Uncle Brick and Jimmy Kills

by Allan Leverone

“Retire!” roared my Uncle Brick. “Why in the hell would I want to retire?” Heads turned and restaurant patrons swiveled in their seats to see where the disturbance was coming from. It occurred to me that perhaps broaching a sensitive subject like suggesting my uncle sell his detective agency right in the middle of lunch at a high-end joint like The Old Man and the Seafood may not have been the smartest idea I ever had.

The thing you have to understand about my Uncle Brick is, his volume control is directly related to his excitement level, and right now, his excitement level was pretty darned high, what with my bumbling retirement suggestion and all. Oops. My bad. Oh well, I thought, in for a penny and all that, I have no choice now but to press on.

“Listen, Uncle Brick,” I continued. “I'm not trying to push you out the door or anything, but don't you think you've earned the opportunity to relax? You're on the north side of eighty now, and you should be spending your days enjoying yourself; you know, doing things you want to do, rather than things you have to do.”

I silently congratulated myself on my smooth recovery when Brick surprised me again. “Listen, Mister Smart-Ass College Boy, what makes you think I'm not already doing what I want to do when I come to work every day?”

My uncle is nothing if not relentless. The man makes a bulldog look like the world's wimpiest canine. Sure, I went to college; graduated, too, but that was over twenty years ago! I'm 42 years old, for crying out loud, but you would think from listening to Uncle Brick that I had just entered the workforce yesterday.

“And don't think for a second that I don't realize what you're really saying here.” Uh-oh. My finely tuned senses were telling me - once again, too late - that I had unwittingly wandered into more dangerous territory. “What you're trying to say,” my uncle continued, “is that I only have a few years left” (A few years? I was thinking more like a few weeks. After all, the guy was eighty, for crying out loud!), “if not a few weeks,” (Wow, this guy was good) “so I had better enjoy the precious little time I have left, am I right?” His eyes locked on to mine.

Brick isn't just my uncle's name, it is also the perfect description for him. His body is thick and muscular, even at the age of eighty, and his head is square like, well, like a brick, with steel-gray buzz-cut hair sprouting from the top of his head. Think Broderick Crawford in “Highway Patrol,” only tougher and scarier.

I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer (Hell, my ex-wife would tell you I don't even belong in the drawer at all; she would say that butter knives could kick my sorry ass, sharpness-wise. That, however, is another story entirely), but I'm bright enough to know when it's time to beat a hasty retreat, and I decided now was as good a time as any to raise the white flag with my uncle.

I lifted my hands, palms out, in front of my red face in the universal gesture that says, “Please stop schooling me in front of everyone, this is getting embarrassing.” My uncle swallowed the last of his lobster bisque with the smug look of a man who has just vanquished an unworthy foe without really even trying.

“Listen, Uncle Brick,” I said earnestly, trying to recover some tiny shred of dignity. “I'm worried about you; that's all. Now that my dad's dead and you've had to take over the agency all by yourself, it just seems like it might be too much. Hell, it would be a challenge for a younger man, never mind someone with as much, uh, life experience as you have.” I was in full retreat and beyond congratulating myself for anything by now, but I hoped that he might at least try to see my point.

All the other restaurant-goers had finally stopped staring and turned their attention back to their own meals. I hoped the conversation hadn't looked as one-sided to them as it had felt to me, but I doubted it.

My uncle dabbed gently at the side of his mouth with a napkin and said, “I know you're worried. Believe me, I'm well aware how much effort goes into running a detective agency, I've been doing it for darn near a half-century now. And since your dad got killed, it really has been a lot of work. But I'll share a little secret with you: showing up at that office every day is what keeps me going. When you get to be my age, you need a pretty compelling reason to continue getting out of bed in the morning, and Callahan Investigations is mine.”

I sat back in my chair, amazed. Maybe it's because I hadn't seen my uncle in years, decades even, but the little speech he had just finished reflected a level of, shall we say, sensitivity that I wasn't aware this rough, tough, bigger-than-life character was capable of. And I had to concede, if only to myself, that he did have a point. He certainly had a lot more experience at being a private detective than I did.

But I hadn't come all the way back east just to provide free entertainment to a restaurant full of people. I had a proposition for Uncle Brick and I was damned well going to propose it. The entertainment thing was just a little bonus, I supposed.

“Here's the thing,” I said, hoping what I was about to say didn't set off another round of verbal butt-kicking. “You know I got divorced from Allison last year, and there's not really anything keeping me in L.A. anymore, so I was thinking…”

Brick was looking at me with a funny little half-grin on his curiously expressive face, and he interrupted me, shaking his head and chuckling. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your old man it's downright scary. So tell me, what were you thinking, junior?”

I took a deep breath and jumped into the pool with both feet. I figured the water was as warm as it was going to get. “I want to move here permanently and come to work with you. If you aren't interested in retirement, then I'd like to take my dad's place at the agency.” There, I had said it. I sat back and waited for Brick to return fire.

The waitress brought our check and my uncle sat perfectly still, saying nothing until I had picked it up. “You want to join me at the agency? What the hell do I need with a middle-aged accountant who has no experience in detective work? Or in any form of law enforcement, for that matter?”

I knew coming into this lunch meeting I would be asked that very question. I had given it a lot of thought and I still had no answer ready. In point of fact, I knew he was right. Why should he let me work for him? Why did I even want to? Why was he controlling the conversation when I was the one with the proposition? And how much should I leave for a tip, since he obviously wasn't about to do it?

I had told myself on the airplane that I needed to keep an eye on the old guy so he didn't get hurt. With my dad gone there was no one left to watch out for him. I could see now, though, that that was a load of bull. My uncle might be eighty years old, but he hadn't lost a step, either physically or mentally. I should just pack my stuff and go home; Brick didn't need me; that much was clear.

I looked up and he was staring at me, patiently waiting for an answer to his question. I squirmed in my chair, more uncomfortable than I wanted to admit. “I don't honestly know, Uncle Brick. I had convinced myself that you needed me, but I think it just might be the opposite. I've been spinning my wheels since the divorce and I need to make a new start. I'd like to make it with you.”

He smiled. His next question caught me off guard. I was starting to get used to it. “You planning on picking up the check whenever we eat out?”

“I think I can handle that,” I said.

He reached across the table and shook my hand with one big, beefy paw. “Then you're hired. For your first assignment, make sure you don't stiff this cute little gal on the tip. I'd like to be able to eat here again sometime.”

Just like that, I was a private eye. Unlicensed, of course, but my uncle said we could take care of that some time in the future. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, given his age, but I didn't worry too much about it, either.

***

I sat with my feet planted on my desk, leaning back in my chair and munching a tuna salad sandwich. It was becoming abundantly clear that when my uncle had said he was planning on eating at a classy place like The Old Man and the Seafood again, he didn't mean in this lifetime.

It had been three days since I had been hired, and the closest we had gotten to a real meal in a sit-down restaurant was when we took a shortcut through the kitchen of some fancy-schmancy Italian joint on the way to Beekman's Deli. I thought the manager might be a little perturbed to see us trooping through his kitchen, but he just waved hello to Brick as we passed on by. Everyone in the city seemed to know my uncle, at least by sight.

I was beginning to wonder why all private detectives didn't weigh 350 pounds. All we did was eat. In my three days, not one single, solitary customer had entered the office, unless you counted the guy who dropped off our new telephone book or the scruffy-looking character who only came in because he was searching for “Layla,” a dubious-looking lady of indeterminate age who spent her days hanging around on the streetcorner by the entrance to Callahan Investigations but at that moment was on her lunch break.

When I mentioned my boredom to my uncle, he just smiled. “That's the way it works, junior,” he said. “When it rains it pours, and when it snows it blows.” He must have seen the look of bewilderment on my face, because he took pity on me and told me, “Take my word for it, human nature being what it is, we'll get business eventually. You can always count on people doing stuff to each other that requires our skills. Or at least my skills. In the meantime, how's your crossword puzzle coming?”

It was Sudoku, but I didn't bother correcting my uncle, and as it turned out I didn't have time to answer his question anyway, because no sooner had he stopped talking than a beautiful, shapely brunette walked into Callahan Investigations. She was tall and slim, anywhere from late-twenties to early-forties – It was impossible to narrow it down any more than that - decked out in a form-fitting, knee-length maroon summer dress, and she walked in like she owned the building, which, for all I knew, maybe she did.

Also, she was crying. Tears ran down her face in great rivulets, twin streaks of dark eyeliner making her look like the worlds saddest but sexiest circus clown.

The woman's grief didn't stop her from sizing up the employment hierarchy, though. She took one look at me, still frozen in place with my feet on my desk, mouth half-open from surprise, and immediately turned to address Brick. My uncle, of course, was already on his feet, pulling out a chair and sweeping our visitor into it.

“I need to speak with Mr. Callahan,” she sniffled, swiping at her eyes with a tissue.

“Well then, you've come to the right place,” answered Uncle Brick. “This place is positively dripping with Callahans. In fact, until you entered, there was no one in here besides Callahans.”

She paused for just a beat, then continued, slowly getting her sobbing under control. “It's my husband,” she said.

Brick nodded sympathetically. “It always is.”

“No, no, you don't understand. He's dead and I'm certain he was murdered.”

“I'm very sorry for your loss,” Brick said, “but what makes you think he was murdered?”

“Because he knew he was in danger. He is…” the woman paused and sobbed again, dabbing at her dazzling eyes with a tissue and only serving to smear more eyeliner around them. “I'm sorry, he was an accountant, and he told me he had stumbled on to something he wasn't supposed to see. I believe it was that something that got him killed.”

“You should go to the police, Ms…”

“Billingsley,” she answered. “Margaret Billingsley. Call me Maggie, everyone does.”

Brick handed Maggie Billingsley a glass of water he had hurriedly drawn while she was introducing herself. She accepted it gratefully and continued, “I'm sorry, I'm not being clear. I've talked to the police, but they are of the opinion Robert's death was accidental. I don't have any proof that he was even in any danger, all I have is what he told me, and the police are completely disregarding that. This is why I need to speak with Mr. Callahan.”

Brick smiled. “Like I said, you already are speaking to Mr. Callahan. Two Mr. Callahans, in fact.”

She shook her head. “No, I need to talk with the other Mr. Callahan. I believe his name was Dennis.”

My uncle and I shared a look. “I'm sorry, but Dennis Callahan is no longer with us,” Brick told her.”

“Well, what agency does he work for now? Robert told me he had given proof of his situation to Dennis Callahan of Callahan Investigations, and that if anything happened to him, I should go see Mr. Callahan immediately.”

My uncle knelt in front of the grieving woman and gently took her hand. “I'm afraid you don't understand. Dennis Callahan is dead, Ms. Billingsley.”

The woman stared at Brick as comprehension dawned in her eyes. “Oh, my,” she said. “What do I do now?”

***

“I don't get it,” I remarked. “Wouldn't he have said something to you?” It was two hours since we had been visited by Maggie Billingsley. Brick and I had escorted the beautiful widow to her car after promising to find whatever it was her husband had entrusted to my father's care.

“Not necessarily,” Brick answered. “He may not have had a chance to. I was out of town working on another case at the time. Then he went and got himself shot, and that was that.”

The only sound was a barely audible whoosh…whoosh…whoosh as the wood-tone ceiling fan gently circulated the air in the stuffy office. Brick was lost in his thoughts and I in mine.

“Well, where would he have hidden it?” I asked.

“That's the question, isn't it? We don't even know what we're looking for. A photograph or tape-recording would seem to be the most likely possibilities, but who can say for sure?”

My uncle chewed thoughtfully on the end of a pencil and I made a mental note to buy my own pencils. “It seems to me that we need to start by digging through Denny's things and seeing what turns up.” He looked at me through eyes narrowed with concern. “Do you think you can handle that, son?”

I was standing even before he had finished the question. “Let's go,” I said.

***

My father and I were not particularly close - how could we be when I had lived three thousand miles away for the past ten years? – But I had been in town for two weeks now and I still hadn't gotten around to going through his things. This would be the perfect opportunity, though. Brick and I were in search of a clue and I knew that was something Dad would have appreciated were he still residing on the north side of the grass.

After Dad had been killed my uncle moved all his belongings to a storage unit, one of those aluminum boxy-looking shed things that you rent by the month. He knew I would eventually get around to sorting through all the stuff and figured leasing one of those places would be cheaper than continuing to pay the rent on Dad's empty apartment. Had he known I was going to come to Boston to stay I could have moved right into Dad's old place, but I'm glad he didn't. I think there would have been too many ghosts in that place for me to be comfortable anyway.

We rolled up to the storage unit in Brick's silver Mercedes. Something had been eating at me the whole ride over and I decided now was as good a time as any to voice my concern. “Uh, what if Dad hid whatever it is we're looking for in his old apartment and it's still there?”

It sounded like a perfectly reasonable question to me, intelligent even, but Brick seemed to find it the funniest thing he had heard all day. “Well, sonny,” he told me, trying but failing to keep the laughter out of his voice, “that's why they invented breaking and entering.”

It was a warm day and it felt brutally hot with the sun beating down on that big metal storage unit. The unrelenting sun quickly turned it into a giant oven. After two hours we had worked our way through roughly half of my dad's belongings and all we had to show for it were two empty bottles of Gatorade and a purple bruise on my forehead that looked remarkably like Lake Huron . The bruise I earned when I stood up too quickly and lost a brief but violent conflict with a metal support beam on the inside of what I was beginning to think of as an oversized coffin.

“Here's a stupid thought. Maybe we're looking for something Dad left on his computer.”

“Nah,” Brick answered with a dismissive wave. “He wouldn't have put anything sensitive on a computer. It's too easy to hack into the damn things. Hell, we've got thirteen year-old kids breaking into DOD computers just for the fun of it, whole new classes of criminals using the internet to steal money and identities. No, Denny was too smart to leave anything important enough to kill for on his computer.”

For another hour we kept at it, as the sun moved around to the front of the storage building, abandoning any pretense of subtlety and attacking us head-on. We riffled through the pages of books, opened letters and looked in envelopes, dug through trouser pockets. Still nothing. I found an MP3 player and decided to keep it. At least the day wasn't a total loss. I figured my dad wouldn't mind; the only music he was listening to these days was being played by angels on harps.

“Hey, junior.” My uncle startled me out of my reverie and I jumped. I glanced over and found him staring at me with the look of a teacher trying to get through to his dimmest, most hopeless student. “What did you just put in your pocket?”

“It's an MP3 player,” I told him, happy I could finally be the expert on something. “You can play music on it.”

“You can play music on it,” he mimicked me in a falsetto voice. I hated it when he did that. He knew I hated it, of course, which was why he did it. “Do you ever recall your father listening to music? Ever?”

I shook my head. “Well, no,” I said, “but then again I've been gone for a while.”

“I realize I'm the old fart here,” he said, “but isn't an MP3 player nothing more than a portable computer hard drive?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I realize how dumb it makes me look that I still didn't see what he was driving at, but in my defense, it was hot and I was tired.

“And what could you do with a portable hard drive that looks like an MP3 player?” my uncle asked, in a tone filled with false patience.

The other shoe finally dropped. “You can put sensitive information on it and keep it with you, and no one would be the wiser,” I answered, happy that I had caught on. Better late than never, after all.

Uncle Brick straightened up, looking a lot livelier than I felt. “I think we're done here for today,” he told me, and moved straight to his Mercedes, where he sat in air-conditioned comfort while I tossed all my dad's stuff back into the giant oven and locked it up.

When I finally finished, dropping into the blessedly cool car and complaining about his untimely retreat, he simply said, “eighty,” pointing to himself, and “forty-two,” pointing to me. I shut my mouth and let him drive us back to the office.

***

“Well, I'll be damned.” Brick and I were knocking back a couple of beers and looking at his twenty-one inch, flat screen computer monitor. For an eighty year old, self-proclaimed “fossil,” my uncle sure had some fancy equipment in the office. Right now, that fancy equipment was showing us the information my dad had been holding for Robert Billingsley, presumably while he tried to decide how to handle the situation the man had gotten himself into.

Glowing on the monitor were two sets of financial records for the accounting firm of Higgins and Dawes, Billingsley's employer. Or at least they had been his employer, until poor Mr. Billingsley found himself staring up at the underside of a cement truck. One set of records, no doubt the one H&D kept available for public consumption, showed a healthy, thriving business. The other set, which was the accurate one and the discovery of which had gotten Billingsley killed, revealed a company teetering on the verge of utter financial devastation thanks to the looting of the firm, presumably by either Mr. Higgins or Mr. Dawes.

Clearly Dad hadn't realized how desperate the looter would be when he realized his treachery had been discovered; otherwise he would have taken more immediate action. Then, of course, he had received a lead shower supplied by one or more unknown assailants, and just like that, the financial shenanigans of Higgins or Dawes became the least of his concerns.

Uncle Brick theorized that the guilty party or parties at H&D had found out Billingsley was on to them. Perhaps the accountant had confronted them himself, not realizing the extent of the danger he was in. They weren't aware that Billingsley had managed to smuggle out proof, so they killed him. Shortly after that, Dad was dead himself. If Maggie Billingsley hadn't come to us with her suspicions, or should I say her certainty, that foul play was involved in the death of her husband, no one would ever have been the wiser.

The obvious question now, so obvious in fact that even I could see it, was how should we proceed?

***

The following morning, bright and early, Brick and I found ourselves headed uptown to the accounting firm of Higgins and Dawes, where Robert Billingsley had labored for the past seven years. We were dressed in suits and ties, and I couldn't help appreciating the irony of the fact that had I quit accounting to become a private investigator and my first case was taking me to – where else? – an accounting firm. I could almost hear Allison snickering from three thousand miles away.

“Shouldn't we have some sort of plan?” I asked Brick as we walked along the busy sidewalks of Boston 's financial district. All around us, thousands of people hurried to their places of employment, preparing to move billions of dollars of mostly electronic money around the world, making decisions that would directly affect the lives of thousands or maybe even millions of people.

“We do have a plan.”

“Really. And what would the plan be, exactly?”

“We ask Mr. Dawes if he killed Robert Billingsley because Billingsley discovered Dawes has been embezzling money from his own company.”

“Small talk doesn't work for you, does it?”

My uncle laughed and I took that as a sign I should go ahead and ask my next question, since he had been so forthcoming in sharing the intricacies of the plan and all. “I understand the thief had to have been one of the top guys, since the embezzlement is so far-reaching and complete, but what makes you so sure it's Dawes and not Higgins? Or maybe they're in on it together.”

Uncle Brick looked sideways at me, not even slowing his pace as he answered. “George Higgins has been dead for over ten years, which in my long experience makes for one damned near unshakeable alibi.”

“Ah.” I nodded sagely. “I'm going to stop asking questions now. If you don't mind, maybe you should lead the interrogation when we arrive at Dawes's office.”

“If you insist,” my uncle agreed, and it's lucky he did, because I was so winded from the pace he was setting that it was going to be at least thirty minutes after our arrival before I would be able to speak without panting like a lovesick hound dog anyway.

We turned into the massive building housing the offices of Higgins and Dawes. It was constructed of concrete, glass and steel and like most of the construction in this four hundred year old city, reached for the sky to make the most out of the cramped land mass Boston was built on. I sometimes thought it would be a miracle if the whole city didn't one day just sink into the ocean from the weight of all the buildings and people. I supposed if New York was still above water, Boston would probably be okay for a while yet.

The offices we were looking for were located on the ninth floor, a fact Brick seemed to know without even looking at the directory located in the lobby. He strode to the bank of elevators, me dutifully following behind and trying to catch my breath, and we stepped into the first available car.

Walking into the reception area of Higgins and Dawes was like stepping into the very definition of opulence. Plush, dark green carpeting complemented the wood tones in the waiting area, with thick leather easy chairs encircling the large, airy room. Lighting was provided by a huge crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The whole thing felt a little like a set from the old TV series, “The Love Boat.” I half expected Captain Steubing or perhaps Julie to walk around the corner at any moment.

I whispered to Brick, “Maybe all the money went to pay for that big light.”

He gave me a look I couldn't decipher and strolled to the receptionist's desk. I worked for a pretty high-powered firm when I was in L.A. and I don't think even the founding partners had desks as big as the one the tiny, platinum-blonde receptionist was sitting behind. The whole scene created a slightly unreal effect, like I was looking at a living, breathing Dali painting or something.

My uncle was at his most courtly as he approached the desk and told the young woman, “Please tell Mr. Dawes that some friends from Callahan Investigations are here to see him.”

She picked up the phone and passed the message as requested, presumably to Harold Dawes, then seemed to be doing a lot of listening. Her expression became more and more sour as she got an earful from the person on the other end of the line. The young woman looked up and before she could say anything, Brick said, “To answer your next question, no, we do not have an appointment, but I'm certain he will want to make time in his busy schedule for us. Just advise him that we're from Callahan Investigations and we're here regarding Robert Billingsley and a certain item he left in our care prior to his untimely demise.”

After passing that portion of the message, Blondie listened a little longer and then said, “There are two of them.” I assumed this was meant for Dawes' ears, since Brick and I already knew there were two of us.

It was clear the petite blonde receptionist had had more than enough of Brick and me by now, but after another minute or so, she hung up, smiled gamely at us, and said, “Mr. Dawes will see you now.”

As we followed her down the hall to Dawes' inner sanctum, two thoughts struck me. First, I could see that not all of Blondie's attributes involved answering the telephone and directing customer traffic – she was dressed to impress and had the body to do it. Second, there didn't seem to be much in the way of customer traffic to direct besides the two of us, and we hadn't even had an appointment.

We were led into a spacious, elegantly appointed office that made the waiting area we had just left look positively shabby. Seated behind a shiny mahogany desk the approximate size of the old Boston Garden was a portly man who appeared to be in his mid-sixties, complete with white hair and three-piece suit. A gold watch-chain hung from the man's vest pocket. He looked like the guy from the old “Monopoly” board game. I wondered what he could have been doing that was so important he resisted seeing us, since there didn't appear to be a single item on the desk in front of him.

The man rose at our entrance and extended his hand to my uncle and then to me. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I'm Harold Dawes. Please accept my condolences on the tragic loss of Dennis Callahan. Now, how can I help you today?”

Blondie exited the room, pulling the door closed behind her. It seemed more a matter of form than necessity, since as near as I could tell, there was not a soul in the entire office suite besides the four of us.

Brick got right to the point. “I think your man Billingsley was a bit more creative than you may have given him credit for. When your people killed him they weren't able to locate the evidence he had taken of your creative bookkeeping, or perhaps they didn't realize he had given it to my brother for safekeeping.”

Dawes sat for a long moment. He appeared to be taken aback by my uncle's direct approach. Almost as if to himself he muttered, “Oh, they realized it all right.”

Finally he clasped his hands together and looked up at my uncle. “We're going to do what we have to do; I believe your brother found that out already. And what makes you think we're done looking?”

He didn't even attempt to deny that he was involved in killing my father! To say I was shocked at the man's tacit admittance of guilt not just in Billingsley's murder but in my father's as well would be an understatement, but Brick didn't seem fazed in the least. He smiled at Harold Dawes. “Why don't I save us both a lot of time and energy, and put my cards on the table?”

Dawes looked back impassively. “Yes, why don't you?”

“My concern,” Brick told him, “is for the well-being of the young lady who hired us. Please believe me when I tell you Mrs. Billingsley has no idea where the evidence that got her husband killed is or even what it is. I would like to propose the following: You leave Mrs. Billingsley alone to get on with what's left of her life, and we will not pursue your firm regarding the dual books you have employed for the past several years.”

Dawes stared at Brick for a long moment. “Who else knows about this evidence, Mr. Callahan?”

My uncle looked incredulously at the portly man, and then burst out laughing. “You can't be serious,” he said. “If I say no one, are you planning on murdering my nephew and me right here in your office?”

“Since we're being so candid with one another, I haven't decided what to do about you yet,” the man replied. He was starting to look more and more menacing to me, but what did I know, it was my first week on the job.

Uncle Brick finally stopped laughing, wiping tears from his eyes and shaking a little as he tried to suppress another fit of chuckles. I could see the fact that Brick was refusing to take Harold Dawes seriously was really starting to get under the man's skin. Given what we had just learned about him, I wasn't convinced this was the best approach, but it was Brick's show; he was the one with the P.I. license and all the experience. I just thought it would be nice if I could get a little experience, too, before I got killed.

At last Brick was able to speak. “You should know, Mr. Dawes, that if something, oh, shall we say, untoward happens to either my nephew or me, the evidence of your ongoing financial gymnastics will be forwarded immediately to the Boston Police Department. This evidence is in the hands of someone I trust implicitly, and no, it's not anyone you will be able to guess. So I strongly suggest you take our offer. Leave Mrs. Billingsley alone, and Callahan Investigations will leave you alone.”

Dawes's eyes were smoldering as Brick rose suddenly and marched out of the office. Since I had nothing to say which could add to his little performance, and sitting alone in a room with the man who had murdered my father was more than a little awkward, I thought it might be a good time to take my leave, too.

We walked out of the skyscraper and into the blazing Boston sunshine. Once again I had trouble keeping up with my uncle, and it was beginning to get a little embarrassing. I mean, he was almost twice my age! I scrambled to his side and said, “You didn't give that hard drive to anyone for safekeeping, did you?”

“Hell, no,” he replied. “I don't know anyone I would want to involve in this mess…”

“Besides me,” I reminded him.

“Well, yes,” he said, “but you don't count, because you asked in.”

“True enough. And this is a lot more interesting than helping rich clients hide money from the IRS.”

“Less dangerous, too,” Brick added.

“Did you think it was a little strange,” I asked him, “that the office was as empty as a graveyard?”

Brick stopped in his tracks and looked at me with, I thought, grudging admiration. Or maybe the sun was in his eyes, I'm not really sure. “I'm impressed,” he said. “That's an actual observation of a detail, one that could have a bearing on this case. Very well done.”

I gave my best Aw Shucks grin and said, “You had already noticed that, hadn't you?”

“Sure,” he answered. “But don't forget, I've been doing this a lot longer than you. Plus, I have a slight advantage. I know a little more about the accounting firm of Higgins and Dawes than you do.”

“Care to share?”

“Certainly, my boy. But let's wait until we get back to the office, shall we? You almost stepped off the curb right in front of a cab just now. I'm planning on seeing your dad again some day at that big detective agency in the sky, and he won't have many good things to say to me if I let you get squashed wandering around the streets of Boston .”

***

Since it wasn't even lunch time yet, we decided on iced tea instead of beer to cool off with after our cross-town adventure. “So tell me,” I said, wiping the sweat out of my eyes and loosening my tie, “why was that office so quiet this morning?”

Brick took a big swig of his tea and sighed in satisfaction. He sized me up and said, “Have you ever heard of Jimmy Kilpatrick?”

“Of course,” I told him. “I haven't been gone that long. Kilpatrick runs maybe the most ruthless gang in the entire city since Whitey Bulger skipped town. The cops haven't put him away yet?”

“No,” my uncle told me, “and there's a reason for that. ‘Jimmy Kills' is not just ruthless, he's smart and ruthless, and that makes him extremely dangerous. But here's the point: The reason the offices of Higgins and Dawes were so quiet this morning is because the agency has only one major client. Would you care to guess who that is?”

“Jimmy Kilpatrick,” I said as a finger of icy dread worked its way into my gut. “Oh my God, Dad was killed by Jimmy Kilpatrick?”

“Not exactly,” my uncle said. “You're on the right track, but slow down a little. Harold Dawes has been doing creative bookkeeping for the last several years, skimming money from a firm whose only major client is one of the biggest crime lords on the eastern seaboard. Essentially, Dawes has been stealing from…”

“Jimmy Kilpatrick,” I finished, once again feeling stupid that it took me so long to tumble to something Brick had figured out hours ago, maybe days ago. “So Dawes killed not just Billingsley, but also Dad, just to cover his tracks with Kilpatrick?”

“Exactly.'

“But, but,” I sputtered, sloshing iced tea over the rim of my glass and suddenly wishing I had stayed in L.A. So what if Allison had gotten just about everything we had built together in the divorce agreement, at least the weather was good. At least out there I didn't have to face the ugly side of life every day when I went to work, like my father and uncle did. I tried to get myself under control and speak calmly. “Uncle Brick, you told Dawes we'd leave him alone, but that doesn't work for me and it shouldn't for you, either. He has to pay for what he did to my father, to your own brother!”

“Slow down, sonny. He's going to pay, don't you worry about that.”

“But you told him we wouldn't pursue him.”

“That's exactly right, and the reason I said that is because our first obligation is to our client. You remember our client? I assume you do, since you were staring so hard at her in the office I was beginning to think you were going to propose to her on the spot.”

I felt my face redden. Sure, I had stared at her, but I didn't think I had been that obvious. And besides, what was I supposed to do? She was beautiful, sexy and vulnerable. And I've been divorced for, heck, months now.

My uncle let me squirm for a moment and then took pity on me. “Ah, so you do remember her. Well, junior, she's the only good guy besides us involved in this thing who is still alive. As much as I want to get Harold Dawes, we have to be smart, if only to protect Mrs. Billingsley. If Dawes felt too threatened, he wouldn't hesitate to take her out, then follow up with us, just to be thorough.”

“Okay,” I agreed grudgingly. “Where do we go from here?”

“We call Mrs. Billingsley and set up a meeting.”

Now that I had heard the plan, I couldn't help agreeing it was a good one. I didn't quite follow where Brick was going, but I thought seeing Maggie Billingsley again was definitely a step in the right direction.

* **

  This time, when our client walked through the door and into the offices of Callahan Investigations, I was ready for her, so there was no repeat of the mouth half-open, feet stuck on the desk foolishness she caught me with on her first visit. And I only ogled a moment. I'm sure she didn't even notice.

For today's meeting, Maggie Billingsley was dressed in a pair of white jeans and matching white sweater. I wondered about the wisdom of wearing a sweater in the summer in Boston , then decided the last thing the woman needed was fashion advice from a guy who dresses out of the Lieutenant Columbo Collection. She looked like an angel, and that was all that mattered, at least as far as I was concerned.

I was determined not to let Uncle Brick get the jump on me this time, so as soon as I saw the office door swinging open, I was on my feet, sliding a chair around for her to sit in. She swept in, sat gratefully, and faced Brick's desk. “My,” she said, “you work fast. I didn't expect to hear from you so soon.”

“There was no reason to waste time,” Brick answered. “You were right about your husband getting killed because of things he discovered. I want to assure you that you are in no danger and that the persons responsible for Robert's death will be punished. It might not happen as quickly as we would like, but it will happen.”

“Was it someone where he worked? Was Robert killed by a coworker? How could someone do that?”

Brick, as he had the last time Maggie Billingsley had visited the office, once again knelt before her and gently took her hand. I wished it were me, but since I had no idea what my uncle was going to say to reassure her, decided it was best to sit this one out. “Please believe me when I tell you it is in your best interest not to know any more than you presently do. As I said, you are completely safe, but if I were to tell you everything you want to know, it is entirely possible you could be in as much danger as Robert was, and I think it's safe to say he wouldn't want that.”

Sitting back on his heels, my uncle smiled warmly at Mrs. Billingsley and continued. “The time will come when we can share everything with you, and when that day comes, rest assured that my nephew and I will call you and set up an appointment at your earliest possible convenience to fill you in. Until then, try to put the circumstances of Robert's death behind you, if you can, and know that he died loving you and wanting to protect you.”

Once again I was stunned at the sensitivity my uncle was capable of expressing when he chose to. Maggie Billingsley thanked us - okay, mostly she thanked my uncle - then rose and glided out of the office.

“All right,” I said to Brick. “We've taken care of the Maggie problem. She seemed satisfied that we will bring her husband's killer to justice. So…” I waited for him to start explaining the plan, but no explanation was forthcoming, so I soldiered on. “So, how are we going to punish Robert Billingsley's killer, and more importantly, to me at least, how are we going to punish Dad's?”

“We're going to pay a little visit to Jimmy Kills.”

***

To say that Jimmy Kilpatrick lived in a palatial estate would do the place a grave injustice. His home was located in the Wellesley Hills, a tony suburb west of Boston where even the maids and housekeepers seem to drive Beemers and Audis. The only difference is that the working folks' luxury sedans are two or three years old, rather than brand new.

Jimmy Kills' house was nestled among a grove of birch trees, set at the back of a lot roughly the size of the town I grew up in. To reach it, we had to wind our way up a driveway that seemed to be about three miles long.

We did this, of course, only after we answered a series of questions at the base of the driveway asked by some goon talking to us through a loudspeaker hookup that reminded me of the old contraptions you used to have to hang on your car's window at the drive-in so you could hear the movie.

The goon, whose voice sounded like a tinny version of Andy Kaufman playing Latka Gravas on the old show, “Taxi,” was reluctant to buzz us in, but eventually did so after being threatened by Brick. My uncle told the poor dolt that Jimmy Kills would eat the guy's heart for breakfast the next day if Jimmy found out we were turned away, after he heard what we had to say.

That seemed to do the trick, because the next thing I knew, the massive cast-iron gate was swinging open. We swept past it in Brick's Mercedes and I turned to watch the gate clang shut behind us. “Uh, what makes you so sure Jimmy Kills won't eat our hearts for breakfast?” I nervously asked my uncle.

“Nothing, really. Just a clean conscience and a sunny disposition,” he answered. “Plus, it's closer to dinner time than breakfast.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “So there's no pressure then.” I knew we were in trouble when my uncle was starting to make sense.

We finally arrived at Kilpatrick's house after a long drive through a heavily wooded area. We burst out of the primeval forest onto what looked like the eighteenth fairway at Augusta National. I mean, Jimmy Kills' place was immaculate. The lawn was emerald-green, and the walkway leading from Jimmy's cobblestone driveway up to the front door of his southern-style mansion was swept so clean you could eat off of it. I didn't see any groundskeepers, but I had no trouble picturing them cutting the grass in three-piece suits and spit-shined wingtips.

Brick parked his car at the top of the circular driveway and as we approached the front door, it swung open and a butler wearing a shoulder holster with a weapon conspicuously displayed ushered us in. I wondered briefly how many guns had been trained on us as we had walked from the car to the house before deciding I didn't really want to know.

I'm not sure what I expected Jimmy Kilpatrick to look like, but the man who strode across the living room and into the foyer to greet us looked more like a retired professional athlete - maybe a pro golfer or tennis player - than a cold-blooded mob kingpin. He was dressed in a crisp blue golf shirt and tan slacks, his steel-gray hair swept back from a tanned forehead.

My uncle's real name, the name his parents hung on him when he was born, is Brian Richard Callahan. He absolutely hated the name Brian, for reasons which mystify me but are very real to him, so from a very young age, he started going by B. Richard Callahan. That moniker got reduced to B. Rick, and from there it was only a matter of time before people started calling him Brick. The name fits him like the glove should have fit O.J., and Brick is the only thing I've ever heard him called. Until today.

Jimmy Kilpatrick grabbed Brick's hand and shook it enthusiastically, telling him, “Brian, I was so sorry to hear about your brother.”

I took half a step back, ready for a classic Brick Callahan explosion. It's not an exaggeration to say that nobody calls my uncle Brian. I'm sure that when he gets to the pearly gates, St. Peter will contemplate calling him Brian, then decide the hell with it and follow the path of least resistance and use Brick, like everybody else.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when my uncle squared up his shoulders and simply accepted the words of sympathy from Jimmy Kilpatrick. Unlike when we met Harold Dawes, Kilpatrick's words seemed sincere and well-intentioned.

Jimmy Kills continued, “Obviously, your agency and my organization are not always on the same side of the fence, legally speaking, but I had the pleasure of dealing with Dennis Callahan on more than one occasion, and I always found him to be a gentleman of honor and integrity. Even though I didn't often see eye to eye with him, I respected him and I felt he respected me as well. His passing is truly a tragedy.”

Kilpatrick then led us into a small sitting room, where three settings of tea and coffee sat waiting on a sterling silver serving tray, steam curling into the air out of the delicate porcelain cups. He indicated we should sit, and played the perfect host, preparing our drinks before sitting himself.

Finally Kilpatrick sat and took a sip of his tea. “My man who operates the front gate is not easy to intimidate. Please accept my congratulations on browbeating him, although you should know I almost never eat heart for breakfast. For dinner, sometimes, but never breakfast.”

My uncle laughed like we were sharing jokes with David Letterman. I thought, and not for the first time, that Brick Callahan was either the bravest or most foolhardy man I had ever met. He said, “I'm sorry for intruding on your day, Mr. Kilpatrick, especially at home, but when you see what I have to show you, you will be glad you agreed to see us.”

“And what do you have to show me?”

Brick reached into his breast pocket, handing the bogus MP3 player to Jimmy Kilpatrick. “If you would connect that to your computer, Mr. Kilpatrick, you will see that one of your employees has been a very bad boy.”

Jimmy Kills reached under the table on which the tea and coffee was set, pulling out a laptop computer. While we waited for it to boot up, the mobster and my uncle traded small talk about various members of the community, both on the law enforcement and criminal side of the fence, that they both knew. They had a surprisingly large number of people in common.

When the computer was ready, Kilpatrick connected the seemingly innocent music player to a USB port. A few seconds later, he was studying the data on the screen like a Hollywood actor learning his lines. Gradually his face hardened as what he was reading began to dawn on him.

He reached under the table again, pulling out a calculator. My uncle said, “I can save you the trouble. I'm sure you'll want to double-check my numbers, but when you do you'll discover that Mr. Dawes has skimmed almost two million dollars off your account over the past several years.”

The mobster sat in silent contemplation. All of a sudden he looked a lot less like a retired golfer and a lot more like a ruthless crime figure. Finally he spoke, asking, “How did you get this and why did you bring it here?”

My uncle answered, “There was an accountant working for Dawes by the name of Robert Billingsley who discovered this double-bookkeeping quite by accident. When he confronted Harold Dawes he was murdered for his trouble, but not before giving this evidence to my brother for safe keeping. Dawes found out and killed Dennis too, but was unable to locate the hard drive.

“My nephew and I are looking for a little justice, both for Mr. Billingsley's wife Maggie, who brought the entire affair to our attention, and for my brother. If we involve the police, I fear Mrs. Billingsley will become a target – the wheels of justice move so slowly sometimes, and I think Dawes would take her out just for spite. Also, the only direct evidence we have was his admission of guilt to us and that would simply be our word against his.”

Jimmy Kills absorbed this information as an uncomfortable silence descended over the room. My coffee was getting cold and I could feel what I had drunk sitting in my stomach like acid. At last he composed himself and rose, extending a hand to Brick and then to me. “I would like to thank you for bringing this to my attention,” he said. “You can rest assured justice will be served. Again, please accept my condolences on the passing of Dennis Callahan.”

As he finished speaking, the sitting room door swung smoothly open, and the butler with the sidearm escorted us through the house and out to Brick's car. How he knew the exact moment to enter I have no idea. He stood watching us as we drove out the way we had come in. As we reentered the thickly forested area between the house and the street, I turned around in my seat and saw Jeeves standing stock-still, staring impassively into the distance until we were out of sight.

I found myself shaking a little. Brick looked like he was out for a leisurely drive.

***

It must have been a week or so later when we heard the news we had been waiting for. Brick and I were hanging around in the offices of Callahan Investigations. He was explaining to me the basics of tailing a subject without being discovered for probably the tenth time because I was having a little trouble mastering it. I know, it sounds simple, I used to think so, too, but you try following someone, keeping them in sight at all times while remaining unseen yourself. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

Anyway, while we were talking the television was on in the background, tuned to a local news report. The breathless blonde anchor was describing how, for the second time in less than a month, an employee of Higgins and Dawes, a local accounting firm, had been run down by a cement truck.

“In this morning's accident,” she told us, “the victim was the firm's owner and CEO himself, Harold Dawes. Police spokesman Greg Lemillo tells Action News that an emergency inspection of the brakes on all city construction vehicles is under way after this latest tragedy, which appears unrelated to the one three weeks ago that killed another Higgins and Dawes employee, accountant Robert Billingsley. Stay tuned to Action News for the latest developments in this and all the stories we are following for you.”

The report was accompanied by a video feed of the accident scene, which of course showed nothing more than a nondescript city cement mixer parked at the side of a busy road, emergency beacons busily flashing. This visual warning was too little, too late for Mr. Dawes, of course, but made for a colorful addition to the live report and was thus included. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn the truck looked a little off-kilter, tilted a bit like it was parked on top of something. Or someone.

My uncle and I fell silent, neither of us speaking until the report ended. The irony of Jimmy Kills using the same method to dispose of Harold Dawes that Dawes had used on Robert Billingsley contained, I thought, a certain poetic justice, in an Old Testament, eye for an eye sort of way.

After the blonde newsbabe had finished the story, Brick reached for the telephone and handed it over to me. “I'll bite,” I said. “Who am I calling?”

“Why, Maggie Billingsley, of course,” he replied. “Or would you rather I set up the appointment?”

I pictured the willowy brunette with the long legs and the tight white sweater and the story we could now tell her. “I'll handle this one,” I told Brick.

He nodded and smiled. “I thought you might.”