3 Favor

by Parnell Hall

  I was on my own.

  I wondered if I should wait and tail Harold when he left the casino. I wondered if I should say, “Fuck MacAullif,” and drive over and have a little talk with Barbara.

  I realized I didn’t feel like doing either. It had been a hell of a day, both physically and emotionally. I was exhausted, and I needed some sleep. I drove back to the hotel.

  The cops were there waiting for me.

  17.

  THERE WERE TWO of ’em. They were waiting in my hotel room. I just walked in and there they were.

  They were in plain clothes, so they didn’t necessarily have to be cops. They also could have been hit men. In fact, my first thought when I walked in was that I was about to get a bullet in the face. So it was actually a relief when they turned out to be cops.

  But not much.

  I’d never walked into a hotel room and found cops waiting for me before. TV detectives do it all the time. They’re used to it, and it doesn’t faze them in the least. And they always have some snappy, sardonic one-liner ready, such as, “Don’t mind me, gentlemen, just make yourselves right at home.” That would have been appropriate now, since the taller of the two, all six-foot-four of him, was stretched out on the bed, and the shorter, stockier one with the dark moustache was sitting at the table reading a newspaper. However, I wasn’t quite up to any snappy one-liners. The best I could manage was to stand there looking stupid.

  Fortunately they took the initiative. The tall one sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The one with the moustache folded his paper, stood up, and said, “Stanley Hastings?”

  I had a wild impulse to say, “No, room service,” and duck back out the door. It was momentary, however. I gulped. “Yes.”

  Moustache reached in his jacket pocket, and flopped open his badge. “Lieutenant Barnes.” He pointed to the guy on the bed. “This is Sergeant Preston.”

  Despite myself, I blurted, “You’re kidding.”

  The sergeant grinned, which almost relaxed me for a moment. “I get that all the time,” he said.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen?” I said. I was pleased with myself. That sounded more like what a TV detective would say.

  Lieutenant Barnes smiled. “We were hoping you could assist us with our inquiries.”

  I felt a chill. I read British detective fiction, so I knew that phrase was a euphemism the police gave out to the press to describe someone they were holding on suspicion of murder. I wondered if Barnes read British detective fiction, too.

  “What inquiries?”

  “Forgive me,” Barnes said. “We’re with Major Crimes. We handle all serious felonies, particularly murder. In this case we have two. The murder of Joseph T. Steerwell, and the murder of Frederick Nubar. A pair of rather puzzling crimes. We were hoping you could shed some light on them.”

  My mind was reeling. How the hell had these guys gotten onto me so fast? How much were they groping in the dark, and how much did they know?

  And what the hell should I do?

  The smart thing, I knew, was to say nothing—“Fuck you, I’m not talking, I want to call my lawyer.” But if I did that, the die would be cast. I’d be out in the open, me against them. They would probably run me in, and I’d sit in jail until something happened. And having chosen not to talk, there I’d be, helpless, sitting there like a fool, unable to defend myself or do anything else useful. And then how dumb would I feel when it turned out these guys had nothing on me anyway, and just wanted to talk.

  So I decided not to tell the gentlemen to get fucked. I could always clam up later. But for the time being, I’d just play dumb and innocent.

  “I’d like to help you,” I said. “But I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it.”

  Barnes fished a notebook out of his jacket pocket. “That’s strange,” he said, “because a Michael Sallingsworth of the Sallingsworth Detective Agency says that you were in there today trying to get information on one Frederick Nubar.”

  So. Sallingsworth had sold me out. I wondered if it was because I was a piker who’d only paid him twenty bucks. I realized the thought was uncharitable. Sallingsworth was a licensed private detective. He had to work in Atlantic City. And this was murder. He couldn’t hold out on the cops on something like this.

  Frankly, I was relieved. Of all the ways the cops could have got a line on me, this was the best. So I’d inquired about Nubar. It didn’t connect me with the Weasel. It didn’t lead the cops to Harold and Barbara. As far as being fucked went, it was the best of all possible worlds.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Could you tell us the reason for your interest in Frederick Nubar?” Barnes asked.

  “If you will pardon me, Lieutenant,” I said, “I’ve had a hard day, and if this is going to take any time, I’m going to sit down.”

  I walked by him and sat at the table. I was stalling for time, which I was sure the Lieutenant was aware of. I also wanted to see if he would let me do it. I didn’t know how they did things in Atlantic City—whether they resorted to third degrees, rubber hoses, and the like—and I thought I might get a hint.

  Barnes was all courtesy. He stepped aside and let me sit. Preston came around the bed, and the two cops stood, flanking me at the table. Looking up at him from that angle made Preston seem incredibly tall.

  “If you’re quite comfortable,” Barnes said, “perhaps you could tell us about Frederick Nubar.”

  “What about him?”

  “What’s your interest in him?”

  “You know I’m a private detective?”

  “That’s what Sallingsworth said.”

  “He’s an excellent source of information. That’s what I am. I work for the law firm of Rosenberg & Stone.”

  “And where are they located?”

  “In Manhattan.”

  Barnes nodded his head. “That’s what I thought. And just what brings you to Atlantic City, Mr. Hastings?”

  “I happen to be here on business.”

  “For Rosenberg & Stone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A New York firm?”

  “If you check, you’ll find Richard Rosenberg is licensed to practice in New Jersey. I handle many Jersey cases.”

  “What kind of cases?”

  “Litigation.”

  “Litigation? You mean civil suits?”

  “Accident cases, mostly.”

  His face showed comprehension. “Oh. You’re an ambulance chaser.”

  I winced, and put on a mock-deprecating look. “I prefer the term ‘scum-sucking pig.’”

  Preston frowned, but Barnes actually grinned.

  “You do trip-and-falls, broken arms and legs?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I see. And what particular case brings you to Atlantic City?”

  I rubbed my head. “Well,” I said. “I don’t know if my employer would be too pleased about me talking about his business. But I guess it can’t hurt to tell you. I happen to be investigating the case of one Floyd Watson, of Connecticut Avenue, who fell down a flight of stairs and broke his leg.”

  Barnes and Preston looked at each other. Barnes looked back at me.

  “You expect us to believe you came all the way down here from New York just because some guy fell down the stairs?”

  I grinned at him. “You would if I told you what stairs.”

  Barnes thought that over. “In a casino?”

  I grinned.

  Barnes frowned. “All right. Then how does Nubar come into it?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can tell you what the case is, but I really can’t discuss it.”

  Barnes looked at Preston. Preston raised his eyebrows in inquiry, and looked toward the door. Barnes nodded. He turned back to me.

  “Any objection to taking a little ride?” he asked.

  I considered the proposition. I wondered what would happen if I said no. Somehow, I didn’t really feel like finding out. Being a basic coward, in sticky
situations my instinct is not to make trouble but just to ride along. In this case, literally.

  “O.K.,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We went out to the parking lot. No one paid any attention to us going through the lobby, which made me wonder for the first time how the cops had gotten into my room. I’d have thought if they’d had to inquire for the key at the desk, it would have aroused some curiosity. The fact that no one gave a damn about us seemed to imply that they hadn’t.

  The cops’ car was black and unmarked. Sergeant Preston opened the back door for me. Before he let me in he asked, “You licensed to carry?”

  “No.”

  “You mind if I check?”

  “That’s your job,” I told him.

  Preston patted me down for a weapon. When he didn’t find one, he let me in the back seat.

  The cops got in the car and took off, Preston driving.

  The car came out of the parking lot and turned right. I was glad. Wherever else we were going, it wasn’t the Dunleavy house.

  I wondered where we were going. In the direction we were heading there were a number of possibilities, most of them bad. We could have been going to the Weasel’s. We could have been going to the Bear’s. We could have been going to chat with Mike Sallingsworth, to see how his story compared with mine. We could have been going to the casinos to play the slots, but somehow I doubted it.

  We didn’t do any of those things. The car left Route 30, made a few turns, and pulled up in front of a house on Mediterranean Avenue.

  Barnes turned around in the front seat. “You know who lives here?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Barnes nodded. “O.K. Get out.”

  We went up on the front porch. It turned out to be one of those two-story frame houses that have been divided up into apartments. In the foyer was a row of bells. Barnes pushed one of them. Seconds later there was a buzz, and he pushed open the inner door.

  We went up a flight of stairs. Barnes knocked on a door. It opened, and a female voice said, “Yes.”

  The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and with Barnes and Preston standing in front of me, I couldn’t see its owner.

  Barnes turned back, put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me forward.

  I saw her, and my heart sank. It was Pudgy, from the Photomat.

  She looked at me, nodded and said, “That’s him.”

  “Are you sure?” Barnes asked.

  “I want to be sure there’s no mistake,” Barnes said. “This is the man who showed up at your Photomat this morning? This is the man who gave the name Robert Fuller, and took the photographs for the Minton agency?”

  “That’s right.”

  Barnes nodded in satisfaction. “Very good. And could you tell me the amount of the bill for those photographs?”

  “I added it up, like you asked me,” Pudgy said. “It came to one hundred seven dollars and ninety-five cents.”

  “Excellent,” Barnes said. “Just enough.”

  He turned to me and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Stanley Hastings,” he said. “You are under arrest.” He clamped the handcuffs on my wrists. “The charge is grand larceny. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent—”

  He went through the rest of it, but I didn’t really hear him. I was too busy kicking myself in the head. Like a schmuck, I’d done it again. I’d fucked myself. Somehow I always seem to. And somehow, I always seem to do it just when I think I’m being so smart.

  This morning, getting those photographs had seemed like a master stroke. I’d bailed out MacAullif’s daughter, got her out of a godawful mess. And I’d done it so easily, and there seemed like no way I could get caught. How the hell was I to know that two people were going to get murdered in the course of the afternoon, blowing the importance of those photographs all out of proportion? But they had, and here I was, fucked again. I’d taken a chance getting the photographs, and it had backfired in my face.

  All things considered, I guess I really deserved it. Somehow it was just my fate to be the scapegoat, the asshole, the fool.

  And I guess it is was only fitting, somehow, what with me being in Atlantic City and all, and having been on the Boardwalk and having taken a Chance, that I should now go directly to Jail, without passing Go and without collecting two hundred dollars.

  18.

  THEY DROVE ME RIGHT to the police station, which was on Bacharach Avenue in the same building as City Hall. Barnes and Preston ushered me into the station, through the reception area, down a hall, and led me to a uniformed officer at a desk.

  “Book him,” Barnes said. “Grand larceny.”

  The cop nodded, fed a form into a typewriter and proceeded to take down the necessary information. I gave him everything he asked for. I wasn’t looking for trouble. I had enough already.

  When he was finished, he unlocked the handcuffs, led me over to a table and took my fingerprints. I’d been fingerprinted before, so I knew the routine. The guy rolled out some ink on a sheet of Plexiglas, then took my fingers one at a time, inked them, and rolled them onto the appropriate places on the card.

  When he was done he gave me a paper towel to wipe my hands and led me into another room to be photographed. He hung a number around my neck and shot me full face. Then he turned me around and shot my profile. I was too distracted to notice whether he got my good side.

  I’d never been through the routine before, but I figured the next procedure would be to take my valuables. Apparently it was, because the cop led me over to a desk with pigeonholes behind it that looked like a lost-and-found.

  Barnes appeared as if on cue and said, “Never mind his valuables. This one’s going to court.”

  The cop gave Barnes a look. He said nothing—after all, he was just a desk cop, and Barnes was from Major Crimes—but he did raise his eyebrows, and I didn’t blame him.

  It was two o’clock in the morning.

  The cop shrugged and gave the handcuffs to Barnes, who clapped them on my wrists again. Sergeant Preston appeared out of nowhere and put his hand on my shoulder.

  I felt as if I were in a dream somehow, as if none of this was real. As if any moment I’d wake up and find out I was still back in college and hadn’t studied for this morning’s English final.

  Instead, Barnes and Preston steered me outside to the police car again. They put me in the back seat, got in and drove off.

  We went a few blocks and pulled into the parking lot of another municipal building. Two cars were parked in the lot, and two men were standing beside ’em, talking. It was dark, but I could see that one of them was a gray-haired, venerable gentleman of about sixty-five, and the other was a dark-haired man approximately my age.

  We got out of the car. Barnes and Preston nodded at the two men, who nodded back and went in a side door of the building. We followed.

  Someone turned on some lights. We went down some halls and through a few doors, and the next thing I knew the five of us were standing in an otherwise empty courtroom.

  The gray-haired gentleman went through a door in the back and reappeared moments later wearing a judge’s robes. He took his place at the judge’s bench.

  Barnes and Preston escorted me up to the bench, and stood with me, one on either side.

  The judge leaned down to the dark-haired gentleman and inquired, “Well, Matt, what do we have here?”

  Matt, who seemed to be an assistant prosecutor of some sort, had a clipboard in his hand. He referred to it.

  “Your Honor, this is the case of one Stanley Hastings, arrested for grand larceny. The charges stem from the unlawful removal of several packages of exposed negatives and developed film belonging to the Minton Detective Agency from the Photomat where they had been left to be processed.”

  “And how was the theft allegedly accomplished?”

  “The defendant secured possession of the film by passing himself off as an employee of the agency, which he is in fact no
t.”

  “What evidence do you have to support this?”

  “We have the eyewitness testimony of one Sheila Burkes, an employee of the Photomat, who absolutely identifies the defendant as the gentleman who secured the film. We also expect to be able to show that the signature, ‘Robert Fuller,’ in the Photomat’s receipt book for the Minton account, is in the handwriting of the defendant. The defendant is neither Robert Fuller nor an employee of the Minton Agency.”

  The judge appeared interested. “Is Robert Fuller an employee of the Minton agency?”

  “No, Your Honor, the defendant gave an entirely fictitious name. However, we are not going into the comparative negligence of the employees of the Photomat at this time. I am merely asking that the defendant be bound over for trial.”

  Something was wrong. I mean aside from the obvious fact that I was about to be indicted for grand larceny, something was terribly wrong.

  The cast of the drama was not complete. There had been one serious omission. And had I been any less overwhelmed by the whole situation, had I been even slightly in possession of my wits and had I not been basically such a shy, retiring, and unassertive person to begin with, what I should have been doing was standing up and screaming, “What the hell is going on here? Hey! Who’s on my side? Where the hell’s the public defender? Where’s my attorney, for Christ’s sake?”

  But being who I am and what I am, and given the circumstances, I just stood there like a clod.

  The judge cocked his head and said, “And what would you recommend with regard to bail?”

  Matt, the presumed assistant prosecutor, said, “The defendant is from out of state.”

  That did it. My heart sank. Suddenly I realized what was going on. I was in a Star-Chamber session, and they were going to fry me. The defendant is from out of state. It was simple, straightforward. I was from out of state and therefore too big a risk for nominal bail. Bail would either be denied or set at such an astronomical sum that I could never raise it, even with a bond.