A friendly chat

“Danny, I need your piece,”  said the cop in the white dust coat.

I was watching the crime scene cops. They hovered over the bloodied white sheets spread out on the apartment floor. “Huh?”

"I need your gun, Danny. You know, procedure.”

Pulling the Colt from my jacket pocket, I slid the magazine from the grip. I jacked the slide back and let the chambered round drop out into his outstretched hand before handing the lot over to him.

“Forty-five ACP, three in the clip and one loose,” he said as he placed my pistol and magazine into a cloth bag. “Is that everything?”

I nodded. The tech guy walked away.

“Well, this is a hell of a mess.” Vance Boyle stood by the kitchen door. “What do you say, Danny?”

“You were right there the whole time.”

“Butch says you nailed the broad as he was coming in the door.”

“Oblete is wrong.”

“Well, she was the only person in the room who didn’t have a damn gun. Whoever did it is in for a world of pain.”

I looked up sharply, “Oh, yeah?”

“Either way, it’s gonna to be a long night.” He sighed. “We have to take a ride downtown. Do I need to cuff you?”

***

I looked across the table at the two of them. This sorry duo had been dogging my tracks for the last couple of days. In the end, it had gotten my client killed.

I wasn’t happy about it. I missed out on a considerable payday. This pair of clowns weren’t happy either, I’d done their job for them, and they were short a collar.

Now, as I sat on the uncomfortable steel chair, it was looking more and more like they had their eye on a new patsy.

“May I call you Dan?” asked the fat one with the thinning hair.

“No, Detective Oblete, I would prefer you didn’t,” I answered unsmiling.

He stared at me from his seat across the scarred wooden table for moment. “Mister Hart, would you mind explaining to Detective Boyle and me just how came to be in that apartment tonight?

“I came to be in the room via the front door.” I stared back. “Just like any normal person would.”

He exhaled, “Very humorous Mister Hart. You should take your act on the road.”

Leaning back in my creaking chair, I gave him my best deadpan look. “Perhaps I will. I know where I can hire a couple of clowns to open for me.”

“Goddammit!” Oblete thumped the table top with the palm of his hand. “Tell me what you were doing in that apartment.”

“What I was doing there is between my client and me.”

“Your client is dead, hotshot. I ain’t convinced that you didn’t do it. Ballistics is comparing your forty-five with the slug they took out of the dead skirt. ” 

“Hmph, I’m glad to hear there’s actually some living brains working on the case, huh?”

Face turning crimson, he braced his hairy arms on the table top to rise. “You son of a bitch, I’m going to...”

“Settle down, Butch.” Vance Boyle stepped forward casually and put his hand on his ruddy faced partner’s shoulder. “We invited Mister Hart here for a friendly confab, not to intimidate him.”

Oblete let himself be pushed back into his seat. I caught his furtive glance at the wall length mirror to my left. Boyle took a seat on the edge of the table, hands in the pockets of his neatly ironed trousers.

“You know me, Danny. We go way back, don’t we?”

“Sometimes I think it’s too far back.”

He laughed. It sounded like he actually meant it. “I know you well enough to believe you when you say you didn’t shoot that broad, what was her name? Eleanor Fallon.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what am I doing here?”

He smiled at me and said, “We just want to know how it all went down and where you fit into it.”

“Where I fit, huh? Like in a frame?”

“No, of course not. We’re the good guys, remember?”

I glanced at Butch Oblete sitting across from me, his piggy eyes boring into me like .45 slugs. “Yeah, I remember. The good guys.”

“How about a coffee?” He flashed me that boy scout smile again, “It’s been a long night for everyone.”

“Sure,” I said, “Black, three sugars. Hold the spit.”

They rose together and the skulking Oblete followed Boyle out the door.

As the latch clicked shut, I leaned back in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position and gazed nonchalantly at the long mirror on that dominated the wall of the drab little room. Instinct told me that someone was on the other side gazing back. If it wasn’t Chief Carey, it was someone equally well dressed.

Since I had the top brass as an audience, I might as well give them what they want.

My reflection was still smiling back at me when my shadows returned. Boyle was carrying a steaming paper cup in each well groomed hand. Oblete was empty handed, I was pretty sure he wanted to fill them up with my face. I was kind of hoping he’d try it.

“There you go, Danny, just how you like it.” He still had that shit-eating grin on his face. He sat on the edge of the table.

“I like it better when it’s not served up by an old army buddy who’s trying to put me in the big house.”

He laughed. “No one’s trying anything, buddy. Tell us what happened and we can all go home. It’s been a long night for everyone.”

Oblete leaned over the table, his hairy knuckles on its scarred surface. “Tell us, Hart. Tell us why you shot her.”

I ignored him and looked at Boyle. “Tell your gorilla to shut up for a while, and I’ll tell you what happened.”

Oblete rose and started to say something, but Boyle cut in. “Butch, sit down.” The big man’s face turned a deep scarlet, but he did as he was told. He sat down without a word but his porcine eyes shot daggers at me.

“OK, Danny, from the top.”

I took a sip of the coffee and forced it down. “Eleanor Fallon came into my office three days ago and hired me find and tail her ex-husband, George Hillar. She said that he was shirking his manly responsibilities.”

Boyle smirked, “Uh’huh.”

“He ran out on his alimony payments, or so she said. You’ll find my notes from her visit if you provide a subpoena.”

“No flies on you, are there, Danny boy?” He was still smirking.

“I tracked the dumbass down the following day. He didn’t look like a guy who was hiding from his wife, but as you know, Vance, I don’t judge people.” I shot him a glare. “I just do my job.”

He looked down at his coffee for a moment.

So I call her on the phone and she comes to the office. I tell her what I found out, and then she starts in with the waterworks, bawling and crying like I just ran over her poodle. Then she tells me she hasn’t been completely honest with me. Like she’s the first, huh?”

Boyle was still staring into the depths of his coffee. He didn’t say a word.  Oblete continued staring a hole through my skull.

“She told me this guy George wasn’t her ex after all, but was blackmailing her with some pictures he had taken of her when she was younger.”

Boyle interrupted me, “Smut?”

Obelte perked up when he heard the word. He laughed “She would have been damn hot too, if some dumbfuck hadn’t blown half her head off.”

I ignored him. “She wasn’t specific, but I expect so.” I paused and took another sip of the coffee. It hadn’t improved with age. “She asked me if I would go with her to get the negatives, you know, lean on him a little. She agreed to pay me another two C’s when she had the negs in her hand.”

“Okay, what happened next?”

“I arranged to pick her up. I was on my way there when you two goons braced me. I still don’t know what you two wanted. I think Brutus over here was bored.”

“Just keep pushing, wise-guy,” Oblete growled, “Just a bit more.”

Boyle silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Okay, Danny, we know what happened there. What happened when you got to the apartment?”

“She knocked on the door, just like a normal person. I hung back so they couldn’t see me through the peephole. When the guy opened the door, I walked in behind her, casual as you like.”

“Maybe too casual huh, Danny?”

“There were two guys inside. The middle aged guy I tailed the day before, and a younger guy. Surprised the hell out of me. Them too, I guess.”

“So what did you do, now your plan is kinda defunct?”

“I didn’t get a lot of time to do much of anything. The old boy asked who I was. She said I was her insurance and to give her the book.”

“Book? I thought this was about blackmail smut?” Boyle looked interested for the first time tonight.

“So did I. Didn’t matter though, the younger guy pulls a little .32 out of his jacket and points it at us, and says to the old guy that they should kill both of us, two bodies won’t change the plan.” 

“So this is where it all goes haywire and you shot the broad?”

“No, Vance, I knew I could still get us out of trouble.” I stared straight into Boyd’s eyes. “I’ve gotten people out of tighter scrapes than that one.”

He studied the murky contents of his paper cup.


“The old boy took a little .25 out, even though he still looked dubious about killing us. I grabbed a lamp with my left hand and flicked it at the guy with the .32. That gave me a second to get my own piece out.”

Both detectives watched as I drew an imaginary pistol.

“I was just letting my first shot off at him when King Kong over here came blazing through the door like the goddamned marines.” I gestured dismissively at Oblete. “This fucking mongoloid got her killed, not me.”

“You son of a bitch!” Oblete was on me before I knew it. He grabbed me by the collar and threw me across the room. I hit the edge of the long mirror with my shoulder. The glass wobbled precariously but didn’t shatter. I was sure that I heard movement, chairs scraping, even worried voices, but had not time to think about it as the big man was already in front of me again.

He jammed his forearm under my chin, pushing my head back, trying to cut off my airway. Frantically, I groped blindly for his eyes hoping to hurt him enough to get some room. I aimed punches at his ribs with my free hand, to no effect. I saw his ham sized fist cock back to punch my head back through the glass. Vision dimming, I waited for the blow.

It didn’t come. Boyle was behind him. Hooking his arm around Oblete’s round shoulder, he pulled at the big man, trying to get him off me off me. “Get off him, you goddamned meathead.”

The neat little detective gained just enough leverage to pull the big man far enough around to wedge his own body between us, pushing Oblete to the corner of the room. “For Christ’s sake, Butch, are you nuts?”

I slid backward, along the mirrored surface, gasping. When the stars stopped dancing in front of me, I changed direction and began advancing on the grappling detectives, white knuckled fists clenched.

Boyle saw me. “Don’t you dare, Danny, I might just let him go.” I stopped, but I didn’t relax.

For a moment the room was silent except for ragged gasping breaths as all three of us stared at each other, attempting to get our wind back first.

Our deadlock was only broken when a small wiry looking man pushed the door open and walked in. He stopped dead when he noticed we weren’t at the table. He saw us in our dishevelled mess in front of the mirror, “What the hell?”

Boyle was first to regain his composure, “What do you want, Fitch? We are kind of busy here.”

Fitch looked anxiously at each of us in turn while he collected his thoughts, when his eyes met mine, I saw a flicker of recognition. A few months earlier, I had helped his mother convince some wannabes that she didn’t need their protection. “It’s the ballistics report. On the bullet from the dead lady. I thought you would want to know right away.”

Boyle straightened his suit jacket as he let his weight off Oblete. “Ok, what is it?”

Oblete grinned in my direction, his eyes aglow with anticipation, “Got you now, you son of a bitch.” He wiped a gob of drool from his lips.

“We got a perfect match on the forty five bullet from the dead woman’s chest. The bullet in her head was too deformed to be sure but the rifling grooves are a fair match.”

“Is it Hart’s gun?”

Fitch hesitated, “That’s the thing. It’s a perfect match for detective Oblete’s Colt 1911.”

“What?” The big man grabbed the manila folder from Fitch’s grip. “That’s bullshit!”

Boyle leaned around his shoulder, reading, occasionally glancing at me.

I leaned back against the cold glass. “You guys back there getting all this?” Somewhere behind the mirror, a door slammed. I smiled and massaged my aching throat.

“This is garbage” Oblete was fuming. “My two shots took out the mug with the .32, I know they did.”

Fitch had stepped back. “No sir. The two slugs in the guy were a perfect match for Hart’s Colt. Dead center, two in the heart. One more right between the other guy’s eyes. Damn good shooting ”

Oblete collapsed onto the cold steel chair, his eyes fixed on the crumpled sheets of carbon paper. “It can’t be.” His voice was pleading. He looked up at Boyle with wet eyes.

“I’ll take that as an apology,” I said as I stepped around the dark puddle of spilled coffee.

Boyle looked at me, wanting to say something, not knowing what.

“Dont worry, Vance. I’ll see myself out.” I walked to the door. “Next time you want to have a friendly chat, make an appointment and come to the office. At least I can make a half decent cup of coffee.”