Help
I asked David to explain how he knew that the man we’d seen was Ted. “There’s a stream that runs through my land.” He said to the windshield of the car. “In the summer, when the work is done, sometimes we all go swimming. We don’t swim in clothes. I’ve seen Ted’s tattoo. He was proud of it. I asked him about why he picked Woody Woodpecker. He said that he’d done it because the bird was a redhead like him.”
I took over the story with an observation of my own. “I guess you didn’t realize it was a kind of a joke. Woody the Woodpecker who pecks hard wood. The redheaded bird and the redheaded slut have that in common. From the blowjob I saw Ted giving Stan, I’d say he’s got a whole hell of a lot of experience with hard wood.”
“I didn’t realize.” David admitted.
“You wouldn’t have had a reason to realize something like that.” I said and set my brain to work to figure out what our next steps should be. I quickly decided that David and I needed help.
I got David to hand me the folder we’d received from Alexander Scofield, the attorney. I lit a match for light and found the piece of paper the lawyer had written his telephone numbers on. I gave it to David along with some instructions. “We’re out of our depth here. We need advice from someone who knows how to deal with things like this. If the man we saw is really Ted, then we have to prove it. We also need to leverage the information to help Larry.
“We’re in the middle of a poor area. No stores around us will be open because they don’t want to get robbed. You’ll have to take Scofield’s number and find a telephone. Go three blocks south to Snyder Avenue. That’s a main thoroughfare. Head west toward Broad. You won’t have to go all the way to Broad Street, but the closer you get to it, the more life you’ll find. Look for an all-night drugstore. They usually have public telephones in them. Call from there.
“Tell Scofield what we saw and get him to tell us what to do. When you’re finished, either come back here, or send word and tell me where to pick you up. I’ll stay here to keep an eye on our lovebirds. If they leave, I’ll have to follow them, but I suspect they’re in for the night. Got it?”
David accepted the mission I’d given him. He set off to carry it out. Just before he left, he apologized to me again. “I am sorry.” He said.
I shook my head at him. “You’re sorry because I showed you where you were wrong. I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry. I only want to know if you learned your lesson.”
“What lesson?” David asked.
“That I know what the fuck I’m doing, and you don’t.” I answered, probably more brutally than was necessary. “You do as you’re told and we’ll both get through this. We might even save your boy.” I jerked my head toward the direction I’d told David to walk. “Go make your call.”
“Yes, Law.” David answered and left.
I settled in to wait. I adjusted the rearview mirror down so I could slouch in the seat and rest my head on the seatback. I rolled the window down to give myself a breath of air and took the half-chewed cigar from my pocket. I almost had it between my teeth when I remembered that I’d decided to give up tobacco. I put the cigar back in my pocket and sighed. My body craved tobacco, but the mental image of Smokey, with his yellow fingers and wracking cough, helped me to ignore the desire.
To give my bored right hand something to do, I took Larry’s quarter from my inside pocket and held it in my palm. I tried to look at it, but there wasn’t enough light to see anything except a dark spot against my skin. The fact that I couldn’t see the face of the quarter didn’t matter much. Its image was seared into my memory. I doubted I’d ever be able to forget it after the importance David had assigned to the coin and the mission he’d given me to return it to his boy once I saved him from jail.
“Fuck me.” I muttered to the quarter. “I hope like hell we can save Larry. I hope Scofield is as smart as he seems. A clever lawyer ought to be able to clear someone of a murder if the victim is found alive.”
I stuck the coin back in my pocket and did some thinking in another direction. I tried to figure out how long I would have to wait. I calculated that David would need at least thirty minutes to find a telephone. Once he did, he’d have to call Scofield and get him out of bed. I gave David ten minutes to do his talking and another thirty to walk back. My math told me the least amount of time I had to wait was an hour and ten minutes. I knew the wait could easily be double or triple that, depending on how far David had to walk to find a phone and how long it took him to reach Scobie. I settled in for a long wait.
The time crawled by. Minutes passed which turned into hours. Almost no sound came from the neighborhood around me. Once in a while, the noise of a car cruising by on one of the nearby streets diverted my attention, but those instances were rare. Most of the time I sat and listened to the sound of my own breathing. I made a contest out of how long I could wait before I checked my watch. The first time I checked it, the hands told me the time was near midnight. I was tired but not overly so. I told myself that I could wait all night if I had to.
In order to amuse myself between checking my watch, I took another quarter from my pants pocket to play with. I tried to ‘roll’ the coin over the tops of my fingers like a streetcorner gambler might. I didn’t have any luck with the minor trick. I dropped the coin and spent the next several minutes blindly searching the car floor to recover it. Once I found it, I stuck it in my pocket and gave up on games.
I’d never been any good with acts of dexterity. When I was a kid, I couldn’t yoyo and I was never any good with marbles. As a young adult, I lost a lot of money pitching pennies for the same reason. The quarter from my pocket proved that at fifty-three years old, my skills hadn’t improved any. I went back to waiting with nothing to amuse me.
When I checked my watch for the third or fourth time, the hands told me the time was a little after two AM. I’d just started to wonder what was taking David so long when I heard deliberate footsteps from somewhere on the quiet street. The steps sounded like they were getting closer. I searched for the source of the sound. I was able to pick out its direction right before a man walked around the corner which I faced.
The man was medium height and solidly built. He walked carefully, like a man who spends a lot of time on his feet. When I first saw him in the shadows, his build and careful walk made me think he was a beat cop. When he stepped into the wan light cast from a distant streetlamp, I saw he was dressed in a plain grey suit instead of policeman’s blues.
The man’s presence unsettled me. I decided he was wrong, out of place in the neighborhood. He had no business on that street at that hour, or at any hour. I put my guard up.
The man caught my eye with a nod of his head and walked to the driver’s side of the car. He leaned over to put his face through the open window. “Got a match, bud?” He asked and waved an unlit cigarette at me.
“I think so.” I answered like I wasn’t certain. “I don’t smoke, but I usually carry a book just in case. Give me a second to look.”
I patted my pockets with both hands and tried not to yelp when my burned left hand touched my clothes. I reached into my jacket with my right hand like I meant to check my inside pocket. Instead, I closed my fist around the butt of my revolver. I planned to draw the gun and hold it on the man until I could find out who he was. “Here they are.” I said and started to pull the gun.
The man stopped me with a word. “Never mind.” He said. “I forgot I have my lighter.” He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and opened the hand which held it to reveal a polished brass lighter hidden in his palm. He struck a light and held the flame to look at my face. “Law Edwards,” he said, “long time.”
The man lit his cigarette and stood from the side of the car. He walked around the front and got in the passenger side. He shut the door with a soft click and rolled the window down so he could drop his ashes from it. “You don’t remember me.” He said to open the conversation. “Oh, you won’t need the gun in your right hand. I know that trick. Herb Marshall taught it to me. I guess he probably taught it to you.”
The trick which the man referred to was a simple one that my former boss on the detective’s squad, Captain Herbert Marshall, had taught me. The ruse was to look for a match or a piece of money or something and to produce a weapon from a shoulder holster instead. The trick worked well enough if the person executing it was dealing with a moron. Anyone with even a little experience would see it coming.
The man’s mention of Herb Marshall, and the fact that he knew my name put me at ease. I let the revolver settle back into its holster and took my hand from inside my jacket. I admitted I didn’t remember the man and asked if I should.
“No particular reason you should.” The man said. “I’m Jimmy Weaver. I was new to the detective squad the year they forced you out. We never worked together, but I knew who you were. Captain Marshall always spoke highly of you. He liked you. He hated to fire you, but the brass at the top didn’t give him a choice. When the Captain found out I was a queer, he told me not to worry. The Captain said that ‘as long as whoever a man takes into his bed is willing, it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but theirs.’”
I remembered when the Captain had said that same thing to me. I also remembered Jimmy Weaver by name, but only vaguely. The image the name called to mind was of a fresh-faced, eager young detective who I had considered more than just a little attractive. At the time, I had assumed he was straight and never pursued him. I had several filthy fantasies about him and his exceptionally fit young body, but that had been years ago. The man in the seat next to me was still in good shape, but he was firmly in his middle years and starting to show it.
None of that explained what Jimmy Weaver was doing in the passenger seat of Walt’s station wagon at two in the morning. “So what?” I asked.
“’So what,’ indeed.” Weaver answered. “I work for the public defender’s office now. Alex Scofield and I have an understanding. We look out for each other and for other people like us. He phoned me a little while ago to tell me about your situation. I’m to take over your stakeout for you. Alex said he’d see you at your restaurant in the morning. He hoped you’d be willing to make breakfast for him so you could talk about Theodore Danton. Alex will be there at nine. You’re to pick up David Ploughman at the Warwick drugstore on 10th and Snyder, then head home. I can take it from here.”
I was pleased that someone had come to take over the stakeout, but I wasn’t completely satisfied by Weaver’s story. I wanted more information from him. I asked for his initial impressions of the situation. Weaver told me what Scofield had told him.
“Seems like Theodore Danton is hiding out. We don’t know why. From the scene your friend described to Alex, he doesn’t sound like a prisoner. Alex thinks the best outcome would be if we can catch Theodore or Stanley doing something illegal. If they’re arrested, they’ll either have to prove their own identities or the police will be forced to identify them.”
I saw where Weaver was leading and jumped ahead of his words. “I see. The cops will prove Ted Danton is alive. Once they do, it will shake up their case against Larry and give Scofield an opportunity to challenge the indictment. He may not be able to clear Larry, but he can make a lot of noise about the cops jumping to bad conclusions.”
“Bingo.” Weaver agreed.
“Sounds good to me.” I concurred. I told Weaver about the house at the end of the alley where Ted and Stan were. I also told him about Stan’s Rocket Oldsmobile. I even warned him about the hot lake pipes, even though I was certain they’d long since cooled.
Weaver said he’d wait until I was gone, then he’d sneak up to the house to check on the occupants. He had parked his car a block away and planned to take my parking spot after he checked the house. Scofield had a man scheduled to relieve Weaver at dawn and other men scheduled throughout the day.
Since the matter was well in hand and I was tired, I bid Jimmy Weaver a ‘goodnight’ and went to pick up David.
When I arrived at the Warwick drugstore, David was pacing the sidewalk back and forth in front of the entrance. He ran to the car and ripped the passenger door open before I’d even stopped all the way. “Did you hear?” He asked. “Larry’s lawyer says this is a BIG DEAL! He says if they can prove Ted is alive, it will be a BIG HELP! He said this CHANGES EVERYTHING!”
I was happy for my friend, but not as enthusiastic as him. I hoped David wasn’t getting his hopes up. Even as that thought entered my head, I knew his hopes were sky high. David leapt into the car and hugged me sideways. “I owe it all to you, Law!” He said.
I pushed David off me and tried to temper his joy. “Nothing is settled yet.” I warned. “This is far from a sure thing. We’ve still got work to do.”
David controlled himself and pretended he agreed with me. “I know. I’m just so happy we made progress.”
I patted David’s shoulder in support. When I did it, I noticed his eye had started to bruise. I was tempted to regret socking him, but I reminded myself that because of David’s impulsiveness, I’d had to look down the barrel of my own gun. I decided that blacking David’s eye wasn’t the worst decision I’d ever made and set the matter aside.
I drove to David’s hotel, the Broadwood, and stopped in front. I waited with the transmission in gear and my foot on the clutch like I was in a hurry to get going. David hesitated to get out of the car. “You should come up.” He said.
I shook my head without looking at my old friend. “I need to go home. I need to see my husband. I haven’t talked to him all day. I should let him know I’m not dead.”
“Alright, Law.” David said with a forlorn note in his voice. “You’re right. It’s just, I don’t know how I’ll get to sleep. I’m so excited for Larry.”
“Stop at the bar in the lobby for a few drinks.” I suggested. “I’ll need you alert tomorrow, so don’t get carried away. Be at the restaurant at nine. Scofield is coming for breakfast. He wants to talk to us about the case.”
“Alright, I’ll be there.” David agreed. He got out of the car and stood with the door open for a long moment. “Thank you, Law.” He said at length. “Looks like you’ve saved my son this time…and me. The Madam was right all those years ago. You really are the Hero of Law and Order.”
David shut the door before I could say anything. He hurried into the hotel. I slipped the clutch and drove away toward home.
