Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I was in a lousy mood when I went back into the lounge. My absence had not taken many ticks off the clock, probably no one had noticed it.
 
My coffee and the money I'd laid down was still on the table and the place was still standing-room-only.
 
Since no one had grabbed the table, the presumption must have been that I'd gone to the men's room or whatever.
 
Lunceford
was still on stage with
The Show Band
and they were concluding a rousing trio performance of a number from
Chorus Line.

So much can occur between the ticks of a clock.
 
Not in real time, especially, but in mental time.
 
Lahey
had been dead quite awhile.
 
That murder had occurred in real time, my perception of it in mental time—and a lot had been happening inside my mind ever since. Guess I was reorganizing the case file, re-comparing the bits and pieces of data and looking at them in a different light, changing the focus of the police mind.

That sort of thing happens spontaneously, it is not a consciously directed activity but an eruption from the
underbrain
where all the bits and pieces had been stewing and bubbling and trying to fit themselves into a meaningful pattern. I have been told that the
underbrain
works that way, that it doesn't reason in a linear movement as the conscious brain reasons but that it gathers all the mental perceptions like in a big pot and organizes them
cubicly
into a three-dimensional continuum.
 
Feed it enough data and it will inevitably come up with the true picture, because that is its function, that's the way it works, but then it's up to the linear mind to bring the picture forward into consciousness and that is where we usually get stupid, in that process of converting the cubic reality to a linear one—it's a process of interpretation and sometimes we get the effect ahead of the cause or else we lose one or the other entirely—but it's all still there in the
underbrain
and the pressure down there keeps increasing until we get it right in consciousness.

I don't know if that is true or not but I have seen evidence that the police mind seems to work that way, and I have seen my own mind take a sudden leap from stupidity to knowledge, just like that, in a flash, and then wonder why I had not seen the picture that way all the while.

Something like that was trying to happen as I sat in the lounge that night with my coffee and my thoughts, and I was aware that it was trying to happen—as though two of me were sitting there trying to communicate with each other but not quite getting through.

Then Susan Baker came in and sat down beside me, and the pressure suddenly became intense.

We just sat there for a minute or two, neither acknowledging the presence of the other.
 
Lunceford
came down off the stage and joined a group of cast members up front. The band struck up a number on their own and the blonde promised one and all that the party had only just begun.
 
      
I lit a cigarette, offered one to Susan, she declined. Guess that broke the ice.

      
She wrinkled her nose at the cigarette smoke and told me, "You should try to become drug-free."

      
I said, "Never looked at it that way, I guess. I think about cancer."

      
"You don't have to get cancer," she said soberly. There was still a touch of hoarseness in her voice. "But you should try to control your own body. Don't let it order you around like that."

      
I looked at the cigarette, thought about it, put it out. "You control yours, I guess," I said, looking at her admiringly. "Doing a pretty good job. Except with the throat."

      
She made a face at me, said, "I've been working on that."

      
The waitress came by, checked my cup and refilled it, looked at Susan. Susan ordered water, no ice. The waitress walked away with a sour face.

      
"Check yourself out of the hospital?"

      
She was working at her hair, trying to tie the cascading flow into a loose bun at the shoulders. "No reason not to," she replied. "I'm fine now. Besides, I couldn't afford it. Thanks for the money. I used it to bail myself out of there. No insurance."

      
I said, "You'd probably be better off there for awhile, insurance or no. This thing isn't settled yet, Susan."

      
"I know," she said lightly. She gave up on the hair, allowed it to go back into freefall. "I'm not afraid to die. Death is an illusion anyway. I just want to make sure— when it's my time, I don't want it to be like I haven't lived."

      
"Do you feel that you may be dying soon?"

      
"There's always that possibility, isn't there. Were you born with a guarantee?"

      
I chuckled, said, "No one ever showed it to me."

      
"You're nice," she told me. "I just wanted to say thanks. And I'm sorry I yelled at you today."

      
The waitress brought the water, moved quickly on without a word.

      
"How nice am I?"

      
She smiled. "Nice enough."

      
"Nice enough," I said, "to be in big trouble."

      
"You created that for yourself," she told me.

      
I said, "Like hell I did. Someone very cleverly created it for me. I think you know who. I think you know why. So if you really want to thank me..."

      
Such a beautiful girl. She sighed, did some stretches above her head, said something I didn't hear. The noise level in there was rather high.

      
"Didn't hear that," I told her.

      
She placed a small hand on my thigh, bent forward to look intently into my eyes and said to me, "Can we get out of here?"

      
"Not right away," I said.

      
"We can't talk in here with all this noise."

      
"We could try. I can't leave right now."

      
She showed me a pout, asked, "What do you want to know?"

      
"Did you know what was going down last night?"

      
"I don't know what you mean."

      
"Were you in that apartment next door to you?"

      
"I've been in there, sure. But not last night. Elaine was supposed to bring you to my place."

      
"For what?"

      
She shook her head. "I didn't understand that part of it.
 
I was just told that Elaine would bring you there and I was supposed to keep you there until..."

      
"Until what?"

      
"Until Craig sent for you, I guess."

      
"Was it planned that Craig would walk off just before the curtain?"

      
"I guess so, yes."

      
"Why?"

      
"Well... as I understood it... it all had to be done last night. The show is scheduled to close next week and time was of the essence."

      
"All what had to be done last night?"

      
"It all had to be settled.
 
And Craig had to have some time to... do whatever he had to do, I guess."

      
"And your part?"

      
She gave me half a smile, a very seductive one. "All I had to do was keep you entertained."

      
"Until Craig sent for me."

      
"As I understood it, yes."

      
"But the plan backfired."

      
"I guess it did. Craig is dead, isn't he."

      
"What was I supposed to do? Where did I fit into the plan?"

      
She shrugged and replied, "You're a detective, aren't you. I guess you were supposed to do what detectives do."

      
I smiled grimly. "Jump out of a closet or something?"

      
"Maybe."

      
"The guys next door were all set up with a video camera. Who was supposed to be the victim? Not me."

      
"Oh no, not you," she assured me. "But I don't know

who..."

      
"A blackmail scheme."

      
She said, "If you choose to look at it that way."

      
"What other way could you look at it?"

      
"Karma," she said with another half-smile.

      
"I thought karma is God's business," I replied.

      
"Well, who is God?" she asked teasingly.

      
"Not Craig, surely."

      
"In a way, sure. You're God. I’m God. We're all God."

      
I said, "Then God is kind of screwed up, isn't he."

      
She tossed her head and replied, "It just seems that way sometimes. Look, Joe, this is just an act. It's all an act."

      
"What do you mean?"

      
"This play was cast before we were even born. We tried out for the parts and won the roles and came down here to put them on the stage. You could remember that if you tried."

      
I tried, but I couldn't remember any of it. I told her so, and I asked her, "Do you remember what happens to me at the end?"

      
She said, "You're patronizing me. I don't like that."

      
I said, "No, I believe you are patronizing me."

      
"I'm not," she replied solemnly. "Look, we've all been together before, many times. That's the way it works, and we're trying to work out the karma that is between us. Why do you think we all got together this way?"

      
"It's the damned freeways," I told her. "Gridlock in the city. Speaking of that, who rents the apartment where Craig was killed?"

      
She showed me a blank face. "Where was he killed?"

      
I whipped out my notes, flipped through them in the dim light of the lounge, told her, "Your complex, number 3H. Who lives there?"

      
"That must be..."

      
"Who?"

      
"You'd better ask Judith White."

      
"Why should I do that?"

      
"Judith lived in the same complex once upon a time. I guess before she moved back in with her dad. She's the one who sent me there. The owners don't stand on formality the way some places do. You just pay your rent and move in, there's no first and last, no deposits, and nobody bothers you. It's ideal for people in our business."