by Parnell Hall
“Does it sound stupid?”
“Of course.”
I don’t know if I sounded stupid, but I sure felt stupid. Alice always reduces my brain to Jell-O. “Wait a minute. Time out,” I said. “You’re the one saying if this woman isn’t attractive the guy must be interested in her for her money.”
Alice smiled. “I’m saying that based on your assessment of her. You’re the one who told me this woman had nothing to recommend her except money.”
“No, I just said she wasn’t physically attractive.”
“Didn’t you say she couldn’t even look at you and carry on a simple conversation?”
“That’s part of what made her unattractive.”
“No, no. That’s part of her personality. Her mind. The very concept you were ridiculing. How can he like her for her mind if she has no mind?”
“She has a mind.”
“Not the way you tell it. You describe a mindless nit who can barely get the words out.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not?”
“You’re making all kinds of value judgments on the woman, and you don’t even know her.”
“I know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“She hired you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Not you personally. I mean, she hired a detective.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So that’s the bottom line. Any woman who would hire a private detective to check on her boyfriend and see if he’s after her money, he’s probably after her money.”
“You’re in good form tonight.”
“Stop that.”
“And you don’t seem the least bit tired.”
“I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep.”
With that, Alice rolled over and buried her head in the pillow, effectively ending the conversation.
Leaving me alone with my thoughts. I didn’t like my thoughts. I picked up the remote control and switched on the Carson show.
I’d missed the opening monologue—wouldn’t you know it, that’s the part I like best—and Jay Leno was guest-hosting and not doing his headline bit so there was no sketch and he had already started in on the guests. First up was Armand Assante, which is one of those names that always sounds more like a crime than a person—”You are charged with armand assante in the first degree, how do you plead?” “Not guilty, Your Honor.” (The charge was later plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor count of patty hearst.)
I watched Armand Assante claim he never did talk shows and show a clip from his new picture, then switched the set off, switched the light off, and lay there in the dark.
I was really depressed. There was the Raheem Webb situation, which I could do nothing about. That I could deal with. In my work for Richard, I came up against a lot of heart-breaking situations I could do nothing about. And I’d learned to harden myself, push them from my mind and get on to something else. Not admirable, to be sure, but not that hard to do when you’re working three to four cases a day. New problems arise, take focus, shove yesterday’s bummer onto the back burner where it simmers away, recedes and is forgotten.
But the Melissa Ford case. That was the real bummer. Distasteful as it might be, I had taken it on because I wanted the money, and I hadn’t done it.
Because I wanted the money. That was the problem. That was what was hanging me up. I had two hundred bucks of Melissa Ford’s money for the work I’d done today, and I hadn’t done any work.
What did I do, give it back? Say, today’s a washout, I start the case tomorrow? Melissa Ford was gonna be in my office first thing Monday morning to hear my report. What could I do? Say, I only had time to work one day on this, come back tomorrow? Or say, I only had time to work one day on this, here’s two hundred bucks back and here’s your report? Or did I say nothing at all, do one day’s work for her and keep the money?
I’m sure there are people who would not hesitate to do that, and I had to admit, boy, what a temptation it was. But I have to live with myself. And if the truth be known, I do not see myself as the best of all private detectives. I don’t even work much, except for Rosenberg and Stone. And if someone should hire me, even if I did all the work, I’d still have the nagging suspicion I wasn’t giving full value for their dollar. So to stint on that? Not possible. Attractive though it might be.
It occurred to me I could work one day over the weekend. An unattractive proposition, but it would solve my problem. And I probably would have done it if there’d been anything I could do. But everything’s closed on the weekend. At least, anything that could possibly help me. To putz around ineffectively on Saturday or Sunday just to be able to say I did it would be pretty shoddy practice. Hell, Melissa Ford had paid me for two days and expected a report by Monday. Nothing ambiguous in that. The weekend didn’t count. I’d been paid for Thursday and Friday.
But that was the least of my worries. The real thing bugging me was, I’d never checked out anyone’s boyfriend before, and when you came right down to it, I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. I mean, even if I called Rosenberg and Stone first thing in the morning and told them not to give me any work, what the hell did I do then? I had the guy’s home address and I had his work address—he was an advertising executive with one of the Madison Avenue firms. What did I do, call on him at work and ask him what his intentions were toward Melissa Ford? Probably not the smoothest of approaches. No, I needed to find out if he was married and check his credit rating.
Well, married, I go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics, right? Wherever the fuck that is. I’ll look in the phone book in the morning. But credit rating? How the hell do you do that?
I had no idea.
I lay there in the dark feeling worse and worse, like I’d dug myself into an impossible hole that I was never going to get out of.
It was just as I was dropping off to sleep that it came to me.
Fred Lazar.
5.
FRED LAZAR, IF THE TRUTH be known, was the guy who’d gotten me into this whole mess in the first place. Not the Melissa Ford mess—I mean the whole private detective bit. Fred and I had gone to the same college, Goddard, and played together on the soccer team. I’d run into Fred at a party a few years back and been surprised to learn he ran a private detective agency in Manhattan. I’d been between acting and writing jobs as usual, and looking for a job-job to tide me over. And at the time detective work had sounded absolutely fascinating. It turned out, however, there was no chance of my working for Fred. His detectives all had two to three years experience at least—in fact, most of them were ex-cops. But I got to talking to Fred, and damned if he didn’t get an idea.
It turned out his agency had just turned down an offer of steady employment from a law firm. The firm was cheap, and was only offering ten bucks an hour and thirty cents a mile, which wasn’t worth Fred’s time. He was paying more than that, for Christ’s sake, which actually made it a losing proposition. But for a guy who needed a job-job and was willing to work for that kind of money, it would at least be flexible hours, and was I interested?
Well, at that point with nothing else on the horizon, I was, but I didn’t feel I was qualified. Fred told me to relax, it was only ambulance chasing, there was nothing to it, he could teach me in a day.
He did, and I called Rosenberg and Stone and I got the job and the rest is history.
And now Fred Lazar was the answer. He ran a real detective agency, one that did not just ambulance chasing but all kinds of stuff. Surveillance and investigations and security guard work and the whole bit. Fred could give me advice. More than that, his agency could do some of the work. His rates would be prohibitive, but as professional courtesy and a favor I was sure he would help. Besides, his agency had computers and modems and stuff like that, and the whole thing would be easy. The way I saw it, I’d pay Fred two hundred bucks to give me everything he could on David Melrose. And I’d put in the day chasing around getting everything I could on David M
elrose. And Melissa Ford would get her money’s worth, two days’ work done in one day by two people, and the job would be finished when she came for her report. Plus she’d get better than I would have given her, because Fred was a professional and would know what to do.
And, if the job hadn’t been completed in that time—which I rather doubted it would be—since I was giving her such professional work and all, she’d be inclined to keep me on for a few more days. So my two hundred dollar loss wouldn’t really be a loss, it would be a gain, and she’d feel good about it, and I’d feel good about it, and it was the right thing to do and everything would work out.
Having made that decision, I felt a lot better about the whole thing. Besides, it would be nice to run into Fred Lazar again. I hadn’t seen him in a while.
It turned out I hadn’t seen him in a long while. When I called Lazar Investigations, I found out the number had been disconnected. I called his apartment and got an answering machine giving me a number to call during working hours. I called it and got a McDonald’s. I was about to hang up when I realized I was talking to Fred.
I met Fred for breakfast at a small coffee shop on Broadway in the 70s. Fred hadn’t changed much, aside from his job. He was still handsome and cocky as ever. Fred was my age, of course, but while my hair was now showing a touch of gray, his was as jet black as when he’d been in college. Fred had always fancied himself quite the ass-man, and while with a lot of guys who come off like that it’s just an act, I recall Fred always did very well with the ladies. Somehow, I just couldn’t imagine Fred Lazar managing a McDonald’s.
“It’s the snake that swallowed its own tail,” Fred said. He smiled, shook his head. “Damn shame.”
“I don’t understand.”
Fred grimaced. “You see all that shit on TV about security guards turning out to have criminal records and wind up rapin’ the people they’re supposed to protect?”
My eyes widened. “Was that you?”
Fred waved his hand. “No, no, no. I check my guys out, believe it or not. That was the point of the whole piece—it takes a couple of months to run the checks, a lot of firms won’t wait for it, hiring guys, putting them into buildings and on the street with no idea who they are. No, that wasn’t none of my guys, but a bad rap like that reflects on us all.”
“I see,” I said. “You’re saying that cut into your business so much—”
“No, no,” Fred said. “That’s the tip of the iceberg. That’s the sensational stuff you hear about. Actually, I had no problem in that area.”
“So?”
“It’s the negligence shit. The stuff you do. That’s the killer. You know there’s doctors won’t do stuff now because the malpractice insurance is too high?”
“Yeah, I know. So?”
He shrugged. “The same all around. This mass market negligence shit. Everybody’s suin’. I got no security guards rapin’ people, but that don’t matter. People get it into their head and they sue. A guy gets mugged, it used to be he went to the cops. Now a guy gets mugged, I got a security guard working anywhere in the area, they turn around and they’re suin’ me.”
“You mean ...?”
“Sure I do. I do negligence work too, you know. Or I did. If the work’s there, you can’t turn it down. And look what happens. I’ll never forget, I’m sittin’ in the office one day and the investigator comes in with his cases. I thumb through them, I come upon a case. A woman gets beaten, raped in a hallway of a building. Big mess. I saw the pictures. Aside from bein’ raped, she’s got stitches in her forehead and a broken arm. I check out the fact sheet—there’s cops on the scene, police report, ambulance and the whole bit. Solid case. No problem.
“Then I look at the blank where it says DEFENDANT and my investigator’s filled in the landlord of the building and F. L. SECURITY.”
I frowned. “What?”
“F. L. Security. That’s me. Lazar Investigations, that’s my agency. But F. L. Security, that’s me too. That’s how I’m listed in the yellow pages under Guard and Patrol Services.
“So what’s the upshot? I’m suin’ myself. The snake that devoured its own tail.”
“Didn’t you have insurance?”
“Sure I did. And I lost a couple of cases and the insurance company paid off. And you know what happened to my rates?” Fred raised his thumb up in the air as high as it would go. “Just like the medical malpractice insurance. The upshot is it’s too expensive to operate and I’m outta business.”
I felt bad. And for good reason. I couldn’t be sure, but with all the hundreds of cases I’d done, I had a feeling I’d filled in the words “F. L. Security” on a fact sheet myself.
I told Fred. He shrugged it off. “Don’t sweat it. You’re suin’ me. I’m suin’ me. Everyone’s suin’ me. It’ll come around. You watch out they don’t start suin’ you.”
That startled me. “What?”
“Hey, it gets in the blood. You get some wise-ass client sues the city of New York, loses, gets pissed off and finds another attorney to sue the first attorney for losin’ the suit. They sue Rosenberg for legal malpractice and they sue you for bunglin’ the investigative work.”
I stared at him. “Son of a bitch.”
Fred grinned. “I’m kidding, of course. But what the hell you want, anyway?”
I wanted things to be back to normal, with Fred Lazar running his investigative business, and me not obsessed with the thought that, despite Fred’s assurances, someone somewhere was gonna sue my ass off.
But that wasn’t what Fred meant, so I told him about the Melissa Ford case. He listened intently, and when I finished he nodded his head.
“Well, whaddya think?” I said.
“It’s a gold mine,” Fred said. “If you can’t milk it for a grand, you’re an amateur.”
“I am an amateur. I’m not worried about milking it, I’m worried about doing it. Frankly, I was gonna hire you to help.”
“What do you need?”
“I wanna run a computer check on the guy.”
Fred cocked his head. “Great. Whaddya expect to pay me for that?”
“I figured you’d have a computer setup, I was gonna ask you to run whatever you could for two hundred bucks.”
“Gee, that would’ve made my day. And what did you expect me to run for that?”
“I don’t know. Credit check. Bank accounts.”
Fred winced. “You are an amateur. You think a computer can just tap into that?”
“I thought if you had a computer and a modem you could plug in and get anything.”
“Well, not bank accounts. Private citizen’s got rights too.”
“So what can you do?”
“You can get anything that’s a matter of public record. Does the guy own property, pay taxes on any land? You must have done shit like that for your negligence suits.”
“Yeah, I have.”
“Well, that you can do. But you gotta do it county by county and it’s gonna cost you six bucks a throw. Same thing with a criminal record. If the guy’s got a criminal record you can find it, but it’s either gonna cost money or it’s gonna take time.”
I sighed. “Jesus Christ. All right, look. If it was your case, what would you do?”
“Pad my expenses and bill her through the nose.”
“No, I mean really.”
“I’m telling you, that’s what I’d do. It’s a piece of shit case, and nothing’s gonna help. If this broad’s like you say, the guy’s after her money, but nothing you can tell her’s gonna change her mind.”
“Even so, I gotta do the job.”
“So you wanna be a straight arrow, here’s what you do. Check Vital Statistics, make sure he hasn’t got a wife kickin’ around somewhere. Then tail him.”
“Shit.”
“Hey, there’s two reasons. All the paperwork in the world isn’t gonna tell you who this guy really is. You gotta check him out yourself and see what makes him tick.”
“What’s the oth
er reason?”
“For surveillance you can bill more.”
I sighed, shook my head. “I hate surveillance.”
“Then you’re in the wrong line of work.”
“You advising me to get out?”
“No, just making an observation.”
I sighed again. “I know that. I hate this shit. I’d love to get out. The thing is, with my liberal arts degree, what the hell else can I do?”
“I dunno.” He looked at me, cocked his head. “How are you at makin’ burgers?”
6.
SERGEANT MACAULLIF WASN’T GLAD to see me. He looked up from his paperwork, frowned and said, “Who died?”
“What?”
He shrugged. “You come in here, someone’s dead and you’re in trouble. Who is it this time?”
“No one.”
“Really? Let me mark that on my calendar. Stanley Hastings came to see me and no one died. So this is a purely social call?”
“Not exactly.”
“No kidding.” MacAullif grimaced. “Hell, you did me a favor once, I’ll be payin’ it back the rest of my life. What is it this time?”
I told him about the Melissa Ford case. I can’t say he was too impressed.
“Christ,” he said. “You’re really sinking low, aren’t you?”
“How much lower can you get than ambulance chasing?”
“You have a point. So whaddya want?”
“I’d like to know if David Melrose has a record.”
“That’s something you could find out yourself.”
“I know. But it would take me all day. And I gotta report on this Monday morning.”
MacAullif must have been in a good mood, ’cause he didn’t get that upset. “Is that all you want?”
“I’d be grateful for any advice.”
“I’d advise you to find another line of work.”
“You’re the second person today who’s told me that.”
“Sort of makes you start to think, doesn’t it?”
I shook my head. “Not me. You’re always advising me not to think. Just gets me in trouble.”
