Stakeout (2013)

by Hall, Parnell

  “No one’s gonna kill me off.”

  “Oh, no? You’re playing footsy with mobsters and pissing off cops. Mobsters could rub you out. Cops could rub you out and make it look like mobsters rubbed you out.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I could rub you out just for coming here. You’re living poison in the police department. I could get blackballed just for being seen with you.”

  “Do cops really say ‘blackballed’?”

  MacAullif slammed his fist down on the desk. “Stop it! I got a very short fuse on this one. You got something to say, say it and get out of here.”

  Victory. He was going to let me talk. As opposed to picking me up by the scruff of the neck and hurling me out in the street.

  “Okay. You know why the cops picked me up?”

  “I heard the charges.”

  “Screw the charges. I mean how’d they get onto me? It’s a separate county. It’s a separate crime.”

  “Didn’t you represent yourself as working for Fuller?”

  “I may have said something to that effect.”

  “Don’t be cute.”

  “Yes, I did. But there was no reason for anyone to check on it.”

  “No? The cops couldn’t call up and say any luck with the bullet?”

  “I suppose they could. Only I wasn’t dealing with the cops in charge of the investigation. There were several degrees of separation.”

  “The guys from the lab couldn’t call up and say any luck with the bullet?”

  “Why would they? They’re technicians. They supply data. They don’t coordinate it.”

  “They couldn’t be curious?”

  “You’re grasping at straws, MacAullif. Yes, some unlikely chain of events could have happened. But I’m not leaving it to chance. I’m saying is there a natural order of events that would make this happen?”

  “Is there?”

  “You’re not nearly as much help as I hoped.”

  “All right, maybe your friend the forensic expert ratted you out.”

  “He claims he didn’t.”

  “You asked him?”

  “I asked if anyone had shown any interest in my findings. He said no.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Seemed like an honest man.”

  “With your track record, he’s probably peddling Uzis on the side. So what’s your theory?”

  “I’d rather hear yours.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have one. I’m sure you do.”

  “It’s not really a theory.”

  “Of course not. It’s a confused jumble of facts and surmises. Nonetheless, you believe it. You’re here for validation. You don’t care what I think. You just wanna sell me on what you think.”

  “I think there’s a hidden connection. I think all these things are intertwined like some crazy ball of yarn. You keep picking up the ends and pulling them out, eventually you’ll get one long piece of string.”

  “Really? A piece of string has two ends. How many ends are you picking at?”

  “That’s the problem. Way too many. But we have connections. These crimes intersect at the motel. Vinnie Carbone rents a room. The guy next door gets killed. Vinnie Carbone gets killed. The cops haven’t connected these two murders.”

  “They’ve connected them now. You’ve forced the connection on them. With your dumb-ass snooping.”

  “They may not make the connection. They may just see it as coincidence.”

  “How can they see it as coincidence when you rub it in their face?”

  “You’re right. I’m dumb for teaching the cops their business. We’ve been through this. Let’s move on. All right, the point is, the connection exists, and we don’t know what it is. But I know someone from Vinnie Carbone’s room killed the Aflac salesman. I know that because I was watching the door and no one entered his room. And I know Tony Gallo was in the room Vinnie Carbone rented. I also know Vinnie Carbone worked for Tony Gallo and Tony Gallo had the hots for Vinnie Carbone’s girlfriend. I also know Vinnie Carbone’s girlfriend wound up with the gun that killed him. The cops don’t know all that.”

  “No. They know you wound up with the gun that killed him. Which you have refused to surrender.”

  “I haven’t refused to surrender anything. I have been asked to produce evidence I do not have. Therefore I have not produced it. The police have searched my apartment, my office, and my car, and have not found it. But let’s not harp on what I did. Let’s examine the evidence. The gun that killed Vinnie Carbone is not the same gun that killed the Aflac salesman. We know that because the cops have the gun that killed the Aflac salesman.”

  “Right,” MacAullif said. “There were two guns. As far as the cops are concerned, you were caught with both of them.”

  “Let’s look at what the principles did,” I said. “Someone gave the gun to Jersey Girl.”

  “She claims it was Vinnie.”

  “Yeah, but we know it wasn’t, because Vinnie was shot with it.”

  “It could be true if she shot him.”

  “And held onto the gun? Still, leaving the gun that killed her boyfriend in her trunk is not that swiftest of all possible moves.”

  “Then how do you account for the gun?” MacAullif said.

  “What if her boyfriend gave it to her?”

  “You just got through saying he didn’t.”

  “Her other boyfriend. Tony Gallo.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” MacAullif said. “The guy’s so hot for her bod, he kills her boyfriend, then gives her the murder weapon, so if things go bad she can take the fall. This guy is really a prince.”

  “Mobsters are not necessarily the best of role models.”

  “So, say you just shot your girlfriend’s lover. What would you do with the gun? Throw it in the drink? Or give it to her to hold?”

  “Well, we don’t know all the facts.”

  “No kidding. All you got is theories, and they don’t hold water. I haven’t even heard a theory for this. Why does her lover give her the gun?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So how does she wind up with it? If you don’t have a theory for that, none of your theories hold water. The whole thing comes crashing down like a house of cards.”

  “You’re mixing metaphors again.”

  “Damn it, will you take this seriously?”

  “I’m taking this seriously. I can’t tell you things I don’t know. So far all I’ve got are questions. I’m trying to find answers that make sense.”

  “Questions like what?”

  “Why does the Aflac salesman wind up dead?”

  “He was mixed up in the mob.”

  “Why does his wife hire me?”

  “Oh, what a straight line.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to fool around.”

  “I don’t want you to fool around. But if you’re going to lob them across the middle of the plate.”

  “The wife hires me because she thinks he’s stepping out on her. Does that make any sense? Yes, it does. If he’s mixed up in the mob, and that’s what he’s hiding from her, and she naturally thinks it’s a woman.”

  “So she hires you and he immediately checks into a motel and gets killed. Now, why does he do that?”

  “He’s following instructions.”

  “Check in and get killed?”

  “Of course not. He’s sent to a meeting of some sort. Perhaps he knows he’s meeting Tony Gallo. Perhaps not. At any rate, Tony Gallo’s there and kills him.”

  “You don’t think he was meeting Tony Gallo?”

  “Maybe he was meeting Vinnie Carbone. Tony Gallo was an added starter.”

  “And how does he wind up in that motel room?” MacAullif said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Motel room number seven.”

  “He’s told to ask for it.”

  “So Vinnie Carbone checked in first?”

  “That’s right.”

  “To a motel room with a connecting
door.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Otherwise it doesn’t work.”

  I tried to control my excitement. I had turned the tables on MacAullif. He was questioning me, instead of me questioning him. Which meant he was leading the conversation, establishing theories through the Socratic method.

  Of course, he was asking questions for which I didn’t have the answers.

  “How does Vinnie Carbone get a room with a connecting door?”

  “He asks for it.”

  “He asks for a connecting door, but doesn’t ask for the room that connects to it? Isn’t that a little weird?”

  “It may be weird, but it happened.”

  MacAullif made a face. “No, it didn’t. Just because you say he must have asked for it doesn’t mean he asked for it. There’s no ‘must’ about it. He could have got it a number of different ways, and probably did. Because if he asked for it that would be a red flag in a murder investigation. You ask for the room next to the guy who got killed? Not a good position to put oneself in.”

  “Well, how else could he do it?”

  “He could ask for the room without asking for the connecting door. It’s the connecting door that’s the red flag, not the room. He says, ‘Let me have unit eight.’”

  “How does he know there’s no one in unit eight?”

  “There’s no car in front of unit eight. This is not the type of place you check in and go out somewhere. This is a place for sleeping and fucking.”

  “Fine,” I said. “So there’s no car in front of unit eight, so he checks in, says, ‘Give me unit eight.’ How does he know there’s a connecting door?”

  “Can’t you tell from outside?”

  “How could you tell from outside?”

  “The way the rooms are set up. Where the windows are. I don’t know, something that makes the rooms different.”

  “I was watching that motel. For hours. Believe me, there was nothing different about the rooms.”

  “And you are the most observant PI on God’s green earth.”

  “You saw the motel. Did anything strike you as different?”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything.”

  “Neither was I. But I’ll bet you a hundred bucks there wasn’t. If we drive over there you’ll see that’s the case.”

  “We’re not driving over there. I’ll concede the point. At least for the sake of argument. There’s no way to tell from outside whether or not there’s a connecting door.”

  “So how did he know?”

  “He must have stayed there before.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And that could be traced.”

  MacAullif’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  “Relax, MacAullif. I’m not asking you to do it.”

  “And you’re not doing it either.”

  “No kidding. The guy knows me as the killer. He knows you as the cop.”

  “He used to know me as the cop. By now he knows me as the guy impersonating a cop.”

  “You are a cop.”

  “Don’t start that again. I’m not going back to that motel. I don’t care if it was on fire and my wife was inside.”

  “Having trouble with your wife?”

  “Fuck you. The point is I’m not going to do it.”

  “I know.”

  “And you can’t do it.”

  I sighed. “No, I can’t.”

  41

  “WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION?” ALICE SAID.

  “Huh?”

  “Isn’t that what you actors say, when you’re pretending to take it seriously: ‘What’s my motivation?’”

  “Your motivation is not to get caught.”

  “I know that part. I’m talking about the role I’m playing.”

  “You’re playing the part of an unmarried woman checking into a motel.”

  “Unmarried?”

  “At least not married to the man you’re checking in with.”

  “How do you play a woman checking into a motel with a man who’s not her husband?”

  “Memory of emotion. You think back to the last time you checked into a motel with a man who wasn’t your husband.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Well, there’s been so many. I can’t remember which one was last.”

  “Never mind. Just try to act like we’re not married.”

  “How do people who aren’t married act?”

  “Well, for one thing, they don’t have any luggage.”

  “We don’t have any luggage.”

  “Atta girl.”

  We were driving over the George Washington Bridge. Alice was joking bravely in the face of danger, what with me on the hook for two murders and all, but I could tell she was scared. One false step and this could blow up in our faces.

  I pulled the car into the motel, stopped opposite the manager’s office. Heaved a sigh of relief. It had sounded like a different guy on the phone, but I couldn’t be sure. But the young man in the t-shirt and the baseball cap wasn’t him.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Alice said. “You want me to distract the kid with my feminine wiles?”

  “Save your feminine wiles until we get in the room.”

  “We’re going in the room?”

  “If you want to do method acting, you gotta carry it through. We’re checking into a motel for an illicit affair.”

  “I thought it was to get you off the hook for two murder counts.”

  “That’s not what we’re playing. We’re playing illicit lovers.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “You’ll see when we get in the room.”

  “Stanley.”

  “We check in, scout out the office. Actually, you check in.”

  “Why?”

  “So I don’t have to sign the register Stanley Hastings.”

  “Couldn’t you check in as John Smith?”

  “He’s already here.”

  We went into the motel office.

  Alice batted her eyes, said, “We need a room. Do you have something quiet?”

  I swear the young man suppressed a smile. “Yes, ma’am, we do. I can give you unit twelve. It’s away from the highway.” He looked like he was going to add, “And prying eyes,” but he didn’t.

  “That will be fine,” Alice said.

  She paid with a credit card, signed the register.

  We went out and got in the car.

  “So?” I said.

  Alice looked at me. “You saw it yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yes, you sign the register in a ledger book.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Ledger’s for show, computer’s for dough.”

  “You sure?”

  Alice gave me a look. “There’s nothing in the register but signatures. When you leave, you’ll get a computer printout of the charges. It doesn’t matter what name you checked in under, it’s billed to your credit card.”

  “What if you paid cash?”

  “Then it will be listed as paid cash. Which would look mighty suspicious.”

  “So?”

  “Let me at that computer.”

  We pulled up in front of our unit and got out.

  “Where’s the key?”

  Alice handed it over. It was piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

  “Excellent,” I said. “This key doesn’t work.”

  “That’s a rather defeatist attitude.”

  I slipped the key into the slot in the door, pulled it out. A green light flashed. I pushed on the door while pretending to turn the knob.

  “See?” I said. “The door won’t open. Which is really bad news, because you have to pee.”

  “Right,” Alice said.

  We walked quickly back to the motel office.

  “The key doesn’t work,” I told the manager.

  “Huh?”

  “We can’t get the door open. And my wife really has to go to the bathroom.”

&n
bsp; “I really do,” Alice said, shifting from one foot to the other.

  For my money, Alice could have won an Academy Award for Best Performance of a Woman Who Has to Pee. And I was no slouch in the Man Unused to Calling a Woman His Wife or Referring to Her Bathroom Functions category.

  The kid, for his part, managed a dopey grin. “Yes, Ma’am. Sorry about that. I’ll give you another key.”

  “The key’s fine,” I said. “It’s the door that won’t open.”

  “What do you mean, the key’s fine?”

  “When you slide the key in and pull it out the green light flashes. But the knob won’t turn. If the red light flashed, it would be the key. But when the green light flashes, it’s gotta be the door.”

  “Don’t argue with him,” Alice said. “If he wants to give you another key, let him give you another key.”

  “It’s not going to do any good if it isn’t going to work.”

  “It’s gonna work,” the kid said.

  “Oh, my God, I can’t wait!” Alice said. “Don’t you have a bathroom?”

  “Right through there.”

  Alice rushed in, slammed the door.

  “Let’s get the unit open,” I said.

  “I’ll make another key.”

  “I can hear you through the door,” Alice said. “Are you just going to stand there and listen?”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let me show you the problem.”

  He hesitated a moment, said, “Yeah.”

  We went outside and down the row to unit twelve. It was nice he’d given us one at the end of the row. I tried to take my time getting there, but it wasn’t easy. There was really no topic of conversation one could strike up under the circumstances. I considered faking a stroke, but that would just send him back to the office to call for help.

  “Here you go,” I said.

  I dipped the card in the slot, waited till the green light flashed, pushed on the knob.

  “Oh, for goodness sakes. Here, let me show you.”

  The kid took the card away from me, put it in the slot, pulled it out, watched the green light, twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.

  “See? You don’t just push. You gotta twist the doorknob.”