by John Birkett
The County Tax Assessor’s office was located on Fifth Street south of Market. Business and corporation files were kept on the second floor. The office was spacious and well lit. Neat rows of filing cabinets stood behind a long wooden counter.
A sallow middle-aged man in a brown bow tie brought Rhineheart the Capitol Holding file. Capitol Investment was incorporated on June 9, 1979. Its principal business was real estate and stock market investment. Its corporate offices were located at 312 Broadway. The president of Capitol Investment was Howard Taggert. The vice president was Harrison Gilmore. They were the principal officers of the company that leased the car that had been tailing him.
It was almost five when Rhineheart got back to the office. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Two people were there, waiting for him.
One was Angelo Corrati. All three hundred and fifty pounds of him was seated on the couch, leafing through a magazine. He was dressed in a camel-hair sport coat that looked to Rhineheart like a size sixty. Corrati had curly black hair and a face as round and as smooth as a summer moon. His eyes, little black buttons, were covered by a pair of lightly tinted glasses with thick, steel frames. Corrati glanced up from the magazine with a bored look on his face.
The other guy was muscle, a big black guy who was seated in Rhineheart’s chair with his feet up on Rhineheart’s desk. He considered telling the guy to get his feet off the desk, but he decided it wasn’t a good idea to get nasty with someone who was pointing a Walther PK .38 in your direction.
Maybe humor was the right approach. “For a minute I thought you two were Dean and Sammy.”
In a flat humorless voice, the black guy said, “Ha. Ha. The man’s a comedian.”
Corrati said, “You’re Rhineheart.”
Rhineheart nodded.
Corrati pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
What the hell. Rhineheart sat down.
Corrati said, “You know me, you know I’m a man who doesn’t fuck around with a lot of bullshit small talk. I heard about you. You’re a private cop. I hear you been around some places looking for somebody. I hear you stop in my club the other night, talk to an employee, ask her some questions, show her a picture of somebody. That right?”
“Yeah.”
“Couple days later you go see a friend of mine, an associate. You ask him a lot of fucking questions ain’t none of your business. So what’s the deal? What’s going on? Who you looking for? Who you working for? Why you doing it in my places of business?”
“You got me mixed up with someone else,” Rhineheart said. “Some loose-mouthed snitch you know, or something. My name is Rhineheart. I thought you said you’d heard about me.”
The corners of Corrati’s mouth tightened in what Rhineheart decided was a smile. “I heard that about you. People tell me you’re a stand-up guy. Don’t take no shit. That’s admirable. That’s truly fucking admirable. I admire balls in a person. On the other hand, I can get your knees broken for you in five seconds. You see what I’m saying? Basically, I mean?”
“I see your point,” Rhineheart said, “but if you heard about me, then you know you can break my knees, and I won’t tell you who I’m working for. If I did, I’d be out of business tomorrow.”
Corrati leaned back in the couch. The leather creaked under the weight. “What if I told you that I know who you’re working for and who you’re looking for and why you’re looking for him and the whole thing?”
“I’d believe it,” Rhineheart said. “I heard that about you. You keep yourself informed.”
“You’re fucking right I do. I keep my fingers on the buttons. Anything that concerns me. Or affects my business. Which is why I, uh, come down here to see you today. I like to stay on top of things. You understand where I’m coming from on that?”
“Sure.”
“So how’s your investigation going?” Corrati asked.
Rhineheart shrugged. “Not too good.”
“You didn’t find the person you’re looking for, did you?”
“No.”
“No,” Corrati said, “and I don’t think you will, either.”
“What do you mean?” Rhineheart asked.
“I’m just talking,” Corrati said. “What do I know? Maybe he left town. He owes my associate some money.” The couch creaked again as he leaned forward. “Let’s talk some business, Rhineheart. One businessman to another.”
“Now I know you got me mixed up with someone else.”
“I’m going to make you a deal,” Corrati said. “Your part of the bargain is you forget looking for the Walsh kid. That’s a waste of time, anyway.”
“What’s your part of the bargain?” Rhineheart was dumb enough to ask.
Corrati smiled. “My part is I don’t have you squashed like a fucking bug.”
Rhineheart didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
“You don’t have to say yes or no right now, Rhineheart. Sleep on it. Think it over. Get back to me. In the next day or two. Or else I’ll get back to you.” He pushed himself up out of the couch and walked over to the door. He moved as if he were wading through mud.
The black guy took his feet off Rhineheart’s desk and stood up. He kept the Walther pointed at Rhineheart as he went over to the door and opened it for Corrati. Corrati walked out into the hall, followed by the black guy, who pulled the door shut behind them.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rhineheart, for some reason, didn’t feel like eating supper. He drove home. As he walked in, the phone was ringing.
“Yeah?”
“Kid.”
Farnsworth. “How you doing, old man?”
“Not too bad. I found out a couple of things.”
“Yeah?”
“Walsh’s wife. You’re right. She works at Saint Anthony’s. Maternity ward. Eleven to seven. Except she ain’t been to work since Friday. Called in sick. They haven’t heard from her since. Woman in personnel let me peek at her file. She’s from Detroit.” Farnsworth pronounced it Dee-troit. “Called up her parents. Pretended to be a hospital administrator searching for a reliable nurse’s aide at a good salary. Wanted to know how to locate her. They gave me the Parkland Arms address and telephone number. Said Rhonda was down here living with her husband. They said they hadn’t talked to her for a few days, but they didn’t sound worried. They seemed on the level.”
“Anything else?”
“Tomorrow, I’m going to have lunch with a couple of the gals she works with, see if they might have any idea where she’s gone.”
“Sounds good.”
“Also, I think I figured out who that Dr. G. is on the piece of paper you found.”
“The name you came up with wasn’t Harrison Gilmore, was it?”
“I see you been working, too, huh?” He cleared his throat. “One more item.”
“What’s that?”
“I found out who Lancelot is. Lancelot’s a $10,000 claimer. Win the second race at Keeneland three weeks ago Tuesday. Paid a sixty-eight-dollar bill.”
“Lancelot’s a horse?”
“And guess who owns him?”
“Howard Taggert.”
“Wrong. You get two more guesses.”
“Quit fucking around, old man.”
“The vet.”
“Gilmore?”
“And John Hughes is listed as trainer. And, kid, some funny stuff there. I got that day’s past performances and there’s no way the horse looks like he can win. He run terrible his last five races. He’s moving up not down in class and he beats a field of classier horses by five lengths. You talk about reversal of form.”
“What are you saying? You think it was a boat ride?”
“I’m saying I think it was a funny race. Maybe they put something funny in the horse.”
Maybe so, Rhineheart thought. Maybe that explained the syringe.
“You did good, old man.”
“Not bad, huh? For an old guy.”
“Keep at it. I got
a lot of shit to tell you about. I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll compare notes.”
“Good enough, kid. I’ll see you then.”
Rhineheart hung up the phone, and went over and stretched out on the couch. He thought about the visit from Corrati and the missing foal papers and the information about Lancelot. What did it all mean? And more important, how was it going to help him find Carl Walsh?
The phone started to ring. He got up, walked over, and picked it up.
“Yeah?”
“I want to speak to Mr. Rhineheart.” The voice of a young woman, nervous.
“This is Rhineheart.”
“This is Tammy Shea. The girl who works at the Hideaway. Remember me?”
“I remember you, babe.”
“The other night you said you wanted to help. Is that the truth?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to talk to somebody. Can I trust you?”
“You can trust me, yeah.”
“It’s about . . . something Carl told me. I don’t know whether to call the police or not.”
“The police?”
“I think someone followed me home tonight.”
“Tammy, where do you live?”
“The Regal Arms. Brook and Hill. Apartment 33.”
“Keep the door locked. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Traffic on the expressway was heavy. Twenty minutes later Rhineheart pulled up in front of the Regal Arms, an old yellow-brick apartment building that had been built back in the twenties and had seen better days.
He double-parked in the street and took the stairs to the third floor. Apartment 33 was the second last door on the right, near the end of an unlighted hallway. He pressed the buzzer. No one answered. He hit the buzzer again. Nothing. So he tried the knob. The door swung open. Uh-oh . . .
Rhineheart took out his gun, slipped off the safety, and stepped inside, into a small narrow living room. The furniture was dismal and cheap. On the right there was an even smaller dining room and a short hallway that led to the bedroom. That’s where he found Tammy Shea. She was lying in the middle of a large double bed. She was dressed in jeans and a green top, resting on her back, one arm flung above her head. Her eyes were shut, and in repose, her face, which was framed by her dark hair, was a picture of innocence and peace and youth. She might have been sleeping.
The only trouble with the picture was she was dead.
There was a small caliber—probably .22, Rhineheart thought—bullet hole in her left temple. A thin line of fresh blood ran from the wound down her cheek to form a round red spot on the white pillow where her head rested.
Rhineheart felt for the pulse in her throat, but it was a useless gesture. Lately, it seemed, he had been making a lot of useless gestures.
In my line of work, Rhineheart thought, you see too many dead bodies, and too much blood. And the worst thing is, you tend to get used to it. He stood there looking down at the dead girl and tried to summon up some feeling, some sense of sorrow or anguish for her death. But it was no use. He had met her once, but she was a stranger to him. It wasn’t that her death didn’t matter. It was that his mind was operating on another frequency. He was wondering what to do next—call the police, search the apartment, or look for the killer who might still be in the vicinity?
He must have been concentrating too hard. He didn’t hear the noise behind him until it was too late. A heavy object collided with the back of his head. His brain seemed to explode, then fill with darkness, and he felt his body sinking slowly to the floor.
Rhineheart came to with his face pressed against a thin, worn carpet. He opened his eyes. A wave of pain rippled through his head. He pushed himself up from the floor, got to his hands and knees, and then, slowly, to his feet.
Far off somewhere, in the distance, he could hear a faint high-pitched whine. He looked around. Everything seemed blurred; then gradually the dimensions of the room began to take shape. He checked his watch: he’d been out ten minutes.
In the bedroom nothing had changed. Tammy Shea’s corpse was still lying across the bed. The whine was getting louder, and he realized it was the sound of a siren a few blocks away but drawing closer.
Someone had set him up. His car, he remembered, was double-parked out front. He staggered out of the bedroom, and made his way out of the apartment, down the hallway, down the stairs, and out the door to the street. He slid in behind the wheel and wheeled the Maverick around the corner. He was halfway down the block when he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a Louisville Police cruiser roar past the intersection, its siren screaming, its blue lights flashing and whirling.
Rhineheart drove over to the emergency room at Suburban. An Oriental doctor sewed up his head, bandaged it, gave him a shot of something, and told him it would be best if he stayed in the hospital overnight. The nurse told him he had a serious concussion and that if he wasn’t careful it could lead to brain damage.
“Thanks for your help,” Rhineheart said.
She nodded and handed him a bill for $85.00. He paid it at the cashier’s desk and went out to the Maverick and drove home. He drank a beer, and tried to watch a late movie, but his head hurt too badly. He undressed and lay down in bed. He didn’t think about the case or the dead girl. He started thinking about the meeting at the hotel with Jessica Kingston, replaying it over in his mind. It was stupid. The private eye and the socialite. It was dumb, he knew, to keep thinking about her. But he couldn’t help it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wednesday morning Rhineheart woke at ten. His head felt as if a little man had been inside there stomping on his brain cells all night long. He got out of bed carefully, dressed, and fixed himself a pot of coffee. The telephone rang while it was brewing.
The caller introduced himself as Calvin C. Clark. Rhineheart recognized the name. It belonged to a well-known attorney, a lobbyist and dealer in political favors. Calvin Clark was a power broker who ran with senators and governors and people like that. His office was in Frankfort, the state capital.
Mr. Clark said that he wanted to discuss a business proposition with Rhineheart. The proposition was one that he doubted Rhineheart could pass up once its terms were made clear. He couldn’t go into any of the details over the phone, but he wondered if Rhineheart couldn’t spare him some time later this afternoon and come to his office.
Rhineheart’s answer was that he was kind of busy, but would try to make it. Clark thanked him and hung up. The shit, Rhineheart thought, was starting to pile up. It was turning out to be some kind of a case. He was hanging around horse farms, meeting rich folk, getting invited to swanky parties. The movers and the shakers of the earth were calling him on the phone and talking about business propositions. Rhineheart wondered what it was the man really wanted. It might be both interesting and worthwhile to find out.
Rhineheart dialed the number of Yellow Cab. He asked the man who answered what cab company had green cabs.
“What am I?” the man said. “An information service?”
“This is Chuck Fisher,” Rhineheart said, “Agent Fisher of the IRS. Connect me to your supervisor.”
“I’m sorry, Agent Fisher. I musta got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Green cabs’d be Independent. Want their address?” The man gave Rhineheart the address. It was on Forty-fourth Street in the West End.
“Thanks,” Rhineheart said. “You may have saved yourself an audit.”
Rhineheart was pouring milk into his coffee when the phone started ringing again.
He walked into the front room and picked it up. “Yeah?”
“You’re going to have to work on your telephone etiquette, Rhineheart.”
There was only one person with a voice that deep and gravelly. Sergeant Katz.
“What do you want, Katz?”
“Get your ass down here, Rhineheart. I want you to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“Carl Walsh.”
“What are you talking about, Katz? You got Carl
Walsh down at headquarters?”
“Actually, he’s over at University. In the basement.”
The basement of University Hospital was where the police morgue was located.
“I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes,” Rhineheart said.
“Make it ten,” replied Katz.
A body lay on a cart with wheels. It was covered by a sheet. Katz pulled back the sheet. The face was swollen and discolored, but Rhineheart could see it was the face of the guy in the photograph that Kate Sullivan had given him. There was no doubt of that. He turned his head away. He had seen enough dead bodies lately.
Katz put the sheet back over the body and walked out of the room. Rhineheart followed him into the white-tiled hall. Katz dug a pack of Camels out of his coat pocket, lit a cigarette, coughed, stared at Rhineheart. He didn’t say anything.
The ball was in Rhineheart’s court. “How’d he die?”
“He drowned,” Katz said.
“Drowned?”
“That’s what Willingham says.” Willingham was the county coroner. “They pulled Walsh’s car, an old VW, out of the river about six o’clock this morning. Near a boat dock. Walsh was behind the wheel. Lots of alcohol in his blood: .19, something like that. Willingham’s going to rule it was an accident.” Katz looked at Rhineheart. “Walsh had a large contusion on the back of his head, but that’s not inconsistent with the accident ruling.”
Rhineheart was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Were there any personal effects?”
Katz smiled. “Wallet. Car keys.”
“What was in the wallet?”
“Driver’s license. ID. Couple of bucks.”
“That all?”
“What else would there be?”
“I don’t know,” Rhineheart said.
“According to the ID,” Katz said. “Walsh was a racetracker, worked for some stable out at the Downs, lived in the South End. He’s got a wife, but we haven’t been able to get in touch with her. That’s all we know about him.” He flipped his cigarette onto the floor where it lay smoldering. “Unless you got something to tell us, peeper.”
Rhineheart shook his head. “I don’t know anything more than you do.”
