3 Favor

by Parnell Hall

  I can recall back in my youth, on one of those few occasions when I did actually wind up having sex, I used two contraceptives, just to be sure. I’m sure I only would have needed one condom.

  At any rate, I wasn’t going to be chasing any women in Atlantic City. Because, when the cowards line up to be counted, they can count me in. And I’ll tell you something. In this new AIDS society we live in, they can talk about safe sex all they like. But I am such a big coward that, as far as I’m concerned, in my opinion, the only truly safe sex is masturbation.

  With a condom.

  I went to the movies.

  9.

  NEXT MORNING, BRIGHT and early, feeling like a complete asshole, I drove out to take up my vigil in front of the Dunleavy house.

  I cruised by the house slowly at ten of eight. The garage doors were closed, both cars presumably still inside.

  I drove on by to take up my position under the oak tree. Only I couldn’t do it. There was a car parked right in the spot. Great, I thought. What else can go wrong?

  I drove on by, hung a right, drove around the block, and came up on the house again. This time, instead of driving past it, I stopped a few houses down the other way. It wasn’t nearly as good a position. In the first place, there was no overhanging tree to shield me. In the second place, I had to look straight out the window to see the house, instead of being able to glance into the rear-view mirror. But beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, by now I figured I had the routine down fairly well.

  Sure enough, 8:05, Barbara and the kid came out, opened the garage doors, got in the station wagon and pulled out.

  Hot stuff. Log it in the notebook.

  I watched the station wagon drive off As it went by, the car that had been parked under the oak tree in my spot pulled out and drove off too.

  Coincidence?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Well, fuck Harold, I thought. Odds were he was just going to work anyway.

  I pulled out and tagged along.

  It took less than half a mile to confirm my suspicions. During that stretch the station wagon made five or six turns. The car that had been parked in my spot made them too. So did I, for that matter.

  We made quite a procession. It seemed like overkill, somehow, the three of us, all driving one kid to school.

  The car I was following was a nondescript, beat-up Chevy of a bluish color, not too old, not too new, just the sort of thing a real detective would drive. I couldn’t see the guy driving it very well, just the back of his head, which was enough to tell me he had dark hair and was bald on top. I hoped to hell he wouldn’t spot me. I realized there was no reason that he should. After all, he was concentrating on following the girl. He had no reason to suspect he was wearing a tail.

  The station wagon pulled up in front of an elementary school, and the kid got out and went in. The station wagon drove off. The driver of the Chevy and I, who had been discreetly parked half a block and a block, respectively, down the road, pulled out and gave chase.

  The station wagon went through a series of turns, and I realized we were headed back the way we’d come. Sure enough, ten minutes later we wound up back at the house.

  Barbara pulled back into the garage. Harold’s car was already gone. I figured he’d gone to work. At least, I certainly hoped he had.

  The Chevy went on by and took up its station under the oak tree again. I stopped toward the other end of the block, as before.

  Barbara got out of the car and went into the house.

  We sat there for two hours.

  Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. I felt like going down to the Chevy and asking the guy, “Would you like to play some gin rummy while we wait?” I rejected the notion.

  I had just realized I had forgotten to call Rosenberg & Stone this morning and was now in deep shit, when a truck came down the street and stopped in front of the Dunleavy house. The letters on the door said, “JOHNSON’S TREE SURGEONS.” I thought it would be neat if it turned out the oak tree my buddy in the Chevy had aced me out of had Dutch elm disease, and the guy in the truck pruned it all away.

  It didn’t happen. The guy got out of the truck. He was a young guy, early twenties, with blond, curly hair, wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He looked tanned and healthy. He went up to the front door of the Dunleavy house and rang the bell. The door opened, and he went in.

  My friend in the Chevy got out of his car. He looked around him, somewhat furtively, I thought. He couldn’t see me, scrunched down in the front seat of my car. But I could see him. He had a thin face, with a thin, hawk nose, and somewhat protruding lips. He reminded me of a weasel.

  When he was certain no one was watching him, he crossed the street. Then he began strolling casually toward the Dunleavy house. Before he got there, he took a look all around him, then ducked around the side of the house to the back.

  I got out of my car and crossed the street. I walked quickly down to the Dunleavy house. As I walked by the far corner, I glanced in the direction my buddy had gone. There was no sign of him. He had disappeared around back.

  I didn’t want the guy to see me, but I sure as hell wanted to know what he was trying to do. I figured the backyards of the houses must all connect, so I walked past the next house and then detoured into its backyard.

  There were fences, as I’d figured, but you could see over ’em and through ’em. Two fences away, there was my buddy the Weasel, standing on his tiptoes and peering into a back window of the Dunleavy house.

  I stood there and watched. I hoped nobody would come out the back door of the house and yell at me. Fortunately, nobody did. I wouldn’t have minded if someone had come out the back door and yelled at the Weasel. In fact, it might have been even kind of fun. But nobody did that, either.

  After a while, something must have happened. I could tell, ’cause the Weasel started getting excited. He stopped looking in the window and started looking all around him. He spotted an apple box under the back porch. He pulled it out, dragged it over to the window. He stood up on it. I saw him take something out of his jacket pocket. He held it up to his eye, which was now level with the window.

  Now I’ve had bum hunches before, and my luck as a gambler hadn’t been too good this trip, but I’d have been willing to bet you a nickel he was taking pictures.

  After a while, the Weasel stuck the presumed camera back in his jacket, hopped down from the box, stashed the box back under the porch, and scuttled out from behind the house.

  I crept along the side of my house to the front. Just as I got there, the Weasel came darting across the street to his car. He hopped in and pulled out.

  I had to run to my car, too. The Weasel was going at a good clip, and I didn’t want to let him get away.

  The Weasel got onto 30 East, heading for downtown Atlantic City. He drove to Atlantic Avenue, pulled into a meter, and got out. I pulled up next to a fire plug half a block away and watched. Either there was time on the meter, or the Weasel was willing to take a chance, ’cause he didn’t put any money in it. He got out of the car carrying what looked to me like a camera bag, and went into a Photomat.

  Thinking about the meter started associations in my mind, made me realize I was only a few blocks away from Harold’s office. I wondered if he was in it.

  The Weasel came back out of the Photomat, got in his car and pulled out. I pulled out and tagged along behind.

  In midtown stop-and-go traffic there was nothing suspicious about my being right behind him, so I was able to pull up close and get his license number. I wrote it down.

  The Weasel kept on going out Atlantic Avenue. I had no idea where he was going, and I didn’t really care, unless it was back to the Dunleavy house. The direction he was going said he wasn’t. Every block seemed to confirm the opinion. I followed him until Atlantic Avenue turned into Ventnor, followed him another twenty blocks, and let it go at that.

  I turned around and drove back to Absecon, to the Dunleavy house. The tree sur
geon’s truck was gone. The station wagon was still there.

  I had a notion to go up and ring the front doorbell. “Excuse me, miss, I’m taking a survey, and—” I quickly put it out of my mind. MacAullif didn’t want that, and I didn’t want that. The low profile, the man on the periphery, that’s me.

  I turned around, drove back to Atlantic City, and took up my station in front of Harold’s office.

  I called Rosenberg & Stone. Wendy/Cheryl was hopping mad. She bawled me out for a couple of minutes, then put me on hold. A minute later, Richard Rosenberg’s voice exploded in my ear.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he screamed. “I tell you to call in, I want you to call in! You don’t do it, you’re losing me business, you’re costing me money, you’re a drain on the firm—”

  He went on in that vein for some time, then gave me back to Wendy/Cheryl to get my assignments.

  There were none. My not calling in had had no effect on anything. It was just the principle of the thing.

  I hung up and called MacAullif.

  “Anything stirring?” he asked.

  “Maybe a little. I want you to trace a license plate number for me.

  “You got something?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not what you want.”

  “What?”

  “It appears I’m not the only game in town.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think there’s another detective on the case.”

  “What!?”

  “I think there’s—”

  “I heard you, I heard you. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I spotted another tail.”

  “You’re kidding! On Harold?”

  “No. On your daughter.”

  “What the hell!”

  “I don’t make the news, I just report it. The best I can determine, there is a private detective following your daughter. He tailed her this morning when she took the kid to school. He kept her under surveillance until she went home. At present he seems to have quit.”

  I couldn’t tell MacAullif about the pictures and the tree surgeon. I didn’t have the heart. I know he’s a cop and all that, but he’s also a father, and I figured there’s some things a father just doesn’t want to hear.

  “So what’s the idea?” said MacAullif.

  “I don’t know. I’m just reporting the facts. The thing is, I figure the guy must be a private dick, and I’d like to confirm it and tag who he is. So can you trace the license number?”

  “It’s a Jersey plate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That makes it harder.”

  “Sure, but you got connections. I’m sure you can do it. Just pull a few strings. It’s your daughter, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I know, I know,” MacAullif said. “Yeah, I can do it. It’s just I don’t want anyone knowing about it.”

  “O.K., get on it,” I said. “I’ll call you back in half an hour.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it that fast.”

  “Give it a try.”

  MacAullif gave it a good one. When I called back a half an hour later he had the information. The car was registered to a Joseph T. Steerwell. MacAullif gave me the guy’s address, and it was the direction I’d seen him driving off in. He also gave me his phone number, height, weight, birth date—the whole shmear. The description fit close enough. It was the Weasel all right.

  And he was a licensed private detective.

  10.

  I MUST ADMIT (and often do) that as a private detective I leave a lot to be desired. I am not the swiftest thing in the world. In fact, I am often pretty slow on the uptake, and I have a problem sometimes putting two and two together and making four. So I must confess, it was not until after I got off the phone with MacAullif that I got an idea any other detective would have had years ago.

  The address MacAullif had given me for the Weasel would be his home address.

  Not the address of his office.

  I walked over to Tennessee Avenue and went to the building where I’d trailed Harold the day before. I went inside and looked at the call board. Sure enough, there on the fourth floor, hidden in among all the lawyers and stockbrokers and real estate agents, was the Minton Detective Agency.

  I got in the elevator and went up to the fourth floor. I walked down the hall and found 421. It looked like a detective agency. It had a frosted glass door like the ones you see in the movies. My office in Manhattan has a door of solid wood. I always think of it as one of my failings.

  I pushed the door open and walked in. I found myself in a small reception area with doors leading off from it. A matronly secretary was sitting at a desk typing something. She continued typing without looking up. I figured she was just trying to get to the end of the line. I waited.

  I waited long enough for her to have gotten to the end of several lines. When she started in on a new paragraph, I said, “Excuse me.”

  She murmured, “Ah, shit!” grabbed and eraser, and glared at me. “Yes,” she hissed.

  I gave her my best smile. “Joe Steerwell?”

  “Out for the day,” she snapped, and immediately turned to attack the page in the typewriter.

  I went out the door, wondering if the secretary could be considered an improvement over Wendy and Cheryl or just a change. I decided I would have to observe her for accuracy before I could make a proper judgment.

  I also went out with my obvious theory having been tested and having proven true.

  Harold Dunleavy had hired the Weasel to spy on his wife.

  I went back to my post outside Harold’s office and called MacAullif.

  He was surprised to hear from me again so soon.

  “Hey, I’m interested and all that,” he said, “but I happen to have three homicide investigations going. What do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything. I just thought you’d like to know. There’s every indication that yesterday afternoon your son-in-law hired this detective Steerwell to spy on your daughter.”

  “What do you mean, every indication?”

  I told MacAullif what had happened. He wasn’t pleased.

  “Why didn’t you check this out yesterday?” he said, irritably.

  “I didn’t know about it yesterday.”

  “You knew he went into the building.”

  “It was a building of stockbrokers. It was logical that was where he was going.”

  “You can’t always go by what’s logical. You have to consider all possibilities.”

  “How? I couldn’t get in the elevator with him. You didn’t want him to see me.”

  “You should have read the whole call board.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “You thought wrong. You’ve been bitching to me about how nothing’s happening and how bored you are. Here’s the one thing that happened that you could have checked on, and you didn’t do it.”

  I was getting pissed off. “I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t sound sorry. “Perhaps you should hire a real detective, in whom you’d have more confidence. I believe I suggested that to begin with. In case you decide to, I would recommend the Minton Agency. They have the advantage of already being familiar with the case.”

  There was a pause.

  “I’m sorry,” MacAullif said. “It’s personal, and I’m not thinking rationally. It’s just that if I’d known about this, I could have called Barbara and warned her.”

  “How? What would you have said? What would you have told her? How could you have known?”

  “I don’t know. I told you I’m not thinking rationally. So, this guy Harold hired—this Steerwell—how long was he on the job?”

  “He was there when I got there at seven-fifty this morning. He knocked off around noon.”

  “You sure he’s not still lurking around?”

  “Pretty sure. I tailed him out of town. He was heading in the direction of the address you gave me, so I assume he went home. I’ll double-check, though
.”

  “Do that. Now this morning—you’re sure nothing happened?”

  I hated to mislead MacAullif, but I felt I had to. And it wasn’t just his being a father and my not wanting to hurt him and all that. You see, I have another serious failing as a private detective: I hate being a tattle-tale.

  I didn’t want to tell on Barbara.

  “Nothing significant.”

  “That’s strange,” MacAullif said.

  “What is?”

  “If nothing happened, why would Steerwell knock off at noon? It doesn’t make any sense. It only makes sense if something happened and he got what he came for.”

  MacAullif was back in form. And just when I didn’t need him to be.

  “Maybe Harold only hired him till noon.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It might from Harold’s standpoint. We don’t have all the facts.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” MacAullif said. “I should call and warn her.”

  “If you’re gonna do that, you might as well let me ring the front doorbell and say, ‘Hi, I’m the private dick hired by your father to keep an eye on you and your husband.’ ’Cause if you tell her, you gotta tell her how you know. And if you can come up with a good enough reason aside from the truth, you win the Golden Turkey award.”

  MacAullif exhaled into the phone. “I see your point.”

  “So, would you like me to talk to her?”

  “No.”

  “Then I wouldn’t call her. But it’s up to you. It’s your daughter and your case. I’m just along for the ride.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” MacAullif said. “You’re doing me a favor. I appreciate it. I’m sorry if I seem ungrateful.”

  “Forget it. The thing is, what do you want me to do?”

  There was a pause. Then MacAullif said, “Just what you’ve been doing.”

  I refrained from dancing for joy.

  “Except now you’ve got two jobs: keeping tabs on Harold and keeping this private dick away from my daughter.”

  “The latter might require personal contact.”