Chapter Five - Pete Grappler P.I.

Pete gathers his information

 Chapter 5

 

First stop was Luigi’s, where Armand was already getting the joint ready for the evening’s blood and beer on the floor.  They had a new trumpet player already, so I guess nobody missed Sam very much, not like I did.  Just another Black face that stayed in the background and played good music for these losers and lowlife.

 

Armand took a little time off and even poured me a drink.  I signaled only a small one. I had plenty to do tonight, and I wanted to get back to Cynthia looking and smelling like something human for a change.

 

“Nice suit there, Mr Pete.  You been shopping?”

 

“Not quite, Armand, but I’m shopping for information on a few people.  I understand you Gypsies keep a close eye on certain types that might have an influence on your lifestyle.”

 

“You know, Mr Pete, we Gypsies do not like to become too involved in the business of The Others.  We work on the idea that if we leave them alone, they will not interfere with us.  What kind of people did you want some information on?  I have .. many contacts, as you know, and many ways of doing things.  We Gypsies have learned much over the years!”

 

“Well, Armand, you know I don’t want to start any trouble for your people or nothin’, but if you can help, I’ll remember it.”

 

“For you, Mr Pete, you are an Honoured Friend.  That is like almost family to a Gypsy, and for family a Gypsy will do almost anything.  Give me the names and I will see what I can do.  If I cannot help, I will say so, OK?”

 

“Yeah, thanks, Armand. I’m mainly interested in Cyrus Longbottom and his associates.  Not the professional ones, just the ones he hangs out with outside hours, you know what I mean. And anything about their cars being damaged.”

 

“Ah, this is the husband of the nice young lady you met on the night… I apologise, but on the night that Friend Sam was..  I am sorry, Mr Pete!”

 

“It’s OK, Armand.  Sam is taken care of and Spragues is working out when to hold his funeral.  You’re invited, of course, along with your family.”

 

“I am honoured, Mr Pete, as is my daughter, who remembers you well.  She is to be married soon, and she and her fiancé, a good Gypsy boy, thank you for her virtue.  To a Gypsy woman, virtue is everything.”

 

“It was nothing, Armand.  I’d do the same for any friend of mine’s daughter.”

 

“I know, Mr Pete, and thank you again.  This information you need .. it is for Mr Sam, too?”

 

“Sure is, Armand.  I want to catch the skunk that aced him and put him away forever!”

 

“Mr Sam is also a good man and a Friend. I will see what I can do about this Longbottom, and I will speak with you tomorrow.”

 

“Thanks, Armand.  I won’t forget.”

 

I threw back my drink and shook Armand’s hand, waved to Harry he Keeper who’d just come in,  then left to go find Freddy the Snitch.

 

*     *     *

 

The reason Freddy the Snitch stayed in business was simple … he was a snitch, and everybody knew it, so they came to him whenever they wanted to get a story around about someone or when they wanted to hear a story about someone.  Freddy knew how to play it just right, and when to say nothing, when he suddenly became Freddy Tight-lips 

 

He had some news, all right.  Like I said, a lot of people came to Freddy for lots of reasons, and he knew the value of his word on someone.  I had to split with a C note outta my shrinking stake money as a retainer, just to get a promise that he’d get back to me tomorrow and give me a bit more.

 

He did give me a couple more names to add to ol’ Cyrus’ list of ‘friends’, and that list now included Johnny The Rat,  a priest from St Conflagrus named Benedict O’Padraig of all things, and a political hustler named Cletus Overmyer.  Jeez, these guys could sure pick some names!  At least Johnny The Rat was an honest criminal, but these other guys left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

 

So Freddy was on a retainer, which I was all I was prepared to hand over since he needed to be kept a little hungry so he’d do a proper job.  Of course, the fact that my stake was getting smaller by the minute also came into this, but hell .. Freddy didn’t need to know that.

 

OK, one forty in the stake now, and still got a couple to see.

 

Next in line was Gunshop Harry Harrison, to thank him for covering for me with that .32, and to let him know that I was on the lookout for any gen he could find on certain people already named, but I couldn’t pay just now.

 

Harry was OK with it, he knew I’d take care of him later when things were right, so I got to hold on to my one forty.

 

At least until I got to Louie The Leech Lechevsky down near the stock yards.  Yeah, Louie smelled like the stockyards all the time himself, but when you need information you don’t choose your informants on their smell.

 

Louie wanted fifty bucks to keep his ears open.  A good deal since Louie had the ear on a lot of talk down near the stockyards and the bars nearby, and a lot of those guys knew where the money was, which was where Mr Longbottom was, too.

 

I made sure Louie knew that he only had until tomorrow, and didn’t tell him why.  The why was that I knew that Cynthia and me had to get out of town, and then I’d be back alone to settle with Sam’s killer or killers when she was safe somewhere.

 

I hopped a cab with my last ninety bucks in my pocket, and stopped off at a store to get some lobster for a treat for Cynthia and me.  It was nearing 7.30, so a late dinner was on the cards if not on the table.  Another forty bucks, so I was left with just under forty after I paid off the hack driver a coupla blocks from Cynthia’s hotel.

 

Easy come, easy go, and Sam had sure earned his share, the hard way.

 

I walked the rest so nobody’d take much notice, and the suit I was wearing sure fitted in with the locals.  I coulda been any business guy walking home with dinner in a sack.  Yeah, me.  Pete Grappler, looking like some uptown spiv in a silk suit.  It sure felt good, though, and I figured I could get used to good suits mighty fast, too.

 

*     *     *

 

Cynthia and I shared the best two lobsters ever cooked.  Man, that hillbilly’s daughter sure knew how to cook, even if it was a couple of things from the ocean that she’d never seen, and we shared the dishes and settled down on the couch just to spoon for a bit before bed-time again.

 

Yeah, this was the life.

 

“Oh, damn!”

 

“What is it, Pete?”

 

“Awr, I forgot.  I’ve got all Sam’s papers and stuff from the mortuary, and I sorta should go through ‘em, just to see if there’s anything needs doing”

 

“OK’, she said, “I’ll go fix some fresh coffee, and we can sit down together.  You get started.  I’ll be here if you come across anything that upsets you, OK?”

 

Yeah, this was all Sam had to show for a lifetime.  I knew he didn’t have much else, only a rented room at back of Luigi’s that Armand had already cleaned up, and Armand wouldn’t have tossed out anything he thought might mean something to Sam or me or Sam’s family, if we could ever find ‘em.

 

I laid out the few papers, wallet with  twenty bucks in cash and some change, a pencil, and a small black book.  Sam sure travelled light, apart from his trumpet and his trombone.

 

I flicked through the book first, not much there, couple of addresses, maybe ladies Sam knew, couple of musicians he knew that I knew, stuff like that, and was about to close it up, when a word caught my eye.

 

“Momma”.

 

Yep, Sam had a Momma all right, and she was way down in Alabamy �" not Lou-easy-ana as I’d thought  all along.  I forced back a sudden sting in my eye, and put the book away for the time when I could get down that way and visit Momma Sam, and maybe take her a few bucks.  Nothing charity, of course, just Sam’s insurance, sort of on the job insurance that he never had.

 

I couldn’t figure what to do with the twenty bucks and change, so I put it back in Sam’s wallet, and just left it there for his Momma.

 

Then I checked over the bits of paper from Sam’s pockets. Nothing there.  A couple of tickets to a ball game somewhere, used train ticket, a receipt from Luigi for the room, and a flyer for the speakeasy.  I turned that over … that was all of Sam’s life, and that speakeasy was his living for a while anyway., and I nearly put it back without looking at what was written on it.

 

“Cynthia”.. in big letters …and a car licence number.

 

What the hell?  I looked at that flyer again .. yep, it was the new one that came out the day Sam was…killed.  He could only have written it that night when we was staking out ol’ Cyrus boy, and I just couldn’t figure it.  I grabbed Cynthia’s keys and headed for the door just as she came out of the kitchen.

 

She looked surprised, so I waved that I’d be back in one, and she nodded.

 

I headed down that elevator and through that door and right to her car parked there in its private spot.  Yep �" sure was the same licence plate.  Now what the hell?

 

As I headed back up that elevator shaft I felt that somehow I was falling down a shaft into hell instead.  This damned case just kept getting trickier and trickier by the minute, and I was suddenly in fear of two things… that Cynthia was somehow lying to me for some reason, and secondly, that I was on the verge of losing her forever.

I guess she saw the look on my face when I got back, and she came to me with her arms opened out and a questioning look all over her face.

 

“Pete, honey!”, she said, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

 

“I just might have, I gotta sit down for a minute.  I gotta think here!”

 

She sat next to me and put her hand on my arm as I sat there shaking with my head in my hands, and her eyes never left my face.  Finally, I worked up the courage to face what I didn’t want to face, and I just asked right out,

 

“Cynthia, I need to know something, something very important, and I hope to god you’ve got a good answer!”

 

She looked shocked and stunned, and I took the chance while her guards were down to show her what Sam had written on the flyer.  She looked at it, then at me, all the time with a wondering look on her face.

 

“What is this, Pete?”

 

“This was in Sam’s pocket, from the morgue.  Look at the date!  He could only have got hold of that flyer the day he and I were staking out Belle’s joint checking out Cyrus and his pals.  Sam wanted to go check something later by himself, wouldn’t say why.”

 

She still looked shocked and stunned.

 

“How did he get to write down your car’s licence number on that night he was killed, Cynthia!  I have to know!”

 

She fell back into the couch, never letting go of my arm as she did, and her hand went to her face in turn.

 

“Oh, God!”, she said.  She looked up at me, “Pete, it’s not what you think.  I can see it in your eyes.  You think I had something to do with Sam’s dying, don’t you!  Don’t deny it, you do!  I know.”

 

I took a firm hold of myself,

 

“I don’t know anything, Cynthia!  Tell me what this is about!  I need to know .. for you.. for.. for me!”

 

I looked at her, feeling my life’s blood drain away from inside me, feeling that she’d done something terrible, that she’d let me down, and I would lose her forever.  She must have seen the agony in my face, and she touched my cheek, just in time to catch the first tears as they began to fall.  She took me in her arms, and rocked me back and forth as all the unspent tears from years of pain and loneliness, and the new pain over Sam’s dying like that, all came out.

 

She held me and stroked my face until the pain ebbed and the tears stopped, and I began to feel like a fool for letting her see me like that.

 

She got up and went to get me a fresh cup of coffee, fresh and hot and sweet, and I downed a big mouthful before I could even look at her again.  I covered it all up well, bringing out the tough guy again,

 

“Ya got something a little stronger to go with that?”

 

Silently, she got up and went to the drinks cabinet, and came back with a bottle of whiskey, finest scotch, and set it on the table after taking the cork out along with two glasses.

 

Yeah, she knew what to do, all right, and we both drank a good shot before we looked at each other again, and I waited for her to tell me what was going on.

 

She refilled our glasses, and started,

 

“I said it wasn’t like that, Pete, and I mean it!  I didn’t know you and Sam were there that night, promise!  I was keeping an eye on Cyrus myself to see what he was up to, came with a young guy”…

 

She saw the look in my eye, and said hastily,

 

“Nothing like what you’re thinking!  He’s our gardener, and he said that someone had asked him to keep an eye out for me.  Wouldn’t say who, and it was all secret like.  I told him about what I wanted to do, and he insisted on coming along.   He … has his own pistol and seems to know how to use it.  I kinda wondered if he was a friend of yours.  He was just along for protection. Honest, Pete, that’s the truth”

 

I shook my head.

 

“No, not a friend of mine that I know of.  Does he know you’re here .. with me?”

 

“No.  He only knows the big house, and not that I have this place for myself.”

 

“OK �"  keep it that way!  What sort of pistol did he have?”

 

“One of those automatic things. Bigger than the revolver you gave me!”

 

“OK, so I guess that lets him off the hook for killing Sam.  And I didn’t see any damage to your front fender there, either!”

 

She looked bewildered.

 

“No.  Why would there be?  I’m a careful driver.  You saw that.”

 

Her face came over almost pale when she realized, and her hand went to her mouth,

 

“Oh, no!  You.. you didn’t think that I….. that I.. had anything to with Sam, did you?”

 

“I had to know, baby!  I had to know, you realize that!”

 

I wasn’t sure how she’d take that, and she sort of went deep for a minute and thought about it.. hard, then looked back at me, the hillbilly’s tough daughter again, used to taking life as it was, hard knocks and all, and coming up level-headed, strong,

 

“No, Pete.  I didn’t!  I could never hurt you like that, or anyone really.  If I was ever going to hurt someone, it’d be Cyrus for all the times he hurt me. And Sam, I never knew Sam, but if he was a friend of yours, then I’d figure he wouldn’t harm a fly, not without reason.  No!  I had nothing to do with it, Pete!  You do realise that, don’t you?”

 

Right then and there was my chance to just walk away from the whole thing, as too much trouble and pain.  All I had to do was just get up and walk out and it was all over.  I just couldn’t do it.  She sat there in front of me, so beautiful and so good in herself, and feeling so right to me, and I just couldn’t do it.

 

“Yeah, I know now, Cynthia.  And I’m sorry for doubting you!” 

 

I took her in my arms again, and held her like there was no tomorrow.  Well, I knew we had tomorrow to sort out Cyrus and his cronies, and then we had to split, fast, to somewhere where she would be safe.  I melted then, and let right down, and it all came out almost without thinking about it, and once it was out, it felt right, righter than anything ever had in my life,

 

“I think I love you, girl!  If you ever go away, I think I’ll just curl up and die!  So don’t go �" don’t go �" ever!”

 

That lonely road had been too long and too hard for too long, and like Cynthia and that golden house with all the trimmings, I just didn’t want it any more.  I was tired of the hard knocks and the hard nights alone, and once the business about Sam was over, I was finished with it.  I wanted the home and the family and the good woman… and that woman had to be Cynthia.

 

She held me tight, and whispered back,

 

“I love you, too, Pete.  I’ll never, ever go away!  Promise!”

 

We left the bottle and the coffee there and went back to bed… for a long time….

 

*     *     *