Sixteen
There she was, turning the corner in her ‘rent’s Town Car. I saw no one else in the general area, so as she neared the building I stepped out and waved. She pulled over and stopped. I jumped in and suggested that she not waste any time in getting out of there.
She took me at my word and took off, heading out of town.
“What can you tell me, After?” she asked, her face flushed with excitement.
“I can tell you that things have reached a critical phase in my case, that there are people trying to kill me, and that I have damaging evidence that will possibly save my butt, if I can figure out a way to get these people to deal. I don’t think we’ll be going to the movie tonight however.”
“I understand, there’s plenty of time for a movie after you’re out of this situation. Where do you want to go?”
“I have no idea, out of town for starters, then somewhere safe for me to sit down and work this entire thing through.”
“Let’s go to my home,” she decided. “It’ll be safe there.”
That was a good idea, and I let her have her way. I sat back and tried to clear my mind. I had no doubt that Mr. Gibbons was using this time to clear out his office. No doubt it was already clean. Calling the police would not help anyway. It would take too long to get a search warrant and there were some other things that he might be able to do to forestall the inevitable. No, I had to come up with something fool proof, and I wasn’t sure what that would be.
We drove on for about ten miles, pulling into a nice long driveway, and up to a very large house. It was three stories, made of brick. It had gables and catwalks, beautiful gardens and everything was elegant and expensive. I must have shown my amazement, because Gloria turned to me and laughed.
“I guess it is pretty impressive at first glance, but it is way too much trouble, in my opinion. A small three bedroom would suit me just fine.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?” I asked.
“One of each, but my brother is away at college and my sister is a wild child, and is never home. She is worrying my ‘rents to death.
Speaking of which, we’re in luck, they went out of town for the weekend, and we have the place to ourselves. You ought to be able to come up with your plan.” “I sure hope so, as I have no idea what that plan will be.”
I had thought of several options, and discarded them, as I was basically sure that Harold Gibbons would be able to buy or bully his way out of just about anything. I thought about bringing the police in, and that might just have to do, although I knew Mr. Gibbons would be able to reach out from jail to get me. No, the only real option that I had was to make him think that I knew where Felix was, and how to get his money back. I could always claim that I got spooked when I realized that Felicity was in it with him. Then, I would trade him the papers for a few weeks to actually get to Felix or the money. At least Felicity would not have the envelope with the numbers anymore, and I wondered how the gun happy lady would handle that! I was hoping we could all strike a deal together.
I decided to try and work something along those lines, and was laying down some fairly good arguments when Gloria came into the room with some snacks and suggested I take a little time to eat and relax. I was glad to do so and ate a few lunchmeat sandwiches and drank some soda pop.
“What, no doughnuts?” I asked. “I thought you always gave me doughnuts when I find myself in a bind.”
She grinned and came over behind me and started to massage my neck. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it; it could be my last neck rub ever. I was almost to the point of total relaxation when she stopped, and I felt her breath by my ear.
She whispered, “Don’t open your eyes.”
I kept them closed and before long I felt her sitting on my lap and she started to kiss me, first gently, then with more ardor. There was nothing else to do except give as well as receive, and I did my best to comply. We got into a little petting as well, when I suddenly stopped.
“No, this isn’t right,” I said. “It’s too much like the condemned man’s last meal. I’d rather be the one initiating this.”
She sat back and asked, “Is it that other girl, that Felicity?”
“She never crossed my mind, you made me forget all about her, honest. However, it is time for me to see if my little plan is going to work.”
It was nearly eleven o’clock, and I had yet to determine a meeting place. I had just about decided not to meet anywhere he would normally expect me, when I had an idea. “Come on,” I said. “It’s time for me to take the initiative.”
We got up, and I got my few things together. I took her hand, pulled her to me, and gave her one more long kiss, then held on for dear life. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. Everything was going to be OK, I just knew it. All of the sudden I felt that the money just wasn’t that big a deal to Mr. Gibbons, getting his revenge was.
We got back out to the car and she drove me into town. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“I thought that we might go right back to Roy’s, but I have a better idea. If something should happen to me, go to my office, find a pile of comic books, and look through them until you find some Xeroxed papers. Take those to Jocko O’Reilly at the Police station. He’ll know what to do with them.”
She looked worried. “After, what is going to happen?”
“I hope that nothing will happen, but you never know in a situation like this. They have four or five brains working against mine. I do have desperation and blackmail working for me though.”
I managed to smile weakly. She was kind enough to try and return it, but I could see tears in her eyes, so I looked away. This was no time for any sort of weakness on my part.
She continued driving, we were early, and I was counting on that. I didn’t think Harold Gibbons was expecting a frontal assault, but he was a big boy with plenty of muscle. I had to be ready to hit on all cylinders, and catch him off guard. Then maybe, just maybe, we could get something accomplished. That something included me living to a ripe old age.
“Take me to ‘The Green Frog’,” I ordered. “No wait! I don’t want them to see your car, drop me off a block away.”
She gulped audibly, but I think she was impressed with the frontal assault option as well. We were almost there, and I reached down and squeezed her knee in thanks. I didn’t want to look at her again.
I gathered up my stuff, and when she stopped the car, I climbed out, ready to meet my fate.
She stopped just a block away from the club, and I was out of the car. She drove off immediately, and I didn’t turn to look back at her. I walked the last block and was gratified to see Harold’s car there as well as the other cars that his henchman had driven the night before. I saw no sign of the old blue Escort that Joe drove.
Felicity’s car was not there either, but I didn’t expect it to be. I knew though, that she would be inside.
I walked up to the door, and opened it as if I’d owned it all my life. The guy who sucker punched me was sitting inside and about flipped when I entered. I could see that a lot had happened since I was there the night before. Tables had been moved and the door to Harold Gibbons’ office was wide open, revealing an almost empty room, the pictures on the wall, and a bare desk standing mutely in the middle of it.
I brushed right by the guard, who seemed frozen in fear, or was it just dumb stupidity? I don’t think the redundancy is an over exaggeration in this case. I waltzed into Harold’s office and saw him, the other guard, and Felicity waiting by the phone.
I entered breezily, “I like what you’ve done to the place, but you didn’t have to clean up on my account!”
The guard began to rush me, but was halted by Harold’s beefy hand thrust in his face. “Let’s hear what After has to say. Go get him a Chivas double, on the rocks. We might as well be comfortable.”
The guard looked at me with contempt as he walked by, but I gave him a smile and a wink. His look became less sure of itself, and his step faltered a bit.
I didn’t have a strong hand, but I had to play the one I was dealt, and a poker face would sure help right now. I hoped Felicity wasn’t seeing through it. She had stood up when I entered, and had watched the bravado with a blank look on her face. Clearly, she hadn’t seen this coming. She recovered somewhat and sat down again.
I looked around and didn’t find a chair, so I went back out and brought in a folding chair, sat down and waited for my drink.
“I thought you were going to call at noon,” Harold stated.
“I could, if you still want me to, but I’d rather have this over with by then,” I said.
“Sounds fair to me,” he agreed. “What have you got?”
My drink arrived, and I tried to be polite. I found a scrap of paper, placed it on the desk, took a sip, and placed the drink on the paper. Good, I noticed that my hand wasn’t shaking at all.
The doorman came into the room. He told Harold that he had locked the door and would go back to wait. Harold nodded and dismissed him. The man closed the door behind him. Harold came over to me, then motioned for me to rise, so I did. He did a quick frisk, opened my shirt to check for wires and nodded that I could sit down again.
“If I had known we were going to do that, I would have brought my cards,” I said with a leer at Felicity.
She grew pale, but Harold had just about had enough. He sat back in his chair and looked me over. He kept staring, and waited for me to fall off the chair, or do something else stupid. I took another drink, sat back and tried to relax, realizing that my back was soaked with sweat. I figured he’d discovered that during the frisking.
“This is what I have,” I began after a suitable interlude. I have Felix’s money just about tracked down. I might have it in a day; I might have it in a week. I don’t have Felix, but could keep looking if you like.”
“Why did you break into my office?”
“I discovered that Felicity was playing both ends against the middle, and I wanted answers.”
This earned Felicity a hard look, and she began to look uncomfortable.
“Go on,” he muttered, shifting his seat so that he could look at both of us at the same time.
“Well, what I found here kind of set me to thinking that my future wasn’t too bright, unless I had some leverage. I guess I found enough so that you were willing to talk to me today. Believe me, if I had wanted to ruin you, I could have put all the stuff out in the parking lot, called the cops and made off with the money.”
“I’m still listening,” he stated, and the hard look was being replaced with a more attentive one.
I took another sip of my drink, took my time and weighed the next words carefully. “I know that you can erase me at any time, so I decided to make myself useful to you. I knew that Felicity had a bank number with Felix’s money in it. Did she happen to mention that to you?”
He looked startled, and glanced at Felicity.
She grew paler, and said, “I was going to tell you. We found it in Felix’s box in Baltimore, although I didn’t know it was a bank account.”
“Yup, it sure is, and when I was going through your files last night, I noticed a whole lot more, just like it. I was wondering if maybe good old Felix wasn’t set up by you or one of your employees.”
“The little jerk just ripped me off, that’s all there is to it!” Harold thundered. “He knew how to set up an account, as he’d done it for me several times.”
“That may be, and it doesn’t really change anything, as I am now the only one with that number.”
Felicity looked angry. “You have no idea where that number is.”
she growled, a mean look on her face.
“Like brother, like sister.” I waggled my finger at her. “You put it the same place he had hidden his box key.”
Her paleness went all of the way to white at this and sat back, trying to hatch a way out of this, no doubt. I looked back at Harold, trying to let him know that I was dismissing her as irrelevant.
“So,” Harold said, “You’ve figured out that Felicity was my insurance against you discovering the money and running with it. I guess your actions last night will attest to the notion that you won’t run off with my money, should you find it. I’m still listening.”
So far, so good. I had planted some doubt and bought some breathing room. Felicity was on her heels and I could concentrate on Harold.
“OK,” I continued, “here’s the best I can come up with. Take it or leave it. I’ll give you all your papers back, forget all about anything I ever saw here, and find Felix’s money for you. I might even find Felix, but I still have no idea what happened to him.”
Harold grunted, still listening, I assumed.
“In return, I don’t want any of your money, in fact, I want to give you your thousand back. I get to go on with my life and hopefully never see Felicity again.” He sat back and thought about it for several minutes, then asked, “Do you really think it’s that easy?”
“No, but it’s the best I could come up with. Besides, it isn’t as if I was asking for a cut of the take or anything else. I am asking that we both return what is rightfully ours to each other. I think it’s a fair deal.”
“I think it’s a fair deal too,” he said. “It’s just too bad that I don’t deal fairly.”
I looked up at him; all of the nice tones he had been using were gone, replaced instead by a hard-edged voice and the mean eyes. He went to his desk and opened a drawer. He reached in, and pulled out a stack of papers, then tossed a ripped up comic book at me. “It’s better to leave no stone unturned. One of my men managed to find these in your office this morning, while returning Felicity to her house. The two of them returned with these just before you arrived. Rather comical, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. He had outplayed me, drawing a full house to my one pair. I just sat there, wondering why I was still alive.
“I do admire you though, you did very well, for an amateur.
You see, I have had you followed from the beginning. I admit, you gave me the slip last night, and you have caused me some concern, and considerable expense. I had two of my friends working with me as well, but they were sadly, eliminated, quite possibly by you and Ms. Jeffries here.”
“You think I shot those two creeps? They were working with Felicity, weren’t they?”
“No, they were working for me.” He turned to Felicity. “Sorry, my dear, but you don’t come from a very trustworthy family.” He continued, “Now I have no need for either one of you, as I have the bank account number.” He pulled out a rather mean looking gun, and waved it back and forth between Felicity and me.
She looked back at him, and suddenly grinned, “You may notice that a few of those numbers have been changed. I took the precaution of making a few alterations and memorizing the different numbers as an insurance policy, just in case After decided to go for it all.”
I chirped up at that point. “Actually, I wrote the numbers down on the envelope flap before I left her house one evening. You may notice that the envelope is missing its flap.” Harold was stopped there for a minute. He paused just a second too long, and Felicity had her .22 out. He turned to her, and she said, “Drop it Harold.”
He dropped his gun, a stunned look on his face. I wasn’t worried, Harold was disarmed and I had removed her bullets. I decided it was time to deal with Harold again.
“Mr. Gibbons, it isn’t too late to deal.”
He turned to me with a question on his face. Felicity just smirked.
“What do you mean, After? It appears that our Ms. Felicity has the final answer, in the form of her trusty .22 there. I knew I should have had her frisked, but I thought she’d be gone before I had to deal with you.”
“Things don’t always turn out as you would like, Harold,” she said. “I had no plans on killing you until you showed me that I was expendable. I thought we went back too far for you to do something like that to me. That’s why I had to go back home, to get my weapon”
“We do go back a ways, my dear, we do,” Harold said, sweat forming on his brow. “Remember who helped you get started in life, who gave you chance after chance, who took you in every time you needed a home.”
“Yes,” she said as she circled to the door. You took me in all right; you gave me a life all right. You put me on the streets as a prostitute when you got tired of me, you bastard. Then, when you needed dirty work, you got me as a cheap hit person. Now I’m going to shoot you, then I’m going to shoot After. It will look as if you two had a murder/suicide and I’ll be out of here, with the numbers to Felix’s account.”
She had reached the door, and turned to face him. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. I’m sorry life turned out this way. I’m sorry you didn’t keep me safe and secure as you promised. If anyone deserves the two million, it’s me. I intend to take it and disappear from Hustle for good.”
I took one last chance. “Pick up your gun, Mr. Gibbons, she doesn’t have any bullets. I took them out of her gun when I took the envelope from her house.”
He didn’t pick up his gun, instead, he roared out something unintelligible and started to rush at her. She raised her .22 and shot him between the eyes.
He fell to the floor, dead instantly, limbs twitching slightly. I stared at her, totally at sea.
“I always check my gun before I leave the house. I also discovered that you’d taken the envelope. It doesn’t matter, I’ve got it back now, plus tons of other numbers, thanks to you!” She paused looking at the door. I could hear noises coming from the other side as Harold’s men were making their moves. She then said coolly, “Here’s where it gets tricky.”
The man that had been guarding the front door rushed in, stopping in cold surprise when he saw his boss dead on the floor, a bullet hole between the eyes.
He turned to look at Felicity, who fired her gun again, dropping him to the ground, a bullet hole where his right eye used to be.
She looked at him dispassionately and said, “Getting sloppy, I was off by an inch.” Then to me, “Stay here.”
She looked out the door and apparently saw the other guard, as she fired off two shots. I took the opportunity to literally jump over the desk, and I grabbed Harold’s gun as I hit the floor. It was one of those rare moments where everything was happening in slow motion, and I seemed to float in the air forever. I had time to reach for the gun and plan my roll even as I hit the ground. I sensed, rather than heard Felicity shoot at me. In my altered state I realized that she had shot five times; once at Harold, once at the door guard, twice at the other guard and once at me. If I could just get her to shoot again, and somehow miss…. I took off my shoe and threw it against the far wall, and stood up ready to cover her if possible. She didn’t shoot at the noise, she was too good to fall for that, but her attention was drawn away from my position long enough that I now had the drop on her. I pulled the trigger back and was ready to shoot. She froze and said, “I guess we still have a little talking to do.
I can still kill you even though you’d shoot me too.”
“Put the gun down!” I ordered.
She sighed and tossed the gun onto the floor.
“Now, sit down. You have some explaining to do.”
She sat down in the chair I had just vacated. She turned and tried to smile at me. “I know we can’t do anything now, there’s too much bad blood, but maybe you still feel enough for me to give me a running start. I admit that I wouldn’t have done that for you, but you see, I am not a good person. You are, After.” She gave me the big-eyed look, and for a millisecond, I almost fell for it. Then I remembered how she’d just chopped down three men without a second thought, and that she’d done contracts as well.
I said, “I need some answers, Felicity.”
“OK,” she replied, “what do you need to know?”
“Why did you kill those two henchmen? Did you know they were working for Harold Gibbons?”
“Not at first, but I figured it out and I had to find a way to get them out of the picture without Harold getting suspicious. The first guy was easy, he botched the job and he would have squealed if he’d been caught. I even told Harold about it afterwards. He thought that I was covering for you. I didn’t argue. The second guy was easy too. After we kidnapped you, and you got away, I figured I could make it look like you killed each other, so I plugged him on the bank and went looking for you. Nothing personal.”
“Apparently, there never was.” I sighed.
“I was a prostitute, I am good at fooling people, I was a good one. Things might have been different with you, I hope you know that!”
“We’ll never know, will we?” I said. “OK, what happened with you and your mother?”
“I got to town in late July. Somehow she knew I was coming. I didn’t call her until after she’d discovered I was here. I didn’t know she’d gone to see you. I never knew about you until I found you in Felix’s apartment. Anyway, she saw me coming and I went up to her and told her I was glad to see her. The bus was coming just then, and I figured it was a good opportunity to take her out. You see, she was going to take all of Felix’s money and run. Felix and I hatched the plan, and she got wind of it. She wanted a third of the money, and that was just unacceptable. I never owed her anything anyway.”
“You killed your own mother?” I gasped.
“Why not, she killed Felix!”
I was flabbergasted. Felicia had killed her son? That was the one thought that had never occurred to me. I was shocked, and I showed it.
“Like mother, like daughter,” Felicity said softly. “She was upset that he was going to take off. He had left the key somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where. She drugged him when he returned home, and tied him up, to wait for him to tell her where the money was.
He never told. She kept him tied up and cleaned up his apartment, looking for the damn key. She spent days at it, never untying him.
She tore all the furniture up, then had junk men come in and remove it. She cleaned up the place, then she decided she needed help with him. I guess she hired you.” “You mean, Felix was alive when she hired me?”
“I don’t think so. Right after I conked you on the head, I went to her house. He was still tied up, but I think he’d died about a day or two before. Mom never did take very good care of us. I took him out to the river, sliced him open, put some rocks in him and dumped him in. Messy work, not my style at all.”
“So, as long as I was on the case, you figured I might come in handy?”
“Not really, I thought you were a loser, but I needed an excuse to get rid of Harold’s goons. Then, when you got away from the kidnapping, I had to get out of town. I thought it was all over when you found me in Chicago. After, you actually turned out to be a pretty good detective.”
“I’m not so sure, I didn’t get it all until this morning, and I never would have found out about Felix.”
We sat and stared at each other. She had no remorse; her once beautiful eyes were empty and cold. I wanted to ask her so much, but it was almost time to go. I needed to call Lieutenant Howard, and try to get him here to take care of this mess.
Instead, I asked her, “What about that fellow I was fighting the night of the fire?”
“I didn’t mean to kill him, I was actually aiming at you. I mean, I didn’t care if I killed him, but he just got in the way. I was a long way away and it was just speculation as to which one of the two you were. I couldn’t get a bead on you when you started running to the house, and also, Roy, Grits and the other men from the house were running around, so I had to be sure who I had shot. I raced to him, saw it wasn’t you, but he got a good look at me. I shot him in the head. I knew I had to get back to my car and pretend I was still a lookout! I drove to that farmhouse and called 911.” She reached down to her knee and scratched it. I allowed it, as long as she didn’t make a move for her gun.”
“Gee, I appreciate you sharing that little item with me. By my count, that makes you responsible for six deaths recently.”
She tried to pout, then broke into a grin. “Gosh, are you going to miss any of those nice guys?”
“That’s not the point, we could have worked all of this out without bloodshed, and you wouldn’t be going to jail for the rest of your life.”
“Wherever I’m going, it won’t be jail,” she retorted, and scratched her knee again.
“I need to make a phone call,” I said, reaching for Harold’s desk phone. I knew the station number by heart and was prepared to dial it. I took the gun off of her for a split second while I was picking up the phone, and she went to scratch her knee again.
The rest of this happened so quickly that it is still a blur to me, but somehow, somewhere, Felicity had a second gun, either under her belt, or under her skirt. She had been scratching her knee to get me used to her fidgeting about, so when she did make her move, I wasn’t ready for it. Anyway, I was preparing to dial, my gun wasn’t on her, and she came up with what looked like a toy gun, but I knew it was lethal. I had time to duck, but I felt something slam into the right side of my head. I heard another shot; it sounded like a cannon. I was on the floor, trying to get my body to respond, but it seemed as if all systems were shutting down.
I sensed a presence over me and figured that this was it. I was going to die here on Harold’s office floor. I turned to look at her for one last time, but it wasn’t Felicity I was looking at. It was Joe, the bartender. He knelt down to me, a kind and concerned look on his face, and asked, “After, are you OK?”
He turned and spoke to someone and called out, “After’s been shot!” I saw Lieutenant Howard, of all people come into my field of view.
The Lieutenant looked at me sharply, and went to the phone.
That’s the last I remember before I blacked out.