Hooker Stalker Killer Pimp: Stanley Bentworth mysteries, #7

1

The old Saturn wagon inched its early morning way through the slippery streets toward the industrial side of town where I had my office. The trusty old car was ideal for driving in snow and ice. It got good traction, usually started on the coldest of mornings, and the heater worked. It wasn’t a nice-looking car. It wore its 230,000 miles with pride and had a few dents I’d never bothered to get fixed. But it was nondescript, a valued asset for going unnoticed on a stakeout, and it was not high on the list of desirable rides so I could park anywhere in town and know that it would still be there when I got back.

My name is Stanley Bentworth, and I’m a P.I. in the medium-sized town of Delbert Falls, Maryland, between Philly and Baltimore. I used to be a homicide cop, but got canned for conduct unbecoming a human being, and now I’m out in the cold world scratching out a living.

They say I’m middle-aged, but I’m not. How many people make it to a hundred? I still have most of my hair and teeth and sport a barely-noticeable paunch, the result of a poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle. I dress well, and I smoke, drink, and am partial to ladies who have a pulse.

I’m not tough and don’t get into brawls, gun fights, car chases, or hockey games when I can avoid them. I’m what they call a soft-boiled detective, an unflattering characterization that got hung on me years ago and has stuck like pigeon droppings to a Borsalino fedora.

I am comfortable with notepads, pencils, voice recorders, and cameras. Most pictures, videos, and audio recordings are done with smart phones these days. I have forced myself to learn these devices only to the extent that I can use them for my work. In the office, I prefer a whiteboard to a spreadsheet, paper documents to digital databases, the public library to e-books, and real money to bit coins, whatever they are. My staff, which ranges from one to two people at any time, has to cover the geek beat for me. I am technically challenged, and I plan to keep it that way.

It should be obvious. I need an assistant.

Word had come to me from the street grapevine that Bondo, the bail bondsman, had a hot one that paid a substantial reward. He hadn’t called me, which meant the reward was up for grabs to anyone who could return the bail jumper into custody. This one was so hot, he wanted everyone on the street out looking. He didn’t give a damn who got the reward. I did. I wanted it to be me.

Business had been slow, and I was encouraged. Bondo’s problem could bring a measure of prosperity to my foundering private gumshoe practice.

I parked in the alley behind my office building and went in the back entrance, which walked me past the vending room. By habit I looked in to see which pretty young girls would be sitting there. The empty table and chairs reminded me that there would be no more pretty young girls. So did the absence of a listing on the lobby directory for the Adams Escort Service. It was gone now, and my name was at the top of the list for the first time. Being on top didn’t make up for the overnight disappearance of pretty women in the building.

I rode the elevator up and found my way into my two-room office, mumbled a hello to Willa, and sat at my desk in the inner sanctum.

My head hurt and the five aspirins and a cup of black coffee did little to ease the pain . It always hurt in the morning because I always drink too much in the evening. I’m working on it.

I punched the speed dial button for Bondo.

Bond Bail Agency, came his answer.

Bondo. Stan here. What’s with this hot jumper?

Come on over. I’ll fill you in.

How much?

Fifteen big ones. But you don’t get no exclusive. First come, first served.

Fifteen grand. Way more than I’d ever been paid for bringing in a jumper. And just in time. I was behind on my rent, Willa hadn’t been paid in a while, and I was almost out of bourbon.

I stopped at Willa’s desk.

Willa was my long-suffering administrative assistant, which is a fancy way of saying secretary/receptionist. She was mid-fifties, thin as a garden hose, hair pulled back in a bun, and no makeup. Her dress was drab, but her wit and mouth were not, something she was quick to showcase, me being the constant target for her stinging barbs.

She slid her reading glasses down the bridge of her beak-shaped nose and looked at me over the tops of the square lenses. Another pair dangled from around her neck on a lanyard for when she needed to see anything beyond the door.

I’m out of here, I said. There’s money to be made.

If you’re printing your own, Benjamin Franklin is my favorite forefather. We need a lot of pictures of him.

I bundled up against the December chill and went down the elevator and out the back door to where the old wagon waited patiently. The car didn’t like the below-freezing temperatures any more than I did, and it took its time starting. The starter and the battery got into a dispute about which one would last longer, but ultimately, the starter prevailed and the heap fired up. I was on my way.

I parked in front of Bondo’s office in a No Parking zone and went inside. He had the heat turned up, and I almost fainted from the abrupt rise in temperature.

Bondo was a squat little guy in his sixties with a perpetual cigar stub clamped between his few teeth and a perpetual grin on his round ruddy face. He often employed me to run down bail jumpers. He had a habit of posting bond for questionable characters, and I was good at finding them when they went on the lam to avoid prosecution.

Whatcha got? I asked.

He pulled out a copy of an official fugitive warrant. I’d seen plenty of them. I read it over. The fugitive was Warren Posey, charged with murder and out on a two hundred grand bail. His mugshot and description depicted a man in his forties who needed a shave, was missing a few teeth, had a scar across his forehead, and tattoos on both arms. And the usual warning: armed and dangerous. Terrific. I never liked assignments where someone got pissed enough to start something that involved weapons. But when I needed the money, I couldn’t be choosy.

I took a closer look at the bail amount and whistled. Shit, Bondo, you put up that much dough for this douche bag?

Yeah. My wife’s brother. Got into a bar fight, went out to his truck and came back with a gun to finish the fight, which he did, the bum.

And killed the guy?

Yep. Said the vic had been his best friend, go figure. Murder two, not capital, which was why he ain’t remanded. Has priors, accounting for the high bail.

Open and shut? I’d rather hunt a man who knows he’s guilty. The innocent ones put up a bigger fight.

All they got on him was a couple shaky drunk eyewitnesses. Didn’t find his piece.

So you posted.

Shit, Stan. He said he was sorry, damn near cried, and I took pity, patsy that I am. Then the bastard jumps, and I’m into the state for more bread than I got. Lots more. Who’d a thought my own brother-in-law woulda stiffed me thataway. If I got to pay it, my ass is outta business. Bankrupt. I’ll lose everything.

I would have thought Bondo was smarter than that. Family members are always the first ones to stiff a businessman. Given the pickle it put you in, it ought to pay more than fifteen.

It ought to, Stan, but that’s all I got. The dipshit put up his truck and now I got to turn that into cash. That’s why I didn’t call you with an exclusive. It’s on the street. You get him first, the money’s yours. But you should know, he’s a mean sumbitch and he carries. And word’s out the dumb shit says he won’t be taken alive.

How’s he get by?

Homeless with a disability pension. Lived in his truck, but I got that now. Don’t know if he can get to his scratch on the lam, but he might have some tucked away in a stash.

How soon do I get paid? I needed the money right away, and Bondo’s bail jumper was the answer to my prayers. But Bondo had a way of delaying payment when he could get away with it.

Cash on delivery. Call it incentive, buddy boy. You get paid when that asshole is behind bars. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. Never again. I’ll never help family again. Particularly my old lady’s. Bunch ’a fuckin’ losers.

He gave me all the information he had on his brother-in-law, and after a stop at the office to pick up Roscoe, my trusty .38 Colt special, I hit the streets.

I considered calling Sanford for backup. He’s the guy my sister is bunking in with. Sanford and I go way back, and we are close. He makes a living solving other people’s problems in ways that skirt the law. I usually don’t want to know how he does it. But if I need a favor, he’s there. Same holds in reverse, but there aren’t many things I can do that Sanford can’t do better.

I intentionally didn’t call Sanford this time because I’d have to divvy up the reward. Not that he wouldn’t earn every penny of it, but I was sure I could do this one on my own.

It would be better if I had an assistant to cover the grunt work, the dangerous work. But how hard could it be? It was just one desperate loser holed up somewhere with a gun and a resolve not to get taken. What could be hard about that? Yeah, right.

2

Finding an incognito homeless person is a challenge. They don’t have an address, their relatives are not usually known or anywhere nearby, and if they are fugitives, they don’t want to be found. Somebody in bum’s clothes can disappear on city streets. Most people ignore them, and they make sure to keep away from cops.

Folks lucky enough to live in loftier circumstances would prefer to think of the homeless as the dregs of humanity, outcasts to be written off, ignored, neglected. It was their fault they were in these crummy circumstances. If they’d quit drinking and get a job, their problems would vanish into thin air. That simple. That’s what the good folks thought.

I knew better. I’d been on the cusp of joining the homeless a few times. None of us plans that kind of life. No boy wants to be a junkie when he grows up. No girl wants to be a street hooker. Most of the homeless had become slaves to addictions or other practices that drag them down into the gutter while society permits it through indifference and inaction.

I needed to catch one of them, one that didn’t want to be caught and had been strong enough to escape and avoid capture for a while. I had my finances at stake. He had his freedom. Who would prevail?

I had an edge, an informant. Popcorn Pauley was a homeless guy who lived off what he found in municipal trashcans. He also knew everything that happened on the streets in Delbert Falls. He pulled his possessions behind him in a discarded coaster wagon and was easily found in the district where the best restaurants were, which meant the best discarded food.

Popcorn got his nickname from when the old movie theater was still open. He’d wait for the guy who ran the concession stand to throw out the leftover popcorn when the theater closed at midnight.

I drove around Pauley’s usual haunts until I spotted him on the street, leaning against the door frame of the back way into a department store. He had to be freezing. His topcoat was tattered, and he had no hat or gloves.

I pulled over and signaled him to get in the car. He climbed in the passenger’s seat and put his hands against the heater vent.

What’s up? he said.

I passed him the mugshot and a five-dollar bill. Know this guy?

He turned the picture up and down, side to side, examining it closely. Yep. I know him. Don’t know his name, but he used to live in his truck under the bridge. He pointed in the direction of the interstate.

I took the picture back and tucked it away. His name’s Posey. You know where he is now?

Pauley looked up and down the street through the windshield as if the view would tell him how to respond. Last I heard he lost his truck and was in the North Street Arms. Pauley referred to an abandoned warehouse where homeless people slept when the weather was bad. He goes out for food and wine and whatnot. He must have cash stashed somewhere.

He there all day? I needed to know whether to go there now or wait until evening.

Near’s I can tell. Most of our kind are on the street during the day to make what they can, but he stays holed up. Wanna buy a razor? He pulled an old electric razor from his coat pocket. It was missing the power cord. I waved it off.

Tell you what, Pauley. This pans out, there’s a hundred in it for you. If not, the hundred goes to anyone who can tell me where I can find Posey. No point in telling him how much the real reward was. The last thing I needed was a horde of homeless winos all over the streets, wanting a taste, getting in the way.

He thanked me for the fiver and got out. I would have given him my topcoat, but the last time I did that, he sold it to buy wine. I sat and watched him pull his coaster wagon down the street toward his next important appointment, whatever that might be. I was almost envious. He had a simple life, living from hand to mouth, but with no complications. My life was filled with complications, new ones every day.

3

At home, I put on the rattiest clothes I could find, which wasn’t hard. I went to my sister’s flower garden and smeared dirt all over my face and hands and into my hair. Back in the house, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in Amanda’s bedroom and assessed the homeless guy leering back at me. I wished I hadn’t shaved this morning, but the dirt ought to cover my sparkly bright cheeks and chin.

Mirrors don’t lie. If I didn’t make some money soon, that reflection wouldn’t be a disguise; it would be my reality. The only reason I wasn’t starving now was that my sister kept food on the table. I didn’t have enough to buy a bag of groceries, and that made me feel like the useless moocher I was. I was determined this day to catch a fugitive, collect a fifteen grand reward, and buy a bag of groceries.

I folded the warrant and stuck it in a pocket along with Posey’s mugshot. My cuffs, my fugitive warrant badge, and Roscoe, my .38 special, were out of sight under my ratty old pea jacket. I took them along because I might need Roscoe, and the badge and warrant might keep me out of trouble if the cops got involved.

To complete the outfit, I stopped at the liquor store where I usually shopped and picked up two bottles of cheap red wine. The clerk looked at me and my credit card. Apparently, she recognized my name on the card but not the dirty face on its bearer. Can I see some identification?

Molly, it’s me. Stan.

The incredulous look on her face told the tale. She hadn’t recognized me. The disguise was a good one. Stan? she said. Holy crap. Has it come to this?

I grinned through my grimy chops. Undercover, I said, and she relaxed, shook her head, and put my wine in paper bags, which I shoved one each into the side pockets of my tattered pea jacket. Then I signed the receipt and headed out for whatever unknown challenges were ahead in the uncharted territory of Delbert Falls’s homeless population.

***

I parked in the alley behind the North Street Arms, a large gray building that occupied an entire city block. A door in the rear stood slightly ajar, but I decided to go in the front like a newcomer should. I walked around the building slumped over, doing my damnedest to blend in with the homeless population in this part of town.

I was scared. I’m not good at fighting and shoot-outs, and I wanted to avoid any such confrontation, but it probably couldn’t be helped. Posey was a known badass. And now he was a known armed badass with an unshakable agenda, which was to keep his sorry ass out of jail. I hoped beyond hope, I could get the drop on him before he realized what was happening. Otherwise, there’d be bullets flying around the room with me positioned prominently in their way.

My knees were shaking, and I wanted with all my heart to turn and run back to my car, but the path to that bag of groceries was dead ahead and I had to take it.

I pulled the mug shot from my pocket and studied it. Probably a hundred homeless men and even a few women looked like him. Hell, in my disguise, I looked like him. I hoped there weren’t many other wayward souls seeking refuge from the cold in the North Street Arms this day.

My hopes were dashed. I walked in the entrance as though I belonged there. The single room reached to all four sides of the building and to steel rafters about thirty feet up. Grimy windows four-foot wide and eight-foot tall were spaced evenly the length of the room on both sides. Homeless people, the druggies, the winos, the dropouts of society, and even just the unemployed, had positioned themselves in small camps along the walls, most with a fire going, some with makeshift tents, others with shipping cartons to take shelter in. Smoke from the fires drifted up to the high ceiling and found its way outside through the eaves. The center of the room was lined with rows of stacked packing crates, probably either empty or packed with goods that had no value.

I walked the line, looking at the faces of men, most of them asleep, and watched for the telltale forehead scar that would identify Posey. The occupants’ possessions were strewn in disorganized stacks against the walls, and a few had coaster wagons like Popcorn Pauley’s, while others used old shopping carts to carry their goods. One couple had their belongings stuffed into a wheelchair with a bent wheel. Others had backpacks, suitcases, whatever they’d scrounged to hold their stuff, keep it dry, keep it out of sight, away from the prying eyes of thieves among their own people.

I circled the room. Posey wasn’t among the human wreckage assembled there. Nobody acknowledged my presence or seemed to think my search was out of the ordinary. The cold was unbearable, the stink worse. I wrinkled my nose and pulled my topcoat around me.

A woman of indeterminate age sat against the wall with her legs tucked under her and her hands held palms out near her small fire. The fire burned in an old auto tire rim fueled by whatever makeshift fuel she’d been able to scrounge and toss in. Every now and then she’d reach off to one side and come up with some bundles of newspaper, a magazine, a slat from an orange crate, anything to keep the blaze going just enough to keep her from freezing to death.

I sat next to her. Okay if I join you?

Got a cigarette?

Sure. I handed her my half-empty pack of Camels. Keep ’em. I got more.

She lit one with a stick from the fire and started to put the pack away then stopped. Oh. ’Scuse my manners. Want one?

No thanks, I said. I’m trying to quit.

She cackled. Quit? That’s a hoot. You’re welcome to sit in my part a while. Ain’t seen you here before. You new to the Arms?

Yeah. Name’s Stanley.

She nodded at the introduction. I’m Streetcar Alice.

Interesting name.

Used to peddle my ass on the DC Transit back in the day before they shut down the line. What you doin’ here?

I heard a pal of mine lived here, and I came to see if I could find him.

Who’d that be? She took a long drag on the cigarette and released a cloud of smoke that rose away from us and dissipated into the cold midday air.

Fella named Posey. We were in the Army together.

Don’t know that name.

I pulled the mugshot out and showed her. This is him.

She examined the picture and then gave me a suspicious look. You a cop?

No, Alice. Just an old friend.

She raised up on one side and farted. I looked at her, and she said, So?

I stifled a laugh, and she looked away and frowned. They’s lookin’ for Warren. They said he kilt a feller. He said not to tell anybody where he’s at. So I ain’t gonna tell you.

I had expected that. Trust on the street has to be earned, and people are reluctant to open up to strangers. I thought I might have a shortcut to gaining her trust, a common denominator, something she wouldn’t, couldn’t refuse. I pulled one of the bottles out of my pocket and unscrewed the cap. Care for a drink? I took a pull on it and passed it over.

Don’t mind if I do. She upended the bottle and drank at least a quarter of it in one pull. She handed it back, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and expelled a huge breath. At’s better, she said and belched loudly.

I screwed the cap back on. I’ll leave it here if you’ll tell me where Warren is.

Alice stared into my face. You ain’t a cop. She asked