by Jack Lynch
“He’s a private detective, Fudge. And his name’s Bragg. Just like they said on the news. You impressed?”
“Yeah, I’m impressed, Elmo.”
“Take off your hat and coat,” Elmo told me. “You’re not going any place.”
I took off my hat and coat, then hesitated.
“Toss ’em in the corner,” Elmo said.
I tossed them where he indicated.
“Get up on the box,” Elmo said.
I stepped up onto the footlocker.
“Toss your jacket and pants over there with your coat.”
“Hey, look, I’m coming down with something…”
It’s a small office. Fudge was able to shift his weight and plant a fist on my mouth before I could react. My head rattled off the wall behind me and my eyes blurred. I could feel warm blood inside my mouth and lip.
“Toss your jacket and pants over there with your coat,” Elmo said again.
This time I did what he told me. Fudge settled down on one corner of the desk, his mouth working on the gum.
“And your shirt, too,” said Elmo.
I unbuttoned my shirt. The fear was leaving me. They hadn’t made the connection with the footlocker. Not yet, anyway. In place of the fear now was anger. Plus respect for their way of operating. It took some of the starch out of you when somebody made you take off your clothes. The way men acted you’d think a couple layers of cloth was a girdle of armor. I tossed the shirt into the corner.
“Where’s the money?” Elmo asked me.
“What money?”
Fudge quit chewing gum long enough to laugh. “Can you believe it? We chase this asshole up and down the whole West Coast and he has the fucking nerve to ask what money.”
“Stand at ease,” Elmo told me, “with your hands behind your back.”
I did like he said. I knew what was coming, but there was nothing I could do about it. Fudge came off the desk and swung his weight into me again, ramming his fist low into my stomach. It made a thwack on the skin of my belly and I doubled over. Something hummed inside my head and I thought I was going to be sick. It passed in a moment. I straightened.
Fudge was grinning up at me. “Did you like that?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to do it again?”
“No.”
But he hit me there again anyhow, as hard as the first time. I fought not to lose my balance, and I fought to keep the bile and whatever else there was down in my stomach. My eyes were moist but I struggled to take a breath, and straightened up again.
“Elmo asked you where the money was.”
“What you see in the wallet on the desk is all that I’ve got,” I managed weakly. “I won’t act dumb. I heard that Buddy Polaski was supposed to be coming west with some money. But if he did, I don’t know what he did with it. It wasn’t on him and it wasn’t in his luggage. We weren’t together long enough for him to tell me what he did with it, even if he’d wanted to.”
“Don’t make speeches, creep,” Elmo told me. He turned toward Fudge. “Look through the file cabinets.”
Fudge turned and crossed to the cabinets. He opened the metal drawers one by one, riffling through the folders. He was deliberate and thorough, making sure there was nothing but file folders and documents. My eyes wanted to swim in different directions again and I started to gag. It passed just in time.
While Fudge was going through the cabinets, Elmo was going through the drawers in my desk. He wouldn’t find anything there to make him any happier. I had a feeling they were going to hit me some more.
When Fudge finished the last cabinet drawer he banged it shut and turned around. “Nothing, Elmo. Why don’t we hang him out the window by his feet?”
Elmo didn’t say anything. When he’d gone through the last drawer of the desk he closed it and raised his eyes to stare at me for several seconds. He got up finally and came around to me, lifting a revolver out of his own coat pocket. With the other hand he grabbed a mat of chest hair and pulled me down until my face was nearly even with his own. I didn’t see it when he brought up the gun in a hard dig to my belly. I just felt the end of the gun barrel stab into my gut. I sucked in a little gulp of air and could feel sweat on my forehead.
“Do you know how much money Buddy Polaski stole, creep?”
I shook my head and could only gasp for another moment or two. “I told you,” I managed finally. “I don’t know anything about the money. I just heard rumors from the cops.”
Elmo let go of my chest hair and took a step back. “What cops?”
“The ones investigating the Polaski killing. And a friend in the local department.”
“What rumors have they heard?”
“What you just said. Polaski stole some money he was supposed to be collecting and turning over to other people. And somebody might have been coming after him to get it back.”
Elmo nodded. “That’s why Fudge and I are here. To get it back. But you didn’t hear how much.”
“No.”
Elmo sat on the front of the desk, staring at me. Fudge had moved back to about where he’d been when he slammed my head against the wall.
“Six hundred thousand dollars,” Elmo said. “Maybe more. That’s how much Buddy Polaski stole.”
I let my face show my surprise.
“Yeah,” said Elmo, “six hundred thousand. For money like that we don’t just beat up on people, creep, we maim and kill.”
I swallowed hard. Elmo glanced at Fudge. Fudge threw another punch at my face. This one caught me a little lower than the first. He aimed for my chin but I tucked it just before he landed. I bounced my head back against the wall again but it was more playacting than anything else. My collarbone took most of the punch.
Elmo shook his head. “What’s it all about, creep? What could have eaten away at Buddy’s brain so bad he thought he could get away with something like that? Talk, creep.”
“I don’t know. I was hired to meet him at the airport and ride shotgun for a day or so. Nobody ever got around to telling me what it was I was supposed to be protecting him from. Nobody told me he’d stolen money from the mob.”
“Don’t use that word, creep.”
“Nobody told me he’d stolen money from anybody. Until later. Like I said, the cops told me.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re a creep, but you’re not that dumb a creep. You wouldn’t take a job blind like that.”
He nodded slightly in Fudge’s direction. I was almost ready for it this time. Fudge tried a brief combination of punches. Pros who have spent a few hundred hours in the gym practicing their timing can make that sort of thing work. Pugs like Fudge can’t. His first punch, to my face again, was his best. He followed it up with a left jab to my stomach, but he already was thinking about his big finale and under the circumstances I hardly felt it. His last was a right hook to my ear and side of my head. I went with the punch as well as I could and pitched sideways off the footlocker. I ended up in the corner where my clothes were. I shook my head a couple of times to clear it. That brought on a sneeze.
I was to the point where I hardly cared any more if they shot me or not. I was beginning to shiver. I started to put my clothes back on. Neither man moved to stop me.
“What were you really hired for, creep?” Elmo asked.
“I didn’t lie. I wasn’t told any more than what I told you. The guy who hired me was a local newspaperman I’d known for years. I figured he’d be decent enough to warn me if it were going to be all that dangerous. Turned out he wasn’t decent enough. But since I had no idea what was involved, I was armed when I met Polaski at the airport. Naturally, when you two came out shooting I returned fire to scare you off.”
“What’s the name of the man who hired you?”
“Harry Shank. He died later that same day. In an apparent auto accident.”
“Why do you say apparent?”
“I’d seen you two in action earlier, at the airport. Who knows what you might hav
e been up to later that night. I figured you were capable of killing any number of people.”
“I never heard of any Harry Shank. All we came out for was the money.”
When I’d finished dressing I looked around for a minute. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to the footlocker next to Fudge’s foot that had the $600,000 they were looking for. I just settled down on the floor, rested my hands on my knees and looked from one to the other of them.
“What were you doing up north?” Elmo asked.
I squinted at him. “Was it really you people who followed me up there?”
“Every thrilling step of the way. It was not so thrilling for the local talent asshole we hired on to help out. Who shot him, by the way? Was that you?”
“No. That was a man named Catlin. I’d been sent up to find him on another matter. I had the impression he was a little goosy about prowlers.”
“Yeah. I guess you could call a man who would empty an AR into another man’s gut a little goosy.” Elmo went around to sit at my desk again. “What about our driver? Were you the one who gave him both barrels in the legs and butt?”
I shook my head and rubbed my temples some. “I didn’t have any part in the shooting up there. I was just delivering a message to Catlin. An old friend of his who lives here wanted to get in touch with him. I was sent up there to find him. God only knows what he might be up to. He had another hulking gent working for him I never got a very good look at. He must have been the one who hit your driver. Then they both made a getaway while I was inside hiding behind some furniture. You people must have left about the same time. When I finally stuck my head up all the shooting was over with and everyone had gone. There was just me and the dead man out front. I phoned the sheriff and had to hang around there in the rain for a few hours convincing them I didn’t know anything about it. That’s where I picked up the cold.”
I brought out a handkerchief and sneezed into it. I coughed a couple of times in Elmo’s direction. He got out of my chair and went around the desk to stand beside Fudge. He was staring at the footlocker.
I struggled to my feet just as the phone on my desk rang. I picked it up without thinking. Fudge took a step toward me but Elmo restrained him. Elmo brought out his revolver again. He sat back on the edge of the desk, pointing his gun at me and watching. The caller was Bryan Gilkerson.
“Been trying to get you all day, Peter. Just back from Seattle?”
“I got in this afternoon.”
“You sound odd.”
“I caught a cold.”
“Sorry to hear that. Do you have any more pieces of the puzzle you can pass along?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know when something develops. Incidentally, you haven’t seen Mrs. Shank around, have you?”
“No, aren’t you two in touch?”
“She seems to have gone off somewhere while I was out of town. I thought she might have been by the Chronicle.”
Elmo gestured for me to end the conversation.
“Look, Bryan, I have company. Are you at the office?”
“Yes. I’ll stay here for a bit, if you’d like.”
“Do that. If I don’t phone back in ten minutes send some cops up here.” I hung up and stared levelly at Elmo.
“I’ve told you all I know,” I said. “I’ve got a bad cold. It’s getting late and I need some rest.”
Elmo studied me a moment with pursed lips. “We’ll be back to see you. Here or wherever else you might be. If you hear any whispers about the money we’d like you to tell us. We’d like to get our hands on it and get back home.”
I nodded. “I don’t have any interest in that kind of money. If I learn anything I’ll be happy to tell you.”
They turned and started to leave. Elmo hesitated in the doorway. He was looking back at the footlocker again.
“What’s in there?” He came back to stand over the locker. Fudge followed.
“Some unusual souvenirs from my childhood.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I grew up in Seattle. There used to be a streetcar line that ran atop Phinney Ridge, near where we lived. When they replaced the streetcars with trackless trolleys they tore up the rails and paving bricks on the right of way. My brother and I swiped a bunch of the bricks. He’s been lugging them around all these years, using them for this and that. This time when I was up there I stopped by to see him and asked if I could take a few of them with me. I figure I can use them to make a bookcase or something in the office here.”
Elmo and Fudge looked at each other. Fudge bent over and unlatched the locker and raised the lid. He hefted one of the blocks and tore away one corner of the newspaper wrapped around it.
“Bricks,” he told Elmo.
“And now I have a telephone call to return,” I told them, picking up the receiver.
Fudge closed the locker and the two of them left. When I heard the reception room door close behind them I put down the receiver and went out to lock the outer door. When I came back to dial Gilkerson’s office the back of my shirt was damp from sweat and my hand trembled.
NINE
Bryan answered the phone after the first ring. “Is your company gone?”
“Yeah. Thanks for standing by.”
“It sounded serious. Who was it?”
“The two guys who shot Polaski at the airport.”
“Good God, man, what did they want?”
“The money Buddy Polaski stole from the mob. They thought I might know something about it.”
“What did you tell them?”
I glanced at the footlocker alongside the wall. Another wave of nausea welled from my stomach to my throat. I’d never been hit like that in the gut before. It took the wind away.
“Peter, are you all right?”
“Sorry, thought I was going to be sick for a minute. They worked me over some.”
“Do you need help? I can be there in five minutes.”
“No thanks, Bryan. All I need is rest. What was it you asked?”
“I asked what you told them about the money.”
“Oh, that. I didn’t tell them anything. I don’t know anything. And I’d like you to keep it quiet about their visit. I’m not going to tell the police about it just yet.”
“That’s foolish. Why not?”
“There’s still too much about all this I don’t understand. If the cops pick up those two, the people they work for will just send out somebody else. At least these two I can recognize. It’s a pretty small edge, but I need anything I can get right now.”
“Peter, have you heard about Harry Shank since you got back?”
“No, what about him?”
“The coroner released some of the autopsy results yesterday. It seems somebody shot him.”
“It wasn’t the car crash that killed him?”
“No. A bullet to the head. They couldn’t tell right away that night in the rain and dark, what with the other injuries he had in the accident.”
My eyes started to unfocus again. “Look, Bryan, I am going to be sick, I think. Gotta go now. But do me a favor. If you do run into Mrs. Shank, ask her to get in touch with me, will you? My answering service will know how to find me.”
“Of course, Peter. Maybe you’d better see a doctor.”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up. Gas rose and I belched. Then I sneezed. My stomach was a mess. It felt as if it wanted to ship out with a new outfit, where it wouldn’t be treated this way. Something like a cramp rose in my stomach wall. I winced and doubled over the desk from the pain. My forehead was sweaty again. I got out of the chair, clutching my midsection with both hands and made my way out and across the reception area. I went into the suite of rooms used by the attorneys and made my way across the darkened conference room to the bathroom. I turned on the light and the cold water tap, then leaned my head over the basin and splashed water on my face and the back of my neck and my head. I kept it up a long time, until the sweat went away and
my stomach settled down some. I took a small sip of water. It felt okay going down. When I turned off the water tap I heard the phone out on Ceejay’s desk.
There were any number of people it might have been right then, but as I toweled off I suspected it might be the woman of the office. Ceejay had been there ahead of me, working for the two lawyers when I moved in. Now I helped pay her wages, and she worked for me as well, but our relationship was always a little different from that of boss–employee. My dealings with Ceejay were more the sort you might have with an ex-wife you’d shaken hands with and agreed to let bygones be bygones. She was cordial, funny and loyal. But she had been married once in her life herself. Since then she’d adopted a basically feminist stance. She didn’t march with women’s groups or participate in any of that hoopla, but she wasn’t reluctant to let you know in the course of a conversation that she didn’t hold out much hope for the male of the species. She now lived out in a restored Victorian house alongside the Golden Gate Park panhandle with several other tart-tongued women who I suspected sat around evenings picking apart the men they had known.
I looked at my face in the mirror and winced. My poor stomach had been in such agony I’d forgotten all about the smashes to the face and wallop to the ear that Fudge had delivered. If I went out on the street looking like that I’d probably be arrested. I went out and took the call at Ceejay’s desk. It had come in on my own line. And I’d been right. It was Ceejay.
“Peter, you’re back.”
“Yeah, if you want to call it that.”
“You sound funny.”
“I’m coming down with a cold and somebody just tried to rearrange my face some.”
“There’s styptic pencil and Vaseline in the medicine cabinet.”
“I know. I just haven’t had a chance to get to it yet. What’s up?”
“Nothing special. You hadn’t phoned in, is all. That’s unusual. And I couldn’t raise you at your apartment and your answering service said you haven’t been in touch with them.”
