Die Laughing: 5 Comic Crime Novels

by Steve Brewer

  “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 not.”

  “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.

  It was the last straw. Even cowardly, ineffectual little me was about to protest, when Matt went on, “However, the defendant is a family man. He has a wife and child. He resides in New York City and is employed by a Manhattan law firm. It should be no problem keeping in touch with him, and under the circumstances, even should he leave the state, extradition should not be difficult. Therefore, I recommend that the defendant be released on his own recognizance.”

  I confess to not having the best poker face in the world. My jaw dropped open.

  However, the judge nodded, as if all that made perfect sense, instead of being totally off the wall.

  “Very well,” he said. “The defendant is hereby bound over for trial, ordered not to leave the jurisdiction of the court, and released on his own recognizance.”

  He banged the gavel and that was that. Barnes and Preston guided me from the courtroom, the lights were switched off and before it all really had time to register I was back in the car again, totally baffled, and wondering what the fuck was going on.

  19.

  CONFUSED AS I WAS, foggy as I was, tired as I was, when we pulled out of the parking lot and started tooling down Atlantic Avenue, I was still alert enough to realize one thing: we weren’t heading home.

  And I was still wearing handcuffs.

  Now I am admittedly no expert in these matters, but it certainly seemed to me that when cops released you, they took the handcuffs off.

  Barnes and Preston hadn’t said a word. I realized that was probably a tactic on their part. I realized they were probably waiting for me to ask questions. And I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. But I couldn’t help myself. I broke.

  “Where we going?” I said.

  Barnes turned around in the front seat.

  Before he could say anything, Preston turned his head. “Why tell him?” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “He isn’t telling us anything.”

  “He might.”

  “Screw him. He had his chance.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Aw, screw him.”

  I knew what was going on. They were playing good cop/bad cop. Preston was well cast in the role of bad cop, what with being six-foot-four, and all. As he turned to talk to Barnes, I noticed he had a scar on his right cheek. I hadn’t seen it before, and I wondered if I only noticed it now because he was playing bad cop.

  I was almost glad they were doing it. It was at least a familiar routine, something I recognized from detective fiction. I could deal with it.


  They stopped, however. Barnes shrugged, said, “O.K.,” and turned around in the seat again.

  It was disappointing. It also impelled me to want to talk. I sat on the urge. I contented myself with looking out the window and trying to figure out where we were heading.

  We turned right onto Route 40 and headed north. After what seemed an interminable period, we hung a left onto a two-lane blacktop road. A few miles down the road, the car slowed in front on a huge building that looked like a hospital. A sign on the lawn said, “ATLANTIC COUNTY FACILITIES AT NORTH FIELD.”

  We pulled into the driveway and drove around the building. There was another building in the back. Preston pulled up next to it and parked.

  They got me out of the car and led me to the building. A sign on it said, “ATLANTIC CITY PROSECUTOR.” We went up a flight of stone steps to a door. The sign on the door said “MAJOR CRIMES.”

  I couldn’t see the theft of some photographs as a major crime, somehow. Murder seemed a little more like it.

  We went in the door, down a flight of steps, and through another door, to a small room with two desks. A bleary-eyed cop was sitting at one of them, drinking coffee and looking bored.

  “Hi, Hank,” Barnes said. “Interrogation free?”

  The cop chuckled and shot a look at the clock on the wall. It was after three. “I would think so,” he said.

  Barnes grinned, and Preston escorted me through a door and into a small room. He took out the key to the handcuffs, which, I must say, was a tremendous relief. He unlocked one wrist. Before I knew what was happening, he threaded the handcuffs through a steel ring attached to the wall, and snapped the cuff back on my wrist again.

  On his way out, he cocked his head over his shoulder and said, “Don’t go away.”

  I assumed it was a joke.

  I didn’t find it funny.

  About a half hour later Barnes came in. I wondered if he was still playing good cop.

  He was.

  He took out a key and unlocked the handcuffs. He pulled out a chair at the table and invited me to sit down. I did. He sat down opposite me.