Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel)

by William Lashner

  “Apparently, the decision has been made,” said Mitchum.

  “Decision?”

  “About who we’re going to face in the fall.”

  “Isn’t there a primary for that?”

  “In our district, the primary’s for show. The committee came to a decision a while ago, they just wanted word from their candidate of choice. Someone overheard them getting that word tonight.”

  “Who were they waiting on?”

  “Bettenhauser,” he said, as if expectorating a gristly piece of veal.

  “Bettenhauser?”

  “Tommy Bettenhauser.” Mitchum indicated a man standing on the balcony above us. Broad-shouldered and handsome in his white dinner jacket, he leaned on the balcony’s railing with his hands clasped, staring down at the crowd with a cold, appraising look. “He’s a former Marine. He won a Bronze Star in Iraq and then came back to teach public school. Eleventh-grade civics, imagine that. He’s an upstanding community leader, a good family man, has three of the cutest kids.”

  “That son of a bitch,” I said.

  “He’s been grooming himself for this run from the start. It’s why he joined the Marines after he graduated from Penn. I mean, who does that? He’s just been waiting to sense weakness before making his move.”

  “And that’s now?”

  “With the hints that bastard Sloane’s been putting in his columns about the Congressman, yes, of course. We’re going to have a fight on our hands with Bettenhauser.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Whip him.”

  “With what?”

  “With whatever we can find. That’s where you come in, Victor.”

  By the time I rejoined Melanie, she was talking to some slick-haired business type. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, and they both burst out in conspiratorial laughter. Once again I was amazed at how changed she was. When she disengaged, she turned to me.

  “What did Mitchum want?” she said while coolly looking about the room.

  “He had an errand for me.”

  “Be careful, dearheart. Don’t ever forget they’re all a bunch of vipers.”

  “And you, Melanie, are you one too?”

  “That’s for you to find out,” she said, a sweet smile on her hard face. “But don’t doubt the pit is deeper than you can imagine.”

  “In deep is where I want to go. What happened to Ossana?”

  “Whatever happens to Ossana. She has—how should I say it—her own sense of priorities. You and she were mighty chummy.”

  “Weren’t we, though?”

  “Be careful with that one, especially.”

  “I think, dear Melanie, the one I need to be careful with is you.”

  “At least you’re learning.”

  A woman with a tray full of champagne goblets swerved my way without my having to call her over. I took two, handing one to Melanie.

  “There’s just something about me tonight,” I said. “Do you like my shoes?”

  Melanie looked down and stared for a moment. “Won’t your sister miss them?”

  “I don’t have a sister.”

  “Let’s go find the mayor.”

  We made our way toward the mayor and his entourage, trying not to spill our drinks as we edged through the glittery, clattery crowd, bright-eyed, working and whirling, washing down skewers of meat with gouts of champagne. Above us were those great chandeliers, each a glistening galaxy of evening stars, and around us spun the orbits of the city’s political and financial elite, making deals, dealing revenge, drinking and spluttering, slipping surreptitious passes at the sunny young things looking to rise.

  Which only begs the question: What the hell was I doing there?

  I’ll tell it all later. For now I’ll just say it was like anything else in this world: part luck, part desperate scheming. But when I think back on my soaring career in politics—when law firm partners sought to buy me lunch, and mayors clamored to meet me, and congressional sisters with pale-green eyes laid hands on me—the absolute zenith must have been that very moment, at that dreadful ball. I was being introduced, my services were in demand, my arms were being grasped by beautiful women; I was finally a man on the make. Well, to be truthful, I’ve always been a man on the make, but just then I was feeling almost made. And I thought—God spare my innocence—that I had finally found my place in the world, a place among these wonderfully appalling people, in a role that fit my talents and proclivities and would give me the exact rewards I had always sought. I was heading toward the heights, and I had the shoes to take me there.

  What could go wrong?

  It was at first just a rise in the hubbub surrounding us and I thought, for a moment, that maybe somebody truly important had entered the ballroom. The governor? The vice president, who was rumored to be making a quick stop to give his regards? Or could it be, oh my God, one of the “Housewives of Philadelphia”? Maybe that saucy number with all the work done to her face? We all craned our necks to see what brilliant personage had entered our midst, and then the hubbub quieted, and the music died, and the crowd pressed back and parted like the Red Sea before Moses’s staff. And that’s when I saw them.

  Two uniformed police officers, a tall man and a squat woman, made their way through the crowd, followed by a plainclothes detective in a snappy blue suit.

  You want to see a school of puffed-up blowfish turn into a mass of spineless jellies, send a couple of uniformed cops and a detective into a sea of politicians and their spouses. As the cops made their way into the middle of the room, the only movement in the crowd was of men and women turning away, pulling out their cell phones, speed-dialing their lawyers. It was like a game of politician roulette: spin the wheel, ladies and gentlemen, and see where the indictment will land.

  I was in the process of wondering what poor sap they had come for when I realized that everyone around me, Melanie Brooks included, had shrunken away, leaving me alone in the center of the once-crowded dance floor. And the three police officers were aiming my way.

  Could I have ever expected anything different? The poor sap they were coming for was me.

  “Victor Carl?” said the detective.

  “That’s right.”

  “The name’s Armbruster, Detective Armbruster. Would you mind coming with us, please?”

  I lifted my drink. “I’m in the middle of something,” I said as the uniformed officers slipped behind me, just in case I had the notion to bolt, which I admit had crossed my mind. I looked to my right, and the mayor, who just a moment before had wanted to meet me, stared at the scene with the frozen expression of a figurine on a Grecian frieze. To my left, Simpson McCall was pretending not to know who I was. I suppose I had suddenly become a bit too common even for him.

  “Detective McDeiss told me I could ask you nicely,” said Armbruster, “but that if you said no, I was authorized to brain you with a nightstick and drag you by the cuff of your pants.”

  “Cuffs on a tuxedo? McDeiss’s idea of style is no style.”

  “So you know him.”

  “Yeah, I know him. Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.” I downed the drink, felt sweetness fill my nostrils as the bubbles massaged my throat, and handed the glass off to some councilman’s wife who had gotten too close to our little scene. I leaned toward her and whispered in her ear and watched her face collapse in shock.

  “All righty then,” I said to the detective. “Lead on, Macduff.”

  “The name’s Armbruster,” said the detective.

  “Close enough.”

  As I followed Detective Armbruster out of the ballroom, the uniforms trailing after us, I tried to make it look like I was an important personage being called to some important duty, but from the looks sent my way everyone could see through
my facade.

  Whatever jig I had been dancing was up. Whatever could go wrong had. Because McDeiss was a homicide detective, which meant somebody was dead and they thought I had something to do with it.

  And it turned out they were right.

  CHAPTER 3

  RED CARPET

  The squat female uniform sat next to me in the back of the police cruiser, keeping her gaze forward, as if I had a horrible mole on my face and she was trying not to stare. Detective Armbruster peered out the passenger-side window while the uniform who was driving relayed our position on the radio.

  “Hold the son of a bitch at the tape until I get there,” crackled a voice over the speaker. The voice was thick and hoarse, and I recognized it from its utter unpleasantness.

  “The big bear’s in a mood,” said the driver, looking at me in the rearview.

  “Isn’t he always?” I said.

  “True. But tonight he seems to have a hard-on for you. When he bellowed your name, he sounded like he had been gutshot. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

  “You couldn’t handle my shoes.”

  I spotted the woman looking at my little bows. When she glanced up and caught me catching her, she said, “Really?”

  “Quite the shindig you was at, hey?” said the driver.

  “If you like those things,” I said.

  “Cash bar?”

  “Open.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Where exactly are we going again?”

  No response.

  “If you won’t tell me where we’re going,” I said, “could you at least tell me what this is all about?”

  “No,” said Armbruster.

  “You just can’t drag me out of the stinking Governor’s Ball without telling me anything. I have rights.”

  “You have the right to shut up.”

  “What about at least telling me who was murdered?”

  “Here’s the thing, Carl,” said Armbruster, turning around and giving me the glare—you know the glare, the one they teach at the police academy and test for on the detective examination, the hard-eyed squint that makes you feel all of two feet tall. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  We ended up on Twentieth Street, not far from my office. A pair of cop cars with their flashing red-and-blues narrowed the northbound traffic to one lane. A pair of police officers kept a small crowd on the civilian side of the double band of yellow tape stretched across the mouth of a narrow alleyway. As I was escorted to the tape, I saw an old beater sitting in the alley. Set up beyond the car was a rack of arc lights focused against a brick wall, giving the crime scene, with its bright, washed-out colors, its clutch of neck-craning onlookers, its uniformed police acting like ushers at Grauman’s, the feel of a movie set, which seemed about right. It was the same heightened sense of reality I felt at the Governor’s Ball. It’s all confused these days, news and fashion, crime and entertainment and politics, it’s all of one piece. In my tuxedo, it felt like I was on the red carpet.

  “Keep him here,” said Armbruster to the two cops before he ducked beneath the tape. I watched as he headed around the old parked car and toward a hulking man in a plaid jacket and a porkpie hat, standing with his back to us under the lights.

  “The Governor’s Ball,” said the tall cop. “I should get myself invited to a party like that. I always appreciate an open bar. They got it made, those stinking politicians. Maybe after a few more years on the force, I’ll run for something myself.”

  “A pork chop?” said the woman.

  Detective Armbruster approached the hulking figure and started talking. The hulking figure stayed motionless as the detective gestured toward me.

  “A council seat or something,” said the tall cop. “I mean, you want to make money, that’s the way to make money. And their pensions—forget about it—they make ours look like little pink piggy banks filled with nickels.”

  “What makes you think you could get elected?” said the woman.

  “What’s so hard about it? Shake a few hands, kiss a few babies, tell them anything but the truth. You tell the truth, you’re screwed, but anything else is fair game. Lower taxes, better schools, more police. And once you get in, Boot, let me tell you, it’s like a license to steal. One for you, and ten for me.”

  “You couldn’t get elected bathroom attendant.”

  The hulking man handed something to Armbruster, turned around, and headed toward us. With his forward slouch, the jut of his hat, and the angle of the lights, his face was a fierce smudge of shadow.

  “I don’t know about that,” said the tall man. “I was talking to this guy the other day at the bar—”

  “A cop?”

  “No, you know, just a guy. Big fat fellow with a name like a rock, some politico or something. And he told me I got possibilities.”

  “Was he drunk?” asked Boot.

  “Drunk enough to do the buying. And right there at the bar, he told me I could go places. He told me I had the common touch. How do you like that?”

  “Is there anything more common than the common touch?” said Boot.

  “It got me thinking, you know. What do those guys got that I don’t got?”

  “You mean other than a clue?” said Boot.

  The hulking man came closer and then stopped about ten feet away from us as the red and blue lights washed across his face in waves, exposing his sour, mashed features. He was staring up at me from beneath his great protruding brow.

  “Hey, Cinderella,” rasped McDeiss.

  “You talking to me?” I said.

  “Who else you see dressed like they’re in some stinking fairy tale? Get the hell over here.”

  I looked at the two cops standing beside me, still jabbering back and forth.

  “You guys ought to find yourselves a room and get it over with,” I said before ducking below the tape, heading to the bright lights of the crime scene, and being hit in the face with a stench that sent me staggering.

  It smells sweet and coppery, like a rotting ham-and-cheese on toast, smothered with foul. It’s hard to describe but easy to recognize, because deep in the rat’s tail of our brain stem we have evolved a revulsion to it that sparks a chain reaction right into our guts. It affects us like no other aroma in the world; Limburger cheese may set us to gagging, but the cloying scent of human death coats our nostrils, and clings to the backs of our throats, and drives its inevitable nausea straight to our souls.

  Or maybe it was the sight of McDeiss that was roiling my stomach.

  “Whoa there, Carl,” growled McDeiss, catching me midstagger and saving me from an embarrassing face-first dive. “Take it easy there, boy.”

  I looked behind me. “Damn crack in the asphalt.”

  “I understand,” he said, and I suspected he did.

  Detective McDeiss was a bear of a man, with catcher’s mitts for hands, a face like a boiled potato, and a taste for ugly in sport coats and hats. We had worked more than a few cases together, on opposite sides, and he had made it clear that he didn’t like me much and trusted me even less. But while we hadn’t become pals, I liked to think we had developed a mutual respect, though maybe it was only that he respected my utter shamelessness and I respected that he could pound the stuffing out of me if I ever pulled a big enough turkey out of my ass.

  “How was the bash?” said McDeiss.

  “You yanked me out before I had a chance to find out.”

  “I did you a favor. Stinking flock of vultures.”

  “I think I saw your chief there.”

  From where I stood now, I could see where the arc lights were aiming, at something covered with a bright-blue tarp, slumped against a brick wall. I turned away from the thing and toward the crowd, but it didn’t help with the smell. “How’d you find me anyway?”

  “Your phone.”

>   “I didn’t get a call.”

  “I didn’t say I called. Just a few weeks ago you were scouring the courthouse for pity cases and now here you are, fresh from hobnobbing with the elite, wearing a full-blown monkey suit. Who did you kill to rise so quickly?”

  “Is that an official query from the Homicide Division?”

  “That tux a rental?”

  “Detective, please. I have standards.”

  “I know you do, and I know what they are. You go to the party right from your office?”

  “I went home first, but not from the office. I was at a meeting.”

  “When did it end?”

  “About five thirty.”

  “Where and with who?”

  “It was about a legal matter. That’s all I can say.”

  “And then you went home to change?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anyone see you there?”

  “There hasn’t been much of a crowd in my apartment since I sent away the Chinese acrobats. Do I need an alibi, Detective? Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I always advise my clients to say nothing without a lawyer.”

  “That’s because all your scum clients are guilty as sin.”

  “Let’s not let the truth get in the way of things.”

  We stared at each other in a game of blink to decide which of us was going to volunteer something of interest first. I actually didn’t know anything of interest, so I had the upper hand. As I stood there marinating in the stench, I wondered if the reek of death was going to sink into the fabric and ruin my tuxedo. Maybe that explained McDeiss’s horrid sport coats; garments that ugly are easy to toss.

  “We have a corpse without any ID,” said McDeiss, finally. “No license, no phone, no shoes.”

  “No shoes?”

  “No shoes.”

  “There’s nothing like a good pair of shoes.”

  “We need an identification.”