Free Detective by Parnell Hall Page A

necessary,” he said. He fished in his pocket and produced a dollar bill. “Miss Hartman has already taken care of it.”
    We shook hands and Leroy took his leave, commenting that it would be just his luck to be apprehended breaking and entering when he had no intention to steal. He was heading for the elevator as I let myself into the apartment.
    Albrect’s apartment was a large one-bedroom that probably set him back $1200 a month. I proceeded to take it apart. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for; I just knew it would be something Albrect didn’t want anybody to find. I tried to put myself in Albrect’s shoes and imagine what I would do if I were Albrect, but that made me nauseous. Instead I just tried to figure out what Albrect might do if he had something to hide. The inside of the mattress or the pages of a book would probably seem like nifty hiding places to him. I pulled out the mattress and searched it, but there were no incisions. I started in on the books. I was halfway through the second shelf when I found it. It was pressed between the pages of “Portnoy’s Complaint,” but I tried to attach no undue significance to that. I mean, hell, I like to pull the old pud every now and then myself, even after ten years of marriage. So I concentrated on what I’d found.
    It was a photo I.D. bank card made out to Martin Albrect. It seemed to me Albrect looked a little nervous in the photograph, but I might have been projecting. After all, I knew Albrect was dead, I knew he’d hidden it, and I knew one other thing. The card was for a Miami bank.

8.
    M Y W IFE’S F ACE W AS A P ICTURE of despair as I rang for the elevator. “You’re really going out tonight?” she said.
    “We need the money and I had another slow day.”
    “How slow?”
    “A signup in Brooklyn. Ocean Parkway.”
    That was a half-truth. I’d gotten the assignment all right, but I hadn’t done it. By the time I’d finished with Albrect’s apartment it’d been too late to go out there, and I’d called and changed the appointment to tomorrow morning.
    “What do you have to do tonight?”
    “I got two summonses in Brooklyn and a signed statement in Queens.”
    “Can’t you do them during the day?”
    “I’ve tried. People aren’t home during the day.”
    “I know. I just hate you going out at night. It’s bad enough you going into those neighborhoods during the day.”
    “It’s perfectly safe,” I lied to her. “No one’s ever bothered me.”
    No one had ever bothered me, but a couple of junkies had once assured me if I went into a particular building I would be mugged, and I would not have had to look much farther than them to find the potential muggers. I’d wound up calling the client on the phone and having him come downstairs, broken leg and all.
    “I know,” she said, “but there’s always a first time. I worry about you.”
    She does, and I’m sure it’s her constant worrying about me that helps fuel my own paranoia. It’s bad enough going into those neighborhoods without always being reminded how scary they are.
    “Look, I gotta run,” I said. “My appointment with the witness is at eight.”
    “Just be careful,” she said.
    The elevator arrived and I stepped in and heaved a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me. Jerry, the young elevator man, proceeded to regale me with how well the Mets were doing, and how poorly the Red Sox were doing, all the way down to the first floor, but I barely listened. I had an eight o’clock appointment, all right, but it wasn’t with a witness in Queens. It was with Michael Murphy, alias Dumbo, of Fabri-Tec Inc., who was taking me out for an evening at an illegal casino.
    Since I’d told Murphy I’d meet him in front of the Sheraton, where I was presumably staying, it would have been easier for me just to take the Broadway IRT downtown, but I was afraid Alice might take Tommie out for pizza and notice my car still parked on our block. I got in the car and drove up to