Cat on a Cold Tin Roof (9 page)

“Damn!” he muttered. “They haven't shown up with any of our associates either.” He dabbed his lip again. “Anything else?”

“I had to warn my friend on the force about the Bolivians, but they have no record of them. Neither does the one snitch I've spoken to so far.”

“Figures,” said Sorrentino. “Cincinnati's not exactly a gateway city. People here would just figure they were legals or illegals from Mexico and never ask for a passport.” He grimaced. “So we haven't made a lot of progress.”

“We've warned our fences, the cops will call me if they spot the Bolivians, and I've got a snitch spreading the word.” I paused and smiled. “And you've put three teenagers on the road to law-abiding adulthood.”

“If they recover.” He didn't smile, and I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.” He signaled a waitress. “Hey, babe—bring me a chocolate malt.”

She nodded and went back to the tiny kitchen.

“Somehow I didn't picture you as a malt man,” I said with a smile.

“I'd rather have a beer, but we're in a Steak 'n Shake,” he admitted. “Anyway, I can hold the glass against my eye and take down the swelling a bit, and then spread a little ice cream on my lip.”

“You can just stop by an emergency room or an urgent care,” I suggested.

He shook his head. “This is trivial. The emergency room is for the kid with the new tattoo on his face.”

He seemed so friendly and open, it took the occasional remark like that one to remind me of just who I was dealing with.

“Well, there's one thing we know,” I said. “Someone knew what the collar was worth, because they took it off the cat. My first thought was that it might have been a kid who just thought it was pretty, and if the cat had turned up at the nearest shelter I might still think so, but not when it shows up twenty miles away.”

“You're the cop,” said Sorrentino. “What do we do about it?”

“The ex-cop,” I corrected him. “And what we do is make sure our fences know that they're likely to get killed if they put the diamonds on the market, or even tell anyone but you or me that they've got them.”

“That makes sense if it was the Bolivians or some local hitter,” he said, “but what if it was Velma? Maybe getting you arrested was just a cover?”

“That doesn't make sense. She doesn't know you're in town, so she can't have thought Palanto told you about the collar.”

“If he told me, he could have told someone else. Velma hasn't got anything against killing a couple of dozen men if it suits her purposes, but she ain't as spry as she used to be, and she sure as hell isn't hard to describe or identify.”

“If she killed him for the collar, then she'll kill anyone who's got it,” I said. “Simple as that.”

“What if she had some other reason for killing him?” suggested Sorrentino. “What if he was fooling around, or she was afraid of the Bolivian mob, or he wouldn't give her enough money to spend? Maybe the murder was the primary thing, and the collar was an afterthought.”

“Makes no difference,” I said. “Say she killed him because he smoked in bed or wouldn't turn the TV off at night. Say the collar was an afterthought. Based on everything you know about her, everything you've told me, would she stop at killing a fence, or half a dozen fences, to get her hands on the collar?”

He frowned. “No,” he admitted. “No, she wouldn't.”

“So it really boils down to who got their hands on the cat and took his collar off,” I said.

He was about to reply when the waitress brought him his malt.

“Thanks, toots,” he said, and this one didn't respond like the one in Bob Evans had to the name. “I'll take a glass of ice water too, more ice than water if you can manage it.”

“You look like you need it,” she said, staring at his eye. “I'll bring a rag you can wrap the ice in.”

“How about you?” asked Sorrentino, turning to me. “My treat?”

“I'll take a double cheeseburger with onions and nothing else,” I said. “And whatever kind of soda pop you have on hand, brand and flavor makes no difference.”

“Like 'em all, eh?” she said with a smile and went back to the kitchen.

“So who took the collar off?” he said.

“I don't know,” I answered. “Hell, I don't even know if the killer or the diamonds are still in town. It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On who knew what the collar was worth besides you and Velma.”

He frowned. “Are you accusing me?”

I shook my head. “No, I'm not. I'm just saying that if he told half a dozen people, then the collar could be in California or even Timbuktu by now. But if only you and Velma knew about it, then maybe the collar's still in town. Maybe someone's trying to find out what it's worth, who owns or owned it, what's likely to happen to him if he cashes in on it.” I sighed. “Except . . .”

“Except what?”

“Except that it's too goddamned far-fetched,” I said. “I just can't make myself think some passerby took one look, decided those were real twenty-carat or however many carat diamonds, picked up the cat, removed the collar, and then drove more than twenty miles through a blizzard just to dump the cat.”

He sighed deeply. “It does sound kinda silly when you lay it out like that.”

The waitress returned with his malt and ice. “Your burger'll be up in just a minute, hon,” she told me. “Last chance to give me a hint: Coke or 7Up?”

I took a quick peek at the menu, ordered a High-C, and waited for her to move out of hearing range.

“That's why I think someone besides you and Velma knew. I just can't believe someone could spot and identify it in a blizzard . . . and I'll guarantee it was gone by four in the morning—and it wasn't just a blizzard; it was also a moonless night.”

“You're making my head hurt,” he said with a grimace. “That's something the Mike Tyson wannabe and his two buddies couldn't do.”

“Stop making faces,” I said. “Your lip's bleeding again.”

He shrugged. “What's a little blood?”

“Not much, until it stains your shirt,” I said. “How many did you bring to town?”

He looked down and saw the blood on his collar. “Shit!”

“What the hell,” I said. “You're still standing. Maybe it'll scare people off.”

“Fuck the blood,” he said. “Let's get back to business.”

“I thought we'd run through everything we know.”

“I was following one of the Bolivians,” he said. “When we're done here, I'm going back to where I spotted him and see if I can't pick up the trail again.”

“Correction,” I said. He stared curiously at me. “You
think
you were following one of the Bolivians.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You know,” I said after I thought about it for a few seconds, “I'm surprised they're not following
us
.”

He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Think it through,” I said. “If you're right about them, that they're here at all, they came to collect the money Palanto had siphoned off. Cordially if possible, but at any rate . . .”

He shook his head. “You don't send those guys on a cordial mission.”

“I know,” I said. “But bear with me for a minute. They came for the money. Let's say they killed him, and of course they didn't know about the cat. They're still in town, so clearly they're under orders not to go home without the money. They have no idea where it is, and by now someone in that organization knows it's not in a bank account. So it makes more sense for them to be following the Chicago contact and the Cincinnati detective than for us to be following them. If you just stand still, they'll show up.”

“Eli, you don't
want
those bastards showing up on their own terms,” said Sorrentino. “Trust me on that. From what our friends in Mexico told us, they've made more than twenty kills outside their own country.”

“They may rough us up, but they're not going to kill us as long as they think we might know where the diamonds are.”

He shook his head. “They don't know from shit about diamonds. And if you prefer being tortured for a few days rather than killed, my hat's off to you, but that ain't
my
notion of a good way to go.” Suddenly he frowned again. “We're overlooking something.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Yeah. Their people have the clout to know there's nothing worthwhile in Palanto's bank account, and that he hasn't got a ton on deposit anywhere else. But why not stash it in a safe deposit box?”

“You say there are three shooters, but so far you've only seen one,” I pointed out. “It makes sense that at least one of them is watching Velma around the clock . . . and if she's made no move to go to a bank or any place else with a lock box, and she's not leaving town, they probably figure she hasn't got it, and they'll be more sure of that every day that she sticks around.”

“Shit!” he muttered. “I guess that's why you're the detective.” He downed about half his malt, then pressed the glass against his eye as the waitress brought my burger and drink. “So what's our next move?”

“There's not much we
can
do until the diamonds show up or someone makes a very discernible move to get their hands on 'em,” I answered. “I suppose I'll contact all the minor-league fences, talk to some more snitches, and we'll try to find the Bolivians, who are probably watching us while we're watching out for the diamonds.”

“And that's all?” he asked. “I mean, I know you've solved a couple of pretty complex cases . . .”

“One of them took me over a month and got me beat up hundreds of miles south of the Mexican border,” I pointed out. “The other wasn't exactly a piece of cake either. We're not talking a crime of passion here, Val. At least, not necessarily. All we know is that someone killed Big Jim Palanto, and the diamonds are missing. But we don't know
who
killed him or
why
, and because of that, we don't know if the diamonds were the motive or had anything to do with it.”

He looked dubious. “Of course they did,” he said as I bit into my sandwich.

I shook my head. “Not necessarily. For all you know, the Bolivians are here as a punishment party.” He started to protest, but I held up a hand. “Yeah, I know, they're still here, hoping somehow that you or someone will lead them to the money. But since they didn't know about the cat, and there were no marks on the corpse, it's clear they didn't try beating the information out of him, and it's just as clear he wasn't running away from them, not on his balcony in a blizzard.”

“Shit!” he said. “I hate it when you make sense.”

“Same thing with Velma,” I continued. “She knew about the collar. So if that's what she was after, she didn't have to kill him to get her hands on it. The cat lived in the same house. All she had to do was wait 'til Palanto was out or sleeping and just remove it. So if she killed him, it also wasn't for the money.”

“But she had you thrown in the can!” he protested.

“Wouldn't you, if you thought I'd stolen ten million bucks from you?”

“Shit!” he said again, loud enough to attract some attention from neighboring tables.

“Yeah, I know,” I said with a smile. “You hate it when I make sense.”

“But it
had
to be one or the other!” he growled. “She could have had half a dozen reasons to want him dead, and she knew what the collar was worth. And they came to collect their money and punish him for stealing it. Who the hell else is there?”

“If I give you a couple of possibilities, will you admit this isn't an open-and-shut case with only two suspects?”

“Four,” he said. “There are three Bolivians.”

“You know what I mean,” I said.

He stared at me, frowning. “Okay, let's hear it. Who else could it have been?”

“The man who sold him the diamonds,” I said. “The man who mounted them onto the collar. The vet who recognized that they weren't rhinestones.”

“Not the vet,” said Sorrentino. “He couldn't know he was dealing with Big Jim Palanto.”

“He didn't have to,” I pointed out. “Malcolm Pepperidge is living in a house that has to be worth over a million.”

He sighed deeply. “I am starting to dislike you intensely,” he said, only half-joking. “Do you have a fucking answer to
every
thing?”

“Hey,” I said. “
I
don't live in a million-dollar palace. My rent is five hundred a month, and I'm late on it. And I'm driving a twelve-year-old Ford that needs a transmission job. I'm wrong more often than I care to think about.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Really. It's just so frustrating. Back home the boss says, ‘Lean on this guy' and I go lean on him. I don't have to ask if it's the right guy, or how hard to lean, or what's he done to deserve what I'm gonna do to him, or anything like that. I just lean on the son of a bitch.” He paused and shook his head. “I wouldn't trade jobs with you for anything.”

I finished my burger while he was talking. “Well, every profession has its hazards,” I said. “Maybe I don't make much money, but hardly anyone ever wants to arrest me for doing my job right.”

Suddenly he laughed. “Unless her name is Velma.”

I nodded my head. “Unless her name is Velma,” I agreed.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “maybe I should lean on her. She's never seen me. She might guess who I work for, but she doesn't know. Maybe I can make sure one way or the other.”

“Make sure of what?” I asked.

He frowned. “If she killed him.”

“Okay,” I said. “Say she did. So what?”

He just stared at me uncomprehendingly.