The Underground Man sw-3

by Parnell Hall

  Walsh stopped laughing and held up his hand. “Well, thanks again. I really must be going.”

  Steve moved fast to get himself between Walsh and the door. “Just one moment, Mr. Walsh.”

  “One moment? I don’t have one moment. I been penned up for days and I want out of here. I told you I’ll pay you, now let me go.”

  “There are other matters, Mr. Walsh.”

  “Other matters? What other matters?”

  “You consulted me about a will.”

  “Yeah, I asked some questions. So what?”

  “But you didn’t tell me why you wanted to know. When I answered those questions, I had no idea what you were getting at.”

  “Of course you didn’t. No reason why you should.”

  “Well there’s reason now, Mr. Walsh. If I’m acting as your attorney, I have to act in your best interests.”

  “And that you did, my boy, and a fine job too.”

  Steve Winslow took a breath. “Mr. Walsh. When I answered your questions about a will, I was discussing abstract law. But apparently you weren’t. There are several million dollars involved.”

  “That’s right,” Walsh said. “And it’s all mine.”

  “Yes, it is, Mr. Walsh, and you may dispose of it any way you like. The point is-”

  “The point is, the point is,” Walsh mimicked. “The point is, who cares? You already made the point. I can dispose of it any way I like. It’s my money and I can do what I like. That’s the point. The rest of the points don’t matter.”

  “Mr. Walsh-”

  “Oh boy, that feels good.” Walsh stretched his arms. “Listen, I gotta get out of here.”

  “One moment, Mr. Walsh. We have a problem here.”

  “Problem? What problem? Everything’s fine.”

  “Mr. Walsh, the questions you asked me about a will lead me to believe you may be contemplating something that is dangerous on the one hand, and illegal on the other.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, don’t concern yourself.”

  “I have to, Mr. Walsh.”

  “No, you don’t. So I asked some questions. So I was just jokin’ around. It don’t mean nothin’.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Walsh shrugged. “You can believe what you like. You ask me, you worry too much. Anyway, I gotta get out of here. So tell me, is five thousand all right for a fee?”

  “It’s fine, but-”

  “Good. You’ll get it. If you don’t, you can sue me. A good lawyer like you, you ought to win.”

  “Mr. Walsh-”

  “Hey, I’d love to stay and talk, but right now I got problems. I had to tell ‘em about the Holiday Inn. Which means Jason and Fred will be there waiting for me. Which means I gotta get out, get away from ‘em, move all my stuff, find another place to live. One they don’t know about. Big pain in the ass.”

  “Mr. Walsh-”

  “Hey, you gonna let me leave or not? I gotta get a what? — a writ of habeas corpus to get out of here? I’m telling you. Don’t worry. You did a hell of a job. I’ll recommend you to all my friends. Now I gotta get out of here before those bastards get on my trail.”

  Jack Walsh grinned at Steve Winslow, then at Tracy Garvin. Then he jerked the door open and was gone.

  Steve Winslow dived for the phone, punched in a number. “Give me Taylor.”

  Seconds later, Mark Taylor’s voice came on the line. “Taylor here.”

  “Mark, Steve. He just left.”

  “No sweat. My men picked him up.”

  “Don’t lose him.”

  “Is it that important?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Why the hell you wanna follow your own client?”

  “Frankly, I’m afraid of what he might do.”

  “That’s not your problem, is it?”

  “Maybe not, but I feel responsible. I got him released. Also, check out the Holiday Inn. I wanna confirm his story.”

  “The judge already checked it.”

  “Yeah, but you check it too. It’s not enough to know he’s got a room there. I wanna know what he uses it for.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “O.K. Dig out the dirt.”

  Steve hung up to find Tracy Garvin looking at him. “Mark Taylor asked you why you’re doing this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s my question too.”

  Steve sighed. “Like I said. I feel responsible.”

  “You can handle someone’s legal problems. You can’t run their life.”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  “Like I said, I made an error in judgment. I gave him legal advice I shouldn’t have. Now I feel I gotta make up for it.”

  “I know that, but-”

  “Plus I got him out of Bellevue. Now I know I had a legal right to do that, but still. I mean, what if that asshole doctor’s right? What if he is crazy?”

  “What if he is?”

  “And what if he is dangerous? What if he hurts someone? Or himself?” Steve shook his head. “It’s every attorney’s nightmare. You do a good job, you win a case, you put a murderer back on the street, and he kills again.”

  “I see that, but-”

  “O.K., so he’s not a murderer, but still. From everything I gather, the man intends to commit a crime. That crime being fraud. He all but told me so. And I gave him advice on how to do it. If that man mocks up a will, I’ll have put myself in the position of having defrauded someone out of several million dollars.”

  “I understand all that. But what good is following him gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if he pulls something, I can stop him. Maybe not.” Steve shrugged. “At any rate, it’s something to do. I feel I have to do something.”

  “All right. So what do we do now?”

  “Nothing we can do. Just wait and see what Mark finds out.”

  Taylor called back two hours later. “You’re not gonna like this, Steve.”

  “No surprise there. So far, there’s nothing about this case I like. What gives?”

  “My man just called in. One of the guys tailing Walsh.”

  “Oh yeah? Where is he?”

  “Down in the subway station.”

  “What!?”

  “I told you you weren’t going to like this.”

  “What’s he doing down there?”

  “Celebrating, it looks like.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. My man says Walsh left your office, walked out to Broadway and started panhandling.”

  “What!?”

  “That’s right. He started begging quarters. When he got up enough money, he bought a bottle of cheap wine, walked up to Columbus Circle, and now he’s down in the subway drinking with the bums down there.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Yeah, and that ain’t all.”

  “Oh yeah? What else?”

  “We checked with the Holiday Inn. Apparently all Judge Washburn asked ‘em was whether Jack Walsh had a room there. Which he does. Rented for the whole year, just like he said. Only thing is, he doesn’t use it.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. His stuff’s up there, and his key’s at the desk, just like he said. But from what we get from the desk clerks, the guy shows up once or twice a month just to get something out of his room, but that’s about it. He doesn’t sleep there.”

  “No shit.”

  “None. Far as we know, he actually does live on the subway.

  “Steve exhaled into the phone. “Oh shit.”

  “You said it.”

  “So he really is nuts.”

  “Nutty as a fruitcake,” Taylor said.

  11

  Jack Walsh grunted his displeasure at the black bum with the broken tooth who was hogging the bottle. He got no response. Walsh grunted again. The bum’s muddy eyes rolled to him. Walsh fixed him with a hard stare and held out his hand. The bum snuffled, took one last swig, and then slowly, reluctantly handed over the bottle. Walsh sna
tched it back, held it close to his body. Then slowly, deliberately, he wiped off the top. Holding the bottle to his chest, elbows out like a basketball player protecting the ball, he glanced suspiciously around him for would-be thieves. Finding his bottle in no immediate danger, he raised it to his lips and took a swig.

  Looking sideways around the neck of the bottle, Walsh could see the arm and shoulder of Jason Tindel, who had ducked behind a column when Walsh glanced around. Further down the platform he could make out the topcoat of Fred Grayson. And at the far end of the platform, one of the other two men who had picked him up when he left Winslow’s office. Detectives, no doubt.

  Walsh lowered the bottle. The black bum held out his hand. So did the younger white bum who’d been drinking with them. Walsh gave them each a look, clutched the bottle to his chest. Then raised it, took another swig. Then, with another furtive glance around, he handed it to the white bum. The black bum’s bad teeth gnashed together.

  The white bum took two enormous swallows. The black bum’s eyes filled with rage and despair. He growled, “Hey, hey.”

  The black bum reached out his hand for the bottle. It was nearly empty. The white bum handed it over. Walsh intercepted it. He gave them both a proprietary look, then wiped off the bottle and took a swig.

  There was one small sip left in the bottle. Walsh looked at it longingly, then in a grand gesture, handed the bottle to the black bum, who grabbed it and wolfed it down.

  Walsh turned, shuffled slowly up the platform. As he left the others he picked up speed. By the end of the platform he was walking at a regular pace.

  He reached the stairs marked “EXIT” and “TRANSFER TO #1” and went up. As he did he grinned to himself. Jason, Fred and the detectives would be picking up speed now. Columbus Circle station was a labyrinth of tunnels connecting the IND and the IRT lines. If they didn’t close in, they’d never know where he went.

  He went up the steps, hung a left and walked through the tunnel that would take him under the Broadway IRT to the downtown side. He emerged at track level and headed for the downtown exit. In that direction he could take a stairway back down to the IND he’d just left, or bear right and go out any one of a number of exits from 59th to 57th Street.

  He chose the closest exit, the one with the long escalator leading directly up to the street. He emerged in Columbus Circle, walked down to 57th Street, and over to the Holiday Inn.

  The desk clerk paid more attention to him than usual. Walsh understood. He was an oddity, but he was a known quantity. The desk clerk’s interest was because people had been making inquiries. Probably lots of people.

  Walsh got the key and went up to his room. It was, as always, exactly as he’d left it. He went to the closet, took the suitcase down from the shelf. He flopped the suitcase down on the bed, then twisted the dials on the combination lock. When he got the numbers lined up he popped the suitcase open, reached in and pulled out his checkbook and a pen. He wrote out a check to Steve Winslow for five thousand dollars. He took out an envelope, addressed it to Steve Winslow at his office, put the check in, stamped it and sealed it.

  He wrote out another check, tore it out of the checkbook, folded it and stuffed it in his pocket. He took his wallet out of his suitcase, stuffed it in his pocket too.

  Humming softly, he locked the suitcase, stuck it in the closet, and went out the door.

  There was no one in the hallway, but when he took the elevator down he spotted Jason Tindel hanging out in the lobby. He grinned, went out the door, and headed down the street.

  He stopped on the corner to drop the letter to Steve Winslow in the mailbox, then walked straight to the Chase Manhattan Bank.

  He stood in line, waited his turn, and then presented his check to the teller. She was a young, Oriental woman who looked at him as if he were from another planet. He was not at all surprised when she sent him to one of the supervisors to get the check approved.

  It was with obvious reluctance that the young supervisor eventually scrawled his initials on the check. Not that Jack Walsh’s credentials weren’t impeccable. It was just the way the man looked. That and the fact he kept grinning like a zany and even cackled gleefully once or twice. That was when Jack Walsh spotted Jason Tindel watching him through the bank window. Sitting there next to the bank supervisor who was inspecting what was obviously a large check, Walsh knew he had to be driving Jason crazy.

  Finally with the check approved, Walsh returned to the teller. Even the initials on the check didn’t seem to convince her, and it wasn’t until she caught the eye of the young supervisor, held up the check and saw him nod his approval, that she was willing to proceed with the transaction. She stamped the check, jerked open the cash drawer and began counting out money. She counted it three times, shoved it through the slot. Jack Walsh took it, and stuffed it into his coat pockets. He walked out of the bank, straight back to his hotel and up to his room.

  Inside, he locked the door, took off his coat and flung it on the bed. He rubbed his hands together, cackled gleefully again. All right. Now to business.

  But first he was hungry. All he’d had today was some cheap wine. And the slop in the hospital he’d refused to eat.

  He picked up the phone and started to call room service. Thought better of it. After all, Fred and Jason were watching the lobby. Might as well give them a turn.

  He dialed information, got the number for Lutece. He ordered a full-course dinner complete with wine. There. Let them think about that.

  Except he still had the taste of cheap wine in his mouth.

  He went in the bathroom, squeezed some toothpaste out of a tube and brushed his teeth. He did so by taking them out of his mouth-Walsh wore dentures. He opened the medicine cabinet, took out a bottle of mouthwash, and gargled. He spit out the mouthwash and replaced the dentures.

  He straightened up and looked at himself in the mirror. There. Still a wild man, but with sweeter breath. He grinned at the reflection in the mirror. Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

  He yawned, stretched. Well now, perhaps a shower might be in order. Maybe even a change of underwear.

  But later. Much later. First to business.

  He went out of the bathroom, sat down on the bed, picked up the phone and began making calls.

  12

  Mark Taylor settled back in the clients’ chair, flipped open his notebook, looked up at Steve Winslow and Tracy Garvin, and said, “O.K. Here’s the dope.

  “Yesterday afternoon Jack Walsh left the subway and went straight back to his hotel, got his key from the desk, went up to his room. Two-oh-five. Two-fifteen he’s back down again, walks to the corner, mails a letter, walks down to the Chase Manhattan Bank and presents a check to the teller. She directs him to the supervisor, who goes through the usual red-tape bullshit-only it being Jack Walsh, perhaps slightly more than the usual red-tape bullshit-but eventually he initials the check. Walsh takes it back to the teller, who doesn’t seem too convinced but who eventually pushes the money through the window. Walsh stuffs it in his pockets and leaves.”

  “How much money?” Steve said.

  “I don’t know, and the bank won’t say. I might have had a chance of finding out if it weren’t for the fact Jason Tindel and Fred Grayson are after the same thing.

  “When he left the bank, Fred Grayson tagged along and Jason Tindel stayed behind to hit on the bank supervisor. One of my men stayed behind to watch. From what he observed, Tindel didn’t get any satisfaction. But he sure did cause a fuss. The supervisor called in reinforcements, and it took the branch manager to come out and tell Jason Tindel to get lost. After all that, there’s not a prayer of them letting the information slip.”

  “Gotcha,” Steve said. “What’s next?”

  “Jack Walsh went straight back to his hotel and up to his room. Fred Grayson tagged along. About twenty minutes later Jason Tindel got back there, followed of course by my other man.

  “Jason and Fred confer in the lobby. Now my men can’t get close enough to he
ar what they’re saying, but apparently they’re discussing shifts. Tailing Jack Walsh, I mean. Like setting up a schedule. At least that’s what I figure, ’cause anyway they talk a bit and then Grayson leaves. So I figure Tindel’s drawn the first shift, however long that’s gonna be, then Grayson’s gonna replace him, then probably Carl Jenson after that, and so on.”

  “Don’t you know?” Steve said.

  “No.”

  “You mean you lost him?”

  Taylor held up his hands. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. You’ll see why. Just let me tell it.

  “O.K., so it’s like you think. Tindel’s got the first shift, I don’t know how long or who’s next, but I’ll find out when the relief arrives.

  “Only it doesn’t happen that way. What does? Well, first off, around-” Mark checked the notebook, “-6:26 my man puts it, a van pulls up outside. A team of men get out, start unloading trays of food. Hot food. You know, like steam trays on wheels. The guy in charge goes up to the desk, asks for room 926. Which happens to be Jack Walsh’s room. So Jason Tindel pumps one of the waiters. My man overhears. It turns out the van’s from Lutece. Our homeless bum’s ordered a two-hundred-and-forty-nine-dollar meal, specifying each and every item, from the Chateaubriand to the vintage wine. Moreover, the head waiter comes down grinning like a Cheshire cat, so we can assume Jack Walsh was in no way stingy about the tip.”

  “Right, right,” Steve said. “But the schedule. How come you don’t know when Tindel was relieved?”

  “’Cause of what happened next.”

  “Which was?”

  “Starting seven-thirty they all show up.”

  “They?”

  “The family. The Tindels, the Graysons, Aunt Claire and the gang.”

  “All together.”

  “All of them together. Carl Jenson showed up about ten minutes later.” Mark flipped open the notebook. “7:26, Fred Grayson, the two wives and Claire Chesterton show up together. 7:38, Carl Jenson.”

  “Why’d they show up?”

  “Walsh sent for ‘em.”

  “How do you know?”