PRIVATE EYE-PART 2

PRIVATE EYE- PART 2

I had just enough cash left on me to catch a cab down to the docks. This was a rough place, with rough men, and not the place where you wanted to be after dark. I took a gamble and I bluffed my way in past the gate, telling the guard I was here on police business and let him get a quick glance at my Smith and Wesson .38 snubbie I had stashed in my belt. After showing around the picture I was carrying of Mr. X and talking to a few of the longshoreman, I determined that pier 9 was where a lot of the produce for the cities restaurant came in by boat. Pier 9 also had a bad reputation as a place where illegal and stolen goods passed thru. A few of the workers recognized my player as a goon, and part time truck driver that delivered to a swank restaurant on the outskirts of town called “Diamond Jims”. Diamond Jim’s was owned by Diamond Jim Garvano. I had been to his place a few times in the past, as part of an investigation, and had the good fortune to get a look at him, while his hired muscle was escorting me out of the place.

The next morning I get another visit from my mystery women. This time she is dolled up in a gorgeous black dress with matching purse. The minute she walks in the door she starts quizzing me about what I found out. I tell her about learned out at the pier and that I planned on paying a visit to Diamond Jim’s, and she immediately tries to change the subject. She tells me that she heard her father helped out at Diamonds for a day or two, but had long since moved on. I also mention that I tracked one of the phone numbers in his book to a small motel in New Jersey called the Parkway Inn, and that I planned on heading out there this evening to ask a few questions but needed a little more cash to get the Buick back on the road. She quickly gave me another 20 bucks, insisting that it was all she had, but if I found her dad, there would be a big bonus and maybe some other considerations in store for me. She also said that she would meet me back at my office around 4:30 and drive me over there.

Sure enough she showed up right on time in a brand new Chevy, that she said belonged to her friend, and we headed over to Jersey to check out the lead. The whole trip over there we chit chatted ,and I tried to make small talk, but every time I asked for more details about her dad she would shut up like a clam. We pulled into the motel after dark and parked toward the back of the lot. I walk up to the front desk and hand the clerk a five dollar pile while showing him the mug shot of the guy I’m looking for. He immediately recognizes the picture and tells me that I can find Mr. Smith in room #9. Ha..Mr. Smith..that’s a good one.

At this point, I head back to the car feeling pretty damn good about myself. I lean into the window to tell my client the good news and invite her to walk with me over to room #9 for the big family re-union. It was just about then that I feel cold steel at my right temple. “So, we meet again. Good job kid, now get in the car, big shot”. It was dark out there but even in the dim light from the motel sign I could make out the hard features and graspy voice of none other than Diamond Jim Garvano.

I get in the car just as I hear a series of gun shots going off from room #9. Jim still has his pistol pointed right at my head and I know that I’m next. What an idiot I’d been. I let some Dame, shedding a few fake crocodile tears set me up. Some kind of private eye I turned out to be. I wasn’t even smart enough to put 2 and 2 together. Here is a young women who out of all the choices in town tracks me down, and asks me to help find her missing dad. She tells me she has no money, but shows up in outfits that had to cost a few hundred bucks apiece. And then she pulls up in a new car, what the hell was I thinking.

It turns out that this stooge was doing some jobs for Diamond Jim and got a little greedy. It got back to Jim that the guy was skimming off the top and Jim put a hit out on him. So, our boy goes on the lamb, and hides out in this dump in Jersey. Jim gets one of his girls to look me up, knowing I wouldn’t go to the cops, and plays me like a fish. I do all the bloodhound and leg work, and now this poor bastard is dead, and I’m next.

Jim’s henchmen come back to the car and order me out and make me sit on the pavement facing away from the car. I’m sweating bullets and about to throw up at the thought of catching some lead, and all of a sudden I feel a thump on the back of my head. This is it, I thought.

The car starts to pull away and I see Jim leaning out the window, chewing on his cigar. “Ya, did good Rocco, I’m cutting ya loose, because I may need you again, but ya better keep your mouth shut because my girl knows where you live”. With that the car quickly accelerates and I hear the sound of laughter fading into the distance. I turn around rubbing my head, and in the dim light of the motel sign, in that shit hole in New Jersey I find a stack of 100’s neatly wrapped and laying on the ground. I felt ashamed and humiliated and I knew I had a long night ahead of me, but at that moment I felt like the luckiest bastard in the world

P.I.B.