Dead Birmingham
Authors: Timothy C. Phillips
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DEAD BIRMINGHAM
The Roland Longville Mystery Series #3
Written by Timothy C. Phillips
Kindle: 978-1-58124-088-7
ePub: 978-1-58124-294-2
©2012 by Timothy C. Phillips
Published 2012 by The Fiction Works
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
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Sometimes we do things we shouldn't. We can't help it. We read someone else's mail, we lust after our neighbor's wife or husband, we pocket that money that was just left lying around; or maybe, if the shadow of anger overcomes us and the tender works of mercy fall away, we might even kill someone. It is a simple tragedy, and it occurs every single day, because we are, after all, just human. But even this most heinous of crimes is not always due to passion overcoming reason. No, some lose their lives at the hands of their fellow human beings not for greed or spite, but for arcane reasons. Even if we are the ones who set the whole thing in motion, we might not understand what is happening to us.
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As I said, we aren't perfect, and it isn't a perfect world. In fact, it's a pretty dirty world. I get paid to wade through the muck; don't ask me why. I have heard the cries of the widows. I have seen the killers sneer in court and go free to walk in the light of day. I have held the dying victims. And I have felt the knife of the hunted man.
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My name is Roland Longville. I'm a private detective.
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BOOK ONE
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Chapter 1
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One man stood alone in a room, cooking. In the pan was a thick, aromatic sauce, and he stirred it slowly, savoring the smell with an angelic expression of pleasure.
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Another man entered the room, without knocking. They could be brothers, each man a little over average height, thick with muscle, comfortable middles, green eyes, black hair. Their skin hailed from different climes, however. The first man was dusky olive, the other one pale.
The man at the stove turned to the newcomer, steaming wooden spoon in hand, still coated with a patina of red tomato paste, bits of chopped vegetables clinging in the thick sauce. He looked the new man over. “Irish?”
“Yeah. Italian?”
“Yeah. The Irish are all right.”
“I used to date an Italian girl.”
The necessary words out of the way, both men nodded at each other. “You got the money?” the man who was cooking asked.
“You bring the stuff?” the newcomer replied with a wry smile.
“The stuff? Oh, I get it. You're a funny guy, Irish.”
There was no stuff. The men shared a laugh, like they were part of a comedy routine, doing a gag about crime. Funny stuff.
The paler of the two shrugged. A habitual gesture, like he just didn't really care. “Hey, that sauce smells great. What are you having with that?”
“I thought maybe a Guinness and a baked potato.” They both smiled and looked at each other again. Another gag. Just two guys having fun, swapping stereotypical jokes.
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“Hey, I like you, Dago. You're a funny guy, too.” He threw a bag down onto the counter. “You want to take a count?”
The man he called Dago shrugged. “I better do that. No offense.” The man licked his spoon, picked up a towel and wiped his hands.
His Irish brother shrugged again in response. No offense taken.
“Did they say what it was they wanted?”
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“Sure. They need a man to go down south. Somebody lost something.”
“What was lost?”
“Something that belongs to our uncle.” The Irish eyes stopped smiling. No more gags. It was all serious business now.
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“Ah.” The man who was cooking reflected for a second. “But still, there's a lot of green here. More than enough for a job like that.”
“This time it's a special job . . . there are certain special circumstances. Uncle wants whoever took his belongings taught a lesson.”
The Italian man nodded slowly. “I understand. This is still quite a bit more than they'd need for that, even. I mean, the people that we usually use never see this kind of money.”
“Say, you're smart, too, for little Italy. See, this time Uncle wants to use someone outside of our neighborhood. He wants a specific guy. A guy you used once before. This amount is what this special guy charges up front. He gets the same amount after the job is done. That's the old school way. They said to tell you that they want him again. They want âthe foreigner.' They said you would know who I meant.”
The man who liked to cook nodded again, this time more slowly. He put the spoon down on the counter and shuddered.
The Foreigner.
“Yeah. I know who they mean.”
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Chapter 2
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It was a slow day. I leaned back in my chair and stared out my office window, watching a brilliant sun through a break in effervescent, fluffy clouds.
The sound of someone entering my office caught my attention. I got to my feet and turned to face an elderly fellow who stood just inside the door. He was sweating, and obviously very tired. The old man examined me with a dubious look as he tottered toward me. It was a look I see often, because I am a big, brawny black man in my middle thirties with an ugly scar on one side of my face.
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The old fellow had to be pushing eighty, I figured. He wore a nice cobalt gray suit, tasteful but simple, and a mist of sweat covered his forehead from taking three flights of stairs on a hot summer day. His hair was a gray that had once been black, a fact attested to by a peppering of still dark hairs around his temples. His appearance was one of understated wealth, quiet sophistication. His suit was of a thin, comfortable material, accompanied by a pale, tea-colored tie. I thought that he must be a wealthy, but modest man, and one with a good tailor. He also looked a little afraid.
He walked cautiously up to the desk, as if expecting me to pounce on him.
“You Longville?”
“That's me.”
“Why in hell you gotta put your office on the third floor?”
I gave him a wry smile. My office was the only one still open for business in the Brooks Building, a five-story brownstone relic in the similarly vacant Brooks Plaza. The plaza had once housed Birmingham's financial district, before the fifties, when the center of the city had moved further south. My office was in the only suite still fit for occupancy, and it was on the third floor. People frequently complained about the climb, as there was no functioning elevator. However, the rent is so low that I don't like to think about moving. Besides, I like it here. Sally's Diner, my favorite eatery, is right across the street.
Once, I'd had a secretary, but she met someone and fell in love. She got married about two years before, and I haven't gotten around to looking for a replacement. Her desk, chair, and filing cabinet remained in the outer office; I don't have the heart to remove them. And besides, it gives the suggestion, at least, that I'm not in the building alone. Sometimes. Just a little.
The old man introduced himself as Mr. Malvagio, and began telling me his problem. “An item was stolen from me. It's very old, and very valuable. Some kids took it; they did it for kicks, but they don't know what they've got. The value of such things is not common knowledge.”
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He was a little old Italian fellow, picturesque, friendly looking. He told me that he'd been running his little antique shop on the lower Southside for twenty years, and that he'd never been ripped off before. I didn't doubt him.
“I just want my belongings back,” Malvagio said. “The police, they aren't being helpful. They don't think this matter is important. So I come to you, who I hear about on the television. You get the stuff back for me, I'll pay you handsomely. I get the items back, nobody has to get in trouble, you see.”
“So what makes this item so valuable?”
“Well, I don't know what you know about history, but this particular box was a jewel case, though now empty. The box bears the family crest of the Medici. They were a powerful family of the Middle Ages. ”
“No kidding, the Medici? Whatever's inside something like that must be worth a fortune.”
“Dio. There's nothing in the box, I tell you. But it is good you know about the Medici. The box, it is empty, but this is no normal box, you see. It was commissioned centuries ago by the great Lorenzo Medici to hold the Medici jewels, although they are now long lost. But the box itself is still priceless. This antiquity was my retirement. I am old, getting on in the world. Next year I take the thing to Italy to sell, and I come home rich, you see? I can at last retire. These kids who stole the box, they can't sell such an item. To whom would they sell it? To some other two-bit thief? You see? I shudder to think some young idiot gives this to his girlfriend to keep her diary in, because he cannot fence it. You see?”
“I see. So how did they manage to steal such a valuable antique from you?”
“There were six of them, these kids, they came into my shop together. The shop is small, kinda cluttered, you see? They acted friendly, but I suspected that they were up to something, you know? I tried to watch them. Then, one of these girls, she acted like she'd gotten hurt, said she slipped and fell down. I went to see what was the matter, and they all ran out, in different directions. I'm old, I could not chase them all. They knew this, the little bastards. I came back, the girl was gone. They're all gone, of course, and they took something. But the other things they took are of no matter, you see? Only the jewel case is truly valuableâno, no . . . irreplaceable.”
“How long ago did this take place?”
“Two days. I gotta get it back, you see.”
“Well, can you describe them to me? These kids? Since they run in a pack, they might be easy to find.”
* * *
Easy to find. I laughed silently at my earlier presumption. When do you get old enough to stop having moments of self-assured stupidity, I wondered? Probably never, I decided. Now, I was almost sure that I had caught a twinkle of amusement in old Malvagio's eye, when I had offered him my confident assurances that the case would be a simple one. Fat chance, he'd probably thought.