Second Chance
A Dewey Webb Mystery
Short Story
published by Creative Cat Press
copyright 2017 by Renée Pawlish
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges all those who helped in the writing of this book, especially: Beth Treat, for superior editing. If I've forgotten anyone, please accept my apologies.
To all my beta readers: I am in your debt!
Maureen Anderson, Bill Baker, Greg Ballinger, Suzanne S. Barnhill, Van Brollini, Jan Carrico, Irene David, Karen Dia-Mel, Tracy Gestewitz, Barbara Hackel, Elisabeth Huhn, JoAnn Ice, Kay, David King, Ray Kline, Cindi Knowles, Maxine Lauer, Lyric McKnight, Karen Melde, Becky Neilsen, Gerry Nelson, Ronnie Nelson, Ann Owen, Janice Paysinger, Yvonne Plyler, Dave Richard, Judith A. Rogow, Mary Lou Romashko, Bev Smith, Albert Stevens, Latonya Stewart, Joyce Stumpff, Morris Sweet, Jennifer Thompson, Patricia Thursby, Jo Trowbridge, Shelly Voss, Lu Wilmot
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CHAPTER ONE
“I’ve got a problem, Dewey,” Jerry Manco said as he put a shot of whiskey down in front of me.
“Oh yeah?” I tipped my hat back. Jerry’s asking for help was unusual, as he typically just wanted to discuss his favorite baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. “What’s going on?”
Jerry owned the eponymous Jerry’s, a local watering hole that was decorated with pictures of the Dodgers. The bar was popular with local businessmen, and it was around the corner from my office, Webb Investigations. I’d stopped in for a quick drink before heading home to my wife, Clara, and my baby boy, Sam.
Jerry laid thick hands on the bar and let out a sigh that carried despair in it. “It’s my son Angelo. I think he’s up to no good again.” His thick Brooklyn accent seemed more pronounced, showing his worry.
I swallowed the shot and set the glass down, then gazed at him. “What’s going on?”
Vic Damone played from a jukebox in the corner as Jerry wiped the bar for a moment. Then he began. “Angelo’s my youngest. He’s twenty-two. He’s had a bit of trouble in the past.” He hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong, he was a good kid growing up, but he started in with a bad crowd in high school, and his grades slipped. He managed to graduate, and he went right into the army in ’44.”
That put Angelo about seven years younger than I am. “Did he see combat?” Like me, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. I’d served in the Army in Germany, and like a lot of men, I didn’t talk about it much.
“No, Angelo served state-side. I hoped the military would straighten him up some, and at first I thought it did. When he got out, he moved back in with us and got a job at a construction site. He seemed to be doing well. Then I found out he’d been stealing materials from his company and selling them on his own. The boss caught him and was going to turn him over to the police, but I begged the man not to. He agreed, as long as Angelo paid him back.”
“And did he?”
He shrugged. “I had to help. It cost a lot, but his old boss got repaid. Of course, Angelo was fired. He worked here for a while, until he got a job as a salesman for an insurance company. He’s been struggling, not making great money, but enough to pay me back. He’s been aimless, though, for a while. I wish he would go to college. He’s got an eye for numbers, and I think he could be an engineer or something of the sort.” He waved a hand to encompass the bar. “It’d be better than working here, like his old man.”
“Why was he stealing? Did he have a gambling problem, anything like that?”
“I don’t think so, but he liked to go out on the town, and he’d bought a fancy new car and liked to show it off. After he got caught, he sold that car and got something cheaper, and he stayed home most nights.” He frowned. “Until about two months ago. Now he goes out a lot, and he says he’s with his friends. But my wife says that sometimes his friends call when he’s gone, which makes me think he’s lying to us.”
“You think he’s seeing any of his old crowd from high school?”
He nodded. “One of his old pals, Leroy Scarpetta, called a couple months ago and talked to Angelo, but Angelo said he never met up with Leroy.”
“Do you believe him?”
He shrugged.
“Does Angelo have a girlfriend?” I asked.
“No, he says he’s not ready to settle down.”
I stared at the shot glass, then eyed him. “All this doesn’t mean he’s doing something illegal.”
He paused while he served up a few beers for a group of businessmen that had come into the bar, then turned back to me. “That’s true, but he’s not been acting like himself. It’s probably nothing.” He threw up his hands. “But his mother worries, and then I do. I don’t know what’s going on with Angelo, but I want to put her mind at ease, if nothing else. And if Angelo gets into trouble again, my wife’ll want to bail him out. Me, I’d just as soon he go to jail and learn his lesson, but I’d rather find out if there’s a problem now, before it gets that far.” He shrugged. “And I’m here almost every day, so I can’t do much.”
“Okay, I’ll check around and see what I can find.”
“I wish he’d go to college,” he repeated. “He could work here, and stay out of trouble.”
“And you could keep your eye on him.”
He nodded.
“Where does he work?”
“Allied Insurance. On Broadway.”
“Have there been problems there?”
“Not that I know of, but you might ask around. He got caught stealing at his old job, he could do it again. Although he’s assured us he’s learned his lesson.”
I pushed the glass over to him. “I should talk to your wife first and see what she can tell me.”
He nodded. “I told her I’d be talking to you, but I don’t think she’ll have much to add. If you see Angelo, though, don’t tell him I put you up to this. If it’s nothing, I don’t want him to think I didn’t trust him.”
I nodded. “Do you have a picture of Angelo?”
He shook his head. “No, but you’ve seen him in here. He’s a little taller than me, with dark hair and eyes.”
That description could’ve matched half the men I’d seen in the bar, but I didn’t want to insult Jerry, so I kept my mouth shut. I was sure his wife could show me a picture of Angelo.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
He took a pad and pen from under the bar, wrote down his address, and handed me the paper. “How much do you charge?”
I named my daily fee. “Give me a day or two, and I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Okay.” He went to a register at the corner of the bar, pulled out some bills, came back and handed them to me. “That’ll get you started.”
“Thanks,” I said as I slipped the bills into my pocket. I adjusted my hat and slid off the barstool. “I’ll go talk to your wife now.”
“I’ll give her a call to let her know you’re coming.”
I touched the brim of my hat and walked out of the bar.
CHAPTER TWO
I stopped back by my office to call Clara to tell her I’d be home later than expected, and then I headed up Federal Boulevard. The Mancos lived in a modest two-story brick-and-siding house on West Thirty-fifth Avenue in a neighborhood filled with similar homes
. A crisp fall wind blew as I parked my black Plymouth in front and walked up the steps to the front porch. I rang the bell and waited. Next door, some kids played and chattered in Italian. A moment later, the door opened to reveal a stout woman with iron-gray hair and dark eyes.
“Mrs. Manco?”
“You must be Mr. Webb.” She had just the trace of an Italian accent.
“Please, call me Dewey.” I took off my hat.
A broad smile crossed her face. “And you call me Vera.” She stepped back and wiped her hands on a flowered apron. “Jerry said you’d be coming. Please come in.”
I followed her into a living room stuffed with furniture. She indicated I should sit on the couch, while she settled into a chair across from me. Old family pictures hung on wallpapered walls, along with a crucifix. The smell of garlic drifted in from the kitchen at the back of the house. My mouth watered and I swallowed.
“Have I interrupted your supper?” I asked as I rested my hat on my knee.
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, no. I’m fixing something for Angelo and myself, but he won’t be home for a while.”
Good, I thought. That averted a possible run-in with him, where I’d have to explain who I was and what I was doing here.
“Jerry said you think Angelo might be in some kind of trouble,” I began.
“Yes. Angelo’s a good boy, but he doesn’t always think right.” She tapped her temple for emphasis. “Did Jerry tell you about him?”
I nodded and told her what Jerry had said.
“I have six children, and they’re all gone and married, but that boy …” She put her hands in her lap and sighed. “After Angelo got caught stealing that stuff and we had to help him out, I thought he’d put everything behind him. He said he didn’t want to go to jail, and that he’d never do something like that again. But now he’s been acting secretive, and a mother worries.”
“Jerry said that Angelo’s been going out a lot lately, which is unusual, and that he might be lying about who he’s seeing.”
“Sometimes he tells me he’s with a certain fella, but then that fella will call while Angelo is out. That isn’t right.”
“Is there anything else going on that makes you suspicious of Angelo?”
“Oh yes.” She wrung the apron with her hands. “Some evenings, the phone will ring, but when I answer it, no one speaks, and then they hang up. At first, I thought nothing of it, but it keeps happening.”
“How often?”
“Maybe once or twice a week. Always in the evening. And soon after that happens, Angelo goes up to his room, spruces himself up, and then goes out for the evening.”
“When does he return?”
“Very late. And,” she held up a finger, “other times, when the phone rings, Angelo leaps up off the couch and runs to the phone before I can move. Sometimes he moves so fast, he scares me to death.”
“As if he’s expecting a call?”
“Yes.” She wagged the finger at me. “And if the call is for Angelo, he talks for a minute – quietly so I can’t hear him – and then he tells me he has to go out. If I ask him where he’s going, it’s always ‘out to the movies’ or ‘to get drinks with his friends.’ But I don’t think that’s where he’s going.”
“Why not?”
“I call the bars where he says he goes and he’s not there. Or I ask him about the movies he sees, but he doesn’t seem to know about them.”
“You’d make a good detective.”
She blushed. “Ah, a mother, she knows these things.”
“When did the phone calls start?” I asked.
She pursed her lips, thinking. “Probably two months ago.”
“Have you asked Angelo what he’s doing?”
She let out a little laugh. “Yes, but he just gives me a big hug and tells me not to worry, that everything is okay.”
“Would his brothers and sisters know what’s going on?”
“I’ve asked them. As far as they know, he goes to work or goes out with his friends. That’s it. They don’t think he’s in any trouble again. But he is, and now I know it.”
I waited for her to continue. She leaned in.
“A week ago, when I cleaned Angelo’s room, I found a gold cigarette case. It’s much too expensive for him to afford. And this morning, when he is in the bathroom, I saw an envelope in his jacket. It looked like it had a lot of money in it. More than he should have.”
“How much?”
She spread her hands. “I couldn’t tell. I was going to ask him about it at breakfast, but he hurried out before I had a chance.”
“Did you tell Jerry about this?”
“No. I want to talk to Angelo first. If it’s nothing, I don’t want Jerry to be upset with him.”
“Maybe Angelo withdrew it from the bank.”
“Why?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, and I shrugged. The phone rang. She murmured something in Italian, excused herself, and went into the kitchen. I heard her speaking in Italian, her voice low, and when she returned, she was frowning.
“That was Angelo. He’s not coming home for dinner.”
“Does he usually come home for dinner before going out again?”
She nodded. “Always. I’m telling you, Angelo is up to something.”
I ran a hand along the brim of my hat. “Do you have phone numbers or addresses for some of his friends? I can talk to them and see if they know anything.”
“Of course.”
She got up and scurried out of the room, and returned a few minutes later with a piece of paper. “Here are two of them. Nico and Bruno Costa. They’re both mechanics at their father’s gas station on Colfax and Sheridan.”
I knew the one she was talking about. I stood up and pointed to a credenza in the corner that held several framed photos. “Is Angelo in any of those?”
“Yes.” She waved me over. “This is him.”
I bent down and stared at a small photo of a young man – a boy, really – in his army uniform. He had wavy dark hair and equally dark eyes, with a long thin nose. He looked a lot like his father.
“He’s handsome, yes?” she said.
I nodded and straightened up. “Thank you for your time. As I said to your husband, I’ll poke around for a couple of days and see what I can find out.”
“I don’t want to see that boy in jail,” she said as she walked me to the door.
“You seem certain he’s up to something,” I said.
She put a hand to her breast. “Mother’s intuition.”
“I see.”
I stepped onto the porch, donned my hat, and walked to my car. I looked back as I drove away. Vera Manco was still in the doorway, a frown on her face.
CHAPTER THREE
There wasn’t much else I could do that night, so I drove down Federal Boulevard toward home. Clara and I rented an old house in Barnum, a working-class neighborhood named after the famous showman P.T. Barnum. It wasn’t a fancy part of town, but it was all I could afford. Since I’d left the law offices of Masters and O’Reilly, where I’d worked as an investigator after the war, money was tight. I hoped someday I could buy Clara a nice house in a newer development farther west, but for now, this would have to do.
I turned on Fourth Avenue and was soon parking in my driveway. A stiff wind blew leaves across our tiny yard as I walked up to the front porch and let myself in. Clara was pacing the living room with Sam nestled on her shoulder. She stopped singing a lullaby and glanced at me.
“He’s been fussy,” she whispered. She blew a strand of wavy brown hair out of her gray eyes and forced a smile.
“Want me to put him down?” I took off my coat and hat and hung them on a coatrack near the door.
“That’d be great.”
I came over and she gently handed Sam to me. He stirred and began crying, but I started swaying back and forth and he soon stopped. Clara slumped down on the couch.
“Long day?” I asked in a low voice.
; She nodded. “I washed your shirts and a bunch of diapers, then mended a dress, and I cleaned every nook and cranny in the kitchen. I can’t believe how dirty it was behind the refrigerator. And Sam’s been fussy all day. I think he might be teething.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry I was late.” Then I told her about my case. My low voice seemed to lull Sam to sleep.
“I see.” She kicked off her shoes. “I’m sorry, dear, but I’m beat.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“It’s okay.”
I looked at her for a moment, then let her rest and took Sam into the bedroom. For an instant, I felt anger rise within me. After all, I’d had a long day, too. As I put Sam in his crib, my thoughts – as they frequently did – went to my own childhood. I grew up in a difficult household, with a father who abandoned my mom and my brothers and me when I was sixteen. It had been hard on us, and on my mother. I don’t think she ever got over that, and I’d vowed I would be a better man than my father had been to us. But as I thought about my anger from a few minutes ago, I wondered if I was living up to my promise.
I touched Sam on the head, covered him with a small blanket, and went back into the living room. Clara was asleep on the couch. I kissed her lightly on the cheek, then went into the kitchen to get something to eat.
***
The next morning, I had breakfast with Clara and Sam, and then headed west on Sheridan Boulevard to the gas station where Angelo’s friends Bruno and Nico Costa worked. When I arrived, I asked an old man in the main building where I’d find them. He pointed me toward the garage and a younger, brown-haired man, who was working on an old Ford coupe.
“Excuse me?” I said. “I’m looking for Bruno or Nico?”
“You found Bruno.” He set down a wrench, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, then came over and shook my hand. “You have a car problem?”
“No. I’m a friend of Mrs. Manco.”
Second Chance Page 1
