Work at Odds Read online

  1

  Work at Odds

  The third floor detective office, where my partner, David DeGrabber, and I, ply our craft in a monthly gauntlet to be able to afford to work next month, has hosted a wide variety of clientele. Their visits are, unfortunately, not always frequent enough. Despite the periodic scarcity, we’ve served a fair cross section of the Chicago populace. There have been lawyers of all manner of repute, ball players, movie directors, musicians, even housewives, and they’ve all had their varied problems dealt with by myself or Dave, mostly without prejudice. We like to offer our guests a fair shake, the benefit of the doubt, as it were. Admittedly, some of these people have turned out to be crooks or even murderers, but having taken their jobs in good faith, we couldn’t have known that from the start.

  Now, like I said, we’d taken all those cases, and many more, without prejudice, but the way I saw it, this evening needed to be different.

  “Mr. Barbingola, I see no reason my partner and I can’t look into your trouble,” Dave breezed.

  I couldn’t say if it was the early autumn draft that tended to creep through the window sill behind me, or Don Barbingola himself, that was sending a fidget inducing chill down my back, but I was certain that I wanted no part of Barbingola, or his trouble.

  You see, the odd murderers previously through our door hadn’t been advertised as such, but Don ‘Barbs’ Barbingola might as well have had a sign across his chest attesting to the fact. He was by no means the biggest gangster in Chicago, but for every household name, in anything, there are dozens or more that are plenty successful without all the press.

  He had shown up well after hours, around nine, preceded by four associates whom you could reasonably call henchmen, and then had regaled us with his troubles for going on two hours. I’ll let you in on all that in a minute, but right now I was good and sore at Dave for trying take a job for a mobster. I said as much.

  “Dave,” I began with a tinge of outrage. “You are not seriously considering taking this case?”

  Dave, sat to my right, mostly behind his desk, didn’t move a muscle, and answered plainly.

  “I don’t see why not, John. We have no other engagements, and Mr. Barbingola’s is as legitimate a problem as any other client’s.”

  I tried to exhale quietly, so as not to be any more rude than necessary, but I felt like making a scene. It wouldn't have done any good, of course, because Dave is usually unflappable, and completely so when he’s relaxed with his unnaturally long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed, and his head down, as he was now. I skipped any theatrics, and just tried to spell it out for him.

  “Dave, the reason we can’t work for this man, is because he’s a crook.” I turned a hand to Barbingola, and told him, “No offense.”

  He tilted his head like he didn’t care, so I went back to Dave.

  “Think about our reputation. How do you think they’d treat us at CPD, if they got wind of this?”

  I like to think that Dave cared enough to give me his eye, but his shaggy hair prevented me from knowing for sure. Anyhow, he tried to talk me down, in what I guess is for him, a caring way.

  “John, we have no clients. We have had no clients for the entirety of this month. I spoke to the legitimacy of Mr. Barbingola’s trouble, and now I remind you of our own. Furthermore, we are his only hope for justice, as the officials care little for the plight of he and his associates.”

  At the last part he did move a muscle to offer a cheeky smile to our guest. I tried another angle, this time to the gangster.

  “How about another agency? The big agencies in town have more men, more money, more contacts. They could sort this all out in no time.”

  Barbingola put his couple of chins down on his chest and moved them across his big tie knot a couple of times. He was 250 if he was a pound, you see. While we’re at it, I estimated him to be around 55. Clean shaven, and well dressed too, though the package did nothing to distract from his heavy mitts that had been loosely connected to bodies pulled from Lake Michigan for years. He explained to me in a polite, but final, sounding voice.

  “Mr. Trait, the other agencies share your sentiment about men in my line of work. Those contacts you mention are somewhat of a liability for them, in this case. They’re inside men, you know.” He turned one of the mitts into a fist the size of a melon, and added, “If I found who they were, even if they were working on my case.”

  He let that thought go, and turned the melon back into a hand, and went on.

  “So, they won’t work for me. The two of you don’t have any contacts. No men for me to worry about getting too ambitious. Your partner, here, seems like a straight shooter, and a business man. As for operating money.”

  He gestured to his goons, who had our office door flanked. One with a bad face stepped forward, and went into his overcoat. The draft behind me got a little worse, but the wind must have died down just as the goon produced a leather parcel and handed it to the Don. He unfastened a strap on it, and thumbed though its contents.

  “Would a thousand be enough to get started?” he asked, pulling out a stack of crisp hundreds.

  I puffed some air out, and swiveled in my chair for a moment, considering. Though our finances had been desperate for a while now, I echoed my main concern once more.

  “What about the police?” I was mainly talking to Dave, but had my eye on the cash. “This money’s no good if it turns out to be the last money we’re able to make in this town.”

  Dave was picking his teeth now, looking bored, probably hoping I would run out of steam. Seeing that I was set for the long haul, he sprung to action and opened his trap.

  “Mr. Barbingola, have you any known leaks in your organization that flow to the Chicago Police?”

  The Don thought for a moment, and offered,

  “I’m sure there are some. Mainly in the gaming branch, but then that’s just players getting picked up and getting nervous, usually. Way I see it, you two won’t be anywhere near that department, so I don’t see why the cops would need to find out about this job.”

  “Department?” I was incredulous. “You make it sound like a hardware store.”

  The Don’s voice hardened a little as he explained.

  “My various ventures are managed separately, Mr. Trait. Just like the Police have property, vice, and homicide.”

  The voice hardened just a little more on that last one, and so I decided I had probably done all I could do. Dave offered a bit more convincing for my benefit.

  “You see, John. It will be no different than any other case, or any other client. Mr. Barbingola’s business here will be handled with the same discretion that we always employ.”

  I was as good as beat, and held my hands up to say that I yield. No sooner than the gesture came to be, Dave asserted, again,

  “We will look into your trouble at once, Mr. Barbingola.”

  The gangster left happy after making handshakes, which were more reinforcement to me to not complain any further in his presence. Dave took the bills and a couple of phone numbers and addresses, and the gangsters were on their way.

  Dave stood for a stretch, and put half the money into the little floor safe on his side of the office, and lobbed the rest of it onto the corner of my desk for me to do the same on my side. I just rubbed my face and stared at it. After a moment I moved to lock up my share of the operating funds, and offered,

  “Dave, you know this is a bad idea.”

  I would have gone on, if for nothing else than my own catharsis, but there was a knock at the door. I stuffed the bills down into the inside pocket of my jacket and went for it.

  We have a frosted glass pane in our door that says ‘David and Trait Detective Agency’, and I could have foretold our late ca
ller through it, had I been in a better frame of mind. Having done so, I could have given Dave the signal to get quiet, and waited him out, but instead I just yanked the knob, and the stout frame of Detective Ben Scott came in to me like a ball to a bowling pin.

  He crossed in a huff and plopped down into the extra chair that Barbingola had just vacated. I could tell by the red hue of his cheeks, and the angle of his matching mustache as he passed, that he was as hot as he could be, and not from exertion.

  I still had the knob in my hand, waiting for a hello. Deciding that I wasn’t getting one I closed the door loudly, and just as loudly announced,

  “Come right in, Officer. Have a seat, Ben. How’s the wife? Have you lost weight?” I made my way around to my chair, and tried to come up with a couple more, but they weren’t so good.

  Dave was back in his seat too, and he and Ben were engaged in one of the most intense blinking contests I’d ever witnessed. Or at least Ben was. He stared furiously at Dave, who returned the hostility with a downright impressive show of indifference.

  Now I was getting bored. I checked my watch for all to see, yawned and stretched, and tried again.

  “What brings you out, Ben?”

  He disengaged from his battle with Dave, and nearly shouted at me.

  “You know damned well why I’m here, Trait.”

  Ben Scott is Ben, to me, most all the time, and I’m John to him often enough to know that when I become Trait, and we’re not working together, that he might as well just be Detective to me instead.

  I stuck my tongue in my cheek and rocked a few times in my seat. Dave broke the silence.

  “You must enlighten us, Detective Scott. Some homicide inquiry, perhaps?”

  He pivoted back to Dave, and spat,

  “No, DeGrabber. As far as I’m concerned you’ll never work in this town again, and it damn sure won’t be with me.”

  Dave didn’t miss a beat and interjected.

  “Are you leaving us, Detective?”

  Dave has a way of pushing the button on Ben that controls the red in his face, and that comment had got the button stuck. Ben’s voice trembled with rage.

  “DeGrabber, I want to know everything that was said between the two of you and Barbs Barbingola. We have over a dozen investigations connected to him and his operation, and I’ll arrest the both of you for each one, consecutively, if you don’t come off it and tell me what you’re doing.”

  I swiveled my legs out from under my desk, propped my elbows on my knees, and held my head. Less than five minutes; ‘…don’t see why the cops would need to find out about this job,’ my eye.

  My sudden downturn chinked Ben’s armor.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Ben demanded.

  Dave ignored it, saying,

  “Detective Scott, I know it is customary for you and I to be at odds as to our methods, and for myself to withhold kernels of information.”

  “Kernels?” Scott exclaimed. Dave breezed over that too.

  “However, in this case, concerning Mr. Barbingola, it would please me to have your input.”

  I stood and opened my desk drawer, and started gathering my things.

  “Where are you going, Trait?” Ben demanded.

  I sighed, and responded.

  “Well, if Dave’s gonna spill the whole bag, I figure I can get a train going north and make it to Canada by the morning. From there I’ll take a bus, or hitchhike if there’re any cars on the roads, and go west till I hit Alaska. If word comes that Nome isn't far enough, then I guess I’ll pay a boat to drop me off across the strait, where I’ll live out my days, or freeze to death, whichever comes first.”

  Ben waved my travel plans off, and went back to Dave.

  “What is he talking about, DeGrabber?”

  “I have no idea. Sit down, John.” I near as collapsed back into my seat. Dave went on.

  “Now then, John and I have been hired to look into the recent murders of Barbingola’s men.”

  Ben raised his eyebrows and showed a disconcerting grin.

  “Is that so?” he began friendly enough, and then switched back to his regular self. “What in the world for, DeGrabber? They’re crooks and we’re better off without them.”

  Dave ignored that, and asked,

  “So your office has not investigated these slayings?”

  Ben jerked his head back.

  “We’ve cleaned up after them. It’s gang violence, DeGrabber. I can tell you what happened.”

  “Can you?”

  “It’s always the same thing. Somebody got sticky fingers, or thought they’d take a couple of pals and start their own outfit, and Barbingola had to put a stop to it. And if it wasn’t him, then it was any of the other players in the city.”

  “Barbingola explained the situation with a fair bit of clarity, if you care to hear it.”

  Ben leaned back, crossed one leg of the other, and lit a smoke. He puffed and said,

  “Enlighten me, then.”

  Dave moved for his notepad, which he’d only put three or four words on in the two hours, and stated,

  “I shall.”

  He flipped the nearly empty pad back on to the desk, and began to recount our meeting with the mobster.

  2

  “Now, just a second, here.” I jumped in just as Dave inhaled to take off. “What are you doing here anyhow, Ben?”

  He cut his eyes at me and gestured with his cigarette.

  “Oh, no. You first. I meant what I said about taking you in, and I still might.” He redirected the smoldering pointer to Dave, and urged, “Convince me.”

  Dave got right to it.

  “Don Barbingola has asked that we look into the slayings of no less than a dozen men in his employ.”

  “Employ,” Scott chided.

  “Yes. The killings took place within the last two months, at three locations. A westerly northbound offshoot of Division, a narrow alley in Little Italy, and, most interestingly, on the fifth floor of a building in Old Town.”

  Ben was trying to look disinterested in the details, but his cigarette ash betrayed him and hung nearly two inches. I passed him a tray before it fell onto our rug and he used it.

  “What’s so interesting about that, DeGrabber?”

  “Nine of the victims were taken in that one incident.”

  Dave let the detail hang, likely expecting it to elicit some kind of reaction, but Ben just chimed,

  “Gangs, I tell you.”

  Dave opened his mouth to continue, but then closed it again, and rubbed his chin. Ben jumped on the misstep instantly.

  “What were you going to say, DeGrabber? I want all of it.”

  “I don’t think you could help, Detective.”

  Ben puffed his chest out and put his hands on his knees, and said,

  “I certainly won’t help, but I will know what you had in mind. Humor me, so I don’t have to type up any arrest reports this late.”

  “Very well. I wondered what your team made of that particular scene, and whether or not you had a line on it.”

  “Well, I might. You haven’t even told me where it was exactly.”

  Dave rolled his head around on his shoulders and let his arms fall down the sides of his chair.

  “Oh, come, Detective. Nine men were killed at one location recently. Surely I mustn’t provide every detail.”

  Ben kept his cool, and just said again,

  “Humor me, DeGrabber.”

  A part of me wanted to sock Scott right there, even though he’s roundly my friend. However, on balance, I just couldn’t. On one hand, he wasn’t being terribly friendly to either of us, and he’d made his unwillingness to help plain. But on the other hand, he was very much playing the roll of Detective Scott of Chicago Homicide, and if we were going to have any cache left with the force, having taken a job from a mobster, then my dotting his eye would have certainly used up the rest. So Dave and I just had to take it, and did.

  “If you cannot recall,” Dave said. “the
event took place throughout a prominent building in Old Town.” Dave’s voice lowered to merely a mutter at this last part, when he added, “That houses the Padrona Mercato Motel.”

  Ben received the information calmly enough, saying it back.

  “The Padrona Mercato, huh?” We nodded. “Means Mistress Market, you know?” We started to nod again, when Ben exploded. “That’s a whorehouse, DeGrabber!”

  Dave was rubbing his temples with some force, when I threw my hands up and swiveled away from our guest. Ben continued at a greater volume than was necessary.

  “This is what I’m talking about. You’ve done it now. You sleep with dogs, or whatever they’ve got at the Padrona Mercato, and what they have sticks to you.” Ben popped up from his chair and was on his feet. “I swear, you all have done it this time.”

  “Done what?” Dave demanded. He’s usually polite, no matter the circumstance, but even he has a limit, and Ben was laying it on thick. Dave raised his voice and said,

  “We are hired to catch a killer. It shouldn’t matter who has been killed, or how they make their room and board. Is it the police’s policy to only investigate crimes perpetrated against those citizens that are deemed worthy of justice?”

  Ben waved the remark off, and fired back.

  “Oh, can it, DeGrabber! The reason we don’t investigate this gang stuff is because there’s nothing to investigate.”

  I’d gotten my chair turned back around to the action just in time to see Dave outstretch both arms, and retort,

  “Oh, you’re so certain, are you?”

  You should know that Ben has punched Dave in the eye before, that way, like I wasn’t, you’re not surprised that Ben took a step forward. He decided against the physical attack however, and used some more words instead.

  “Honestly, DeGrabber, I can’t say, because it never got reported.” He let that sit long enough for my eyes to pop, though Dave made no move. “Yeah. You’re surprised Barbs Barbingola doesn’t call the emergency number when something happens? Don’t be. These birds are outlaws in more ways than one, but you seem determined to find out the hard way.”

  He waited another beat, but all Dave did was fold his arms and look over at a piece of floor in the corner. Ben dismissed us with another wave of his arm, turned, and left. I didn’t bother to get the door for him.