Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 17 - Retro

by Loren D. Estleman

  I was getting my fill of Jeremiah Morgenstern, but I fought it. Lack of charm is a weapon too.

  “We’re wandering astray of Delwayne Garnet,” I said. “He hired me to find out who killed his father. I don’t have to tell you who he was.”

  “I heard stories. Ben never spent much time on gossip, even when his brains turned to shit.”

  “When a hood like you—”

  “Venture capitalist.”

  “What’s the difference? When a venture capitalist whose grandfather came over on a rumrunner’s yacht checks into a hotel the same day a stiff turns up under the same roof—a stiff with a history all tangled up with the venture capitalist’s—it opens a whole new world of investigation. What’s your business in Detroit?”

  “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Pretend you trust me, Jerry, just for a minute. I didn’t give Ben to the cops when it would buy me a get-out-of-jail card.”

  “The name’s Jeremiah, you dumb fuck.” He unslung a silk dressing gown from the hook on the door and belted himself into it. It gave him a little gravity. “You want to know why I keep guys like Nicky around? If I tell them to dump someone down an elevator shaft, all they ask is which floor do they start from.”

  “I saw that one last week on E-Bay,” I said. “I wondered who’d bought it. When are you chimps going to start scripting your own material?”

  The skin of his face shrank tight to the skull. There hadn’t been much airspace there to start. Suddenly he laughed. His mouth dumped open and the hee-haw rang off the tiles and scampered straight up my spine.

  “I’m going to start calling you Dangerfield. You got it all up here and you hop around like Open Mike Night at the Improv. You don’t even use notes. Let’s go out and cripple the bar.” He stuck his feet into a pair of black velvet slippers with birds of paradise embroidered on the toes and opened the door. Conditioned air gushed in.

  In the sitting room his gaze went from Pet sitting curled up on the sofa with her glass to the bottle of Scotch, whose level had dropped below the blue label. “Christ, we just broke the seal this morning. That ain’t Crown Royal.”

  Pet sipped and said nothing. She held the glass in both hands like a shipwreck victim clinging to flotsam. I might have bought the act if she weren’t working so hard to sell it.

  Morgenstern took down two fresh glasses, tonged ice into them from a chrome bucket, and poured liquor over the cubes. “You’re supposed to drink this stuff straight up, but I’m already sweating like a fish. You, too, I bet.”

  “So take cold showers. Too-hot baths make you sterile.”

  “Thank Christ. I got two kids. Ain’t a day goes by I don’t think about tying ’em up in a sack with rocks and dumping it in the Hudson.” He handed me a glass and led the way into the bedroom. He closed the door. “I don’t talk about work in front of Pet,” he said. “Thing like that can get complicated.”

  “I thought it was her idea.”

  “She’s smart. Ivy-league girl. She tell you how we met?” He sat in one of the leather armchairs and crossed his hairless legs.

  I took the one facing his. I didn’t like it. It reminded me of the Jaguar’s back seat. I shook my head.

  “She called me cold to ask for an interview. I don’t even know now how she got the number. She said she’d use the piece to angle a job on a city paper. She caught me in a good mood; I said sure. Halfway through the interview I made her a better offer.”

  “She’s smart.” I drank. “Why the Marriott? The newer hotels in town are more comfortable and you don’t get the noise from the jets.”

  “I didn’t choose it. I’m meeting with some people who like the convenience of catching a plane right after without going through security. They get that out of the way before. Makes for a more relaxing negotiation.”

  “Negotiating what?”

  He took a tiny sip. He was a careful man for all the volume. Then he grinned. Since it made him look more like Shock Theater than usual I let the question wither on the vine.

  “Would these people be the same people I saw you having lunch with yesterday?”

  “So that’s how you found out I was here. Those were my people. Pet and Nicky you met. I never leave town without my lawyer and my personal assistant, who has his own personal assistant. If I was a rock star I guess you’d call them my entourage, only we don’t trash hotel rooms.”

  “Just P.I.’s.”

  He frowned. “I told those lunks to use company manners.”

  “Whatever deal you’re working, a new connection to an old murder wouldn’t improve your bargaining position.”

  “I didn’t know Garnet was raking it up when I came here.”

  “I left my lie detector in my other suit. If I’d thought to bring it, I’d be leaving now. If I thought you passed.”

  “If I wanted you to leave I wouldn’t need it.”

  It was my turn to grin. “Nicky?”

  “Nicky keeps Shelly’s blood circulating. Shelly’s the one with the experience. Don’t let that cannon he carries fool you. It draws attention from his white hair.”

  “If he stumbled badly enough to get knocked down from capo to common strongarm, how come it wasn’t bad enough to demote him to corpse?”

  “I don’t retire people I can still use. I’ll tell you what happened, since you’re the curious type and don’t shoo. Shelly vouched for someone he didn’t know like he thought. A lot of key people went to jail. Some people learn from their mistakes. A good businessman takes that under advisement.”

  “He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would make a mistake like that.”

  “He was blinded by blood. The someone was his son.”

  “So who tied the son in a sack and dumped him in the Hudson?”

  He swirled his ice cubes and said nothing.

  After a beat I got it. I was slow that year.

  “So that’s why Shelly’s still around,” I said. “He made a trade.”

  “He learned from his mistake.” Morgenstern shook his head. “Can’t help you, Dangerfield. If I knew Garnet was here and I wanted to pop him, I could’ve done it without leaving Manhattan.”

  “That’s the conventional approach in your line. Being in the same building at the same time as the murder is just as good, if you make enough noise to alibi yourself while it’s going down.”

  I didn’t say Garnet might have been killed as much as twenty minutes before the party sat down to lunch. I wanted to see how far he’d go to help me out. Killers can be over-accommodating.

  “That’s rookie shit. Flash like that can get you life.”

  “Maybe. Shelly wasn’t at your table. Garnet wasn’t shot with anything as big as a fifty magnum, but he’s smart enough not to sign his work.”

  “He was on the road with the Jag all day yesterday.” He took another careful sip. I remembered my own drink and took a careless gulp. Liquor clears my head, up to a point. He said, “I’d be on the same block with those other mugs if I thought a fresh kill wouldn’t box me in worse than a hit that went down before I was born. Just sharing space with it could screw the deal.” He spat the words, as if he’d just realized their truth. He wasn’t that dull; he’d only reminded himself. “I didn’t know Garnet was in the country. I barely knew who he was, and I ain’t thought about him in years.”

  “Somebody knew. He bugged my office to find out.”

  I got a reaction, not the one I was looking for. His face went dumb as a bottle cap. Then he laughed; the raucous, braying laugh that stood my skin on end.

  “Brother,” he said when he found his breath, “you’re still playing with pick-up sticks. I been bugged and tapped so many times I don’t even bother to sweep no more. It costs a bundle, and then when it happens again I have to start looking all over again from scratch. I ain’t used a phone in years except to make a dinner reservation, and I don’t talk business anyplace I pay rent. I don’t know nobody that does. If you’re idiot enough to open a hot conversati
on anywhere but out in the open where you can see who’s listening, you need to wear a helmet.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I took a last slow pull at my Scotch. I wasn’t likely to taste another like it for a long time. He hadn’t offered to send over a case of that.

  “Thanks for what? I’m a born liar. You practically said it to my face.”

  “I’ll say it, then. It used to be considered an insult. You’re a liar, but you’re nobody’s idea of an actor. You almost dropped a stitch when I accused you of planting that bug. That’s what I came here to see. You’re off the hook with me.” I got up. “And thanks for the booze. You’re a lot more generous than your grandfather.”

  He set down his glass and rose. “He’d be glad to hear you say that. He couldn’t believe what I paid for a hot dog. He thought they should still be a nickel.”

  He didn’t offer his hand. He was smart enough to know I wouldn’t take it. Part of being a made guy is avoiding disrespect.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Pet was still on the sofa in the sitting room. Her glass stood empty on the inlaid coffee table and a glance at the bottle told me the tide hadn’t gone out anymore. She’d hit the wall. She sat with her head back against the cushion and her eyes closed, hanging on to the seat with both hands. Her bluish pallor wore a tinge of green.

  “It’s better with your eyes open,” I said. “You may not be tall enough for this ride.”

  She started and they opened. They found focus, then lost it. “I thought you’d gone.”

  “Which way, the window? Jerry’s not in my weight class.”

  “Did you get what you wanted?”

  “Did you?”

  Focus snapped back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Probably nothing. I’m a little sloshed. I’m going to catch a bite downstairs before I hit the road. Hungry?”

  “What time is it?”

  I looked at my watch. “Five-thirty.”

  “I have to get ready.” She didn’t move.

  “The Blue Heron. I forgot. You’d better grab something from room service before you go. You might miss the elevator.”

  “I’ve drunk before,” she said. “Who made you my alcoholic angel?”

  “So sorry. Thanks for the hospitality.” I went to the door.

  “Don’t leave in a boil on my account,” she said. “I get this way whenever I meet someone from outside. Jane was probably okay with Tarzan for months and months. Then the great white hunters came to call, and all she had to greet them in was a tiger skin.”

  “Lion. Tigers aren’t native to Africa. And those skins I saw hanging in your closet would tame Hemingway.”

  She smiled a sad Blue Label smile. “I forgot you’re a detective. Your cheek looks better. Not so red. Did he ask about it?”

  “He thinks you objected to being called by your real name. I let him.” I touched the cheek with the back of a hand. It was still warm. “I was hoping to keep it alive a little longer. You didn’t give me a rose to press in my memory book.”

  “Don’t mush it up. You didn’t make that big an impression.”

  “That’s me, footprints in sand. Why a hummingbird?”

  Her brows drew together. Then she remembered the tattoo on her ankle. “I got it last year. Do you know anything about them?”

  “I know one weighs about as much as a playing card, and they’re the only birds that can fly backwards.”

  “They migrate all the way to South America. Little things like that.” She stretched out her leg, turning the ankle so she could see it. “What do you suppose they do down there?”

  “Same as up here, probably. Drink nectar and make little hummingbirds. Maybe Sundays they flock outside the church and bombard the bishop’s Buick. I have an idea they’re Protestants.”

  “I hope you’re wrong. I’d hate to think they made it all that way just to fall into the same bad habits.”

  “Why not fly down and see for yourself? The international terminal’s that way. Northwest has a flight to Caracas leaving every Thursday at eight A.M. Change planes in Miami.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s the work. You’d be surprised how many missing bookkeepers wind up in cabanas. Or maybe not. You can’t cover your ears and yodel all the time. It would annoy Jerry.”

  I couldn’t tell if she’d heard. She was staring at the tattoo. Then Morgenstern bellowed from the bedroom, asking about cufflinks. She unfolded herself from the sofa, swayed on her feet. “Whoa.”

  “Cheese is good,” I said. “The protein soaks up the alcohol. Order Stilton if they have it. It goes best with an expensive buzz.”

  “You’re just a little Heloise, aren’t you? What do they serve on the flight to Caracas?”

  “I don’t know. I only follow them as far as the airport. The rest I farm out.”

  “I guess you’re no hummingbird.”

  “Just a city pigeon.” I said good-bye and left just as Morgenstern shouted again.

  The dining room was filling for dinner. The female linebacker was on duty at the reservation desk. She looked at her book and said the smoking section was full. That’s how things are in Detroit. We also chew the stuff and spit it into a Folger’s can between our feet. I said nonsmoking would be all right and asked if Joseph Sills was available. I didn’t have any fresh questions for the boxing waiter from Philadelphia. I just wanted a familiar face. She told me it was his night off.

  She seated me near the kitchen. The waitress who came eventually took my order for coffee and veal and I watched the servers bumping in and out through the swinging doors until the food arrived. I ate and drank without tasting—I hadn’t had anything all day, but the Happy Hour upstairs had made me drowsy and I didn’t want to take a cab all the way home and leave my car on the street near my building overnight. Although it didn’t look like much from the outside, the engine would pay the rent on a chop shop for a month. I was paying the bill when Captain Hichens came to light on the chair facing me. His gaunt frame in the black suit looked like a carrion bird perched on a branch. But then I had birds on the brain.

  I blinked. Then I sat back holding my cup of lukewarm coffee. “The monitors by the metal detector. I should’ve known you review the videotapes.”

  “Better. I have monitors in my office. Not the one where we talked; that’s just a dummy. I was busy, didn’t get the chance to follow it up till a little while ago. I caught Morgenstern and his squeeze on their way out to dinner. I got his side of your conversation. You want to give me your half, see if they match?”

  I gave him the works, interrupting the flow only when the waitress came for the check. She asked Hichens if he wanted anything. He shook his head. When she left with her tip I told him the rest. I didn’t hold anything back. I didn’t know how much Morgenstern had told him.

  Silence fell while he concentrated on the paper airplane he was making out of a napkin. He spent a lot of time on the flaps. All those years at the airport had taught him a thing or two about aerodynamic engineering.

  “Morgenstern told me about the bug. It would’ve been nice if I heard it from you first.”

  “I only found out about it this morning.”

  “Think he planted it?”

  “It made sense when I came. Now not. I’m pretty sure it came as a surprise to him.”

  “Yeah, these wise guys have no experience faking innocence.” He tore out a notch and smoothed the ragged edges with a thumb.

  “They never bother to fake it. They expect to be suspected, so they lie and count on there not being evidence to convict. You didn’t see his face when I sprang it on him. He might’ve taken out the twin towers, but he’s clean on this one. Since there’s no other way he could have known Garnet was here wanting to solve the Smallwood murder, it follows he’s clean on that too.”

  He folded a wing. “So it’s his sore luck he picked the time he picked to check in here. He ought to check his horoscope before he leaves home.”

  “He sai
d someone else picked the spot for his meeting. He wouldn’t say what it was about. Maybe he was set up.”

  “That smells better. Not like lilacs. Who?”

  “If I knew that, I’d be on my way off this case.”

  “Who says you’re not?”

  “Three guys: Meldrum, Zinzser, and me.”

  “That’s a lot of guys.”

  “I didn’t mention the guys who drew up the state constitution. I haven’t given you a legal reason to take me off it.”

  “I don’t have to use legal means to do it.”

  “Think it’ll fly?”

  He looked up at me. Then he finished folding and sat back, propping the airplane between his forefingers. It was a pretty thing, balanced and sharp. He pushed his palms together and crumpled it into a ball. “Who else you talk to?”

  I told him about Winthrop and Regina Babbage. He rolled the ball of paper between his palms all the time I was talking. When I finished he tossed it onto the table. It bounced, rolled, and came to a stop against my saucer.

  “I’m headed up there tonight,” he said. “I made the appointment with Winthrop over the phone. He mentioned you. I wanted to see if you’d volunteer it.”

  I didn’t show relief. I didn’t feel it. I said, “I like Regina for it better than I ever did Morgenstern; or Winthrop, if she’s as sick as he says she is. The motive’s fresher, and nobody can do you a hate like somebody’s mother. It’s the only thing holding her together.”

  “You think the Babbages bugged your office?”

  “They could have hired that part, but they’d have to know I had some connection with Garnet first. Beryl sure wouldn’t have told them. If the lawyers leaked it, I’d need to know why, and that would take time I’d rather put into this end. Anyway I don’t see either of them slipping a gun through airport security. That wasn’t dumb luck. Garnet took planning. You can’t count on some guard looking at his thumb while you smuggle in hardware. You wouldn’t mistake this couple for Mr. and Mrs. James Bond.”