Free The Old Turk's Load by Gregory Gibson Page B

fished through his pockets to no avail, glanced at the empty hook on the wall behind his chair, then rummaged through his desk drawers. He found a .38 police special; half a book of fivecent stamps; a jar of Tang; a jar of instant coffee (both unopened); a bottle of aspirin, which he placed on top of the desk; a Playboy magazine; a pint of Wilson “That’s All” blended whiskey; a pair of argyle socks; and a box of shells for the .38. He was beginning to get seriously interested in this excavation when Jarkey interrupted him. “They’re probably at the lot. With the car. Didn’t you start leaving the keys at the lot?”
“I know there’s an extra set around here somewhere.”
    “Well, while you look for them, I’ll get the car and stake out the girl’s place out, do a tail, see what kind of routine she’s got.”
“Right,” Kelly said. “And the camera.” He began looking around the room again.
“In the car. The trunk. Remember?”
How did this man survive?
Kelly had a black ’65 Fairlane, which he kept in a lot on the West Side. He liked it because it was inconspicuous in a crowd, perfect for tails, and could be mistaken for a cop car in the right circumstances. Jarkey liked it because Kelly hardly ever drove it, which made it, in effect, Jarkey’s vehicle. He kept it cleaned and gassed and oiled and used it whenever he landed a freelance assignment that took him out to the Island or upstate. Late that afternoon he got a thermos from home and went down the street for coffee, sandwiches, film, and the day’s papers. Then he took a cab to the lot, retrieved the car, drove down to Bank Street, and circled the block until nearly dark, when a space opened up a few doors from Gloria’s apartment. A parking place was always the hardest part.
Beneath his crabby exterior, Jarkey was a gentle, thoughtful man. He’d fallen hopelessly in love with a selfish Julie Christie lookalike who didn’t deserve him and who dumped him the moment his career in journalism hit a bump. He was still reeling from her cruelty, trying to understand how love could hurt so badly, and thus needed shelter while he learned his way through such difficult terrain. Kelly provided that, seeing to his material needs and helping to insulate him from most of society’s expectations and demands. Tailing people was so far outside the norm that it hardly seemed
THE OLD TURK’S LOAD 75
    real, which was exactly where Jarkey needed to be. Despite his snide critique of Kelly’s behavior, he understood what the detective was doing for him and was grateful.
    Munching his sandwich, he read the papers carefully, with some bitterness, analyzing the work of former colleagues until it was too dark to read. Then he turned on the radio and caught the beginning of a Jean Shepherd monologue about a pest exterminator who ran a have-a-heart trapping service up in Westchester. Shepherd’s wry, friendly voice filled the night and salved Jarkey’s wounds. This exterminator would trap the woodchucks off those big lawns and haul them away. Naive clients assumed he’d release the animals in the wilds upstate.The rest just figured he’d gas them or shoot them. But he didn’t do any of that.
    What he did was take them across town and release them on the lawns of the estates over there. Pretty soon he’d get calls from those people, and he’d go over and trap the woodchucks in his have-a-heart traps and let them go where he’d first caught them. He’d been at it for years: Spring and fall were the big seasons, and it was working out fine. The woodchucks were like his partners in the business. Whole generations of them. They’d waddle into the cages and wait patiently to be transported to their alternate digs. But then a competitor from Ardsley started releasing woodchucks on his turf. He could tell because the woodchucks were new and scared, hissing and clawing in the traps. “That,” said Shep, “was when the trouble started.”
    Jarkey never got to hear