The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One (9 page)

“Uhh–h–h, look, partner, I’m in one helluva bind—Moose Katzenbach checked out on me late yesterday afternoon—gave me all of fifteen minutes notice!”

Lockington said, “Moose moved to Brooklyn?”

“Guess so. That’s his hometown, isn’t it?”

“Naw, Moose was born and raised in Chicago—Helen’s from Brooklyn.”

“Well, anyway, on that kind of notice, where the hell do I find a man who knows his ass from a hole in the ground?”

Lockington shook his head. “Beats me.” He knew where Duke Denny was coming from, and he knew his intended destination.

Denny said, “I wanted to discuss this last night, but you were
embriagado
.”

“Does that translate to ‘drunk’?”

“Jesus, a linguist, yet!”

Lockington could see no point in delaying the inevitable. He said, “You want me to fill in for Moose.”

Denny’s green eyes were pleading. “Probably just for a week or so—seven-fifty a week,
double
what I was paying Katzenbach, cash on the barrelhead and piss on the IRS.” He spread his hands. “Unless you’d want to stay longer, of course—the job’s yours for keeps, if you can use it.”

“Well-l-l-l—”

Denny broke in. “Lacey, they’re gonna barbecue your balls at that kangaroo hearing, and you
know
it! Stella Starbright fixed your clock, and you’ll just have to settle
some
where!”

Lockington fired up a cigarette, flipping the match into their tin ashtray, watching it shrivel to gray ash. He said, “All right, I’ll pitch in for a few days, but anything beyond that will have to hinge on how things work out.”

Denny shot a hand across the table, grabbing Lockington’s shoulder, squeezing until it hurt. “Jesus,
thanks,
partner! It’ll work out—we were the best team this town ever
saw
!”

“What’s cooking at the agency—where would I fit in?”

Denny was mopping his brow with a brown silk handkerchief—obviously relieved. He said, “Yeah, the agency—well, let’s see—okay, I’ll put you on the Grimes thing.”

“The Grimes thing. What’s the ‘Grimes thing’?”

“J.B. Grimes—he’s news to you?”

“Yep. What about J.B. Grimes?”

“He has a big Oklahoma Mutual Insurance franchise on West Monroe—employs thirty-some people—first-class operation.”

“Somebody’s dipping into the till?”

“No, Grimes isn’t my client—it’s his wife.”

“Uh-huh.” Duke Denny had just switched to a familiar frequency.

“Well, she’s always called him on working-day afternoons, right around two o’clock, and recently Grimes has never been available—he’s always in conference, or he just stepped out, or he’s with a client and he can’t be disturbed—you know the route.”

“And that’s a departure?”

“
Drastic
—normally Grimes is in his office, hacking dutifully away, easy to reach.”

“Does he know that she’s been calling him?”

“At first he did, and he had alibis, but now Martha Grimes is changing her voice, or having friends phone in—same old story, Grimes is tied up.”

“So he isn’t avoiding his wife, he’s avoiding
every
body.”

“You got it! Martha isn’t questioning him these days—she’s lulling him into a feeling of security.”

“Matinees, of course.”

“Of course—you see, his receptionist-switchboard operator isn’t taking afternoon calls—she has a slight Spanish accent, Martha knows her voice, and it’s always another girl. Then Grimes becomes readily available between four-thirty and five and so does the regular switchboard chick—two and two make four.”

“That’s all you have going—this Grimes business?”

Denny chuckled. “That’s
all
? Hell, partner, give me two or three a month just like it and I’m knee-deep in
clover
! The job’ll gross seven grand!”

“Martha Grimes wants grounds for divorce?”

“What else? She should cash for upwards of a million! Grimes is in his mid-fifties, Martha’s just a hair over forty—a bit on the pudgy side but she’s straddling a steamy crotch and I got a hunch she kicks up her heels from time to time. With that kind of money she can rent some fancy jockers!”

Lockington said, “Well, I don’t know the market, but isn’t seven grand a shade steep for a run-of-the-mill surveillance thing?”

“I don’t know that it’ll be run-of-the-mill—it could take time, maybe
weeks
. So the deal was seven big ones, guaranteed results, no time limit—we dog him until we nail him. Martha says that J.B. won’t come easy.”

“You’ll need witnesses to make it stick.”

“Witnesses, shitnesses—we’ll need
facts
—you get the facts, I’ll
buy
witnesses. This is Chicago, partner—
everything’s
for sale!”

Lockington nodded, remembering Duke Denny when he’d been an impressionable, almost-naïve kid out of someplace in Ohio.

At 10:15
A.M.
on Friday, August 24, Lacey Lockington stood on the West Monroe Street sidewalk, facing the New Gebhardt Building, peering upward thirty-eight floors to its pinnacle jutting into Chicago’s morning smog like the dagger into Julius Caesar’s chest, or belly, or whatever. Lockington wasn’t up on his Shakespeare.

The New Gebhardt Building had replaced the old Gebhardt Building, and for the life of him Lockington couldn’t understand why. The old Gebhardt Building had possessed flair and individuality, the new one was just one more of the antiseptic stainless steel and smoked glass monstrosities that had begun to clutter the downtown area, utterly devoid of personality, a carbon copy of the Alfred Bartlett Building which was a carbon copy of the Wentworth Building, which was a carbon copy of the Ajax Building, these providing a disconcerting peek into Chicago’s architectural future. There was something Orwellian about the inexorable transformation, Lockington thought, and he didn’t like it.

He entered the New Gebhardt Building apprehensively, pausing to locate the J.B. Grimes listing on the satin-chromed, black-enameled foyer panel before stepping into a Flash Gordon-style elevator to meet a fat woman coming out. The fat woman sported red plastic earrings the size of barrel hoops, a purple-on-white tropical-flowered dress, green jogging shoes, and some twenty-three gallons of cheap perfume. The fat women of Chicago present a force to be reckoned with and Lockington should have known enough to get out of her way, but he was preoccupied with the chore ahead of him, and he didn’t. The resounding impact and the stench of her stale three-dollar perfume left him with the distinct impression that he’d just collided head-on with an overdue cemetery truck chock-full of withered carnations. Overmatched, Lockington reeled from the elevator, his legs giving way, and she swept by him as a tidal wave sweeps by a minnow, hissing, “You better learn to watch where the hell you’re going!”

From his knees, Lockington muttered, “Yes, ma’am,” regaining his footing to stumble back into the elevator. The doors snapped silently open on the seventh floor of the New Gebhardt Building and he stepped from the cramped confines of the conveyance onto a blue-carpeted expanse the size of a tennis court, suddenly surrounded by a mausoleum-type silence, feeling out of touch with civilization as he remembered it. He peered bewilderedly about him before spotting the bold black block lettering on the frosted glass of the door to his left—J.B. GRIMES, OKLAHOMA MUTUAL INSURANCE, and below that, in smaller letters—Life, Accident, Fire, Casualty, Commercial Group Hospitalization. Lockington consulted his watch. The time was 10:25. Here went nothing.

He took a small notebook and a ballpoint pen from a pocket, pushed his hat to the back of his head, squared his shoulders, adopted his very best jaded facial expression, and barged through the door, pulling up short in a walnut-paneled alcove no larger than his Barry Avenue bathroom, confronted by a narrow sheet of white plastic. He sat warily on a spindly-legged blue fiberglass chair, then got to his feet as the plastic panel slid to one side. He stared into the enormous liquid-brown eyes of a slender Latino female perched primly at an Olivetti ET225, the arch of a switchboard headset imbedded in her glossy-black hair. Her face was long, her nostrils slightly flared, her chin weak, her bosom nothing short of spectacular. She smiled the insincere smile of every receptionist on Planet Earth. She said, “May I be of assistance, sir?” speaking with a lightly staccato Spanish inflection.

Lockington nodded, dug for his wallet, dragged it out, flashed his tarnished police badge, and growled, “Lieutenant Nick Noonan, Chicago Fire Marshall’s Office, ma’am—how many fire extinguishers do you have on these premises?”

She frowned. “Uhh–h–h, well, I’m not quite sure. What do they look like?”

Lockington said, “They’re red, in most cases.”

She brightened. “Oh
those
—yes, we have one here!” She nodded in the direction of the fire extinguisher.

Lockington said, “One won’t be enough, ma’am.”

“Oh, but there’s one in the stockroom, one in the consultation room, one in the ladies’ room, one in—”

“How about the men’s room?”

She blushed through dusky high-boned cheeks. “I—uhh–hh, I really don’t know, sir—I’ve never been—that is—”

“I’m running late, ma’am. Is there anyone here who might provide me with an exact count?”

She was rattled now, she’d need help, precisely as Lockington had hoped. She said, “I’d better call Mr. Grimes—oh, there he
is
!” She spun on her tiny swivel chair, raising her voice to a portly, baldheaded man in a rumpled gray gabardine suit. “Johnny—er-r-r—Mr. Grimes?”

J.B. Grimes was seated at a large table with an angular, white-haired woman, and he turned slowly, peering over his shoulder at the receptionist. He had the anguished look of a bull moose in the throes of a hemorrhoidal flare-up, but his voice was gentle. “Yes, Maria?” Lockington had all he’d be needing. Now it boiled down to getting out of the situation gracefully.

Maria was saying, “Mr. Grimes, how many fire extinguishers do we have?”

J.B. Grimes pinched the bridge of his nose, head down. “Well, let’s see—”

Maria said, “They’re red, in most cases.”

Grimes said, “Yes—seven, I believe—is it important, Maria?”

Lockington muttered, “Not unless the joint catches fire.”

Maria nodded agreement with Lockington, speaking to J.B. Grimes. “There’s a gentleman here, a Lieutenant Noonan from the Chicago Fire Marshall’s office.”

Grimes sighed. “Very well—I’ll talk to him in a few moments.”

Lockington said, “There’ll be no need for that, ma’am—this is just a routine check.” He riffled through several blank pages of his notebook, scrawled a couple of X’s on one, dumped pen and notebook into a jacket pocket, tipped his hat to Maria, and said, “Sorry to have troubled you, ma’am—have a nice day.” He went out, prepared for his assignment, the principals identifiable to him.

Martha Grimes’s female intuition was firing on all cylinders—Lockington would have bet on it.

At high noon, Chicago’s Loop was a sweating, swarming, snarling, snapping mass of confusion. Lockington had seen greater semblances of order in burning termite hills. He leaned against a lamppost across the way from the New Gebhardt Building, watching its entrance for J.B. Grimes and Maria. They emerged together, arm-in-arm, turning west, chatting, laughing. Lockington dodged traffic, crossing West Monroe Street at a dangerous angle to fall in behind them.

Maria was a leggy lass, she had a smoothly loose-jointed gait that appealed to Lockington’s baser instincts. Her black slacks were so tight that Lockington could see the outlines of what was probably a small mole on her right buttock, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d squeezed into them in the first place. Then he couldn’t help but wonder how J.B. Grimes was going to pry her out of them in the second place. Following that, he attempted to anticipate the site of the afternoon’s sexual festivities. Probably the Lochinvar Arms or the Hooper House, he figured, both establishments being seedy, no-questions-asked hostelries made to order for such arrangements. He decided that they’d hit the Lochinvar because it was on West Monroe, just three blocks from the New Gebhardt Building, while the Hooper House was across the river on Canal Street and several blocks north of West Monroe.

It was to be neither, at least not immediately. Maria turned right on North LaSalle Street, waving so-long to Grimes who waved back before swinging left. Lockington grinned—they weren’t taking damned fool chances—by splitting they were hoping to convince a tracker that they had nothing on the fire. They’d rendezvous a bit later, of course, an ancient dodge, but worth a shot—it might befuddle a neophyte. Lockington, no neophyte, stuck with J.B. Grimes.

The big man in wrinkled gray gabardine slouched into a shabby little lunchroom a couple of blocks south of West Adams Street, and Lockington held back, entering a minute or so later. Grimes was seated at the counter, his broad back to Lockington, already working diligently on an order of thuringers and sauerkraut. Lockington slipped unobtrusively into a corner booth, ordering a swiss and tomato on rye and a glass of lemonade, not particularly proud of what he was up to. These weren’t evil people, they weren’t peddling drugs to minors, or setting fire to old people’s homes, or attempting to overthrow the Government of the United States of America—they were merely kicking up their heels, enjoying a fling, a temporary diversion since all flings are temporary, and some are even shorter.

In six weeks, six months at best, it’d go the inevitable route of employer-employee romances—Maria quitting her job, or J.B. Grimes slipping her a thousand dollars, cutting her loose and they’d drift down other avenues into other beds, because Chicago is the world’s biggest whorehouse and there is no critical shortage of beds.

Lockington chomped glumly on his sandwich. One helluva way to make a living—he’d dropped into the lawyer-used car salesman-politician class, but all men can’t be Jesuit priests, and rent payments still fall due on the last day of every month on the calendar.

Grimes heaved himself to his feet, still chewing a portion of his last thuringer as he headed for the cashier—Lockington watching him wallow through the revolving door and turn north before departing the booth to pay his check. Grimes had a half-block lead and Lockington ambled leisurely, keeping as many people as possible between his quarry and himself. Grimes went into a liquor store and Lockington stopped to study the window posters of a health food shop, learning that this was the first day of a week-long special on Tibetan dried spinach sprouts. Then Grimes came out, carrying a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, and Lockington nodded a nearly imperceptible nod of approval—a few hookers served to enliven a matinee—oil for the blazing lamps of fornication.