Goodey's Last Stand: A Hard Boiled Mystery (Joe Goodey) (4 page)

“Which is the one where you throw up,” she wanted to know, “resuscitation or regurgitation?”

I took a wild guess and told her the second one. The book turned out to be Thirty Days to a Vocabulary Like a High-School Graduate, and we started talking about long and funny words—a highbrow conversation which was soon broken up by the murder boys, and I disappeared.

But sometime later, after I’d gone back to the commercial squad, I was eating alone one night at
Fettucini’s, and somebody sat down at the table with me. Tina. “How’s your vocabulary?” I said for lack of anything more intelligent, and we talked for a while. After that, every so many weeks I’d run into her, and we’d talk. Me about the trouble I was having with Pat. Her about her search for an improved word power. Both sad stories.

It wasn’t what you’d call a long and close relationship. But behind those spectacular tits and the brassy blond hair and the flat, dumb little face, there seemed to be a person. Not the brightest, maybe too ambitious, but a person who had nothing much to do with swinging boobs and loud music.

“All right, Ralph,” I said, “I’ll give you that. I knew Tina—slightly. But that doesn’t mean I can tell you who killed her. Are you sure Kolchik didn’t do it?”

“He says he didn’t,” Lehman said, “and I sort of give him the benefit of the doubt. But I’m not worried. You’ll find out who did it, and you’ll find out pretty soon. Without the sacred name of
Kolchik coming into the case.”

“Or what?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Joe, I don’t have to tell you that. Don’t make me go through it again. I feel crappy enough doing Sanford’s dirty work as it is. Can’t you look on this as an opportunity, Joe? It gets you out from behind the eight ball. It gets you back on the payroll. The mayor’s apparently got a little fund for such delicate matters. Every week, your old salary will go into your bank account.”

“And expenses, Ralph,” I said. “Those lousy private operatives always get expenses. Don’t forget that.”

“And expenses,” Lehman said, looking more cheerful. “Thank God you’re beginning to make sense. Look on the bright side, Joe. You get your private buzzer right away, and if all goes well, you get a good shot at getting back your old job.”

“You’re a real sport, Ralph,” I said, but I knew I had no other real choice.

“Let’s get cracking,” he said. “We’re going to have to move if we’re going to make that appointment with Bruno.”

I showered vigorously, brushed my teeth, shaved, dressed again, and followed Lehman out of the room. He carried my suitcases just as he’d brought them in from my car.

The woman with the orange knitting was behind the desk again, and she looked at me as if I were Public Enemy Number One. She glanced down at my wrists, and I knew she was looking for handcuffs.

I didn’t want to disappoint her entirely, so I scowled and jerked a thumb at Lehman. “This guy will pay the bill,” I said. I pushed through the screen door into the soft, midday sunshine. Lehman’s big Mercury stood next to my small convertible, and a young patrol
man leaned on it and looked at me with curious eyes.

“Get in with me,
Goodey,” Ralph said, coming out of the motel office. “This nice young man will be happy to drive your wreck into town for you.” The rookie scuttled out of our way toward the Morris, and I flipped him the keys.

“He’d better be a careful driver,” I said as I settled into the Mer
cury’s big, soft seats, “or the mayor will be buying me another car.”

“Find out who murdered Tina,” Ralph said, starting the engine, “without splashing shit on
Kolchik, and he’ll buy you a new Cadillac.”

6

Lehman reluctantly stopped at a roadside restaurant and balefully stared at me while I ripped through a city-paid-for steak. The city got robbed, but I felt like a better man. As we got back into Ralph’s Mercury, I looked longingly at the highway south. Mexico was going to have to wait.

Our second stop was the coroner’s meat room down in the bottom of the Hall of Justice. It felt funny to be walking into a building I thought I’d said goodbye to just yesterday. It hadn’t changed a lot. We went down a set of outside steps at the back, because I wasn’t supposed to be there.

Smokey Sefton, the assistant ghoul, pulled out what looked like a filing cabinet drawer, flipped back a rubber blanket, and there was Tina, lying on her back with those fantastic tits sticking up like howitzer shells. Her skin was the color of old, weatherworn marble, gray-white, and with a vague coarseness. The famous body was unmarked except for a nasty appendix scar and a rather triangular wound just above and slightly to the right of her left breast, made by the blade that had nicked an artery and spilled her life’s blood. The interns had done a good job of cleaning her up, but they didn’t know much about the latest hair styles.

“Fucking amazing,” said Ralph, exaggeratedly bug-eyeing Tina’s body. “Bet you’ve been having a good time for yourself down
here, eh, Smokey? I’d hate to have that body dusted for prints. Put you away for life.”

Smokey, a little man with the mouth of a deacon’s wife, gave him a shadow of a smile. “You through with her?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Lehman. “I was going to ask if I could take her home for the weekend. I promise to have her back first thing Monday morning.”

“Yeah,” I said, “put her away.” I’d seen enough. Tina hadn’t changed much below the neck, but above she was nearly unrecog
nizable. The mask of make-up and animation had been ripped away, leaving a face that was a little hard, a little dumb, a little vacant—nothing you’d pay two fifty a drink to see. They say some stiffs look like they’re sleeping. Tina’s face looked like she was waiting for a very late bus on a cold, wet night, and her feet hurt. They should have put her on the stage of The Jungle just like that. It would have set the topless go-go business back a century.

“Come on,” I told Lehman, “you can sneak back later after Smokey goes home. I suppose all the paperwork is upstairs?”

“Yeah,” said Lehman when we’d left Sefton and Tina behind and gotten into the thin, green-doored elevator that would take us to the top of the building—once again the discreet, back-door way. “Everything is in The Brother’s office. He wants to see you.”

“I can’t say the same. But what about Smokey? Isn’t he going to think it’s peculiar that I resigned yesterday and came down to cop a peek at Tina today?”

“Smokey can’t afford to think anything’s peculiar,” Ralph said. “He likes his job. Besides, he’s been down in the morgue so long I think he’s lost contact with reality.”

“Lucky him.”

The elevator banged to a stop, and we stepped out, across a wide hall and through a door marked “Bruno D. Kolchik, Deputy Chief.” His secretary, a skinny blonde with an I-dare-you-to-kiss-me mouth and dangling jade earrings, looked up from the novel she was reading.

“Oh, hello,” she said graciously, marking her place with a long finger. “The chief has been expecting you, but he’s out for a few moments. If you’ll take a seat...” She waved her free hand toward a pair of forbidding courtroom chairs against the wall.

Feeling nasty, I looked even more blank than usual. “The chief?” I said. “But we’re here to see Bruno Kolchik, formerly Sergeant Kolchik of the Parks Division—you know, a big, beefy guy with hairy red ears and a face like a broken knee. If we’ve come to the wrong office…”

“Shut up, Joe,” said Lehman.

She was working her mouth like a poisoned pike, but nothing was coming out. Just as she was about to start pinching herself to see if she was having a nightmare, her boss shouldered the door aside like a tent flap and nearly trampled us. Except that people the size of Ralph Lehman don’t get trampled. People my size do. The Brother didn’t look happy.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said to Lehman. He didn’t even look at me, but charged through the space I’d been occupying and disap
peared into his office. I assumed we were supposed to follow. Lehman did, but I lingered to have a word with the blonde.

“Remember,” I said, “snitchers never prosper. Besides, he might be a sergeant again someday.” But she’d forgotten I existed and was trying to find her place in her book.

“What the hell kept you?” Bruno yelled at me when I came through the door into his big office. He had a cut-glass decanter in one hand and a tall glassful of ice cubes in the other. Lehman had settled into the most comfortable chair in the room and was staring patiently out the vast windows.

“She wouldn’t let me go without a goodbye kiss,” I said. “You know how some broads are.”

He didn’t like that, and his ears deepened three shades of red. One thing about The Brother: he not only had the title of Deputy Chief, he thought he was Deputy Chief. Some guys who’d been a sergeant for fifteen years until their brother was elected mayor and then suddenly found themselves number two man of the whole force would be sheepish about it. Not Bruno. The way he acted, you’d think he'd passed a civil service test for the job. The trouble was that he’d have made a swell lost-property clerk, and that’s probably what he’d be if and when his brother wasn’t mayor anymore. So long to the three stars on the shoulder and the cut-glass decanter.

“Watch it,
Goodey,” he said, pointing the decanter at me as if he wished it were a gun. He splashed a little Scotch on the Persian carpet. “I don’t like you, and you’re only out of the clink as long as you make yourself useful and watch your smart mouth.”

“I don’t like you, either,” I said, reaching out and taking the decanter. There was no glass at hand, so I took a polite swig from the decanter. “And you’re only in this office as long as your brother is mayor. That won’t be long if it gets out that he killed Tina
D’Oro.” Even The Brother wasn’t too dense to realize that what I said was true. So, instead of exploding, he took a long, ice-cube-tinkling gulp of his drink and came out of the experience a much calmer man.

“But the mayor didn’t kill her,” he said. “We know that. Your job is to find out who did. And to do it fast. We’re sitting on a time bomb, and if it goes off before the killer is safely behind bars, we’re
all going down with the ship.” His direct gaze took in Lehman as well as me. “And I mean all.”

“What I want to know,” I said, “is why you think you need me. You’ve got a fistful of aces here. Why the hell do you want a busted detective cluttering things up? Let homicide earn its money.”

“Don’t think they won’t,” he said. “Maher is handling that end of the operation. And he’s got the word that he can go down as fast as he came up. He’ll be doing his best. But the mayor thought it might be useful to have someone else on the job. Someone with maybe more flexibility than the homicide crew and a personal interest in finding the killer.”

“Like his own survival?” I asked.

His eyes nodded, if eyes can do that sort of thing.

“And maybe somebody who’d be tempted to bend the law just a little bit in the interest of the same. Somebody ripe for a fall if things get too sticky,” I added.

This time his eyes shrugged. “You do anything illegal,” he said, “you do it on your own hook. As far as the world knows, you’re just an ex-copper out to make a living behind a private buzzer. If you want to look into who spiked Tina D’Oro, nobody can tell you no.”

“Speaking of that buzzer,” I said, “I assume you’ve got it for me.”

Bruno walked over behind his big desk and picked up a thin file folder. “It’s in here,” he said, holding the folder out toward me, “along with the coroner’s report on Tina and a copy of Maher’s report from the scene of the crime. Take it.”

I let him hold it for a while. He had strong arms.

“And Tina’s diary?” I asked.

“The diary has been destroyed,” he said too quickly. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, still not taking the folder, “because if that diary doesn’t exist, neither do I.” I stuck out both wrists. “Put the cuffs on me, Ralph. I’m ready to stand the rap for Cousin Stanislaus. I’d rather do that than go after Tina’s killer blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back. Besides, maybe I’ll cop a self-defense plea.”

The Brother looked disgustedly at me, then at Lehman. He threw the folder down on his desk and whirled to look out the window at traffic on the Oakland Bay Bridge.

“Joe,” said Ralph, “be reasonable. You’re talking about a document which, if it still exists, is deeply embarrassing to the mayor and his family. You can’t expect—”

“I do expect, Ralph,” I said. “And I’m doing nothing without a look at that diary. I don’t expect you to give it to me to take home, but I’ve got to have a good, hard look at it, or I don’t budge. Either give me the diary or take me down to the cells.”

Lehman didn’t say anything, but The Brother turned around and without looking at me walked over to a big Red Period Picasso print and lifted it down from the wall. He twiddled around with a combination knob and opened a round metal door. Fishing out a small book with a red plastic cover, he threw it down on his desk with a loud slap.

“All right,” he said to Lehman, “let him look at it. Here. He can take notes, but the diary doesn’t leave this office. You understand?” He tried to drill holes in Lehman with his eyes. That’s been tried before, and Ralph silently returned the favor. The Brother wheeled and headed for the door.

“Thanks, Bro,” I said to his disappearing back.

I picked up the thin diary, sat down in Bruno’s big leather chair and put my feet on his desk blotter. Ralph wearily went back to memorizing the area south of Market Street.

Tina D’Oro was no Samuel Pepys. You could pick up more gossip on a bus ticket. If you went by her diary, life as a topless go-go dancer was about as exciting as learning to spotweld. And she didn’t even keep it every day. January 1 started out with one big resolution: “I will learn ten new words every week.” Nothing more lofty or aspiring than that. The handwriting was junior high school gothic with the cute touch of making the dots over the
i’
s into circles.

Tina tended to keep her diary mostly as a reminder of appoint
ments rather than as a repository of deep, dark secrets. The name that appeared most often was someone called Irma. “Lunch with Irma.” “Irma’s for a hairdo.” “Meet Irma at four.” I’d have to meet this Irma. But the most intriguing thing was a series of initials: O.G., F.I. (“Check up with F.I.,” the diary said), H.C., J.M.

But then, on March 5, Tina began to throw discretion out the win
dow. “Dinner with the mayor,” the diary said. That old dog. Thereafter a certain Mr. Kolchik began to get a lot of space. She spelled his name three different ways, but the inference was clear. Mr. K. was riding high, if that’s not too bald for you. Then it became Sandy…Sandy this and Sandy that. Poor Kolchik. If he’d been less important, he’d have been a mere S.K., and the diary could have been found—for the record. The last entry was ten days before: “Movie with Irma.”

I took a few notes, but, to tell the truth, Tina’s diary wasn’t a gold mine for clues. I mean, I had no immediate need for an arrest war
rant. Maybe if I’d studied the diary for twenty years I’d have discovered that Tina was really a Russian spy using an elaborate code.

I didn’t have twenty years. I flipped through the diary one last time and threw it over to Ralph Lehman.

“There you are, Ralph,” I said. “Stick it back in The Brother’s safe or eat it, for all I care. I’ll have the villain in the pokey by a week Tuesday or my name’s not Sherlock Holmes.”

“Your name’s not Sherlock Holmes,” said Ralph, looking depressed. “You’re not even a very good detective.”

“Thanks, old truthteller,” I said. “I’ll see you around.” I slouched toward the door, pretending that I was a man who had someplace to go.

“Tell me something, Joe,” said Lehman as I put my hand on the doorknob. I looked around at him. “Do you think I’m a terrible shit for going along with the brothers K. this way?” He looked as if he re
ally wanted to know.

So I told him. “Yeah, Ralph, I think you’re a terrible shit. But don’t look hurt. We’re all terrible shits in this business, and you ought to be happy that next year you won’t have to be one anymore.”

“Thanks,” he said, pushing the word out as if it were a two-ton boulder on his chest.

“I suppose you’re my contact,” I said, “and you’ll be hearing from me. But now you tell me something, Ralph. Do you think I’m going to find out who killed Tina?”

He shook his big head. “Not a chance, Joe,” he said. “Not a chance in the world.”

“I’ll try to live up to your faith in me,” I said and walked out through Bruno’s door. The skinny blonde wasn’t there; neither was The Brother. They must have been off someplace holding each other’s hands and worrying about the fact that sergeants don’t have secretaries. Neither do convicts.

I went out of the police building as I’d come in—the back way. I never liked back doors. They rob you of that comfortable feeling of belonging. Now that feeling was long gone, and with only a thin folder of papers under my arm I felt naked and alone. I’d even have been glad to see Chub just then, but God knows where he was.