Stand-up

by Robert J. Randisi

“Can I see those?”

  “Why?”

  “I’d just like to see as much as I can.”

  He shrugged and said, “Come on.” He showed me the other rooms, which were down the hall, one on the same side as Stan’s and the other across the way. They were almost identical to Stan’s.

  “Is there a back door?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was like pulling teeth. “Show me.”

  He led me to the very end of the hall; a quick right and we were standing at another metal door. I tried it and found it locked. “Is it always locked?”

  “Always.”

  “Is this ‘always’ the same as your ‘nobody’?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who has keys?”

  “I do.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “So there was no way for someone to kill Waldrop and then get out this way?”

  “Not without my keys.” As soon as he said it, his eyes went wide. “Hey, wait a minute—”

  “Relax,” I said, “I’m not looking to pin this on you. What’s outside this door?”

  “The alley, some garbage pails, that’s it.”

  “Show me.”

  “The keys are in my desk.” I stared at him.

  “You always keep the keys in your desk instead of on you?”

  “No, not always.”

  “But enough so that somebody might have been able to make a copy?”

  “Who would make a copy?”

  I glared at him this time and said, “Somebody who wanted to kill Stan Waldrop and then get out this door.”

  “Shit,” he said under his breath, coming down very hard on the “t.”

  “Any security back here during the show?”

  “No, the security is out front to keep anyone from getting back here.”

  “Well, that’s something. That means that no strangers could have gotten back here before the show last night?”

  “That’s right. We don’t want the performers havin’ to deal with fans before they go on.”

  “Twenty bucks in a security man’s hand might make the difference, though, huh?”

  “It would cost him his job.”

  And a high-paying, fringe-benefit cram-packed job it was too, I was sure.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ve seen enough.”

  As he led me to the front door he asked, “What are you gonna tell Healy?”

  “I’ll tell him I made some suggestions to you. If you take them, then he might continue to place his talent here.”

  “What suggestions?”

  “Keep your keys on you at all times, hire reliable security men, keep one out front and one in the hall outside the dressing rooms. That should do it.”

  “That’s gonna cost me.”

  Just before I stepped out the door back into the light I said, “It’ll cost you more if you don’t do it.”

  27

  At three-thirty I left Packy’s and walked to the Sixth Precinct. I presented myself at the desk and said I wanted to see Detective Pell.

  “Hang on,” the desk sergeant said. He dialed the phone, spoke a few words, then leaned over and asked, “Who are you?”

  “Jacoby.”

  “Says his name’s Jacoby,” I heard him relay. “Okay.”

  He hung up and asked, “You know where it is?”

  “I know.”

  “Go ahead up.”

  “Thanks.”

  I took the stairs to the second floor and the squad room. I’d been there once or twice in the past, but not enough to recognize the faces I saw at the desks, or for them to recognize me.

  “Mr. Jacoby,” Pell said from his desk. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just wanted to check in with you, see what you found out last night.”

  He was sitting behind his desk in a short-sleeved shirt. He wasn’t muscular, but I could see that his arms were hard. He worked out.

  “Why? Are you working for someone?”

  “No,” I said, and then added, “at least not on an active murder case.”

  “Ah, then what’s your interest?”

  “I think it will tie in with something else I’m working on.”

  “And who is your client?”

  “Stan Waldrop.”

  He stared at me a moment. “The dead man?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let me get this straight . . . you’re working for a dead man?”

  “Let me explain,” I said. “Waldrop hired me two days ago to find out who was stealing his material. He paid me for several days in advance. I still feel a responsibility to him to try.”

  Considering how clean Stilwell said Pell was, I thought this was an argument that the young man would appreciate.

  “Responsibility to a dead man?”

  “Sounds dumb when you say it like that,” I said, “but yeah.”

  He studied me for a few moments, probably trying to figure out if I was putting him on. I looked around and saw his partner slouched at the next desk, listening. The look on his face said that he knew I was slinging enough shit to bury us all. I figured the truth was somewhere between what he thought and what Pell was thinking.

  “No, not dumb,” he said finally. “I guess it’s admirable . . . in a way.”

  “Look,” I said, “if I keep looking for the stolen material maybe I’ll come up with something I can pass on to you.”

  “And vice versa?”

  “If you’ve a mind to, yeah.”

  “What’s this material look like?”

  “It was in a computer.”

  “Hard disk? Floppy?” I didn’t know any more about that than I had last night.

  “I don’t really know what those words mean, Pell.”

  “If it was in his hard disk somebody could have accessed his computer by modem, but to do that they would have had to know the file name—unless, of course, he filed it as ‘jokes’, or something like that.”

  “What do you say, Detective?” I asked. “An exchange of information?”

  “Don’t do it,” Matthews called out.

  Pell looked at him.

  “He’s playin’ you, junior.”

  “I’ve asked you not to call me that.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever, this dick is probably playin’ on the fact that you’re inexperienced. You’re lucky I’m here to stop you from makin’ a big mistake.”

  “It’s my case, Matthews, and I’ll conduct it as I see fit.” Pell turned his eyes from his partner and looked at me. “If you’re playing me for a sucker, Jacoby, you’ll be sorry.”

  I probably would have taken that threat a little more seriously if he hadn’t had such a baby face.

  “You’ll get everything I get, Detective.”

  “I can’t make you the same promise, but I will try to give you anything I think will be helpful.”

  I frowned to show I didn’t like it much.

  “I guess that’s as good as I’m going to get, huh?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning to leave, “I just didn’t want you thinking I was getting in your way.”

  “You get in my way, dick,” Matthews said, “and I’ll roll right over you.”

  I probably would have taken that threat a little more seriously if he hadn’t been such an obvious burnout.

  “I’ll remember that . . . Detective.”

  I looked at Pell, took out a business card, and handed it to him.

  “I don’t remember if you took my number last night.”

  He took my card, glanced at it, and then put it down on his desk very carefully.

  “Just remember what I said.”

  I wanted to tell him that I thought we were all done with threats, but I decided to get out of there with our new state of cooperation intact instead of saying something that would shatter it before we even got started.

  28

  From a pay phone I called Joy’s number again and there was no a
nswer. If she wasn’t home at this time of the evening, I thought maybe she’d be at the small storefront health club on Eighth Street in the West Village. I grabbed a cab and had him drop me at Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, right in front of the big B. Dalton bookstore. The health club she worked at was just down the street from where the Eighth Street Cinema used to be.

  The place had a front that was almost all glass, with some vertical blinds on the inside. The blinds were tilted so that no one looking in could see the leotard-clad women doing their step aerobics.

  I walked in and my nostrils were immediately assailed by the scent of women exerting themselves. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that women don’t sweat. It was as pungent in that place as any men’s locker room I’d ever been in during my boxing days. Also, the airwaves were being pummeled by Donna Summers’s “She Works Hard for the Money” with the bass on high.

  At the moment there were about eighteen women standing in three rows of six being put through their paces by a dark-haired girl in a purple leotard. The women ran the gamut from skinny to plump, but none were grossly out of shape. Maybe it was an advanced class.

  I stood there watching for a few minutes, and the instructor finally looked over at me. Her face was nowhere near a match for her shape. Her nose was too long and sharp, her eyes too close together, and she was older than she appeared when I couldn’t see her face. There was some loose skin around her throat that apparently even aerobics couldn’t help.

  “Keep working, girls,” she called out, and came over to see what I wanted. “Can I help you?”

  The sharp smell of sweat in the air deepened as she stood in front of me. I could see wet circles under her arms.

  “I’m looking for Joy.”

  “That makes two of us.” She wasn’t happy. We were standing by the front desk and she grabbed a towel from it, mopped her brow, and then hung it over her shoulders. She was about five four and had to look up at me slightly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This was supposed to be her class,” she said. “I’m doing a double here.”

  I decided to play up to her.

  “Well, you sure look like you can handle it.”

  She blinked, smiled, and then said uncertainly, “Well . . . thanks.”

  “Was she here yesterday?”

  “No, not then, either. I called, but there was no answer. You her new boyfriend?”

  “No. Why, does she have a new boyfriend?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Ray around, and now you show up. I was just trying to put two and two together.”

  In talking to her she began to become more attractive, especially when she smiled.

  “Why are you looking for her?”

  “I’m looking for Ray. I thought she could tell me where he is.”

  “She was complaining Tuesday that she hadn’t seen him lately.”

  I nodded.

  “You a cop?”

  I shook my head. “Private.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “How interesting.”

  “Helen?”

  One of the girls in the class was calling. It was then that both Helen and I noticed that Donna Summers had finished.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, waving at them. She turned back to me and said, “Sorry I couldn’t help you.”

  “Sorry I interrupted your class.”

  “No problem. What’s your name?”

  “Miles Jacoby.”

  “Helen Scott, Scott and Edelstein Advertising. I’m in the book, business and home.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  She smiled, transforming her face once again, and then went back to her class. As I left, Janet Jackson started yelling about a “black cat.”

  Bass on high, of course.

  29

  That was when I went to Joy’s apartment and found her in the bathtub.

  It was confusing for a while. The first officer on the scene looked at me suspiciously. One of them kept an eye on me while the other called the squeal in. Before the detectives arrived, another radio car arrived, and a sergeant’s car. The sergeant—wearing a name tag that said Casey—sent two of the uniformed men to canvass the building. He then put one man of the original responding team in the bathroom, and the other one at the front door of the apartment. He and I sat in the kitchen on two undamaged chairs while his driver went downstairs to wait for the squad.

  I explained what I was doing there twice before the detectives finally arrived. I was hoping I’d be lucky enough that the team who caught the case would be Pell and his partner, but I didn’t know either of the detectives who entered. It didn’t help that one of them was a woman.

  “Sarge?” one of the detectives said.

  “Casey.”

  “Detective Sandoval. And Detective Yearwood.”

  Yearwood was the female.

  “Who’s catchin’?” Casey asked.

  “I am,” Sandoval said. He was in his mid-thirties, and while his name was Hispanic, he did not look it. His partner, Yearwood, looked to be in her early forties. She had a plain face, no makeup, short hair, and was stickily built but remained decidedly feminine. They had the appearance of a team who had been together awhile, which meant they did not look as hopelessly mismatched as Pell and his partner did.

  “What do we have?” he asked.

  “A dead girl in the bathtub.”

  “Was the apartment like this when you got here?”

  “Yup.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “This fella,” Casey said. “I checked his ID. He’s a private badge named Jacoby.”

  Sandoval looked at me, and then looked closer.

  “I know you, don’t I?”

  I hoped he did.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure—wait, you were in the office a little while ago, talking with the kid.”

  “Pell?” his partner asked.

  “Yeah.” Sandoval looked at his partner “You were out for coffee. This man came in and talked to Pell.”

  “About what?” I wasn’t sure if Yearwood was asking her partner or me, but I answered.

  “A murder.”

  “This one?”

  “No, another one. Last night.”

  “The comedian, right?” Sandoval asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You found that one last night, and this one today?”

  “I didn’t find the one last night, I just happened to be in the club when he was found.”

  “And what about this girl?”

  I made it as simple as possible.

  “Her boyfriend’s a friend of mine. I was looking for him. When I got here, the door was open. I came in, found her, and called you.”

  “Stay here.” He looked at Yearwood and said, “Let’s take a look.”

  I waited under the watchful eye of the sergeant while Sandoval and Yearwood went to take a look at Joy. When they came back they stood in almost the exact spots they had left.

  “What’s her name?” Sandoval asked.

  “Joy White.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  “Not well.”

  “She was beaten pretty badly from the way it looks.”

  “I know.”

  “Let me see your hands.”

  I held them out so that he could inspect my knuckles.

  “No way he could have inflicted that damage without messin’ up his own hands.”

  “What if he didn’t use his hands?” Yearwood asked.

  “That’s a possibility,” Sandoval said.

  I stayed quiet because I didn’t feel they really thought I did it.

  At that moment a uniformed officer came to the door and spoke to the sergeant. In turn, he spoke to Sandoval, who then spoke to Yearwood. When all of that was done, they came back to me. I was reminded of a childhood game called “telephone.” I wondered how much of what the first officer said had actually reached Yearw
ood’s ears. Oh well, these weren’t children.

  “How’d you get into the building without a key?” Sandoval asked.

  He already knew and wanted to see if I would lie.

  “I pressed doorbell buzzers and announced that I was delivering pizza until somebody let me in.”

  They all stared at me, and then Sandoval said, “Smart.”

  “Sometimes I use Chinese food,” I said. “Not everybody likes pizza.”

  “I like Chinese food better than pizza, myself,” Yearwood said.

  “Maybe we better call Pell,” Sandoval said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’d like to cut you loose. Maybe he’ll vouch for you.”

  “I just met him last night.”

  Sandoval shrugged. “The kid’s funny.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t want to vouch for me,” I said, “call Detective Hocus, Major Case Squad over in the Seventeenth. He’ll vouch for me.”

  “I know Hocus,” Yearwood said.

  Sandoval looked at her and said, “Call him.”

  As his partner went to the phone, Sandoval said to me, “We’ll try and get rid of you before the duty captain arrives, or you’ll never get out of here.”

  While he had no accent, I had the feeling that English was not Detective Sandoval’s first language; it was too perfect. He said, “before the duty captain arrives” rather than “before he gets here,” and he didn’t use contractions very much.

  “Who is the boyfriend?” he asked me.

  “Ray Carbone.”

  Sandoval frowned. “I know that name.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What is his claim to fame?”

  “He does odd jobs.”

  “That’s right,” Sandoval said, snapping his fingers, “he has been known to bend the law from time to time, right?”

  “Bend is right,” I lied. “I don’t think he’s ever really broken it.”

  “Maybe not until now.”

  “Ray didn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “She was his girl.”

  “So?”

  “Also, he wouldn’t touch a woman that way.”

  “Lots of men beat women, Mr. Jacoby.”

  “Not Ray.”

  Sandoval shrugged, and Yearwood returned.

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yeah,” Yearwood said, “he vouches for him.”