Death and Taxes

by Robert Benson

“Zarelli,” Captain Wannamaker yelled, “get in here.”

I scuttled into his office, wondering what I'd done now. “Yes, sir,” I saluted.

He looked at me and sighed. “I've got a case for you.”

“You do?” I blinked.

“Yeah. With this mob war going on, every other detective I've got is up to his neck in dead hoods. It was the hit on Ed Collins that started it, and we haven't done diddly on that. I want you to take it.”

“Me?” I hadn't had a case of my own since someone stole the weather vane off the roof of the high school. The Captain had decided I wasn't much of a team player and I would be more useful running the records department than doing actual police work. Now he was asking me to investigate a murder. I was surprised, but I knew I could do it.

Captain Wannamaker stood up and started pacing around the room. “These guys are cockroaches,” he sneered. “You turn your back and they're running over everything. I say let them kill each other. It's the only way we're ever going to clean up this town.”

That was a load of horse manure. Wannamaker stopped in front of a big framed photograph of himself with the mayor and a couple of city councilmen. Two of the guys in his precious photo had been hauled before the grand jury. They couldn't prove anything, but that didn't make them any less dirty. And the Captain was as crooked as any of them. If he was serious about cleaning out the mob, I figured he was either afraid they'd be coming after him, or he wanted a bigger piece of the action.

“Yes sir,” I said.

He looked at me and shook his head, disgusted. “But the Chief says we've got to show we're working all the angles. I want daily reports going into that file. Get Kalinsky to help you write them up. He knows how to pad it out and make it look like something's happening.”

The facts were simple. At 8:30 the previous Thursday night, Ed Collins' wife found him with a .38 slug in his chest, lying beside the open front door of his house. It looked like someone rang the bell and shot him when he answered the door, a fairly common procedure for a mob hit.

The Collins' home was a stately old mansion on a hill in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. The nearest house was almost a hundred yards away and screened by a stand of maples. None of the neighbors would have heard the shot or seen anything. My only hope was the wife.

I rang the bell and stood about where the shooter must have stood, trying to imagine myself into the scene. My concentration was broken when Mrs. Collins threw open the door and stood there smiling in a lacy pink nightgown that did little to hide the hills and valleys of her personal landscape. She was taller than me and very well rounded, with thick pouty red lips, big blue eyes, and frothy blond hair spilling over her shoulders.

“Hi,” she said eagerly.

“Unh, hello.” I showed her my badge. “I'm Officer Zarelli of the IPD. I'm investigating your husband's murder. Could I ask you a few questions?”

“Oh, sure. That would be fun. Come on in.” She led me inside. “That's where I found him.”

She pointed to a wide dark stain on the floor that I was about to step on. I realized it just in time and didn't put my foot down, instead kind of skipping over the stain and landing right in her arms.

“Ooh,” she cooed, “you're much more friendly than that other cop who came the first time.”

“I … I'm sorry,” I stammered, pulling away from her soft warmth.

“Oh, don't be. I'm not.”

I had seen the original crime scene photos, but she insisted on showing me how she found him. I tried not to notice when her nightgown rode up in back as she bent over to outline where he lay. It was a fascinating demonstration and I missed what she was saying.

She turned her head and looked up at me. “Don't you see?”

I didn't know what she was talking about, but it probably wasn't what I was seeing. “I … I guess not.”

“You dummy. He was lying like this.” She lay down on the floor next to the bloodstain and stretched out her right arm with her index finger pointing. Her legs were drawn up in a loose fetal position and her head reclined on her outstretched arm. The nightgown wasn't doing much to maintain her modesty.

“Uh-huh,” I said, as if I getting something from all this other than an eyeful of smooth bare legs.

“No, no. Look at my hand. He was just like this. His hand was right here.” She pointed to a small stain separate from the big one.

It was blood, like the other, smudged and haphazard, but I took a closer look. There seemed to be some intent to it. It looked like a plus sign and an inverted carrot: “+^”.

“You mean … “

“Yeah,” she said, as if she was talking to an idiot. “He was trying to write something.”

“I guess. But what?”

“I don't know,” she pouted. “It almost looks like Greek.”

“Did he speak Greek?”

“No.”

I copied the shapes into my notebook and she took me into the kitchen to answer my questions. Collins hadn't seemed particularly afraid, and she didn't know of any specific threat against him. She didn't know anything about his business dealings, but she was certain that he didn't owe anyone any money. He always got her lots of expensive clothes and toys and vacations.

“In fact,” she said, “his accountant told him he was making too much money.”

“How could that be?”

“He was going to have to pay a lot of taxes. The accountant wanted him to set up some shelters.”

“Did he do it?”

“No. He had the guy come over and look at his investments, but he didn't like the accountant's ideas. He threw him out.”

“Nice guy,” I commented, trying to lead back to my investigation. “Did he have any enemies?”

“Oh, tons,” she laughed. “Nobody liked him. He had a terrible short temper and he treated everybody like dirt, even me. That's why he was always buying me presents. Otherwise I wouldn't have stayed with him for a second.”

“I see,” I said. “Anybody in particular.”

“No. Like I say, it could have been anybody.”

“Well, what about you?” I tried to surprise her. “You don't seem very broken up about it.”

“I'm not,” she said, smiling candidly. “I feel free for the first time since we got married. Whoever shot him did me a big favor.”

“But it wasn't you?”

“No, I couldn't do something like that. I'm too chicken.”

I felt like I was onto something, so I tried a different angle. “What about the shot? You said you didn't hear anything. That's kind of surprising.”

“Not really,” she said. “I was up in the bathroom taking a shower. Sometimes I sing in the shower. I probably wouldn't have heard it if they'd killed him with a bomb. You want me to show you?”

We could do that , I thought to myself, but it would be wrong . “I believe you,” I said.

“You're no fun,” she pouted.

“I know.”

When she led me to the door, she said, “If you find the guy that did it, you've got to thank him for me. Okay?”

“Um, okay,” I said as she shut the door.

I didn't get much out of my visit with Mrs. Collins, and I didn't have any real leads, so I thought I might try digging up a little underworld gossip. I dropped into Paradise Alley, a bowling alley I sometimes frequent in the seedy part of town. Art, the guy behind the counter, knows all the lowlifes. I thought he might have something I could put in my report.

“Hey Art,” I nodded, walking up to the counter.

“Hey Officer Zarelli,” he nodded back. “Size sevens, right?”

“Well yeah, but I'm not bowling today. I'm working a case. I thought maybe you could help.”

His thick black eyebrows moved up his forehead, as if attempting to cover his bald dome. “What do you need?”

“Information.” I leaned over the counter and whispered, “I'm working the Ed Collins murder. I thought you might have heard some loose talk about it.”

He looked at me with a puzzled frown that gradually turned into a grin, then grew into a chuckle, and finally exploded into raucous laughter. “They got you on the Collins hit,” he choked, “and you think I might have heard something.”

“Yeah,” I said. “What's so funny?”

Art wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Sorry. It's just that that's about all I've heard for the last few days. And everybody was wondering who'd get assigned. We even had a pool going, and your name wasn't even on the list.” He broke up again in helpless laughter.

I was annoyed, but not discouraged. “So, if everybody's talking about it, you must have heard something.”

“Oh yeah,” he roared. “I heard some interesting stuff, but nothing as interesting as what you just told me.”

“What'd I say?” I snapped.

“Nothing, nothing.” He shook his head and tried to get serious. “You want some information, huh? Let's go talk to somebody who might be able to help.”

“Hey Bobby,” he yelled at a kid pushing a broom over by the video games. “Watch the counter for me.” Then he led me to the lounge.

We went through a swinging door into a dank dark room with a small bar at one end and some tables and booths. It seemed like the only light came from a TV on a high shelf behind the bar. It was tuned to a game show, but the sound was off. The bartender sat on a stool just beneath the TV, bent over a tabloid newspaper, trying to read in the dark. I thought he was the only one in the place at first.

Art brought me to a booth in the back corner. As we approached, I could see there was a fat man in a suit sitting in the booth. He seemed to watch us, but his eyes were just dark holes in his puffy face.

“Hey Leon ,” Art said, stopping directly in front of the fat man, “I got somebody you should meet. This is Officer Zarelli. He tells me he's been assigned to the Collins hit. He's looking for some information. I thought you might want to talk to him.”

The voice that issued from the bowels of the fat man was a frog's croak. “Yeah?” it said. “Sit down.”

“Officer Zarelli,” Art said, pushing me into the booth, “meet Leon Jackman. I'll see you later.” He disappeared.

What? I was too stunned to take it in. Leon Jackman? It couldn't be. I sat in petrified silence for a long minute.

“You know who I am,” the voice croaked.

“I think so.” My voice quivered. “They call you ‘The Boss'.”

“I am the boss,” he thundered.

“Sorry. Yes, I … I know,” I said quickly.

“Alright.”

He seemed to look me over, taking his time, his face a broad doughy sneer of contempt. I squirmed under his lizard gaze, but I remembered what my mother told me: it's better to keep my mouth shut and let him think me the fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to have much doubt.

“That scumsucking rat Wannamaker put you on Collins,” he finally said.

It was more of a statement than a question, but I nodded.

“I guess he don't want to do my dirty work for me,” The Boss grinned an evil grin.

I shook my head “no”, agreeing with him.

“You find anything out?” he grunted.

“Um, ah … not much.”

“How much is that?”

“I, ah … I only talked to his wife,” I said, buying time to think. With Jackman's contacts in the IPD, I knew he'd probably read my daily report an hour after I'd finished it, but it didn't seem right to be sharing my official police notes with a notorious gangster.

“That bimbo, she don't know nothing. Nice ass though, huh?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, eager to be agreeable.

“You're wasting your time with that broad,” he said shaking his massive head. “You want to know who iced Ed Collins, Artie brought you to the right place. If anybody knows who done it, it's me.”

“I'm sure,” I said respectfully.

“Only I don't know,” he said sourly. “But I'll tell you this: Wannamaker don't know either, and he don't want to know, ‘cause then he knows that I'd know, and he don't want me to know. Know why?”

“No, why?” I asked, not quite following his “knows”.

“'Cause then I'd know who to whack and that would be the end of it. This way, I gotta clear out every punk in my organization that might be having ideas, and Wannamaker loves to see my organization shrink. He thinks it makes him bigger.”

The shadows in his face deepened, and he spit out his words like poison. “He thinks it's a big joke, putting you on this case, but I got a message I want you to take back to him. When this …” He couldn't bring himself to call his organizational shakeup a problem. “When this business is over, he's at the top of the list. You get it? He don't play ball with me now, I remember when the time comes. You tell him. Right?”

“Right,” I said, but I wasn't too eager to take that back to the Captain. He wasn't above shooting the messenger.

“Okay,” Jackman said. “One more thing. And this one's for you. You get anything – I mean anything – on the Collins kill, I want it first. You got that? If I got to wait and read it in your report, you're going on the list too. Fair enough?”

“More than fair,” I agreed.

“Good,” he said and he waved a hand. “Now go away.”

I could do that. I went quickly, very pleased with the results of my interview with The Boss. I was still alive. I nodded to Art on my way out. He watched me with a knowing smirk and I heard the bark of his laughter as the door swung shut behind me.

As I drove back downtown, I thought about what I could put into my first day's report. I had nothing but some obscure smudges that might, or might not, have been a message from the dying mobster. That and a death threat from Leon Jackman, addressed to Captain Wannamaker. I wasn't sure I wanted to put either of them into an official report.

It turned out I didn't have to. When I got back to my desk, there was a message slip. It said: Call Mrs. Collins , and gave a number. With fond thoughts of her soft, warm, and sweetly rounded body, I called her.

“Hello-ooo,” she sang.

“Hello, Mrs. Collins. This is Officer Zarelli, IPD.”

“Oh, I'm so glad you called. I had such a good time when you came by and … um, interrogated me this morning. I hope you can come over again and we can get into it a little deeper.”

“I uh … I hope so, too,” I said, somewhat stupidly.

“Anyway,” she went on, “you know those marks on the floor I showed you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I'm pretty sure they were supposed to mean something. But I couldn't figure out why he'd use such weird signs, you know? Why not just write it down in plain English?”

I had asked myself the same question, but I didn't have an answer, so I said nothing.

“Well, that's simple,” she continued. “He was dying. He probably didn't have enough strength left to write out a message. Those marks were all he could manage. Right?”

“Yeah, but …” I tried to interject.

She didn't hear it. She was on a roll. “Then I thought, what if it was English? Maybe it's hard to write with your finger and your own blood when you're almost dead. If you looked at the marks that way, maybe you could sort of see the “+” as a “T”, and the “^” as an “A” that he didn't quite finish. See what I mean?”

“I do,” I said eagerly. “Only, what would the ‘T' and the ‘A' mean?”

I wasn't sure what they'd mean to Collins, but the first thing I thought of was his wife. I tried to shake the tantalizing image from my mind. She didn't seem to have any ideas either. She was silent, thinking.

“Maybe they're initials,” I suggested “There are two of them.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “You're smarter than you look.”

“Thank you,” I said, wondering just how dumb I look. “Now the question is: who is TA. Do you know anyone with those initials?”

Silence again. “Let me think,” she murmured. “Thomas Aquinas? No. It couldn't be him. I'm pretty sure he's dead. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head.”

“No one?” I pleaded, seeing my only lead narrowing down to a dead end.

“No, but … what if they weren't initials. Maybe Ed was trying to write out a word, but he died before he could finish. Maybe we should think about that.”

“Well, maybe,” I admitted. “But what do you get from that? There's probably a thousand words that start with ‘T' ‘A'.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. Then suddenly she was excited. “I know one that was on his mind - taxes.”

“Taxes? Why would he write out his last message about taxes?”

“Remember I told you about his tax accountant?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“Well, he had a heck of a blow up with the guy just the day before he got killed. Maybe the tax guy had something to do with it.”

“You think his accountant shot him?” I laughed.

“I don't know,” she said pouting. “Isn't it worth checking out?”

“I guess so.”

She had the accountant's name and address from a business card she found among her husband's papers. She told me to ask him about the blow up, find out what Collins had been so steamed about. It was a waste of time, but I promised her I'd talk to him.

“Great,” she gushed. “Why don't you stop over afterwards. I'd love to hear what he had to say, and we could have a little nightcap.”

I'd be off duty by then. I told her I could do that.

The address she gave me was a neat little bungalow in a new development on the edge of town, the closest thing we have to a suburb. The lawn was green and recently mowed. A red and white tricycle stood on the front walk and a well-used Chevy with a shiny new coat of wax was parked in the driveway.

I parked on the street and went up the walk to the front door. A small, pleasant-looking woman of about 30 answered my ring. She wore an apron and carried a dish towel. In my dark blue suit, she probably took me for some kind of salesman.

“Yes?” she asked, her expression open and friendly, inviting me to make my pitch.

“Good evening, ma'am,” I smiled. “I'm Officer Zarelli of the IPD. I'd like to speak to Andrew Tuttle, if he's home.”

My smile wasn't enough. Her face clouded. “Oh,” she said with some alarm. “Is there anything wrong?”

“No, no,” I tried to assure her. “I just need to ask him some questions about one of his clients.”

“I see,” she said, still nervous. “I'll get him.”

She left the door open, giving me a view of the living room. Like the front lawn, it was small and tidy. Tan wall-to-wall carpeting covered the floor. A modest TV in an imitation wood cabinet stood in one corner across from a tight arrangement of sofa and chairs. The sofa wore a flowered slipcover and there were lace doilies on the arms of the chairs. A blond wood coffee table was centered among them, with only a blue glass bowl of artificial fruit on it's polished surface. The only thing out of place in the room was a toy fire truck lying on its side under the coffee table.

Tuttle appeared in the doorway. He was short, like his wife, with light brown hair and glasses. The hair was thinning and a layer of baby fat softened his face and body. He was wearing the vest and pants of a tan suit over a white dress shirt open at the neck. His forehead and mouth were pursed in a nervous frown.

“Yes, Officer,” he said, opening the screen door. “Please come in.”

He led me into the living room and gave me one of the chairs, while he perched on the sofa, leaning forward expectantly. His put his hands in his lap, but the fingers immediately began to lace and twiddle among themselves. It made me nervous.

I was launching into my introduction again, trying to put him at ease, when a four-year-old boy carrying a thin cardboard picture book ran into the room and jumped onto the sofa next to him, shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, read me a story.”

Tuttle put his arm around the boy and turned to him with a weak smile. “Not now, Jonathan. Daddy's talking with this nice man. We'll read after dinner. Okay?”

The boy looked at me with open curiosity. I smiled at him and his face lit up with an answering smile. He turned back to his father. “Okay,” he said.

Mrs. Tuttle came into the room. “Come help me set the table, Jonathan.”

“Okay.” He jumped off the sofa and ran to his mother.

“Officer Zarelli, would you care for a glass of lemonade?” she asked. “I just made some up fresh this afternoon.”

“Oh, no thank you, ma'am. I don't want to bother you. I only have a few short questions to go over with your husband and then I'll let you get on with your dinner.”

“Well, I'll leave you to your business, then.” She smiled and took the boy back to the kitchen.

“Cute little boy,” I said.

“He's everything to us,” Tuttle said with surprising intensity.

“I uh … I understand,” I said, though with no wife and child of my own, I probably didn't. “Now, I'm sorry I have to bother you with this, but I'm investigating the murder of Ed Collins, and I understand he was a recent client of yours.”

“Yes,” he agreed bleakly.

“Could you tell me what your business with Mr. Collins was?”

“I was doing his taxes.”

“Okay. Was there anything unusual about his statement?”

“Well, not really,” he sighed. “Everything was there and clear, you know. But he owed the IRS a lot of money. I just thought it was too bad that he didn't have his income better sheltered. Not anything tricky or illegal or anything, just better managed, so he could keep more of it. That's a big part of what I do anyway - help my clients manage their tax positions.”

“Did you propose this to Mr. Collins?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And was he interested?”

“Oh, yes, very. He was actually quite upset about his tax bill. I told him I thought I could probably cut it in half next year if he was willing to rearrange some of his investments. He was very eager to get going.”

“So, did you work on that, too?”

His fingers started twiddling again and his brow creased in an anxious frown. “I started to,” he said, pausing to choose his words. “Mr. Collins wasn't comfortable with some of my initial suggestions, and he terminated the project.”

“What made him so uncomfortable?” I asked.

Tuttle's fingers suddenly stopped and he looked down at his hands as if he expected them to answer my question. When he finally spoke, it was so soft and slow, it almost sounded like he was mumbling to himself. “I guess he thought I had gotten too deep into his business, and I might have seen some things I shouldn't have.”

“Oh. Like what?”

“You're probably aware that Mr. Collins was a criminal,” Tuttle began with a sigh of resignation.

“Yes,” I said, encouraging him to go on.

“In addition to his criminality, I'm afraid he was also quite stupid. The financial records he gave me showed a clear trail of mob funds being laundered through a number of captive businesses here in town. I've worked for some of those businesses. I know they were legitimate before the mob got its hooks into them. The records I saw were virtual proof of extortion and money laundering, and I'm afraid I made it too clear to Mr. Collins that I understood what I had seen. He became irate and paranoid. He threw me out of his house, threatening to murder me and my family if I ever breathed a word of this to anyone.”

“Holy cow,” I said. “Collins was the type that could carry through with a threat like that.”

“Yes,” Tuttle said quietly. “From my brief contact with the man, I felt quite certain that he could. In fact, I felt it likely that, as he thought about it, he would soon come to the conclusion that he couldn't wait to find out if I would keep my silence. He would make a preemptive strike and remove the risk.”

“Jeez, you must have been shaking in your boots. You must have felt pretty good when you found out he got killed.”

“No,” he said, looking me squarely in the eye, “I didn't feel good at all. I was sick about it.”

“What? But how could you ever feel safe with that hanging over your head?”

“Exactly. I thought about it and thought about it, and I couldn't come up with any other way. If I took my family and ran, how could I know that he wouldn't find us. And if I went to the police, how could I be sure that their first call wouldn't be straight back to him. There was no other way. I bought a cheap pistol and rang his bell. When he came to the door, I shot him.”

“You?” I said, in shock. “You shot him?”

“I didn't want to. I'd like to think of it as self-defense, but I know the law won't see it that way. I don't care. It was worth it to protect my family. I just hope they will understand and get along somehow without me.” He held out his hands with his wrists together.

“What's this for?” I asked.

“Aren't you going to handcuff me or read me my rights or something?”

I shook my head and scowled at him. “You watch too many cop shows. Give me a chance to think.”

His brows knotted in puzzlement. “But … didn't I just confess to murder?”

“Yeah, so what do you want – a medal?” I grumbled. “I got into this cop business to bust criminals. Now I'm working for them. You think it makes any sense to me to put away the first honest guy I come across, a guy who does legitimate work for a living, a guy who's doing nothing but protecting his sweet little family from a vicious thug? And for what? To avenge the loss of an animal like Ed Collins, a guy nobody's going to miss. Maybe you think I'm plugged into the mob like most of the other cops in this town. Thanks a lot.”

“I, uh … I'm sorry,” he said slowly. “I just thought …”

“You just thought the law was the law. Right?”

“I guess.”

“Well, that's a lot of bull. The law is nothing if it doesn't give us justice. In this town, the law is just a club the wise guys to use to line their pockets and beat the crap out of anyone that gets in their way. Every one of us has got to look at what we're doing and ask ourselves if it's right, not just for us, but for everybody. That's what you did last Thursday. That's what I'm doing today.”

“Can you do that?” he asked, still stunned.

“Watch me,” I growled. “Now, what did you do with the gun?”

He looked embarrassed. “I took a little ‘business trip' this weekend and dropped it in the middle of Lake Erie .”

“Good. Did you make copies of Collins' papers?”

“Well, yes. I always do.”

“You still got them?”

“Yes.”

“Give them to me.”

He went in another room and came back with a manila folder about half an inch thick. His expression was quizzical, but gaining confidence when he handed it to me.

“There's something else you should know about these papers,” he said. “I couldn't prove it, but I'm almost sure they show that Collins was embezzling from his own employers. I think he was stealing from the mob.”

“You're kidding.”

“No. I'm 99% sure.”

“That's beautiful,” I said. I could have kissed him. “Just one more thing. You've already confessed. Don't do it again. Okay? Not to your wife; not to your kid; not to your priest or your minister or your rabbi or whatever; not to another cop or the FBI or the President of these United States ; not to anybody. You got it? I'm counting on you.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

I got up to leave. Tuttle stood up with me and insisted on shaking my hand. “Officer Zarelli, thank you,” he said with moisture gathering in his eyes. Just the same, he looked a lot stronger than he had when we sat down.

“That reminds me,” I said at the door, “Collins' widow told me to thank you.”

He still looked a little puzzled as I stepped around Jonathan's tricycle to my car.

On my way over to Mrs. Collins' place I stopped at a drug store and bought a big envelope and a couple dollars worth of stamps. I addressed the envelope to me and put all the stamps on it. Then I shoved the manila folder inside, sealed it up, and put it in a mailbox.

She was waiting at the door. This time she had some clothes on, but she still looked good. She grabbed me and pulled me inside.

“What'd he tell you?” she asked breathlessly.

“He saw some incriminating stuff in your husband's papers. Your husband found out and scared the living daylights out of him. He figures old Ed must have got whacked because of his carelessness with the papers. He's been sitting behind a locked door for the last 5 days worried that he's next.”

“Huh!” she said, trying to digest it. “What do we do now?”

I grinned. “Listen, uh … what's your first name?”

“Verna,” she said, giving me a shy smile.

“Listen, Verna. How much does all this mean to you?” I waved my arms at the sweeping staircase and the marble floors, the twelve-foot ceiling and the oriental rugs. “Is this what you want?”

Her brow furrowed prettily. “What do you mean?”

“You said Ed Collins gave you lots of expensive presents and vacations, and that was the only reason you stayed with him. Was that what you wanted, or was it just the consolation prize for having to spend your time with a creep like him?”

“Oh. Well, you put it like that – of course that's not what I wanted. I want what every girl wants. I want a man who loves me, who treats me like someone important, a man who's happy to share his life with me because he wants the same things from me.”

“And if you found that man, you wouldn't need all this stuff?”

“If I found that man, I'd be happy with a tar paper roof and clothes from the five and dime.” Her blue eyes sparkled.

“Good. Where did your husband keep his records?”

“In his study.” She led me to a room in the back of the house with a large wooden desk, some file cabinets, a small bar stand on wheels, and bookcases full of hardback books.

“He was a big reader,” I said, surprised.

“Hah,” she snorted. “I never saw him open a book. This stuff was just for show.”

“Can you find the papers he showed to the tax guy?” I asked.

She went to the desk and pulled open the top drawer. “I'm not sure. Ed wasn't very organized. A lot of times when he was finished with something he'd just open a drawer and stuff it in.” She pulled out a folder of papers that looked a lot like the one Andrew Tuttle had given me. “Could this be it?”

I shuffled through a few of the pages. They were some kind of financial records. There were numbers and dollar signs. That was close enough.

“I think this is it,” I said, already heading for the door. “I've got to set up a meeting. If this goes right, I'll be back later for that nightcap. Okay?”

She grabbed me again and spun me around. Her eyes searched mine. “Are you that man?” she demanded.

I kissed her lightly on the lips. “I hope so,” I grinned.

“I do too,” she whispered.

Following Jackman's instructions, my first call was to Paradise Alley where I got Art to put me through to The Boss. I told him Ed Collins had been double-crossing him, skimming the cream off his money laundering operation, and he'd put it all on paper in case he ever got caught. It was enough to send the fat man to the Federal pen for a healthy diet and some exercise. If he wanted the papers, I was willing to sell, but he had to meet me at the old cigar factory that same night with $100,000 cash. And it had to be him, not some flunky. He said he'd be there.

I gave Wannamaker a variation on the same theme, told him the papers would give him an axe to hold over Jackman's head. He could be the boss from now on. I didn't think he could raise $100,000, so I made it $10,000 for him, same time, same place. He only blustered for a minute, giving me a load of sheep dip about my duties as a police officer. It must have sounded just as weak to him as it did to me. He gave up and said he'd see me at 10:30.

My last call was long distance to a number I had carried with me ever since I realized I was swimming in a cesspool. The FBI has a special office for organized crime and official corruption. I told the agent who I was and what I had discovered. I described the package that was coming to me in the mail, just in case I wasn't there to receive it. I probably sounded like some kind of kook, but with what I gave them, I was pretty sure they'd have to look into it.

The cigar factory was in the old industrial part of town, down along the river. The streets around it were dark and most of the buildings abandoned. Like most of the other factories down there, the owners bailed out 20 years ago when the unions started asking for a living wage.

It was a big rectangular box of brick and broken, boarded up windows. The sign that used to announce its purpose was weathered beyond recognition. Only the stink of the green tobacco still clung to the rotting wooden beams inside. The smell wasn't as strong as it had been when I was a kid, but the weather would never erase it entirely.

I parked on the street and took the folder and a flashlight with me to a side door I knew was broken. Inside it was nearly pitch black. One of them might have already arrived, but I took a chance and flicked on the flashlight. The beam shot across the room, showing me a wedge of factory floor strewn with old broken machines, dirt, and garbage. Nobody took a shot at me, or called out. I was alone.

I quickly looked over the room, checking the exits and choosing my position, then I shut off the light. The dark was sudden and absolute. I waited. There were faint sounds, scratchings and skitterings that I took to be rats. Once I heard a siren in the distance, but it was going somewhere else. Ten minutes passed that seemed like hours. It wasn't quite 10:00, but I expected my company to be early.

Jackman was the first to arrive. I heard a car pull up in front of the building. Car doors quietly opened and closed. Someone pushed the door open and I heard Jackman's croak: “Zarelli, you in there?”

I flicked on the flashlight. “Yeah. I'm here. I got the papers. You got the money?”

“I got it, but I don't like this scene.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“It smells.”

“That's just old tobacco.”

“I thought it was you,” he said with a short nasty laugh.

Six guys came through the door with guns drawn, covering The Boss. He stepped through the door carrying a small briefcase and went straight for the folder. I picked up the light and shined it on the pages, hoping he didn't know any more about financial records than I did. He turned over a couple pages without comment.

“What the hell is this?” he finally growled.

I looked at the sheet he was holding. It was a receipt for some dry cleaning.

“How'd that get in there?” I choked.

“Yeah,” Jackman snarled, turning the gun my way. “What is this?”

Suddenly someone outside shouted, “Hey!” and there was a quick flurry of shots. Wannamaker had arrived. For just an instant, Jackman's head turned toward the door. When it turned back to me, I shined the light into his eyes, hit the switch and jumped to the side in a single motion. The sudden blackness was split by the red-orange flare of his gun. I heard a bullet hit the wall behind me, but I was already scuttling away clutching the flashlight.

There were more gunshots and occasional screams. I used the distraction to feel around in the dark for a safer hiding place. I was crawling around in the dirt and garbage when my head banged into something solid. It hurt like crazy, but I soon found it was a lucky break. I reached out to whatever it was I had run into and my hands traced a heavy metal worktable shielded by mounds of rubble on two sides. It seemed like the perfect hiding place and I crawled under it.

Suddenly, the door blew back again and light burst into the room. Half a dozen guns instantly started barking at each other. Bullets were pinging off the old broken machines, thudding into walls, and occasionally finding their targets in human flesh. I heard a grunt and a shuddering moan just a few feet off to my left. Then the light went out and more feet scrambled around the room. Guns fired sporadically. It seemed like some of Wannamaker's guys were inside, but it was so chaotic, it was hard to tell.

I got nervous when the gunfire died. As far as I was concerned, the worst thing would be if they stopped and thought about what they were doing. That could be fatal for me. I thought about trying to sneak out the door, but I didn't like the odds. I came up with a better plan.

Silently I reached the flashlight around a pile of rubble and flicked the switch. Light flooded the room and bullets immediately started flying, along with some very satisfying screams, curses and moans. I switched off the light and the gunfire slowed, then stopped. I picked another direction and shined the light that way – more gunfire, more screams. It was fun, but I knew they'd eventually trace the light to its source and put an end to it, and me. I gave them two more bursts. By then, the room must have been swimming in blood. There was a steady chorus of groans from the wounded and dying.

I felt like I'd pushed my luck far enough with that trick, so I started to crawl carefully and silently in what I thought was the direction of the door. Miraculously, I got within a couple feet of it. I could feel the cool night air coming through when my toe brushed something that toppled over with a clatter. Guns started going off in the dark, the bullets ripping up the floor around me. I flipped the switch on the flashlight and rolled it across the floor while I jumped up and tore out the door, with every gun in the place blasting away behind me.

Two guys were standing just outside, apparently listening to the carnage. I smashed into them like a fullback hitting the line. They went over on their backs, guns blazing at the sky, while I ran juking and feinting out of the alley.

Maybe they shot each other. I don't know, but they didn't follow me. I jumped into my car, shaking so bad I needed two hands to get the key in the ignition. I got it started and drove to Verna's in shock.

As soon as she got me inside, she stood me against the wall and looked me over from head to foot. Worry darkened her eyes as she took in my dirty, dazed and trembling state. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” I mumbled - and fell on my face.

I woke up in her bed. She must have carried me up the stairs, undressed me and tucked me in. Then, I guess she climbed in with me. She was lying beside me, propped on her side, staring at me with a look of tender concern. The soft blue of her eyes was the first thing I saw when I opened mine.

“What happened?” I said, looking around, startled and confused.

“It's okay.” She pushed my head back down on the pillow and snuggled closer.

“No one's going to hurt you now.”

“I know.” I lay back and sighed, letting her warmth flow over me like a soft summer breeze. “There's no one left,” I chuckled.

“Did you find out who killed Ed,” she asked.

“No, but it doesn't matter.”

“What do you mean?” she said. “Of course it matters. How can we thank him if we don't know who he is?”

“Don't worry about it. Sometimes virtue is its own reward.”

She laughed. “But then don't you have to keep on investigating?”

“I don't think so. I found out what I needed to know.” I turned to her with a puzzled expression. “There's just one thing that still bothers me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. That shot – it seems like you should have heard it. Maybe you should show me how loud it is in that shower.”

A big smile spread across her face. Then she got up and took me into the bathroom and showed me. She sang “I Got You, Babe”, and she was right. It was loud, loud enough to drown out whatever was going on out there, but it got even louder when I stepped in and made it a duet.