Robert Walker - Scalpers

The wheels of the Mercedes suddenly squealed. Dean whipped around, gun in hand, to face down the driver of the car.

The car had come to an abrupt halt Dean heard the snap of locks on all four doors, a commotion inside the car. Then a back window slid down halfway. “Is this a stickup?” asked a man who must be near ninety, delighted with the prospect.

"Grandpa! Close that window!” someone shouted at the man.

Grandpa said in his best cursing voice, “Shit, if he wants to, he can shoot the damn window out! I say we negotiate for our release!"

"Police!” said Dean, identifying himself, showing his badge. “I would like—"

"Oh, the police, Fred! Tammy! The police!” said Grandpa, his white head showing as he exited the car and came out with his hands up. “Just like TV, ain't it?"

The younger man, perhaps fifty-five, and his wife got out of the car, and Dean saw that they were all wearing bright, loud clothes, the old man in Hawaiian shorts. Dean realized immediately that he'd overreacted to the slow-moving Mercedes that had come up on him the way it had ... they'd simply been searching for a parking space.

Dean apologized, saying he was on the lookout for a stolen Mercedes, and he thought for a moment that—

"Police harassment, that's what this is,” complained Tammy, a white-haired forty-eight-year-old, long on makeup, short on weight control.

"Please accept my apologies,” Dean said as he rushed for his rental car. Behind him he could hear the cackle of the old man.

"He weren't no Don Johnson, was he?"

Pitching his bag into the medium-sized Chrysler, Dean drove for downtown. His return to the lab would, he hoped, be welcomed by Sid, and maybe the friction between him and Hodges would by now have dissipated. As Dean drove out of the garage into the street, he saw the Mercedes leave as well. Funny, he'd thought they were searching for a parking place. He imagined for a moment the bizarre scene of a scalping murder in which a woman was not only brutally scalped, but her unborn child was ripped from her as well, and standing tall over the body were Tammy, Fred, and Grandpa in Hawaiian shorts. There were so many bizarre twists to this case that the thought wasn't funny.

A second look in his rearview mirror told Dean that the sleek, gray Mercedes he now saw had an altogether different license plate than Fred and Tammy's. This car had no plate on the front. As the driver suddenly veered off, Dean saw that it had a Florida plate, but it was too far away for him to make out the numbers.

Dean gunned the gas pedal and the car sped back to the cream-colored Municipal complex downtown. Inside was the booze hound who had slept and cowered within sight of the murder of the Jimenez woman and her unborn child.

* * * *

"I told you all I know,” grumbled the broken-down old drunk with the tattered gray coat, baggy pants, and grease-spotted tie. He fumbled with a hat that looked older than he did. His white hair was a wild mass of explosive strands waving above him with the wind stirred up by a ceiling fan. His jowls and gums had long since caved in, his teeth gone. Dean imagined his liver was also in sad shape. From the way Dyer kept his handkerchief close by his nose, Dean imagined the old guy smelled pretty bad, too.

"Just give us some idea what this man looked like,” pleaded Frank Dyer, exasperated with the old-timer. Dean imagined Dyer had been at it for some time.

"And I ain't lying, son, got to have a drink bad—real bad, you understand, son?” said Frank Dyer's stellar witness, brought in for questioning.

Dean watched through a one-way glass, and suddenly Chief Jake Hodges, taking a personal interest in the case, blotted out Dean's view of the old man, coming at him like a bull, asking, “What year is this, Mr. Silbey?"

"Year? What year?"

"Do you know what year it is? What day?"

"Course I do. Nineteen and—and eighty..."

"Eighty what, Mr. Silbey?"

"Keep civil now, son ... it's eighty, eighty-seven, no, eight."

"Who's the President of the United States?” asked Hodges."

"I tell ya', I gotta’ have a drink bad ... real bad,” said Silbey. Dean entered the room where he and Silbey were to confer.

"Who's the goddamned President of the—"

"Randolph Fuckin’ Scott!” Silbey glared at Hodges, then laughed at his own joke, saying in Red Skelton silliness, “Fooled ya', didn't I ... course it's Ronnie Reagan ... or did that rag get taken off the Bush! Ha! Say, can't a murder witness get a drink around here?"

Dean saw they were getting nowhere with the old man, and he thought how differently Ken Kelso in Chicago would handle the derelict. Dean exited and returned fifteen minutes later with what he hoped to be a remedy for the old man's memory. By now, Hodges had disappeared, and Dyer, too, had given up. Dean was sorry to have missed Dyer; he wanted to tell him about his decision to stay and see the case to its conclusion. Dean almost missed old Silbey, too, who was being escorted kindly to the nearest exit, and told thank you and good-bye by a female officer that he doffed his hat at.

Dean caught up with the old man on the street, frightening him at first, but calming him down with what he displayed, a pint of Jack Daniels.

"Huh, hmm, not bad stuff,” said the old critic. “All right, Don—” He shaded his eyes from the bright sun.

"Dean."

"All right, I'll sit and talk a spell with you."

Dean found a park bench outside the municipal building.

"Mr. Silbey, you want to help the police, don't you?"

"Well yeees, but ... I was left here alone by Mr. Fat, and I got awful dry and they started in angry at me, the big ‘un."

Dean stared away at a tree to catch his breath. The old man smelled like the scummy bottom of a trash can.

"Well, now, you're all set, old-timer, and welcome to it."

"You're sent from the heavens, a real godsend,” said Silbey.

"No, Mr. Silbey, I'm with the coroner's office. I'm Dean Grant—call me Dean."

"Thank you, Dean,” Silbey said after another swill, smiling an almost lovable, toothless grin, his wrinkly, leathered face covered in white stubble. The drink had its desired effect for them both. Silbey the Third, as he began to call himself, quickly improved in his communication skills, speaking out loudly against police brutality of a mental nature. Two large swallows on the pint bottle effectively emptied it to a remaining quarter. It was like a balm for the man. Dean took the container and tucked it away, making the old man grimace.

"What'd you do that for?"

"You'll get it back if you'll tell me what you know."

"That'd take ... well, a lifetime!"

"About the killing the other night."

"You ... you believe me? That I saw it? Swear I did,” he told Dean, and then with great detail, Silbey went into the horrid act, standing and displaying with his own hands and arms how the little man chopped and cut away the woman's head to get at the prize he wanted. He moved off some distance, pacing off the space between the killers and himself. Then, finishing, he said, “What in God's name do you suppose they did with that blood-soaked thing, Don? What? Going to have nightmares over this, I know, lessen I can stay bombed. Can I have it back?"

"Sorry, sir—not just yet. Can you tell me anything at all about the man ... the big man, I mean."

Silbey begged off. “Not much to tell. Was dark ... and he looked like just any other guy."

"His clothes, what about them?"

"Good clothes, nice, well dressed, yeah."

"Sweater, shirt sleeves?"

"Sport coat, I think."

"Color?"

"Green, no, light blue."

"Color of his hair?"

"Hair ... hair?"

"Yes, his mop,” said Dean, tugging at his own hair.