Lady Midnight (2 page)

“Well, I was hoping you hadn’t,” Vince rolled his eyes. “on account of that would kind of spoil the surprise.” He opened the back door, revealing two young women wearing nothing but skimpy lingerie. One was blond, the other brunette. Both were chewing gum and toying with their hair. Upon seeing Big Daddy, they smiled invitingly. “Vince, you are the man. Where the hell did you get these fine broads?”
 

Vince beamed. “Big Daddy, meet Bonnie and Nookie, two of my best girls. Wait until you hear about the new thing I’m into, Big Daddy. All the women and money we could ever dream of, and we ain’t gotta worry about no cops, because it’s a hundred percent legal.”
 

“I can’t wait.” Big Daddy looked at the girls like a starving man might look at two juicy steaks. Well, he thought to himself, maybe it could wait a little while.
 

Vince nudged him. “Say, Big Daddy, let’s get the hell outta here.”
 

Big Daddy nodded, and climbed in the back seat between the two nubile young women. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter 1

It was just before ten on Wednesday when they shot him. I just happened to be watching. I was having a late and disappointing breakfast—the coffee was too hot, the eggs were too cold, and I hadn’t been able to get my regular seat. I was at Sally’s Diner, which happened to be my favorite little hole-in-­the-wall restaurant. Today, a lot of people had ducked in to wait out a sudden downpour and talk, over coffee. As a consequence, Sally’s was far busier than usual. All the booths were full, including the corner one that I liked to think of as
my
booth. I didn’t usually like to sit at the counter, but that’s where I was. I poked at the eggs until I was sure they were a lost cause, then swiveled around on my stool and looked outside.
 

A newspaper I’d been perusing on the counter asked the city with a bold headline, “Is there an impending Mob War?” The seated customers around me chattered on about the recent doings of the rival Birmingham gang leaders, even going so far as to discuss which of the two men was the snappier dresser.
 

I am a private detective, and sooner or later a private detective gets to meet every crook in town. I had met both men, and hadn’t been very impressed by either one. A thug is a thug, and never mind the tailor.
 

Birmingham was soggy that day, after the third straight day of rain. The downpour had just stopped, but everything still dripped uneasily. It had been a solid spring rain, the kind that wets everything down, but good. You could feel that it might open up again any minute. People were hurrying, hugging the walls with their heads down, their umbrellas up. Water dripped from the awnings, falling on them as they went by.
 

The cars that slid by sluiced water up, onto the sidewalk, with a long, juicy hiss.
 

I noticed a man sitting in his car across the street. Not unusual for a rainy day, but something about him bothered me. He was looking occasionally across the plaza, towards the Brooks Building, where my office is located. I suppose that I noticed him because he had his window down, and was trying to look like he belonged there. He didn’t, though. His Mercedes and his look said he was someone used to money.
 

I knew that types like that didn’t typically loiter on the street, especially in that part of town, unless they are up to no good. As I watched, he reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, revealing what appeared to be a Rolex. He was a curiosity, all right, but there was no law against looking out of place. His face wore an expression of impatience. He looked like he was on a stakeout, but didn’t know for what.
 

I was blowing on my coffee, still casually watching the man, when a tan-colored sedan pulled up behind the Mercedes. A man in a long blue raincoat got out, walked right up to the Mercedes’ driver’s side window, and leaned against the car. The man seated behind the steering wheel smiled, and the two shook hands. But then any semblance of civility vanished. With his other hand, the guy in the raincoat pulled a gun and shot the Mercedes driver in the head. Then the gunman calmly opened his raincoat, put his weapon away, and walked slowly back to his car.
 
He got in behind the wheel and drove away.

“Have you lost your mind?” A rotund lady with a beehive hairdo who was coming in the door shouted, as I charged through the door, pushing her aside. I had once been a college linebacker, so maybe she had some cause. I am also a big, African-American man with a mean-looking scar on the left side of my face, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.
 

The gunman was long gone, of course. His car was rounding the corner as I emerged from the diner. The street was empty except for onlookers who stood in the drizzle with expressions of horror on their faces.
 

“Was the coffee that bad?” Sally asked loudly as I came back in the door. The woman whom I had pushed aside harrumphed and glared at me. Her beehive hairdo had been upset in the tussle, and now loose curls tumbled down from the collapsed ziggurat atop her head.
 

I sat down and waited on the police; I already heard the sirens. By that time, there were already a couple of people gawking across the street. A woman screamed, and the whole thing began from there.

* * *

Maybe it had begun two days earlier, though I didn’t know it at the time. That day had been Monday, the day I had gotten a call from someone who identified himself as a Mr. Baucom, a very professional-sounding man who had insisted that I meet him somewhere out of the way. That was usually a bad sign. I could have refused, but I was feeling rather adventurous at the time. That adventurous feeling usually meant that I was nearly broke. I had told Baucom that I would meet him Wednesday, just after breakfast, at Sally’s Diner, of course. That was about the safest and most discreet place I could think of at the time. After the fifth police car arrived, it didn’t look very discreet anymore, and if it had been safe in the first place, they wouldn’t have been there. Oh well.
 

Witnessing a murder is a hell of way to start off your day. Dead bodies make most people nervous, and policemen are no exception. Talking to nervous cops is usually bad for one’s digestion. Any tension that I might have felt over talking to the police that particular late morning, however, was dispelled when I saw Detective Sergeant Lester Broom pile out of an unmarked police car.
 

Broom was accompanied by his partner, Detective in-training Cassandra Taylor. She was a good-looking redhead, sort of tall, fit and thin, with a serious, intelligent face that belied an easy-going personality and quick sense of humor. The crowd parted, and people gaped in wonder as Broom’s shadow passed over them. If he noticed them at all, he gave no outward sign. I walked over to meet him, and we shook hands.
 

The people had cause to gape. Lester Broom was a giant of a man. He towered over me, and I am six-foot three and well-muscled, a big man myself. Broom’s stature matched perfectly with his strength and reputed toughness. He is also my best friend in the world, and I knew that despite his massive exterior, the big cop was also a very compassionate man who genuinely cared about the people and the city he was sworn to protect. Broom and I had partnered as detectives together for what I consider five of the best years of his life. We had worked homicide, and Broom had taught me that being a detective was both an art and a craft.
 

Today, my big friend was mightily displeased, and I didn’t have to ask why. Another person had stopped breathing on his beat by unnatural means, and he was left to sort out the tawdry details. As far as law enforcement went, Birmingham was his city, from Central Headquarters on First Avenue North to the North Precinct deep in the crime-ridden North Side; to the South Precinct, out near Homewood; and all the other precincts of the city and the substations that lay between them, Birmingham was Detective Lieutenant Lester Broom’s beat, as far as he was concerned, and people did not murder their fellow human beings in his city, without feeling his wrath.
 

The Medical Examiner had yet to arrive, but an ambulance crew was already on the scene. The media always seemed a step ahead of everyone else when blood had been spilled. An EMT gave Broom a cursory but grim shake of his head, thus announcing that the man in the car was officially dead, and Broom, Cassie and I walked over together to peer into the car’s interior.
 

“Think this is a mob thing, Les?” Cassandra asked. “The news crews will go all giggly with pleasure, if it is.”
 

“Tough break for the news hounds, then. No, Cassie, I don’t make it that way,” Broom said with a shake of his head. “I was thinking that on the way here. The O’Hearn mob bumped off a soldier for Don Ganato a couple of weeks ago, so I thought, here’s the retribution that we’ve all been holding our breath for.” Broom bent down and pointed to the man in the car. “But no way this fellow was one of Longshot Lonnie O’Malley’s goons. I pretty much know all of his ragtag little crew by now. Looks like this guy had some class, which they, to a man, do not possess. All of Don Ganato’s boys are Italian, and this guy isn’t that, either.”
 

Lester sighed and looked at me.
 

“The mob boys still popping each other?” I asked.
 

“We had a couple of shooting incidents last week. Nobody was killed, but it only aggravates the situation. I’m still expecting the whole thing to blow up into a shooting war any day. This job is tough enough, without the professional criminals shooting up the town. What we have brewing here in Birmingham is an old-fashioned mob war. These guys still think it’s 1935. But our little mob war isn’t going to start today. Not on this guy’s account, anyway. Whoever he is, he isn’t part of that. This gentleman is someone else, and I think we can safely say that his death is not related to our local mobster families. Observe.”
 

Broom slid a bible-sized hand inside the dead man’s jacket and produced a wallet. He let out his version of a low whistle, which sounded something like a fog horn. “This guy’s loaded.” He reached in again. “And packing,” he said, as he held open the dead man’s jacket to reveal a silvery-gray automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. “Too bad he was so slow on the draw.” Broom looked critically at the man’s I.D. and held it out for me to see. “There’s an Atlanta address. The guy’s name’s Mr. Arthur Bowman. Does that name ring any bells for you?”
 

I shook my head slowly. “None.”
 

Broom stroked his chin. “The thing is, I can’t make what this guy was doing here. I mean, there’s only three or four businesses in this area, and besides Sally’s, your office is the only thing open right here in Brooks Plaza. I can’t figure what the heck this guy was doing sitting around here in his car on a rainy day. Got any ideas?”

I shrugged. “I was thinking the same thing, right before whoever it was shot him. He just looked out of place. But that’s all I know. Sorry, Les. I never heard of him or saw him before this morning. All I did was witness his murder.”
 

When Broom finished taking my statement, I went back into Sally’s Diner.
 

Sally leaned over the counter when I came in. She’s a tall brunette with strong, attractive features and a sarcastic bent. I think she’s anywhere from five to fifteen years older than me; there was no way to tell, and I am not about to ask.
 

“There’s a gent back there who’s looking for you.” Sally indicated a corner of the diner with a swing of her head.
 

It was Baucom, all right. I knew it even though I had never seen him before. He and the dead guy could have belonged to the same yacht club. He stood and greeted me with a firm handshake and a raised eyebrow. He wore a Yale ring, an Armani suit, and a diamond tie tack. I was pretty sure all three were firsts at Sally’s. He was about five foot nine, and had thinning dark hair and unreadable black, intelligent eyes. He swept me with a swift look of appraisal, going down some internal checklist. Apparently, I passed muster; he gave me an agreeable nod and started talking.
 

“Mr. Longville, you have quite a reputation as a private investigator.”
 

I made a noncommittal noise. The killing that I’d just seen happen had left me in less than a talkative mood.
 

“I’d like to thank you for meeting with me here today,” Baucom continued.
 

“Not a problem. So, would you like to hire me, Mr. Baucom?” I asked him, though I already had a feeling what he would say next. He would tell me that he was working for someone else. I thought this was likely because he hadn’t started by anxiously telling me his problem. People always want to tell you their problems first, because they are all sure that theirs are so different from everyone else’s, that you’re just dying to hear about them.
 

I didn’t think that Baucom had any problems that were too severe. If he did, I seriously doubted that he would share them with me. He seemed like a man who could handle his own troubles, thank you very much. He exuded the air of someone who was very sure of himself. He certainly didn’t seem worried about anything, and the people who hired me were just about always worried sick about something.
 

“Straight to business, then. Actually, Mr. Longville, I come here on behalf of another party. My employer, you see, would like to discuss a very serious matter with you. He’s an important man, and coming here in person wouldn’t have been prudent for him, for a number of reasons. Also, he’s very busy, as I’m sure you are as well. He wants us to set up a meeting at a time convenient for both of you.”