The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One

by Ross H. Spencer

  “Yeah, everything I touch turns to shit.”

  “So check Fisher out and I’ll call you this evening.”

  “Calling me may not be that easy. I got a sinister urge to get crocked immediately after I close this firetrap.”

  “Nothing wrong with that—wish I could join you. Where do you do your drinking—still that joint on Grand Avenue?”

  “Right—Shamrock Pub.”

  “You got a shoo-shoo there?”

  “A what?”

  “A lady-in-waiting?”

  “Only if she waits.”

  Denny chuckled. “Have a blast, partner!” He hung up and Lockington lit a cigarette, blowing smoke rings, thinking. For a sliver of a second there, he’d had hold of something, but now he’d lost the damned thing. He shrugged clear of it—Alzheimer’s Disease, chances were—like hay fever, very bad in August. He checked Gordon G. Fisher’s business card and punched out the number. A sultry female voice answered. “Gordon G. Fisher offices—Andrea Kling speaking.”

  Lockington asked to speak to Gordon G. Fisher.

  Andrea Kling said that Mr. Fisher was on another line—would the caller care to hold?

  Lockington said no, he’d ring back in fifteen minutes.

  He rang back in fifteen minutes. Andrea Kling said that Mr. Fisher had just left the offices on an emergency matter—was there a message for Mr. Fisher?

  Lockington said no, when would Mr. Fisher be back?

  Andrea Kling said that she was unable to say—possibly before closing time, but she couldn’t guarantee that.

  Lockington asked what time Mr. Fisher’s offices closed.

  Andrea Kling said 5:00, of course—the same time all legal offices closed.

  Lockington said that all legal offices didn’t close at 5:00, because he’d known a lawyer who’d closed at noon.

  Andrea Kling noted that he’d probably been a charlatan.

  Lockington said no, as a matter of fact, he’d been a Presbyterian. He’d asked if it’d be possible to call Mr. Fisher at his residence.

  Andrea Kling said absolutely not, Mr. Fisher accepted nothing but personal calls when at home.

  Lockington gave Andrea Kling his name and the Classic Investigations telephone number, thanked her, and hung up.

  He located a dog-eared Chicago telephone directory in a bottom desk drawer. Gordon G. Fisher’s law offices number was shown but no residence number was listed. He called Information. The operator advised him that there was no Gordon G. Fisher in any of Chicago’s suburban directories. She said that this was because Gordon G. Fisher’s number was unlisted.

  Lockington said aha.

  The operator said true, but life was like that. Lockington dropped the phone into its cradle, frowning. He’d just located his lost wisp of thought. He toyed with the truant, weighing it, balancing it, studying it from a variety of angles, unable to make head or tail of it, and this disappointed him because at first sight it’d seemed important. Early impressions are so often deceptive.

  Lockington wasn’t a storybook detective. He didn’t smoke pipes and wear deerstalker caps, nor did he sit by his fireside, staring into the embers, assembling the pieces of a puzzle before rounding up a cast of seven or eight people and picking an unlikely killer from the bunch. Lockington had been a rather unimaginative, reasonably honest, heavy-footed, often heavy-handed detective, plodding doggedly through the muck of the most corrupt city on the face of God’s once-green earth. He’d made arrests by the hundreds and he’d shot a few people, the bigger chunks of his action coming after long and patient stakeouts, or simply because he’d been told to go to such-and-such a number on such-and-such a street and bring in a man named something-or-other, and Lockington had complied, oftentimes not knowing the particulars involved. He’d rarely considered hunches, possibly because he hadn’t gotten many, he’d played the cards he’d been dealt, always anticipating the worst and usually getting it. By and large, hunches were for neophyte horseplayers, but there’s a difference between playing a hunch and catching a slip-up, if it’d been a slip-up rather than a simple mistake. It was the little slip-ups that tripped people, and if was still the biggest word in the English vocabulary, antidisestablishmentarianism notwithstanding. If those people had been able to find that horseshoe nail, they wouldn’t have lost the shoe, the horse, the rider, the battle, the war, and eventually the whole flaming kingdom. The first inning error can cost you the nine inning ball game, and on that note Lacey Lockington filed his pesky thought under ‘H’ for horseshoe nails, dug deeply into the recesses of the desk’s knee well, and dragged out the cardboard box housing the Cider Press Federation.

  To hell with the deep thinking—Pepper Valley was at Delta River.

  33

  Trailing by two at the end of seven, the Pepper Valley Crickets had pulled it out, beating the league-leading Delta River Weevils on Nick Noonan’s eighth-inning, two-out, bases-loaded double into the right field corner. That happy turn of events had put the Crickets on a one game roll, and Lockington was seriously tempted to play one more until a look at his watch changed his mind. Cider Press Federation games averaged an hour in length, and he didn’t have an hour. It was 4:30. He set the league records straight, and he was returning his imaginary athletes to their temporary quarters under Duke Denny’s desk when he heard the agency door click open, then closed. There were light, quick footsteps and Lockington straightened in the swivel chair to see a slender young woman approaching the desk. At sight of Lockington the visitor’s eyes grew wide and she stopped dead in her tracks, throwing up her hands in a defensive gesture. She gasped, “Oh, my God, not you!”

  Lockington said, “Excuse me, but that should have been my line.”

  Erika Elwood spun on her heel to leave, then hesitated, turning back to face Lockington. She said, “Perhaps I’m mistaken. You see, I was looking for Classic Investigations.”

  Lockington said, “You’ve found it, according to the sign on the door.”

  “You—you’re working here now?”

  “Just filling in—temporary thing, but it’d make one helluva column—Mad dog killer cop terrorizes West Randolph Street.”

  Erika Elwood didn’t smile—her brown eyes were frosty. She said, “All right, since I’m here, I’d like to speak to the gentleman in charge.”

  Lockington said, “You’re looking at him. What’s next—another show-and-tell session—followed by a Judas kiss?”

  She said, “Mr. Lockington, please—this is business! I’m desperately in need of assistance!”

  Lockington nodded. “Yes, I’m sure you are.”

  “I—I believe my life is in jeopardy!”

  “So do I, Miss Elwood, so do I.”

  She shuffled nervously on the cheap brown carpeting, clutching her handbag tightly to her impressive bosom with both hands. “Well, then—what can I say—or do?”

  “I’d recommend that you consult good old Stella Starbright, because good old Stella Starbright has all the answers. Should you doubt that, just ask good old Stella.”

  She winced, standing slightly pigeon-toed in her tailored gray gabardine business suit, tiny, frail, defenseless, looking a great deal like a drenched mouse, Lockington thought. She said, “I suppose I had that coming—but isn’t there someone I can talk to, someone who’ll help me? Mr. Lockington, I’m afraid to go home alone!”

  Lockington put a match to a cigarette, relishing the moment, however perversely. He said, “Turn off the tape recorder in your purse, and sit down before you fall on your face.”

  She nodded uncertainly, cranking up a wan smile, wobbling to the straight-backed chair next to the desk, sagging onto it, not at all the brash, confident young thing who’d breezed unannounced and uninvited into his apartment just a week earlier. She said, “I don’t have a tape recorder in my purse!” She turned to plunk her handbag onto the desk top with unsteady hands. Tremulously, she piped, “See for yourself.”

  Lockington waved her offer away. “I’ll take your word
for that, seeing as how you’re such a straight-shooter.”

  Erika Elwood searched his face with great, round, brown eyes. “Mr. Lockington, do you know—do you know what’s been happening?”

  “Yes, Miss Elwood, I know what’s been happening, but be explicit, if you will. You’re in serious trouble, that’s obvious, but why are you here—what do you want?”

  “I—I want a man to spend the night with me!” She’d blurted it out like a first grader reciting a nursery rhyme.

  Lockington said, “That’s what I call laying it on the line! Well, shucks, there must be a million guys who’ll take you up on that one.”

  “Don’t pretend to misunderstand! You know what I mean—I’m talking about a bodyguard! He’d sleep on my living room couch, of course!”

  Lockington frowned. “Well, Miss Elwood, no matter where he’d sleep, Classic Investigations gets five hundred dollars a day, and that’s pretty steep for a working girl.”

  The matter of financial capability didn’t seem to faze her. She said, “I don’t worry during my working hours. The Sentinel has beefed up its security—I feel completely safe at the Sentinel— it’s the nights alone—particularly since—since Connie Carruthers was—”

  Lockington jammed his elbows onto the desk top, leaning forward to cut her off. “Now, Miss Elwood, here’s the way it stands—I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but in spite of that I’m going to give you some Dutch uncle advice. For Christ’s sake, don’t go around shopping at nickel-and-dime detective agencies, looking for a helping hand! A woman in your position should hightail it to the nearest police station, explain the situation, and request protective custody!”

  “Protective custody—what would that entail? It would mean around-the-clock coverage, as I understand it.”

  Lockington shrugged. “Probably—or you might be stashed in a safehouse until the smoke has cleared.”

  “Well, Mr. Lockington, there’ll be nobody stashing me anywhere. I have a job to attend to, and there’ll be no tangle-footed lame-brain dogging my footsteps twenty-four hours a day! I can’t use that kind of attention!”

  “A bit odd, isn’t it—this sudden shrinking from attention? The Stella Starbright column is geared to attract all the attention it can drum up—favorable or unfavorable—by legitimate means, or whatever is required.”

  There was a current crackling through the room, electricity generated by the abrasiveness of two strong personalities in proximity. Erika Elwood glared at Lockington. “You are not talking to Stella Starbright, can’t you understand that? You are talking to Erika Elwood, a woman who goes to church every Sunday and votes a straight Republican ticket! Believe what you will, but they are in no way related!”

  Lockington pursed his lips, directing a stream of cigarette smoke at the big picture of Wrigley Field. He said, “Miss Elwood, you wouldn’t bullshit an old bullshitter, would you?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that tongue-in-cheek treatment, God damn it! Can Classic Investigations possibly spare a man? Answer my question, will you?”

  Lockington’s grin was tight. She was scared spitless, but her dander was up, she still had fire. He tilted back in the swivel chair, stroking a jowl that could have used a shave. He said, “Well, let’s take a look at Classic’s manpower potential. The boss is in Cleveland until Monday, my assistant is on an assignment and won’t be in until tomorrow morning.” Lockington winked at her. “At the moment, your choices would appear to be limited.”

  “I have one?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You?”

  “Yep, me—a kill-crazy vigilante with a Dodge City mentality.” By nature, Lacey Lockington wasn’t a cruel man—he’d never kicked stray dogs or torn the wings from flies, but he’d cut this vixen and he couldn’t resist salting the wound. He said, “Take it or leave it.”

  Erika Elwood considered her options and groaned, “Oh, shit, I’ll take it!” She lunged for her purse, opening it to jerk out a lace-trimmed gray linen handkerchief, burying her face in it, and coming apart at the seams like a three-dollar football. Lockington sat watching her, saying nothing, listening to her hoarse, racking sobs, waiting for her to come up for air. Eventually she got around to that, catching her breath, drying her eyes. She said, “Excuse my outburst, please.”

  Lockington said, “Why, sure. Hell, you’re entitled.”

  She flared again, the flame not quite extinguished. “You sonofabitch, I’ve already explained how it goes at the Sentinel—I do what I’m told to do—I write what I’m told to write—” Her voice cracked and she lapsed into stony silence, gnawing on her lower lip.

  After a while, Lockington said, “Uhh–h–h, Miss Elwood, just how long would such an assignment be likely to last, would you say?”

  “Quite frankly, I just don’t know—it could go on until the Millenium, I suppose.”

  “That’d consume some time, because there ain’t gonna be no Millennium.”

  “All right—until the Cubs win a pennant—how’s that?” A meager smile twitched a corner of her mouth—she was perking up, sensing a change in the wind. “Will you accept this—this assignment?”

  “At five hundred clams a throw, you could be talking serious money.”

  “That’s not my concern—Classic Investigations will bill the Sentinel for its services. I have a letter of authorization from Max Jarvis, if you’d care to see it.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “But, Good Lord, this can’t go on forever, can it—they’ll catch up with these people sooner or later, won’t they?”

  “Who’ll catch up with what people sooner or later?”

  “The Chicago police—they’ll corner this LAON organization shortly!”

  “Without your complete cooperation, I wouldn’t bet a dollar on them finding LAON or whoever the hell is behind this.”

  “It isn’t a matter of my cooperating with the police—it’s a matter of the police cooperating with Max Jarvis. They’ll hustle or Max will ride them out of town on a rail!”

  Lockington murmured, “They’re hustling, take my word.”

  “I didn’t catch that. What was it you said?”

  “I said, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’”

  “Precisely.”

  “You get something from LAON?”

  “Yes—this morning—a card in the mail.”

  “And what did it have to say?”

  “It said that my time is coming soon! What’s your decision—are you going to help me?”

  Lockington stretched and yawned. He said, “Where’s your automobile?”

  “In the Sentinel’s underground garage, and that’s where it’ll stay until this is behind me. LAON probably knows my car.”

  “I’d think so. How did you get here?”

  “By cab—I’d hoped for a lift home.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “St. Charles.”

  “That’s right—you’ve mentioned it.”

  “I have? Honestly, I don’t recall that—I’ve been so shaken by these—these horrors!”

  Lockington gave it a final shuffle, but his mind had been set before he’d riffled the deck. What the hell, it was beyond personalities now. Whatever Erika Elwood was, she was in danger and she had no champion. He slapped the top of the desk with the flat of his hand, the spanging sound echoing like a gunshot in the tiny office. He snapped, “All right, you’d better lock that door—we’re stuck here for another few minutes.”

  He scowled, remembering that his .38 police special was in the drawer of his bedroom nightstand. Well, armed or unarmed, here came the Twentieth Century’s answer to Don Quixote, astride a swaybacked Pontiac Catalina, clattering to the rescue of the besieged Erika Elwood, which came as no great shock to Lacey Lockington. Knowing himself as he did, he realized that he’d have done the same for Lucrezia Borgia, who’d been no bargain, either.

  Giddy-up!

  34

  The Wednesday late afternoon was hot, Chicago’s
Loop was an airtight gray cauldron. They walked the three blocks to the Randolph Street parking lot, Erika Elwood’s right sleeve brushing the store fronts, Lockington close on her left, a half step off her pace, his slouching, unconcerned walk belying the alertness of his eyes. The parking lot attendant dug the floppy-fendered blue Pontiac from between a Mercedes and a BMW, and Lockington tooled the tired vehicle south to the Eisenhower Expressway, swinging west into the sluggish triple stream of traffic that trickled into infinity. He said, “I’ll take Roosevelt Road into Geneva. Then what—to St. Charles on 25 or 31?”

  Erika Elwood said, “Take 31—I’m just a couple of miles north of 64. Are you familiar with that area?”

  Lockington’s half smile was wry and distant. “Vaguely—it’s been a while.”

  He could feel Erika’s interested gaze penetrating him. After a brief hesitation, she said, “A woman?”

  Lockington said, “Of a sort.”

  “What sort of sort?”

  “Confused.”

  “It didn’t work out, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At the bottom of the Fox River—I strangled her and threw her in.”

  A smile sidled into her voice. “Why?”

  “I forget, but you could stick it in your Stella Starbright column and make up your own reason.”

  She laughed—a lilting sound, pleasant. “You, sir, are a paradox.”

  Lockington said, “I’m not up on my Latin.”

  “Seriously, now—you can kill and think nothing more of it, but you’re a kind man—at heart you’re a kind man.”

  Lockington growled, “That’s opinion only.”

  “Well, my gosh, what else is there? ‘Opinion guides the feet of man to now from where he once began.’”

  “Go ahead, finish it.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Sure. ‘He walks his brief and troubled span, opinion tending ev’ry plan, and, at the end, Hell’s smoking hole cooks his opinionated soul.’”