Shadow Games

by Ed Gorman

  Anne nodded. "You know Charles Grodin, the actor? He wrote a book about acting and he made the same point. He said that he was successful just because he'd hung in there all those years, determined to make it. But he said that a lot of actors he worked with, people he said were a lot more talented than he is, dropped out because they couldn't take all the rejection or they had families to feed."

  Dinner came and it was just as good as Cobey had promised.

  Toward the end of the meal, the girl singer came back, shimmering in her tight, blue gown, her blonde hair giving her a Veronica Lake type of sultry beauty.

  This time, she chose songs from later in the decade and into the early fifties, just before rock-and-roll took over the record business forevermore. She did "Red Sails in the Sunset," and "Nature Boy," and "Tennessee Waltz" and "Three Coins in the Fountain," and charmed the asses off, everybody listening to her, including one young busboy who was so obviously entranced by her beauty that he stared at her with beatific lust.

  There were only two people in the nightclub not paying any attention to the singer. One was the maitre d', a stuffy Polish fellow who hoped that his black tuxedo gave him a continental look, and a kind of dumpy man in a dramatic trench coat who was showing the maitre d' his identification.

  "You're a policeman?" the man whispered.

  "Cozzens," the man whispered back. "Now where is he? His hotel told me he was here."

  The maitre d' frowned. It was not often that the restaurant entertained bona fide TV stars. They finally got one—and one no less a personage than Cobey Daniels, who was about to get another network TV show—and what happens?

  A frigging cop, all dressed up like Mike Hammer, comes in and wants to spoil everything.

  And just why would a Chicago cop be interested in Cobey Daniels, anyway?

  But what choice did the maitre d' have?

  He raised a plump hand and pointed it to the east wall of the place and said, "There."

  "Thank you," Cozzens whispered back.

  And set off to talk to Cobey Daniels.

  At first, Cobey saw the guy only peripherally, too busy drinking in the chanteuse to pay any attention to anybody else.

  Veronica had rightly suspected that Cobey was becoming seriously enamored of the girl singer. He was trying to get a better look at the way her breasts moved beneath the sequined gown, of the gentle but erotic way her mouth widened when she reached for a high note, of the tender but sexy way her hands moved in the spotlit darkness. It was a marijuana dream of lust...

  Until he saw the guy moving toward the table, that is, and then it all ended, because Cobey had had enough trouble with cops over the years to spot one immediately. For one thing, only a real cop could get away with wearing a dork-o-rama trench coat like that...

  And for another

  For another...Cobey had never been made to face what happened in Beth's apartment five nights earlier...

  Images: brutally severed head inside refrigerator, blood pooling on the floor.

  Images: Cobey at trial...DA parading all of Cobey's sins past the jury...including that incident with the fourteen-year-old girl in Florida.

  Images: Cobey in reeking, steamy shower room...two beefy, naked queens moving toward him, shark grins on their faces...ready to divide the spoils.

  Cobey started to get up from his seat just as the trench coat arrived...

  Puckett made him right off, too. Cop. More specifically, detective.

  Coming here. Now.

  Puckett saw the way Cobey writhed in his seat. Scared.

  Puckett wondered what Cobey had to be scared about.

  And, just then, the girl singer ended her performance. This time, the ovation was so generous it probably got the club owner to double the singer's money.

  Lights came up. Red-jacketed waiters scooted about. The detective came over and said, "Evening, everybody. My name's Cozzens and I'm with the Chicago police."

  "My name's Puckett," Puckett said, putting out his hand. The men shook.

  And then Cozzens turned to Cobey. "My kids grew up watching you."

  Cobey tried to appear interested and flattered, but the sick look of fear in his eyes dominated his face.

  "Cobey," said Cozzens, "I'm really sorry to ask you this, but do you think you and I could go over to the bar there and have a little talk?"

  "About what?" Cobey asked. His voice was trembling.

  "Well, your name came up in a case I'm working on, and..." He shrugged. "Well, I'd just like to spend a few minutes talking to you."

  Cobey looked at Puckett. "You think it's all right?"

  "It's all right, Cobey, as long as you understand that you don't have to answer anything you don't feel like answering, and that you're entitled to an attorney any time you want one."

  Cozzens nodded. "Well put, Mr. Puckett. Very well put."

  Cobey glanced at Veronica. He might have been a prisoner about to take that last walk to the electric chair.

  "All right," Cobey said, gulping and standing up. In his dark suit and white shirt, he resembled a young and successful business man. He looked even more so standing next to the disheveled Cozzens.

  "We'll be right back," Cozzens said.

  He led the way to the bar, but they hadn't taken six steps before Cozzens slid a fatherly arm around Cobey's shoulder

  "God." Veronica said. Tears stood in her eyes.

  "He'll be all right," Puckett said, wondering at the depth of her reaction.

  "I need to go to the powder room," Anne said, trying to cool it. "Care to come with me, Veronica?"

  Veronica nodded and then asked Puckett, "Doesn't that detective have to tell Cobey what's going on?"

  "That's probably what he's doing right now," Puckett replied, soothingly.

  Veronica's tears were becoming more evident. "They're always picking on him just because he got in trouble a few times."

  Anne took Veronica's hand and led her off toward the back of the restaurant.

  Puckett sat there and sipped his scotch and water. Every minute or so, he'd glance at the bar to see what was going on.

  Cobey and Cozzens sat on bar stools next to each other. Even from here, Puckett could see that Cobey was drinking his Alcoholic's Delight, his Diet Pepsi. He admired the kid for waging the battle. It was a bitch.

  From up near the bar he heard some loud and sudden shouts.

  He turned, just in time to see Cobey push Cozzens from his stool and into the bar.

  In moments, Cobey was running from the bar, across the dance floor and into the kitchen doors.

  Cozzens was up and following him now, shouting for Cobey to stop.

  But Cobey wasn't about to stop.

  He pushed and shoved his way through a small crowd standing in front of the back door.

  Shouts went out. The back door opened—and then slammed shut.

  "He got away!" somebody shouted.

  Puckett watched as the bartender handed a phone over to Cozzens. Puckett knew just what the detective would be doing. Putting an APB out on Cobey.

  What the hell was going on here, anyway?

  By now, Cobey was long gone, lost in the maze of rainy Chicago streets.

  Ten minutes later, Puckett and Cozzens stood at the restaurant bar, sipping their drinks and talking.

  Anne and Veronica stood close to them so they could hear, and when Cozzens mentioned a young woman named "Beth," Puckett noticed a curious look on Veronica's face—she'd recognized the name.

  "She was beheaded?" Puckett said.

  "I think that's the word you're looking for," Cozzens said, allowing himself a wry little smile. "I'll spare you the details of what she looked like."

  "But why question Cobey? What's he got to do with it?" Puckett asked.

  Cozzens looked anxiously at Veronica. "He was, uh, involved with this woman."

  Puckett expected some kind of protest from Veronica. None came.

  "Several people told me that, including her best friend," Cozzens said. "A
nd Cobey and the Swallows woman argued. A lot. And pretty violently, from everything I've been able to piece together."

  Puckett saw that Cozzens hadn't had much choice but to ask Cobey some questions—and to seriously consider him a suspect.

  Quietly, Veronica said, "I know Cobey, Detective Cozzens. I know him and I love him—and I just know he couldn't have done what you said."

  Cozzens finished his drink and brought his glass down a little harder than necessary on the bar. "Then he shouldn't have run, Veronica. He sure as hell didn't do himself any favors."

  Cozzens put his hand out and Puckett shook it.

  "I appreciate the help, Puckett."

  "I just hope Cobey turns himself in before something else happens," Puckett said, frowning.

  "Believe it or not," Cozzens responded, "so do I. I don't want to see him—" He was aware of Veronica watching and listening carefully. He paused. "I want everything to work out well for everybody concerned."

  And with that, Cozzens nodded and left the restaurant. The diners were settling down again after all the commotion.

  "I think I'll call a cab and go back to my hotel," Veronica said quietly. "I'm pretty tired after all this." Her wan smile was sorrowful to see.

  "One thing, Veronica," Puckett said.

  "What's that?"

  "If he calls you, don't help him in any way. Convince him to turn himself in. That's the only way."

  She nodded, kissed Anne on the cheek, and walked to the front of the restaurant.

  "Poor Veronica," Anne said.

  Puckett grunted. "Poor Cobey, too. He's in one hell of a lot of trouble."

  Chapter Six

  I

  While he was still at the top, Cobey fell in with a mannered and self-described "existential" group of actors who spent most of their time discussing Jack Kerouac; who they were presently bopping; and why any actor who was successful was innately a piece of shit—no offense, Mr. Teen Idol, Mr. Nielsen Top 10, Mr. Billboard-with-a-bullet-burning-up-the-charts.

  All this was back in the early eighties. The Group studio was in North Hollywood (where else?) and was run by a very old gay man who continually hinted that he'd once had some kind of sexual experience with James Dean. Uh-huh. In between acting lessons in which everybody learned to be tortured in the manner of the late Montgomery Clift, Cobey and his more experienced (and courageous) friends picked up girls and had wine parties, watched hours of bad movies and howled, and rolled drunks and had plenty of cash in their pockets.

  Cavanaugh was the name of the kid who taught Cobey how to roll drunks. Cavanaugh had three rules: a) Always wear dark clothes; b) Always wear a mask; and c) Always roll prosperous drunks.

  Cavanaugh and his group mostly worked parking lots in Beverly Hills and Malibu because you saw a lot of drunks there, and drunks in such places always had lots of cash, or at least lots of credit cards that could easily be sold to a fence.

  At the time, Cobey didn't need the money, but he did need the kicks. He enjoyed rolling drunks far more than he wanted to admit to himself. The danger was what appealed to him. His new favorite word was existential and if rolling drunks wasn't existential, what was?

  Before going out for a night of battering high-class winos, Cobey got very upset. Once or twice he even barfed. Once he called Cavanaugh and told him he just couldn't go through with it anymore. Cavanaugh—whose biggest claim to fame was a three-week stint on Family Life as a bratty cousin—of course called him a pussy and said Cobey was going whether he liked it or not, Cavanaugh being the boss and Cobey not being jack shit.

  Cobey went—and scored nearly six hundred dollars and a Master Card Gold and felt good about himself and the world.

  Unfortunately, all this had an unhappy ending. Cavanaugh himself went out drunk one night to roll drunks and tried to score on some chubby little bald guy who turned out to be a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and, what with one thing and another, Cavanaugh's neck was broken and he died lying right next to a new red Ferrari. The chubby little bald guy had not been a pussy after all.

  This incident inspired Cobey to go straight. He gave up the Actors' Group and he gave up all his friends who said that anybody who was successful was innately a piece of shit and he went back to Lilly, with whom he'd had one of his twice annual fallings-out, and said get me some more record work, I want to go into the studio again. Which she did el pronto, the network having been asking for a new record for years (in Cobey's defense, it wasn't any fun having record critics maul everything you did).

  Now, all these years later, Cobey was back to rolling drunks.

  When he'd fled the restaurant after his run-in with that cop, Cobey hadn't even had time to take his jacket, and he'd made the mistake of leaving his wallet in his jacket.

  He'd spent two hours running through alleys, tripping, falling down, swearing, crying, pissing his pants, wanting to give himself up, terrified to give himself up, trying to tell himself that he really hadn't killed Beth Swallows, but realizing that he very well may have killed Beth Swallows. He knew what he was like when booze got to him—and God knows he'd had enough booze that night—and so all he could do was run. And keep running.

  He sort of thought of himself as Richard Kimble, The Fugitive, one of his all-time favorite shows. In fact, that was just how he saw life, as a sweaty run through the jungle, dark forces on his tail at all times.

  But actually being a fugitive had proved to be not so romantic or existential at all.

  In reality, being a fugitive, especially one without any money, meant trying to find a restroom to use; trying not to be noticed as he walked around; scurrying, but not scurrying so fast that he attracted attention, whenever he saw a cop car; and looking for a place to get out of the silver, slanting rain when it started coming down around midnight.

  Which was when Cobey had remembered Cavanaugh and rolling drunks.

  He prayed to whatever gods there were that the drunk he picked on wasn't some kind of Marine commando disguised as a priest or something. Just give him a good old overweight insurance agent from Skokie, somebody in a brown suit from Sears, wearing lace-up Hush Puppies.

  He had found a block of restaurants and lurked in the shadows of the alley running behind. Now he didn't feel like Richard Kimble, he felt like Darren McGavin on The Night Stalker. Freezing. Nose running. Rats nearby gnawing their way through the garbage. Feeling almost numbingly sorry for himself. I didn't do it. Or did I?

  Mostly couples had come out, chunky, middle-aged, middle-class couples, high and silly on a few middle-aged drinks, getting into Buicks and Oldsmobiles and Audis. Wrong sort of people.

  Finally, around one, Cobey getting bolder, and more desperate, he crouched behind this dumpster and saw the guy he'd been waiting for.

  Mr. Peepers. No fooling. No more than 5' 3" tops. No more than 135 pounds tops. Walking like a tipsy ballerina. Probably a drama teacher in some high school.

  There was a God after all.

  The guy had even been considerate enough to park his one-tone Chevrolet at the wee end of the shadowy lot, just where Cobey waited to spring.

  The guy got the key in the door and then nearly pitched over backwards. He was really bagged.

  Cobey jumped.

  And felt exhilarated. Existential. There was no other way to put it. He was a goddamned existential drunk-roller. It might sound pretentious, but...

  Cobey started to reach out...

  Started to grab the guy by the overcoat collar...

  Tried to keep the little bastard from falling over backwards and cracking his skull on the pavement...

  When the guy, who was still somehow upright, started—and this was just plain effing unbelievable—when the little guy, still on his feet, his key still plugged into the car door, started snoring.

  He was out on his feet.

  Was this a mugger's dream, or what?

  Cobey leaned against the little guy so he wouldn't fall over backwards, and then started going through the little guy's pockets.
>
  In moments, Cobey was the happy possessor of a wallet chock-full of credit cards and maybe two hundred dollars in crisp, green twenties.

  And the guy was still snoring.

  Cobey got the car opened and put the guy in behind the wheel as if he was going to start this baby up and tear off toward the Dan Ryan, but then his head flopped back against the seat and he started snoring loud and wet again and he was somewhere outside the known solar system.

  After taking the credit cards and the money, Cobey started to put the guy's wallet back in the overcoat, but then he noticed the color photograph of the guy with his wife and two cute little daughters. He felt sorry he had to mug a guy who was probably as nice as this one—but nobody had ever said that being existential was easy.

  He closed the car door and hoped the guy didn't freeze his ass off. And then Cobey started running, running.

  2

  He found an all-night drug store and bought some Lady Clairol rinse, a good pair of scissors, two different kinds of sunglasses, a blue vinyl bombardier jacket with some plastic lining designed to look like down, two pairs of underwear and socks, an Ed McBain paperback and a carton of Lucky Strikes.

  Five blocks east, on a deserted corner where the traffic light flashed yellow and lonely on the rain-slicked street, he found a motel, just the kind of place Norman Bates would really go for. The newest car in the lot was a 1982 Ford, and that had its back window smashed out, cardboard filling the hole.

  The desk clerk was sleeping. The lobby smelled of rain and piss and wine. The desk clerk jumped, startled to life and said, "Help you?" With his rimless glasses, pockmarked face and pinched, feral mouth, he looked like a composite photo of every serial killer Cobey had ever seen.

  "I need a room."

  The clerk looked him up and down. "You got a bag?"

  Cobey hoisted his sack. "Sack."

  "Oh," the clerk nodded, "right." Apparently, lots of people checked in here with big paper sacks.

  The room was the sort of place you went to die, a tiny cell with a tiny bed, a white sink discolored with rust, a TV with the channel selector missing and a pair of pliers to turn the little dealie, a cracked mirror, a carpet scuffed and worn clear through to the poured concrete floor, and a bureau with two drawers, one of which contained one of the most vile porno magazines Cobey had ever seen, color photos of two naked, black, four-hundred-pound women doing each other and, later, taking turns with this dildo with some kind of African totem on it. Oh, yeah, and the toilet didn't flush very well, either. Two dark brown turds floated in it to greet him.