The Night Remembers

17

He was good, but he wasn’t that good. He knew how to kind of hang back without exactly hanging back and he knew how to look real interested in other things when we both got stopped at the same red light out on 19th Street. But as soon as I even suspected he was following me, I started taking rights and lefts, out through the plantation-style homes along Blake, and then past the elegant houses sweeping up to Cottage Grove. You’ve never seen a wooded residential area any lovelier. I was going a long way out of my way and he was going with me.

I swung over to Clark Road then, and finally to Mt. Vernon Road where I quickly pulled into a self-serve car wash. If I’d done my work right, he was going to come screaming down the street any minute now, wondering just what the hell had happened to me.

He came along in one minute and forty-six seconds and boy did he look pissed.

While he was at the stop sign, looking so hard left and so hard right I thought he was going to give himself whiplash, I strolled over to his new metallic green Chevrolet and knocked on the driver’s window.

He turned toward me so fast, you might have guessed he’d been shot.

The first thing he did was roll down the window. “Just what the hell do you want?”

“Directions.”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you pull over into the 7-Eleven drive there and you can tell me where you’re headed.”

“Now why would I want to tell you something like that?”

“Because you’ve been following me for the past hour and I just thought that maybe you knew where we were going. I don’t seem to.”

“Get lost.”

He started to roll up the window. I put my .38 right in his face.

“Hey,” he said. “You pulled a gun on me.”

“That seems to be the case, doesn’t it?”

“What the hell are you doing?” He sounded hysterical.

“Pull over there. And don’t try to move too fast. I want to walk right along with you.”

“Do you have any idea how many municipal laws you’re breaking?”

“Probably a lot of them.”

“God,” he said, still in the throes of disbelief.

I walked right along with him. I pushed my body close enough to the car that nobody could see the .38 unless they were looking straight in.

He didn’t seem to be so much scared as irritated. He just kept shaking his big, bald head. He had shaved it. Apparently he still remembered when Telly Savalas was doing all right with the ladies. He was probably in his early fifties, but the aviator shades and the brown leather bombardier and the white turtleneck sweater were meant to suggest a sixth decade given over to beer-belly macho.

He pulled into the 7-11 lot on the far side where I instructed him. I told him to shut off the engine and hand over the keys.

“You’re really pushing it, pal,” he said. But he gave me the keys.

I walked around the car and got into the back seat. The car still smelled new.

“I’m going to have your ass busted so hard, you won’t believe it,” he said. He had a way of whining that spoiled his angry words.

“Who hired you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Who hired you?” I asked again.

“I guess you’re just going to have to shoot me, pal. I don’t have a clue about what’s going on here.”

“Let me see your billfold.”

“Why don’t I just give you the cash? Let me keep the other stuff. Sentimental value, you know?”

“Billfold,” I said.

“You muggers are getting a lot bolder, I’ve got to say that for you. Walking right up to my car in broad daylight.”

He gave me his billfold. It was some kind of crushed black leather. I looked inside. It was right there waiting for me.

“The Conroy Detective Agency,” I said.

“So?”

“You just out for a nice drive today, Conroy?”

“So what if I was?”

I dropped the wallet on the front seat. “Now let’s see your log.”

“My what?”

“Your log.”

“I don’t know what a log is.”

“Right.” I pushed the gun against the back of his sleek skull. “The log.”

“Huh?”

“Open the glove compartment.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Conroy.”

“You sonofabitch.”

So he opened the glove compartment and took out his log and handed it to me. It was nothing more than a small thirty-five cent spiral tablet. It had a sketchy drawing on the corner of a freckle-faced kid with a mortarboard on. As I took it, Conroy said again, “You sonofabitch.”

Most investigators keep logs. It’s the best way to document your driving and your expenses, not only for the client but also for the IRS boys.

Conroy stared at me in the rearview as I looked over his morning’s entries.

“You jerk,” he said.

“I thought I was a sonofabitch.”

“You’re both.”

“Well, that’s some kind of distinction, anyway.” I handed him his log back. “Who’s at 2987 A Avenue?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“That’s the address you’ve got written down here.”

“Then it must have been by accident.”

“Uh-huh. How about the other address, on Mount Vernon Road?”

“Another accident.”

“You know, Conroy, when I saw you wearing those shades on a day this overcast, I said to myself, nobody could be that dumb. It must be a disguise. He’s disguising the fact that he’s actually very bright and in control of the situation.”

“Very funny.”

“But you know what I found out? You’re even dumber than you look, Conroy, and that’s an accomplishment, believe me.”

“Can I go now?”

“You know how easy it will be for me to find out who hired you now that I’ve got these addresses?”

“I wish I knew what you were talking about, pal.”

Now I was the one who was getting irritated. “We’re probably going to meet again, my friend. And next time it won’t be half as pleasant as this little routine. You understand?”

“I’m peeing my pants I’m so scared.”

I glared at him and sighed. I was the one with the gun and he had me right where he wanted me.

I got out of the car. After I’d walked around to the driver’s window, I tossed the keys into the front seat.

“We through now?” he said.

It was one of those times when I wished I had something smart to say, a capper to his line. But nothing came. I walked across the street to the car wash and got into my car.

Conroy took off.