Torch Scene Page 6

  “Well,” I said out loud. “If I don’t know the source of O’Rourke’s money, I go to the destination.”

  I looked up the address to Easy Street Café, then started the 4-Runner, my next move determined. The Smiths, one of my favorite bands, played as I pulled back onto the highway and headed downtown to Easy Street Café. Pommerville said the café was on East Colfax, east of downtown, so I figured it would be easy to find. I took I-70 to I-25, and exited onto Colfax and endured too many traffic lights to count as I finally curved around Civic Center Park and followed Colfax east. Past the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, a huge Roman Catholic cathedral made of limestone and granite, was Prohibition, where Willie and I ate the other night, but I still didn’t see Easy Street Café. I continued on, and just past Humboldt Street I spied the café on the north side. I turned on Franklin and parked a couple of blocks down.

  The sun had burned off the early chill, leaving a pleasant warmth as I walked back to Colfax. It was a busy part of town, with small shops, businesses, and restaurants all vying for a piece of the pie. It was a little after eleven when I crossed Colfax and went inside the restaurant.

  Easy Street Café could only be described as a dive. It was a rectangle with six small tables at the front, a bar along one wall at the back, with a couple more tables against the other wall.

  “You want lunch?” The waitress was tiny, barely five feet, with tattoos running up and down her arms.

  I nodded.

  She pointed to the second table in. I sat down at a rickety metal chair and she shoved a laminated one-page menu at me. “You want something to drink?”

  “A Coke,” I said.

  She sauntered off and I studied the menu. Nothing seemed terribly appetizing, but the prices were appealing. I could get a hamburger and fries for $4.95, and that seemed less risky than the French dip or ham and cheese.

  The waitress returned with my drink and I ordered the burger, then sat back and looked around while trying to not look like I was looking around.

  Two men in jeans, faded white tee shirts and work boots sat at one of the tables by the bar, and three women in business casual attire were by the door. At the table back in the corner, across from the bar, sat a man in black jeans and a yellow Izod shirt that stretched across his burly chest. He dwarfed the table, his arms like logs, his hands like huge metal claws. He was sipping a cup of coffee and chatting with the bartender, who seemed to have little else to do but slowly wipe the bar and talk. Then I noticed a door in the back wall with a ‘Private’ sign on it.

  I fiddled with my phone, attempting to appear busy, as I listened to the conversations around me. The ladies were talking shop, discussing how to create a series of reports in Xcel. I tuned them out and tried to hear what the two men near the bar were saying.

  As the waitress brought my food, a sliver of light momentarily brightened the room as the restaurant door opened. A man in khakis and a striped shirt marched past the tables and right to the back. Yellow Shirt stood up and they had a short conversation. Then Yellow Shirt turned and opened the door. The man in khakis stepped past Yellow Shirt and disappeared into the back room. Yellow Shirt closed the door, sat back down, sipped coffee and resumed his conversation with the bored bartender.

  I picked up my burger and examined it. It looked harmless. I took a nibble. It was delicious. I should’ve known. Sometimes the off-beat places are the best.

  A minute later the man in khakis came out of the back room. He nodded at Yellow Shirt, strolled back through the restaurant and left.

  I chewed and thought about that. Was it anything? Only time would tell. I ate slowly, savoring the burger, and sure enough, a few minutes later, another man entered the restaurant. He too went straight to the back, spoke to Yellow Shirt, disappeared into the back room and emerged a few minutes later. Interesting.

  I slowly worked my way through my meal, then asked for another Coke. I continued to scrutinize my phone as I waited. A few minutes passed and a third man, young, with a pierced eyebrow, came and made a beeline to the back. Unless I missed my guess, it appeared that Pommerville and his daughter Leena were correct.

  If a bookie was in that private room, he was doing a decent business. I’d read somewhere that it wasn’t uncommon for bookies to run their business just like I was seeing, through a private room in a small bar or restaurant. It made a good cover. Have someone like Yellow Shirt run interference, keep out the riff-raff and warn the bookie if trouble arrives. Word-of-mouth helps the betting flourish. A nice, smooth operation. But how did one get behind that door?

  The waitress set my check on the table and I left some bills, then got up and sauntered to the back. As I neared the private room, Yellow Shirt got up and blocked me. Up close, he was even more imposing.

  “You need something?” he asked, his voice low. He simultaneously managed to appear bored and threatening.

  “Yeah, I’d like to go in there.” I pointed through his barrel-chest at the door.

  “It’s private.”

  “Thus the sign on the door,” I said.

  He looked at me blankly. Not a Harvard grad, this one.

  “I want to…you know…” I left the rest unsaid.

  He crossed thick arms across his chest. “Get lost.”

  I gazed up at him, nodded and slowly turned around. “Okay, I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

  The bartender wagged his head in disgust as I passed. I felt my face burning. I left the restaurant and strolled to the corner, thinking.

  There must be some kind of code I was missing, something to get past Yellow Shirt. I’d made a fool of myself with my charade, but I verified that one couldn’t just walk into that back room. There was indeed something important going on, important enough to have a bodyguard keeping watch. A thought crossed my mind. Would they think I was a cop? Then I chuckled. No, a cop wouldn’t be as impulsive and stupid as I’d just been. Let Yellow Shirt puzzle over that.

  “Good one, Reed,” I chided myself. Regardless, I needed to be more careful. If they thought I posed a problem, I could be asking for trouble. The kind that comes with beatings and broken bones.

  Instead of going to my car, I headed north, up Franklin, and came to the alley. I glanced down it. Beat-up green Dumpsters sat near the exits on the back side of the building. By my calculations, the alley door to Easy Street Café was the third one, a black door. There was a little wooden porch that led up to the door. I leaned against the building opposite and watched. It took a while, but eventually Yellow Shirt came out with another man in black pants, a purple shirt and a purple Trilby hat. I ducked around the corner and watched.

  Purple Hat was quite a bit shorter than Yellow Shirt, but maybe it was an optical illusion because Yellow Shirt had to be at least 6’6”. Both lit up cigarettes and stood smoking near the door. Then Purple Hat answered his phone and paced around the alley. Yellow Shirt turned my way and I pulled my head back. I waited a moment, then peeked around the corner. Yellow Shirt was now looking the other direction. Purple Hat hung up his phone, they both tossed their cigarettes into the alley and then went back into the restaurant.

  I continued watching the door and mused over what I’d learned, which wasn’t much. Yellow Shirt smoked. So did the flashy guy in the Purple Trilby. Was he the bookie, or maybe the restaurant owner? Or both? How could I find out? Follow them? Ugh, I hated following people. It was so boring.

  I stayed there for over an hour, periodically moving away from the alley entrance so I didn’t attract attention. The thugs came out three more times to smoke, and each time I slipped around the corner and watched them.

  “Such a lot of guns around town, and so few brains.” I was so intent on watching the thugs, I jumped. Damn, my phone! What a time for Bogie. I slipped around the corner and yanked the phone from my pocket and glanced at the number, hoping it was Willie. It took a second for the number to register in my mind. Pommerville’s daughter, Leena.

  “Hello?”

&nb
sp; “Reed Ferguson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Leena Radcliff.”

  “I wondered if you’d return my call.”

  She got right to the point. “We need to talk. Have you eaten lunch?”

  “Yes.” I glanced at my watch. Almost one-thirty.

  “I haven’t been able to get out of the office until now. I work at the State Capitol and I brought my lunch. Meet me at Civic Center Park, at the Greek amphitheater, in half an hour. I’m wearing a pink skirt and flowered blouse.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “Good. I’ll meet you now, and then I don’t want you to bother my father anymore.” With that, she hung up.

  I pocketed the phone and hurried back to my car. Good thing I was close to Civic Center Park, because I did not want to miss this opportunity.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I pegged her as late thirties. She was attractive, not what I’d call beautiful, but certainly not hard on the eyes. She had a round face, small nose, flaxen blond hair and brown eyes. She had a nice figure with maybe a few extra pounds around the middle, and she looked comfortable in a pink skirt and flowered blouse. She was sitting at one side of the amphitheater, eating a sandwich.

  “Leena,” I said, sitting down a few feet from her.

  “You don’t look like much of a private eye.” Her voice was high and pinched.

  “What’s a private eye supposed to look like?”

  She made a point of studying me, shielding her eyes against the bright sun glare. “Tougher.”

  Trying to get me off my game? A few cases ago, it might’ve deflated my ego, but not now.

  “Tell me about Nick O’Rourke,” I said.

  She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed slowly. “When I first met him, he was charming and attentive. I’d been through a bad divorce, and my ex was a jerk. Never had a kind word for me…” The sentence hung in the air. Then she repeated, “He was a jerk. So when Nick was so sweet, I fell for him. We went out a number of times and at first it was great.” She paused and looked at a couple sitting on the other side of the amphitheater. They were draped around each other, kissing. I waited. “And then things changed.”

  She paused again, and this time she stayed silent, so I prompted her. “What happened?”

  “It wasn’t much at first. He was impatient. Then there’d be a verbal jab here and there, usually something money-related. I’d suggest a restaurant that was more expensive and he’d say I wasn’t good enough for that type of place. We’d argue and I’d end up apologizing, and I’d calm him down. And then we’d usually end up in bed. He was good in the sack.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her candor.

  “Yeah,” she laughed wryly. “I certainly never told my parents that. Things grew worse, but he was in business with Dad, and I knew things weren’t going well. And I had a calming effect on him. I think I fooled myself into thinking I was somehow helping. What would happen if I broke up with him? He was getting so erratic, I thought he might do something to Dad, or the business.”

  “How did you find out about the gambling?”

  “He started taking me to that café. At first I thought it was because it was cheap, but then one time I noticed that the room in the back that he was going into wasn’t a bathroom. I asked him about it and he tried to brush it off. But he was drinking and I kept pushing and his tongue loosened.” She laughed harshly. “He finally broke down and spilled the beans, bragging about how he’d just placed a huge bet on a basketball game and how the payoff would get him out of the mess he was in. I asked what that meant, but he didn’t answer. Instead he went on about the bookie, saying things like ‘how would anyone even know that a bookie was running his business in the back of the restaurant?’ And he talked about how much money the guy must’ve been pulling in, thousands a night. I had to admit, it was kind of intriguing. Certainly nothing I’d ever seen or done. I asked him how he knew about the place and could anyone make a bet, but he laughed and said wouldn’t I like to know.” She shook her head. “Man, I was naïve.”

  “Did he ever tell you?”

  She nodded. “He made fun of the whole thing. ‘You go up to the guard at the door and say you want to see Bob’,” she said in a low voice, imitating Nick. “Then I guess they let you in and you place your bet with the bookie. And you better have the money. He stressed that, and when he did, I noticed the worry on his face. I asked him if he’d gotten in over his head and he told me to shut up. That pissed me off and I got up and left.”

  She stopped for another bite and her hand trembled slightly.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “That night was ugly.”

  “Your father said that the team Nick bet on lost and Nick went crazy.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  I cocked my head. “He didn’t go crazy?”

  “Oh, he went crazy, yelling about how they were going to come after him. I tried to calm him down, but he wouldn’t listen. I offered to help and he insulted me, said I was only good for a lay. I blew my top and he attacked me, and he…he forced himself on me.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. We sat in silence for a bit. She took the last bits of her sandwich and tossed them out for the pigeons to eat.

  “I should’ve reported it, but I didn’t,” she finally said. “When he finished, I left. And I haven’t seen him since.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said lamely.

  She looked me in the eye. “My parents don’t know, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “I won’t say anything. You have my word.”

  “Thank you.” She gazed at the birds again, and drew in a breath and let it out slowly, as if letting out the horror of what happened. “So that’s the story of Nick and me. I spoke to my dad this morning and he told me that Nick is dead. After what he did to me, and to my dad, I feel like he got what he deserved.”

  I let the comment simmer. Who could blame her for feeling that way? My phone rang and I silenced it.

  “You can get that,” she said.

  I shook my head, debating whether to answer it. I really did want to, because it was Willie, but I also wanted to keep Leena talking.

  “Did you ever see the bookie?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “But Nick described him pretty well, made fun of the guy. Said he was some little white dude who thought he was a pimp, always wearing flashy silk shirts, always a solid color. And he liked to wear Trilby hats that matched his shirt.”

  And he smoked a lot, I thought. “Did Nick ever mention a name?”

  “No. I told you everything he said about the guy.”

  “So you think someone was coming after Nick?” I asked. “Was he in trouble with that bookie? Or some other loan sharks?”

  She shrugged. “I never saw any evidence of that, and he never said so, but if I had to guess, I’d say yes. By the time I left him, he was clearly having money trouble. He’d gotten rid of his Mercedes and he’d moved into a smaller apartment. And he was getting paranoid, literally looking over his shoulder a lot.”

  “And you had no idea he was stealing from your father’s company?”

  “No.” She glared at me. “Do you know everything about your father’s business?”

  I held up a hand. “I wasn’t trying to criticize.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I have to ask, where were you Tuesday night?”

  She gave me an annoyed look. “I had dinner with my parents, and I stayed until midnight. My father went to bed early, but my mother and I watched a movie.”

  “Your father didn’t mention that you were there.”

  “Lay off him. He’s getting older and he’s working too hard.” She grabbed the brown paper sack her lunch was in and crumpled it up. “I hope I’ve helped you.” She stood up and stared down on me. “And I hope I don’t ever see you again.” With that, she walked away, not once looking back.

  I sat for a moment, going over
the conversation. Lots to digest. And that last part, about being at her parents the night of the fire. Did she provide him an alibi? Or vice-versa? The pigeons came closer, pecking at the ground. “Go on,” I shooed them off. “I don’t have anything for you.”

  That could be a metaphor for this case, I thought. I didn’t have anything for me either, just a growing list of suspects. But Leena had certainly painted an interesting picture of Nick. And I could add her to the list of potential killers, because she had a motive as well.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As I walked back to the 4-Runner, I called Willie.

  “How’d it go?”

  She sighed. “Lots of questions, and then the same questions asked in a slightly different way.”

  “They’re trying to see if you’re lying, if you trip over your story.”

  “Since I’m not, they were wasting their time.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said. “They haven’t eliminated you from their suspect list.”

  “I didn’t do it,” she said, desperation in her voice.

  “I know.” I got to the car. “Try to relax, okay? I’m on my way home.”

  My condo was in the Uptown neighborhood, immediately east of downtown, so it took me less than ten minutes to get there. I parked in the garage and stopped by Ace’s place before heading upstairs.

  “Hey, Reed,” Ace said. He was wearing sweats and his hair was tousled, like I’d woken him from a nap.

  “What’s up, my ‘Ace’ sidekick?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  I dispensed with the puns. “How’s the detecting going?”

  “Oh,” he said, now giving me a knowing nod. “I talked to some of the neighbors.” He ducked inside and returned with the notepad I’d given him. It was crumpled, and when he flipped to a page with writing, I was amazed that he could read the scrawling on it. “That guy over there,” he pointed to a small apartment complex next door to Willie’s house. “His name is Rusty Householter. He lives on the second floor. He said he saw some lady arguing with Nick a couple of times. He said they stood on the sidewalk yelling and she was really mad.”