Death on the Rocks (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 1)

by Michael Allegretto

  I waited. Slowly, Gofman seemed to shrink. He wrapped both hands around his glass and stared down into it.

  “He kept bugging me. I just wanted him to go away. As soon as I told him about Reese, I was sorry I’d said it. I felt like I was sending a lamb to a wolf. But then I thought, what the hell, he’s an adult, he can take care of himself. But now he’s dead, right? And you think maybe Reese killed him, right?”

  “I don’t know, Gus. Maybe.”

  He leaned on his elbow and pointed his finger like a gun. It was aimed at my forehead.

  “Let me tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Reese could kill a man. He could definitely do that. I seen it in his eyes. Like an animal.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Who knows? But I’ll tell you what. I’d stay away from him if I was you, pal. I didn’t wanna tell you about him in the first place, ya know? And hey.” He sat up as best he could. “Don’t tell him you talked to me. I’ll deny it, gah-dammit. You better fucking believe it.”

  He started to pour another drink. I reached over and grabbed his wrist.

  “Hey.”

  “Where can I find Reese?”

  “You’re hurtin’ my arm.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Maybe Pussy’s.”

  “Pussy’s? On East Colfax?”

  He nodded. “He’s a bouncer there or somethin’.”

  I let go of his arm. He poured bourbon and drank it right down.

  “Where does Reese live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about his girlfriend? The one he slapped around.”

  “You mean Gloria? What about her?”

  “Does he stay with her?”

  “He used to, I think. I told you, they broke up. And I don’t know where she lives, neither.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Something Spanish. Starts with an R. Romero, I think. No Ruiz. That’s it.”

  “Gloria Ruiz.”

  “Yeah. A real sweet kid, too. She’s the one introduced me to Reese. She worked where I used to get my film developed. Too expensive, though. I go to a different place now.”

  He drank down his drink.

  “Where did she work?”

  “Behind the counter. I—”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I talked to her a lot. A real sweet kid. She heard I wanted bikers for a film. She said her boyfriend sometimes rode with a gang. I mean, club. They like to call themselves a club. Jeezchrise.”

  He emptied the bottle into his glass. There wasn’t much.

  “Shit.”

  “So you met Reese.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Where, Pussy’s?”

  “No, some bar.”

  “Which one?”

  “Christ, who remembers? Some dump on the north side.”

  I asked him again, “Where did Gloria Ruiz work? Which store?”

  “Mile High Camera. I don’t go there no more, though. Too fucking expensive. Hey, Gloria’s a nice kid. I don’t want you giving her a hard time.”

  “I promise.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. And, hey.” He looked up at me through half-closed eyes.

  “What.”

  “I was you, I’d stay away from Leonard Reese. He’s a fucking animal.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “And don’t tell him I said so. And don’t tell me you talked to him. I mean don’t tell him. You know what I mean.”

  “Sure, Gus.”

  I picked up my bag.

  “You got my film in there?”

  “I’ll hang on to it for a while. Insurance.”

  “Sure, sure, I unnerstan’. But bring it back, ’kay? It pays the bills.”

  “Right.” I dropped a card on the table, next to his little gun. “Call me if you remember anything else about Reese. Like where he lives.”

  He didn’t hear me.

  “I mean, I don’t like making that shit. I make good films, too, ya know? Someday, that’s all I’ll make. I got the talent. I got brains. That’s what it takes in this business. But a guy’s gotta pay the bills, ya know? Pay the fucking bills.”

  I left him with his empty bottle and empty dreams.

  CHAPTER 17

  AFTER I LEFT GOFMAN, I stopped by the office to check my machine. No word from Cassandra O’Day. There was a message, though, from Clarence DeWitt.

  “It is imperative that I speak to you, Mr. Lomax. Call me at once. Oh, pardon me. At your earliest convenience.” Sarcasm dripped off his voice like sweat off a Russian weight lifter.

  When I phoned, his secretary said that Dewitt was gone for the day, but had set a tentative meeting time for tomorrow at eight. Could I possibly make it? I said why not? She seemed relieved.

  Obviously, DeWitt was unhappy. I’d been on the job for over a week and hadn’t checked in with him. Or maybe there was something else on his mind. Maybe he’d been talking to Norman Sturgis.

  I’d worry about it tomorrow. Right now I wanted a second opinion on one or two things. Feedback from a disinterested party.

  I drove home to talk to Vaz. He was, as usual, hunched over his chess set.

  Vaz once told me he’d learned to play chess at an early age because of his deformity. He was built like a tank from the waist up, but his legs were spindly and bent. So he couldn’t run around with the other boys in his village. So what? They don’t play football in Russia. They play chess. And Vassily Botvinnov became very, very good. Not as good as Petrosian or Spassky. But damn close. He’d qualified twice for the Candidates’ Matches, and at one time he’d been ranked fourth in the world. That was back in the fifties. Just before he and Sophia jumped ship in Reykjavik.

  He sat now, in the shade, in the heat, with a red flannel shirt buttoned at throat and wrist. He heard me coming and raised his massive head.

  “Jacob,” he said, smiling. He began setting up the pieces for a new game.

  All modesty aside, I could occasionally hold Vaz to a draw. If I had white. And if he removed his queen. And if he didn’t look at the board.

  I pulled up a folding chair. The white pieces were on my side.

  “What odds today, Vaz?”

  “I have given you the advantage of the first move, Jacob.”

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “Come, come. You need more practice fighting a healthy opponent. Besides, one learns more from defeat than from victory.”

  “Somehow, that doesn’t inspire confidence.”

  I opened with pawn to king four and Vaz moved his queen bishop pawn to the third rank. The Caro-Kann. A solid, if somewhat cramped opening for black. At least from what I knew about it.

  “You are on a case, Jacob?”

  “Yes. I’m investigating a man named Phillip Townsend. He drove his car off Lookout Mountain a while back.”

  “A suicide?”

  “Accident. At least that’s what the cops believe.”

  “And who believes otherwise?”

  “The widow.”

  “You are working for her, then.”

  “Right.”

  We brought out queen pawns to the center of the board. I developed my queen knight and when Vaz played pawn takes pawn, I retook with the knight. He moved his queen knight out to queen two. I brought my king knight to bishop three, and so did he, challenging. He’d like to trade knights now. It would help him open his position. I dropped back to king knight three.

  “Why does Mrs. Townsend doubt the police?”

  “A couple of reasons. Mostly because she’s suspicious about why her husband was driving on that particular road.”

  “And for this she distrusts the police?”

  “You’d understand why if you met her. She could find a conspiracy in her cornflakes. Also, she may be after more insurance money.”

  “How so?”

  “If Townsend’s death resulted from an outside cause, she’d coll
ect double. She hired me right after she learned that.”

  Vaz nudged his king pawn up one square. We brought out our king bishops—mine to queen three, his to king two—then castled. That more or less ended the opening. The position looked even and I felt good about it. But now we were entering the middle game, where things got complicated.

  “Have you found anything that supports Mrs. Townsend’s suspicions?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve turned up a couple of things, but I don’t know if they’re related to Townsend’s death.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, Townsend had a mistress. A call girl.”

  “Not so terrible.”

  “No. But he went looking for more deviant sex.” Queen to king two.

  “She told you this?” Pawn to bishop four. Vaz was trying to open up the position.

  “She didn’t have to. I saw the whole mess on videotape. I found it in his office. He and two women raped a young girl.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “There’s more. Townsend got the tape in the mail around April tenth. A week later he cashed in a mutual fund for eighty-seven thousand dollars. The money is missing.”

  I pushed a pawn to bishop three and Vaz pushed pawn to queen knight three.

  “Blackmail, do you think?”

  “I do. Except for one thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “Why was he keeping the videotape?” It was time to be aggressive. I moved onto his turf with knight to king five.

  “I fail to see your point.”

  “Vaz, when a guy is caught with his pants down, so to speak, he doesn’t save the incriminating evidence. He destroys it at his first opportunity. Even if it’s just a copy of the original. So why would Townsend keep the tape?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe producing the tape was his idea. A memento.”

  Vaz fianchettoed his queen bishop. It made me uneasy, aimed as it was at my castled position. But I tossed caution aside and shoved pawn to king bishop four. The next few moves were quickly played. Pawn takes pawn, pawn takes pawn, knight takes knight, and queen pawn takes knight. This pawn now attacked Vaz’s remaining knight. Without hesitation he moved it to knight five. I thought for a moment he’d blundered, leaving the knight en prise, open to capture by my queen. But no. If I took it, I’d be abandoning my bishop to his queen. And yet, there was something. I first played bishop takes pawn, check. Then when he played king takes bishop, I snapped up his knight with my queen. By God, I’d won a pawn. A small victory, sure, but it put me ahead.

  “That has a false ring to it, Jacob.”

  “What, a memento? I suppose. Have you got a better idea?”

  “Perhaps I do.” He picked up his queen and set it on queen five, where it dominated the center of the board and bore down on my king. “What was Mr. Townsend’s life like? Setting aside for a moment the small, sordid part that you’ve uncovered.”

  “About average, I guess. Except for his wealth.”

  I moved my king to rook one, escaping check. Vaz brought his queen rook to bishop one. It was poised for invasion.

  “He was a decent man, then?”

  “I suppose. What has this got to do with the tape?”

  “I am getting to that. Here we have a decent man who slips once, but is unfortunate enough to be photographed in the act. Someone blackmails him. He pays, so that his reputation is protected and his family is saved from disgrace.”

  “But why keep the tape?”

  I didn’t like the way things were going. I tried knight to rook five, an obvious attempt at mate. Vaz shrugged it off with pawn to knight three, attacking my knight.

  “Patience, Jacob. We assume Townsend was not a stupid man. He’d know that his blackmailer would eventually demand more money. They always do. But what if he decided he wasn’t going to pay more? He might threaten to go to the police if his blackmailer refused to leave him alone.”

  “And the tape?”

  “Why, proof of the crime, of course. He’d turn it over to the police as evidence against his blackmailer.”

  “I don’t know, Vaz. It sounds pretty farfetched.”

  “But it is possible, correct?”

  “Sure. Anything’s possible. I’ll know more when I talk to the man who made Townsend’s sexual fantasies come true.”

  “You know who it was?”

  “I have a pretty good idea. Townsend’s call girl sent him to a man named Gofman and Gofman sent him to Leonard Reese. I think Reese is our man.”

  I moved queen to rook three. If Vaz took my knight, I could begin checking him perpetually, saving the game by forcing a draw. But Vaz played instead king rook to rook one. This gave his king flight squares. It also put his rook on the same file as my knight, queen, and king. A dangerous situation. Dangerous for me. I checked him with knight to bishop six. He moved his king to knight two, uncovering his violent rook. I got my queen the hell out of there and put her on king three, where she stood face to face with the black queen. Vaz would have to trade queens or withdraw. Either way, the pressure would be off. I hoped.

  “Why do you think Reese?” Vaz asked.

  “For one thing, he has at least a passing knowledge of filmmaking.”

  “Many people do.”

  “For another, he works, or worked, at Pussy’s on Colfax. Which, as everyone knows, is just a false front for a whorehouse.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, Jacob.”

  “Christ, Vaz. Anyway, I have another good reason for believing that Reese is involved. Townsend went to meet someone the day he died. He wrote the initials LR on his calendar. Leonard Reese.”

  “Thousands of people have those initials.”

  “But he’s the only one I’ve found that knew Townsend.”

  “Hm.”

  “There’s something else that fits. Apparently, the meeting was to take place at a bar on Lookout Mountain, a bar that attracts bikers. And Reese hangs out with bikers.”

  “Perhaps you are right about Mr. Reese. If so, Jacob, he could be a most dangerous man.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  Then Vaz hit me with an unexpected shot. Rook to bishop seven. He’d abandoned his queen. But what if I took it? My king would be left to the mercy of his rooks and queen bishop. I slid my queen to king knight three, defending. Vaz pushed queen to queen six, increasing the pressure, attacking my rook, and threatening mate on the back rank.

  “What do you intend to do, Jacob?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll approach Reese by playing the role of Phillip Townsend, part two.”

  My options were few. Queen takes queen.

  “That seems unwise.”

  “Why?”

  Rook takes king knight pawn.

  “He’s certain to be suspicious of you. Assuming, of course that he is reasonably intelligent and not simply a gorilla.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Please do.”

  “First, I have to find him.”

  “But you will be careful.”

  “You can count on it.”

  I dropped my knight back to knight four.

  “More careful, I hope, than you’ve been with your king.”

  “What?”

  “Rook on seven takes pawn, check. Double check, actually, with rook and bishop. Your king is forced to knight one. Then rook to knight seven, mate.”

  “Ah, yes, mate.”

  “A most enjoyable game, Jacob. Thank you.”

  “Hey, don’t mention it.”

  CHAPTER 18

  THE FRONT PAGE OF Thursday’s paper had an aerial shot of trees and smoke. A camper on the western slope had been careless yesterday. His little cookout now spread across three thousand acres of pine and aspen. A couple hundred fighters were trying to contain it. They weren’t having much luck.

  I finished my coffee and drove downtown.


  At precisely eight o’clock I was ushered into the office of Clarence DeWitt. His mood was a shade darker than a smoke jumper’s shirt.

  “Your investigation has gone far beyond the parameters which I prescribed.” He scowled at me across the ocean of mahogany that he called a desk.

  “I wasn’t aware of any parameters.”

  “You were to look into the circumstances surrounding Phillip Townsend’s demise.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “You’ve been doing much more than that, Mr. Lomax.” His voice was chilly enough to fog the air. “I spoke to Mr. Sturgis Tuesday afternoon. He informed me that you have been prying into Mr. Townsend’s financial affairs.”

  “Did he tell you that Townsend liquidated a mutual fund?”

  “Of course. The point is—”

  “For eighty-seven thousand dollars?”

  “The amount is immaterial.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that Sturgis can’t find the money?”

  “Of course it bothers me, Mr. Lomax. But you were hired to look into Mr. Townsend’s accident, not his personal life.”

  “I can’t separate the two.”

  “Apparently not. The point is you were to keep me informed of any developments in your investigation. You should have notified me before you spoke with Mr. Sturgis.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I expected you to limit yourself to verifying the police reports. When you questioned Mr. Sturgis without my permission, which I surely would not have given, you exceeded your authority.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “Obviously. That is why I want it stopped.”

  “What stopped?”

  “The investigation. As of this moment you are no longer under my employ.”

  “I was hired by Maryanne Townsend. I’d like to hear that from her.”

  “I am her agent in this matter, Mr. Lomax. My decisions are final. You are, how do you say it, off the case. And you are to stay away from Mrs. Townsend. Informing her of the mutual fund was a grave error. She was most upset.”

  “I think she was more angry than upset.”

  “What you think, Mr. Lomax, is unimportant.” He reached out and placed a slip of paper exactly in the center of his desk. A pale green raft becalmed on a brown sea. “This is your final payment. Your investigation has ended.”