Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

On the bus over to Jersey I thought about what Stampada had told me. The man was not known for his honesty in general, but everything he’d said to me had the ring of truth. He’d had no reason to lie.

Culhane was as violent and unregenerate a sociopath as any I had met. That’s what Stampada had been telling me in his careful, delicate way. Here was a man who had no friends and no lovers, who’d spent his life feared and hated, and who had been good enough at what he did to earn the respect of one of the most violent capos in the Mob. Leon Culhane was probably a killer many times over, and worse things, too.

He was also in love.

Was this possible? Could it be that this monster was tame in the presence of Lila Dubois? Could Rachel have been wrong? Maybe. Maybe.

The bus let me off next to a video arcade. I crossed to the other side of the avenue, away from the beeps and lasers and the sound of quarters being gobbled up, and turned down a side street. All the houses here looked the same. This was the border between the good and the bad parts of Hoboken: good enough not to be slums, but not good enough to keep from being crammed with identical prefabs. Some of the houses had building numbers; others had lost theirs. I consulted the slip of paper on which I had written Leon’s address and made my way slowly down the block.

It was only by counting doorways that I figured out which one was 1317. It was a two story rectangular box with a cinder block foundation and pale blue siding. The roof was gabled, and the drainpipes were rusty. There were no curtains in the windows. The lawn was patchy, but well-kept.

There was a row of cars parked in the street, and I kept them between me and the house the first time I passed. I chanced a glance in one of the windows. I didn’t see anyone.

I went back, this time walking on the sidewalk, going slowly, looking in each window. The rooms looked comfortable, though they didn’t have much in the way of furniture. The kitchen was well stocked with sixpacks, and I saw a shotgun leaning against the refrigerator.

I rounded the corner, hoping to get a look at the rest of the house and maybe even find a way inside. Instead, I got a look at another shotgun, the twin of the one I had seen in the kitchen. This one was pointed directly at me. It was in the unsteady hands of a man who, though both tall and ugly, was not Leon Culhane.

“Step back, put your hands up, and don’t even think of trying to run,” he said.

I stepped back until my back was against the wall of the house. I put my hands up. I thought about trying to run but tried not to let it show. “My name is Douglas Mickity,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. I was hired by the owner of this house to—”

“Like hell you were,” the man said, jamming the barrel of the shotgun under my chin. “I’m the owner of this house, and you’re sure as hell not the P.I. I hired. Now you start talking or I’ll blow your head off.”

I felt the metal at my throat, pressing against my Adam’s apple. “I was looking for Leon Culhane’s house. Thirteen seventeen.” I opened my left hand and let him see the slip of paper in it. The shotgun wavered at my throat, brushing my chin. “Leon Culhane hired me to find his fiancée. That’s the truth.”

“So why do you want to go snooping around his house?”

“I don’t know.” My mind was racing for an acceptable answer. “To be thorough. To make sure he didn’t miss anything.”

“What agency do you work for?”

“I work for myself.”

“Take your I.D. out and show it to me,” he said. “Slowly.”

I did what he said. He looked at my driver’s license and my investigator’s license. Then he lowered his gun. I started to breathe again.

“Sorry,” he said. He turned away and started walking toward the back porch of his house.

“Hold on,” I called after him. “What did you mean ‘You’re not the P.I. I hired?”

“Just what it sounds like,” the man said. “I hired Arthur Chase. You’re not him. When you said you’re a detective, I thought maybe you work for him. But you don’t, so that’s that.” He opened the door and waited for me to leave.

“Can you at least tell me which house is Culhane’s?”

He nodded toward the house behind me.

“And your name?”

“None of your business.”

The door banged shut behind him.

I rubbed my throat. I could still feel where he had held the gun on me. I had accidentally miscounted houses, and for that simple mistake I had almost gotten killed. Scott’s words came back to me: Jesus, what a world. Two houses picked at random in Hoboken, New Jersey, and both of the owners had hired detectives, both had guns, both were willing to use them... No, it didn’t matter whether you were on the force or not. You couldn’t get away from it.