I drove home with the windows down to the blessings of the heat and humidity, and chided myself for letting The Beef get to me. The Beef was a nobody now, a has-been, at least as far as his professional career was concerned. But in the bar he haunts, he’s the chief spook. And what was that business today? Just to prove he’s still cock of the walk when Jimmy’s not around? I wondered briefly how Kira could tolerate him. Or any one of us, for that matter.
Home was an apartment above a music store in the West End. That sounds quaint, but quaint it ain’t. The apartment itself is okay, but the police should license the muggers in my neighborhood. Also, just three blocks away, women hook on Washington. Anyone picturing tall gals with legs to die for and a gleam in their eye for some schmuck, well, all I can say is they should save their spunk for the centerfold girls. Some of the prosties, I know, support drug habits. Others are welfare moms from the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Development, just trying to make ends meet. Occasionally, boys, probably runaways, show up. Whatever the market will bear. Single men, married men, older men with a thing for little boys. The police love to bust those pervs especially. It all gets pretty sick at night. By day, though, you’d never know. Washington’s what passes for our garment district. Shoe sellers, jewelers. Walk down there and you hear the inflected patter of Jewish immigrants, the jingle of silver coins, and the cha-ching of cash drawers crunching down on their feed.
As I opened the door to my apartment, I could hear the jazz trio practicing downstairs. One is the owner of the music store, the other two, I think, are brothers. Nice looking colored guys who blow mellow jazz, which is all right with me, till it verges on bebop noise.
One night, I went downstairs to listen to them jam. They invited me to a back room afterwards for gin and funny cigarettes. I tried to pass off a shallow inhale of the joint, but the resonance of their music, their easy, joshing speech, and the smoke that filled the back room, all made me pretty high. Of course, the gin helped it along. Later, I went back upstairs, getting a kick out of each step I missed along the way, and fried up a batch of eggs. I added spoonfuls of grape jelly to the mix, which was hilarious. I enjoyed the hell out of them. It was a good night, but one I don’t mean to repeat. I’d just as soon stick with my world-pitching-sideways gin and scotch.
But tonight, their tunes wouldn’t blend with my budding headache. The greasy hamburger still sat hard in my gut. How long was an intestinal guess. I took a shower and peeled an orange, standing white I ate. After I finished, I glanced over at my wall clock: five after seven. I’d told Mrs. Hanady I’d call around eight. So, that gave me very little time to scope out her place.
As I rolled onto Route 40 west, I couldn’t help but notice the brilliant sky washed blue by the passing storm. A high upsweep of clouds fading into orange and pink made me think of going west when I was a kid, the one time my father took me on a sales trip. I shook my head at the memory and concentrated on the traffic. I rolled down the window and had a smoke. Maybe Miss Brennan was right. Maybe I’d find the estate lit up with little Rachel laughing and spinning on the lawn in a bright pink dress, mom and dad sipping tall drinks on lounge chairs, fingers entwined, expressions of marital bliss on their faces. Experience told me otherwise. More than likely, I’d likely see rookie cops parked in plain view.
My suspicions were confirmed when I pulled off the outer road and onto the blacktop driveway of the Hanady estate. At the top of the hill, an unmarked car sat, running lights on, pointed towards the house, which was just visible behind a grove of oaks. One figure was silhouetted in the car. Officer Frederick most likely. I let the Chevy roll back down the driveway in neutral until I hit the outer road, then pushed in the clutch and slowly eased the car a hundred yards down and parked on the gravel shoulder. The trailhead to a nature preserve was right across the road. Convenient.
Before I got out of the car, I assessed the woody incline. Time to go natural. I grabbed my binoculars from the glove box. I also took out my .38. I didn’t expect to need it, but experience had taught me that it was better to have it and not need it.
The hike through the woods wasn’t too bad. It was too early in the year for crickets, but robins kept the treetops lively, and a late woodpecker bitched at me before flying out of view. After about five minutes, I could see a clearing in the twilight. To my right I could make out the break where the driveway stretched up. There, Officer Frederick’s car sat, a football field away. I caught chatter from his car radio. Sure didn’t sound like a police dispatcher. More like Harry Carey doing play-by-play. Frederick sure knows how to be inconspicuous. Idiot. Even the maid would get wise to his presence in a heartbeat.
I skirted around to the back of the house along the tree edge. This gave me a nice panoramic view. There was the neat lawn, bordered by flower beds with a few spent irises nodding off. The house was a big stone affair with multiple chimneys. Atop one was a plaster mock-up of a stork in a giant nest feeding its young. Tall French doors opened onto a covered porch and ran the length of one side of the mansion. And although I couldn’t see it, I imagined the walkway led onto a well-furnished brick patio. There were only two lights on in the upstairs window, and one downstairs, in what looked like the kitchen. In back was a separate garage, done up in the same stone, all three doors closed. One of the perks of money. Tom Hanady didn’t have to share his garage, like I did. No one to open doors too wide and scratch your car’s finish, or park right on top of you so you had to slide your ass into the driver’s seat, while resisting the urge to key the hell out of your neighbor’s car’s own shabby exterior.
I stepped out of the treeline in the gathering dark and squatted in the hedges. Through my binoculars, I saw the stove through the kitchen window. Something was cooking. A woman, portly, grandmotherly, came briefly into view. She stirred complacently for a minute. I trained the binoculars from her image up to the lighted windows on the second floor. One was covered by a shade. The other revealed books lined up in shelves, what might be a library, I supposed. Aside from the cook, there was no other movement for about twenty minutes. Then I thought I caught a movement in the shadow of the house. I stayed still, but nothing changed. Maybe the plaster stork flew off the top of the chimney to go on night patrol. A dog barked somewhere.
As I got up and walked along the treeline, staying out of any ambient light, the chatter of the baseball announcer from Frederick’s radio came through clearer. Moron, I thought, do you not know the meaning of ‘undercover’? By this time, though, it was too dark to see inside his car. I paused just then, as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It felt like the prickles of a too-close lightning strike. Then, I felt the pressure of cold, hard metal against my skull. Moron, I told myself.
“Be cool. And don’t move a inch,” a deep voice commanded.
I stood stock still, arms at my sides, binoculars around my neck. My .38 may as well have been a mile away in a dark ravine, for all the good it did inside my coat pocket.
“Now. I’m gonna talk to you slow, so you understand. Get me?”
I nodded with utmost care.The resonant voice came from what seemed three feet above my head. I’d never been accosted by a giant.
“Good. Raise your arms and lock your fingers behind your head like you ’bout to do jumpin’ jacks. Only don’t do none."
Funny guy.Wary of a hair-trigger, I slowly raised my hands to the back of my head. Without moving the gun, he pressed it hard against my skull, while he patted me down. Rather, I felt a sizeable hand beat my torso and slap my legs. In a split second, I was relieved of my gun and wallet. Next came the binoculars.
A flashlight clicked on. The gun was still steady against my head. Nimble guy.
He chuckled. “A private dick, huh?” Wow. Smart guy. Guess the crooks watch police shows, too. “All right, Mr. Darvis.” His tone and articulation both changed. “Take a step forward and then turn around reeeal slow.”
The barrel left the back of my head, and just for an instant, I thought about some fancy moves. But I was smart enough to see who—or what—I was up against first.
The night has eyes, they say. This hulking manifestation of night also had a big grin full of moon-white teeth. The man was indeed a giant. Six ten easy. His shoulders would make a linebacker weep. His chest was broad, covered in a tight black material. His pants were black, too, and his clown-sized shoes disappeared into the inky grass.
“Look me in the eye.”
I did. He continued to grin. “What say we take a little walk up to the house?”
With my hands still on top of my head, I jerked my head sideways. “How about Johnny Law over there?”
“We won’t be needing to disturb him. C’mon. You walk in front of me, and you can be sure I’ll be right behind you.”
I didn’t doubt that. I started up the hill towards the house. “He’ll see us, you know.”
“Naw. I took care of that.”
That gave me my first chill. “Mrs. Hanady at home?”
“Now, what business is that of yours?”
“She hired me this morning. To see about recovering her daughter, Rachel.”
“Aw, isn’t that nice?”
Pissing off a giant with a gun in my back wasn’t too smart. So, I decided to shut up. For a big guy, I barely heard him behind me as we came up to the patio.
“Stop here,” he said. He let me feel the gun again, this time in the small of my back. “Turn towards the garage in back.”
Up close, the garage was a house in its own right. It had an upper floor—like a carriage house—that is, if your carriage was a limousine and you had three of them.
“Nice place. You live here?” I asked.
The giant made no reply. Instead, he steered me towards a door to the left of the garage doors.
“Open it,” he commanded.
I did. Ahead of me, a bleakly-lit staircase led to a landing. The hoss of a man shoved the gun harder into my back and said to march up the stairs. Once on the landing, I had thoughts of making a mad leap over the rail, or turning to plant a few well-aimed kicks at my escort’s groin. That would have been a good way to die. And I wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, I continued up three more steps. Ahead of me, at the end of the hallway was a big window. Three doors lined the way between me and that only other escape: a plunge through glass to the bricks below.
The giant stopped me right before we got to the first door and told me to face the wall. He walked around me, his gun moving along the small of my back, but then pressing hard into my kidney. When he was alongside me and the door, he removed the gun and leveled it at my midsection. He kept grinning. Now I could see him a little better, thanks to the faux-torchlight near his head. As he knocked on the first door—three times, pause, three more times—his eyes never left my face. And mine never left his. I was a little shocked to see some kind of patterned scarring on his cheeks. The cuts looked deliberate, like tattoos. His hair was neatly kept in little nubs atop his head. And the gun—a beaut of a .45, shining, black. My own confiscated gun and wallet were nowhere in sight, but he had the binoculars hanging rather sportingly from one shoulder. From inside the door, a muffled voice said, “Come in, Meeki.” Meeki? Nothing meek about this guy.
Meeki opened the door and gestured for me to enter first. With his gentlemanly wave, I might have been going to see a man about a loan.
Two dimly lit, pale orange shades, ensconced on the wall, gave the room a hunting club intimacy. Typical dark oak panelling. A modest wood desk, fronted by two dark leather chairs. A man reclined in the chair behind the desk. No mistaking it, even in this light: Thomas Hanady.
He looked up at me a little surprised. He relaxed when he saw Meeki looming over my shoulder, gun in his massive grip. Guys who relax with guns pointed at people have never been my type.
“Who are you?” Hanady spoke with a soft, almost adolescent voice.
“Ed Darvis. I’m a private investigator. Your friend here found me outside.”
“Snooping around, Mr. Hanady,” Meeki cut in. He held up my gun, wallet, and binoculars in one of his big mitts.
“Set those on the desk, Meeki. And keep our Mr. Darvis here covered.”
Meeki complied. Hanady picked up the gun, held it up and sighted it directly at me. And then smiled. I didn’t. He lowered the gun, opened the chamber, emptied the rounds, and dropped them into his desk drawer. He set the gun back down. Then he opened my wallet. His smile had disappeared.
“So, you are a private investigator, Mr. Darvis. And what brings you all the way out to my humble home?” He picked up the binoculars and peered at me through the long end. His smile reappeared. Sweet man, my ass.
“Your wife. She hired me this morning. After your daughter disappeared.”
If Hanady was ruffled by this, he didn’t show it.
“She hasn’t disappeared. She’s quite safe.” He set the binoculars down. “I love my daughter.”
“How about your wife?”
His face hardened. “That’s none of your business.”
I took that as a no. “Mr. Hanady, I was hired to help your wife find her daughter. If she’s safe, that’s good enough for me. But, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see her myself.”
“No can do. She’s not here.”
“And your wife?”
“In the house, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
He stood up. “I’ll ask the questions here, fuckhead.” That voice. A warbly tenor trying to sound hard. I began to feel like I was getting reprimanded by a spoiled teenager.
“Hoss, here … I mean Meeki is your bodyguard, I … gather.” I jerked my thumb toward the bozo standing alongside me, but didn’t look at him. Instead, I kept my gaze on Hanady. I squinted my eyes and pinched my lips into a smile. More of a grimace, really. Didn’t want the son-of-a-bitch thinking I was a pantywaste.
Hanady jerked his hand to his face and clawed at his lower jaw, like a grapple. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to control his temper, or if he was thinking of a lively comeback. Eventually, he lowered his hand and his creepy smile reappeared.
“He looks after my entire family. And he’s quite good,” he added with emphasis.
“Good help is so important these days.”
“Isn’t it? Well, I think we’re through here. I’ll have my wife phone you in the morning. Meeki—”
“Why don’t I just talk to her now? Since I’m out here and all.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Darvis. You’ve already overstayed your unwelcome.”
“Not hardly. Can I get a drink for the road? Long way back to the city, you know.”
Hanady hesitated. His youthfulness arose in a flush. My guess was he thought he could put a little muscle on me and clear me out.
“I’m afraid I don’t drink, Mr. Darvis.”
“That’s funny, because your wife said—”
“You sure seem to know us well.” He must have given some signal to Meeki, which I missed. Just as I began to swell with professional pride, and was about to brag, when the back of my head exploded in pain, the room went sideways, and I felt my chin hit the desk. The last thing I remember is Hanady’s face leering at me as he got up onto the desk, then his fist rearing back. Then it was lights out.