52 Pickup by Elmore Leonard
Somebody said, "Mr. Mitchell, you better get back. That gas tank's liable to go."
Next to him, John Koliba said, "It'd gone by now. Look, see the pieces of glass on the seat? Down in the springs. I bet you anything it was a bottle of gasoline exploded," Koliba grinned, his little eyes squinting. "I hope it was lead-free gas, uh? Don't want to pollute the air."
Right away he thought maybe he shouldn't have said it. Mitchell didn't smile or seem to think it was funny. He was looking at something he was holding in his hand.
"What's 'at?" Koliba said. "Something you found?"
Mitchell opened his hand to show him the metal part, the switch actuator housing. "Nothing. Piece of scrap."
"I thought maybe it was something you found in the car." Koliba watched Mitchell turn to walk away. "You gonna call the cops?"
"I don't know, I'll think about it," Mitchell said.
He walked back toward the plant. Koliba watched him toss the scrapped part in the air about a foot or so and catch it in one hand, then toss it up again and catch it, playing with it. His car was burned up and he didn't seem to think anything about it. Christ, I'd have the cops here, Koliba was thinking. Not the local cops, the goddamn FB fucking I, they'd take the broken glass or prints or something and pin the son of a bitch. Koliba heard the sirens then, out on the road coming this way. He looked over toward the drive with renewed interest to watch the fire engines arrive.
At six o'clock, sitting in his office with the Hi-Sheen Tuffy-Hyde attache case on the desk in front of him, Mitchell called his home.
The phone rang seven, eight, nine times. He was about to hang up when he heard his wife's voice say hello.
"Hi. You sound like you've been sleeping."
There was a long pause before she said yes, she'd taken a nap and just woke up.
"No tennis today--how come?"
There was a pause again. "I didn't feel like it," her voice said. "I guess I was tired."
"From what?"
"I don't know. Working around the house. I guess."
He said, "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
Maybe she was, but she sounded funny. He said, "The reason I called--I won't be home tonight. For two reasons. First I've got to work on something, a design, and I don't know how long it's going to take me. Maybe all night, or longer. And, I don't have a car. It's out of commission and I won't be able to get another one from the leasing place until tomorrow. I'll tell you about that later. The main thing, I'll be in my office or in Engineering--you've got that extension in your book--so if you need me for anything, be sure and call."
There was a silence on the other end of the line.
"Barbara?"
"Yes. I'm here."
"What's the matter? Don't you feel good?"
"I'm fine really. Just a second."
He waited several moments before she came on again.
"What time will you be home tomorrow?"
"I guess the usual. If the car isn't delivered, I'll get a ride with somebody. So I'll see you then." He paused before saying, "Barbara, I miss you."
The lifeless voice said, "I miss you too. God, I miss you." And hung up.
Mitchell replaced the receiver and sat with his hand still holding it, hearing her words and the voice he barely recognized. She hadn't said goodbye or given him a chance to say it. He thought about her, picturing her by the telephone in the kitchen, though she was probably in the bedroom if she had been taking a nap. He couldn't imagine her sleeping this late in the afternoon.
Well, he'd see her tomorrow. Or he could call later. Right now he'd better put his design hat on and get to it. He took the new attache case and the switch actuator he'd fished out of the trash bin, went into the drafting room of the Engineering Department and turned on the fluorescent lights that always seemed brighter and colder at night, with no one else in the room.
Leo got stopped by the Royal Oak Police coming across Ten Mile Road. He was sure the cop was going to make him get out and walk a line and stand on one foot and try and pick up a quarter--that's it, in for a breath test; he'd blow a twenty, the shape he was in, and spend the night in the tank. But the cop didn't make him get out. Maybe his luck was turning. The cop asked him for his operator's license and registration and asked him where he was going. Leo said he was going home. He said he had to go to the bathroom something awful and maybe that's why he was hurrying a little. He probably looked like he was in pain. He had used the bathroom excuse he'd learned from somebody a few times and sometimes it worked. Even cops had to go to the bathroom and unless the cop was sadistic he'd understand. This cop didn't waste a lot of time giving him the speech on safety and how they were just trying to keep people alive or any of that shit. He gave Leo a ticket for thirteen miles over the limit and told him to stop at the next gas station.
The plan: he was going to go home and pack a few things, his new double-knit houndstooth check, stop by the studio, get whatever dough was in the box, lock the place up and move to a motel, maybe out around Pontiac somewhere, contact Mitchell in a day or two and talk to him again about going to the cops. Maybe cops never smiled but they could be understanding and they were known to make deals. Give one guy a year, something like that, for blackmail, to get two guys for airtight first-degree murder. That was the plan.
But when he got home to the flat in Highland Park, he started worrying again what he should do with his mother's things, all her clothes and crappy jewelry. He should have sold the place and her stuff a year ago, right after she died. Now he'd have to leave it for God knows how long. He was sure somebody would break in and steal everything and wreck the place. The goddamn neighborhood was going to hell, becoming overpopulated with heads and freaks and hustlers, people supporting their habits. So he worried about that for a while. Until he decided he'd better take a couple of downers and sleep off some of the vodkas and Seven. He didn't have a glow now; he had a headache and a timed, heavy feeling.
When he woke up it was dark. By the time he got to the model studio it was after ten.
He emptied the metal box in his office, thirty bucks, got some pills, hair spray and after-shave out of the drawers, stuffed them in his coat pockets, went out to the desk in the lobby and checked the box there, empty, which he knew it would be but checked anyway. He was sitting there thinking. Okay, don't waste anymore time, go downtown or out to Pontiac but do it now.
He looked over and saw Bobby Shy watching him, over by the hallway and near the furniture, standing there with his hands in his pockets, watching him.
Leo said, "How'd you get in? Man, I didn't hear a sound."
"I walked in the back," Bobby Shy said.
"The door was locked. How could you walk in?"
"I don't know," Bobby said, "but here I am."
"Where you been? I been looking all over for you, for two days."
Bobby said, "Where have I been? I was where I was. What you mean where have I been?"
"Two days I haven't seen either of you. Man, I was starting to wonder."
"We're fixing up something to take care of the man," Bobby said. "I need his piece."
"You're gonna use his gun on him?"
"That's the idea."
"Tonight?"
"You want to know all that?" Bobby said. "Why don't you get me the piece, not worry about it?"
They went back to the office. Leo opened the top drawer of the file cabinet, felt around and came out with the .38 Smith & Wesson.
"I almost forgot I had it. I don't have the bullets," Leo said. "Alan kept them."
"I'll see Alan about that," Bobby said. He took the revolver and put it in the right-side pocket of his jacket.
Going back to the lobby Leo said, "I'll tell you the truth, I was starting to get nervous. I don't know what happened to you guys, where you could be. Then, you know, you start imagining things, like something's going on and they're leaving me out of it."
"We wouldn't leave you out," Bobby said. "You part of the group."
"You know how you start thinking when you don't know what's going on."
"Man," Bobby said, "sit down at the desk and take it easy. Think about nice things."
"I'm not worried now," Leo said. "I was a little nervous, but I'm okay now."
Bobby steered Leo over to the desk and gently, with his hands on his shoulders, sat him down.
"What're you doing?" Leo said. "Hey, what's going on?"
"Nothing going on," Bobby said. "I want you to sit down and rest, man, take it easy."
"Yeah, but I don't get it."
"What's to get? Sit there, man, don't move for a while. Let your body relax, feel at peace. There now."
Bobby walked away from the desk to the front door counting one, two, three, four and a half steps. He opened the door, gave Leo a nod and a little smile and walked outside.
The place next to the nude-model studio, also closed but with a light burning inside, was a dirty-book store. Bobby stepped into the alcove of the doorway, stood with his back to the street and the headlights of the cars passing, took the Smith & Wesson and five .38 cartridges out of his jacket and loaded the revolver. Glancing at the street, at the few cars going by but not studying them or worrying about them, he walked back to the front door of the model studio, counted one, two, three, four and a half steps past it, stopped, faced the black-painted plate glass in front of the D in nude models, raised the revolver belt-high and fired it at the glass, getting the heavy report and a hundred and twenty square feet of shattering glass and the D disappearing in front of him, gone, all at the same time. There was Leo still sitting behind the desk like he hadn't moved. Bobby didn't know if Leo had been hit. He extended the .38 in front of him and shot Leo four times, hitting him dead center in the chest, getting that last one in before Leo slid down behind the desk. Bobby didn't need to go in and check. He knew Leo was dead about the time he reached the floor.
Chapter 17
MITCHELL SAID, "TELL HIM I'LL CALL HIM BACK," and hung up the phone.
He was in the Engineering office, sitting on a high stool under the bright fluorescent lights. He leaned over the drafting table again to study the cutaway drawings he had made of a clasp lock assembly. They were crude drawings, rendered freehand, without using the T-square. Lying open on the table was the black attache case he had received the day before. Next to the case was the switch actuator he had taken out of the scrap bin, also the day before.
He drew a rectangle, representing the open case, looking down into it; then drew a top-view indication of one of the two clasp locks that were on the facing of the case.
Vic, his superintendent, came into the Engineering office and stood looking down at the board.
Mitchell said, "Yeah?"
"That five hundred feet of number eight rod was due yesterday, it's not here yet."
"Call them up."
"I did call them. They said they'd see what they can do."
"Call them again," Mitchell said. "Tell them the rods aren't here by noon they can bend them around their ass and make Hula Hoops, we'll go someplace else."
"They'll say okay, and the rods'll get here about four, five o'clock."
"But you'll have them," Mitchell said.
Vic was staring at the drawing. "What're we in, the luggage business now?"
"I'm trying to figure out," Mitchell said, "how to snap this open--see, it's one of the clasps--and make an electrical connection inside."
"For what?"
"For example, if you wanted a light to go on when you opened the case."
"Like a refrigerator."
"Only the case isn't plugged in."
"You got to have a battery inside."
"I know that," Mitchell said. "I'm trying to figure out how to connect with the battery without messing up the case, changing the way it looks."
"It's a pretty nice case."
"You see the problem?"
"I think that switch actuator's too big. All you need's a little spring of some kind."
"Maybe you're right."
"Well, I guess you'll think of a way," Vic said, "if that's what you want to do, light up a briefcase."
"It's kind of what I want to do," Mitchell said.
He had the attache case with him when he went back to his office and stopped at Janet's desk.
"You remember the name of the place this came from?"
"I wrote it down, in case you wanted me to check on the card."
"I found the card," Mitchell said. "It was in here all the time."
Janet said, "Oh?" and waited.
"What I'd like you to do, go there sometime today and get me another case, just like it."
"You want another case," Janet said, "just like that one."
"I was fooling with the lock and I sprung it."
"Maybe it can be fixed."
"I'd just as soon have another case, a new one, if it's okay with you."
"Certainly it's okay."
"Thank you."
"Mr. O'Boyle called again. I told him I gave you the message the first time."
"Get him for me, will you?"
"Yes sir, Mr. Mitchell."
He looked at her. "Janet, I have a reason for wanting another case. Will you accept that, take my word for it?" He went into his office.
"I've got another one for you to look up," Mitchell said into the phone. "Robert Sly. I'll give you his address, his driver's license number if it'll help."
"Is he a friend of Leo Frank?" O'Boyle's voice asked.
Mitchell hesitated. "Why?"
"You haven't seen the paper this morning?"
"I spent the night here. Something I had to do."
"Get a paper," O'Boyle said. "Page three, a picture of the model studio with the window blown out."
"He have an accident? What happened?"
"He was shot four times. You give me the name of a guy to check on and three days later he's dead. Now do you want to tell me what's going on?"
"Was it a robbery, what?"
"He had forty-three dollars on him, a comb, a can of hair spray and a bottle of Beach Boy aftershave lotion. No, it wasn't a robbery and you're not answering my question. Mitch, what's going on?"
"Wait a minute, Jim. What about Alan Raimy?"
"What about him?"
"What'd you learn?"
"The only one I've found out about so far is Leo Frank. You remember Joe Paonessa, the assistant prosecutor you were so nice to? I checked with him. He called me yesterday afternoon to tell me what they had on Leo."
"What?"
"Mitch--" O'Boyle sounded impatient, let his breath out, probably shaking his head.
Mitchell said, "Come on, tell me."
"Leo Frank was arrested once," O'Boyle said, "for indecent exposure, three times for pandering, one conviction, served ninety days. What I want you to understand," O'Boyle said then, "the prosecutor's office checks him out as a favor, and the next day the man's dead. Now what do I tell Joe Paonessa when he calls?"
"Wait and see if he does."
"Mitch, the man was murdered."
Mitchell said, "I don't know what to tell you, Jim. I mean right now I don't have anything to tell you. Maybe in a couple of days."
"I'm going to come over and talk to you," O'Boyle said.
"I won't be here."
"Mitch, I give the prosecutor's office two names. One of them is found murdered. Now what are they going to do? They're going to call me and say how do you know this guy, what was his problem? And they're going to look for the other name, Alan Raimy. Now I know Leo and Alan are involved in the blackmail, obviously. Joe Paonessa doesn't know that, naturally I didn't mention your name. But he could think about it and put it together and you could look up to see the police at your door. Before we get to that, I want you to tell me the whole thing. All right?"
"I don't see you have to tell them anything," Mitchell said. "Tell him they're clients of yours. They come in, you want to check them out first. Jim, guys who commit crimes go to lawyers, do
"I want to talk to you today, Mitch."
"All right. But later on, okay? I've got things to do and I'm running out of time."
"Mitch, promise me--you won't do anything until you've talked to me."
"We'll see," Mitchell said. "But I may not have a choice."
* * *
Alan pulled the bedroom phone out of the jack and took it with him when he went downstairs. He got the Free Press off the front steps and read about Leo while the water was boiling. That Bobby. Goddamn gunslinger had to blow the place up. Style but wild. Man loved to pull the trigger. Yeah, Alan said, and smiled.
It was working, he told himself, pouring the coffee. Everything was working. He went down a checklist in his mind.
Leo out of the way.
Guy's wife upstairs, under control.
Panel truck in the garage. Stolen but as good as clean, because Richard the dealer sure wasn't going to any police.
Guy busy at his plant, not knowing what shit was going on.
That was the luckiest jackpot great-timing break of all, the guy not coming home last night. Jesus, so he didn't have to sneak Slim out and hide her in some motel and leave a phony note saying she was out for the evening or visiting her mother or some goddamn thing--which the guy might buy or might not. That had been the riskiest part of the whole idea and it turned out to be nothing to worry about.
He placed the coffeepot and cups, the paper and the telephone on a tray and carried it upstairs to the bedroom. She was lying in the big king-size bed with the sheet covering her and seemed to be still asleep. But her eyes opened as he set the tray on the night table. She watched him put the gun in his pocket and plug in the phone.