I was right about some of it. The next night, Joe came in and told me where my thinking had gone astray.
“Who are you?” I asked as I slid a coaster in front of him and poured his Scotch.
“I think you already know,” he replied evenly. “Where’s Devlin? I need to find him.”
“I don’t know.” It was true. He was gone when I went back to the apartment in the morning, his drawers and closet empty except for a few hangers swaying in the breeze. “We had a fight. He left.”
“He stole a lot of money from my employers,” he said, “and you’re his collateral.”
“Me?” It was so absurd, I laughed out loud. “You mean my restaurant? Dev has nothing to do with it. It isn’t his to promise.”
He shook his head. “My employers are not interested in owning a restaurant, Magda. When I said you, I meant you.” He leaned in close over the bar and his warm breath tickling my cheek as he spoke. “I need the money Devlin took, or I’ll have to kill you. We explained to him it would be this way if he didn’t pay up.” He pulled away and stared at me. “I’d hate for that to happen. You should find him. It would be to your advantage. I’ll be in touch.”
I stood there stunned as Joe left, my mouth open, unable to move or utter a sound. I felt like I might throw up all over the bar. Devlin had betrayed me, probably right from the start, using my restaurant as his fallback. But, as Joe told me, a restaurant wasn’t on the mob’s menu. All they had a taste for was money. Devlin knew these people wouldn’t blink an eye at having me killed if he didn’t return their money, and instead of giving it back, he disappeared. All he cared about was the money. He’d have that, and I would be dead. How could I have been so stupid?
One of the waiters called my name and brought me back to reality. I signaled to my manager that I needed her behind the bar and told her I was ill. I had to get away from there as fast as I could.
I ran up to the apartment and finally broke down, sliding to the floor crying and thinking about the last six months with Devlin. He was gone now and my soul with him. Probably holed up somewhere until he could leave the city, or even the country with the cash.
I dried my eyes and thought long and hard about where he would go. Not to his parents in the Bronx, they weren’t that close and they were sure to ask too many questions.
Then it hit me, there was one place Dev would feel safe. He and the money were at his cabin in the mountains. I grabbed a few things and headed for my car. I’d find him and make him do the right thing.
I drove like a crazy woman, speeding up the Thruway with one thing on my mind: finding Devlin before it was too late. If he was gone, I was screwed. Joe was counting on my survival instincts to do his job, but I had no illusions. He’d kill me if I didn’t come through. If only as an example to the next schmuck who wanted to do business with his employers.
It was very late by the time I got to the cabin. I shut the car’s lights and cut the engine as I made the last turn into the driveway. I wanted surprise on my side. The shades were down but I could see a light behind the bedroom window. I got out of the car as quietly as possible and walked up the porch steps, then eased open the front door. Dev must have felt safe enough to leave it unlocked. Music was coming from the bedroom in back and I walked that way.
He was sitting on the bed, surrounded by stacks of cash, a hunting rifle at his side. His eyes gave away his surprise before he could mask it, but he recovered quickly.
“Mag, thank God you knew to come up here.” An easy smile played across his mouth. “I was going to call you and tell what happened. It’s crazy.” His words came fast and smooth like an old-time snake oil salesman. He lifted himself off the bed, taking the rifle with him, talking all the time. “I’m so glad you’re here. I love you so much. I was just trying to figure out where we could go and be safe. You know that, don’t you?” He moved closer to me, watching me to see how I’d react. “Look,” he said and turned toward the bed, “I’ve got tickets for Brazil.” Instead of tickets he shifted his grip on the rifle and spun back around, bringing it up and pointing it my way.
“I don’t think so,” I said as I fired my gun through my jacket pocket and into his heart.
Those beautiful blue eyes stared up at me one last time. Only now they were lifeless and dull.
Dev never knew I had a gun. I’d bought it when I opened the restaurant to stash behind the bar in case of trouble. It made me too nervous to have around, so I brought it to the apartment and hid it on the top shelf of my closet behind some old boxes of photos,
I took it with me to the cabin thinking of Joe, but I never imagined I’d use it on Dev.
I packed the money back in the bag Devlin had used to carry it. Then I took my gun and went to wait by the window.
Marti was right after all. I had gotten more than I wanted and I couldn’t give it back. Not the pain or the emptiness in the space where my heart should be.
Chances are Joe followed me. He might have even heard the shot that killed Dev. Am I going to let him take the money? I’m not sure. I’ll just have to wait and see how things play out when he gets here.
CATHI STOLER’s mysteries feature P.I. Helen McCorkendale and magazine editor, Laurel Imperiole. Telling Lies, published by Camel Press. takes on the subject of stolen Nazi art. Camel Press will publish the next two books in the series, Keeping Secrets, which delves into the subject of hidden identity, and The Hard Way, a story of international diamond theft later this year. Cathi is working on a new mystery series set in lower Manhattan featuring female bar owner Jude Dillane. She has published several short stories, including “Out of Luck,” featured in the Sisters in Crime anthology, Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices. Her story “Fatal Flaw,” published at Beat to a Pulp, was a finalist for the Derringer for Best Short Story. “Money Never Sleeps” is the second story in this series. Cathi is a member Mystery Writers of America, as well as Sisters in Crime and posts at the womenofmystery.net blog. Visit Cathi at www.cathistoler.com.
Crow’s Lesson
by Robert Lopresti
It was my fifth day on stake-out. I was sitting in my tired old Ford Escort, parked across the street from the target. All the tools of the trade—clipboard, binoculars, coffee thermos—were close at hand.
By my client’s arrangement, the suspect had been delayed in the target building for ten minutes, long enough for the end-of-the-day crowd to thin out. I had no trouble spotting him when he left.
A colleague of his came out at the same time. They appeared to be having a disagreement—I was too far away to hear its subject—and my suspect kicked him in the shins. Twice.
The colleague fell down, screaming, and my suspect ran off. Half a block away he stopped, seeing a group of females who had left the building earlier and were chatting together on the sidewalk.
The suspect began digging in the front yard of a nearby house. He pulled up a bunch of onion grass and started to chase them, waving the stinking vegetation over his head. The girls ran off screaming.
Jimmy Pankhurst was a little swine, even for a seven-year-old.
That wasn’t why I was following him, though. I started my car and prepared to follow him away from the school.
Proverbial hell broke loose.
Two very large guns appeared outside my windshield, both pointed at my astonished face. “Police! Freeze!”
I did a passable imitation of an iceberg. My hands were already on the steering wheel and I kept them there, wondering what in the world was happening.
Someone opened my car door. “Step out slowly. Hands in the air.”
I did just that and found myself facing a tall black man in a blue suit. He looked less like a cop than a college professor.
From the look of it, he was ready to flunk me, permanently.
“Turn around. Hands on the roof of the car.”
I assumed the position. While he frisked me I stood facing his partner; a short, pock-marked white man in a loud, checked sports jacket. I would have
taken him for a used car salesman, the kind you walk past quickly, clutching your wallet.
“What’s the problem, officers?” I said. Probably croaked, actually.
“You tell us, pal.”
“Pardon?”
“This is the third day you’ve been spotted following a little kid home from school. So what’s your problem? Can’t find one you like?”
I hadn’t thought about how that; about how bad it would look if I was seen. No wonder they were ticked off.
“I can explain,” I said hopefully.
The professor finished frisking me and stepped back. “He’s clean. In a manner of speaking.”
The salesman’s gun stayed pointed at my adenoids. “You got I.D., pal?”
My hands remained on the car roof. I wasn’t going to offer them the smallest excuse for a misunderstanding.
“Front left pants pocket.”
The professor reached around me and pulled out my wallet. “Marty Crow,” he recited. “Private investigator.”
“You’re a P.I.?” said the salesman. “That’s why you were shadowing the kids? One of them getting a divorce, maybe?”
“I can explain,” I said again.
“He’s from Atlantic City,” the professor told his partner. “What are you doing way over here, Mr. Crow?”
“Look in my breast pocket,” I told him. “Left side.”
He did and pulled out an envelope. “It’s a letter. Someone hiring him to do something. Who’s Dr. Malcom Daylee?”
“Superintendent of schools right here in West Tuckahoe,” I replied. “He hired me to follow a different school kid home every day.”
“Yeah?” said the salesman. He still held his pistol but no longer seemed to be looking for an excuse to use it. “So what’s the superintendent’s problem?”
“I can explain,” I said, wondering where I’d heard that before.
The professor sighed. “Which pocket?”
“Jacket. Inner right.”
He reached in and found a folded page.
“The man’s got more pockets than a herd of kangaroos,” said the salesman. He was putting away his pistol, which made me very happy.
“Not herds,” said his partner, absentmindedly. “A group of kangaroos is called a mob.”
The salesman rolled his eyes. “My partner, the police force’s token intellectual.”
“Can I put my hands down?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. So what have you got, George?”
George, the professor, was frowning. “It’s a clipping from the New York Times.”
“From a few months ago,” I agreed. “A suburban town in New York state is worried about children from the neighboring city sneaking into their schools without paying taxes. They hired a private eye to follow the students. That’s what gave Dr. Daylee the idea.”
The salesman’s eyes were popping. “That’s it? You’re following kids to make sure they aren’t wetbacks slipping in from Tuckahoe City?”
I shrugged. “That’s it.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Theft of services,” said the professor. “Not unreasonable. Our schools are much better than the city’s, and do you know how much tax money we pay per student?”
“I don’t care if we pay your whole salary,” said his partner. “It’s dumb. And we can’t have Atlantic City private clowns following little kids and scaring them half to death.” He looked at me. “You understand that, Mr. Crow?”
I nodded, the earnest and cooperative citizen. “I do. And I don’t want any trouble, so if you say stop, I will. But I don’t want you guys to get in any trouble either.”
“Us?” That got their attention. “How could we get in trouble?”
“I’ll have to tell Dr. Daylee why I’m stopping. And I don’t know how much clout he has.”
From their faces, they didn’t know either. Finally the professor spoke up: “I think we’ll have our lieutenant speak to your superintendent. Until then, you can continue, I guess.”
“I’m done for today,” I replied. “The little cherub I was tailing is long gone. Probably off strangling cats or something.”
Dr. Daylee called me the next morning. He was a relentlessly cheerful man, his voice full of morale-boosting enthusiasm that depressed the hell out of me.
“Mr. Crow! I hear you had a little run-in with the local authorities.”
“That’s right, sir. Apparently they don’t want me following children. I’ll send you a
bill—”
“Nonsense! The lieutenant and I got it all straightened out. You have their complete permission to continue your mission.”
I felt oddly disappointed. “So far I haven’t found anyone who lived outside of the school district.”
“That just brings us closer to finding the ones who do, Mr. Crow. I’ll send you another list of pupils with suspicious addresses. Keep up the good work!”
* * *
Four days later, I came to work with a tremendous headache. Not a hangover, because I don’t drink, but I had been out way too late, or too early, losing my rent money at an all-night poker party.
The student I was to follow that day—the alleged thief of educational services—was a ten-year-old named Mabel Wilson. She had been absent the day of the class picture, so all I had was a description.
When Mabel stepped out of Grover Cleveland School, she made me think of some child movie star from the silent movies. Not that she was particularly pretty, but her navy blue dress and long curly blonde hair seemed terribly old-fashioned.
She looked left and right and then hurried to the street. An old green pick-up truck was parked at the curb.
This pick-up truck suited me fine. It was easier to follow a vehicle than a walking child. Trucks generally stick to streets.
The files gave Mabel’s home address as 17 Atlantic Street. This number didn’t appear in the street directory, which is what made Dr. Daylee, or the clerk he assigned to the job, pull the record and send it to me.
I was hoping that Mabel’s Mom or Dad, whoever was driving the truck, would head straight to Atlantic Street and prove the directory was out of date. Then I could go home and take a nap before stopping at the casinos to try to make up for my losses the night before.
But this was not my lucky day. The truck drove past Atlantic Street. Well, maybe they were going shopping or something.
The truck passed West Tuckahoe’s small but trendy downtown and kept going. My God, I thought. Daylee is right for once. They really do live out of town.
They finally turned onto a tiny dead end named Claypool Road. I coasted past Claypool and parked. That’s when things got complicated.
The relationship between the township of West Tuckahoe and the surrounding communities is one of those nightmares that keep New Jersey lawyers buying Porsches. As Dr. Daylee explained it to me, the school district borders are similar to, but not identical to, the borders of the township. He had provided me with a school district map and I had to open it up to find where Claypool Street fit in the puzzle.
Map-reading is not one of my outstanding skills. In Boy Scouts I flunked orienteering twice. After five minutes of struggle, I determined that Claypool was in the district. Mabel Wilson’s parents had given the school the wrong address, but the little blonde was within her rights to attend Grover Cleveland School.
I began folding my map, and then it was déjà vu all over again.
“Police, freeze! Hands where I can see them!”
More cops. I dropped the map and put my hands on the steering wheel. The passenger door opened and a blonde man with a gun stuck his head inside.
There’s a rumor going around that the human brain works in a logical fashion. It makes observations; then it reasons through to a conclusion.
Garbage.
As soon as my eyes recorded the gunman’s blonde hair, my brain rushed to the end of the story: he’s going to kill you. Only later did I figure out why I knew what I knew.
My bra
in’s acrobatics must have gone something like this: The gunman’s hair is the same shade of blonde as Mabel Wilson’s. Therefore, he’s not a cop; he’s her father.
And this: The reason you thought Mabel looked like an old-fashioned child movie star is because the blonde hair looks phony. It’s dyed.
So why would father and daughter both dye their hair? To change their appearance.
Why? Because they are on the run.
Conclusion: he’s going to kill you.
Not that knowing that helped me much, of course.
“Get out on this side,” said the phony blonde. “Hands in the air.”
I keep a gun bolted under my dashboard. It might as well have been buried in the Watchung Mountains for all the good it could do me.
I slid out. If the blonde man—let’s call him Wilson, although I was sure that wasn’t his real name—had stayed close to my car, I would have tried a kick. But he backed away, too paranoid to trust even a harmless guy like me.
“Hands on your head,” said Wilson.
For the first time I realized how empty this area was. Two houses on this block.
Nobody to see, nobody to hear.
It was a long walk to Wilson’s red bungalow, but not long enough for me.
The little girl, supposedly named Mabel Wilson, was standing in the doorway, wide-eyed. “Daddy?”
“Go to your room, May. Start packing.”
“Oh no, Daddy. Not again.”
“He’s one of the spies, honey. We have to leave.”
The girl turned and ran down the hall.
I stopped in the doorway and looked behind me. I was wondering if I would ever see daylight again.
“Move it,” said Wilson. “To your left.”
And then we were in a small kitchen. It had been painted bright yellow, quite a few years ago. A covered pot on the stove gave off a whiff of corned beef and cabbage.
The Malfeasance Occasional Page 11
