Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

The Winning Ticket by Bill Pronzini

© 2007 by Bill Pronzini

2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the “Nameless” detective series (to which this story be-longs), making it the longest-running of all ongoing P.I. series. Nameless’s 31st book-length case, Savages, is due soon from Forge, and another Pronzini novel, The Crimes of Jordan Wise (Walker 2006) has just been nominated for the prestigious Hammett Award.

Jake Runyon and I were hunched over mugs of coffee and tea in an all-night diner near the Cow Palace when the man and woman blew in out of the rain.

Blew in is the right phrase. They came fast through the door, leaning forward, prodded by the howling wind. Nasty night out there. One of the hard-rain, big-wind storms that sometimes hammer the California coast during an El Niño winter.

The man shook himself doglike, shedding rainwater off a shaved head and a threadbare topcoat, before the two of them slid into one of the side-wall booths. That was as much attention as I paid to them at first. He wasn’t the man we were waiting for.

“After eleven,” I said to Runyon. “Looks like Maxwell’s a no-show again tonight.”

“Weather like this, he’ll probably stay holed up.”

“And so we get to do it all over again tomorrow night.”

“You want to give it a few more minutes?”

“Might as well. At least until the rain lets up a little.”

Floyd Maxwell was a deadbeat dad, the worst kind. Spousal abuser who owed his ex more than thirty thousand dollars in unpaid child support for their two kids; hard to catch because he kept moving around in and out of the city, never staying in one place longer than a couple of months, and because he had the kind of job — small-business computer consultant — that allowed him to work from any location. Our agency had been hired by the ex’s father and we’d tracked Maxwell to this neighborhood, but we’d been unable to pinpoint an exact address; all we knew was that since he’d moved here, he ate in the Twenty-Four/Seven Diner most evenings after ten o’clock, when there were few customers. Bracing him was a two-man job because of his size and his history of violent behavior. Runyon was twenty years younger than me, a former Seattle cop with a working knowledge of judo; Tamara and I couldn’t have hired a tougher or more experienced field operative when we’d decided to expand the agency.

This was our third night staked out here and so far all we had to show for it were sour stomachs from too much caffeine. I had mixed feelings about the job anyway.

On the one hand, I don’t like deadbeat dads or spousal abusers and nailing one was always a source of satisfaction. On the other hand, it amounted to a bounty hunt, the two of us sitting here with handcuffs in our pockets waiting to make a citizen’s arrest of a fugitive, and I’ve never much cared for that kind of strong-arm work. Or the type of people who do it for a living.

The new couple were the only other customers right now. The counterman, a thin young guy with a long neck and not much chin, leaned over the counter and called out to them, “What can I get you folks?”

“Coffee,” the man said. He was about forty, well set-up, pasty-faced and hard-eyed. Some kind of tattoo crawled up the side of his neck; another covered the back of one hand. He glanced at the woman. “You want anything, Lila?”

“No.”

“Couple of hamburgers to go,” he said to the counterman. “One with everything, one with just the meat. Side of fries.”

“Anything to drink with that?”

“More coffee, biggest you got. Milk.”

“For the coffee?”

“In a carton. For drinking.”

The counterman said, “Coming up,” and turned to the grill.

The tattooed guy said to the woman, “You better have something. We got a long drive ahead of us.”

“I couldn’t eat, Kyle.” She was maybe thirty, a washed-out, purse-lipped blonde who might have been pretty once — the type who perpetually makes the wrong choices with the wrong people and shows the effects. “I feel kind of sick.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you stay in the car?”

“You know why. I couldn’t listen to it anymore.”

“Well, you better get used to it.”

“It breaks my heart. I still think—”

“I don’t care what you think. Just shut up.”

Lila subsided, slouching down in the booth so that her head rested against the low back. Runyon and I were both watching them now, without being obvious about it. Eye-corner studies with our heads held still.

Pretty soon the woman said, “Why’d we have to stop here, so close? Why couldn’t we just keep going?”

“It’s a lousy night and I’m hungry.”

“Hungry. After what just happened I don’t see how you—”

“Didn’t I just tell you to shut up?”

The counterman set a mug of steaming coffee on the counter. “You’ll have to come get it,” he said. “I got to watch the burgers.”

Neither of the pair made a move to leave the booth. Kyle leaned forward and snapped at her in a low voice, “Well? Don’t just sit there like a dummy. Get the coffee.”

Grimacing, she slid out and fetched the coffee for him. She didn’t sit down again. “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“So go outside, get some air.”

“No. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Yeah, well, don’t do it here.”

She turned away from him, putting a hand up to cover her mouth, and half ran into the areaway that led to the restrooms. A door slammed back there. Kyle loaded sugar into his coffee, made slurping sounds as he drank it.

“Hurry up with the food,” he called to the counterman.

“Almost ready.”

It got quiet in there, except for the meat-sizzle on the grill, the French fries cooking in their basket of hot oil. Outside, the wind continued to beat at the front of the diner, but the rain seemed to have slacked off some.

Runyon and I watched Kyle finish his coffee. For a few seconds he sat drumming on the tabletop. Then he smacked it with his palm, slid out, and came up to the counter two stools down from where we were sitting. He stood watching the counterman wrap the burgers in waxed paper, put them into a sack with the fries; pour coffee into one container, milk into another.

“How much?” he said.

“Just a second while I ring it up.”

Kyle looked over toward the areaway, scowling. Lila still hadn’t reappeared.

“Hope your friend’s okay,” the counterman said.

“Just mind your own business, pal.”

The total for the food was twelve dollars. Kyle dragged a worn wallet out of his pocket, slapped three bills down next to the two bags. When he did that I had a clear look at the tattoo on his wrist — Odin’s cross. There were bloody scrapes across the knuckles on that hand, crimson spots on the sleeve of his topcoat; the blood hadn’t completely coagulated yet. Under the open coat, on the left side at the belt, I had a glimpse of wood and metal.

I was closest to him and he caught me paying attention. “What the hell you looking at?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Keep your eyes to yourself, you know what’s good for you.”

I let that pass too.

Lila came out of the restroom looking pale. “About damn time,” Kyle said to her.

“I couldn’t help it. I told you I was sick.”

“Take those sacks and let’s go.”

She picked up the sacks and they started for the door. As far as Lila was concerned, the rest of us weren’t even there; she was focused on Kyle and her own misery. Otherwise she might’ve been more careful about what she said on the way.

“Kyle... you won’t hurt him, will you?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You hit him twice already...”

“A couple of slaps, big deal. He’s not hurt.”

“You get crazy sometimes. What you did to his mother—”

“Dammit, keep your voice down.”

“But what if she calls the—”

“She won’t. She knows better. Now shut up!”

They were at the door by then. And out into the gibbering night.

I glanced at Runyon. “Who’s the plain burger and milk for, if she’s too sick to eat?”

“Yeah,” he said, and we were both off our stools and moving. Trust your instincts.

At the door I said, “Watch yourself. He’s armed.”

“I know, I saw it too.”

Outside the rain had eased up to a fine drizzle, but the wind was still beating the night in bone-chilling gusts. The slick black street and sidewalks were empty except for the two of them off to our right, their backs to us, Kyle moving around to the driver’s door of a Subaru Outback parked two car-lengths away. There was a beeping sound as he used the remote on his key chain to unlock the doors.

Runyon and I made our approach in long silent strides, not too fast. You don’t want to run or make noise in a situation like this; it only invites a panic reaction. What we did once Kyle saw us depended on what he did. The one thing we wouldn’t do was to give chase if he jumped into the car, locked the doors, and drove away; that kind of nonsense is strictly Hollywood. In that scenario we’d back off and call it in and let the police handle it.

The woman, Lila, opened the passenger-side door. The dome light came on, providing a vague lumpish view of a rear cargo space packed with suitcases and the like. But it was what spilled out from inside, identifiable in the wind-lull that followed, that tightened muscles all through my body. A child crying — broken, frightened sobs that went on and on.

We were nearing the Outback by then, off the curb and into the street. Close enough to make out the rain-spattered license plate. 5QQX700 — an easy one to remember. But I didn’t need to remember it. The way things went down, the plate number was irrelevent.

Lila saw us first. She called, “Kyle!” and jerked back from the open passenger door.

He was just opening the driver’s side. He came around fast, but he didn’t do anything else for a handful of seconds. Just stood there staring at us as we advanced, still at the measured pace, Runyon a couple of steps to my left so we both had a clear path to him.

Runyon put up a hand, making it look nonthreatening, and said in neutral tones, “Talk to you for a minute?”

No. It wasn’t going to go down that way — reasonable, nonviolent.

At just that moment a car swung around the corner up ahead, throwing mist-smeared headlight glare over the four of us and the Outback. The light seemed to jump-start Kyle. He didn’t try to get inside; he jammed the door shut and went for the weapon he had under his coat.

Runyon got to him first, just as the gun came out, and knocked his arm back.

A beat or two later I shouldered into him, hard, pinning the left side of his body against the wet metal. That gave Runyon time to judo-chop his wrist and loosen his grip on the gun. A second chop drove it right out of his hand, sent it clattering along the pavement.

Things got a little wild then. Kyle fought us, snarling; he was big and angry and even though there were two of us, just as big, he was no easy handful. The woman stood off from the Outback, yelling like a banshee. The other car, the one with the lights, skidded to a stop across the street. The wind howled, the child shrieked. I had a vague aural impression of running footsteps, someone else yelling.

It took maybe a minute’s worth of teamwork to put an end to the struggle. I managed finally to get a two-handed hold on Kyle’s arms, which allowed Runyon to step free and slam the edge of his hand down on the exposed joining of neck and shoulder. The blow paralyzed the right side of Kyle’s body. After that we were able to wrestle him to the wet pavement, stretch him out belly down. I pulled his arms back and held them while Runyon knelt in the middle of his back, snapped handcuffs around his wrists.

I stood up first, breathing hard — and a white, scared face was peering at me through the rear window. A little boy, six or seven, wrapped in a blanket, his cheeks streaked with tears. Past him, on the other side of the car, I could see Lila standing, quiet now, with both hands fisted against her mouth.

Runyon said, “Where’s the gun?”

“I don’t know. I heard it hit the pavement—”

“I’ve got it.”

I turned around. It was the guy from the car that had pulled up across the street; he’d come running over to rubberneck. He stood a short distance away, holding the revolver in one hand, loosely, as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Heavyset and bald, I saw as I went up to him. Eyebrows like miniature tumbleweeds.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Police business.”

“Yeah? You guys cops?”

“Making an arrest.” I held out my hand, palm up. “Let’s have the gun.”

He hesitated, but just briefly. Then he said, “Sure, sure,” and laid it on my palm.

And I backed up a step and pointed it at a spot two inches below his chin.

“Hey!” He gawped at me in disbelief. “Hey, what’s the idea?”

“The idea,” I said, “is for you to turn around, slow, and clasp your hands together behind you. Do it — now!”

He did it. He didn’t have any choice.

I gave the gun to Runyon. And then, shaking my head, smiling a little, I snapped my set of handcuffs around Floyd Maxwell’s wrists.

Funny business, detective work. Crazy business sometimes. Mostly it’s a lot of dull routine, with small triumphs and as much frustration as satisfaction. But once in a great while something happens that not only makes it all worthwhile but defies the laws of probability. Call it whatever you like — random accident, multiple coincidence, star-and-planet convergence, fate, blind luck, divine intervention. It happens. It happened to Jake Runyon and me that stormy February night.

An ex-con named Kyle Franklin, fresh out of San Quentin after serving six years for armed robbery, decides he wants sole custody of his seven-year-old son. He drags his girlfriend to San Francisco, where his former wife is raising the boy as a single mom, and beats and threatens the ex-wife and kidnaps the child. Rather than leave the city quick, he decides he needs some sustenance for the long drive to Lila’s place in L.A. and stops at the first diner he sees, less than a quarter-mile from the ex-wife’s apartment building — a diner where two case-hardened private detectives happen to be staked out.

We overhear part of his conversation with Lila and it sounds wrong to us. We notice the blood on his coat sleeve, the scraped knuckles, his prison pallor, the Odin’s cross — a prison tattoo and racist symbol — on his wrist, and the fact that he’s carrying a concealed weapon. So we follow him outside and brace him, he pulls the gun, and while we’re struggling, our deadbeat dad chooses that moment to show up. The smart thing for Maxwell to have done was to drive off, avoid trouble; instead he lets his curiosity and arrogance get the best of him, and comes over to watch, and then picks up Franklin’s gun and hands it to me nice as you please. And so we foil a kidnapping and put the arm on not one but two violent, abusive fathers in the space of about three minutes.

What are the odds? Astronomical. You could live three or four lifetimes and nothing like it would ever happen again.

It’s a little like hitting the Megabucks state lottery.

That night, Runyon and I were the ones holding the winning ticket.