EQMM, May 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "How is that child you kidnapped?” Valentino let him in.

  "Past the age of consent.” He followed his host up the steep unfinished stairs to the projection booth and looked at the DVD case Valentino had left open. “Research, I see. Watch High Noon again. Allegories make better box office than polemics."

  "You're unpredictable. I expected you to make some comment about Woody Allen losing his sense of humor, followed by a paragraph on Chaplin."

  "The English Patient was funnier than both of them put together. Here.” Broadhead drew a stiff sheet of pasteboard out of a saddle pocket and held it out.

  Valentino took it. It was soiled and tattered at the edges, and punched full of square holes in what appeared to be a random pattern. “It looks like an old-fashioned computer punchcard."

  "Yours is the last generation to make that comparison. Welcome to Old Fogeyhood. Mine would say it belongs in a player piano.” Broadhead unbuttoned his coat and sat in a canvas director's chair with Anne Hathaway's name stenciled on the back. “I couldn't sleep. That exasperating young woman wrung a confession out of me and sent me over. I don't suppose you'd care to offer an old man a drink on a chilly November evening."

  The thermometer had read seventy when Valentino went to bed, but he rummaged out a fifth of Jack Daniel's the professor had given him for his birthday. “I don't have any Coke."

  "Really. A non sequitur, I hope. Anyone who would defile premium bourbon with sugar and syrup would slap a coat of Sherwin-Williams on top of the Sistine ceiling.” He poured two fat fingers into the Old Fashioned glass Valentino put before him and set down the bottle. “I attended Darryl Zanuck's estate sale in 1980, purely out of scholarly curiosity. I didn't expect to buy anything. I'm no hoarder, as you know."

  "You make Gandhi look like a compulsive collector."

  "Zanuck was a big reader; most people don't know that, but he started out as a screenwriter, and you need to be literate to commit plagiary. His complete set of Shakespeare got no takers, generic thing that it was, so in the spirit of sportsmanship I bid fifty bucks, and damn if no one took up the challenge. That slid out of Richard III when I took it home.” He pointed at the item in Valentino's hand. “I like to think he chose the hiding place out of guilt, but his bumps of greed and lechery were too big to leave room for any other human emotion."

  "I'm not sure I know what you're getting at."

  "I'm sure you do."

  Valentino nodded. “It's the key, isn't it?"

  "The simplest in the world, but without it, the code might slow down even Stephen Hawking. I'd never have guessed what it was if you hadn't plunked that notebook down on my desk. You have to understand it was ten years between the few minutes I had at Zanuck's and the moment that thing slid into my lap."

  "I'm surprised you kept it."

  "I was still curious then. I never made the connection until now. I might still be wrong.” His eyes pleaded for a conclusion he seemed reluctant to suggest.

  Valentino spoke carefully. “Fortunately, I can't do anything tonight because the notebook's in the bank and it's closed. Otherwise we'd be up all night. We'll go over it together in the morning when we're fresh."

  "Sounds fair.” Broadhead finished his drink and stood. “Don't expect any big names. Edward G Robinson was washed up already, and if you think Larry Parks was any loss, go back and watch The Jolson Story again. Congress took a swipe at Lucille Ball and went down hard. It gave up on Hollywood because it couldn't win votes by running people no one had ever heard of."

  "I won't peek, Kyle."

  "Of course you will. I recommended you for your job because you're a bloodhound."

  * * * *

  The next morning, the professor lifted a stack of Photoplay magazines off the chair in Valentino's office, saw no place to put it down, and sat with it on his lap. “You look like you've been up all night with Harry Potter,” he said.

  "Just since the bank opened.” Valentino planted an elbow on either side of the notebook on his desk and rested his chin on his fists. “That piece of cardboard fit right over the sheets. The names read diagonally, the letters showing through the holes. Some surprised me, especially on the last pages. The studio bosses got carried away near the end."

  "Would you have recognized any if you weren't a film geek?"

  "Never having been anything else, I can't be sure. Why didn't you tell me you were on it?"

  "How could I know? I only had a minute with it and I didn't have the key then. I guessed what it was, because that's what I always thought it would look like."

  "You don't seem surprised."

  Broadhead chuckled. “You can label anyone you don't like a subversive. I worked on The Persistence of Vision for twenty years, reading excerpts to book clubs and film societies. I revealed that Jack Warner shut down the Warner Brothers animation studio when he found out he didn't own Mickey Mouse. I was the first to call Howard Hughes a nut publicly. I'd be disappointed if I weren't on the list."

  "Why did they bother? It was discredited by then."

  "They'd tinkered with it too long to quit. They'd lost most of their power; the Film School Generation was forcing them out. That notebook was the one thing they still had control over. Nowadays I suppose it would be called therapeutic. They say Nixon was still adding to his Enemies List in San Clemente.” He took out his pipe, but to play with, not to smoke. “Have you decided how you're going to sell it?"

  "Kyle, I can't. Some of these people are still around. Even if I withheld the key, someone would be bound to crack the code, causing a lot of embarrassment. Not for you, but I see nothing but legal action against the studios for ten years. They'd go bankrupt, which would affect the entire entertainment industry. What's it matter how many old films we can buy if no one will distribute them? They cost money to restore and preserve."

  "You'd still profit personally."

  Valentino smiled—ironically, he hoped. “I didn't apply for this job to get rich. If they stopped making movies, what would I spend it on?"

  "You can always do what Zanuck should've done."

  "I can't burn it either. Knowing I'd destroyed so large a part of Hollywood history would haunt me forever."

  Broadhead got up, returned the magazines to the chair, and held out a hand.

  Valentino didn't move. “It would be the same if I let you burn it."

  "I won't burn it. I'll slip it onto a shelf at Universal, where anyone who finds it will just think it's a prop from a spy picture. Even if he suspects what it is, he couldn't prove it without your testimony or mine, and why would he even ask us? Can you think of a better place to hide an important historical artifact than in the land of make-believe?"

  "Why do I keep thinking about the government warehouse scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark?"

  "I knew you'd appreciate it. Just as I knew you would never sell the list."

  Valentino picked up the notebook and held it out. Broadhead took it, touching it for the first time. He slid the riddled sheet of cardboard from between the pages where the other had left it and put it on the desk. “No sense making it easy."

  The film archivist picked up the key to the code, opened a drawer, and took out the box of strike-anywhere matches he'd bought from the woman in Tijuana. “I knew these would come in handy sometime.” He struck one.

  Copyright © 2010 Loren D. Estleman

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novelette: WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT by John F. Dobbyn

  * * * *

  Art by Laurie Harden

  * * * *

  "Dobbyn, who knows his characters like the back of his hand, is an engaging writer, and readers who have followed the adventures of Knight and Devlin in short stories will give a small cheer that they've finally made the leap to the hardcover novel,” said Booklist of Neon Dragon, which is now out in paperback. Also new in hardcover (from Oceanview) is the second Knight and Devlin novel, Frame Up. The sleuths’ short-story adventures continue in this new case.

 
* * * *

  I was still collecting my wits, briefcase, and composure after a morning's trial before the right honorable, and clearly certifiable Judge Athenatius, when they brought the next arraignment case up from the pen below the courtrooms. The defendant looked like the dregs of a three-day binge.

  My first impression was that the rumpled suit was of a higher Italian cut than you're likely to find in the drunk tank. My second was that the face behind the two-day growth of bristle bore a striking resemblance to that of my high school classmate Phil O'Brien.

  The pained expression in his bleary eyes when he saw me confirmed the identification. He immediately looked down as if to avoid any further contact.

  Phil's public defender was scrambling through an armload of case files that were on his docket for the day. I had known Marcus Lewis since law school. I called him over to the side of the bar.

  "Marcus, what's this?"

  "Hi, Michael. Murder one. He pumped three shells into a bookie in South Boston. Seamus Feeney. You didn't read the Globe this morning?"

  "Only the crossword. You say it like it's a fact. What makes you think he did it?"

  "A confession. You know him?"

  I looked over. His head was still down.

  "Yeah. Phil O'Brien, right?"

  Marcus checked his file.

  "Check."

  "Suppose I take this one, Marcus."

  Marcus shrugged.

  "It's up to you, Mike. Actually, it's up to him. I've got another ten cases on call today. This could mean I get lunch."

  I approached Phil and touched his shoulder. He gave a nervous little jump and looked up. He started to reach forward, instinctively, to shake hands, but the handcuffs stopped him.

  "Hello, Mike."

  "Hey, Phil. I haven't seen you since high school. How've you been?"

  The words were out before I realized how idiotic that question must have seemed. I heard the court clerk call the case of Commonwealth versus Philip O'Brien.

  "Listen, Phil, we can catch up later. I spoke to your public defender. If you approve it, I'd like to represent you."

  He looked puzzled.

  "Why, Mike? I can't... “

  I figured the next word would have been “pay."

  "For old times’ sake. Give me a quick yes. They're calling the case."

  He seemed to choke up. He looked down and just nodded.

  I had him enter a plea of not guilty. The court rarely allows bail in a murder-one case, and there was no basis to argue for an exception here.

  Before the hearing went any further, I explained to Judge Athenatius that I had just come into the case and asked for fifteen minutes with my client. He gave me ten, out of an abundance of human kindness, which was five more than I expected.

  I huddled quickly with Phil. He told me that he had been arrested in his home in South Boston around four in the morning. He had been drinking, but he vaguely remembered signing a confession to the effect that he had shot a local Southie bookmaker.

  Driven as I was to ask why, I let it pass. There was something more pressing.

  Phil was developing a good case of the shakes, and his tongue was still not hitting on all cylinders. I went with an instinct and asked the judge for an adjournment of an hour. I gave a pleading look to Pete Skarmeas, the judge's clerk and an occasional “happy hour” barmate of mine. Pete caught the signal and pointed out to the judge that they had a morning full of arraignments and pretrials, so an hour's adjournment would not keep His Honor from lunch. The always gracious Judge Athenatius grumbled, “Half an hour. No more!"

  I had the officers detain Phil in an interview room while I called in a favor owed to me by Johnny Gregg, M.D., a resident at nearby Mass General Hospital. Johnny was there in ten minutes, God love him. He administered a blood alcohol test to Phil that even at that time gave results far above the legal level for drunkenness.

  I signaled Pete Skarmeas, and he called our case next. The judge asked if I'd waive the probable-cause hearing. I risked His Honor's ire by saying, “No, Your Honor. I want to hear the State's evidence."

  The assistant district attorney assigned to this routine arraignment measured his time out of law school more in months than in years. An evidentiary hearing was the last of his expectations. He looked nervous as a cat when he called to the stand Officer Martin Flynn, who had arrested Phil and taken his confession.

  Officer Flynn testified that an anonymous call tipped the police to the murder of one Seamus Feeney and named Phil as the shooter. Officer Flynn made the arrest at four that morning and brought my client to the station house where he signed a full confession.

  My turn at bat. Contrary to every lawyer's advice, I was shooting blind, but such were the circumstances.

  "Officer Flynn, did you get a warrant to arrest Mr. O'Brien?"

  I nearly dropped my jaw when he answered, “No. We went directly to his apartment."

  Could that dreary morning be turning into a sunny day? I kept rolling the dice.

  "And before taking my client's confession, did you give him the Miranda warnings?"

  "Of course."

  "And do you have the paper he signed waiving his rights under Miranda?"

  The baby assistant D.A. scrambled through his notes and handed me the document. It was like pure gold.

  The officer was excused from the stand. The assistant D.A. offered the signed confession into evidence and rested his case.

  The judge looked down at me with an irked expression that seemed to ask, “Do you have the unmitigated gall to consume more of this court's time?"

  "Your Honor, the State's case, if it is a case, reeks of constitutional violations. The arrest, without a warrant, in Mr. O'Brien's own home, in the nighttime, based on a call from an anonymous untried informant, was unconstitutional from the beginning. I'd move to suppress everything that flowed from it as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’ But that's not even necessary. I have the statement of a doctor that even now Mr. O'Brien is well over the line of legal drunkenness. Can you imagine his state when he signed this so-called waiver of rights and confession three hours ago? I'd offer both documents for Your Honor's consideration. One look at the signatures will tell you that they were either signed by an orangutan or a man so drunk that he had no idea what he was signing. And that's the State's whole case. I move to dismiss all charges against Mr. O'Brien."

  The one thing that Judge Athenatius valued above his lunch was the Constitution. This time, the withering glare from the bench was at our esteemed boy-prosecutor, who looked as if his breakfast was about to reappear. He mumbled something incoherent, and the judge exploded.

  I can't recall most of his excoriation of the district attorney's office and the police for their ineptitude. I only know that in true Athenatius shoot-from-the-hip style, it ended with the words, “These charges are dismissed."

  Phil looked bewildered, but I got him out of the courthouse posthaste. I wanted to take him for coffee to fill in some of the blanks, but I had a motion argument in another court. I sent him home in a cab with the words, “For the love of Pete, don't sign anything else. These police are not your pen pals."

  * * * *

  I got back around noon to what Dr. Watson would call “our digs"—the law offices of Devlin & Knight. As was my habit, I stopped first in the office of my senior partner, mentor, and all-around icon, Lex Devlin.

  He waved me to my accustomed chair while he finished a phone conversation in three sentences.

  "I hear congratulations are due, Michael."

  It didn't surprise me that he'd heard about the O'Brien affair. The network of Boston trial attorneys is swifter than the Internet.

  "I guess, Mr. Devlin."

  That brought his sensitive eyebrows up an inch.

  "You guess?"

  "Did you ever win one that just felt wrong?"

  "No. How wrong?"

  "I could have won that case in my third week of law school."

  "Michael, occasionally the po
lice favor us with a blunder."

  "Not this blatant."

  One of the four thousand things I love about Mr. D. is that he never takes me lightly. He leaned forward and punched the numbers of the Suffolk County district attorney into the phone and put it on speaker-phone.

  He asked for Deputy D. A. Billy Coyne, with whom he had waged years of courtroom battles that had left each of them bearing scars and a bedrock respect—and affection—for the other.

  "Billy, my junior partner's back here fresh from a victory over your esteemed office."

  "So I gathered. I saw our junior warrior come in with his tail between his legs. I think he's applying for medical school."

  "On the other hand, Michael Knight here, our victor, is in something of a low dudgeon. Seems it was too easy for his taste."

  "Some people you just can't please. Incidentally, if he's mourning the passing of Seamus Feeney, tell him to save his tears for someone more worthy."

  "William Coyne! And you the people's prosecutor."

  "Feeney was a lowlife punk on his best day. Not to speak ill of the dead."

  "Are you saying lowlife punks don't deserve justice? Did I get a wrong connection here? Is this Billy Coyne?"

  "Let it go, Lex. I never said it. You never heard it. Anything else?"

  Mr. Devlin was leaning into the desk now. I could see sparks in his eyes.

  "There's more to this than meets the eye, isn't there, Billy?"

  "Nothing I'd care to discuss over the phone. Or anywhere else, Lex. Is that it?"

  "For the moment, Billy. For the moment."

  * * * *

  I rearranged some afternoon appointments and drove to Phil O'Brien's apartment on D Street in South Boston. Phil opened the door a crack. It took some persuasion to get an invitation inside.

  Phil still looked like a basket of laundry, and the bleariness in his eyes was replaced with tension that I could have sworn resembled fear.

  He offered me a drink. I accepted in the hopes that a slug or two of Jack Daniels would loosen the flow of information. We settled into a living room that showed all of the signs of a woman's decorative touch, but no evidence that there was a woman in the house.