This was five hours after leaving her at the restaurant. He’d started following Sam Evans right after dinner. While he waited, Favor picked up his cell phone and called a private number at the credit bureau.
“Hey, Favor.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“We got one of those deals?”
“Oh, that identifies the caller?”
“Yeah.”
“I should get one of those. So what’d you find out about Sam Evans.”
Paulie Daye worked at the local credit bureau. At night, from his apartment, he hacked into the bureau’s computers and sold information to a variety of people.
“Well, he paid off all his bills. Had about ten different creditors really on his ass. Had a whole bunch of stuff — stereo, shit like that — repossessed in fact.”
“Any idea where the money came from?”
“Huh-uh.”
“When did it start showing up?”
“Eight, nine months ago. Paid everything up to date in two days.”
“Cash or checks?”
“What’m I, a mind-reader?”
“He buy a lot of new stuff?”
“A lot. Bought himself a condo, for one thing, and a new Mustang and about five thousand dollars worth of clothes.”
“Man, what a waste.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, he ain’t exactly a male model.”
“And he took two vacations.”
“To where?”
“San Juan and Paris.”
“Wow. Sounds like Mr. Evans is doing all right for himself.”
“He shaking somebody down?”
“Probably.”
“Figures. No male nurse makes this kind’ve change.”
“I need to see his checks for the past ten months. That possible?”
“You looking for anything special?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Cost you five big ones.”
“Done.”
“Take me till about this time tomorrow. I got a friend at his bank can help me, but not till right after work.”
Just then, Sam Evans came out of Cock A Doodle Do Night Club and got into his red Mustang.
“Gotta go,” Favor said.
Turned out Sam Evans was a real XXX-freak.
He hit, in the next two hours, Club Syn, Lap-Dance-A-Looza, Your Place Or Mine, and The Slit Skirt. He stayed about the same time in each one, forty, forty-five minutes, and then jumped back in his red Mustang and hauled ass down the road. At the last one, he emerged about midnight with a bottle blonde with balloon boobs and a giggle that could shatter glass. He shagged on back to the condo. And ten minutes after crossing the threshold, killed the lights.
Through the open window on the second floor, the blonde’s giggle floated down. A waste of a whole night. Didn’t learn one damned useful thing about Sam Evans.
“I got the print-outs,” Paulie said nineteen hours later. “You want me to fax them?”
“Yeah,” Favor said.
“Sounds like a pretty boring evening to me. Going through all these check print-outs.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be naked while I’m doing it.”
“Careful, you can get arrested for stuff like that, Favor.”
“Don’t remind me. I used to work vice.”
Couple hours later, Favor was seriously thinking about getting naked. Anything to break the monotony of poring over and over the print-outs of where Sam Evans had written the checks, and in what amount. There was a Cubs game on. Every time the crowd groaned, he looked up to see a Cub player looking embarrassed. Cub fans didn’t cheer, they sighed.
He went through the lists six times before he saw that there was only one really interesting name on the whole print-out: nine months ago, Sam Evans had spent $61.00 at Zenith Pharmacy. Favor wondered why a male nurse who worked for a hospital that had its own pharmacy would spend money at another pharmacy. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that the hospital pharmacy didn’t stock certain things. Maybe. The Cubs lost a close one, 14-3, and then Favor went to bed.
“Good morning.”
“Accounting please.”
“Thank you.”
This was the next morning in Favor’s combination apartment office. Favor was gagging down a cup of instant coffee while Mr. Coffee took his good sweet time about making the first real cup of the day, the sonofabitch.
“Hello. This is Ruth.”
“Hi, Ruth. My name’s Bob Powell and I’m a tax accountant. I’ve got a client named Sam Evans and we’re filing a late return this year. But Sam isn’t exactly great at keeping receipts. He’s got a canceled check here written to Zenith and I wondered if you could tell me what he bought that day.”
“I can help you if he’s got an account here. Sam Evans?”
“Right.”
“Thank you.”
She went away and then she came back. “The check paid the balance of his old account.”
“I see. Do you have a list of what the check paid for?”
“The specific items?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see here. Two hypodermic needles. Looks like the large ones with very fine points. And a bottle of insulin.”
The accountant Bob Powell wrote down everything she said. “Well, that’s about all I need, I guess.”
“He in trouble?”
“Trouble?”
“You know, the IRS.”
“Oh. No, not really. Just a late file. A lot of people do that.”
“We got audited once, my husband and I, I mean, and it was terrible.”
“I bet. Well, listen Ruth, thanks a lot.”
“Sure.”
“I’m not sure there was an autopsy,” Jane Carson said on the phone half an hour later.
“He died of what?”
“A heart attack.”
“Did he have a history of heart problems?”
“No.”
“Did he see a doctor within two weeks of his death for heart problems?”
“No.”
“Then there was an autopsy. Had to be. Legally.”
“God, how’d you ever learn all this stuff, Favor?”
“I just picked it up.”
“I keep wanting to ask him about that male nurse.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“No, I won’t. But it’s tempting.” Then: “Why did you want to know about an autopsy?”
Princess Jane had one of those circuitous conversational styles. You never knew when she was going to circle back to the original topic.
“Because a week before your father died, Sam Evans bought some insulin at a medical supply house.”
“Insulin? You mean for diabetes?”
He didn’t want to share his suspicions with her just yet. “I’m not sure why he bought it,” Favor said. “It may not have anything to do with this at all.”
“How will you find out?”
“Talk to the medical examiner.”
“He a friend of yours?”
“More or less.”
She laughed. “You don’t sound real thrilled about him.”
“He borrowed fifty bucks from me two Christmases ago and never paid me back.”
“Why don’t you ask him for it?”
“Because if I asked him, he might get mad, and if he got mad then he wouldn’t help me any more.”
“Maybe he was drunk and forgot about it.”
“Maybe.”
“Then just figure out some subtle way to ask him, if it really bothers you, I mean.”
“We’ll see. I’ll check in with you after I talk to him.”
“I just can’t figure out,” Princess Jane said, “why David’d pay off a male nurse.”
“I think,” Favor said, “we’re about to find out.”