Chapter 7

  Vincent Peabody's head felt split in two that was the last night he went out drinking with Maxwell Stillwater. Jesus. That man drank the entire office under the table. He popped another two aspirin, his sixth for the day. Looking down the clock on his desk its illuminated numbers shined back three thirty, maybe he could slip out a little early.

  A knock on his door reverberated through his banging skull, he answered with bitter pain in his voice, “Yes?”

  Standing in the doorway was his secretary, “Mr. Peabody, there are strange men going through Mr. Stillwater's office.” Her tone was one of worry but Vincent could barely focus on that, the only thing that was getting his mind off the pounding in his head was her long legs moving under the tight red skirt. Due to his own carnal desires he only had grasped what she said.

  “Going through Max's office, yeah, did you let him know?” What was under that skirt? That was the bigger question in his mind.

  “Mr. Stillwater is not here today.” She could sense her boss undressing her with his eyes and she pulled the hem of the skirt down to just below her knee.

  “Max not here?” If you asked her to come sit on your lap she probably would, “Wait! Max isn't here? When did he leave?” The realization that the patron saint of office debauchery was not present was troubling. Had something happened the night before? Vincent remembered the women throwing themselves at the group of finely dressed men. His mind drew a blanket when it came to anything else.

  “Thanks for letting me know, dollface. I'll go and see what its about.” Standing up caused a wave of nausea to crash into the sides of his stomach. His knees buckled and he had to catch him on the corner of his desk.

  “Mr. Peabody are you okay?” His secretary voiced with genuine concern. While he may have been a lech and given the opportunity would have taken advance of her, she still cared for his well being. Mainly due to the fact if something happened to him she would be out of a job, but still she cared.

  “Just some indigestion.”

  Vincent walked next door to the open door of Maxwell's office and saw two men digging through the desk. One man was older, rounder, and balding. The other was younger, face still looking like there was life behind his eyes.

  “May I help you with something?” Vincent asked as he knocked on the door.

  “Police business, who are you?” The younger man asked with a decided edge to his voice.

  Without thought, without reason, mainly just out of sheer panic Vincent ran. He quickly turned down the hallway, the sounds of the two police chasing after him. The faster he moved the more his body felt like jelly, his body becoming weaker with each step. If it was not the inconvenience of running in oxfords than it was the heavy amounts of acid being thrown around his stomach. The police were getting closer and he was getting slower.

  Just as he reached the end of his hallway that connected it with the rest of the floor he felt two arms wrap around him. His knees gave out and he and the man tackling him both crashed onto the carpet.

  “Now why in the hell did you just run? You heard police and damn near fell over yourself to get away from us.” The man who had tackled him said, it was the same voice that had identified them as police. The younger one.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Now come on Douglas, you know they only run when they have something to hide. What is Mister Shined Shoes go to hide?” Laughed Jim Swinger.

  “I have nothing to hide! Get your hands off me your damned pervert!” Vincent and his jelly limps tried their best to slither away from Douglas. He could feel Douglas's hand patting him down, finding the small tin that he kept in his back pocket. Was the that tin why he ran? Vincent's mind was still a foggy landscape.

  Douglas pulled the tin out and passed it back to Jim. It seemed innocent enough just a simple brass tobacco tin, Jim's words proved that innocence to be invalid. “Well would you look at that. Dougie, I believe we have stumbled across a new acquaintance for our friends in Vice.” Dipping his finger into the tin and rubbing its contents across his gums, “Oh yes, we have. Cocaine.” Making sure to say the word loud enough for the small gathered crowd of suited men and well-dressed ladies.

  “You planted that! I've never seen that before in my life!”

  “Oh yeah? Why going running?”

  “Two suspicious men in my friends office, digging through his belongings? Of course I am going to run and go get the police.”

  Flipping open his badge right in front of Vincent's face, “We are the police Bozo.” Douglas pulled Vincent up to his feet and walked him back to Maxwell's office. Sitting him down in one of the chairs, Jim closed the door behind them saying “Don't want anymore interruptions.”

  “What's your name?” Douglas asked, sitting on the corner of the wooden desk.

  “Vincent Peabody.”

  “What a stroke of luck we got here. My partner and I were hoping to get a conversation with you. We have a couple questions about last night.”

  Vincent himself had a couple questions about last night. “Should I have a lawyer present for this?”

  “Depends. Are you going answer a couple questions or do we need to focus on that small tin of yours?”

  “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Not at all, if you feel that you do not wish to answer our questions that is your right. If you chose to go down that road we will be taking your back to the precinct on vice charges or we can simply forget we ever saw that tin.”

  Vincent had heard of that police's blackmail tactics, their quid pro quo. “What do you want to know.”

  “Good answer.” Jim placed the tin on the desk in front of Vincent.

  Flipping open the notebook from his breast pocket Douglas settled in, “Do you know Maxwell Stillwater?”

  “I do, my office is next to his.”

  “Did you organize a celebration last night for Maxwell?”

  “Yes I did, he just secured a major client. Myself, Max, and about a half a dozen others from the office decided to go to a couple of bars.”

  “Walk us through everything that happened last night.”

  Vincent shifted uncomfortably in his chair, darting a glance at the tin he wished he could take just a little hit. Exhaling he began to tell his story. At close of day the party left the offices and made their way to their first bar. They stayed there for around an hour before moving closer to Times Square, their final destination. After a couple more bars and a few cabaret shows down some alleyways, the remaining four members of the party made it to Johnny's on Broadway.

  “A titty bar?” Jim asked his eyes raising. Douglas would have to ask later how his partner knew what time of establishment Johnny's was.

  “We figured a couple of shows and we would leave, finish the night with a bang.”

  “How long were your all there?” Douglas asked.

  “Ended up being there until they closed. A lot of our time there was a blur.”

  “Do you remember Maxwell doing or saying anything out of the ordinary.”

  “If you are wondering did he talk with any of the women at the bars, he sure did. Max has always been a ladies man. Every place we went they starting hanging off him like he was a big Hollywood star.” Replaying everything in his mind helped bring some clarity to the haze of the night. “Wait! There was this one girl, little blonde thing. She joined in with us at some point, all over Max and he was all over her.”

  “Little blonde?” Douglas asked, making eye contact with Jim who returned the glance.

  “Yeah. Said her name was something like Noel or Hope, felt religious.”

  “Could it have been Grace?”

  “That's it! Grace! Max spent most of the night with her.”

  “Did you see Maxwell and Grace leave Johnny's together?”

  “Yes, we were all drunk but Max had the longest to go home and she offered for him to stay at her place. He was so head over heels for her that he said yes.”

  Douglas and Jim both nodded to each other as Douglas stood up off the desk. This drugged up ad man just gave them the smoking gun. Douglas handed the tin back to Vincent. “Nice tin, best keep it safe.”