The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One (13 page)

His thoughts drifted back to Moose Katzenbach, and he was vaguely disturbed—Moose had a sick wife, he needed the job at Classic Investigations, but Duke Denny had cut him loose, and he was talking about hiring another man. Lockington didn’t know the other man but he was certain of one thing—the new guy would never measure up to Moose Katzenbach. Moose was big,
too
big—grossly overweight, a condition that had cost him his job on the Chicago Police Force, but Moose wasn’t clumsy, he was remarkably agile. He looked stupid, but he was wilier than a fox, he had the guts of a Miura bull and he was just about that dangerous in a fight. With the possible exception of Duke Denny, they just didn’t come any better than Moose, and he had one important plus—despite his size, he looked average. There was nothing about Moose Katzenbach that would draw attention—he could have tailed the Pope across the Gobi Desert and he’d have gone unnoticed. Moose was the neighborhood vacuum cleaner salesman, the proprietor of the corner used car lot, the bartender at the joint in the middle of the next block. Mr. Nobody.

Lockington glanced at his watch for the fiftieth time in that many minutes—it was 3:30. Duke Denny had been scheduled to leave Chicago for Cleveland, Ohio, at 7:00 that morning, and Cleveland was something like 375 miles east on Interstate 80. Lockington did a bit of grade school arithmetic—Denny drove hard, and if he wasn’t already in Cleveland, he’d be blowing in there shortly. Lockington waited until 4:00 before picking up the phone and dialing the Cleveland number Denny had left in the top desk drawer. After a half dozen rings, a raspy male voice crackled on the line—“Shoot, you’re faded!”

Lockington blinked at the 1930s crack before saying, “Is Duke there?”

“Duke?”

“Duke Denny.”

“Who’s this?”

“Lockington.”

“Lockington?”

“Lockington in Chicago.”

“I don’t know no Lockington in Chicago. I don’t even know no Lockington in Cleveland.”

“I’m the guy who’s running the agency while Duke’s in Cleveland.”

“Gotcha! Yeah, old Duke’s here—well, he ain’t here right this very moment, but he
was
here—pulled in, oh, maybe twenty-five minutes ago. What’s up, Lockington?”

“Nothing—just checking to make sure Duke got there in one piece.”

“Gotcha! Sure, he made it grand style—I’m nuts about that black Caddy, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, nice car—Duke isn’t there now?”

“Naw, old Duke went out for a case of beer—Rolling Rock—best damn beer in these parts—you like Rolling Rock?”

“I’m not a beer man. Cognac.”

“Gotcha! Cognac! I can take cognac or leave it alone. Generally speaking, I leave it alone.”

“Uh–huh, well, when do you expect Duke to get back? I want to discuss something with him.”

“Gotcha! Say, man, I ain’t real sure—he should be back in ten minutes, but you know old Duke—if old Duke runs into a snatch in heat, Christ only knows
when
he’ll show up!” He chuckled a man-to-man chuckle, the kind with the built-in leer.

Lockington said, “Okay—looky, I’ll be closing the agency in about an hour—if I don’t hear from him by then, he can call me at home sometime this evening—he has my number.”

“Gotcha! I’ll tell him—any friend of Duke’s is a friend of mine!”

“Thanks—uhh–h–h, what’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“Jack Slifka.”

Lockington said, “Gotcha!” and hung up, suddenly not sure that he should bring up the Moose Katzenbach matter. After all, Duke Denny had told him that Moose had quit and was moving to Brooklyn, and there was nothing to be gained by proving Duke a liar—his heart had been in the right place, he’d fired Moose to help Lockington. Anyway, Lockington had just thought of another road to town, albeit a temporary route. He called Moose Katzenbach’s number, and Helen answered. Lockington said, “To hell with St. Patrick!”

There was a long pause before Helen Katzenbach said, “Lacey Lockington, is that you, you shanty Irish bastard?” Helen sounded tired, but she was Irish, too, and she’d go down swinging.

“No, this is the Sheriff of Nottingham. Where’s the big guy?”

“I recognized your voice—I got an ear for voices, Lacey—hell, I could pick out Cary Grant blindfolded!”

“So could I if he was blindfolded.”

Helen swore. Helen could swear up a storm on occasion. Then she said, “Moose is in the shower, singing ‘On the Road to Mandalay’! Have you ever heard Moose sing ‘On the Road to Mandalay’?”

“Is that the one where the dawn comes up like thunder?”

“That’s it, only thunder ain’t quite the word for it. When are you coming over for apple pie, you ape?”

“One of these nights, Helen,
depend
on it!”

“All right, I’ll depend on it. If you want Moose, I’ll drag him out of the shower.”

“Not necessary—you can handle this one. Just tell him to be at the agency in the morning—he gets his old job back for a week or so, and he’ll be paid in cash—he can forget about Uncle Sam.”

“Well, sure and God bless you, Lacey Lockington, but Duke Denny hasn’t given Moose his last paycheck.”

“I’ll have the money for him—I’ll get it from Duke later. Okay?”

“Lacey, you’re one in a million!”

“A million
what
?”

“How’s a million drunken Irishmen?”

Lockington said, “Right on the nose!” He broke the connection, grinning. Duke Denny was paying him seven-and-a-half per week, and that broke down to three-seventy-five for Moose Katzenbach, three-seventy-five for Lacey Lockington. It seemed no more than fair, and there was a bonus in it for Lockington—he’d have someone to talk to. The agency was dead, the hours were long, and the Pepper Valley Crickets wouldn’t be able to take up all the slack. Lockington leaned back, lighting a cigarette, wondering about Millie Fitzgerald’s cat.

And such is the diminuendo before the crescendo, the silence before the battle, the lull before the storm—it comes every so often, even on West Randolph Street.

The garage had located the ’79 Mercury’s problem. Gasoline hadn’t been getting to the carburetor, this due to the gas tank being empty. The lasagna had been excellent, and that evening she’d driven to Des Plaines and brought half of her clothing. The next morning she’d announced that she’d made a serious mistake, and she’d driven back to Des Plaines and brought the other half.

On Christmas Day she’d roasted a small chicken because they’d never have gotten outside a turkey. She’d made a dressing from cashews and Lockington had wolfed the dressing and all but ignored the chicken, and this had pleased her. Her pumpkin pie had been laced with crushed pineapple, scoring big with Lockington, who’d wiped it out by bedtime.

They’d talked a lot, neither asking personal questions, the answers to the questions they might have asked coming voluntarily. Julie Masters had been an only child, her parents had been gentle, understanding people, and she’d had a well-to-do uncle whom she’d never met—he’d died when she’d been a baby—and he’d been terribly generous, providing her with a fully-funded college education and a monthly allowance that had lasted until her graduation. Uncle Oxford had been a fine man, no doubt about it, but Julie had never quite cottoned to his widow, Aunt Harriet, who’d brought the money every month, always on a Monday night. Aunt Harriet had been an extremely good-looking women, but hard-faced, tough-spoken, and too-knowing.

Julie had grown up—after a fashion, as she’d put it—she’d attended Northeastern Illinois, a small school close to her Lincolnwood home. She’d studied journalism because her Uncle Oxford had wanted her to, and she’d stayed with it, liking it, one thought in mind—write a novel. She hadn’t done that yet, but she was fiddling around with an idea, and she’d write one eventually, you just wait and see, Lacey Lockington.

Her parents were gone now, both with cancer, both at comparatively early ages, and she’d sold their Lincolnwood house to take a nice three-room apartment near Rand and River Roads on the northwestern edge of Des Plaines. She’d had male friends, naturally, but never one that she’d consider marrying—she wasn’t certain that she believed in marriage—she didn’t know that she believed in much of anything. She’d given up her virginity at the age of seventeen—to a tackle on the high school football team, a horrendous experience because she’d bled profusely and it’d hurt like hell, and it’d been all of two weeks before she’d cranked up enough courage to try it again, and this time she’d enjoyed the hell out of it, and she still did—she assumed that Lockington was aware of that, and Lockington had said well, yes, he’d gotten that impression.

There’d been one man about whom she grown serious—a fellow named Herzog, but there’d been facets of his personality that she hadn’t liked, and they’d drifted apart—well, not
completely,
but they hadn’t been getting together often recently, which was just as well, she thought, or
said
she thought, and Lockington hadn’t made an issue of Herzog or the others, however many there’d been. She hadn’t been explicit on numbers, but Lockington had figured that there’d been more than a few—her knowledgeable, responsive behavior in bed having been far from sophomoric.

For Christmas he’d bought her a hardbound copy of Roget’s Thesaurus—to help her with her novel, he’d said, and she’d presented him with a black and chrome Zippo cigarette lighter engraved LL from JM. He’d kept it on his nightstand and they’d shared it during their long, dead-of-the-night, naked, sitting cross-legged in bed conversations, these leading them far afield but to nowhere, which was perfectly agreeable to both, because there’d been nowhere of importance to go. They’d been happy enough—not as happy as they might have been, but considerably happier than most, and they’d realized this, and they’d settled for it.

She’d stayed and she’d cooked and she’d kept the apartment neat, and she’d done some reading, and she’d jotted voluminous notes on a yellow legal pad—a rough outline for her novel, she’d told him, and before very long they’d fallen in love as lonely people are sometimes wont to do, their better judgement notwithstanding.

They’d spent their New Year’s Eve in bed—fucking the old year out and the New Year in, she’d giggled—and then they’d tied into a few fifths of cheap champagne, and he’d gotten his first chance to see Julie Masters drunk. She’d been an utter delight until dawn—she was a topnotch mimic, he’d found out—and she’d sung, providing the harmony to Lockington’s lead of “When You Wore a Tulip,” then doing a commendable solo on “My Rosary.” She’d hypnotized him with a naughty little dance, performing naked with the stem of a plastic rose tucked between her legs and another protruding from between her buttocks. On this note they’d returned to the bedroom where they’d started on the bed and finished on the floor. They’d slept through the Sugar Bowl game, and the Rose Bowl game, and halfway through the Orange Bowl game, awakening with the flame sputtering but hot enough to kick off another round which Lockington had felt fortunate to survive. They’d regrouped in the kitchen over a can of cream of mushroom soup, toast and black coffee, and when they’d gone back to bed, there’d been no shenanigans, none at all, and Lockington had been glad for this.

Quite a pair—Julie Masters, who would never write her novel, and Lacey Lockington, who’d never know what her novel would have been about.

The muggy Chicago afternoon struggled by on tortoise feet, and Lockington closed the Classic Investigations office at 5:00 sharp. He hadn’t heard from Millie Fitzgerald concerning anything. It figured. Geronimo and Duke would be rendezvousing with females of their respective species—Geronimo pouring it to a feline
femme galante
under a backporch somewhere in Chicago, Duke Denny holed up with a third-rate Cleveland floozie in a fourth-rate Cleveland motel. Geronimo would return to Millie Fitzgerald when he was damned good and ready, Duke Denny would get back with the Rolling Rock beer, possibly before Jack Slifka succumbed to dehydration.

Of all the pussy-chasers Lacey Lockington had ever known, Duke Denny was far and away the pussy-chasingest. The man seemed equipped with some sort of incredible sensory device, a built-in apparatus akin to sonar that winnowed the chaff from the grain, separating the ladies who wouldn’t from those who just might, then those who just might from those who sure as hell would, and it was downright amazing how many sure as hell would. Duke Denny was gifted beyond belief, an absolute cinch for the Pussy-Chasers’ Hall of Fame, which Lockington assumed would be built in Chicago.

One evening at the Roundhouse Café, Lockington and Denny had been sucking up a few draft beers, watching a svelte little blonde article dancing juke box polkas with a Soo Line switchtender. Denny had studied the blonde through a polka and a half, and he’d nudged Lockington and said, “She’s wearing green panties with a poker hand embroidered on them.”

Lockington had said, “What sort of poker hand?”

Denny had said, “Wait’ll she turns this way again.” Then he’d said, “It’s a straight, Jack-high.”

Lockington had said, “Horseshit.”

Denny had shrugged, leaving his barstool to cut in on the switchtender. A few moments later he’d whirled the blonde toward the bar, pulling her up short at Lockington’s knee. He’d said, “Honey, I just bet this guy 300 billion dollars that you’re wearing green panties with a Jack-high straight embroidered on ’em.”

The blonde had winked. “You lose—it’s a King-high straight
flush
—hearts.”

Lockington had said, “That’s a crock.”

The blonde had sighed, “Well, what’s a girl to do?” She’d hoisted her skirt and half-slip to the belt line, holding it there while Lockington stared. Green panties—King-high straight flush in hearts. She’d dropped her skirt and smiled fetchingly at Denny. She’d said, “Close, big boy, but no cigar.”

Denny had said, “Is there a consolation prize?”

The blonde had said, “Damn betcha, but you don’t get it
here
!”

They’d gone out arm-in-arm and Lockington had gotten drunk with the Soo Line switchender who’d been every bit as puzzled as Lockington. He’d said, “Katy’s panties usually got
birds
on ’em!”