Magician (2 page)

These thoughts swirled through my mind. Champion sat there, his great sad face patiently awaiting my pronouncement. His lower lip trembled, as though he was fearful of what I might say.

“Mr. Champion, I am familiar with your case. I don’t remember all the details, but I believe you are wrong about one thing—I’m not your last hope. The Birmingham Police are still actively pursuing this case—”

Champion held up a pale palm, and I fell silent so he could speak. Champion spoke in his cultured, measured tone. But there was more than a little spite in his voice: “Nothing. The Birmingham Police are doing nothing. I’ve been to them many times, believe me. Even recently, I have consulted them. Their answer is always the same. I have also been to private agencies. I am referring to some of the largest firms, some of them the most reputable in the country, the world. The police I might say, are the same as these agencies—they want to placate me by sending me empty reports, or dash my hopes with repetitive and pointless interviews.” He paused for a moment, checked his manicure, gave me a quick glance, and went on.
 

“I am no fool, Mr. Longville. What has happened here is easy to see. The police have given up on this case—on
my
case. As for the large private agencies, the situation is laughable. They simply want to take my money. No, I am done with them, done with them all. What is called for here is a goal-oriented person, an individual who will report to me personally. Someone who gets results. Someone like you.”

I ignored the patronizing remark. “Mr. Champion. Despite what you may think, some of the larger detective agencies have some very highly trained personnel. I might also mention that they have considerable resources at their disposal.” I made a sweeping gesture with my hand, encompassing my office, and the mostly vacant Brooks Building.
 

There was a slight pause while Champion appeared to consider this. The wind slammed against the panes, and the sleet made a nervous
tic tic tic
on the rattling glass.

“Mr. Longville, I am a very wealthy man.”

“Yes, Mr. Champion. I know you are.”

“It so happens that you come very highly recommended. Very highly indeed. That is all the assurance that I require. As for resources, I will place at your disposal whatever you require to get results. I am also prepared to reward success handsomely—
very
handsomely, Mr. Longville. For me, you see, this entire affair has gone beyond hiring someone and simply waiting for results. I’m looking for someone who is honest and knows, if you will excuse me, what the hell they are about, and the cost be damned.” Again, Champion delivered his words with great drama, and paused as if to search my face for some reaction.
 

I was unwilling to play Champion’s game.

“It doesn’t work that way, Mr. Champion. I work for set rates, not on a reward basis. I’m not a bounty hunter. Extra expense money would help any investigation, but let me be honest with you. The Birmingham Police still have someone assigned to this case, probably some of their best people. The police don’t give up. If you haven’t heard anything from them, it’s because there are simply no new developments in the case. As for the private agencies you’ve been to, well, they probably weren’t able to find anything either.”
 

I stopped suddenly; Champion was counting out money, laying it on the desk. There was already a considerable stack of hundreds.

“Mr. Champion . . . sir, stop that. Put your money away. I can’t accept this.”

“This is just for your time, Mr. Longville. Please, let me talk, let me explain.”

“You are talking to me, Mr. Champion. You can, all you want. That’s free. Now please get your money off my desk.” Champion flushed. Then, hesitantly, he scraped up the bills and secreted them away in his coat. His manner immediately became apologetic again.

“Forgive me, Mr. Longville.” Champion’s voice immediately became a placating whine, as he took on an artless change of tack. “I know that I am in no position to demand anything. I am not trying to insult you, but I am at wit’s end. You must try to understand. All I ask is that you try. I’ll pay well, and, I’d like you to know that I trust you. Please, please, I implore you, help us if you are able.”

I saw that the big man’s face was shiny with tears once again.

I drew a heavy sigh, and let my fingers trace the scar that makes a long comma from the corner of my left eye to the corner of my mouth. I do that compulsively, when I figure I am close to making a big mistake, like the one that had gotten me the scar.

I felt a stab of pain from that old wound. I am no superhero. I’m just a man, with a man’s frailties, a man’s mortality. I know all too well that Champion, however pointless his case might seem, might mean my destruction. A number of “piece of cake” assignments had almost been the death of me. Any case I take might be the one that ends me.

“If I agreed to do this, Mr. Champion, I’d need your cooperation, Mr. Champion. Your unqualified cooperation.”

“Rest assured, Mr. Longville, about our cooperation. I assure you, you will have it. My wife and I—regrettably, Diana couldn’t be here—will agree to almost anything. Something has to be done!” His last words were in a high, keening tone, and I had the sense of Champion saying them on a talk show, and the remark drawing a round of obligatory applause from the half-attentive audience.

I gritted my teeth. The man had obviously rehearsed his routine, but still, he seemed in earnest about his lack of confidence in the police and other agencies. I could guess whom the man had been to see—my ex-partner, Detective Lieutenant Lester Broom, of the North Precinct. Such unqualified praise for an ex-alcoholic, solo private eye, seldom came from other quarters.

“I have to say, Mr. Champion, I’m flattered by your apparent faith in me. But let me say something. I don’t think I would be doing anyone any good for me to simply rehash this case. I don’t think that you’re facing the facts here. The reason that the police and the other private firms haven’t found anything new is probably because there is nothing new to find.”

Champion leaned forward in his chair. “But there has to be something, Mr. Longville. They have all missed something . . . because my daughter is still missing.”

I started to reply, but Champion interrupted: “My daughter disappeared in the middle of her birthday party, and the only thing the police did was accuse us, my wife and I, of her murder. There are many who believe to this day that we are responsible. She was our only child, Mr. Longville. Our everything. Our world was taken from us. I want to know who did this horrendous thing. I want to know
how
it was done, and
why
it was done to my family.”

The bossy billionaire was suddenly gone. Sitting across from me now was a father who had lost his daughter, and everything else dear to him. The barrage of media images surrounding the case, and Champion’s billions, suddenly fell away. I was able to glimpse Champion’s naked despair, and I felt a pang of sympathy. Perhaps the man put on the big show to save his sanity.

“I’ll have to think it over, Mr. Champion. I can’t give you any guarantees. Maybe we could meet and discuss this somewhere at a later date.”

Champion quickly pushed an embossed card across the desk. It was printed on sepia tinted paper. I caught a whiff of his cologne. I half expected the card to be scented as well, and I suppressed the urge to sniff it.

“Excellent. This is my address. Come to my home. Show this card to the guard at the gate. Diane and I will be expecting you.” Champion immediately rose from his seat.

After more ebullient handshaking and a tearful goodbye, the strange man was gone. It was almost as though I had imagined him, except for the card. I indulged myself in another heavy sigh. It was difficult not to feel like a thief. The odds of turning up something new were astonishingly small.

I had nearly asked Champion to leave my office. I had considered telling him that under no circumstances would I take the case. But something changed my mind. What? Usually I would change my mind and decide to take a case because the client convinced me that their situation was different, that it wasn’t going to be just another runaway daughter or deadbeat dad. This one didn’t look that way.

Champion himself was pretty annoying. I supposed that what I found particularly grating was his oily, yet persuasive technique. Though it was seemingly moronic and childish, I had to grudgingly admit that it had worked on me. The man was a brow-beater, but of a different order than I had ever encountered. What Champion couldn’t get by tugging at your heartstrings, he would attempt to buy off with money.
 

I was angry with myself, too. I knew I was going to take the case, and I told myself it was a mistake because it was a hopeless cause—more hopeless than any I’d ever seen. This one had been the center of a media tornado. The parents were at the pinnacle of Birmingham’s polite society, and for a while they had been suspects. The unrelenting tabloid coverage had destroyed their credibility in the community. Eventually, the police had cleared them as suspects, and there had been a public apology. No other suspects were ever produced.

I shrugged into my overcoat and went down to the street. My old brown Buick Regal was parked at the curb, and I got in and started it up. What dark figure had come into the moneyed, tiffany and teatime world that Georgia Champion called home? What monster had come from the darkness and taken her, and then vanished back into the impenetrable shadows from which it had come?

Anyone with a television set had heard the whole story a thousand times. It was a complex web of supposed leads. The trouble was, none of them led anywhere. The police had investigated the case for months, but had found nothing. It had made the police force the butt of many harsh jokes. Cases like that often get put away, and never see the light of day again.

I knew police work well enough to understand that the Georgia Champion case wasn’t at the top of anyone’s crime docket, nowadays. I also knew that I would have to delve into a mountain of information, and there would be nothing that the police hadn’t already been over with a fine-tooth comb. Most of it would be redundant, pointless.

There was always hope that some overworked detective had missed something, but the smart money was that the abductor had left nothing for anyone to find. It was, after all, like taking the Champion’s money. I knew if I agreed to do it, I owed Champion results. Maybe I could at least find the girl’s body. If the result was ultimately nothing other than a body to bury, maybe I could at least give Champion the peace of mourning at her grave.
 

I could see how others might find it hard not to take advantage of the man. He was eager to pay anyone who could provide him with the briefest glimmer of hope, in a situation everyone else had given up on. I thought of Horace Champion, counting out money on my desktop, and I grimaced.
 

I looked at the address on the card Champion had given me, and started the car.
 

The case lay in the environs of the East Precinct. Unknown territory, I mused. Immutable laws had decreed that the case files from the Champion case were stored therein. I’d been to the East Precinct, but it had been years ago. I had worked almost exclusively out of the North Precinct; many of my old police friends still worked there.
 

There was no one at the East Precinct I would know.

Time to make some new friends.

Chapter 2

The East Precinct was an old three-story brick building sandwiched between intersecting avenues. 84th street was slick with rain, and a couple of uniformed cops in rain gear were trying to coax a drunk out of the back of their cruiser, and into a nice warm jail cell.

I trudged up the steps and entered the lobby. It was chilly with the air from outside. Two young officers sat behind a desk, protected by bulletproof glass that went up to the ceiling. There was a round hole in the glass. I wondered if there was a big cork they put in the hole, in case someone started shooting.
 

Neither of the men acknowledged my presence. I went up and spoke into the hole where the cork ought to fit.

“Good afternoon.”

“Can we help you?” the younger of the two cops asked. He was a skinny blond man, whose name tag read Simpson.

“I’m the one who called about reviewing the Champion case files.”

“Oh, yes. The private eye.”

The other officer behind the desk gave me a derisive smirk.
 

Take your time, there, Rookie.
 

I smiled back.

“Yes, that’s me. The officer I spoke with told me that I could see the Champion case files,” I said in my most polite voice.

“That was me. This way, please.” He jerked his head toward stairs in the corner. “Down to the dungeon.”

Simpson led me down three flights of metal stairs to the building’s dark and cool basement. He chuckled and talked to me over his shoulder.

“The Champion case, huh? Oh, you can see all of that stuff, all right. I just have to get you to sign first, in case something goes missing. It will be inventoried when you’re through. You don’t look the type, but a few kooks have tried to collect souvenirs. The whole case is public now, you see. Might as well be the Manson family slayings. A thousand people have looked this stuff: the newspapers, the tabloids, the cable gossip people, you name it.”