Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 17 - Retro

by Loren D. Estleman

  At the airport we were stopped at the gate to Short Term parking when a black sheriff’s deputy stepped off the curb and made a cranking motion. Shelly rolled down the window.

  “Good afternoon, sir. I need to ask you and your passengers to step out of the car and open the trunk.”

  We got out. Nicky crowded me close while his partner popped the trunk lock. The deputy peered inside, stepped back, nodded. “Thank you, gentlemen. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  We climbed back in and rolled on. “Yeah, yeah,” Nicky said. “You notice he didn’t pat us down.”

  “He would if we were carrying. A good cop can smell it.”

  “Good cop’s like a bad blow job. No such animal.”

  Shelly tripped the metal detector at the Marriott. He surrendered the pager on his belt, went through frisking and wanding, took off his shoes. His face wore a stoic expression he probably hadn’t been born with. Nicky and I greased through without a peep. When we were out of security’s earshot, Nicky asked his partner if he’d gotten off when the guard grabbed his balls.

  The white-haired man lashed out a hand and lifted Nicky off his heels by his crotch. Nicky yelped. Shelly didn’t say anything and his expression didn’t change. After a beat he let go. Nicky adjusted himself and we continued walking. There was no conversation after that.

  We rode the elevator to the top floor. Shelly rapped on the door of one of the executive suites. The redhead opened it.

  She was shorter than she’d looked in the restaurant, about five-three in braided silver sandals that showed the clear polish on her toes. She wore sky-blue slacks and a white drill top with a boat neck that exposed her collarbone, an erogenous zone often overlooked by designers. This one had gone to some trouble to fit it to her form. Her hair was a very deep red, close to cranberry, but whatever might have been added hadn’t strayed far from the original, because her skin was an authentic redhead’s, pale and almost blue. She wore her hair in a boyish cut. The lips today were clear gloss, and here was one female showpiece who didn’t introduce any foreign material into them, or anywhere else so far as I could tell. She had large eyes, pale blue with a Tartar slant. They didn’t spend any time on me at all.

  “He wants you in there, both of you.” She tilted her head toward a closed door near the entrance to the rest of the suite.

  Nicky said, “The bathroom?”

  “It’s your turn to scrub his back. My arm’s tired.”

  “What about him?” He jerked a thumb at me.

  She gave me some attention then; almost a tenth of a second. “I’ll find him a magazine.”

  “Watch his feet.”

  Shelly sighed. “Let’s go, for chrissake.”

  We stepped in from the hall and the two crossed the sitting room—Nicky still limping a little—and tapped on the closed door. I recognized the howl from the other side. They went inside and shut the door.

  The woman turned her back to the hallway door and twisted the latch. She was leering like a bedroom lizard in an old-time melodrama. “Your feet?”

  “I stepped on Nicky. He tried to lead.”

  “Yes, you look clumsy. You look—”

  “Like a yoga instructor. I get that a lot.”

  “I’m Pet.” She held out a hand.

  She had a strong grip. Women do these days and it doesn’t mean any more than a politician’s. “Is that a name or a job description?”

  She jerked free. “I told you on the phone I’m Mr. Morgenstern’s companion. That means I go with him to the theater, arrange the seating at dinner parties, laugh at his stories—”

  “Scrub his back?”

  “Sometimes he scrubs mine. You act like you’ve never met a moll before.”

  “You guessed it. I never met a dip or a mug or a freebooter or a cutpurse either. You had to pick the lock on Grandma’s diary for that one. What’s your real name?”

  “No. I don’t like being laughed at.”

  “Mine’s Amos. I never laugh at names.”

  “It’s Petunia.”

  I laughed.

  Her eyes sparked blue fire. “Maybe Nicky’s not such a bad judge of character after all.”

  “Did they call you Petunia Pig in school?”

  “Never the same person twice. I had three brothers, big Irish roughnecks with advanced degrees in mixing mortar. If you don’t behave yourself I’ll introduce you.”

  “Maybe after a drink. This room come with a bar?”

  “No. Fortunately, Jeremiah does. What’s your pleasure?”

  I watched her drift to the kitchenette, where she opened a cupboard. Johnnie Walker Blue glittered among the bottles inside. I’d never really believed it existed. “Redheads first,” I said. “Then Scotch.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to take second best.” She set up two Old Fashioned glasses and trickled two inches of Blue into each, without ice. She knew a thing or two about drinking premium brands. She carried them over to the little sitting area, set one down on a coffee table with an inlaid top, and curled up on the loveseat holding hers. I sat on the hard seat of the chair opposite and picked mine up. We clinked glasses.

  “Death to the invaders.” She threw back a solid inch.

  “Which ones?”

  “You pick. It’s universal.”

  I sipped twenty-five dollars’ worth. It tasted like distilled mist. “What’s Morgenstern’s business in Detroit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long is he in town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why’d he pick the Marriott?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who invented the cathode ray tube?”

  “Philo T. Farnsworth.” She drank another quarter-inch. “I’m his mistress, not his secretary. I never ask him about his business and he never volunteers anything. I’ve insisted on that from the start.”

  “That explains why you’re not mixing mortar.”

  “It explains why I’m not swimming in it.” She let a foot dangle off the edge of the loveseat. She had a tiny tattoo on her ankle. I couldn’t make it out.

  I dug the crumpled pack out of my shirt pocket and held it up.

  “Go ahead. Try one of mine if you like. They’re Turkish.” She reached down and flipped back the lid of a plain deal box on the coffee table. Rows of cork-tipped cigarettes rested inside.

  “Thanks. I’ve heard how the Turks cure tobacco.” I lit one of mine and leaned forward to light the one she’d placed between her lips. She blew a plume and sat back, shrugging.

  “You know what they say,” she said. “Sooner or later you have to smoke your share of camel shit.”

  While I was leaning forward I squinted at the tattoo. Before I could focus she pulled it back out of sight.

  I said, “Everyone around Morgenstern sounds as New York as takeout, except you. Boston Irish?”

  “South Philly. I went to Columbia to study journalism. Now I help Jeremiah reel in his dangling participles. He pays better than the Times and the work’s more respectable.”

  “I know a fighter from Philly. Joseph Sills.”

  “I guess I missed him. You fight?”

  “Only when I can’t run. How about Curtis Smallwood?” I watched her closely.

  “I missed him too.” She finished her drink, looked at my glass. “You know, you don’t have to pull your punches with this stuff. It doesn’t bleed easy.”

  I took the hint. I drained my glass, stood, and carried mine and hers over to the kitchenette. “Two fingers?”

  She started to answer. Someone was shouting on the other side of the bathroom door. I couldn’t make out the words but I knew that bray. She paled a little. It made her skin almost translucent.

  “Throw in a thumb,” she said.

  “He ever holler at you like that?” I poured. The stuff had been aging for fifty years when I was born and it didn’t look as if it was going to survive the day.

  She dragged on her cigarette, ran that hand through her
short hair. “His bite’s worse than his bark.”

  A moment later Shelly and Nicky came out of the bathroom. The younger man’s face was almost yellow and the white-haired man’s mouth was set in a grim line. Their clothes were wet through, a mystery. They walked between us without a word and let themselves out of the suite.

  I was handing Pet her drink when Morgenstern bellowed again. She set it down, got up, splashed some Blue into another glass, and carried it into the bathroom without knocking. I got a good look at the tattoo on her ankle then: a hummingbird in flight. I didn’t get it.

  TWENTY

  While she was gone I investigated the bedroom, which didn’t look as if it belonged to the same hotel Delwayne Garnet had died in, or even the same world. There was a TV with a screen as thick as a cookie sheet, another sitting area upholstered in burgundy leather, and a king bed with a gold satin headboard, freshly made. A laptop computer sat open on an executive desk with all the ports necessary to take over British Petroleum. The window looked out on I-94, opposite the roar of the runways. Matchbox cars and trucks crowded the interchange, heading home. Pet’s pink suit shared the closet with cocktail dresses, an evening gown cut to the equator, and men’s business wear with the same Central Park West address on all the tailor’s labels. Morgenstern traveled with nearly as many pairs of shoes as his mistress, complete with cedar trees.

  I took a closer look at the computer. It was a more advanced model than I’d ever seen, with a built-in microphone for voice commands. Anyone who could own it could afford to bug my office with better-than-state-of-the-art equipment.

  “Don’t bother,” Pet said. “You need a password to access the password, and even then it’s all in code. His tech guy used to work at the Pentagon.”

  I turned and put my hands in my pockets. She was leaning against the doorjamb, holding her glass. I said, “Not on my account. I don’t know a CD-ROM from a slippery elm. I thought you two never discussed business.”

  “We don’t. But I know Jeremiah, and I can guess the rest. He’s ready for you.”

  “I’m no good at scrubbing backs. Is he out of the tub?”

  “Not for another ten minutes. He always soaks for an hour, like Napoleon. I’d accept the invitation. We have a seven o’clock reservation at the Blue Heron.” She drank. Something about the way she handled the glass told me she’d come there by way of the kitchenette.

  “You might want to start pulling your punches with that stuff,” I said. “A five hundred-dollar hangover’s just as bad as the other kind.”

  She smiled. She drifted over, tacking a little in no wind at all, and slid a hand down my arm. Then she backhanded me across the face. It stung like a willow branch.

  “I don’t take advice from men who go around sniffing bicycle seats,” she said. “Stay out of my things.”

  I stroked my cheek. I felt the heat on my palm. “You can’t walk out of the room and expect the cat not to jump up on the table.”

  Sparks came to her eyes again. The hand holding the glass jerked. I caught her wrist. “Save it for someone’s face who’s worth throwing it in. It’s a day’s pay for me.”

  She smiled then. “I forgot. I’ve been spending too much time lately with Nicky. He keeps me company when Jeremiah’s in meetings.”

  “It should be Shelly. I wouldn’t trust Nicky to feed my gold-fish.”

  “Shelly’d refuse. He only bends so far. He used to be an important man.”

  “The mayor came to his anniversary party. I heard. Where’d he slip up?”

  “I’d tell you to ask him, only he wouldn’t answer. Whenever anyone forgets and starts talking shop I put my hands over my ears and yodel.” She pursed her lips and raised her fingers to my cheek; withdrew them when I flinched. “That’s going to show. Don’t tell him I’m the one who hit you. He’ll think you gave me a reason.”

  “I did.”

  “He’ll think it’s a different reason.”

  “I’ll say I fell out of bed.”

  “You’d better sell it. I wasn’t kidding about his bite. He’s third generation.”

  “I knew the first. I don’t like gangsters whatever their pedigree, but I’d rather take my chances with Jerry Morgenstern than Ben Morningstar.”

  “God, don’t call him Jerry to his face. He was born Jerry Morningstar. He had it legally changed. He likes his roots.”

  “I bet it’s the first thing he’s done legal since his bar mitzvah.”

  “Please go in. He’ll take it out on me if you don’t.”

  I grinned. “I bet you made those three dumb Micks dance the polka.”

  I left her standing in the bedroom and knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Enter!”

  The room was all mirrors and chrome and white tile and sweating like the Brazilian rainforest. Moisture fogged the mirrors and made pools in the grouting. That cleared up the mystery of the soaking-wet stooges. In a deep square tub reclined a skeletal naked man with rhinestones of perspiration glittering in his curly black hair. He was sipping from a glass that was almost too heavy for his wrist. Soothing noises simpered from a mood tape playing somewhere in the room: whales mating, or possibly tuneup time at a French horn recital.

  He peered at me through the billowing steam without moving his head. “Nicky admitted he roughed you over. He didn’t say anything about your face.”

  “Razor burn. You didn’t have to send Siegfried and Roy. I left a number with Petunia.”

  “You called her that? No wonder she hauled off and smacked you. What brand you smoke? I’ll send over a carton.”

  “I’ll pay the tax.”

  He chuckled. It sounded like a machine gun firing a test round. “Ben said you were a pain in the ass. I never thought I’d get the chance to see it for myself. I figured you’d be retired by now.”

  “That was twenty years ago and change. I didn’t know I’d left that big an impression.”

  “You came through on the job. He remembered that kind of thing.”

  “The way I hear it, he remembered when it went the other way too. He went through more blow torches than Chrysler.”

  “Toward the end he didn’t know who he was talking to one minute to the next, but he could tell you what kind of car he drove for six months in nineteen thirty-two. He even knew the mileage. The brain’s funny that way.”

  “Hilarious. Is this going to take long? I’m done on this side.”

  “That part’s up to you. You’re the one wanted to see me.” He took another sip, made a face, and set the glass on the edge of the tub. The Scotch must have been close to boiling. “Second switch on the right goes to the exhaust fan.”

  I found it and flipped it up. The motor whirred behind a vent. The fog began to clear, which wasn’t entirely a good thing. There were no bubbles in the water. He’d been circumcised. “You were in the hotel when Delwayne Garnet was killed.”

  “I already talked to a cop about that, beanpole named Hickok. I never knew nobody named Garnet.”

  “Hichens. Your grandfather knew the woman who raised Garnet. He used to make his payoffs through the hookshop she ran downtown.”

  “Before my time.”

  “If he told you what kind of car he drove under Herbert Hoover he probably told you about her. There’s another connection. A fighter named Curtis Smallwood.”

  He seemed prepared for that too. Hichens had been thorough. “That shvarze cost Ben plenty. A quarter million in promotion and trainers’ fees went down the shitter when he got himself clocked. That was money then. The cops kind of overlooked that when they named Ben a suspect.”

  “Rumor had it the fix was in on the Joe Candy fight. Smallwood bet against himself.”

  “All the more reason to let the fight happen. You don’t fix a bout from the winning side. The loser’s people bet the opponent and clean up. Throw me a towel.”

  I scooped a folded one off the rack and tossed it. He caught it and hoisted himself out of the water. His ribs stuck out and he didn’t
have enough meat on him to support a tapeworm.

  “There wasn’t any fix,” he said, rubbing himself dry. “That was a story cooked up by some cop who didn’t get his cut. There wasn’t any need. The game was golden. TV didn’t have the equipment to shoot football or baseball; couldn’t get it on account of the movie studios was boycotting the whole industry. But all you need is two cameras to show a couple of gorillas beating each other’s brains out in the ring. Viewers ate it up. The networks were pissing money at palookas that couldn’t punch a clock, just to fill out the hour. Ben said he made more money legit off the Friday night fights than he pulled down selling bathtub gin all through Prohibition. A good-looking kid like Smallwood, with a dynamite left, was worth what he tipped the scale in long green. Only a wrong gee with a death wish would take the chance of blowing a sweet deal like that with a crooked match.”

  I knew then where Nicky got his dialogue. Barry Stackpole had said Morgenstern was a throwback. The act was strictly for the cheap seats and I didn’t buy it for a second. But what he’d said made sense.

  “Smallwood was going out with a white woman, a movie actress,” I said. “He got her pregnant. That was bad press in forty-nine. Networks canceled contracts for less.”

  “It wasn’t anything you couldn’t paint over, and if you couldn’t, you could always can the son of a bitch and take the loss, deduct it from your ten-forty just like a solid citizen. If it’s bad press you’re worried about, you can’t get worse than a killing. Smallwood liked his quail pale, by the way. The Hollywood chippie was just a piece of ass in the crowd. If I was you I’d tag her for it. Or one of the others. Women was spilling blood for love a million years before there was a Cosa Nostra.” He stepped out of the tub, sat down on the edge, and mopped his feet. His toenails were neatly pruned. I wondered if pedicures were one of Pet’s responsibilities. I was in a rotten mood.

  “I never heard about any other women.”

  “Ben did. He kept tabs on his investments. He got chatty near the end. We had to be careful about who heard him. Anyway there was a band singer and a department-store model and I think a couple of cigarette girls. In those days there was always a bunch of dollies hanging around outside dressing rooms, sniffing around the dark meat. They liked it dangerous. I guess you couldn’t blame Smallwood for caving in, a kid from the ghetto suddenly surrounded by all that wet white pussy.”