Dead Folks' blues d-1

by Steven Womack

  One Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in my office with a stack of folders in front of me. I opened the top one; a Linda Wolford at 2545 Forest Avenue had defaulted on an unsecured personal note. The bank couldn’t even go after this lady’s car. They sent her a half-dozen notices. All were returned. Somebody from the bank called. A female voice claiming to be a roommate said Linda Wolford moved away. Sorry, no forwarding address. No phone number.

  I figure if I call this lady up and say “Hey, I need to verify your identity and address so the bank can nail your ass,” I’m probably not going to get very far. I decided to run the UPS scam on her, then picked up the phone and dialed the number.

  “Hello.”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to reach Linda Wolford at 2454 Forest Drive.”

  “Ugh, who wants to know?”

  “This is Carter over at UPS Customer Service. We had a package to deliver for a Ms. Wolford that came back as un-deliverable. We’re just trying to find the right address so we don’t have to send the package back.”

  “What’s in the package?”

  “I don’t know that, ma’am, but it’s insured for two hundred dollars and it’s prepaid, so you don’t owe anything on it. Must be a gift or something.”

  “And what address was that?”

  “2454 Forest Drive, ma’am.”

  You usually get a chuckle or a sigh of anticipation at this point. This time, it came right on schedule.

  “Oh, that’s it, Mr. Carter. I’m Linda Wolford, but my address is 2545 Forest Drive.”

  “I’m grinning now.” Bang, got her. “Let me see, you’re Linda Wolford at 2545 Forest Drive, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Great, Ms. Wolford. Sorry for the inconvenience. You’ll be hearing from us in a few days.” Yeah, and give my regards to the bankruptcy judge.

  “Thanks for going to the trouble to find me.”

  “All part of the service, ma’am. All part of the service.”

  So after twelve years of private school and four years of private university, I’m making a living by lying to people. Which puts me up there with some of the top biz school graduates in the country.

  For a guy who got canned and had to move into a dumpy little apartment in a neighborhood filled with old Buicks on concrete blocks in the front yards, I’m doing okay. I’m having a swell time. I’m getting by. I’m nailing deadbeats. Life is sweet.

  I close the folder in front of me, then look up from my desk just as the door opens. Rachel Fletcher is standing in my doorway.

  Damn.

  She was Rachel Todd when I first met her, back when we were undergraduates at Boston U. in the Seventies. Maybe it’s my own dysfunction, but spending my adolescence at a boy’s school kind of skewed my early perceptions of women. In fact, when I met this woman freshman year, at some dumb mixer on campus, it was like being run over by a truck, just as powerful and marginally less painful. Her blond hair was longer then, her face a little fuller, with the last traces of teenage baby fat still hanging on. But she was gorgeous, drop-dead-leave-your-tongue-in-the-dirt gorgeous. And somehow I got her to date me. A couple of weeks later, I got her to sleep with me, only we didn’t sleep very much. Three years later, she left me and married some dweeb named Fletcher, a rich prick who went on to become a doctor.

  What the hell! I made peace with it a long time ago. So unlike some other relationships I’ve wound up in, I don’t carry too much baggage from this one. But seeing her looking down on me that day was, for a long moment, akin to getting hit by that truck again.

  She opened the door without knocking. I guess she figured she’d be walking in on a secretary and a waiting room and all the other normal business fixtures. She looked surprised to see me, as if she wasn’t really sure I was who she thought I was. Then she turned and stared at the black lettering on the frosted glass. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then stepped in, closing the door behind her.

  “Hi, Harry. How’ve you been?”

  By this time, I was standing behind my desk without even realizing I’d gotten up. I looked her over, trying not to gape. You have to understand, I hadn’t exactly-well, I think the euphemism is been-with anybody in quite some time. Kind of a long dry spell, you see, but at least partly by choice. So when I found myself alone in a closed office with a lovely blonde, and not just any lovely blonde, damn it, but this blonde, I had to remember not to drool out loud. And remembering she was a natural blonde didn’t help.

  “Hi, Rachel,” I said, hoping like hell my voice held up. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Harry. How are you?”

  I stood there a second, awkward and tight, then finally managed to activate my tongue.

  “Nervous, actually. You’re the last person I expected to walk into my office.”

  “Don’t be nervous, Harry. I’m not a process server.”

  “Good. I got nothing worth suing for. Have a seat.”

  She was dressed in a black silk blouse, white pants with a sheen bright enough to hurt your eyes and a crease sharp enough to pick your teeth with. I hoped my chair wouldn’t get her dirty. She’d lost the weight in her face, leaving the outline of high cheekbones visible just underneath her skin. I always suspected there was great bone structure buried there someplace. Her skin was as alabaster as always, as clear as unpolluted snow. Her hands were thinner as well, and the soft blue of her veins gave a tinge of color to them.

  Or maybe it was because they were knotted tighter than a dick’s hatband. Whatever the hell a dick’s hatband is; I’ve been hearing that expression for years now and it’s always struck me as just this side of vulgar. In any case, Rachel Fletcher’s face may have been calm and smiling, but her hands were knotted together like a rugby scrum.

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee? There’s a soda machine down the hall.”

  “No, thanks, Harry. I’m fine.” Her hands continued squirming. She noticed me looking, then self-consciously pulled them apart and uncomfortably put one on each armrest of the chair. It was as if her arms had become two foreign objects hanging off her, and she didn’t know what to do with them.

  “It’s good to see you, Harry. How long’s it been now?”

  I thought back. “Maybe ten years ago. The benefit for Children’s Hospital.”

  “That’s right. What happened to that woman you were seeing then? The tall one, with the dark hair pulled back tight.”

  Who was that? I thought. Was that- “Oh, yeah, that was before I got married. Debbie, I think her name was. Long time ago.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “How about you, Rachel? You and what’s-his-name still-?”

  “Conrad,” she said, “and yes, we’re still married. In name, anyway.”

  Her focus dropped to the floor. I decided to sit and wait for ter to continue. Finally, she did. “Harry, I know things haven’t always been that easy for us.”

  “No worries.” I grinned at her as I spoke. “I’ve always prided myself on being a gracious loser.”

  She looked up quickly. “You weren’t a loser, Harry. You’ve never been a loser. I never thought you were.” Her head drifted to the right, her sadness a weight pulling her down. “I’ve just made some mistakes in my life.”

  I suddenly felt sorry for her, the first time in years I’d felt anything at all for her. And I was surprised to see it was that. But there was something about her, despite the great looks, the obvious wealth and health, and all the other accoutrements, that was downright pitiable. I wanted to reach across the desk and touch her, but knew that was probably the worst thing I could do.

  “What is it, Rachel? Why are you here?”

  She opened her bag, a small silver clutch, and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, the long, skinny kind with blue and red flowers intertwined on the paper. Her hand shook as she took out a disposable butane lighter in a gold case and lit the cigarette.

  “It’s Connie,” she began, after taking a good long pull on the smoke. “He’s gotten
himself into some trouble. I’m terribly worried about him.”

  “When’d you start those?” I gathered from her glare that she considered the question inappropriate.

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked, trying to extricate myself.

  She hesitated, self-consciously lifting her hand to take another drag off the cigarette. “He’s been gambling again. Heavily, I’m afraid. Apparently he’s into somebody for a lot of money. He’s getting threatening phone calls, letters.”

  I fought the urge to smile. I remembered Dr. Conrad Fletcher as a smug, conceited, privileged jerk. Somehow, seeing him up to his keister in bookie reptiles was at the very least amusing, at the very most downright pleasurable.

  “I tried to call you at the paper,” she continued. “Just to see if you had any advice. They told me you were no longer employed there.”

  “Diplomats. Actually, Rachel, I was fired. Booted out on my ass.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Anyway, someone on the desk gave me your phone number and address. I had no idea you’d become a-”

  “Private investigator?” I said, grinning. “Yeah, sounds a little goofy to me, too.”

  Rachel smiled back, the first real one she’d cracked since she sat down. “I decided to come see you in a professional capacity, rather than just an old friend asking for advice.”

  “What kind of letters and phone calls are we talking about here?”

  She opened up the purse again, took out a torn-open envelope. Cheap paper, available at any drugstore, electric typewriter, no return address, mailed from a downtown zip code. The note inside read:

  Fletcher:

  Your account is seriously overdue. You’re going to settle up within 24 hours or we’re going to turn you over to our collections staff. You won’t find that very pleasant.

  Simple, straightforward, to the point. I’d written some articles in my time that had generated unhappy letters, a few of them threatening. The rule around the newspaper office was that the ones that ranted and raved and threatened to cut your gonads off were the ones you could laugh about over a beer. The calm, serious, understated ones were the ones you kept and reread over and over in your dreams, the ones that make you wake up in a cold sweat.

  This one was definitely a keeper.

  “The letter came in yesterday’s mail. I opened it by accident; Connie gets furious when I open his mail, but I just wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Have you shown it to him?”

  Her eyes rolled. “Oh, God, no. He’d throw a fit. He’s got a terrible temper, you know.”

  “And the phone calls?”

  “Just two. One about a week ago. One this morning.”

  “What did they say?”

  “The first time, a voice asked to speak to Connie, and he wasn’t home. I asked who it was. The man wouldn’t say. He just hung up. The second time was yesterday. Same voice. He asked to speak to Connie, and when I said he wasn’t home, the man asked if Connie had gotten the letter.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I panicked, I guess. I asked who it was and he said ‘never mind,’ that Dr. Fletcher would know who he was and he’d goddamn better take the note seriously.”

  She looked me directly in the eyes, the clear blue of hers shimmering in my office light. “That’s when I started looking for you.”

  I shifted uneasily in the chair. I wasn’t at all sure this was something I wanted to take on. To begin with, I didn’t much care for the s.o.b., and on top of that, I had a feeling that if I started getting involved with Rachel Fletcher again, I might want to get involved with Rachel Fletcher again.

  The office suddenly seemed very stuffy. “Have you talked to Conrad about this? Does he know you’re here?”

  “Heavens, no. If he did, he’d blow a fuse. Things haven’t been going so well with us these past few years. What with his work and all. We don’t spend much time with each other. And when he’s not working, he’s always off somewhere else. Gambling, apparently.”

  “This isn’t an easy question, Rachel, but I’ve got to ask it. Is there another woman in here anywhere?”

  She looked as if her face had just gone numb and she was afraid to raise her hand to her cheek, afraid she wouldn’t be able to feel anything, afraid she wouldn’t be there anymore.

  “I don’t think so,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

  “So what do you want me to do, Rachel?”

  She hesitated, fumbling with her still-lit cigarette butt, wondering what to do with it.

  “Just mash it on the floor,” I suggested. “I’m afraid I don’t have an ashtray. Sorry.”

  She dropped the cigarette. I watched her right knee swivel back and forth as she ground the butt out.

  “Could you find out who he owes the money to? And how much?” There was a pleading tone to her voice, a tone more vulnerable than any I’d heard out of her. “Whatever it is, I’ll see that it’s paid. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

  “I may have to talk to Conrad,” I said.

  “No, please. At least don’t tell him we’ve spoken. If you have to talk to him, make it look like some other reason. I can’t have him finding out that I know what’s going on with him.”

  “If he truly has a gambling problem, he’s going to need some help.”

  “I’ll deal with that after this is over. For now, I just don’t want him to get hurt. Please help me get through this, Harry. Then we’ll work on getting Connie straightened out.”

  “You’re going to protect him, right? You’re going to fix things for him. The twelve-steppers would call you the Enabler.”

  She flared. “I ta hiring you in a professional capacity, Harry, but not as a therapist. That’s something else we can deal with when the time’s right. For now, do you want to help or not?”

  “Rachel, I-”

  “Of course, I’m going to pay your standard rate.” She reached into her purse again, this time drawing forth an expensive leather wallet with some kind of designer medallion on it. I didn’t recognize the brand; out of my league. She pulled out a fanfold of hundred dollar bills.

  “Rachel, that’s not-”

  “Don’t be silly. Are you going to tell me you can afford to work for free? What’s your rate?”

  I’ll give her this much; she’d become a lot tougher since we used to date in college. I guess life with a doctor’ll do that to you.

  “Two-fifty a day, plus expenses.”

  She counted off a stack of green, leafy bills. “Here’s enough for a week, with an extra fifty thrown in to cover extras. We’ll settle up when you find out who these bastards are.”

  “Rachel, are you sure you wouldn’t be better off going to the police?”

  She leaned across the desk and dropped the money on my desk calendar. Then she stood up, a hardness in her face that I hadn’t seen before.

  “I want this taken care of. Discreetly. And I want you to do it. Do we have a deal?”

  I raised my head and eyed her, my lips tightening involuntarily, my mouth suddenly dry.

  I never could say no to her.

  3

  Then there was the money. There’s always the money, and there never seems to be enough since I said goodbye to the paper. Having the chance to bank five days’ worth of fees was something that, from a strictly business sense, I couldn’t pass up.

  Of course, if I had any business sense in the first place, I wouldn’t be caught in this squeeze. After Rachel left my office, I pocketed the $1,300.00 and walked down Seventh Avenue to the parking garage where I kept the Ford. I was a month behind on my contract and would’ve given the space up, but parking in downtown Nashville is about like parking in downtown Manhattan. Believe me, I’ve tried both.

  I gave the attendant one of the hundreds, then waited while he brought me my receipt and change. Now I was not only current, I was a month ahead. And if I wasn’t careful, I was going to wind up paying more to park the Ford
than I paid for the car itself.

  I checked my watch as I pulled out into the line of cars moving, at four miles an hour, toward Broadway. I had just enough time to swing by the bank and deposit the other twelve hundred before my four o’clock racquetball game with Walter. Maybe I should have plunged immediately into Rachel’s case, but I needed a few hours to figure out a game plan. Her clock could start running tomorrow.

  Walter Quinlan and I have known each other since we both went to the same boarding school over twenty years ago. We’re buddies in the way that men who’ve known each other a long time are buddies, but I can’t say that we’ve ever been really close. For one thing, Walter’s an attorney, and I was a newspaper reporter, two occupations not exactly designed to foster trust and intimacy between individuals.

  But we play racquetball once a week and occasionally grab lunch together downtown when he’s not in court. Beyond that, we rarely see each other. Walter runs in different circles. While my circle of friends is gravitating more and more toward people who sit on their porches and drink beer in their boxer shorts, Walter’s runs toward the Belle Meade types who spend more in tennis club fees than most people pay in income taxes.

  Walter’s friends drive BMWs and Jaguars. Mine tune up their Dodges in the front yard.

  Walter was already in the court warming up when I opened the heavy wooden door and slipped in five minutes late. Walter’s one of those people who always look like they just had their hair cut. He wears workout clothes that cost as much as the last suit I bought, and he regularly beats the stew out of me with a $200.00 Ektelon racquet (an instrument I would personally like to drop in a trash compactor). The guy’s a holdover yuppie, up for partner this year at the law firm of Potter amp; Bell. He was divorced last year from some Belle Meade socialite with an IQ of 135 and nothing to do with it.

  I pushed the door shut behind me. “Hey, guy, what’s happening?”