Peeper (14 page)

“Willard Newton.”

“That's the man.”

“The secretary of state?”

“No, the attorney general.”

“That's Gregory Tobin.”

“I think Gregory Tobin's Health, Education, and Welfare,” Ralph said.

“No, that's Henry Wazuki.”

“Henry Wazuki's the place kicker for the Miami Dolphins.”

“
Their
files I can break into.”

Ralph's ground sirloin came, on a big plate with broccoli, parsley, and less identifiable pale, rounded vegetables arranged artfully around it.

“This joint running low on produce?” he asked the waiter. “I could drive a truck between the carrots and onions.”

“Those aren't onions, sir. They're leeks.”

“Don't say it,” Neal warned.

“Am I supposed to eat this shit or frame it?”

“Sir, you may shove it up your ass for all I care.” The waiter left.

“Don't tip him,” Ralph told Neal. “He forgot my beer.”

“What makes you think the attorney general would want to kill anyone?”

“When I called this number I found in Bishop Steelcase's notebook and told the broad it was Detroit calling, Newton came on and called me Carpenter.” Ralph spoke through a mouthful of ground sirloin. “Carpenter's the one booby-trapped the hooker's apartment. You'll hear about the bishop on tonight's news.”

“It was on the radio this morning. Cops have a suspect in custody.”

“That was me. They kicked me at sunup. So what about the computer?”

“Those things have security codes. I couldn't get in if I wanted to.”

“Sure you could. Just last week I read where some kid in Jersey tapped into the Pentagon and sent four hundred cases of Trojans to Tehran.”

“A worthy cause, if it cuts down on the number of little Iranians,” Neal said. “So get the kid.”

“This ain't a favor, it's a business proposition. When they took down the bishop, the meal ticket went with him. Before that we stood to split a thousand a month for life.” He cut the figure in half out of habit. “If Steelcase was going to pay that much to hush up what happened to the monsignor, think what Newton would contribute. All them jerks in Washington want to be president.”

“Why would Newton care how a Detroit priest died?”

“That's what I want to find out. It's hard to blackmail somebody when you don't know what you got on him.”

“I've got a better idea. Why don't I just give you back your pictures? I'm not cut out to be a crook. I stink at it.”

“There could be a million in it.”

“Dollars?”

“Hell, BMWs. You ever seen what a politician pays the phone company?”

Neal pushed away his plate. “I'd need to program the machine to keep throwing codes until it accessed.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“You didn't let me finish. I can't do that on my system. You need an office computer for that.”

Ralph chewed and thought. “If I get you one, can you do it?”

“You don't find them in the five-and-dime. You need the use of a state-of-the-art system for several hours.”

“Answer the question.”

Neal sighed. “I was honest before you came along. Yeah, I can do it.”

“I knew it. From now on it's you and me, pal, fifty-fifty. Just like the old days.”

Neal glared at him from under his heavy brows. “You cross me, I'll have your balls for breakfast. I've got a client owes me a favor. G. Gordon Liddy fired him because he scared him.”

“I never stiff friends.” Ralph finished his meal and rose. “Don't forget what I said about the tip.”

Chapter 18

“Anita, call security,” Lucille Lovechild said into the intercom. “It's back.”

Ralph, standing in front of her desk holding his hat, said, “I ain't here to cause trouble. I changed my mind about that severance pay.”

“Cancel security, Anita.”

“Phooey,” the receptionist's voice crackled. “Get me all excited, then quit. Just like my first husband.”

Lucille sat back, toying with her eyeglasses. She had on a blue suit with a skinny necktie that made her look like Nixon. “What happened to your new job?”

“Small delay. The boss died.”

“My condolences. Was it before or after he sobered up and found out whom he'd hired?”

“The offer's still good. I just need operating expenses till it comes through. I just paid forty to get my car out of the impound.”

“How much were we paying you?”

“Three hundred a week.”

“Try one-sixty. Of which we withheld fifteen.” She pressed the intercom button. “Anita, cut Poteet a check for two hundred and ninety dollars.”

“What'd he do, sell you his entire wardrobe?”

“Just make out the check.”

While they were waiting, Ralph put on his hat. “How're things in the hole?”

“If you mean the file room, I'm turning it into an employee lounge. Everything's in the computer and I don't need a place to hide you anymore.”

“What'd you say?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I don't need a place to hide you anymore?”

“No, before that.”

“The files are all in the computer. Why?”

He shrugged elaborately. “Uh, what's Chuck Waverly up to?”

“Forget Chuck Waverly. He doesn't exist for you. I have hopes of turning that young man into a first-class operative and the last thing he needs is to keep company with a dime detective like you.” She said it with some heat.

Ralph got out a matchstick. “I was right about Klugman, huh? He was tapping his own till for some skirt.”

“I don't discuss this firm's cases with outsiders. Thank you, Anita.”

The platinum-haired receptionist handed Lucille the check and slapped Ralph. The noise was like a pistol shot.

He put a hand to his cheek. “You had some lint on the back of your dress.”

She slammed the door behind her.

Lucille signed the check and held it out. “Take care of yourself, Poteet. It's a cinch no one else will.”

“Babies get took care of. Grownups need cash.” He folded the check and put it in his breast pocket.

“That's your exit line.”

In the reception room he hesitated. The Rolodex containing the home addresses and telephone numbers of personnel, Chuck Waverly's included, was in plain sight at Anita's left elbow. She was reading a magazine as usual.

“Anita, you got a smudge on your nose.”

“Ralph, I got a pain in my ass.” She didn't look up.

“No, I mean it. You better go powder it or whatever it is you broads do.”

“I'll powder my nose when the pain in my ass is gone.”

Ralph, deep in thought, was getting into his car in the parking lot when a brand-new yellow Volkswagen Rabbit pulled into the space next to his.

“Mr. Poteet?”

“Go fuck yourself.” He slammed his door. Then he opened it again. “Kid, is that you?”

Chuck Waverly was beaming over the Volkswagen's roof. His hair was fiery red in the afternoon sunlight, putting the carrots in the Cadillac Club to shame. “Hello, Mr. Poteet. I was afraid I wouldn't see you again.”

“How was jail, kid?”

“Worse than I expected. You wouldn't believe what they put me in with.”

“If it wasn't a mountain man named Warren, you was ahead of the game.”

“I wanted to thank you for that advice. Klugman was in the room next door when the excitement broke out at the Acre of Ecstasy. It made him nervous and he dropped his insurance claim. Mrs. Lovechild gave me a bonus.”

“I bet she loved that.”

“She acted like I was holding her up. But she made up the bonus rule, so she couldn't refuse. She also put a reprimand in my file for violating company policy.”

“Forget about it. If reprimands was bullets I'd be a tennis racquet.”

“I wasn't complaining. I made a down payment on this car with the bonus.”

Ralph sensed something. “You got your priorities in order, kid. Glad I could help.” He started the Riviera. As he was turning his head to back out of the space, he locked gazes with Waverly, who was standing by the Riviera now and bending down. Feigning surprise, Ralph cranked down the window. “What now, kid?”

“I was just wondering.”

“No good. Hurts the head. Spit it out.”

“I was thinking, maybe if you weren't too busy sometime, I could tag along with you on a case and get some pointers. You know, about detective work.”

“What case? I'm unemployed.”

“Not for long, I bet.”

“Forget it, kid. It's the jail food talking. That saltpeter does something to both ends.”

“The best detectives always went to jail. Lew Archer—”

“A wienie. They'd bugger him into next Tuesday at County. Anyway, he wasn't real.”

“I know that. I just thought—”

“I don't know, kid.” Ralph chewed his matchstick. “I might be working on something you can help with.”

“Great! What is it?”

“Hang on. It'd be like an internship. No pay, just experience.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Ralph smiled. “You got access to that computer Lucille's always bragging about?”

Ralph's apartment still smelled of April Dane. He couldn't tell if it was a scent she used or if it was just her, but it lingered hours after she had caught a cab home to Ann Arbor. He opened a window to let in some of the mildewy Detroit air he was used to and called Neal's office.

“Go away, Ralph.”

“How'd you know it was me?”

“Because I'm busy.”

“Listen, we're meeting Chuck Waverly at Lovechild Confidential Inquiries tonight at ten.”

“What's a Chuck Waverly?”

“Young squirt at Lovechild thinks I spit the moon. I didn't tell him what we needed to find out, just said we needed to break a security code. He says the office machine can handle it. He's letting us in after closing.”

“What'd you promise him?”

“Hands-on training from the best private star in Detroit.”

“The guy on West Grand River?”

“Funny. Can you make it?”

“I guess so. Do I need a black turtleneck and one of those two-foot-long flashlights?”

“Not to go in the front door. This is strictly legal, I tell you.”

“Boss know about it?”

“That'd just complicate things.”

“So we're breaking in.”

“Hell no,” Ralph protested. “The kid's got a key. Just to be safe, though, we're going in the back door. The cops might not know we got a right to be there.”

“Uh-huh. You said ten o'clock?”

“Ten, like in ten times a thousand makes a million.”

“More like ten to life. I'll be there.” Neal hung up.

Ralph spent the next half hour tidying the apartment. He straightened overturned chairs and tables, threw his shirts and underwear into their proper drawers, replaced cushions with the slashed sides down. When he was through with that, all the place needed was a mop and a bucket of disinfectant, like always. Finally he emptied the dregs of three different kinds of liquor from six bottles into a glass tumbler and emptied that down his throat. He dumped the empties into a plastic garbage bag with the rest of the debris, opened the bedroom window, took aim on the dumpster in the alley, and let go. It landed with a
whump
, displacing a similar amount of senior trash and sending two cats and a man in a dirty sports jacket and a hat like Ralph's over the side. Then he went downstairs. The dregs had only whetted his thirst.

“'Afternoon, Mrs. Gelatto,” he said as he rounded the second-floor landing.

The old woman standing at the foot of the stairs looked up, adjusted her thick glasses, and pointed a red-knuckled finger. “That's him!”

Then Ralph saw the young police officer standing next to her, the one he'd seen twice before. In front of them the door hung open to the apartment where Ralph had stashed Vinnie's body. The officer unholstered his revolver.

“Freeze!”

Ralph had never heard a policeman actually say it before, except on television, which was where he suspected the officer had got it. He wondered if anyone ever froze. His instincts told him not to. He had turned and now was running up the stairs he'd just come down. Behind him he heard other feet pounding.

On his floor, panting, he fumbled for his keys, then said to hell with it and went through what was left of the door, which started his nose bleeding again. The window where he'd stood to dump the trash was still open. Without hesitating he ran to it, let himself over the sill, sat there for a second, then, as footsteps hit the hallway outside his apartment, pushed off. For a second he was airborne. Then, with a jolt that drove his knees into his chin, he was sitting among the coffee grounds, banana skins, squashed Dixie cups, and five of the six very hard liquor bottles he had thrown out moments before.

When he pushed his hat back from his eyes, his face was inches from that of the man in the Tyrolean and dirty jacket, who had evidently just returned to the dumpster. He had the sixth bottle tipped upside down and was rubbing at the inside of the neck with a crusty finger. Ralph recognized him as the bum he had splashed yesterday.

The man sucked on the finger and screwed up his face. “You
drink
this shit?” he said.

Chapter 19

Ralph couldn't believe his luck. Although black, the derelict was built along his own slightly dumpy lines and their hats were the same except that the feather was missing from the derelict's and the nap had worn off, leaving it shiny in spots. The only jarring note was the sports jacket, orange-and-green plaid under a patina of filth. Ralph's suitcoat was a more conservative dark polyester.

“You got roller skates or what?” Ralph asked. “I thought all you bums stayed in one place.”