Peerless Detective, page 12
“You’re saying this limo driver who obviously is no limo driver somehow knew Ryan was coming out of an indoor parking lot. Is that right?”
“Well, if you put it that way, it sounds—”
“But is that how it seemed? Like he knew Ryan was coming out?”
“Yeah.”
Harry gave a short, sharp nod. “Excellent. Did you happen to see the license plate of the Lincoln?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have any reason to write it down. I mean, I can tell you the first letter is D. That’s all.”
“Excellent again. You’re right, there was no reason for you to notice the license plate. But if he was a real limo driver, his license would start with LV for livery. So we know he wasn’t a limo driver, and he knew Ryan was coming out before he saw him, which tells us Ryan’s car has a surveillance device on it. And you know what that means?”
“That he can’t go anywhere without his wife eventually being told about it. He’s under constant surveillance.”
“That’s right, but it means something else, too.” He looked over at Leo, who grinned, then back at Billy.
“It means we have an opportunity for mischief.” Harry smiled, and then got serious. “Leo, Ryan’s got three cars, so—”
“Three bugs.” He nodded and looked for a moment like a very large, bald child. He winked at Billy. “This gives me something to work with.”
“I’d tell you to be creative,” Harry said, “but that goes without saying.” To Billy he said, “I think we’re going to need you to go back out there tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, Leo?”
“Right. Excellent.”
Harry looked from Leo to Billy and beamed.
“You’re having a good time with this,” Billy said.
“It’s important to have a few laughs in your work, Bill. Find something in life that has the inherent possibility for fun, and then have a good time with it. Most guys dread every day they go to work. That’s no way to live.”
He looked to Leo for confirmation. Leo nodded. “This job, every day is different.”
“Wasn’t it like that when you were a cop?”
“Yeah, but nobody’s shooting at me now.” He looked at Harry. “At least I don’t think so.”
“I’ll make a call to Mr. Ryan,” Harry said. “Tell him what I need him to do.”
Harry looked away, gazing at something in the distance, and for a moment he lost his persona. The smile faded and he took on the look Billy had seen earlier on the street. Then he snapped out of it. “Okay, we’re in business.”
At nine the following morning, before most of the tanned young people in swimsuits had shown up to toss Frisbees and admire one another, Billy was in position at a bus stop just south of Ron Ryan’s building. Around the corner through the tall hedge, he could just make out the glistening black top of the Lincoln. At exactly nine-ten, Billy saw Leo’s familiar red van pull into the driveway. Leo stepped out, carrying some sort of purchase order and his tool bag. He had a short conversation with the doorman, who examined the purchase order and frowned at the van—a vehicle clearly not meeting the profile of the neighborhood.
The doorman made a call, and whatever he learned, presumably from Ron Ryan, satisfied him that Leo was to be allowed inside the building. The doorman gestured to a side entrance, a driveway around the building, and Leo drove through this.
Gradually the bus stop filled with people heading downtown, and two buses came and went, each with a different route number. Billy hung back, checked his watch and waited. At nine-twenty-five, he left the bus stop and moved up the street toward the Lincoln.
When he was a few feet away, he took out his “prop,” a limp, weathered street map of Chicago. He paused before the Lincoln and studied the map long enough to see the limo driver look up. Billy took a few steps back, looked up at the buildings, down at his map, shook his head. He turned around to study Lake Shore Drive, walked a few paces toward Ron Ryan’s building, then stopped and retraced his steps. Then he looked around. A gray-haired man in a suit was walking briskly toward the bus shelter and Billy moved into his line of vision.
“Excuse me, sir, where’s North Avenue?”
The man made a half turn and pointed behind him. “Back there, the light.”
“And what’s this here?” Billy asked, pointing down.
“You’re on Lake Shore Drive,” the man said, and then moved past him.
As Billy turned, the limo driver put his head down and stared at his newspaper, but too late.
Yeah, you caught my whole routine, Man.
He approached the Lincoln, saw the driver look up and grimace. The driver was a fortyish man with an improbable mop of brown curls. He stared through the window until Billy held the map up to the window. Then he rolled down the window, gave Billy an irritated look, and said, “Yeah?”
Billy held out his map.
“I’m not from here. I’m supposed to see a guy about a job, I need to get to North and Ashland. Am I close to that?”
“No,” the driver said. “Jesus. I mean, North Avenue is right up here at that first light but Ashland is a mile and a half west of here. You need a bus.”
“Oh,” Billy said in a crestfallen voice. At the edge of his vision he saw Leo. As he stared at his map, Leo got down first on all fours, then on his stomach until he was crawling like a snake toward the Lincoln, and Billy was afraid he would burst out laughing.
“What bus?”
The driver gave an irritated shake of his head. “What bus? How would I know? I don’t take buses, kid. You need to go back that way and ask somebody. Maybe flag down a cop and ask for directions.”
“A cop? Oh, I don’t think I want to do that.”
For the first time the limo driver smiled. “No, huh? You’d rather not let them know you’re in town, is that it?”
“It’s not like that. I mean, not exactly.” Billy stared at his map and tried to buy more time. “I mean, I’m not on the run. Not like you’d think, anyway. I busted a guy up back home.”
The driver eyed him with interest, and Billy read the look. The driver was seeing something else now, not a lost hillbilly, but a young guy to be taken more seriously.
“You did, huh?” The driver gave the question just the right tone of sarcasm.
“Yeah.” Billy met the driver’s eyes directly now.
Yeah, I can throw a punch now and then, especially if somebody jerks my chain just right.
“Yeah, I did, sir. And I don’t say I’m proud of it, but there you go.” He met the driver’s stare, and in the background now saw Leo standing a few feet from the limo and dusting himself off. Time to break it off.
“Anyway, thanks for your time, sir.” Billy waved the map at him and walked away.
At the nearest corner he stopped and sat on the fire hydrant. A few minutes later Ron Ryan emerged in his red Porsche, and in a heartbeat the limo pulled out after him. The driver was frowning. A moment later Leo’s van emerged from the parking garage, pulled up at the far corner, and waited for Billy.
“Good work, Kid,” Leo said.
“How’d it go?”
Leo kept his eyes on the street as he pulled out onto Lake Shore Drive. The question seemed to surprise him.
“How’d it go? It went fine. How’d you think it would go?”
“I didn’t mean there was any question, Leo. Just wondering if I gave you enough time.”
“Oh, yeah. You did fine. I been doing this a long time, I really don’t need a lot of time. I knew the cars I was looking for.”
“I don’t know exactly what it is that you did.”
“I located the client’s three vehicles,” Leo said, lapsing into his cop-speak. “Then I ascertained that there was indeed a surveillance device on each one and removed it. Then, as our boss had instructed, I took the devices and put each one on another vehicle.”
“You mean on somebody else’s car?”
Leo regarded him seriously. “Of course. One on a big white Caddy, one on a silver Mercedes convertible, and the one you saw me planting.”
Billy stared at the street in confusion. Then it struck him. “You were putting a bug on the limo.”
“Sure. You got a better place?”
“So now they’ll be following the Caddy, the Mercedes, and their own car?”
“Exactly.” Leo nodded happily. “You know,” he said in a thoughtful voice, “you feel—accomplished after a good day’s work.” He glanced at Billy. “You did good, too, kid.” Then he grinned, a man happy with his work.
“Let’s get hot dogs.”
“It’s morning.”
“A good hot dog you can eat any time of day,” Leo said.
• • •
That night, Billy, Leo, and Harry called on Ron Ryan. He ushered them into his spectacular apartment.
“Here, Bill, look at this, look at the man’s view.” Harry led Billy over to the windows of Ron Ryan’s huge living room. The windows were open, and a lake breeze filled the room. The view was the lake, all of it, it seemed to Billy, miles of lake and beach, and a horizon that might have been from someone else’s world.
“Jesus,” Billy said.
“This is what I’m saying,” Harry said. Ron Ryan laughed shyly, and Harry asked him to give Billy a tour of the place.
It seemed to be laid out like a great X, with an enormous bedroom at each of the four ends, and each had not only its own bathroom but a small sitting room with a sofa, dresser, and mirror, and a small stack of magazines. The kitchen was copper and brass and could have fed a regiment, and the dining room held the longest table he’d ever seen.
“I’ve never seen a place like this,” Billy admitted.
“Neither did I, until I moved in here. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even belong here.” Ron Ryan looked wistfully at his home. Given his circumstances, the place seemed cavernously empty, a home for a great, noisy family. He shook his head. “The people that live in this building—the guy downstairs owns factories in six countries. The guy upstairs owns fourteen companies and part of a baseball team, and he’s here like six times a year. It’s a vacation place for him when he’s in Chicago. Sometimes I look around and wonder what I’m doing here.” After a moment, he gave Billy a sheepish smile. “Well, I probably won’t be here long.”
“Maybe it’ll work out in the end.”
“Thanks. I doubt it.” Ryan looked around and seemed lost. “I never meant to screw this all up. And my wife—never in my life thought I’d end up with somebody like her, and this is what I do. Take it from me, son, you get a good wife, don’t fuck around.”
Back in the living room, Leo was going through a side compartment in his tool bag, while Harry stood in the middle of the floor with his hands on his hips.
“Okay, Bill. Where do we look for a bug?”
Billy looked around. “In the phone.”
Harry nodded. “Okay, you’ve been watching TV. The man’s got six phones in the apartment, so now what?”
“I’d bug all of them.”
“Ruthless! Okay, good. As it happens, Leo already took the bugs from three of them. The others were clean.”
Harry gave him that look, that expectant look. A lesson was in progress. Other bugs, Billy thought, in less obvious places.
“I get it. The ones in the phones are obvious—we’re supposed to find them.”
“Right. Here, watch this.”
Harry unscrewed the mouthpiece of the living room phone and showed Billy a small, round listening device.
“Do we take it out?”
“No. It’s a phony, I know how Fornier works. The bug is not in the phone. It’s over there.”
Harry pointed with the phone toward the wall.
“It’s in the jack?”
“Show him, Leo.”
Leo removed the square covering on the jack and Billy saw that the cover itself was the listening device.
“So somebody finds the bug in the phone itself and relaxes because he thinks he’s free and clear now.”
“That’s it.”
“There are other ones that aren’t so obvious.” Billy looked around. “In this room, I think.” Then he added, “Where Mr. Ryan might sit and make a call.” Billy pointed to a leather armchair. “There, maybe?”
“Sharp kid,” Ron Ryan said.
“Very good, Bill. Yeah, we took a bug out from the base of that lamp, tucked inside where you couldn’t see it. And one more.”
“The bedroom, the master bedroom,” Billy said, and found that he couldn’t look Ron Ryan in the eye.
“Come look,” Harry said.
They went to the largest of the four bedrooms, and Harry showed Billy where they’d found a bug, on the back of the enormous mahogany headboard.
“One more,” Harry said.
Billy walked around the room, then went into the bathroom. In the small sitting room there was an ashtray with half a dozen butts, and beside it, the Tribune sports section. He looked from Harry to Ryan.
“Do you use this room a lot, Sir?”
A rueful smile. “Yeah. It’s where I make my calls, you know, uh, private calls. And sometimes I just come in here and use it as my, you know, my den. Funny to have a place this big and not have a den.”
Harry pointed to the phone on the small dresser. “This one we were more or less supposed to find.”
Billy looked around the small room. “Under the dresser.”
Harry said nothing.
No, closer to the phone. “Behind the mirror.”
Harry clapped his hands together. “Good. Yeah, that one we were supposed to find and this one—” He reached behind the mirror on the dresser, felt around and pried something loose. “—we weren’t supposed to look for once we found the one in the phone. See, they’re crafty, this outfit.”
“What next?” asked Ron Ryan.
“Oh, you know, some of the more technical aspects of our approach. Better if I tell you about them in my report.”
Ryan nodded but seemed confused. He looked from Harry to Billy and shrugged.
“Okay, then. Let me know what you need from me next.”
“I think we’ll get some results. You’ll see results, Mr. Ryan.”
In the car, Billy asked, “So what is the next step?”
“We visit the offices of Fornier and Cribb.”
They drove north along Lake Shore Drive, and from the back seat of Leo’s car Billy watched the lights of a long, dark cruise ship on the lake and wondered what the city looked like from out on the water.
“You ought to buy a ticket for one of those boats,” Harry said.
“You reading my mind again?”
“Easy enough if you recognize a thought you had yourself. Besides, everybody that sees the lake has some of the same thoughts, and anybody that sees one of the cruise boats, especially at night, wants to be on one of them. I tell you, Bill, you see the city from the deck of one of those boats, see the skyline all lit up, why…you think it’s magical. You think to yourself, that’s where I want to live—it’s got nothing but promise.”
“Nothing but promise, huh?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, looking straight ahead at the traffic. “For a young man like you, especially. Nothing but promise.”
“Unless you screw it up.”
Now Harry shot him a quick glance. “Even if you screw it up. Life’s short, but it’s not so short you don’t get second chances. And everybody screws up something. Everybody.”
Harry rubbed his chin and looked out across the water. He said nothing for the rest of the drive.
The offices of Fornier and Cribb were in a glorified storefront on Sheridan Road, close to the lake. They drove past it twice to see if there was anyone inside, and then Harry drove around behind it and pulled calmly into a parking space marked “J. Fornier.”
At the rear entrance of the office, Harry paused and said, “Oh, they added a lock. But you know what’s better than a lock, Bill? A big bar across the door. Because I’m going through these two locks.” With that, Harry produced a small set of lock picks and proceeded to work and wiggle a pair of the long picks, grunting and muttering as he did so. In a little over a minute he’d opened both of them.
“Where does somebody get a set of those?” Billy asked.
“Mail order places, or—well, you know the old saying, ‘I know a guy?’ Well, I know a guy. Sells radios on Maxwell Street on Sundays. And odds and ends. After you,” Harry added, then stepped aside.
Inside the offices of Fornier and Cribb, Harry—wearing rubber gloves, Billy saw—wiped down two of the surveillance devices and put one under the desk in the first office—“This is Fornier’s office. This will offend his dignity.”
Then Harry removed the phone jack cover in the other office and replaced it with the one from Ron Ryan’s house. “And this is Cribbs’s office. This will wreck his day. He’s got no sense of humor, and no sense of perspective. He’ll make himself crazy someday.”
He led Billy out into the main office and to a side room filled with wires, technology, a pair of control boards, and several headsets.
“Top of the line, this stuff, all of it. They do a nice job, Fornier and Cribb.” He smiled at Billy. “Within their limitations. Which they are not aware of.”
In the car, Billy asked, “What now?”
Harry made a show of brushing off his hands. “Like Ronald Colman says in The Prisoner of Zenda, ‘My work here is done.’ We’re through for the day. Expect a visit from our competitors.” Then he laughed. “Be on time tomorrow. We got things to do, and you don’t want to miss Fornier and Cribb.”
That night Billy stopped in the diner. The young waitress named Millie was not there.
“She’s off tonight,” the big cook said as he pushed a pile of grilled onions to one side of the grill.
Billy remembered the young woman speaking of her date “with a gentleman” and felt his face redden. “I just stopped in for coffee,” he said, but he didn’t think he sounded convincing.
NINE
Messrs. Fornier and Cribb
The next morning, Billy showed up half an hour early and was the first one in the office. He turned on the lights and the air conditioner, opened the shades, and walked around the office. For just a moment he tried to imagine himself as Harry Strummer, opening up his office, his place of business. Once, as a boy, he’d worked for a butcher, and he’d arrived each morning as the butcher, a fat Romanian man named Anton, opened up his business and began setting out his tools and trays and the meats from the big cooler in the back. Billy would have said that Anton was, at that moment, the happiest man he had ever seen. And if it was true that the offices of Peerless Detective were less than impressive, still, this was Harry Strummer’s small kingdom, his own business, and Billy thought he now had just the faintest taste of what that must feel like.
