The Hundredth Man

by J. A. Kerley

  Squill said, “One of the reasons this case is going nowhere is diffusion. No focus, and poor communication.”

  “Excuse me, Captain,” I said, “but we have meetings every morning.”

  Squill threw his sheaf of papers down. “Another reason it’s in the crapper is I can’t get two words out without you contradicting me, Ryder.”

  “I’m not contradicting, I’m enlightening.”

  “I’ve had all the smart-mouth I can take.”

  Harry nudged me with his leg. “We’re listening, Captain,” he said.

  Squill waited until the silence in the room turned uncomfortable before continuing. “Everyone’s running the same ground. We need to become specialists. Each team has to take a portion of the puzzle and dissect it.”

  I started to speak, but Harry’s knee smacked me quiet. Squill flicked his sheet with a shiny tailored nail. “I’ve made new assignments. I want Nautilus and Ryder to concentrate solely on Deschamps. I want to know everyone he talked to in the last six months, every meal he ate, who he fucked in his wet dreams.”

  My hands squeezed the table’s edge. Stay down. Breathe.

  Squill continued. “As for Nelson, I want his investigation to continue in the same fashion, but with Sergeant Daller at lead.”

  Watty Daller?

  “Take it easy, Cars,” Harry whispered.

  I liked Wally. Everybody liked Wally. He was our comedian, more off-color stories than a Shriners convention. But he had analytical tunnel vision; ask him to investigate a road and he’d give you the total number of white stripes down its middle. I figured Nelson was an intersection of invisible lines: the first chosen, the missing papers, a lifestyle more likely to touch aberrant psychologies. Wally didn’t know dysfunctional psyches, he knew, “There’s a priest, a rabbi, and a hooker in a pork dress …”

  “Begging the captain’s pardon,” I said, “but Harry and I’ve established relationships with people close to Nelson. We’re unraveling threads that might “

  “You’ve gotten too near these people. We need fresh eyes and new threads.”

  “Fresh eyes? You mean start from the begi “

  “You’re running in circles, it’s not working,” Squill snapped.

  “In the Adrian case I moved between the victims to establish “

  “Get the hell out of this room, Ryder.”

  “You said running in circles? What’s that mean?”

  “Now. Go outside, Ryder. You’re done here.”

  “There are dead people. I’m not done.” I felt hot sand rising in my throat, my voice rasping.

  “Git,” Harry whispered.

  Squill said, “Every time I try to speak you’re in my mouth telling me what I’m doing wrong. Insubordination is a big deal in my department, mister. Get the hell out of here while you’re still a detective.”

  “Insubordination? If you think “

  “Git, dammit,” Harry hissed.

  The assignment sheet crumpled in my fist like foil as I closed the door behind me. I went back to my desk and waited. Harry reappeared ten minutes later. I was up before he got halfway across the floor.

  “Wally! He put Wally Daller in charge of investigating Nelson, Harry. He wants us off Nelson. Why?”

  Harry sat heavily and pressed his knuckles to his temples.

  “Come on, Harry, give. We can’t let “

  “Shut up, Carson. For once. Please just give my aching ears a rest.”

  “There’s a guy out there chopping off heads, Harry.”

  He banged his desk with his fist. Everything on the desk jumped an inch. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t care? What? You think you’re the only person in the whole department, Carson-fucking-Ryder, give me a high five, Harry, we whipped their asses, Harry?”

  I jabbed my finger toward the meeting room. “You didn’t say jackshit in there.”

  Harry’s jaw twitched. “Don’t you tell me when to move my lips.”

  “Why didn’t you back me up?”

  “Same reason I don’t bet on three-legged horses.”

  “I was trying to keep our hands in Nelson’s case. That’s where the break’ll come from.”

  Harry flung his hand up, thumb and index finger touching. “You came about a shit-hair’s distance from getting us kicked off everything, that’s what you did.”

  “Squill wouldn’t do that.”

  “He’s doing it right now, you’re just too dumb to see it.

  He pokes, you squeal, he runs and tells Hyrum you’re an insubordinate pain in the ass who got lucky once but who’s now upsetting the applecart. Hyrum nods and says, “Do what you have to do, Terrence.””

  “We can nail this if he’ll give us room to move.”

  Harry rolled his eyes. I said, “What? Squill doesn’t want it solved?”

  “On his terms and putting the glory on him alone. Here’s surprising news, Cars, you’re not the only detective in the department.”

  “It’s a Piss-it case, Harry. It’s ours.”

  “Did those pretty birdies come with your crib? The ones spinning above your head? Grow up, Carson, what’s ours is what Squill tells us is ours.”

  “The manual says “

  “If the manual said it was going to rain pussy at noon, you’d be out there with a net, wouldn’t you?”

  I opened my drawer just so I could slam it shut. Harry had his phone on speaker and the desk clerk announced a call. “Says his name is Jersey, Harry. Said you wanted him put through.”

  Harry clicked off the speaker and turned away with his hand cupping the phone. I figured Harry was talking to old Poke Trenary, a janitor at City Hall. Several times while in that citadel of mirrors I’d seen Harry glide the slow-mopping Poke to a quiet corner for a fast milking. Harry put down the phone and whispered, “Damn.”

  “Damn what? Yankees? The torpedoes?”

  “I was thinking because Hyrum retires in September the chief decision would be in September. I forgot about get-ready time. The commissioners decide early, then work on transition crap. The decision’ll be made at the next executive session, when they get to close the door. They won’t vote or anything, but they’ll weigh the input, and make the decision, and it’ll hold until the official announcement in a few weeks.”

  “And this unofficial coronation will be when?”

  “Eight days from now.”

  “Eight da No wonder we keep getting cut off at the knees.”

  “You got it. Squill’s gonna keep us bottled and throttled until then. After that it doesn’t make a bit of difference. He’ll either be a deputy chief or not.”

  I asked, “How’s Poke putting the odds?”

  Anyone with a jones for political intrigue suffers a touch of paranoia. Harry glanced around the room to make sure no microphones were aimed our way. “No one hears about this,” he whispered.

  I slapped my forehead. “Shit. Dan Rather’s offering fifty grand to hear what Poke gets from sc ruffing through trash bags at City Hall.”

  Harry sighed. ”Tell Danny-boy odds are running about five to three in favor of Plackett … and that Squill guy hanging off his tit.”

  “For nine days we’re gonna be shoved away from Nelson? Just so we don’t get lucky and break the case, maybe making the chief decision an even race at best?”

  “Squill’s set to make a two-level jump, Cars. He doesn’t want even money.”

  “Tell that to the next guy looking Mr. Cutter in the knife.”

  Harry went to fetch a coffee. I watched him walk slowly through the maze of desks, giving himself time to think. He returned three minutes later, hard resolution in his eyes.

  “It’s looking more and more like we’re gonna have to nigger this case, brother. Do most of the work for none of the credit. You cool with that idea?”

  “It’s what we’re doing now,” I said, standing and rolling up my sleeves. “Let’s surf ‘em and turf ‘em.”

  Harry shook his head sadly.

  �
�That don’t mean a damn thing, Cars. They got to mean something.”

  Apartment manager Briscoe Shelton wasn’t thrilled about being pulled from his TV viewing, a fuck opera by the sounds through his door, bass-heavy synthetic music and moan-inflected ululations. I’d returned, unsatisfied after yesterday’s toss of the place got chopped short by Squill’s meeting. Harry was pounding pavement, revisiting Deschamps’s contacts. He did what we were supposed to do, I did what we hoped would work, making one final run before Wally hippoed through. If Squill found out, I’d be humping an oil rig, handing Harry tools.

  “How’s about you folks git through looking at this place so’s I can rent it,” Shelton whined after the key-flip bit again.

  “How’s about you get your sorry ass back in your office and continue your jack-off session?” I replied. Screw public relations, sometimes it’s just not worth it.

  It was a steam room inside. I hit the misnamed High button on the wheezing window AC and looked for fresh ground to plow. The contents of the aluminum box hadn’t magically returned, so I turned to Nelson’s junk drawer, where all the orphan crap goes to die. For Nelson it was matchbooks, broken combs and brushes, bent tweezers, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, cracked candles, matchbooks, a half roll of duct tape, and a stack of menus.

  I crouched in the tepid wind of the AC and flipped through the menus. Pizza. Sandwich shops. Gumbo joints. Rib shacks. More pizza. Lots of delivery menus. Made sense; judging by the paucity of gear in the kitchen, Nelson hadn’t apprenticed at Spago. I was set to move on when I noticed a room-service menu from the Oaks Hotel in Biloxi, part of the sprawling High Point gambling complex.

  A woman friend and I had stayed at the Oaks a few months before, though we’d started at the Day’s Inn. After an afternoon of cheddar on Triscuits and experiments in fluid dynamics, we’d sashayed to High Point’s casino to try the blackjack tables. A well-timed jack had left me staring at over a thousand dollars. We’d shifted our experiments to the Oaks and left the cheese and crackers for some lucky housekeeper.

  Two nights at the Oaks turned my windfall to vapor. Or, more romantically, to memories. I remember a bed large enough to confound a surveyor, a spa with gold-plated fixtures, and an honest-to-gosh bidet, which continues to perplex me. Though the experience was a kick, I was relieved when we left, like I’d reached some sort of limit.

  So the question was, what was a sidewalk-level hustler with a small wallet and big dreams doing at the Oaks, if he indeed really had been there? I flicked the menu with my thumbnail and remembered back to the casino, how the one-eyed jack winked when I lifted the edge of the card.

  Maybe it was time for a little more luck.

  “I’m busy here, bubba,” the flat voice growled over the phone. “You get one minute.”

  Ted Friedman was assistant director of security at the Oaks Hotel, an unhappy guy with a flat midwestern accent, Detroit maybe, or the hard side of Chicago. He spoke around a cigar. I laid out a sketch of what I hoped for and heard keystrokes in the background.

  “If your boy was a hotel guest in the past year I can tell you. Lessee … Nalen, Naughton, Navis, Naylor …”

  While Friedman talked I pictured a scowling, boiler-chested guy in a fog of stogie smoke, scrolling through a screen of guest names, the walls of his surrounding room filled with security monitors peeking down hallways and into elevators.

  “.. . Nebner, Neddies, Neeland, Neeler, Neffington, Nekler, Nelson. Three Nelsons in the past year. Linda Nelson from Opeleika, Russell and Patricia Nelson from Green Bay, and John and Barbara Nelson from Texarkana. That’s it, bubba. Any help?”

  “Not what I wanted.”

  “Nice talking to you, bye.”

  I recalled Nelson’s affinity for aliases. “Wait a minute, Mr. Friedman, my man’s got a thing for reshaping his name.” Time s up.

  “Two minutes, Mr. Friedman. Five at the max.”

  “Hanging up now, bubba. I just went on break.” I heard the phone leave his ear.

  “You ever a cop, lard ass I yelled.

  I swear I heard Friedman’s phone rise back up; his air must have been scratchy with cigar smoke. “BATF. Twenty years with real law enforcement.”

  “Always hated working with the locals?” I asked.

  A satisfied snort. “Especially bubba locals.”

  “I’d never have guessed. Fun to dish it out?”

  I heard his smile through the wires. “Turnabout’s fair play,” he crooned around the stogie. “Ain’t too bad.”

  “What’d I do to you?” I asked.

  “The runaround. The tickets. The general small-town-cop horse shit.”

  I said, “I guess I don’t remember you.”

  “Musta been one of your brothers.”

  “Why don’t you slap that boulder off your shoulder, Friedman?”

  “Why don’t you ride the bone, bubba. I gave you what you asked for.”

  “That Nelson I’m interested in? He’s on the cold coast over here. No head. Got another just like him one drawer over. I’m expecting triplets any day. When it gets out some fat ass at the Oaks could have made a difference, it’ll hit the papers big time. Especially when it turns out he’s an ex-fed. You might want to consult your PR director on this. Thanks for the help, Friedman.”

  There was a five-beat pause before Friedman spoke. “You bought yourself two more minutes, bubba,” he said thickly; I wondered if he’d bitten off the ass end of the cigar. “What the hell is it you want?”

  I heard Hembree’s voice in my head: “Jerrold Elton Nelson, aka L’il Jerry, aka Jerry Elton, aka Nelson Gerald aka Elton Jerson.” I remember this stuff perfectly until a case is closed, then ka-whosh, my mind flushes it.

  “Try Gerald. Can you do first-and last-name searches?”

  Friedman sighed. I heard the cigar snuff out in a metal ashtray, followed by keystrokes. “I’ve got no last names “Gerald’ but two firsts: Gerald Staunton from Montreal and Gerald Boyette from Memphis.”

  “Nope.”

  For five minutes we tried every combination of names I recalled. Then Friedman cleared his throat and spoke up. “You know, I just noticed that the name “Elton’ anagrams into “Nolte,” like the actor.”

  “Run with it.”

  Another series of keystrokes followed by a pause. “Well, well … I’ve got an E. J. Nolte of Mobile.”

  Nelson’s initials and anagrammed middle name. My heart took a five-beat time-out. Friedman said, “He was here for four nights in May.” He gave me the dates.

  “How’d he pay, cash or card?”

  “Cash upon checkout.”

  “That unusual?” I knew what Friedman would say.

  “Huh-uhn. Yokel comes in, hits, decides to stay here instead of the Piddle Inn. We take a credit card imprint. If the bill’s paid in cash the imprint’s torn up. We won’t have an imprint anymore, just the basic sign-in. Got a space for home address and company name on the form. Elton lists Bayside Consulting, Three twenty-one Water Street, Mobile. That’s all.”

  I wrote them down. “Anything else, Mr. Friedman?”

  “Judging by the charges, Nelson had a fine time. Heavy room service, looks like every meal. A lot of bar tabs, also in-room. They racked up over three grand in four days.”

  “They?”

  “First night I got a single entree and salad going to the room; next three nights we’re eating for two. Unless your boy’s got a split personality down to his appetite … “

  “Gotcha.”

  “Anyway, looks like we got two folks ordering from room five nineteen suite, by the way, four seventy a night.”

  “Your professional take on the situation, then, is …”

  “To me, Detective Bubba, this looks like two people taking a room, hanging out the do not disturb sign, and having a rock ‘n’ rolling good time without coming up for air.”

  A check of the phone directory showed no listing for Bayside Consulting. The operator came up empty too. The address was a dummy.
I drew blanks with the Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau. If the company was incorporated there’d be records somewhere. I didn’t expect to find anything.

  Chances were Nelson’s trip to Biloxi had zero ties to the murders. The switch-hitting hustler probably had boy-toy usage at hotels and motels across the region. But right before his death he’d bragged about finding the mother lode, a sugar daddy or mama who might spend a few grand on a long weekend’s private partying.

  I called my house, no answer. It was after 8:00 p.m. I’d gotten Ava at 6:30, worn voice straight from sleep, said I’d soon be home. She went back to sleep, I told myself; didn’t hear the phone, or felt too rotten to talk. I left Harry a note detailing my day, and headed for Dauphin Island. My next chore was telling Ava I’d ratted her out to her boss.

  “I trust you … “

  Where the hell was that zuithre?

  CHAPTER 17

  I entered just after eight with my hands full of groceries to feed my starving shelves, plus sports drink to help flush Ava’s system and keep her hydrated. I’d also bought thiamine and other vitamins. The drink and vites were on the recommendation of my former partner, Bear. I called him on my drive home and asked what to expect from Ava. He predicted a spaghetti western: Good, Bad, and Ugly. Problem was, Bear said, you went through a shitload of the last two before the first one kicked in.

  The bedroom door was closed and I pictured Ava sleeping it off. Kitchen cabinets were ajar and I suspected she’d been searching for hooch. I was glad the Listerine was in the trunk. Figuring she’d returned to bed, I tapped at the door and, hearing nothing, entered. Not there. I checked other rooms, closets. She wasn’t anywhere in the house. Something else was missing sixty bucks from my bureau drawer. She’d left a barely legible IOU scrawled on a napkin.

  The phone rang. My mind flashed to a scenario of the Dauphin Island cops calling they’d found Ava wandering the streets and were checking her story. Even if she’d gotten hooted I could likely get her released into my care. I grabbed the phone.