The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One (10 page)

Grimes seemed edgy now, flicking occasional glances over his shoulder—the moment was nearly at hand, it was going to be the Ellenwood Hotel. Another three-quarters of a block and he performed an abrupt right flank maneuver, disappearing through the grimy glass doors of the Ellenwood, a broken-down, four-story, twenty-five room roach ranch that was long overdue for a date with the wrecking ball. When compared to the Ellenwood, both the Lochinvar Arms and the Hooper House stacked up favorably with the Taj Mahal.

J.B. Grimes was standing at the desk when Lockington sauntered unconcernedly into the lobby, pulling up at the west end of the splintered mahogany counter to stare myopically at a rack of magazines, listening intently. The emaciated clerk was saying, “That’s right, Mr. Kelly, they’re talking rain tonight and probably all day tomorrow.”

Grimes said, “Then that’s what we’ll get. Ever notice how them meteorologists are always right on wrong weather and always wrong on right?” He had a country drawl.

The clerk’s smile was a humorless, worn and weary thing. He said, “It never fails, does it? I’ve assigned you to
ROOM
315 for this afternoon, Mr. Kelly. That’ll be okay?”

Grimes-Kelly nodded. “Good old 315—a room with a view.”

“Yessir, right over the alley.”

Grimes-Kelly said, “Oh, by the way, has my friend arrived?”

The clerk flashed an okay sign. “Your friend’s in 315, waiting.”

Grimes-Kelly departed the desk and Lockington eased out of the Ellenwood’s lobby, crossing LaSalle Street to a tavern on the northwest corner. He chucked a five dollar bill onto the bar, ordering a shot of Martell’s cognac before hiking to the pay phone in a dim corner of the place. He punched out the number of Classic Private Investigations and Duke Denny answered on the first ring. Lockington said, “Okay, her name’s Maria—they’re shacked in 315 at the Ellenwood on South LaSalle—Grimes is using the handle of Kelly.”

Denny cackled gleefully. “Great, partner, just
great
—where are you now?”

“Gin mill—half-a-block south—west side of LaSalle.”

“Okay, we’ll be there—should be no more than an hour!”

“‘
We
’? Who’s ‘
we
’?”

“Martha Grimes and me, plus whoever it takes—Martha wants to be in on the kill.”

“Where’s Martha Grimes?”

“Browsing around town—she calls in every fifteen minutes for developments. Stay right where you are and keep your eyes open!”

“No problem—I can see the Ellenwood’s entrance from the bar.”

“Good man, Lacey!”

Lockington straddled a barstool, downed his snort of Martell’s and ordered another, eyeing his watch. The bartender said, “Watch yourself, good buddy—here comes Maybelle!”

Lockington said, “Maybelle?”

“She works Union Station for between-trains tricks—gets over our way about this time every day.”

Maybelle popped onto a barstool next to Lockington’s. She was a scrawny, washed-out blonde with flickering phony eyelashes. Lockington figured that she bought her mascara by the gallon. Maybelle said, “Well, hi, there! Lonely?”

Lockington said, “Usually.”

Maybelle sized him up. She said, “What’s your line?”

Lockington said, “I’m a brain surgeon.”

Maybelle’s eyelashes fluttered and she whistled, low and long. “Oh, wow, there must be big bucks in
that
racket!”

“I work for nothing.”

“Welfare cases—things like that?”

“No—I’m not allowed to charge until I get a license.”

Maybelle’s eyes narrowed. “No license—how can you operate when you don’t got no license—what hospital you with?”

Lockington said, “
Hospital
? I don’t need no stinking hospital—I work right in the home.”

Maybelle didn’t say anything.

Lockington said, “Hell, I get by with a chain saw and a pocketknife.”

Maybelle still didn’t say anything.

Lockington said, “What’s your address?”

Maybelle was headed through the door onto North LaSalle Street. The bartender returned to pour another Martell’s for Lockington. He said, “Nice going, pal! How’d you manage it?”

Lockington said, “I told her I’m a cop.”

The bartender said, “
Are
you?”

Lockington said, “No, I’m a brain surgeon.”

The minute hand of Lacey Lockington’s wristwatch, which had set him back $19.95, seemed riveted in place, but time passes, even on North LaSalle Street in Chicago, and eventually a Yellow Cab ripped to a tire-smoking halt along the curbing. Moments later the tavern door flew open with a bang and Duke Denny came bounding in, followed by an enormous woman in a brilliant orange dress. She wore spike-heeled white pumps slightly smaller than canal barges, she carried a bulging white plastic handbag slung over her shoulder, and she glared at Lockington with the searing, unblinking eyes of a pissed-off swamp adder—Martha Grimes, sure as hell. Denny had described Martha as being a bit on the pudgy side, an understatement akin to likening the Pacific Ocean to a Wisconsin trout pond, Lockington thought. Behind Martha Grimes came a long-haired, spidery, bespectacled creature with an eleven hundred dollar Japanese camera draped around his neck. Bringing up the rear of the strange procession were two shuffling, unshaven, bloodshot-eyed, red-nosed apparitions clad in tattered jackets and baggy-kneed pants. Lockington was staring incredulously at Duke Denny. He said, “Now, wait just a fucking minute! What’re we gonna
do
—invade the fucking Soviet
Union
?”

Denny said, “What’re we gonna
do
? We’re gonna catch good old J.B. Grimes with his drawers off,
that’s
what we’re gonna do!”

Lockington said, “But who the hell
are
all these God damned
people
?”

Denny took the woman by an arm the circumference of a young banyan tree. He said, “Lacey, this lovely young thing is Martha Grimes.” Lockington looked her over and that took a while. Her proportions approximated those of a Holiday Inn. Lockington nodded and she nodded back, smiling frostily.

“Yes, of course, but what about the rest of the regiment?”

“The guy with the camera is Fingers O’Shaughnessy—Fingers is a free-lance photographer—does his own developing, printing, enlarging, superimposing if necessary—whatever it takes.”

Lockington gestured half-heartedly and Fingers gave Lockington a thumbs-up sign. He said, “Bongo, baby!”

Lockington lowered his voice to Denny. He said, “Uhh–h–h,
bongo, baby
?”

Denny shrugged. He said, “Fingers talks funny.”

Lockington kept his voice down. “Tell me about the Lush Brothers.”

“Murph and Dillingham.”

“Which is which?”

“Murph’s the one with his fly open—Dillingham’s the one whose shoes don’t match.”

“Uh–huh, and what are
they
doing here?”

“They’re witnesses—like you said, Lacey, we gotta have
witnesses
!”

Lockington shook his head. “Y’know, I’m beginning to get a dim feeling about this safari.”

Denny waved a pooh-poohing hand. “Standard procedure, partner—it’s gonna go off like clockwork!”

“Isn’t that what Hitler told Goebbels?”

The bartender said, “Are you people going to hold up the joint or will you be drinking?”

Dillingham glanced hopefully at Denny. He said, “Drinking, ain’t it?”

Lockington shoved his empty glass at the bartender. He said, “Martell’s—a
double,
‘ere I perish.’”

Martha Grimes squirmed agitatedly. Martha Grimes squirming agitatedly reminded Lockington of something Lockington hadn’t wanted to be reminded of. Martha said, “I doubt that we’ll have time for a great deal of drinking.”

Lockington said, “Apparently you’ve never seen Maria.”

Dillingham said, “I’ll have the same as this fine gentleman here!” He fetched Lockington a goodly wallop between the shoulder blades.

Denny said, “All right, set ’em up, but make it fast!”

Murph said, “
Cantate Domino! Transeat in exemplum!
”

Dillingham said, “Fix bayonets, men!”

Denny leaned toward Lockington, whispering, “Murph used to be an Archbishop or something.”

Lockington said, “Which leaves Dillingham—what’d
he
used to be?”

“Hard to say—he’s been on Skid Row ever since.”

“Ever since
what
?”

Denny shrugged. “That’s what’s hard to say.”

They came trooping into the Ellenwood Hotel’s dismal deserted lobby, a sextet that could have stepped from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta—the smiling Duke Denny togged out in a spiffy plum-colored leisure suit, the glowering Lockington looking like a middle-aging torpedo from a 1940’s cops-and-robbers movie, Martha Grimes in her bright orange dress resembling a Goodyear blimp that had just burst into flames, Fingers O’Shaughnessy peering wild-eyed through his unkempt mane of hair, Murph and Dillingham ambling bewilderedly at the end of the parade.

The desk clerk was a hollow-checked, sunken-chested relic from the halcyon days of Boss Kelly. He gave the new arrivals an expressionless, rheumy-eyed stare. He’d been around the block a few times, Lockington could tell. Duke Denny stepped with knowing, businesslike mien to the desk, whipping out a twenty dollar bill to dangle it tantalizingly under the nose of the clerk. He said, “Sir, it is my desire to rent a passkey.”

The desk clerk smothered a yawn. He said, “You’re coming in a hair light, dear friend.”

Denny’s smile was ingratiating. “Why, certainly, but we had to start
some
where, didn’t we? Now just how light am I coming in, would you say?”

The desk clerk took the question under consideration, scratching his testicles in the process. “Well, an educated guess would place that figure in the neighborhood of eighty clams.”

Denny’s smile faded abruptly. He said, “Sir, you would appear to be laboring under a false impression—you see, I am not interested in
purchasing
the Ellenwood Hotel—I am merely attempting to rent one of its passkeys for twenty dollars. Twenty dollars is the going rate at the Lochinvar Arms.”

The desk clerk said, “Yes, twenty dollars is the going rate at the Lochinvar Arms, but at the Ellenwood Hotel the going rate is one
hundred
dollars.”

Martha Grimes tapped Denny’s shoulder with an impatient thuringer-size forefinger. She snarled, “Give the creep his hundred and let’s get the hell upstairs!” Her face was taut, her voice like breaking glass.

Denny shrugged and complied, palming the passkey, motioning his mercenaries into a tight huddle at the foot of the Ellenwood’s staircase, dropping his voice to super-secret level. He said, “All right, gang, here’s the way it’s gonna play—I’ll go first and get the door open.”

Dillingham was whispering to Murph. “I wonder, will they maybe have a bottle?”

Murph snorted. “Of
course,
they’ll have a bottle! What’s a roll in the hay without a
bottle
?”

Denny was saying, “Fingers, you’ll be right behind me—when I pop that lock you’ll charge in there and start shooting pictures before they have the slightest idea of what the hell’s happening!”

Fingers said, “Blasto, baby!”

Denny turned to Martha Grimes. He said, “Are you certain that you want a piece of this action? It could get sticky up there!”

Martha’s smile was the smile of a hangman for the condemned. She rasped, “Oh, but, Mr. Denny, I wouldn’t miss it for the
world
!” She hefted her big white handbag, testing it for balance and weight, adjusting its shoulderstrap paratroop-fashion, five seconds before jumptime.

Denny said, “Murph and Dillingham, you’ll go in after O’Shaughnessy—you’ll just stay out of the way and observe the action—we’ll be requiring your affidavits a little later in the ball game.”

Murph nodded, his gaze a faraway thing. He murmured, “
Gloria Chivas Regal.
”

Dillingham said, “Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war!”

Lockington wondered about Dillingham.

Denny clapped his hands together. He snapped, “All right, people, let’s
hit
it!”

Lockington said, “One moment, please. Where the hell do
I
fit in?”

Denny grinned. He said, “Partner, you get twenty minutes with Maria!” He slapped Lockington on the shoulder and they climbed the two flights of dusty, creaking stairs, singlefile, Denny on the point, passkey at the ready, reminding Lockington of a white hunter in lion country, and Lockington experienced a sudden inexplicable urge to return to Kenya Colony, which was odd because Lockington had never been within eight thousand miles of Kenya Colony. They tiptoed furtively down the third-story hallway through the clinging odors of rot and mildew. Behind a door to their left a man coughed a rapid-fire series of consumptive coughs. Behind a door to their right a television set blared a Budweiser commercial. Lockington detested Budweiser commercials.

Denny pulled up at the door of
ROOM
315, raising an authoritative hand, very much in command, like Custer at the Little Big Horn, Lockington thought. Dillingham was nudging Murph, whispering, “I wonder what kind of bottle will it be?”

Murph shrugged. He whispered, “
Que sera sera.
”

Lockington wished that Murph and Dillingham were at the Little Big Horn, or
in
it, preferably.

Duke Denny was crouched at the door of
ROOM
315, easing the passkey into the lock, turning it slowly, silently—Duke had been a first-rate cop, he’d learned all the wrinkles. He twisted the knob with the sensitive touch of a safecracker, opening the door just a crack. Then, stepping back and lowering his left shoulder, he went plowing into the room like a rogue rhinoceros into a Wednesday night prayer meeting, the nightchain snapping, twanging like a tenor banjo string. Fingers O’Shaughnessy skirted Denny to rocket into 315, hollering, “Bashwollo, baby!”

Martha Grimes, who’d been trailing the procession, came hard on the outside to rumble hot on O’Shaughnessy’s heels, tearing open her handbag on the dead run. She negotiated the turn at a speed defying the laws of centrifugal force, Murph and Dillingham stumbling dazedly behind her, and Lockington was still several feet short of the doorway when he heard Martha screech, “Oh, Merciful, Crucified Jesus Christ of fucking blue Lake fucking Galilee, debauchery,
debauchery, DEBAUCHER-E-E-E-E
!” There was the shattering roar of a firearm, this followed by another and another and yet another. It sounded like the battle of Midway in there, and Lockington hit the deck flat on his belly as a slender, chalky-faced, stark-naked young man came barreling out of
ROOM
315, carrying a pair of trousers and one shoe, vaulting Lockington’s prostrate body like an Olympics low hurdles champion, babbling a steady torrent of terrified Polish.