The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One (22 page)

Lockington hung up, grinning. He rather liked Jack Slifka. Jack would probably be a good man to get drunk with.

He slipped his .38 police special into its shoulder holster, dropped them into a brown paper bag, tucked them into the back seat of the Pontiac, and wheeled south to Belmont Avenue, east to the Outer Drive, then south along the lakefront. Lake Michigan was royal blue, whitecapped, sparkling in the sun, probably Chicago’s last decent possession, and Chicago was poisoning it at a twenty-four-hour-per-day clip. He tooled the Catalina into North Michigan Avenue, checking building numbers out of the corner of his eye. If you want to find out what’s happening in a hotel or condominium, go to the hired help, the maids, the janitors. 814 North Michigan Avenue was swank—under-the-building parking, canopied entrance, uniformed doorman, balconies second-floor to top, beautifully landscaped, the whole shot, and the rent would be staggering—more than likely the reason for Erika Elwood’s bailing out to take a small house in the western boondocks. She was probably making a husky buck grinding out the Stella Starbright column—fifty, maybe sixty grand a year, Lockington figured, but why spend half of it just to live on the Gold Coast? Prestige is not edible.

He swung the raggedy-assed Pontiac up the ramp and down into the underground garage, there to be confronted by the parking attendant, a fat woman clad in brown uniform and visored cap, who threw crossed arms in front of her face, a defensive gesture peculiar to those receiving visitations of demons. She screeched, “Hold it,
hold
it, God damn it to hell,
HOLD
it!”

Lockington had stopped at first glimpse of her. He poked his head through the window. “He said, “Ma’am, don’t holler like that—I
am
holding it!”

She came snorting around the left front fender of the car like a mama rhino around a fever tree, panting, pointing an accusing finger at Lockington. “You fool, you nearly ran me down—my God, you were driving fifty miles an hour!”

“Ma’am, this vehicle won’t
go
fifty miles an hour.”

Her hands went to her hips, western gunslinger style. “And what’s more, you don’t even
live
here!”

Lockington nodded. “
I
know that. How did
you
know that?”

“Simple! No tenant of this building would get caught dead in that stack of scrap iron! There ain’t no visitors’ parking in the garage, so take it on the duffy, mister!”

“Okay, but one question, please. Has anyone come around asking about Erika Elwood?”

“Erika Elwood—the newspaper writer?”

“You got it.”

“She moved—must be a month now.”

“Would the doorman be available?”

“For
what
? He don’t speak English—he’s from Taiwan.” Lockington shrugged resignedly. He’d drawn a blank, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. The attendant was studying him with narrowed eyes. She hissed, “Wait a minute—wait a
minute
!” She placed her hands on the roof of the old Catalina, lowering her head to the level of Lockington’s, her voice to the level of a funeral director’s. She said, “You’re a goddam
detective,
ain’t you?”

Lockington said, “No, I’m a discus thrower.”

“Don’t pull my leg, you rascal—this junk heap is just a
front
—you probably got a Mercedes at home! I know the signs, junior—I read all them detective books—got one right here!” From her jacket pocket she whipped a paperback copy of
Lust is the Reaper
by Judd Hamelwicz, holding it up for Lockington’s approval. She said, “Helluva yarn, so far!” Her credentials having been presented, she whispered, “You city, county, state, Federal, or private?”

Lockington whispered, “Private—private as hell.”

She whispered, “No point in my asking your name, is there?”

Lockington whispered, “None that comes readily to mind.”

She whispered, “You’re incognito, of course—nobody ever dresses that crummy unless they’re incognito.”

Lockington whispered, “Yes, incognito.”

She whispered, “Why are we whispering?”

Lockington said, “Damned if I know.”

“Whatcha working on—serial murders, jewel heist, blackmail?”

“Sorry, can’t talk about it—not just yet.”

“That makes it a national security thing—Chuck Carey couldn’t talk about it, either.”

“Chuck Carey?”

“In
Pentagon Hexagon
—third book in the series—when he smashed that terrorist gang—Chuck Carey, the real suave private investigator from New England.”

Lockington said, “I used to know a guy named Carey, only he was from Massachusetts.”

“I get the impression you ain’t real suave.”

“Used to be, before I caught the mumps.”

“Say, if I hear or see anything that got to do with this Erika Elwood, I could give you a jingle. Is she dangerous?”

“She has her moments.”

“My name’s Ada Phelps.”

“Mine’s Lockington. At the moment I’m operating out of Classic Investigations on West Randolph—it’s in the book.”

It’d been a matter of casting his bread upon the waters. Besides that, he had to find a men’s room. Within five minutes, preferably less.

He took the Pontiac into the garage, pulling to the guardrail between a black Cadillac convertible and a fire-engine-red Jaguar, one of those V-12 jobs that he’d read about. He backed out of the stall, cut sharply to avoid a baby blue Lincoln Town Car parked directly behind him, and zipped onto North Michigan Avenue, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He turned west on Chicago Avenue, stopping at a plush little bar called “Honolulu Harry’s.” He ordered a Martell’s cognac, hit the lavatory, gulped the cognac on his way out, spurning the water wash. He threaded his way through Loop noonday traffic to the Randolph Street parking lot, hiking to the alley north of the agency, his head threatening to explode like a Fourth of July starburst, suddenly seeing things from an entirely different angle, a dozen possibilities swarming through his recently clogged mental passages, clamoring for attention like a litter of hungry puppies.

He slowed his hurried gait in the alley, climbing the rickety wooden stairs to hammer on the steel rear door of the Polack’s gun shop. In a few seconds it opened and the Polack said, “You again! Look, Lacey, this ain’t no public fucking thoroughfare!”

Lockington brushed him to one side, stepping in. He said, “You happen to have a Repentino-Morté Black Mamba Mark III?”

The Polack said, “How many you want?”

“One should suffice.”

“You got four-hundred-ninety-five dollars plus tax?”

Lockington said, “I got a check book.”

“So do a whole bunch of con artists.”

“I could show you my balance page.”

“What’s your balance?”

“One-thousand-seven dollars and change.”

The Polack shrugged. “Any sonafabitch who got only a grand just got to be an honest man.” He slammed the steel door, locking it, heading for the counter.

Lockington said, “You got a small machinist’s file?”

“For a sawbuck, sure, I got a small machinist’s file. What you want with a goddam machinist’s file?”

“I’m gonna file notches in the handle of my brand-new Repentino-Morté Black Mamba Mark III.”

“What for? You ain’t shot nobody with it yet.”

“The day is young.”

The Polack grinned, plunking a slender, oblong mahogany box on the glass counter top, popping a brass latch, flipping the lid. The Repentino-Morté glittered coldly on its bed of red velvet, a rhapsody in blue steel. The Polack shoved an Illinois firearms form at him. “You’re a cop—just sign it and I’ll fill it in later.”

Lockington found his ballpoint and signed it.

The Polack said, “You want me to load this thing?”

Lockington said, “Why not? It don’t make no noise if it ain’t loaded.”

The Polack ejected the clip and got busy. He said, “What happened—you wear your .38 out?”

“Naw, I left it in the car—too much trouble to go back and get it.”

Lockington came down the vestibule stairway from the gunshop, entering the agency office to place the Repentino-Morté box on the desk. Moose Katzenbach was seated in the client’s chair, glancing up, folding his copy of the Chicago
Morning Sentinel
. He said, “I just finished reading
Stella on State Street
. Guess what?”

“Guessing what is for suckers.”

“Well, Stella Starbright says that the Salvation Army is a neo-Nazi organization with plans that would make your fucking blood run cold.”

Lockington said, “Jesus, I wonder who cranked
that
one up.”

Moose said, “What’s in the pretty box?”

“Either a five-hundred-dollar insurance policy, or a five-hundred-dollar mistake.”

Moose opened the box and his eyes bulged. “Holy Christ, it’s a Black Mamba, ain’t it? Five hundred fish—wish I could afford one!”

Lockington said, “The feeling’s mutual. Did Grayson have fifty bucks’ worth?”

“I don’t know if it’s worth fifty, but you were looking for a parallel and you just got one.”

Lockington sprawled in the swivel chair, putting a match to a crumpled Marlboro. He said, “Hit me easy, I got a bad case of bursitis.”

“Eleanor Fisher and Connie Carruthers were adopted kids.”

Lockington nodded. He said, “It’s worth fifty.”

Moose dragged out his dilapidated paper notebook. “Father unknown in both cases.”

Lockington said, “Same mother.”

“Yeah, same mother—woman named Mabel Hammerschmidt. You already knew that?”

“I didn’t know her name was Mabel Hammerschmidt.”

“‘Mabel Hammerschmidt’ don’t mean nothing to me.”

“No, because that was probably her real name.”

“Well, sure, what
else?
You think maybe she had
two
names?”

“If she’s who she
could
be, she could have had a dozen names.”

“Yeah, and if she’s who she
could
be,
one
of ’em might be Rebecca of fucking Sunnybrook Farm! What’s
that
supposed to mean—‘If she’s who she
could
be’?”

The phone rang and Lockington said, “That’ll be Duke, probably.” It wasn’t Duke, it was a woman. She said, “Classic Investigations?”

Lockington said, “Yes, ma’am, may I be of service?”

“Say, are you the guy what was here at 814 North Michigan Avenue half an hour ago?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, Mr. Lockington, this is Ada Phelps.”

“Yes, Ada. Do you have something of interest?”

“Yeah—you’re being tailed!”

“Is that right?”

“You bet! I ran up the ramp to wave so-long, and there was this car parked down the block, headed south. The moment you hit the street, it came outta the chute, peeling rubber! It closed in tight behind you! You didn’t
see
it?”

“If I did, I forgot it.”

“Uh–huh, well, you see, I read all these private detective novels, and I’m hep—I know the
signs
!”

“Yes, you may have mentioned that. Man or woman driver?”

“Man—I didn’t get a good look at him, but he was in a new white Buick Regal. You turned west on Chicago Avenue, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, he was right on your bumper, and I got his
license number
!”

“Good girl!” He was hoping that Ada Phelps wouldn’t become a problem, at the moment there wasn’t room for a 200 pound groupie, but he’d humor her and clear the line for Duke’s call. He jotted the license number she gave him on the desk pad, thanked her, promised to take her to dinner one of these evenings, and hung up, continuing to scribble, tearing the sheet from the pad, pushing it across the desk to Moose, following it with five ten-dollar bills. He said, “Have Grayson run these through the grinder.”

“When?”

“
Yesterday
—there may be a crack in the kettle! And for kicks, check out that license number. Incidentally, Buck Curtin’s still out there.”

“Think he’ll fuck up the detail?”

“Probably not—it’s me he’s keeping tabs on.”

“Okay if I grab a sandwich?”

“Make it on the fly—you better stay out of that Greek joint across the street—it may be in a bind with the Health Department.”

Lockington opened his Thursday afternoon think session by throwing LAON out of the ball game. LAON, if there
was
such an outfit, came across as a group of foaming-at-the-mouth crusaders, and LAON would have killed and bragged about it, because if there is anything a foaming-at-the-mouth crusader can stand a lot of, it’s attention. And if Chicago’s media had ignored the story, LAON would have passed out handbills or thrown leaflets from a blimp. It hadn’t happened. Somebody was pulling Erika Elwood’s lovely leg.

It was Lockington’s first brush with anything resembling a serial murders case but, inexperienced as he was in such matters, he knew that there are just two types of chain killers—those that have motives, and those that don’t, and he knew that the trick to apprehending either lies in being able to determine which is which. The Stella Starbright murders weren’t of the thrill kill variety—they reeked of motive. On the average, premeditated murder motives amount to three—revenge, lust, and a yen for profit. So, if it was revenge, what was being avenged? And do you square an old grievance with a big city newspaper by killing its ex-columnists and its chief attorney? More than likely, you plant a bomb in its press room. Lockington crossed revenge from the motive list.

The lust angle was porous. Had Eleanor Fisher and Connie Carruthers jilted the same man? Erika Elwood had intimated that Gordon Fisher was ambisextrous—did that indicate that one of Fisher’s pansy suitors had eliminated Fisher’s wife and a woman with whom he may have passed the time of day, then knocked off Fisher for good measure? Lockington shook his head. No way. Lust was out.

The motive was
money
—it
had
to be. Somewhere, somebody entertained serious designs on Max Jarvis’s fifty million dollar bank account, and—the telephone rang, scrambling Lockington’s thoughts. He glanced at his watch. The time was 1:55. The voice on the other end of the line was familiar.

“Dammit, Lacey, where the hell were you last night? I tried to call you clear up until midnight!”