Modern Masters of Noir

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  “Lieutenant Troy doesn’t think so, you admit that.”

  “I don’t care very much what Troy thinks.”

  She moved around the room restlessly. “Do you care what I think?”

  He was surprised by the question. “Well, of course,” he mumbled. “You know that. But this is my job, and you can’t tell me how to do it.”

  “How much does it cost to fly to Denver and back?”

  He snapped the bag closed. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I have to worry about it,” she said, her voice sharp. They were almost circling one another, tentative, like boxers during the first round of a match. She took a deep breath, then spoke more softly. “I’m worried about you, Simon.”

  He shrugged it off. “I’m all right, except that I’m running late. I don’t want to miss the plane.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Simon, just stop for a minute and think. Look at yourself.”

  His gaze flickered past her, to the mirror on the wall. He saw himself. The jeans and shirt hung a little more loosely on his body than they had, and he needed a haircut. But that was all. “I’m all right,” he repeated.

  Her eyes flashed. “Shit.” There was no passion in the word, only weariness. “Mike Conroy is dead. Are you trying to crawl into the grave with him?”

  He froze for a moment, then jerked his arm away. “Shut up. That’s a crazy thing to say.”

  “I’m not the one who’s acting crazy; you are. I’m sick and tired of having Mike Conroy in the middle of our lives. It was bad enough when he was alive, but now it’s ghoulish.”

  He shook his head and stepped around her, avoiding her hand, avoiding her words. “I’ll call from Denver,” he mumbled.

  She didn’t answer.

  He hurried through the house and out to the car. Why couldn’t she understand? Why the hell couldn’t anyone understand? Mike understood. Until a bullet ended it all. Until that tall blond stranger raised his gun and blew Mike away.

  Simon banged the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. Shit. Damn them all. Well, just wait. Just wait. When he had the guy, they’d all be sorry then.

  Chapter 6

  Simon stared glumly out the small window of the plane, looking down at the early morning fog that enshrouded the city. His two days in Denver had been disappointing. To say the least. All he had been able to do was study the ballistics report on the Denver hit, and compare it to the slugs taken out of Mike and Papagallos. Even that was only a qualified success. Although he was absolutely convinced that the killings were all done with the same weapon, the Denver police would only say that it was a “probable” match.

  Still, as important as that piece of information seemed to him, he had a feeling that some others would scarcely feel as though it justified the trip.

  He retrieved his car from the airport parking lot and drove directly to headquarters. The first thing he did when he reached his desk was to call Kimberly. “I’m back,” he said by way of greeting. “Everything okay at home?”

  “Do you care?”

  He leaned back in the chair, rubbing one hand over his face. “Come on, Kim. I had a long flight, and I’m tired. Could you maybe just not bitch at me quite yet?”

  There was silence on the other end. “Well,” she said finally, “you haven’t forgotten about tomorrow, have you?”

  “Tomorrow?” he said, stalling as he reached toward the desk calendar, then tried to remember why the hell the next day was circled in red. It came to him. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. The anniversary party. Eight o’clock, right?”

  “It would be nice if you could get home before then.”

  “I’ll try.” He hung up before she could say anymore, and saw Troy approaching.

  “Hirsch, glad to see you back. What happened in Denver?”

  Simon leaned forward onto the desk. “Well, it’s definitely the same gun, sir. If I can keep right on top of this, I can—”

  “There’s been another hooker strangled,” Troy broke in. “Campbell is on his way to the scene. You meet him there.” He dropped a slip of paper onto the desk. “That’s the address.”

  “But I wanted to start going through these records,” Simon said. “Maybe Campbell’s fucking file clerk methods might work here. If I can—”

  Troy slammed one hand down. “Inspector Hirsch, that wasn’t a suggestion. It was a direct order. Get your butt out of here and find out who’s killing off the hookers. Before the Chamber of Commerce gets upset.”

  Simon stared at him for a moment, then grabbed the paper with the address, and stalked out.

  Campbell seemed surprised to see him get out of the car and walk across the street. “How was Denver?” he asked, scribbling something down in his notebook.

  “High,” Simon muttered. He looked grimly at the body still huddled in the alley. She looked about seventeen. “Nice to see that things are still the same around here.”

  “Oh, yeah. Constancy is the one thing we can count on in our line of work.”

  They moved a few steps away, so that the photographer could snap his grisly pictures. Simon coughed and lit a cigarette. “So what the hell is going on here?” he asked, gesturing toward the body.

  Campbell shrugged, putting the notebook away. “I hate to say it, but we might have a real nut on our hands. Two dead hookers in one week begins to look suspiciously like a pattern.”

  “Shit. That’s all I need now.”

  Two men from the meat wagon moved in with a plastic body bag. “So?” Campbell asked. “What happened in Denver?”

  They started toward their cars. “Not much. All they had was the ballistics report. And the word on the local hotline was saying that the job was done by out-of-town talent.”

  “Like here.”

  “Yeah, like here. That boy of mine gets around.” He stopped by his car and opened the door. “See you back at the office. Or should I go over to the morgue and try for an I.D.?”

  “No, head in. I’ll see you there.”

  Simon nodded and slid behind the wheel. He sat there until all the official vehicles and most of the sightseers were gone. His eyes felt gritty and tired. He stared out at the empty street, absently scratching at the slowly healing cut on his palm. San Francisco. Denver. He wondered where the guy was now. Wondered what he did when he wasn’t killing people.

  This damned hooker thing. It was just the kind of case that used to excite him. Something he and Mike could really go to town on. But now it was only an annoyance, because it kept him from thinking about the blond guy. Damn the bitches anyway, for getting killed.

  At last, he started the car and headed back toward the office.

  The rest of the day was spent trying to trace the dead hooker’s movements during her last hours, and also catching up on the inevitable paperwork that had accumulated in his absence. Troy wandered through the squad room frequently, giving Simon the feeling that he was operating under a none-too-subtle surveillance. It irritated him, much like Kimberly irritated him by her watchful gaze when he was home. What the hell did they expect to see?

  The shift ended finally. As the office slowly emptied of daymen and the nightshift trickled in, Simon took a pot of coffee and secreted himself in an empty cubicle with a stack of files. Campbell had offered to stay for a while, but Simon waved him out. He didn’t need any interlopers poking into his investigation. Screw the department. They wanted to just forget the whole thing, so he’d do it alone.

  By the time he finished reading the last report, and drank the final cup of bitter coffee, it was much too late to bother driving home, so he just crawled wearily into the by-now-familiar cot, hoping to grab at least a little sleep before his next shift began.

  He lit a cigarette, watching the orange glow in the darkness, and listening to the nearby sounds of phones and voices. The past hours had been fruitless, but Simon wasn’t discouraged. Relaxing in the lumpy cot, he felt confident and even a little cheerful. This reminded him a little of when he was a boy back i
n Boston, and the steamy summer nights when every kid on the block would be out playing hide and seek. He’d always been very good at that game, not at hiding as much as at finding the others. The same kind of adrenalin was pumping through him now.

  And there was something more. It was strange, but he almost felt like they were connected, he and the killer, by some kind of weird cosmic bond. Mike would have laughed at that, of course, but then Mike had been a true believer. Simon really didn’t believe in anything anymore. If he ever had, beyond himself and his friendship with Mike. Cosmic bonds and shit like that might not make much sense to anybody else, but he understood the feeling, and he knew that the other guy did, too. It was as if he could reach out in the night and if he just knew where exactly to reach, he could touch the man.

  He wondered if the blond guy could feel that psychic hand.

  At last, Simon leaned over and crushed out the cigarette. Time to sleep.

  Nobody killed a hooker in San Francisco that night.

  That was good news not only for the ladies plying their trade on the streets and their respective gentlemen (not to mention the Chamber of Commerce), but for one cop named Simon Hirsch, because it gave him more time to think about his case, the only case that mattered.

  Campbell came in from Records, juggling a couple of files. His thoughtful face was creased in a frown. “You ever stop to think about how many crazy people are walking around out there?” he asked, sitting down opposite Simon.

  “No.”

  “Too damned many. I don’t even mean the ones we bust, but just the real ordinary-looking people, walking right out there with the rest of us. You could sit right next to one in the movies, or talk to him on the cable car, and never know that inside he’s completely bonkers.”

  Simon was only half-listening.

  Campbell tossed one of the files across the desk toward him. “The world is one big asylum,” he said flatly. “And we’re the keepers.”

  Simon stretched a little. “You sure we’re not as crazy as the rest of them?” he mumbled.

  Before Campbell could respond to that bit of wisdom, they both saw the old wino enter the squadroom and look around vaguely. Simon began to slide down in his chair. “Shit. Wanta bet he’s on his way here?”

  “Why?”

  “Because all the freaks end up at my desk sooner or later. It’s a legacy. Wild Mike attracted them like flies.” It was easier talking about Mike now; the pain was a little less every day. The loneliness, though, was still a sharp-edged blade. He was glad that in his wallet there was a picture of his partner, because sometimes it was hard to remember exactly what he’d looked like.

  Sure enough, the filthy creature in the ratty brown suit was shuffling in their direction. He cleared his throat loudly, before realizing that there was no place to spit. He swallowed. When he reached the perimeter of their territory, he paused. “One of youse named Hershey?”

  “No,” Hirsch said. “You’ve got the wrong guys.”

  The drunk looked even more bewildered. “The guy at the desk told me it was one of youse.” He scratched his ass thoughtfully. “I’m looking for the guy what was old Mike Conroy’s partner.”

  Simon surrendered to his fate. “Yeah, that’s me. The name is Hirsch.”

  “Whatever,” the man said. “I heared you been looking for whoever done it to Mike.”

  They already had several hundred “tips” shoved into the file, none of which came to a damned thing, so Simon didn’t get very excited over this opportunity. “You know something, do you?” he asked, reaching with one hand for his notebook. “And, by the way, what’s your name?”

  “Most folks call me Red. On account of my hair.”

  Simon stared pointedly at the man’s bald head, but the look went unnoticed. “Okay, Red, what’s on your mind?”

  He settled back comfortably, as if they were best buddies getting ready to have a long chat. The sour odors emanating from his body wafted across the desk, and Simon tried to listen without breathing. “I was in the Emerald Palace last night. My favorite place. You know the old Emerald?”

  Simon nodded. It was a rundown bar near the wharf. Hardly a night went by without at least one squad car being forced to make a run over there.

  “Well, I was sitting there minding my own business, like always, and I heard these two guys talking. Not that I was snooping or nothing, you understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I understand,” Simon said impatiently. Handling crumbs like this guy took a certain knack, and he just didn’t have it. Mike used to. He glanced toward Campbell, who seemed content just to listen, not like Wild Mike, who could deal with every piece of shit that came in off the street. “Can you get to the point, Red?”

  “These two guys was saying something about wasting a cop.”

  Simon pulled himself up in the chair a little. “Yeah?”

  Red nodded solemnly. “I always liked Mr. Conroy,” he said, his voice displaying an unexpected degree of sincerity. “I think whoever done him in oughta get caught.”

  Simon stared at the old man, feeling a sudden tightness in his chest. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “What can you tell me about the guys, Red?”

  Red rubbed his bald head. “One of them was a big guy, real big. Brown hair, I think. The other guy was blond. Don’t know their names, but I seen ‘em in there a lot.” Red got to his feet. “That’s all I know. They was talking about doing in some cop.”

  Simon reached across the desk to shake his hand. “Thanks, Red.” A thought struck him, and he pulled his wallet out.

  Red shrugged. “This weren’t no money tip,” he said. “I done it for Mr. Conroy.”

  Campbell and Simon watched the old man shuffle out. “People,” Campbell said finally.

  Simon nodded.

  The rest of the day seemed to drag endlessly, although they kept busy trying to find some link between the two hookers who’d been killed. By the end of the shift, though, it appeared that the only thing the two women had in common was the occupation. And their deaths, of course.

  After checking out, Simon headed straight for the Emerald Palace. It was not a trip he took with much hope; after all, how could his boy have been in this bar, when he had just recently been in Denver? But maybe this city was his home base. Anyway, no tip was too small to follow up on.

  It was still early when he arrived, and the bar was nearly empty. He took a seat in the rear booth, ordering a beer. No one paid him very much attention; it was his knack of being able to blend into the furnishings that made him a good undercover operative. They’d always done the job differently. Mike could charm the pants off an up-tight virgin—or worm his way into the affections of a bitter old hood like Papagallos. He conned people, pure and simple. But with Simon, charm wouldn’t work. He did the job by watching, waiting, making people forget he was there. Or by being tough. Now was a time for waiting.

  So he waited. He nursed the beer grudgingly as the bar began to fill. By shortly after nine, a goodly collection of the usual creeps and jerks had gathered. Simon checked out everybody who came through the door, but it wasn’t until nine-thirty that two men entered who seemed to fit what Red had told him. The first man was large, sloppy, dressed in grimy work clothes, and had a fleshy, sullen face. The other was younger, gangly, with light-colored hair that wasn’t quite blond. Simon watched as they perched at the bar. Already he knew that this wasn’t his guy. There was no way these two idiots could plan and execute hits like his boy did. But he had to be sure. He picked up his beer mug and wandered over.

  They ignored him, and he realized suddenly that he must look like all the other patrons. Time to change clothes and shave again, he thought, easing onto a stool next to the younger man. They were talking about baseball. He listened to their conversation for nearly thirty minutes, hearing about the big man’s fat wife, the kid’s hot girlfriend, the foreman on the dock, about the supposed sex habits of several women in the bar.

  “What about the pig?” the kid asked fina
lly.

  The big man snorted.

  Simon tensed over his beer.

  “That pig,” the slob snorted. “He gimme another fuckin’ parkin’ ticket last night.”

  The kid giggled. “How many that make, anyway?”

  “Twelve. Someday, man, I’m gonna get that nigger pig.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Gonna run the son of a bitch down with my car.”

  “He’ll give you another ticket.”

  They both seemed to find that line unbearably funny, and as they dissolved in laughter, Simon gave a sigh and slid from the barstool. He walked out without a second glance. Of course that prick couldn’t have been his boy. The guy he was looking for had style. Class. Brains.

  He decided to go home.

  The block was filled with parked cars, and he swore under his breath as he edged his way down the street toward his own driveway. It wasn’t until he had actually parked and was pulling the key from the ignition that he remembered.

  The anniversary party.

  “Oh, shit,” he said aloud, resting his head against the steering wheel. All the lights in the house were on, and he could hear the faint strain of music from his stereo. Well, it wasn’t going to get any better, so he might as well face up to it now. Sliding out of the car, he tried to smooth some of the worst wrinkles from his clothes. It didn’t help much.

  Everyone turned as he opened the door and walked into the living room. They were all dressed up, holding glasses of champagne. Kimberly stood in the center of the room, looking beautiful. She looked at him, and he ached because she was so damned beautiful. “Hi,” he said, painfully aware of his slept-in clothes and two-day growth of beard. “Sorry I’m late, but I had a tip, and . . .” His voice dwindled off.

  “No one cares, Simon,” Kimberly said in her most regal voice. “We’re having a party.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, rubbing both hands against the front of his windbreaker. “I wanted to get here on time, really, but there was this tip, you know?” He looked around the room at the faces all watching him. “It might have been him, you know? It wasn’t, but it might have been.”