Missing Amanda

by Duane Lindsay

  Bristol wrote, ‘Lou Fleen—’ on his pad, stopped writing and looked up suspiciously. “Wait a minute.” He peeled back pages from the pad and stopped to read. “Is this the Lou somebody you came in about last week. Said he was kidnapped?”

  “He was kidnapped.”

  “By Duke Braddock?” Disbelief had replaced Bristol’s eagerness. Another damned kook, he decided and proceeded to shut off his attention.

  “Right.”

  “And Braddock just let him go? Is that right?”

  “Yes. Then he kidnapped Monk.”

  “This guy here?” said Bristol. He carefully set his pad on the desk and adjusted it to a right angle next to the ashtray.

  “Yes.”

  “And Braddock let him go, too.”

  “After Monk agreed to help.” Cassidy suddenly realized she wasn’t getting anywhere with this man. “Monk? Why don’t you fill him in?” She settled her back against the chair, mulishly annoyed.

  “Braddock’s got some deal going where he wants trouble with the other mobs. He tricked me into helping. Lou and I went to see Tony Scolio—”

  Cassowary looked impressed. “Tony the Eel?”

  “Don’t encourage them,” said Bristol. Sure, they’d gone to see Scolio, a guy who killed little old ladies crossing the street if they didn’t move it fast enough. “Did he kidnap you, too?”

  “No. We beat him up. We also broke in on Gus Cermak.”

  “The surgeon,” said Cassowary, helpfully. He was up on all the nicknames.

  “He tried to kill us, too. We saw Rufus Black at Comiskey and he—”

  “... tried to kill you,” said Bristol wearily. Jesus! Did he have to get all the whackos?

  “No, he offered us popcorn. But when we went back to my mom’s house, Cermak and a couple of goons were there. Lou beat them up and we left and later, I guess it was Scolio who bombed the place.”

  “The house on 56th?” Cassowary exchanged looks with Bristol who picked up the pad again. He wrote, ‘bombed.’ He poised his pencil and said, “Go on.”

  “My mom’s house,” Monk repeated. “The dead guys were Cermak and a couple of whales he brought with him to handle us.”

  “Wait a second. So how come you didn’t get handled? To hear your story, you got grabbed a couple of times, the broad here says the other guy,” he consulted his notes, “Lou Fleener, fought them off, you get grabbed and beat up Tony Scolio, a known mobster and very bad man, you beat up Gus Cermak and two of his goons and your house gets blown up?”

  “My mom’s house.”

  “Of course. My question is; how do you get away with all this? I’ve seen Cermak’s musclemen and I don’t picture you getting away from them, let alone beating up—what? Five of them.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Monk said, “It was Lou.”

  “Lou Fleener. Uh-huh.” Bristol picked up his pad, thumbed back again and read, “five-eight, two hundred, two twenty pounds, thin hair, pudgy? That him?” ....

  “Um, yeah.” Monk saw where this was going.

  It went there. “This,” Bristol waved the notepad, “is your superman?”

  “I know it sounds odd,” said Monk.

  “He’s got,” Cassidy looked at Monk, “what do you call it?”

  “Photo-eidetic cell retention.”

  “Right; that’s it,” Cassidy said as if she’d explained it all. Photo-eye something.

  “It means he can fight really well,” said Monk.

  “And he’s a hell of a dancer.” Cassidy’s voice trailed off. There was no sign of acceptance in Bristol’s eyes. She turned to Cassowary but he looked like he was remembering sex again. She knew an unconvinced audience when she saw one and said, “C’mon Monk; let’s go.” She got up but Monk remained seated.

  “One last thing,” he said. The two cops and Cassidy all waited and he strung out the moment by lighting a cigarette, waving out the match and inhaling. A sharp Sulphur smell filled the room and white smoke twisted in the hot air.

  “This sounds crazy,” he said. “But what if it’s true? Lou and I are going to war against the mobs. We’re going to get even with Braddock for scamming us. Nobody’s asking you to put anything in the pot. You don’t have to break any laws or get shot at or do anything scary. Lou and I are the ones in danger. But if you go along with us, you’ve got a clear shot at Duke Braddock.” He puffed his Lucky and watched them closely. Bristol was making eyes at Cassowary who was watching Monk with an interested expression.

  “And,” Monk finished, “what do you have to lose?”

  “Yeah,” admitted Bristol after a long pause.

  “There’s that.”

  Chapter 25

  We’ll have to break in a lot of places

  Cook County Hospital was spooky during the midnight shift. Lou ate a ham sandwich on crunchy rye from the automated machines and sipped another black coffee. He couldn’t recall anything he hated more than being in a hospital at night, watching the janitors swab the floors, the nurses huddle at their stations, the rooms quiet as if everyone was just waiting for the next heart attack. Ugh.

  He looked at his watch and yawned. Two-thirty in the morning. It felt like the coffee was the only thing holding his eyes open. He rubbed his fists in them to remove the grit and got unsteadily to his feet. Time to go.

  He walked down empty corridors to the freight elevator at the end of an eternal hall, pushed down and came out in a Pipefitter’s hell. Thick enamel painted pipes crisscrossed overhead, low enough that even at his height he had to duck. The floor was gray and scuffed and he walked until he came to a combination mechanical shop, locker room and changing room. As expected, there was no one there.

  He wandered into the locker room and started opening doors at random. In the third one he found what he wanted, a janitor’s green uniform. He took off his clothes and put those on, glancing at the name tag as he buttoned the shirt. Manuel Gonzalez. Well, it was late and no one would look.

  He went back the way he came in, invisible now, to the fourth floor east, where a small phenolic tag next to a door said “records.” Despite the hour and emptiness, he looked both ways before picking the lock and entering the office. He went straight to a black file cabinet in the front—it didn’t matter which one—and pulled a file. He glanced at it in the faint light from the moon outside the small window and accepted it.

  He placed it under his shirt and left the way he came, locking the door behind him. Down the halls, back to the sub-basement, replaced Manuel Gonzalez stuff and retrieved his own. He was just tying his shoes, sitting on the narrow wooden bench, when another janitor came in. Without speeding up Lou finished tying, got up and slid the locker door closed. He walked straight over to the guy and stepped around him.

  “Hey,” he said as he passed. “Another shift over.”

  “Hey,” said the janitor, dismissing him without a thought.”

  *

  Imagine Lou Fleener in Kindergarten.

  He met with Miss Wallace in the small office with the warm glow of pine paneling and fat wood slat blinds filtering the warm afternoon sun. The walls were covered with bookcases and crude colorful drawings from all the children past and present who’d passed through Orchard Hill Kindergarten.

  He was dressed in his nicer suit—not the best, not his usual one—but unshaven for two days. He looked like a drunk and knew it. Fortunately, this meeting was just a scouting mission.

  “How old is your daughter Mr. Raffleson?”

  “Yes?” For a moment Lou had drifted away.

  The room was warm and he hadn’t slept much lately. This plan of Monk’s was hell on sleep. “Five,” he said. “Sally’s just turning five.”

  “We’ll have to meet her of course,” said Miss Wallace, “and your wife as well.”

  Was that suspicion? Lou certainly hoped so. It wasn’t right that someone as clearly disreputable as him could just come in here when little children were so close. He felt a protective urge against lowlifes like himself.


  “Of course.” He smiled at Miss Wallace. She was perhaps thirty years old, plain as a donut and suspicious. Lou could see the trace of a wrinkle between her eyebrows, evidence of a twitching antennae.

  “Good for you,” he thought. “I’d like to see the place a little.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Mr. Raffleson. Your wife—”

  “Is in the hospital,” said Lou. “A car accident. I’m taking some time off work to attend to Sally’s needs.” Miss Wallace looked slightly less wary, a little more sympathetic, and Lou grimaced inside at how easy this was. He decided, after this was all over, if he was still alive, to come back and offer to train the staff in security. But right now, he needed information so he could break in.

  “It seems like a lovely place,” he said smoothly. “I’m sure Sally would love it here. Is there an office where I could pick up an application?”

  Miss Wallace relaxed. “Certainly.”

  Ten-thirty seemed late enough to break back into a kindergarten. Lou and Cassidy sat in a newly purchased car watching the dark building. The car was a ‘47 DeSoto, a junker, picked up second hand from a guy listing it in the Sun Times. It came complete with tags, a radio and a spring that stabbed the driver savagely. Cassidy, hearing about it, politely declined to drive. But it was safe and anonymous, the perfect thing for kindergarten break ins.

  “It looks deserted,” said Lou.

  “Uh-huh.” Cassidy was in a foul humor. She missed being in the Hilton, the car reminded her of Jimmy Randall, a no-account boyfriend in Reno, and she wondered why they were here. “Why are we here?”

  “Because Monk said—”

  “Screw Monk,” interrupted Cassidy savagely. “What reason can we possibly have for breaking into a kindergarten?”

  “Monk said to. We’re supposed to put these records in files and leave. It’s all part of the plan.”

  Cassidy eyed him skeptically. “You just accept that? It’s all part of the plan?”

  “Well, it is.”

  “But what is the plan? What plan has a hospital and televisions and school records?”

  “And the dentist office we broke into, don’t forget.”

  “As if I could. Why would a dentist have a guard dog?” The memory still riled. It was their first break in, Cassidy was nervous to begin with and Lou didn’t make it easier by being so damn casual. After he’d gone through the lock like it wasn’t there— “learned that in Korea,” he said—the dog had leaped at them, slobbering and wild eyed. Cassidy had swallowed her gum. Lou, never even flinching, had just laughed and petted the thing.

  Cassidy hated dogs. She wondered if there was one here. She was hot and her shirt was sticking to her back. And what were those sounds, like the humming of loud electric wires? Lou said it was locusts, but could that be right? Cassidy didn’t think so. There were things out there.

  “Let’s go in.” Lou opened the door without waiting for her to say not yet. She sighed and joined him and they slunk across the gravel driveway, through an unlocked gate up to a door with another useless lock for Lou to pass through. Inside it was small, hot and dark. And quiet. Cassidy listened carefully for signs of a dog, heard nothing and began to relax. Her shoulders, stiff since they’d left the hotel, finally relaxed and she...

  “Bang!” Lou yelled softly in her left ear. Cassidy shrieked and bit her tongue. She spun around to see him doubled over laughing, his breaths coming in great whoops and gasps. She slapped the top of his head and cursed loudly. Lou stood up—he had tears rolling down his face, the ass—and tried to shut down the grinning.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not sorry at all. “I couldn’t help it. After the dog, it was just too good to resist.”

  “Well, try.” Her tongue hurt and her mood had gone even further down, if that was possible. She wanted her suite and a bubble bath and some wine. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Lou led them to an office and they rifled through file cabinets. He found some plain manila folders and Cassidy sat at a desk and filled in names and dates and Lou filed them. They were done in less than ten minutes.

  She didn’t talk to him all the way back to Chicago.

  Chapter 26

  We’re gonna need some help

  Monk looked depressed, an expression partly body language (slouching, head hung), some sound effects (“sigh.”) and verbal. “I’m getting depressed.”

  Lou ignored him, busy with the radio. He was scanning for WGN and the Sox game. “Playing the Pirates,” he explained, and would have gone on if Monk hadn’t interrupted with a fresh burst of moroseness.

  Cassidy, the designated sympathy, made a weak show of interest. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get everything done.”

  “How about giving up some of this weird stuff?”

  “Can’t do that. It’s a necessary part of the plan.”

  “Uh-huh.” Cassidy was sitting on the settee, still in love with the Hilton. She had only dreamed about life in such a place and now she couldn’t imagine life anywhere else. She recalled her father explaining to her that the rich were no different than the poor and how she had rebelled at the idea even at twelve.

  “Yes, they are,” she’d thought, “they’re richer.” They lived in places like this while poor people shopped at discount stores and went to ball games.

  Lou said, “Got it,” and the staccato rattling of the ball game filled the room. He smiled like a rat in a cheese factory. Easy for him, Cassidy thought; a six pack, some smokes and the ball game. If nobody’s actually shooting at him, Lou’s happy. Sometimes even when they were shooting at him.

  But she wanted the good life. This good life, dammit. And now Monk was making cow noises, hinting that things weren’t going well. It was enough to make her want to go to the other room. Instead she said, “What do we do?” She also picked up the phone to ask room service for champagne.

  Monk said, “I’ve been trying to work that out.” He lay back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. His hands were wrapped around whatever it was he kept fooling with now that he wasn’t fooling with decks of cards. Something small and wooden that Cassidy hadn’t quite made out yet, though she would, just wait. “Here’s my thought. We have to get help.”

  Incredible, Cassidy thought. Help, right. “Who’d help us? And how would we ask them? If we even talked to anybody the mob might find out and kill us.”

  “That’s why, we have to find them,” Monk explained.

  “Them? Who?”

  “The private eyes.”

  The door chimed. “Room service.”

  Cassidy took the bottle, signed the tab—another thing she loved, you just write your name—and not even her own name either—and they took it and went away—and she wandered back to the settee twisting the wire. The champagne popped and sloshed and she giggled, as always, and poured two glasses, handing one to Monk. Lou was slurping beer.

  “The private eyes?” she prompted. Damn, she was going to miss this.

  “Yes. I’ve been getting a lot of information,” he didn’t specify how, “and I’ve determined where they are.”

  “Where who are?” On the radio, a loud incoherent squawking indicated that the Sox had done something. Lou spilled his beer and yelped like a kicked poodle which was another clue.

  Monk sighed, “The private eyes. Remember? We weren’t the first that Braddock set up. He sent several other guys against the mobs and all of them disappeared. “

  “Or died,” Lou added, suggesting that he was listening.

  “There’s that. Two of them are dead. But the others... I think I may be able to find them.”

  “And why would they help us?” Cassidy asked.

  “Why not? They’re under a death threat. It’s a chance to get even and maybe some money. See, if we just explain—”

  Cassidy stiffened. Money? How much money? A chance to maintain this lifestyle, perhaps? “Tell me about the money,” she interrupted.

  “Oh, su
re. I need some more guys because, for the plan to work as calculated, we need to hit the mobs—all of them—a lot harder than we are capable of. So, we’ve got to have a larger gang.”

  “How hard?” Cassidy asked. She leaned forward and sipped from the delicate fluted glass in a move that Lou, who was paying attention, to this at least, found extremely seductive.

  Monk, who missed it, said, “Very hard. Hard enough to damage their organizations.”

  “In cash,” Cassidy said. “How hard in cash.”

  Lou switched off the radio and the room went silent.

  Monk looked at him and at Cassidy. His hands, fondling the whatever thing stopped moving. “In cash?” he said. “Two million. Maybe more.”

  Cassidy, in her mind, turned hand springs and ran around the room screaming in joy. Lou turned the radio back on and Jack Brickhouse said, “It’s going... going... it’s gone! Right out of the park.”

  The crowd went wild.

  Chapter 27

  Cassidy will deliver the Magnavox

  The woman who answered the door was puzzled.

  “I don’t remember entering any contest,” she said again as she escorted Cassidy down the hall to the den. She shook her head as if dislodging cobwebs. “I guess I’m getting dotty in my old age.”

  Cassidy, dressed in a tan dress with medium heels and white pearls at two o’clock in the afternoon, looked like Betty Furness on the Westinghouse ads on TV, sensible, modern and trustworthy.

  “I can’t believe it. I’ve never won anything before. Not in my whole life.” They entered an opulent parlor where a television blared out a soap commercial. The woman added, “I don’t know what 1’ll do with this one.”

  “You’ll love the new one so much more,” Cassidy told her, thanking Monk for letting her get the best. She looked at her watch. “The men will be here any time,” she said, though she knew they weren’t scheduled for another hour.

  “Why don’t we have a little something?” asked the woman. “Tea perhaps?”