The Law Fought Me - Ch. 6

Bianchi kept both guns held straight out, a dark gun in his left hand at me, the silver revolver through the half kitchen wall at Emerald, her own gun. The woman sat up beside me and shoved me pointlessly on the shoulder, though I wasn’t uncooperative. She patted me down for weapons.

“It’s Gartner. Carbone’s assistant. The stenographer.”

“What the hell?” Bianchi looked through the open wall.

Emerald tossed her hair over her shoulders with a proud upturned chin. “Miss me?”

All he could do was look between us and ask, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The woman I’d fallen on top of wore a black beret pinned to curly blonde locks, had a hardboiled face, thin plucked eyebrows and a stony lip. She tugged at my arm. “C’mon. Get up.”

“Please, I’m more harmless on the floor.”

“He’s right,” said Bianchi. “Tell me what the hell’s going on? Don’t tell me you changed your mind about helping me.” He made a jagged step to readjust the weight off his bad leg.

“No, I came to give my congrats for making it this far.”

“Gettin’ smart with me?”

“Emerald Norval over there threw a party for all your surviving exes to find which one was hiding you. Lynn was invited but she didn’t go. You might have thought of that and had a contingency plan. She practically walked through the door with her lockpick.”

“Lynndy, shut the door, please.”

“Oh, so it’s Lynndy,” Emerald mocked as Lynn walked past. Lynn gave her a side-eye.

I crossed my legs and folded my hands. “You can check for cops. We’re not here to turn you in. We can talk it out with drinks.”

Lynn walked around checking the blinds and Bianchi said, “Talk what out?”

“I’m curious why you shot up the lawyer’s office, a little.”

“Why should I have to tell you?” he asked, guns still blazing. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Did Fates have the jewelry?”

“You bet your sweet carcass he did. And I’m gonna find that cheesecake that helped him rip them off and frame me. You bet. Hah, hah.” He made a cocky grin. “Okay, Lynn, get them in some chairs. My arms are tiring.”

“Maybe we can just sit here,” I said. “I’m getting comfortable.”

The light of a nearby lamp snapped on. “You talk a lot for somebody with a gun pointed at you,” said Lynn. The legs that stopped in front of me were dressed in black nylons and heels. “Who are you?”

I continued to stare straight ahead from beneath my brown fedora. I thought it’d be rude to look up. It could mean death.

“He’s a P.I.,” said Emerald impatiently. “So what, Rocco? I wasn’t memorable enough to ask for help when you busted prison? I always stuck by you. When you stepped out into the light, didn’t you think of me at all?”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” He removed one arm from the cut wall and walked out toward her with the guns closer to us both. “Memorable? How could I forget a name and face like that?”

Emerald titled her head, flattered. “Why did you stop speaking to me anymore?”

Rocco Bianchi jerked his head. “Com’ere.” He lifted one arm, and it joined the other, pointing at me. Emerald Norval rushed and squeezed him hysterically. “Oh Rocco, I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I kinda figured you’d be this way.”

She looked up sharply. “What way?”

“Oh, you know, emotionally attached.”

She grabbed him tighter. “Kiss me.”

“My God,” he said in a high pitch. “You’re drunk!” He sniffed. “And high!”

“I’m in love.”

“That’s all very nice, but I need to do a few things. Jeez, not even a sap to the head can stop you. C’mon, honey, my arms and legs feel like hell. I need to sit.”

Emerald released the vice grip and held his waist as he hobbled to the living room toward me, guns trained. I winced as he came closer. “C’mon,” he sneered. “Get on that sofa.”

I sighed and shuffled backward and climbed onto the beige leather sofa the same way.

“You really don’t like standing, do ya?” He plunked in a matching armchair. “Lynn!”

“No,” barked Emerald. “Me.”

The blonde strolled in slowly. “There’s no cops I can see out there.”

“Lynn, can ya take this gun off me?”

Lynn strolled over and took it before Emerald could do something as stupid as making a grab for it. She sat on the arm of the sofa to my right and trained the gun lazily at me on her black summer dress draped on her leg.

“Emerald was getting here one way or another,” I said, “I wanted to see what happened.”

“You’ve seen,” said Rocco Bianchi. “Now what? You here to make a deal?”

I sighed patiently. “The guns are making me nervous.”

Rocco shrugged. “Okay.” He rested the gun on the cushion. It didn’t make me less nervous. “I didn’t shoot up no lawyer’s office. Fates talked to me about copping a confession for a certain dollar amount back in prison. I figured he’d have dough. But the safe was useless til I pulled a latch in the rear and found the good stuff. He pulled a gun out of his desk. This gun. It went off in his hands while I tried to get it off him. I heard somebody collapse. So I took a pen knife and stabbed him quick under the ribs. So sue me. He shot his own lady. I got the gun.”

“And the Bembo jewelry.”

“Nah… half. His accomplice got the rest.”

Emerald Norval wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned on him. “Awh, you poor man.”

He bit his lip. “Emerald, please.”

She retracted moodily to the wall behind him, her green jumpsuit shimmering in the lamplight. Only her shoulders leaned on the wall, her hands spread on both sides of her body, to show off her green nail polish. She fixed a nonchalant expression on her face, attempting to look alluring, but some black strands of hair had strayed from the contours of the hairspray.

I folded my hands. “You have an idea who the accomplice is?”

“Are you gonna give me a free pass to Mexico if I do?”

“You got yourself this far on your own merits.”

“Rocco,” said Lynn in a disbelieving tone, “Is this the guy who gave you a visitor’s pass out of prison?” Her face tightened. “Then why are we pointing guns at him?”

“Ah–I dunno.” Rocco made a heavy blink. “It helps me maintain my train of thought. Or trust or what’s on the…” He pocketed the gun and grabbed the arms of his chair, as if he hadn’t left the sentence unfinished. “Better? I got my own questions, signor.”

Emerald Norval looked down at the top of his head, apparently hoping he’d turn to see her standing there, alluringly.

“Why did you help me escape,” said Bianchi, “If you work for the Lieutenant?”

Emerald started to speak up. “He doesn’t work for the–” Rocco raised a hand. “Hush.” She cursed him and looked in her purse for a cigarette.

“You being out keeps the attention away from your exes.”

“You want me to find the real accomplice, that it?” He closed his eyes and swallowed with a grimace. Yeah, getting shot four times might hurt like that. “Great. We can agree on something.”

“Maybe you could use a drink, Rocco,” said Lynn, sliding off the leather.

“Since we’re friends now,” I said, “May I ask what you mean to accomplish here?”

Lynn opened cabinets in the kitchen. “I was getting him cleaned up when you burst in.”

Emerald leaned over the armrest and clutched his hand. “Our next step should be skipping town.”

I knew something was wrong when Bianchi didn’t yank it away. He shut his eyes and his head sank in the chair.

Lynn hurried gingerly with the glass. “Here, Rocco.”

Emerald rubbed his hair. “He doesn’t want you, do you Rocco.”

Lynn set it down on a glass topped side table supporting the lamp. “Get off of him.” She gently pushed his shoulder, calling his name. When that didn’t work, she shook him. 

“Dammit.”

“Is he dead?” I asked.

Lynn glared at me. “No, he’s not dead.” She tried in vain to wake him. His head rolled around on his neck.

I sucked air through my teeth and stood up, straightening my sleeves. “I think that’s my cue.”

Lynn pulled Bianchi’s gun on me. It was bigger than Emerald Norval’s, and better, she knew it was loaded. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until he’s safe.”

God, that could take months! How was I ever going to get to sleep? I looked down at my wrist. Damn. Almost midnight. I dropped my arm. “What do you want me to do?” I asked flatly.

She sharpened her eyes at me. “We’re going to carry him to the car.”

“I can do that much.”

“We’re taking him to a doctor,” said Lynn.

“Not a legitimate one, I hope.”

She smiled condescendingly and shook her head once. “No. I’ve got one in mind.” She put an arm around him.

“Guns still make me nervous. I helped him escape, remember?”

“I don’t truh-ust you-oo,” she said, with the gun as accessory.

“So do I get his legs or his arms?”

“Arms,” she said. “Emerald, get his feet.”

“I can’t lift that old lug. He’s supposed to lift me.”

“You better lift him, or you’ll get another welt, only this one will be visible in the mirror.”

I hoisted him under the arms. “Yes, boss.”

“No wait,” she turned the hate on Emerald. “You get his waist, if you’re so eager to be his lover. We’ll make like he’s drunk.”

“And drag his lifeless heels,” I said, “Yes, boss.”

For a man shorter than me his stocky muscular frame weighed as much as a refrigerator. An empty one. Maybe a small refrigerator. Hell, I didn’t move refrigerators.

On the sidewalk after I’d checked no pedestrians were around, I said, between breaths, “If you have any idea who the accomplice is, I can save you the trouble, and you can split town while the splitting’s good.”

Lynn walked a few paces behind me with the guns in her purse. “Don’t think you’re running anywhere. You’re taking the wheel.”

From her tone I decided I should quit calling her “boss.”

A man leisurely strolled our way outside the light of a lamppost, so that I could only make out a silhouette in a cap. “Make a left,” said Lynn, unhurried.

She opened the rear door of a grey sedan and we stuck Bianchi in cozy against the seat. Lynn tossed me the key. I let it hit my forearm and bounce on the pavement under the car. “Oops.” I got down slowly.

“Watch it, buster,” Lynn muttered. “Emerald, get in the front.”

I heard Emerald climb in as I fished the keys out. I could cut and run, but I worried I’d get shot… only a little. If I wanted to keep on Bianchi’s good side in case of another little run-in like this, I shouldn’t do anything to make either of them unhappy. But if I didn’t get away soon…

I stood up and looked over the top of the sedan, streaks of light across the glossed metal. In the light of the lamppost at the corner, the man emerged in the uniform of a beat cop, swinging a sap in one hand.

I boarded the car without another word. Lynn did the same.

I looked out of the side window as the cop on the sidewalk neared. I don’t think she even saw him. I could gun the engine and pull away before he could glance at the make and model, or wait for him to pass first. 

I turned on the engine and drove in the direction the car was pointed, down the brick-paved alley. I figured it’d be less strange than the cop seeing four heads in a car that wasn’t going anywhere.

“I didn’t tell you where we were going. Head east.”

“Which way’s east? The sun’s down.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

I slowed at the two-way road at the end of the alley. “I can’t read stars, even if the buildings didn’t block out half the sky.”

I made a right at Lynn’s behest. What the hell was I going to do if we got pulled over, with a highly wanted criminal fading on the rear seat?

At the light, some young kids in a red car with a full jumpseat and the top down egged me on to race them. That could have been me, smiling at the wheel, if I never enlisted and had lived within driving distance of a streetlight. So young and full of hope. So many friends. 

“C’mon, at the light. Race us to seventy fifth!” said the driver.

I looked at them with a bland face, wishing that I had Vaness with me. We would race them, Vaness jiving them back, and I’d peel straight through intersections, believing nothing could hit me, and no pedestrians or dogs would get in my way. I returned my head slowly to the road, glancing up at the light hanging in the dull purplish city sky. The light flashed green. I gunned the engine anyway.

Lynn cursed me out from the backseat.

“Where’s the next turn?” I yelled.

“The next street make a right!”

I made a right. I took my foot off the gas, and we cruised into a legal speed. Rain splattered the windshield. “Aah, and the hopes are dashed.”

“You bastard,” Lynn said. I felt something small and cylindrical on my shoulder. “You better not try something like that again.” I struggled to find the wipers. Emerald giggled. “You act like it’s a game, but the man you’re so jealous over is dying. Why do you think he didn’t come to you?”

“C’mon…. Lay offa her,” Rocco murmured.

Emerald turned around in the seat. “Rocco?”

Oh, the melodrama. I yanked more handles and the glove box popped open. Coincidentally, perhaps.

“He’s only talking in his sleep,” said Lynn. “Make a left up there. We’re close.”

I got the wipers working.

“The headlights! Are you trying to get us in a jam? Stop! We’re here.”

The headlights flashed, and I put us in park. “You’re coming up with me, Gartner,” said Lynn.

“No contest,” I said.

We ran up to the door, but the triangular arch didn’t cover it more than a few inches, so the rain hit us anyway. It felt nice after all that sweaty work. Lynn pressed the button over the name Benoit. My limbs froze like metal rods and my mind reeled. I trudged down the steps.

“Where are you going?!”

“I can’t be here.”

She pressed the buzzer. “What do you mean you can’t be here?”

I continued to the car. “Nope. I can’t be here.”

“I will shoot you.”

“I’ll wait in the car.”

I heard loud heels over the rain. She grabbed my arm, pressing the gun in my neck.

“Why won’t you come with me?”

“I knew a Benoit in Baton Rouge,” I said. “And if he’s a doctor we’re safer letting Bianchi swim with the fishes.”

“Trust me, he’s a New Yorker. Stop acting funny.” She removed the gun at the same time I heard a door pop open.

In the doorway stood a hatless middle-aged man in plastic glasses that were white over the top half of the lenses, clear on the bottom, and had black arms over his ears.

Lynn waved her arm. “Dr. Benoit!” She pronounced it “Ben-watt.” “It’s Lynn, remember?” She hooked her arm around mine and dragged me to him. “Our friend is really hurt. We need your help treating him.”

He drew a hand beside his face and talked out of the side of his mouth. His voice was unhurried, gentlemanly and elderly sounding. “Well, Lynn, as you know the board hasn’t yet reinstated my license after that tango in Algiers…”

“This is an emergency. Can we bring him up?”

“I’m afraid my dear that you cannot. That’s the first place those pigs would look for pans of human pus and a few bloody rolls of gauze. Or else they’ll tear the place apart, picking up anything that looks like a ‘stash,’ be it condensed milk or penicillin.”

“You can flush it down the toilet,” she barked.

“Once me and the Two-Tone Kid had to take care of Butcher Face Pete, a real nasty son of a preacher that liked to cut off the tips of people’s noses and feed them to his monkey. He was too far gone to save, but the Man was on to us nonetheless, and checked every suitcase that came out of the place. We had to advance our plumbing skills on short notice. No, I’m afraid the toilet just won’t take.”

I laughed a little.

He smacked his lips. “I’ll get my bag, and I’ll fix him in the car.”

He left the door a little open, as a sign of trust. Lynn told me we’d wait inside, which disappointed me, because I liked rain.

“He told stories like that the last time I saw him,” Lynn murmured. “He helped a friend of mine out once, so I trust him.”

“He doesn’t happen to have a son and daughter, does he?”

Her eyes half closed, studying my tie: “You’ll have to ask him.”

The Doctor creaked down the old stairs wearing a black fedora and holding a suitcase and we got out in the rain. He walked without hurry, keeping any fear under the hat.

Lynn leaned in the rear sedan door and told Emerald to get in front. She clung to Bianchi in resistance, so I took her by the arm and guided her to the passenger door. “You’ll have more time to hug him when he’s better.”

She lazily knocked my arm away. “Don’t treat me like a baby.”

I couldn’t resist. “Okay, baby.” Sadness washed over me. I wished I’d said it to Vaness.

“Oh, a party,” said Dr. Benoit. He drew the rear door in and I squeezed behind the wheel, with Lynn next to me, Emerald by the opposite door. “Keep the car going steady,” he said, amiably, “I’d hate to be caught without a license before I have the money for an attorney.”

“How much?” I said, cruising carefully down the road.

Dr. Benoit assessed the damage. He whistled. “Bullet wounds? This guy wanted? Five-hundred.”

“I don’t have half a grand,” said Lynn.

“You can pool your money, I imagine.”

Great. It wasn’t bad enough driving a wanted fugitive around with his insane girlfriends, but now an unlicensed quack wanted me to cough up half a grand. “One-fifty!”

“Three-fifty.”

“Two hundred. Take it or leave it.”

Lynn was looking at me, but I chose to ignore it.

A suitcase clattered in the rear seat. “Alright, you have a deal.”

I noticed the hand extended over the seat and shook it behind me, straining a muscle.

“So where’s the money?”

“When you’re done,” said Lynn. “It’s his money. He didn’t come here on a dime and a nickel.”

“Very well. I’m going to need perfect concentration. The radio, sir?”

Lynn turned it on for me and dialed up some symphony.

Why do I do these things? As I eased at a stoplight, the beads of water falling in the headlights, I thought of all the women at Vaness’s, who all knew Lynn hadn’t shown up and that I went with Emerald in search of her. How long before that got to Carbone? A short amount of time. And how would I answer him, as to what happened when we went to Lynn Blayney’s place? It had to be the reason Lynn watched me with that clenched expression. I couldn’t be trusted, no matter how helpful I was. We both knew it. Besides, she couldn’t trust in Bianchi’s delirium that I had handed him his ticket out of prison, to see what he’d do with it. 

I’d happily point a finger at Emerald Norval, or that happy hacker in the rear, completely obscured below the seat, even if he was kin to former friends of mine in Baton Rouge. Lynn on the other hand–I had a sore spot for criminals of circumstance.

“I’m going to need light!” Dr. Benoit’s head had popped up. “Who has a steady hand and a lighter?”

Emerald got hers out of her purse.

I looked in the rearview. “Should I pull in somewhere?”

“No, I applaud a challenge.”

As I drove a little more aimlessly further into downtown, I rehearsed what I’d tell the cops when they inevitably pulled me over. “Help me! This woman is holding me hostage! I’m with Lieutenant Carbone! They–” but by then I’d already be shot. From which side? Who knew.

“I drove Emerald Norval over there to see if Rocco Bianchi might be hiding out with Lynn Blayney. And I was right! They hit me over the head and all three of them took me hostage. Both of them took me hostage. Emerald became a witting accomplice. There was nothing I could do, officer. All my training in the European theater and I never learned how to take a gun away from woman or man.”

Even if they ignored my useless combat experience, why didn’t I call for backup before I drove a suspect to another suspect’s place of residence, where a fugitive might be hiding?

“I couldn’t blow my cover as a private investigator working for the Bianchi family and let Emerald suspect that I was intending to apprehend the very man she intended to seduce.” Very convincing. A weak story. “I forgot.” Unfortunately, I was too smart to act dumb. Anyway, it never occurred to me to call for backup. I didn’t want Bianchi to get caught until this Bembo jewelry mess was over. Guts and all.

“It seems the boy’s right,” said the doctor. “You are going to need to pull over in a well lit area. One that won’t bring the coppers yawning and itching to drag a pervert onto the curb to bash his brains in just for kicks. ‘His drool dripped down the door as he gandered at those Christian kids it did.’ Long days and longer nights. What cops will do to break the monotony of a slow night, boy it gives you the fear.”

I took us downtown, where there were lots of bars and neon and few places to park. I drove it in parallel. As I backed down the street to get a good angle, Bianchi slipped toward the floor and Dr. Benoit pulled him back up, his two-tone glasses catching the red, yellow, and green lights hypnotically. His creased mouth mumbling, “Brandy. Brandy.” He worked a flask out. “Son of a monkey! My wife’s burned through it again.” I pulled forward into a space and backed it some. Dr. Benoit raised the flask at me. “Right from my medical supply. You know how damn hard it is to keep her out of my territory? It’s the Old Ripy. It’s too damn good. I ought to switch to Malört. Next thing you know she’ll move into my mouthwash.”

“So I understand the situation,” I said, “We get him brandy or he dies.”

“Spirits,” he said, “We need spirits, any spirits.”

“Say ‘spirits’ one more time…” said Lynn.

“You realize that forcing a glass of brandy down his throat will cause him to choke,” I said.

“I take enough risk buying my own medicine,” he said, “I’ve got to have something under the hat for my patients.”

“C’mon Gardner, let’s go,” said Lynn.

I didn’t correct her and stepped into the street. It was a busy Wednesday night, or Thursday morning, and the wide sidewalks were populated, easy to be forgotten in.

We scanned the storefronts. I idly tugged on a nearby lobster joint, closed. I wasn’t worried. We’d find alcohol. Lynn tossed her blonde curls. “This one, this way!”

We wedged into a crowded bar, and Lynn bumped heedlessly into big guys without apology in her slog to the counter. She wedged between a man and woman at the bar, hollering for the bartender, who she kept calling “Jack,” but when he turned to serve her his name tag read “Phil.”

“Give me a triple brandy, please.”

Some portly man ogled her. The bartender asked, “What kind?”

“Old Ripy.”

“We don’t have–”

“Get the cheapest brand, then. Whatever costs least.”

“In a rush tonight, I see,” the bartender said, going to the shelves of liquor.

The drunk lug beside her tapped his own glass. “A woman of fine taste. Make that two, sir.” He pulled some dollars from his pocket and sat his arm on the bar. “Allow me, miss.”

“Drop dead.”

By the time Phil poured the brandy and Lynn turned about-face, she’d scour the men’s faces, but she wouldn’t see me. I had already taken off my hat and melted into the crowd.