by Parnell Hall
“I’m not sure I should,” she said.
Jesus Christ. And I’d thought this was going to be a piece of cake.
I’d gone into the Melissa Ford interview in a very good mood. My good mood was partly because I’d actually gotten something on the young man, and partly because I’d solved my moral dilemma over the money. See, I’d started working on the case by calling Fred Lazar at 8:00 A. M. Friday. And I’d put in a full day on it, what with checking the Bureau of Vital Statistics and calling on MacAullif and checking the Tax Assessor to see if he owned any property. And that, coupled with my surveillance of him Friday night until midnight, added up to a total of sixteen hours. So I had in effect put in two days work in one day. Hell, it even occurred to me most private detectives would say I did one sixteen-hour day and the second eight hours was overtime at time and a half and you owe me another hundred bucks. I certainly wasn’t gonna push for that. I just figured I’d given her her money’s worth and we were even.
It also occurred to me that since I’d done such good work and got her exactly what she needed, she’d be inclined to keep me on for a few more days to investigate the situation. Which I was sure she would do as soon as she heard the true facts.
Only she didn’t want to hear it.
I took a breath. Jesus Christ, here I was, once again, a private detective caught in a shaggy dog story, doing an impossible task for people who didn’t want it done. What should I do, tie her up and gag her and force her to listen to me?
I used reverse psychology. “You’re right,” I said. “These are things I shouldn’t have learned, and there is no reason for you to hear them. I assume, since you are displeased with what I’ve done, that I am fired. That’s perfectly understandable. I hope you will understand that since I discharged the work, although you are not satisfied with it, I am keeping the money, because there are no guarantees in this business. I’m sorry we had this misunderstanding and I hope there are no hard feelings.”
I stood up.
It worked. A first for me. Mark it on the calendar. Private detective’s bluff succeeds.
Because she didn’t get up too. Instead, she looked down at the floor and blinked her eyes behind her glasses a couple of times. “Oh,” she said.
“I take it I am fired?” I said. “I mean, you certainly wouldn’t want me to continue working for you when you are so displeased with my services.”
Her lips moved, but nothing came out. She seemed to be trying to figure out what to say next. “Well,” she said, “I don’t want to be hasty about this. I suppose you acted in good faith. But I have to tell you, you were dead wrong.”
“I don’t want to argue with you,” I said. “I accept your assessment of the situation, I apologize and I’m sorry I offended you.”
That didn’t please her either. Behind those glasses I could see her mind going, trying to figure some way out of the predicament. Then I saw a glint come in her eyes that might have been indicative of an idea.
It was.
She raised her head slightly, opened her mouth and said, “I do not approve of what you have done, and I’m sure the information you have obtained is false. But you’d better tell me what it is, so I can explain it to you, so you do not go away with a bad opinion of David.”
I had to hand it to her. That saved face and covered the situation beautifully. I couldn’t have thought up a better way out myself.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what I’ve got. There’s no record of David ever having been married before.”
“Of course not,” she said.
“Nor does he own a motor vehicle, have a driver’s license or own any property.”
She nodded her head. “That’s right.”
“Here’s where I may surprise you. David Melrose is not a big advertising executive at the Breelstein Agency.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know this may hurt you. But that’s why David has you meet him on the sidewalk outside the office. He doesn’t want you to see where he works. The truth is, no matter how he dresses, he is not an executive at all.”
“Right,” she said. “He works in the mail room.”
It was my turn to frown. “What?” I said.
Her chin came up defiantly. “Now, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. He works in the mail room. He’s a young man, and he had to start at the bottom. But he doesn’t intend to stay there. He dresses well, he works hard, and he intends to move up.”
I’m afraid all I could think of to say was, “He does?”
“Of course he does,” she said. “He’s young and he’s personable and he’s intelligent. And he’s a hard worker. He’s learning the business and making contacts. Believe me, he won’t be in the mail room long.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m glad that’s cleared up. Let me tell you what happened next.”
“Next?”
“Friday night,” I said. “I’m talking about Friday night.”
“Oh,” she said. One bra strap was showing. She covered it irritably, then set her lips in a firm line. “Go on.”
“Well, like I said, you met David outside his office, took a cab to a restaurant uptown.”
I paused there, in case she wanted to jump in again, but she merely maintained her look of cold disapproval. The fact that she directed it at the corner of my desk made my task easier.
“After dinner, you took a taxicab back to your apartment. You and David got out and you went inside.”
“I know that,” she said.
“Of course you do. But you don’t know what happened next. David got back in the cab, drove for five blocks and stopped at a pay phone.”
I paused to let that sink in.
She actually looked up a little. “So what?”
“There’s a pay phone on your corner,” I said. “Surely David could have used that, instead of getting back in the cab and driving five blocks to find one. Unless, of course, he didn’t want you to know he was making the call.”
She sighed and shook her head pityingly. “The pay phone on our corner is broken,” she said. “It’s been broken for a week. Vandals pulled the wires out. David lost a quarter in it just the other day. I called and reported it, but of course no one came.”
“I see,” I said. I must say I was rapidly losing my confidence. But I still had a lot of ammunition to shoot. “Well, it might interest you to know that after that phone call, David drove to a loft on Grand Street and a rather scraggly looking disreputable type met him on the sidewalk and slipped him a package.”
She must have been really worked up now. I could tell because both bra straps were showing and she made no effort to cover them. Instead, she sat up straighter in her chair and addressed a spot just south of my chin.
“You’re pretty quick to make value judgments, Mr. Hastings. I assume the scraggly, disreputable gentleman you describe is Charles Olsen.”
I blinked. “Who?”
“Charles Olsen. He’s a freelance sketch artist and does a large part of the agency’s design work. David often picks up art copy from him.”
I was beginning to feel slightly sick. “What?” I said.
“Because David wants to get ahead. He doesn’t charge the company for doing it, or even bill them for his cabfare. But they know he does it, and they’re grateful. Plus David’s in good with Charles Olsen, whom it can’t hurt to know. And he’s in good with the art director who’s getting the stuff. David usually makes pickups in the course of the day. But if it’s a rush job, and they want it first thing in the morning, well, David will come walking in at nine o’clock in the morning and lay it on the art director’s desk. David won’t say a word about it, but the art director will know, and he’s grateful. He’s even told David a couple of times.”
Melissa Ford paused, sighed, and her eyes gleamed with admiration for a moment. Then she suddenly realized her exposed position, and hurriedly and angrily covered her bra straps. Then, as if to make up for the embarrassment, s
nuffled and said haughtily, “Do you have anything else?”
I did, but I had lost my will to continue. This mousy, repressed little woman had beaten me to a standstill. And somehow I knew, as sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, that the tale about the attractive blonde would be another total fizzle. She’d turn out to be the agency’s ace editor and head writer, who had to add the copy to the pictures before they hit the art director’s desk the next morning. But I had to go through with it, so I did.
“Well,” I said, “after that he took a taxi up to East 89th Street, went up to a young blonde’s apartment at ten o’clock and didn’t come out until midnight.”
I was ready for Melissa Ford to take my head off on that one. In fact, I was ready for any reaction except the one I got.
Because her head came up, and this time she actually looked me in the eyes, and when she did, her own were blazing.
“He did what!?”
9.
I WAS IN A FOUL MOOD as I drove to Metropolitan Hospital the next morning to sign up an accident victim who’d been hit by a car. I was in a foul mood for a lot of reasons.
For one thing, I’d been fired. Melissa Ford had fired me for gross incompetence, for exceeding my authority and for making an unauthorized investigation which I had no right to do. At least, that’s the way she phrased it. Basically, she fired me for telling her something she didn’t want to know.
Which was infuriating. Any other woman would have kept me on a few days and had me dig out all the dirt. But Melissa Ford was not another woman. The young blonde was another woman. Melissa Ford was the woman, and the young blonde was the other woman, just your typical, normal, messy domestic triangle, just as Alice and Fred and MacAullif and I had all predicted. David Melrose was a slime and a shit who was after her for her money, and savin’ all his lovin’ for another gal. And so the grand and glorious Melissa Ford case came to a close. And yours truly went back to his appointed rounds.
Only not right away. Reason-For-Foul-Mood-Number-Two. Because, wouldn’t you know it, after Melissa Ford had slammed out the door and I had sat there sulking for a while for doing the job right and losing my two-hundred-dollar-a-day meal ticket, when I called Rosenberg and Stone, Richard was in court again, and Wendy/Janet, in her incomprehensible yet predictable wisdom, wouldn’t give me any cases until she heard it from Richard that I was back on the job.
Which was just the kick in the balls I needed. I not only lost my two-hundred-dollar-a-day client, I also lost my eighty-dollar-a-day Rosenberg and Stone job.
Somehow that figured. I’d had a four-hundred-dollar day on Friday, so it was only fitting on Monday I’d get totally dorked and make zip.
And, Reason-For-Foul-Mood-Number-Three, on top of everything else, I woke up this morning with a violent case of diarrhea. Which, as far as I know, is a first for a private detective. At least it is in the books I’ve read. I can’t recall a private detective ever having diarrhea. I don’t think they even have assholes. Well, welcome to the real world. I had the runs pretty good. And the thing is, in New York City there are virtually no public toilets. And of the few there are, the ones I’d be willing to sit on you can count on the fingers of no hands. There are a few McDonald’s and Burger King rest rooms that, if pressed, I would pee in, but sit down, never. So my minor infirmity was a major pain in the ass.
So in that respect, I was lucky that my first assignment was Metropolitan Hospital, calling on a client who was laid up there with his leg in traction. I walked into his hospital room, said, “Hi, I’m from the lawyer’s office,” and immediately ducked into the john. When I came out the guy looked at me a little funny, but otherwise the signup went swimmingly. I filled out the fact sheet and signed him up, no problem, took out my camera and fired off a few shots of his broken leg, being careful to close the door so I wouldn’t get my camera impounded by some passing hospital security guard, went out and picked up my car where I’d left it at a meter on First Avenue, and headed out for my next assignment in Brooklyn.
The client lived on Euclid Avenue, which always reminds me of a joke I made up once: “My wife wants me to study non-Euclidean geometry. I love my wife, but, oh, Euclid.” Unfortunately, like most of my jokes, it is the type that amuses only me, which is probably one of the reasons I never made it as a writer.
Realizations like that, reminders of my inadequacies, happen to me all the time, and most days they would roll off my back. But today I was in a foul mood, and seeing the sign for Euclid Avenue just made me more depressed, angry and frustrated.
So did the fact I couldn’t find a parking space. Alternate side parking was in effect, and I could have double-parked and left a sign in the window, but I hate to do that when I’m not in my own neighborhood. You’re sitting there talking with the client and there’ll come a knock on the door, and god knows who’s on the other side. Maybe someone asking me to move my car. But maybe not. And believe me, I’m not looking for trouble. Anyway, there was half a space by the hydrant on the corner, not entirely kosher, but in a neighborhood like this and me going in and out fast, I shouldn’t get a ticket, should I?
Worrying about whether I would or not did not improve my state of mind. Neither did the fact the client’s apartment was so filthy I could not bring myself to use his bathroom, which I sorely needed to do. So, my needing to get to a john coupled with my worrying about getting a parking ticket made for the fastest signup in history. The guy never knew what hit him. I had the fact sheet filled out, retainers signed and pictures taken before the poor guy even had a chance to ask me who I was. Nor did I let him read the retainer. Good thing I’m an honest guy. For all he knew, I could have just sold him an encyclopedia.
I got out of there and rushed down the stairs, visions of porcelain bathroom fixtures dancing in my head.
I hit the street and stopped dead.
Jesus Christ. Wouldn’t you know it. On this draggiest of all possible days, there was a police cruiser pulled up right next to my Toyota and one of the cops was already out and looking at the plate.
I was tempted to turn and walk the other way, just so I wouldn’t have to listen to the cop lecture me for parking there. Believe me, I was in no mood to hear it. But I realized that was stupid. Besides, the guy hadn’t written the ticket yet. Maybe, just maybe, I could talk him out of it. Yeah, and maybe some day I’ll get elected president. Still, a guy in my position’s gotta take the shot. A ticket here would wipe out the whole morning’s work.
I walked up to the car, expecting the cop to turn on me and demand to know who the hell I thought I was, parking my car there.
He didn’t. Instead he said the last thing in the world I ever would have expected him to say.
What he said was, “Stanley Hastings?”
10.
THEY DROVE ME TO One Police Plaza, a building I knew well. I just didn’t know it as One Police Plaza. Oh, I knew that’s what it was, it’s just that no one had ever referred to it that way before. The other times I’d been taken in, the cops had just told me I was going downtown. But this time, after the cops had bundled me into the back of the cruiser and taken off and I had screwed up enough courage to ask where we were going, one of the cops said, “One Police Plaza.” Maybe it was because we were in Brooklyn, and from there it made no sense to call it “downtown”. At any rate, whatever you called it, I certainly knew where One Police Plaza was. It was the same place I’d called on MacAullif not two days before.
I figured MacAullif had to be the answer. For the cops picking me up, I mean. He’d done me a favor, and now it was payback time. I had no idea what he wanted, and I couldn’t imagine why it was so urgent he’d sent two cops to pick me up. I also couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t just called Rosenberg and Stone and had them beep me. That was the scary thing. That had to mean whatever was up was something he didn’t want generally known.
Which didn’t make any sense. Because how the hell would he have found me without calling Rosenberg and Stone? But these two cops knew where
to look for me. Unless there’d been an APB out, and these were the guys who scored. But in Brooklyn? What a long shot that would be. So the whole thing just didn’t make any sense.
I’d like to think I could have figured things out if I’d been in a better mood, but like I said, I wasn’t. And to be picked up by two cops and hauled in for no reason was really the last straw. And of course they wouldn’t tell me anything. In the whole ride, “One Police Plaza” was the only response I got. Not that I expected any more, knowing cops, but still I couldn’t help asking.
The way I saw it, there was only one saving grace in the whole thing. The place we were heading for, One Police Plaza, or downtown, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, would have a bathroom.
We went over the Brooklyn Bridge, pulled up in front of One Police Plaza and the cops marched me in. I expected them to march me straight to MacAullif, but they didn’t. Instead they took me down the hall to a small interrogation room. When I saw that, I made the most eloquent speech you have ever heard on the rights of private citizens to avail themselves of the use of police lavatory facilities. I don’t know whether it was my eloquence or the fact that I made the speech bouncing up and down and teetering back and forth from one leg to the other that convinced them, but in any event they granted my request, and I was in a slightly better mood by the time I finally took the indicated seat in the interrogation room.
Which was all wrong. Interrogation? Give me a break. MacAullif was a hard ass, and despite our quote friendship unquote, he was not above busting my balls if I fucked up an investigation of his or did something illegal. But I hadn’t done anything, for Christ’s sake. And even if I had, surely he’d have dragged me into his office instead of in here. No, the interrogation room was all wrong.
So maybe it wasn’t MacAullif at all.
Maybe it was Sergeant Clark.
