by John Birkett
He went into the kitchen and threw some ham and some cheese between two slices of bread. He spread some Mr. Mustard over the ham. The Gourmet Dick. He ate the sandwich and drank another beer and thought about the $65,000 a year. It was a lot of money. It took character to turn it down. Character or ignorance. He wasn’t sure which.
He finished off the sandwich and was washing out the coffee cup in the sink when the phone began to ring. He walked into the front room and picked it up.
“Rhineheart.”
“It’s me.” McGraw.
“How’s it going, babe?”
“Okay. Listen, I got Gilmore’s address for you.” She read it aloud. Rhineheart wrote it down.
“Babe, I appreciate it.”
“What are you going to do tonight?”
“I got to meet Farnsworth. Then I’m going over and talk to a cabdriver.”
“Want some company?”
“Not this evening,” he said. “I want you to save yourself for rougher times—like tomorrow night.”
“What’s tomorrow night?”
“What do you mean, what’s tomorrow night? The big Derby party at Cresthill Farms.”
“Oh my God. Are we going to that?”
“Me and you, babe.”
“Oh God, I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rhineheart said. “I don’t either.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Look at it this way, McGraw, it doesn’t make any difference if we dress wrong. Neither one of us knows how to act properly at one of these things, anyway.”
McGraw hung up on him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rhineheart walked into O’Brien’s a few minutes after seven. Farnsworth was sitting on a stool at the bar. He was drinking a beer and talking Derby statistics with Sam. “Decidedly win the ’62 Derby. Roman Line was second. Ridan run third.”
“I thought Chateaugay won in ’62.”
Farnsworth shook his head. “Chateaugay was ’63. Never Bend run second. Candy Spots was third.”
“Who won it in ’64?”
“Northern Dancer. Beat Hill Rise by a long neck. The Scoundrel got third.”
“You know your shit.”
Farnsworth nodded proudly.
Sam looked at Rhineheart. “The usual?”
Rhineheart nodded. “And give my friend here another beer.”
“Your friend knows his shit,” Sam said, and walked down to the end of the bar.
“You still follow the ponies?” Rhineheart asked Farnsworth. In the old days Farnsworth took two vacations a year. The spring meet and the fall meet.
Farnsworth nodded.
“You do any good?”
“You kidding? I’m lucky if I cash three tickets a year. Horses I bet to win run second, horses I bet to place show, horses I bet to show run out. But I ain’t crying. You get used to losing. All I ask is that they don’t ban me from the place. Let me sit out there with a couple of bucks in my pocket and a racing form waiting for the next race to come up.” Farnsworth took a small sip of beer. “You go see Clark?”
Rhineheart nodded. “He offered me a job.”
“You already got a job.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“What kind of money did he talk?”
“Sixty-five thousand a year.”
Farnsworth let out a whistle. “Jesus, what are they hiding kid?”
“Good question. Another good question is who are ‘they’?”
“It’s a case full of good questions,” said Farnsworth. “Beginning with who killed Walsh, and Sanchez, and the girl? And why?”
“You got any ideas?”
Farnsworth nodded. In his humble opinion, he said, there were a half a dozen suspects: Corrati; John Hughes; Howard Taggert; Duke Kingston; Walsh’s wife; Gilmore. He wasn’t ruling anybody out. All of them had motive and opportunity.
And it seemed to him that the question of who killed who was only a part of the puzzle. There was the syringe found in Walsh’s bag in the airport locker. What was that all about? And now these missing foal papers. How did they fit in? For that matter, how did Sanchez fit in? Was he a friend of Walsh’s? What about the money Walsh owed Marvin, who worked for Corrati? Did it have anything to do with Carl Walsh’s disappearance and subsequent death? It looked as if everything was somehow tied in with Churchill Downs and the Derby. But maybe, Farnsworth said, that was because just about everyone involved in the case worked at the track.
“What do you think, Rhineheart?”
Rhineheart shrugged. Thinking about the case made him dizzy. “I think,” he said, “that I’m going out to the airport and see this cabbie who picked up Walsh last Wednesday. What are you going to do?”
“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to keep looking for Walsh’s wife. If she’s not dead somewhere, she’s on the run for some reason and scared. She may be the key to this thing. Also, I’m checking out a couple of other things. Nothing worth mentioning as yet.”
“You always were a closemouthed old bastard, you know that?”
Farnsworth shrugged. “Loose lips sink ships.”
“You need any money,” Rhineheart said, “stop by the office and see McGraw. She’ll take care of you.”
“She the girlie who answers the phone for you?”
Rhineheart nodded. “She’s good people.”
“I used to have a dame answer the phone for me.” Farnsworth’s tone was wistful. “Back in the old days.”
“This one doesn’t want to answer the phone all her life. She’d like to be a private eye.”
“No shit? You’re kidding me.”
“The world’s changing, old man.”
Farnsworth nodded glumly. “Yeah, I know.”
At eight o’clock Rhineheart was standing in front of the Eastern Airlines exit at the airport when Independent cab 41, a green Dodge, pulled up to the curb. He walked over, opened the door, and got in the backseat. A black guy with sad droopy eyes turned around and said, “Where to, mister?”
“You J. T. Smith?”
“Who’s asking?”
Rhineheart handed him a twenty.
The cabby smiled. “J. T. Smith, at your service.”
“Last Wednesday night,” Rhineheart said, “you picked up a fare at the Parkland Arms.”
Smith nodded. “Blond-haired guy. Sharp features. Middle thirties.”
“You remember where you took him?”
Smith nodded. “Sure do.” He smiled.
Rhineheart took out another twenty.
“Took him over to Preston Street.”
Preston Street? What the hell was on Preston street?
“Whereabouts on Preston Street?”
“The 2800-hundred block.”
“A residence?”
J. T. Smith shook his head. “A shopping center. He had me drop him in the middle of this little shopping strip. Called the Midtown Shopping Village, something like that. I thought it was funny ’cause it was after nine and all the stores was closed.”
“Did you see anyone waiting for him, anything like that?”
Smith shook his head. “Man just got out of the car and walked over toward some closed stores. I got another call about that time so I just took off, you understan’.”
Rhineheart handed him another twenty. “Thanks for the help.”
“Don’t mention it,” Smith said. “Anytime.”
Rhineheart started to get out of the cab.
Smith said, “Hey, mister, you a shamus, or something?”
Shamus. It was a word Farnsworth might have used.
“Yeah,” Rhineheart said. “I’m a shamus, all right.”
“I thought so,” Smith said. “You act like one. You don’t hardly see no private eyes around anymore. Not like you used to.”
That’s because we’re disappearing, Rhineheart thought. Like dinosaurs. Pretty soon the species would be extinct. Maybe it already was. Maybe he a
nd Farnsworth were the last of the breed. When Farnsworth was gone Rhineheart would be the last one.
The last private eye.
The Midtown Shopping Village consisted of a dozen retail stores, a health spa, a grocery, and a storefront real estate office. Rhineheart sat in the Maverick for twenty minutes, smoking and thinking and watching cars pull in and out of the parking lot. Then he got out and strolled over to the real estate office. The front door was locked and had a CLOSED sign on it. The window was lettered SOUTH END REAL ESTATE CORP. He pressed his face up to the glass, but there wasn’t much to see. A desk with a typewriter and a telephone on it near the door. A couple of filing cabinets against the side wall. A carpeted floor. Another desk farther back. Behind that, a wall that faced the front window. A door in the wall. Who, he wondered, owned South End Real Estate? It looked as if tomorrow he was going to have to make another stop at the County Tax Assessor’s office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rhineheart ate dinner at a seafood restaurant near the river. He had Boston scrod and scallops and baby shrimp and hush puppies, washing it down with hot coffee.
Then he drove home.
He fixed a pot of Irish tea and watched part of an old movie on the television. When the movie was over, he switched off the TV and got into bed. He was almost asleep when the phone rang.
On the other end of the line a woman’s voice, taut with fear, said, “This is Rhonda Walsh. Someone told me you want to talk to me.”
“Where are you, Rhonda?”
“Never mind where I am. What do you want to talk to me about?”
“You know about Carl?”
“I read about it. The paper says it was an accident. It was no accident, it was murder.”
“You know who did it?”
“You’re damn right I know who did it. That bastard Corrati did it. He killed Carl because Carl owed him some money.” She started to cry.
“Rhonda, you got any proof of what you’re saying?”
“Proof? No, I don’t have any proof. But everyone knows Corrati done it. He threatened Carl.”
“Why don’t you tell that to the cops?”
“You gotta be kidding. What are they going to do? Corrati pays off the police.”
“Why don’t you let me come and talk to you.”
“Mister, I don’t know who you are, or who you work for, or anything. My friend told me an old guy gave her this number.”
“Listen, Rhonda, I’m working for somebody who wanted to find Carl before he got hurt.”
“Sure you are, and I’m the tooth fairy. Listen, the reason I called is to tell you I’m leaving town. Put out the word. I’m gone and won’t be back.”
“Wait a minute, Rhonda.”
“I may send you something belongs to Carl. My friend says the old guy’s a nice guy.”
“Rhonda.”
The line went dead.
Rhineheart went back to bed. He thought about the call for a while, then he started thinking about the last time he’d seen Jessica Kingston, replaying the encounter over in his mind. He told himself it was a waste of time to keep thinking about her. He put her out of his mind and after a while it was two in the morning and he was lying there staring at the ceiling and not thinking about her when the doorbell rang. He got up and got his gun, put on his robe, and went to the door.
Jessica Kingston was standing there.
The first thing she said was “What happened to your head?”
“I banged it against a blackjack.”
The second thing she said was, “Are you all right?”
Rhineheart shrugged. “I’m okay.”
The next thing she said was “You won’t need that,” and pointed at the gun.
Rhineheart put the gun down, slid his arm around her waist, pulled her to him, and kissed her. Her mouth came open immediately, her arms wrapping around his neck. She tasted and smelled of whiskey and cigarette smoke and expensive scent—and something else, something sweet and warm and full of promise, something distinctly her own. After a long moment they broke apart, both breathing audibly. Jessica Kingston’s face looked stunned, as if she had just witnessed some momentous event, a five-car collision or something. Rhineheart knew how she felt. Even though he couldn’t see his reflection, he was sure his own face had that same pale, shocked look.
Jessica Kingston said, “I don’t even know your first name.”
“It’s Michael,” Rhineheart said.
“Michael,” she repeated.
He took her hand and led her into the bedroom.
“Let me help you undress.”
She nodded. “Yes. Please.”
Rhineheart woke in the middle of the night. The scent of sex mingled with the smell of cigarette smoke and perfume. She was stretched out on the bed next to him. The tip of her cigarette glowed in the dark. He reached over and touched her arm.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’m all right.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” she said. “I want you to make love to me again.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the night table. Then she turned to him. He reached over and cupped her breasts in his hands. Her nipples tightened. She shuddered with desire as he drew her to him. He entered her, thrusting deep, and her body rose to move against his in urgent yet easy rhythm.
“Oh God, yes.”
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
“And this?”
She moaned.
The sex was hot and fierce and sweet and what surprised Rhineheart most was the depth and force of the feelings evoked. It had been a long time since he had felt anything like the flood of emotions that went coursing through him. Not since Catherine. Maybe not ever. He wasn’t sure how she felt, but at the end, as they clung together, limbs entwined, tears spilled out of her eyes and ran down her face. Afterward, they talked for an hour, then made love again, then slept, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Later, Rhineheart woke to find her getting dressed. He looked at the clock on the dresser: 4:50.
“I have to go,” she explained. “It’s a long drive back to Lexington. I have a million things to do for tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Rhineheart said. The thing, as always, was to be cool.
“Help me with this, please.”
He helped her with her dress.
“When will I see you again, Michael?”
“I’m coming to your party tomorrow.”
“Tonight,” she corrected him.
“Right.”
“Yes, of course, but that’s not what I mean. I want to see you again. Regularly. We’ll have to make some arrangements. Find a place to meet. Someplace private.”
“We can meet here,” Rhineheart said.
“Yes, but we’ll have to be careful.”
He thought about that for a moment. Okay. He could live with that. He could handle it. If it meant seeing her, he could handle a lot of things.
“I have a private telephone that no one knows about. It rings in my bedroom.” She gave him the number. “If you ever need me for anything, call me there.”
“All right.”
“I’m incredibly busy now, but after the Derby, things will calm down. We’ll have more time,” she said. “We’ll be able to see each other as often as we want. We’ll go places, if you like.”
“I’ll take you to the Vogue,” Rhineheart said.
“Where?”
“It’s a movie theater over on Lexington Road. They show a lot of old movies. You like old movies?”
“Yes.”
“You like popcorn? I’ll buy you some popcorn.”
“How delightful.”
She finished dressing. Rhineheart pulled on some slacks and a shirt and walked her outside to her car, a silver Porsche.
She put her hand up and touched his face.
“I’ll see you at the party, Michael.”
Rhineheart said, “We haven’t talked
about the case at all.”
“No,” she said. “We haven’t had time, have we?”
“You know that Carl Walsh is dead?”
“I heard about it, yes.” She shuddered. “Terrible.”
“The police didn’t find any foal papers in his car.”
“Maybe he hid them someplace. Maybe he didn’t take them after all.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go, Michael.”
“Be careful driving home,” Rhineheart said.
They kissed good-bye and she got in her car and Rhineheart watched her drive off. He stood in the street, staring after her car a long time after the taillights had disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rhineheart didn’t go back to bed. He drove over to Bellarmine and ran for half an hour. When he got back home he removed his bandages, took a shower, and got dressed. He ate breakfast at a donut shop on Taylorsville Road and read the paper. They carried a brief account of Walsh’s death. It was on page six of the second section.
The sports section had an article about the draw for post position for the Derby. The ceremony was being held at the racing secretary’s office at 10:00 A.M. It was 9:40. If he drove like hell he could make it about the time it was over. The hell with it.
After breakfast, he drove downtown to the County Clerk’s office. He parked in an OFFICIALS ONLY spot and took the stairs to the Tax Assessor’s office. He had a different clerk pull the file on South End Real Estate Corp. The president of South End was Curtis Evans of Louisville, a name he didn’t recognize. On the form, the company was described as a subsidiary of Midtown Properties. He asked the clerk to pull the Midtown Properties file.
And struck pay dirt. Such as it was.
The owner and chief presiding officer of Midtown Properties was none other than Harrison Gilmore. That meant what? He could tie the vet to the company that owned a store in a place that Carl Walsh had taken a cab to on the night he disappeared. Big deal. He thanked the clerk, went back out to the Maverick, and drove over to police headquarters.
