I turned and saw the bulbous-nosed waiter just behind me, turning pale under his sallow skin.
“We found this under some trash in the alley,” said Cominski, “along with this.” He held up a camera I recognized as mine. “A man would be kind of foolish to carry them very far in broad daylight. But he might come back for them later.” He looked hard at Stavros. “I think we might find some fingerprints on one or the other of these unless the guy who put them out there was in less of a hurry than I think he was.”
The waiter’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. “Goddamned bloated capitalist!” he said. “He could buy expensive toys like that for himself, but he wouldn’t pay his cousin a decent wage! I begged him for a raise, told him I’d met this girl but he just laughed at me. Well, he’s not laughing any more!”
The next day I went down to the police building on Market Street to sign a statement and to say goodbye to Detective Cominski.
“Sorry you had a bad couple of hours,” he said. “The way I read the crime scene, it really didn’t look to me like Klouri could have knocked you out in a fight, and I didn’t believe any murderer would be stupid enough to knock himself out and lie next to his victim just to mislead the police. But that business about the newscast did make it look like you were lying, and that’s something we’re always alert for. Lying — or suppressing evidence, like Stavros did.”
“Did he make a deliberate attempt to involve me?” I asked.
Cominski shrugged. “You or any other drop-in customer. He went back after he left at seven o’clock, but first he had a drink to get his courage up. He made a pitch for a raise and Klouri laughed at him. He hit Klouri with a bookend, probably harder than he meant to. Then he started thinking again and figured if he just walked out he’d be the number-one suspect. He left the TV on and hid behind the door, hoping for a casual customer he could implicate in some way: maybe grab him and claim he’d caught him walking off with the money from the cash register and then found Klouri dead. He was a tough little guy, but you’re pretty big. He was afraid to do anything but drop you. I don t know how clearly he thought out what would happen when you said you saw the six o’clock news at seven-thirty, but I guess he figured it would confuse things if he hid the VCR and your camera. Or maybe he was just greedy and wanted to fence them. He’s clammed up since that one outburst. But, whether he planned it or not, it was that VCR that nearly got you into big trouble.”
As I said, they’re marvelous gadgets. But do you blame me if I’m somewhat prejudiced against them?
The Partnership
by David Morrell
Sure, it was cold-blooded, but there didn’t seem another way. MacKenzie had spent months considering alternatives. He’d tried to buy his partner out but Dolan had refused.
Well, not exactly. Dolan’s first response had simply been to laugh and say, “I wouldn’t let you have the satisfaction.” When MacKenzie kept insisting, Dolan’s next response was, “Sure I’ll let you buy me out. It only takes a million dollars.”
Dolan might as well have wanted ten. MacKenzie couldn’t raise a million, even half a million or a quarter — and he knew Dolan knew that.
It was typical. MacKenzie couldn’t say “Good morning” without Dolan’s disagreeing. If MacKenzie bought a car, Dolan bought a bigger, more expensive one and, just to rub it in, bragged about the deal he got. If MacKenzie took his wife and children on vacation to Bermuda, Dolan told him that Bermuda wasn’t anything compared to Mazatlan, where Dolan had taken his wife and kids.
The two men argued constantly. They favored different football teams. Their taste in food was wildly different — mutton versus corned beef. When MacKenzie took up golf, Dolan suddenly was playing tennis, pointing out that golf was just a game while tennis was good exercise. But Dolan, even with his so-called exercise, was overweight. MacKenzie, on the other hand, was trim, but Dolan always made remarks about the hairpiece MacKenzie wore.
It was impossible — a Scotsman trying to maintain a business with an Irishman. MacKenzie should have known their relationship would never work. At the start, they had been rival builders, each attempting to outbid the other for construction jobs and losing money in the process. So they’d formed a partnership. Together they were more successful than they had been independently. Trying to outdo each other, one would think of ways to turn a greater profit and the other would feel challenged to be twice as clever. They cut costs by mixing too much gravel with the concrete, by installing low-grade pipes and sub-spec insulation. They kept special books for Uncle Sam.
MacKenzie-Dolan Enterprises. The two of them were enterprising, all right, but they couldn’t bear to talk to one another. They had tried to solve that problem by dividing the work so that MacKenzie ran the office and let Dolan go out troubleshooting.
For a time that did the trick. But they still had to meet to make decisions and though they were seeing each other less, they seemed to save their tension up and aggravate each other more when they met.
To make things worse, their wives became good friends. The women were constantly organizing barbecues and swimming parties. The men tried not to argue at these get-togethers. When they did, they heard about it from their wives.
“I hate the guy,” MacKenzie would tell his wife after a party. “He bugs me at the office and he made me sick tonight.”
“You just listen to me, Bob — Vickie Dolan is my friend and I won’t have your childish antics breaking up our friendship. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”
So both men braced themselves while their wives exchanged recipes.
What finally caused the big trouble was when Dolan started making threats.
“I wonder what the government would do if they knew about your special way of keeping books.”
“What about the sub-spec plumbing and the extra gravel in the concrete?” MacKenzie had replied. “You’re responsible for that, Dolan.”
“But that’s not a criminal offense — the judge would simply fine me,” Dolan answered. “The IRS is quite a different kettle. If they knew you were keeping separate books, they’d lock you in a dungeon where I’d never have to see your ugly puss again.”
MacKenzie stared at Dolan and decided there was no other choice. He’d tried to do the right thing, but his partner wouldn’t sell. There wasn’t any way around it. This was self-defense.
The man was waiting at the monkey cage, a tall, thin, friendly-looking fellow, young and blond. He wore a tailored light-blue jogging suit and he was eating peanuts.
At the water fountain, bending down to drink, MacKenzie glanced around. The zoo was crowded. It was noon on a sunny weekday, and people on their lunch breaks sat on benches munching sandwiches or strolled among the cages. There were children, mothers, old folks playing checkers. He heard tinny music from an organ grinder, muffled conversations, strident chattering and chirping. He was satisfied that no one was paying any attention to him, so he wiped water from his mouth and walked over.
“Mr. Smith?” he said.
The young man didn’t turn — he just chewed another peanut — and MacKenzie was afraid he’d spoken to the wrong man. After all, the zoo was crowded and there were other men in jogging suits. Besides, no matter what the papers said, it wasn’t easy finding someone who would do this kind of work. MacKenzie had spent several evenings haunting low-life bars before getting a lead. Once someone thought he was a cop and threatened to break both his legs. But hundred-dollar bills had eventually paid off and at last he’d arranged this meeting on a pay phone. But the man, apparently afraid of a trap, either had not arrived for the appointment or was playing possum.