[Rat Pack 11] - I Only Have Lies for You

by Robert J. Randisi

  Westfield left the room to reluctantly call the police.

  “Mr. G.,” Jerry said, “before the cops get here let’s see if we can locate his gun.”

  “Yeah, without that we’re gonna be in some trouble.”

  “Well,” he said, “I am, since I’m the one who killed him.”

  “We’re in this together, Jerry,” I pointed out. “Now let’s take a quick look around.”

  ***

  When the police started to arrive it was a mess.

  As it turned out, Cassadaga did not have its own police department. The first car that arrived was from a place called Lake Helen. It was a small city just to the North of Cassadaga, but they didn’t know what to do. They called for a car from Orange City, which was to the south, but they didn’t know what to do, either. As the night wore on we got police presence from Sanford and DeLand, but we didn’t get detectives until they called the Orlando Police Department.

  They, in turn, called the detectives in Miami Beach when we explained the situation to them. They actually spoke to the Chief-of-Detectives there, because he got involved when Eisman was killed in Vegas, and then his partner, Winter, disappeared.

  Detective Lemon hung up the phone on the manager’s desk and looked up at his partner, Detective Lowell, who was across the room. We were seated between them, Jerry and I. Westfield had been interviewed, and was not in the room.

  “Well,” Lemon said, to his partner, “Chief Gentry from Miami Beach says these two are not suspects in what happened down there, and what happened to his detectives.”

  Jerry, who had been getting more and more annoyed as the night went on, said, “We told you that.”

  Lemon, a man in his forties, raised his eyebrows, but still looked at his younger partner rather than us.

  “And we should’ve taken their word for that,” he said.

  His partner, who hadn’t said a word yet, just shrugged.

  Then Lemon looked at us.

  “First,” he said, pointing at Jerry, “I could lock your ass up for that gun.” He indicated the .45, which was on the desk in front of him.

  “If he didn’t have that gun,” I said, “I might be dead.”

  I was stretching the point since the shooter had been on the run by the time Jerry came out of his room with his gun. But I had to defend him.

  “That might be the only reason he’s not in a cell right now,” Lemon said. “Apparently, the guy you put down is a killer. It remains to be seen if he’s the guy they’re looking for in Miami Beach.”

  “So we’re free to go?” I asked.

  “Go where?” Lemon asked. “Where are you going from here?”

  “Back to Miami Beach, and then on to Las Vegas.”

  “Does that mean you found out what you came here to find out?” he asked.

  “We’re not sure,” I said. “We have some people to talk to in Miami Beach.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Lemon said, “and one of them is the Chief-of-Detectives there, Arthur Gentry. Understand? That’s the only reason we’re letting you go.”

  “We understand,” I said. “We want to talk to the Chief.”

  “You report to police headquarters there as soon as you get back to town,” Lemon said. “If you don’t, a warrant will be issued for both of your arrests.”

  “Got it,” I said. “We’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  “Good.”

  We waited for more, and when it didn’t come I asked, “Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Lemon said. “Go!”

  We stood up and Jerry started to reach for his gun. Lemon put his hand over it.

  “Nuh-uh,” he said. “We’ll be sending this to the Miami Beach Police Department. If they decide you can have it back, they’ll give it to you.”

  “And what are we supposed to do in the meantime if somebody tries again?”

  “Why would they?” Lemon asked. “You got the guy, right?”

  “Come on, Jerry.” I nudged his arm. As he turned away I asked Lemon, “We still have rooms here, right?”

  “That’s up to the manager.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  As we left the office we found Westfield waiting right outside.

  “Do we still have rooms?” I asked.

  “If you don’t mind sleeping in a bed with a hole in it,” he said.

  “I’ll make do,” I said. “We’ll be checking out in the morning.”

  “Thank God!”

  SIXTY THREE

  The next morning Jerry insisted on driving. We found the keys to the car in Esteban’s room.

  ”Do you know the way?” I asked.

  “Mr. G.,” he said, “we just have to retrace our steps.”

  He got us back on the I-4 and we stopped for breakfast at the first Waffle House we saw.

  While eating breakfast we went over the events, step-by-step.

  “Let’s try to put this all in order,” I suggested. “Gleason comes here to see a psychic. Merlina — Rachel Foster — gets her hooks into him.”

  “So she threatens to tell the world that he believes in psychics,” Jerry said, picking up the thread. “And he don’t want that.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said. “Maybe she asks for money, and he says no. So she sends somebody to Miami beach to threaten his girl.”

  “And he follows her around,” Jerry said. “But then why does somebody kill him?”

  “That’s the first question,” I said. “Maybe Merlina sent two men to bird dog Marilyn, and they had a falling out.”

  “Okay, so one kills the other,” Jerry said. “He wasn’t a hit man. But he had the balls to brace you at the bar in the hotel.”

  “Figurin’ he’d scare me.”

  “Which he did.”

  “Well...”

  “You called me,” Jerry said.

  “Okay, yeah, I decided to be careful,” I grumbled, then picked our thread up again. “So Gleason either doesn’t want to tell me about the men working for Merlina, or he doesn’t connect them to her.”

  “Seems to me if she sent a man to follow his girl, she’d let him know.”

  “Yeah, I think so, too,” I said, “but he still doesn’t tell me about it.”

  “So why did he ask you for help?”

  “He didn’t. Remember, it was June Taylor who came to me for help.”

  “Ah, that’s right. So why’d he come to Vegas?”

  “I think maybe June told him she asked me for help. I think he came to Vegas to see what I knew about his—let’s call it, a hobby.”

  “And he brings his girl with him.”

  “Because the second man is still following her.”

  “Why?”

  “Second question.”

  “I thought the second question was my didn’t Mr. Gleason tell you everythin’?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, “so this is the third question. Then Eisman comes to Vegas to see me.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s still working the case and he’s stumped,” I said. “He wanted to know if I remembered anything.”

  “He coulda called ya and ask that.”

  “Right, so question... four?...” Jerry nodded. “Why did he come to Vegas?”

  Jerry counted on his fingers, then nodded to himself.

  “So Eisman gets killed the same way Rossi did,” I said, “which means the same killer.”

  “Or,” Jerry said, “by someone who wants everybody to think it’s the same killer.”

  “Okay,” I said, “so question five has an aye and a bee. Aye, who killed Eisman and bee, why?”

  “Right.” Jerry ate the last of his waffle, still had a couple of crisp pieces of bacon to gnaw on.

  “Okay, so Jackie gets pissed at something and goes back to Miami. Only Marilyn decided to tell us about Rossi, and to talk to June again.”

  “No question there,” Jerry said. “I figure she wanted to be helpful.”

  “Meanwhile, Eisman’s partner, Winter, comes to tow
n and promptly disappears.”

  “No question there. He came to town to find out what happened to his partner.”

  “But question six is, why’d he disappear?”

  “Right.”

  “You know,” I said, “one of us should’ve been writin’ all this down.”

  “We ain’t cops,” Jerry said, “and we ain’t a dick, like Bardini.”

  “Just two dumb jamokes tryin’ to figure this thing out.”

  “Right.”

  We both ate our last pieces of bacon.

  “And now,” I said, “question number seven. Who the hell was Esteban?” We hadn’t had a chance to call the car service to ask that question. “I’ll have to call the service when we get back. Also, by then the Miami Beach cops can probably tell us who Esteban really was.”

  “Maybe he really was the killer,” Jerry said, “and we got him.”

  “Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He didn’t try to kill me with a knife.”

  SIXTY FOUR

  We were exhausted when we got back to Miami Beach. Jerry made the drive from Cassadaga in just four hours. He had successfully retraced our steps, and not made any wrong turns along the way.

  Thankfully, June had told us to come back to her house when we returned, and had given me a key. I let us in and we both dropped our bags to the floor and sat.

  “Why did I even get involved in this?” I asked.

  “You know why, Mr. G..”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, “I’m ‘the guy.’ Well, maybe I’m tired of bein’ ‘the guy.’”

  “Nah,” Jerry said, “you’re just tired from last night.” He looked at his watch. “We got plenty of time for a nap, a shower, and then goin’ over and talkin’ to this Chief-of-Detectives.”

  We had left Cassadaga very early, so it was only afternoon, and he was right. We did have time.

  “How about we forget the nap, and just take the shower?” I suggested.

  “Suits me, Mr. G..”

  “And then I’ll call the car service before we go to police headquarters.”

  “You’re the—“

  “Don’t say guy!”

  “—boss, Mr. G..”

  ***

  After we showered I put in a call to the car service. I asked for the man I had spoken to last time, Phil Herman. I assumed he was in authority if he wasn’t the owner.

  “Mr. Gianelli?” he came on.

  “Yes, Mr. Herman. I’m sorry to be callin’ with bad news, but your driver, Esteban—“

  “Who? We don’t have a driver by that name, sir.”

  “Well, when he picked us up he said he was from your service.”

  “Mr. Gianelli, did you not call back that same day and cancel your car?”

  “I did not.”

  “Oh, my, I-I’m sorry, but someone called, used your name and canceled.”

  “I see. Well, Mr. Herman, you’re probably going to be hearing from the police, either today or tomorrow.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m going to want that phony driver arrested.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Herman.”

  “Oh? And why not? He’s besmirched our good name!”

  “That may be,” I said, “but he’s also dead.”

  ***

  Since the car we had didn’t belong to Phil Herman’s car service, we decided to keep using it until the police told us to stop.

  The Police Department was located at 1100 Washington Avenue. We found some maps in the glove compartment of the car, one of which was of Miami Beach, and used it to find our way. Apparently, if Jerry was a genius at anything, it was reading maps.

  On the way we kept spit-balling, trying to come up with answers to our questions, but we just seemed to be finding new questions.

  “I’m getting real frustrated,” I admitted, “so let’s try something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like thinking outside the box.”

  “What box?”

  “I mean something off the wall.”

  “Oh... like what?”

  “You tell me,” I said. “You know cops.”

  “What I know about cops you don’t wanna know.”

  “Try me.”

  “They’re dirty.”

  “All of them?”

  “Lots of ‘em,” he said. “Most of the ones I’ve met. Look at Hargrove.”

  “He’s dumb,” I said, “but dirty?”

  “A cop in Vegas?” Jerry said. “How can he not be dirty?”

  “What about Miami Beach cops?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “Well, Eisman did own a bar.”

  “He wasn’t dirty,” Jerry said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “If he was,” Jerry said, “He woulda owned a better place than that.”

  “Okay, good point,” I said. “Also, he came to Vegas lookin’ for answers.”

  “And so did his partner.”

  “Well, Winter came to Vegas lookin’ for Eisman,” I said, “or who killed him.”

  “And he disappeared and ain’t shown up dead.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said, “you said you want off the wall, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What if Winter came to Vegas to see you,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “Maybe he wanted to know what you told Eisman.”

  “That wouldn’t make him dirty,” I said, “That’s just him workin’ the case.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said, “so that ain’t so off the wall.”

  “But what if,” I went on, “he didn’t want to know what I told Eisman. What if he wanted to know what Eisman told me?”

  “About him?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just spittballin’.”

  “So Winter’s dirty, and Eisman ain’t, and he’s afraid Eisman told you about it.”

  “What if... no, that can’t be.”

  “What?”

  “What if Winter killed Eisman?”

  “He came to Vegas after Eisman was dead.”

  “That’s what he told us.”

  “A cop kills a cop?”

  “And he makes it look like the same killer did it.”

  “That’s off the wall, all right.”

  “And you know what we’ve overlooked?”

  “What?”

  “Danny.”

  “If the dick had anything, he woulda called you.”

  But we haven’t been anyplace that he could call us,” I said. “He didn’t know we were at June’s, and he couldn’t get us when we went to Orlando.”

  “You want I should pull over and find a phone?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “let’s go and talk to this Chief Gentry. When we get back to June’s I’ll call him. Maybe he’s got something that’ll help clear this whole mess up.”

  SIXTY FIVE

  We parked and went inside the building at 1100 Washington,

  asked for the Chief-of-Detectives.

  “Who shall I say is calling?” the cop on the desk asked sarcastically as if he knew we’d never get in to see the big man.

  “Gianelli and Epstein,” I said. “We just got in from Cassadaga.”

  “Cadda what?”

  “The Orlando area,” I said. “The Detectives there called him about us.”

  “Wait over there.” He pointed to a bench against a wall. We walked over and sat down.

  “You gonna ask him about Eisman or Winter bein’ dirty?” Jerry asked.

  “Let’s just see how the conversation goes,” I suggested.

  A uniformed officer came striding up to us and said, “Follow me. The Chief will see you.”

  We stood and followed.

  Chief Gentry was a big, white-haired man in his 60’s. He was sitting behind his desk and didn’t bother to rise as we entered his office.

  “That’s all, Officer,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”


  “Have a seat,” he said to us.”

  We both sat across from him, side-by-side.

  “I’ve had quite a few conversations about you with the detectives from Orlando. I know what went on there. I also have this.” He put his hand on a folder.

  “And what’s that?”

  “It’s Detective Eisman’s case file on the murder that occurred while you were in Miami Beach. The dead man in the elevator.”

  “Then you know everything,” I said. “We went to Orlando and Cassadaga to try and find out something about the murders, not only the one here but also of Eisman in Vegas.”

  “And did you?”

  “No,” I said, “all I did was almost get murdered myself.”

  “By your driver.”

  “Only he wasn’t the driver,” I said. “Somebody canceled the car and driver I ordered, and substituted Esteban.”

  “Esteban, as you call him,” Gentry said, opening another file on his desk, “was actually a man named Samuel Foster. He lived in Orlando.”

  “Foster?”

  “That’s right. Mean something to you?”

  “The psychic we went looking for, Merlina, her real name is Rachel Foster.”

  He picked up a pen and wrote the name down in the folder.”

  “What does she have to do with all of this?” he asked.

  “We believe that whoever killed Rossi, and was following Marilyn Taylor, was sent my Merlina.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what we went to Cassadaga to try to find out.”

  “They must be related,” Gentry said. “Husband and wife, brother and sister.”

  “Or cousins,” Jerry said.

  Gentry looked at him but didn’t comment.

  “How much do you know about Eisman and Winter?” I asked.

  “They’re my men,” he said. “I know everything about them.”

  “Do you know why Eisman came to see me in Vegas?”

  “I assumed it was to work the case.”

  “And Winter?”

  “I figured he was going to try and find out who killed his partner.”

  “Have you heard from him since he left?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know when he left?”

  “Four or five days ago.”

  “That’s days before he came to see me. Where did he go first?”