13 Suspense

by Parnell Hall

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  “You like that better than the fish?”

  “Actually, I do. I’m sure hundreds of people bought fish yesterday. Probably not that many drove parking patterns in a cab.”

  “Uh-huh. So how you gonna handle it, go out to Broadway start hailin' cabs until you find the right one?”

  “That might take some time.”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “How about calling cab companies?”

  “They probably wouldn’t speak to you on the phone. You’d have to go around, flash ID, tell a good story. Still, they won’t want to do it ’cause it’s a pain in the ass.”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s not like I had an official reason for asking, like I was a cop or something.”

  MacAullif didn’t acknowledge the hint, just said, “Yeah, you gotta talk fast, flash the ID, maybe slip the dispatcher a couple of bucks. You’re makin' enough that shouldn’t hurt, and what the hell, you charge it to expenses anyway.”

  “You’re suggesting I hand out bribes?”

  “Gratuities. Huge difference. Good thing to remember in your line of work. Well, you gonna do it?”

  “Huh?”

  “Gonna try to trace the cab?”

  “I will if I get time.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m still working on the crank phone calls.”

  “You don’t think the two things are related?”

  “Possibly.”

  “’Cause if they were, workin’ on one would be workin’ on the other.”

  “I see what you’re saying, but ...”

  MacAullif grinned. “But tracing the taxicab is almost as unappetizing a prospect as tracing the fish. I know you all too well. So go on, get out of here, play it any way you want to. I made my suggestions, now it’s up to you. So go do whatever you want.”

  MacAullif raised his cigar. “Just one thing.”

  “What’s that.”

  “I don’t know if the fish means anything or not. If you’re not gonna look into it, you won’t know either. But just in case it does ...”

  “What?”

  “Watch your back.”

  27.

  GREAT.

  I had been watching my back. I’m paranoid to begin with, and getting a load of dead fish is not the sort of thing that makes me any less so.

  I left MacAullif’s office feeling rather bad. I had hoped MacAullif would pooh-pooh the fish. Tell me I was being silly and wasting his time. Instead, he suggests I investigate and tells me to watch my back.

  Big help.

  My beeper hadn’t gone off, meaning the mystery caller hadn’t checked in, so I went back to my office to see what I could do about tracing the cab.

  I got out the NYNEX Yellow Pages and looked up Taxicabs. To my surprise, there was less than half a page. In all of New York City? Somehow that didn’t seem right.

  Closer inspection revealed most of the taxi services listed were the type you phoned for. Which made sense, but what I mean is, they were not taxicab dispatchers so much as car services. In fact, some actually were car services—I found Carmel listed, which is a service Alice and I sometimes use to get to the airport. But what about regular fleets of cabs?

  I looked at the listing again.

  After the heading Taxicabs, in parentheses, was the letter D. What the hell did that mean?

  There was no explanation on the page.

  I turned to the front of the yellow pages, where I found no explanation either, though I did find the table of contents. About halfway down the page was the heading “How to Use This Directory.” It was on page 2, but was not as immediately accessible as that would lead one to believe, as that was page 2 of the Introductory Pages, following some thirty-odd pages of the Inside Interest Pages, which include airport information, diagrams of theaters and sports stadiums, not to mention several pages of NYNEX coupons.

  I located page 2. Captioned “How to Use,” it told you in three steps, labeled steps one, two, and three, how to look up something in the yellow pages. In case you’re wondering, the short answer was alphabetically.

  I found what I wanted on page 3. The third paragraph under the heading “Buying Information” read: “There are some businesses which have the dual interest in serving both the individual consumer and the business buyer. These businesses are identified in the index and in the body of the book with the letter D, signifying that the heading appears in both the Manhattan Consumer and the NYNEX Business to Business Yellow Pages editions.”

  Aha. Mystery solved.

  I looked at the top of the page. The heading read “Manhattan Consumer Yellow Pages.”

  No wonder I couldn’t find the listings. I was in the Consumer section. I needed the Business to Business.

  I flipped to the back of the book. The alphabetical listings started again. Here was the Business to Business. Where were taxicabs?

  I located them quickly, under the heading “Taxicabs.”

  But that’s all there was. Just the heading. No listings. What the hell was going on?

  Then I noticed on the side of the page it said “Index.”

  Index?

  I flipped to the front of the Business to Business section and read “NYNEX Index. A guide to the headings that appear both in this directory and in the NYNEX Business to Business Directory.”

  Of course. This wasn’t the directory. This was just the index, telling what was in the directory. The Business to Business Directory was a whole different book.

  Which I didn’t have.

  I leaned back in my desk chair, rubbed my head.

  The phone rang.

  I picked it up, growled, “Hello.”

  It was MacAullif. “You can forget about tracing the cab.”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s no record anywhere of any cab driving that route,” he said, and hung up.

  28.

  I FOUND SERGEANT THURMAN HANGING out in front of a brownstone on West 78th Street. I parked my car halfway down the block and walked back.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  Thurman jerked his thumb. “He’s in there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Went out for coffee, went right back. Been there ever since.”

  “You been here all morning?”

  “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t know he was there.”

  “How long you gonna stay on him?”

  “Long as it takes. He’s the guy.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You don’t think he’s the guy?”

  “I suppose he could be. But it’s a long shot.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, get this. He’s single, he lives alone. He has no job. His last job was drivin' taxi, but he lost his license for too many moving violations. Nothing serious, just rinky-dink shit like runnin’ red lights and makin' left-hand turns durin' the wrong time, you know, like when it’s no left turn from seven to ten. The sort of shit only a real loser would lose his license for.

  “That’s him, by the way. Loser from the word go. Which is just the guy we’re lookin’ for.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Plus he’s a writer. Again, nothin big. Contributes articles to the free papers. The Westsider. Manhattan Spirit. Not like he makes any money doin’ it, it’s just so he can call himself a writer,”

  “How’d you get all this, sitting here in the street?”

  Thurman grinned. “Hey, I’m a sergeant. People work for me.

  “Why don’t you assign one of them to this?”

  “No way. He’s my boy. I want him.”

  “You find any connection to Winnington?”

  “Not yet. But I’m sure it’s there. So, whadda you up to?”

  I hesitated. For a moment I wondered if I should tell him about the fish. It was only a second, but that was enough. My thoughts immediately began performing back flips. Tell Sergeant Thurman? Why, in the name of reason? I just got through telling MacAullif I couldn’t tell Ser
geant Thurman. So then I turn around and tell him. Why? To betray MacAullif? To pay him back for making me feel stupid about tracing the taxicabs, for letting me go through the whole charade while he was actually doing it himself? Or was that the reason—because MacAullif did the taxicab I wanted Thurman to do the fish?

  The thought occurred to me, maybe MacAullif was doing the fish. Although I knew he wasn’t. Tracing the taxicabs was routine. It was the type of thing cops do all the time. They undoubtedly had a system in place. For MacAullif it probably took only one phone call.

  Fish would be different. There would be no system set up for fish. It would require contacting each and every store. MacAullif wouldn’t do it, and neither would Thurman—why the hell was I having such thoughts?

  All of that went through my head in a flash, and if I showed any of it, I’m sure Thurman didn’t notice, because I just shrugged and said, “Not much,”

  “Still working for Winnington?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What you doin’?”

  Good question. “Still trying to trace the calls. They haven’t had one today.”

  “I could have told you that. The guy hasn’t been out. But how did you know there hasn’t been a call?”

  “I’m on the beeper. When they get a call, they beep me.”

  “That’s nice. When your beeper goes off, you’ll know I got my man.”

  “If it’s him.”

  “Oh, it’s him. Ten to one I could pick him up right now, bring him in, get him to confess.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “Tell you why. Fuckin’ Miranda and the rest. No matter how you treat a guy these days, half of what he tells you ain’t worth shit. A sorry state of affairs, a guy says he did it, don’t hold up in court. But that’s what we’ve come to. So, even if I can get a guy to confess, I’d rather catch him with the goods. I’m stickin’ with him, when he makes the call, he’s mine.”

  It was just about then that I realized what Sergeant Thurman had done. He’d equated the killer with the caller, so he was now attempting to trap the caller.

  As was I.

  Sergeant Thurman and I were both attempting to do the same thing. I was, in effect, competing with Sergeant Thurman to see who could stop the crank caller first.

  A depressing thought.

  However, that being the case, it occurred to me Sergeant Thurman had chosen his course of action. Typical of the man, he had jumped to a hasty conclusion in naming a suspect, and would now bend all of his energies toward proving that one person guilty of the crime.

  Most likely at the expense of everything else.

  “You trace down those people yet?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Those two writers. The ones who called on her.”

  “I will if I have to.”

  “If you have to?”

  “If I nail my killer, who cares?”

  Who indeed. I left him there on stakeout, went off to do the job myself. If Thurman wasn’t going to do it, someone had to. Besides, if I was really competing with Thurman, I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him win. Not that that seemed even a remote possibility.

  I drove a few blocks just to get away from Thurman, and stopped at a pay phone.

  Just my luck, neither of the wannabe writers was home. Both had answering machines, but I left no message, not knowing what I wanted to say.

  Damn.

  Right back where I started. On the job with nothing to do.

  Except retrace old ground.

  As I flipped through my notebook looking up the numbers, the irony of what I was doing was not lost on me.

  Sergeant Thurman was a homicide cop, attempting to solve a murder by finding out who was responsible for making crank phone calls.

  I was a detective, hired to find out who was making the calls.

  It appeared the only way to do it was for me to solve the murder.

  29.

  “THAT COP IS NOT VERY BRIGHT.”

  “You noticed, that?”

  Abe Feinstein took a bite from his enormous corned beef sandwich. We were in the Stage Deli on Seventh Avenue, which makes enormous sandwiches. I had offered to take him to the deli where we met before, but when he heard it was me, he’d opted for here. I guess he knew a sucker when he saw one. Which I guess I was. I was only having coffee myself, and figured to pick up the tab. Or at least pony up the cash for it while Abe put it on his credit card.

  Whatever it cost me, it was worth it to hear his assessment of Sergeant Thurman.

  “Noticed?” Abe Feinstein said. “The cop comes walking in with the word dumb on his forehead. It’s written on his shirt. It’s tattooed on his eyelids. The man breathes dumb.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to solve a murder by asking me a lot of stupid questions. Some of the same questions you asked me, but you had a reason. This cop, he hasn’t got a clue.”

  “He ask you where you were at the time of the murder?”

  Abe Feinstein raised his finger. “That’s one dumb question. The first time he asked it was dumb. The second time he asked it was dumber. The third time he asked it was dumbest. Each time I say the same thing, I am in my apartment, I am alone, I am not out killing a publicist for not doing justice to my author’s books. Why? One, because I’m not a killer. Two, because it doesn’t make sense. As a person with any normal thought process could see.”

  “It does seem absurd.”

  “You noticed? Congratulations, welcome to the world of the rational, the sane,”

  He grabbed his sandwich, “Now, Sherry, I’m sorry she’s gone. A scheming, cunning, shrewish, conniving, hard-edged bitch of a woman.” He nodded gravely. “She will be missed.”

  “Can you think of any reason anyone would want to kill her?”

  “Absolutely. She was a major pain in the ass. Many people wanted to kill her. But do it? Pish tush. Not the sort of thing you do. Kill a gutsy old broad for being brash.”

  “If it had to do with the phone number.”

  “That’s something else. If it had to do with that, it didn’t have to do with her. I mean, as a person. I mean, she wasn’t killed because of who she was, only because of what she had. Could have been anyone with the phone number.”

  “Exactly.”

  He looked at me sideways. “Are you telling me I’m in danger?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, either. If I were you, I would be on my guard.”

  “Are you kidding me? I am always on my guard.”

  “So what did the cop want to know? Aside from your whereabouts at the time of the crime.”

  “That was about it. The guy didn’t want to know squat. Didn’t know squat himself.” Abe raised the sandwich, cocked his head. “You know what? It was more than that. He acted like I didn’t know squat. That’s it in a nutshell. The guy gave the impression he was askin’ me questions ’cause it was his job, but he didn’t expect me to know jack shit.”

  “And you do?”

  “Not at all. But he don’t know that. So where the hell does he get off makin’ that assumption?”

  “What did he ask you about?”

  “Asked me about Kenny. What’s it like workin with the big writer. I didn’t tell him, like I told you, what I think of Kenny’s talent.” Abe Feinstein raised his hand, made a whizzing gesture over his head. “Not to that cop. No point. Then he asked me if him and his wife get along. You could see that idea coming a mile away—is he the guy behind harassing his wife?” Abe held up his hand. “Not that I say this to him—that I know that’s what he’s getting at. I don’t fly defensive, say, Kenny wouldn’t do such a thing. I just answer like the dumbest schmuck in the world, Oh, yeah, they get along fine. And he accepts that answer like the dumbest schmuck in the world. Only thing is, I’m play-acting and he’s not.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “He ask you about his editor?”

  “Oh, yeah. In fact, I think he actua
lly saw her first.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. Either he’d just come from there, or he was just going there. So he must not have mentioned anything she said. ’Cause if he did, I’d be sure. And I’m not. Anyway, I think he asked me if there was any connection between Sherry and her and I said not that I knew of. Again, I don’t think he really gave a damn.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Actually, I was thinking of the other one.”

  “Other one?”

  “The other editor. The one you told me about. Who did his first book.”

  “Doug Mark.”

  “Right. Did he ask you about him?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. The name never came up.” He looked at me. “You suspect Doug Mark?”

  “I don’t suspect anyone,” I said. “I’m just gathering leads. Unlike Sergeant Thurman, I want as many as I can get.”

  “You want to tell me why Kenny’s first editor might have killed his present publicist?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “The point is, we don’t know anybody’s motive yet. They’re both in the industry, they might know each other. Suppose this Doug Mark was the guy making the calls. And Sherry Pressman was the source of the phone number.”

  “So he kills her to keep you from finding that out?”

  “Actually,” I said, “that doesn’t sound half bad.”

  He grimaced. “Hey, don’t be as dumb as the cop. You think this guy harbors a grudge four, five years, then gets revenge on Kenny by making phone calls to his wife? I tell you one thing, I am very glad as an agent I don’t have to pitch that plot.”

  “All right, if that’s a stupid idea, then you tell me—who do you think killed her?”

  “One of her writers.”

  “Huh?”

  “No, not like Kenny. I mean the suckers. The ones she was taking for a ride.”

  “And who was that?”

  “All of them. The whole bunch. If you ask me, any one of them could have done it, and who could blame ’em?”