Alley Katz (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 27) Page 12

  I pulled in front of the iron gate leading into Tubby Gustafson’s lair, a brick mansion surrounded by an eight-foot high brick wall and a security camera every other foot. I turned my car off, climbed out, and walked over to the intercom mounted on the wall next to the closed gate. I pushed the button labeled ‘contact,’ a green light flashed on, and a moment later, a voice growled, “What is it?”

  Nice way to welcome guests. I was tempted to say I was there collecting signatures for a petition. Instead, I said, “Hi, my name is Dev Haskell, and I’m here to see Tub— err, Mr. Gustafson.”

  “I can see who you are,” was the reply, followed by a click on the intercom, and the green light switched back to red. Maybe a minute later, the voice came back on and asked, “What’s this about?”

  “Mister Gustafson asked me to find someone.”

  “You can give me the information, and I’ll make sure he—”

  “I would like to give Mr. Gustafson the information personally. If he’s indisposed, he’s more than welcome to come down to my office sometime next week. I’ll be out of the office on Monday after—”

  “For God’s sake, take a breath,” the voice growled, and the intercom light went back to red again. A moment later, the iron gate began to open slowly. I hurried back behind the wheel of my Crown Vic, fired up the engine, and slowly drove into the compound.

  I followed the circular drive toward the parking area. As usual, there were two armed individuals standing in the shade on either side of the front door. When they saw my car, one of them immediately stepped into the house. I parked next to an antique red pickup truck with collector license plates. I grabbed the two pictures of Lyle that were resting on the passenger seat and stepped out of the car.

  Two more thugs stepped out of Tubby’s mansion, which made four goons in front of the house. They were spread out with hands resting at their waist, theoretically hiding their weapons while at the same time indicating they were all armed. One of them stepped off the front porch and headed toward me. I recognized him and his little goatee but couldn’t recall his name.

  “Every time you show up, it seems to create a problem, Haskell. Now you’re driving around town in a cop car. Assume the position,” he said.

  I turned around, spread my legs, and leaned over the trunk of my car. He patted me down, pulled out the blue sticky holster with my pistol from my waistband, and said, “It never fails. You can grab this on your way out. Let’s go. You can follow me.”

  I followed him to the front porch. While I was searched for a second time, I scanned the group of thugs for Lyle but didn’t see him. I was eventually deemed acceptable and allowed to enter Tubby’s palace. One of the thugs opened the door for me and I stepped inside. I recognized the guy with the glasses reading in a chair. As soon as I stepped inside, he set his comic book down and stood.

  “You’re here to see Mr. Gustafson?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Squiggy, how are things going?”

  He pushed his bifocals up on his nose and said, “You know how it is,” and whispered, “same shit different day.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  He waved me forward, and as I approached, he picked up a black and yellow wand. I’d been through this uncountable times and assumed the position, this time standing with my legs spread and my arms out at shoulder height. He ran the wand back and forth over me. Fortunately, I passed inspection.

  “Follow me. He’s working in his office,” he said, turned, and headed across the black and white marble floor toward the hallway. Fortunately, we passed by the small door beneath the staircase where I had to go during the COVID-19 pandemic and headed down the hall.

  Tubby’s office was the third door on the left at the end of the hall. Squiggy knocked on the door, and Tubby suddenly growled, “Get in here.”

  “Haskell to see you, sir,” Squiggy said as he opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Get over here and sit down, Haskell,” Tubby said. He was seated at his desk wearing a white shirt with a striped tie. For the first time in a long time, there weren’t any women standing over him, taking his blood pressure, or giving him a massage.

  He laid his pen down and watched me approach. Once I sat down in the black leather chair, he exhaled loudly and shook his head. “I presume you’re here with some form of disappointing news. What a shame, I was beginning to enjoy the day.”

  I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the two images of Lyle. I unfolded the paper and placed them on Tubby’s desk. He picked up a pencil, turned it upside down, and using the eraser, dragged the top paper toward him.

  He looked at the image for a moment then, still using the pencil, slid it off to the side and examined the second sheet. When he was finished, he looked up at me and said, “So?”

  “So, he stole all the information I had accumulated on Eli Cummings. The files, the photos, paintings, the list of addresses where he might be staying, it’s all gone. Stolen,” I lied. “It would appear your friend Lyle took all of it.”

  “But he said he didn’t find… Umm, find the time to meet with you, Haskell. He was working on another problem.”

  “Well, sir, you can see the time and date marked on the images. He kicked in the door to my office and took everything. So, I’m back to square one. If you’d care to share any information you might have I—”

  “I told you before, Haskell. I don’t have any information. That was your job, and once again, you’ve managed to fail.”

  “Okay. If that’s what happened, I’ll start over, but the trail is just that much colder.”

  “Any other day brighteners?” Tubby growled.

  “Just trying to be upfront with you, sir, and give you current information.”

  “Right now, the best thing you could do for me would be to get the hell out of my sight, Haskell.”

  I nodded, stood, and for the first time, noticed the newly framed painting hanging on the wall above the fireplace. “Say, is that William Bellows ‘Planting Time?’” I asked, looking at the same painting as the three copies we’d placed in Annette’s car. I suddenly wondered if Tubby’s connection to Eli Cummings was forgery?

  Tubby’s face grew red, and he jumped to his feet. “Get out! Get out! Get out of my damn office, you Moron!” he screamed. It was suddenly apparent, that along with the starched white shirt and striped tie, he was wearing red boxer shorts and no trousers. There didn’t seem to be anything positive to be gained by making a comment, and I hurried toward the door.

  As I opened the door, I turned and said, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Gustafson,” just as a blonde woman climbed out from beneath his desk.

  Squiggy was hurrying down the hallway as I closed the door behind me. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fine. We had a short conversation. I have the feeling I was interrupting something,” I said and made tracks for the front door just as Squiggy’s cellphone played a reveille bugle call. He stopped and pulled the phone out of his pocket as I hurried toward the front door. I let myself out of the mansion and headed toward my car.

  “Hey, Haskell, you dumb shit. Forget something,” the guy with the little goatee called. He was holding my blue sticky holster.

  “Oh yeah, thanks. I was just about to look for you.”

  “Yeah, sure you were.”

  “There you are, you worthless piece—”

  I turned and stared at Lyle, storming toward me. All four fingers on his right hand were encased in shiny metal finger splints with blue sponge between the splint and his fingers, reminding me of the rat trap from my file drawer. I started to back up and thought about running, but Squiggy suddenly poked his head out of the front door and shouted, “Hey, Lyle, the boss wants to see you. Now.”

  “Be there in a minute. I just need to deal with—”

  “He said now, dude, and he didn’t sound happy.”

  Lyle stopped and snarled something I couldn’t understand.

  Fat Freddy suddenly shoved Squiggy
out of the way and said, “Lyle, get your worthless ass in here.”

  At the sound of Fat Freddy’s voice, everyone seemed to focus somewhere else and quickly made a path for Lyle to head into the mansion.

  “Just what in the hell do you think you’re—” Fat Freddy started to say, but whatever followed was cut off once Lyle stepped inside and Freddy slammed the door closed.

  “Oh, sounds like the shit is about to hit the fan,” the guy with the goatee said and handed me my sticky holster. “Might be a good idea to get the hell out of here.”

  I didn’t need any additional encouragement.

  Chapter 26

  On the way home, I must have checked the rearview mirror at least a dozen times to see if I was being followed. I drove around my block twice just to be sure before I pulled into the driveway.

  I hurried into the house, looked out the front window for a minute or two just to be sure, and then called upstairs, “Taylor?”

  “Yeah, Dev, we’re up here.”

  I climbed the stairs and popped my head in the guest room. Taylor was still working away at the desk. It looked like there were at least a half-dozen sheets of paper filled with color sketches of tattoos. Morton was curled up on the floor next to the desk. He opened his eyes then stood, stretched, and walked over to me. I gave him a long scratch behind the ears and said, “Have you been working all this time?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. I took a couple of breaks, and we went for a walk.”

  “Great. Hey, sorry I interrupted. Anything I can get you, a root beer or something?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m going to knock off once I finish this one. Probably another forty-five minutes, and I’ll be done.”

  “You hungry for anything special for dinner?”

  “Whatever you have is fine with me.”

  “Careful what you wish for. Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Morton, you want to come with me?”

  Morton walked back over to the desk, slowly turned around, and curled up on the floor again.

  I went downstairs, looked out the window once more to make sure Fat Freddy, or worse, Lyle, wasn’t out front, then headed into the kitchen. I turned on my laptop and Googled the ‘Planting Time’ painting. The image that came up looked exactly like the painting that had been hanging on Tubby’s wall and the three in Annette’s car.

  I phoned Annette. I was just getting ready to leave a message when she answered, “Dinicci.”

  “Hi Annette, Dev Haskell.”

  “Hi, Dev.”

  “You find out anything on those paintings?”

  “Yes and no. I’m still working my way through them. I have two left to look at. The four I have examined are all forgeries but very good forgeries. One of them appears to have been painted over a previous canvas. Thus far, all the canvases and frames have been altered to appear old.”

  “Interesting. I wonder what he intended to do with them.”

  “My guess is he planned to sell them to interested parties and then warn them that if they made the acquisition public, there was a chance law enforcement would be involved and return the painting to a rightful owner.”

  “Would that actually work?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised. The price people pay for a forgery is a lot of money, but far less than the actual value of the original. Which makes the price of a forgery so appealing, everyone thinks they’re getting a deal. There are a lot of people who think they deserve a classic painting. Thinking it’s an original, they’ll store the forgery in a vault where it won’t see the light of day for years, decades even.”

  “Maybe not so amazing based on my afternoon.”

  “Oh?”

  I went on to tell her about my meeting with Tubby Gustafson and the ‘Planting Time’ painting hanging in his office. “Your mention of storing the painting in a vault, maybe explains Tubby’s reaction to my comment. I mentioned William Bellows and ‘Planting Time’, and he went crazy.”

  “Based on the way Mr. Gustafson responded, Dev, it would suggest to me that the painting is a forgery he paid a lot of money for, always intending to keep quiet about his acquisition. But you recognizing the work just blew that out of the water.”

  “I wonder if he actually knows it’s a forgery. And then the next question would be, was he somehow involved in the sale of other forgeries?” I asked.

  “Could be,” Annette said. “But then why get so upset when you identified the painting? Why not just say it’s a copy and laugh it off? That would seem to put everything to rest.”

  “If he paid a high price for it and found out later it was forged, that may be why he wants me to find Cummings.”

  “An awful lot of craziness,” Annette said. “Say, I’m going to finish up here later this afternoon. Could I talk you into joining me for dinner tonight? Nothing fancy, I’ve got a stew going in the crockpot.”

  “Oh, that sounds great. I could bring— Oh, wait. I better take a pass. I’ve actually got a guest.” I told her about Taylor then said, “Tell you what, why don’t you join us tonight? Bring the crockpot over. I’ll do up some potatoes and a dessert. I’ll walk up the street and grab a bottle of wine. Besides, Taylor’s been working on some artwork, and I’d love to have you take a look and give him some encouragement. He’s really been working hard.”

  “You know, Dev, that sounds great. You name the time.”

  “How does 5:30 sound? We can have a glass of wine before dinner. I’d love for you to meet Taylor.”

  “Thanks, Dev, looking forward to it. I’ll see you then.”

  I called upstairs to Taylor and told him I would be back in fifteen minutes. I walked up the street to Solo Vino. I decided two bottles of a Pinot might be a better idea than just one. I stopped at the bakery in the next block, bought a dessert, and then hurried back home. I set everything on the kitchen counter and headed upstairs.

  “Hey Taylor, I’ve got a friend coming over for dinner. Actually, she’s bringing dinner, a stew. She’s an arty type, and if you want, you could show her your work.”

  “Yeah, sure. I should be finished up here in just a bit. I’m starting to run out of steam.”

  “Well, you’ve got a couple of hours before she arrives. Grab a nap if you feel like it.”

  “I just might do that,” he said.

  I went back downstairs and did some light cleaning. I grabbed a half-dozen items I’d piled on the dining room table and stuffed them in a closet. I was getting things ready in the kitchen when my phone rang. “Dev Haskell,” I answered without looking at the caller ID.

  “So, you decided not to call?” Gladys said.

  “Gladys, hi, are you okay? It’s been days since—”

  “Your phone works both ways, Dev. You can make calls as well as receive them.”

  “Didn’t you get any of my messages? I called you a number of times, and I sent you text messages.”

  She ignored my question and said, “I’m going to order a dinner, and if you’re not busy you’re welcome to come over.”

  “Oh, thanks, I wish I could, but actually, I’m having someone over, two people as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, well, pardon me if I’m interrupting your social calendar.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just that I’ve already invited the woman, and she’s bringing dinner, a stew. She’s helping me on a forgery case,” I quickly added.

  “Yeah, sure she is. Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.”

  I thought for half a moment about inviting Gladys and immediately decided that would be a recipe for disaster. Taylor didn’t need to be put in that situation, nor did Annette. “Hello, Gladys, are you still there?”

  “I just wanted to be sure you heard this,” she said and then hung up.

  If I’d had any doubts about not inviting her, she’d just erased them. I guess I was supposed to call her back immediately and beg forgiveness. Instead, I decided to set the dining room table.

  Taylor stepped into the kitchen around 5:00. He was dressed in on
e of his new shirts and a new pair of jeans. Morton was right behind him. Taylor let him out in the backyard and set about making a peanut butter sandwich.

  “My friend Annette is going to be here in about thirty minutes with dinner.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just needed something to tide me over until then,” he said and proceeded to stuff half the sandwich into his mouth.

  Actually, that seemed to make sense, and I grabbed a spoon and scooped up a spoonful of peanut butter for me. “You know, it might be a good idea to take the tag off the back of those jeans,” I said.

  He reached behind him and pulled the tag off the back pocket. It said, ‘Slim Fit 29W 30L’. “Mmm, thanks for pointing it out. Been a while since I had a new pair of jeans,” he laughed.

  I gave him a little smile and took another spoonful of peanut butter.

  Chapter 27

  I had begun boiling the potatoes, and I had the red peppers going on low heat. Annette knocked on the door promptly at 5:30. She was carrying the crockpot in a round, green carrying case. “Dinner has arrived,” she said as I opened the front door.

  “Oh, here, let me take that from you.”

  “Relax, I got it. You just lead the way back to the kitchen.”

  I did just that and pointed to a spot on the kitchen counter. “Set it down there, and you can plug it into that outlet. Can I talk you into a glass of wine?”

  “You just did. Yeah, I’d love one.”

  “Hi, I’m Annette,” she said, holding her hand out to Taylor.

  “Taylor, pleased to meet you,” he said taking her hand.

  “Dev told me you’re staying here for a while.”

  “As long as he wants,” I said, twisting the cap off the wine bottle and filling Annette’s glass.

  She unzipped the top of the case and pulled the crockpot out. The wonderful aroma of stew began to fill the room.

  “Oh, that smells delicious,” I said.