I walked quietly down those stairs. What I confronted was totally unexpected: Big Daddy, the man I hated most in this world, wearing a burgundy bath robe, pin-striped pajamas and flip-flops. I brought up my gun, expecting trouble, but the other man put his hands up quickly and his eyes widened.
“Roland Longville. I knew you’d find us sooner or later,” he said softly.
“Where’s the girl?” I asked, expecting anything. I was surprised when he let out what seemed to be a huge sigh of relief and nodded down the hall.
“She’s down there, doped up pretty bad. You’ll get her out of here, won’t you?”
I looked at Big Daddy intently. “What’s your game?”
Big Daddy shrugged. “No game, just take her and go. But not to her old man. She’d be better off where she’s at.”
I had no idea what to make of Big Daddy’s compliant and reasonable behavior. I was willing to go with it, for now, though, if it meant getting Connie Patrick the hell out of this place.
“Which door?” I kept the gun on Big Daddy. “No tricks.”
“No tricks. Last door on the left.” Big Daddy kept his hands calmly elevated, looking like some kind of monk with his purple robe and serene expression.
I went down the hall. When I came to the door Big Daddy pointed me to, I pushed it gently open.
Vince got me by surprise. He came out of the door across the hall and behind me, quick and silent, and brought up a brown tattooed fist and caught me a blinding jab on the corner of the jaw. I was bigger but the punch had oomph, and I felt my knees go out from under me.
Vince kicked at my gun hand, once, twice, and the .45 spun away from me. Then he brought something down on the back of my head, what must have been a sap, because I felt its weight and a single quick slap from it made me see stars and brought darkness to the edges of my vision.
Vince’s foot caught me under the chin, and I tasted coppery blood in my mouth. I rolled back and tried to catch my breath.
I heard Vince run away a few steps and I knew he was going for the .45, and I knew that I had about two seconds to stop him or I was a dead man. I shook my head and tried to get to my feet but my vision stubbornly refused to clear, and my head was a watery weight on my shoulders.
When I finally struggled to my feet, Vince was standing at the end of the hallway with my .45 in his hand. He had a smirk on his face, but something else was behind it. He looked like a man who was trying hard to figure out his next move.
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth. I thought back to a girl named Lena, dead in a filthy alley, years before, dead with a needle in her arm, and how Vince had walked away from all of that, just to come here and make victims out of other girls, and now he was going to make a victim out of me, too.
Suddenly the quizzical look on Vince’s face cleared. He’d figured out his problem, and he explained his solution to me.
“I caught you in here, doing drugs with the girl.” He was thinking out loud. “We fought and I had to shoot you.”
“It’ll never hold up,” I said. “Too many people know why I came here. Too many people have helped me find you. People who now know where Connie Patrick is.”
“Those people can be hushed up. You ain’t gonna be around to tell your end of it, anyway. The little bitch is a junkie, and junkies die every day—as I am sure you recall.”
Vince smiled. I stood for a moment and glowered at him, despite his words, he still didn’t raise the gun.
“I owe you,” was all that I could manage to say, before my voice became a murderous animal growl. Then, with a cry of rage from deep within my being, I rushed him. He reacted too late, and I was on him. We came together with a bestial ferocity, and we both knew that only one of us was going to walk away alive, because one was going to make sure the other ended up dead.
Vince swung the .45 like a club and caught me on the temple, as we both crashed into the wall. I was still somewhat stunned, and the sharp blow brought wavering ripples of darkness back into my vision. Vince dropped and rolled, got back on his feet, the gun still in his hand.
“I’m through messing with you,” he said, and leveled the gun at me. I was on all fours on the floor, shaking my head. He had me; there was nothing more I could do.
Then someone shot Vince. He took one round in his meaty torso, and another high in the left shoulder. He turned and looked upward, to where Big Daddy stood on the stairs, a little automatic held tightly in both hands.
“You stupid son of a—” Vince growled and fired the .45 into Big Daddy, one, two, three times. Big Daddy slid down immediately, but he brought the little gun up, and shot Vince three more times. Then it was deathly quiet in the hall for a few moments. Both men lay there. Vince started making a horrible snoring sound as his lungs began filling with his own blood.
I got shakily to my feet and went over to where Big Daddy lay. Here before me was the man I had dreamed of killing a million times. I wanted to kill him for what he had done to a lost and helpless girl, more than five long years before. Now I looked at the dying man and wished I could help him. I didn’t understand what had happened, why he had tried to help me. I knelt beside him, but I could tell there was nothing I could do.
Big Daddy looked down at the bloody place on his shirt that was growing larger by the second. His eyes were glowing glassy. His lips moved, mouthing words, and his eyes rose up to look into my face. I realized that he was trying to say something, and I bent close, still expecting to hear curses pour forth from the dying man’s mouth. There were tears in his eyes and a strange smile on his face. Instead of curses, I heard Big Daddy say faintly, “Goodbye, Shangri-La.”
I went to Connie then. I untied her bonds and stood over her, tried to hear her breathing. But I didn’t hear anything. I detected a faint heartbeat, but that rapidly grew weaker until it was gone. I gathered her in my arms, this lost young woman whom I had never met in life, and my heartbeat slowed in my chest and my breath would not come. Connie Patrick was dead, used up and lost and cast aside and ultimately dead, just like the nameless girl who had been found dead in the Cahaba River, just like another dead girl from years before, and the world was full of the lost and the misused and dying, and that wasn’t the way it had to be, but that was the way it was. Then I, Roland Longville, big tough private detective, held the dead girl, and cried.
Chapter 22
It was raining when I got back to Mountainbrook I punched in the code that I had gotten from Baucom over the phone and drove up to Senator Patrick’s house. The door was open and I went right in. There was no one in the front room as I entered, but I didn’t expect there to be. I went to the Senator’s office, expecting to find him there, but it was empty. It was then I heard the music coming from upstairs.
“I cried, oh, lady midnight, I fear that you grow old,
The stars eat your body and the wind makes you cold.
If we cry now, she said, it will just be ignored”
Lady Midnight. Connie’s favorite song.
I went slowly up the stairs, and found Senator Patrick sitting on Connie’s bed. The turntable was on, and the record was playing at a loud volume. He was facing away from me, but he knew I was there. On the bed next to him was a revolver, which he quickly picked up. He then rose and turned to face me. The great man’s eyes were streaming with tears. We stood and faced each other across Constance’s bed, where so many evil things had been done to her.
“I was afraid it would be you, Mr. Longville,” he managed in a steady voice.
“Why?” I asked. “Because if I survived you knew that your secrets would become known? That you would never be elected Governor, or run for President of the United States?”
Senator Patrick shook his head sadly. “No. Not only that. Because if you came here, it means that Pitman and Grant are both dead. I can’t say that I regret that, either; they were traitors to me, after all. As you know, I had sent them to find my daughter, and keep all of this quiet, and they turned on me. They entere
d into a plot with those other filthy men to blackmail me. But if they are dead, it also means that I have failed to keep these private matters a secret any longer. It means that you know everything, and further, that my political career is therefore effectively over and you are here to exact retribution for my misdeeds.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you, Patrick. Connie and Randy Cross, both of your children, are dead. You sacrificed your own children rather than have your past catch up with you, so that you could still achieve your ambitions. A man named Bowman is also dead, and so are four other people, that I know of, all because of you.”
He said nothing to that, so I went on.
“All of them dead because of your ambition, because that ambition was more important to you than anything else, or anyone. They were killed to keep your filthy past under wraps.”
I looked around the room, that monument to a childhood spoiled and lost. It looked just like any other young girl’s room, full of pink things and stuffed toys and all the trappings of innocence, and it suddenly seemed like a travesty and a lie, and that made me even angrier. The fact that Senator Patrick was standing there in the middle of that little room seemed to somehow frame him as the architect of all of the lies that had branched out from that child’s bedroom. All Patrick’s evil had come to find him here, where it had started, here at the endgame.
“I do pity your daughter, Senator. I know how she suffered, why she suffered. I know what you did to her. When you paid that blackmail money you also paid two pushers who were keeping her stoned and locked away so you could get ahead politically. You knew where Connie was all along. Sure, they were blackmailing you, at first, Vince and Big Daddy just going along with it. But you sent Grant and Bowman to find Connie and get that recording from her. You never cared if they were able to find her, or bring her home. You were just protecting yourself.”
Patrick, quietly stood there, listening impassively. I pressed on: “Once he found out what your daughter’s secret was, Bowman didn’t want to work for you anymore. You didn’t count on someone still having morals these days. Both he and his partner figured you were a lowlife. But while Bowman went to find Baucom in Birmingham and tell him what he had discovered, his partner, Grant, got other ideas. While Bowman wanted the truth about you to come out, Grant figured that he might as well squeeze you for all the money he could get. That meant Bowman was a liability. So Grant sent Pitman, his old friend and ex-police partner, to kill Bowman. Too bad for you that I just happened to see him do it.”
I paused for a moment and looked at Senator Patrick’s eyes, which were glassy and wet. His lower lip trembled, but he still stood there silently and let me go on.
“Now Grant and Pitman are dead, too, because of their greed. All of those people are dead because of you, Senator Patrick, and if exposing all of that ruins you, that is maybe the only good that will come of any of it.”
The older man nodded dourly. At last, he spoke. “You’re right, in a way, Roland. I came from nothing. I grew up poor, just like you, and, like you, I had to make my own way in the world. It was hard, living down here in the South, when I was young. Work was scarce, and what work there was, was tough going. But the South began to change, and new opportunities came my way. I got it all by myself. By working hard at my education, and in public service, I pulled myself up in the world. A man like me is subject to enormous pressure. I cannot be anything other than perfect in the public eye. I admit that in my weakest moments I succumbed to a strange fascination with my own daughter. Yes, there, I admit it. As the years wore on, I tried to fight it, but I always came back to her. She tried to run away many times, but she had problems. I arranged to have it all kept quiet, her drug use, her . . . other problems.”
Senator Patrick looked at me with a strange desperation in his eyes. “But I am a strong man, stronger than most, you see. I have great will and great determination. Most people laugh at such qualities these days, but those people will never achieve what I have achieved. I have gotten where I am because of the type of man that I am. I have won great battles, and in order to do so I have taken great risks. And yes, I have sinned great sins. I tried to keep those sins from destroying the great gains my victories in life had brought me, but I have failed. And now, I pay the price for my failure, as all great men do.”
With those words, Senator Patrick raised the gun to his temple and fired. He fell, face forward, across his dead daughter’s bed, the altar of both of their ruin.
Chapter 23
I was sitting in my office a couple of days later, when the door pushed open, and Baucom entered without a word. I rose and we shook hands.
“I just came by to tell you that I didn’t know about the girl, that she was being kept somewhere. And I assure you that I had no idea that Senator Patrick knew, either.”
I smiled a grim smile and nodded. “The police believed you, like they believed me, Mr. Baucom, or we wouldn’t be sitting here talking it over.”
“I realize that. But do you believe me?”
“So you had no idea that Anthony Herron, or the story about Connie’s grandfather’s recent death were lies, too?”
Baucom shook his head, and blushed deeply. “I know I must seem like a fool to you, Mr. Longville, but I believed in Senator Patrick. He was a populist, a man of the people. I agreed with his political stance on many things, still do. But I had no idea what kind of man he really was underneath any of that. I didn’t involve myself in his personal life. I came here today to let you know that. I thought Patrick trusted me enough to let me in on what was going on in his life. Instead he used me for his own ends, ends which were despicable. I want you to know that.”
“You’re off the hook, so why do you care what I think?” I asked, maybe just to see the man’s reaction, more than anything.
“Because I was the one who came to you with this case; I feel responsible.”
“You were doing your job, the same as me. You had no choice but to bring me the case. But, since it’s important to you, I’ll tell you . . . yes, I do believe you.”
Baucom nodded, and looked like someone had relieved him of about nine hundred pounds of dead weight. “Thank you for that. I’ve tried my whole life to do the right thing. I’m an honest man, and I still think honesty is important, Mr. Longville. Integrity is important. We live in an age when people have lost the meaning of honesty and integrity, and they can’t see the price they’re paying for it every day.”
“You should run for office,” I said, and I meant it.
“I never thought about a career in politics for myself.”
“Guys like you never do, but guys like you are the very ones who should. You’re honest, and have a sense of honor. It would be good if someone like you was running things for a change.”
“Do those things really count for anything, anymore?”
“You’re the one who still believes in honesty and integrity, Mr. Baucom. You tell me.”
“Call me Adam.”
“Okay, Adam. Then, call me Roland.”
We shook hands again, and maybe this time was the first time it meant something. “Well, thanks for talking with me,“ he said. “I needed to hear all of it. I had to know that you and I were clear.”
“We’re clear, Adam.”
Baucom closed the door quietly behind him, and was gone. And that was an end to the whole sorry tale, I figured. But there was one last thing.
* * *
On a cool day a few weeks later, I was walking up to the Brooks Building when I was intercepted by a slender figure in a yellow dress. She came up on me from behind, her step so light that I didn’t hear her approach. She moved suddenly around in front of me as I was opening the lobby door, and before I could react, squealed and gave me a hug.
It was Denise McManus, the girl formerly known as Nookie Uberalles.
I smiled and let go of the door, and hugged her back. “Denise. What a surprise.”
“Mr. Roland Longville, Private Eye!” Denise laughed, and
pointed her finger at me like a gun, and made a little shooting sound. “It took me a while to find you. You didn’t tell me you worked out of Birmingham, I had to find out from the newspapers.”
“Sorry. I was more concerned with the business at hand.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that after everything that happened, I decided to get my life together. I’m clean. I mean it. I’m going to stay that way.”
“That’s great, Denise I wish you the best of luck.”
Denise McManus stood there smiling. It was an infectious smile, or maybe it was just the beautiful, sunny day, because I realized that I was smiling back at her.
“Is there somewhere around here we can get some coffee?” she asked, and put out her arm.
The birds in the trees were chirping busily. It really was a fine day for a walk. I took her arm. “There’s a place called Sally’s Diner, right across the way here,” I volunteered.
“Well lead on, then, Roland,” she said brightly, and so we walked that way, together, off into the fine afternoon.
* * *
That night, as I sat in my office, the telephone rang. It was Les Broom. “How are things, partner?” he said.
“Fine, Les.” I still felt a little giddy from that afternoon.
It had been too long since I’d spent that much quality time with a pretty girl.
“Well, you are famous down at headquarters, again, for wrapping up the Bowman murder for us. Not often a Private catches the bad guys for us. Except for you. You seem to do it with some regularity, not that we’re complaining.”
“Not like you guys need my help. Sometimes I get lucky.”
“Well, now for the real reason I called. I just wanted you to know that we’re having a little party of sorts down at the Double Nickels tonight. This call is to notify you that Detective Cassandra Taylor finished her probation period and is getting formally sworn in as a detective, so there’s a little celebration. Around nine, and you’re officially invited.”
I smiled. The Double Nickels was the ‘officially unofficial’ cops and firemen-only bar where Birmingham’s First Responders gathered when off the clock.
Lady Midnight Page 11
