. “Why are you late?” she asked. I recognized the voice from its sheer volume.

  “No good reason,” I said. I watched her trying to penetrate me with a pair of dark bright eyes. It could have been the moment for a smile, but instead she made a suffering sound and waved me in. It was as if I had added yet another to the roll of petty annoyances she’d been born to endure.

  There was no entrance hall. A step put me in the living room.

  “Rosetta! He’s here,” she called.

  The living room had three closed doors. The one farthest away opened, and Rosetta entered determinedly. She was taller than her mother, but thin. Languid, like, and she wore a lavender print dress. She stooped as she walked, but not from physical need. When she came to a stop behind her mother—just out of my handshaking range—she straightened up sharply.

  “This is Rosetta Tomanek, my daughter. Mr. Samson. Mrs. Rosetta Tomanek.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Tomanek?”

  “Fine.”

  “Call her Rosetta,” said her mother loudly. The neighbors would all be calling her Rosetta. “Come on. Sit down, both of you. No point in wasting any more of Mr. Samson’s valuable time.”

  It seemed only a matter of valuable time before I would begin talking back to Mrs. Jerome, but for the moment I obeyed as abjectly as Rosetta. I sat down in a red armchair whose volume belied the shakiness I felt under my weight. Rosetta and her mother shared the matching couch. Rosetta was forced to sit at the end closer to me.

  “Now,” said the redoubtable Mrs. Jerome, “tell the man what you want.”

  Rosetta looked at her mother, glanced at me, and then tried to begin telling her tale to the laminated end table between us.

  “I,” she said, and cleared her throat.

  “Look at the man. After all, you’re hiring him.”

  “All right, Mother!” Daughter pushed mother’s urging hand away.

  “I … I am married. My husband who is Ralph, Ralph Tomanek, he’s in trouble. I want you to find out, well, some way to help him.” She stopped and looked at her mother as if to say, “There, I did it!” I applauded, mentally. I awaited the encore, the turn in which I finally began to get a notion of what was going on, apart from a filial struggle for survival. Mrs. Jerome was leaning back on her side of the couch. Silent. Rosetta had spurned her aid; now Rosetta would pay for it. So I decided to help Rosetta as well as I could. The poor kid was nervous, I gathered.

  “What sort of trouble is he in?”

  “The police have him,” she said. Her voice was high and spookily musical because it was faint and clear. “They say he killed somebody, I mean, he did kill somebody, but they say he did it on purpose. I mean, that it was his fault.”

  “What are they charging him with?”

  “Manslaughter. They say he didn’t control himself.” Which was progress. It was his fault, but he didn’t do it on purpose.

  “And what does Ralph say?”

  It almost stumped her, but finally she said, “He says the other man got him real worried.” Ah, well, I could find out the police story easily enough.

  “When did all this happen, Rosetta?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “On Friday the twenty-eighth of April,” said Mrs. Jerome. She could not maintain control in the face of such flagrant disregard for the truth.

  “Which makes it three weeks and three days ago,” I said, it being May 22. I began to realize that to get a decent conversation out of Rosetta, I’d have to get her mother out of the way. Maybe find her a lover. “Then you want me to investigate Ralph’s side of the story because you think the police aren’t going to do it thoroughly enough?”

  “That’s right,” said Rosetta. “They aren’t doing anything.”

  “Does Ralph have a lawyer?”

  “Yes. The court appointed one.”

  “Was that
because Ralph couldn’t afford to choose a lawyer himself?”

  Mrs. Jerome’s attention was regained. “My son-in-law couldn’t afford to take a bus home from jail.”

  “Oh, Mother!” said Rosetta. She dropped her head to her lap and looked like she was going to cry. Only she didn’t.

  Mrs. Jerome continued. She had let the guest stars carry on long enough; it was time to remind us whose show it really was. “But you needn’t worry about your money, Mr. Samson. Rosetta works, and after paying me for rent and food, she’s saved up lots of money. Oh, a fortune.” It didn’t take a detective to recognize sarcasm.

  Rosetta’s head came back up like it was hollow in the sea. “Ralph had a job. A real good job.”

  “And after four weeks look where it got him.” Mrs. Jerome let the shiv sink in, and then after a histrionic pause she twisted it. “In jail, that’s where!” Not subtle, Mrs. Jerome.

  It was me now near tears. “Much as I hate to interrupt, I do have a few more questions.” They came to order immediately. It occurred to me that they were unused to having a man around the house. “First, if I am to be employed, may I have it clear who it is that is employing me? Is it both of you, or is it just you, Mrs. Tomanek?”

  “Well, I’m not involved,” said Mrs. Jerome.

  “I want to hire you,” said Mrs. Tomanek. “I can’t think of anything else to do.”

  “If you would be so kind as to give me a dollar, you may consider me formally hired.”

  She hesitated on the couch, as if surprised that progress now depended on action on her part. She came through like a trooper. She jumped up and scurried back to the room from which she had originally come. I occupied myself with studiously writing a receipt and avoiding an exchange of glances with Mother Jerome. Never has a receipt been more exactingly crafted. Rosetta accepted her copy like a ticket to freedom and handed me four quarters.

  “Now,” I said, “what is the lawyer’s name?”