CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN - Janitor in a Tomb!
IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INDUSTRIAL AREA, 10:30 PM, A GUY WEARING A BASEBALL CAP AND SUNGLASSES STANDS OUTSIDE AN ABANDONED STOREFRONT AND LIGHTS A CIGARETTE. IN THE ADJACENT BUILDING, A JANITOR STEPS OUTSIDE AND SEES THIS AND DECIDES TO PLAY COP. HE'S ABOUT 5'8, GOT A BUZZ-CUT, GOATEE, COULD LOSE A FEW POUNDS. THE SMOKER IS ALMOST A FOOT TALLER, VERY IMPOSING FIGURE, SO THE JANITOR STANDS ON HIS TOES AND SHOOTS HIM A FEW TOUGH GLARES AND POINTS AT HIM. "Hey, buddy, ya gotta stand away from the door, there's a new ordinance, smokers must stand 15 feet away from the entrance - now MOVE IT!" "What're ya talking about - this is an empty building" "Hey, it's next to MY, buildin', chief, now get goin' - either 15 feet away or in the alley, now LET'S GO!" THE SMOKER SCOFFS, "Got a yellow star for me to wear, too, Heinrich?" "Hey, no smart-mouth, get goin'!"
SO OUR LITTLE ORDINANCE VIOLATOR HEADS FOR THE ALLEYWAY - NOT VERY THRILLED WITH HIS ENCOUNTER WITH POKEY THE JANITOR. A FEW MINUTES LATER, POKEY DECIDES IT'S HIS LUNCHTIME, TOO AND, QUITE PLEASED WITH HIMSELF, WALKS WITH A LITTLE SKIP IN HIS STEP. HE WALKS PAST THE ALLEYWAY, THE SMOKER TOSSES HIS CIGARETTE OUT AND PUTS SOMETHING ELSE IN HIS MOUTH - A BLOW GUN
BAM! OW! HITS HIS TARGET RIGHT IN THE BACK OF THE NECK - HE SCREAMS, PUTS HIS HAND UP TO HIS NECK, IS CRYING IN PAIN TURNS TO LOOK AT HIS ASSAILANT, AND SINKS SLOWLY TO THE GROUND. HIS ASSAILANT LAUGHS "Not such a tough guy now, are ya Sipowicz!", AND TIES HIS HANDS IN THE BACK WITH PLASTICUFFS AND DRAGS HIM AWAY THIS SCENE UNFOLDS TO THE HORROR OF THE JANITOR'S IMMEDIATE SUPERVISOR WHO ENDS UP IN THE OFFICES OF YOU-KNOW-WHO.
MIKE - 3 AM - Me-n-Eddie are, well, enjoyin' each other's company. Eddie's enjoyin' my nipples, and I'm enjoyin' him enjoyin' my nipples. Mutual enjoyment for us all, that's what I'm talkin' about, then, of course, the doorbell rings.
"Aw, crap!"
"Nah, just ignore it, boss, it's probably Avon callin'".
"Avon? At this time-a night?"
"Hey, it's never a bad time to be beautiful."
Lookin' at 'im, smilin' down at 'im, "ya mean like you, Eddie?"
"I mean more like YOU, Boss-Man. Look out below"
Eddie goes down on me and I'm moanin' "ah, yeah, that's it OW! Ya hit it, oh, it's throbbin'! AH YEAH! YEAH!"
More doorbell ringin' - my YEAH's turn into NO's awfully fast. Eddie pipes up, "well, it ain't gonna go away til we deal with it, I guess. Maybe it's somethin' urgent."
We get dressed and on the way downstairs, Eddie's behind me and swats my ass and fondles it, "I'm not just pussy-footin' around this time, Boss-Man!" I open the door and there's an old guy standin' there.
"Hey, there, what can we do for ya?"
The old man looks kinda nervous and pretty uptight. "You're detectives? I heard about you. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time."
"There's never a bad time to come to the aid of someone in distress, an ya look like ya had your fair share of that, my friend."
We walk over to the sofa in our livin' room / office. I motion for 'im to make 'imself comfy.
"I'd like to report a crime, an assault and kidnapping of one of my employees."
"Gosh, what the heck happened?"
"Well, there was someone standing in the entrance of a building next to ours. I'm in charge of the maintenance department for the building management, in other words, I'm a janitor boss."
"Uh, okay"
"One of my men saw someone who didn't belong in the area smoking in the entry way next to ours and he corrected him for his infraction. There's an anti-smoking ordinance out these days."
MIKE - Sheesh, tell me somethin' I don't know, will ya ! "Yeah, I kinda heard about it, ya pick up on these things in our business."
"Oh, sorry, I..."
"It's okay, pal, we may be Private Eyes, but we work in conjunction with the Blue Boys."
"The...Blue...?"
Eddie kinda smirked, "The cops. So, anyway, what happened to your guy?"
The old man appears shaken and rattles on, "It was so terrible, so ugly. My employee, McInerney, just goes outside and confronts this person smoking next door. I tried to tell him it's not such a huge thing. It was late at night, the general public is nowhere to be found, no one is going to be affected by one cigarette at 10:30. So, anyway, he goes outside and the next thing I hear is a scream. His. He was shot with a dart in the neck and he was in such pain while this awful person picked him up and carried him off. I saw the whole thing from my office window."
I felt a little suspicious. I noticed he was on the verge of bawlin', his hands were shakin'. I offered him a drink and he accepted and me-n-Eddie both went to fix it. Yeah, I know, it don't take two to make a lousy rum-n-Coke, but we needed to talk about this guy. There's was somethin' a bit odd about this. Me-n-Eddie whisper to each other.
"Holy drama queens."
"Why d'ya say that?"
"Dontcha think he might be over-reactin' a bit?"
"Well, his employee was hurt and kidnapped."
"I know, and I feel bad about that, but... I dunno, there's somethin' not right here."
"Well, lemme play devil's advocate here. The old man's guy's life's in danger, if he ain't already dead. He's obviously upset. I'm not sayin' we buy the whole thing, but at least check it out. After all, he is hirin' us."
We walk back to the old man and give 'im his drink. Me-n-Eddie stare with our mouths open while he gulps it all in one swig, like his first glass of water after a year in the desert. We look at each other and back at him - again, somethin' kinda odd.
Eddie asks, "is there anything about this assailant you remember, like what he was wearin' - that kinda thing?"
"Well he was dressed in a baseball cap, a dark blue jacket over a tee shirt, and a pair of jeans...oh, and sneakers, too."
"If this guy gets caught soon, ya think ya'd spot 'im in a line-up?"
"Oh, most assuredly. Now, what are your fees, exactly."
"$200 a day plus expenses, we ask for a grand retainer, we refund the diff'rence."
"Very well, then" He takes out a checkbook and writes us a check for the grand. "
"Do I make it out to Batz and Robinson, is that it?"
"You got it."
"Thank you so much, you have no idea what a relief this is to me."
Eddie keeps lookin' at him suspiciously, but grunts out a "Sure, no problem, 'preciate the business. We'll be in touch when we get somethin'"
He says good night to us both and leaves. Eddie paces back and forth, fist in hand the entire time. I'm kinda dumbstruck myself. Sure, we both think this guy's off his rocker, but we can't agree why.
"Why did he say it was a relief?"
"Maybe 'cuz he knew we'd get the guy - maybe no one else'll get hurt with us on the case"
"He coulda gone to the cops." Eddie paused for a second and said somethin' like, "not very bright".
"Eddie, come on, he may be a bit weird, but it's not to say..."
"No, no no - I didn't mean him - I mean the area. That area's not very bright during the day, much less at night."
"SO, how could he have seen everything so clearly?"
"How'd he know that was a dart in that guy's neck?"
"How'd he know the assailant was wearin' a tee-shirt?"
"DO we investigate this guy, too?"
"Thought ya'd never ask! Let's MOVE!"
We moved all right, down to the scene of the crime. Seein' as this guy came to us so late at night, he musta been off the clock, so we thought we'd go down, maybe someone on the next shift would let us in and we can look around some. Problem was, there was no next shift. The buildin' was all locked up. I was kinda resigned about this snag, but it's only the bottom of the 1st, one strike, we got a whole 8 and a half innin's to go. I look around a bit and outta the corner of my eye, I notice some security cameras. Eddie slammed his fist into his hand, "holy fly in the ointment". Still lookin' up at the cameras, I said, "you mean holy fly on the wall - they got spy-cams around here - plus we got this guy's card with the management company. We'll pay 'em a call tomorrow, see about these two guys, the janitor and the boss, I mean."
The management company was at a different location and we show up at the office the next mornin'. We had to see the almighty Receptionist first. She was on the phone, then looked up and saw us. "One moment, I'll be..." Then her eyes popped out when she caught a gander of Eddie. She stammered for a sec with the person on the other line, "oh, uh, I'll call ya back, uh, someone just came." Yeah, I think it was her.
We both show her our badges and clip 'em back onto our belts. She followed Eddie's ev'ry move, from closin' the badge case to his reachin' back to clip his badge back on and puttin' his hands behind his back, like the "at ease" stance soldiers assume in the army. "Good mornin', I'm Detective Batz, this is Detective Robinson"
"Hel-LO!" she says, "Uh, I mean, hello. What can I do for you?"
"We'd like to talk to someone about a couple of employees at one of your sites"
She sure had hers on Eddie - her sites, Uh, I mean her sights! Damn, always mixin' up my homonyms. "oh, uh, sure. Let me call my boss, let him know you're here." She gets on the phone and calls ahead, she's told to send us in. "His office is down this way to the left, second door."
Eddie salutes her with two fingers and goes on ahead, I'm a couple-a paces behind, "sorry about that".
"Whaddya mean?"
"The way I just melted around your partner like that. I think I made a fool of myself."
I wink at her and grin, "not a big deal, toots...happens all the time".
"Is he, uh, spoken for?"
"Fraid so."
"Damn"
As we're walkin' I says to Eddie, I says, "all right, boy, out with it - ya did all that posin' just to tease that dame, didn't ya!"
"I sure did - chicks are always doin' that to guys - I figured it was our turn."
"Sure was - hey, that little salute at the end was a nice touch".
"Thanks".
We're in the boss's office and askin' about the two guys he has on-site. "Well, what can I help you with?"
MIKE - Nice lookin' guy he was - 6'5, broad-shouldered, almost like a linebacker, his boyish face adorned with a goatee.
"One of your employees, a night-time Janitor, was assaulted and kidnapped while on the job"
The boss was almost as pale as his shirt, "Good God! Uh, who was it?"
"A guy named McInerney."
"Somebody took Skip?!?"
"Skip?"
"Yeah, that's what everyone calls him, he always walks with a little skip in his step. His real name is Ernest."
Eddie gets this look on his face, "Ernie McInerney"
"I think that's why he likes to be called Skip."
"Oh, no, no, it wasn't his idea, but, oh, he has such a cute little walk, I uh,..." He looks away for a second and has a grin on his face, which is instantly wiped away when he remembered what was goin' on here. "Uh, a FUNNY little walk, ya know", he chuckled, desparate for us to forget what we just saw. Me-n-Eddie pretend we didn't notice a thing.
EDDIE - I carry on, askin', "Can ya think of any reason anyone would try to hurt him? Does he have co-workers that maybe don't like him much?"
"Well, he can be a bit...brash", he allowed, breakin' into yet another sheepish grin.
["Holy Max Factor - he's blushin'", I think to myself.]
"He just dedicates himself to his job, he's a really good worker, one of our best, in fact. Frustrated cop, you know how that goes."
[All too well]
"Frustrated cop?"
"Yes, well, as we reviewed his application, we found out he attended the police academy for a short while, but had to drop out."
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"He had problems at home, his mother was deathly ill and needed care, and, to be blunt, there wasn't enough money for the hospital bills as well as his tuition, so..."
"Geez, poor kid"
"By the time his mother passed on, he had been too old to join the force, so he took whatever would keep a roof over his head. We didn't have any openings in Security, so he took Building Maintenance instead. Sad, isn't it, when you never quite end up where you belong".
"Tell us about his supervisor, Victor Reyes"
"Victor?"
"Yeah, he's the one who hired us to catch who assaulted McInerney."
"That's odd. I wonder why he just didn't go to the police. Uh, no offense, mind you, but, cops usually handle these things, with their on-staff Detectives, I wonder why he'd hire Private Investigators. He makes a good living, but I don't see him with the werewithalls for such an expense."
MIKE - A light bulb came on over Eddie's head. Pardon the expression, but, ya know, buildin' maintenance, light-bulbs, ah, forget it.....
"Mike - the check he gave ya - do ya have it on you?"
"Uh, lemme look." I looked through my pants pockets and spotted it. I just happen to shove it in there when I got it. "Oh, yeah, here it is. Some gumshoe I am, I didn't look at it twice."
We both look at the check and see that it was written on the maintenance company's expense account. Victor's boss wasn't too thrilled with that.
"Where did he get this? He has no checkwriting authority."
"No good, huh?"
"Listen, I'll let this one slide. I apologize for his issuing payment without permission, but this is taking up your valuable time and I don't wish to see you short-changed in this."
"Well, that's very generous of you, sir."
"Don't mention it. Maybe - maybe you'd like to transfer your services to me. Not only find out who did this horrible thing to one of my boys, but see what Victor's up to as well."
EDDIE - Our suspicions confirmed. Even the boss thinks somethin's up. I go on,
"Can ya tell us anything about Victor - anything at all would help"
"Well, I haven't been very pleased with his performance as of late. We had a few words. As it is when you reprimand an employee for their mistakes, it's only fair to acknowledge their good moves, too, and I have very often acknowledged Skip's work. He's a very valuable asset. I've even told him so. Victor once reported to me that Skip was a little rude to him, saying he had his own ideas about how to carry out a certain task, he wanted me to write him up, Skip, I mean. He even ridiculed him for his physique, saying that it would give off a bad image to the tenants in the building that a fat man is mopping floors like he deserved to be doing, and all, and I told him that if he was a fraction of the employee Skip is, he'd actually deserve the position he holds, and to stop being so damn petty, and he'd better watch his step because Skip could have his job before Victor would know what hit him".
A pall fell over the room. All of us were stopped dead like we all got darts in the neck. We all got the idea that Victor was the one who had this thing planned.
"Is he on duty for tonight?"
"No, he usually has this evening off. What did you have in mind?"
"We'd like to take a peek around his work area. He gave a really vivid description of everything that happened."
"And it was so late at night, we wanna see for ourselves if you could see anything like that."
So the plan was put into action. About the video from those spy-cams on the buildings surrounding the area, we asked for and got permission to see the tapes from the night in question. Sure enough, we saw the video of the shootin' and kidnappin'. But the images were kinda muddy, seein' it was late at night and all. We knew Reyes was makin' up the whole thing, but why? I took my post in his office upstairs and me-n-Eddie stayed in contact with cell-phones. Eddie was a stand-in for Skip, grabbin' his neck and fallin' over, then he stood in for the assailant. I really had to strain to see him do anything down there. I told Eddie to scream like he'd been hit and I had the window open and closed, but even when it was open, I couldn't hear that well. Hoo-boy this crumb had us goin'. I called Eddie again, "hey, that's got it, meet me back up here", and we met up in Victor's office. We bandied about ideas for a while, then took off. I locked up and we were headin' for the elevator "Couldn't hear so good, and I could see next to nothin'. I know this crumb set the whole thing up".
"So we nail this guy."
"That's right"
Then suddenly we hear another voice call out, "That's wrong". We look around, hear two zippin' noises, then BAM, we go down. Eddie tried to pull the dart outta his neck, but I warned him that he might worsen the wound, that he might bleed to death.
"Oh, you're both gonna die, we just don't know how."
"We? Who the hell is we?"
Just then we saw the figure our former client described. Baseball cap, eyes hidden, the shooter. We were bound with plasticuffs and dragged away. To an abandoned warehouse, no less - from the looks of it. It was so dimly lit, we couldn't even see the tips of our own noses, much less anything else. We heard some moanin'. We still couldn't move much 'cuz of the drugged darts, and we still had these damn cuffs at our backs, not to mention our ankles, too. I look around and see a janitor all tied up off to the side. SKIP! "Who the hell are you guys?" "We're the guys your boss hired to go find ya." "I see he found you instead. What the hell's gonna happen to us?"
Our captor comes in, "hey, fat boy, looks like ya got a couple-a new friends, but don't get too chummy. You're locked in here for a reason, to get crushed like ants when a demolition crew implodes this structure tomorrow morning."
"Holy condemnation!"
MIKE - As if in stereo, I had Eddie to one side, and Skip to the other. They both made the same exclamation at the same time, and they both looked at each other, amazed.
But we had fatter fish to fry for now. How the hell're we gonna get outta this!
HOLY TIME BOMB - THE TRIO TRAPPED IN A TOMB TO TUMBLE TOMORROW!
HOLY SEPARATED AT BIRTH! - HOLY KISMET! - TWO COP NEVER-WILL-BE'S - EDDIE AND SKIP - SHOUT THE SAME PHRASE AT THE SAME TIME.
HOW WILL OUR HORRIFIED HOSTAGES HIGH-TAIL IT THE HECK OUTTA THERE IN TIME?
THE ANSWERS TO THESE AND OTHER QUESTIONS THAT HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN ASKED YET WILL COME IN OUR NEXT CHAPTER!