Private Eye Writers of America Anthology 04 Justice for Hire by Robert J. Randisi

Author:Robert J. Randisi [Randisi, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Death of a Fatcat

Paul Engleman

Paul Engleman is a past winner of the PWA Shamus Award for best paperback P.I. novel of 1983 for his Mark Renzler novel, Dead in Center Field. There have been three more Renzler novels since then, the most recent being Who Shot Longshot Sam? Here Paul introduces a new P.I., a quick-fisted woman quite different from the medium-boiled Renzler.

I should have known better than to patronize the little shithole of a drugstore in my apartment building, but I needed a candy bar to tide me over until dinner. I was returning from the store with the makings for a marvelous feed—risotto primavera and veal limone. I wasn’t the one making it. My neighbor Gino Principe was taking care of that. All I had to do was eat, which is one of my finer skills.

I used to be a regular at the drugstore, back when I smoked cigarettes and there was an entrance inside my building—no small convenience during a Chicago winter. It was dingy then, but there was a cute young pharmacist who’d fill my Ortho-Novum scrip well beyond expiration. Once when I lost a new dental filling he slipped me some Percodans to hold me until I could wring my dentist’s neck.

Four years ago some new owners took over and named it Tru-Valu Drugs. Their first improvement was to lock the inside door. Then they expanded their product line until—with the exception of herpes creams and weight-loss pills—they had virtually forsaken medications in favor of smut magazines, Twinkie knockoffs, and video rentals. They did do a thriving Medicaid business, but at a separate counter in back where the druggist sat behind a cage, probably balancing a Saturday night special on his lap. Once, I got into a shouting match with the assistant manager, a Brut-drenched baldo named Waldo, for the indiscretion of noting that he was still stocking Tylenol without safety caps. A batch at the Walgreen’s three blocks down Clark Street had been laced with cyanide, and the stuff was supposed to have been recalled. I figured it was an honest mistake, but it turned out I was wrong. That was the last time I’d been in there. And the first time I’d phoned someone in anonymously to the state’s attorney.

I was wavering between a Milky Way and an Almond Joy. I had plenty of time to decide. There were two lines, one of which stretched the entire length of the dirty magazine aisle. A hand-lettered sign said it was for lottery tickets only. I was in the shorter line, but that wasn’t much of an advantage since neither one was moving. A dispute was raging up front regarding someone’s lucky number.

I elected to buy both candy bars. The weight of the groceries made me decide I wasn’t going to wait on any line. I stepped up to the counter and put down a dollar, recognizing the halfwit behind it as Waldo. Since our last encounter he’d started wearing a rug, but he was still marinating in the same cologne.

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