Stand-up

by Robert J. Randisi

  Books by Robert J. Randisi

  Nick Delvecchio Novels

  The End of Brooklyn *

  The Dead of Brooklyn

  No Exit from Brooklyn

  Miles Jacoby Novels

  Eye in the Ring *

  Beaten to a Pulp *

  Full Contact *

  Separate Cases *

  Hard Look *

  Stand-Up *

  Other Novels

  The Bottom of Every Bottle *

  Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

  Luck Be a Lady, Don’t Die

  Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime

  Alone With the Dead

  Arch Angels

  East of the Arch

  Blood on the Arch

  In the Shadow of the Arch

  Short Stories

  The Guilt Edge *

  Anthologies (Editor)

  The Shamus Winner Volume I (1982-1995) *

  The Shamus Winners Volume II (1996-2009) *

  *Published by Perfect Crime Books

  STAND-UP. Copyright © 2012, 1994 by Robert J. Randisi. Afterword Copyright © 2012 by Robert J. Randisi. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored by any means without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Crime@PerfectCrimeBooks.com.

  Perfect Crime BooksTM is a registered Trademark.

  Cover by Christopher Mills.

  Visit www.PerfectCrimeBooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, entities and institutions are products of the Author’s imagination and do not refer to actual persons, entities, or institutions.

  Perfect Crime Books Trade Paperback Edition

  July 2012

  Kindle Edition July 2012

  To Marthayn

  For showing me how to

  stand up again

  Prologue

  Why is it that death is such a part of our everyday life, but when we are confronted with it we’re surprised?

  From the health club where Joy White worked I walked to her apartment on Horatio Street. I’d interviewed her once already during my search for Ray Carbone, but now I needed to talk to her again. I rang her buzzer but there was no answer. I didn’t know where her fire escape was, even if her building had one, so I pressed one of the other buzzers.

  “Whataya want?”

  “Pizza.”

  “Didn’t order any.”

  I pressed another.

  “Who is it?”

  “Pizza.”

  “What?”

  On the fifth buzzer, it worked.

  “Pizza.”

  “It’s about time.”

  They buzzed me in. Somebody’s always ordering pizza.

  I took the stairs two at a time, feeling a sense of urgency. As I approached Joy’s door I didn’t know how I was going to get it open, considering the number of locks she had. As it turned out it wasn’t a problem. I turned the knob and the door opened.

  “Shit.”

  I didn’t have a gun and I didn’t know what to expect inside. I heard a door open on the floor above me and somebody yelled, “Hey, where’s my pizza?”

  I stepped into Joy’s apartment.

  The kitchen was a shambles. Somehow the kitchen table had collapsed, the legs flat underneath it, as if a great weight had fallen on it.

  There were only three rooms and I could see them all from where I stood. They were the same, torn up as if by a tornado. Or a fight.

  I walked through the bedroom into the living room. The mattress had been pulled off the bed, and the sofa cushions were on the floor. None of these items had been slit, so it wasn’t as if someone was searching for something. With the table lamps in pieces on the floor, it still looked as if there had been a fight. If there had been, where was the loser?

  There was still the bathroom to check. As I opened the door, I saw an arm and a leg hanging out of the tub. I moved closer and saw Joy White lying inside. Her eyes were closed, and the skin around them had been battered and bruised. Blood had dripped from her mouth onto her chin. The clothes she was wearing—a blouse and a pair of jeans—had been torn in a way that was not stylish. The skin on her hands was cracked and bloody, and I could see that some of her nails had been torn.

  No question but that she was dead.

  I backed out of the bathroom feeling sick, staggered to the phone, and called 911. I then put in a call to a friend of mine, Detective Hocus from the Major Case Squad, and told him that I might need a reference.

  “What else is new?”

  1

  Walker Blue and I had worked together—sort of—a few years ago, but since that time we’d seen very little of each other.

  Walker is generally considered to be the best private investigator in New York. He may even be the best in the business. That’s why I found it curious to receive an invitation from him to have lunch at the Russian Tea Room about a week or so before finding Joy White’s body in her bathtub.

  Okay, I admit it. I’d never been inside the Russian Tea Room, on Fifty-seventh Street, just to the left of Carnegie Hall. I’d passed it many times and had almost given in to the urge to peek inside, but even doing that would have made me feel foolish. I’ve just never had the kind of clientele, or business, that warranted eating there. The fanciest place I’d eaten with a client had probably been the Top of the Sixes, the very top of 666 Fifth Avenue—certainly not on a par with the Russian Tea Room or with Tavern on the Green, The Rainbow Room, or The Four Seasons, also restaurants I’d never been to.

  Slightly intimidated by having lunch in a place that caters to celebrities on a daily basis, I went so far as to wear a tie. Just inside the revolving door is a coat room and a maître d’s stand. Off the right is the stairway that leads up to the cabaret.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the maître d’ asked. He had the good taste not to look down his nose at me, even though he might have—I was grossly out of place.

  “Yes, I’m meeting someone.”

  “May I ask whom?”

  “Walker Blue?”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Blue has arrived. This way, please.”

  He led me past the red leather booths which I had only previously seen when somebody—who was it?—made me watch Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. Walker was sitting at a table for four, looking at ease and comfortable—and much thinner than I remembered him. There was also more gray in his hair, which still came to a wicked widow’s peak.

  “Mr. Blue? Your guest has arrived.”

  Walker looked up. “Thanks, Henry.”

  Henry turned to me. “Enjoy your lunch, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  He held my chair. There was already a menu waiting for me on the table.

  One of the things I liked about Walker was that, as in control as he was of every situation, he did not take liberties.

  For instance, he said to me, “I haven’t ordered yet. I thought you’d like to look at the menu.”

  “Thanks, Walker.”

  Since he had obviously decided what he was going to have, I made a quick choice and picked chicken Kiev. The waiter came over, wearing red trousers and a white cossack shirt. We gave our order—Walker ordered goulash—and for a drink I ordered a Russian beer. The waiter told me the brand, but I forgot it the moment he walked away. Walker had been nursing a glass of white wine while waiting for me, and now he ordered a vodka that was a specialty of the house.

  I took a long look at him. He was wearing a double-breasted charcoal-gray suit that looked like silk. Knowing Walker, it probably was, as was the tie. Walker had always been a sharp dresser, but I thought he needed some color.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, Walker, you look t
hinner than I remember.”

  “And grayer,” he added, touching his hair lightly. “The truth of the matter is I’m grayer because I’m older. I’m thinner, however, because I recently had a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  He waved my apology away impatiently.

  “My doctor advised losing weight, if you can believe it.”

  “And you’re having goulash?”

  He eyed me peevishly for a moment.

  “Hey, it’s none of my business.”

  “Every so often,” he said, carefully, “I treat myself—like today.”

  “Fine. Maybe you can treat me now?”

  He looked a question at me.

  “Tell me why you called me? We don’t usually run in the same circles.”

  “We are not so different, you and I.”

  That surprised me.

  “In fact, it is my heart attack, in part, that prompted me to call you.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve been thinking of expanding.”

  “Expanding.”

  “My practice.”

  Lawyers have practices, so do doctors. I never thought of a private investigator as having a practice.

  “In what way?”

  “I would like to take someone on to share the workload.”

  “Someone?”

  “Well . . . obviously, I am offering the position to you first.”

  “Me?”

  A second surprise.

  The waiter came with our drinks. He set my beer and a glass down in front of me. Walker’s vodka was served in what looked like a small vase, and that was set in a bowl of crushed ice. Next to it the waiter set a small glass.

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  As Henry left I said, “You eat here a lot?”

  “Occasionally I meet clients here,” Walker said. “You would not have to do that if you didn’t want to.”

  “What would I have to do, Walker?”

  “Basically what you do now, only for more money.”

  It was not said as an insult, just a fact.

  “You would bring in cases and work on them. On occasion I would bring in a case that we would both have to work on. Um, there will be the odd occasion when something, uh, physical would have to be done. That would fall to you.”

  “Are we talking about strong-arm stuff?” I asked. I felt the hair on my neck bristle.

  “No, no . . .” He sat back and seemed annoyed, more with himself than with me. “I’m talking about things I can no longer do because of my . . . condition. Surveillance, long trips out of town, that sort of thing.”

  “I see.”

  It bothered Walker to have to do this. He’d been running an extremely successful one-man shop for years, once in a while subcontracting a job out when he needed help. Having to hire someone full-time to do the thing he used to do irked him, and I could see why.

  “I have a question.”

  “Because you are reliable, intelligent, and honest.”

  I stared at him.

  “You were about to ask why you, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, that’s my answer.”

  “And now you want mine.”

  “Not right away. We can eat lunch, and then when you leave you can think it over.”

  “I would like to think it over. I mean, it’s a big move for me. I’m used to working for myself. I don’t think I’d be real good at punching a time clock—”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. I am not asking you to become my employee. I am asking you to become my partner.”

  I was speechless, and tried to cover that fact by taking in some beer.

  “A full partner?”

  “Well, not quite a full partner, but we can work out percentages later. I would like to maintain the controlling interest . . . but your name would go on the door.”

  “Blue & Jacoby?”

  He winced, and I couldn’t blame him. It sounded awful.

  “I don’t think that would be necessary, Walker. If I came aboard I think you should keep the name ‘Walker Blue Investigations’.”

  “Or we could go to ‘Walker Blue Associates’.”

  “That would be fine, too . . . if I come aboard.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I mean, now that I know you’re talking about a partnership it’s an even bigger decision.”

  “I understand that.”

  The waiter came with lunch and we waited while he placed steaming plates on the table.

  I had been working on my own since the death of my friend and mentor, Eddie Waters. It was during my investigation of Eddie’s death that I had originally met Walker, who respected Eddie tremendously. Since then I had quit boxing to work as a full-time investigator, and over the past few years I had been learning my craft. Well, I still had a lot to learn, and who better to learn it from than Walker Blue?

  After the waiter had gone I looked at Walker and said, “Okay, I’ve thought about it.”

  “You accept my offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said with a nod. He poured some of the chilled vodka into his glass and lifted it. “We’ll work out the details later. For now, here’s to a successful partnership.”

  I lifted my beer and said, “To success.”

  Wouldn’t that be a nice change?

  2

  Starting a partnership does not get accomplished overnight. Lawyers have to get involved, papers have to be drawn up and signed—and co-signed—and Walker decided we would move to a larger location so that we would each have our own office. He also intended to hire a second woman to work in the office, basically as my secretary.

  So for a few weeks I would still be working out of Packy’s, the bar in the Village I had inherited a little while ago after Packy, its owner and my friend, was killed.

  Working with Walker would undoubtedly put me in another tax bracket, so I’d probably have to decide if I should keep the bar.

  I enjoy working at Packy’s, and I like the people who work for me—especially my manager, a black female bodybuilder named Geneva. She is possibly the coolest person I’ve ever known. At twenty-four she’d been in New York for almost four years, working for me for the last six months or so. She’d moved from New Jersey, so culture shock had not been a factor. I’d made her my manager after about a month, and it was working out perfectly.

  Both of my bartenders have hit on Geneva mercilessly, but she knows how to handle them. I hadn’t hit on her myself, yet, but it was hard not to watch her when we were working the same shift. Knowing her had taught me that female bodybuilders are not at all unfeminine. Dressed casually, she looked like any well-toned, beautiful young woman. The only time she looked muscular was when she pumped herself up for a contest. In fact, I had attended two of the contests, cheering her on to two top-three finishes. She wants to turn pro eventually, but so far she’s just competed in the amateur ranks.

  Geneva was one of the few people I told about the partnership with Walker Blue. In fact, I mentioned it to her the next day.

  “Who is Walker Blue?”

  We were behind the bar, and it was a slow April afternoon. The weather was so nice that we had the door propped open.

  “He’s probably the best P.I. in the business.”

  “Colorful name. Is he like that?”

  “You mean colorful? I wouldn’t say that. He’s very distinguished.”

  “Distinguished? You mean tight-assed.”

  Geneva has her own dress code. That day she was wearing a sleeveless purple sweatshirt with a pink spandex sports top underneath. I enjoyed watching the muscles in her forearms and biceps when she was washing glasses. She had taken to wearing baggy tops around the bar because customers would make comments about the fact that she was well endowed. She sometimes complained that the only thing that would keep her from being a champion bodybuilder was �
�big tits.”

  “I don’t think he’s tight-assed . . . exactly.”

  “So what’s this partnership gonna mean for us?”

  By “us” she meant herself and our two bartenders, Ed and Marty. Ed had worked the place for Packy, while I had allowed Geneva to hire Marty.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You mean you’d close Packy’s? After all our work?”

  I looked around. The place had changed. Packy’d run it as a shot and a beer bar, but since Geneva had come on board and put some of her ideas into action, we catered to a more upscale crowd, and we’d expanded our menu so we even had a lunch rush . . . sometimes. The place had turned a profit the past two months for the first time since I’d taken it over.

  “Not close it.”

  “Then sell it?”

  I hesitated, then said, “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do, Gen.”

  “But you are goin’ into partnership with this high-priced, tight-assed dude?”

  “I’m going into partnership with Walker, yes.”

  “Well, you will tell us before you do somethin’, won’t you?” We wouldn’t need ice for a week.

  “Give me a break, Gen. I won’t do anything without telling you guys first.”

  “You better not.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh, by the way,” she said then, “you got a letter today. It’s by the register.”

  I figured we’d discussed the other matter enough for one day, so I walked over to the cash register. The letter was from Cathy Merrill, a lady cop I’d met in Tampa. She had helped me with a case, and we’d ended up in bed; since then we’d had sort of a long-distance relationship via letters and an occasional phone call. All in all, it was the longest and most successful relationship I’d had in some time, the distance probably being a big factor:

  “From that gal of yours in Florida?” Gen asked.