Jack Spade: Dream Detective

Chapter 15

As he does, he tells her, “Okay, baby, you win. Tell your boyfriend to take care of himself. I hear he’s not feeling too good.”

“Jack’s doing just fine,” she says as she slams the door shut. Her hands are shaking; she never thought she would have the nerve to talk to Moreno that way. She steadies herself then goes on stage to sing her number. As she is singing, her eyes look over the club. She sees Mr. Jefferson in the audience; he is with one of his gentlemen friends.

They seem to be having a heated conversation then suddenly the young man gets up and storms out of the club.

In a few seconds, Jefferson runs after him. He catches up with him and pulls him into an alley. “Look here, I told you I can’t do it right now.”

The young man is almost in tears. “But you told me we could.”

“I know but you need to get a hold of yourself. It will happen, I promise.” He then kisses the young man on his forehead. The young man turns and walks out of the alley and down the street; soon he is out of sight.

Jefferson goes to his car and leaves for his hotel. When he arrives at his place, he sees an envelope that someone had pushed under his door. When he opens it, there is anguish on his face. Inside the envelope is Lauren’s wedding ring, a number to call and a demand for fifty thousand dollars. It also tells him to call the number at 11 pm tomorrow night.

Jefferson is terrified. He tries to think who could have sent this. Where did this come from? He goes back down to the lobby and out the doors. The front desk clerk tries to get his attention but Jefferson does not notice him. He hurries into his car and drives to his cabin. He goes over to the place where he buried his wife’s body. The grave was not dug up, so he grabs a shovel and starts digging. When he finds the body, he does not notice that it had hardly decomposed. It has been close to a month since the killing. He quickly covers the grave back up and gets back into his car.

He considers staying at the cabin for the night but he decides to drive back to the city. As he is driving, he thinks back to that terrible night when he killed Lauren. They had gotten into a horrible argument. She refused to come back to him, and she demanded more money on top of that. But that night Jefferson had gone a little nuts. He grabbed her by the throat and choked the life out of her. As her body lay there motionless, Jefferson could not believe what had just happened. The woman he truly loved was dead. Killed by his own hands. The funny thing is that he did not hesitate one minute about not calling the police. He hadn’t meant to kill her, he told himself. All he could think about was disposing of the body. He quickly took Lauren’s lifeless body out to the woods, dug a shallow grave and buried her.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he kept telling himself as he drove back to the city. “I just lost control, she pushed me too far.” When he arrived at his hotel room,

He was still full of anger and anxiety. It was in anger that he had destroyed his one and only love, at least as far as loving a woman goes.

As he sits there crying like a baby and wondering who’d sent him that note, there is a knock on his door. When he opens the door, he is surprised to see two detectives. “Sorry to bother you at this late hour, Mr. Jefferson, but the Louie would like to see you down town.”

“About what?” he says.

“It’s about your missing wife!”

“Yes, of course,” replies Jefferson, stammering out the words. He grabs his coat and hat and leaves with the detectives. It is almost sunrise when he returns home. By this time he is so exhausted, he can hardly walk straight. He goes into his bedroom and falls fast asleep.

When he awakes, it is 5 pm; he had slept most of the day. The first thing he does is call Moreno and tells him about the police calling him in then about the note, and that he had killed Lauren. Moreno tells him to calm down. “Take it easy, Tom. Have you told anyone else? Anyone else!!”

Jefferson screams, “No! Are you crazy?”

“Okay, calm down. What did the police want?”

“Oh, they just wanted to drill me about Deerfield.”

“I’ll be over in twenty minutes. You are in the city, right?”

“Yes,” replies Jefferson. “Where else would I be?”

When Moreno gets there, Jefferson is near the point of a nervous breakdown.

He can hardly talk straight. “Easy, Tom,” says Moreno as he tries to relax him.

“Here, have a cigarette. Sit down, and here, drink this,” he says as he hands him a drink.

“Now, what’s this about you killing Lauren?”

“I don’t know what happened. I was so angry with her, I just lost control. After I did it, I took her out into the woods and buried her in a shadow grave. But then yesterday

I got this note, with her wedding ring in it, asking for fifty thousand dollars.”

“What I don’t understand is if you killed Lauren, why did you hire Spade?”

“To divert suspicion from me.”

“You dummy! You already told the police, that was enough!”

Jefferson leaps up from the couch. “I didn’t realize what I was doing. I was confused.”

“You’re always confused, Tom!” replies Moreno as he walks over to his bar for a drink.

Well, the best thing to do is pay the money. Have you called the number yet?”

“No!”

“It’s almost eleven now! Go ahead, call it,” replies Moreno with a sinister look.

Jefferson walks over to the phone and dials

The number. The conversation is short. He is told to leave the money at a certain address tonight at 12.30 am. And, if he knew what was good for him, he would not to say anything to the cops, and to come alone. After he hangs up, Jefferson is still not sure about giving the money. “What if they come back and ask for more money?”

“Don’t worry about that,” replies Moreno, trying to ease Jefferson’s mind. “It will be just this one time. I know how these guys operate.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t; I just have a feeling it will be just this one time.”

“I hope you are right.”

Later that night Jefferson leaves to make his appointment with the blackmailer. He drives to an abandoned building on Pacific Street that it looks like it’s about to fall down. It used to be an old boarding house from the early 1900s. He goes in alone, as instructed. He attempts to open the door; at first it does not open but after a little force, it swings open. It is dark and gloomy and there is a figure of a tall man standing in the corner of the room.

The man tells him to leave the money on the counter. Jefferson does as he is told and steps back. “Is there anything else?” “Like what?” replies the man as he turns from counting the money.

Jefferson tries to muster up some courage. “This will be the only payment?” He puts it in the form of a question. The man stares at him with cold beady eyes and slowly walks over to him. Jefferson stands there, quivering in his shoes.

“It’s all here?” he says in a low growl that sounds like he has gravel in his mouth.

“I’m not greedy, Mr. Jefferson. Now get out.”

Jefferson turns and runs out. Of course he can never be sure if the man will not contact him again. He gets into his car, where Moreno is waiting.

“Everything go all right?”

“Yes, I guess so,” replies Jefferson, shaking from head to toe. ”Take me home.”

When they get to Jefferson’s hotel, he goes in alone; Moreno goes back to his club. He had told Jefferson to stay at home and get some rest. “You look terrible, Tom. Try to get some sleep.”

“I’d like to see how you’d look if you went through what I went through tonight.”

Moreno just smiles, and drives off. But Jefferson again finds it hard to rest so he takes a couple sleeping pills and has a glass of brandy. After a few hours, he wakes up. He cannot stop thinking about his blackmailer! Will he come back? And demand more money! All these questions keep running through his mind. He finally jumps out of bed and paces back and forth across the room. He soon decides to go for a walk.

Meanwhile Jennifer is at Jack’s, trying to help him to regain his memory. “Look,

Jennifer,” says Jack with a look of tiredness, “what you say we call it a night? My head is beginning to hurt from trying to remember.”

“Okay, Jack,” she replies, “but I think I will go back to my place.”

“Are you sure, baby?”

“Yeah, I think I will.”

“Okay,” Jack agrees, but asks her to come by early tomorrow. “I want you to drive me to my office.” Then he says with a smile, “I do have an office, don’t I?”

Jennifer smiles back. “Well, one thing for sure, you still got your sense of humor.”

“Right,” he says. “Maybe I can remember something there that can shake my memory back. Make it around 8 am.”

“Okay, baby. Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“What am I? Ten!” replies Jack, smiling. They kiss and then Jennifer leaves. The next morning she is back, right on time like she promised.

Jack has made some breakfast; they sit and eat then head for his office. On the way, Jack tells Jennifer to stop at a drug store. He gets out, expecting something would jar his memory, but nothing does. He asks the clerk for a pack of cigarettes.

The clerk replies, “What brand?”

Jack hesitates for a second then says, “It doesn’t matter. Give me a pack of

Chesterfield.” Later they are in the office and Jack is looking over pictures and files. Jennifer opens a cabinet

And sees the fifty thousand dollars. “I guess this is the money from the locker?” “What locker? What money?” replies Jack.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot. Your memory is gone. Lauren was blackmailing Bill. We found a bus station key and you went down to the station to check it out.” As Jennifer is telling the story, Jack is looking at her, trying to remember.

He suddenly gets up and walks over to Jennifer and picks up one of the bundles of money, as he fans it, a piece of negative film falls out. He bends down to pick it up; as he does this, he feels a little dizzy

But when he stands up, as sudden as his memory went, it was back just as quick. He gets his composure and looks over at Jennifer and says to her, smiling with those pearly whites, “I guess we have our leverage back, baby!” “What is it Jack? “She replies with excitement. “Do you have your memory back?