1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader (34 page)

___

I never worked vice. I avoided it like the plague. It is the purgatory of a police department.

Vice cops have the most difficult job of any detective on the force, because they not only have to catch the bad guys and girls, but have to decide what’s bad enough to be considered a crime. This is much more difficult than it seems, because cops have feelings, too.

Some poor sucker wants an hour of escape from his lousy life, so he books a hooker who is more than willing to help him relieve a very human pressure. A couple of hundred bucks are exchanged; the deed is done in less than an hour. Everybody leaves happy, but the vice cop’s job is to bust all involved.

What’s the point? If the cop does his job, the poor jerk gets busted, hauled in, mug shots are taken, and from that point on he is vilified as a degenerate. The hooker gets tossed in the clink for a few hours, is bailed out, goes in front of the judge, promises not to do it again, and is forced to come up with a viable excuse to reschedule her regulars. It’s pointless.

If it was up to me, prostitution would be: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Heck, if it works for gays in the military, how can it not work for horny guys and willing women? Or make it legal like liquor, cigarettes, and state lotteries that ruin lives -- and tax it to the max, although it might be difficult securing the tax dollars.

Jonas, the CPD detective has set me up with Ernie Shevers, one of the more seasoned vice cops on the street.

“You ever get the urge, Ernie?” I ask as we enter the lobby of Chicago’s famous Hancock Building.

“Oh, sure. Some of these women are past gorgeous.”

Ernie is mid-forties, hair thinning, muscles sagging, body mass relocating from chest to stomach. He flashes his badge at the doorman and we are buzzed through the glass door to the elevator bank.

People assume that Chicago’s second-tallest building is a mass of offices for an insurance company. Not true. The basement and first couple floors are restaurants and retail, then forty floors of ad agencies, real estate firms, lawyers, and whatever. The forty-fifth floor is the concierge floor complete with party room for rent and the most expensive grocery store on the planet, nine dollars for a can of peanuts. There is also a health club, pool, and a lobby where the wealthy tenants hang out when they have nothing better to do, which for a lot of them is most of the time. The next forty-nine floors are overpriced condominiums until the Ninety-Fifth Floor restaurant. On floor number ninety-six is the observation deck where “you can see three states on a clear day.” If you want to avoid paying the price of observatory entrance, merely go to the bar at the Ninety-Fifth and buy a couple of drinks; the view comes along free of charge.

“Business has changed a lot in the last few years,” Ernie tells me on the way upward. “Used to be down
-
on
-
their
-
luck girls trying to make a few bucks, but now they’re the college sweethearts who can make five grand a weekend
,
and spend the rest of the week working on their acting skills or their tans.”

“And this is a good thing?” I ask.

“Girls don’t consider sex sacred anymore. With all the porn and skin out there, you can see why.”

I immediately think of my daughters and say a silent prayer.

We get off on the eighty-seventh floor. “Nick’s not a bad guy
, h
e
pays his taxes.”

Ernie knocks on 8713. It takes a while, but the door opens.

“This is a surprise,” Nick says.

“Surprise is part of my job.” Ernie enters without being asked. “Nick, meet Sherlock.”

We shake hands. He is not what I expected.

Nick eyes me suspiciously. “We talk before?”

“I’m only human.”

“I thought so.”

Nick is a dolt, the kind of guy who never had a date in high school and hasn’t had too many more since. He’s maybe five-nine, twenty pounds too many, acne scars, no wedding ring, maybe forty, but could pass for fifty. A headset, with the wire that plugs into a computer/phone system dangles down his left side.

The telephone rings in the room down the hall. “Got to get this,” he says and we follow him into a second bedroom, converted office. “Check-in time.”

The view is straight south; I can see smoke rising from the U.S. Steel stacks in Gary.

Nick plugs his cord into the port on his computer/phone terminal. “He showed up?” Pause. “Relax, he’s harmless,” Nick speaks into the headset. “And get the money up-front.” He pauses, “And no second cups of coffee without another two hundred.” Nick clicks off the connection.

Ernie and I sit on a couch behind Nick’s desk and computer screen and wait until he turns back around.

“New girl?” Ernie asks.

“You wouldn’t think a porn star would get nervous,” he says.

“Who is she?” Ernie asks.

“Melinda Bad Manners.”

I make a note to ask Herman for a review of the starlet.

Nick leans back, crosses one leg over the other. “I have a feeling this isn’t a social call.”

“My friend Sherlock needs a little information on a couple of your girls.”

“Do I have a choice?” Nick asks.

“No,” Ernie answers.

“Diane and Alexis,” I say.

“She’s a pain in the ass,” is Nick’s immediate reaction.

“Which one?”

“My ass.”

“Which girl?”

“Diane. She’s constantly late, complains about the quality of the men, only wants to work days, and has more periods than a short story.”

“And Alexis?”

“She’s not as bad, but she’s learning from Diane.” Nick sees a call come in on his computer screen, but doesn’t answer.

“Real names?”

“Those are trade secrets in my business.”

“Make an exception, Nick,” Ernie says.

Nick pulls up a different screen on the computer. “Clair Elise Robbins of Elkhart, Indiana, and Donna Epson of Downers Grove, Illinois.”

“Hometown girls?”

“Good solid, Midwestern stock
,
” Nick says. “Alexis is always worried she’s going to have to do some guy who sits in front of her in church.”

I give him a skeptical look.

“You’d be surprised,
it happens.”

“And when it does?”

“The guy usually can’t wait to come back for more.”

“How long they been working for you?”

“Diane’s been here over two years
;
Alexis, maybe a year. I’m sure both were in the business before me.”

“They do well?”

“They’d do better if they’d quit complaining and just lie down and do their job.”

I lean toward the screen and write down the information. “These really their social security numbers?”

“I report
th
em as independent contractors, so I really don’t care.” Nick says. “No offense, Ernie, but the IRS is scarier than you.”

“No offense taken.”

“These girls ever freelance?”

“They’re not supposed to,” Nick says, then asks, “You know something I don’t?”

“Hope so,” I say, then ask, “Was Alvin Augustus a client of yours?”

“Come on, guys, let’s not play that game.”

“He’s dead,” I tell him. “He won’t care, anymore.”

Nick takes a deep breath. “Was.”

“And his boys?”

Ernie gives me an odd look.

“Sons,” I say, a little better put.

“Was.”

“When did they quit?”

“About six months ago,” Nick says. “I was sorry to see them go.”

I finish copying down the information on the screen. “One more question.”

Nick waits.

“Did either of them go out on a job the night before Alvin died?”

“Friday, the eighteenth,” Ernie says.

Nick pulls up the calendar on the computer. “Diane was off, big surprise, but Alexis had two calls.”

“Alvin’s?”

“No.”

“Thanks.”

Ernie is up out of his chair.

“You like your job?” I ask for the hell of it, as his phone rings.

“Believe it or not, it’s lonely sitting up here in the clouds all day, hooking people up.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I have a strong aversion to real work.”

___

Norbert, Steve, Jonas, and I sit in the back booth of the Red Lion Pub on Lincoln. It is a Monday night. Colin, the Irish owner, stocks a case of Guinness in the cooler and Jose
,
the Mexican cook
,
removes a box of sausages from the freezer. There are a few regulars at the bar, sipping light beers. Except for the London phone booth and the greasy bangers and mash, the place is refreshingly Chicago
,
with the Cubs on TV and photos of the two Daley mayors adorning the walls.

Tiffany joins us late, wearing a pair of latex gloves, carrying an office trash can, desk lamp, and computer keyboard. “Here,” she says, laying the bounty on the table.

“Scavenger hunt?” Norbert asks.

“I hid in the hallway until the cleaning lady went into the other office, and made my move. A good set of prints has to be on something here.”

“Whose?” Jonas asks.

“Lizzy.”

“Christina’s partner,” I explain.

“Why?”

“Lizzy isn’t a Lizzy and maybe not a lesbian,” I tell the Chicago detective.

“Which way are you leaning?” Jonas asks.

“Straight.”

“They didn’t look too straight at the funeral.”

“Yeah, but Tiffany’s gaydar didn’t go up when we talked to her, so Lizzy’s maybe a lesbian in name only.”

“You know you’re right, Mister Sherlock,” Tiffany says. “I didn’t get all weirded out when I met her.”

“Voila.”

Colin comes over to take our order, breaking the conversation. When he finishes it seems like a good time to play: Who do you think did it?

Norbert goes first. “The last wife, Doris
,
she had the most to lose.”

“Heffelfinger, the accountant,” Steve says.

“I’m still with Brewster,” Tiffany says and adds her reasoning, “Them momma’s boys are always a little screwed up.”

I finish up the round. “I have no clue.”

“We’re no farther along than we were the day we found Alvin’s body.” Steve makes the point for all.

“I hate that,” Jonas says.

Statistically, if a crime isn’t solved in the first seventy-two hours, the odds against success skyrocket, as well as the amount of time that is going to be put in to bring it all to a conclusion. The three detectives have no desire to work this case the rest of their careers.

“Can’t put the puzzle together until you have all the pieces,” I say.

“What’s missing?” Our Chicago colleague plays a good devil’s advocate.

“Plenty.”

Jonas takes out his list. “The two wall safes in the condo were empty, nothing on the murder weapon used to kill Joey Villano, the trader who worked for Alvin. The condo was too trashed to give us anything good, and no money trail yet to speak of.”

“Maybe it wasn’t about money.” Norbert is thinking out of his usual realm of thinking.

“That much money,” Steve says, “it is always about money.”

“Then where is it?”

“According to Heffelfinger, the accountant, Alvin was making bad trades, lousy investments, throwing money down a sink hole,” Steve answers.

“Maybe it was a mercy-killing; do him in before he does himself in?” Norbert surmises.

“Or maybe they were trying to stop him before he lost it all?” I ask.

“Maybe he’s not dead?” Tiffany perks up to say. “He faked his own death?”

“Remember, we found the body?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tiffany remembers now. “I saw this movie on cable about a guy who did that.”

Colin brings over plates of greasy food and refills of beers. We dig in with gusto
.
Tiffany abstains.

“What else do you know that we don’t know, Sherlock?” Steve asks, being his usual self.

No matter what I say, it won’t matter because Tiffany’s reaction to the question is unmistakable.

“I’ve told you everything.”

“How dumb do you think we are?” Norbert says.

I try to get out of my own lie. “The only thing I’m sure of
,
is that whoever wanted Alvin dead wasn’t taking any chances. Shoo
t him, blow him to kingdom come
or stone him, they were going to get him one way or another, either by doing it themselves or hiring out. You would believe it was all carefully planned out
;
but the act of destruction sure doesn’t point in that direction. And what was he doing the night before
? W
hy kill him at home
,
and why take Joey, the junior trader, down with him? Too much of it doesn’t make sense. And where the hell is the money?”