You're nobody 'til somebody kills you

Sixty-one

We went from the hospital to Fred Otash’s office. It was the beginning of business hours and Miss Deeds was at her desk. He told me he had a private bath off his office, which included a shower. I told him I’d wait until I got back to Marilyn’s for the clothes, but I did wash up.

When I came out of the bathroom reasonably refreshed, Otash was sitting at his desk, just hanging up the phone.

“This is no surprise,” he said. “The car driven by Harris is registered to the JEH Group.”

“We get an address?”

“A PO box.”

“What about a driver’s license?”

“That’s a good thought,” Otash said. “You’ll make a detective yet. I just checked with my contact in Motor Vehicle. There are too many drivers named Harris for us to tell anything.”

“So we go on stakeout?” I asked.

“Yes, with one change,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“We follow whoever comes out,” he said. “Harris, the guy with the scar, or the manager, the other guy whose voice you heard.”

“I don’t know what he looks like.”

“We’ll find out,” Otash said. “If he’s running the place for the FBI he’s got to know something.”

“What about the bouncer? I heard him say he’s running girls out of there.”

“Good idea,” Otash said. “If he thinks he’s going to be pinched for running a string of girls, maybe he’ll talk.”

“He looks like he’d be used for heavy lifting.”

“You mean like moving Danny from the basement to somewhere else?”

“That’s what I mean.”

I didn’t like thinking of Danny as deadweight-or as dead. I wasn’t sure how I’d react if I found my longtime friend dead. I just had to keep thinking of him as alive, somewhere.

Penny would never forgive me if I didn’t bring him back.

Otash wanted to make some more calls-and use his shower-so instead of hanging around the office and-for some reason I still couldn’t figure out-annoying Miss Deeds, I decided to go back to Marilyn’s and get my own clothes.

“Be back here in a couple of hours,” Otash said. “With any luck I’ll know something about the manager and the bouncer at the Lavender.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

I drove back to the guesthouse, went inside, took a shower and brewed a pot of coffee to try to keep myself awake.

I was standing at the sink, drinking my second cup, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I froze, kept looking out the window and saw it again. Somebody was moving around inside the main house.

“Goddamnit!” I said angrily. It wasn’t bad enough they had sent Jerry to the hospital, they had to come back? And for what?

I went out to my car, opened the trunk as quietly as I could and took out Jerry’s.45. Clutching it, I moved around behind the main house to the kitchen. Everybody seemed to be using that door to get in. I was no different. It wasn’t locked, so I opened it and slipped inside. At that point someone chose to enter the room. I raised the gun and pointed before I realized it was Marilyn Monroe.

“Jesus Christ!”

Marilyn screamed and jumped back, eyes wide, then recognized me.

“Eddie! You scared the hell out of me!”

“Marilyn, what the hell are you doin’ here? I told you to stay at Frank’s.”

“Frank got real busy with the construction,” she said. “I started to feel like I was in the way. I wanted to come home, so he had one of his bodyguards drive me. What are you doing with that gun?”

“It’s Jerry’s,” I said. “He’s in the hospital.”

“Wha-why? What happened?”

“Look,” I said, taking her arm, “let’s go in the guesthouse. I just made some coffee. We can talk there.”

“But why not here?” she asked, as she trotted to the door.

“This is where Jerry got hurt,” I said, “and I’m not sure the people who hurt him won’t come back.”

She turned to look back at the kitchen as I gently shoved her out the door.