Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel Part 26

"Can I go now?"

"With G.o.d," he said. "You do that statement about your talk with Obermeyer?"

I went into my pocket and came up with a folded trio of lined yellow sheets of paper. I handed the packet to Viviase, who took it with a look of resignation. He opened the folded sheets and looked at them.

"At least I can read your writing," he said. "I'll have it typed up for you to sign. Wait outside."

I got up and went into the hallway. Viviase moved past me with my report. There was a low wooden bench. I sat as far from the other person on the bench as I could.

It was somewhere over ninety degrees outside and about eighty inside the hall. The man at the end of the bench was wearing a heavy winter coat. He was smiling, a kind of goofy, pleased smile. He looked a little like my Uncle Benny when he was fifty: dark, too much hair, not enough chin, but plenty of nose.

I looked at the wall. There was a photograph of a policeman in dress uniform. The photograph was old. I fixed my eyes on it.

"It's my birthday," the guy at the other end of the bench said.

"Congratulations," I answered, still looking at the cop in the picture.

"Had a big birthday lunch at the Cuban place farther down on Main."

I nodded.

"I've had a birthday lunch at a different foreign restaurant every year for the last five years," he said with an air of accomplishment. "Greek, Italian, Jewish, Chinese. This year was Cuban."

"Yeah?" I said, feeling I had to say something.

"Yeah. I go alone. My family's back in Holland, Michigan," he said. "I used to fix clocks there. Holland, Michigan. They have a big tulip festival in Holland every year."

"I've heard," I said.

"I'm a witness," he said. "Murder. Man got shot in the Cuban restaurant two booths away from me. I was eating my refried beans. There was just me and these two guys and one shot the other one and got up and walked out."

I looked at him, trying to decide if he had seen a murder or had simply wandered into police headquarters, plopped on the bench, and started telling a story to the first person who would listen to him. I didn't say anything.

"Didn't get a good look," he said. "Guy just goes bloughy with the gun. Bloughy, you know. Twice. Gets up and goes. But I heard the other guy, the guy he shot, say his name. That's why I'm sitting here. I'm trying to remember the name. I'm good with faces, not with names."

He had slid toward me on the bench. I was already sitting on the end.

"Carnahan," he said.

"Nice to meet you," I said, without giving my name.

"No, I think the name of the guy was Carnahan. That's it. Carnahan. Or maybe it was Wisnant."

"I can see how you'd get the two confused," I said.

"No, it was something more like Pergamont," he said. "That's why I'm sitting here, trying to remember. They should have asked me what the guy looked like, the killer. I'm good with faces. Just saw him for a second, but that's enough. I used to fix watches."

"You said."

"Moncreiff," said the man.

"The name of the shooter?"

"No, my name. Simon Moncreiff."

He held out his hand. I took it.

"You told the police that you only saw the shooter for a second."

"Less than a second," he said, hands deep in his pockets, thinking. "You think it would help if I went through the alphabet?"

"Can't hurt," I said. "Give you something to do."

"It won't work," he said. "Terrible with names. Good with faces, people."

"What did the guy look like?" I asked, looking down the hall for Viviase.

"The dead guy?"

"The killer."

"Five-foot-seven or seven and a half, one hundred and sixty or sixty-five pounds, blue suit with a dark stain that looked like the State of Tennessee on the left lapel. Light skin with a little blue mole on his neck, right side. Green eyes. Good teeth except for a lower one on the right. Chipped. Looks a little like a volcano with the top missing. Good wrist.w.a.tch. Rolex, about five years old. On his right wrist. Means he's left-handed, which was the hand he had the gun in. Ring, real gold on his wedding finger, initials J.G. etched on it. Little scar, hardly see it, just under his right nostril, right here."

He pointed under his nose.

"Shoes?"

"Armani, black," he said.

"You tell this to the police?" I asked.

"No," he said. "They asked me what I saw of the shooter and I said I just saw him for a part of a second maybe. Than they got all interested in my hearing his name."

Viviase was coming back now. He handed the statement and a pen to me and looked at Moncreiff while I signed.

"Come up with a name yet?" he asked.

"Might have been Kooperman," the man in the overcoat tried. "Or Salter."

I handed the statement back to Viviase and said, "You might want to ask Mr. Moncreiff what the killer looked like," I said.

"I didn't get a very good look," Moncreiff said.

I got up.

"Ask him," I repeated, and started toward the stairway.

Behind me I could hear Viviase ask patiently, "What did the killer look like?"

I started down the stairs and heard Moncreiff begin with, "Five-foot-seven or seven and a half..."

I went back to my office. There was a call waiting from Harvey the Hacker. One of the things he told me almost certainly ended Viviase's plan to get Trasker legally out of Hoffmann's house. The other thing he told me confirmed what I had pretty much figured out about who had been taking shots at me.

I called Ames at the Texas Bar and Grill and told him about the Laundromat.

"Can you ride shotgun for me for a few days?" I asked.

"No problem," he said. "Be right over."

"I'll pick you up."

Ames was waiting outside when I got there. The sky was still overcast, but it wasn't raining and he didn't need his slicker for anything other than covering his shotgun.

He climbed in and sat back. I had brushed off the front seat as much as I could, but I'd still have to answer to Fred and Alan. Ames didn't ask where we were going, which was just as well because it was probable we were headed for the two places Detective Etienne Viviase most wanted me to stay away from.

Stop number one was less than five minutes away, the office of Dr. Obermeyer. This time there were two patients waiting in the reception room, an ancient, little, bent-over woman who tilted her head upward and glared at an equally old man directly across from her, who met her glare for glare.

Neither of them looked up at us when we entered.

Carla the receptionist, hair eater, however, did. Her glare was even better than the old couple.

"I'm calling the police," she said.

"First give Dr. Obermeyer a name," I said. "I don't think he'll want the police coming to talk about it and I don't think he'll be happy with you if you call the police before you give him the name."

She hesitated.

"I'm sorry if I got you in trouble the last time I was here," I said. "You've got your job and you were just trying your best to do it."

She picked up the phone and pushed a b.u.t.ton.

"That man with the baseball hat is back," she said. "With another man. He says I should give you a name."

She looked up at me.

"Dutcher," I said.

"Dutcher," she said into the telephone. "Yes."

She hung up.

"He'll be with you in a minute," she said.

I sat. Ames stood. It was less awkward to stand when you had a shotgun in your jacket. We watched the old couple glare at each other across the room for just about a minute. Then the door to Obermeyer's office opened and a well-dressed, slender woman came out. She was probably in her late forties. She was certainly not happy.

"The tests results will be back in three days," Obermeyer said, gently touching the woman's shoulder. "I'll call you immediately. I don't think there's anything to be concerned about. We just want to be careful."

The woman glanced at Ames and me as she went out the door, and Obermeyer said, "Mr. and Mrs. Spoznik, I'll be with you in just a moment."

The glaring couple gave him no sign that he had penetrated their concentration.

Obermeyer nodded at Ames and me and we followed him into his office. He moved behind his desk, a barrier from patients and intruders like me. Ames sat in one chair, right leg not quite bent, and I sat in the other.

"You mentioned a name," Obermeyer said.

"Dutcher," I said. "You know it, don't you?"

"I'm not sure," he said.

"Kevin Hoffmann's real name is Dutcher, Alvin York Dutcher," I said.

"So?" he asked.

"He had a sister, Claire Dutcher," I said.

"Interesting," he said. "But-"

"Fraud, murder," I said. "And you're a party to it."

"Wait," Obermeyer said, quickly standing. "I had nothing to do with any fraud, any murder."

"William Trasker's not too sick to me moved, is he?" I asked.

"In my opinion..." Obermeyer began, reverting to his role as confident physician.

"It's all going to come apart in the next few days," I said. "You'll go down with it."

Obermeyer sat down again.

"William Trasker is a very sick man," he said. "I've kept him comfortable and sedated. He is dying."

"But if he wasn't sedated," I said, "could he get up, walk, talk?"

"How long has he got, Doc?" Ames asked.

Obermeyer looked at Ames with surprise.

"That's difficult to determine," the doctor said. "As I told Mr. Fonesca, probably a few days."

"If a group of cancer experts looked at him," I said, "what would they say?"

Obermeyer sunk back.

"I don't know," he said with a sigh.

"He can function, move, make decisions?" I asked.

Obermeyer nodded and said, "I told you, he is heavily sedated."