Once Bitten, Twice Dead Page 19

  I never did mention my inheritance to him, and after that serious interlude David never talked about his past again. I had asked to know more about him, and he had told me—I couldn’t fault him for that. Maybe later I would talk more with him about money and character.

  Soon after that, David and I had a little break from each other because I made another trip to Chicago.

  Malcolm Edwards, the owner of that furniture store on Western Avenue had given me a call. “You said if that creepy guy stopped back—you know, that same guy who had been here six months ago—if he stopped back, you wanted me to let you know. Well, yesterday he paid me a visit.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It wasn’t what he said. It was what he did. First of all, when he shook my hand he wouldn’t let go. He squeezed it until I was in pain. When he let go he acted like nothing had ever happened. And then to top it off he gave me two boxes. He said it was a little something for me to ‘invest.’ He said to put it into my business improvements and anyone else’s that I knew. ‘Let’s just spread the wealth,’ were his exact words. He said he’d be back in three days to make sure I had made some ‘good business decisions.’

  “I didn’t know what to do, so I called you. He told me not to call the cops because they were friends of his anyway. But he doesn’t know you. You could come here to help me and surprise him.”

  I thought to myself that this hand squeezer could have pressured Butcher with a similar deal, and when Butcher refused that literally was the axe for Ed. Maybe this was a chance to solve that murder.

  “Did this guy give you his name?”

  “Yes, Anton Lancer. He said he’d be back Monday to see if I’d ‘cooperated.’”

  “What exactly was in the boxes?”

  “Both boxes were full of money. I counted half of one box and estimated the rest—it was maybe $300,000. I put it all in the store’s safe.”

  The weekend was coming up. I could tie up some things, get to Chicago on Saturday, and be back late Monday, missing only one day of work here. Again Chief Brown OK’d it, provided I used my own money for expenses. I hoped that the Chief wouldn’t tell David what I had told Brown about my inheritance. I still felt uncomfortable about that. I myself was concerned about telling David of my trip to Chicago. He, like everyone knew what a tight budget the department was under.

  When I told David, he said, “Old Brownie must have finally loosened the purse strings a bit.”

  It was the perfect time to tell David about my money situation, but I blew it. All I said was, “Yeah, the Chief shifted some funds we hadn’t used yet.”

  I had just lied to the guy I was in love with. I wasn’t proud of myself. When I got back, I would have to put this money-thing out in the open with David.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  Meanwhile, Saturday at 1:40 I was on US Air Flight 1680 to Chicago. The week before, a pilot flying another US Air plane had made a miraculous landing into the Hudson River after his plane had run into a flock of birds upon takeoff. Losing total power in both engines he had glided 155 people to safety by landing the plane as softly as possible right on the water. Because that incident had gotten so much TV play, it was very much on my mind as we took off. I hoped word had gone out into the bird community to be more on the lookout for the really big birds that had lettering on their sides. However, no birds appeared, and I had a smooth flight into O’Hare Field.

  Malcolm met me at the airport. He was a bundle of nerves. “Let’s get something to eat,” was the first thing he said. He was chewing gum like he wanted to pulverize it into dust. The plane hadn’t offered much by way of food. All I had was a beer and some peanuts. I was hungry, but I wasn’t prepared for where Malcolm was taking me.

  “Does that say, ‘Playboy Club’ on the sign, Malcolm?”

  “Yes, we can grab a couple of sandwiches.”

  “I thought most of those clubs went out of business.”

  “No, actually world-wide they’ve increased in the last ten years. Hefner is now past eighty, but he still seems to be going strong.”

  “I guess the secret is to constantly wear a bathrobe and have four or five girls handy whenever you want. It seems like a weird life to me—like just vegetating.”

  Malcolm agreed. “Even though I’m a bachelor and should go for that kind of stuff, I think it’s strange, also. But that’s why I like it for lunch. Where else can you go for a meal and have girls walk around in bunny costumes?”

  We settled in at a small table by a large window overlooking busy Michigan Avenue. A girl who looked like she had made good use of the word, “enhancement” took our order, and walked away with her white tail bobbing.

  “Could you have ever been a Playboy bunny, Detective?”

  “I guess I’ve never been asked that question. It requires some thought, Malcolm. Give me a minute.”

  Malcolm sipped his water while I pondered.

  “No, I don’t think I could.”

  “Why not?”

  “All it is is displaying your body, just showing it to the public.”

  “But don’t all artists do that? They create a work, a piece, and then display it for the public to enjoy.”

  “Are you comparing women’s bodies to works of art?”

  “Some of those women have probably worked on their bodies and cultivated them as much as an artist labors over a canvas or a sculpture. Maybe for some of the waitresses in here, their body is their work of art.”

  “I’ve never thought about it that way, Malcolm.”

  “Neither have I until now, Detective Stolle. It must be that you inspire me toward ethereal heights of creativity.”

  This guy was a little wacky, but entertaining. Eating my steak sandwich, I listened to him telling me that his dad had been a good family man, but it had caused Malcolm to not have a family.

  “I don’t understand that, Malcolm.”

  “My mom and dad were comfortable with each other, but that was about it: there was nothing else to their lives—no great success, no great passion, or excitement.”

  “You dad did build up that furniture store and then give it to you.”

  “I don’t mean I’m not appreciative because I am. I’ve been able to make a good living. But is that enough in life—to just make a good living?”

  “I guess you think there should be more.”

  “My dad would come home every night exhausted after laboring at the store. My mom would have a nice hot meal waiting for him. They would chat a bit, ask me how school was, and I would say fine, even though it often wasn’t. Then my dad would go into the den to watch TV for an hour before he fell asleep while my mom did the dishes and I did my homework.”

  “What was wrong with all that?”

  “It was exactly the same thing every single day until my dad died. I was twenty at the time. Five days after the funeral, my mother ran off with the next door neighbor, who was married with four children.”

  “I guess while she was doing the dishes she had thoughts other than the silverware and plates.”

  “That’s my point. She had aspirations. She wanted something more than just her home life.”

  “Whatever happened, then, between your mother and that neighbor?”

  “I don’t know. I never heard from her again. For a couple of years I had been working for my dad learning the furniture business, so when he died I was ready to take over the store. My mother had never taken an interest in it.”

  “But apparently she had taken an interest in the next door neighbor.”

  “You got that right. Let’s get another drink.”

  Four drinks later I slid myself into my motel bed and went out like a burnt-out light. My last thought before I fell asleep was that I had had a fun night with Malcolm, and that I should try to have more fun than I was having in my life. Fun, after all, was fun.

  The next day was not so much fun. Malcolm and I took the two boxes of money to the police, and for three hours they interrogated us lik
e we had stolen it. I actually had the police captain call Chief Brown back in Philly to clarify who I was, and why I was in Chicago. But then the captain started on Malcolm, and for the next hour I had to defend him, proclaiming that he had not gotten the money by any illegal means.

  “So if I’m understanding you correctly, Mr. Edwards, you’re telling me that a guy just walked into your store and handed you all this money?” The captain felt he was being told quite a fairy tale.

  “Yep,” was all Malcolm said. He didn’t want to harm his dad’s good name by explaining Hermie’s past association with Anton Lancer’s friends.

  Finally the captain seemed to relent a bit. “There have been a number of jewel robberies in this area the last six months. This might be the money from fencing those hot gems. And if you had gone to the trouble of stealing the jewels, you wouldn’t very well be bringing the profits to the police.”

  I then told the captain about Mr. Anton Lancer’s impending arrival tomorrow at the Edwards Furniture Store. Maybe still not fully believing our story, the captain agreed to send out only one man from his force with us to meet Lancer. “It would be nice to converse with the gentleman to see where the money came from,” the captain said, as if he were going to meet an archaeologist who would give him a treasure map. I did remember, also, Lancer telling Malcolm that the police were his friends. I could only hope that this captain wasn’t one of them.

  The recruit that met me at the furniture store that next morning at nine o’clock looked like he was twelve years old. He had a baby face, bright blue eyes, and the whitest skin I’d ever seen. It was almost as if he’d painted himself that color.

  He told me his name was Kirby. I didn’t know whether that was a first or last name, and I didn’t ask. Kirby said that he had just graduated from the Police Academy a week earlier, and this was only his second assignment.

  “What was your first assignment?” I asked.

  “I had to accompany the mayor to the grand opening of a new wing of The Museum of Science and Industry.”

  “Why did the mayor need you to accompany him?”

  “There recently had been death threats against him, and I was there for protection,” Kirby said proudly.

  Kirby didn’t look like he could protect a small dog.

  My meanness came out. “Weren’t you afraid you could get killed?”

  “Killed? I could get killed?”

  Apparently Kirby wasn’t aware that “death threat” could involve death.

  At exactly 9:35 a man wearing black pants and the same color T-shirt walked into the Edwards Furniture Store.

  “That’s him,” Malcolm said.

  “Just act natural,” I replied.

  “Oh sure. The guy’s a maniac, and I’m supposed to be calm.”

  I had placed Kirby at a far corner of the store where he could see us in the office enclosure. If it looked like any trouble happening, he was to come to our aid as quickly as he could. “I’ll be there,” Kirby said, as if he had just made a decision not to be somewhere else.

  Anton Lancer looked as if he could wrestle a bear—in fact he looked like a bear with his hairy arms and the bushy top of his head. I pretended to be shopping near the open office door. We had tested it out and found that from that proximity I could hear what was said in the office itself.

  “Mr. Edwards.” It was a high voice, coming from the bear.

  “Mr. Lancer.”

  So far, so good.

  “I’m inquiring about that money I gave you on Thursday. Have you put it to good use?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s in capable investment hands.”

  “Where exactly is the money now?”

  I hoped Malcolm would not say, “Police Headquarters.”

  Instead he said, “You’ll have to trust me, Mr. Lancer—I’ve invested it well.”

  Our plan, if you could call it that, was for Malcolm to reassure Anton that all was going well, and then I would follow the man to see if he could lead me to bigger fish.

  Anton’s next actions changed our plan.

  “Trust you? I don’t trust my mother. Tell me where the money is now, or I’ll beat it out of you.” He grabbed Malcolm by the collar.

  It was time for me to intervene. However, I made a crucial mistake. I let Lancer see me coming. I could have approached the office from the other side, away from his view and gotten behind him before he knew I was there. I had been just too desperate to go to Malcolm’s aid.

  Instead of sneaking up on him, as I walked into Lancer’s line of vision, there must have been something about my stride or posture that alerted him; or maybe it was the gun I was holding because in an instant he twisted Malcolm in front of him and held him there. As if by magic, a knife had appeared in Anton’s hand and it was now next to Malcolm’s throat.

  Now that I was closer to him, I saw that Anton’s left eye lagged sideways so that he was looking at me and not looking at me at the same time. It was unnerving.

  I couldn’t take the chance and shoot, so I allowed myself to be ordered to the other side of the desk and then dropped my gun into the trash can, as I was also told. When I had complied, Anton pushed Malcolm face down on the other side of the desk and took off running through the open door. It looked as if Malcolm wasn’t hurt, so I quickly stuck my hand back into the trash to get my gun. Those few seconds were costly. Anton had now opened up quite a distance between us as he dodged in between some patio furniture. There were too many people in the store for me to fire at the fleeing man.

  However, apparently Kirby had seen Anton speed out of the office, and now the young recruit was running toward his quarry. Kirby was coming at Lancer from a sideways angle through a store aisle, and I could tell Kirby was going to intercept the man. Kirby, though, did not draw his gun, and so when the boy got close, Anton took two side-steps and slashed out with his knife. In horror I saw a huge spurt of blood shoot through the air like a geyser. Kirby gave a yell and fell into a heap right onto a recliner. I called back to Malcolm who had followed me out the door, “Call 911 and get an ambulance.”

  As I ran up to Kirby, another man grabbed my arm: “I’m a doctor—I’ll take care of him.” When I looked back, Kirby was making an attempt to rise. I hurtled out onto the sidewalk after Lancer.

  Once in the street, I saw Anton almost a full block ahead, and then he was gone around a corner. When I got to that corner, he was nowhere to be seen. But then suddenly there he was going up some old wooden stairs toward the elevated trains, or the “El,” as it was called in Chicago. By the time I had gotten to the bottom of those stairs, Lancer had disappeared off the top platform.

  As I got to the top now I could see him running across the tracks toward another set of stairs across the way. I hadn’t been able to gain on him—for a big man he had moved surprisingly fast.

  However, in a flash Anton’s speed was cut off as he tripped on a rail and fell headlong onto the middle of the tracks. I could hear a train, fast approaching. “Lancer, get up!” I yelled, but it seemed that when he had fallen he had knocked himself out. I yelled one more time as the train passed over him, or more accurately, through him

  When I got to him, all that remained of Anton Lancer, was a mangled twisted mess. Besides crushing Anton’s life, that train had also snuffed out my only chance to ask him about a murder in Philadelphia. Had Lancer also pressured Hermie’s old friend, Ed Butcher, and when he wouldn’t cooperate killed him? Possibly, but the train had left me with only silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Besides my disappointment at not being able to talk to Anton Lancer, I had a deeper regret. Kirby had not survived the knife attack. Despite the best efforts of the attending doctor, Kirby died seventeen minutes later while being loaded onto an ambulance. Kirby’s first real premonition of death had turned out to be his last.

  At least that afternoon I was able to convince the police captain that Malcolm Edwards had nothing to do with that money we had brought to him. Witnesses in the furniture store
at the time attested to Anton Lancer’s attempt to break away from us. The captain was satisfied that the case was closed, except to see if he could do a better job tracking down Lancer’s associates. Apparently that captain was not “on the take.”

  “Kirby” turned out to be the young recruit’s first name. Kirby Shaw was buried two days later in his original home town of Terre Haute, Indiana. The captain had recommended Kirby for a Commendation.

  All I could think about on the flight back to Philly was that brave boy’s death. He had not hesitated to put his life in danger, and he had paid for it. Again, the injustice in the world seemed to leap out at me.

  But if the day is darkest before the dawn, my dawn came in the form of a break in the Randall Procopius case. I had given myself credit for solving the case involving my brother’s death, but there should have been an asterisk after that one, because it really wasn’t my case. However, soon I was to find out I could be a lot closer to actually solving one of the three original cases that was purely mine.

  Byron Smith, the artist who had been one of Randall’s lovers had been arrested on a charge unrelated to Procopius’ murder, and my attention became focused back onto him. After his arrest, Smith had posted bail, and his trial wasn’t for another two months, but what he had been accused of put the painter into a new light for me.

  There had been a volunteer group in Philadelphia formed during the last three years called, Young Lives. The purpose of the group was to give support to teen-age unwed mothers. The director of the group was Caylee Anderson, who had been directed to me by Chief Brown.

  “This lady may have some information for you,” Brown said. “I know you could use a break in one of your cases.”

  “Was that meant as a dig?”

  “Listen, Stolle, I’m behind you, but sometimes I’m way behind you. I want you to solve the cases, not me. But if you think for a moment that I’m not backing you up a hundred percent, you’d better find yourself someplace else to work.”