Past Due (15 page)

“H
E’S LATE
,” I said.

“He works for the city,” said Beth, sitting next to me in my parked car.

“But he is going to come?”

“On his horse, most likely.”

“Yeah,” I said. “What is up with that?”

“He thinks he grew up in the North Country.”

“North Kensington is more like it. It’s the name of the office that gets to them. Every little boy wants to grow up to be sheriff. But he’s generally reliable. What time is it?”

“Three minutes later than the last time you asked. Why are we still doing this, Victor, if our client is lying?”

“The CEO of our client is lying, true, but there are other Jacopo stockholders to consider. Kimberly, for instance.”

“Ah, now I see,” she said.

“What?”

“And now I see why you agreed to let her accompany you as you look for Tommy Greeley’s killer.”

“I had my reasons.”

“She’s mighty pretty.”

“Yes she is, but that’s not why I find her so interesting.”

“Why then?”

“Because Eddie Dean hired her. And because he seems overly concerned with her opinion of him. That lie he told night before last, I don’t think it was for us. I think it was for her.”

“Is he sleeping with her?”

“Gad, with that face I hope not.”

“He’s dangerous, Victor. And so is that Colfax thug he’s got with him.”

“Where do guys like Dean find guys like that anyway?”

“You should ask him sometime.”

“I will.”

“What do you think he’s really after?”

“Maybe the suitcase.”

“Stop it already.”

“Answer me this, Beth. Why is there so much interest in something that happened so long ago, interest that would prompt a murder, maybe two if you count the unfortunate drowning of Bradley Babbage, a threatened disembowelment from Derek Manley, a warning from Earl Dante, and now Eddie Dean’s intricate and fabulous lie?”

“You always believe money’s at the root of everything.”

“And I haven’t been wrong yet. If everybody wants to take a look inside that damn suitcase, then I want to peek inside it too.”

“How do we do that?”

“Maintain the pressure on Derek Manley, dig up what we can about Tommy Greeley, and keep little Kimberly close.”

“Like I said, she’s mighty pretty.”

“Yes she is.”

“You going to hit on her?”

“Nah. She’s too young for me too—I don’t know—innocent?”

“Maybe she’s not sad enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Or maybe you’re just getting old.”

“Tell me about it. But truthfully, the only desire she invokes is the desire to keep her out of trouble. And you want to know the sorriest thing? Whatever is going to come down, it’s going to come down on her, and I won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. Look sharp, here he comes.”

The tow truck pulled beside us in the parking lot off Oregon Avenue, followed by a white Lumina with police lights on top and a Philadelphia Sheriff’s logo on its side. A short, wiry man with a uniform and a gun climbed out of the Lumina and hitched up his pants. His legs were splayed and bowed like he had just climbed off his quarter horse. Beth and I stepped out of the car to meet him.

“Howdy, R.T.,” I said. R.T. stuck a cowboy hat on his head, pushed its brim up as if to survey the far prairie. “Victor,” he said, nodding at me. “Beth.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said. “You’re looking spry this morning.”

“Healthy living,” said R.T. “And soy curds. You guys got the paperwork?”

“Yes we do,” said Beth, handing him a file folder.

As he examined the papers he said, “The boss is having a little shindig next week. At Chickie and Pete’s.”

“I love Chickie and Pete’s,” I said. “Especially the crab fries.”

“Potatoes.” R.T. snorted. “It’s like mainlining sugar. You know why everyone and his brother is so fat these days?”

“Potatoes?”

“There you go. Potatoes and high-fructose corn syrup. You want to know the most serious problem facing this country?”

“High-fructose corn syrup?”

“Now you’re getting it. But the roast beef is good, so long as you chuck the roll. Call the office and Shelly will send you each a special invitation. And as always, your donations will be greatly appreciated.”

I gave Beth a sad nod and mouthed the words “special invitations.” She mouthed back “donations.” Politics in Philadelphia is like politics everywhere else, except for the crab fries.

“This all looks to be in order,” said R.T. Still holding the file, he turned to face the squat, windowless white building at the edge of the parking lot. The building’s sign rose above its roof like a great beacon to weary travelers.
THE EAGER BEAVER
. And beneath that, just so the weary traveler wouldn’t confuse the premises with, say, a diner specializing in roadkill, were the words:
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS
.

“You sure it’s in there?” said R.T.

“So I heard.”

“Where in there?”

“We’ll find it,” I said. “Beth, why don’t you go around back with the truck. We’ll go in the front.”

Beth nodded, walked over to the tow truck, climbed in the passenger seat. The tow truck pulled out of the lot.

“All right, Buckaroo,” said Deputy Sheriff R.T. Pritchett, again hitching up his pants, rising to his role in the morning’s drama. “Let’s saddle on up and rope this doggy.”

It was a bright day, but you wouldn’t know it from inside the Eager Beaver. The lights were low, the music loud, the joint was practically empty and it smelled like soiled socks. Three men sat scattered at the round tables, drinking beer, all three scruffy as tomcats and evidently well practiced at wasting their days. A girl, no better at hiding her boredom than her breasts, was dancing slowly atop the bar. She was pretty enough and was wearing little enough and her shoes were high enough and her breasts were certainly big enough, but with the emptiness of the place, the smell, the tired pall of smoke, the humid heat, with everything, the scene was about as sexy as a root canal.

R.T.’s uniform drew the attention of a squat hunched man with a battered fleshy face and false black hair, who slipped off the bar and waddled toward us. “Ain’t no cover this afternoon, gentlemen. You want a table close to the action?”

“There’s action?” I said. “Where?”

“We’re looking for a Derek Manley,” said R.T. “You seen him today?”

“Don’t know him. But I’m just a greeter here. Greetings. You want me to shake your hand, I will. You want me to get you a seat close enough to Wanda over there what you can smell her, I can do that too.”

“I can smell her from here,” I said.

“If Mr. Manley’s not around,” said R.T., “we’ll talk to Mr. Rothstein.”

“Rothstein?” The greeter scratched his head. “Don’t know him neither. Maybe he’s coming in for lunch.”

“Cut with the act,” I said, “and tell him he has visitors.”

“He ain’t in,” said the man. “He don’t come in much no more, what with his tax problems.”

“You mind if we go through there?” I said, pointing to an open doorway loosely shielded by a curtain of beads.

He held out his hand. “Patrons ain’t allowed in the back.”

“We’re not patrons,” said R.T., taking a paper out of the file, handing it to the greeter. “Step aside, pilgrim, we got a right to be here. We’re looking for a 2002 Cadillac Eldorado.”

The man laughed. “An Eldorado, huh? Well, if you want, you can look under them tables, behind the bar, wherever, but I don’t see no Eldorado. Who did you say you was again?”

“I’m a lawyer,” I said, pulling a card out of my pocket.

Without so much as a glance, he dropped it to the floor, ground it with his shoe.

“Nice manners,” I said. “In Japan they’d behead you for that. Just be advised I represent Jacopo Financing, which is owed a hundred thousand dollars by Derek Manley.”

“A hundred thousand dollars? That’s a lot of money. And you think it’s here? Hey, Wanda,” he called out to the girl on the stage.

She was bending over now, bending away from us, her legs straight, hands on her ankles, jiggling. With her head upside down between her knees she screeched, “What do you want?”

“This guy’s looking for some money. You got a hundred thousand dollars maybe stuffed in your top?”

Wanda straightened up, turned toward us, pulled her straps forward so she could look down. “I don’t think so,” she said, and then she lowered the straps so that her breasts tumbled out like two soft, red-eyed bunnies. “But my boyfriend says these are worth a million.”

“Can we seize those, R.T.?” I said.

“Sorry, Victor,” said R.T., shaking his head. “Appealing as it sounds, I don’t reckon we can.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “According to Mr. Manley, he owns a third of this club.”

“I ain’t no corporate lawyer,” said the greeter, “so I can’t tell you who owns what. But there’s no car and the club’s worth squat. You ain’t going to find a dime. Sorry, gentlemen, but it looks like you wasted your time.”

Just then a dark-haired woman in a sheer robe and high heels stepped through the beaded curtain and came up to the greeter. With her hand on her hip and a strong accent she said, “We out of ice in back, Ike. Chou mind? And get the air conditioner fixed, why don’t chou?” The woman looked at us, gave us a smile as quick as a wink, spun around and walked back through the beads.

The greeter raised his eyebrows at us. “Bunch of spoiled brats, all of them.”

“Ike,” I said. “She called you Ike.”

“No she didn’t,” said the man.

“You’re Ike Rothstein.”

“No I’m not. I told you, I just work here.”

“You know what the penalty is for lying to a public official?” said R.T.

“Is that what you are?” said Rothstein. “A public official? I thought you was one of the Village People. Why don’t you both just park your asses here while I call my lawyer.”

He turned and disappeared through the curtain.

R.T., standing beside me, looked around the empty, dreary club. “You sure the car’s here?”

“My man says it’s here, so it’s here. Somewhere. Let’s go in the back.”

We headed toward the doorway where Rothstein had disappeared and pushed through the beaded curtain, walking smack into the woman with the sheer robe.

“What chou want?” she said.

“We’re looking for a car.”

“Not back here chou not. This is private. Does Ike know chou back here?”

“He told us to follow him.”

“Cherk.”

“Who, me?”

“Ike. He knows he’s not supposed to send no one back here. There’s rules. And what about the damn air conditioner. It’s been broke for two week. You can’t dance when it’s hot like this. Everything, it rides up.”

“Tell me about it. And the chafing.”

“Chou got that right.”

“Does a guy named Derek Manley, who owns part of the club, come here much?”

“Asshole.”

“Who, me?”

“Him. Manley. Every time he walk by he think he entitled to squeeze.”

“I guess he’s a hands-on owner. I’m looking for his car.”

“What are you, repo?”

“Of a sort.”

“Well, if it’s that asshole’s car chou looking for, there’s a bunch of locked up sheds in the back.”

“Keys?”

“Hanging in the office.”

“And the back door.”

“Through the office.”

“Thanks. You don’t happen to be Esmerelda, do you?”

“That’s me.”

“The Brazilian Firecracker.”

“Chou know my work?”

“Absolutely. By the way, nice shoes.”

“Really?”

It didn’t take long to find the office, a cheesy little place with thin wood paneling and a cat calendar. What kind of strip joint owner has a cat calendar hanging on his wall? Made me wonder what was hanging at the SPCA. Rothstein was on the phone and he stood up and waved his arms like a traffic cop when we entered, but we ignored him. I walked past Rothstein to the back door, popped a jumble of keys off a hook, tossed them once in my hand, and headed outside.

There was an alleyway behind the club with a bunch of sagging garage sheds on either side. Beth and the tow truck were there, waiting.

Rothstein followed us out. “I’m getting my lawyer on the phone,” he said. “He’s in a meeting right now.”

“You owe him money, right?” I said.

“How’d you know?”

“And you got tax problems?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then take my word, it’s going to be a long meeting.”

I stepped to the shed closest to the club, fiddled with the keys, found one finally that fit, turned the lock. I reached down and pulled up the door: a bunch of old tables, a couple of sagging, stained couches, dented metal beer kegs, a pile of trashed speakers, mops. I didn’t even want to imagine what the mops had mopped. I pulled the door closed.

I strode over to the shed next to the first and fiddled again with the keys. I reached down, pulled open the door: a busted-up motorcycle, cardboard boxes with water damage, four decrepit mattresses leaning one against the next. It was amazing how much junk people saved for that one time when they might just have four moldy guests who needed four moldy mattresses.

“The club rents these out,” said Rothstein. “We only use the first one you opened. There’s nothing in the rest but crap. It’s a nation of crap. You’re welcome to it, but it ain’t what the paper says you can take and it ain’t worth a hundred thousand dollars, no way no how. All together it ain’t worth six bucks.”

I turned another lock, reached down, pulled up another door: mannequins, naked mannequins piled high in the middle of the space, arms and legs in a strange geometric confusion like a plastic orgy without genitalia. And on the side, neatly stacked, dozens of boxes with advertising printed on their sides. I looked closer. VCRs. Camcorders. DVD players. Stereos. Computer monitors. Not so kosher, whatever it was, but not a clue who they belonged to and not a car. I yanked the door down. It slid closed with a roar.

I took two steps toward the next shed and stopped. Something Earl Dante had said sparked in my memory. Manley sent his trucks all over the northeast, said Dante, delivering to department stores. Department stores. And what do they have in department stores but mannequins and DVD players. It wouldn’t be out of character for Derek to boost what he could from the shipments. I turned back and lifted that door once again.