The Blue-Eyed Indian

By Russ Hall

Look down some dark midnight street, into the black recesses of a smoky dive where the scarred barroom floor is carpeted by broken teeth and dreams, and you will find him there. He is the private detective who turns over the rock of city life, doing the kind of work not likely to boost the sale of fedora hats. Listen to the husky saxophone's wail, lifting and dropping in sad echoes off hard buildings. The click of heels on the harsh noir sidewalk you hear through the black night is The Blue-Eyed Indian.

***

"You the Injun who's been axing questions?"

I batted my baby blues at him, sought to emphasize the Irish portion of my pedigree.

He wasn't having any of it. "You're trespassing."

He and the other fellow laid hands on me. I thought I was going to be taken to the limo, but I was wrong. They picked me up, carried me to the canal, and tossed me in. I bobbed to the surface of some of the most unpleasant water in which I have ever bathed. I got a close-up look at some floating water cabbage and hyacinth. Something along the far bank that looked like a log eased under the surface. I decided I'd had enough of the rinse cycle and began to struggle up the muddy bank in my dripping suit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Renegade Rhino Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780965704403

Russ Hall

Russ Hall lives on the north shore of Lake Travis near Austin, TX. An award-winning writer of mysteries, thrillers, westerns, poetry, and nonfiction books, he has had more than thirty-five books published, as well as numerous short stories and articles. He has also been on The New York Times bestseller list multiple times with co-authored non-fiction books, such as: Do You Matter: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company (Financial Times Press, 2009) with Richard Brunner, former head of design at Apple, and Identity (Financial Times Press, 2012) with Stedman Graham, Oprah's companion. He was an editor for over 35 years with major publishing companies, ranging from Harper & Row (now HarperCollins) to Simon & Schuster to Pearson. He has been a pet rescue center volunteer, a mountain climber, and a probable book hoarder who fishes and hikes in his spare moments.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

A Matter of Trust

Boots of Spanish Leather

Scratching Where It Itches

Chinatown, NYC

The Morel of the Story

The Smoking Gun

Cherchez La Femme

One-Armed Bandit

La Dolce Vita

One Horse Town

The Sad Métier

Who Stole The Blues?

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Cut To the Chase

A MATTER OF TRUST

I WOKE UP, STARTLED. The phone was blasting on the end table by the head of the bed. I reached for it and knocked over an empty Irish whiskey bottle, ran my tongue around inside my mouth to find whatever furry creature had died there.

Yeah? I managed into the horn.

That you, Tonto? the voice on the other end screamed. Like some stranger was going to answer the phone. I could think of two, maybe three, people who even knew my number. The Tonto narrowed these fierce odds down to my partner, Larryn McNeil, who often referred to me as the staff blue-eyed Indian.

My eyes limped around the room—not much to see. A coat tree by the door, the bed, a window with the blind pulled against the blaring neon of an all-night drugstore, candy store, and pimp hangout below. One small bathroom and not even a closet rounded up the inventory. No one could tell me that I did not know how to live.

You been at the firewater again, Trav? Mac shouted from his end. The man could not speak in a normal tone on a phone.

No, I lied. I spent the time stretching, phone held to my ear, trying to piece together the previous evening, most of it unconnected scraps at the moment.

Well, shake the cobwebs loose, Mac interrupted my thoughts, and be ready to be picked up in ten minutes. We've got a body that won't wait.

That joggled something. It was coming in clearer now. A woman had suddenly appeared at my elbow on the barstool next to me. I had been communing with the spirits of my forefathers, that is, an Irish whiskey neat with a short beer back, when she was just there, colorfully present, like the tattoo I had found once on my upper arm after one of my amnesiac drinking evenings. The tattoo was of a tomahawk and a martini glass, and had been a bit painful at first. Some say that a person is not human without a flaw or two, and I wear mine on my sleeve, or at least under it.

The woman had been, well, call her blowzy—blond, and with a tired and weathered look to her. She had begun a conversation as if we had been interrupted long ago. I did not know her from Adam's house cat. Her eyes were far away, the eyes of a person who spent a great deal of time in front of a mirror, not necessarily thrilled with what she saw there. They left their introspective glaze only to glance around from time to time to see how others were responding to her.

My name's Lilaine, she had said at last, running a damp finger along the edge of her glass of red wine. She looked up at him for the first time. Yours?

No. I took a sip of my whiskey. Mine's Flint. Flint Steele. It was as good as any other.

I'll bet you've lit a few fires.

I had looked into the mirror above the rows of bottles behind the bar, seeking whatever rang her chime. All I saw was an equally weathered male, unruly mop of black hair, darkly tanned face, the high cheekbones that came from my one-quarter Miami tribe heritage, and the eyes that shone back blue and bright, the feature of mine that got me into the most trouble with the least effort.

One thing and another, listening to her drone on a while, not offering much back, I had been thinking of ways to quietly slip away, to give us both a graceful out. Then I had looked up and

she was gone, an empty wine glass being scooped up by the bartender, the wet ring wiped off the

bar, and that was the last of her.

Outside my building it was raining. I stepped from the curb across a puddle and into the open passenger door of Mac's tan Plymouth. The search light was still attached to the driver's side in case anyone had trouble recognizing it as a former unmarked patrol car. Mac ate that sort of thing up. We were P.I.s at best, agency operatives Mac liked to say. When we had opted for the noir existence of hard-knuckled investigators for hire it had sounded like a gas. We had spent more time looking for work in our first year-and-a-half than doing the jobs we found. But now we had found a seam. We did the catch-up work that spilled over from insurance claims investigators.

You look like the last chapter of 'What's the Use.' Mac looked sideways at me for a second as he wove through the tail end of what had been the morning rush hour mess.

Thanks. You look swell too. Where's the stiff?

26th Street, West. Across Eighth Ave. In the car he did not shout, but favored the clipped speech of the busy patrolman, or Joe Friday, whatever.

Mac wore his usual blue serge suit, tailored to handle the Di Santis holster he wore slung under his arm. I never carried a gun, did not like them. Mac had said he did not trust an Indian with a gun anyway. Mac's white shirt was pressed, shoes glistened, and his tie lay in loose modern art silk across a chest and stomach that was lean as a Marine drill instructor's. Mac played the serious heavy of us, the bad cop if needed, the thinker. I let him.

When I was younger I had more of an ego. But I had learned with the minimum of lumps about coming on as a threat, even to a colleague. So I lay back on his oars these days, hid my light under a bushel. It made me a better listener.

What's the skinny on our end of it? I asked. The car slogged through the drizzle and puddles, spraying the New York City pedestrians straining at the curbs. I brushed at my wrinkled shirt, my equally wrinkled slacks, left the knot of my tie loose. I would tighten it at the last moment.

Ampex Insurance has a policy on a woman whose place was B&Eed early this morning. The butler-slash-doorman was bumped, had to be in his eighties, a darn shame. Mac was the kind of guy who would say Darn, or Gosh, for that matter. Lew Frasier, the claims agent at Ampex has a full plate, and besides, the lady specifically requested us, had heard how we handled the Williams case for Ampex.

Hmm, I unconsciously tightened the knot on my tie in spite of my earlier commitment not to do so. I knew Lew, thought he was a jerk, but sharp. If there was a bone buried anywhere he could usually sniff it out. How much?

They got off with half a mil in gems, her life savings. She didn't believe in banks, or currency.

Right.

Squad cars, an ambulance, and a crowd of the many-headed curious forced us to park almost a block from the scene. We hiked up the Chelsea sidewalk, stepped around knocked-over trash cans, and got to the front of the brownstone before the corpse was loaded onto the meat wagon. The Assistant M.E. on the scene was just wrapping up and the beat cop standing by let us have a peek under the tarp once we had identified themselves.

What do you think? Mac asked.

Looks like some poor eighty-year-old dead guy, I said. Mooshed on the back of the head by a sap. The guy who hit him maybe didn't expect to kill him, just knock him out.

And?

Probably got him as he answered the door. I don't know why he didn't just peek through the peep hole instead of opening the door, though. I added, At least this time we know the butler didn't do it.

And he still has his scalp, so that rules you out. Mac gave me that look, the one that said it was time to shut up.

If you get the feeling that Mac is uptight and something of a bigot you would be partly right. I had not been able by word or deed to determine in our two years together that Mac was smart enough to be a bigot, that is, that he had the social consciousness to know politically correct, incorrect. Mac's head seemed stuck somewhere in the 1930s, where he had come up with the idea for our hard-knuckle agency, even though the 1990s were clipping right along, probably leaving Mac far behind.

We hiked up the brownstone's stoop. Mac reached out for the bell.

Where's the red light? I asked.

Mac just nodded. Yeah, it was that kind of place. But they don't use the lights anymore. Folks, lonely men folks, just have to know where to go, and sometimes what the pass word is. No wonder Lew had not wanted to handle this one himself.

The door swung open. The woman wore a satin housedress. She was blond. You might call her blowzy. Mac took a half step back. Are you the madam...the proprietress...the lady of the house? he asked, came close to stuttering.

Yes, she said. Come in. Her eyes were locked with mine. My name's Melba, like the

toast. Ms. Melba Beaufort, heavy accent on the Ms."

Not Lilaine? I asked. We stepped inside.

No. And I suppose you're not the man of steel either. She turned and waved us into a drawing room.

Mac gave me a look, to which I shrugged a reply.

We sat on either end of a leather ox-blood red sofa, button-tufted. She hovered by a matching wing chair across from us. There was no fire in the fireplace beside us. A large Vargas painting, more than a little suggestive, hung over the mantel. The room looked as if it had served as a waiting and meeting room during the house's active bordello years. The hallways were quiet now too. The place was like a schoolhouse with the kids home for the summer.

Would you like anything to drink? she asked. Tea, a cocktail? It was not yet ten a.m.

My eyes snapped to the drink cart. I saw a bottle of five star and something else, several crystal glasses turned over and ready at the side.

Tea would be fine, Mac said, and my heart broke. Ms. Beaufort seemed to be watching me with a secret smile. She left the room, was back in five minutes with the tea service. Water must have been boiling, I figured.

What's missing? Mac got right to the point as soon as we had each been handed a cup of tea. I clutched my tea cup, sat back and listened, feeling very Jane Austin.

I am really going to miss Marston. He has been with me for many years. She brushed back at her blond hair. Not that I'm all that old, she added.

I'm very sorry about your man Marston, Mac said, sounding as little bereaved as anyone could be. Now, about any valuables. He looked around for a coffee table, saw none, set his saucer and tea cup down on the Persian rug. He took out a small black leather notebook, licked the end of a pencil stub he took from another pocket.

This will be in the police report, she said. I've already spoken with them once. And I had to let Mr. Frasier from the insurance company know.

If you don't mind, Mac persisted.

Well, all that's missing really is a single cigar box of gems, things I have acquired through the years.

Jewelry? Mac asked.

No. Cut gems. Diamonds, rubies, an emerald or two, nothing under three carats.

Whew. Mac looked up from his notes, stared across at her. She was busy sipping.

It's how I saved, she explained after she lowered her cup. She handled the cup a lot differently than she had the wine glass last night, I noted. Going for a different effect, I figured. Now she was all dainty. The violated home-keeper. It's all on record. I have the receipts of the gems, even photos of them, all on file with Mr. Frasier. She caught Mac's look. I do have to pay taxes, you know. No matter how one makes a living the government takes its slice. Since Capone we have all been more careful.

How do you. . .? Mac started. What do you put down as occupation?

Entrepreneur, she said.

So, just half a million in stones, Mac said. Where did you keep them?

This is the difficult part, she said. "I kept them in the cigar box, each gem wrapped in its

individual leather pouch, the box behind a false brick in the fireplace." She nodded toward the

fireplace.

Mac got up, walked over and bent low looking into the fireplace. The brick lay on the andiron. The empty hole was open for inspection. An inside job? he asked as he straightened and turned back to her.

That's what I believe, she said. As long as Marston has been around he has been as loyal as the day is long. But I can only believe he was acting as accomplice, handing the gems out to someone when he was struck and killed. She shuddered delicately. More tea?

Mac and I both shook our heads.

He would know where the gems were? Mac asked. Marston, that is?

I had never told him. But in his many years here he may have seen me putting them away. She looked at me. I was staring at the sidecar. She smiled. I understand you two were quite successful in solving the Williams case. Mr. Frasier said he was very pleased with your results.

Mac started to say something, stopped himself. He had beefed often enough about how it had been a near bungle by me, claimed his Indian side-kick had only been on the firewater war-path when I had stumbled into the Williams' maid dropping a bundle gambling at an after-hours blind pig in the East Village. I had trailed her to her boyfriend's apartment, had burgled it later, found the cache of money they had gotten for fencing the goods burgled from the Williams' home. The cops had gotten a warrant, recovered most of the money. The maid had cracked under police questioning. Most of the stolen goods had even been recovered in a raid on the fence's home. The Williamses, Lew Frasier, and the police had been all pleased—everyone but Mac, who favored a more scientific approach to his job.

Yeah, we got to the bottom of that, Mac said. He had wanted to dissolve the partnership over it, had argued that we had not done things his way. But Lew had suggested that I might pitch a legitimate squawk about all of Mac's disparaging comments about me being an Indian. You have to be careful about that sort of thing these days. It had not altered Mac's behavior, other than his staying with the partnership a while longer.

For my part, I continued keeping the low profile on the team, let Mac be the lead duck and take all the glory. I had gotten good at sowing ideas that Mac could take as his own, at giving the needed nudges and steers so that the ideas seemed Mac's, at maintaining the environment in which Mac's robust ego thrived.

Outside, in the rain, which had picked up again, Mac did not ask me what I was thinking as we tromped back toward the car. I was wondering how many people know the name of their insurance claim's adjuster before being burgled.

What bothered me most as I sat soggy and cold in the passenger seat on the ride to the office, noting on the silver lining side that the rain had at least taken the wrinkles out of my suit and shirt, was the coincidence of meeting the madam in a pub near my home the night of the burglary.

Do you think you can get in there, Tonto, do a little scouting around? Mac asked as we wedged into a handicapped parking spot within a half block of the tiny office we shared in the Tribecca building.

I nearly said, Sure, Kimo Sabe. I also held back from saying, "Since when is being

stupid a legitimate handicap?" I nodded. I did not expect to find anything in a midnight prowl of the madam's house, especially now that it was no longer a business.

I spent the day pushing pencils around on my smaller desk, keeping an eye on the clock. I thought about Melba Beaufort, aka Lilaine. I shared a conference conversation by phone with Lew Frasier and Mac that took them nowhere, as expected. I pulled a copy of the M.E.'s report from the FAX machine, slid it onto Mac's desk after giving it a glance. I played back in my mind as much of the fuzzy evening before as I could recall, which was not much. At 5:30 p.m., with much of the day spent watching and listening to Mac being officious, I headed for home, walking in the cold damp streets by myself, pleased only at seeing a parking ticket on Mac's windshield.

As soon as I was home I looked around my humble digs. It had to be here somewhere. That is the only way I had been able to figure it. The search took me an hour, due mostly to there being so few places to look. I even tried to open the small frosted bathroom window and crawl out onto the fire escape, but thick white paint had long ago glued the window to its sill. It could not be out there. I found it at last beneath some floor boards. The bed had been moved, the cigar box put there. The first pouch I opened held an emerald, about five carats, perfect. It glittered green and full of fire, even in the pale 40 watt light of the room's overhead bulb. I went through all the bags, shook out the pretty stones, had a look. Out of their bags they made only a handful, but half a million worth, perhaps a bit less if they had to be cut down into smaller stones.

I took out my small travelling grip, packed in less than ten minutes. Mine was a compact

collection of possessions, easy to take, perhaps as easy to leave behind. I lifted the bag, opened the door. They stood there in the hallway, just getting ready to knock.

Lew, I said. Melba.

I moved back as they stepped into my small room. Lew's hand came out from under his jacket. There was a silencer on the gun he held with a steady and determined hand. Melba closed the door behind them.

What a dump, Lew said. You live here? Half a dozen overturned whiskey bottles were all that remained of my bric-a-brac.

Beats a tepee, Melba giggled. Her grin disappeared as quickly as it had come. I had my doubts about you. You play the dumb sidekick too well. I've played the role too many years not to see it when it's done well.

Thanks, I think, I lowered the bag to the bed. Lew had his eyes on the bag. He was in his fifties, bald, with a pot belly. Perhaps this was his big play for someone like Melba. Or maybe it was just a lark on his part. None of that mattered a whole lot at the moment. The gems weren't enough, I said, you wanted to double your money with the claim as well, didn't you? Whatever was behind her eyes clanged shut like steel doors.

I was talking to Melba, but it was Lew who answered. We didn't want to kill Marston. That was an accident.

I'll bet you only hit him once too, I said. Lew's eyes swung from the bag to me. The second hard blow's what killed him.

I watched the look Lew gave Melba, the way she avoided it.

The fallen woman, I said with not much sympathy.

Yeah, she said, "but I got back up. That's the thing about folks like you and me, ones who

have dusted themselves off once or twice. They just keep on coming. Your buddy, MacNeil, doesn't get it, though, does he? But I figured I would have to watch out for you once I saw how cool you could play it. I realized that we might have underestimated you."

You planted the gems in my place. Figured I'd never look there. I said. Well, that's not all you underestimated. I stared at Lew.

Let's have it, Lew said.

I guess you want this, I reached for the bag, opened it. The cigar box lay on top. I lifted it and handed it to Lew, let go of it just as Lew's extended hand reached for it.

It dropped to the floor, leather bags spilling out across the floor.

You clumsy... Melba snapped.

I tossed the rest of the bag up into Lew's face, a loose dirty shirt falling out mid-flight. I dove back through the bathroom door, threw the hook into place and stood to the side as three shots smashed through the door, exploding the frosted window on the far wall. One good kick ought to take care of the lock.

I was through the window, nicked in only a place or two by the broken glass, and up the fire escape as I heard the door to the bathroom smash open behind me. I dove for the top edge of the building, rolled onto the cold and wet tarred surface. A shot ricocheted off the fire escape behind me. But they were looking down, figuring I had headed for the street.

I heard Lew's footsteps clanging downward on the fire escape stairs. She would probably head down the stairs inside. I eased quietly over to the wooden shed that housed the water tank on top of the building. I figured I would climb up the wooden stairs, get inside, wait. Below me I could hear the elevator running. That would take her longer than she thought to get to the ground floor. I felt inside my pocket. The hard stones in a knot inside my handkerchief comforted me.

The steel door to the roof slammed opened, the light from it froze me in place. She stood there, digging in her handbag, coming out with something with a chrome glitter, probably pearl handles.

I spun, took a few running steps and leaped for the next building. My extended arms barely caught the tiled edge of the roof. One of the red tiles came loose, tumbled to the alley below, shattered. I tugged with bruised arms, pulled myself slowly up and over the edge. A shot from her small gun ripped another tile loose as I rolled onto the next rooftop.

I heard her running steps, lifted my head above the roof's edge in time to see her leap toward the building where I lay. I had barely made the leap myself. I listened to her scream as she missed the edge, hit the bricks, then fell the rest of the way to the alley. There was a dull thud, then Lew's shout. Bullets ricocheted off the side of the building until Lew's gun was empty.

I rose, checked over my various cuts, bumps and bruises, then went to hop to the next building, and the next. Five buildings over I knew just where I would come down. Well, that was that, I thought, as I trotted across the rain slick tarred roof tops. She had finished off Marston. Lew had to know that now. But the money they expected, suddenly cut in half, drove her to jump. They could have just filed the claim, got the cash from that. I wondered how long it would be before they would have been at each other's throats. Not long. Lew was lucky, just didn't know it. The only loose end would be Mac. I wondered if he would ever smell the coffee, realize that his sidekick had ridden off into the sunset without him.

BOOTS OF SPANISH LEATHER

PICTURE A LONELY SAXOPHONE's notes dropping and climbing in solitary sad wails through the dark rain-slickened late night streets of Los Angeles. A man walks clicking down a sidewalk of the sprawling asphalt, concrete sweeping in curves in all directions, only a slight limp and weave to his step. What remains of his car lies crushed inside a grassy curve, windshield spider-webbed, skid marks leading to it. The car smolders, breaks into flames, then explodes.

It's me, the Blue-Eyed Indian again. As you recall, at the tail end of my last peccadillo (French word for armadillo, I think), I had severed the partnership I had with Mac, my noire-style P.I. colleague in New York City. He had made one too many negative remarks about my one-quarter native American heritage. I gracefully leave out here how I came into possession of a half a million dollars’ worth of cut gems in that bargain. I leave it to your imagination. I leave it also accompanied by the notion that a clear conscience is often the sign of a bad memory. Sure, I have my faults, and that tattoo of a tomahawk and a martini glass on my upper arm pretty well sums up the gist of mine. It keeps me wearing long-sleeved shirts.

I'd like to say too that I still had the money, or that I'd lost it at Vegas or the way west, or something. Fact is, I gave it away to some Indians doing battle over water rights. Their treaty was supposed to guarantee them the rights, but if you've read anything about the treaties with Indians you'd know the record on that. I didn't feel comfortable with that kind of money anyway, even though the people to whom it had once belonged weren't around anymore.

When the smoke signals had cleared from my getaway from NYC, after a dusty retreat to L.A., I put a shingle out there as a private investigator, put in plenty of hard hours, at first as a skip tracer, then hand-delivering some difficult (impossible they said) warrants for a local bailiff. I worked my way up to the scrapings of insurance claims investigators as I had done in New York—and they say the life of a P.I. is not romantic.

I had been ready