Cold Hit

“I don’t remember much about yesterday. Pain’s under control, and they even had me out of bed for an hour this afternoon. One lap around the hallway.”

“There he is!” Mike said, rising from his armchair and walking to stand directly under the television set. “Gimme volume, Mercer.”

Jake was standing on First Avenue, in front of the United Nations building, and he was midsentence when I heard his voice: “… after the secretary of state and the delegate from…”

Mike’s pen was in his right hand, held up against the screen and tapping at Jake’s chest. “Here’s the thing, Mercer. The reason you and I will never get to first base with Ms. Cooper is that we don’t have these ties that all her beaux wear, know what I mean? Every one of ’em has these itsy-bitsy, teenyweeny little friggin’ animals all over ’em. Grown men, and they got little squirrels runnin’ around with nuts in their cheeks, sheep jumping over fences, monkeys swingin’ on vines, giraffes standing on tippy-toe. I would be mortified to be here on national television, talkin’ about sending troops to the Middle East, decked out in some French necktie-what do you call them, Coop? Hermies or Hermans or Ermies-something like that. Anyway, the thing is, Mercer, that it works. ’Cause whatever it is about those ties, every one of the goofballs who shows up wearing one of ’em gets laid.

“Am I right, blondie? Ever do a simple guy with a striped tie? I doubt it. I’m telling you, if Alex Trebek walked in with one of these on, she’d go down on him like a pelican, wouldn’t you, kid? You wanna predict who Cooper’s gonna get up close and personal with, you check out the tie. That, my good friend, is my Dick Tracy crimestopper clue of the day.”

Mercer was holding his hand over his chest. “Don’t make me laugh, Mike. Somebody want to tell me what’s going on with the case?”

“First of all, forget that you ever saw Alex tonight. Pat McKinney’s riding her pretty hard. Doesn’t want her to visit with you, so you don’t talk about the facts of the case together.”

Mercer looked across at me to see if Mike was still kidding. “It’s true. He’s afraid we’re going to conspire and rearrange the events if we talk to each other. I spent three hours last night giving my statement. I’m sure they got one from you today, as soon as you opened your eyes. I don’t know what he’s so worried about.”

“They were here. Two guys from Major Case, first thing this morning. They said they’re taking you back over to the scene later in the week.”

“Yes,” I said, hoping that my involuntary shudder at the thought of revisiting the gallery hadn’t been visible to Mike or Mercer.

“That is one spooky exhibit,” Mike said. “I stopped there this morning on my way to the hospital the first time. Kind of reminds me of that great Orson Welles scene in Lady From Shanghai -the shoot-out in the fun house? Only thing missing was the mirrors. Listen to this.”

Mike pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from his pants pocket. “They’re already moving a new show into Caxton Due. Somebody probably needed all that friggin’ yarn to make a sweater. I’m reading right from the description Bryan Daughtry wrote. It’s in New York magazine . ‘The artist affixes hardened blobs of paint and scraps of paper, hair, and other scavenged materials to her monochromatic canvases.’ I’m looking forward to wrapping this case up so I can go back to working something real, like a pickpocket detail.”

Mercer winced as he tried to push himself up in bed. I moved to his side to adjust the pillows behind his back and beneath his head. I grabbed one of his enormous arms and pulled on it as gently as I could, but was unable to move him. Mike got on the other side, and together we raised Mercer so that his head rested in a more comfortable position.

“Watch out for the tubes,” I said to Mike, lifting the IV drip from where it was caught under a roll of bedsheet.

“Else you’ll get strangulated on all those concoctions, Mr. Wallace. That’s a word for the S section of my dictionary. I got to jot that one down. ‘Fixiated’-that goes with the F ’s, not the A ’s-and ‘strangulated’ are two very popular causes of death among perps.”

“Have mercy, will you please, Mr. Chapman? I’m supposed to be lying here very still. Don’t make me get up and have to hurt you.”

We spent the next half hour telling Mercer what we had learned from Don Cannon and Preston Mattox. “Who do you like in all this?” he asked.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing and nobody is like what you’d think they’d be. Me, I always thought the international art world was for the elegant and elite. Classy, calm, sedate, cultured. I’m tellin’ you, there are more lowlifes in this business than all the Hannibal Lecter wanna-bes in the world.”

“Between the fakes and the frauds, and centuries of thefts and misrepresentations, I can’t imagine now how anyone sets a value that can be trusted on any painting,” I added. It was odd that for so many of the people we had encountered, their passions had become obsessions, and their lives as illusory as their art.

Mike reached for the clicker and raised the volume again. “Okay, the Final Jeopardy topic is Sports. Way to go. I’m in for fifty dollars. Partners, Mercer?” Mike gave him a thumbs-up and got a wink in response. “Get your money up, Coop.”

I opened my pocketbook and reached in to dig around. Even though I had just taken another handbag from the apartment late last night to replace the one that I had lost in the shooting, I had already filled it with more than any reasonable person would cart around. The heavy wallet, laden with a checkbook, credit cards, business cards, and assorted notes, had sunk to the bottom of the deep tote. On Mercer’s tray table I unloaded house keys, car keys, office keys, and Jake’s apartment keys. A lipstick case and blusher came out next. Handkerchief, pens, hairbrush, Post-it pads, and my official badge piled on top.

“How the hell do you ever find anything in there? It’s really one of life’s great mysteries.

“Okay, the answer is: First major league athlete to play all nine positions in the same baseball season. You got sixty seconds, blondie. Mercer and I got this one locked up… What the hell is that?”

As I pulled out my wallet, with it came a small plastic bag that had snagged on its clasp, holding an old- fashioned razor and set of double-edge platinum blades, along with a toothbrush and tube of paste.

“I brought a little supply kit for Mercer. Jake has dozens of those travel cases so he can just pack them and go when he gets sent on assignment. Thought maybe you’d be able to use some of this stuff while you’re here,” I said, holding it up so Mercer could see.

He pointed to his drawer and told me that his dad had brought him everything he needed, so I replaced all my belongings in the bag.

“Enough with the Clara Barton imitation. You either give us a name or just drop the money in my pocket.”

I had no idea that anyone had ever accomplished that feat. I took out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to Mike, at the same time as I said, “Who was Whitey Ford?” As far as I was concerned, if it hadn’t been done by a Yankee, then it hadn’t ever happened.

Trebek was just consoling the three contestants, none of whom had delivered the correct answer. Before he revealed it on the game board, Mike announced, “Oakland. Who is Bert Campaneris?”

The television echoed the same question: “Who is Bert Campaneris?”

“I can’t believe you knew that.”

He’d pocketed the cash before I finished the sentence. “You don’t mind if I don’t spend it on flowers or candy, do you, m’man? I got some informants who need a little monkey grease to make ’em sing to me.”

The phone rang and I picked it up. “Could I speak with Detective Chapman?”

I stepped back and Mike squeezed around the side of the bed and took the receiver. “K.D.? Whaddaya got?” Mike raised his left shoulder to hold the phone in place against his ear while he reached into his pocket for a pen and paper. He listened to Jimmy Halloran for several minutes, occasionally punctuating the conversation with a ‘When?’ or a ‘Who?’ while I held a straw to Mercer’s lips and helped him drink some of the water that the nurse had directed him to finish. “No, it’s not everything,” Mike said before hanging up, “but it’s not a bad start. Thanks.”

Mike began his narrative for us. “Anthony Bailor. Gainesville, Florida. He’s forty-two years old now, but back when he was eighteen, he burglarized an apartment. Raped a college student who was living there. Knifepoint. Also I.D.’d in three other cases in town within six months.”

“And did less than twenty years?” I asked.