Ice Blues

THIRTEEN

"I have returned the money to its rightful owners, Mr. Strachey. I hate to disappoint you, but I really had no choice in the matter."

I glanced into the dining room, where the five suitcases were no longer stacked up. "It was in those bags that were in there when I was here earlier, right?"

"No. The cash was in trash bags in our storage area in the basement of this building. Now it's in the suitcases and on its way back to the people it belongs to. I just returned from the Air Freight office a few minutes ago."

Air Freight. I briefly considered a grand heist but figured pantywaist Timmy would consider armed robbery going too far. I said, "Why?"

She lit a cigarette and stuck it up under her overbite. She was wearing a Yucatecan huapili white shift with fancy blue and green embroidery and she was barefooted. Her toenails were cracked and painted fuchsia. She said, "My son took something that didn't belong to him. He was killed because of it. I don't want anyone else to be hurt-you, or your friend-or Gail, or me. Or Corrine. Poor Corrine, she's so unsophisticated and innocent, and who knows what people might suspect. No, it's not worth it.

What Jack wanted to do-what you want to do with the money-I admire it.

Truly, I do. When Jack first told me about it, I had to laugh. I admit it, I laughed." Her eyes brightened at the thought of it, then went gray again.

"But you cannot- cannot — get away with something like that. Not when the people you are dealing with are savages."

"And who are these savages?"

"I think you must know."

"No."

She looked at me carefully and said, "Dope pushers. Surely in your line of work you must have heard the type of people they are."

"Which dope pushers?"

"The ones Jack was arrested with. Robert Milius and- I've forgotten the names of the others. Jake something, I think."

"They're still in prison, aren't they?"

"But they have friends on the outside. People who were protecting the money for them until their release. Jack somehow got hold of the money and came up with this crazy pipe dream of his. And they found out he had taken it."

"Precisely who was keeping the money in what place, and how did Jack manage to take possession of it?"

She coughed out some smoke and said, "Oh, I wouldn't know that. Jack never went into the details. He just said they could never prove he'd taken it, and he had all these alibis worked out, he said, and-I just don't know all the details."

"And you urged him to return the money?"

"Of course I did. Anyone who sees the six-o'clock news knows that you simply cannot cheat people of that type and expect to get away with it."

"Jack must have watched the six-o'clock news too, and he had firsthand knowledge of dealers and their ways as well. Why didn't he listen to you?"

A wan smile. "I'm his mother. When your mother offers you advice, do you accept it for what it's worth, or do you just think, oh, crazy old Ma, there she goes again?"

"My mother hasn't offered me advice for a number of years. She's a little confused about my life and how to approach it. Gail told me Ned Bowman had been here. I'm sure he had some motherly advice. What did you tell him?"

"Nothing."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want Jacks name brought up again in connection with drugs. I'm thinking of Corrine, and of Jack's memory. I told Officer Bowman I knew nothing. He didn't take it well, but that's his problem."

"He knows about Al Piatek. He'll learn soon enough that Piatek had no money to speak of and couldn't have left Jack the two and a half million in Piatek's will. He'll lean on you and on Kyle Toot, and possibly Gail. He won't let up. I think you should tell him everything you told me. Tomorrow, I mean-tell him tomorrow. Don't you want Jack's killer punished?"

A look of profound sadness settled across her face. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I do. So much, I do. But maybe that isn't possible without ruining other people's lives. Good lives that people have made out of-of nothing at all."

"I don't follow. Whose lives?"

She said nothing, just stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray full of half-smoked butts.

I said, "Who did you ship the money to? Not Milius, if he's in prison. How did you know who to send it to? Jack didn't provide details, you said. Have these 'friends' of Milius been in touch? How did they know you even had the money? Back in Albany word is going around that I've got it. Mrs.

Lenihan, you're not making sense."

She looked away and thought hard about something. She said, "I can't tell you any more. I'm sorry, but I can't." She faced me again. "The important thing is Jack is dead, and nothing anyone says or does is going to change that. So forget the money, Mr. Strachey. Just go on as you did before. I've written a check that should cover your trip out here, but that's as far as I'm able to help you. I'm still paying off a loan I took out to underwrite Jack's legal fees when he was arrested. I have eight more years to go on that loan and I only hope I live that long, because Gail has agreed to inherit my debts as well as my meager assets.

"Gail has been-except for Jack and Corrine, Gail has been everything to me. I met her three days after I arrived in California eighteen years ago next Sunday, and in many respects that was the day my real life began. I told Jack I would do almost anything to keep that life from falling apart and-if he had only known-" Her face trembled and she looked away, suddenly slapping the side of her head as if she had misbehaved and was striking out at herself in anger and confusion.

I said, "I won't bother you anymore. But if you would just tell me who-"

She shook her head once vehemently.

"I know you don't deserve any of this," I said. "You've obviously paid heavily in advance for your life here. I hope it lasts a long time."

"It will," she said, in tears. "I've been happy-a happy person. I never used to believe there was such a thing. And Jack was-he was happy for me."

Stevenson, Richard

Stevenson, Richard — [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] — Ice Blues

She wept.

Timmy and Kyle Toot were sitting on the motel-room floor stapling raffle tickets and discussing my character flaws.

"Pack your shopping bag. We've got to get back to Albany fast."

"Now? I thought we could find a good Mexican restaurant, see some sights, and then sack out for twelve hours. Come on, we've earned it."

I described my visit with Joan Lenihan. "I've got to see who picks up the five suitcases that were in Joan's dining room. They were a kind of maroon plastic with a black band around them. I'll stake out the Albany Air Freight office tomorrow, and when somebody shows and claims those bags I'll be back in the ball game."

"Doesn't Air Freight deliver a lot of its arriving cargo by truck? It's not like shipping by bus, where you have to pick up your own packages."

"Crap. That's right. Do we know anybody at Air Freight in Albany?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, I'll find somebody. I've got to make a couple of phone calls, and then let's get going."

The two of them sat there clutching their staplers and looking irritated. "I thought you two might like to see some LA gay nightlife," Toot said. "It's Friday night in West Hollywood. You can see some of your favorite TV

Stevenson, Richard

Stevenson, Richard — [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] — Ice Blues stars with their hair down. Down around their ankles in some cases. For instance, Bonkie Dimpleton of Undertaker Uggams usually shows up at the Compost Heap around two in the morning with his slave Raoul, who wears a T-shirt with a picture of the Colombian flag on the front made out of sewn-on dia-monds. Do you want to miss out on that?"

"It sounds like an eye-opening way to spend an evening, but I'm afraid Timmy would become disillusioned and never watch Undertaker Uggams again. There's nobody from Masterpiece Theatre out here acting like that, I hope."

"Oh, sure. Even Wall Street Week in Review. Especially Wall Street Week in

Review."

"Don't tell me, I don't want to know."

"Travel is sometimes unavoidably broadening," Toot said.

Timmy looked glum. "I'd really like to get a glimpse of it. Just once. My life in Albany is so glitzless."

"I thought you preferred it that way. Quiet evenings by the picture of the fire, building snowmen in the park on a Sunday afternoon."

"I just want to see it, that's all. So I can go home feeling morally superior."

"You can't manage that on your own? You live in Albany, for chrissakes.

And, of course, you've got me for that too."

"Would you mind a whole lot if I stayed over until Sunday? I could be back home early Sunday night. You won't need me for anything, will you?"

"Well, naturally I'll need you for something. I always need you for something."

"You're envious. You want to stay too."

"There is that, yes."

"Kyle was telling me about this good production he heard about of Krapp's

Last Tape at a storefront Chicano Theater in East LA. I'd like to go with him to see it."

"Hispanic Beckett? You once told me you didn't even like it when Pearl Bailey went into Hello, Dolly! You said there wouldn't have been any black Jews in Yonkers in 1912. You're the most neurotically purist theatergoer I've ever known."

"Well, I'm in LA now, where the biggest service industry after movie-making, drug pushing and prostitution is the human-potential movement.

Come on, Don, give me a break. It's no big deal for us to be out of each other's company for a couple of days. We've done it before. We're friends and lovers, not Siamese twins."

"He can stay at my place," Toot said, "and I'll be careful to keep him out of harm's way. I'll keep him on the sidelines as it boogies by."

I was a little worried about Timmy showing up in the barrio in the company of a man wearing a lavender T-shirt that said BORN TO RAISE ORCHIDS, but if that's what he wanted to do, who was I to keep him from widening his cultural horizons? The main truth was, I just wanted him with me for the next few days back in Albany. The more I thought about it, the more Joan Lenihan's story of unnamed dope dealers losing two and a half million in cash-actually three and a quarter million-to Jack Lenihan, and then fumbling and bumbling around trying to get it back, sounded screwy. There were too many holes in it, too much that was only shakily and superficially plausible. Still, I didn't know who or what I would run into back in Albany, and I was apprehensive-scared-and would have liked Timmy nearby. If I had told him that, he would have come with me without a second thought.

Out of habit and dumb pride, I didn't say it.

I said, "I'm deeply envious, but it's up to you. You'd just better have some good stories to dine out on when you get back."

He grinned. "You mean I can relax and have fun without worrying that you're being a pain in the neck about it?"

"I'm not your mother, am I? And you're well past fourteen. God knows."

"Look, be careful back there. If you get the urge to do anything foolhardy, call me first."

"Right. Dial-a-Jesuit."

"And don't mess with any dopers, okay? When you find out what the story is-and I don't doubt that you will-pass the damned information on to the cops, will you? The two and a half million is lost now anyway. It's evidence in a criminal proceeding. It properly belongs to the state of New York."

"Sure. If that's the way it works out, sure. You know me, Timothy. I may use poor judgment from time to time, but I am not a crook."

Time was running out, so I got him packing his shopping bag while I placed my calls. I tracked down my LA investigator friend at home and asked him to come up with a list of toll calls made from Joan Lenihan's number from Tuesday, the day my earlier list ended, up to the present time. He said he couldn't do it that night at all, that it would be tough on a Saturday, that it would cost me, but he'd see what he could do in the morning. I said I'd check back with him at noon on Saturday LA time.

I phoned my service in Albany and was told that there had been no calls for me from Hankie-mouth or anyone else. That could have meant that Joan Lenihan had quieted Hankie-mouth by assuring him of the money's imminent safe return to him, or it could have meant something else. I was unable to figure out what.

Finally I phoned the airline and made reservations for Timmy, LA to Albany, on Sunday afternoon, and for me, LA to JFK, where we'd left a rental car, at 10:15 that night.

Ten minutes later I bade farewell to the Golden Grapefruit. Timmy and Kyle watched me stuff my face at a taco joint on Wilshire before I drove them over to Funston Lane.

A big Buick with a rental agency insignia was parked in front of Toot's little house, and Ned Bowman was standing on the lawnlet peering in a front window.

I cruised on by, parked down the block, and explained to Toot who was waiting for him. "Tell Bowman about Jack's using Al as a conduit to launder the two and a half million. He'll check up on Piatek's financial situation and figure it out anyway. But don't tell him more than that-Joan Lenihan's story about dopers, or anything else that came from her. She wants it that way for her own reasons, which are still unclear to me, but she doesn't need Bowman going at her with a rubber hose right now. He'll probably recognize Timmy and deduce that I'm in LA, but don't tell him I've gone back to Albany. Tell him-tell him I've driven down to check out a lead in the mountains of central Mexico."

Timmy said, "He'll never believe that."

Toot had a better idea. "I'll tell him you'll be showing up later at the Compost Heap and maybe he'd like to meet us there."

I said I thought that was a lovely idea and I was almost tempted to hang around just to watch Bowman's face when he walked in and realized there were places that made Albany's Central Avenue look like an evening in Patagonia? Not that, I guessed.