Sleeping Dogs Read online

  “I was with him in the dressing room. We’re assuming that that was when the stuff was put in his drink. Around that time. Maybe a little bit before.”

  “You got any idea who might have put the stuff in there?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “You could’ve put the sedative in his glass.”

  “Yes, I could’ve.”

  “But you didn’t, right?”

  “Right.”

  He finished his coffee. He was a bit loud about it. He went “Ah!” and smiled. “This is some of the worst coffee I’ve ever had.”

  “We don’t come here for the coffee.”

  “Oh? Why do you come here then?”

  “The atmosphere. Don’t let all the wobbly furniture and the greasy walls fool you. This is a high-class joint.”

  “It is, huh?”

  “Just don’t use the toilet.”

  “Bad?”

  “So bad that people go in there and are never heard from again.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  He spoke without taking his eyes off me. “Way I’ve got it figured, it was somebody on the staff put that sedative in his glass. You considered his staff?”

  “Of course.”

  “You got any leads?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Who looks good for it?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Maybe you don’t know the staffers well enough.”

  “Pretty well.”

  “Background checks?”

  “Yep. Or they wouldn’t have been hired.”

  “Grudges against Nichols?”

  “Distinct possibility. Lots of hurt feelings in campaigns. But nothing stands out at the moment.”

  “You ever consider the possibility that Nichols himself put the stuff in his Diet Pepsi?”

  Fastball right across the plate. Breathtaking in its simplicity and fury. It stopped me clean and cold. I’d never even considered that possibility. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “We got a tip.”

  “My advice is burn it. It’s bullshit. Why the hell would he do it?”

  “The race was tightening.”

  “Not that much.”

  “The race was tightening and he figures he can nail Lake with queering his drink. But it doesn’t work out that way. Lake becomes the hero. But now there’s not jack Nichols can do about it.”

  “Agatha Christie.”

  “What?”

  “That’s an Agatha Christie plot. I don’t remember which one. But I’ve read all of her books and I’m sure she used that same trick in one of them.”

  “Maybe I should read her.”

  “Mostly I read noir. But Agatha’s fun every once in a while.”

  “This sounds like the literary society. How about you tell me what you think about my idea. And don’t just say it’s bullshit.”

  I finished my own coffee, carefully setting the cup down. I cleared my throat. I stared across the table at him. “He didn’t do it. Too risky and he’s very conservative when it comes to risk. And he’d screw it up.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He’s not a competent man. He was raised with money. He never had to learn how to survive on his own skills. If he was to do something like this, he’d have to have somebody help him with it. He’s not stupid but he is lazy. He’d have to have somebody figure out which kind of drug to use. Then he’d have to have somebody figure out what the best way was to make everybody else think somebody had put it in his drink.”

  “Maybe he had help.”

  “If you mean me, I like my job too much. Too many things wrong with a plan like that. Bound to come undone somewhere along the line.”

  “There are plenty of dudes floating around who’d help him for some serious money.”

  “Right. But we’re back to risk. He gets help like that, he instantly sets himself up for blackmail. You don’t meet a high class of people in that particular trade. I don’t suppose you’d tell me where you got this tip?”

  “As a matter of fact, I will. Came to me in a letter. Unsigned, of course. It was just off-the-wall enough that I thought I should look into it.”

  “And now you have.”

  “And now I have.”

  “So you’re not going to worry about it anymore?”

  He smiled with those big white teeth of his. “Of course I am. I think it’s a very interesting idea.”

  CHAPTER 24

  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 ‘a 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.

  “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 ‘a 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.

  Kate 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 of—agitated.”

  “He leave a name?”

  “You won’t believe it. Shadows, International. He sounds short.”

  “‘Sounds 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 name—”

  “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.

  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 doll–face 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.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll call the networks and let them know what a high roller you are.”

  “Did Phil Wylie hire you?”

  “You’re with Nichols, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I Googled you.�
��

  “Good for you. Now answer my question.”

  “Greaves hired me to help him with the Wylie case.”

  “To do what?”

  “To shadow a couple of people.”

  “A couple meaning two?”

  “A couple meaning two.”

  “Do I get the names?”

  “That’s where the negotiations start.”

  “I could always come across this table and pound your face in. Would that start the negotiations?”

  “I pack heat.”

  “Mickey Spillane, 1948. That’s an old song, pal. I pack heat, too. But I’d hate to mess up this pretty booth with your blood.”

  “Two thousand dollars for the reports I gave to Wylie.”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t have two grand on me.”

  “I want it in cash so there’s no way to trace it to me.”

  “You don’t like to pay income tax.”

  “Not only that, but selling this kind of thing, this gets around I have to think of my reputation. People might get the idea that I’m double-dealing them. You know, I get information on one guy and he pays me. And then I turn around and sell the same information to his enemy. That could put the hurt on my business.”

  “And trench coats don’t come cheap.”

  “You don’t like my trench coat?”

  The waitress came with our drinks. “I told my friend here that if I worked on you long enough you’d go home with me.”

  She smiled at me. “He really say that?”

  “Well, he didn’t say it specifically about you. He said it in a more general way. But you were included.”

  “He couldn’t get me to go home with him if he had an Uzi and a bag of gold coins.”

  Shadows, International smiled. “You’d be a challenge but I think I could swing it.”

  She shook her lovely head in disbelief and walked away.

  He said, “Bitch. She just wanted to embarrass me in front of you. Wanted to make my work harder for me. Wants me to work real hard for my nookie tonight.”

  Say what you want about delusional people, they’re an awful lot of fun to listen to sometimes.

  “Okay, rock star, let’s get serious here. I can have the money for you tomorrow morning. How do I get it to you?”

  “You leave it at the front desk of your hotel?”

  “That sounds easy enough. And you leave the reports for me when you pick up the money. And you’ll be damned sorry if the reports aren’t there.”