The New Black Mask (No 8)

Family Business W. S. Doxey

William Doxey is a professor of English at West Georgia College. He says he got into teaching because he wanted to be a writer and decided he had to “read everything — hence the degrees.” He has five novels in print, of which the most recent are Cousins to the Kudzu (LSU Press, 1985) and Countdown (Dorchester, 1986). He comments: “The Bleekman character in ‘Family Business’ is very real to me. I like him as a person and a detective. ‘Family Business’ is important because it led to a couple of other Bleekman stories and a novel, which I recently completed and which I hope will be the first of a series.”

As I eased my old Chevy into a parking place two doors down from number 171 at the Cobb Parkway Travelodge, I recalled that in days of old people had a nasty habit of killing messengers who brought bad news.

An F-4 jet from the air base down the road screamed in low, its gear down, as though to remind me that we live in modern times. Still, history has a way of repeating itself, and the news I had for Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Johnson wasn’t going to make them happy. So I took my own sweet time walking to the door and mulled over how I was going to break it to them that their nineteen-year-old daughter, Kimberly, preferred life in Atlanta’s fast lane to that on the family farm near Clinton, Tennessee.

This morning I had been on a ladder painting my house in the Virginia Highlands section. When I bought it ten years ago, I told myself that I’d give it a fresh coat every five years, whether it needed it or not. The first time, it started raining the second day of work, so I had to start over. This time the weather wisemen on TV promised four days of sunshine.

But there’s rain and then there’s rain — meaning that I was moving right along, splattering my clothes as well as the house, when a voice behind me said, “Mr. Bleekman, the private investigator?”

I looked down into the face of a lovely young thing — blonde, wearing wraparound sunglasses, designer clothes, and a frown.

“I’m Jack Bleekman,” I said.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“Well, I’m sort of busy,” I replied, pointing my brush at the house and seeing the paint drip on the azaleas below.

“It’s important, really.”

So I came down from the ladder, wiped my hands, and we sat on the porch.

I offered her a cup of coffee, but she said no, then got down to her business.

Her name was Kimberly Johnson. Six months ago she had left Tennessee for Atlanta. “I found a good job in the entertainment business,” she said.

“Singer?” I asked. I make the rounds so as to stay in touch, but I didn’t recall seeing her.

“I sing some, but dancing’s my thing.”

I nodded, noticing her trim legs and hips.

“My problem is that my parents are, well, old-fashioned. They don’t approve of what I’m doing. I’ve talked to them on the phone and written them, and told them I like what I’m doing. But they won’t leave me alone!”

She took a tissue from her Gucci bag and dabbed beneath the rim of her dark glasses. “This morning they called from a motel. They want to see me.”

“So see them,” I said. “They are your parents.”

“You don’t understand — they’ve threatened to have me kidnapped.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“You’re of legal age.”

“I know, but they think I’m a little girl!”

“But they let you leave home, didn’t they?”

She shook her head. “I ran away. After a few weeks I called them so they wouldn’t worry. They’ve been after me ever since.”

Now I shook my head. “What do you want me to do?”

“Tell them once and for all that I’m not coming home, that I’m okay. Tell them to leave me alone.”

“You think that’ll do any good?”

“Yes. You can let them know that after they calm down and accept me the way I am, I’ll see them when and where I choose.”

I glanced at my half-painted wall, then at her, and said, “I don’t like getting involved in family business.”

“They won’t shoot you or anything.”

That was debatable. People with domestic problems are like house pets — they still have sharp teeth. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“Look, moms and dads love their kids, one way or another. You owe it to them to face them.”

“I can’t! They’ll make me go home. I’d rather die!”

And to show that she meant business, she popped open Mr. Gucci’s wide mouth and handed me five one-hundred-dollar bills.

“Why me?” I asked.

“People say you’re reliable and honest.”

“And you believe them?”

She smiled. “You look OK.”

I gave her back three bills, explaining I sell my services for two hundred per diem. She gave me her folks’ address. I asked her what to say.

“That I’m doing fine, to leave me alone, that I’ll contact them when I’m ready.”

I followed her down the walk, asked for a number so I could tell her what happened.

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “Just tell them.”

She drove off in one of those cute little Mazda RX-7s, bright red, with a personalized tag — CANDI.

I checked the car parked in front of 171 — a dusty, three-year-old Ford with a Tennessee tag. Then I went to the door, rapped a couple of times, and stood back a pace, just in case.

A woman of about forty opened the door. Brown hair showing gray. Lines on her otherwise pretty face. A big fellow, balding, wearing a white shirt and no tie stepped up behind her. His face was weather-beaten, his eyes squinting down at me.

“Hello,” she said, her voice small and twangy.

“My name’s Jack Bleekman,” I said, showing them my I.D. “I’m a private investigator. Your daughter, Kim—”

She grabbed my arm. “You’ve seen her?”

“Well, yes. That’s why I’m here.”

The big guy moved in front of her but didn’t touch me. “I’m Ovid Johnson, mister,” he said. “This is my wife, Nancy. What’s this about Kimberly?”

Another jet swooped over as I opened my mouth. He motioned me in and shut the door and leaned against it. I glanced around the room. It looked lived in. The made-up bed was rumpled but the TV wasn’t on. A battered suitcase and some clothes on hangers were in the area by the lavatory. On the dresser were a pair of black socks and a framed photo.

“Where did you see Kimberly?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

“She came by my office an hour ago.”

“Where is she now?” the father asked.

“I don’t know.”

For a man of any size he moved fast. The next thing I knew I was across the bed and he had me for the three-count. “Whoa!” I said. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

“That you will, buddy,” he said, pinning me with his eyes. “Nan, get my gun.”

She opened a dresser drawer and fished out a long barrel .44 magnum. He snatched it and pressed it against my throat and eased off of me. “Now talk, real slow!”

The .25 Beretta strapped to my ankle seemed ten miles away. “Take it easy and let me up and I will,” I said.

He cocked the .44. “You will now!”

God is on the side of the big battalions. Under circumstances such as these, so was I. “Like I told you — she came to my office. Hired me to tell you she was fine.”

“What else?”

“That you should leave her alone.”

He blinked, uncocked the hammer, and looked like he was going to slap the barrel across my nose. But then Mama touched his arm and said, “Let the man go, Ovid. I want to hear everything about Kimberly.”

Ovid grunted and shifted his weight so I could sit up. “Don’t forget I’ve still got this,” he said, waving the magnum.

“How could I?”

“And no smart big-city talk!”

Mama said, “Kimberly doesn’t want to see us?”

“That’s what she told me.”

A tear ran down her cheek. “Then why’d she send us this?”

She showed me a postcard, one of those plain ones with no picture. The address and message were in soft pencil, looping letters like a teenager would write. It said, “Help me.” There was an Atlanta phone number. The postmark was three days ago.

“We called and at first nobody answered. Then a man did and he said he didn’t know anyone named Kimberly and hung up. Since then the phone’s been disconnected.”

“You that guy who answered?” Dad asked.

“Not me. Only time I saw her was an hour ago, at my office.”

“Did she say how she is, what she’s doing?” Mom asked.

“She said she’s a dancer and everything was all right.”

“She studied dancing since she was four. Won a county-wide contest last year. But I just know something’s bad wrong!”

Mr. Johnson laid the pistol on the dresser, within easy reach, put one fence-post arm around his sobbing wife, and said, “There, there, Mother. We’ll find her.”

I glanced beyond the .44 to the photo. A pretty young girl with a fresh smile and shoulder-length brown hair. Wore a sweater with a string of pearls. “Is that Kimberly?” I asked.

Dad nodded. “Was taken last year when she was graduated from the county high school.”

“How tall is she?”

Mom said, “Five-five, why?”

The girl who hired me had different colored hair and wore dark glasses, yet she resembled the girl in the photo, and both were about the same size. But under oath I couldn’t swear she was Kimberly.

Dad reached for the .44, saying, “You better answer my wife’s question.”

It wasn’t the photo that really bothered me; it was the postcard. My Kimberly hadn’t mentioned it. And Mom and Dad weren’t mean. They were upset, which was normal. And there was something else that didn’t add up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I said, “Did you threaten to kidnap her?”

Mom’s hands flew to her lips. Dad said, “Where we come from, mister, folks don’t snatch their own kids!”

“Let me look around,” I said.

“You’ll help us?” Mom asked.

“I’ll do what I can, but no promises. Atlanta’s a big town.”

“How much you charge?” Dad asked.

“I get two hundred a day plus expenses, usually.”

“Not that we’re poor, but we don’t have that kind of money.”

Mom pulled off her wedding band and said, “I don’t care how much it costs — I want my daughter! Take this.”

“I’ve been paid for one day,” I said. “After that, we’ll see. Did you tell the police she’s missing?”

“Tried to,” said Dad. “But they said since she’s nineteen and left home on her own, there wasn’t much they could do.”

“Have you got another picture?”

He took out a battered wallet and gave me a small, wrinkled photo, a copy of the framed one.

It was thirty minutes back to my office. I used the time going over what I had seen and heard, trying to figure what it was that bothered me. It was possible the girl was Kimberly Johnson, that she’d sent the postcard, then had second thoughts. Her clothes and car indicated she’d found something paying more than minimum wage in the hills of Tennessee. A dancer? My ex-wife Jayleen had been a hoofer. We met in Nam where I was in army intelligence and she was entertaining the troops with a USO group. She was twenty-two, a year out of college, and it was a good gig for her, experience as well as pay. Never mind how we met and fell — all the usual moves — and married when my tour was over. Never mind the rest, either. People fall in love — it stands to reason that some fall out. She’s married to a nice guy now, and they have a kid. Her only dancing these days is to keep her cute shape in shape.

Shape? I visualized the way Jayleen walked — erect, good posture — a dancer’s gait. The Kimberly who hired me hadn’t walked that way — too loose, sort of — her steps lacked measure, rhythm. She was no more a dancer than I, and I have two left feet.

But the Johnsons’ Kimberly had studied dance in school. And what about the tag on the Mazda — CANDI? People change their names for professional and other reasons, sure. But I was willing to bet that if she were a dancer, it wasn’t with the Atlanta ballet.

They say that half of knowledge is knowing where to find it. In my business that means contacts which develop when one hand washes the other. I’ve scrubbed more than one in my time, so I made a few calls, starting with the number on the Johnsons’ postcard.

Sure enough, the computerized voice told me the phone was disconnected. The live operator informed me that the new number was unlisted. What I needed was an address. The telephone company keeps an up-to-date cross-listing by number. It’s not exactly confidential, but they don’t like to give it out to just anyone. An old army buddy named Endicott is a detective captain. He keeps stuff like that in his computer. I gave him a buzz and told him what I needed.

“Sure,” he said, “I’ll punch it in. And listen, what’s the name of that realtor at Hilton Head you rented from last spring?”

I told him and read him his number out of my address book.

“Thanks — okay — your number is for apartment 8-B at 3173 Buckhead Place.”

“What’s the billing name?”

“Langston, J. C. Know it?”

“No. You?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

He was on-line so I asked him to check the CANDI tag.

A moment later he said, “You’ve got a match — car’s registered to same name, same address. So?”

“So thanks.”

“What are friends for, huh? That guy at Hilton Head give me a break if I mention you?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and truth is more exciting than fiction.”

A cliché, but I knew what he meant. We accept coincidence in real life but reject it in stories. Like the Mazda and the Buckhead address. If the girl really was Kimberly, then she wrote the postcard and knew the apartment and the Langston who rented it. If she wasn’t Kimberly?

I drove over to find out.

Buckhead Place was a fifty-carat diamond’s throw from Phipp’s Plaza, home of opulent shoppes and Saks, which, I recalled from window-shopping with my pal Ellen the psychiatrist, stocked Gucci bags galore.

The apartment building was one of those semiclassy Bauhaus designs — lots of brick and glass, a sort of factory for living fast and efficiently. I pulled into the adjoining parking garage and borrowed a Dr. Jacobi’s spot, figuring he was either earning the rent at the office or blowing it on the golf course.

As I entered the foyer I was confronted by a security guard, a young guy in starched blues with a big gold badge and a radio in his holster instead of a .38. I was wearing my second-best suit and a clean shirt, and I knew where I was going, so I decided to draw on my years of experience as a military bluffer.

I gave him a steady look, eye-to-eye, and walked past him to the elevator and pushed the up button. He said, “Good afternoon, sir.” But he didn’t salute. I nodded and went to the eighth floor.

Number 8-B was left, down a green-carpeted hall hung with a couple of pseudoexpensive abstract prints, more glitter frame than quality.

There was a button with a talk box. I buzzed, but I didn’t talk when a female voice said, “Greg? You’re early — as usual!”

The door opened, and there stood my Kimberly in something black and lacy from Frederick’s. Her painted smile sagged as she said, “You!”

She tried to slam the door, but I caught it, invited myself in, and had a look around.

A dance studio this apartment was not, though there were more than enough mirrors for the cast of A Chorus Line.

“I’m calling the cops!” she said.

“We both know you’re not. And stop frowning — it makes wrinkles.”

“All right, what do you want?”

“I could say I want to tell you I spoke to your parents, which I did, only you’re not Kimberly Johnson. Why the fun and games?”

She took a white satin robe from the sofa and slipped it on, then faced me and said, “It’s for their own good. Kim’s in big trouble.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I can’t!”

“That bad? What will the police say?”

“You’d tell them, wouldn’t you? Men — you’re all alike!”

“So are working girls. So are the guys who own them.”

“All right,” she said, sitting on the sofa and clutching the robe to her neck as though a vestige of little-girl innocence still lingered somewhere in her soul. “Kim lived here with me and, yes, we’re in the business — you know what I mean.”

I nodded. Though I consider myself to be a man in the world rather than of it, I’d been around the block more than once.

“It’s the old story,” she said. “Kim wanted out. The people at the top said no way. She tried making a run for it, but they nabbed her. That was day before yesterday. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

“So they sent you to me, thinking I’d satisfy her folks?”

“Yes. What went wrong?” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t see the Johnsons — you followed me for a bigger payoff!”

“Wrong. I met Ovid and Nancy. They’re nice people who happen to love their daughter.”

“So now you’re working for them.”

“Today you’re paying the freight.”

She covered her eyes with one hand, said, “Then drop it! Kim’s a goner, and if you don’t lay off...”

I glanced at the mirrors, the carpet, the sofa, and the flashy bar in the corner. “Nice place you’ve got here. But they say a house isn’t a home. Are you happy?”

She dropped her hand and glared at me, but I saw tears in her eyes. “What’s happy got to do with anything? I’m in too deep to get out except dead!”

I should’ve been touched — maybe I was, a little. Truth is, I’ve known a lot of hookers, and I’ve yet to find the proverbial one with a heart of gold. Most of them are plain lazy — physically or mentally, usually both. But she was young, and she was leveling with me, so I sat down beside her and said, “Look, if you want out, you can get out, but not without Kimberly. Whatever’s happened to her, you’re part of it. So it’s not just you alone, now. The Johnsons are in it. So am I. We’re an extended family, so to speak.”

“You can walk away!” she said. “You can go home and paint your house!”

“Not now. This thing has got to be settled.”

“They’ll kill me!”

“They’re killing you every day you stay here, unless you’re lying. I mean the money’s good.”

She whirled toward me. “It’s not that good! They own me like they own this place and the car!”

“So what are you going to do about it? Maybe you can endure — but the older you get, the worse it will be. Pretty soon you’ll be the Welcome Wagon lady at a migrant labor camp.”

“I don’t know much,” she said.

“OK. Let’s start with your name.”

“I’m Gloria Reeves, from Jackson, Mississippi.”

“Who’s J. C. Langston?”

“My contact. He pays the bills and owns the car, you know. But he works for someone else I’ve never seen.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He’ll kill me!”

“He will anyhow, eventually.”

“He runs the All-Star Escort Service.”

When I reached the lobby a chubby faced guy of about forty wearing a madras jacket and yellow polo shirt was waiting. As we passed he gave me that little-boy-headed-for-the-candy-shop-with-a-new-quarter look. I had the urge to knee him where the sun never shines. But the philosopher side of my nature held me in check, and I went into the parking area reminding myself that we all have our good reasons for everything.

Everything — even getting suckered, which I was, by one of the oldest dummy tricks in the world.

As I started my car, a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt grabbed the back of my neck, and the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed my cheek. Ovid Johnson growled. “Thought you didn’t know where Kimberly is? And you come straight over here like a bee-martin to its gourd.”

I went limp because there wasn’t any way I was slipping that grip short of breaking my neck. He eased off and said, “Yeah, I followed you from the motel. She in that fancy building?”

I told him no, that I didn’t know where she was.

He tapped that hog-leg .44 against my temple. “Think again, mister, while you got time.”

I was thinking. All I needed to get my ticket punched was a wild man shadowing me. Still, Ovid did have his good points. He was big, and he was determined. So I raised both hands and said, “Let’s talk. Put that cannon away.”

“All right. You turn around real slow and lay your hands on the back of the seat, so I can count your fingers.”

They say that truth is the best shield. But it’s never easy telling a man that the woman he loves has been up to something nasty, and I had never heard of honesty being tested by a magnum slug. But Ovid’s concern was righteous, and he seemed decent enough, so I took the chance and told him the truth about his daughter’s occupation.

Rather than pistol-whipping or blasting me, the huge guy sagged. The pistol slipped from his fingers and he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Under the circumstances I guess I would’ve too.

After a moment, I said, “What we need now is information. I’ve got a plan. Are you willing to help, even if it means going to jail for a couple of hours?”

“Mister,” he said, his head bowed, “just tell me who you want killed.”

“Nobody,” I said. “Are you good with your fists?”

He looked up at me and half-smiled. “I’ve been known to break a few jaws. When I was a kid I even wrestled a bear.”

My plan was one of those calculated to kill two birds with one stone, and I figured if it didn’t work, at least Ovid would be out of my hair for a while.

He followed me to the All-Star Escort Sen ice on Spring Street. The office was a walk-up next to a topless bar, a large room with modern sofa and chairs, presided over by a matronly woman with a blonde beehive and too much makeup. Behind her desk was another room, and through the half-open door I saw a coffee table on which were propped the feet of two men. One wore size twenty quad-E lace-ups, the other a pair of those slick Italian loafers.

Hemming and hawing in my best ah-shucks manner I told Blondie I was in town for an important business conference. There was going to be a cocktail party followed by dinner at the Plaza. What I... well... needed was someone to take to impress my contact. Did she have a suitable lady — should be young, attractive, you know, and also have good manners and dress well. Money was no object.

The lady smiled like the housemother at the dog pound. She opened a photo album for my inspection. As her purple-nailed finger pointed out a really special lovely, Ovid lumbered in and yelled, “I need me a woman!”

Blondie looked up at him and said, “Sir?”

The guy was a pretty convincing actor. “Had me a few drinks,” he declared, “and then I thought about getting me a woman. What you got, honey?”

I said, “Sorry, you’ll have to wait. I was here first.”

“Listen, shorty,” he said, “I don’t wait for nobody, not when it comes to women!”

I had told him not to hit me, and he didn’t. But the shove flung me across the room. I hit the wall and I wasn’t playacting as I slumped to the floor.

Blondie squealed. From out of the back came a guy as big as all outdoors with a scar for a beauty mark. He thundered toward Ovid like a dry elephant smelling water. Ovid’s punch was like a slug from a high-powered rifle. Wham — thud — and the guy back-flipped over Blondie’s desk and didn’t move. A little guy in a silk suit popped out next, waving a blackjack. He started to yell something tough, but when he saw Ovid his mouth fell open and he tried to backpedal. But Ovid was too quick. He grabbed his silk tie and hoisted him over the desk and gave him a couple of short shots that turned the guy’s eyes inside out.

Now I was yelling at Blondie, “Call the cops! He’ll kill us!”

She went for the phone. Ovid got to it first and ripped it out of the wall.

“Run!” I yelled. “Get help!”

She did, as fast as her fat little legs would carry her, ripping her skirt from hem to waist as she went.

“Was that okay?” Ovid asked, with a grin.

I was on my feet, checking my ribs. “Best today,” I grunted. “Now watch these two.”

I went into the back room. The desk and filing cabinets were unlocked. In the bottom drawer I found an address book with coded names and phone numbers. Underneath it was another book with fewer names. I stuck both in my jacket pocket and made for the door, telling Ovid to count to fifty before he left.

I was in my Chevy when a patrol car squealed around the corner, and two beat cops huffed up on foot. As I drove away, something big smashed the office window and fell to the sidewalk. I hoped it was only the sofa, but I didn’t look back to check.

When I got home, I made a cup of black coffee to steady my nerves, and then I took off my shirt and looked for damage. I had a couple welts, nothing more. Tomorrow’s bruises, purple and pink like the sunrise. I was lucky. The two guys at All-Star wouldn’t be back from Ovid’s never-never land for hours.

I sipped the coffee and looked through the books. There were maybe seventy entries in the big one, but the coded names like B/1642 and J/0012 didn’t mean anything till I recalled the army way of I.D.-ing personal effects with an initial and the final four digits of a social security number. But you needed the master list to learn who B and J were. I spotted the phone number of the Buckhead Place apartment though; the old one had been scratched out, the new penciled in. And when I ran down the list again, looking for Ks, I found K/3398 lined up with the old number.

A lot of girls. Whoever was running this show had a sweet thing going.

The smaller book had names and addresses, but I figured they weren’t steady customers because there were only a dozen. Langston’s was included. Since most guys know where they live, the book must not have been his. Under W, I found one I recognized. Roland White, aka Whitefish.

I shut the book and stared at the ceiling. White was boss-dog in the pack the Atlanta papers called the Dixie Mafia, which was about as Johnny Reb as maple syrup. The Cosa Nostra controlled it, like everything else as American as dope, loan sharking, gambling, and girls, not to mention murder for hire.

I felt like a guy on thin ice during a hailstorm. Smart thing would be to send the books to Endicott and fade out, fast.

But that wouldn’t get Kimberly Johnson back, if she was still among the living. By the time the D.A. decided a probable cause, White would be elsewhere and his Harvard lawyers would have him decked out like a choirboy singing counterpoint amens.

I hazarded another look at White’s name. The address was a boat slip at Lake Lanier. You can take the pirate off the open seas, but you can’t take the pirate out of the man. And he probably had enough muscle on board to row the ship to Singapore.

Well, I had muscle too — I had the books. And even the best sailor fears a stormy sea. I could use them to make a few waves, if I played it cool.

I went over to Fred’s Fast Copies, bought a few manila envelopes and made two Xeroxes of each book. Then I put the books in an envelope and wrote a note on the cover to Endicott, telling him the contents pertained to a confidential case and asking him to hold them for me. I addressed another envelope to him, and slid the first one inside and bought stamps from Fred’s machine. I put one copy in another envelope and mailed it to myself. The other I wrote White’s name on and took with me.

Before I drove away from Fred’s, I stashed my Beretta in the trunk next to the Browning I leave there just in case. Like the philosopher says, there’s a time to fight like an animal and a time to fight like a man. I was counting on White to be man enough to hold his gorillas in check when he saw what I had.

Lanier is one of those man-made lakes that was formed years ago by the damming of a river. It spreads for miles, following a contour in and around wooded hills. There’s a lot of open water suitable for sailing and plenty of coves for fishing. I’d wet a line there more than once, so I knew where the docking area was.

Whites slip was M-14. As I came down the dock I spotted it right away. It was more a floating mansion than a houseboat — three decks, lots of teak and brass and, I smiled, a couple of white life-preservers with WHITE STAR in red. The walkway leading to the boarding stair was blocked by a wire gate manned by the twin of Big Boy at All-Star. He was talking to a couple of tanned kids in swim suits who were fooling with a sleek runabout moored to the bow. When I said hi, the joking went out of his voice and he looked down at me and said, “Yeah?”

I gave him the envelope and said, “Mr. White wants to see this.”

He fingered it with one paw and squinted at the name. “He didn’t say anybody was coming by.”

I fished a business card from my wallet. “Show him. He’ll be interested.”

He grunted, then shambled up the boarding stair and went aft.

One of the kids said, “Hey, you know anything about boats?”

“Only that that’s a nice one,” I said.

The kid with him, a cute teenage girl, said, “Yeah, but it won’t start and we want to go skiing.”

“Have you checked the gas?”

They looked at each other. Then they laughed sheepishly and with a paddle eased the craft alongside the dock. As they climbed up, the boy said, “I thought she filled the tank.”

“Brothers!” the girl said.

Bruno the bear-man waved from the deck and said, “Hey — come on!”

So I went, my stomach a little queasy like it gets when I go gulf fishing and forget my seasick pill.

The salon of White’s boat had nine-foot ceilings and a carpet that seemed nine inches thick. He was standing by a baby grand, the contents of my envelope spread out on the shiny black lid. He was maybe fifty but looked forty, trim, tanned, his graying hair nicely styled — a work of art, so to speak, but cheapened by the two gold chains around his neck.

He dismissed Bruno with a careless wave of a hand with too many rings, then gave me a look with eyes that could chill a martini. “So what’s this?”

“First things first,” I said. “I’m Bleekman, a private investigator.”

“I can read. You trying to make a name with me?”

“I’ve already got one — like I said.”

“Yeah, but it won’t make the papers, because there won’t be a body to bury.”

“Nice boat,” I said.

“It’s paid for.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

He put his hand on the Xeroxed copies. “Where’d you get these?”

“From All-Star.”

“There are laws against stealing.”

“Among other things,” I said.

He smiled, showing a lovely set of white-on-white caps. “Give me one good reason why I don’t off you now.”

“Those are copies.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And the originals are in the mail, right?”

“We see the same TV shows.”

He laughed. So did I. Then he said, “So what do you want — money?”

“Not a cent. I want two people.”

“Somebody hurt you? Sue them.”

“I want two of your girls, Kimberly Johnson and Gloria Reeves.”

“Names. I don’t know them.”

“You run them through Langston out of All-Star.”

“Sounds like racehorses.”

“They’re thoroughbreds, all right,” I said. “But they want out of your derby.”

He frowned. “So what’s your interest? You one of those crusaders against the forces of evil?”

“Maybe, but that’s not the point. The girls want out of the business. Kimberly’s missing.”

“They come and they go.”

“Make a call.”

He stroked his chin. “What’s in it for me?”

“I get the girls. You get the books. That’s it.”

“Copies are easy to make.”

“Rules of evidence,” I said. “Xerox is a good investment, but it’s not likely to hold up in court if you have a lawyer worth his salt.”

He sat down on the piano bench and ran his fingers lightly over the keys. “You like music? Believe it or not I’ve been taking lessons. It relaxes me.”

“They say it has charms to soothe the savage breast.”

“My daughter Laurie plays recitals. She’s good.”

“So make the call.”

“Two girls for two books.” He shrugged. “Seems fair.”

“There’s something else.”

He stopped playing and smiled. “There always is. How much?”

I shook my head. “Friend of mine named Ovid Johnson’s in jail for redecorating the All-Star office and giving your boys a workout. Drop the charges.”

“You ask a lot.”

“You’ve got a lot to give.”

He thought for a moment, then, “Yeah, I’m a real Santa Claus. OK — you got it, provided.”

“Provided what?”

“You educate the girls.”

“They won’t talk.”

Now he focused those ice-cube eyes on me and said, “They better not.”

“You got my word.”

He laughed. “I got more than that — I got your name, Bleekman. I know you now.”

“Likewise.”

“You got guts, but—” he tapped his head, “no brains. Those girls will be back on the street in two weeks.”

White made the call.

I was getting the Atlanta Journal from the bushes by the steps where the kid tosses it, when a car stopped at the curb. Two of Bruno s littermates hauled Kimberly out of the back and dropped her on the walk. She was in bad shape, but she was still in one piece, so I didn’t call an ambulance.

I made her comfortable on the sofa and cleaned her face. Her ribs were a mess — guys like Bruno always go for the ribs and even if they don’t crack them, they hurt for weeks. A cigar smoker had ground out a butt on the sole of her left foot. She was wild-eyed with fright, but after a while I calmed her down, told her who I was, that she was home free.

So was Gloria. About seven she drove up in a cab bringing nothing but the clothes she wore, a pair of designer jeans, heels, and a plain white blouse. Dressed like that she reminded me of someone’s daughter from school, which, in a sense, she was.

Ovid and Nancy Johnson showed up later still. And after the usual tearful reunion, the big guy took me aside and gave me a hug that reminded me I had rib trouble of my own. “I’ll pay you for what you did,” he said, “but I don’t have much money.”

“The freight’s paid,” I grunted. “We’re even.”

He shook his head. “I’ll owe you for what you’ve done till the day I die. That’s the way folks are where I come from.”

So I thought about it. He considered it a debt of honor? OK. “You ever paint a house?” I asked.

“A house?” He grinned from ear to ear, and he had wide ears. “Why, I’ve been known to paint a whole barn in three days!”

Actually, it took him four for my house. But that was because while I nursed my ribs, Kimberly nursed hers, and Nancy nursed us both. Gloria went home to Jackson but promised to write. My lady friend Ellen dropped by each evening, and after stuffing ourselves on Nancy’s down-home cooking, we all sat on the porch and sort of played family till long after dark and the neighborhood dogs came out to prowl.