The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One (15 page)

“Yeah, but Duke may be calling from Cleveland. Incidentally, if that phone rings when I’m not here, let the damned thing ring—I’m supposed to be running this joint all by my lonesome.”

Moose nodded. “See you in an hour.” Lockington watched Moose Katzenbach go out—a big guy carrying an emotional load that would have broken the average man. It’d been good to see him swing his mind from his troubles, however brief the respite.

Lockington sat at the desk, elbow on the chair arm, chin in the palm of his hand, his boredom returning. He found himself hoping that Millie Fitzgerald would call with tidings of Geronimo, but she didn’t, and he mused, half-dozing.

It’d been a Thursday, a trying, tiring, February Thursday. Lockington had begun the day just two jumps behind a west side rubber check artist. When he’d closed it out, he’d been three jumps behind. His quarry had been a hit-and-run will-o’-the-wisp—he’d had a dozen names and two dozen addresses, over a period of three months he’d bounced more than thirty thousand dollars worth of paper, and his trail had been so muddled that all the bloodhounds in Transylvania couldn’t have tracked him around the next corner.

Early that morning over coffee, Julie had told Lockington that she’d propably be home late—she was going to Park Ridge in the afternoon to meet a couple of Northeastern Illinois classmates, and he’d know how those things went. Lockington had said no, how did those things go? Julie had said well, there’d be lunch, and some drinking, and looking back, of course, and a touch of jealousy and a few snide remarks. Lockington had remarked that the afternoon had all the earmarks of a jolly fine affair, particularly the drinking part, and he’d toddled off to pursue the phantom check writer.

At 4:30, cold, weary, and lonely, he’d called Classic Investigations, hoping to lure Duke Denny to some friendly near northside tavern where they’d have beer and conversation, but Moose Katzenbach had answered the telephone. Moose had said, “Now, Lacey, Duke’s been out most of the day on a Missing Persons thing—he’s been working it since Monday.
”

Lockington had said, “I thought
you
were the leg man.
”

“
I am, but Duke wanted to get out of the office—I don’t know anything about the case—all I can tell you is that he said something about trying the morgue—good a place as any, I guess.
”

They’d exchanged a few pleasantries and Lockington had thanked him before hanging up and feeling guilty as sin for not having contacted Moose in a coon’s age. He’d driven homeward, feeling sorry for himself—it’d be a lackluster evening until Julie got home. Lockington wasn’t a lone wolf but he’d never been known as a glad-hander—he was acquainted with hundreds of people, most cops are, but he kept his own counsel, and his immediate associates could usually be counted on the horns of a goat. Earlier, he’d hung around with Moose and Helen Katzenbach. Then Moose had been kicked off the force, and that relationship had ebbed to a considerable extent. More recently, it’d been Duke Denny and Julie Masters, with heavy emphasis on the latter—so, to have described Lacey Lockington as outgoing would have been a misrepresentation of the coarsest variety, because cultivating new friends had never been particularly important to Lockington—he’d concentrated on keeping his old ones.

He’d stopped to pick up a bottle of Martell’s cognac, his course clear—he’d read a few chapters of
Tom Sawyer,
it’d be one of those cozy hearthside evenings, and that’d been the way it’d begun. He’d assembled a liver sausage, sweet pickle, and mayonaise sandwich, devouring it while listening to the six o’clock radio news, then he’d killed the radio, read half a dozen chapters of
Tom Sawyer,
drunk at least that many double hookers of Martell’s cognac, and fallen sound asleep in his overstuffed chair, a warm sensation of well-being immersing him.

He’d awakened, startled by the urgently repetitious ringing of his doorbell. He’d peered groggily at his watch—11:30. He’d started to get to his feet, learning that his left leg had gone to sleep, and he’d hobbled to the door, opening it to admit a nattily attired Duke Denny—white western Stetson, fur-trimmed range-rider’s cowhide jacket, sharply creased brown corduroy slacks tucked neatly into expensive short-topped boots. Denny’s cheeks had been rosy and he’d been rubbing his hands briskly together. He’d said, “Colder than a witch’s tit out there!
”

Lockington had stared at Denny. He’d said, “Well, Jesus Christ, if it ain’t the fucking Lone Ranger!
”

Denny hadn’t smiled.

Lockington had said, “Called you this afternoon, here you come tonight.” He’d limped back to the overstuffed chair, collapsing into it, flexing his tingling left leg, gritting his teeth at the avalanche of needles he’d stirred up. He’d growled, “Care for a drink?
”

Denny had shaken his head, sitting on the arm of the sofa, crossing his legs, balancing his white Stetson precariously on his knee. His face had been drawn, his lips taut, his voice sombre. He’d said, “Lacey, I—uhh–h–h—well, I was at the Cook County morgue a little over an hour ago.
”

Lockington had said, “Yeah, Moose Katzenbach told me that you’d be going by there. Is that where you found your missing person?
”

Denny had said, “No—Cooney Richards was on duty and we checked every drawer in the joint. Remember Cooney Richards?
”

Lockington had thought about it. He’d said, “Yeah, vaguely.
”

“
Well, Lacey—you see—there’s something—something you’re gonna have to know.
”

Lockington had peered at his ex-partner. Duke Denny had been wound tighter than a voodoo drum. “You sure you can’t use a drink?
”

Denny had thrown up both hands defensively. “Not this time, partner! Look—well, God Almighty, Lacey—I just don’t know how to tell you this!
”

The electricity had gone out of Lockington’s leg. He’d said, “Okay, Duke, so you need money—it happens to all of us. I got something like seventy-five bucks if it’ll help.
”

“
No money, Lacey—that ain’t it, but thanks a bunch anyway—you see, when I was at the morgue, talking to Cooney Richards, they brought a girl in—dead of knife wounds.
”

Lockington had shrugged. It’d been a stiff shrug. He’d said, “Hispanic—switchblade—Humboldt Park area—right?” He’d said it to span the gap between where they’d been and wherever the hell Duke Denny had been struggling to get to, realizing that all was not well with his old sidekick.

Denny had been staring at the floor with an intensity that had threatened to drill smoking holes in it. Leadenly, he’d said, “No—she was Caucasian, and—well, I watched Cooney Richards type out her form—her driver’s license showed Des Plaines as her address—her name—her name—Good
God,
Lacey, her name was
Julie Masters
!”

The sound of the office door banging shut straightened him in the swivel chair. The visitor was a burly man who wore a snap-brimmed pearl-gray straw hat, brown suede sports jacket, white shirt with its top three buttons open, black slacks, and tan loafers. The hat was bent out of shape, the coat was sweat-stained, the shirt was wilted, the slacks needed pressing, the loafers were badly scuffed—he wasn’t in Duke Denny’s sartorial league. Quick, intelligent, beady eyes were imbedded in a red-veined face, his clefted, protruding jaw could have been hacked from a block of granite, and his name was Curtin—Lieutenant Buck Curtin. They knew each other, but only from a distance—they’d never worked together, but over the years they’d waved or nodded on a few occasions.

Curtin was out of homicide on South State Street—he didn’t handle narcotics or vice or rape or theft as Lockington had—Curtin was a trouble-shooter, homicides and homicides only, working one case or two or three, whatever the demand for his considerable talents. He was a no-nonsense cop, canny, abrasive, tough, and when he smiled he was dangerous. He’d busted the headline Sister Rosetta murders ten months earlier and several less-publicized cases before and since. He was short-fused and violent—Lockington had it on reliable authority that he’d whaled a surly young hood in the mouth with a tire iron and that the kid’s front teeth had gone through the upper lip before they’d bounced on the sidewalk. Buck Curtin was a two-fisted cop in a two-fisted town, and when the going got sticky down at Homicide, Curtin was the man they whistled for.

He dropped his battered straw hat in the middle of the desk, extending a thick-fingered hand to Lockington. Lockington shook it briefly. Curtin parked one beefy buttock on a corner of the desk, helping himself to one of Lockington’s cigarettes, lighting it, inhaling deeply—Lockington knew the routine—violate hell out of the territorial imperitative, establish yourself as top dog. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. With Lockington it didn’t. Curtin said, “Whaddaya say, Lacey?”

Lockington said, “Save your money.”

Curtin said, “Sorry to hear about your woman. February, wasn’t it?”

Lockington said, “Yeah—February.”

Curtin said, “I didn’t draw that one.”

“No, Homan and Theodore got it.”

“You look into it at all?”

“Not much—I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll recognize it when it goes by.”

Curtin nodded, dragging deeply on his cigarette. “I’d heard that you’d gone into private investigations, but I didn’t believe it.”

“You’d heard? From whom?”

“I forget—word gets around.”

“Why didn’t you believe it?”

“Because you don’t got no P.I. license.”

“Don’t need one—I’m just answering the phone for Duke Denny until he gets back from Cleveland. You remember Duke Denny—he was my partner a few years back.”

“Yeah, I rember Duke Denny—cunt-crazy, shifty bastard.”

“And one helluva cop.”

Curtin shrugged, changing subjects. “Don’t look too good for you at that hearing, Lacey. When they gonna hold it?”

“No idea—maybe three, four weeks—you know the route.”

Curtin was silent for a moment, sizing Lockington up. Then he said, “Uhh–h–h, Lacey, you ain’t carrying a gun, are you?”

Lockington flipped open his jacket. “You see a gun?”

“Not from here.”

“Well, that’s as close as you’re gonna get. Why the question?”

“Just curious—didn’t wanta rile you if you were. Holy Christ, four guys in about a week, wasn’t it? Not bad, baby, not
bad
!” He snickered.

Lockington leaned back in the swivel chair, stretching, locking his hands behind his head. He said, “Looky, you aren’t here to discuss old news.”

“No, now that you mention it, I dropped in on account of I figured you could probably help me clear up a little matter.”

“Such as?”

“Such as your whereabouts on the night of Wednesday, August 22.”

Lockington frowned. “I’d have to think on that one. What time of night are we talking about?”

“Well, let’s see now—I’d say between two ayem and maybe four.”

“I’m usually home in bed at that hour.”

“Usually?”

“That’s right. Usually.”

“‘Usually’ would imply that there’ve been exceptions.”

“Yes, wouldn’t it, though?”

“To your being home in bed between two and four in the morning?”

“To my being anywhere at any time.”

“Which indicates you got a playmate.”

“We won’t get into that.”

“Maybe we should.”

“Maybe we
shouldn’t.
”

“I think we
should.
”

“All right, we
should,
but we ain’t
gonna
—turn the fucking page.”

Curtin eased up, grinning to bare crooked tobacco-stained teeth. “Okay, okay, Lacey, cool it. So tell me about the night of August 22—it was the night we had that God-awful rain storm.”

“On that night I was home—all day and all night—I wiped out a bottle and a half of Old Anchor Chain.”

“All by
yourself
?”

“All by myself.”

“What was the occasion?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

Curtin whistled. “They mix Old Anchor in rusty locomotive boilers!”

Lockington didn’t say anything. He didn’t like Curtin and he didn’t swap humorous asides with people he didn’t like.

Curtin hung on like a pit bull terrier. “Anybody who’d verify your being home all night on the twenty-second?”

“Duke Denny phoned me at 2:30 in the morning.”

“What for?”

“To invite me to dinner.”

“Who’d believe Duke Denny? How about
last
night?”

“I’ll bite. How
about
last night?”

“Where were you—same hours—2:00 to 4:00 approximately.”

“Again, home in bed.”

“Old Anchor Chain?”

“Martell’s cognac.”

“Alone?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Somebody’ll back that up?”

“If need be.”

“Your playmate?”

Lockington got to his feet, kicking the swivel chair against the wall. “All right, Curtin, let’s have it! What’s on your mind?”

“Aw, don’t get pissed, Lacey—it’s been a bum morning—I keep drawing blanks. Ever have one of those mornings?”

“Seven every week. Now, why don’t you just run along home?”

Curtin slid from the corner of the desk, lifting another cigarette from Lockington’s pack, tucking it behind his ear. He said, “See you around.”

Lockington said, “Not if I see you first.”

Curtin winked. “You won’t—they never do.” He went out, pleasing Lockington no end.

Moose Katzenbach checked in at noon on the dot, flipping his hat at the rickety clothes tree, missing, leaving the hat on the floor. He said, “I never
have
hit that sonofabitch—not even
once
!”

Lockington said, “Try not to lose any sleep over it.”

Moose said, “Hey, they got beef stew for the special at Dugan’s Cafeteria—good stuff.”

“No beef stew—you never know what they put in that stuff. I know a guy who ordered beef stew and found an old wedding ring.”

“Lucky. He could have hocked it.”

“He did—right after he got it off the finger.”

Moose said, “Say, Lacey, a bunch of the
Morning Sentinel
people have lunch at Dugan’s, and I heard them talking—one of the women who used to write that
Stella on State Street
column was found dead.”