Goodey's Last Stand: A Hard Boiled Mystery (Joe Goodey) (2 page)

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I walked quickly out of the big, loaf-of-bread police building, expecting at any moment a cry of “Stop that former detective!” The aging traffic lieutenant who gave me a friendly, disinterested nod obviously hadn’t yet heard a thing. I’d have made a hell of a good aging traffic lieutenant someday, but I wasn’t going to get the chance. I fished my dirty gray Morris convertible from between two Detroit monsters, and joined the midmorning traffic.

It was just a few minutes’ drive across Market Street to the small blind alley a couple of blocks off Broadway where I lived. The color
less line of late Victorian houses looked down at me drably. From force of habit I leaned the Morris against a “No Parking” sign and walked into the small grocery store on the street floor.

It was so long since I’d slept that I’d stopped being sleepy. I felt curiously alert and quite detached for a man being run out of town on two hours’ notice.

“Lum here?” I asked the latest of a series of boyishly thin Chinese girls to work in the shop.

“Back room,” she said, still stuffing small cans of Chinese vegeta
bles into a string bag.

The passage to the back of the shop was so crowded with boxes and crates that I had to crab-walk into the tiny office where
Lum Kee, my landlord, sat at a wobbly card table writing in Chinese characters in a big account book. He didn’t look up. From the top he looked like a fat and glossy otter just rising from a pool of rubbish. “Lum,” I said.

“I know,” said
Lum, still not looking up from his ledger, “you’ve shot the mayor’s father and you’re on the run. It was on the radio this morning. Jon Thatcher’s show. You’d better get out of here. I can’t afford to harbor a criminal.”

Lum
Kee stretched an ink-stained, hairless hand out toward the telephone on the card table. I put a hand and about sixty pounds of pressure on the telephone receiver. “Don’t be in such a rush to stand by me, Kee,” I said. “It gets me all choked up. You’re wrong on at least two counts. It wasn’t his father, and I’m not on the run. So don’t get your hopes up. I haven’t got any time to waste, but I’m going out of town for about six months, and—”

“You’ll be giving up the apartment?” said
Lum Kee brightly. “You’ll have to lose your month’s deposit, of course, but—”

“No,” I said firmly, “I’m not giving up the place. You know that.” Five years before, in a time of unexplained panic,
Lum Kee had wanted a cop on the premises. He let me have the apartment at a ridiculously low rent and had been regretting it ever since. It had been a false panic, but the apartment was still a great bargain.

“You’ll get your rent. But I want you to keep an eye on things, keep the mail for me, that sort of thing. And don’t try any fast ones while I’m gone. I’ll be back.”

I turned and started to leave the tiny room overhung with cardboard boxes, when Lum Kee said: “Six months’ rent is a lot of money to pay for a place you won’t even be living in. It seems a shame.” His voice conveyed not sympathy for me but sorrow at the pure waste of it all.

“You got a better idea?” I asked, half turning back.

“I have a nephew,” he said. “A fine boy. From Honolulu. He’s over here taking a course at the San Francisco Bible College. Twenty-six weeks. He might be interested in subletting your place. Pay the same rent and everything, so it wouldn’t cost you a thing. I’ll write up the contract myself. Just as a favor to you.”

“Nephew?” I asked suspiciously.

“My sister Pansy's youngest boy,” he said. “He’s going to be a missionary. A fine profession.”

I didn’t care at all for the idea of some Hawaiian religious fanatic using my apartment. But the thought of several hundred dollars flowing from my malnourished bank account into
Lum Kee’s fat pockets was even more distasteful.

“Where is the Bible banger now?” I asked.

Lum Kee shrugged. “You needn’t worry about that. I’ll take care of everything. Trust me.”

I stiffened my defenses. “I’d rather trust
Kolchik,” I said. “I’m not subletting to anybody without meeting him first.”

“I’ll have him up at your apartment in twenty minutes,” said
Kee, “with the contract.”

“That’s better,” I said, looking at my watch. Twenty minutes of my two hours had already been eaten away. “See that you do.” Once again I turned to leave the office. As I got to the passage and turned sideways, I heard
Lum Kee say, “The fat one is up at your place waiting.”

I kept walking. I knew what he was talking about. But I was thinking of other things as I climbed the three flights of stairs over
Lum Kee’s shop to my apartment. In my weakened state, the rich cooking odors from the apartment on the first floor made my legs go momentarily wobbly. But when I reached the top of the stairs I was faced with a familiar sight—a small, plump man sitting on the hall carpet with his back to my door. I reached out a hand and helped him to his feet.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” I said, opening the door.

“Oh, it hasn’t been too bad,” he said. “I while away the hours thinking about how much I’m being paid to haunt you.” He was plump in a pork-sausage way: sleek, tight, seemingly stretched near the bursting point. He wore a smooth sharkskin suit just a fraction too small in every dimension, and his black hair was not so much thin as uniformly and widely spaced. He was panting slightly from the exertion of getting to his feet.

I pushed past my visitor through the rectangular living room into my long, thin bedroom and began pulling a couple of suitcases from under the bed.

“Do you want to put some coffee on?” I called. “Make lots of it— and strong.”

“Okay,” he called. After a short silence, I heard the cupboard door creak open and the coffee jar land on the Formica sink. The cold water tap rattled into action.

My apartment wasn’t big. It had just one fairly good-sized bedroom and another small room, in theory a bedroom, but actually the graveyard of anything broken or not currently in use. But each of the rooms, even the closet-sized bathroom, offered a mildly spectacular view of San Francisco and the bay, for which a richer person than I would have paid much more rent. That is, if Lum Kee could have gotten me out. I looked down into a half-empty drawer of underwear and socks, wondering which to take. Finally I dumped the whole drawer into my worn canvas suitcase on the bed. Reaching into the big closet I grabbed hangered clothes at random and stuck them into the other case. With a wardrobe like mine, the choice wasn’t difficult.

“Coffee’s ready.”

I came out of the bedroom and found my fat friend sitting on the long couch in front of the bay window, pouring coffee. He handed me a big, brown mug.

“Thanks,” I said, letting myself fall to one end of the couch and leaning back with my feet straight out on a cushion. I closed my eyes and took a drink of the hot, bitter coffee.

“I understand you’re in a bit of trouble,” he said.

“How do you understand that?”

“The late edition of the Chronicle and—”

“—the Jon Thatcher Show,” I finished for him.

“—and the Thatcher Show. He’s making you into a regular feature: The Adventures of Goodey Two-Shoes: Crime Buster.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “I’m deeply flattered. Have you got the Chronicle?”

“Here.” He offered me a neatly folded copy of the paper.

“Forget it,” I said, pushing the paper away. “I don’t think I could take it in my condition.”

“Why don’t you just give her the divorce, Joe?” he asked with a new, apparently sincere warmth in his voice. “With this latest trouble, you don’t need me around your neck. You’ve got enough problems.”

I couldn’t help agreeing. For the last three months, the little man— a lawyer’s investigator from New York—had been plaguing me to give Pat a divorce. His name was Seymour Kroll, but I had preferred to call him Fatso,
Fattie, Lard-ass and finally Chub, as I’d become used to him, and even fond of the little investigator in the way that a hunchback might come to accept the growth between his shoulders. He was better than no company at all.

I wasn’t sure myself why I wouldn’t give Pat a divorce. She’d been back in New York with her family for almost a year now. I’d long ago packed everything that was hers, including the wedding pho
tographs and an ashtray full of her cigarette butts, and shipped it— collect—to her. That was last winter, right after my flying trip to New York had been such a disaster. After I’d harangued her for days, Pat had gone into hiding. Her father, the very rich Solomon Berkowitz— who for reasons I can’t fathom likes to be called Sonny—had seen that I was put on the plane back here by two polite but very determined plainclothes cops. They didn’t want to believe that I, too, was a detective. Once I’d convinced them, they’d been very sympathetic. But they’d still put me on the plane.

“I
can t do it, Chub,” I told him. “I’ve got too much on my mind right now to deal with such small matters. It looks as though I’m going to have a lot of time to do some heavy thinking. Maybe I’ll come to the conclusion that Pat can have her divorce and marry that jerk.” On going back to New York, Pat, who was calling herself Pat Berkowitz again, had taken a job with a big advertising agency. Now it seemed that she wanted to marry some up-and-coming vice president of the agency. The one I’d tried to punch in the mouth last January.

“Where are you going, Joe?”

“I don’t know exactly. South. Somebody I know recommends Mexico highly. I’ll lie on the beach and get tan.”

“That sounds expensive,” he said. “How are you going to manage it? You’re not exactly flush these days.”

“No,” I agreed. “How much have I got in the bank, exactly?” Chub peeked into a small black-leather notebook. “$142.76 in the checking and $760.09 in the savings account. That’s not very much to go on, and I assume you’re not going to have your police salary anymore.”

“I’ve got a week and a half’s pay coming,” I said.

“Okay, but that’s still only a little over a thousand dollars altogether. Look Joe, I’m sure that Mr. Berkowitz would authorize a loan—a substantial loan—if…”

“If is right,” I said, finishing my second cup of coffee. “Sonny Berkowitz would be glad to lend me a finger if he was sure of get
ting an arm back. No deal. No divorce. I’ll get along somehow.” I wished I could believe that myself. “Look, I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

“Do you mind if I make a telephone call?” Kroll asked.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll be packing.”

As I walked toward the bedroom, I heard him begin: “Hello, Op
erator, I want to make a credit-card call to New York City…”

I was barely back in the bedroom when the doorbell gave two raspy bleats. Chub was still murmuring into the mouthpiece when I opened the door and found myself looking at a spot just over the head of a neatly dressed Chinese in his early twenties. The blue wool suit was sincere, and the white shirt front and collar were practically blinding. A black knit tie was transfixed by a tiny gold crucifix. His smooth, oval face was pleasant, even if the mouth hinted of primness.

“You’re the nephew.”

“That’s right, Mr.
Goodey,” he said, holding out a short-fingered hand. “My name is Gabriel Fong. May I come in?”

I gave him what I hoped passed for a welcoming handshake and stepped backward into the living room.

“Sure. Have a look around.”

I had a look around myself and suddenly realized just how bare and anonymous the place was without Pat’s things. It could have been a rather shabby hotel room.

Just then Kroll stopped talking and put his hand over the receiver. “Joe,” he said, “could you spare a moment? Mr. Berkowitz would like to speak to you.”

“No,” I said, feeling surly, “I’ve got to get packed and out of the city”—I looked at my watch—“in less than an hour. Tell Sonny I’ll write him a letter—with a bomb in it.”

Kroll held the receiver up in front of him in an imploring gesture. His small, close-set eyes begged me to be reasonable, be kind, be human.

“All right,” I said, “what the hell.” Walking toward the telephone, I told the nephew, “Have a good look around. I won’t be long.” Tak
ing the receiver, slightly damp, slightly warm, I put on my most bored voice, and it didn’t take much acting.

“Hello Sonny. Did you hear the good news?”

“Now, Joe,” said his Lower Second Avenue voice overlaid with Harvard and thirty years of good living, “you know better than that. I wish you no ill. I’ve got nothing against you. I only want Patricia to be happy, and the only thing I know that can make her happy is for you to give her a divorce. Joe, you must understand. Pat’s in love. She wants to marry Ernest.”

“I’m touched,” I said, “deeply touched. But the answer’s the same. If Pat wants a divorce, she’ll either have to come back here or wait out the divorce laws there. I’m not going to make it any easier. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I haven’t been to sleep for so long that I forget what it’s like, and I’ve got some fast moving to do. Goodbye, Sonny, give—”

“Joe,” said my practically ex-father-in-law in a voice so sincere that I felt like the rat I really was, “Seymour said there was no point in mentioning it, but I know that with no paycheck coming in things are going to be a bit tight for you. Listen, with no strings attached, I could let you have a small loan, hell, a medium loan, just to keep you going until you connect with something else. No strings, Joe, no strings at all.”