by Parnell Hall
“I find it hard to imagine our guy letting a hooker in on the deal.”
He frowned. “There’s no reason to assume she’s a hooker.”
“What did you think I meant by a pro?”
He took a breath. “I don’t have time to argue with you. I paid you money to do a job and you didn’t do it. I figure you owe me something. If this guy tries again, you’ll be hearing from me.”
“Have your wallet ready.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You paid me for one job. You want another, you can pay me again.”
“You didn’t do the job.”
“Yes, I did. You may not like the result, but the job is done.”
“I could hire someone else.”
“Be my guest.”
He scowled again. “I don’t want everyone and his brother in on this. You’re incompetent, but you’re honest. You must be, to tell me the story you did. Most guys would have gone out of their way to make themselves sound the least bit intelligent. The story you told must be true, or why would you make yourself sound like such a jerk?”
“Thanks a lot.”
“So next time you’re hip. No ringer cops. No deviating from instructions. No figuring you’re smarter than me. Is that clear?”
I shrugged. “You bring me another offer of employment, we’ll talk.”
Balfour shook his head. “You’re a piece of work.”
He scooped up his briefcase and went out the door.
8.
MY OFFICE IS ON West Forty-seventh Street, just off Broadway, in the heart of the diamond district. My father-in-law, the noted plastic bag manufacturer, still carried it on his company books, otherwise I could never have afforded it, midtown office space being only slightly more precious than gold. At any rate, it’s in a six-story prewar building boasting both an elevator and stairs.
Joe Balfour took the elevator.
I took the stairs, two or three at a time, jumping on the landings, thundering like a herd of buffalo, and managed to reach the lobby just as Balfour was heading out the front door.
When it comes to clandestine surveillance, there is none better. Except, of course, when it comes to tailing nubile nymphets without underclothing. But a businessman with a briefcase is dead meat. Or so I told myself as I followed Joe Balfour down Seventh Avenue.
A few blocks down the street he turned into the Virgin Megastore. This presented a small problem. It wouldn’t do for him to see me there. Feigning a sudden need for mood music wasn’t going to fly. And that time of day, there was almost no one in the store.
I hung way back, kept Joe Balfour in sight, watched to see what he would do. He went down to the third level, disappeared into the bookstore. Well, at least I knew the drill. I also knew if he came out clutching a manila envelope, I was really going to lose it.
He didn’t. Balfour was out minutes later, headed for the escalator. Of course the manila envelope could have been in his briefcase. But there was no reason to assume so. Unless it had been in the store all along and I had somehow missed it. That seemed a little much, even for one as insecure as I. I tried to resist such paranoid thoughts, followed my quarry outside.
Balfour went down Seventh Avenue, crossed Forty-second Street, hung a left on Forty-first. Halfway down the block he went into a large office building. I hung back, watched through the door as he headed for the elevators. There were two banks, one for the 1 through 10 elevators, and one for 10 through 21s. Most of the people waiting in the lobby were gathered around the 1s through 10s. In front of the 10 through 21s was a little blonde number holding a Starbucks coffee that probably cost as much as my watch. Granted, it’s just a cheap Casio digital; still, it keeps the time. Anyway, the elevator bell dinged and Balfour and the Starbucks lady got on.
I hurried into the lobby to watch the show. According to the electronic readout, the elevator stopped at 12, 14, and 15. For two people, that seemed excessive. Maybe Balfour and the coffee lady were careless with their buttons, or someone got on at 12 or 14.
The elevator next to me dinged. I got on, discovered I’d been joined by a middle-aged woman in a business suit, an Asian delivery boy with a cardboard tray of coffee and doughnuts, and a man with a mustache who must have hated his job. The delivery boy pushed 17, the woman pushed 18, and the sourpuss pushed 21.
I pushed 12. The elevator zoomed straight up to the twelfth floor, where the doors opened to reveal the lobby of Fabrics Inc., clearly a textile manufacturing company. Pictures of sheets and towels adorned the walls. The lobby was empty except for a receptionist, seated at her desk.
I stayed on the elevator, waited for the doors to close, and pushed 14. Behind me, the businesswoman cleared her throat. I could imagine her exchanging glances with Sourpuss.
The fourteenth floor proved to be a suite of doctors’ offices. I stayed on the elevator and pushed 15. This time it was Sourpuss who snorted.
I’m not big on being hated. I decided I’d get off on 15, no matter what, and catch the next elevator down.
The fifteenth floor proved to be Allied Associates. An efficient-looking black receptionist sat at a computer terminal. Standing in front of her desk was my client, holding a bunch of memos.
Oops.
Now I couldn’t get off at 15 either. I shrunk back away from the door, trying not to be seen.
“Are there any floors you like?” Sourpuss grunted.
His voice seemed loud enough to fill Yankee Stadium. And the elevator had dinged when the door opened. And no one had gotten off.
Wouldn’t Balfour notice? Wouldn’t he turn around and see me?
“You getting off or not?” the businesswoman said.
“Wrong floor,” I said, as the elevator doors closed.
“We can’t stop on every floor.”
“I’ll go back to the lobby and verify the address.”
“What company are you looking for?”
I had a moment of absolute panic. I had not even considered what fictional company I might in fact be looking for, and the question caught me completely off guard. Suddenly, here I was, about to blow my cover just riding up in the elevator.
All right, so maybe I’m not the best in the world at clandestine surveillance. It happens to be damn hard.
“Warner,” I said. “I’m looking for Warner Books. Isn’t that here?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Time-Life Building,” the Asian messenger said. “Fiftieth Street and Sixth Avenue.”
The woman and the cranky businessman fixed him with a malevolent stare. I wasn’t sure who was in deeper shit—me for being in the wrong building, or the delivery boy for knowing more than them.
Anyway, I got off when he did, caught the next elevator down, and was relieved when it didn’t stop on 15. Minutes later I was out of the building.
So, that was that. Barring the possibility that he happened to have a nine o’clock appointment at the company, it would appear that Joe Balfour worked for Allied Associates. The memos in his hands seemed to cement that theory, though, god knows, I’ve been fooled by circumstantial evidence before. However, judging from the suit, the briefcase, and the time of arrival, everything seemed to indicate that Mr. Balfour was a businessman who worked nine to five.
That was good, because I’m a working man too. I went back to the office, checked my assignments, grabbed my briefcase, got the car out of the municipal lot, and headed for Harlem.
9.
TIFFANY WEBER LIVED in a fourth-floor walk-up of a crack house next to a methadone clinic, which made her one of my least favorite clients. She was a perfectly nice woman, but getting there was half the fun. It required sucking in my gut, squaring my shoulders, and bulling my way through the gaggle of junkies hanging out on the steps. All I can say is, god bless dope. Straight men might have discerned the anxious, middle-aged man that I am. These guys just saw a cop. They got out of my way.
Tiffany Weber was a young black woman with three preschool kids, no husband, no job, and a brok
en leg. All of which would please Richard immensely if it turned out she had a case. Tiffany had tripped on a crack in the street and wanted to sue the city of New York. Actually, she just wanted money. Where it came from didn’t concern her.
Tiffany had answered Richard’s TV ads: “Free consultation. No fee unless recovery. We will come to your home.” He wouldn’t, of course. He’d send me.
“Hi, I’m from the lawyer’s office,” I said. As usual, she took me for a lawyer, and I didn’t do anything to disillusion her. Please understand, I never say I’m a lawyer, I just never say I’m not, and I always deflect such misassumptions by saying something like, “I’m not your lawyer. Your lawyer is Richard Rosenberg, the senior partner of Rosenberg and Stone. I’m just doing the preliminary work for him.”
Anyway, I filled out Tiffany’s fact sheet, taking down the details of her accident and her hospital stay, had her sign forms for us to get the police report and her medical records, and, last but not least, a retainer of Richard Rosenberg as her attorney. Which is my real job. Getting the client to sign. Which they are under no obligation to do. And which I manage to accomplish ninety-nine percent of the time. I might feel bad about it if it didn’t cost the client absolutely nothing.
After she signed, I took photographs of Tiffany’s broken leg. That was one of the first things I learned on the job. You always take the photos last. If they don’t sign the retainer, there’s no reason to waste the film.
When we were done, Tiffany took me outside and showed me the scene of the accident, a horrendous-looking crack in the pavement of the crosswalk at the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-eighth. I photographed it from all angles, hoping it was registered with the city of New York. Since the pothole law, only defects that had been reported and not repaired were liable. When the law first went into effect, negligence lawyers employed paralegals to run around the city, registering every pothole they could find. Others merely looked for reported defects and attributed accidents to them.
I was sure Richard Rosenberg had never done anything of the kind.
When I was done I bid a fond farewell to Tiffany Weber, and headed out to Queens, where an elderly man had fallen on a city bus.
I was just cruising over the Triboro Bridge when my beeper went off. I have a cell phone now—I finally caved in—but I don’t let the switchboard girls call me on it. If they want me, they can beep me, and I’ll call them. I do that because I don’t want to be in the position of having to answer the phone while driving. I got the cell phone just as a convenience, to keep me from going nuts searching the South Bronx for a working pay phone. When the office beeps me, I stop the car at the first opportunity and call in.
That resolve lasted about a week. After all, the cell phone has an autodial. All I have to do is press a button. I pressed it now, held the phone to my ear as I tooled over the Triboro Bridge.
“Rosenberg and Stone,” said Wendy/Janet.
Richard Rosenberg employs two switchboard girls who have identical voices. I can never tell ’em apart. On the cell phone it’s even worse.
“Hi, it’s Stanley,” I said. I found that preferable to a gambling, “Hi, Wendy,” or “Hi, Janet,” a fifty-fifty proposition I would invariably lose, and, “Who is it?” tended to piss her/her off.
“Stanley,” Wendy/Janet said. “A Mr. Balfour’s trying to reach you. Do you know who that is?”
“Yes, I do. What’s he want?”
“He wanted your phone number. I wouldn’t give it to him.”
“Good girl.”
“Thank you.”
Ah. That identified her as Wendy. Janet would have taken exception to the word girl.
“Did he leave a message?” I asked. I was nearing the end of the Triboro Bridge, and cars were jockeying for position.
“He wants you to call him. His phone number’s—”
“Hold on, hold on. I don’t have a pen.”
“You don’t have a pen?”
“Hang on. Let me get off the road here.”
“You’re driving? I thought we couldn’t call you when you’re driving.”
Damn. Between them Wendy and Janet had the brains of a turnip, but Wendy also had a mind like a steel trap. Hammer an idea in there, and you’d never get it out.
“Ah, here’s a pen,” I bluffed. Instead I jerked out of my pocket the microcassette recorder Alice had given me to help me with my writing career. Alice figured if I thought of something while driving around, I couldn’t write it down, but I could click the thing on and make a note to remember it. That way I wouldn’t lose any of my brilliant ideas.
I was still waiting for the first one.
I clicked record. “Okay, what’s the number?” I was now holding the recorder in one hand and the phone in the other, and steering with my elbows. Don’t try this at home. Only the most reckless, devil-may-care private eyes ever attempt such a feat.
Actually, recording the number was easy. Playing it back and dialing it was hard. I got a pizza parlor, a gas station, and a company switchboard. Luckily, it was the right company. Minutes later I heard Joe Balfour’s voice.
“It’s Stanley Hastings. What’s up?”
“They called.”
“Who called?”
“Who do you think? The blackmailer.”
“Man or woman?”
There was a pause.
“You thinking it over?”
“All right, they didn’t call.”
“Oh. That’s different.”
There was another pause. I could imagine steam rising from his head.
“There was a message,” he said.
“A phone message?” I asked. I remembered all the message slips in his hand.
“No. A letter. In this morning’s mail. Postmarked today. Obviously mailed last night.”
“What did it say?”
‘“Naughty, naughty.’”
“Not exactly high praise.”
“You’re being rather wise-ass.”
“I have work to do. You call me up with some nutty message, what do you expect me to do about it?”
“Nutty message, hell. Obviously this is a result of what you did last night. In which case I want you to do something about it.”
“Was there a return address?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what do you expect me to do? We have no idea who’s involved or what they want.”
“Of course not. This is just preliminary. Obviously they’re going to contact me again.”
“When they do, you’ll know.”
“When they do, I wanna call you. What’s your number?”
“You can reach me through Rosenberg and Stone.”
“I don’t wanna call Rosenberg and Stone. I wanna call you on your cell phone.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But there’s a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want you to call me on my cell phone,” I said, and hung up.
I could imagine Balfour steaming. I switched off my cell phone just in case it occurred to the son of a bitch to dial Star 69.
10.
I DROVE OUT TO QUEENS, signed up Angelio Felicio, who’d fallen on a city bus, then headed for Patterson, New Jersey, to interview a guy who’d been hit by a car. The Patterson, New Jersey, case was lucky. Not for the guy—he had a broken arm, a broken hip, and multiple lacerations—but the fact the case was in New Jersey meant a lot of time and mileage.
I got back to Manhattan at a quarter to five, which answered the burning question, should I keep my car or ditch it? There wasn’t time to ditch it. I’d just have to make do.
I drove to Forty-first Street, turned onto the block of Balfour’s office, and settled down to wait. That in itself was tricky. In midtown, cars are discouraged in no uncertain terms. There’s no parking, no standing, no driving by. In fact, I think you can get arrested just for owning a car. Plus, the trucks loading and unloading make even illegal parking spaces a premium. I double-parked and proceed
ed to back up and pull forward, never returning to the same spot, and just generally giving my impression of a man who was not parked, a man who was still in motion.
Balfour was out the door at ten after five, by which time I had an incredible stiff neck from all the backing up. I would have been glad to see him, except he headed for Sixth Avenue, and of course Forty-first Street runs west, toward Seventh.
I was not to be denied. I threw the car into reverse and began backing toward Sixth, trying to ignore the taxi honking indignantly. I found my neck hurt less when I was backing up. Either that or the rather excellent prospect of wrecking my car pushed the pain from my mind. At any rate, I reached Sixth Avenue and hung what would have been a right had I been going forward. In other words, I backed out onto Sixth, heading uptown.
If Joe Balfour had also turned right, I would have been a very unhappy camper. Backing down Sixth Avenue at rush hour is not high on my list of things to do. Balfour turned left. I heaved a sigh of relief, followed him up Sixth Avenue to a parking garage. I hung back, watched him go in.
I played a little game with myself to guess what kind of car Balfour would drive. I had it narrowed down to a Lexus or a BMW when the guy drove out in a Jaguar. I made a mental note to readjust my fees.
I fell in line, tailed Balfour down the street. So far I was batting a thousand. He could have commuted by subway. Then I’d be dorked. Or he could have gone home early. Then I’d be dorked. Or he could have decided to work late. In which case I would be dorked. But, no, things were working out.
I didn’t like it. Life usually dorked me. Why were things going right?
I know, I know, that’s really bad double thinking, obsessively applying a negative to a positive. MacAullif says I’m an analyst’s dream. Maybe I am. Even so, I distrust anything that’s too easy.
I followed Balfour to the West Side Highway, north under the George Washington Bridge, and onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.
At the toll bridge leaving Manhattan, Balfour got into the EZ-Pass lane, and so did I. EZ-Pass is one of those things I had to fight out with Richard. My expense accounts are supposed to include receipts. With EZ-Pass, you don’t get one. But EZ-Pass is so popular now, at the bridge there are five EZ-Pass lanes and one or two very long cash-only lanes. So my question for Richard was, would he rather pay me for signing up a client, or waiting in a line? Richard, prince of men, came up with a compromise. I could photocopy my monthly EZ-Pass bills and circle the appropriate charges.
