Cat on a Cold Tin Roof Read online

  “He was a straight shooter,” said Sorrentino, “and a really good guy. A hell of a lot nicer than that bitch he married, that Velma, though she was quite a looker twenty years ago. Anyway, Big Jim was as honest as the day is long.”

  “I thought he worked for the mob.”

  “So let me qualify that. He was loyal to his employers, never stole or misplaced a nickel, and would have gone into stir before he ratted them out, though of course it never came to that.”

  “Okay, he was one of Nature’s noblemen,” I said.

  “Absolutely,” said Sorrentino with something akin to passion. “You couldn’t ask for a straighter shooter.”

  “He shot people?”

  “Figure of speech,” he added. “Anyway, the man was a financial genius. And then one day he just walked away from it. Turned over all the books and all the money to my bosses, said he’d had enough, that he didn’t feel like a criminal but rather an accountant and financial advisor. He didn’t think the cops or the feds would see it that way, and he wanted to get out while the getting was good.”

  “And they let him go?”

  “He’d tripled their money, and this was how they showed their gratitude.”

  “That’s better than some New York families I’ve heard about.”

  “So he sold his place up in Lake Forest, changed his name legally, and he and Velma just vanished. My bosses spent a year tracking him down, just in case they ever needed him again, but they never made contact with him. In fact, he couldn’t believe his eyes when I showed up.”

  “So you showed up, he convinced you he wasn’t turning state’s evidence . . .”

  “. . . and that was that,” concluded Sorrentino.

  “But it wasn’t,” I pointed out. “You’re still here.”

  “One moment,” he said as the waitress returned with a fresh pot of coffee and a cup. “You got a cheese Danish back there in the kitchen, honey?”

  “This is Bob Evans,” she said harshly. “Read the menu.” She began walking away, then stopped and turned. “And my name is Matilda.”

  “Figures,” said Sorrentino as she vanished into the kitchen. He took a sip of his coffee. “Damned good stuff,” he said approvingly. “What the hell have they got to go with it?”

  I shoved the menu across to him. He read it quickly, then signaled a man who was cleaning a nearby table. “Hey, kid, bring me a sweet roll. Any kind you got, as long as it’s got frosting on it.”

  The man, who was in his midthirties, nodded and went off without a word.

  “You were saying?” I began.

  “About cheese Danish?” he replied. “Nothing goes better with a cup of coffee before noon.”

  “About Big Jim Palanto.”

  “Poor bastard.”

  “And why you’re still here?”

  He nodded, then placed a forefinger to his lips as Matilda arrived with his sweet roll, glared at him, and walked off.

  “Big Jim had a talent, and so did that bitch he married,” said Sorrentino. “His was making money, hers was spending it.”

  “Sounds like my former marriage,” I said. “Except for the making money part.”

  “Well, about eight or ten years ago he decided he needed a serious source of income, so he went back into the same business. Not for my employers, of course. They’d long since replaced him.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know quite where this is leading,” I said, “but Cincinnati doesn’t have a mob.”

  “Look south.”

  “South is Kentucky,” I replied. “South that makes sense is Mexico.”

  “Farther south.”

  I just stared at him.

  “Bolivia,” he said at last.

  “Okay, Bolivia,” I said. “So what?”

  “They saw what Colombia and Mexico were making from drugs, and they went into the business themselves. Now, Big Jim had nothing to do with the marketing, or any of the rough stuff that went along with it, but he made his expertise available to the Bolivians.”

  “He invested their drug money,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “If he was as good as you say, they should be happy as clams,” I said. Not that I’ve ever seen a happy clam, or even a live one.

  “Well, it appears that Big Jim decided he was getting up in years, and that he wanted to feather his nest a little faster than certain parties were happy about.”

  I just stared at him for a moment. “He stole from South American drug lords?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t look at it that way,” answered Sorrentino. “As near as we can tell, he made them about fifty million dollars.” He paused. “Problem is, he only gave them maybe forty million of it.”

  “So you think they killed him?”

  “He was the salt of the earth, and he parted clean and fair with my employers,” said Sorrentino. “Who else would have done it?”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “How about anybody who knew he was loaded and thought they could pull off a robbery?”

  “Nothing was missing,” answered Sorrentino. Then he gave me a huge grin. “Well, almost nothing.”

  I stared at him, considered what I’d heard, then thought back to the little scene with the grieving widow in the Pepperidge house that resulted in my being jailed, and suddenly it became clear as crystal.

  “Shit!” I said so loud that diners from two and three tables away turned to stare—and frown—at me.

  He grinned again. “You got it.”

  “The collar!” I exclaimed.

  He nodded. “The collar.”

  “What makes a collar worth ten million dollars?”

  “Maybe only eight million,” he corrected me.

  “Yeah, I know,” I replied. “And maybe twelve million. What makes it worth more than a buck and a half?”

  “When I went to visit him—Velma was off shopping, which is her main occupation these days—he assured me he wasn’t going to rat on his friends. We got to talking, he mentioned that he’d been doing some work for the Bolivians, and had given himself a raise in pay, and was trying to extricate himself from the unhappy situation. I told him that from what I’d heard, these South Americans had absolutely no respect for law and order, and that they might be after him even as we spoke. He told me that at least they’d never get their hands on the money, that he didn’t have a safe, and that if Velma saw more than fifteen or twenty large in the checking account she immediately went out and spent it.”

  “I hope you’re not going to tell me he had CDs glued to the inside of the collar,” I said.

  He chuckled. “No, I’m not going to tell you that.” He reached into a coat pocket. “Here,” he said, withdrawing a leather cat collar studded with what looked like ten or twelve gleaming diamonds. “What do you think of this?”

  “Is that the collar?”

  “Not quite,” he replied with a smile. He pressed it against a water glass and began rubbing it against the surface. Nothing happened.

  “Rhinestones,” he explained. “Diamonds would have cut through it, or at least left some deep marks. I paid twenty bucks for it this morning. The collar we’re talking about looks pretty much like this one. The only difference is that the stones were twenty-carat diamonds, and they’d have cut the glass.”

  “He admitted it?”

  Sorrentino grinned. “He said the Bolivians would never think to look at a housecat’s collar, and then he laughed his head off.”

  “Well, someone thought of it,” I said. “Mrs. Pepperidge had me arrested and jailed when I returned the cat without the collar.”

  He uttered an amused laugh. “Hah! Big Jim didn’t think she knew. That Velma can sniff out money from three states away, let alone half a room.”

  “But she doesn’t have the collar,” I pointed out. “That’s what I was being paid to find, though I didn’t know it at the time.” I paused for a moment, thinking it through. “So the Bolivians must have figured it out, grabbed the collar, and either tossed the cat off the
balcony into the snow, or closed the sliding door and locked him outside, after which he jumped.”

  Sorrentino shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re still in town, three of them—and they took a shot at me last night. Someone else has the collar.”

  “Who?”

  He shrugged. “Could be someone else knew about it. Could be someone saw it on the cat when it was locked outside and figured out what it was worth. Could be some kid fell in love with the cat, brought it inside, his mama said no, and he kept the collar as a keepsake. You’re a detective; that’s why I’m telling you this, and that’s why we’re gonna be partners.”

  I stared at him for a long minute, then finally shook my head, “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t want a bunch of Bolivian killers after me if we find it—and if we do find it, they’ll know it the instant I catch up on my bills and you go back to Chicago.”

  “So you’re just gonna leave it for them to find?”

  “No, I’ll search for it.”

  He frowned. “Half isn’t enough for you?”

  “Calm down,” I said. “Ten percent is enough for me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want any part of hot diamonds, either unloading them on the black market or keeping one step ahead of the Bolivians,” I said. “But they have to be insured. If I find them, I’ll turn them over to the insurance company for the standard finder’s fee. We’ll see that word gets out, and they can go home or rob the insurance company.”

  He glared at me. “Half a finder’s fee,” he said. “Remember, I’m the one who told you about them.”

  “You’re going to be looking too?” I asked.

  “You bet your ass I am,” he assured me. “Why do you think I haven’t gone back to Chicago? After all, Big Jim’s not in a position to rat on anybody.”

  “So are we partners or competitors?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a long time, then shrugged and extended his hand. “Partners.”

  “Okay,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. “If the Bolivians are still here, we know they haven’t got them.”

  “Ain’t much to go on,” he said.

  “Oh, we know a little more than that.”

  He looked surprised. “We do?”

  I nodded. “We know they’re not in the Grandin Road area.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “There are five animal shelters closer to the Pepperidge house than the one the cat turned up at. Believe me, I’ve been to all of them. Maybe whoever stole the cat and the collar didn’t want it showing up a few blocks away, where someone might recognize a car or a driver, or at least be able to identify them—but no one drove twenty-five miles through that blizzard just to dump the cat where nobody knew it or them—and no pampered housecat walks twenty-five miles in two days in this weather.”

  “They said you were good,” he replied approvingly. “Okay, we’ll keep in touch three or four times a day. What’s your cell number?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  He looked hurt. “I thought we were partners.”

  “We are,” I replied. “I just don’t have a cell phone.”

  He frowned. “I suppose a tablet that lets you answer any e-mails I send to you is out of the question?”

  I nodded. “Afraid so.”

  He sighed deeply. “Do you at least carry a gun?”

  “Almost never.”

  “I know you solved a murder down in Kentucky last year and exposed a major drug ring before that.” He stared curiously at me. “Just what century do you operate in?”

  I shrugged. “I think I’d have been really effective working for Tom Jefferson.”

  He half-nodded in agreement. “At least if you worked for old Tom you wouldn’t have three Bolivian hit men with maybe twenty kills between them racing you for the collar and ready to blow you away if you find it first.” He pulled out a pen and wrote on a napkin. “This is my cell number. Check in two or three times a day.” I was about to answer when he held up his hand. “No more bullshit. Use a pay phone.”

  “Right,” I said, vaguely wondering what pay phones cost these days. “Where will you go first?”

  “I don’t know . . . but it makes the most sense for you to find out about the Bolivians. After all, this is your town. You’ve got to have some snitches who can tell you what’s going on.”

  I was happy to hear him use the word “snitches.” It was comforting to know something I was familiar with hadn’t vanished before the turn of the century. “I’ll see what I can find out,” I told him.

  “I’ll check with my people and see which fences out of the Cincinnati area can handle that kind of hot material. Where should we meet for dinner?”

  “What do you like?” I asked.

  “Diamonds,” he said.

  “What else?”

  “If it’s smaller than me, I’ll eat it,” said Sorrentino.

  It was comforting to know that I’d picked up a partner with the same taste.

  6.

  I figured the first thing I’d better do was contact Jim Simmons. I didn’t want to do it in front of any other cops, so I phoned him at his office and told him to meet me at the usual place, and sure enough he showed up twenty minutes later at Red’s Jungle, the bar we’d meet at before or after a game. The owner was a very nice gray-haired lady whose name wasn’t Red, and the field hadn’t been The Jungle since Boomer Esiason took the Bengals to the Super Bowl back in 1989, but it had the right atmosphere: if you were going to or coming from a baseball or football game, this was the place to be.

  Jim was in a corner booth when I got there, and I walked over and sat down opposite him.

  “I figured whatever you had to say, you didn’t want to say it at the bar where anyone could overhear,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Right,” I answered.

  “So is this about the cat—or hopefully about the deceased?” he asked. “Or are you on a new case?”

  “Same case,” I said. “Though I’m freelancing now. I have a feeling that Velma—Mrs. Pepperidge—doesn’t want to hire me back.”

  He grinned at that. “Okay, what is it that you want to share with me?”

  I learned forward. “Jim, I figure someone in the department should know that there are three Bolivian hitters involved somehow, and they’re in town.”

  He looked at me in disbelief. “Bolivian?” he repeated, half-smiling. “Not Paraguayan or Ecuadorian?”

  I waited for Red to come by and take our drinks order and then answered him. “It’s complicated. But they are Bolivian, they are killers, they may have killed Pepperidge, and they’re still in town.”

  He pulled out a notebook and a pen. “Names?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, descriptions?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How much have you had to drink, Eli?” he asked.

  “Not a drop until Red gets back with my beer.”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t like you. You’re holding back something, probably a bunch of somethings. I can’t act on what little you’ve told me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What I told you is for public consumption. What I’m going to say next is for you alone. If you have to pass parts of it along to save a life, of course you have to. But otherwise it’s for your ears only until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Fair enough,” he said as Red brought my beer and Jim’s bourbon to the table.

  “Some weather we’re having,” she said. “And the poor bastards are playing at home this weekend. You think they’ll ever put a dome on the damned stadium?”

  “Not a chance,” said Simmons. “Same reason they don’t dome Soldier Field in Chicago or Lambeau Field in Green Bay. We’re used to cold weather. Those warm-weather teams from Florida and California aren’t, so this gives us an advantage. Remember the Ice Bowl?
Anthony Muñoz and the guys came out in their short-sleeved jerseys, the San Diego Chargers took one look at them, and for all practical purposes the game was over before it started.”

  “I’m way too young to remember that,” lied Red.

  “Of course you are,” lied Simmons. “My mistake.”

  She kissed him on his bald spot and want back to the bar.

  “You’re quite a ladies’ man,” I said with a smile.

  “Old ladies,” he answered. “The young ones see right through me.” He paused. “Okay, what have you learned that I can’t tell to anyone else unless the Iranians—excuse me: the Bolivians—bomb the city.”

  “You know anything more about Palanto than what you told me?”

  “Just what we have in the files,” he answered. “Hell, you can probably find it on Wikipedia.”

  “Whatever that is.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head sadly. “I’ll never understand why you don’t ride a horse and carry a six-gun.” Then: “Yes, that’s pretty much all I know about Palanto. Clearly you’re about to tell me more.”

  “He didn’t exactly retire when he moved here and became Malcolm Pepperidge,” I said.

  Simmons looked surprised. “He kept working for the mob in Chicago? Now, that’s interesting.”

  I shook my head. “He kept his word and never worked for them again. But either he missed the work or he missed the rewards, because he began doing the same thing for a Bolivian drug cartel.”

  He stared long and hard at me. “Okay, I give up. Who told you?”

  “Ever hear of Val Sorrentino?” I said.

  “You’re traveling in rough company, Eli. He’s one of the mob’s enforcers.” He frowned. “What the hell’s he doing in town?” The frown vanished. “Of course! The mob sent him here to make sure Palanto couldn’t testify!”

  “Now that you’ve solved the murder, do you want to hear what I know or not?” I said.

  “Shoot,” he said, and then added: “You should pardon the expression.”

  “Sorrentino was sent here by his bosses to sound Palanto out, to see if he was going to testify. He told them a day or two before the murder that Palanto was safe and dependable, that they had nothing to worry about.”