Of Mice and Murderers

by John Stockmyer

  A knock on the hall door transported him from the life of smart Jim Chee of the Navaho police to being plain Bob Zapolska sitting in his starkly furnished office in the drafty Northland.

  Again, the knock.

  Since Z never had walk-in trade, this had to be the K.C. fuzz. (It was Z's ability to reason like that that had made him what he was today. ... Not much.)

  Feeling less comfortable than he should in his own office, Z eased down his leg, got up, hobbled around his desk, and went through the arch to open the hall door.

  "Mr. Zapolska"? Under the black unbuttoned overcoat was a black suit on an equally black man. Close-cropped black hair. Short black mustache.

  You didn't see that many blacks North-of-the-River; the detective from downtown Kansas City where blacks were no big deal.

  "I'm Bob Zapolska."

  Z found himself expecting the man to introduce himself as Detective Black. Silly thought.

  "Willis Addison." A leather flip-over badge appeared in the man's hand.

  Reflexes of a cat.

  Voice, a leopard's cough.

  "Come in."

  The K.C. detective sliding in, Z closed the door behind him. "Just put your coat on my secretary's desk. She won't be in today." Or any other day, Z muttered beneath his breath. Though he'd told the strict truth about his "secretary" not coming in, it was at least a gray-white lie to deliberately mislead a K.C. detective. Had Z "fibbed" because he needed the prestige of a secretary to help him hold his own?

  "Thanks."

  With his coat off, the detective was short of six feet. Wiry. Forty, maybe. Some paunch at the belt line of the suit. A small bulge in the hollow under his left shoulder.

  Z didn't own a gun; couldn't afford the insurance to carry one. Another reason he didn't "pack heat" was he'd never known anybody without a "piece" to shoot someone.

  So what else did he know about the K.C. cop? Shoulder holster on the left meant he was right-handed. Spoke "standard American." More and a better quality of education than Z had. Adding up to a bright big-time cop with a big-time case saddled to his back.

  The man shedding his coat and folding it over the "secretarial" desk, Z led the detective into the main office.

  Z going around to sit behind his own desk, he motioned Addison to bring up the straight chair.

  Trailing, Addison turned, got the chair, placed it facing the front of the desk, eased himself around the chair and lowered himself on the seat.

  The lieutenant leaning forward just a little, putting both feet on the floor in a semi-wide stance. Used his left hand to unbuttoned his single-breasted coat (to make it easier to draw his thirty-eight or fourth-five or whatever the hell K.C. detectives carried these days?) Having a touch of paranoia helped in the detective business.

  Looking over the desk, Z saw that a notebook had appeared in the detective's lap, a pen in the lieutenant's hand.

  "A Gladstone detective, Ted Newbold," Addison began, "told me you've got an interest in the stolen Monet." Said in a flat, measured voice.

  There had been a change in the cop's attitude. From the door to the desk, this cop had become all business, his round brown eyes turned into shiny steel balls.

  Z caught himself fingering the slug-dent through his shirt. Made himself stop. Susan didn't like to be reminded that he took that hit shielding her from her maniac husband.

  "I take it that you and Detective Newbold are personal friends."

  "High school."

  "He didn't seem clear about your interest in the painting."

  If Z couldn't convince Ted that Z just liked that painting, how was Z going to explain that to this Addison guy? ... When all else fails, try the truth.

  "I like it."

  Z leaned back in his groaning swivel chair. Thinking that, if he could just relax, maybe he could get the detective to ease up as well.

  Trying to at least look comfortable, Z lifted his foot up on the desk, a gesture that ... seemed to do the trick, Addison smiling suddenly. Not a big grin, but a smile, nevertheless. The black man settled back as well. Crossed his legs.

  "I like that painting, too. Everybody does." The smile widened. "I think we can say everybody without including your cop friend."

  Since Addison's teeth were more than a little crooked, he hadn't had a rich teeth-fixin' Daddy, either. ....

  Another thought. With a black working on the painting case, Z couldn't help but wonder if some higher-up had stuck Addison with a loser; to let a black man take the fall when things went wrong.

  A chicken shit strategy that could backfire, though. You give a man a case that's supposed to make him look bad -- he solves it -- and the next thing you know, that man is your boss and you're in the department crapper cleaning toilets.

  Whatever the politics, if Addison pulled this off, he'd go up in the department. No way they could hold him back after that. Too many important people, even the mayor, would know Addison was the man who'd delivered.

  However this came down, this was one black man who'd been given a chance to prove himself. When looked at realistically, getting a chance to shine was more than most folks got. Black or white.

  Z thought of Lincoln Carver Thompson. Everybody cheered when Lincoln made an extra point or kicked a field goal. But after high school, nobody in town would offer him a job. When Lincoln got caught with hot tires, Z was the only one to say a good word for him at the hearing. That was a lot of years ago, of course. If Lincoln couldn't have found a job today, he'd qualify for food stamps. Trade the stamps for cocaine. Become a dealer. Make a million. And be shot dead at twenty-two. ... If there was any truth to what you saw on the TV news.

  "I hear you're feeling heat," Z said, returning to the topic at hand, trying to be sympathetic.

  "Part of the job."

  They were a lot different. And a lot alike.

  "My girlfriend likes art," Z offered, feeling something needed to be said. "She dragged me to the Nelson. Got to be a habit. The "Boulevard" -- that's my favorite. I used to sit and look at it."

  "I know."

  "Yeah?"

  Wetting his thumb, the detective flipped pages in his notebook like an old-time bank teller ruffles paper money. Faster than the eye can see.

  Stopping at the page he wanted. Looked up at Z. "Several museum guards reported that a number of patrons were especially interested in that painting. One of them was described as ...," Looking down, he began to read, "... a big man, over 6 feet, middle-aged, narrow-set eyes, prematurely gray hair. Eastern European-looking. Reported to sit on the bench in front of the "Boulevard des Capucines" every few weeks and for long periods. Quiet man. A man who limped." Looking up, Addison smiled his friendly smile while flipping to an unused page in the notebook, pen still held loosely between thumb and forefinger, ready to jot more notes.

  "The next day," the cop explained, "Like magic, I get this call from a Gladstone detective that a friend of his is interested in the painting." The man shrugged. "I'm checking every lead. Asked for a description. And ... here I am."

  "Not too many people fit that make," Z agreed.

  "Hurt your leg on the force? That why you're private, now?"

  "Never a cop."

  "Pretty rare for a P.I."

  "I know. I hurt my knee playing football."

  "College?"

  "High school."

  "Tough break ... no pun intended." A sharp guy, this Addison.

  "Killed a college scholarship. The last game of the season, too. Against the enemy, Raytown." Z didn't generally talk so much. Was he rattling on because he was still a little nervous?

  For his part, Addison didn't look like he had anyplace else to be. "Hiding out" had been Ted's guess for why Addison wanted to come North-of-the-River.

  "Pony Express Conference?" Addison asked, Z nodding. "I played for Central. I wasn't very big ... but I sure was slow." The detective grinned.

  Addison was something pretty rare: a black man with a sense of humor. Z didn't find much humor in th
e blacks he read about in the paper. Or saw on TV. ... Except for comedians.

  "The knee wasn't that bad. Just couldn't make cuts. After high school, I drove a Pepsi truck. Worked for a landscaping outfit. Did carpentry. Heavy construction. Moving boxes at a warehouse." (Z left out the year he'd worked for a locksmith; thought that was the prudent thing to do.) "It was labor jobs that took out what was left of the knee. So I got into the P.I. business. Sort of backed into that. Did some favors for friends. Installed security systems. Got hired as bodyguard or to scare away thugs." There was another pause. "You think my interest in the painting is more than just interest?" Z's voice, never good, was about to desert him with all this talk.

  "No."

  "Then ...?"

  "It was something else your cop friend said over the phone. Said you were one hell of a football player. High school hero, was the way he put it." Addison smiled a funny kind of wish-I'd-been-a-hero smile.

  Z and Addison had football in common, too. Football and crooked teeth. "Anyway," the K.C. detective continued, "I got the idea that one of your friends was a wise guy."

  The way Ted could run off at the mouth, Z wondered if Addison knew what kind of underwear Z wore.

  Damn, Ted!

  Thinking about the current situation, in the keeping-your-mouth-shut department, how much should private eye Bob Zapolska tell the K.C. dick about Johnny? How much did Z know about Johnny D?

  "I got one or two former friends that you hear rumors about, but ...."

  "Don't get me wrong," Addison interrupted, the leopard sound of his voice pitching up when he talked fast. "I don't want names. And I don't judge a man by his friends. I know how a P.I.'s got to work. You need your sources, same as we do." Again, the intelligent grin. "I'd be in jail myself, judged by my sources." Z nodded.

  A sensible man, this Willis Addison. Most of the blacks you saw on TV or read about in the paper acted like crazy people. Always yelling. Speaking some kind of shit language nobody could understand. Into drugs; shooting one another. At the same time, Z knew that TV gave you the wrong impression of practically everything. That's why he didn't watch it much. That's why you needed newspapers. That's why you needed both a morning and an EVENING paper! So you could find out what was really going on.

  "My only interest is in finding the missing painting," Addison was saying, his voice back to its throaty rumble. "Just that." He waved the notebook. "Oh, I'd like to catch the son-of-a-bitch who stole it." Said with controlled heat. "But that's not the thrust of this kind of case. It's the painting that's important. You, me, and the perp will all be dead in fifty years. But the painting ...." Addison waved the book again. "And something else that's not a secret is that the insurance company that's holding the paper on the 'Boulevard' will deal. To get the painting back, they'll pay more than whoever took it can get by trying to fence it. No questions asked."

  Addison didn't like it. He was a cop's cop. Wanted to get the bad guys. Something else that he was, though, was a realist. "So I've got to play every angle. Which comes down to you having a connection I don't have. Your high school friend."

  "Think he's involved?"

  "No. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, is there any chance he'd know who might be? I could use a middle man here, someone to deal through."

  "I can ask." A pretty easy task since he'd already done it.

  "Good."

  Now was the time to establish the ground rules that Z wanted. "The way I see it, I got to be the only one involved."

  "Sure."

  "No taps, nobody trailing me."

  "You got it."

  "This is going to be a dry hole, that's my guess."

  It made sense to be completely honest about this. You didn't want to get a desperate cop's hopes up if you couldn't deliver. Any more than it was a bright idea to snatch a hunk of meat from a starving dog.

  "Probably." He knew.

  And now, a favor for a favor -- just like with the mob itself.

  "My friend Ted thinks you've got a Northland connection to the theft."

  "Possible."

  "Anything you can tell me? It might make a difference when I ask around."

  "I don't know how much I should say."

  The detective paused, looked thoughtful. Shrugged. "The truth is, we've got so little, it doesn't matter."

  "I'm not interested in shooting off my mouth about it."

  "I believe it." Addison paused to organize his thoughts. Used a thick black finger to smooth both sides of his short mustache. "You've been reading the articles in the Star?"

  "Yeah."

  "You remember that a painting was substituted for the real one?" Z nodded. "In the process of painting the fake, whoever did it set the back of the picture down on wet paint, then on a newspaper. We got a scrap of newsprint that way. A fragment from a newspaper that got torn off because it was stuck in dried paint. It turns out to have been from one of those weekly papers printed in the Northland. The Dispatch.

  "So you think the phony could have been painted in this area?"

  "Possible."

  "Sounds more than possible. Sounds probable." It was Z's turn to consider that little piece of news. "And you hoped that, since I was from the Northland too, and had shown some interest, I might be involved."

  The detective smiled his crooked-toothed smile. "Too much to hope for. Still, when you've got nothing ....."

  A small silence grew between them.

  "Speculation in the paper's been that one of the gallery's own guards took it," Z said at last.

  "Except he wasn't a real guard."

  "No?"

  The detective smiled ruefully. "Somebody playing guard."

  The black cop snapped his notebook shut at that; slipped it inside his breast coat pocket.

  The interview was over. They were just talking now. Off the record.

  "It worked like this. A few months ago, an old guy applies for a position of guard at the Nelson. They got a lot of them -- work part time for peanuts. Retirees." Z nodded. "Called himself George Hobson. Gave as an address a rented room in one of the big houses just to the north of the gallery. Did guard duty three afternoons a week.

  "After the confusion of the first day, there's never been a question of who took the painting. George Hobson took it. Not his name, naturally. What we got is the fake he left behind -- and the single-edged razor blade he used to cut the original out of its frame. We even got the safety strip he took off his razor blade. Found that in the coat pocket of this "Hobson's" guard jacket he left in a gallery locker.

  "The old guy wore white cotton gloves all the time. He told the gallery people when they hired him he had a skin condition on his hands. Eczema. They hired him because what harm could wearing cotton gloves do? When the gallery personnel have to handle the gallery's items, the staff always put on white cotton gloves themselves."

  "So, no prints," Z said dryly.

  The detective smiled. Not ever any prints was an inside joke.

  All this was interesting, if not important. Though it could mean the pretend-guard had known that wearing cotton gloves wouldn't keep him from getting hired: meaning, in turn, that the thief wasn't somebody right off the street.

  "We got his rented room across from the gallery," Addison continued. "Cleared out, naturally. Except for some more of the same cotton glove fibers and makeup stains on the dresser." Addison cleared his throat. "So here's how it comes down. There never was a legitimate guard. Maybe, there never was an old man. What we got is someone -- young or old -- play-acting guard. In makeup and gloves.

  "He's in the gallery as it closes, hides somewhere, cuts the painting out of the frame, substitutes a copy -- probably to fool the end-of-the-day security checks -- and just walks out the back door with the original.

  "How he smuggled the painting out with him, we don't know. The Nelson people are worried sick he folded it -- really done it damage that way.

  "Anyway, after he steals the painting, he goes across the street to his re
nted room, takes off his disguise and disappears ... as himself."

  "Professional," Z said, nodding. "And that's why you think there might be a mob connection?"

  "That's what I'd like to have you check out -- if you could."

  "Do my best."

  "As for anyone thinking it might be you. No way it could have been. Oh, there for a moment ...." Another black man's toothy grin. "Did I tell you that 'George Hobson' limped?"

  "No."

  "Slick as he was, we don't even know if that's for real." The detective shook his head. "One thing he couldn't fake, though, was his height. Not more than five-eleven. Sure, he walked bent over like an old man. But so many people say he was of average height, it has to be. A man can't put on makeup to make himself shorter than he is."

  "I guess not.

  "Of course," the grin, "a shorter man can make himself look taller." Addison cocked his head to the side; ran a stubby finger over his mustache again. "Did you know that John Wayne wore elevator shoes? That's why he walked like a girl. He was always in high heels -- walking down hill all the time."

  Casually, Addison pointed the same thick black finger in the general direction of Z's foot on the desk. "Nobody wearing elevator shoes would put his foot up on a desk like that. Only a man wearing regular shoes would do it." Now, a knowing grin. "Even though you limp a little, no way you could have grown three -- four inches in just a week. The guy who took the painting was shorter than you."

  Just another indication, if Z needed any, that Addison was a sharp cop. When Addison had seen Z at the office door, the K.C. cop had noticed Z fit what the guards had said about the thief -- except that Z was taller.

  When Z put his foot up on the desk, the K.C. cop had checked to see if Z had jacked himself up with lifts as a means of disguise -- but saw Z wearing regular shoes. Bob Zapolska, private eye, was too tall to be the perp, Addison scratching Z as a suspect.

  Addison stood up.

  First lifting down his leg, Z stood up, too.

  "If you got something for me, call me direct." With more sleight-of-hand, Addison picked a card from thin air. Leaned across the desk to hand his phone number card to Z.