CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Closing Time

Lily Caldwell turned off the coffee machine, lifted up the pot and looked over at her lone customer. He was sitting at the booth by the door, glancing out the window at every car that passed by. Frankie was a good customer and an even better friend, but it was obvious he hadn’t come in tonight just for the pleasure of her sparkling conversation. There was a cup of coffee growing cold in front of him, and on the seat beside him lay a large yellow envelope. He’d been there for a good four hours, checking the clock over the pie case every five minutes and looking more and more depressed as the night wore on.

“Hey Frank, you want a refill there before I throw this out?” she asked, raising the coffee pot.

“God, no,” Frank said, wincing. “ I have any more of that Drano you call coffee, Lil, the inside of my gut’ll look like Swiss cheese.”

“Suit yourself.” She rinsed out the pot and placed it in the sink. “You been stood up again, sugar?” Lily asked as she dried her hands on her apron and crossed over to his table.

“Sure looks that way.” Frank gazed out the window again and shook his head mournfully.

“I keep telling you, you can’t sit by the window where they can see you first. That big ugly mug of yours just keeps scaring ‘em off.”

Frank managed a chuckle as he turned back to her. “I think you’re the one who scares ‘em off, Lily. They know you’d rip the lungs out of any girl who tried to steal me away from you.”

She leaned against the booth divider and raised an eyebrow. “Ha. Keep dreaming, Romeo.”

“Well, this time it was a client, Lil. A guy. When I called him in Port Legard yesterday to tell him I’d have what he wanted ready by tonight, he said he’d be staying the night down in Bangor, then meet me here by eight o’clock.”

“Maybe he just got held up with the bad weather. Rain’s been coming down off and on since yesterday. You know, if you gave in and got yourself one of those cell phones he could have called you.”

“Philip Marlowe didn’t need a cell phone, schweetheart. ”

“Hate to tell you this, but Humphrey Bogart you are not.”

“Robert Mitchum, maybe?”

“Not even on one of your good nights.”

“You are one cruel woman, Lily Caldwell.”

“And about to get crueler.” She picked up his coffee cup and pocketed the dollar-fifty Frank had placed beside it. “This place isn’t an all-night diner and I gotta get some beauty sleep. I told Dixie I’d cover her on the morning shift,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the clock, “which is about six hours from now. So unless you’re planning to sweep me off my aching feet and take me to Maui for two weeks, I’m throwing you out and locking up.” She crossed back around to the sink and placed his cup next to the coffee pot.

“Sure, sure, Lily. Sorry to keep you.” Frank picked up the fat envelope and tapped it gently on the table. “Pisses me off though. Worked my ass off getting the information this guy told me he needed pronto, and he said he was more than happy to pay me a ton of money for the job - enough to pay for a year in Maui, I’m telling you.”

“I’m already dancing the hula and sipping a chi-chi.”

She untied her apron and sighed. Frankie was always just about to land a big one, poor sap. “I’m sure he just didn’t want to drive – I bet there’s a message waiting for you at home, Frankie. Remember home? That rat trap you go to when you aren’t taking up space here?"

Hanging the apron on the hook by the kitchen, she crossed over to the coat rack by the front door and pointedly offered Frank his rumpled trench coat. “Now go on, scoot. A long, hot bubble bath is calling my name.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” He slid out of the booth to take the coat from her, then leaned in closer. “Unless you need me to scrub your back?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“That’s the caffeine talking now, hotshot,” she laughed, giving his arm a playful swat. “We still on for Saturday night? Your turn to treat, remember?”

“What,“ he said, shrugging on his coat and cinching the belt, “you think I’m going to forget a fully restored Gene Tierney double feature on the big screen? I’ll be by for you at half past six, doll.” He slipped the envelope inside his coat, gave her a wink and opened the door to the diner. Glancing up at the sky, he said, “Well, at least the rain stopped. I tell ya, this guy better have some damn good excuse.”

“Good night, tough guy.” Lily nudged him out the door. “Swing by tomorrow and let me know if your ship decided to sail in.”

“Will do. First round of chi-chis is on me.”

“I’ll bet Bogart never drank a chi-chi in his life.”

“He didn’t know what he was missing,” said Frank, warming to the topic. “I tell you, there was this one time I was working a case in Honolulu and I-“

“Say good night, Frankie.”

Frank grinned. “‘Good night, Frankie.’”

Lily rolled her eyes and firmly closed the door. “Maui, he says.” Lily gave a soft laugh. At this rate, she’d settle for a wild weekend in Atlantic City. She watched her friend snap the collar up on his coat and then walk away, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Smiling ruefully, she realized he did look like Bogart, at least a little, from the back. Not that she’d ever tell him that, of course. She locked the door and flipped the “Open” sign around to read “Closed”.

As she flicked off the lights, she caught sight of a long, black car slowly gliding down the street in the direction Frank had just gone, its sleek lines captured for a moment in the amber glow of the streetlight. Odd thing was, the guy’s headlights were off. Lily felt a little shiver and grabbed her cardigan off the coat rack. A hot bath was definitely in order. She looked out the window again, but the car had already disappeared around the corner. Maybe it was Frank’s rich client come at last, she mused. One thing was for certain - Frankie’d have a hell of a story to tell. He always did.

----------------------------------------

Frank was fumbling with his keys on the front steps of his apartment building and cursing his bad luck when he heard a voice softly call his name. Frank turned around. Across the street idled a low, sleek Jaguar, and the driver was leaning slightly out of the window smiling up at him.

“Mr. Russell, I believe you have been waiting for me," the man said.

Older guy, silver hair, distinguished. Same high-class accent Frank remembered from their brief phone conversations. Hell, he had to be rich to be driving something like that, Frank thought. Maybe the night wouldn’t be a total bust, after all.

Frank walked back down the steps and crossed the street. “You the professor?” he asked.

The guy had never given his name, just the title and a number where he could be reached. Normally Frank didn’t put up with the cloak and dagger shit from his clients, but this guy’d been really convincing on the phone – and even more convincing had been the fee he’d offered. And besides, if he needed to track "the professor" down later, it wouldn’t be too hard. Hell, that’s what he did for a living, wasn’t it?

“That I am,” the man replied. “My sincere apologies for being so late.”

“Well, no harm done, I suppose, except to my ulcer with all the java I drank waiting for you.”

“You have the information I requested?”

“Yeah, right here…” Frank said, reaching inside his coat. The man raised a hand to stop him.

“Please, would you mind if we completed our business in my car? I’m afraid this is a very private matter.”

“Sure, I guess….” Frank crossed around to the passenger side and got in. “Nice Jag.”

“A recent acquisition.” The professor held out his hand and Frank placed the bulky envelope in it. “Grazie.” Frank heard the man’s soft intake of breath as he delicately traced his forefinger down the length of the sealed envelope.

“You know…what is in here?” the man finally asked, looking back up at Frank.

“Well, yeah…I mean, I had to know what to look for, after all, who to talk to, what questions to ask. I got you some recent photographs, a record of the subject’s movements over the past month and an address. I was absolutely discrete, though, just like you requested."

“Of course you were.”

“Ah…well, then, it’s late…and…?”

“And there is the matter of your fee. Certainly.” The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here is a cashier’s check for the amount we agreed upon – plus a small bonus for your extra time this evening.”

Frank took the paper and looked down at it in angry amazement. “What kind of jackass do you think I am? This
is just a blank piece of-"

Suddenly a strong hand gripped Frank’s wrist, and he looked up into two coal-black eyes. “What the…?”

The man’s eyes seemed to get even larger and darker, like two bottomless pits…swirling...drawing him in...
Frank felt a wave of dizziness pass over him and he gulped in a deep breath of air.

“It must be a trick of the light, Mr. Russell,” the man firmly insisted. “I’m sure that when you look at it again, you’ll see that it is all perfectly in order.”

Frank blinked and shook his head to clear it, then peered more closely at the paper in his hand. Sure enough, there was a one and plenty of zeros right where they were supposed to be, all made out to him. “Jeeze, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said slowly. “This is plenty. Thank you.”

“You earned every penny, I’m sure,” said the man, releasing his wrist. Frank started to open the car door, but the low, dark voice stopped him.

“Please don’t go just yet, Mr. Russell.” Frank suddenly felt as though all he wanted to do was sit and chat with the nice, rich man. “Do you know why, out of all the private investigators on the Eastern Seaboard, I chose you for this task?"

“Was it my boyish good looks and charm?”

The man chuckled. “How droll. No, I needed someone who had absolutely no ties, no reputation, no connection with a large agency, no family, and no loved ones."

"Ah."

"You do not have any loved ones, do you, Mr. Russell?”

A fleeting image of Lily and her brash smile crossed Frank’s mind, but something told him to bury it deep.

“No, there’s no one.”

“How very sad for you. That generous check will be gone before you know it, and then what? You will be once more what you are now: a pitiable, lonely man scrambling from this divorce case to that insurance fraud - your only friend that pint of cheap bourbon waiting for you upstairs. Nothing to live for but a sad, solitary end. ‘Sans teeth, sans hair, sans everything’, as the poet says. A pathetic end to a wasted life."

Frank could see it all before him; the guy was dead right. A crushing weight seemed to settle down on his chest and shoulders.

“But luckily,” the man said, “I know what you can do to prevent all that.”

“You…do?” Frank asked hopefully.

“Indeed, Mr. Russell. I think the best thing you could possibly do would be to climb up the stairs to the roof of your building – you can get all the way up there, can’t you?”

“Sure…no problem.”

“And I think you should throw yourself right off the edge of the roof. Isn’t that a good idea, Mr. Russell?”

“Y---yeah. You’re absolutely right.” His own voice sounded odd now to him – thick and heavy. “That sounds like a fine idea. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“Right then. Off you go.”

Frank slowly opened the car door and stumbled out onto the street.

“And Mr. Russell?”

“Yeah?”

“It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

----------------------------------------

Wilton Carandini watched the investigator trudge slowly up the stairs and into the building towards his final appointment. He was fully confident that Frank Russell would follow his instructions exactly. Sometimes it seemed as though his ‘suggestions’ were practically superfluous, people were so eager to please.

Once he’d realized that the address Russell had given him for their meeting was not a private office, but rather a very public diner, he’d simply bided his time until the man finally left for home. It certainly wouldn’t have done to be seen in his company.

And what was four more hours when he’d already waited twenty years?

He turned his attention back to the envelope on the passenger seat, and was surprised to feel a frisson of anxiety. Very few things in this world surprised him anymore, much less made him anxious, and he savored the feelings as if they were different grace notes in a glass of fine wine. He looked up at the apartment building again to gauge how long it would take Mr. Russell to climb ten flights of stairs. He decided to indulge himself and open the envelope – he had a few minutes before he had to be away from the impending crime scene. With his right index finger, he slit open the seal and gently tipped the contents of the envelope into his hand.

And for the first time in two decades, Wilton Carandini felt his iron discipline falter.

On top of a neatly typed pile of documents were, as Mr. Russell had promised, photographs. He stared at the first one in rapt amazement. Gazing back at him was the face of a stunningly beautiful young woman, her eyes filled with a dark intensity that matched his own.

Diana.

Her hair was long and black and her lips were parted in a demure half-smile. Just like her mother’s, he thought, feeling a twinge of pain and pleasure he had assumed was long dead.

“But your eyes…” he said softly, stroking the edge of the photo, “your eyes are mine.”

He forced himself to put the other photographs aside for later perusal, and sifted through the documents to find the information he had sought for so long. She was living under an assumed name, of course, but it was his daughter, his Diana; of that there was no doubt. When he saw the address, a rare laugh escaped him.

Boston. After all these years of searching, it turns out you have been hiding in Boston.

His immediate curiosity satisfied, Carandini carefully replaced the papers and photos. Setting the envelope back down beside him, he leaned his head out the window one last time and glanced up. He smiled when, after a moment, the bulky silhouette of Mr. Russell appeared and began to teeter on the roof’s edge.

“Good man,” he said, giving a nod of satisfaction. He then put the Jaguar back into first and eased out the clutch.

As he pulled away down the street that led back to the highway, Carandini stifled a reckless impulse to drive south and admonished himself. He simply did not do reckless things. He turned north instead, back to Port Legard. It would be good to get back to Halstead. Boston was for another day. It was imperative that no one connected him with Diana, and he needed to adjust his plans now that he knew she was so close at hand.

Yes, it would be good to get back to Halstead, he thought. It was beginning to feel like home.


L.A.G.