Chapter 3: Tipster

Damn Willie the Zilch. I cursed the wretched fellow fluently, but quietly. It was advisable for outsiders to avoid making a lot of noise in the Citadel. In fact it was as well for them not to be there at all.

We’re going back some years, to a time before the gentrification of the riverside part of the city. That event caused many denizens of the district to move out, making way for yuppies with the means to spruce up the waterfront. I must say that in my opinion the newcomers made a good job of it. Dreary, grime-streaked facades, reeking of hopelessness, were transformed by pressure hoses and paint. Filthy, jammed sash windows became smart double-glazed jobs. Baskets, boxes and tubs full of flowers sprouted.

Some of the entrenched occupants had stayed on, embracing the new environment. The others had been displaced and though I didn’t know what had happened to them, I felt a twinge of sympathy whenever I reflected on the matter, thinking that life is often a question of winners and losers. I consoled myself then as now with the thought that on the whole things get better – and it doesn’t always have to be a zero-sum game, does it? Let’s bake a bigger cake so we can all benefit is what I say. Anyway, these days a stroll around the Citadel – sorry, the Marina – is a pleasant experience. At the time I’m speaking of, it wasn’t.

The place got its name from the laager mentality of those inhabitants who had gravitated to the spot because it was the only one where they could be housed without too much inconvenience all round. There was a mix of types, including ordinary family folk who hadn’t realised the dream but were still trying, and a sprinkling of youngsters, determined to show their parents that they could cope without interference. Then there were the no-hopers, whose attitudes suggested that they wouldn’t make it anywhere, anytime. Where are they now? I don’t know. Maybe we’ve produced that larger cake I mentioned and they’re prospering. I hope so.

However, you’re not paying me for a sociological critique. The point is, what was I doing there? Back to Willie the Zilch. His forename was probably genuine. The sobriquet arose from his tendency to supply dubious or downright useless information to a variety of contacts, including me. Still, they say that even a blind pig finds the odd truffle, and a tip from Willie had helped me in one of my most lucrative cases. Since his monetary demands were invariably modest, I usually paid up, writing off the cost as my contribution to his retirement pension. That turned out to be an unnecessary allocation of funds.

One problem in dealing with Willie was that he was both devious and paranoid and assumed that all his associates were likewise. He insisted on improbable venues for the confiding of his gems. It might have been the garden of a derelict house, some corner of a vast junkyard, or the public toilet block in our main municipal park, the last-named being another place best avoided – I mean the convenience, not the park in general. I expected that he would at some point suggest a meeting at one of our sewerage plant inlets. It was irritating, but I didn’t gripe too much, as he might have supplied another winner one day.

I indicate the past tense as Willie the Zilch is no longer with us, having been injudicious enough to upset Howling Jack Lanigan, which at the time Willie did it was about as serious a mistake as a man could make in this town. I’ll tell you more about Howling Jack later. At present, suffice it to say that for a decade or more, anyone making a list of people to annoy around here would have been wise to put Jack Lanigan at the bottom. To tell the truth, it would have been better to cross him off.

Howling Jack was so called because of his habit of baying like a wolf when anything amused him – and since quite a lot did, he often vocalised that way. I can speak freely about Jack, as he’s also left us.

What Willie did to make Jack mad was to inform the coppers that one of Jack’s unauthorised mobile gambling games was to take place at a certain time and location. Those in the know said that it was purely a slip of the tongue on Willie’s part, but Howling Jack had very firm views on such things. His principles were set in concrete – and it was widely felt that they were not the only things he treated with that substance in mind.

The result of Willie’s gaffe was that the boys in blue called in on Howling Jack’s moving feast and the two sides presented each other with leaden business cards. During this exchange of courtesies, Jack’s chief of staff swallowed a police bullet, sustaining terminal indigestion. Lanigan was of course elsewhere at the time, with a dozen witnesses. Later, having established that Willie the Zilch was, however unwittingly, responsible, he acted with his customary promptness, offering maximum assistance in the matter of Willie’s shuffling off the mortal coil.

On the occasion I’m speaking of, the meeting place was a hundred yards south of a rickety wooden footbridge crossing the murky stream which bisected the wasteland abutting the Citadel. This time, I meant to take Willie to task about his choice of rendezvous, but didn’t get around to it. I was doubly annoyed as I’d been obliged to leave my car in a vulnerable spot, then reach the bridge by way of a disgustingly litter-strewn footpath. Also, it was raining and windy. I cinched up my ‘here’s looking at you, Kid’ trench coat – and continued pounding the ground, which didn’t seem to mind.

My irritation index was rising because Willie was, unusually for him, late. Well, at least he’d picked the right time of day. It was nearly dark. He came across the grassland – as I’d crossed the bridge, we were on the side remote from the Citadel – trudging through what looked like the detritus of many a trash can. Why have it collected when you can just throw it around? Please don’t shoot the messenger. I’m only reporting what I saw.

Being a detective, I should have realised that a bridge must lead from one place to another, but that didn’t occur to me then. Willie shimmied up to me, furtive as ever, not speaking until he’d turned full circle, peering into the gloom. He would have carried out a three-sixty visual sweep even if we’d been meeting in broad daylight in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Maybe he owned a topcoat, but I’d never seen it. He was clad in his standard synthetic black suit, whitish open-necked shirt and black sneakers, all shiny-wet. As that seemed to be his only apparel in all weather, I wondered when and how he got it dry or clean.

There were never any introductory exchanges with Willie. He always got straight to the point. “I hear you been hired by High-Stakes Henry Cunliffe,” he muttered.

I gave him my best non-committal look. “My, Willie,” I said, “what big ears you have.”

“Aw, come on,” he said. “I ain’t the only one who knows. It’s all over town that Drop-out Donny lammed it, owin’ Henry two grand in card debts. Rumour is that Henry’s offerin’ you three Cs an’ your charges to look him up.”

“Ah, Willie,” I said, “it’s a terrible disease.”

“What is?”

“Rumourtism. Anyway, supposing for a moment that there’s any truth in this tittle-tattle, why are we here?”

Willie looked around again, lowering his voice even more. “I know where Donny is,” he said. “I figure it must be worth a half-C to you. It’s a sure thing an’ you’ll still be two-fifty ahead.”

I wasn’t too familiar with social observations, but seemed to recall that it was one of the Carnegies – Dale, maybe? – who remarked that people just love to hear their names said by others, time and again. “Willie,” I said. “Willie, Willie.” I thought that was about enough. “I owed you one some time ago, but I’ve surely paid off by now. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about Drop-out Donny, but for old times’ sake I’ll go to the half, just for eating money – and this is the last time I have to live, too.” I handed over the fifty dollars. “Now, on the off chance that I meet someone who might be interested, where is Donny?”

Willie shrugged. “I can’t figure it,” he said, “but he’s just eight miles out of town. He could’ve gone anywhere, but that’s where he went. Cabin seventeen at a place called Randle’s Motel. It’s on the south –”

“I know where it is,” I interrupted. “I live here, Willie.”

“Er, oh, sure. Well, he’s there now – or was, this afternoon. Look, I gotta go.”

“Okay, go.” I turned and was buffeted back to my miraculously still intact car, pondering on Willie’s tip-off. The first part of his information was sound. I had been hired by High-Stakes Henry Cunliffe to find Drop-out Donny. Now you need an explanation.

Cunliffe had arrived in town around three years before the incident I’m talking about. The word was that he’d made a name for himself in various parts of the Midwest. I saw him shortly after his arrival and guessed he was in his middle forties. Superficially, he was nothing more than a very successful card player. Nobody accused him of shifting the odds his way, since it was accepted that the professional is almost sure to beat the amateur over a distance. I was told that it’s partly psychology, but mostly a matter of knowing something about the laws governing such things. Be that as it may, few doubted that High-Stakes Henry had certain less acceptable pastimes.