Goodey's Last Stand: A Hard Boiled Mystery (Joe Goodey) (7 page)

Anderson looked Fong’s urban guerrilla outfit up and down and wondered whether to call me a liar. But after a lot of soul-searching —he did everything but take off his hat and give himself a Dutch rub —he decided not to chance it. That’s why Anderson was still in uniform and always would be.

“Who’s the dude down on the landing?” Anderson wanted to know.

“His name is Seymour Kroll,” I said. “He’s a lawyer’s investigator from New York. I found him about twelve minutes ago sitting on the landing, leaking a bit of blood. When I touched him, he fell over, and I let him lie.”

“You didn’t disturb—” Anderson began, but then he thought bet
ter of it.

“I didn’t anything,” I told him. “So why don’t we just stand around and talk about old times until the experts get here?”

Anderson didn’t like that remark, but, lacking a better one, he stood glowering at me and Fong. Mostly me.

“Say,” he said, “is there anyone else here?”

Fong eyed me as I said no.

There was a half knock on the door as it was shoved open, and An
derson’s partner came into the apartment. He couldn’t have been over twenty-one, and he looked as if he’d taken the oath that afternoon just in time to go on shift. He was a fresh-faced kid who had success written all over him. From the way Anderson looked at him, I knew he could see it too.

“Hey, Andy,” he said, “that guy…”

“I know,” said Anderson. “Go down to the front door and wait for homicide. Tell them I’m up here. And check out anybody who comes in or leaves the building.” He said this last bit to nobody, because the kid had already gone.

Anderson amused himself by opening doors and peering into the other rooms of the apartment while Fong and I exchanged assorted glances.

“Too bad about the old watchman,” Anderson said by way of time-passing conversation. What he meant as a cop was “too bad you pulled a bad one.” As a cop I understood him exactly. “Hope it doesn’t come down too hard on you.” Apparently news of my departure from the force hadn’t sunk to the lowest levels.

“Me too,” I said honestly, not giving away a thing.

This brilliant exchange was interrupted by a thumping of feet up the stairs, and the young cop burst in through the door followed by Johnny Maher. Detective Sergeant Johnny Maher.

Johnny wasn’t that much older than the rookie—maybe five years— but in true age he could have been the boy’s grandfather. There were ages behind those pale-green eyes, ages of deprivation and downgrading that he was in a hurry to make up for. Johnny was a sharp-dressing cop. Not rich, but sharp. You’d never have mistaken him for a bank president.

Or a pimp. If you guessed a pro football quarterback or a local-TV chat-show host, you’d be close to his style. Right then, his style was direct. “What’s going on here, Goodey?” he asked. He used to call me Joe, but that was earlier in the week before he’d made sergeant.

“A little murder, Johnny,” I said, “or so it seems. I was just telling Andy here that the victim was a friend of mine, a lawyer’s investiga
tor out from New York.”

Up until that moment Maher hadn’t given any indication that he’d been aware of Anderson’s existence. He was like that with the
troops and was famous as Maher the Patrolman’s Friend. “Anyone else here?” He threw the question at Andy as you’d throw a dog a poisoned bone.

“Not since I been here,” Anderson said through his big, pale-gray teeth.

“Well, take your young friend here out and find out what the neighbors know,” said Johnny. “You won’t get much done holding up the walls here.”

The two men in uniform went out, Anderson seething and the youngster half-admiring Maher but making a mental note to be nicer to patrolmen when he was a detective sergeant. Maher and I stood silently looking at each other.

“Nice going, Johnny,” I said. “You’ve made another good buddy among the peons. Andy will be your pallbearer when some other cop zaps you.”

“I’m not paid to be chummy with the troops,
Goodey,” Maher said. “I do my job and I see that they do theirs. And, speaking of jobs, I understand you’ve had a recent change of employment.” The word was trickling out. “Sort of, Johnny,” I said. “I decided to go to work for a living.”

All this time Gabriel Fong had been sitting in my old easy chair, watching us as if we were characters in a lousy play. I hate to say it, but the expression on his face was inscrutable. I liked to think that he didn’t care for Maher because I disliked him. But they might have turned out to be the best of pals. Might have.

But the next thing Johnny did was arch a nearly double-jointed thumb in Fong’s direction and ask, “Who’s that?”

I started to open my mouth, but Fong beat me to it “That,” he said, “is the cotenant of this apartment you’ve just barged into with
out invitation.” The voice was tougher than I’d have thought possible. “Who are you? I assume that you’re a police officer, but I’ve seen no proof.”

Maher gave me an eyebrow-lifting look, as if he expected me to in
tervene just short of throwing Fong out of the window, but I sat still and did nothing.

Like a quick-draw artist, Maher went into his inside coat pocket and came out with his leather badge holder, which he right-jabbed under Fong’s snub nose. To read it, Fong would have had to go cross-eyed.

“That satisfy you?” Maher snarled.

Fong reached up, effortlessly pushed the badge-holding hand out to reading distance, and read it slowly, not missing any of the small print. That’s my boy.

“Thank you, sergeant,” he said mildly. “My name is Gabriel Fong. I’m a theological student at the San Francisco Bible College, and I live here. Is there anything else you want to know?”

"Yeah,” said Maher. But just then heavy feet thumped up the stairs, and Andy came in through the half-open door, trying not to look too excited.

“Sergeant,” he said, puffing a little, “an old lady across the street says just before we got here somebody suspicious left in a hurry. A Chinese kid, and it looked like he was carrying a little girl. She doesn’t know where they went”

Maher wheeled on me and Fong. “You know anything about this?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I said. “They were here until I found Kroll’s body, but then they remembered they had a date somewhere. So they left.”

Maher wasn’t the exploding type. His face turned to stone. “
Goodey,” he said quietly, “are you telling me that you let two potential suspects leave here after you knew a murder had been committed?”

“That’s right,” I said easily. “I had no right to stop them. I’m not a cop anymore.” I didn’t bother going into the unlikelihood of a sick girl and her volunteer nurse sneaking out into the hall and knifing Chub. Anderson was having enough problems with the first bit of information I’d dropped. He kept boggling and looked as though he was wondering who to slug.

Maher took it quite well. Too well, in fact. “Right,” he said smoothly, “you’re not a cop anymore. But you are a suspect, and so are you, Charlie Chan.” He whipped a pair of cuffs out of his back pocket and flipped them to Anderson.

“Tie these monkeys together, Andy,” he said. “Frisk them and take them downtown. Have them put in detention until I get there, and then come right back.”

“You haven’t read us Miranda,” I said, anxious that Maher shouldn’t do anything to imperil his new stripes.

“Fuck Miranda,” he said. “You know it, and you can explain it to your friend in the lockup.”

“You see,” I told Fong, “there’s nothing to worry about. Cops like Maher only skip the finer legal points when they don’t expect an arrest to stick. He’s pissed because we let Mickey and Fsui-tang leave.”

“Cuffs!” snapped Maher.

Relieved to have something to do, Andy did an expert job of cuffing me to Gabriel and then himself to me. He had to be good at something.

‘It’s the city’s gasoline,” I told Maher as Anderson started tugging us out the door, “but you’re wasting it. Do you know who Mr. Fong is?”

Maher signaled for Andy to stop. “I’ll bite,” he said. “Who is Mr. Fong?”

“The mayor’s cousin. His
other
cousin.”

Maher didn’t even bother to respond to that. He just thumbed Andy and us out the door.

Andy didn’t have a lot to say on the way down to headquarters. Neither did Fong and I, but there in the caged-in back seat we got in a few whispers.

"What will happen now, Joe?” Fong asked.

"They’ll lock us up for a little while,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’ll have us out within a couple of hours.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. So did
I.

9

If you think the average law-abiding citizen feels strange finding himself in a cell, imagine how a cop feels. It’s not natural. It’s like a dog being peed on by a lamppost. I’d known Archie Meltzer, the chief turnkey on duty, for over ten years, but you wouldn’t have known it from the way he processed me for the cells.

“Hello, Archie,” I said in a friendly way.

“Empty out all your pockets,” said Archie. “Put your money, car keys, other valuables on the table.”

“Sure, Archie,” I said, turning out my pockets. “How’s your kid brother? He still racing those pigeons?”

“Remove your belt, tie, if any, and shoelaces,” Archie said, “and place them on the table next to the long, brown envelope.” Another turnkey I didn’t know was busy counting the money we’d put on the table and making an itemized list of the other things.

“Right,” I said. “You know best. But, Archie, there is one thing. I’d kind of like to make that telephone call. You know, the one ev
erybody talks about. It’s important.”

“Plenty of time for that later,” said Archie, “Read the itemized list, initial each entry and sign your accustomed signature and the date at the bottom.” We’d done all this like good boys, and Archie was telling his helper where to stash us. “Okay,” he said, deadpan, “this way.”

“Archie,” I said, “I don’t want to be a nag, but I’d really like to make that phone call. And my friend, Mr. Fong, would probably like to make one, too. It is the law, you know.”

“I know the law, Joe,” Archie said, using my name for the first time, “and you’ll get your phone call. Now, do as the man says.” I did as the man said, leading Fong through the green, metal door and down the corridor that leads to the dozen or so cells where drunks and other master criminals were kept. There were also a cou
ple of high-security cells, and I wondered if I had enough status to get one of those.

The turnkey stopped us in front of a cell with a guy already in it and opened the door. “Not you,” he said as I started to go in. “You.” He motioned to Fong.

“Don’t despair, Gabe,” I said. “I’ll have us out of here in no time.”

“Sure, Joe,” he said, but he didn’t sound too sure. I didn’t feel too sure. As the turnkey was locking Fong in, his new roommate, a little whey-faced guy with a dirty-blond pompadour and the eyes of a child molester, came to the front bars and stared at me.

“What did you do?” I asked him just to pass the time.

“I got caught,” he said.

The turnkey prodded me on down the line to an empty cell and opened the door. As I stepped in, he clanged the door shut behind me.

“Hey,” I said, turning, “tell Archie that unless…” But he was al
ready halfway down the row and gaining speed. “You’ll be sorry,” I said, but I couldn’t think how.

It wasn’t much of a cell. Two steel cots bolted to the floor, a chem
ical toilet in the corner. On each cot was a thin, striped mattress and a folded war-surplus blanket. Mine had been in the Navy. The walls of the cell were solid concrete with close-set bars starting about six feet up and going to the ceiling on each side. High at the back was a barred ventilator grate.

I sat down and wondered how long it would take Archie to get around to letting me make my phone call. I also wondered who had knifed Chub and whether it had anything to do with the little job I was supposed to be doing for
Kolchik. Suppose Kolchik murdered Chub. These heavy thoughts were interrupted by a sound from overhead.

“
Sssssssssss!
”

I looked up and saw a small, black face looking down at me from just where the bars began above the concrete wall. On either side of the face were two, thin-fingered hands, pink on one side, black on the other.

“
Ssssssss!
” the face repeated.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Shhhhhhh!” my sibilant neighbor said. “Shhhhhh! Come up here for a minute, but keep your voice down.”

I didn’t have much else to do, so I stood up on the other bunk. “What do you want?” I whispered.

“What are you in for?” He looked like a teenager.

“Suspicion of murder,” I said. I tried to be matter-of-fact, but it wasn’t easy.

“Wow! You don’t look like a murderer.”

“I’m not,” I admitted. “It’s a bum rap. I’ll be out of here in a little while.” I said that to encourage myself as much as anything.

“You look like a pretty good guy,” my neighbor said. “Will you do me a favor?”

“I’ll try. What is it?”

“I want you to tell the jailer something for me. I’ve tried, but he won’t listen to me.”

“He’s not doing an awful lot of listening to me, either. But I’ll give it a try. What is it?”

He pushed his pointed little face up until his nose was between the bars and glanced nervously behind him at the other bunk in the cell.

“I’m a girl,” my neighbor whispered. “I shouldn’t be in this part of the jail. I got picked up for vagrancy, and I wasn’t going to tell them ‘cause I thought they’d put me in a cell by myself and I’d get out in the morning. But they put me in here with him—” We both looked at
the bunk on the far wall. Beneath a gently rising and falling blanket was what looked like an escaped gorilla. A cruel face was relaxed in dreamless sleep. I’m positive the slack lips covered long fangs.

“I’m afraid that, once he wakes up, he’ll find out I’m a girl and…

I’d have been afraid to have been in that cell when it woke up too.

“I’ll do what I can,” I whispered. “But what are you doing dressed up like a boy?”

She shrugged and gave me a sharp-toothed little smile. “It happens,” she said. “You just tell that jailer to get me out of here and do it quick and quiet. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it just as soon as I can, but—”

Behind her, Mighty Joe Young stirred noisily, threw out a hand the size of a seven-dollar sirloin and brought it back to shield its eyes from the light in the corridor. “Humph,” it growled. “Too fuckin’ noisy in here.”

My neighbor dropped like a hanged man—woman—and I heard the bedsprings squeaking as she burrowed underneath the bedding.

I dropped down on my side and sat down again. If I couldn’t get Archie to listen to my story, how could I tell him about my lady neighbor? I didn’t even have a tin cup to rattle on the bars. That problem was solved when the turnkey came padding along the corridor and stopped in front of my cell. He unlocked the door.

“Come on,” he said. “Archie says you can make that telephone call now.”

I jumped up and walked out of the cell. As I walked past the next cell, I heard a tiny whisper: “Don’t forget.” King Kong was snoring once again.

When I came into the turnkey’s office, Archie gestured gracefully toward the telephone on his desk. “There you go, Joe,” he said. “One call.”

“Thanks loads. You’re a credit to law enforcement.”

I considered calling the mayor, just to make Archie and his flunky drop their teeth. But I didn’t know his number and thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a cool thing to do. So I dialed a certain number in Mill Valley.

“Lehman,” said a voice full of mashed potatoes.

“
Goodey,” I said, pausing slightly, “speaking from the city jail, where at present I’m an unwilling guest.”

“Joe,” Ralph asked, “
what the hell are you up to? I’m eating dinner right now, and we’ve got guests.”

“I’ve got guests, too,” I said. “Two lovely jailers standing here lis
tening to every word I say. And I haven’t had any dinner at all.” I turned my head toward Archie. “What’s for dinner tonight, Arch?”

“Too late, Joe,” he said. “You’ve missed it.”

“The man says I’ve missed dinner,” I told Ralph, “so I suggest that you get down here and get me out before I tell everything I know for a ham sandwich.”

“But Joe,” said Lehman, “what are you in jail for? At least tell me that.”

“Suspicion of murder,” I said. “Johnny Maher thinks I killed somebody this evening.”

“Killed somebody?”

“Yeah. And not who you think. Somebody else.”

“Where’s Maher right now?”

“At my place, as far as I know, pinning everything on me. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find him paying me a visit down here in a little while.”

“Just hold tight, Joe,” Ralph said. “I’ll be right there. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I’ve got great faith in you.”

“One thing,” he said. “Do those jailers know who you’re calling?”

“I’ll ask.” I put my hand over the speaker. “Say, do you lads have any idea who I’m talking to?”

They shook their heads.

“Nope,” I said. “For all they know, you could be the Pope.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll be down to get you out right away, but if you let on that you expect me, I’ll leave you in the cells until you rot.”

“Right,” I said. “See you around.” I hung up.

“Okay,” said Archie. “Back you go.” The other turnkey opened the door of the office.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Archie, I’ll do a deal with you. I’ll tell you something you want to know if your man here will go out and get me a sandwich and a cup of coffee. And a candy bar.”

“What sort of thing I want to know?” Very suspicious.

“Something you’re going to be very embarrassed about if I don’t tell you.”

“What is it?” Archie asked. I knew I had
him hooked.

“Oh, no. I want your promise first. Sandwich—make it pastrami and Swiss cheese on an onion roll—black coffee, and a Hershey bar...it’s a good deal, Archie. You better take it.”

He chewed on it a bit and then said: “It’s a deal. Spill it.”

“Okay,” I said. “I know your word is your bond. You know those two guys in the cell next to mine—the one closest to this office?”

“Yes. The two spades. What about them?”

“One of
them’s a girl.”

“A girl? In my jail?”

“That’s right. Not the caveman, but the little, pointy-chinned one. She told me just before your man brought me in.”

“Harvey,” Archie said, “get that girl out of there, get her out fast and get her out quietly. Put Joe back in—and then get him some
thing to eat.”

“Don’t forget the mustard on the pastrami,
Harv,” I said. “Lots of it.”

I was just licking the melted chocolate from my fingers when Har
vey came back to my cell and stuck the key in the lock.

“Just in time, Harvey,” I said. “I always like a little walk after dinner.”

“That’s good,” he said, “but you’re not walking where you think. You’re going upstairs. I don’t think that lawyer of yours got the message.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “he’s only human.
Who’m I going to see, then?”

“You’ll find out.”

As we passed through the turnkey’s office, Archie was sitting at his green, metal desk. He still looked worried.

“Did you take care of my girlfriend?” I asked.

“Son of a bitch, Joe,” he said. “In nineteen years I never had such a thing happen. You can’t tell them apart these days. You just can’t tell.”

“Serves you right, Archie, for being so nasty to me when I came in here this evening. Take good care of my man Fong. I’ll be back for him in a little while.”

Archie just looked sicker, and Harvey nudged me to get moving. The fifth floor was dark and empty except for Lehman’s office. Ralph was sitting behind his desk looking half-fed and pissed off. “Thanks, Winston,” he told my guide. “I’ll take over now. You sit down, Goodey.” After Harvey had closed the door behind him, Ralph looked up at me: “Why, Joe, why? I gave you a perfectly simple job, an important job. And what happens?”

“I didn’t ask for the job,” I pointed out.

He ignored me. “Somebody,” he said, “somebody you might have had a reasonably good reason to kill, gets knocked off on your doorstep. And now I’ve got to get you out of jail.”

“Your buddy, Maher, got me put into jail,” I said. “He knows I didn’t kill Seymour Kroll.”

“Who did then?” Lehman asked.

"You got me,” I said. “Maybe the same person who knocked off Tina.”

“But why?”

“Beats me,” I said. “You have any idea what the mayor was doing early this evening?”

Lehman looked too weary even to reply to that and was saved the trouble when there was a bang on the door which might have been mistaken for a knock, and Johnny Maher came charging in, looking less than happy.

“Ralph,” he said, “what the hell—”

“Sit down, Johnny,” Lehman said, gesturing toward a chair across from mine.

“But, Ralph—”

“SIT DOWN!” Ralph shouted, all but blowing Johnny toward the chair, where he settled unhappily but quietly.

“Now, listen to me, Maher,” Ralph said evenly but menacingly enough. “As of right now you’ve got nothing to do with that murder at
Goodey’s place.”

“
Outside
Goodey’s place,” I insisted.