view this time. Looking inside, I saw someone had sanitized the accounting office as thoroughly as they had the house. It was empty from wall to wall, without a broken chair, a cardboard box, or a scrap of paper to be seen anywhere. If I asked around, I'd bet the same Allied van had hit them both.
I kept walking down the street, then turned and followed the cracked sidewalk around the corner. The side street looked even worse than Sickles. Weeds were sprouting through the uneven concrete. Old McDonalds bags, empty beer cans, and glass from broken wine bottles littered the small strip of bare dirt that passed for landscaping between the sidewalk and the curb. I walked to the end of the building and took a quick look around the corner before I turned and set off down the alley. It was cratered with deep ruts and potholes. Someone had tried to fill them with loose rock and pieces of asphalt, but that didn't accomplish very much. Off to my right I could see the rear yards of the two-story houses that fronted on the next street over. Most were cheap three and four flat apartment buildings with brick walls or tall wooden fences along the alley, as one would expect. Looking down the line, most of them looked badly run down, but every third or fourth building was being renovated. Signs of life? Too little and way too late for Pete.
On the left side of the alley, the rear walls of the stores that fronted on Sickles were another matter. This wasn't the high rent district. The few windows that remained and hadn't been bricked up were set high in the wall, opaque with years of crusted dirt, and covered with one-inch steel bars. The rear doors had been replaced with thick steel plates recessed deep into the doorways. Their hinges and locks were on the inside, where they would be difficult for a burglar to get at. Dumpsters lay at various odd angles up against the rear walls or jammed into the occasional alcoves. I looked over the top of several and saw most were half-filled with trash. When I got to the dumpster for 1811, I peered over the top and saw it was empty. Not just empty, this one was empty as if someone had got in and cleaned it out on their hands and knees. There wasn't a scrap of paper, a banana peel, not even a broken beer bottle to be found. Somehow, after everything I'd seen that day, it came as no surprise. The lawyers in the dark suits, the deputy sheriffs in their big brown cruisers, and even the men in the long, black hearses were nothing if not thorough. For a job like that, I wondered if the Junior Associates at Hamilton, Keogh and Hollister drew straws, or did they hire the work out.
There was nothing more to be gained in the alley, so I continued on to the far end and came back around to Sickles again. As I turned the corner, I saw a car stopped in the street next to my Bronco. It was that big, white, Lincoln Town Car, the one from the funeral home. Its engine was running and the driver's side door was hanging open. Between the Bronco and the Lincoln stood the big guy in the beige suit, blue shirt, and ponytail. I couldn't see his face, but there couldn't be two guys who looked like him in the State of Ohio, much less Columbus. As I watched, he cupped his hand and blocked the last rays of the setting sun as they reflected off the windshield as he looked inside the Bronco.
“Hey,” I shouted and ran toward him. “Wait a minute!” As I got closer, he shook his head and looked back at me, frowning, as if I were some minor irritant he'd found on his shoe. When I got within twenty feet, he slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled out that big chrome .45 automatic again. He didn't bother pointing it at me. That wasn't necessary. He simply let it hang down his pants leg with a casualness and skill that told me I had just made a very bad mistake. First, because he looked like he knew precisely what he was doing. Second, in that neighborhood no one would know or care if he did.
“That's close enough, Ace,” he warned.
“Who are you?” I demanded to know, bluffing, but figuring if he hadn't shot me yet I could at least ask.
“No. We're gonna try it the other way. Who the fuck are you?”
“You know who I am, I'm Peter Talbott, from Boston.”
“Is that so? Then who was the guy they buried?”
“I don't have the slightest idea,” I offered meekly.
His grip tighten on the pistol. For an instant, I thought he might raise it and shoot me, but he didn't. He just stared at me, angry and frustrated. “That bastard Tinkerton!”
“Tinkerton? You're the one who brought me here,” I bristled. “I was minding my own business back in Boston until you squeezed your super-sized Soprano's suit into my front seat and got me all worked up over those obituaries last night. You wanted me to come here. You were baiting me, and you still are.”
“Let's say I wasn't getting anywhere on my own and I thought having another one of you Talbotts show up in Columbus might make things interesting.”
Standing up close like this, I could see he was even bigger and more muscular than he first looked. I was sure he only carried the automatic to scare off idiots like me and to keep them from getting themselves really hurt, because he could have snapped me in two with his bare hands if he wanted to.
He was looking me over, sizing me up too, until he began to laugh. “This is rich,” he said with a loud roar. “This is fucking rich. Tinkerton brings in his Talbott and we bring in one of our own.”
“Why? So you could get a big laugh out of it? Well, I'm not laughing.”
“Neither was Greene or Dannmeyer.”
“You've been following me, haven't you?”
“Yeah, and I bet they crapped their freakin’ pants when you showed up. I'd have love to see Tinkerton's face, because mistakes like you ain't supposed to happen.”
“What mistake? What are you talking about?”
“You and your wife – one of you dead and the other one still alive.”
“What's going on here? Are you going to tell me, or not?”
“No. And believe me, you don't want to know,” he said as he slipped the automatic inside his jacket. “Besides, I'm not sure I could. It's all smoke and mirrors like a goddamned shell game.” He relaxed and leaned back against the side of the Lincoln. I would have suggested he be careful and not tip it over, but he still had his hand on that big cannon inside his coat.
“Look, Ace,” he finally said. “I usually don't give free advice and I never give it twice, so you listen up, and listen good. Go back to Boston. I know I kinda lured you here with those two obituaries, but when you showed up they didn't panic or do nuthin’. In fact, they haven't done a damned thing, but blow you off, so that's it. Finito! Go back to Boston, because you're messing in some very serious shit here. Keep poking around and you're gonna end up in a box next to that other Peter Talbott up in Oak Hill. Us or them, you're gonna get your ticket punched.”
He turned and opened the driver's side door of the Lincoln.
“Wait a minute,” I called out to him. “Who's we?”
“You don't want to know,” he sighed.
“Then who are you?” I dared to ask.
He paused and thought it over before he answered. “My name's Parini, Gino Parini. Some people say I kill people for a living. I'm sure that's a major exaggeration, but you don't
“You're right, but I needed something more formal for my funeral.”
“Still the smart ass, huh? Well, you keep doin’ what you've been doin’ and it still could be.” Then he got in the Lincoln, slammed the door, and drove away.
Me? I stood there, glad I hadn't wet my pants.
CHAPTER FIVE
Marion, madam librarian…
In the morning, after a hot shower, I saw one of those homey, red-sided Bob Evans restaurants at the interstate interchange. Back home in Los Angeles, Terri would have insisted on our usual morning fare of yogurt, granola, bean curd, and green tea. I'd be hungry again an hour later, but it would have been a healthy hungry. Bob's menu had yogurt, granola, and some whole wheat, but I guess Ohio had never heard of bean curd or green tea, because there was none to be found. My baser instincts took over and I forced myself to down four cups of high-test coffee and a really big plate of country biscuits and gravy. Nope, you just can't beat that fine mid-western cuisine. The cholesterol took at least three months off my life, but that Ohio stuff would stick around all day; probably well into the next one, too.
Over my last cup of coffee, I realized I had a ton of questions, but not very many answers. What about those
