New Archive:
February 2000 Issue, Volume 1
Openings and Closings
Part Three
By
Adam Abramowitz
Modin was slumped in a chair behind his desk. Blood and pieces of gray matter splattered the wall behind him and did nothing to remind me of Jackson Pollack. I looked around quickly. Besides the mess on the wall, everything looked in place. On top of the desk, catalogues and invitations were neatly stacked next to a full filofax and a blue glass jar full of silver pens. A black leather couch hugged one wall; a pair of black filing cabinets shared another. I went through Modin's pockets and aside from his wallet came up empty. I flipped through the wallet and put it back. I tried the handles of the filing cabinets and found them all locked. The assistantšs screaming turned into a series of "Omigod, omigod, omigod."
"Call the police!" I yelled at her again.
She dry heaved a couple of times and rushed off.
I rolled through the filofax, not looking for anything in particular, just being gumshoe-like. Modin knew a lot of people. It read like a celebrity stalker's wet dream. Among the "M's" I found something that was different. A number without a name affixed to it. I finished up with the roll, pocketed the number and looked around some more.
There were three paintings on the walls. Two were standard matches-the-couch-and-rug abstracts. The other was a still-life of a wall safe. I looked behind that one. I was trained in that sort of thing. A wall safe was behind it, opened a fraction of an inch. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and opened it the rest of the way. Inside were a few artist contracts, some loose paperwork and a single page receipt containing Ian land's signature and a number with a whole mess of zeroes after it. Paid in full. Cash. There was no cash in the safe. I left the safe the way I found it and rehung the painting. That's when the fuzz arrived.
Nobody was happy to see me there, least of all Detective Marcus Coleman who happened to be a former New York State Golden Gloves Light-Heavyweight champion. The fight last night couldnšt have helped his mood any. He yanked me outside where I went into my Humphrey Bogart routine and we did the dance that was expected of us. I didn't like his tone and he didn't like my answers but when he was done, I was free to go. The office was busy by then, filled with crime scene shutterbugs, white coated lab technicians, uniformed patrolmen tracking in fresh dirt from outside.
"Anything else?" I said.
"No. Now beat it before you single-handedly ruin Casablanca for me."
I found the assistant outside respirating on a Camel Light and shivering in the afternoon sunshine. She was paler than was fashionable, if you could believe that, and had black tear tracks of mascara running down her cheeks.
She said: "Is this the part where you offer to buy me a bottomless cup of coffee and ask me lots of questions, Mr. PI?"
"Sure," I said. "How about it?"
"Go screw, Magnum." I must have missed that episode.
"Were you here yesterday when Ben Lincoln met with Mr. Modin?"
She inhaled half of SoHošs smog and nodded sullenly.
"Do you know the nature of that meeting?"
"The nature?"
"What they talked about. What's so funny?"
"Talk? Arthur and Ben never talked, they yelled."
"About what?"
"Artistic differences." A sarcastic smirk took up half her face. "What the hell do you think they yelled about? Money, what else?"
"Were they yelling yesterday?"
The assistant let the cigarette drop to the pavement, looked at it and let it burn. "I donšt want to talk to you any more." And she didn't.
I went back to my office but not before stopping at a nearby liquor store where they knew me by name. I don't really know where they learned my name - I didn't know any of theirs - but the fact that they knew it foreshadowed a major change in my lifestyle. I resolved to find a new liquor store.
Inside the office I uncapped the bottle, freed a glass from the same drawer that held my gun and poured myself a drink. That done, I extracted the number I'd pinched from Modin's office, laid it out on the desk and looked at it. When nothing came to me I gulped down my drink and looked at it some more. When I got tired of that, I dialed it.
The foghorn "Yallo!" on the other end of the line startled me. I heard phones ringing and being answered in the background. "Yallo!"
"It's Modin," I slurred into the receiver. "What're the Giants?"
The Giants were a loud click and a dial tone. Which was fine by me. I was never any good at pouring drinks and yapping on the phone at the same time. So I poured myself a drink. And then I dialed the number again. Very orderly. Leon Green was nothing if not orderly.
Foghorn picked up again.
"Don't you hang up on me, Fathead!" I snarled into the receiver. "It's Modin!"
"Really? I couln'ta guessed. Gimme the number, Modin."
"Go to hell, pork for brains! You give me the goddamn number!"
I could hear Foghorn decompress a low whistle through his front teeth and a number of male voices droning monotonously behind him. "Christ. The Giants, right? Getting seven and a half."
"Give me the Cowboys for ten large." I told him.
"How many times I got to tell ya, Modin, your limit's five."
"Five? How the hell do I dig out betting fives, Porky! Where the hell were you when I was betting - "
He hung up on me again. Even bookies don't get paid enough to take that kind of aggravation. I finished my drink, screwed the cap back onto the bottle and exchanged it for the Glock semiautomatic.
This was about where the theme music should have kicked in.
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