The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

Jeff Somers Ringing the Changes

From Danger City

Henry used to be a jolly bastard and a lot of fun, but he’d taken the pledge and turned out to be dull as dust when he didn’t have a drink in his hand. All he could talk about was his salvation, his sobriety. It was boring stuff. A million weak bastards before him had had the same revelation, and a million more were lining up to dry out after him. Nothing special about it, really, yet people always went on and on about it as if God had reached down and waggled a finger at them and no one else.

At least I was still working, and Henry was pretty good cover. Plus, there wasn’t much Henry didn’t know about what was happening in outline; his moment of clarity had apparently made old Hankie a good listener, so I felt it was a good idea to stay on his good side, in case I ever needed information. We used to be tight, and he used to be a grand time, so I gave him a little ear-time. I bought him a steady stream of club sodas, which he drank exactly as he’d drunk booze: never putting the glass down, using it to gesture his points, and killing it with a million little sips. If you weren’t listening to his endless sermon about giving up The Drink, you’d think his glass was a vodka tonic or a gimlet.

It was slow, and I wasn’t making much, so I hurried Henry along. I waved my hand at the bartender and looked at Henry, the dry old bastard.

“Want another?”

“Sure. You shouldn’t go so hard, buddy. Believe me, I know.”

I nodded, glancing at the bartender. “Another bourbon, kiddo.” He looked down at the pile of money on the bar, a crisp fifty right on top, and took my empty glass away. Keeping an eye on him, I inched my hand over and switched the fifty with one of mine from the bottom.

This is what I did. I made people see what I wanted them to see. Even Henry, who didn’t notice that my glass was mostly melted ice and watery booze, hardly touched.

The bartender brought my drink and set it in front of me.

“You should charge more for nonalcoholic drinks, buddy,” I said, catching his eye. “Discourage the teetotalers, eh?”

He shrugged, plucking the bill off the top, his eyes on me. “Nah. We don’t get many in here anyway.”

Without glancing at the money, he carried it to the register and rang up my change, bringing back forty-six real dollars and dumping them on the bar. I left them there for a bit, not even looking at them. After a while I’d collect them and put the fifty back on top. For the time being, I studied Henry as if he was the most interesting guy in the world.

“How long’d you do in Rahway?”

Henry nearly lost control of his glass, gesturing. “Three years. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

Henry dried out in prison. At first it wasn’t voluntary, of course, but then he hooked up with a substance-anonymous crowd and took the pledge. He was going on four years sober now — four sad, desultory, plodding years, but years he was proud of nevertheless.

“Nothing to do but think in prison,” he went on. “Not for me, anyway. Some guys found other distractions, but I never had anything except booze.”

Henry had no idea how true that was, I suspected, considering his gray, lifeless demeanor post-booze.

“At first all I thought about was booze. You could get some in prison, but I never could do it. I never had anything to pay with, except my ass, and I wasn’t that far gone. So I thought a lot. And I realized that I was in jail because of liquor.”

I knew this speech pretty well. Henry got pinched because he’d been loaded. It was pure professionalism that drove the man sober. He never wanted to fuck up again and land back in a place as boring as jail. Henry liked his cable TV.

I stopped listening, letting it wash over me.

Mine wasn’t a high-rolling life. I made enough to pay the rent and keep things moving. There were no big scores to be had, I knew this, but there were also few chances at getting killed or arrested if I played it straight. Didn’t get fancy. Counterfeit money got traced or sometimes spotted, and a lot of time people remembered me as the guy who spent a lot of fifties. I had to go to different places, work different neighborhoods. If I went to the same place twice, I could get pinched.

My man the bartender wasn’t the brightest fellow in the bar, but I didn’t think I could pass more than one or two more fifties his way anyway, and Henry was only on chapter one of “How I Won the War,” just getting warmed up. So, I gathered up my cash, left a good tip, and stood up. Henry didn’t care. He didn’t even pause for breath, he just barreled on, giving me the background on his conversion from lush to self-satisfied teetotaler. I knew how it ended — with a lecture from him on why I was a fool to keep drinking.

Which was annoying, since I didn’t.

I spoke right over him. “All right, Hankie, I gotta roll.”

He trailed off and looked away, insulted. “Yeah, okay.”

Walking out of the place, I felt sad. It was a good bar: dark and smoky, wood everywhere, and not filled with complainers. Good jukebox.

The Wallace Hotel was hovering between worlds — middle-class decay on the one hand, and people like me on the other. Cheap tourists stayed a few days at a time, or stylish tourists who liked the old-fashioned look of furnishings that hadn’t been changed in fifty years.

And then there were people like me. We didn’t have jobs or paperwork. We had cash, and an aversion to questions. I’ve lived there for two years and some weeks, and I’ve never once spoken with a neighbor. We were all perfect tenants because we didn’t shit where we lived. We picked our messages up at the front desk, kept to ourselves, and paid our rent on time. The Wallace, no doubt, wanted more criminals to move in.

I had three rooms, a suite. It was cheap and clean, with a strongbox filled with cash hidden under floorboards beneath the bed: thirty-three thousand dollars, socked away a little at a time. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was an insurance policy, a bit of scratch to carry me through a rough patch. I’d earned it all through small, safe grifts. I was careful, slow, and steady.

There was a coffee can in the cupboard with two grand in it. To look at the place, you’d think two grand’s about the best I could do. I figured if anyone came snooping, they’d find the coffee can in about five minutes and think that was it.

I worked neighborhoods, using color-copy big bills — twenties and fifties. It wasn’t very sophisticated, and it wouldn’t pass muster with anyone who knew their currency, but it worked with distracted register jockeys untrained in catching counterfeits. I still got caught from time to time, but I found that I could usually bluff my way out by appearing as surprised as they were. Color-copy counterfeits, even on linen paper, didn’t feel like real money, or smell like real money, but since I didn’t get greedy, I pulled it off. I’d only print $5,100 in fifties, which is thirty-four double-sided copies. That’s two bucks each on a self-serve machine unless I could scam free ones. So, for maybe seventy bucks, I had $5,100 in worthless money, which I then cut at home, carefully. Then I went shopping.

Most shop owners won’t break a fifty for something small, but I wanted as much good money back for each fake as I could manage. I usually began by trying to buy a soda for a dollar, or a buck fifty. If they refused, I explained that I needed change. Sometimes I made forty-eight bucks, sometimes forty. Even at the low end, I made about four grand in a week if I managed to pass all the bills, but finding a hundred places in a week was hard. Each store took time, too. I had to cast the spell and do a little dance, be indecisive, pick up items and put them back, ask a lot of questions, be in a hurry — anything to keep the bastard from looking closely at my money.

The other half of my game had one simple rule: never pay bills with fakes. First off, my fakes were lame, easily spotted ones — I counted on bored, distracted people to accept them without question. Banks, on the other hand, would trace me.

The dying afternoon sun sifted through my blinds like dust and warmed the stale air in my suite. I stepped up to the bed, a simple twin with a crappy mattress that came with the place. The only thing I’d done was replace the thin gray mattress with a brand new thin gray mattress. I made money by not spending it, but I drew the line at sleeping with a previous tenant’s skin conditions. In fact, news about mattress sales was the only real small talk at the Wallace.

I began emptying my pockets.

Sometimes even I was amazed at how much currency I traded in a day. I tossed bills onto the bed, big sweaty wads of them. I pooled the coins separately, for future sorting. Then, I sat down on the bed and sorted the bills, counting as I went. In bills, I managed three hundred and seventy-three dollars, which wasn’t bad for an afternoon that had ended with Henry’s lecture of sobriety. I piled the money into neat rubber-banded stacks, pulled out the strongbox, and the place filled with the golden light of upward mobility for a moment, improved the furniture, removed the water stains, and filled the cracks in the walls. I added the cash. A few quick adjustments in the ledger to reflect the new money, and I put everything carefully back where it had been, the strongbox chained to a bolt.

The apartment was transformed back into the last stop on the way down — nothing to see.

I went into the middle room to my bar, which was just a bottle of whiskey and a pitcher of dusty water. I poured two fingers of booze and stood by the grimy windows, yellow light illuminating the dust.

I felt tired and heavy. So much effort, just to survive. So I decided on a steak for dinner. I changed into a light suit to go to Andy’s around the corner, where all the waiters had a good-natured competition for my big tips. Down in the lobby, I had messages. One was another grifter seeking a loan, but I had better things to do with my money; it never paid to admit I had enough to lend. The second message was from a police contact, an innocuous note signed “Mr. Blue.” I pocketed them both and went to dinner.

My entire life was conducted on borrowed phones. A phone in my room, in my name, was irritating and incriminating, not to mention evidence of income, so I avoided it. At Andy’s, I ordered a drink and studied the menu, had the phone brought over, and called the cop. He answered on the fifth ring, sounding breathless.

“Yeah?”

“It’s your underground friend.”

“Where are you?”

“Andy’s on third.”

“I’ll be there, half an hour. Don’t leave.”

He hung up. Detective Paul Wilson was middle-aged, unhappy, and not averse to making a few bucks on the side. Nothing major: a little inside information, a little security work for nervous crooks. He never lost sleep over it. I’d had a few minor dealings with him, and we got along well.

I went ahead and ordered dinner. Paul showed up when I was halfway through my steak. He sat down quietly at the table and nodded at me by way of hello.

“Your name came up today,” he said. Paul was a heavyset guy, and always sounded out of breath.

“Came up how?”

“In an investigation. Old business, but nasty. They’re gonna come round you up. Ask a lot of questions. I thought I’d just let you know.”

“What old business?” I kept eating. There wasn’t any point in being dramatic about it.

“All I know is, the vic was named Murray. It was about fifteen years ago, but the case is still open.” He shifted in his seat. “That’s all I got. Just felt you should know, as an associate.”

I chewed, trying to figure out if that meant he thought he could get more money out of me, or if he was dishing some honor-amongst-thieves bullshit, or if it was just simple human respect. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

He waited a moment, unsure, and then stood up. “All right. Just thought you should know.”

I nodded again and watched him leave. I knew the name Murray, and it was a problem — one I never thought I’d have to deal with. Then again, my associates were criminals. I never knew what they were going to do. Maybe someone gave up my name out of sheer terror, or happened to remember that I’d been in the same room with so-and-so once. I knew I needed to make some calls, but decided to finish my dinner, have some coffee, and relax like a civilized man.

That was a mistake. The cops, moving with unusual speed, were waiting for me at the Wallace. I didn’t get a chance to make my calls. As I walked into my building, I acquired two hefty men in bad suits and gun-crowded shoulders who pushed me into one of the ancient plush chairs in the lobby and stood over me, making a scene in front of the concierge at the front desk.

“Walter ‘Poppy’ Popvitch?” the one on the left said.

The one on the right didn’t wait for an answer. “Where you been, Poppy? We’ve been waiting for you.”

I crossed my legs and regarded them, trying to look calm. “Out to dinner.”

“Yeah, so he said, so he said,” the one on the left nodded, looking around. “You mind we ask you a few questions?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. Can I ask you what this is about?”

I was selling ignorance, innocence, and confusion but the market was soft. They looked at each other. The one on the right shoved me, lightly. “Come on, let’s go back to the station, be friendly.”

“Am I under arrest?”

Now, I was selling outrage. This got me nothing but another shove, harder, but still short of a brutality complaint. “Not yet, but it’s in your interest to keep us happy, Poppy.”

That was annoying; no one called me Poppy. “You don’t seem too happy now” I pointed out.

The one on the right glanced at his partner, as if saying See? I told you he wasn’t going to be friendly, and slipped a hand under my armpit, pulling me up roughly.

“Come on, tough guy,” he growled.

They had no warrant, and I wasn’t under arrest, but I went quietly, like a good citizen. They had only two questions, but they got good mileage out of them, asking them over and over again.

“Did you know Andrew Murray?”

“No.”

“Did you have anything to do with his murder?”

“No.”

Between repeating their two questions, they jabbered on with a few scary details and hints that they had something on me. They didn’t, though. If they had, I would have been under arrest. So, after a few hours, they let me go to think about it and put a tail on me. But I didn’t care. I had nothing to hide: not much, anyway. I went back to Andy’s, borrowed the phone at the bar, and made my few calls. After half a beer and a lot of dial tones, I tracked down Henry and told him I’d buy him dinner if he’d come down and let me pick his brain. Henry never turned down a free meal, and he knew everything about everyone.

When Henry showed up ten minutes later, I wanted to grill him immediately about Murray, but first, there were pleasantries. I’d offended Henry at our last meeting, and he walked in the place with the wounded air of a true martyr — a sober martyr at that, the worst kind. But I couldn’t really blame him; since he’d lost the courage booze had given him, Henry made a good part of his living dealing and acquiring information, so it made sense that he’d want to keep things chatty, and I’d walked out on him mid-sentence. It was damned annoying, though, when I needed information and wanted to shake the bastard until his valuable head popped off.

I bought Henry a soda and let him harangue me about the lush Scotch on the rocks I was nursing. I endured him waving the glass under my nose, thick finger outstretched, as he delivered a sermon about the Rules of Polite Society and how you treated people the way you wanted to be treated yourself. Finally, he sighed piteously and bought me a drink, and I jumped in to bring up business before he could gather his energies for the standard higher-power sermon Henry liked to end ail his tirades with these days.

“I’ve been hearing a lot about an old piece of business, Hankie, but I can’t seem to place the details.”

“What business would that be?” he asked, sagging slightly until he seemed to be hanging off the bar.

“Somebody named Murray, gone to lavender a few years ago.” He closed his eyes and settled himself on the stool. Watching Henry think was more interesting than expected. He went into a trance and fidgeted, twitching and raising his eyebrows, scanning back through his photographic memory.

“Okay,” he said, his eyes popping open. “I think I’ve heard about this.”

“Good. How far back did you have to go?”

“Oh — about ten.”

I nodded. A hundred bucks was cheap. And, it meant that he didn’t see much value in the information, so was offering it at a discount. “Good number.”

He closed his eyes again. “Andrew Murray, pickpocket. Worked the East Side, mostly. Subsistence kind of career, only big scores were accidental, whatever he happened to pinch. Not real smooth, either. Got caught several times, never arrested, beaten up a few times. Found dead in a public lavatory in Grand Central Station seven years ago, apparently beaten to death with a blunt instrument. Police assumed it was a pocketing gone wrong and didn’t wind themselves looking into it. Case remains open.

“Word around town is that it was a fellow grifter did it. No names, just rumors. Doubt that some civilian could have whacked him, posed him in the can, and not leave a trace — must have been someone with skills. He had a lot of enemies, could have been anyone that he owed money to, which were plenty. He drank and gambled and liked to have whores on hand. He liked to live a flashy life on a very small income, and got in deep with shylocks, not to mention anyone dumb enough to give him a friendly loan. Drank like a fish and it sank him in the end. Your basic black hole. We’ve all known this guy and kept our distance. I used to be this guy.”

He looked at me meaningfully, trying to communicate, no doubt, that he thought there was a little bit of black hole in me. I rattled the ice in my drink as a talisman and nodded, amazed — I wondered briefly what Henry would have been capable of if he hadn’t soaked his brain in liquor for thirty years. But I was satisfied. Nothing unexpected.

“As you know,” Henry went on after a moment, “your name comes into it.”

I froze, careful not to reveal the shock. I took a sip from my drink, nodding.

“Let’s talk about that.”

Without opening his eyes, he raised both eyebrows, “Indeed. Let’s. There’s no direct connection, I don’t think. It’s a case of degrees of separation. The last person the police believe saw Murray was Miles Tucker. Tucker couldn’t be tracked down for years; he’d left the city, and efforts to locate him and his various names and pseudonyms — as lackluster as they were — were fruitless until a week ago when Tuck reappeared at some old haunts, cheerful and buying drinks. Scooped up by some bored crushers, he provided your name as a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Oh shit,” I exhaled, draining my glass. I remembered Tuck, vaguely. Hadn’t known him well and couldn’t remember if he’d been there that night, but it was possible. It was feasible. I spent my whole life spinning the feasible into reality. I knew how it worked.

“Dismayed, Walt? That’s either a fabrication or an inconvenience to you. Either way, the police will no doubt haunt you for a bit.”

I nodded, signaling the bartender for another round. The fucking cops hadn’t mentioned this guy’s alibi to me, but that just meant Tuck wasn’t very reliable and the cops were shaking the tree, seeing what fell out.

I dug out two more C-notes and slid them over to Henry. He looked at me.

“Tuck’s real name,” I said, accepting a fresh drink from the bartender gratefully. “And where he might be found.”

Henry made the bills disappear. “Indeed,” he said, managing to sound aggrieved about earning money.

After leaving Henry, I let the cops watch me go home. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table for an hour, drinking and thinking. No one gave a shit about this clown Murray. The cops were looking for a quick and easy clearance. They wanted names they could take to court, and I doubted they cared much about the truth. And there I was, plain as day, for the cops to turn over and see what crawled out. I intended to remove myself from the equation.

My coffee finished, I changed into an old suit, opened up the bathroom window, and climbed out. From there, I was able to climb up onto the roof of the building next door. It was dangerous, but I’d done it before. I ran across my building and jumped over to another roof. Three more jumps, and I was able to climb down a series of fire escapes and emerge on the street several blocks away. I hailed a cab, gave the driver an address a few blocks away from the one Henry had given me. Then I spent some time looking out the back window for pursuit. I didn’t see any, so I relaxed, watching the city go by.

The taxi let me off in a dingy, rundown neighborhood — I knew this one, knew where it was safe to spend my money and where I’d get broken hands for my trouble. I walked briskly to the address Tuck was using, bristling with anger. I remembered this fuck. We had nothing between us, I thought, but here he was, trying to jam me up. It pissed me off.

His brownstone, weathered and chipped, was in the middle of the block. The streetlight was broken, leaving the house in a shadow. This wasn’t the sort of work I was used to doing, but I did what I had to do.

I walked up and rang the bell. The rest happened quickly.

The door opened, and an unfamiliar shape filled the space. I didn’t pause to be sure, or to be clean. My knife came out, and I leaned in. I pushed it forward and up, pulled it out, then back again, punching him. He leaned backward, trying to climb up off my blade, but he leaned too far, and he toppled over. I stepped in and shut the door behind me. I looked down at Tucker. I was glad he wasn’t some poor ass who got in the way, but regardless, this is how it had to be done — fast and thoughtless.

Sometimes, I cut a corner each off of four twenty-dollar bills and pasted the corners onto a one-dollar bill. It’s surprising how often this works when a cashier is busy or stressed. It’s a quick, dirty, and dangerous way to make a fast $100 or so; making people see something that isn’t there.

This is what I did. I moved quickly through the house, and when I was sure there was no one else I left the knife in the sink and climbed out the bathroom window. I got home in an hour, walking the whole way. I didn’t see any blood on me, but I wouldn’t be sure until I got home. I climbed back in the way I’d gone out, inspected myself, and stripped, tossing everything into the garbage.

After a hot, hot shower, I stepped into a robe and felt good. I peeked out a window and checked out the cops, reliable as the sun.

I made myself a coffee, and the cops saw what I wanted them to see. It’s what I do.