The Dirt Peddler (27 page)

Okay. Case over. I was hired to deal with Tunderew's blackmailer—though he was of course totally wrong about who the blackmailer was. I dealt with Tunderew's blackmailer. That's it. End of story.

Sigh.

If Tunderew hadn't been such a homophobe, he might have at least told me about Judith Francini and why she might possibly be considered a suspect. Granted, she hadn't signed a confession and had it notarized, but I was satisfied. Other than my retainer, I hadn't been paid one cent, of course.

Partly satisfied.

That
still
left me with having to find out who had killed the bastard so I could know who had been responsible for Randy's death. I knew now it almost certainly wasn't Judith Francini—she didn't have a car and didn't drive. There was still Catherine Tunderew and the Bernadines, of course. But why did my mind keep going back to the Dinsmores? Probably because neither Catherine Tunderew nor the Bernadines had at least two unsolved murders and one unexplained disappearance already skulking around in the shadows. And I'd followed the ex-Mrs. Tunderew and the Bernadines about as far as I could at the moment. The Dinsmores were another story. There was still an awful lot I didn't know.

The first thing I wanted to double check was whether Tunderew had indeed ever met with the Dinsmores during his trip to Dallas with Judith Francini, or if it was, as I suspected, just a ruse to find out more about Mike Barber's murder and put another notch in his bedpost at the same time.

I picked up the phone and dialed New Eden. Of course they wouldn't put me directly through to Jeffrey Dinsmore, but I left a message saying I had a question about “Mr. Barber.” I suspected that would get his attention.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, just as I was getting ready to run downstairs to the diner—and I'd been doing just that, taking the stairs six flights up and down rather than the elevator, ever since Jonathan made the near-fatal mistake of teasing me about my developing “love handles”—the phone rang.

It was a very businesslike Jeffrey Dinsmore.

“Mr. Hardesty, I'm returning your call as a courtesy, since I am grateful to you for having brought this book matter to my attention. I have contacted our lawyers to look into it. If there is any truth to it, they have been instructed to take the strongest possible legal action to prevent its publication. However, I think this will have to be the end of our contacts. I've told you everything I can possibly tell you about…the incidents to which you referred…and I can't see what more you might need from me.”

“I understand, Reverend, and it was never my intention to cause you any problems. But if you could just tell me whether you might remember having in fact met with Mr. Tunderew at the Dallas New Eden, while he was working for Craylaw and Collier.”

There wasn't the slightest pause.

“I told you I have never met Mr. Tunderew and had never even heard of the man until his book made the best-seller list.”

Damn!

“This would have been on…”
Damn again! what date did Judith Francini say?
“…the twelfth of August of last year. A Saturday.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “That would have been impossible. August twelfth is my mother's birthday, and the family gathers in Atlanta every year to celebrate. Will that be all?”

“Uh, yes, I believe so.” I knew full well that ten seconds after we hung up I'd probably have at least a dozen additional questions. “Thank you again for talking with me. And please be assured that everything we discussed earlier will go no further than the two of us.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

And with that, we exchanged good-byes and hung up.

*

So it was exactly what I'd suspected: the Dallas trip had just been Tunderew's excuse to see what he could find out about Mike Barber's murder from Judith Francini's second cousin, and to take the opportunity to boff Judith at the same time.

But regardless of what was going on at New Eden, I really had the impression that Jeffrey Dinsmore was telling the truth about not knowing who Tunderew was, other than the author of
Dirty Little Minds
. And if he really didn't know about
No Door to Heaven
, what motive would he have had to kill Tunderew?

A deep rumble from my stomach broke my train of thought, and I got up and headed for the stairs.

*

A phone message waiting when I returned to the office put the whole Tunderew matter on a back burner. It was a call from a prospective client who needed my services and, I had every reason to hope, would even
pay
for them. I returned the call immediately, and set up an appointment for later the same afternoon.

Since we're mainly concerned with the Tunderew case here, I won't go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that the owner of a large furniture store in The Central believed he was being ripped off by one of his two-man delivery crews—a helper and a crew boss. The store had a policy of offering free delivery, which consisted of bringing the item into the customer's house, putting it where the customer wanted, and leaving. But if, as often happened, the customer decided that they thought, after having the furniture put where the crew was told, that it really would look better over there…or maybe over
there
, which could result in a lot of rearranging and a lot of extra time…the store's sales contract specified that an additional charge would apply. That was logical, since the delivery time schedules were tight; the more time wasted with each delivery, the fewer deliveries that could be made. If ten deliveries were scheduled, and only eight made, that would result in two unhappy customers.

The suspect crew was always behind schedule, and the owner believed it was because they were not reporting the “extra moves” and pocketing the money. Sounded pretty innocent, but as the owner pointed out, not only did the store lose money on the “extra moves” fee—as much, he estimated, as four hundred dollars a week—but lost money on the slower delivery schedule and unhappy customers.

He wanted to put the helper on a special in-warehouse project and hire me to work with the crew boss to see what was going on. He figured it shouldn't take more than three or four days. If the suspect offered to let me in on the deal, we'd have him dead to rights. And if he didn't and the delivery schedule picked up as a result, it would also be a good indication that the boss's suspicions had been right and the crew boss was just being cautious with a new man around.

I wasn't in a position to pass up the opportunity to actually be paid for a case, and I thought the exercise would do me good. Tunderew and Randy were already dead; there wasn't anything I might do on that matter that couldn't be put off a few days.

I took the job.

*

I showed up at the store Wednesday morning at seven thirty, met my “crew boss”—a guy named Fred, who had a body to die for and a face that could stop a clock. I really don't like to make that kind of judgment of other people's looks. We all have to live with what nature gave us, but let's just say he was most definitely not
my
type—whatever that might be.

By Wednesday night, my ass was dragging. Hauling sleeper sofas up three flights of stairs ain't a stroll in the park. The day had gone without a hitch. One elderly lesbian (I gathered her sexual orientation by the fact that she lived in a residential section of The Central, and by the number of photographs around the apartment—all of women) did ask if we could move a couple of pieces of heavy furniture to make her new love seats fit in, and wrote a check to the store for the extra time involved.

At the end of the day, as we were heading back to the store after our last delivery, I told Fred I thought moving furniture all day was a hell of a lot more work than we were getting paid for. He just grunted and nodded. (Fred was the strong, silent type. Not unfriendly, just quiet.)

*

I made a point of stopping by the office after I got off work at the store to check for messages. I definitely took the elevator up and back. There were a few calls, but nothing that needed immediate responses, so I headed home.

Jonathan had obviously guessed that I'd had a pretty rough day, physically, and when I walked into the apartment I saw his large book bag on the floor next to the sofa. He suggested that before we have dinner we might play a game of The Overworked Private Eye and the
Very
Professional Masseur. We hadn't played that one before, but it sounded like exactly what I needed. As always, Jonathan was able to immerse himself totally and instantly into his “character,” who told me his name was Lance and asked which of three types of massage I would prefer: basic muscle relaxer, full body massage, or “the works.” I told him I thought I'd go for “the works.” A couple of weeks earlier, he had picked up a small gift box of Exotic Body Oils at the place we got our hair cut. I'd asked him at the time what he thought we were going to do with it, and he just shrugged.

“They smell nice,” he said.

“Lance” asked if I would prefer the sofa, the floor, or the bed for the massage, and I opted for the bed. I showed him where the bedroom was (I was getting pretty good at this games thing, too) and he picked up his book bag and followed me. Once inside the bedroom, he instructed me to strip down to my shorts while he opened his book bag and took out a clean white sheet, which he very carefully spread across the top of the comforter. While I was finishing undressing, pretty much into the mood of the game by now, he dug back into the book bag and took out three small bottles that I recognized as having come from the Exotic Body Oils kit. When I was stripped to my shorts, he instructed me to stretch out face down on the bed, which felt
very
good, and just relax a minute. I had my head turned away from him so I couldn't tell what he was doing. When I turned to look I saw that he'd also gotten totally undressed except for a very skimpy bathing suit he'd insisted on buying despite my telling him I'd never let him wear it on any beach. I reached out to touch him, but he gently slapped my hand away.

“Behave,” he said. He then announced that I had my choice of Coconut, Musk, or Sandalwood oil.

“Surprise me.”

He smiled his Lance persona smile and said, “Oh, I intend to.”

He opened one of the bottles, poured a dab into one palm and rubbed his hands together briskly. I could smell the Sandalwood.

“Just close your eyes and relax.”

I did (well, most of me did), though one of my mind-voices, which I recognized immediately as my crotch, observed that Jonathan made a very attractive “Lance.” A moment later I felt him climb onto the bed and straddle me, then the drip of oil at the base of my neck. Next, he put his hands on either side of the base of my neck at the shoulders and began gently rubbing the oil in, kneading the muscles, moving his hands slowly outward and back. It felt fantastic. After a few minutes of that, and despite my growing enthusiasm for the game, I almost fell asleep. After working down to just below my armpits, he moved his hands to put the heels of his palms on either side of my spine, just below the shoulders, fingers splayed wide. He pushed down quickly three times in rapid succession, hard enough to make me grunt with each push, then with his full hand moved slowly outward from the spine to beneath my armpits, alternately pushing down to stretch the skin away from the spine, and kneading strongly. When his fingers had almost circled around my side to my chest, he released, then started the same motions again, a little lower on the spine. He repeated these movements, alternating with strong, cupped palms pushing upward, all the way to the small of my back. From time to time I could feel a few drops of oil being poured directly on my skin.

“Lance, you're hired!” I muttered, eyes closed.

I felt him scoot down on the bed until he was at my feet, and he began massaging my ankles, thighs, and calves. When he reached my butt, he said, “Lift your ass.” I did and felt him sliding my shorts off.

“We don't want to get oil on your shorts,” he said in a professional tone. Then the strong kneading continued.

“Roll over,” he said, and I did.

“Well, well, what have we here?”

Without waiting for an answer, he moved quickly back down to my feet, concentrating on massaging the inside of my ankles, then slowly up the front of my legs to my waist.

Ignoring the obstacle, he worked around it without touching it, up my stomach and chest to my shoulders and the base of my neck. He rocked slowly forward to kiss me, and while he was raised up, pulled his bathing suit down. Pouring more oil onto his hand, he reached behind him, then settled himself backwards, slowly…

Have I mentioned that games can be
really
fun?

*

Thursday “at work” was pretty much a repeat of Wednesday, though most of the deliveries were either to the ground floor of houses or in buildings with freight elevators. Two customers asked for “extra” help—one to move a bed from one bedroom to another, another to take an old recliner out to the curb. Again both times the customer paid—one with a check, one with cash. Fred put both into his shirt pocket. I was wondering, as we went through the day, how the store owner figured he was losing so much money on pocketed “extras.” We'd only done three extras in two days, and only one of those was in cash.

Once again, toward the end of the day, I observed to Fred that we didn't get paid nearly enough for the amount of work we had to do. Fred reached in his shirt pocket and took out a $10 bill. I assumed it came from the cash the customer had given him.

“Here. Consider it a bonus.”

“Great!” I said. “Thanks.”

I realized that was probably all the evidence I or the store owner needed, but figured I'd go another day to see if anything further developed.

*

Thursday was Jonathan's class night, so I decided to just relax—no time before class for another episode with Lance, unfortunately. When Jonathan went off to school, I did the dishes, half-heartedly watched a little TV, and caught up on the newspapers I'd not had a chance to look at for the past couple of days. The Wednesday edition always carried a few pages of local religious news, which I usually managed to skip over without even slowing down. However, something caught my eye just as I was turning the page to more important stuff like the comics: the name “Dinsmore.” I turned back to it, and saw the heading: “Dinsmore to Receive C.M.L.A. Honors.” I hadn't a clue what the C.M.L.A. might be, but decided to find out.