The Last Private Eye

by John Birkett

  McGraw was like a lot of people, Rhineheart thought. She had the idea that private-eyeing was something special. The truth was that a lot of the time it was a matter of doing something like sitting around in your car outside a motel room, spying on some dude who was cheating on his wife.

  “McGraw, being a private eye isn’t that great a thing. It’s mostly a lot of routine, boring shit.”

  “Yeah? If it’s so bad, then how come you do it?”

  “It’s like I told Kate Sullivan,” Rhineheart said. “It’s one of the few jobs there is where you don’t have to sell anybody anything.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t like selling any better than you do, Rhineheart, and private-eyeing’s a whole lot better than being a secretary.”

  Rhineheart gave her a long look. “I take you with me,” he said, “you better be cool and do what I tell you.”

  McGraw, who was too small to lean across the booth, jumped to her feet, hustled over to the other side of the booth, grabbed hold of Rhineheart’s face, and planted a loud wet kiss on his chin.

  It was, he realized, the second time that day he had been kissed in a sisterly way by a little broad. When you stopped to think about it, McGraw had a lot of Kate Sullivan in her. Or vice versa. Maybe that was the reason he liked her.

  “I promise to be cool,” McGraw said. “I swear to do what you tell me.” She sat back down and took a sip of beer. “Where we going first?”

  Rhineheart shrugged.

  Marvin Green hung around a place called the Kitty Kat Club, a topless joint on Cane Run Road. The Kitty Kat was owned by Angelo Corrati, who was wired, it was said, to one of the biggest families on the East Coast.

  “You know who Angelo Corrati is?” he asked McGraw.

  “The Mafia guy?”

  “We’re going to drop by his place of business, see what’s going on.”

  The parking lot at the Kitty Kat Club was half-full. Rhineheart parked next to a tall neon sign that flashed WELCOME DERBY VISITORS in bright orange letters. On the way inside, McGraw said, “I’ve never been in here before.”

  “You’ll love it,” Rhineheart said, taking her by the elbow and steering her over to a corner table. The room was dimly lit, smoky. On a small stage near the bar a tired-looking nude dancer was doing her number to loud jukebox music.

  McGraw, squinting across the room, plucked at Rhineheart’s sleeve. “Rhineheart, that dancer is topless and bottomless.”

  “McGraw,” Rhineheart said, “you are going to make one hell of a detective.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  A waitress in a kitten costume strolled up to the table. Rhineheart knew her. Her name, he remembered, was Barbara. Everyone called her Bobbie. It had been a few years since he had seen her. He wasn’t sure she would recognize him.

  “How you doing, Bobbie?”

  “I’m doin’ fine, Rhineheart. How you doin’?”

  “I’m doing okay.”

  “I don’t ever see you around anymore.”

  “I been kind of busy, babe.”

  McGraw said, “My name’s Sally McGraw.”

  Bobbie ignored her. She said, “So what you been doin’ with yourself, Rhineheart? You still a dicktective?”

  “Yeah.” He looked over at McGraw. “You want a beer?”

  McGraw nodded.

  “Give McGraw here a beer,” Rhineheart said, “and give me a Diet Coke, or something.”

  Bobbie looked surprised. “You want a soft drink?”

  “I’m on the job, babe.”

  “Back in the old days, you didn’t care if you were on the job, or not. You always drank bourbon.”

  “I’m getting old, Bobbie.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Bobbie said in a wistful little voice. Rhineheart watched her walk away toward the bar.

  “Classy person,” McGraw said.

  “She’s all right,” Rhineheart said.

  “You seem to know an awful lot of waitresses.”

  Rhineheart did his John Wayne imitation. “You think so, huh?”

  When Bobbie returned with the drinks, Rhineheart asked her if Marvin Green had been in.

  “Not tonight.”

  He showed her Carl Walsh’s photograph. “You ever see this guy around here?”

  Bobbie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Rhineheart asked her if Angelo Corrati still owned the place.

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “He around?”

  “He’s in his office,” she said, and slid her eyes toward a table near the door, where a thin, red-haired man in a checkered sport coat was sitting. “That’s his table there. The redhead guy’s waiting for him.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  Bobbie shrugged. “Just some guy. He comes in.” Bobbie started to walk away, then stopped and turned back. “I get off at two-thirty,” she told Rhineheart, then turned again and bumped into a squat thick-necked man in a brown suit. She excused herself and walked away.

  The man in the brown suit walked up to the table. He had thick, blunt features that seemed to be twisted into a permanent scowl. His voice was pure gravel.

  “Rhineheart,” he said.

  “Katz.”

  “How’s it going, peeper?”

  “It’s going okay.”

  Katz jerked his head at McGraw. “Who’s the little lady?”

  McGraw looked outraged. Before she could speak, Rhineheart said, “Katz, I want you meet Sally McGraw. Sally, this is Detective Sergeant Katz. Louisville poe-leece. Homicide.”

  Katz nodded at McGraw.

  “McGraw’s my—” Rhineheart began.

  “I’m his associate,” McGraw cut in.

  Katz smirked. “A lady dick, eh?” He shook his head in obvious dismay. “What’s the world coming to, Rhineheart?”

  “You tell me, Katz.”

  “So what’s going on?” Katz said. “You on a case, or what?”

  Before Rhineheart could stop her, McGraw said, “We’re looking for somebody named Carl Walsh.”

  Katz smiled. It didn’t look a whole lot different from when he frowned. “Who’s Carl Walsh, peeper?”

  Rhineheart put some bills on the table and stood up. “I’ll see you later, Katz.” He took McGraw’s arm and yanked her out of the booth.

  “Come on, little lady. We’re going to a motel.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Red Wind Motel was on Dixie Highway, a few miles south of the Watterson Expressway. Two dozen whitewashed stucco cabins that curved around a parking lot shaped like an inverted U. Rhineheart pulled into the lot, parked, and checked his watch: 11:06 P.M. The night sky was black and moonless.

  “Wait here,” he told McGraw.

  “Rhineheart,” McGraw said, “I didn’t come all the way out here to sit in the car and wait for you.”

  “All right,” Rhineheart said. “But keep your mouth shut and do as I say, and if we see anyone, you better come on tough and act like you know what you’re doing.”

  They got out of the car and walked across the lot. Room 24 was on the far end. A naked light bulb burned over the door. Rhineheart reached up and unscrewed the bulb. He knocked on the door. There was no response. When he put his ear against the door, he could hear the murmur of a television set from inside the room.

  He took out his credit card and slipped it into the jamb.

  “What are you doing?” McGraw asked in a loud whisper.

  “This is what you call B and E, babe. It’s a felony. Three to five, minimum.”

  “You mean we’re doing something illegal?”

  “Be quiet, goddammit.”

  Rhineheart opened the door. He pushed McGraw inside, stepped in after her, and closed the door. The room was dark except for the flickering glow of a black-and-white TV set against the far wall. He felt for the wall switch and flipped it on.

  A small Hispanic man with a thin black mustache was lying on the bed. He was dressed the way racetrackers dress—faded jeans, a jean jacket, cowboy boots. His ha
nds were folded across his stomach and he had a peaceful expression on his face. Rhineheart was pretty sure the man on the bed was named Sanchez. He would have asked him just to be sure, but the guy wasn’t about to do any talking. He had a neat round bullet hole between his eyes. A thin line of dried blood ran down the side of his face.

  McGraw stood in the center of the room, pointing at the body. Her face was pale, the hand that pointed trembled. “Is he . . . ? Is he . . . ?”

  Rhineheart nodded. “Yeah.” He walked over to the bed and touched his knuckles to the side of the man’s face. The skin was cool, getting cold. “He’s been dead for a while,” Rhineheart said. “Ten or twelve hours.”

  McGraw nodded. She seemed unable to speak.

  Rhineheart found himself staring past her at the TV set, where two actors dressed like farmers were trading one-liners. Their routine was punctuated by bursts of mechanical-sounding laughter. He walked over, switched off the set, and looked around the room. It wasn’t much of a place to have died in. It never is, he thought.

  The walls were peeling and the furniture—a chest of drawers, a table, and an armchair—looked cheap and squalid and plastic. There was a smell in the air, an acrid odor mixed with something sour and sleazy. It made Rhineheart’s eyes blink and his nose run.

  He looked over at McGraw, who was standing there, pale-faced, scared, waiting for him to tell her what to do. “Be cool,” he told her. “Whatever we do here, whatever happens, we always stay cool. Hear?”

  McGraw gulped, nodded.

  “Go to the window,” Rhineheart said.

  McGraw walked to the window.

  “Ease back the shade,” Rhineheart said, “and check the outside.”

  McGraw did as she was told.

  “What do you see out there?”

  McGraw shook her head.

  “Nothing?”

  McGraw nodded.

  “Say it,” Rhineheart said.

  “No-no one’s out there.”

  “Good. Keep watching.”

  “Rhineheart?”

  “Huh?”

  “Wha-what do we do now?”

  “We look around,” he said. “We check things out.”

  “Do we call the police?”

  Rhineheart gave her a look.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I asked.”

  Rhineheart searched the body first. He found some bills and loose change, a set of car keys, a pocket comb, and a wallet. The wallet contained a driver’s license, a social security card, a photostatic copy of a naturalization certificate, and an employee’s pass to Churchill Downs.

  The pass was good for the current spring meet only, and was issued in the name of FELIX SANCHEZ, who was employed as an EXERCISE RIDER for RIVER CITY STUD.

  River City Stud was a racing stable and breeding farm headquartered just outside Louisville in the eastern end of Jefferson County. It was owned by Howard Taggert, who sat on the board of directors at Churchill Downs, and was a prominent local horseman. Something tugged at Rhineheart’s memory. In the back of his mind he knew something important about Taggert and River City, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was. It kept nagging at him while he searched the room.

  Rhineheart went through it by the numbers, a crimestopper’s textbook search—slow, methodical, one end of the room to the other. He lifted the lid off the commode. He looked under the bed and behind the chest of drawers. It took him thirty-five minutes, and he didn’t find a thing until he got to the closet. He was going through the clothes, item by item, when he felt something in the lining of a windbreaker.

  It was a key that had slipped through a hole in the pocket. The key had a green plastic tag that read LOCKER 741—STANDIFORD FIELD on it.

  “What’s that, Rhineheart?”

  Rhineheart held it up.

  “A key? Is it a clue?”

  “A clue?” Rhineheart smiled. McGraw was something else. Maybe it was a clue.

  “Rhineheart?”

  He looked over at McGraw, who seemed less frightened, more relaxed.

  “You want to know something?” McGraw said.

  “Huh?”

  “Earlier? I was scared there. For a minute.”

  “No kidding?” Rhineheart said. “I couldn’t tell.”

  “Yes, you could, you lying son of a bitch.” McGraw smiled. “But that’s okay. I don’t mind you bullshitting me once in a while.”

  Rhineheart stuck the key in his pocket and finished searching the closet. He took a towel from the bathroom and began wiping down the room.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “It’s called erasing the evidence, babe. It’s a felony, too.”

  There was some chance, he knew, that he was wiping away evidence left by the shooter. But only a small chance. The killing had all the earmarks of a professional job. It was doubtful that whoever did it had left any traces. At any rate, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about theoretical evidence that might or might not help the police. He wasn’t having his or McGraw’s fingerprints found in the room.

  Ten minutes later he was finished. Throwing the towel in a corner, he walked over next to McGraw and looked out the window. Everything seemed cool. There were no people in the lot, no one around the cabins. On the way out the door, Rhineheart flipped off the light.

  McGraw said, “I feel kind of bad about just leaving the guy lying in there.”

  “Me too,” Rhineheart said, pulling the door shut.

  They walked across the lot to the car and got in.

  “Where we going now?” McGraw asked.

  “You’re going home,” Rhineheart said. He started the Maverick, shoved it into reverse, backed up, braked, shoved it into first, and wheeled out onto Dixie Highway, where he made an illegal U-turn and pointed the car toward the expressway.

  He didn’t say another word until they pulled up in front of McGraw’s apartment building on the other side of town fifteen minutes later. Then he said, “You can keep working for me if you want to. You can do research. Legwork. You can run down information for me. Whatever you want to call it. But no more on-the-job training. Bringing you with me tonight was a bad move. Whatever this is I’m in, it’s clear the people in it don’t play. They waste people. I can’t let you get involved in something this dangerous. You understand?”

  McGraw was quiet; then after a minute, in a reluctant, grudging tone, she said, “I guess so.”

  “After a while,” Rhineheart said, “after you learn the ropes, I’ll take you down to the courthouse and you can apply for an investigator’s license. I’ll show you how to fill out the forms. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Then you can open your own office,” he said. “Sally McGraw. Private eye.”

  McGraw managed a smile. “Sounds pretty good.” She opened the door and got out. “Good night, Rhineheart.”

  “Good night, babe.”

  The airport locker area was in an aisleway around the corner from the Pan Am desk. Locker 741 was in the middle of a row of long, wide, double-sized lockers. Rhineheart stuck the key in the lock and twisted it open. A red-and-white Adidas traveling bag sat inside. He took it out, closed the locker, and walked over and sat down in one of the chairs near the window.

  A clear plastic name tag was fixed to one of the handles: CARL WALSH. Rhineheart unzippered the bag. Inside was a syringe. A hypodermic syringe. Steel needle. Plastic plunger. It looked as if it had been used.

  He zippered the bag up and sat there staring at the floor for a few minutes trying to figure out what the syringe meant. Then he got up and walked over to the pay phone against the wall. He dropped a quarter in the phone, punched out the emergency number, and in his best Bogart voice said, “Gimme the coppers, shweetheart. I wanna report a dead body.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The shrill ringing of the telephone woke Rhineheart up the next morning. He rolled over and picked up the receiver.

  “Michael?” Kate Sullivan.

  “Hello, Kate.”<
br />
  “Good morning, Michael. How are you?”

  “I’m asleep,” he said. “How about you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is there some reason you called?”

  “Nothing special. I thought you might have learned something since our meeting yesterday. And naturally I want to be kept up to date.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Is something wrong, Michael?”

  “What time is it?” he muttered.

  “Eight-thirty.”

  “In the morning?”

  “I just got back from mass,” she said.

  Mass? Jesus Christ. The last mass he had been to was in Latin. He looked over at the clock. It was eight-thirty. “Kate,” he said, “there’s something wrong with this connection. I’ll call you back later.” Rhineheart hung up and tried to go back to sleep, but the phone began to ring again almost immediately.

  He snatched it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Rhineheart, please.”

  A woman’s voice. Well bred. Throaty. With a special kind of edge to it.

  “This is Rhineheart.”

  “Mr. Rhineheart, my name is Jessica Kingston.”

  Rhineheart came awake. “Hello.”

  “How are you, Mr. Rhineheart?”

  “Sleepy.”

  She laughed. “I take it you’re not much of a morning person, Mr. Rhineheart.”

  “My heart doesn’t start to beat until noon,” Rhineheart said.

  Jessica Kingston laughed again. “You’ll have to forgive me for phoning you so early. But I called to ask you to come and see me this afternoon. I’ll be in my box on the third floor of the clubhouse at Churchill Downs.”

  Jessica Kingston. Rhineheart had heard stories about her looks, her legendary beauty. The stories had men fighting over her in public, magazines offering her fabulous sums to appear on their covers, famous Hollywood producers trying to sign her to movie contracts.

  “I’ll see if I can make it,” Rhineheart said. See? Who was he trying to kid?

  “I hope you’ll be able to, Mr. Rhineheart. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Good-bye.”

  Rhineheart got out of bed and began putting on his sweat clothes. When he was dressed he walked back over to the bed.

  “Wanda Jean?”

  Wanda Jean stirred, threw back a cover, blinked, sat up, yawned. “Huh?”