Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Page 24

  Nick Charles, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade.

  After arriving in LA in pursuit of fame and fortune, I had managed to land several small film roles. Very small. Always a low budget crime melodrama. Always a second-string petty criminal or thug. If it was a prison movie—a man framed and incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit—I would be the slow-witted convict at the far end of the mess hall table eyeballing the hero’s mashed potatoes as he laid out plans for escape. If it was a heist film—an FBI agent negotiating the release of hostages following a failed bank robbery attempt—I was the gang member lurking in the background listening stupidly while the boss and his right hand man argued the destination of the getaway jet. On the film shoot where I met Pigeon, it was kidnapping. A private eye was employed by a prominent politician to locate his young daughter being held for ransom. The abductors had strongly advised the girl’s father against involving the police. I played the role of the kidnapper with the fewest lines.

  Jimmy was a genuine private investigator engaged as a consultant for the production. Pigeon’s job was to help the actor playing the PI in the film look more like a real private eye than an actor playing one, which was nearly an impossible task. I watched Jimmy closely while we were on the set together, his character, concentration, style and charisma. I talked with him about his work as often as he would allow between takes, studying his every move as if I would one day be competing for the lead role in The Jimmy Pigeon Story. And then something entirely unexpected and unexplained occurred. I found myself much more fascinated with the notion of being a private eye than with the idea of portraying one. On the final day of shooting I found the nerve to ask Jimmy what he thought of my wild impulse. Pigeon invited me to visit his Santa Monica office to mull it over.

  A week later, Jimmy was sitting at his desk looking at me as if he wasn’t sure where to begin or whether or not to begin at all. I sat opposite Pigeon in what he informed me was the client chair. I was learning already.

  “Well, if nothing else,” Pigeon finally said, “Jake Diamond is a perfect name for a PI. Did you come up with it yourself?”

  “Gift from my parents,” I said. “How about yours?”

  “James C. Pigeon,” he said. “Since day one.”

  “C?”

  “Not important,” Jimmy said. “Why do you want to give up acting? Believe me, it’s a lot more glamorous than what I do. And certainly more lucrative.”

  “There’s not enough glamour to go around,” I answered, “and I’m weary of waiting for some to get around to me. I wondered if you ever considered taking on a partner.”

  “Had a few.”

  “And?”

  “How about this, Jake,” Jimmy said. “I’ll tell you the story of my last partner and then you tell me if you want to leave the bright lights of Hollywood for the dark alleys of Southland.”

  As he was making his offer, Pigeon had pulled a bottle of bourbon and two small glasses from a drawer in his desk and began pouring.

  “Sounds fair,” I said as he passed me a glass.

  “There’s not too much about fair in this particular story, Jake.”

  Jimmy took a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, lit one and dropped the package onto the desk between us.

  “Light up if you like,” Jimmy Pigeon said.

  And he began.

  JIMMY PIGEON

  Jimmy Pigeon sat up in his bed. His eyes were leaking like a faucet. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the bedside table. It had replaced the empty tissue box sometime during the night. Pigeon sopped up the tears running down his cheeks. His right nostril was packed as solid as a car full of clowns. Jimmy considered trying to blow his nose but he was afraid of what might spill out of his ears. He had hardly slept all night, the plop plop fizz fizz cold and sinus cocktail he had guzzled before crawling into bed had him up to urinate every thirty minutes. He had arrived home late the previous night from a rare vacation, visiting his sister and her family in South Carolina. Six dreadful days. Everything down there, from the family station wagon to the family kitten, was covered in layers of fine yellow dust. By day two the pollen had settled on his shoes, had found refuge in his nose, mouth and eyes. By day three he could barely breathe. His sister, her husband and the kids seemed unaffected, immune, adapted, empirical validation of some Darwinian theory. Pigeon dried his face again and made his way to the bathroom. He adjusted the water to a few degrees below scalding and he stepped into the shower, making a plaintive wish for an unobstructed nasal passage.

  Ninety minutes later, Jimmy took the short walk from his apartment to the office. He looked out at the brown haze hovering over downtown Los Angeles in the distance. It was a sight for sore eyes. As he turned onto Fourth Street he spotted two uniformed officers planted at the front entrance to his office building. Pigeon pulled a business card from his wallet and he quickened his pace. One of the young patrolmen stopped Jimmy at the door.

  “Can I help you, sir,” he asked.

  “Just trying to get to work,” Jimmy said, carefully offering the officer his card.

  “Please wait here, sir,” the officer said. He turned and carried the card into the building.

  “Something happen?” Jimmy asked the second uniform.

  “Officer Sutton will be right back, sir,” the cop said and then nervously added, only for something to say, “there was a high pollution warning this morning.”

  “Love it,” Jimmy said, taking in a deep breath for the first time in nearly a week.

  The uniform returned his attention to the street.

  A few minutes later, Sutton was back.

  “Would you please come with me, Mr. Pigeon,” he said.

  Jimmy followed Sutton into the building and up to the second floor.

  The building superintendent stood in the hall, pale as a ghost. He looked at Jimmy and then turned his eyes away. At the office door, Jimmy immediately noticed the crack in the opaque glass pane which ran diagonally across the hand painted words. Archer and Pigeon, Private Investigation.

  Sutton pushed the door open. Jimmy’s eyes went to the floor. Lenny Archer, his face nearly unrecognizable, lying in what seemed an ocean of blood.

  Pigeon sadly looked away and surveyed the room. It had been turned upside down. File cabinet drawers open, papers scattered everywhere. Two men in white lab coats dusting for prints. Two plain clothed detectives staring back at him. The older of the two starting toward him.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Pigeon,” the detective said. “You don’t look very well.”

  Allergies, Jimmy thought to say, aversion to violent death.

  “When did this happen?” Jimmy asked.

  “I can’t say. The call came in a few hours ago. The medical examiner is on his way. We’ll know more after he takes a look. Do you feel up to a few questions?”

  “Give me a moment,” Jimmy said. “I need some air. Can we talk outside?”

  “Sure. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  Jimmy walked back down and out of the building. He passed Sutton and the other uniform at the door. They had nothing to say. He walked twenty feet from the entrance, leaned against the building and lit a cigarette.

  Jesus Christ, Lenny, what the fuck was it about?

  Jimmy was crushing the cigarette under his shoe a few minutes later as the two detectives approached him.

  “Go ahead, ask,” Jimmy said before either could speak.

  The older of the two took charge. The other detective took notes.

  “When was the last time you saw your partner?”

  “Monday evening, a week ago today. I left town early Tuesday morning, got back in late last night.”

  “Did you speak with Mr. Archer while you were gone?”

  “No. I imagined Lenny could stay out of trouble for six days.”

  “Do you have any idea about why this happened?”

  “None.”

  “Whoever it was seemed to be searching for something.”

  “No idea,”
said Jimmy.

  “A case you were working on? Something particularly sensitive or dangerous?”

  “Nothing I was involved in,” Jimmy said. “Nothing Lenny told me anything about.”

  “Did you usually work separate cases?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “So, you can’t really help us on this.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I learn anything.”

  “Mr. Pigeon, it would be much better for all concerned if you left this to us.”

  Not much better for Lenny.

  “I didn’t get your names,” Jimmy said. “I thought I knew all of the Santa Monica homicide detectives.”

  “I’m Detective Raft and my partner is Detective Tully. We’re LASD,” said Raft, handing Jimmy a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department business card.

  “Oh?” said Jimmy.

  “We were handy,” Raft said. “Can you tell us anything about Mr. Archer’s next-of-kin?”

  “He had none,” said Jimmy.

  “Here’s the ME,” said Tully. “I’ll take him up.”

  Tully started toward the Ford that had pulled up in front of the building. An ambulance turned onto Fourth Street. Tully led the Santa Monica Medical Examiner into the building. Solomon Meyers, a familiar face.

  “When can I get back into the office?” Jimmy asked.

  “Hopefully by early this evening. Is there somewhere I can reach you before then?” Raft asked.

  “I’m not sure where I’ll be. You have my card. You can reach me at the office number, hopefully by early this evening. Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” said Raft. “I think that’s all for the time being. You have my card, if there’s anything we can do.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know,” Jimmy said and he quietly walked away.

  Raft returned to the office. The medical examiner was studying the corpse, the ambulance drivers were waiting for the ME to release the body, the crime scene investigators were dusting, collecting, shooting photographs. Detective Raft called Detective Tully out into the hall.

  “Do you think Pigeon knows anything?” asked Tully.

  “I don’t believe so,” said Raft. “Archer and Richards both said no. But Pigeon is a snoop and from what I hear a very good one. And he has a poor fucking attitude. We’ll need to keep a close eye on him.”

  “Do you think they’ve found Richards yet?”

  “I’m sure they have,” Raft said. “I imagine that’s why the Santa Monica PD was too busy to take this one.”

  Pigeon spent the remainder of the day alone. He sat for hours at the Santa Monica Pier, watching the ocean. He dropped into a few bars along Third Street, nursing more than one drink in each saloon. A toast to Lenny Archer. At a table in the rear of Murphy’s Saloon four men in military uniform, all in their late sixties or early seventies, sang patriotic songs and tipped drinks in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy. It was too much celebration for Jimmy to handle. He left the bar and treated himself to a steak dinner before returning to his office.

  Someone had tried valiantly to scrub the floor, most likely the building superintendent, but a large faint stain remained. The strong scent of bleach had taken the place of the hideous smell of fresh blood. The office was still in shambles. He knew he would need to call someone in to pick up, to fix the glass pane on the door, maybe drop an area rug down. He knew he wasn’t up to it himself.

  Jimmy went over to Lenny Archer’s desk and opened the top drawer. In the top center drawer of each of their desks sat a small ceramic change bowl filled with coins and paper clips. Imbedded into the bottom of each bowl was a remote switch, a small button which started the tape machine that recorded sound through a microphone hidden in the ceiling light fixture. The tape recorder was hidden in the wall behind a metal vent cover. Jimmy emptied the bowl in Lenny’s drawer.

  The record button was depressed.

  Jimmy went over to his own desk for a screwdriver. He detached the metal grill and he pulled out the machine. He carried it back to his desk and rewound the tape. He lit a cigarette and pressed the play button.

  Pigeon could not identify the voices but he could tell there had been two men in the office with Lenny. The dialogue was audible, as were the background noises. The first gunshot followed by a close second. The awful sounds of the beating Lenny had taken. The brutal interrogation, a name mentioned more than once. Richards.

  Ed Richards.

  Something to go on.

  They had found what they came looking for; Lenny had been of no use to them.

  And then the final fatal gunshot.

  Pigeon replaced the tape recorder and switched on the small portable TV hoping to catch the late local news. He pulled the pint of bourbon from his desk and drank from the bottle. Jimmy caught the lead story, a Santa Monica author and journalist found shot to death in his beach house. The place had been ransacked. The Santa Monica police suspected a robbery turned felony homicide.

  The name of the victim was Edward Richards.

  Jimmy turned off the TV, slipped the bottle into his jacket pocket and left the office. He stopped at the front entrance to check the mail. He unlocked the box and found two bills and a postcard. The card had been addressed to Jimmy at his sister’s place in South Carolina, but the street address had been transcribed incorrectly and the postcard was stamped Return to Sender. On the front of the card was a photo of the Santa Monica City Hall Building and on the back side of the card was an eight word message to Pigeon.

  Chasing Charlie Chan.

  Wish you were here.

  Lenny.

  Back to TOC

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  acknowledgments

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Other Books by Down and Out Books

  sample from Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul.

  sample from A.C Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game.

  sample from J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan.

 

 

 
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