Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  There wasn’t a signature. I didn’t need one. I counted the cash and found there was a thousand dollars in twenties and fifties. I put it into two equal stacks and went into the bedroom. I put in a call to The Man’s number, but there was no answer. I figured that. He’d left the night before or very early in the morning.

  That tore it. Here I was, working for a client who’d blown town, leaving me with a lot of dead people I couldn’t explain, and Art Maloney who wanted an explanation more than he wanted my friendship. Not that I blamed The Man, goddamit. Under the same gun, I guess I’d have done the same thing. And after I got over the feeling that I was on shaky ground and that he’d put me there, I’d probably end up hoping The Man had covered his tracks well enough so another crew of gunners couldn’t find him.

  I dialed Hump’s number. “We’ve got another payday over here. Why don’t you drop by, and we’ll try to find some way to earn it.”

  Hump said he’d be by within the hour.

  I showered and shaved, and was dressed and tying my shoelaces when Art called. “You got anything to tell me, Hardman?”

  “Maybe by Christmas,” I said.

  “You might be in jail by then.”

  “Lord, I hope not,” I said, “Marcy might not understand that.”

  “That’s a low hit. I’m going to tell Edna on you.” But he sounded a bit looser, like he’d gotten over part of the night before. “Two things. Gunner died in intensive care last night, after the operation.”

  “Another dead-end alley,” I said.

  “Number two. I finally got around to doing some more of your work. You wanted to know why Mullidge didn’t get his day in court.”

  “I thought you’d forgotten about that.”

  “It took time. I had to find a man.”

  I cradled the phone between my neck and shoulder and tied both shoelaces. “And . . .?”

  “It was fixed by a big-time lawyer named Ernest Lockridge. Has an office downtown. I didn’t get the address, but I figured you might have a phone book.”

  I said I did.

  “Work fast, Hardman, my patience’s about gone.” He hung up.

  Hump folded his share of The Man’s money and put a rubber band on it. “This thing lasts much longer, I might retire.”

  “Not the way you live.” I got out a couple of bottles of Beck’s, and we drank them standing up in the kitchen. “This Ernest Lockridge, you know anything about him?”

  “Seen his picture in the paper now and then. Always winning some local golf tournament, or heading up some fund drive or other.”

  “Why would he be putting out clout for some nickel-dime day worker?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t,” Hump said, “unless he was doing it for somebody else.”

  “Which means there’s about a one-in-five chance that he might know somebody who doesn’t like me.”

  “Might be two-in-five or three-in-five,” Hump said. “And, if he’s nasty enough, he might even have fingered you with Mullidge.”

  “I’ve got to meet this fellow.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Hump said, throwing back his head and pouring down the last of the Beck’s.

  I parked at Rich’s, and we rode the elevator down to the street level. We walked over the two blocks to the Peachtree Business Tower. The directory in the lobby gave Lockridge’s office as 1212. It was a fancy lobby, though it was one of the older downtown buildings. It was done in gray marble and black tile, and had a kind of old-style wrought-iron trim. It wasn’t until we stepped off the elevator on the 12th floor that I realized the lobby was just a front, that it had been recently renovated, while the rest of the building was probably a slum. The hallway carpeting had bare spots, some of the paint on the walls was flaking, and the bulbs in some of the overhead fixtures needed changing. It didn’t seem like a place where big clout lived, after all.

  We found 1212 and went in. An aging secretary looked up at us with her teeth sunk into a ham and cheese on rye, and blinked her eyes in shock. She looked like she’d been, ten or fifteen years ago, the kind of secretary who didn’t need to know how to type or take shorthand. Now, though she was holding it together with paste and rubber bands, I had the feeling that she’d been over to the night schools recently.

  I said I wanted to see Ernest Lockridge.

  She took the sandwich out of her mouth, the bite marks still there, and said, “He’s not in right now. The legislature’s in session.”

  I looked at Hump. His nod meant that we were thinking the same thing. All the arrows seemed to be pointing toward the Capitol and the offices over there.

  “When do you expect him?”

  “He usually comes in by three or three-thirty.”

  “We’ll come back then.”

  “Would you like to leave your name, and tell me the nature of your business with Mr. Lockridge?”

  “Not really,” I said. “It’s too awful to tell to a lady.”

  We left her looking down at the sandwich, as if trying to decide whether she wanted to bite into the same tooth marks again. Hump and I spent the early part of the afternoon over lunch. It was bitter outside, so we decided not to walk down to Peachtree Center and watch the girls go by. It just wasn’t the same in the winter, when they were all wearing heavy coats.

  At three-fifteen, we presented ourselves at the office once more. She must have heard us coming, because she was typing away when we entered. She finished a paragraph before she looked up at us.

  I gave her a phony name. Ben Blackmond.

  “Mr. Lockridge is in now, but he’s very busy. Unless you have an appointment, or unless you’re willing to tell me the nature of your . . . ”

  “You can tell him,” I said, “that it’s an investigation about a bribery case.”

  “Then you’re policemen?”

  I didn’t say I was or wasn’t. I didn’t even nod. I just looked at her with the hardest stare I had.

  “You should have told me when you were here before.” She fluttered around her desk and into the inner office. A minute later she came out again and held the door open for us.

  Ernest Lockridge was one of those so-handsome young men who was now going to seed. He’d reached forty and gone past it, and the forties had hit him a good lick that had stunned him. The workouts at the health club and the minutes under the sunlamp couldn’t do anything about the wrinkles and the second chin that was beginning to droop a little over his Brooks Brothers shirt and tie.

  “You said it was about a bribery case you’re investigating.”

  “I said it was about a bribery case,” I said.

  “But you’re not investigating it?” Lockridge had a pencil in his hand, tapping the point against the desk blotter and then reversing it and tapping the eraser.

  “You handled a theft-from-auto case for a Fred Mullidge, a bit over a year ago.”

  “I have handled a lot of cases in the past year.” But the pencil stopped in the middle of the reverse, between point and eraser.

  “The case wasn’t tried.”

  “That happens fairly often,” Lockridge said, the pencil moving again. “The charges get dropped when the police find out they don’t have the case they thought they had.”

  “Who hired you to defend Mullidge?”

  “I assume Mullidge did.”

  “You’re not sure?” I asked.

  “It was Mullidge.”

  “That’s better.” I turned to Hump. “Don’t you think that’s better?”

  “A straight answer’s better than a crooked one,” Hump said.

  “How do we know it’s a straight answer?”

  Lockridge dropped the pencil into a holder and tightened his jaw. “I think you’d better show me some identification now.”

  I looked at him and smiled.

  “Then you aren’t policemen?”

  “That was your guess.”

  “Miss Barker said . . . ”

  “That was her guess, too,” I said.

  “Yo
u’ll have to leave then. I have no more time for questions and answers. It’s not a game I especially like.”

  I nodded. “That’s your right, of course. But I think you can expect another visitor in the next day or two.”

  “Another visitor . . .?”

  “A real cop,” I said.

  As soon as we stepped through the doorway into the outer office, Lockridge slammed the door behind us. Hump got his coat and scarf from the rack and put them on. He was ready to go, and he looked a bit puzzled at how slow I was. I leaned toward him and said, under my breath, “Keep her quiet.” I indicated the secretary and Hump nodded. The secretary was typing away like mad, not watching us at all. I fished out a cigarette and held it up as I approached her desk. Hump started out beside me, but when I was flush against the desk, he drifted to the side and circled the desk.

  “Got a match? I seem to be out.”

  “I think so.” She reached for one of the desk drawers and, at that moment, Hump slipped a big hand over her mouth. The other hand clamped her shoulder, pushing her down and holding her in the chair.

  “Nobody’s going to hurt you,” I said. I reached across the desk and lifted the phone from its cradle.

  “ . . . afraid he’s not in his office now. The legislature’s adjourned for Christmas. I’m not sure he’ll be back in until after January First. Would you like to leave a message, in case he does . . .?”

  Lockridge cut in. “No, it’s nothing important. Thank you.”

  They hung up, and I replaced the phone. I looked at the secretary’s wide, frightened eyes. “Now he’s going to take his hand away. Don’t scream. You won’t scream, will you?”

  She shook her head.

  When Hump pulled his hand away and stepped back, she dropped her head on the desk and shuddered. Hump and I went out of the office at a fast walk. We passed up the elevator and walked up two flights. There we stood around the elevator as if we were waiting for it. Ten minutes passed that way, and then we caught an elevator and rode it down to the basement parking area. It was a single-level parking deck that didn’t hold more than fifty cars. I’d intended to go out that way, but when I saw the attendant heading for us I got another idea.

  “What you want down here?” the attendant said.

  I got out my wallet and found another one of those Nationwide Insurance cards I’d been giving away so freely in the last week or so. I handed it to him and, while he read it, asked, “Ernest Lockridge keep his car down here?”

  “Sure, Mr. Lockridge does.”

  “Which one’s his?”

  “The ’71 Skylark, the blue one over there.” He tagged along with us. “What’s wrong.”

  “Tell you about it in a minute.” When we reached the Skylark, I got out my pad and wrote down the license number. Then I walked around front and checked the right front fender. “Not a mark on it,” I said to Hump. “How do you like that?”

  “I didn’t think we’d find one,” Hump said, but he was looking at me like he didn’t know what the plot was, and he’d appreciate a clue.

  “Barker lied to us,” I said.

  “I trusted him,” Hump said. “That just goes to show you.”

  I closed my pad and put it away. The attendant was still waiting around for his explanation. I went over to him. Hump followed and towered over both of us.

  “A client of mine got a fender scraped the other night in a parking lot outside of the San Souci. He said the other driver didn’t stop, but he got this license number.”

  “He probably hit a wall,” Hump said.

  “That’s right,” I said, “and he just made up this number to try to get himself off the hook.”

  “Drinking again, I bet,” Hump said.

  “Now he’ll say he must have missed a number, or got one wrong.” I shook my head sadly and palmed a five-dollar bill. Hump turned away as I dropped it into the attendant’s hand. “Don’t say anything about this to Mr. Lockridge. Barker’s in enough trouble for lying to us.”

  “Sure,” the attendant said. “My mind’s a blank.”

  I made a note of where the parking lot exited, and Hump and I went up to the lobby and walked back to Rich’s, to get my Ford. I drove back to the Peachtree Business Tower and circled the block until I found the ramp from the lot. There wasn’t a parking space, but I found a Loading-Unloading area and waited there.

  “If he hasn’t already left,” Hump said. “He might have.”

  “First he’s got to calm his secretary down.”

  “That ought to take twenty minutes and two tranquilizers.”

  “An important fellow like him,” I said, “he might even have another appointment.”

  “I’ve got one question.”

  “Yes, Hump?”

  “Why are we following him around, anyway?”

  “You got something better to do?”

  Hump shook his head. “Not tonight.”

  “Lockridge didn’t reach his man, and I think we might have made him nervous enough to lead us somewhere we want to go.”

  “You think so?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, I’d do anything to keep from going Christmas shopping.”

  It was cold, and the wind was whipping down the channels formed by the high office buildings. The shoppers passing by looked like they were angry with themselves for coming out in the first place. The parcels were big and fat, and you knew the pocketbooks were thin and empty. Four-thirty came and went, and still there was no sign of Lockridge. Around five, Hump spotted a liquor store a few doors down and decided that we could use something in the way of a body warmer. I gave him a five and asked him to pick up a half pint of Hennessey cognac for me. And to watch the street in case I pulled up in pursuit of Lockridge.

  It almost worked that way. At five, the cars began to come down the ramp and into the street. So far, no sign of the blue Skylark. It was a slow stream, minutes apart, and then, just as Hump came out of the liquor store, the blue Skylark dipped out of the ramp and turned on the one-way street. Hump saw the Skylark the same time I did, and moved quickly to put his back to the street. I kept my head up just long enough to be sure that Lockridge was driving, and then I ducked and put my head against the seat. I did a slow count to ten and, when I looked up, Lockridge was ahead of me, moving into the right-turn lane. I kicked the engine over and waited until Hump was in the car. Then I followed. Hump unscrewed the cap from the Hennessey and passed it to me, while I kept my eyes on the Skylark. I had a swallow and felt it burn all the way down to my toes, and then the steam came out of my ears. It was welcome, burn and steam, after sitting in the cold car.

  It was a roundabout route. I couldn’t seem to get the real destination fixed in my mind. I think it was the traffic rather then any evasive plan on the part of Lockridge. Perhaps it was a way he’d worked out that would get him where he was going in less time, with less hassle, but it kept me jumping. I stayed back a car and sometimes two cars. In time, it turned out that he’d gone around about a hundred and eighty degrees, and was now headed into Northeast Atlanta.

  As we passed through the tight-squeeze area, I put out my hand and Hump put the half-pint flask of cognac in it. I had another sip and passed it back. Hump capped it and stacked it away in the glove box. At Fifteenth, just before we reached the High Museum, Lockridge took a right and we followed through a maze of dark, curving streets until, making one tight curve, I saw the Skylark ahead on the left. Lockridge was making a U-turn and I thought, oh, shit, now what’s he doing? But before we reached the Skylark, it had stopped and Lockridge was getting out.

  “See where he goes,” I said. Just as we drew even with Lockridge, I turned my head away from him, as if looking for something across the street.

  “He’s going up the walk to that white stucco back there. He’s inside.”

  At that, I found a driveway and pulled in. I backed around and eased my Ford into the curb two houses before the white stucco. The house had two floors. There were no lights burning on the bottom flo
or and, as we watched, another light went on, adding to the ones already lit on the second floor.

  I shivered and looked over at Hump. “What do you think it is, apartments?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  “And hard to find out.” I got out and buttoned up my topcoat. In case anyone was watching, I did a charade that was supposed to convince them I was looking at house numbers. I felt a little foolish doing it, especially on such a cold night, but I didn’t want to run the risk that somebody might notice our car and think we were prowlers. I didn’t want anybody to call the police just yet. If at all.

  I reached the white stucco house and went up the narrow walkway that led to the entrance. In the entranceway it was half darkness, lit only by the lights from the short hallway beyond. On the left wall there were two mailboxes and buzzer systems. I got out my lighter and read the name cards over the buzzers by its flicker. The first card was engraved: Mr. and Mrs. Henry Armitage and, typed below that, Apt. No. 1, Ground Floor. The other card, printed with a felt-tip pen, gave the occupant as Alice Jarman and beneath that, Apt. No. 2, 2nd Floor.

  I returned to the car. Hump passed me the glass flask of Hennessey and waited while I had a swallow. “Hump, do you know if Lockridge is married?”

  “Not sure.”

  “I think he’s up there with some girl named Alice Jarman. If she’s his fuck away from home, we might have a lever on him.”

  “She might be his Aunt Alice,” Hump said.

  “Or his hot crotch.”

  “So what’s next?” Hump asked.

  “There’s a 7-11 store two blocks back. Ought to be a pay phone there. Call the Lockridge number, the home listing. Put on your best Uncle Tom, and tell Mrs. Lockridge you do yard work and clean gutters and downspouts.”

  “In other words, find out if there is a Mrs. Lockridge?”

  “Right.”

  “Walking?” Hump asked.

  “Sorry,” I said, “but I want to follow him if he comes out while you’re gone.”

  Hump opened the car door. “And if you’re gone when I get back?”

  “Having tried out your Uncle Tom on Mrs. Lockridge, you could fake it again with Alice.”