Assuming it even held bullets.
"I'm on my way," I said into the phone receiver.
The line was dead.
"Jake, I'm losing my nerve," Darlene shouted.
"I'm coming," I called, turning up the volume. I clawed my way out of my desk chair. The springs were so rusted that it sat at a perpetual forty-five-degree angle.
"With your hands above your head, Diamond."
The guy had a voice like a wood chipper.
I walked through the connecting door and threw my arms into the air. Darlene sat at her desk with her hands together, fingers interlocked, like a kid in Sunday school. The gorilla with the sawmill voice pointed his arm in my direction and I was looking down the barrel of a handgun so long that it could have been used for a tent pole.
Darlene let out an involuntary sigh when she found herself out of the crosshairs.
"Sit," he growled, indicating the client chair with his free hand.
"You picked the wrong place to come waving that cannon around," I said.
"Why is that?" he asked.
Good question.
I sat.
"You okay?" I asked Darlene.
"Ask me tomorrow," she said.
"So," I said, turning to our first customer of the week at the office of Diamond Investigation, "how can we help you?"
It was then I noticed his free hand wasn't exactly free. He was rolling a pair of metal balls the size of large marbles in his left paw. Either he was brushing up on an audition piece for The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, or we were in really deep shit.
"It's this babe here that you'll be helping, Diamond," he grumbled.
"Did you say 'babe'?" Darlene hissed.
"Easy, Darlene, I'm sure that our guest meant it only in the most general way. Please forgive my rudeness," I said, turning back to the ape, "I haven't thanked you for dropping in or asked your name."
"Here's the deal, Diamond," he snarled. "You come with me to talk with the Boss and nothing gruesome happens to the dame. You try anything funny before we get there and she'll be seeing me again, and she'll like me a lot less the next time."
"I doubt that's possible," said Darlene.
I would have told her to keep quiet but the look on her face scared me more than the barrel of the .44 grazing my chin.
"Oh, it's possible. Extremely possible," he promised.
It was definitely a good time to intervene.
"Sure, pal, let's go see the Boss. Where to?"
"Chicago."
"Put it out of your mind, Kong. It's the middle of winter. There's no football, no baseball, and the wind-chill factor is minus infinity. I wouldn't go to northern Illinois in February if my life depended on it."
"Are you sure?" he said, pulling back the hammer of the sidearm.
"Is the pan-style pizza as good as they say it is?" I said, catching myself checking his shoelaces. "I'm going to need a heavier jacket."
"I've got just the thing down in the car," he said. "Let's go."
I began to rise slowly from the chair, placing my hand on the corner of the desk for balance.
"Darlene," I said, "what's a four-letter word for Egyptian goddess?"
"Isis," she answered.
"Well, kick the dog," I said, trying to make it sound like "Well, I'll be darned."
"What?"
"I said, 'Well, kick the dog.'"
"Oh, Jake."
"Darlene."
She kicked the dog. Tug McGraw yelped and jumped straight up, lifting the desk off the floor. The desk slammed back down, the primate shifted the large gun toward Darlene's feet, and I grabbed the three-hole punch from the desktop and clocked him. He went down to his knees, the .44 squirted out of his hand and landed on the desk, and I snatched it up by the barrel and whacked him across the head again. He went flat on the floor. The two metal balls spilled out of his hand and rolled across the room.
I turned the gun around and pointed it his way.
He wasn't stirring.
Darlene was busy apologizing to the mutt.
"Darlene, do you think you can find something to tie him up with?"
"I'm sorry, boy, Jake made me do it," she was saying, stroking the confused canine's neck with one hand while she reached into her desk drawer with the other.
"Darlene, please."
"Try these," she said, handing me two pairs of handcuffs.
I didn't ask.
I dragged the body over to the wall radiator, cuffed his arms to a leg of the cast-iron eyesore, and cuffed his feet together around another iron leg for good measure.
I rifled through his pockets until I found the wallet.
Then I sat down in the client chair and tried breathing again.
"Should I call 911?" Darlene asked, finally satisfied that she was forgiven, the dog having planted a half-liter gob of drool on her left cheek.
"Give me a minute," I said, placing the gun down and going through the wallet. "Here we go. Ralph T. Battle. This driver's license photo looks like an illustration in a Jane Goodall book. Twenty-seven forty-one Central Avenue, Cicero, Illinois."
"He moved, Jake."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"I just saw him move."
I looked over to Battle, who was slowly coming awake. Even as big as he was, I was convinced that he couldn't budge the radiator.
Well, fairly convinced.
I picked up the gun.
I watched as Battle began to wriggle, then began struggling against his restraints.
"You're going to pay for this, Diamond," he croaked.
Battle was quickly using up his store of well-worn phrases.
I decided to pull out a few of my own.
"Look, Ralph, here's the deal. If your boss wants to speak with me, all you had to do was ask nice. How about we start over. The Boss doesn't have to know that we were anything but civil to each other. Let me give him a quick jingle and ask him what he needs."
"Fuck you."
"Glad you got that off your chest, Ralph. I'm not going to Chicago anytime before June. I'm not going to think about how you threatened my associate, because it makes my trigger finger itch. But if you ever refer to her as a babe or a dame again, I'll let her shoot you. And if you don't give me a phone number for your employer in thirty seconds, I'm going to show you what assholes San Francisco cops can be."
"And you won't tell Mr. Lansdale that you got the drop on me?"
Unbelievable.
I had once asked Jimmy Pigeon what he thought was the most surprising thing about private investigation work. He had answered without hesitation: When you try something stupid and it works.
"Not a word, Ralph, honest."
Battle spit out the ten-digit number.
"I'm tempted to call collect, Ralph."
"Give me a break, Diamond."
"Fuck you," I said.
I dialed the number. After three rings it was picked up. It was a woman's voice. She sounded like a babe.
"Mr. Lansdale, please."
"May I ask who is calling?"
"Go ahead," I said.
"Huh?" she said.
"Just joking," I said, wasting a few more words. "Tell him it's Jake Diamond."
"Hold just a sec, Jake," she said, stretching my name into two syllables.
I held.
Ralph squirmed.
Darlene fidgeted.
Tug McGraw disappeared back to his stronghold beneath the desk.
"Is that calamari frying?" Ralph said.
"Jesus," Darlene said.
"Mr. Diamond," the tenor voice on the Chicago end of the line said, "it's good of you to call."
"Mr. Battle put it so nicely I could hardly resist. Unfortunately, I'll have to pass on the invite to the Windy City. I've given up air travel for Lent."
"How about I come to see you?" Lansdale asked.
"These telephones are a pretty neat invention, Mr. Lansdale," I said. "Seems like a pity not to take full advantage of the technology
."
I was already getting tired of hearing myself speak.
"I need to talk with you face-to-face, Mr. Diamond. I'll be happy to come to you if it's necessary. Or perhaps you might consider giving up bungee jumping instead, just until Easter of course, and hop a jet. I'll make it worth your while."
Battle was distracting me with his attempts to tear the radiator out of the wall.
All I could think of was getting him as far away from Darlene as possible, as soon as conceivable.
I decided that Chicago would have to do.
"All right, Mr. Lansdale. I'll come up there. I'll meet you in the airport, we'll chat, and I'll hop the next jet back."
"I was really hoping to take you to dinner, Jake."
"And I appreciate it, but I'm really pressed for time. I have bingo tonight. Could you give me a little clue as to what this is about?"
"Have Ralph call me when he knows your ETA, and I'll see you at O'Hare."
"Speaking of Ralph, you can do me a favor. Tell him what a good egg you think I am and how you would like my journey to be a pleasurable experience."
Battle stopped yanking at the radiator and was hanging on my every word.
"Ralph didn't inconvenience you in any way, did he, Jake?" Lansdale asked, as if he didn't know.
If he kept calling me Jake I was going to shoot myself in the foot.
"Not a bit, Mr. Lansdale," I said.
"Let me speak to him."
"Sure."
I put the gun down on the desk and walked over to hold the receiver to Battle's ear, closing my eyes and silently praying that he wouldn't bite my hand off. He greeted Lansdale with reverence and then listened. He knocked his head against the phone to let me know he was through. I returned the phone to Darlene's desk and asked her if she had a key for the handcuffs.
Sadly, she did.
"Okay, Ralph. I'm going to set you free. You're going to wait for me in the hall and then we can mosey over to Chicago."
After getting back up on his simian legs, Battle reached down to scoop the metal balls off the floor and immediately began working them.
"How about the gun?" he asked.
Darlene sat at her desk, playing with the .44, making us both edgy.
"You won't be needing it, Ralph. I'll donate it to the Museum of Heavy Artillery," I said. "How did you ever get it past airport security in the first place?"
"I didn't carry it with me," he said. "I purchased it after I arrived, at San Francisco International."
"You bought a firearm at the airport?"
"You can find anything at the airport if you know where to look."
"Great, maybe when we get there you can find me a decent cup of coffee for less than four bucks," I said. "Wait in the hall, Ralph."
Ralph wasn't happy, but Lansdale had surely reminded him that he wasn't getting paid to be happy. He walked out into the hall.
"Wow, I never knew you were so tough, Jake," Darlene said when he was out.
"Aw, shucks. It was nothing. Or are you being sarcastic?"
"Absolutely. You're a lunatic. How can you even think about taking a trip with that goon?"
"Thinking has nothing to do with it. Listen, I don't want to keep Ralph waiting. I don't figure him for a high patience threshold. Find out everything you can about this Lansdale. See if the phone number does any tricks. Give Sonny a call to see what he can do. If all else fails, throw the name at Tony Carlucci. And for heaven's sake, put that gun down."
"If you're not back by midnight I'm calling out the National Guard."
"You do that, pal. Shit, I blew lunch waiting for that damn phone to ring."
"You want a PowerBar?"
"No thanks. I'll grab a Cinnabon at SFI. Does that mutt do anything but sleep?"
"Hardly a thing, unless you kick him real good."
"Wish me luck," I said.
"You need a shrink, Jake," Darlene said.
I could hear Ralph grinding his teeth on the other side of the door.
The mere thought of nearly four hours sitting beside Battle in a closed airplane had my teeth chattering.
I stepped into the hall to join him in a two-part harmony.
Two
It's a safe bet that somewhere in the world someone is wondering whether you can find a cozy, handsomely appointed meeting room within the confines of Chicago's international airport.
The answer is yes.
I never gave it much thought myself, but there it was. Down a short hallway off Concourse A, looking like the set of an Alistair Cooke PBS series. Complete with a fully stocked bar, Persian rugs, framed reproductions, a huge-screen television showing Lou Dobbs Moneyline with the sound muted, leather armchairs, and a working fireplace.
"Make yourself at home," Lansdale said, once Battle had ushered me in.
If the place had been a little closer to the Pacific Ocean, I would have been searching around for a change-of-address form.
I settled into one of the two armchairs.
Between the chairs stood a glass-topped table holding a silver tray covered with tiny sandwiches, crackers, and a mound of foie gras that cost some poor fowl a lot more than an arm and a leg. The bread was ink-jet black, the crusts had been cut off, and the beef spilling from the corners was so rare it made tartare look overdone. The crackers were multigrained, ten or eleven at least. They had the appearance of untanned shoe leather. The chopped liver looked as appetizing as corned beef hash. Granted I wasn't very hungry, and I'd had my fill of goose for the day. The cinnamon roll that I inhaled while dashing to make takeoff was like eating a down comforter.
Lansdale had moved to the bar and was busy determining how much noise he could make clinking ice cubes together.
Battle had placed himself squarely in front of the only door and had taken on the demeanor of a San Quentin prison guard preparing for a breakout. He was clicking his metal balls in tune to Lansdale's ice cube number.
I was way out of my element.
"How do you take your Dickel, Jake?" Lansdale called from across the room.
All was not lost.
The man had done his homework.
I was about to say Shaken not stirred, but Battle was giving me a glare that said one more wisecrack and I'd be added to the pâté.
"Straight up," I said.
Lansdale walked over and handed me a glass.
He reached out for a handshake.
"Jonathan Maximilian Lansdale," he said, giving my mitt a healthy squeeze. "Good to finally meet you."
"Likewise, Mr. Lansdale," I said.
It was all I could muster up.
"Call me Max," he said, snatching a cracker as he sat.
I caught a look from Ralph Battle that said Don't you dare.
I was tired and bored, so I wanted to get the small talk out of the way as quickly as possible.
"How did you manage the digs, Max, on such short notice?"
"Let's just say that I have friends in high places, Jake."
I guessed he wasn't talking about the air traffic control tower.
"So, what can I do for you?" I asked, moving right along.
"I'm looking for a man," he said.
"I don't really know the town, Max," I said. "I'd be lucky if I could find the Sears Tower."
"I have reason to believe that the man is in San Francisco."
"Why didn't you say so when I had you on the phone? I could have brought you the white pages."
"Mr. Diamond, you're very clever, but we're wasting time. And you have a bingo game to get to. Can you concentrate, or do you need Ralph to help you to focus?"
"Mr. Lansdale, I came up here to get Ralph out of San Francisco because the zoo is already heavily overpopulated. I'm prepared to hear you out, but don't threaten me. I happen to be a favorite of the Carlucci family."
"John and Tony?" he said.
"Precisely."
"Johnny Boy is locked up in Quentin for the next lifetime or two and his brother Tony is a pimp. You're going to do m
ore than hear me out, Mr. Diamond."
Oops.
I couldn't tell if he was bluffing, but I knew that I was. And Lansdale was right, we were wasting time.
I decided on the better-safe-than-sorry approach.
"I'm all ears," I said.
***
It went something like this.
Eight years earlier, two men walked into the law office of Lansdale and Sons on South Wacker in downtown Chicago. While one babysat the receptionist, the second entered the private office of Randolph Lansdale, Max Lansdale's law partner and older brother.
A few minutes later he was back out and the two men left as quickly as they had come in. The receptionist buzzed the elder Lansdale and got no response. She then entered the office and found Randolph Lansdale slumped in his chair with a bullet hole in his right temple. The woman's screams brought Max Lansdale in from the adjoining room.
"I think you can imagine what a horrible discovery it was," said Lansdale.
It was difficult to imagine.
I tried to imagine my own brother, Abe, with a bullet hole between the eyes, but it didn't work. It clashed too much with his thick, black-framed Sergeant Bilko eyeglasses.
I thought about Jimmy Pigeon's murder. At the time I had spent all my energies trying to discover who killed Jimmy and not a moment trying to imagine how his lifeless body had looked. And I wasn't about to try conjuring it up now
I did my best to empathize with Lansdale.
"I can imagine," I said.
"Randolph had just returned from a business and sightseeing trip to Los Angeles a few days earlier. The pictures he took while he was away were still in his camera. I had the roll of film developed, and our receptionist identified the man who murdered my brother from one of the photos."
"Pardon the interruption, Mr. Lansdale," I said, "but if I'm following correctly, this happened six years ago and is perhaps tied to your brother's visit to LA. I'm not quite sure how you expect I can help you."
"I'm coming around to it, Jake," Lansdale said, shooting a glance over to Battle. "Do you think you can bear with me a while longer?"
I stole a look at Battle also.
"Absolutely," I said.
"I hired a well-regarded private investigator from the Los Angeles area," he continued. "His report came back in less than a week. The man in the photograph was Harrison Chandler, and Harrison Chandler was no longer among the living."
The Brooklyn Rules Page 5
