Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City (23 page)

That stopped him. He gave me a smile and chuckled. “Okay Crager. You wanna have a look? Be my guest.”

And so I did. It was one hell of a collection too. In fact, his room was like a small museum given over not only to knives, but of various military hardware. Grenades, machine gun bullets, guns, helmets and uniforms, medals and insignias hung on the walls, on shelves, and were spread out on a table he had in the corner of his room. The knives dominated the room though. I spotted a Japanese bayonet from World War II, a Samurai sword or two, and what I took to be hunting knives of various vintage and size. I grabbed one of the hunting blades, running my thumb up and down the sharp metal.

“Yeah. I got a few of those,” he said, watching me eye the knife. “Don’t prove nothin’ though.”

“Who’s accusing you?” I asked. Neither of us said anything. I continued studying the blade. I could feel him watching me closely. He was breathing heavily, like someone with a mild case of emphysema.

“It’s late,” I said, carefully placing the blade back onto the table.

He was smiling. A little too smugly too.

“I take it you can find your way out Crager?”

I nodded.

“Just tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Why in the name of hell would I want to kill Lance Miller?”

“Why not? He was taking money away from you. Lance gets to go to the majors while two of your boys are left toiling away in the minors for milk money.”

“Two of my boys?”

“Walter and
Hanson
. I know for a fact you had a deal with
Hanson
. And I wouldn’t doubt you had the same thing worked out with Walter. Everyone knows those two were the real prospects in this organization.”

“Ha. Well. You are pretty sharp Crager. But that doesn’t mean I killed anyone.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

I drove over to Pat’s place. It was about 3 a.m., but she was still awake. She always stayed up late when she didn’t have to work the next day. I gave a few light raps on the door then let myself in with the key. The kids were tucked away, and she was on the couch watching an Alfred Hitchcock video. The title eludes me, but it was one of his classics, something to do with an insomniac who witnesses a murder through an apartment window.

She was sitting on the couch in nothing but panties and bra. The woman has a sixth sense of when I’m coming. She’s amazing in that respect. I stood in the living room, giving her a good once over like I was preparing to have her for dinner. It was all a lot of crap though. The long drive back and forth from Maryland and the other events of the day had left me exhausted. A rumble in the hay didn’t do much for me right now. What I wanted was a drink.

“I expected you a bit earlier. You had a phone call here.”

“Here? Who?”

She hit the pause button on the VCR’s remote control. The image of Jimmy Stewart suddenly froze. “A gentleman named Giles Hampton.” She rolled her eyes. “One of those
very
educated types. He called long-distance.”

“Interesting he knew to call here,” I said. “What did he want?”

“He said he was at the banquet that night. That he saw Reba excuse herself from the table about the time dessert was being served. Also, he wanted you to know that Ron Miller is a trustee over at Ocyl College, and that you can draw your own conclusions from that.”

I plopped down heavily onto the couch. Pat threw a leg across my lap.

“Well,” she said. “What does it all mean?”

Either Hampton’s lying to save his own ass, and I don’t think he is, or he’s implicating Reba in the murder.”

“Why didn’t he come forward before?” Pat asked. She wiggled her foot into my thigh, the code for me to begin massaging her toes.

“He had too much to lose,” I said. “Apparently, Miller was the driving force behind his getting fired from Ocyl College.”

“I thought they were friends,” Pat said.

“They were. But from what I can piece together Reba wanted him out of there. Hampton had been on Miller to leave her.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “But how do we know Hampton’s still not lying
?
”

“A ballplayer told me Reba left the banquet to meet Lance up in his room that night.”

I had stopped massaging, causing Pat to poke me in the gut with her foot. “Some girls get all the luck,” she said.

“Then she met up with Lance,” I added.

Pat shook her head. “The little slut.” I was staring hard at the floor. She again
prodded me with her foot. “What is it?” she asked.

“I still don’t have a murder weapon,” I said. ” And I really don’t know if Reba Miller is capable of killing someone.”

“I say she is,” Pat said.

I shrugged and looked up at the frozen image of Jimmy Stewart. He was in a chair with a telescope. “We’ll never know at this point.”

I could feel her looking hard at me.

“Let’s go to bed,” she suggested.

“You go ahead,” I said. “I want to sit here and think for a few minutes.”

“Okay.” She sighed and got up.

“Pat,” I said, just as she was about to disappear down the hallway. “Sorry, I’ve been a shit meister lately.”

She stood at the edge of the hallway in her panties and bra, the dull blue-gray light from the television screen giving her kind of a ghostly glow.

“There’s Scotch in the kitchen cupboard,” she said. “Don’t overd
o
it. I need you for the long haul.”

I went into the kitchen and poured a couple of fingers of the Scotch into a glass. For the longest time, I stood next to the sink, wavering between pouring the stuff back into the bottle or down the drain. Finally, I took the glass with me back to the couch and sat there in the semi-darkness of the room, rolling the liquid around in the glass. I began playing this little game with the stuff, seeing how close I get could bring the Scotch to the very rim of the glass without it spilling. It was an old game, and I was pretty damn good at it. After I got bored with that I slumped back into the couch and placed the glass on my belly. I ignored Jimmy Stewart, still frozen on the television, and gazed up at the ceiling at nothing in particular. I felt myself getting sleepy, and then the room began to swallow me up.

The door flew open. In all directions they scattered through the house in a mad rush of Spanish chattering. This was it, the barrio drug bust we’d been planning for. Three of us, our guns drawn, took the stairs. Four other cops tore through the bottom of the house. A toilet flushed as I ran up the steps. There was the shattering of glass.“He went out the window,” someone screamed. At the top of the stairs, we separated.

“Steek ‘em up meester,” came a voice.

I wheeled around. He was what? Seven, eight years old. “Give me the gun son.”

I took a step toward him.

“Carlos no.” A man had thrown himself into the hallway. The gun he held was pointed at me.

I fired. The man went down, the gun dropping from his hand. He scrambled for it. So did I. A tussle on the floor followed. And then my gun went off for the second time, a split second before I realized the kid had gone for it too.

I woke up with a start. Sunlight pouring through the window stabbed my eyes. Scotch had spilled onto my shirt. The glass sat on its side next to me on the couch. My shirt was wet with perspiration. I looked at my watch. It was eight-thirty. Labor Day. The last day of the Mets season. A double-dip set to start at noon. But first a ceremony to unveil the statue. I wrote out a quick note to Pat and took off for the ball park.

Chapter 14

I wanted to get to the ball park before they opened the gates. A decent crowd was expected
. A lot of people
would be turning out early for the pre-game festivities. Some nut in a parachute was supposed to land on the field to deliver the game ball. But first, there would be a cow-milking contest
featuring
some local businessmen and city council people, all sorts of drawings and kids games, and of course, the unveiling of that statue. Yeah. The Mets were going to leave town with a bang.

Prior to the game, the statue rested in the rotunda area beside the ticket window.

I bought myself a ticket just as they were opening the gates to the ball
park. There were few other people around just yet, and I took the opportunity to get a real good look at the statue. Jack Hastings never looked better. I got to say that. They had him standing real erect, a single hand on his hip to make him look proud, confident and regal, and the sort of warm good guy smile on his mug that would have done Mother Theresa proud. Jack Hastings: businessman, politician, whore master. What the hell. They could have done worse. They named a building after J. Edgar Hoover didn’t they?

Supposedly, the statue was to have undergone a few last minute changes before being unveiled. Studying the thing more closely, I noticed it was mounted on a concrete slab of about two feet high, the concrete appearing to have been newly poured. That’s when it hit me. Hastings’ feet had previously been bolted into metal. Now, the ankles disappeared right into cement. I ran my hand across the slab. It was concrete all right. And if I wasn’t mistaken, the cement even felt slightly wet to my touch. Apparently, the slab had been poured as recently as yesterday.

As I was getting a good look at the statue, Rusty Wallace was coming down the ramp next to the ticket booth. He looked like he’d just lost all his money in a game of craps.

“Lost your way?” I said.

He suddenly straightened up. “Oh Crager. Sorry
…
I didn’t see you there.” He stopped now and nodded at the statue.

“What do you think?”

“It does the old ball park proud,” I said chuckling.

“Yeah,” Wallace said grimly.

“What’s with you?” I asked. “You miss your daily dose of the newspaper funnies, or did Miller just decide he can run this little operation without you?”

“That’s precisely what’s happened,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Mr. Miller just canned me.”

“And here I thought you were a good little toady.”

Wallace just stood there on the ramp staring down at the statue.

“Hey. Cheer up kid. You’re young, you’re white, you’re an American. You’ll find another job
in this burg
.”

Wallace didn’t seem to hear me though. He continued staring forlornly at the statue.

“He’s sold the club you know. It’s all but a done deal.”

“It’s true then,” I said. “Mick Slaughter
is
buying the team.”

Wallace shook his head.

“And you don’t fit into the new owner’s plans?” I said.

“That would be correct Crager.”

He walked down from the ramp and stood before the statue. “I don’t have anything to hang my head about,” he said, his voice choking. “I did everything Mr. Miller asked of me and then some. This statue, for example. It was my idea.”

“Tell me something,” I said. “Why did they change the foundation?”

Wallace turned to me. The poor guy’s eyes had become misty. “Someone toppled the statue when they brought it back to the ball park from this banquet last month at the Spinelli Hotel. When it fell, the feet tore right out of the foundation. They had to prepare a new one for it.”

“So they got a new mount. That slab there looks newly poured.”

“It is,” he said. “They brought the statue here by truck and did it yesterday.”

“Happen to know what they did with the old mount?”

Wallace gave me a funny look. “As a matter of fact, it’s right over there.” He pointed deep under the grandstands.

Sure enough, a big rectangular slab rested among the twisted network of steel beams deep in the crumby underbelly of the grandstands.

“Mind if I take a look?” I said.

“At this point, you can do just about anything you want. My work is done.”

I had to work my way through the beams and girders to reach it while holding my nose to the raunchy aroma of stale urine and beer. It was like a used-up whore’s armpit under there. That was for damn sure. Bottles, soda paper cups, stale popcorn and french fries, chewed up hot dogs and buns, mustard-stained napkins and zillions of cigarette butts had all been coughed up onto the dirt floor beneath those stands. I had to practically get on my hands and knees to reach the foundation. It was way the hell to the front of the grandstands where the seats sloped down closest to the field on the other side.

The slab was resting on its side. And it was made of metal all right. There were several holes where thick screws used to keep in place the feet of the statue had been torn away. I propped myself on a knee and rapped the iron with my knuckles. It was hollow. That only made sense. Bolts had probably been used to secure the screws. That meant to get on the bolts, there had to be an opening to the thing. I examined each side of the mount. I could find no openings, gaps or trap doors. I stepped back and looked toward the ticket booth. A few fans were beginning to trickle in. I had to work fast before the wrong person spotted me. I gave it a nudge with my foot and actually moved it a few inches. Something rattled inside.