This Doesn't Happen in the Movies (8 page)

I made eye contact with him and gestured for him to come over.

He gave me a quizzical look, but walked over.  “Who are you?” he said with a touch of surprise and a lot of annoyance.

“Archie Goodman,” I said, flipping open my wallet to give him a nanosecond glimpse of my detective badge.  “I’m a detective with the Denver Police Department and I need a word with you.”  If he asked to scrutinize the badge, I was in trouble.

“What’s going on?”  Not scared, just irritated.  And not interested in verifying my credentials.

“Would you come with me, please?”  He hesitated for a second before walking past me, tapping an older man on the shoulder as he passed by.  “I’m taking a quick break,” he said.  The other guy rolled his eyes but said nothing.

We stepped outside and away from the small square of light that came from the kitchen door.  He reached under his apron and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.  A smoking break was probably a common occurrence, which was why no one stopped us.

He lit one, blew smoke into the crisp air, and contemplated me.  “What’s this about?”

“What did Amanda tell you?”

“Who?” he asked with genuine ignorance.  A gold name tag pinned to his white shirt had “Jack” written on it.

“Amanda Ghering.  The lady you served.  The one who dined alone.  She just left, and she wrote something to you on the receipt.  What was it?  What did she tell you?”

“Hey, screw you, man.”  He flicked the cigarette into a puddle of icy water, and tried to step around me.  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

I pushed him back against the brick wall, so fast that he exhaled with an “oomph” sound.  For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.  “Now, you tell me what I want to know, or I’ll haul your ass downtown and we’ll talk there.”  I tapped him emphatically on the chest.  “Your choice, Jack.”  Wouldn’t the Denver Police be surprised when we showed up.

“Hey, all she did was leave her phone number on it, okay?”  He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.  I grabbed it from him and examined it in the light from the kitchen.  In Amanda’s loopy writing, she had scribbled her name and phone number.  Underneath that, she had written: “call me.”  I turned it over, but there were only the itemized menu items and totals for her meal and drinks.

“That’s it?” I said with a stern glare.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Has she ever come in here before?”

He nodded.  “A couple of other times, a few months ago.  She’s a hot chick, okay.  She’s making her move, I’m making mine, you know?”

“All you’ve done is flirt with her?”

“She flirted with me,” he corrected me.  “That’s not breaking the law.”  He squared his shoulders and pushed his way past me, saying, “what the hell kind of wacko cop are you?”  Before I could respond, he disappeared back into the kitchen.  I stood in the cold for a moment, puzzled and a bit embarrassed.  Amanda was flirting with him.  That could explain coming to this particular restaurant instead of the club, or a place farther south.

I shook my head and strolled back around to the front of the restaurant, still deep in thought.  I glanced in the window.  Jack was back at work, delivering drinks to one table, taking orders from another.  I was about to walk away when I saw him reach behind him and take the comic book out of his pocket, dropping it onto a booth table near the exit.  He picked up the bill from the table and walked away.

A slender hand came out and picked up the comic, then a tall brunette in a dark business suit and equally dark overcoat scooted out of the booth.  The woman tucked the comic in her overcoat pocket, slung a small purse over her shoulder, and strode three steps to the exit.  It all happened so fast that I didn’t see her face at all.  As she came out the door, I ducked around the corner and peered out.  She hurried quickly down the street in the opposite direction of my car.  I hesitated briefly, considered going for my car, thought better of it, and rushed after her.  I tucked my head down into my coat, pulling up the collar, and walked with my eyes down.  Dark Suit walked down one block and got into a black Chevrolet sedan.  I was a half block behind her, so I stepped up my pace.  I got a quick look at the license plate before the car squealed away.

I said it repeatedly so I’d remember it as I passed back by the restaurant, and around the corner.  I jerked open the kitchen door, walked past a surprised cook and waitress, and up to Jack, who had just come in from the front.  He opened his mouth in surprise and started to head back through a swinging door to the restaurant, but I grabbed his arm and pedaled him right on through the prep food tables and ovens.  He sputtered in protest as I threw him out the back door.  He stumbled into a big plastic trashcan, and fell to one knee.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled, picking himself up.

“That’s what I want to know,” I snarled right back.  I grabbed him just as he was regaining his balance, and threw him into the wall.  “Hey,” he said.

“What’s going on with the comic book?” I asked, pinning him face first against the wall.

“Wha…” he mumbled.

“I saw you pass the comic book to Ms. Dark Suit,” I said, my face an inch from his cheek, my teeth bared.  “You passed the comic from Amanda to her.  Why?”

“What?” he said, his voice shaking.

“I won’t ask again.”  I tightened my grip on his arms, nearly lifting him off the ground.

“Okay, all right.”  He coughed.  “They paid me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name.  The lady in the dark suit.”  The confession came fast.  “She came in one day a few months ago, said that I could make an easy hundred every time I’d make a delivery for her.”

“Deliver what?”

“Comics, man.  That’s it.  She said someone might come in, request to sit at my table, and leave a comic for me.  She said to hang on to it, that someone would be in afterward to get it.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

“It’s the truth, I swear,” he said, struggling against me.  “Hey man, let go.  I swear that’s it.”

“How many times has this happened?” I asked, loosening my grip slightly.

“Three times.  Twice before tonight.  It was the same two ladies.  The pretty one, Amanda, ate and left a comic book, two times.  I passed it to the other lady, and she left an extra hundred with her bill.”

“A comic book?” I repeated.

“Yeah, a Spiderman comic.  One other time the lady in the dark suit left a comic with a hundred in it.  It was an X Men comic that time.  I took the hundred and left the comic for that lady Amanda.  That’s it, I’m telling you.  Leave me alone, man.  I’m going to be in a shitload of trouble with my boss if I don’t get back.”

“You’re going to be in shitload of trouble if you’re lying to me.”  I pressed him into the wall for good measure.

“It’s the truth.”  We were both breathing heavily as I released him.  He turned around, rubbing his wrists where I’d held him.  He slid along the wall to the back door.  “You’re crazy, man.  Crazy.”

“And you better hope I believe you,” I said.  He looked at me with near terror.  It took him two attempts before he got the screen door open.  Then he disappeared inside.  I almost laughed at his fright.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was time to talk to Amanda again.  I’d made that decision before walking out of the alley, so Tuesday morning I was parked in Amanda’s driveway at exactly nine o’clock.  I had a suspicion, based on my own experiences with too much alcohol, that she would still be in bed, and I was right.

“Too much vodka last night?” I said when she answered the door, bleary-eyed and tired, after the fourth ring.

“Reed,” she said, her voice a gravelly mix of cigarettes and semi-sleep.  “I was hoping you’d stop by.”  She wore a stark white terrycloth robe open to her navel.  The silk nightgown underneath was too sheer for the cold weather, accentuating body parts I didn’t want to know about.  I focused on her face, ashen from what I’d guess to be a massive hangover.

“We need to talk.”  I pushed past her and into the living room.

“What’s the matter,” she asked, shutting the door.  “Aren’t you still looking for Peter?”

“Yes, I am.  But I want to know what’s really going on.”  I stalked to the bar and leaned against it.  She’d have to step through me to get to any liquor.  I crossed my arms and inspected her.  She had dark circles under her eyes, and the white robe drained her face of any color.  To say she looked like a ghost would be an insult to Casper and his relatives.

“What do you mean?”  She held a hand to her ear, as if our voices were a cacophony of out-of-tune instruments, while she eyed the bar behind me.  I’m sure the vodka was calling to her.

“You’ve had me on a wild goose chase, haven’t you?”  She didn’t answer.  “I’ve been running around trying to figure out where Peter is, but he’s dead, isn’t he?  You had him killed, just like you said.  You hired someone to kill him, and now you’re trying to cover your tracks by making it look as if you're concerned.  Then you hired me, and you've had me calling around to credit card companies and checking with the police.  Merrick probably tracked all of that down, but you made me do it again, to keep me busy, and misdirected.  And you made a fake ransom note.  ‘We will be in touch.’  Like
any
ransom note would say that.”  I couldn’t keep the derision from my voice.  “What other bullshit have you concocted?”

“No, that’s not it.”  She waved her hands nervously.  “You don’t understand.”

“Obviously,” I retorted as she shook her head vigorously, then blanched from the effort.

“Level with me, or I’m out of here right now,” I said.

“No, please,” she pleaded, clasping her hands as if in prayer.  “You’re right.  I haven’t been honest with you.”  A long pause stretched out before us, but I wasn’t going to rescue her.  She could fall into the proverbial hole she’d made.  She finally let out a huge sigh, and began.  “You’re right,” she said again.  “I did hire a group to take care of Peter, but something happened.  They were supposed to kill him before he ever reached Philadelphia, but they didn’t.”

“How do you know?”  I still didn’t trust anything Amanda said.

“Because Peter contacted me after the time he was supposed to be dead.”  I didn’t have any response to that.  “I was sort of telling the truth when I hired you.  I did want you to find him, to find out why he
wasn’t
dead.  But I couldn’t very well tell you that.”

“But why me?”

She sighed.  “I heard about you from someone at the club.”

“Sure,” I said.  “I’ve built up such a reputation for myself.”

“No, really.  Paul Burrows knew your father’s friend and knew how you helped him.  I thought you’d be perfect.  You’d only helped that one guy, you were brand new, hadn’t really done much detective work.”

“I’m inexperienced,” I translated.

“Yes.”  She threw her hands up.  “For crying out loud, I didn’t think you’d actually figure any of this out.”

I bit my tongue, cutting off a snide reply.  “Did you lie about the plane ticket, and not helping the police with the credit card information?”

“Yes.”

I let out a long breath.  “If you want Peter found, why send me in the wrong direction?”

“If you weren’t sure where Peter was, maybe you’d contact some of his lovers.  Then they’d suffer for what they’ve done to me.”

I glared at her.

“I was going to tell you about the ticket.  And about the credit cards,” she said sourly.

“So what’s all this business about passing comics books at Patini’s?”

Her jaw dropped.  “You’ve been following me?”

“Surprise,” I said.  “I’ve figured out a lot.  I knew something wasn’t right almost from the start.  I just didn’t know what.  You’ve never seemed that concerned about Peter, and that made me wonder about you.  What you might be up to.”

She thought about that before she responded.  “But it wasn’t just about finding out what happened to Peter.  There’s more.”  I waited.  “I think the group is after me now.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m being followed,” she said.

“Was it a 4-Runner?  Gray?”  She nodded her head.  I tried not to smile.  “That was me.”  She turned red.  “I thought that was them,” she said, but with no relief.

“It’s okay.  I’ve been tailing you for two days.  And by the way, what's with making phone calls from pay phones at the Cherry Creek Mall?  Why not from somewhere around here?”

Amanda blushed.  “I thought if the call was somehow traced, it would be better if the call was placed far away from my house.”

I rolled my eyes at her illogical logic.  “Why are you worried about calls being traced?”

“Oh, it doesn't matter!  They’re still after me.”  She covered her face with her hands, muffling a sob.

“Who?”

“The people I hired,” Amanda said.  She finally worked around me and reached for a glass.

“How about doing this straight?” I said, grasping her wrist.

“Just water, then.”  Her hand shook as she filled a glass with water and sat on the sofa.  After draining half the glass, she repeated, “I think the group I hired to kill Peter is after me now.  I, uh, wasn’t exactly truthful with them.”

“Are you with anybody?”

She threw a vicious look at me.  “I made it sound like Peter was a monster.  That way this group would take care of him for me.”

“Why?”

“I wanted him dead,” she stated flatly.  “I wanted the money, not him.  Our marriage was… is… nothing anymore.”

I locked eyes with her, staring her down.  “No, there’s more than that.  You’re not fooling me.”

 She held my gaze for at least ten seconds before averting her eyes.  “All right.”  She threw up her hands.  “I was afraid Peter was going to divorce me.  He didn’t care anymore, he wasn’t trying to hide his affairs, and he’d been dropping hints about a separation.  I didn’t want to go back to having nothing.  So I hired this group.  But now,” she whispered, “but now, I wish I hadn’t done any of this.  I want Peter back.  Not because I love him.  I don’t.  I made a mistake.  But if I can get him back, we might be able to work something out.”