Fare Play

by Barbara Paul

  “Where’s Virgil?” Marian demanded of the woman.

  “I don’t know!” she replied tearfully.

  “Who’s Virgil?”

  “I don’t know that either! I’ve never seen him!”

  Marian turned to the paymaster.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said. “This is as close as I ever got to him.”

  “That’s crap,” Sergeant Buchanan said. “You gotta know who he is. You work for ’im!”

  “A lotta people work for ’im! You know why I came here today? To tell her I wanted to meet this Virgil.”

  “That’s true,” the tearful woman confirmed.

  The paymaster had decided to try bluffing his way out. All he did was pay people off. Nothing illegal in that, was there? He picked up the pay packets here and met some couriers at different places and paid them. He was hired by phone and he received his instructions by phone. And that’s all there was to it.

  So why this sudden urge to meet Virgil?

  Nothing sudden about it. He’d been trying to meet his employer for a long time, but he was sure the other woman hadn’t been passing his messages on.

  What other woman?

  The one that worked here before her. This one was sorta new.

  What happened to the other woman?

  He didn’t know. She’d been here for as long as he’d been working for Virgil, but then one day she just disappeared. So he thought he’d try his luck with the new woman.

  She just disappeared. “Rosalind Bowman,” Marian said to Murtaugh.

  The woman said her job was just to pass on the money to the various paymasters—yes, more than one. The money was delivered by messengers already sealed into the envelopes. Some were big, some were little. She never actually handled the money itself. All she did was distribute the envelopes and let Virgil know if something went wrong.

  Let him know? How did she do that?

  She sat down at the computer. “I don’t know anything about these machines, but this is what I do.” She turned on the computer, and they all watched a communications program load automatically. The dialing directory had no numbers listed, but Entry Number I showed seven small black blocks.

  “The phone number’s concealed,” Perlmutter said. “She doesn’t know who she’s calling.”

  The woman nodded. “I just type the number ‘one’—and when the screen says ‘Connect,’ I type in my message. That’s all.”

  Detective O’Toole said, “What if we type in that number ‘one’ right now?”

  “It won’t tell us anything,” Perlmutter said. “But it will tell Virgil we’ve found this place, if she doesn’t leave a message for him.”

  “So,” the paymaster said, “you gonna let us go, or what? I didn’t do anything.”

  Marian said, “Walker, Dowd—take them in and book them. Accessory to murder.”

  The paymaster started squawking and the woman started crying; but Walker and Dowd paid no attention and unceremoniously hauled them out. The place quieted down considerably once they’d gone.

  Gloria Sanchez sat yoga-fashion on the desk. “So the paymaster was a lot smaller fry than we thought.”

  “Yes, we were naive there,” Captain Murtaugh said, “thinking the paymaster would lead us directly to Virgil. How many more layers does that bastard have between himself and here?”

  Roberts pointed at the screen. “We could cut through them all if we could just get that phone number.”

  Perlmutter sat down at the computer. He tapped at the keyboard for a bit and announced, “That communications program with the hidden phone number is the only thing in this computer, other than the operating system. There’s just nothing else on the hard disk.”

  Murtaugh asked, “Is there any way of bringing out that phone number?”

  “Depends on the kind of security, I guess,” Perlmutter said, “but I wouldn’t know how to do it. I don’t think the police computer department could do it either. This isn’t the kind of work they do.” He smiled ruefully. “I hate to say it, Captain, but the FBI is better set up to handle this than we are.”

  “What about an outside consultant?” Marian asked. “Do we have funds for that?”

  Murtaugh’s eyes flickered. “Go ahead.” She picked up the phone and punched in a number.

  When he answered, Marian said, “Holland, we need to borrow André Flood.”

  Perlmutter had simply disconnected the computer and picked it up, leaving the monitor and keyboard behind. “It’s the easiest way,” he said.

  Marian sent everyone else home and then drove Murtaugh, Perlmutter, and the computer to Holland’s agency. By then the workday was over, so only Holland and André Flood were still there. Marian explained what was needed, and André got to work.

  Holland drew Marian aside. “Why did you ask for André and not for me?”

  “You told me he was better than you. I believed you.”

  He glowered.

  Perlmutter was awestruck by his surroundings. “This is a great office. Wow. The private-eye business sure has changed.”

  Murtaugh asked, “You specialize in computer investigations, don’t you, Holland? Security breaches, wire fraud, that sort of thing?”

  “Primarily,” Holland answered. “But not all investigations can be completed on the computer. We have to complement with good old plain detective work now and then.”

  Marian went into André’s office and pulled up a chair next to the young man. “Would it distract you to tell me what you’re doing?”

  “Not at all,” he said easily. “I’m simply running some preliminary programs looking for a back door into their security. I need to get inside before I can start searching for your phone number.”

  “Perlmutter said there was nothing on the disk except the communications program.”

  “Oh, it’s hidden. It won’t show up on any directory listing. But it’s there.” Suddenly, he turned to face Marian. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “What for?”

  “For bringing me this.”

  She smiled. “You really love it, don’t you?”

  He turned back to the screen. “It’s the best of everything.”

  She was still trying to figure out an answer to that when Holland came in. He said something to André in what sounded to Marian like a foreign language. André answered in the same unintelligible speech. After a few minutes of that, Marian gave her chair to Holland and went back to the reception area.

  Perlmutter was playing a game on the receptionist’s computer. Murtaugh said, “Holland told me there’d be no charge for André’s services.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  He gave her a small smile. “Is that going make a problem for you? Knowing we got this service free because you and he, er …”

  “Oh, he’s not doing it for me,” Marian said. “He’s doing it for you.”

  “For me?” He was astonished.

  How to explain? “Captain, Holland has his own ways of doing things. He’ll never say to you, ‘I apologize for being rude.’ What he’ll say is, ‘There’s no charge for the service.’”

  Murtaugh gave a half grunt, half laugh. “Are you sure?”

  She wasn’t. “I’m sure.”

  Holland came in to announce that André had found his back door. “Now the real work begins. It could take minutes, but it’s more likely to take hours. If you want to go get something to eat—”

  “We’ll stay,” Murtaugh decided for all of them.

  An hour later Perlmutter was showing Marian how to play a computer game, while Murtaugh had found something to read. A chime sounded, making them all jump.

  Holland came out of André’s office and looked at the hall monitor. “It’s Gloria Sanchez.” He let her in.

  “Hey, Holland.” Gloria went straight to Marian. “I’m sorry, Marian—there shouldn’t have been a delay. But the guys just didn’t realize what it meant.”

  “What what meant?”

  “The four men guarding S
chumacher in the Guggenheim—they’re all from the Ninth, they don’t know the faces. That envelope the courier brought Schumacher. For his next hit?” She fished it out of her shoulder bag. “I think you’d better take a look.”

  Marian opened the flap and slid out a printed data sheet and two photographs. The photos were of Austin Knowles.

  “Oh boy,” said Perlmutter.

  “Who is he?” Holland asked.

  Gloria told him.

  Murtaugh shook his head. “Christ, these people are ruthless!”

  “Do you want me to pick him up?” Gloria asked.

  “Yes, and the sooner the better,” Marian said, handing back the envelope. “Show him that. He’ll come willingly enough. Perlmutter—go with her. Just make sure he’s locked up where nobody can get at him. I’ll be along when we finish here.”

  “Right,” Gloria said. “Come on, Pearl.”

  “Perlmutter,” he said. They left.

  “So,” Holland said, “protective custody or arrest?”

  Murtaugh shrugged. “About half and half at this stage, I’d say.” He looked at Marian. “You’re sure he’ll talk?”

  “Wouldn’t you, with a contract out on you? Austin was only an inch from talking already—his lawyer was trying to work out an immunity deal with the DA. That little envelope is all it’s going to take to convince him. He’ll talk.”

  An hour later, André had the phone number.

  “Well done, André,” Holland said. “That would have taken me at least fifteen minutes longer. Now to get a name to go with that number.”

  “That won’t take long,” André said, starting to type. “Phone company records are easy to—”

  “Wait, André,” Holland cautioned. He turned to the two cops watching the screen. “Captain and Lieutenant. Perhaps you’d care to go for a short stroll … say, ten minutes?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Marian said. “Just look up O.K. Toys in the phone directory.”

  They all three stared at her.

  “Well, do you have a Manhattan directory or not?”

  André looked it up. “She’s right. That number and the number for O.K. Toys are the same.”

  Marian nodded. “Oliver Knowles was Virgil.”

  37

  “I have to tell you first about my parents,” Austin Knowles said, and paused.

  They waited.

  Long fingers running through thinning blond hair. “It’s hard. It’s hard for me to talk about them.” He took a deep breath. “I told you we were from Texas?”

  “Yes,” said Marian.

  “Back before I came along,” Austin said, “Oliver and Myrna Knowles were starving. That is not an exaggeration. Dirt-poor white trash. Unskilled, except for Oliver’s ability to fashion toys out of bits and scraps … but nobody wanted to buy them. They had nothing.

  “They stole, when they could. A woman’s purse, when she wasn’t looking. A bicycle they could sell. Once, when they hadn’t eaten for two days, in desperation they decided to break into a grocery store. They picked out a small store run by a widow with a small child. They lived over the store, but there was no man in the house. That made them feel safe, you see. They waited until the middle of the night and broke in.

  “She caught them. She came down the stairs and turned on the lights and screamed she was calling the police. They jumped her. She fought back but it didn’t do any good … they killed her. They hadn’t planned to kill her—they just meant to shut her up. But they hit too hard, and she died. They sat there on the floor of that two-bit grocery store staring at each other, stunned to a state of inaction.

  “Then they saw a child of about three standing on the stairway. He’d seen the whole thing.

  “Myrna said a child that young couldn’t identify them … he wouldn’t even remember what had happened in a few more years. Oliver said they couldn’t take the chance. He said that even though the boy probably didn’t understand what he’d seen, they couldn’t leave a live witness behind. What if he remembered it later, all at once, when he was grown? This was murder they’d done there that night, and the police never stopped looking for murderers. Myrna regretfully admitted he might be right.

  “But when they came down to it, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to kill a three-year-old child. So, instead, they took me with them.”

  He fell silent, staring at his hands clenched together on the table.

  “Where was this?” Marian asked quietly. “In what part of Texas?”

  “In Austin.” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s right. They named me after the place they found me.” With an effort, he sat up straight. “Please understand, I knew none of this until last month. When my mother—Myrna—knew she was dying, she told me the story. I have no memory of that night in the grocery store.”

  Marian nodded. “But that’s where it started. In that accidental killing in the store.”

  “That’s where it started,” he agreed. “When they found out they’d gotten away with it, Oliver got a little bolder. He picked a warehouse with one nightwatchman and deliberately killed the man. With the only one likely to walk in on him safely out of the way, Oliver could take his time looting the place. This was in the days before surveillance cameras and the like.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then it became a pattern. Myrna told me Oliver boasted to her that his real talent lay in ‘taking out the other guy,’ not in making toys. Then the day came when someone paid Oliver to commit a murder. When he brought it off without any suspicion being directed against either him or the man who hired him, he gave up his burglaries forever. From that day on, he was a hired killer.”

  “This was still in Texas?”

  “Yes. And what memories I have of those days are of a warm, comfortable home with two loving parents. Oliver used to get down on the floor and play with me. If you’d asked me two months ago, I’d have said I had a happy, normal childhood.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then Oliver decided he was ready for the big time and moved his family to New York. Myrna was a little vague about times, but I don’t think he spent more than three years perfecting his skills in Texas.” His voice was bitter. “I remember going to school for the first time shortly after we arrived in this new big city. So I must have been about six.

  “Evidently Oliver found immediate and steady employment. A killer who never got caught was in high demand. And the more successful he became, the more Myrna began to pull away from him. She became more and more troubled by what he was doing … but I guess she felt a kind of loyalty to him there for a while because she did share in that first killing.

  “Somewhere along the line Oliver started subcontracting his ‘jobs’—he had more work than he could handle. Pretty soon he had a stable of killers he could call on, and he was able to ease up a little and just arrange for murders, move into the administrative side of the killing business. He hit upon the idea of opening a toy company. He still liked playing around with toys, but a company would give him the physical facilities he needed to run his real business. Also, he hoped O.K. Toys would convince Myrna that he’d turned legit, but she saw through the ploy. Where the code-name Virgil came from, I have no idea, nor how long he used it.” Another humorless laugh.

  “All these years, what I thought was my father’s business was in reality just a killer’s hobby. Nothing else. A hobby.”

  Marian waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she prompted, “Then Oliver and Myrna separated?”

  “Yes. Myrna simply couldn’t stomach living with him any longer, knowing what he’d become. I didn’t know that at the time, of course. I thought she was just being unreasonable. She’d tell me he was an evil man, and I should have nothing to do with him. Then I’d go over to his new place for a visit, and there’d be the same old Dad I’d always known. I thought she was acting crazy.

  “I know better now,” he said bitterly. “When she was lying in that hospital bed, telling me all this, I tried
to comfort her by reminding her that Oliver was retired now. He wouldn’t be causing any more deaths—it was over. But it wasn’t over, she said. The business was still thriving. Oliver had been training Dave Unger for years to take over, and Elmore Zook would be steering him until he felt Unger could handle it alone. Unger’s a bookkeeper, not an innovator. He still needed Zook. But when Oliver eventually died, I would inherit the majority of shares in the business—they were legitimate shares, registered as O.K. Toys shares but really shares in … Virgil, Incorporated, I suppose you could call it. Zook and Unger together are Virgil now, I guess.

  “Myrna said those two would undoubtedly cheat me blind, but they’d keep me supplied with enough money to prevent my getting suspicious. But whatever money I got, it was going to be blood money. Do you realize I’ve lived over half my life supported by money paid for murder? That blood money sent me to college, paid for my architectural training, helped me open my own office? And blood money was to be my legacy. Myrna said she couldn’t go to her grave leaving me in ignorance.

  “The last time I saw Myrna—it was the day she died—I asked her who my real mother was. Myrna started to cry. That dying, guilt-ridden old woman, lying in a hospital bed and crying … because she couldn’t remember my real mother’s name.”

  Suddenly he looked up. “Could I have some water? I’m getting awfully dry.”

  Marian nodded to Austin’s guard and waited until the bluesuit had returned with a paper cup of water. Austin swallowed it all down without taking a breath and then crumpled up the cup.

  “After Myrna died,” Marian said, “you decided something had to be done.”

  Austin nodded slowly. “I’d never really felt true hatred for another person before. But I hated Oliver. I hated him so much it was eating me alive. All those nice childhood memories—they were as phony as everything else about the man. I felt so cheated! Can you understand that? Everything about the first half of my life was a fraud!”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I wanted Oliver dead. It struck me as wonderfully ironic if he should be killed by the very organization he founded. So I went to Elmore Zook and Dave linger. I told them if they would arrange to have Oliver killed immediately, I’d turn all my shares in O.K. Toys over to them. They could have the whole thing.” A sarcastic laugh. “Zook and Unger proved to be good friends to Oliver. They made me wait a whole day while they talked it over. One day it took them to decide to kill a man they’d been in business with for—well, in Zook’s case, close to forty years. Oh yes—Oliver always knew how to find men exactly like himself.”