Читать книгу Healthy, Wealthy, and Dead - Gregg Ward Matson - Страница 3

The first thing I did as an employee of Loralee Carlisle was to deposit her check in the bank. I did that because I forget things, and nothing is more embarrassing than having to go to the boss and say you lost her check. I’ve had to do it twice. The first wrote me a new check but never hired me again. The second told me to go find it and go to hell. Of course I’d already done the work. I had to go to Small Claims Court to get paid. Since then I always put the check in the bank as soon as I get it.

I’m a detective for two reasons. First, because I can’t do anything else, at least to the satisfaction of whoever’s cutting paychecks. Second, because the work gives me a focus, something to follow, and helps me get past the Attention Deficit Disorder. In this job I believe my so-called disorder is really an advantage. I can work at my own speed and tend to the details. For years I thought I was lazy and incompetent when in reality I was only different. I was doomed until I found the work I’m in now.

Another advantage of my condition: I can get Ritalin anytime. I don’t do that often, I don’t like the buzz. But it does come in handy if I need to spend a long time in one place waiting for something to happen. I don’t drink alcohol on the job, and I don’t see how some peepers can. I’d fall asleep five minutes into a stakeout. I do depend on caffeine, if there’s a restroom nearby, or tobacco, if I’m not going to appear too conspicuous. Mostly I do my work on chocolate, and that’s the truth.

My bank is one of the last banks in the downtown area. Mergers and downsizing, along with the general destruction of the downtown economy, have sent the banks out to the suburbs. My bank will probably close or move soon too.

From the bank it’s a short walk, even in the rain, to the City and County offices. I went to my office first. I made a pot of coffee and looked at the papers Clarissa had given me. They were copies of official documents dealing with the death and burial of Aaron Markham Carlisle: straight, statistical facts. The autopsy report stated in scientific lingo that he had died from a heart attack. I looked over the documents twice, and the only amazing aspect about them was that they had been waiting for me when I left my client’s house.

I drank coffee, sat in my chair, looked out the window at the rain, and wondered what I should do next.

I had a widow’s intuition that something about her husband’s death didn’t feel quite right. Nothing unusual about that. They’d been married sixteen years, and had every reason to expect many more years together. Then all at once, it was over. This particular widow had money to burn, to pay some poor sap to run around looking for evidence that didn’t exist. Well, I was the poor sap, and I had taken the job, sober and in broad daylight. That meant do it. Whether there was a reason to do it wasn’t my affair. If I were a carpenter (and she were a lady) and she’d hired me to tear down a wall and put in a new room, it wasn’t up to me to decide if the new room would improve the house. My job was to tear down the wall, put in a new room, and keep quiet...a hired hand.

With one hand I grabbed the phone, with the other my address book. I looked up a friend of mine who worked at the Hall of Records, Bill Farley. I asked him to look up anything he could find on Aaron Markham Carlisle. He said he couldn’t get to it before quitting time, but that he would call me back in the morning.

Next I got the yellow pages and looked up Vita Green. The numbers of two distributors were listed. Should I infiltrate the corporate structure? I wasn’t getting paid enough. It might be better to ask my client about the details. I wrote myself a note to give her a call, and made a mental note to read the note.

I checked my telephone. No messages on the voice mail. I looked out the window at the gray rain coming down on Wino Park. No messages there either. I opened a desk drawer, got out a candy bar, and wolfed it down while watching the rain. Loralee would not approve of that, I thought. Then I wondered just why the hell she didn’t think I was her type. I’m in a line of work where you use every trick available to get people to tell the truth, and sometimes nothing works. Here someone was being honest with me right from the start, and it pissed me off.

I got another candy bar and ate it more slowly. I could feel the bellyache coming. A lifetime of that would get to you. A lifetime of not doing that would get to you. But I couldn’t get to Loralee.

I thought I might take a walk, clear my head, but it was not a good day to walk. I closed the Venetian blinds, switched off the light, piled my damp overcoat on my desk, and leaned over, feeling all of about five years old in my suit and tie, and took a nap.

When I awoke I had aged at least forty-five years. I had a rank sugar taste in my mouth, a kink in my neck, and an attitude. The room was dark. It got dark early this time of year. I glanced at my clock. The luminous dial read a quarter-to-seven. I got another candy bar and some old, lukewarm coffee for dinner.

Without turning on the light I opened the blinds with my fingers just enough to look out at Wino Park and confirm what I already knew: still raining. At least I wasn’t out there.

Many people with my condition were out there. I had found a niche as a gumshoe. They were diving in dumpsters and sleeping in bushes and hoping somebody wouldn’t beat the shit out of them just for fun. Maybe that was their niche.

I went down to my car and drove home, chuckling grimly, “Wow. What a day I’ve had.”

I got back to my office next day early. I still had no clues, but to my credit I had eaten something more substantial than sugar mixed with a little cocoa and a few nuts.

There were no dames or clues waiting; only a coffee pot and too few candy bars. I made a pot of fresh coffee and thought, “At least I’m at work,” while I watched the rain fall on the street and the park.

To prove I was working I called the two local distributors of Vita Green products. Perhaps, since they lived in the same town, they might know something about their late boss. I left my name and number on their answering machines, and got a cup of coffee.

The rain outside told me there was nothing to come of this case. I had taken the lady’s money for nothing. A string of dead ends would lead us to what we already knew: that a middle-aged guy had died of natural causes before his time.

I had gotten a check for a day’s pay plus expenses. I knew she wouldn’t take the money back, so I would sit there until quitting time, then I would call the lady, tell her I’d found out nothing, and wish her luck getting on with her life. She was rich and beautiful. She had as good a chance for success as anyone.

I got down a couple of business law books. I’m no lawyer, but I try to keep at least a working knowledge of the law, if for no other reason than to be aware of the risks I run when I work outside of it.

About 9:30 my phone rang. “Marv. Bill Farley here.”

“Say, Bill.”

“What was that name again?”

“Aaron Markham Carlisle.”

“Aaron Markham Carlisle. And the date of his death?”

I looked at the death certificate from the folder. “September 19, 1996.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

Something in his tone sounded just unsure enough to make me interested. I sat up alertly to wait out the ten minutes. I didn’t have to. He called back in less than five. “Hey, Marv, there’s something you might want to know. Meet me outside my building in fifteen minutes.”

His building is only two blocks from mine, but knowing he’d want to be paid I grabbed my overcoat and umbrella on the fly and ran out to the elevator. I stopped at Rodney’s Cigar Store, on the corner—a small, crowded place, where the busy man about town could get tobacco, booze, magazines, or snacks. I got two maduro Churchill panatelas for him, and a couple of cheaper but still decent cigars for myself. I also picked up three more candy bars. I tend to go overboard when I’m on a case.

Though I made the appointment with time to spare, Bill Farley was already out there, smoking a small cigar. He’s about five-seven, burley, with a florid face and a blondish goatee to make up for the thinning blond hair on top. He always wears shades, even when the sun doesn’t shine. He was in Hawaiian shirtsleeves and carrying his umbrella. Well, the rain was tropical. In my overcoat, I was sweating from the brisk walk.

There were about ten people hunkered by the side of the ugly six-story glass and steel building, smoking. In California it’s illegal to smoke anywhere you can actually keep a match lit, but they were somehow doing it anyway. About four young girls, giggling, first jobs, having a good time; three or four grandmothers with dyed beehive hairdos, institutionalized and seemingly relieved about it; a tall gangly, morose fellow with short black hair and a bushy mustache; a distinguished gentleman with a pipe. There were more—they came and went. Probably more people smoke than will admit it to pollsters. When a stranger jams a microphone in your face and starts asking questions, the tendency is to tell him what you think he wants to hear.

The game I had going with Farley was that we would pretend to recognize each other, shake hands and exchange greetings, then go off for a quick cup of coffee. We’d go around the block, he’d give me the information, and I’d give him a couple cigars. As soon as we’d gone around the corner he pinched my overcoat. “Weather a little cold?”

“Not really. You going to Hollywood?”

He laughed and touched his shades. “This one’s pretty good. Should be worth a whole box of Cubans.”

“I found an old Rum-Soaked Crook I don’t want. You can have it.”

“Thanks. Here’s the scoop. It’s raining.”

“Let me see if I can find a cigarette butt around here. The wetter the better.”

When we got around the next corner, close to the alley, he said, “Look, this friend of yours, Carlisle.”

“Yeah.”

“Either he flew into outer space and someone made a mistake letting him come back here, or he never existed. We don’t have him.”

“What?”

He nodded.

I handed him the cigars. “Nowhere?”

“Nowhere.”

As we passed the alley I noticed one of the smokers I’d seen standing around, the tall one with the dark hair and mustache, coming out of the alley. He looked suspicious, or embarrassed. I took a few steps then turned to look into the window of a bagel shop. Glancing back, I saw no tall guys. Probably nothing.

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

“Nothing. He’s not there.”

“I have proof that he died.”

“Forgery. We have no official records of his existence, so the law says he ain’t, and he never was.”

I said, “That tall fellow who was standing outside your building. Dark hair. Mustache.”

“Len Boscombe. Weirdo.”

“This from a guy who wears shades indoors. When it’s raining.”

“Freaks out the straights. People leave me alone that way. But this guy is really an eightball.”

“He a computer programmer?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I’m a detective. Did you notice him in the alley as we passed?”

“No. But he wouldn’t be out of place. Seriously, he’s the kind of guy who gets picked up by aliens. He’ll shoot up a McDonald’s someday.”

I said, “Okay. Let’s pretend Aaron Markham Carlisle really was born, and then really died. Could the record be erased?”

“I guess so. But why would anybody want to do that? The records are full of names. Dead, born, still around. Millions of names.”

“That’s what intrigues me.”

“Might be worth a couple more Churchills.”

“Maybe.” We’d gotten to the corner, where he would be going back to his building. “Call me if he shows back up.”

“Sure. One day you’re dead, next day you were never born, next day you’re back being dead again.”

We parted company quickly, to get back to work. I, for one, was eager. I suddenly had a case. As far as Aaron Markham Carlisle was concerned, somebody had slipped up.