Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Read online

  “Captain Chapman to you.”

  “Captain your ass.”

  One of her sea-green eyes winks at me. “You had your chance.”

  Maximillian Zakowsky

  Like a soft, helium-filled circus balloon, Max floats and bounces along the operating room’s white-tile ceiling. Below him, through much lighting equipment, the hospital’s blue clad doctors and green nurses huddle over his unconscious body in an egg shaped circle. Like Jerry and his buddies shooting dice.

  Max is conscious of the danger, that being separated from his flesh means his spirit or his mind could get lost. But there is a sturdy string attached to that helium filled balloon, and whenever he wants, Max can will himself down the line, like fireman down a pole, straight back to operating table. Make Maximilian Zakowsky’s spirit and body whole once again.

  Most of the dream is exactly how Max remembers the actual events. How he hid and waited under the cages to kill his mother’s new husband. How the smell of the cats made him sick. And how he endured by imagining himself feeding the lion tamer to the bastard’s own lions. The same smelly cats that ate his father.

  But at the place in the dream where Max is ready to strike, ready to kill the lion tamer, the lions scratch through their cage floor and claw at Max’s back.

  Max screams in surprise and pain.

  The balloon is gone and Max can’t open his eyes, can’t move his hands. Maybe this is a dream, too. Or maybe now Max is dead. Those blue doctors killed him.

  His mouth and throat are sore like he swallowed a basketball. And someone must have hit him on the head with a big hammer. Each heartbeat brings a new throb of hurt.

  Max hears people speaking. Soft voices talking about him. Patient Max Zakowsky.

  “We could write an article for the New England Medical Journal on this man’s head,” a woman says.

  “The bullet must have struck at an incredibly lucky angle,” a man’s voice says.

  Gentle fingers probe the base of Max’s skull.

  “No, feel that,” the woman says.

  Max wish he could open his eyes and see her. Her voice is like music.

  “I’ll bet this man’s sphenoid bone is at least fifty percent thicker than yours or mine,” she says.

  “I hope you never get a chance to compare, Meredith. But I know he was damn lucky with the other three bullets. No bones, major arteries or organs were damaged. Unless we’ve missed something, Mr. Zakowsky will be walking out of here in a few days.”

  Intense, burning orange light becomes the early morning sun shining in Max’s window. Is his mind floating again?

  No, Max is waking up in a hospital bed, the searing pain from his head to his hip no longer part of a dream. The pain is real. Hard to believe bullets could deliver so much hurt but not kill him.

  Max rings a bell for the nurse.

  A gray haired woman with two pillows for a chest and a garbage can sized ass walks into his room.

  “Where pants?” Max says.

  “Only when I have to,” woman says. “Right now, I’m running full commando.”

  Max like this woman’s odd ways. He knows she’s being silly with him even if he doesn’t totally understand the joke. Commando is naked underneath, but...

  “Your clothes, what’s left of them, are in the closet, Mr. Zakowsky. But don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

  “No. Max not going anywhere today. But would like to see my blue jeans.”

  The gray haired woman brings him a shredded mess. His fingers work the fabric carefully, searching each torn pocket. The last, Max finds his father’s ancient piece of flint, caresses the spear tip with his thumb and forefinger. His father was right. Spirit in rock protects.

  “Looks like the nurses had to scissor you out of those jeans,” the nurse says.

  “Happens a lot,” Max says.

  She laughs.

  “What did the cops want?” Mama Bones says.

  “If I knew who did this,” Max says. “Also if I recognized anyone. If I am willing to look at books of photos.”

  Max sits up, grateful that his pain is going away. Max is tired from walking the hospital halls all day, dragging his IV cart along with him like a pet dog. But Mama Bones could become a new underboss in Bluefish’s family. Max should show respect.

  “Did you say anything to them?” Mama Bones asks.

  “Nothing,” Max says. “I learned more from them.”

  “Yeah? So you know Bluefish and your friend Jerry are dead?”

  “I saw their brains. Yes.”

  Mama Bones nods. “Nunzio says it wasn’t him. But my niece Gina was at the bar when you and Bluefish were shot. She tells me she had nothing to do with the killing either, but I’m not so sure. She was very mad about her husband. And mad about Ann Marie.”

  “Ann? Why?” Max asks.

  “Gina was Ann Marie’s friend once.”

  So, that’s it. Max finally understands. Ann. Franny. And Gina. All three of them were friends. He nods, smiling to himself. He has a suspect now for Ann Marie’s murder. He needs to check something, but if he’s right, he will kill the murderer, Austin Carr and that Mexican bartender. Assassins. Maybe Max drown them all together in a bag like those smelly little cats.

  FIFTY-THREE

  A telephone pressed against my ear, I dial 0, slide gently onto my living room couch, ease back and stretch out my feet. Some beatings I like to take lying down.

  I just spent an exhausting and stress filled Saturday morning reading the newspaper. The kids’ mutual funds are down, my horoscope sucks and the local rag whose name I won’t mention ran another follow-up on Shore and Bluefish. Plus, I have a sinister premonition about this call I’ve been trying to make.

  “May I help you?” the operator says.

  “I’m having trouble reaching a number.” I rattle off the seven digits of my house line. Well, Susan’s house line now. My old ranchero. I don’t like numbers much, my business being so full of them, and I can’t remember what Susan looked like naked. But this damn phone number is burned into my head like some ancient petroglyph.

  “The line’s been disconnected, sir.”

  A hole in the earth opens up beneath my couch. I’m plunging through space like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “Are you sure? That’s been my house line for eight years.”

  “That number was disconnected yesterday, sir. By the billing party.”

  I park in front of the old homestead and immediately know the truth. The realtor’s FOR SALE sign stuck in the lawn pretty much tells the tale.

  I can’t believe Susan would do this without telling me.

  Dazed, I stumble inside the house through a loose and insecure back door lock, inspect the empty rooms and cupboards, the bare walls and floors. Vacant spaces where I played Legos with Beth and Ryan. Barren corners once stacked with toys.

  My gut aches, as if poison ripped at me.

  The telephone rings as I unlock my apartment twenty minutes later. I hurry, hoping for no logical reason it’s the kids.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, pal, it’s Walter. How you been?”

  I sigh. “Fabulous. Susan and the kids moved without telling me.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I just wanted to let you know I signed those papers you sent me and had them notarized. I dropped them off at the post office on my way to work this morning.”

  I don’t think Walter is even slightly interested Susan skipped out. Why should he be?

  “A hitter like you, dialing for dollars on a Saturday?” I say. Busting balls is what Walter deserves.

  “Yeah, well I’m still working on getting all my Shore people over. Thought this might be a good day to remind them how well I’ve managed their money.”

  A month ago I considered him a friend. Now he’s calling up my customers and telling them their money’s at risk with Shore. “Right, Walter. And the follow-up story on Bluefish and Shore Securities today had nothing at all to do with your decision. Are you going to send o
ur customers reprints?”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  I must be the world’s dumbest victim. I can’t believe I just said that. “Well, thanks for signing those papers, Walter. Nice doing business with you.”

  “When do I get my first check?” he says.

  “I’m not sure. Call the escrow company where you sent the papers. I can’t see where it would take them more than one or two business days.”

  “All right,” he says. “Take it easy.”

  I wonder if Rags has received his paperwork yet, if he’ll sign as easily as Walter. Carr’s Famous Plan to Create Opportunity from Crisis proceeds nicely on course. I’m not planning on The Fortune 500. Honestly, it’s mostly payback, although I would hope to cinch myself enough moo-la to secure Beth’s and Ryan’s college educations.

  But my thoughts won’t stay on business. The sight of my empty old ranchero, that ugly FOR SALE sign...the memories there with my kids. These images won’t stay out of my head but minutes at a time.

  The Creeper only took Beth. Susan kidnapped both my children.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The telephone wakes me up minutes before midnight. I’m stretched out on my living room couch with the TV on, one of those Law & Order cop shows, the good guys putting a hard screw on the scumbag. Although now that I think about it, I have quite a little career blooming myself as a law enforcement snitch.

  Ring, ring. Okay, I’m coming. Should I put the Seaside County Grand Jury testimony on my résumé?

  Reaching behind me for the main house phone, I remember Susan has skipped with the kids. Maybe the caller is Beth or Ryan, ratting out their overprotective mother. Probably wishful thinking, but my kids love me. I know that. They’re going to want to see their Pop.

  “Hello?” I say.

  Click. A hang up.

  Must be a wrong number, the caller probably expecting a female voice on this end. You’d think this late, even on a Saturday night, people using the telephone would take a bit more care pressing buttons.

  I rest the phone back in its cradle and return my head to its well-worn spot on the couch’s padded arm rest. On TV, a commercial runs instead of my favorite cop show, and my eyes droop, then slowly shut. I’m thinking maybe I should make my way to the bedroom when the damn phone rings again.

  Ass-a-hola.

  I pick up. “Hello?”

  Click. Another hang-up.

  Gee. And I tried to sound so vibrant and appealing that time.

  Now I’m pissed. Okay, this is why I ordered the near-full complement of technology on my apartment telephone. I sit up on the couch and flip on the table lamp, dial star-six-nine. Takes nine or ten rings, but finally an elderly man picks up and growls hello. Sounds like a lifetime smoker of unfiltered compost.

  “Did you just call 555-6564?” I say.

  “Nope. This is a pay phone in Clooney’s. I was walking by.”

  “Did you see who was using the phone?”

  Silence. One beat...two. The old geezer’s probably trying to remember what phone I’m talking about. “A woman,” he says.

  “Really? What did she look like?”

  Silence. Then another voice whispering in the background. “I don’t know,” he says finally, “but I gotta go. Lillian is waiting for me.”

  He hangs up.

  Walking into Clooney’s forty minutes later, checking the bar, the first thing my peepers latch onto is State Trooper, State Prosecutor, Frances Dahler-Chapman, El Capitan herself. She’s alone and deep into the martinis, I’m guessing. Hunched over the bar; the strawberry-blond hair slightly askew; in a black sleeveless dress. As I’m standing in the entrance area staring, she lights a cigarette with wobbly hands.

  Franny’s drunk. Oh, boy. Big Daddy’s owned a motive for weeks. Now he smells opportunity.

  Wonder if it was Franny that called me? I don’t see anybody else here, but there’s no real evidence she or anyone else I know was the caller. Big coincidence I get a phone call from my second-favorite bar and restaurant, though. Guess it could have been just a wrong number.

  I focus on the sordid memory of Franny’s dark, naked body in bed and decide on a pump and hump strategy: Pump her brain for legal information, then hump her bod for sexual gratification.

  Shocked? Please remember, I’m a trained telephone salesman. Any lie can be framed with truth. There is no lechery too base in the pursuit of love or big commissions.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Franny says. “You lied to me. You lied to the grand jury.”

  “I had to. Bluefish said he’d kill my children.”

  Franny glances at me side-saddle. Her lime-colored eyes radiate the glassy quality of calm water. “I could have protected them,” she says.

  I shake my head. “No. You could have locked me up, maybe made me safe. I totally would have done what you wanted if I didn’t have kids. But I can’t have them pulled out of school, hidden away some place. Frightened.”

  Franny slurps at her half-done martini. The sound attracts the glance of Clooney’s young bartender, a crew cut athletic type who wasn’t all that pleased to take my drink order. Probably figured he was going to pick up Franny’s disassembled pieces when Clooney’s shuts the doors at one-thirty.

  God, aren’t men awful?

  Franny sighs. Her moist gaze locks with mine. “Maybe you were right. I should have realized what you were up against,” she says. “And the truth is, it was Fluebish I wanted. Now that he’s dead, I think I’m not so mad at you anymore.”

  Fluebish? The lady is bombed. Big Daddy’s starting to worry a little. She might be too drunk. I mean, even stockbrokers have some pride. It would be like selling limited partnerships to your mother.

  “You’re not going to prosecute me?” I say.

  “Probably not. The investigation’s over.”

  I like the sound of this. “What about Talbot’s murder?”

  “That’s almost done, too,” she says. “We traced the video recording equipment to a stolen trunk of stuff that matched swag found in Bluefish’s warehouse. Bluefish or a friend of his must have killed her.”

  “So there really was a DVD of the murder?”

  “I think so,” she says. “But no one will ever see it again.”

  “Why?”

  Franny gazes out Clooney’s giant bar window at the dark Atlantic. “Because the killer was powerful enough to make it disappear.”

  “Powerful enough to push around cops?”

  Her gaze finds me again. She blinks. “Mallory for sure. Maybe his chief. Branchtown’s a cesspool. The local lops are protecting someone.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She giggles. “Local lops? How can you even understand me?”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Franny laps at her last-call martini like a thirsty Labrador. “Ever see that old Jack Nicholson movie Chinatown?” she asks.

  “Not more than twenty times,” I say. “I think Robert Towne won an Oscar for it.”

  “Who’s Robert Towne?”

  “He wrote it. An original screenplay.”

  “Oh. Well, then,” she says, “you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. They, I mean he, repeats the line a bunch of times in different parts of the movie. ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ like there’s nothing Jake can do, things are unknowable in that part of the city.”

  “Towne was writing about the dark side of people’s souls, not geography,” I say. “You never know what goes on inside a person’s heart.”

  “Exactly,” she says. “That’s what I mean, too. Austin, you cannot believe what goes on between certain powerful friends in New Jersey. Really.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Franny stares again out Clooney’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The lights of cargo ships blink on a black, invisible sea.

  “Franny?”

  She plants her martini glass a little too hard on the bar. The stem breaks at its base, and Franny lets the top half fall and crash as well. “Me,
Austin. I’m talking about me.”

  Ms. Strawberry bursts into tears, stands to leave and eventually hugs me for emotional support. Perhaps persuaded by the electrifying sensation of Franny’s chest pressed against me, I decide information time is over. What the hell is she talking about, Chinatown?

  I work on something clever to say, then decide to skip my tendency of overemphasizing verbal intercourse.

  Show her how you feel, ace, don’t tell her.

  When she lets go of her hug, I slide my hand farther around Franny’s waist and pull her against me. When I bend down to kiss her, Ms. Strawberry doesn’t turn away and our lips come together like pancakes and maple syrup. Tender at first, I let my passion build, slowly, until our tongues are doing a tango.

  My mouth is numb when the kiss is over. Franny’s whole body relaxes against mine. She tilts her head up and whispers. “Want to follow me home?”

  I kiss her neck. “I might be persuaded.”

  The bar check has been paid, including a nice tip for the disappointed bartender. Franny’s stuffing a lighter and a pack of Marlboros into her purse. Big Daddy’s revving up with thoughts of a midnight ride.

  “Listen,” she says, “I forgot something. The reason I came, actually. Be a nice man and go wait for me in the parking lot or take a pee? I have to talk to someone. Two minutes.”

  Where did this come from? And who the hell is she going to talk to. There’s only one table of customers left in the dining area, no one in the bar but us and one older man. “I’m not allowed to meet him?”

  “He’s very shy.”

  “So it is a he?”

  “A trooper friend. I have a subpoena for him in my purse. Now go wash your face or wait for me outside. I need a couple of minutes.”

  I glance at the bow-tied geezer across the bar. If he’s getting paid by the State Troopers, it’s a pension or as a nursing home informant. “He’s already here?”