Chaper Three - Pete Grappler PI.A Chapter by The GrapplerThe action steams up - in more ways than one....
Chapter 3
Well, there it was, Sam was dead and getting colder by the minute, and there was nothing I could do about it locked in Kincaid’s cell and no idea how long he’d keep me there as a protected witness.
I had some time to do some thinking, though, just lying there.. couple of hours quick sleep, then think .. and a few things were coming clearer to me.
The killer’s mistake was putting that bullet in Sam ... an auto accident might have gone away, but not that. And using a .32 that made it look like me was also a mistake .. well, maybe not if it turned out to be my .32, but without a weapon, the cops had nothing on me. It was just a matter of time …
Kincaid looked both angry and kinda desolate, like a schoolboy robbed of his lunch money, when he came to the door right on the dot of nine thirty am, so I knew his party was over.
“Looks like you’ve still got some friends in high places, Grappler … you’re out! Yeah, Harrison stood for ya … showed me a broken apart .32 that he says was yours that you brought in coupla days ago … thrown the barrel away for meltdown, he says, because it had a burr, and waiting on a new one to come in. And someone stood for you up at City Courts. Get outta my sight. Creeps like you give this city a bad name!”
“Yeah, Jimmy .. well, way I figure it this City don’t need my help getting a name for itself .. along with a few of its institutions … nothing personal!”
“Yeah, well, I hope that fourteen hundred bucks you’ve got in your pocket helps your conscience some about your friend.”
“More than you will, Jimmy boy … more than you will!”
Kincaid gave me a long, long look, and I gave it right back with interest, but there was nothing he was going to do right here, right now. He turned and walked away, leaving me with the turnkey, Will.
Will had a big s****y grin on his face, but he wasn’t going to say anything about Kincaid, not while he could hear it anyway, but you could see what he was thinking right there. Will knew the Argonne, too, and no joke. Had a medal to show for it and a chunk out of his a*s the size of that medal .. I’d say a pretty fair deal there. I hit him with the old joke..
“Pity they didn’t swap that chunk of yer a*s for a chunk of that face, Will! Musta been a case of mistaken identity!”
“Yeah, well, Pete, you know what they say, some of us got it worked out so nobody knows which way we’re coming at ya!”
“Yeah, Will, those Krauts sure found that out, hole in the a*s or not!”
He nodded, “Got somebody outside waiting for you .. let’s hustle .. past breakfast time! And .. er.. this one waiting for you has a mighty pretty a*s, you ask me!”
Oh yeah? Who could fit that description and be waiting to pick me up at the lockup? Been so long with no pretty face up close and personal .. nobody to fit that description for me. I thanked Will, picked up my regular piece, a Colt 1911, and my fourteen hundred, and left.
Well, well, there she was, people! Miss Chicago herself, Mrs Cynthia Longbottom, just waiting in her long car parked next to a hydrant outside the station and not a cop in sight .. just waiting for li’l ol’ me! Who said that money didn’t talk .. round her it possibly used a megaphone!
I got in, and she didn’t say a word as she drove away, leaving that hydrant without the benefit of her company, and mine. Maybe some lonely dog would wander along and sort of say hello to it. I had plenty to say to Mrs Longbottom, but I was waiting to see where we were going with all this.
Finally she turned to me, and said,
“I can’t apologise enough Pete, for what’s happened. If I’d known”….
“Known what? That my best friend in the whole damned world would be dead right now and I’d be in a cell? How’d you know any of that happened?”
“Pete!”,
She looked close to tears. Oh, yeah, the old waterworks. Not for this old Grappler! She went on,
“I have ‘friends’, you know, and some of them care about me. I thought maybe you did, too, and that’s why I came to get you out. I saw Judge Raby this morning before court and he signed right away to get you out.”
“You did that? I don’t want to rain all over you, Cynthia Longbottom, but you only met me last night. What makes me so special that you’d pull strings to get me out of a cell? Besides, you’re a married woman, with a rich husband to boot, and plenty to lose! Why even bother?”
“I know more about you than you think. I’ve been planning this very carefully for a long time, and I told you I had friends. They told me all I needed to know about you. I…I need you to help me!”
Yeah … there was the clincher right there. Sam was dead, Kincaid was fitting me into the frame any way he could, and Cynthia Longbottom needed ME! Yeah .. like a shot of pure morphine, she did!
“Listen, doll! My best friend is lying on a slab, and I’ve got half of Chicago’s finest putting the frame around my neck and strapping it on before they throw me in the lake with cement shoes.”
She flinched and looked close to tears, but I was only just starting on her.
“You think I need any of this crap? Thanks for the job and the money, but my ticket is full right now. We’ve got the goods on your husband for you, let some other sucker set him up for you, and I’ve gotta find out who killed Sam. Now, where’s that .32 I gave Harry to give you!”
She started crying, and pulled the car over, just sat there and let the tears flow. I wasn’t buying it.
“Hand me that pistol, Cynthia! Right now!”
She grabbed her handbag and threw it at me. I opened it up and took out the pistol, sniffed it and checked the chambers. And immediately felt like a world class a*****e.
“OK " I’m sorry. Settle down. It hasn’t been fired or cleaned since it left my hands. I had to be sure!”
She kept on with the tears, and god help me, she got to me. I reached over and touched her shoulder, and she sort of fell into my arms and held on like a barnacle in a rough sea. Awr, no! I had to get outta there, and fast but she wouldn’t let go. I had Sam on a slab and hell crawling up my back door, and this gorgeous babe is falling into my arms.
If she was putting on a show it was pretty good. Those tears just poured out of her like they’d never stop, and I just held on like some goofy kid. Told you I should never have picked up that damned phone…. this was going nowhere, and even if it did, not for long. Finally she stopped with the Niagara Falls and just sort of stayed there in my arm like she felt she belonged there. I was a sucker, I know it, but I just let her stay there and get to me, big time!
She sat up again, and wiped her eyes, looked in her compact mirror and said,
“We’ve got to get somewhere where we can talk, and I can tidy up a bit. I look just awful!”
Like a fool I fell for it,
“No, baby, you look just fine.”
Yeah, I was a goner here, and I didn’t want to know it. She drove the car to one of those ritzy joints they call hotels and pulled into a parking space all numbered and ready right there next to it on a vacant lot. I couldn’t even buy a car, let alone pay for a spot to hitch it to a private rail any time I wanted.
We got out, and she said that we’d better use the locked side door, the one for the clientele, that was the word she used. Yeah, she did look as good walking away as I’d thought she would. She took out a nice shiny key that opened up a door straight from the parking lot, and away from the front desk and the doorman.
“Just for privacy. I’ve got a whole floor here just for me, and I don’t want anyone to see us together, not while you’re working on my case, Pete. I just need to freshen up and change these clothes now, they’re all rumpled, and we can talk in privacy.”
It wasn’t exactly her case I was considering working on right then, but I wasn’t going to queer the pitch by saying anything stupid, so I just kept my mouth shut and nodded. She went inside and made sure the door was locked behind us, then put another key in the lock of a private elevator. Man, this was a life I could get used to, but no way was Pete Grappler ever going to see the inside of this kinda place again.
We went up all the way to the top, no point being married to a rich old man unless you can get to enjoy it a little, I guess. The elevator door opened on an apartment I could have run a marathon in, and we stepped out into a different world than the one I knew down on the street.
Cynthia turned, and said,
“Pete, you probably feel pretty sticky and dirty from that night in the cells. Maybe you should shower over there in the spare bathroom while I freshen up in my ensuite rooms. Towels are right there in a closet by the door, take as many as you want, and you should find some of my husband’s clothes in the closet over in that room on the left. It opens right into that shower, so you can just walk in from the bathroom and find something to slip into. You might be a bit bigger than Cyrus, but I think you’ll fit all right.”
Maybe she was looking at something else beside my build, since I figured Cy and I were about the same height and weight, but I could see the need for a hot tub and fresh clothes. I felt like a gutter after a long dry spell with the only visitors drunks leaning over for a yawn and the water truck broke, and my mouth was ten times worse.
“OK, Cynthia. You go ahead and freshen up. I’ll be a while. Feel like I need to stand under a hot waterfall for an hour right now”.
That shower had hot water that never seemed to end, and it washed away a bit of the pain of losing Sam. I even let out a couple of tears inside the pouring hot rain.
I wasn’t worried about Kincaid. The truth would all come out when I found the killer, and I would , believe me, I would. I towelled off and wrapped a towel around me to look for something to wear.
Oh, yeah, there was something to slip into, all right. And all laid out on the bed for me ready. Cynthia Longbottom, scrubbed and fresh and naked as a jaybird and just lying there looking at me with those eyes. That towel didn’t stand a chance, and neither did I. Sure washed away some of the pain over Sam for the next few hours.
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© 2012 The Grappler |
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1 Review Added on October 26, 2012 Last Updated on October 26, 2012 AuthorThe GrapplerForster, Mid North Coast NSW, AustraliaAboutI am a 69 year old with a gift for words - and I write many things, including some rather oddball political theories. more..Writing
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