The Original Alibi (Matt Kile) (24 page)

This time Axel nodded his head. “That’s right. He did. Both on the way out to the point and on the way back. Same place, right?” Buddha went back to nodding as he dipped the first end of his beef sandwich in the au jus. This sandwich came with coleslaw; his BL&T had come with fries. He had fat fingers, like bratwurst with fingernails.

“Can you find your way back to that building?”

Axel looked at Buddha who said, “I think so,” while forking the last of his coleslaw out of a small bowl that disappeared inside his cupped hand. “Yeah. It might take a couple of minutes when we get over near there, but sure. We can find it.”

“What makes that building important, boss? Eddie didn’t even pull into the parking lot.”

“From what you said, it might be the building where I was held. But then that neighborhood has lots of industrial buildings so the odds aren’t good. Still, let’s eliminate the possibility.”

“Let’s go,” Axel said, rising from the chair. We had sat on one side and Buddha on the other. That seating arrangement seemed reasonable as that put two meals on each side of the table.

“Let Buddha finish eating.” I motioned Mackie over by holding up my credit card. Axel sat back down.

I followed them in my car. They made a few wrong turns as we kept coming around the block and back to Old Fort Road. Then they turned onto W 22
^nd
Street and slowed. After a couple of blocks they pulled to the curb. I pulled in behind them, across from the building where I had spent more time with Ernest Podkin than anyone should ever have to spend with the man. The lot was empty. I got out and walked up to the driver’s door.

“Is that it? That one,” I pointed.

“That’s it, boss. That one there,” he pointed at the same building I had. “The one with the green and white metal awning over the window.”

“Thanks, guys.” I started to turn.

“That’s where you got worked over?”

“Yep. That’s the place.”

“That can’t be no coincidence. Appears like Eddie’s the man behind you getting snatched.”

“That would be one explanation. Still, that building is owned by the general so Eddie could be looking at it in relation to some use for it. He might plan to sell or lease it out. Remember, he expects he’ll soon be inheriting the general’s assets which will include that building.”

“Do you want we should keep the tail on him?”

“Absolutely. Now, you boys should be beating it over to the golf course so you can pick Eddie back up. Buddha, nice to meet you, I appreciate you helping us out, also teaching Axel how to drive. When he gets his license and can drive himself, my life will get easier.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Kile. Anything else?”

“Yes. Axel, you need to get with Ms. Clara Birnbaum down the hall from you. She needs you to go to the store for her. She’s going to bake us a banana cream pie, but only if she gets the fixings. If you don’t get it done for her, she expects me to go.”

“I already went for her the other day. I’ll take care of Clara. She may have our banana cream ready some time today.”

*

Two hours later, I had a plan. It hadn’t taken full shape, but it had a clear overall theme. I called Axel and told him to get a hold of his graveyard man and give him the night off. “I want you and Buddha to stay with him and call me every hour tonight starting at eight to let me know Eddie’s location. I expect to be relieving you myself.”

Chapter 31

Axel called at eight to say he and Buddha were sitting outside Michael’s, the Italian restaurant on east Second Street in the Naples area.

“Eddie went in with some doll. They’ve been in there long enough to know they’re having dinner or doing some serious drinking.”

“Okay, Axel. I’m heading your way. Oh, yeah, I’m driving Mackie’s unmarked white van. Let me know if they leave before you hear from me. When I’m there, you and Buddha can take the rest of the night off. I’ll fill you in later.”

“Why you driving Mackie’s van?”

“No time for questions.”

“Okay, boss. Call me when you’re in position. You sure you don’t want to tell me what you’re up to?”

“After it plays out and I’ve got something to tell.”

The drive to the Naples area of Long Beach took me a hustling twenty minutes, without consideration of my rib cage. When I got near, I called Axel. They had a parking spot which gave them a good view of Eddie’s car. I had Axel and Buddha pull out of their space and I pulled in. I took out my binoculars and settled back, watching the block leading up to the four-door black Lexus Eddie was driving tonight.

At nine-fifteen I recognized Eddie coming toward his car with a young lady with blond shoulder length hair walking to his inside, away from the roadway. She wore platform heels, and walked with her hand a tentacle around Eddie’s bicep. She was what I once heard Axel call a one-and-a-quarter dame. Which Axel describes as a gal with one quarter too much makeup, one quarter too much jewelry, and one quarter too fancy a hairdo. She was attractive, but she fit Axel’s definition.

I followed them back to some apartments off Wardlow where Eddie parked on a side street. She used a card key to get them through a side gate. With my binoculars I could see them walk down a center corridor through a landscaped area and around a building to the right. I slipped into Ernest Podkin’s black leather jacket and his gray cap. I would have preferred the cap have a bigger front bill, but it didn’t. I also had an extra-large shirt on with a small couch pillow under the shirt, inside the zipped up jacket. This closely compared to Podkin’s build. In my hand I held a half a dozen cotton balls.

I waited.

At eleven, Eddie came around the corner of the building at the far right side of the landscaped courtyard area. I had turned the dome light off in Mackie’s van. I shut the door gently and hurriedly walked toward the bushes to the side of the gate Eddie would come through to get back to where he had parked.

By the time I got in position, I had Poddy’s hat pulled down partway on my forehead and the cotton balls lining my jawline between my teeth and my cheeks.

Eddie opened the metal gate, and closed it gently. I appreciated his having shut the gate quietly. With what I had in mind I didn’t need to attract the attention of any apartment dwellers who might be up late. As he stepped away from the gate, he had his back to me. I took one step from the shadow and pressed the barrel of a fake gun into his back. He froze.

“Turn easy,” I said with my voice deeper than natural.

“What do you want? Is this a robbery?”

“Not exactly. I’m going to keep this gun in my pocket so as to not attract attention, but my finger remains on the trigger. Get me?”

I sensed him going rigid. “What do you want?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t happen to have that much on me.”

“You’re a real smartass, Mr. Whittaker. Yeah. I know who you are and I know what you’re gonna inherit. So let me tell you why I’m in your face.”

He worked his hands down into his pants’ front pockets. I had watched him walk. He had no gun. I stayed inside the shadow where the building blocked the floodlight.

“You can tell from my gang colors, I’m a buddy of Ernie Podkin. A few nights ago I come by his place, late. I see you coming out his door. No lights are on inside and Poddy ain’t at the door seeing you off. I get suspicious and follow along behind you. From your license plate I learn your name. You’re that big shot general’s kid.”

“Grandson.”

“Pardon me, big shit. You’re the general’s grandkid. Anyways, I go back to Poddy’s and wake ‘im. He tells me some dude he couldn’t see had coughed up a grand with a promise of more to do a job. He claims he didn’t know the man, and I haven’t told Poddy how I found out. Later, I tailed Poddy and see him snatch this guy out behind Russell’s over on Atlantic. I made a note of the dude’s license plate. I see Poddy shove the guy into a building on 22
^nd
Street in Pedro. By midnight they ain’t come out, neither one of ‘em.”

Eddie tries to say something; I stopped him.

“Shut up, Whittaker. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet. Later, I check the dude’s license plate and learn he’s some author by the name of Matthew Kile. To me, that adds up to some kind of ransom caper, but that don’t check. No one else goes in the building where Poddy took Kile. No one comes out and Poddy wouldn’t call for the ransom from the place he was holding the guy. The next day, I see a cop I know by reputation go in. Few minutes later, Poddy comes out, gets in his van and hauls ass. The cop comes out with this Kile guy who ain’t walking all that well. I use my glasses and see Kile had been worked over. Poddy’s pretty good at that. I figure that hooks you into a kidnapping and assault and battery. A little Google work tells me you had been arrested by that same cop a long time back about the murder of your fiancée. Now I figure all this ties. Okay. So, my silence will cost you fifty big ones. Now you can talk.”

“You got nothing. You’re stringing a lot of unrelated stuff together.”

“Then don’t pay me. I figure the papers will pay a nice fee for what I got. Complete with pictures. They’re always interested in stuff about the general. And I got a little hassle with the fuzz that I can bargain off with the part I don’t give the papers. I also read that your grandfather is close to croaking so he could get upset enough that it might mess up your inheritance. If he suspected you might have really offed your fiancée who the papers said was carrying the general’s great grandson. Well, that’s some nasty business, Mr. Whittaker, shame on you.”

“You’ve got nothing that’s worth anything to me.”

“Okay. I musta screwed up somewhere. I got no interest in your pocket change. You’re free to go. I’ll make my deals with the media and the cops. Go on. Get out of here.”

Eddie turned and walked down to the sidewalk and halfway to his car. Then he stopped. After standing still for about a full minute, he turns and walks back to me.

“I’d like to work out something. I don’t want this to upset my grandfather. I just don’t have fifty thousand. The general gives me an allowance. If you can wait until I get my inheritance, I can pay you then. The general won’t live another week, according to the doctors.”

“That don’t help me now. What do you have on ya?”

Eddie pulls out his wallet. “Maybe two hundred.” He takes out his bills and counts them. “For now, here take what I’ve got. Then you’ll wait?”

“This here gives me some drinking and whoring money. But if I’m gonna wait, I want a hundred thou when your inheritance comes in.”

“A hundred! No way. This is at best a nuisance item for me.”

“Okay. Thanks for the walking around money. I’ll make my deal elsewhere.”

I turn and walk away from him. Behind me I hear a car door close from about where Eddie had parked. I walk past Mackie’s van and keep on going. In the second block, Eddie pulls to the curb and leans toward his passenger window. I go over and squat down, keeping most of my face above where he could see. The world’s best salespeople say there is a point where the next person who speaks loses. We look at each other. I stay quiet. After a minute, I stand up and start to walk away.

“Wait a minute,” he says.

I go back to the car and lean on the sill again. “We got a deal or not, Eddie Whittaker?”

“Deal.”

“One hundred thousand dollars you will pay me when your inheritance comes in. Right?”

“Right. Who else knows about me other than yourself?”

“Only one other person and he don’t know who you are or what I have. Right now he has a rifle pointed at you. He’ll be there again when you pay up. I also left an envelope with my girl. If anything goes wrong she’ll take it to the cops and the newspapers.”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m the guy with your balls in his fist.”

Chapter 32

After getting home from having braced Eddie Whittaker, I was met at the door by Axel. In the span of this case he had been promoted from houseman to houseman-case nanny.

After I ran tonight’s events past him, Axel said, “Congratulations boss. It looks like Eddie’s the guy the general hired you to find. The no-good bastard rubbed out the Corrigan dame and his own baby.”

“It sure looks that way, Axel, but it’s not conclusive. Eddie could have been offering to pay the bribe to keep the general from learning he was behind my being abducted and beaten. He wouldn’t want the general to know that. It doesn’t establish that he killed his fiancée or bribed Cory Jackson, Tommie Montoya, and threatened the Yarbroughs, but the general might be suspicious enough to change his will.”

“Now wait a minute, boss. You got Eddie connected to Podkin who said the way he was paid was the same way the stiff Cory Jackson got paid and that gas station jockey. How ‘bout them apples?”

“Eddie heard all those detail from his grandfather who heard it from me. They all know, even Cliff. No, it only means Eddie knew how Jackson and Montoya were bribed, not that he had bribed them. By doing it that same way, he made his using of Podkin look like the same guy who had arranged the shakedown alibi. And yeah, that could’ve been Eddie, but not necessarily.”

Axel just shook his head.

“Hey, we got any of that rocky road ice cream left?”