Читать книгу The Comic Book Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

Lindsey asked Ms. Wilbur to hold the fort while he took a run into Berkeley. He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door. He got his Hyundai out of its basement parking spot and fought his way into the traffic.

For a minute Lindsey thought about telephoning Harden at Regional, but he decided against it. He’d rather take the initiative. He liked to be known as a can-do guy in International Surety. He’d bring Harden on board when he had some solid information to present. Something the company could dig its teeth into.

Lindsey considered the case before him. For all that he’d never met Terry Patterson, he could tell from their telephone conversation that Patterson was some kind of a wimp. That was no surprise—a grown man who made his living selling comic books to children. And he’d waffled about the burglary. Was it a break-in, or wasn’t it? Had there even been a burglary at all? Maybe it was a case of employee pilfering. Maybe Patterson had stolen those comic books himself. Maybe he was making the whole thing up, there had never been any comic books, and he was attempting to defraud International Surety of a quarter-million dollars.

Possible fraud, Lindsey jotted in his pocket organizer as he waited at a traffic light on Monument Boulevard. At least—contributory negligence. Already he was coming up with some good ideas about how to save the company money. That’s how a man makes himself valuable to an organization!

Maybe he’d send a memo to Harden about it, and copy Legal. Or...maybe better to send the memo to Legal and copy Harden! Lindsey knew Harden, and he did not trust the man. He knew Harden wasn’t above taking his ideas to Legal and presenting them as his own. Harden would get the glory, then toss a couple of crumbs to Lindsey after the fact.

But first things first. Get the facts on the case.

Lindsey got on the freeway and headed for Berkeley. He ran his hand over the leatherette seat covering, savoring the newness of the Hyundai. It had more performance than his old Mercury Capri had ever shown. Much more. He was a little concerned that the Hyundai was foreign made, but at least it was from Korea, not from Japan or Germany. The Koreans had been on our side—the South Koreans had, anyway—and that eased Lindsey’s conscience.

He parked in a municipal garage and walked to Comic Cavalcade on Telegraph Avenue. UC was back from semester break and foot traffic was heavy. A vagrant snap of wind stirred a flutter of newspapers and fast-food containers along the pavement.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of Comic Cavalcade and reconnoitered. You can learn a lot if you just observe before you enter a situation. Comic Cavalcade was a standard storefront. The glass display window was filled with Spider-Man and Batman and Fantastic Four comic books, and Japanese robots and toys and greeting cards and Zippy the Pinhead tee shirts.

The kind of thing that Lindsey had loved, once upon a time. But he was a man on the shady side of thirty now, and such things were no longer part of his life. He wished they’d never been! He’d grown up surrounded by comic books and toys, and only gradually had he come to realize what those things had meant to Mother. How they had shaped her life, made her the sad creature she was now. And, at least indirectly, taken so much from him.

He tried the door but it was locked. A Closed sign hung at eye level.

He picked his way over the trash that littered the sidewalk and checked the neighboring establishments.

On one side of the comic store was a clothing shop. Through the window he saw a high-school-age girl with purple hair and studiedly tattered jacket standing behind the counter, flirting with a young man in a well-stained tee-shirt. Lindsey thought he might want to check with the girl, find out if she was on duty when the burglary—alleged burglary—took place.

On the other side of the comic store was a pizza parlor. A black man in full chef’s regalia spun a circular sheet of pizza dough, threw it into the air and caught it when it spun back down.

Lindsey took his pocket organizer out of his briefcase and jotted a note. Pizza parlor...clothing store...access to C.C. stock?

He returned to Comic Cavalcade and tapped on the door with his pen. The sound was sharp and authoritative—much better than rapping with his knuckles would have been. He pressed his nose to the glass and peered inside. A young man in a disreputable-looking shirt slouched behind the counter. He was tall and skinny and wore dark-­rimmed eyeglasses. He tapped his fingers nervously on the glass counter. A police officer stood opposite him. A rack of comic books blocked Lindsey’s line of sight, so he could see only part of the officer’s back.

The young man started to wave Lindsey away, then realized who he was, came to the door and let him in. He locked the door again.

“M-Mr. Lindsey?”

“You Terry Patterson?” Bart asked.

The young man gulped and nodded. He blinked his eyes uncontrollably.

Lindsey handed him his card. He gaped at it as if he’d never seen a business card before, and continued to stare at it for what seemed an eternity before he slipped it into his jeans pocket.

He said, “Off-Officer Plum, uh, M-Mr. Lindsey is here, uh, from the insurance, uh, company.”

Officer Plum turned around, picked up a clipboard holding incident report forms, and halved the distance between them.

Lindsey realized simultaneously that Officer Plum was female and that she was black. Lindsey bit his lip. Berkeley.

The first thing they did was exchange cards. At least they did that right in Berkeley. Marvia Plum, Berkeley Police Department, was all that was printed on hers; in red ink she had added a telephone number.

“I was just leaving,” Officer Plum said. She was short and very dark. Her hair was cropped close to her scalp. The way she filled her form-fitting police uniform was impressive. Lindsey was momentarily distracted. He wondered if the department dressed female officers like that to distract criminals.

Lindsey swallowed. “Leaving?”

“That’s right.” She picked up her uniform cap and yanked it down over her wiry hair.

“But we haven’t had a chance to—”

“My work is done.” She started moving toward the back of the store and the likely rear exit, talking over her shoulder all the while. “We can’t hang around all day. I don’t know where you’ve been since Terrence called you, but we’ve checked the crime scene for evidence, Terrence has filled out the forms...I’ve got a lot of other work to do.”

“Well—well, wait just a little minute.” He strode purposefully after her, taking in his surroundings.

The main room of the store seemed fairly standard. The merchandise, cheap, glossy-covered comic books and other cheap paraphernalia, stood on display in revolving wire racks, on tables, in glass cases, and mounted in clear plastic covers on the walls.

Lindsey followed Officer Plum into a back room that held more wall displays and more glass cases. Unlike the cases in the front room with their simple sliding doors, these were conspicuously locked. Lindsey couldn’t resist inspecting the contents of a couple of them. He recognized some of the comic books—issues that he’d seen at home as a child.

Lindsey tried to keep a straight face but he couldn’t help blinking when he saw among them the crudely rendered cover illustration of Gangsters at War. A square-jawed, unshaven ruffian in a ragged set of army fatigues waved a submachine gun in one hand and a sizzling grenade in the other. His lips were drawn back in a snarl. Underneath his army fatigue jacket, through gaping holes, part of a prison-striped uniform shirt could be seen.

Lindsey peered down through the glass lid, then squatted in front of the case to get a closer look. He scanned the glossy cover, searching for the artist’s identifying mark. There it was: a circle that outlined a tiny stylized face, a heavily arched brow, a pair of mirror-image slashes that defined both the nose and eyes.

The sketch, Mother had explained long ago, was really a signature. The brow line and slashes were the initials J. L., the eye dots periods. The drawing had been done by Joseph Lindsey. Lindsey’s long-dead father.

He shook his head to clear it. He couldn’t take the time to think about Father, couldn’t mix his personal life with his professional performance. Besides, what difference could it make, when he’d never even met the man? Fatherhood, this fatherhood anyway, was nothing more than a biological function. He found his way to the back door of the shop. The hasp that normally secured the door had been pried away from the doorframe and now hung loose. Other than that, there was no evidence of forceful entry, and no disarray or physical damage within the store.

At a sound from the narrow hallway Lindsey turned. Officer Plum hadn’t left after all. She was standing with her clipboard in her hand. For the first time, Lindsey noticed that she was equipped with a full array of police paraphernalia. The wooden butt of a heavy revolver protruded from a small holster she wore on one hip. A pair of nickel-plated handcuffs hung from the other hip. A tiny two-way radio was clipped to one shoulder of her blouse.

Terry Patterson stood behind her, forehead creased with worry above his dark-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses.

“Mr. Lindsey, what’s your opinion?” Officer Plum asked.

“I guess this is where they backed the truck up. Parking lot in the back? Loading dock?”

Officer Plum said, “What truck?”

“The truck—I don’t think they could have fit it into a station wagon, do you?”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Lindsey?”

“Look here,” Lindsey said. He was getting tired of the woman’s inefficiency. Or her indifference. Whatever it was. He could understand the police not caring very much about a minor burglary, but there was a major claim now—or would be once Terry Patterson had filed the necessary papers.

The officer waited for an answer.

“Mr. Patterson says they got away with $250,000 worth of merchandise. A quarter million! How many pounds, how many cubic feet of paper does that represent?” Lindsey peered over the police officer’s head at the store owner.

Patterson was as tall and scrawny and pale as Plum was short and fleshy and black. He blinked owlishly. “Th-there wasn’t any truck here, Mr. Lindsey. I-I don’t think there was, anyhow.”

“Then how did they get away with the loot?”

“Uh, I sup-suppose they could have carried it in a corrugated carton. Or a backpack. Or—or—” He pointed at the insurance adjuster. At Hobart Lindsey! “Or, uh, somebody could have carried the comics away in a briefcase like y-yours, Mr. Lindsey.”

There was a rapping on the glass of the front door of the shop. Patterson revolved his head as if it were on a swivel. He craned his neck toward the sound, then turned back to face Plum and Hobart. “Uh, Marvia, uh, Mr. Lindsey. It’s Jan—Janice—and Linc. M-My staff. Can I let them in? Can I open the store now?” He held up his wrist, showing a digital watch. “It-It’s time to open.”

“Okay with me, Terrence.”

Marvia, Terrence, Jan, Linc. Oh, chummy, chummy. Patterson took the distance back to the front door with huge, birdlike strides. Jan and Linc, Lindsey could see, were standing with their arms around each other’s waists. Jan was Asiatic and Linc was some kind of nondescript racial mixture.

Officer Plum said, “I don’t think you understand what happened here. This wasn’t a massive theft of stock. Whoever knocked this place over knew exactly what they were doing. Terrence tells me that approximately thirty-five items were taken.”

“He just gave me a dollar value on the phone. He said a quarter million. I figured it would take a stadium full of comic books to make that much. Tons of the things. What are comic books worth? You’d have to haul them away in a truck.”

“No way.” She shook her head. “Just thirty-five of them. You don’t know anything about comic books, I take it.”

If only she knew! “Not the modern ones,” Lindsey said. “When I was a kid I read a few. Archie, Richie Rich, Disney stuff. And my father—”

He was going to leave it there, but she said, “Your father—what?”

“He was a cartoonist. He drew for the comics.”

“Anything in the store?”

Lindsey moved his head to indicate the display case containing Gangsters at War. “He wasn’t very good, I’m afraid. He was just getting established. He died before I was born.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“I never knew him, so I never missed him.”

She pursed her lips.

Lindsey hoped she wasn’t going to ask him more about it. He didn’t like telling the story. People always offered their sympathy when they heard it.

Officer Plum said, “But family is so important.”

Lindsey said nothing.

After an awkward pause, Officer Plum asked, “About these stolen comic books....”

Lindsey said, “Yes?”

“A lot of people collect them. Sometimes they even form syndicates and buy into them, as investments.”

She knew a lot about comic books for somebody who had just come to investigate a burglary. Lindsey said so.

If she hadn’t been so black, Lindsey thought, she would have blushed. Instead she blew out a breath through her nostrils. “I collect them myself. Just a few.”

Berkeley’s finest.

“Thirty-five items, worth $250,000. That makes just over—”

He took his pocket organizer out of his briefcase and flipped it open to the calculator.

“Don’t bother,” said Officer Plum. “It comes to a little over seven thousand apiece. But I have a detailed inventory here.” She tapped her fingernail against her clipboard. “I’m sure Terrence will provide you with an inventory on his claim, but if you’d rather, I can get you a photocopy of the report. You’ll probably want one anyway, to verify the insurance claim.”

Lindsey hesitated.

“Well, I have to go.” She turned around, walked to the front of the shop, spoke briefly with Terry Patterson, then left.

Patterson came back to where Lindsey was standing. “Y-You brought me the insurance forms, Mr. Lindsey? I really need to take care of this. Those weren’t my comics. I mean, some of them were and some of them weren’t. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I—”

Lindsey put up his hand. He couldn’t stand babbling, and it looked like Patterson was going to babble away indefinitely, “I have the forms here, don’t worry. But you know, we can’t just make out a check for this kind of money until there’s been an investigation. We have to make sure that the claim is legitimate. And if there’s any chance of recovering the loot, we have to work on that angle.”

Patterson put his hand to his forehead. He made a low, moaning sound.

“Besides,” Lindsey said, “there are a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, your two, ah, helpers.” Linc and Jan were in the front room. They had opened the street door as if no crime had been committed. They might have seen Officer Plum leaving, heard the end of Lindsey’s conversation with their boss. They must be boiling with curiosity.

Linc was arranging stock on the wire racks and tables. Jan was standing behind the cash register.

Already several customers had gathered inside the store. A handful of what looked like elementary-school children clustered at the wire racks, and an older man with greasy-looking gray hair and a bald spot stood near the wall. The elderly man gazed up at a thirty­-year-old copy of Reform School Girls that hung in a transparent bag. Instead of the customary colorful drawing, the cover featured a photograph of a busty female model. A cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth, smoke drifting lazily upward. She had her skirt hiked up and was adjusting the top of one sheer stocking. The top of her dress was pulled low over her shoulders and her bosom was exposed lewdly.

“Look at those two,” Lindsey said. “How do you know they didn’t steal the comics? What time did the burglary take place, anyway?”

Terry Patterson shrugged, looking more like an updated Ichabod Crane than ever.

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head.

Lindsey waited for an answer. It was a good device. Just wait. People are conditioned to keep a conversation going. If the silence gets too long, they talk. Sometimes it takes a little encouragement—like an expectant look or an inquisitorial grunt.

As usual, it worked.

“I, uh, Linc closed last night. He phoned me at home. That’s our regular procedure. This is just a small business, you see. I have to keep close watch on it.”

Lindsey raised his eyebrows.

“I mean, ah, it isn’t that I don’t trust Linc.”

Lindsey nodded encouragingly.

“Or—or Jan.”

“Mm.”

“It’s just that, uh, it’s a small business, and I’ve put everything I have into it, and everything I could borrow. It’s expensive to run a store, you know.”

Patterson waited for a reply, but Lindsey outwaited him.

“So, uh, I have to keep close tabs,” Patterson said. He was blushing slightly. “And so Linc phoned me with the day’s totals, and to tell me that he’d secured the store, deposited the receipts at the bank, and he was at home.”

“Where?”

“Uh—just a couple of blocks from here. Uh—”

“Never mind. I’ll want a complete list of employees and their home addresses later on.”

“Anyway, when I arrived to open this morning, you see, I came in early, around seven o’clock, to check the stock because I was going to make the run to Hayward, to the distributors today. So I came in early, and I saw the broken lock on the back door, but I didn’t see anything missing, anything obviously missing that is, so I checked the special collectibles and that’s when I saw what was missing.”

“And you found it right away, and you know exactly how much the missing items are worth.”

“No, uh, only approximately.”

“Listen here, Mr. Patterson. I think I can get you off clean. I think the police will drop the matter if International Surety asks them to. Just bring the stock back. You haven’t formally filed your insurance claim yet. Just drop the matter and you’ll walk. Otherwise....” Lindsey let his voice trail off.

“W-What do you mean? W-What do you mean?” he stammered.

“I’ll be very direct with you, Patterson. I don’t think there was any burglary here. I think it was an inside job.”

“In-Inside job?” He leaned against a glass display case. “You mean Linc? Linc or—or J-Jan?”

“Cut the corn, sonny,” Lindsey told him with a sneer. “I mean you.”

Terry Patterson carefully removed his glasses, laid them on the display case, and slid to the floor in a dead faint.