Murder Miscalculated (14 page)

It was a morning of easy pickings. Lawyers and their clients streamed by on the sidewalks, eager to make court dates. I targeted the lawyers, their roles made obvious by the formal clothes they wore in an age when casual Friday has spread to every weekday. I figured their clients had trouble enough without my adding to it.

I kept it up until noon, all the while wondering if I was being watched. I didn’t spot anyone, and none of my marks twigged to what I was up to when I performed the dips. The fact was, and I would never admit this to Lynn and could barely admit it to myself, I found I was just as good picking pockets as I used to be.

Halfway through the morning I ran into Jay, the sidewalk fence, again. We exchanged pleasantries, all the time watching around us for potential marks and trouble. After a minute he cleared his throat.

“Kid, a guy came around asking about you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “A guy?”

“Yeah, you know, the kind of guy you don’t want to mess with.”

I knew just what he meant.

“What did he want?”

“It’s kind of strange. He wanted to know if you were a pickpocket. I told him sure you are, one of the best. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” I assured him. Jay still looked troubled.

“I’m not a tough guy, Kid. I don’t get involved in that kind of stuff. I mean, when someone like that comes along, I’m going to tell them what they want.”

“That’s okay, Jay. I know exactly what that’s like. I’m no tough guy either.”

“Well, okay, as long as you’re cool with it.” Jay shook my hand and left in his sideways sort of way.

What Jay told me gave me a lot to ponder, and I decided to quit for the morning and head over to Sammie’s. It was an even cinch that the guy checking up on me with Jay was working for Wolfe. If I’d had any doubts about the necessity of keeping up the appearance of a working pickpocket, they were gone now.

I left Sammie’s as the time was approaching noon. It was about three blocks from Sammie’s shop to the M bus line, and I set out at a fast pace, eager to get back to The Book Nook and my real life.

“Hey, Kid! Wait!” A voice commanded from behind me. I turned around and saw Chad and another of Doris Whitaker’s crew walking toward me. They must have been waiting outside Sammie’s for me. That didn’t look good. I made a pretense of looking up at the sun.

“Gee, sorry guys. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m due downtown in a few minutes. Why don’t you call my office and make an appointment?”

The looks on their faces as they caught up to me showed that they didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. Chad cracked his knuckles. The other one tried to do the same but without any sound.

Chad glared at him. “Cool it, Jeremy.” He turned back to me. “Mrs. Whitaker has a message for you, Kid.”

“Yeah, well, give Doris my best, but I don’t have time.”

I turned to leave. Chad grabbed my right arm and pulled me back around. Jeremy slugged me in the stomach and I doubled over, the breath knocked out of me.

Chad and Jeremy waited until I got a good lungful of air again and stood straight, or as straight as I could. My eyes watered. “Was that the message, or is there more?”

He gave a wolfish grin. “Mrs. Whitaker says you need to make up your mind. Are you going to work for her, or do we get to break all of your fingers?”

Jeremy chimed in. “One at a time, slowly.” He pantomimed bending his own fingers back.

I did a quick calculation in my head. Talbot wanted me to keep working the street for another week, then I’d be off the hook. I held up my hands in surrender.

“Okay, you win.”

Chad and his buddy looked disappointed.

“Ask Doris …” I began. Chad raised a fist. “Ask Mrs. Whitaker if I can meet her for lunch at The Empire Room the day after tomorrow. She and I can work out the details then.”

This confused them.

“What do you mean, work out the details?” Chad asked. “What’s there to work out, smart guy? You work for Mrs. Whitaker, or we break your fingers.”

“Are you kidding?” I waved my arm, the one closest to the street, widely. “There are covenants to be agreed on, equitable splitting of the proceeds, all kinds of details. Jeez, don’t you remember what Mrs. Whitaker told you?”

My two erstwhile partners in conversation strained their memories, trying to figure out what I was talking about. Meanwhile I watched the gypsy cab driving toward us from behind them. As I had hoped, the driver had interpreted my arm waving as a customer flagging him down.

I pivoted on my heels as soon as the cab slowed to a stop, and in a couple of seconds had the door open, jumped in and shouted to the driver. “Go! Go!” He went.

Chad and Jeremy pounded on the side of the cab as we pulled away. I didn’t bother looking behind.

“Where to?” asked the cabby, his eyes studying me in the rear view mirror.

“Just a few blocks,” I answered. “Drop me somewhere along the M line.” It wasn’t that I wouldn’t welcome a cab ride back to The Book Nook, but I didn’t have that much cash on me. I shook my head. I had just left close to a thousand dollars in cash back at Sammie’s to be returned along with the owners’ wallets, and I didn’t have enough of my own cash to afford a cab ride. This honesty business sure didn’t pay well.

Cochran was in the back room of The Book Nook when I returned. I told him about Jay’s report that someone was asking about me. “That’s good,” said Cochran. He was sitting at the table, tapping on a laptop.

Lynn must have overheard us as she came down from her studio. “Good?” she asked.

“Yes. We want Wolfe and his people to be convinced The Kid is only a pickpocket. If they were to suspect otherwise,” his voice trailed off.

“We get the picture,” I answered. I gave Lynn a kiss. “So what’s new back here at Hotel Book Nook?” I looked around the kitchen, but we were the only three in the room. “Old Tom is watching the store. Where are Barbara, Max and April?”

“Max, April and Candy are off at a radio station for yet another interview,” Lynn told me. She poked my stomach, and I recoiled. She nodded. I have no idea how she figured it out that I had been slugged, but she did. Her next question told me that.

“How was the street this morning? Any problems?” Lynn looked me in the eyes as she asked that, and there was no way I could evade telling her.

“Well, a couple of Doris Whitaker’s crew came after me. They made it clear,” I touched my stomach, “painfully clear that I am expected to go to work for Doris.

Lynn frowned. “Or?”

“Or I get my fingers broken.”

Lynn sucked in her breath. She turned to Cochran, “Can’t you do something about this? It’s one thing for The Kid to help your boss out, but what are we supposed to do now?”

Cochran motioned to the other chairs at the table. “Sit down and tell me about this Doris Whitaker.”

We did, taking turns. In a few minutes Cochran knew as much as anyone who works the streets knew about Mrs. Whitaker, the Grand Doyenne of petty crime in our city. He found out about Doris’s rise from a street huggermugger and roller of drunks to the faux society matron she plays today.

When we were through Cochran pointed to his laptop. “Give me a few minutes. I want to see what our database has on her.” He turned to his laptop and began pecking at the keyboard.

Lynn and I went out into the bookstore. Old Tom waved from his perch behind the counter. Junior came strutting over and wove his sinuous form between our legs.

“So everyone’s accounted for except Barbara,” I said. “What is she up to?”

Just as I asked that question, the front door opened, and Barbara came in. Her face looked worn, but she smiled when she saw us. “Hello, Kid. Hello, Lynn.” She gave us each a kiss on the cheek and then waved at Tom. “Hello Tom,” she sang out.

Junior meowed a complaint at being left out, and she bent down and scratched his head. “Hello, Junior. How are you?” Junior rubbed his head against her hand.

She straightened back up, and I helped her take off the lightweight jacket she wore. “Where’d you go?” I asked.

“Oh, here and there, here and there.” Barbara’s face shone with a playful innocence that I didn’t believe. “It’s a beautiful day out there, did you know?” She headed for the back room, taking the scarf off her hair as she did. “Give me a minute, and I’ll make us all some lunch,” she called as she pushed through the beaded curtains.

Lynn and I looked at each other.

“Don’t ask me,” Lynn said. “I have no idea what she’s up to.”

I admit it. I don’t like guns. I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the way they feel, and I certainly don’t like what they can do to a person’s body. When the man pushed back his suit coat to show me the pistol tucked into his waistband, I didn’t argue. I let him take my elbow and guide me to a large, black sedan with tinted windows. A door swung open, and with a little prodding from my escort, I got in.

It was midmorning. I was walking east along Tenth Street, just past Walnut Avenue, when the man with the gun made his request that I join his boss in the car. He did it well. He had been waiting for me within the entrance of the vacant Woolworth’s, probably watching in the reflection of the angled display window, much as I’ve waited for my own victims in the past.

A man sat on the far side of the back seat. It took me all of half a second to recognize him. Tall, thin, almost cadaverous, with long gray hair tied back in a thin ponytail. It was the man who’d shot Zager in the lobby of the Meridian Hotel. I did my best to keep from showing I recognized him and instead made a big deal of settling myself on the car seat. All the while he didn’t say anything, he simply watched me.

It felt like he wasn’t so much looking at me as he was studying me. It didn’t make me feel any better about my situation.

“Mister Gregory Smith, I presume? The pickpocket known as The Kid?” The man’s voice was honey smooth and cyanide sharp at the same time.

“Could be,” I said, remembering I wasn’t supposed to know him. “And you are?”

“That doesn’t matter, Mr. Smith.” He considered me for a little longer, then stared at the back of his hand and said, “I’m curious about something, Mr. Smith.”

“What’s that?”

He turned back to me. “How is it that a known thief such as yourself is allowed to walk around the city without worry of arrest? You don’t even have a police record. It makes me wonder if perhaps you haven’t, shall we say, friends in high places?”

“I don’t have a record, and the police aren’t after me because I’m good. I make it a point not to get caught.”

“And yet I have caught you.”

“Your guy grabbed me, but I have no idea why. I don’t know you. I do know I never boosted your wallet.”

“Your memory is that good?”

“Yes, it is.” We glared at each other for a few moments and then he reached into his coat and brought out a billfold and handed it to me.

“Let’s see how good your memory really is, Mr. Smith. Have you ever seen that wallet before?” I examined it. It was the wallet I’d lifted from Zager.

“You can’t expect me to remember every wallet I’ve taken.”

“Try, Mr. Smith.”

I opened the billfold. It was empty. “It would help if the cards and stuff that were inside were still in there,” I protested.

“Nonetheless, please try.” I closed my eyes and made a show of feeling the wallet’s texture, shape, size and heft, and then I nodded.

“A week ago, Thursday? In the lobby of the Meridian. He was walking toward the front doors, and I had just come in. I bumped him, got the wallet and left through the garage doors.”

“And then,” the man prompted.

“I walked a couple of blocks, took out the cards and cash and left the wallet in a trash bin at the corner of Division and Twelfth.” That was the story Talbot, Cochran and I had worked out. In reality, they had arranged to have it turned in to the local police station and reported as having been found in that trash bin.

“Wasn’t there something else in the wallet?”

“No, there wasn’t.” The man’s face darkened, but before he could say anything I interrupted. “Wait, yes there was. It was a memory card, the kind you put into a camera. It was tucked down in the pocket.”

“You didn’t take it?”

I gave him a disdainful laugh. “No, that kind of thing doesn’t have any value on the street.”

There was a long silence. I wondered what his next move would be.

“Very well, Mr. Smith. I accept your version of events.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Gee, that’s really swell of you, whoever you are.”

The back of his hand whacked my face. “I don’t like smart alecks, Mr. Smith, nor do I like petty thieves. You appear to be both. Please get out of my car.”

Someone must have been listening, because the door opened, and the same guy who had put me into the car pulled me out. He got in without glancing at me. The door closed again, and the car pulled away into the street.

I put my hand to my face and rubbed where he had hit me. It smarted like hell, but that was the least of my concerns. I called Cochran as soon as I was certain no one was tailing me.

“What’s up, Kid? I’m in a meeting.”

I told him what had happened. There was a long silence on the other end of the line when I finished. I suspected that Cochran was conferring with Talbot.

His first question when he came back on the line confirmed that. “Talbot wants to know if you are certain it was the same man who shot Zager.”

I told him what I thought of Talbot’s question. He translated my answer into a polite yes for Talbot, then he got back to me.

“Well, if there was any doubt before, we now know for certain that Wolfe’s people believe you stole the wallet. Talbot said to tell you, good job.”

I told Cochran what Talbot could do and where he could do it, and then I hung up. I headed back to The Book Nook, wondering how Cochran translated that.

The invitation came in that day’s mail. It came in the form of an elegant, off-white, square envelope. It was addressed to me in a careful calligraphic script and requested the pleasure of my company for lunch at The Empire Room. Doris had signed it with a flourish and then penned a postscript.