Sleep with the Fishes (10 page)

“Wrong.” Sid pointed a finger in Big Bob’s face. “The who in this case is a what, and where is that what? You don’t know, I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?” Russ blurted.

“Look, you guys wanna go to the cops, tell ’em Russ killed a guy, and that you two are accessories, and then not have a fish to show ’em?” Sid threw his arms out. “You guys’ll look pretty friggin’ stupid, to be honest.”

“But you took the…” Russ began.

“What did I do? Did you see me do anything? O.K., O.K., say we all go to court. You say you killed somebody and then ’cause I’m some kinda saint, I came in and ditched the stiff for you. You know what my defense attorney is gonna say to you? ‘Mr. Smonig, did you actually see the defendant dispose of the body? Did you see the defendant single-handedly lift a guy who’s gotta be two hundred an’ eighty pounds, throw him in the car, and drive him to points unknown?’ Then he’ll ask your two friends. And the answer will be no. N-O. Now see, you’re gonna look pretty foolish. Not that any of this is goin’ to court anyhow ’cause this here is circumstantial, and for another thing, there ain’t no body. Spanky? Alfalfa? Porky? Is any of this gettin’ through? Do you know what I’m talkin’ about? And do you get what it means? Two words. Are you listening? Two words: Don’t Panic.” Sid smiled, clapped his hands, and headed for the dam breast and his cabin.

“Hey, where are ya going? What are we gonna do?” Big Bob beseeched, waving his arms.

“What’re we gonna do? We’re gonna call a taxidermist, and then we’re all gonna go get that tape.”

“We can’t. Today’s Sunday. They’re closed at four on Sundays. Nobody’ll be there,” Little Bob moaned.

“Hey, if there was someone there then there’d be somebody to recognize us. Am I right? Hey, it’s perfect. We break in and grab the tape. I’ll pick you guys up in five minutes.”

Sid disappeared behind the willow.

After viewing the tape twice, Price had the video freeze-frame on the dim, flickery image of Johnny Fest’s face, eyes open, mouth open, looking just a little surprised and quite dead. Sure, the tape quality was poor in the low light under the truck, and the camera sat at a weird angle.

But Price knew that face. O.K., so he had focused more on lost disability opportunities than on the trauma of being shot. It had been pretty hairy though, and if he’d had any time to consider his predicament before the gun went off, it would have been downright disturbing. But Price was a former gridiron champ and had an instinctively cool reaction to injury. And the whole thing had happened damned fast.

However, it hadn’t happened so fast that the face of the guy behind the trigger didn’t stick. Hell, there was no question that the guy flickering on the screen was the guy who shot him. The red and white striped shirt clearly visible under the back of the truck made it a positive I.D. And with what all these people on the tape were saying, well, it got Price to thinking. He phoned the barracks.

“Stoney?…Hey, it’s Price…. No, I’m O.K., fine, yeah, really…. Oh, it just glanced off a rib…. Yeah, a hollow point. Look, Stoney, is there a make on the guy that…yeah…Johnny Fest, huh…yeah…Anybody grab him?…Yeah, from the composite?…What?…Uh-huh. Newark?…Whoa, the guard’s eyes…You’re shitting me, no kidding?…You’re damned right I feel lucky…. What?…A reward? Who?…oh, the Brotherhood of Guards, huh?…No—really? You’re joking. Is that legal?…But doesn’t that really mean ‘Dead or Alive?’…Yeah, well, that’s what I thought…. Yeah, I guess they all would be out hoping to find that BMW…Uh-huh, look, Stoney, I gotta go…. Yeah, Monday…Right. I will, yeah…. O.K…. Yes, bye.”

Price slammed the phone down and turned to the TV screen. He tugged absently at his diamond stud earring, contemplating his options.

“I might just cash in on this thing after all.”

Price winked at the TV and finished his flat beer. He burped, blinked off the VCR, got his windbreaker, and left the house.

The sky had gone scarlet mackerel, and the day was drawing to an appropriately lusty close.

Chik was showing Penelope the storyboard for his next “tour de force” when Omer came into the Five Star and nobly doffed his hat to the lady.

Slapping the binder closed, Chik stashed the dirty opus
Rubber Bikini Bingo
under the counter, smoothed his mustache, and approached his customer. Penelope seemed to have a tune in her head. She swayed to the music, sucking cola from a straw.

“Tea with lemon coming right up,” Chik chimed.

“My, what a keen memory you have.” Omer tore his gaze from Penelope. She was a dead ringer for a naughty little number he’d whisked away from the Naval Observatory one night in the midst of one of Washington’s worst snowstorms.

Chik clinked the tea in front of Omer.

“Haven’t seen Mr. Big and Sweaty,” Chik apologized.

“Well”—Omer tossed a cursory glance at Penelope, who clearly wasn’t paying any attention—“there’s somebody else I’m looking for. Have you seen Sid around? Lately?”

Chik massaged a hand towel and thought.

“Yeah, he stopped in last night. First time I met him. Came in looking for Russ. I told him he might find him down at the Duck Pond.”

“That tavern down the road? I see. Have you seen either Russ or Sid today?” Omer sipped his tea, pinky extended.

“Nope. But I do know this much: Russ and Sid was fishing, and this guy Sid came up with some kinda huge carp. Our local taxidermist was in, sayin’ he was gonna drop over later tonight to pick it up on his way back from an auction in Honesdale. Can you imagine? Mounting a carp?” Chik rolled the dishrag between two hands. He was hoping for another of Omer’s twenties.

“Any idea”—Omer paused to sip tea—“where I might find them now?”

“Nope. But I’ll keep an eye out. Hey, if there’s a number I can call or something…”

The front door opened and a cop stepped in. Not that he was in uniform or anything. He was a tall, formerly lean man in blue Dickies and a baby blue windbreaker over a bowling shirt. The blond hair was more or less cut into a flattop.

Both Chik and Omer had been around long enough to know a cop if he was wearing a raccoon coat, Indian headdress, and elf shoes. Or even a diamond stud earring.

Price took in his surroundings, hands on hips, before finally stepping up to the counter next to Omer. Price started to fold his arms, but realized that would hurt his bullet wound. Instead, he let his arms hang, though a bit restlessly.

“What can I get you—mister?” Chik was a little tense.

Price knitted his brow. How did people always know he was a cop?

“Yes, I’m looking for a friend of mine.” Price smiled unconvincingly. “I was just passing through, thought I’d look him up.” He smiled harder, and it didn’t help. “My friend’s name is Sid.” He glanced at Penelope as she vapidly vacuumed the last of the cola in a protracted slurp. “Do you know where I might find him?”

Chik tried not to glance at Omer, who was examining his nails.

“Can’t say I have seen your friend. That is, I don’t know him, haven’t heard of him, really.” Chik was twisting his rag.

Omer piped up.

“Isn’t that the guy who lives down by…? No, that’s Fred Primely.” Omer put a hand on Price’s forearm, noting the name “Price” embroidered on the cop’s bowling shirt. “What a weird character Fred is. Let me tell you. Why, he has a three-legged dog, a two-legged cat, and a one-legged bird.” Omer knew how to scare snoops off: drivel.

“But you don’t know Sid Bifulco?” Price went back to arms akimbo. He didn’t like people touching him and didn’t want to invite more of Omer’s friendly pats.

“Well, let me see,” Omer began, “there’s this lady over in Milford. Her name is Syd—that’s short for Sydney, like in Australia. Did you know that was a girl’s name? Well I didn’t, not ’til…”

Price slid over to Penelope, who had her back and elbows against the counter. She looked up at Price from under a dark chocolatey forelock. He could see she wasn’t wearing a bra, and he forced that thought from his mind.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I was just asking those gentlemen whether they knew where I might find a friend of mine that lives around here. His name is Sid.” There was that awful smile of his again, like he was peddling stale bread.

Penelope sloshed a languid glance in Chik’s direction, but the latter didn’t move a muscle. Despite the girl’s distracted Veronica Lake demeanor, she wasn’t as vapid as some assumed. She shook her head and shrugged.

Jenny worked
most weekends, because a day’s pay was as hard to turn down as a round on the house. So she had spent Sunday afternoon making delivery of eight hundred ten- and fourteen-inch brown trout to some hoity-toity private club down off I-84 called simply “The Meadows.” Anyhow, they tipped well and they didn’t insist she put the trout in buckets. They didn’t even count them, which meant that Jenny could just back the truck down the boat ramp and blow the entire contents of each tank. Which was nice, because then she didn’t have to haul water around looking for a place to surreptitiously dump it. People get real upright when they see a tank truck, even if it’s just carrying fishy water, dumping willy-nilly. And most places she delivered to didn’t want the “dirty” trout-farm water in their lake.

It was about eight p.m., dark and misty. Jenny was sitting in her truck at the shopping center across from Little Tony’s, eating pizza, listening to the country station, staring blankly across the way at all the closed shops, and thinking idly about that weird airline pilot guy, Sid, standing in a tree in his bathrobe. Then, as if she’d worked some bizarre spell, her gaze zoomed onto a white Ford LTD coming across the lot. That guy Sid had one of those parked in his driveway.

The LTD slowed, weaved a bit, then killed its lights. It rode very low. And as it passed beneath a streetlamp, Jenny registered two faces behind the glass, one in the front passenger seat, one in the back. Arching away from her, the car headed down past the last dark shop on the row, the Show Time Videomat, and disappeared behind.

Mid-chew, Jenny struggled to swallow a chunky bit of crust. The two faces were not just familiar, they were Russ and Big Bob. In Sid’s car.

The brilliant day had given way to a humid night. Down by the river it would be chilly. But the tarmac of the strip mall’s parking lot retained heat and gave off water vapor that made light from the lampposts look like beacons from a submersible.

Sid had used a Dumpster behind the Videomat to hike himself up onto the roof. His comrades stood below, looking up at his silhouette.

“Now look, Sid, we are just after the tape, right? I mean, we’re not making off with any money, and there aren’t going to be any alarms going off, police, that sort of thing?” Russ was literally wringing his hands, searching the surroundings for the FBI.

Sid ignored him.

“You see, the best way to break in just about anywhere is through someplace on the roof. A hatch, a skylight, a vent hood, something like that is usually much easier to open than any door, and usually not rigged to an alarm.” Sid threw his hands up as if to show how easy it was.

“Back up a second there. What do you mean ‘not usually rigged’ with an alarm? Sid, how will you know?” Russ protested.

“Big Bobby, what’s with your friend here? I don’t think he has confidence in me. No confidence in the guy who’s led a life of crime.”

“And who—incidentally—got caught,” Russ added.

“Now, don’t you guys think that if I can get away with all that over a twenty-year period that I can get away with breaking in to a Podunk video store in ten minutes? You’re damn right I can.” Turning from his audience, he took a few steps onto the center of the roof and scanned his surroundings. Except for a drain riser coming up from the bathroom, it looked to be completely featureless, gravel-covered tar.

“Crap. It ain’t gonna be easy,” Sid muttered to himself, brandishing a pry bar. In his youth, all the old buildings of Newark had skylights, stairwells, ventilation shafts, and hatches. Warehouses and restaurants had big vent hoods. But he was unaware of the vagaries of shopping center architecture. The place probably had no basement either, the next best place for forced entry.

After inspecting the six-inch diameter riser, tugging on it, and kicking gravel around looking for the outline of a hatch, Sid was on the verge of admitting that they might have to go through the door after all. Then he heard the growl of an approaching truck. Sid crouched and listened as the slow grumbling truck curved around the side of the store. Air brakes sighed back near the LTD, a door opened and closed. Something banged the top of the Dumpster.

“Sid!” came a hoarse whisper.

He crept over to the edge and knelt.

“Hey, it’s Trout Lady. Whadda you doin’ here? You know, I didn’t exactly send out invitations.”

“Sid, are ya airline pilots always hanging out up on high places?” Arms folded, Jenny stood on the Dumpster and considered Sid’s silhouette, her lips in a sardonic twist.

“I dunno who keeps spreading it aroun’ that I’m like some kinda airline pilot.”

“It’s me, flyboy. Say, just what are ya doin’ up there anyways?”

“Me?” Sid gestured at his chest.

“Yeah, you. And where are the Bobs and Russ?” Jenny craned her neck, trying to see behind neighboring Dumpsters.

Sid took a cursory look and shrugged it off.

“I dunno. They were around here someplace. You musta scared ’em into ditching. Hey, what are
you
doing here anyways? Where’d you come from?”

“O.K., I’ll go first. I was comin’ back from a delivery down off I-84, stopped in for pizza at Little Tony’s. Was out in my truck eating a slice when I saw your car come by with Russ and Big Bob’s face in it. I don’t know for a fact that Little Bob is here, but where ya find one, ya often find the other. Now it’s your turn.”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” Sid flashed a lopsided grin.

“Well, I don’t think you’re an airline pilot at all. I think you’re a crook.”

“A crook? Hey, you got it all wrong. You wanna know what a crook is? That’s like a politician, a judge, or government-type guy that takes graft. That’s what a crook is. But me? No, I’m not a crook. A burglar? O.K., so tonight I’m a burglar. But just to help some friends in a jam, God in the witness stand.” Sid crossed himself as though he were still Catholic. Though he’d never received notice from the Vatican, he took it for granted he’d been excommunicated.

“An’ you’re gonna break in to this here video store from the roof? To help some friends? Meaning the Bobs and Russ? And for no, as they say, ‘personal gain’?”

Sid pointed and nodded at each of her questions in turn.

“But I’ll tell you the truth. I do have a personal agenda—to be honest.” He held up a pledging palm.

“Ya do?”

“Yup.” Sid looked around, his voice lowering further. “Y’see, if I help Russ outta this jam, I’m gonna get in on all his hot fishing spots.”

“No shit!”

“Yeah shit!” Sid sounded defensive.

“What about his secret shad spots?” Jenny leaned one leather-jacketed shoulder against the brick wall, whispering up at Sid in a conspiratorial tone.

“Those slices and the rest of the pie!” Sid winked.

“Hey, Sid, I got an idea. Actually, it’s a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Yeah. Look. What if I turn ya all into the police…”

“Stop right there. Do you mean to say you’d rat out the Bobs and Russ?”

“And ya, to the cops. What do ya think?”

“No way. You wouldn’t do that.”

“O.K., maybe I wouldn’t. But how about this: How about I show ya how to get in here? That, plus I keep a lid on this burglary—
plus
that Russ has got some kinda big problem—which would only get worse if everybody knew something was up, whatever it is—all in exchange for ya showin’ me Russ’s spots.” Jenny let that sink in a minute. “Especially the shad spots.”

“O.K., how about this,” Sid countered shrewdly. “I personally will take you to each spot he shows me for an afternoon’s fishing, not to exceed five spots, and I’ll take you out to dinner somewhere nice around here.”

“Dinner? Who said anything about dinner?”

“I did. Hey, if you want, I’ll even take you to Little Tony’s, but if I was you I’d go for the big money, like someplace French. Then maybe you could put on a dress, some nice, uh, shoes maybe. I’ll even wear a tie.”

“Ya wanna take the Trout Lady on a date?”

“Whadda I gotta do, Jenny? Spell it out on a pizza in pepperoni?”

“Shhh, dammit! Get down off that roof, Sid. Ya gotta deal.”

Ten minutes later, after the Bobs and Russ had crawled sheepishly out of the shrubbery, and after they’d moved the LTD and truck back around front, Jenny instructed them all to retreat into the forest shadow behind the video store.

“Jenny, this better not be one of your jokes!” Russ fished around the bushes for the fedora a twig had removed from his head.

“Hey, ya owe me that shad spot, Russ. Any more of your lip an’ I’ll up it to two or three.” Jenny pointed at the rustling bushes. “Now ya guys settle down. Be real quiet, an’ watch the master at work. Used to get beer like this.” Jenny marched up to the back of the video store.

Crushing his fedora back on his head, Russ grabbed Sid by the shirtsleeve.

“What the hell did you bring her in on this for! What did you tell her?”

“Relax. I didn’t tell her nothin’, Smonig. All she knows is that we’re in some kinda jam. I cut a deal with her.” Sid shrugged off Russ’s grip.

“Deal? Deal? What kind of deal?”

“Would you stop clawing at my goddamn shirt, Smonig. Relax! What, you think I promised her something? O.K., I promised her dinner, Smonig. You can get almost anything outta a lady with an expensive dinner.”

“Y’guys! Shut up!” Jenny stood in front of the back door, gauged her distance, then ran toward it. A red hiking boot rose to the occasion and kicked the bottom of the door. The impact echoed down the alleyway, but the door remained closed. Jenny disappeared between the Dumpster and the wall.

Some time passed, and the gang in the bushes fought off itches, aches, and sneezes. Eyes strained to cut through the shadows and make out fuzzy dark images of the brickwork and door frame.

Kicking the back door was not intended to open it. The idea was to move it just enough to break the circuit on a magnetic sensor, thus triggering a silent alarm. Back when she had worked hauling Pepsi in Hawley, a beer-hound they’d called Whiz used to get into the beer distributor at Indian Orchard in just such a fashion, whence he would liberate a few cases of Yuengling.

Sure enough, headlights flashed the bushes, and a white late-model Chevy with an eagle emblem on each door swept up behind the store and screeched to a stop. High beams flicked on, fully illuminating the back door to the store. More time passed as the security guy sat in his car considering the possibility that it was a false alarm.

Finally, the girthsome guard groaned out of the sedan and sputtered something unintelligible into a walkie-talkie. Producing a ten-pound ring of keys, he counted them off and jammed one into the lock of the back door. Shouldering the door open, he scanned the shop interior with a log-sized flashlight. He went in, leaving the door ajar.

Jenny slid from behind the Dumpster and peeked inside. She crept farther and farther until she was gone.

“Hey, Jenny went in the store!” Little Bob squeaked.

“She’s gonna get caught,” Big Bob predicted.

“Boy, has she ever got nerve!” Little Bob countered.

“Ho—keep it down.” Sid was familiar with Jenny’s ploy, and he didn’t like it much. A guard would normally start searching from the back of a store, an area usually full of hiding places in stored merchandise, and move toward the front of the store. Standard procedure so he won’t get jumped by anybody. When finished, he would return to the back door without searching the spots he’d already searched—which was where Jenny would be hiding. The alarm control box is often next to the back door where curious customers don’t have access to it, either physically or visually.

After probing the premises, the guard would reset the alarm by punching in his access code. Jenny, meanwhile, would be watching the guard punch in his code and would be able to disarm it once he’d left.

Clever as it was, Sid didn’t like it much, if for no other reason than that it seemed dishonest. An honest break-in involved forced entry. Oh well. Sid figured this wasn’t one for the record anyhow.

Sure enough, no sooner had the guard left than Jenny was leaning in the open doorway.

“C’mon, fellahs. Let the crime wave begin!”