“Son of a bitch,” she repeated.
“What else can you tell me? Did he ever see anyone or talk to anyone that you knew of?”
She hesitated. She needed some incentive. I fished in my pocket, came up with a ten, and held it up for her to see. Her eyes followed the bill, savoring it.
“Some woman used to call him. Said she was his sister.”
“Did she give a name?”
“Nope.” She reached for the ten. I let her pull it out of my hand.
“Anything else you can think of that would help me find him?”
She was engaged in some heavy duty thinking now, the glint of greed flashing somewhere far back behind her eyes.
Finally she shrugged in resignation. “I don’t know where he is.”
“OK,” I said and gave her my card. “Call me if you have anything. There’s money in it for you.”
I’d engaged her interest. “Yes sir,” she said, her voice a notch higher. “You betcha.”
CHAPTER XXI
The ride back to the city was a breeze. It was Friday night and I was going against the traffic. Anybody who could rub two nickels together was headed out of town for the beach or the mountains. I didn’t feel like going back to an empty apartment so I called Rachel from the car, but all I got was her machine with a sexy message about how much fun the caller was missing. I told the machine to get back to me and left my home and cell phone number, hoping she’d return soon. There was nothing to eat in my fridge except a pack of frozen hot dogs and some cheese that was showing its age, so I pulled into the garage under my building, parked in my space and took a copy of Fortune along to read while I grabbed a bite. There was a coffee shop on the next block that was friendly, if nothing else. The place was half-empty when I walked in so I had my choice of seats. I slid onto a stool at the counter and winked at the waitress. She was Mediterranean-looking, late twenties, always looked tired and sweaty, but never begrudged a smile.
“Hiya, doll,” I said. “What’s good tonight?”
“Hello, Mister,” she smiled back and put her hand on my forearm. “Steak, mashed potatoes, green peas. Real good today.”
“You sold me. And a real cold beer.”
The beer came first. I slugged down a couple of gulps as I thumbed through the pages of Fortune, not really paying attention until I saw a small piece with a picture of Stallings. The story said his firm had been pressured to fire an unnamed analyst because of an overly-aggressive sell recommendation. It seems the analyst had jumped to some rash conclusions and had knocked down the stock price by some seven points. Stallings had stuck by his employee initially, but relented when threatened with a ruinous lawsuit.
Over-zealous employees. It brought to mind Talleyrand’s advice to his ministers. “Above all, not too much zeal.”
The steak was a major miscalculation. It was small, dark and hard, like an old whore’s heart. I consoled myself by ordering another brew and ate the mashed potatoes and peas instead. To fill the empty part of my stomach, I had apple pie a la mode and coffee. The apple pie was home-made and had little pits in it. I gave the girl a good tip and rolled up the magazine. The clock on the wall said it was five to eleven. I resigned myself to going up to an empty apartment, just like I’d done so many times before. The sad part was that everything would still be where it was when I’d left early in the morning.
The night was clear and quiet, and Forty-ninth street was completely deserted. It was quicker to cut through the garage, so I headed down the ramp. Jimmy, the attendant, wasn’t in his usual place in the little office with the cinderblock walls. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow of somebody by my car. At first, I thought it was Jimmy. As I stepped closer to take a look, I could make out a guy kneeling next to the BMW with some kind of tool in his hand.
I followed my first instinct, which is usually not too smart.
“Get away from my car, you scumbag,” I yelled.
He stumbled back and fell down.
That was my mistake. I never saw the joker behind me. I sensed him rather than saw him. As I dropped and turned, his knife sliced into the top of my left shoulder. The shoulder pad of my jacket partly deflected the blow, but it still hurt like hell. I knew it was bad. My vision started going in and out of focus.
The garage was strangely silent, except for their grunts. They were both on me in a flash. It was a happy coincidence that I wasn’t carrying a gun today. All I had was a damn rolled-up magazine in my good hand. They both had knives. Wicked looking switchblades. I turned to look from one to the other. They both kept moving the knives from side to side.
Jesus, I hated knives.
I couldn’t move my left arm.
I could see the guy to my left and his blade. That was OK. It was the guy to my right that I was worried about. I made a half-turn and saw his knife come arcing down. He shouldn’t have done that. The magazine caught his wrist below the blade and checked the downward motion. I kneed him in the balls and, as he crumpled, I slammed the end of the magazine into his throat. It crushed his voice box. He made a kind of gurgling sound and fell to his knees. I pounded my heel into his face and saw him cough up blood and bile and half his supper.
The other guy hesitated. Then he lunged at me. The blade got past my right arm and took a slice out of my side. As he pulled back, I swung the magazine but it hit his elbow and flew out of my hand.
The first guy was on his back, grabbing at his throat and giving off hoarse grunts.
I was in a big hole now. One arm gone, the other side hurting like hell, and an asshole with a knife about to punch my ticket.
He took a step toward me. I took a step back. And tripped. Over a goddam speed bump. I went down, off balance, and jammed my bad shoulder into a fender. I believe I let out a good-sized yell. The pain was that bad.
The guy was right after me. He didn’t miss a beat. But he was a dunce because he swung the knife downward. My right hand caught his wrist and held it. My back was against the floor and my arm was rigid. The knife wasn’t going anywhere. He realized this and the first sign of panic showed in his eyes. He had me on the floor with a knife point at my chest and he was scared. He couldn’t push down, so he pulled to the side. That gave me the chance to roll away from him. He brought the blade down again but it missed me and scraped against the concrete.
I was up now and facing him. He came for me. I let him reach me, then half-twisted so he went past as I slammed the heel of my good hand into his face, ramming his septum up into his brain. He stood motionless for half a second and then went down like a sack of shit.
He was finished.
The other guy saw what happened and scrambled up the ramp out onto the street. It was going to be hard to catch up with him after all the blood I’d lost. I was starting to feel light-headed and it was tough to focus my eyes. I held my shoulder to try to stop the flow and ran after him. But he was twenty paces ahead of me and he turned the corner and was out of sight.
I went back to the garage and examined the guy on the floor. The pulse in his throat was almost gone. He’d be checking out before the medics could get here.
I went over to where the magazine was lying on the floor and picked it up. Hell, I knew Forbes was called the capitalist tool, but I never really thought of Fortune in quite the same way.
From where I stood, I could see into Jimmy’s little office. His feet were sticking out of the doorway and his head was under the desk. When I got closer, I saw the large blood stain on his chest.
It was getting hard for me to stand so I sat on the edge of the metal desk and dialed 911. Maybe they could still save Jimmy. He took better care of my car than anyone else I knew.
CHAPTER XXII
They kept me in the hospital less than twenty-four hours. I was given some blood and some stitches, and told how lucky I was. The cops were more of a pain in the ass. They kept me repeating statements, then more statements, and finally more statements. I felt like Uncle Remus telling all those Br’er Rabbit stories over and over. Finally these geniuses came to the conclusion that this was a foiled case of grand theft, auto. I didn’t agree with them. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to steal a ten-year-old BMW, except maybe a fan of automobile nostalgia. The dead guy was made as a small-time junkie, pusher and car thief. Gene Black came by with another cop to see how I was doing. He said Jimmy was going to pull through. Then he delivered his judgment on the dead guy.