A Shared Confidence (14 page)

When it came my turn, I leveled with her a little. Told her I was interested in a big con operator who went by the name of Clay Stanton. She knew the man, or knew of him, and promised she could find out more. I admitted I'd already met Stanton but under an assumed name, and that Stanton didn't need to be hearing my real name from anybody. She said that was no problem. I hoped she was telling me the truth.

I parked the Caddy in the street outside a clean-looking building, walked up a short flight of steps and down a hall to an office. I pressed the buzzer by the door a few times and heard the landlord shuffling around inside his apartment across the hall. An unshaven man with squinty eyes opened the door. He checked out my suit and shoes and told me he'd be right with me. A moment later he appeared in a hastily-tied necktie, his suspenders back up over his shoulders, and escorted me into the office.

“You come to see about an apartment?” he asked, settling in behind his desk and shuffling through some papers. I took the chair across from him, leaning back in the seat with my leg crossed at the knee and my hands folded loosely in my lap.

“Matter of fact I am,” I answered easily.

“Got a coupla nice ones. You looking for one bedroom? Two?”

I explained that it wasn't about an apartment for me, it was for one already occupied by a friend of mine. A Miss Penelope Sills. He blew out a tired sigh.

“Look, Mister, I gave her her chance. Plenty of warnings. She's too noisy. Got parties going on, fellas coming in all hours of the day and night. Neighbors don't like it. We got kids in this building. Sorry, but she's out.”

“I could talk to her for you,” I offered. “Get her to tone it down. She listens to me. Like I said, we're good friends.”

“Sorry, Mister. Like to help you, but I already got someone waiting for her place when she vacates. Now if that's all you came here for–”

“Sit back down.” I said it softly but firmly and waited for him to comply. “Like to handle this the easiest way possible,” I told him.

“Aw, Christ, you gonna get tough now?” He seemed more fatigued than frightened by the possibility. One more problem he didn't need along with late rent payments and leaky pipes.

“Getting tough is for the unimaginative,” I smiled, running a hand along my jaw as I looked around the office. “Tell you the truth, Mister…?”

“Gables,” he said finally.

“Tell you the truth, Mr. Gables, I haven't really decided what my next move will be. Do I have a call put in to the Fire Chief, have him come down here and make the toughest inspection he's ever made in his career? Do I have the Treasury folks drop in and spend a week going through your tax records, and let my contacts at the newspaper know about it? Do I go to the bank that holds the lien on this building and have them review the lease paperwork, find a problem that will make the owners uneasy? Or do I start small, have one little old lady after another fall over your front steps and let the lawsuits pile up?”

I had an easy smile on my face the whole time, and my tone wasn't the least bit threatening. Just a man mulling over all the possible solutions to a minor problem.

I dipped my head slightly and said: “Or maybe a combination of these, one following the other, all nice and spaced out so they look like coincidence. Just plain old bad luck that never seems to let up.” He stared at me hard, weighing me up. Smiling gently, I sat back and let him.

“Who are you, Mister?”

“Name's Kelly Shaw.”

“You somebody in this town?”

“Getting to be.”

“So how come I never heard of you before?”

“'Cause you never had trouble with me before.” I stood up and smoothed the front of my jacket. “Think it over, Mr. Gables. I can give you a day or two. I'm at the Lord Baltimore Hotel if you want to reach me.”

He picked up a pencil. “What room number?”

“They know me there.” I walked slowly to the door, almost making it.

“Hold up.” He threw the pencil down on the desk and ran a hand through his hair. “Like I care where the twist flops. She can stay if she likes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gables,” I said graciously. “I appreciate your understanding in this matter.”

“Uh huh.”

“What does Miss Sills pay in rent to you each month?”

“Thirty-five dollars.” His squinty eyes narrowed, concerned I was going to come after him from another angle. He watched as I took out my gold money clip, pulled off a hundred-dollar bill and dropped it on his desk.

“She's usually pretty good about paying on time,” I mentioned casually. “But if she gets busy, forgets or something, take anything you need out of that.” I didn't have to tell him there was more where that came from.

He looked at the bill for a moment, his veined hand finally creeping across the blotter to snag it.

“I ain't gonna have no trouble?”

“With me?” I flashed him my dazzler. “Hell, you did me a favor, friend, that's all I know.”

I touched the brim of my hat and walked out the door.

I was
on Nathan's back porch Saturday evening, after another excellent meal from Marie's kitchen.

“The Baltimore Trust Company Building on Light Street,” Nathan said, answering the question I'd just asked him. “The building just went up six years ago and they had to file for bankruptcy two years ago. They're likely to go into receivership any day now.”

“That could work.” I wrote the details down in my brown notebook.

“This fits into your plan?”

“Uh huh.”

“Would you care to tell me how?”

“Huh uh.”

“Dev–”

“Nathan,” I interrupted him, “I know the waiting is tough. Just a few more days. By the end of this week I'll know if it's going to work or not. If it doesn't, that still gives you time to go to your superiors before the first payment is due on any of those loans. With luck and a little finesse, you'll be able to steer the bank examiners to Myers and Wiedermann without incriminating yourself.”

“And Myers and Wiedermann will tell them–”

“All kinds of gobbledy-gook. Desperate men usually do. But there'll be nothing to back up anything they say. Kelly Shaw will have disappeared. The office I'm renting will be bare. Nobody at the Lord Baltimore will know anything of Mr. Shaw's connection to two bankers. And nobody outside of a different hotel and a car rental lot will have ever heard of Devlin Caine.” I realized I was setting this up like a professional con, ready to fold and disappear without a trace if it went south. Maybe that was a good sign.

“And if your plan does work?” Was that hopefulness in Nathan's voice or just his natural inclination to cover all aspects of a potential business deal?

“The bank gets its money back, the phony documents disappear, no one's ever the wiser.”

“And Myers and Wiedermann?”

“That's your call,” I said. “If I were you, I'd drop some pretty strong hints that they'd be happier working someplace else.”

“So they'll basically be getting away with what they did,” he sulked.

“Jesus, Nathan, you can have Myers and Wiedermann sent up for embezzlement or you can keep this quiet. You can't have both.”

He puffed at his pipe for a moment, irritated.

“What all have you been doing this week?” he asked.

“Working my tail off, pal. How about you?”

There was another silence. I was hoping Marie might appear with drinks or coffee or sandwiches, but I guess she'd gone to bed early. When enough time had passed so it wouldn't look like I was stalking off, I rose from my chair.

“I need to get some sleep.”

“You're welcome to stay here.” I was about to explain to Nathan that it wouldn't save any money on my hotel bill even if I didn't spend the night there. Then I calmed down and realized that it was a sincere offer, that he was trying to make nice.

“I appreciate that, but I have a lot to do tomorrow. For starters, I need to pick up the business cards I ordered today.”

“You found someone who can have them ready in one day?” Nathan asked, surprised. “They must be nice ones.”

“I expect they will be. The guy I ordered them from is a world-class forger, so he should be able to handle a box of business cards.”

T
hat Saturday afternoon, after I'd
paid a visit to Penny's landlord and before my dinner with Clay Stanton – and my second dinner at Nathan's house – I was walking down the street of a particularly seedy Baltimore neighborhood. I'd taken the bus so the Cadillac wouldn't be picked up by spotters. Kelly Shaw was getting closer to the big play, and Stanton was sure to have people keeping an eye on him to see that he didn't slip the hook.

I found the run-down-looking storefront I knew from the photos Townsend had given me. Inside would be the jeweler who doubled as a fence, the print-maker who doubled as a forger, and the lawyers who didn't need to double. I'd decided I needed to see the forger for a couple of reasons. Myers had gone to see Ferrier last week, and you didn't have to know trigonometry to figure out why: Ferrier was the one who'd altered the three loan documents with Nathan's original signature on them. Myers had probably been delivering the final payment when one of Townsend's men had snapped his photo.

The hallway inside smelled about as far away from fresh paint and new carpet as you can get. Dried flakes of wallpaper had collected in the thick dust along the baseboards. The rug running the length of the hall was sun-bleached where it met the door, and rats had been at it farther down. The lawyers' office was closed. Hands on a cardboard clock said they'd be back in forty-five minutes. I passed the open door to the jeweler and glanced inside. An uncomfortable-looking woman was waiting while a stoop-shouldered man hunched over a glass counter, a loupe screwed into one eye as he carefully appraised a pendant on a gold chain. At the end of the hall, the glass window in the door read simply “Printing Done.” Clearly the printer wasn't a man to waste letters.

I stepped inside, hearing the tinny clap of a cheap bell on the back of the door. There was a “Be right there,” and half a minute later, a man stepped out from a back room and up behind the counter. He was short and of medium-build, with thinning hair and thick glasses. He looked up at me inquiringly. I told him I needed some business cards and we spent a couple of minutes looking through his book of templates. I settled on one and he gave me a price, telling me they'd be ready Wednesday.

“I need them tomorrow.”

“I'm not open tomorrow.”

“I'll pay triple.” He sighed and agreed, then wrote me out a slip and disappeared into the back room again. I gave it ten seconds and followed him back. The cramped room looked like Santa's workshop if Santa had the elves working on fake raffle tickets and doctored passports. Benches were packed with all kinds of printing machines, and a large work table sat against one wall littered with works in progress, different-sized magnifying glasses, a desk lamp with a bright fluorescent bulb circling a magnifying lens, and a half-eaten sandwich on wax paper. The smell of fresh ink was almost dizzying.

“Hey, this is private back here!” he complained, looking up and seeing me standing there.

“Good, then we won't be disturbed.” I closed the door behind me. I stood there a moment, not coming any closer, my face neutral. His eyes flashed briefly to the filing cabinet across the room, which told me his gun was too far away.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I need some special work done. Apart from the calling cards, that is.”

He shook his head. “I don't know what you heard, pal, but you heard it wrong. I don't do special work. I sure as hell don't do it for people I don't know.”

I'd considered bringing photostats of the loan documents he'd altered and using those to blackmail him into going along, but figured that might scare him off. Posing as the law would have clammed him up even tighter, I was sure of it.

“I'm Kelly Shaw,” I said simply. “I'm one of your customers. I just put in an order with you. So now you know me.”

“Beat it,” he said. “Before I call the cops. And get your cards someplace else.”

“What's this gizmo?” I asked, reaching out to the edge of a black, boxy machine with rollers. It was a little bigger than a typewriter.

“Get your hands off that! It cost me two hunnert bucks!”

“For this little thing? Hardly any weight to it.” I picked up one end of the machine, wobbling it back and forth, dangerously close to the edge of the bench. Ferrier looked at me and held his breath for a second, fuming.

“Who sent you to me?” he asked.

I shook my head and smiled.

“Sorry, Mr. Ferrier, but I'm a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut. You ought to be able to appreciate that. But if it will help,” I added casually, rocking the machine still closer to the edge, “I can mention the names of a few people we both know. Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin.” With my left hand I dug the money clip out of my pocket and tossed it onto the bench.

He looked at the money clip and back to the precariously balanced machine I was holding, thinking it over.

“Come on, pal, make up your mind. Make a few hundred or lose a few hundred, I don't have all day.”

Finally, he asked me what I wanted. I carefully and securely set the machine back down on the bench and told him.

And so
it was on Sunday that I left Ferrier's print shop again, having paid him the second half of five hundred dollars and walking out with, among other items, my business cards and a Baltimore driver's license in the name of Kelly Shaw. I rode the bus back to within a few blocks of the men's athletic club I'd visited last week. The friendly folks I'd met the last time had graciously invited me to have the use of the place while I was in town. The older gentleman at the desk greeted me cordially and I managed forty-five minutes of hard exercise followed by ten minutes of relaxation in the thankfully empty steam room. I was told they had a first-class masseuse here, but I'm a little funny about strangers running their hands over me. Besides, for my money, hot steam is more efficient; it gets you everywhere at once.

I took a taxi to my first hotel, wanting to pick up a few things and figuring it wouldn't hurt to put in an appearance at the desk. There were no messages for me and I got my key and took the stairs up to my room on the fourth floor. I was wondering what it would look like after several days at my suite at The Excelsior, but when I opened the door that particular curiosity shot right out of my head as I received two jolts in rapid succession. First, there was a man in my room standing by the window. Second, I knew him.

“Volnick?” How long had it been? Six, seven years? I'd worked with Volnick at Pinkerton's in the Chicago office. He was your typical broad-shouldered, open-faced type with a capable if not exceptional mind. I'd never had any strong feeling about him one way or the other.

“What do you know, Dev?”

“I know this is my room. How'd you get in?”

“Universal passkey,” he answered, which meant he'd picked the lock. Which also meant he hadn't announced himself at the front desk.

“Okay, next question: What the hell are you doing here?”

“Somebody'd like to see you.”

“Somebody who?”

Volnick paused a moment before answering. “Straker.”

Even the mention of the name soured my stomach. Straker had been my last boss at Pinkerton's, and a big part of the reason I left. The man was a spineless, soul-less, apple-polishing, ladder-climbing weasel. And those were his good qualities.

“I don't know if they put it in the newsletter, but I don't work for you people any more. I have no obligation or reason to see Straker. And I damn sure don't have any desire.” I stood away from the door, holding it open for him. “Now scram.”

“Come on, Dev,” Volnick said, trying the easy approach. “You know how we work. I'm up here in the room and Sanderson is outside covering the sidewalk.”

“Good, you can say hi for me after I throw you out the window.” Volnick had brought the image of Straker's hatchet face fresh into my mind, which is enough to make anybody irritable.

“Dev,” Volnick said, a bit softer and quite seriously, “if you don't come with me, Hoover's boys will pick you up. We're kind of working with them on this one.”

“This one what?”

He shrugged. “Straker'll tell you.”

I rode the elevator down with Volnick and the two of us walked outside. Sure enough, there was Sanderson, an extra fifteen pounds on top of the extra thirty he carried around the last time I saw him. He smiled at me.

“Dev Caine! What do you know?”

“I know Straker's mother, but then who doesn't?” I wasn't smiling, but both Volnick and Sanderson laughed. And these were Straker's own men, which said plenty about their boss. I climbed into the back of a tan Ford, drab enough to pass for the local branch's motor pool, and thought things over during a ten-minute ride across town.

What the hell was this group doing in Baltimore? And what the hell did they want with me? How had they even found out I was in town? (That one could be very important.) Why were they working with the Bureau? Did this have something to do with an old case I'd been involved with? Both Volnick and Sanderson had been congenial enough so far, none of the looking away and lack of smiles you'd see in men who've been given the unpleasant duty of leading a former colleague to his doom. I kept reaching farther back in my mind, looking for some clue to all this. And, of course, that brought me back to Thaddeus J. Straker.

Straker was my immediate supervisor during my last fourteen months with Pinkerton's. I'd encountered his type in the military, but had never had the misfortune to work directly under one for so long. He was one of those who treated responsibility like the two ends of a magnet. If something good happened, he made sure the credit for it stuck to him. If something bad happened, he saw to it that the blame repelled away from him and clung tightly to someone else. He knew who to flatter and he knew what looked good on paper. He was the kind of boss who stuck his nose so far into the details of your work that you couldn't see them yourself, demanding answers before you had time to find them. And after tying your hands and hobbling you every step of the way, he'd become positively hostile about your lack of progress on something. As I said, he was a big part of the reason I struck out on my own. The biggest part.

One hot August night back in 'Twenty-Nine, I was helping stake out a warehouse. A ring of thieves had been looting office furniture and I guess the man who owned the warehouse figured he wasn't getting enough action from the police. Straker was in the car with the other three of us because he liked to be there “at the kill”. He especially liked to be able to make a point of it to the client.

We watched from across a wide street, sitting in the dark car and waiting. The gang showed up just after midnight. We let them start loading their truck and I was sent in close to get descriptions and the license plate number while another fellow was dispatched to find a telephone and notify the law. After a minute, I heard a faint moaning. It seemed to be coming from the other side of a steel fire door a few feet away. I don't know if it was the moaning or my opening the door that alerted the thieves, but they jumped on the truck and high-tailed it with what little they'd already loaded. I was barely paying attention by then. Behind that steel door, lying in a heap at the bottom of a stairwell, was a fourteen-year-old colored girl beat to hell. Whether she'd been attacked inside or someone had done this to her and dumped her here, I didn't know. I did what I considered to be the normal things: saw that she was still breathing, put my jacket under her head, and yelled for Banner to find a cop or a doctor.

Straker jumped out of the car, slammed the door, and came across the street in a fast walk. He was furious, cursing me at the top of his voice over the botched job. I ignored him, but he went on and on. We'd been hired to protect Mr. Goodman's property, he reminded me, not play nursemaid to some jungle bunny who didn't have enough sense to stay in at night. He added that if I had such a hankering for “this kind”, there were places in the city that could accommodate me, but not on company time and damn sure not in the middle of an important–

He'd been saying all this while the girl lay bleeding on the cold cement floor, conscious enough to hear him, and so I had to pay for a doctor to wire his jaw shut for the next several weeks (best money I ever spent!) and to replace the shirt and tie that he bled all over. And there was a nice little written reprimand in my work record the next day. He'd wanted to fire me, but some of the senior guys cooled him out with my war record and my spotless history with the agency. I was also out a couple of bucks for the messenger I hired to deliver a can of soup and a straw anonymously to Straker's desk that week. Sitting at my own desk outside his office and seeing it through his window, I didn't crack a smile, but three other guys couldn't come out from behind their file folders for several minutes. One even had to rush out into the hall to find the drinking fountain; something was caught in his throat and was damn near making him choke.

I still have the written reprimand. It's in a walnut frame hanging in my apartment bedroom. I look at it now and then, and I think about all the headaches I suffered working for that ass. I think about that young girl (with a few inquiries I managed to find out that she was going to be okay, that she was a good student who wanted to be a teacher some day). I think about that kid in the organ grinder's monkey uniform walking into Straker's office to deliver one tin of Campbell's soup, one straw, and the simple message “Mm mm good!” But mostly I think about the sound Straker's glass jaw made when it crunched under my fist, and I smile and remind myself that life isn't all bad.

“What's funny, Dev?” Volnick's question brought me out of my reverie. I guessed we were here.