Dead Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 5)

by Phillip DePoy

  “He was in town to kill Higgins.” I sat back. “That’s what he was here for.”

  “Damn. Mug Lewis.” Dan’s fingers stopped moving. “I always thought he should be called ‘Brain’ Lewis anyway. I never thought he was all that good-looking, but he surely is the smartest crook I ever knew.”

  “Not to mention the luckiest,” I added. “The guys who went to kill him …”

  “… Chuckie and Rimshot, that’s my guess now,” Dan added, as if it were self-evident.

  “Or whoever.” I was open on the subject. “But anyway, they put the gun right up to his head and pulled the trigger and the bullet ran around under his skin and popped out the other side of his face. Didn’t penetrate the skull at all.”

  “I’ve heard of that.” Dan was not the least bit impressed with the Miracle of the Mug.

  “You’ve heard of that?”

  “Sure.” He explained: “The skull is actually very hard. And if it’s a small-caliber gun you’ve got right next to your skull, the bullet doesn’t have time to pick up hurling momentum …”

  “… hurling momentum?”

  “You heard me,” he went right on. “And in fact I’ve heard of guys putting a pistol to the back of somebody’s head, execution style, like Mug, and the bullet backing up in the chamber and blowing up in the shooter’s hand.”

  “Get out.”

  “Strange but true.” Dan sat back. “So I assume Mug played dead until the Hardy Boys went away — I mean, there had to be a lot of blood and all to convince them they’d done their duty — and then Mug made it someplace where he rested and thought.”

  “And his thinking turned to his own personal safety.” I shook my head. “He came back to town to take care of everything, he said.” Light was dawning. “And he hired me to toss me off his scent … in much the same way we’re positing that Dally might have. He deliberately wanted me to look for Jakes’s connection, hoping I would find out that Jakes was burning the candle at both ends and I’d come to the conclusion that Jakes iced Ronnard. And that would take care of everything for him. And if you will recall, he told us in the lobby of the Clairmont that his business was now concluded.”

  “He busted in on Higgins,” Danny started, “scared the hell out of him, because Mug was supposed to be a ghost. Higgins was all coked-up anyway. Mug, say, held a gun to Ronn’s head, but got his hand, Ronnard’s own hand — get the irony of that — and forced it around the knife thing, and stabbed it into Ronn’s gizzard. Then he pulled it out, planted it in Jakes’s room, and what’s his damage? He shags the body across the street, only little Jerky Jakes is on his tail, so he has to pop Jakes too, he just doesn’t know that Dally and you are so close by. He improvises getting you as his helpmeet. You buy it. He’s home free.”

  “Wherever home would be for Mug at this point. And however improbable this scheme you’ve just laid out may sound.”

  “Do you really want to question all this much further?” Danny’s fingers started twitching again. “Or would you rather just leave things well enough alone?”

  “You mean,” I said slowly, reaching for the bottle again, “do I really want to know the truth, or would I rather stick to a comfortable belief.”

  “The cops say Ronn’s a suicide.” He folded his arms. “Who are we?”

  “We are exactly nobody.” I poured. “Not that I care that much for the fact that Mug aided in screwing me up to no end.” I sipped. “By the way: You never told me why you were so weird when you met him in the lobby across the street.”

  “That was nothing.” He blinked. “I just knew he was Mug Lewis … not Curtis. I recognized him right away. You don’t forget that kisser. I wondered why everyone else was ignoring that fact. I guess I wanted to give him the idea that at least I knew who he was.”

  “You knew right away?”

  “I know everything,” he told me. “You don’t realize that?”

  “Yeah, you know everything.” I shook my head. “Have I ever told you my theory about knowledge in human history?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Nobody wants to hear my line of thinking today.” I took another sip. “But that doesn’t seem to stop me. Human history could easily be divided into times when it was better to know, and times when it was better not to know. For example, in Greek culture, the pursuit of truth was one of the highest attainments. By the time you get to medieval Europe, everybody’s dedicated to the unknowable mystery. It’s better not to know.”

  “Your Catholic Church liked it that way.” At least Dan was willing to participate. “They kept telling your serfs that only the priests could know …”

  “… and that the pursuit of knowledge was actually an insult to God. Correct. God knows. That’s good enough for the likes of you.”

  “I see what you’re saying.” He pursed his lips. “You’d just as soon not know the whole truth in this matter. That’s medieval thinking, though, and I’m not certain I can endorse it for myself.”

  “You think you have to know.”

  “So do you,” he said. “You’re just tired.”

  “But once we know …”

  “… we can let it go,” he whispered. “I see no reason to mess anybody else up.”

  “What if it turns out that … somebody we know is, you know — wrong?”

  “See?” He seemed angered by my remark. “Your problem is that you think some people are all saint and some people are all sinner. The fact is this: Everybody’s a little of both.”

  “Icing a husband” — I smiled coldly — “is hardly a little of something.”

  “You’re the worst Taoist on the planet.”

  “Some insult.” I finished my wine. “Some esoteric, arcane insult. And I don’t see what it has to do …”

  And here’s where God’s liming came in, once again. Because my sentence was interrupted when Hal called out, “Flap? Your pal Curtis is on the phone.”

  Dan furrowed his brow. “Curtis?”

  “Now how would he know,” I reminded him, “that I’d be here at this time of day?”

  52. Easy Math

  “Why, hello — Curtis,” I said into the phone, holding back, in my voice, the full impact of the irony I felt in my mind. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Yes.” He sounded philosophical, and far away. Or maybe it was just a bad connection. “I’d imagine you were. Probably you and that Danny Frank wise guy.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I knew he recognized me.” He was silent for a moment. “I thought about popping him, you know.”

  “I’m sure you thought about popping me, too. But you thought better of it. I think you came to believe that even if I figured out that it was you who killed Higgins, I wouldn’t mind because it got him out of Dally’s way.” I thought that being blunt was called for — or maybe it was the wine talking.

  “Who says I killed Higgins?” He was dead calm. “Didn’t I just read in the early edition that he bopped himself?”

  “There’s still the little matter of Jersey Jakes.”

  “Yeah. I wonder who could have zotzed a cute little guy like him?” Mug’s voice was loaded with something, but the connection was so bad that I could barely hear him.

  “What did you ever have against Jakes?” I had to know.

  “He scares little girls.”

  In a flash, I saw Jersey’s bad outfit: gaudy shirt, cheap slacks — but the standout was his cloth shoes: they were made out of two different colors of material.

  “If you don’t mind me referring to your friend Ms. Oglethorpe as a little girl,” Mug went on. “I don’t mean any disrespect. I know she is actually a full-grown woman. But Jakes was scaring her and messing me up, helping out Higgins and all — so I thought it best to just …”

  “… stop.” I said it forcefully enough to make Hal stop what he was doing and to make Dan look over. “I thought you meant Lucy.”

  “What?” Mug was confused.

  “You’ve just given me
too much to handle on an empty stomach and a full wineglass. Just hang on a second, okay?”

  “Okay — but this is long-distance, and I don’t like to waste money.”

  “For all I know,” I said, “you could be across the street at a pay phone and just saying you were far, far away.”

  “That would be clever,” he admitted, “but the fact is …”

  “… so can you just hang on a second? I’ve got to think.”

  “So think, already,” Mug told me impatiently, “but can you do it fast, is all I’m asking, because I’m on a timetable, here. I called you for a reason, you know.”

  “Oh.” That stopped my gears. “Of course you did. Why did you call?”

  “I wanted to conclude our business. It’s my last loose end. I wanted to let you know where the remainder of your fee — you know, your money — was.”

  “My fee?”

  “You worked for me, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess maybe I did. But the fact is, you hired me under false pretenses.”

  “I did?” He didn’t even bother to try to sound innocent.

  “You hired me to find out who you had killed. You already knew. And you already knew why. All I don’t know is why you chose that particular moment.”

  “I see.” He paused. “Well, the fact is, I did see the little rat deliver Higgins’s body to Ms. Oglethorpe. In fact, that’s why I was there the other night, because I’d followed Jakes across the street. I was quite upset because I thought Higgins’s body ought to have stayed where it was. And I thought Jakes might spill his guts to you or to Ms. Oglethorpe — guts which I did not wish for him to spill. So I thought I should just take care of the matter then and there, you know: before things got too complicated. That’s all.”

  “Too complicated?” I was just past the edge of no return. “Before things were too complicated, you’re saying?” Heat waves were actually rising from my body.

  “Take it easy,” he said, trying for a soothing tone. “I realize things got a little out of hand for you in your little playhouse, there. But I had work to do, bud, you get me?”

  “Relationships are all good and well, but when there’s work to do, everything else gets pushed back. That’s the American way, the American male way. Well, put me down as being primarily against it. Give me libido or give me death, that’s what I say to Patrick Henry.”

  “When did you ever have a libido?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Me? I’ve got enough for a small emerging country. I just don’t like to sling it around.”

  “Well” — he laughed — “you certainly do hide your light under a bushel.”

  “Okay. But the point is, you helped screw up one of the world-class understandings, and I’m not that happily disposed to you at the moment.”

  “I screwed up exactly nothing.” His voice rose and quickened, “You needed to know the kind of stuff you found out about Dalliance Oglethorpe — if that’s what we’re talking about. You ought to be thanking me.”

  “Thanking you?” I was much louder. “I ought to be finding out where you are and telling police Detective Huyne your precise location.”

  “Because of what? Higgins killed himself. And I don’t feature that the cops will spend too much time on Jakes. What’s one more dead rat in a city like Atlanta. Ever been downtown after midnight in that Central City Park?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, “I know all about the urban rodent problem.”

  “You like to think of yourself as part of the solution,” he shot back, “but just as often, you get things all gummed up and people get away. You know the biggest case of yours that I ever heard about? Some nutty little guy named Lenny Cascade who killed a slew of people and got clean away. Some detective you are. Why would the cops even be interested in what you have to say?”

  And there you had it, the real crux of the biscuit, as Danny had told me earlier: Why would Huyne even listen to me? And why should I bother telling him?

  “You know … Curtis,” I said slowly, and at half the volume I’d used a moment before, “you’re absolutely right.”

  “I know I am.” He was calming too. “I just had to make sure you could see that.”

  “And the fact is, you actually may have helped me to solve a small case. It’s something I was handling in conjunction with the outer world — something about a masher.”

  “Outer world. Fine by me,” he said quickly, “but as I glance at my watch, I notice I am behind my time, and I really have to fly, here. So my point is, I left you a final payment for your services. I left it at the very bar where you stand, in fact.”

  “How do you know I’m standing? And how did you know …”

  “… you sounded too mad to be sitting down,” he told me quickly, before I could ask him anything else. “So if you’ll just saunter into Ms. Oglethorpe’s office and find a blue envelope with your name on it, I think you’ll be quite happy with our parting arrangement.”

  Before I could get in another syllable — like especially how he had known where to find me — he hung up.

  I looked over at Hal. “Do you have that caller identification thing on this phone?” I asked him.

  “Star 69,” he affirmed.

  I punched. Here’s what I heard: “We’re sorry. Touch Star service cannot be used to call this number, trace this number, or enter this number on your list.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked Hal when I’d told him what the nice recorded lady had said.

  “Could be a protected number, a long-distance number, a pay phone, a police station …” he started.

  “… I get it. Could really be anything.”

  “Yeah.” He went back to work without asking me a single question, and I found myself envying his lack of curiosity.

  I went back and sat with Danny, who was much more interested in my conversation on the telephone.

  “Nu?”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said patiently. “That was Curtis. You remember him.”

  “I do. Where was he?”

  “Claimed to be in a land far, far away — but he knew I’d be here now, and I’m never here now, so I have to at least consider that something else is up. Anyway, he admitted nothing, but then he practically confessed, in my book, to killing Higgins. And he also showed no remorse about Jakes. Who, by the way, is most likely the guy who scared little Lucy over at the Clairmont Lounge the other night — that’s what I think.”

  “Because?”

  “It comes to me after something Mug just said. How much have I told you about that little deal?”

  “I don’t really care.” He was stone-faced. “All I want to know is what are you going to do now?”

  “Now?” I stared at the side of his face. “Well, I’ll tell you: All I have to do is work out some simple mathematics. I have to see about putting two and two back together again.”

  53. Timing Really Is Everything

  And just to prove that He really was the greatest comedian of all, God provided another singular act of timing. Dalliance Oglethorpe walked through the door at exactly that moment.

  I looked over at Danny to make sure he understood the hilarity of the situation.

  “Well.” He smiled and stood. “I think my work here is done.” He looked at Dally. “Morning, Ms. Oglethorpe.”

  She saw him, smiled, nodded, but she mostly had eyes for me.

  I guess Dan left then. I wouldn’t know. All I could see was her face.

  “You look a lot better out of jail than you do in,” I said, no tone at all.

  “Oh, I do, do I?”

  Hal was very busy, and staring at his work with enough intent to stop a clock.

  “My office?” she continued.

  “I’d say so.” I picked up the package Danny had wrapped, put it in my coat pocket, and followed her in.

  The office was different than it had been in days, for some reason, looked more like it was supposed to look: messy, comfortable, sepia-toned. She sat behind the desk, dres
sed in her dark green Mother Hubbard, her hair every which way.

  “Hey.” Her hand shot to the desktop. “There’s an envelope here for you.”

  “I know,” I answered. “It’s from Mug Lewis. Open it.”

  She did. There were ten Madisons and a note. She held it all out to me.

  I shook my head. “Read it.”

  She did: “Flap, How lovely it was. Curtis.”

  She looked up more or less quizzically.

  “It’s our game,” I reminded her. “The lyric game. It’s a line from a song.”

  “‘How lovely it was’?”

  “Thanks for the Memories,’” I clued her in.

  “What does it mean, exactly?”

  “It means,” I told her, reaching for the note and the cash, “that he wants me to forget all about everything that’s happened in the past few days and go on about my business, whatever that may be, in all the comfort and security fifty thousand dollars can buy. He’s hoping that much money would make a guy forget anything.”

  “I see.” She sat back. “And what are the odds that you can actually do that?”

  “Forget what’s transpired, say, between you and me lately? No odds, no bets.” I shuffled the cash, looked at her, and lowered my voice to a whisper. “But I’d love to try.”

  “Well.” That single syllable heaved out a decade’s worth of worry. “Me too.”

  “Okay by me.” I folded the money and put it in my pocket — the same one with the present. I took it out, unwrapped it, and tossed the letter opener casually onto the rest of the chaos on her desk. “This belongs to you, I think.”

  She locked her eyes on it and didn’t look up.

  After a second or two, I thought it best to break the ice. “Not to worry. I was actually just talking to this Curtis person on the phone, believe it or not, and he all but admitted to taking care of your little problem himself. In fact, it was his fault that hubby was in dutch with the bosses.”

  “It was Mug’s fault?”

  “Remember his telling us how two goons killed him because he owed money …”

  “… but he didn’t stay dead.” She remembered.