The Perfect Crime (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

CHARLES “READER” KINCAID’S TEMPER was running just a bit short. He’d stop at one more booth and if this guy didn’t have what he was looking for, then he’d say fuck it, get in his car and find a bar, work out another plan.

He was poking through the items on the table when the man standing behind it asked, “Looking for anything in particular?”

Jack Fogarty
, was printed on the man’s name tag, stuck on his lapel at a crooked angle. It was one of the blue tags, the ones dealers wore. His own tag was red, the color assigned to everyone else. He’d scrawled the name
Joe Witucki
on it, but anyone who tried to make it out would have to stand toe to toe.

They were standing in a huge open-air tent with dozens and dozens of tables crowded together in long rows, interspersed at intervals with the large booths of the top manufacturers and dealers. The sign at the entrance read Midwest Electronic Swap Meet - Dayton, Ohio” in large Caligula print, red on black.

“Yeah,” he said. “Some warm weather would be nice. You always keep it this cold in this town?”

“Not from Dayton, eh? It
is
nippy, isn’t it? Who woulda thought we’d get this weather in the middle of May! If we’d known, believe me, this thing’d be indoors. Too late to reschedule and find something inside I guess is what they figured. Who knows what they figured? Bunch of screw-ups. Gave me the lousiest spot in the place. T’hell with ‘em next year. Where you from, partner? I’ve heard your accent before. Kinda like from Brooklyn, but that’s not it. Southern, kinda. You from the south part of Brooklyn?” He smiled, in a friendly way. The neighborly kind, Reader thought, forcing a smile to his own lips. He hated the type.

Reader ignored the man’s question. He didn’t want him to know anything about him. Especially where he was from. He regretted that weather bit. In a week, the guy might pick up the papers and read about something that happened in New Orleans and put two and two together.

Acquaintances of Reader wouldn’t recognize him. He was wearing a windbreaker and hat. Also, a blond wig, a beard and eyeglasses. The glass in the spectacles wouldn’t be of much use to anyone near
or
farsighted. It was your basic windowpane glass.

“I’m looking for something in particular. I need a remote control for a model plane. Big-ass thing. Guy over there said you were the guy to see. He said you’d have what I’m looking for.”

“Well, pal, maybe I do. All you have to do is tell me what it is and I’ll tell you if I have it.”

“A Futaba. Nine-channel crystal-controlled receiver and transmitter. I want one goes a mile, at least. And some R/C switches. At least six. No, make it eight. Some other things, odds and ends.”

The crowd jostled around them, someone bumping against Reader and causing him to lose his balance slightly. He ignored whoever it was, heard an “excuse me” as he went by.

“Well, I don’t have all that at the meet. Back at the store, I do. Got a nice Futaba, newest thing. Nine channel, PCM 1024, lists for twenty-five hundred. I can let it go for twenty-three and tax. You should have been here earlier. Sold one, not half an hour ago. Day late, pal. I got another down at the store. Didn’t figure I’d sell the one I brought. Some businessman, huh? I guess I shoulda brought both of them. Come around to the store in the morning.” He handed Reader a business card. “Jack’s Hobbies, Crafts And Electronics” it read. The address and phone number were in smaller print below. Reader looked at it and stuck it in his shirt pocket. He leaned across the table closer to the man.

“My problem...Jack...is I have to leave town tonight. Could I get you to sell it to me when you get done? I need a few other things, too. I’ll pay extra.” Reader turned on the charm and gave the man a wry grin. The dealer cocked his head slightly and looked thoughtful. He said,

“Louis Armstrong. That’s it.”

“Louis Armstrong?”

“Yeah. I’m a big fan. Got all his records. That’s who you sound like. You’re not from Brooklyn. You’re from...man, you’re from the Big Easy! That’s it! Man, I been there! Best fucking food in the world! You’re a long way from home, old son. Hell, if you’re from New Orleans, just get this stuff when you get home. Any hobby shop’ll have it. Go to a Radio Shack.”

“It’s Jack, isn’t it?” Reader looked from the card in his hand to the man’s face and next at his name tag. “Well, Jack, I would but I can’t. I’m up in Ohio on business and I’ve got to leave for Europe. My kid’s in school in Switzerland and he’s a nut over those remote controlled boats. This is a present for him. I get on the plane tomorrow morning at six and I don’t know if I can find this stuff when I hit Switzerland. He’s meeting me at the Zurich airport and I want to have it for him when he meets me. I thought sure I could pick it up at this show.”

The man looked at him. “I thought you said he has a
plane
. You want this for a boat or a plane? Not that it matters. Works on either.”

“Look,” Reader said making a show of glancing at his watch, ignoring the question. “It’s after six. All the places in town are closed where I might find this stuff. Can’t I get you to stop by your store after you’re done and sell it to me? Look, I’ve asked every dealer in the place and nobody else has one. This would mean a lot to my kid. I’ll be glad to pay you extra. How ‘bout I add a C-note to whatever it costs? Charge me the list and make a little extra. Have a heart, pal. I only get to see my kid once a year. The old lady swung a hell of a one-way fucking deal when we split up. You got any kids?” He leaned in closer to Jack. “You ever married to a fucking cunt who kept you away from your only fucking son ‘cept one week a year?”

Fuck.
Two
mistakes. He must be slipping. First, the guy pegs him from New Orleans and he ended up messing up his goddamned story trying to ad-lib. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. This changed things. All this way to remain incognito and that blown all to hell. The guy didn’t push the discrepancy any further, but Reader didn’t want to take the chance he’d start thinking about it again. Especially a few weeks down the road when there was going to be one hell of an explosion in New Orleans and the Fibbies got themselves involved, as he was sure they would. First thing they’d do is contact all electronics dealers, see who their suspicious customers were. He could try and find another source, but that would only give them two more people to quiz. No, the best thing to do was to get what he needed from this guy and take care of business. Sorry, Jack, he thought. My mistake, but looks like you’re the bozo that’s gonna have to pay for it. The thought of killing the man didn’t particularly trouble him. It just made what should have been a simple thing more complicated.

***

Reader had an idea what was going to happen with him and that dealer later on that evening, and the thought got him agitated, stirred up. Not good, Reader, he told himself. You got to be right when this goes down.

He knew what to do, how to calm the blood, get him in the right frame of mind. It couldn’t be that hard, find one in this town. He drove around, looked for a certain neighborhood, way it looked and pretty soon there she was.

It was a hooker he was after.

“It’s forty, sweetie,” she said, leaning over from the curb, her eyes checking out the back seat of his blue Caprice like she thought maybe he had a midget friend back there.

“Did I ask you how much? You got a place?”

She did and it was up the block. She said she’d go on ahead and for him to sit in his car and watch. When he saw her turn he could come on. Park the car anywhere on the street. Don’t forget the meter if he didn’t want his car towed.

Five minutes later, he was following her upstairs to an apartment. It was a pathetic little thing, hardly worthy to be called an apartment. It was barely an efficiency. He wondered if she lived there or just took tricks there, like it was her office, something. One room with a bed, unmade, a beat-up dresser and a wooden chair. A tiny bathroom. Reaer could see the rust in the sink from the open door. There was no refrigerator; nothing except those three pieces of furniture, so this was where she worked was all. Probably had a three-bedroom ranch out in the suburbs.

Soon as she heard the door close--she was ahead of him--she kept on walking over to the bed, shedding clothes as she walked, everything but her shoes. She sat down on the bed and faced him.

“Come on, big boy,” she said. “I guess it don’t matter what it cost since you didn’t ask, but that forty, that’s for head. You want to put it in, that’s forty more.”

Reader looked down at her, and she must have seen something in his eyes scared her. “Well, shit,” she said. “I said forty, didn’t I? Forty it is, sailor. Whatever you want. C’mon.”

She lay back on the bed, her feet still on the floor and spread her legs, let him have a look. Reaching down with her hand she spread the lips of her pussy with her middle and forefinger, at the same time flashing him what he was sure was meant to be a sexy smile.

“You got rubbers?” he said.

He unzipped and pulled out his penis and put the condom she handed him on himself, looking it over first after he unwrapped it. He stared at her, “Turn over. Get on your knees. On the bed. Back to me.”

She sat up.

“Whoa, cowboy. You want something like that, that’s extra. You didn’t--”

“Turn over. Now.”

She hesitated, started to say something, looked at him and down, quickly, and said, in a low, defeated voice, “Oh, Christ,” and did as he said, looking back over her shoulder as he stepped forward. She crouched on all fours, head down, fists clenched, and in less than a minute it was over.

“I didn’t get your cherry, did I?” was all he said when he’d finished. She didn’t laugh or say anything.

Reader walked into the bathroom and grabbed the roll of toilet paper, tore off a large hunk, turned on the cold water and soaked it. He slipped the condom off and threw it in the stool, took the wet toilet paper, wiped himself off and threw the soppy mess on top of the rubber and flushed. He watched, waiting to be sure it went down. You never knew about the plumbing in these kinds of dumps. He came back out, zipping up.

“Hey, buster. My money,” she said, getting up and grabbing her skirt, stepping into it and pulling it up. He could see she was angry.

“I’m going to pay you,” he said. He walked over, his knife ready in his hand and she started to say something to him, but couldn’t quite get it out in time.

When he left, he made sure the door was locked.

An hour later and luck was with him, he found the guy’s store right away and the setup looked perfect. An alley in back and nothing open on either side of it at this time of day. He drove around until he found a twenty-four hour supermarket two blocks up and parked in the lot.

There was a coffee shop directly across the street from Jack’s Hobbies And Crafts. As dinky and run-down as the place looked from the storefront, he figured this bozo must make most of his money doing trade shows. He took a sip of coffee and winced. Fucking Cadillac coffee. I’d give ten bucks for some Community Blend dark roast, he thought. You gotta be a Yankee to drink this shit. Bandy’s Grill. He needed to remind himself not to order coffee any place with “grill” in the name as long as he was in the north. This stuff tasted like they
fried
it on the grill.

The weather didn’t help his mood. He hadn’t seen the sun since he’d been upth. Everything was...gray. How anybody lived in this place was beyond him.

It was too bad ol’ Jack’d placed his accent.

He ordered another cup and waited. The waitress asked how the coffee was and he told her. Come back tomorrow and maybe they’d get the good stuff in by then, she retorted. He was close to making a mistake he realized and toned down his conversation with the woman. She was a looker. Great red hair. Like that old-time actress, what’s-her-name. Rita Hayworth. Maybe he should have waited and asked her out instead of wasting his time with that fucking hooker.

When it was time, he walked out of the coffee shop and down the street. A block over, he crossed and came back up the alley behind the electronics store. He was sure nobody saw him. A knock and Jack was letting him in the back door. He followed him to the front and they went down the rows of shelves, the dealer removing the items Reader told him he wanted and placing them in a red plastic shopping basket.

“That it?”

“Yeah. I think so. Let’s see, transmitter, receiver, crystals...say, give me five, six more crystals. Different frequencies. I don’t know if he has a preference so I might as well get a bunch. And yeah. All the stuff’s here. How much? Add a hundred to that for your trouble. No, add a couple hundred. You been a real sport. My kid’s gonna be thrilled, thanks to you.”

He thumbed through the items spread out on the counter mentally cataloging them, making sure everything was there. He looked up at the guy, Jack, showed him some teeth.

“Say, Jack, you know I saw Louis Armstrong once. Live, in person. When I was a kid. Over on Camp Street. Helluva thing. On a Second Line. Lead trumpet. Cat was wailing some stuff, I tell you!”

Might as well have him go out with a stupid grin on his kisser, fucking citizen with an ear for accents. Be the decent thing to do. Yeah, right. Decent! He laughed out loud.

The store they stood in was jam-packed to the ceiling with every possible inch of shelf space stuffed with electronic parts and accessories. Some of the things Reader could see were right out of Star Wars. It’d be fun to find out what some of these items were. No time for that, though.

“This is what it comes to. Plus what you said.” Jack tore an invoice out of the pad he was writing on and pushed it across the glass counter to Reader. “What kind of boat did you say you have?”

“Looks fair, Jack. Say, what’s this?” He pointed to one of the figures near the bottom of the sheet. As Jack was leaning over Reader pulled that hand swiftly to the hunting knife sheathed behind his back at the same time his other hand was grabbing Jack’s hair and slamming the man’s face down on the counter. As the glass shattered with the force of the man’s head crunching into it, Reader said softly, “Sorry, friend,” and plunged the knife into the back of his neck and twisted it, tearing gristle and cartilage. There was no sound other than a soft grunt. Reader waited for several seconds for the tenseness to leave the man’s back muscles all the time working the blade slowly and methodically. When he relaxed, Reader withdrew the knife and wiped it clean on Jack’s back, letting him slide to the floor.