Sleeping Dogs (16 page)
I drove from there to the co-op building where Phil Wylie had lived. A black doorman was on duty tonight. He was middle-aged, but from the appearance of his graying hair and the broken ridge of bone above his eyes and the condition of his nose, his boxing days had likely left him capable of taking care of himself even today. He wore dark blue woolen gloves that matched his uniform coat. I couldn't get a glimpse of his knuckles. I asked him where the other man was.“Night off.”
“Be back tomorrow?”
He nodded. He watched me carefully. “Cop?”
“Pardon?”
“You a cop?”
“Long time ago. Military intelligence.”
“Thought so.”
“Don't hold it against me.”
He had a chesty, full laugh. “I'll try not to.”
“You interested in a little money on the side?”
“I don't have a police record if that's what you're asking. And I plan to keep it that way.”
“Did you know Phil Wylie?”
“Mr. Wylie? Sure. He was a very nice man. He gave a damn about people. My little granddaughter, she got sick and her mama didn't have no insurance, he picked up the hospital bill. About four thousand dollars. Not many folks'd do something like that.”
Wylie's death was beginning to have its effects on me. I was getting to know him through the people who'd loved him. “He must've been a damned good man.”
“He was. Half the people who work here went to his funeral.” He allowed himself a quick smile. “Some of the people in this building, they die and we want to celebrate instead.”
I realized that I should start carrying my wallet in a holster. Easier to get to. I slipped a hundred-dollar bill from it and offered it to the man.
“What's this for?”
“I want to know about his visitors.”
“What visitors?”
“Anybody you saw come here more than two or three times.”
“I only work here two nights a week. Rest is days.”
“Then tell me about the two nights.”
“This what you gave Ralph?”
“Ralph?”
“The other doorman.”
“I gave him a little more.”
“How much is âa little'?”
I took out another hundred. “How's that?”
“Passable.”
“Tell me about his guests.”
Before he could respond, a limo pulled up out front and dispatched
a young couple who were trying awfully hard to be Scott and Zelda. They were both drunk and giggling and each waved a bottle of champagne. They stumbled and staggered through the front doors. By this point the young man, who had his hair greased back and his white tuxedo shirt covered with red lipstick wounds, kept trying to kiss her exquisite neck, but her fur wrap kept getting in the way. I wanted to call PETA and have them beat the shit out of these two on general principle. They stumbled on across the echoing marble floor to the elevators. If they'd seen us they'd decided we weren't worth acknowledging. More likely they were too drunk to see anybody who didn't appear regularly in their mirrors.
a young couple who were trying awfully hard to be Scott and Zelda. They were both drunk and giggling and each waved a bottle of champagne. They stumbled and staggered through the front doors. By this point the young man, who had his hair greased back and his white tuxedo shirt covered with red lipstick wounds, kept trying to kiss her exquisite neck, but her fur wrap kept getting in the way. I wanted to call PETA and have them beat the shit out of these two on general principle. They stumbled on across the echoing marble floor to the elevators. If they'd seen us they'd decided we weren't worth acknowledging. More likely they were too drunk to see anybody who didn't appear regularly in their mirrors.
“I'll bet they're your favorites.”
“Believe it or not, they're pretty decent compared to some of them.”
“There're worse?”
“You kidding? Wait till you meet the Sullivans.”
“Bad?”
“She always tells me it's nice to meet âa colored man who knows how lucky he is' to have a job.”
“I see what you mean.”
Now he gave the subject of Wylie and his visitors some thought. “Last month or so, this one guy kept showing up a lot. He didn't belong here.”
“What'd he look like?”
He gave me two sentences. He gave me R. D. Greaves.
“He stay long when he came here?”
“Once he stayed over an hour. Most of the time it wasn't that long.”
“Anybody else?”
And then he said it. I knew right away the who of it. What I didn't know was the why. And then I remembered the night in the office when she'd been sobbing but wouldn't tell me what was troubling her.
“She was a real babe. Real North Shore. A very classy number.”
“She here a lot?”
“Just about every night I was.”
“She stay long?”
“Most of the time overnight. I'd leave at six when the day man came on and she'd be coming down in the elevator about then.”
Laura and Phil; Phil and Laura. Nothing wrong with that. Perfectly fine. Office romances happen all the time. And nothing sinister about it, either.
Then why did it seem sinister to me?
As soon as I got back to my car, I called her on my cell. I got her voice mail.
Â
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ate was on the phone when I got back to the office. I'd just sat down when she said good-bye and hung up. “I hear we got the money.”
ate was on the phone when I got back to the office. I'd just sat down when she said good-bye and hung up. “I hear we got the money.”
“Yeah. I don't know what moved them all of a sudden.”
“Would you like to see Jim Lake in office?”
“You've got a point there.”
She went over and got her coat. “I left a number there. A man called twice for you. He sounded sort ofâagitated.”
“He leave a name?”
“You won't believe it. Shadows, International. He sounds short.”
“âSounds short.'”
“Yes. It's this ability I have. Even over the phone I can tell if a man is short. There's just this aggression in their voices. Sometimes it's very subtle and almost nobody else can hear it.”
“Like a dog whistle.”
“If you insist,” she laughed. “It's just like a dog whistle.”
I dialed the number as soon as she was gone.
“Shadows, International. Tully speaking.”
And damned if he didn't sound short.
“Mr. Tully, my nameâ”
“I know who you are. I've got caller ID.”
“Good for you.”
“Kind of a wise one, are you?”
“That's what they tell me.”
“You called three times. I wondered why.”
“You sent R. D. Greaves a bill for services rendered. I wondered if you'd tell me why.”
“Hell, no, I wouldn't tell you why.”
“That's what I figured. Is there a bar near where you are?”
“Lots of them. Why?”
“I've got three hundred and fifty dollars in my wallet that I've really got to get rid of because it's too heavy to carry around. I've also got a Glock nine-millimeter in case anybody might get the idea of taking the money from me before I'm willing to give it. But you sound like a deserving type of guy. So why don't we have a couple of shooters and see if we can do a little business.”
“Five hundred would interest me a lot more.”
“For five hundred I'd want a pretty full story. Not just a brief explanation. I'd want to know who you were following for him and why.”
“What if the person I was following doesn't have anything to do with what you're looking for?”
“Then I'm out the three hundred and fifty dollars I'm going to give you.”
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Four fifty.”
“Four ten and fifty cents.”
“What are you, some kind of asshole?”
“Yeah, but I've never figured out exactly what kind.”
He named a bar. Forty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot.
Middle-management white-collar employees. More upscale than I
would have figured for Mr. Tully. He wasn't hard to find. The shortest man in the place. Plus an idiotic trench coat with enough epaulets, flaps, and buttons on it to embarrass even real secret agents.
would have figured for Mr. Tully. He wasn't hard to find. The shortest man in the place. Plus an idiotic trench coat with enough epaulets, flaps, and buttons on it to embarrass even real secret agents.
He was chatting up a very nice-looking blond woman who towered over him at five-eight or so. A real Amazon compared to his five-five. Her dark eyes kept furtively searching the long, narrow room. She wanted to be rescued.
“Excuse me, ma'am,” I said, stepping up to them. “This man recently escaped from our psychiatric hospital and, as charming as he is, I'm afraid we'll have to take him back there for another round of two hundred electroshock treatments.”
“My faith in God has been restored.” She smiled. And fled.
“You've got a way with the women, I see.”
“You prick.”
He was a munchkin. The real kind. Sort of a Kewpie dollâface male version and short arms that made long-sleeved shirts and jackets hard to buy. “She was going home with me.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“What? You think I don't get my fair share of pussy?”
“Why're we having this conversation?”
“Because you chased off my babe.”
“Tell you what. Let's find a booth and I'll buy you a couple of drinks.”
“Oh, no, man. You chased off my woman for tonight. But you're not gonna chase off my regular fee.”
“Your fee? For what?”
“For talking to me. That comes extra.”
Anita Baker came on the sound system. I'd had a music crush on her back in the eighties and early nineties. I wanted to sit in a booth by myself and think about the impossible woman I was going to meet real soon now. Instead I had to deal with this sharpie. “So I pay you a fee up front even though I'm not sure you have any information that would be of any interest to me.”
“Hey, you called me. So if you want a sit-down here it's the same as a sit-down in my office. Seventy-five an hour. And that's seventy-five even if you get up and leave in five minutes.”
“You're sort of like a shrink.”
Somebody was having a birthday. A group of drunk men and women laughed their way through “Happy Birthday,” drowning out Anita Baker. Nothing good lasts very long.
“You mean I don't even get one freebie?”
“Man, this is what I do for a living. No freebies.”
We took a booth. A good-looking middle-aged waitress came over and took our orders. Tully said, “I don't see no ring on your lovely hand.”
“My wedding ring's so big, it's hard to carry around.”
“You're kidding. You're not married.”
“You a psychic?”
“I just have married radar. You know, like gaydar. Only it's about which babe is married and which isn't.”
“You should be more like your friend there.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And not pester the waitresses.”
As soon as she left, I said, “Another triumph.”
“Some of 'em you have to work awhile. But eventually most of them come around.”
“Yeah, hit 'em with a crowbar, they'll give in every time.”
“You're so smart, let's see your money.”
I hadn't kept track of all the bribes I'd delivered in the past few days. The amount had to be twelve hundred or around there. Our accountant would frown and sigh. She was not only very good at accounting, she was even better at frowning and sighing, especially when it came to the sloppy way I kept track of things.
I laid out a one-hundred-dollar bill. I didn't have anything smaller. “Bonus.”
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