Missing Amanda

by Duane Lindsay

  “Or maybe something stronger? To celebrate your luck?”

  The woman giggled and Cassidy found herself amused. This was a nice lady. “Of course. Some champagne?”

  “My favorite.”

  The woman rang a bell and a Spanish woman entered the room, bowing deferentially. She took an order, bowed, left and returned with a silver tray carrying a bottle and two glasses. Cassidy smiled with real pleasure. She could so get used to this.

  The woman pointed to a couch, similar in cost to the one at the Hilton, and they both sat down, making small talk while the drinks were poured. The maid left, leaving the bottle behind.

  “Where is your husband?” asked Cassidy. “Is he at work?”

  “I suppose.” The woman swirled the champagne like it was mouthwash. “Usually he’s home. He went out somewhere recently. Men,” she explained with a knowing wink between women.

  “Men,” Cassidy agreed.

  “Barbara?” asked the woman, for Cassidy had introduced herself as Barbara Cartwright from ABC television. “What’s it like, working?”

  Cassidy shrugged. “Fine, I guess. It’s a job, you know?”

  “I don’t,” the woman said glumly. “I haven’t had a job in seventeen years.” She sipped and sighed. “I used to be beautiful,” she announced suddenly. The idea made her sad. “I was thin once, can you believe? Like you. And the men would turn their heads to look at me. Now... I sit here and watch television.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Cassidy said softly. She felt sorry for the woman somehow, but couldn’t figure quite why. “It can’t be all bad, can it? You’ve got this house and maids and everything.”

  “Money. I have that. But it isn’t enough, you know.”

  Now that was a new thought. How could money not be enough? Not enough for what? Cassidy wondered if this was one of those rich/poor things, like when you’re poor, a crust of bread is all you think about but when you’ve got everything money can buy you start to miss... um, what, exactly? Certainly not a crust of bread.

  “You’re married, though, right?” she asked thinking, the woman has everything.

  She laughed, a bitter snort. “My husband. There’s a fine thing. He stayed handsome and I got fat. He has a career and I have that.” She pointed to the TV. “Barbara, he hasn’t touched me, or even looked at me, in five years.”

  “Wow.” Cassidy felt bad about the television now.

  It felt like she was offering a push to an already teetering woman, a fix to a junkie, a bottle to a drunk. “I’m sorry.” A bribe to a politician. They sat in silence for a long while before the woman said quietly, “My husband treats me like a dog. Worse—he likes the dog.”

  Cassidy had noticed a little white poodle in the hallway, the kind with the funny haircut like it was a French whore dog. Another rich thing she’d thought then, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “I don’t have any friends anymore. No one comes over, I don’t talk to anyone. I guess that’s why I, opened up to you. If I had to do it again, Barbara,” the woman looked up and smiled a little, “I wouldn’t do it all again.”

  Cassidy laughed out loud. The mood was broken.

  “So,” said the woman. “When’s that damned TV gonna get here?”

  Chapter 28

  I’ll need some time to plan

  They sat side by side on padded lounges facing the pool. Beyond the water was the edge of the balcony; beyond that was the city by moonlight. They were close enough to hold hands if they wished. Instead, Cassidy grasped a tall frosted glass with a tiny straw and strawberries. She wore a white one-piece bathing suit covered by a flimsy teddy style wrap. Her hair was loose without being shaped.

  Lou thought she looked like a movie star. He was wearing a pair of unflattering red swim trunks from the hotel gift shop. They accentuated his short legs and full stomach and thin hair and he felt a rare self-consciousness. He sipped a beer, watching the skyline while trying not to be too obvious about staring at Cassidy.

  The air was warm and humid. Hidden speakers wafted slow music around the pool: Belafonte singing, ‘the Banana Boat’ song.

  “I could get used to this,” Cassidy said. She curled her toes happily. “I am used to this.”

  “Used to what?”

  She grinned and looked seventeen. “All of it. The weird cloak and dagger stuff in the day, the rich life here at night. I feel like Cinderella.”

  “More like a spy,” said Lou. “A secret agent working undercover as a rich socialite.”

  She giggled. “Yes! Assigned personally by the president himself.” She frowned. “Who is the president anyway?”

  “Eisenhower, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t pay much attention to politics. So, this Eisenhower character has called me to the service of my country. They want me to ferret out commies. Is that right? Ferret?”

  “Sure. So, they set you up in a fancy suite in Chicago—”

  “Make it London.”

  “London. And with your faithful assistant you combat the forces of communism even as you enjoy the fruits of the capitalist system.” Lou was proud of that last part.

  She leaned her head back and sighed. “This has been the best time in my whole life.”

  “Until they kill us,” Lou suggested.

  “Well, yeah. That’d be a downer.”

  “Sure would,”

  Later, after a long silence Lou said, “Cassidy? What do you want?”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Want? What do you mean?”

  “What do you... care about? What are your dreams?”

  She looked startled and sipped her drink for a moment’s diversion. “I don’t know,” meaning, “I probably shouldn’t say.” She pictured Hollywood stardom and sitting outside at pools like this one, outside a fancy five-star hotel... like this one... with a tall frosty drink... she stared at it and frowned.

  “I’d like,” she began, “for life to be like this.” She watched the moon over some tall ornate building and wondered, is that what I wanted to say?

  “How like this?” Lou persisted. “The danger and the guys out to kill us?”

  He was a powerful presence in the dim lights, comfortable and secure and Cassidy felt a rush of affection for him. “No, silly. Like the pool and the view.” She suddenly realized that the company mattered too. She had a realization of all her years alone, her dreams being about things, not people, and she felt a sense of lost time, vacant goals, empty dreams.

  “Oh,” Lou said softly.

  “What, oh? What are your dreams, Lou?” She had turned in the lounger to face him. Her robe slipped open and he was very aware of her skin. He wanted to reach over to her but was also aware of the distance between them.

  “Besides not being killed?” he said. She poked him and he smiled. “Okay, sorry. I guess my dreams are, you know, not counting money and stuff like this,” he waved to the pool area, “which is cool and all, I suppose, but being with someone like you.”

  “Lou, that’s so sweet,” she said so he didn’t add, “and being your first choice instead of your last.”

  He watched the moon for a while and said, “That’s the Chicago Tribune building over there.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think Monk’s dreams are?” she asked after a time.

  “Monk just wants his daughter back.”

  “Do you think that will ever happen?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  Chapter 29

  Lou’s going to the circus

  Lou caught up with Paul E. Smalls in Baraboo, Wisconsin running a Tilt-A-Whirl at the Ringling Brothers summer home.

  “The hell you want?” Smalls was a tall thin angular guy, elbows and Adams apple, like a stork with a weight problem. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, sweating in the August heat, hand on the polished lever that ran the huge ride. His right arm was loosely bound with an Ace bandage. He had to yell to be heard over
the canned calliope music.

  Lou handed him a card. “You Smalls?” he asked.

  Smalls looked at the card, looked at Lou, looked at the card again. There was a sense that he was about to bolt. Instead he looked at Lou again and asked, “You really a private dick?” His expression was dubious.

  “You don’t look it either. There someplace we can talk?”

  Smalls tapped the card with jittery fingers, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Finally, he said, “Yeah, sure.” He held up a palm—wait—and slowly pulled at the lever. The Tilt-A Whirl slowed, the cups wobbled, the customers got off looking queasy. Smalls called out in the sudden silence, “Hey, Rube! Spell me, huh?”

  A plain looking guy nodded and wandered over, taking the lever. Smalls gestured with his head and Lou followed him into a nearby building, partially unfinished, as if its permanency was in question. They got colas from a battered red cooler, dipping their arms into the ice to get the cold bottles. They sat at a wooden table made from a wire spool.

  “What do you want?” Smalls lit a smoke from a battered pack. “Who sent you?” Again, the look of barely contained flight. Smalls was like a coiled spring, vibrating with tension.

  “Nobody sent me,” Lou said, ignoring Monk, who had. “I came to get you for a job back in the city.”

  “I’m outta that now,” said Smalls.

  “Sure,” said Lou. “But this isn’t that. This is about payback.”

  Smalls gave him a look, part suspicion, part interest. “Go on.”

  “We’re making a run against Duke Braddock—you know the name.”

  “That Bastard. Sure, I know him. He’s the guy got me sent here.”

  “Tell me.” Lou thought he didn’t need much encouragement.

  Smalls guzzled the cola in one swallow, his big throat jumping hypnotically. Lou tried not to stare. Waiting, he thought about the trip up here to Wisconsin. The crappy roads, Monk’s Chevy drinking gas like this guy drank cola, the hot wind through the open window. He thought about Cassidy who’d refused to come along with a curt, “The sticks? Forget it, I’ve been there.”

  Smalls said, “I got a call from Braddock, see? I went to his house; this must have been July, around the fifth. I remember being impressed, you know? Big timer in a spread like that, paying attention to a guy like me. I’m strictly small time, you know, no pun intended.”

  Lou nodded. Smalls was on a roll, he wouldn’t stop for anything.

  “Braddock said he had a job for me. A picture deal—cheating wife. Didn’t say who it was, and I should have asked, but...” he looked embarrassed, cocked an eyebrow as if in apology. “I was dazzled by the class. Anyway, I was told where to go, a jazz spot on State, near Dearborn, a steak joint. I set up the Speed Graphic, you get a better picture with the big negative, you know, with the flash, and I waited in the alley like Braddock said.

  “Sure enough, this dame comes in, dressed to the nines, with an ape on her elbow. They go to a table up front, like they got nothing to hide, and the ape stands about ten feet away. Well, I was surprised by that. You don’t see it too often and I’ve seen a lot in my time, you know what I’m saying, a lot. So, I wait, sneaking looks in from the corner of the window and soon I hit pay dirt.

  “A limo pulls up and I duck into the alley to watch. A driver climbs out and pulls the door and this little weasel gets out, looks like a bookkeeper, all shifty, you get me? He goes in the joint like he owns it, straight to the broad and sits down.”

  “Who was he?” asked Lou.

  “I didn’t know... then, but I do now.”

  “Who?” Lou had a suspicion, hoped it wasn’t true. It was.

  “Cermak. Guzman Cermak.” Smalls saw Lou’s expression, and said, “You know him?”

  “Sort of. He’s dead.”

  “Yeah?” Smalls looked happy at the news. “Spill.”

  Lou told him about Cermak and the fire at Monk’s Mom’s house. When he explained about beating Cermak unconscious, Smalls laughed out loud. “Didn’t he have his goons with him?”

  “Yeah. I took them, too.”

  “You?” A different tone though, disbelief with maybe a grudging respect. Seeing the look Lou said, “You don’t look like an eye yourself, you know.”

  He laughed again at this. The news of Cermak’s death wasn’t upsetting him at all. “That’s true. One of my best parts. Who’d believe me as a PI?”

  “What about the broad?”

  “Her. Yeah. That’s the odd part. She sat there while Cermak came over. The driver stood off by the ape and if I didn’t know better, I’d have said it was a mob conference. It had that feel to it. They talked for a couple of minutes and I took snaps with the Speed Graphic. The light was great and I didn’t need the flash. Just bracketed around F8 and clicked...”

  “Do I need to know this?”

  “What? Oh, no.” He looked sheepish, like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t. “It’s my hobby, taking pictures, is all. I do get carried away sometimes.”

  “Cermak?” asked Lou. He knew all about compulsive hobbies; you could fill a book with Monk’s.

  “I didn’t know it was Cermak or I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

  “Which was what?”

  Small suddenly got that panicky expression again and looked around. “You sure he’s dead?”

  “Sure.”

  “Swell.” He brightened. “World’s a better place.

  What I did was...” he sighed, acknowledging his own foolishness. “I gave the shots to Braddock. He told me they were important, that the guy was a business rival. I thought it was the usual, a divorce or a frame. I didn’t know.”

  “Know what?” Lou asked. He had a strange feeling about this. It was like watching a train about to crash, or a snake eying a mouse.

  “The woman. She was Tony Scolio’s wife.”

  Chapter 30

  We’ll need a Blues Man

  “Revenge,” said Monk. “Is the name of the game.”

  “Yeah?” Jefferson Davis Jr., an ironic name for a pencil thin jived up black man of fifty-five, sixty years old, ran spidery fingers over the neck of his big brown Gibson L-5 guitar. A liquid trill of blues notes poured out of a nearby Fender Twin amp. “Talk to me.”

  “And money,” said Monk.

  “Tell me more.”

  “And maybe, the chance to stay alive.”

  Jefferson Davis smiled a little, showing yellow teeth. “Another plus.” He played again and frowned. “How’d you find me?”

  Monk looked exasperated. “The question is, why didn’t they? You’re a blues guitar player with the Memphis Slims. You’ve been playing here for a week. How hard is this?”

  Jefferson shrugged. “Thought a north side club be okay. I’m a better bluesman than I am at hiding.”

  “How are you as a PI?”

  “Pretty good. ’Cept maybe lately I’m in a spot of trouble.”

  Monk said, “you’re being chased by the mob and it’s just a spot?”

  Jefferson lit a cigarette, placed it between his lips and thought for a while. They were sitting at the edge of the stage at Alice’s, a north side blues hangout far away from the world ruled by Rufus Black.

  “You thought Rufus was your only problem?”

  “Only one mattered. Can’t play much if I don’t play the south side. That’s where the blues be, man.”

  “Can’t play much if you’re dead either,” suggested Monk. He sipped scotch with ice from a chunky glass. The ice helped cool the drink only slightly. It was ninety degrees in the crowded room, at eleven at night.

  Jefferson acknowledged this with a sip of his own drink. “Tha’s true.”

  “I know you got in trouble by pushing Rufus Black.”

  “You know him?” asked Jefferson.

  “Met him at a Sox game last week.”

  “Tha’s Rufus. He a Sox fan all right. Can’t get enough of Sammy.” Sammy Esposito was the all pro infielder for the Sox. “Rufus make a bundle on the
games.”

  “That’s a good thing to know,” Monk said softly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. What’d you do to Rufus?”

  “I got hired by a big white guy to repossess some cars.”

  “You were nighthawking?”

  Jefferson shrugged ruefully. “Things be lean sometimes. A man’s gotta eat. Weren’t no gigs, you know.”

  “So, you took some cars.”

  “Turns out to belong to Rufus Black’s people. They tracked me and made it clear they were displeased.” Huge grin with the word. In some ways Jefferson was proud that he’d taken cars from one of the baddest men in Chicago. The grin was surface deep, though, hiding an underlying sadness.

  “What did they do?”

  “They, was gonna bust my fingers, make it so’s I couldn’t play no more. I couldn’t have that so I pulled a knife from some where’s they didn’t expect and I did a little slicing.” He coughed. “Things got a bit messy and I decided to run off. Better part of valor, like they say.”

  “You ran.”

  “Zactly.”

  “To here.”

  “Might not have thought it through,” Jefferson admitted. He studied Monk for a bit, brown eyes peering from some unimaginable distance. “So, what you got in mind.”

  “This,” said Monk. He leaned closer to explain.”

  *

  Mario Caputo was a sexist pig and Cassidy hated him on sight. Ten minutes of nonstop sexual innuendo and she got up to leave. “I’ll be in the car,” she said.

  “I’ll be there soon, toots,” said Mario.

  “With the door locked.” She walked away and Mario leaned over to watch her rear. Lou smacked the back of his head, then rubbed Brylcreem cream on a paper napkin.

  “Jesus Christ; what’s wrong with you?”

  “Ow,” said Mario, rubbing himself. “I’m just looking.”

  “You’re embarrassing me,” Lou said. He bit into his hot dog to hide his annoyance.

  They were at a bench outside of Willie’s Weenie Wagon on the corner of Crawford and 159th street. The nearest house was two miles away. Except for the hot dog wagons, they could have been in the days of the Iroquois. The White Sox broadcast over a tinny loudspeaker was another difference.