The Midnight Man (21 page)

“I’m waiting for a call.” He took careful aim at the basket and lobbed a fresh crumple clear over it into the cubicle across the way. A stout party with a gray beard looked daggers back.

“New York or L A.?” I asked, tapping out a Winston.

“Boston.” He flatted the first o, mimicking a New England twang. “I’m bouncing a book idea off a publisher there.”

“Exposé?”

“Cook.
Favorite Recipes of La Cosa Nostra
. A killer.”

I didn’t pursue it. Several grand juries had already learned the folly of asking him a question he didn’t want to answer. “If you’re still sore over that crack I made about clichés,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

The next one rimmed the basket and plopped out onto the linoleum. He scowled and gave up.

“I had it coming. What brings you to
Pravda
West?”

“I promised you an exclusive, remember?”

He drew his peg down to the floor and sliced a gloved finger across his Adam’s apple, rapping the flimsy material of the partition at the same time with his good hand.

“Anywhere you suggest,” I said.

“Had breakfast yet?”

“What’s breakfast?”

He got on the telephone and asked the switchboard to refer his calls to the Detroit Press Club.

“I’m buying,” he announced, climbing into his jacket.

Over pancakes and eggs I recounted the whole thing, starting with why I was hired, tying in the two murders with my beating, describing the sniping attack on Whittaker, and finishing with Bum Bassett’s shoot-out on Bagley. I left out two things: the assassination plot, because I’d promised Alderdyce, and the guy who threatened me in my office, because I still wasn’t sure where to hang him. I came to the end of it just as the waiter showed up with more coffee. We waited until he finished pouring and withdrew.

“It’s dynamite,” Barry said, blowing steam off his cup. “Our cophouse scribbler got the scoop on the shooting, but the dicks played it close to the vest. If we’d known Laura Gaye was one of the victims—well, that’s the city editor’s headache. The Bassett angle shines. He was born good copy. I wasn’t expecting this much return on the loan of some moldy press credentials.”

“I’m glad you brought that up.”

“Uh-oh, I hear a cash register.”

“How are your street connections?” I asked.

“Depends on the connection.”

“I want to get a message to Alonzo Smith.”

“They’re not that good.”

“It’s harder to get information about a fugitive than it is to get it to him,” I persisted. “I’d hate to have to call your editor and tell him your story’s phony.”

“Hey, I thought we were friends.”

I said, “I’m in a bind. The cops have all my cards and my job isn’t finished. You’ve twisted the screws on me once or twice. I still eat with you.”

“That’s because I’m picking up the tab.” He made a face. “What’s the message, Iago?” He made no move for a pad or pencil. Barry was one of those people who can repeat word for word a three-way conversation overheard months earlier. On the flip side, he could never remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. We’d shared a bungalow in the army, in case you’re worried about the relationship.

“Smith doesn’t trust the law,” I began. “He thinks because he’s wanted for killing two officers the police won’t give him a chance to surrender”

“He’s right.”

I made a gesture of assent. “I’m not connected with any authority. If he wants to talk I’ll meet him anyplace he chooses, alone. I’m in the book.”

“That’s it?”

I said that was it.

“What makes you think he’ll go for it?” He etched designs with the edge of his spoon in the egg yolk left on his plate.

“I’m offering him life. That’s pretty strong incentive.”

“Life in stir.”

“Death is longer”

He put down the spoon. “It’s barely possible you’re setting yourself up as a target.”

“Yeah. It’ll look nifty in my autobiography.”

“You’d better write it now.”

I let that one drift.

“I suppose your client’s name is off the record,” he said.

“I didn’t think I had to tell you that. I gave it to you because I know you’ll sit on it till it hatches.”

“Too bad. It’s a honey of a scenario. Intrepid P.I. fills in as crippled cop’s arms and legs. I could center a book around it and sell it to the movies like that.” He snapped his fingers loudly. A couple seated at the next table looked up.

“Who’d you get to play me?” I asked.

He thought. “Dreyfuss?”

“Too short. Eastwood?”

“Too tall. How about Allen?”

“Steve?”

“Woody.”

I got up. “Pay for the food, Stackpole.”

I made two stops on the way back to my place, one at a party store to put something in the larder besides dust, the other at Bassett’s trailer in the lot on Schoolcraft for a change of clothing for my patient. He’d lent me his keys for the task. By the time I opened my own front door Alderdyce and Hornet had been there and gone. The toilet flushed and the cowboy came stumping out of the bathroom leaning on the cane I’d left beside the bed. In just his shirt, shorts, and boots he looked like a Viking.

“I hope that’s food.” He was looking at the paper bag I was carrying.

“If I’d known you were that hungry I’d have come sooner.” I set down the package on the kitchen counter. “Eating is usually the last thing you think about when you’ve been shot.”

“When you’re my size it takes a lot of fuel to keep going. Those my pants? Gimme.” He reached for the bundle I had under one arm.

“First, sit down. I want to look at that wound.”

“Hell, I clean forgot about the little thing. It’s probably all healed up by now.”

“Uh-huh. Sit.” I indicated the easy chair behind him.

He obeyed, muttering. I had him prop the leg up on the footstool and bent to examine the bandage, placing the bundle on the floor. Blood had soaked through the gauze, leaving a brown ring on the outside.

“Nice going. You managed to open it up again.”

“A man’s got to go to the can.”

I started unwinding the stained material. “Cops give you a hard time?”

“I’m used to it. I signed a statement and got a lecture about leaving the driving to them. They tried to get me to give up my gun, but I said I lost it. I had it under the blankets. Last time I gave one up I never saw it again.”

“They’re a little more honest here.”

He said nothing. His thigh was as hard as a tree trunk and almost as big around. There wasn’t a hair on it. “I forgot to ask you if you wanted me to call your wife,” I ventured.

“I’ll call her my own self. She don’t have to know about this.”

“I take it she doesn’t favor your occupation.” The stain got redder as I unwound.

“The bills get paid. She don’t complain none about that.”

“She’s your second wife, isn’t she?”

Every muscle in his body bunched. “You been checking up on me?” His voice sounded strained, but that could have been because I was peeling the last of the bandage away from the wound and it stuck.

“Not really. Hold that.” I placed one of his enormous hands on the blood-soaked pad to maintain pressure on the wound, and rose. “I saw some pictures in your trailer. One looked like a family shot, but the woman standing next to you wasn’t the one you were with in the later pictures. It’s none of my business. I just have trouble turning off the detective when I’m not working.”

As I spoke I went into the bathroom for the extra roll of bandage Don Wardlaw had given me, and a bottle of alcohol. When I came back Bassett’s magnum was looking at me. I stopped in the doorway.

“I bet I hold the record for the number of times that same gun has been pointed at one person.”

“You come close.” Grunting, he pushed himself upright with the aid of the cane. The big muzzle hovered at chest level. “This pains me after all your hospitality, hoss, but I figure I evened things up by giving you that stuff I found on Bagley, so nobody owes nobody nothing. I got business needs tending.”

“I unloaded it, cowboy.”

“Look again.”

I looked again. No light showed through the chambers.

“I keep an extra loaded cylinder under my truck seat,” he explained. “Can’t remember when was the last time I was more than two feet from a usable weapon. It don’t feel good.”

“Quite a trek to the garage and back for a man in your condition. No wonder you’re bleeding again.” The pad had dropped to the floor when he stood, and blood was running down his leg into his boot. His eyes flicked down and up, too quickly to do me any good.

“Fix it.”

He sat down again, holding the big revolver on his good thigh. I used alcohol and some clean cotton to cleanse off the blood, placed a fresh pad on the wound, and reached for the new bandage I’d laid atop the bundle of clothing on the floor. I put out a hand to steady my balance and it closed on the gun, my thumb jamming itself between the hammer and the firing pin. It was a neat maneuver right out of the textbook, but I forgot about the cane.

The hickory crook caught me right on the meaty part of the temple and I saw stars, just like in the comic books. My head dumped empty. My hand slipped off the end of the gun and I sat down. Then metal flashed and something a lot harder than a hickory crook found the big muscle on the side of my neck. That time I didn’t see stars. I didn’t see anything but Bum Bassett’s bearded face, surrounded by purple-black and growing rapidly smaller as I hurtled down a long dark shaft. There was no pain, just that shrinking face and the sensation of falling.

“Sorry about that, hoss.” The voice echoed hollowly down the walls of the shaft. Then the darkness closed in.

H
ERE
I
WAS AGAIN
, stretched out on my back on a hard surface, staring up. I was thinking of having my suits tailored with padding in back to spare myself unnecessary discomfort. I couldn’t swallow and the whole front of my skull ached as if the brain were trying to push through. Sunlight dazzled me streaming through the east window. Somewhere in the stratosphere a jet shattered the sound barrier with a throbbing explosion that shook the house. At least I wasn’t blind or deaf.

I got up, managing not to toss my breakfast, and lurched to the bathroom, where I filled the sink with cold water and stuck my head in as far as I could go. Drowning was better than this. Spluttering, I buried my face in a towel and held it there until my stomach stopped galloping. Then I rubbed my hair gingerly with the towel. Sparks leaped between my temples like a special effect in Colin Clive’s laboratory. Finally I ran a comb through my damp locks and sneered at the bruised face in the mirror.

“Hello, Zero.”

I returned to the living room, where the clock read 9:45.I hadn’t been out more than fifteen minutes. The old dressing and the stuff I had used to clean Bassett’s wound were on the floor where I had left them, but the new roll was missing. He had finished the job himself. The fresh shirt and jeans I had brought were gone too. The shirt he’d been wearing was left in their place, folded neatly. I recognized the fold. Why not? I’d seen it in Laura Gaye’s living quarters at the commune the second time I searched the place.

The door leading into the garage from the kitchen hung open. I stepped through it. The big door was up. There were marks on the front lawn where he’d cranked the big pickup around my car in the driveway. I wasn’t going after him with anything smaller than a panzer.

My big mistake hadn’t been in trying to get his gun, although that ranked right up there. It went back further. I thought about it while I was changing shirts and selecting a new tie, but all that did was make my head hurt worse. Still, it gnawed at me all the way across town and even us I passed through the entrance to the main branch of the Detroit Public Library on Woodward.

I found Tulsa, Oklahoma, among the out-of-town directories, looked up the private investigation agency that had the biggest Yellow Pages display, and jotted down the number in my pocket pad. Then I drove to my office to make the call. Karen Sturtevant was sitting in the reception room.

She stood up when I entered, clutching her purse in front of her. It was blue today: tailored serge suit with a calf-length skirt, no slit, matching flat-heeled shoes, and a darker Robin Hood hat with a feather no larger than the kind they used to stuff pillows with before foam rubber came along. It was obviously an attempt to dress down, and it was just as obviously not working. Sex won’t be overcome so easily.

“I—I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.” She didn’t sound elated that I had.

“Did you wait long?” I left the door to the hallway open. Silly thing. The sofa wasn’t even long enough for successful seduction.

She shook her head quickly. The feather bobbed. “No, I just—when someone isn’t in his office by—I assumed you were out working.” She closed her mouth before her tongue could tangle itself further.

“Well, I was out. Are you in a hurry, Mrs. Sturtevant?”

“I—no. Not particularly. Nadine’s with Van, and—”

“I have a telephone call to make. I’d appreciate your waiting in here while I make it.”

“Certainly.”

“Read a magazine if you like. I’m proud of my new magazines.”

“They’re not really so new,” she said abashedly.

“You haven’t spent a great deal of time in waiting rooms. Be with you in a few minutes.” I went into the tank and closed the connecting door.

It was more like twenty, with most of the discussion tacked to professional courtesy rates. I believed in them, the guy on the other end didn’t. As we jousted I went through the mail I’d found under the slot. Three advertising circulars, a second notice, and a newsletter from the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade in Long Beach, California. How I got on their list I’ll never know. Tulsa and I finally struck compromise: He’d charge the regular rate and I’d stop bothering him about it. But I wheedled a promise from him to get back to me in forty-eight hours with what he’d learned. He’d wanted three days.

She sat demurely on the edge of the customer’s chair, knees together, purse in her lap. I got out my pack and pushed it across the desk, but she declined. The antique fan rattled and squawked as it shoved the same hot moist air around the room.