Murder Straight Up

13

I had dinner at a Denny’s. Unlike the other chains, it serves something remotely resembling food. While I ate, I watched the other diners. Mostly couples. When you’re alone as much of the time as I am, you get resentful of couples. How happy and safe and secure they look. After I finished my meal, I got a mint and a toothpick to keep the feast going, and then I found a pay-phone and got hold of Edelman.

“Tonight a kid named Mitch Tomlin was arrested,” I said.

“He’s a nice kid. They called me after class and I stopped down. I listened to him answer questions through the glass. He’s a nice kid and I hate to see him get nailed for it.”

“He didn’t do it.”

He laughed. “I’m glad you’ve got your old confidence back.”

“I’m serious.” Then I explained, as I had explained last night, how Tomlin’s muddy prints tracked down the stairs but stopped long before he could have reached David Curtis’s dressing room.

“You ever think that the cyanide was put into the laxative somewhere other than at the station?”

“No.”

“Well, you should. And you should also consider each member of the newsteam a suspect. They have plenty of motives for wanting him dead.”

“I would, but something’s come up to change my mind.”

“What?”

“Mitch Tomlin’s confession.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. They got a confession out of him.”

“I know why he’s saying it.”

“You mean you don’t believe him?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t. He’s trying to avenge his friend’s death. Or he’s trying to protect somebody.”

“Who?”

I thought of Diane Beaufort and her miserable relationship with Stephen Chandler that ended with two guys named John and Rick and an abortion. Diane had been at Channel 3 last night.

“You got a better suspect in mind?”

“No,” I said, wanting to change the subject. No point in getting Diane involved when I didn’t need to.

“But you still don’t think he did it?”

“No I don’t.”

“A confession’s pretty hard to deny.”

“He’s probably a doper. You know how fucked up they get.”

He sighed. “I’m afraid you’re not convincing me.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.”

This time his laugh was not happy. “I didn’t figure you would.” He coughed and said, “You like playing cop again?”

“Not really. I’m seeing all the same bullshit that drove me away.”

“I know what you mean. You get squared around with Becker?”

“Seems there isn’t anything for me to do tonight for Federated.”

“He came over last night after you left and talked to Robert Fitzgerald. The way he was browning up to him, I was afraid of what he was going to do right there in public.”

“There’s another beauty.”

“Fitzgerald?”

“Yes. When you look at his gimp leg you want to feel sorry for him, but then you look at his face, at his arrogance, and you think, Fuck you, buddy.”

“He’s even worse when he’s hysterical.”

“I can imagine.”

“We’ve got our killer, Dwyer.”

“You back on that?”

“Yeah. The kid did it, the Tomlin kid.”

“C’mon, Edelman. It’s too easy.”

“A confession is easy?”

“Take care of yourself,” I said.

“You hanging up?”

“Yeah.”

“You asshole.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up.

I found another quarter and tried Marcie Grant. I’d promised to call her. I was still curious about Mike Perry’s relationship with Curtis. The sportscaster sounded jealous of Curtis — one of the three best reasons, according to police stats, to kill somebody. Her line was busy. I wrote down her address.

The Brenton Arms was the first condo high rise in the city, and as such it had attracted all the very wealthiest people in the first few years of its existence. Its imitators were for the less wealthy and less prestigious. As if to prove my point, there was even a stretch limo parked in front of the lobby tonight. In the darkness the Brenton towered far up above the blossoming apple trees. I got past the first glass door all right, but not into the lobby. For that you needed a special coded card.

A white-haired couple who looked like a retirement ad were in the process of inserting their own special card. I knew I didn’t have a chance of getting inside. I’d have to ask my questions out here. I showed them my Federated ID.

The man said, “You’re not a policeman.”

“No I’m not.”

“Then why are you bothering us?”

“I just need some information.”

“Would you move your foot please?”

“Sure.”

The door closed and they rode up.

Five minutes later I stood in front of the inner door and looked out at the city. An ambulance went by, then a squad car. Teenagers drove by, apparently poor ones, because when they got abreast of the Brenton a kid with a mean face stuck his head out and gave the entire apartment building and all its inhabitants the bird.

“May I help you with something?”

He was as old as the man and woman who’d gone up in the elevator, but where they were fresh, he was weary. He was black and he had obviously spent his life paying the penalty for it.

He came over in a new gray uniform, a big mop filling his hands. My father’d had such a job, cleaning up buildings after hours. A second job. My father had made the mistake of having too many kids. My mother hadn’t exactly lived like a queen, either.

When I showed him the Federated piece, he looked at it very hard with his whipped brown gaze and said, “I don’t want no trouble, sir.”

His “sir” embarassed me. “There are twins who live here. Men. John and Rick.”

“Yessir.” He gripped his mop handle tightly, as if it were a lifeline.

“I’d like to talk to them.”

“I don’t believe they’re home, sir.”

“Would you mind giving me their name?”

He looked at me, paused. “I guess that wouldn’t hurt none.”

I took out my nickel pad. Tried to make it look official.

“Ayres is their name. Ayres.”

“Anything you can tell me about them?”

He shook his head. “Nothing I better say, sir.”

I glanced around the empty lobby. “Doesn’t seem there’s anybody around to listen.”

“No, sir, I guess not.”

I reached in my pocket. I had three crumpled ones and some change that counted out to three quarters and two dimes and a penny. I’d never tried to bribe anybody before. I wasn’t sure you could do it with three singles and three quarters and two dimes and a penny.

He watched me figure out my change. A gentle smile played at his lips. I must have looked like a fucking bozo trying to play private eye with a routine like this.

“How would you like three dollars and ninety-six cents?”

“Like in the movies?” Now his smile was more apparent.

“What the fuck,” I said, “you could buy a six-pack or something.”

He leaned on his mop some more. “You must be new at this.”

“Well,” I said, sounding defensive.

He shrugged. “Ain’t much I could tell you anyway other than that they’re kind of strange. Real into body building and flying in and out of the city all the time. They must make four, five trips a week.”

“What do they do for a living?”

“Ain’t sure. Heard them tell a fellow once that they sold men’s clothes. They might, too, the way they dress. Real fancy dudes.” He smiled with pink gums and bad teeth and the first dim light of pleasure in his eyes. “They got enough women, I’ll say that for them.”

“You ever see a teenage boy hanging around them?”

He shrugged. “Saw several.”

I described Stephen Chandler. “You ever seen him?”

He thought for a time. “Yes, sure. He was around here.”

“Why do you think these boys hung around?”

He smiled again. “Oh, I know why they hung around. They’d do errands for the twins and the twins would let them stay in the condo. Booze, women, whatever they wanted. Guess they even got some of them porno movies up there.”

A fuzzy picture was beginning to emerge and I felt sorry as hell for Stephen Chandler.

“You don’t think they’re home?”

“No, sir.”

We were back to that.

“If I gave you a number to call would you call it when they come back?”

“I get off in five more hours.”

“Well, if they come back during that time, would you give me a call?”

“Yes, sir, I guess I would. Yes, sir.”

I wrote the number down and handed it to him. He nodded and put it into the pocket of his gray work shirt. I took the money I’d been holding in my own shirt pocket and handed it over to him.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said.

“You should get something out of this,” I said.

“Well, I guess I could buy me a sixer or something.”

I gave him the money.