To Find a Killer

by Charlie Vogel

  Then Harry lost his grip. The sofa hit the ground so hard, its wooden frame broke, tearing Harry’s armrest away from the sofa back. It took the both of us to wiggle the damn thing off the tailgate. Finally, it slammed onto the ground, broken and even more pathetic than when we found it. In the middle of the alley like that, it looked appropriately abandoned.

  Now it was Alabama’s turn. Standing on each side of couch, Harry grabbed one foot and I grabbed the other. Much easier than the sofa, the corpse slid out and dropped in place, nicely sprawled on the piece of broken furniture.

  Lori came back from her corner lookout post. She shook her head. “Naw. He looks too relaxed. Sit him up.” With a bit of huffing and puffing, we accomplished that. “Cross that leg over this one.” Then her hands deftly searched his coat pockets. She held up his wallet and a fat cigar. After sticking the cigar into his mouth, wedging it between his back teeth to hold it in place, she pointed at the gun lying in the truck bed’s debris. Harry retrieved that, wiped off his prints with the end of Alabama’s coat and settled the weapon on the corpse’s lap. One more pass of Lori’s hands over the suit coat and she came up with a thick money roll. First, she counted out three thousand dollars, then she tossed the remaining substantial roll to Harry. His one-handed catch was admirable. “Keep it,” Lori told him. “Alabama ain’t gonna need it!”

  Harry looked like she had clubbed him right between the eyes. “Why don’t you take all of it?”

  “This is what he stole from me. What’s in your hand, ain’t mine.”

  Harry stuffed the wad back in Alabama’s pocket. “I’ve never robbed the dead, not in Nam, not anywhere. I ain’t startin’ now.”

  Relieved to be back in heavy traffic and with an empty truck bed, I glanced at Lori. “Where to?”

  “Back to my place. I’ll have to pack and move.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My apartment belonged to Alabama. I ain’t got a job no more. No pimp, no work. I can’t walk the streets by myself.”

  “Why can’t you find a job as a waitress or hotel clerk or something?

  “Bob, you’re sounding like a hayseed again. I’ve worked the streets since I was fourteen. Ten years. Ten years of working for pimps. Everyone knows me. Once Fox spreads the word that Alabama’s dead, some other man will find me.”

  “Are you using . . . like hooked?” Harry quickly asked.

  “Not since my last dry out, a year ago when I served time. Alabama quit trying to force shit on me. Knew I was pissed at him. But, my next man will probably crank me up. So what? That’s the least of my worries. Right now, I need a place to stay.”

  I tried to think through all she had said in so few words. Her perspective was so different, so foreign to me, yet just what I needed right now. Entering an intersection on a red light, I barely missed a collision and prayed a cop hadn’t seen that one. “Why don’t you stay with me. There’s a third bedroom. It would be a perfect place for you to hide out, rest up, whatever.”

  Her silence bothered me, but not as much as the narrow-eyed assessment I glimpsed from both people beside me.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you going to pimp for me?”

  “Of course not!” I floored it through a yellow light. “I’m going to make sure you stay off the streets . . . if that’s what you want. You will never have to sell yourself again.”

  “I’ve heard this crap before! I know how it works. You keep me around for a few weeks and as soon as you get low on money . . . or your wife decides she wants you back, I’ll find my ass on the streets again!”

  “He ain’t like that, Lori!” Harry put in. “First off, Bob’s got more money than he knows what to do with. Second, his wife is dead.”

  “Dead? She shifted in the seat like it was uncomfortable. “So, you’re living with him now. And the two of you want me to move in. I get it. You’re some kind of perverts. Well, I’ll charge a hundred extra for a three-some. I’ve seen it done, but I ain’t never—”

  “Why don’t you just shut up!” I shouted. “I don’t want to hear about . . . what you’ve seen or what you’ve done! All I want is to offer you a place to stay. No sexual favors or money exchange. If you . . . want that from me or Harry, then forget it! But . . .” I glared at the car in front of me like it was the enemy, my fingers white on the wheel. “Well, the extra bedroom is still yours, even if you can’t change. You just keep your johns away from our apartment, away from me. Understand?”

  My anger must have impressed my two passengers. When I glanced at them, both stared straight ahead, carefully ignoring everything but their thoughts. No one spoke, even when we left the truck parked beside the Mustang in our building’s underground garage. Only the creaking and clicking of the old elevator broke the silence as we rode up. When the doors opened on the second floor, Harry and I hesitated long enough for Lori to exit first. She went directly to Alabama’s apartment door, unlocked it, and slammed it behind her. Harry kept glancing at her door as he unlocked ours, but still didn’t comment.

  Trying to find a comfortable position on the lumpy couch seat, I listened to Harry getting a glass of water in the kitchen. Finally, he returned and straddled a wooden chair facing me.

  He shook his head before sighing heavily. “So, when are you taking the truck back?”

  “I thought I’d keep it for a few days. Need to haul some more stuff and we have your things to move.”

  “Like I said, I ain’t got much. So, right now can I use the car? I need to pay my child support at the Court House.”

  “It’s your car. What are you asking me for?”

  “Yeah, you told me, but I don’t even have a set of keys.”

  “Sorry.” I dug in my pocket. “I got two sets. Here!” I tossed a key ring toward him and he grabbed it right out of the air with that one strong hand. “All yours! And, you know what? I’m not going to miss it a bit. I like driving that truck. I think I’ll go shopping for one.”

  “Don’t think I’m driving you to the car dealer. You’d probably sell the Mustang from under me!”

  “Harry! That hurts!” I chided him. We grinned at one another.

  A knock interrupted our exchange.

  “Who would come visiting? Nobody I know has my address. You expecting anybody?” I demanded.

  “Hell, no!” Harry snapped. “People I know wouldn’t knock polite-like.”

  “Could it be one of Alabama’s friends?”

  “How the hell would I know that? Think I’m Superman and can see through the door?”

  “Of course not. But, you can go see who it is.”

  “Why me? ‘Cause I’m the tough guy? You killed the pimp!”

  “It was an accident!”

  “That you made happen!”

  Another knock.

  “Oh, never mind. Come in!” Harry shouted.

  “They can’t. It’s locked,” I told him in a loud whisper.

  “So, go unlock it! It’s your place!”

  He didn’t bother to even stand as I went by. You’re the combat veteran and I’m answering the door. He just shrugged at my disgusted expression.

  The distorted view through the peep hole revealed no one waiting in the shadowed hallway. I clicked the lock and cautiously eased the door open.

  “Hi!” Lori’s greeting startled me. She leaned against the wall next to my door, a suitcase in one hand, a filled garbage bag at her feet. When I only stared, she stood up, her gaze studying the hall’s thread-bare carpeting. “Well, ah, is the bedroom still available?”

  I worked real hard not to smile. “Nobody’s applied for it in the past ten minutes.” When she looked up with hope in those big eyes, I let the smile show. “So, I guess, you want it?”

  “I thought it over . . . all the way back. Standing there in Alabama’s place, I realized you and Harry are probably all right. I mean, you handled Alabama okay and everything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her ne
ck arched with returning pride. “I can come and go as I want, but no johns, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You give me any crap and I’m outta here, okay?”

  “Okay. You won’t get any from us . . . as long as you follow the rules.”

  “Rules? More rules than ‘No johns’?”

  “Not right now, but we’ll have to see. Maybe we can all make them up as we go along. Is this all your stuff?” I started to reach for the garbage bag, but she hefted it.

  “I’ll get this. You can carry my TV over. Door’s open.”

  As protective as she was of that bag, I sure hoped it didn’t contain anything dangerous or drugs. The bag bumped me as she awkwardly entered the apartment. I noticed she let Harry take the damn thing, then I turned to get her TV.

  An hour later, Harry and I tried to concentrate on the image on Lori’s TV, as our shower sounded in the background. We pretended an exaggerated interest in the fine art of adjusting the antenna. The blurred reception remained, no matter how it was positioned. The end table beneath the set wobbled every time one of us touched it. Just as I knelt to look under the table, we heard the bar of soap bouncing on the shower floor. My face reddened as I identified missing screws from the table leg, and thought of looking up bare feminine legs.

  “Gotta replace this furniture,” I mumbled.

  “Why not? You can buy anything you damn please!” Harry aimed the remote control and thumbed the channel button.

  “Wait! Turn it back. That channel had early news.”

  “So read the papers! There’s got to be a good movie someplace.”

  The shower scene from Psycho appeared. Harry and I glanced at one another, then at the bathroom wall with our own shower just beyond. He punched the remote and found a game show, something I always hated. I picked up a worn paperback with no cover left by the last tenant and was soon lost in the first chapter. Involved in terrorists from the Middle East plotting to blow up an airplane on an international flight, I vaguely registered Lucy and Ricky fighting on one side of me and the shower shutting off on the other.

  As I started the last page, I felt someone reading over my shoulder. My eyes met Lori’s then moved down. She was wrapped in only a towel. Her slender hand shoved a glass of iced tea at me. I took a quick swallow to relieve my dry mouth. It didn’t help. Between the dark, wet hair framing her face and the towel slipping down the curve of one plump breast, I was a mess. I shifted to conceal my instant arousal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harry’s mouth hanging open.

  “Okay, time for a rule,” I sputtered. “Listen up, Harry. Everyone will be properly dressed outside the bathroom and their own bedroom.”

  Lori frowned. She looked at Harry. “You agree with that one? I mean, like we’re voting here.”

  Harry’s mouth snapped shut. He hesitated, met my hard stare, then shrugged. “Yeah . . . I think so.”

  She pulled a straight-back chair from the dining room table and sat down, her knees modestly together and angled just enough to the side to allow the towel to part a little. “This is weird and I’m confused. I wasn’t even going to charge you, one at a time that is. I guess, I was reading the wrong signals. If I’m not here for . . . that . . . for you, why am I here?”

  I rubbed my hand over my face. Why can’t anything I do be simple? This nobility crap isn’t even close! “You were in trouble. I made it worse. Harry and I are just trying to do the neighborly thing, without any expectations. I don’t know what signals we gave you. Now, get this clear. We are not interested in having sex with you. Right, Harry?”

  Harry nodded his head then shook it. “That’s right. I mean, no we ain’t. I mean, what Bob says goes. You don’t have to worry about us, Lori.”

  “Okay,” she responded, but still didn’t sound convinced. “What’s going on here anyway? I’m no dummy. I been reading people mosta my life. When Harry said you got money, I kinda figured that out already. So, why are you here? And why do you want Harry and me here . . . with you?”

  I folded the corner of the book page and carefully set it on the scarred coffee table before me. Lust had died before the grief. I didn’t want to see Harry’s regret or Lori’s sympathy, so I closed my eyes, slid down, and rested my head on the back of the couch. The story of Eileen’s death, the description of my helplessness, and the explanation of my move to the slums poured out. I had a killer to find who was linked to the convenience store robberies around town. Harry had said word on the street was the robberies originated from the slums. He volunteered to help me find my way around until I picked up the killer’s trail.

  Their silence got to me. Finally, I opened my eyes. No regret in Harry’s eyes, just determination and a touch of pride. Lori gripped the seat of her chair and I watched her swinging feet like a little girl trying to think up something to say.

  “You have a problem believing that . . . or what?”

  “No.” She chewed her lip. “You must have a lot of money, like Harry said.”

  “I have enough to live on . . . for a while . . . long enough. Why?”

  “You said Harry is helping you. I don’t know if you’re paying him . . . but, if you want to give me part of the action, like a job, I can help you find this man.”

  “How?”

  “Bob!” She obviously didn’t like explaining herself and worked not to sound like she was apologizing or begging. “I’m a goddamn whore. I’ve seen more hanging johns in the past ten years than you have in the boy’s locker room at your goddamn school. If he’s here somewhere, I probably went to bed with the guy you want.”

  Leaning forward I rested my chin in my hand and studied her. “You may be right. You might be able to find him. But you would have to go back to street walking. I could act as your pimp to be on the scene, but it would all be a front. You wouldn’t really do any more tricks. We’ll make everybody think I’m your man. That should keep Fox and any others away from you. And while you are making your rounds, you could look at the men and collect information. Yeah, it could work.”

  “Bob, Bob, Bob, you’re losing it!” Harry stood up and paced to the door and back. “Think about what you just planned out! Nobody on the streets knows you. It’s a war zone out there, not the halls of some high school or a TV show. These dudes pull real guns, just like Alabama did.”

  My thoughts flew. This was going to work. I could feel it. “Okay. You and Lori pass the word around that I’m a tough guy from Chicago, a real bad ass. Tell them no one wants to mess with me.”

  “That ain’t gonna work!” Harry groaned. “Words are nothing! You gotta prove yourself. Get a gun. Flash it.” His face changed, hardened. “But you better be damn ready to use it if trouble comes calling. You wanna go that far? This is dangerous stuff. Before you know it, the cops and the bad guys will be checking you over, maybe working you over. Is that what you want?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get Eileen’s killer . . . then yes. I don’t care, Harry. Can you get me that gun or not?”

  He blew out a long breath. “Yeah, I know some people.”

  “Good. Let’s get started.” I looked at Lori as she stood, adjusting her towel and looking expectant. “You have anything else to say?”

  She gave me a lop-sided smile. “Yeah. You are one dumb son-of-a-bitch. You don’t want a whore, but you’ll front one, all to get yourself dead. ‘Cause that’s what you’ll be in less than two months. But if you find what you’re after, you don’t care. I gotta respect that and I don’t respect much.” She pushed a strand of drying hair behind her ear. “I like the feeling, especially if I can help. But . . . if I’m not whoring, I need money coming in. So, how much are you paying me?”

  “How about a thousand a month, plus room and board?”

  “Really?” Her genuine smile could have lit the entire block until Christmas. “But in cash with no damn IRS.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “If she’s getting a thousand, am I getting that much over my Stop-and-Go salary? Maybe I
shouldn’t be working there at all. What can you front for me? Think I could make it as a male prostitute?” Harry’s sarcasm wasn’t missed.

  “Go to the court house then get my damn gun!”

  Chapter 6

  A spring breeze lifted Eileen’s hair, its strands separating and floating like silk threads. I wanted to touch that hair, so I would know how to paint it on canvas some day. My fingers just wouldn’t let go of the fishing rod. Something pounded against the side of the wooden boat, jarring my concentration. The murky water sloshed about us. Eileen hadn’t moved. She just stared, waiting for me to reach out. The pounding came again.

  My eyes opened. Through the apartment window, morning light reflected off the brick wall across the alley. I rolled over, balling up the fresh-out-of-the-package sheets covering my new mattress. Three days ago I laid out four thousand dollars for new furniture, but had forgotten to buy curtains to block out the goddamn sun.

  A fist hammered wood. “Open up!” a deep man’s voice shouted. “This is the police!”

  I shoved my legs into my jeans, tripped over the bare canvases stacked beside the bed, and stumbled out the bedroom door. “I’m coming!” I shouted back.

  The 9mm Beretta Harry had found for me lay on the polished oak dining room table, in plain view of the front door. He had told me not to ask where it came from. While cleaning it, I had pulled the slide back and, of course, found the serial numbers filed off. Another impatient knock. I scooped up the weapon and shoved it under the deep cushions of the new couch on my way to the door.

  The peep hole’s distorted image showed one man waiting in the hall, the police detective, Sergeant Morten. I opened the door. He looked me over, his expression professionally cold.

  “Morning, Sergeant Morten. What brings you here?”

  He warily cocked his head. “I’m, ah, investigating a homicide and need to ask you some questions.”