Chapter 7 – Where’s Crazy Joe?

This is chapter seven of a novel in progress called "Uncivil Service." The previous chapter can be found here The novel begins here.

Shitonya turned to my captors and said,

“That’ll be all boys. I’ll be sure to let Mr. Maudlin know what a fine job you’ve been doing keeping the premises secured.”

Gorilla number one then released me from my shackles, he and his partner turned and walked away without another word, and I found myself facing my liberator on the threshold. Too bad I hadn’t stopped to pick up flowers on the way in.

“So, should I let you in? You do seem like a bit of a risk to the operation.”

“Why Shitonya, after all these years I’m shocked to hear you think of me as anything but harmless.”

“Well, you have been known to do an honest day’s work from time to time, and your colleagues are not exactly happy about the precedent that sets.”

“Flattery will get you no where, toots, let me in. I’ve got pointless tasks to complete.”

“Sweetie, you better not call me ‘toots’ or I’ll have the sensitivity police on your ass, and a few other places, too.”

“Promises, promises. It’s tempting but I think I’ll have to pass.”

With that, she turned on her heel and headed down toward her desk a few steps from the door, leaving the coast clear for me to steal into my place of employ.

Before turning into my own office, I stopped in front her desk.

“So where’s Arthur? I’ve got a meeting with him in five minutes.”

A half shriek half rasp sound rose from behind me. It was Mauldin love interest number one, Altoona.

“Oh, he called about a half an hour ago. Said he won’t be in until after lunch, and that you should start the meeting without him.”

“I’m supposed to start a meeting that’s supposed to be just me and him without him? How’s that gonna work? You know I can’t keep to an agenda.”

“Don’t ask me, babe. Figuring things out is not in my job description. You’re on your own with that one.”

I was about to throw some out some questions about why everyone above and below me in the chain of command was either missing or killed in action. Something told me not to trust Altoona and Carboña with those kinds of thoughts, though. I turned into my office, threw my jacket in the general vicinity of a coat rack and sat down behind my desk. Shitonya was the one to talk to about this. She was the only one in the office who did a lick of work, and the only one so far as I could tell, rebuffed the boss’s advances. She hardly ever gossiped, either, but her rumors were always on the money.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make an executive decision. Meeting cancelled. Shitonya, can you come into my office for a minute please. I gotta do the asphalt orders myself this morning, and I need some help.”

“What are you talking about? You can do those things in your …”

“Shut up and close the door” I hissed at her.

“Ever since they started that new system over at Amici, I can’t keep the orders straight. I don’t know how Pats did it,” I said, perhaps only slightly exaggerating my usually befuddled tone for the benefit of the other two secretaries, who had perfect hearing, except for the sounds of their own phones ringing.

“Oh, you mean the new order forms. Here, I think there in this cabinet behind the door,” said Shitonya, clearly picking up on my ruse as she shut the door behind her.

“What are you talking about? There’s no new system. And what the hell happened downstairs?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. You managed to get in the door, how come I couldn’t?”

“The stupid ID things didn’t work, so I just walked in. The guards never stop me. When I got up here, the ID thing didn’t work on this door either, so I used the key I never gave back when they installed that thing.”

“What about the others? How did they get in?”
“Carboña and Altoona were already in when I got here. I didn’t ask them how. This happens a lot, and I think they have keys, too.”

“Yeah, I know, but nobody stopped you downstairs, and nobody ever stopped me before. I don’ know, but with everything I’ve been through, I’m getting a weird feeling about this.”

“What? You think it’s weird that somebody in our office gets murdered, and the security gets a little tighter? If you ask me, that’s a pretty good thing.”

Maybe I was being a little paranoid, or getting a little carried away in my new role as a homicide investigator, but it seemed to me that that wasn’t quite what was going on, and I said as much to Shitonya.

“Security’s getting tighter? So how come everybody gets in like usual except the one guy who talked to the cops, witnesses, and maybe the killer?”

“White, what the hell are you talking about?”

“What I’m talking about is this. Crazy Joe was in the apartment with Pats, alone. Maybe Pats was dead already, and maybe he wasn’t. He says he didn’t kill him, but he sure isn’t acting that way. He’s disappeared off the map. I’m the last guy that talked to him, and I’m the only one with any connection to Pats except his wife that had any connection to him. And that’s not all.”

With that, I started to tell her about Hunny, leaving out the underwear details. After all, who knew where the line between appropriate and appropriate lay. At first I also left out the details of her family tree.

“So lemme see if I got this straight. There’s this incredibly hot chick who used to be some broke dumpy married guy’s girlfriend and now she’s shacking up with you. And she’s trying to get you to solve a murder she’s afraid to talk to the cops about because she trusts you, a slightly less dumpy, slightly less married, equally broke guy?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“And you’re going along with it cause you’re a knight in shining fuckin’ armor right?”

“I don’t like to flatter myself, but you could look at it that way.”

“I’m not buying it. You’re an idiot who can’t take his eyes off a nice pair of tits, and is so desperate to get laid that he’d jump in to bed with a killer.”

With that, I looked up at her face (not that I’d noticed her tits), and started to contradict her.

“Look, maybe you’ve got a half a point about the tits (not that I noticed), but she’s not the killer, I didn’t jump into bed with her, and I’m not desperate. Just very particular, not that it’s any business of yours.”

“More to the story? Like what? She’s a member of the free frickin’ French resistance and you own a piano bar you ain’t telling me about?”

“What?”

“Casablanca was on the tube last night. It’s the best I could do.”

“Right actor, wrong movie. This is looking a little more like the Maltese Falcon. But trust me, this girl is in trouble, and if I don’t help her I could be to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t want to know anything more about her than that. I just need you to help me with one thing.”

“I’m not helping you with anything until you tell me the whole deal. Who is this girl?”

“Come on, you’re the only one who can help me with this, and it’s too dangerous for you ot know anything else.”

“Nothing doing. Spill it.”

I realized at that point that there was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t crack this case by myself, and if I was going to be taking on a partner, I couldn’t keep holding out.

“Her name is Hunny Pugliacci, and she’s afraid to go the cops, because she thinks her father might be involved.”

Shitonya let out a long whistle, then said:

“Vinny the Pooh’s daughter? Man you are in deep shit. If you’re stupid enough to get this involved, you’re definitely to dumb to get out of it by yourself. What do you want me to do?”

“Find Crazy Joe, and get him to come into the office, but don’t let him find out that it’s me who wants him.”

“You got it. But this is going to cost you.”

“She says she can pay. I’ll give you, uh, a quarter of what she gives me.”

“Fifty-fifty partner, and I got one more condition.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Help me get rid of those to hos outside. Deal”

Under the circumstances, I didn’t see that I had much choice.

“Deal, partner.”