Quinn Checks In (Liam Quinn 1)

by Thomson, Lh

  I walked up behind him quietly. “You know, for a guy whose last name is Saint, you sure do break the rules a whole lot.”

  He muttered under his breath. “Ixnay on the eating-chay,” he said. “I got a nice old grandma in a home to support.”

  It’s true, although nice was a stretch. Danny’s grandma was ninety-four and still tough as nails. She’d laughed when Danny had told her he’d just gotten out of jail again and asked why he was hanging out “with some bastard mick from Fishtown.” Then she’d punched him in the shoulder.

  I kept my voice equally low. “Yeah? Well how do you think the grandmothers of all these fine gentlemen would feel if they knew you were cheating their grandbabies with your crooked dice?”

  Danny held up both hands promptly and spoke loudly. “Gentlemen! Last roll! Due to exigent circumstances I must avail myself of, uh…elsewhere.”

  The four guys rolling whined and complained... but all four put most of their roll down on the final pass.

  Danny took them clean one more time, then picked up his dice and quickly switched them out for the good ones. He took a half-step back from where he’d been standing, but was challenged by the roller, a young African-American guy with a neatly trimmed beard. “Man, you got almost every roll in the last ten minutes,” he said. “Lemme see them dice.”

  It could have gotten ugly quickly, but Danny’s switch had been perfect. He handed the pair to the roller, who tried them a few times. Three of the four rolls were naturals, seven or 11.

  “Shit,” said the man.

  His friends laughed at him. “You just fucking shitty at dice, motherfucker,” said one of them.

  They picked themselves up and dusted off to leave, and I led Danny to the edge of the lot.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s so important you got to cut off that sort of action?”

  I filled him in. “Now Vin the Shin’s expecting results.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh no. You’re not dragging me into that kind of business.”

  “Look, all I need you to do is stake out a woman, keep tabs on her for a few days, see if she does anything funny.”

  “You mean funny like ‘It’s funny how Liam Quinn just ruined my dice game and probably cost me a grand’ funny?”

  I smiled. “Exactly.”

  “Ever occur to you that I got better things...”

  “No.”

  “That kind of consideration? That right there is why we’re so tight,” Danny said.

  “You do remember me protecting your butt on cellblock six, right? I mean, those Aryan guys thought you were one purty little thang.”

  He sucked on his tongue for a moment grumpily. “Never going to let me live that down, are you?”

  I nodded. “Never. But now I need your help. So just think of it as positive affirmation.”

  “Staking out a forger as ‘positive affirmation.’ You’re one of a kind, Quinn,” he said.

  “And thank goodness it’s true,” I said.

  ***

  Back at the agency, Ramon was slurping Japanese noodles out of a Styrofoam cup. “Hey kid,” he said when I walked into his office. “Some of my buddies from the force say you were talking about Vin the Shin down at the Druid.”

  Cop grapevine traveled fast. “He’s got an interest,” I said, trying to keep things as vague as possible. “But don’t worry, he didn’t rob the place.”

  “If you know that, then you must have some idea who did,” he said.

  “Sort of, yeah. There are still a couple of pieces I haven’t figured out yet.”

  “So are we going to take a bath on this one, or what?”

  “Don’t know yet. Depends on whether whoever took the painting has sold it yet. Maybe we can get it back still.”

  “Whoever? I thought you just said you...”

  “I said ‘sort of.’ Can’t be sure yet.”

  We walked back out into the main part of the office, where everyone was working, and over to the coffee maker, where Ramon poured himself a small cup. He’d taken one sip when I heard Nora’s voice behind me.

  “You’re actually showing up at work? Wonders never cease.”

  I couldn’t help but smile whenever I saw her, at least a little.

  Her father interjected. “Quinn says he’s going to recover that Vermeer, save the company a bundle.”

  Nora’s eyes narrowed. “And a good piece of change for you, I imagine?”

  “Have to figure. I don’t know what they’re pegging it at yet....”

  Ramon said, “They figure about two-point-five mill right now I hear.”

  “So that’s just over fifty grand for you, if I remember the percentages right,” said Nora. “You buying dinner?”

  I was about to respond that it sounded like the company’s estimate was hellish low, but Ramon’s secretary Ardelle walked over and interrupted. “That reminds me, Liam,” she said. “You had a call. Said she lost your number, but she had a great time the other night and you should give her a ring back. Name was Alison something.... I got her number on a sticky on my desk somewhere...”

  I cringed, waiting for a smart-ass comment from someone. Unfortunately, it was Nora. “Ooh, Liam,” she said. “Alison!” She nodded approvingly after she said it. “You are a naughty boy.”

  I held up both hands. “Hey, she’s a client. I don’t get involved with clients,” I said.

  “Keep it that way,” Ramon said as he walked back to his office.

  Nora turned back to me. “What…?”

  “She’s a client,” I said. “Besides, shouldn’t you be a little more upset that neither of us cleared it with you first? She’s your friend.”

  That puzzled her and she paused. “Since when did you worry about what I think?”

  My eyebrows shot up faster than a helium balloon. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, geez, I always try to think of you first.”

  Nora squinted at me. “You’re infuriating sometimes, you know that? I get you all figured out, and ....”

  But she didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence before Ramon walked back into the room and interrupted. “Hey Liam, you better get your rubber boots on. I just got a call from my friend in robbery. He says they pulled two stiffs out of the river this morning, and one of them was Pat Delaney’s old cellmate.”

  They still had tape up around the scene just south of the Ben Franklin Bridge. There were tracks in the muddy bank, where they’d used a four-wheel drive vehicle to help haul the corpses up the bank, and temporary fencing had been erected on either side of the scene, fronted by yellow police tape.

  A cruiser was parked nearby and I knocked on the driver-side window, where a young officer was sitting drinking coffee.

  “Yeah?”

  Ever friendly, Philly’s finest.

  “Hey. Name’s Quinn, insurance investigator. They ID those two floaters from this morning?”

  He looked up at me annoyed. “I can’t tell you that, you know that. You got to contact communications or the precinct staff sergeant for that crap.”

  I rolled by eyes. “Look, my dad’s a retired member, my brother’s on shift in the 35th, and it’s all over already that one of the guys was Pat Delaney’s cellmate.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know the players. Wouldn’t know about that. Sorry. You talk to robbery yet?”

  I shook my head. He looked on his multi-display terminal for a moment then passed me a number. “Here, this is the lead, Det. Richardson.” Then he pointed to his badge number. “Just tell him Tommy Lopushinski says hi.”

  Some cops? They’re just good guys. “Thank you man,” I said. “You didn’t have to...”

  He waved me off. “Naaah, shit. I used to work in the 35th. Best water ice in the city in that little place just down...”

  “Nunzio’s,” I said. “He puts the extra syrup in.”

  “You got that right,” he said, pointing with both fingers. “Black currant! Crazy stuff, man.”

  A moment later his partner crosse
d the street from an adjacent restaurant with two fresh cups.

  “Looks like we’re rolling,” he said. “Say hello to your brother for me.”

  After they’d pulled away, I dialed the lead investigator. “Det. Richardson?”

  “How can I help you?”

  “My name’s Liam Quinn. I’m an investigator working on an insurance case I think might be tied to your floaters.”

  I heard a click, the sound of him starting a recorder. “And where are you right now Mr. Quinn? Can you come in and talk to me about it?”

  I chuckled. “Detective, I’m not a secret source. My family are all cops. It’s definitely just a related case. No involvement by me.”

  He cut to the chase. “So when can you come in?”

  I told him I’d see him in twenty minutes.

  Traffic was good, and the Firebird coughed throatily as I punched the engine and headed towards the precinct house

  Two hours later, I was still being interviewed by Richardson and his partner. I told them what I knew, except for the identity of the forger. It wasn’t that I distrusted the boys in blue. But they could be less than subtle, and if they picked up Polly Clark before I’d figured this all out, Philadelphia Mutual was out a cool two-five, and I was out my healthy fee.

  “So let me get this straight: you think these two guys were capped because they robbed an art gallery for Pat Delaney?”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

  “But you don’t know why they robbed the gallery, because it might be tied to Delaney’s armored car heist, but it might be unrelated.”

  “Yeah... basically.”

  “So... after two hours, what you’ve got is a theory: that somehow Delaney’s old partners have come back from the dead and bumped off two schmucks working for him now?”

  I nodded.

  “Pretty thin.”

  I nodded again. “Fortunately,” I said, “I’m not the poor bastard has to figure out what Pat’s up to. I just need to find the painting they stole.”

  He nodded. “And leave the ‘charging someone’ bit up to us. You ambulance chasers are all heart.” It sounded like “haht” in his heavy Philly accent.

  “Hey, I try.”

  He looked serious for a moment, thinking things over. “There’s no way you’re telling me everything here, Quinn,” he said. “How did you know about the Delaney connection? About his cellmate?”

  “Anonymous tip,” I said, holding up my cellphone as if it were evidence.

  He nodded, but the motion said he didn’t believe me. “Right. Well, I tell you what: you get any more enlightening phone calls, you make sure you call us first.”

  Vin the Shin wouldn’t have liked that one.

  “Detective,” I promised. “As soon as I know for sure what’s up, you can bet I’ll be calling you guys.”

  After spending most of the day talking to cops, I called Bryson at the stadium and got contact info for David Mince. I figured the easiest way to resolve the whole thing might be to confront him. He was accustomed to getting his own way, so I figured losing his sense of control might snap him around.

  That might sound naïve to some; certainly, if you’re like my brother Davy, you’d think so. But I read a lot about criminology in the prison library, and the truth is there are two types of sociopath out there, two types of people who lack empathy for the rest of us, or remorse. Sure, some people do just seem to be born that way. They show signs at age two in research. But most of them? Most criminal are just disconnected. They were born with nothing, told or shown that they were worth nothing and could make nothing, and constantly surrounded by failure and social dependency. They figure no one gives a shit about them, so why should they give a shit back? No one shows them empathy, so they develop none in return.

  If that’s not a stacked deck, I don’t know what is.

  So I wanted to see which kind of mean dude Mince was: the kind who’d rob you violently then justify it in shrill tones as the survival of the fittest; or the one who just stabs someone for the fun of it. If it was column ‘b’ and he was just born bad, things were infinitely more complicated.

  I told Bryson how I felt about it. “What do you think, chief? You’ve met the kid more times than me.”

  He sighed inwardly. “There’s something about him sets me off, that’s for sure,” he said. “He’s just a cold, cold fish, man, like he’s studying you, dissecting you.”

  “Why didn’t you fail his security clearance when they hired him?”

  “Can’t. Can’t just fail someone, Mr. Quinn. They need to have a record, or exhibit some kind of threat.”

  That was only fair, I supposed. “Still you peg him as cold-blooded, too.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Cold as they come, that boy.”

  Mince lived in West Philly in a former subsidized housing block that was one of the few in the neighborhood that hadn’t been rescued and turned into a condo. The wooden front steps were peeling and warped, rocking ever so slightly as I climbed them and the small glass window panel in the dirty and peeling green wood door was shattered.

  I didn’t need them to buzz me in; the electronic door lock was obviously broken, and the door’s spring long gone, so it rested slightly open, like an unused bathroom stall.

  Their mailbox said the Mince family was in 4D.

  I could hear a racket through the apartment door but two loud knocks got no response. I was about to try again when it flew open, a short, beefy man with greasy light-brown hair standing there in his stained string undershirt, propping the door fully wide.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he said, zipping up his pants.

  “I’m looking for David.”

  The guy looked pissed. “You interrupted for that? Motherfucker!”

  He took a half-step towards me then cocked and threw a right hand in one smooth motion. But I’d seen the anger in his eyes a split-second earlier, and was already feinting backwards, watching his knuckles go flying by, the reaction ‘zone’ kicking in.

  I let his weight carry him slightly past me, so that I could drive my right hand into his left kidney. He groaned and dropped to one knee. Before he could get up again, I hit him with two crisp jabs, then a right-hand cross.

  His head caromed off the door before he hit the floor.

  I stretched my bruised hands and looked past him into the apartment. “Mrs. Mince?”

  I walked in cautiously. The light was low, and the lime-green walls shadowed and dirty. The place smelled of acrid smoke and rotting garbage.

  In the living room there was just a ratty old brown couch and a television. Mrs. Mince was sitting on the couch in panties and a t-shirt, giggling at a cartoon. She was emaciated; her eyes were rimmed with dark shadows, her lips chapped, her skin pale, the capillaries translucent blue through the tops of her tiny hands.

  On the couch next to her she was holding onto a small glass pipe.

  “Mrs. Mince, I’m looking for David.”

  She turned to me like a curious ghoul. “David? David’s a good boy. David’s got a job, and he goes to school, and ....” She looked puzzled and blank for a moment, as if trying to recall what she’d been saying ... or even just one more thing about her son of which she could be proud.

  I tried to sound reassuring. “I know, Mrs. Mince. I know. You know where I might find him?”

  She smiled and shook her head gently. “You might want to try down at the Wawa,” she said “He hangs out in their back parking lot sometimes with his friends.”

  “Getting in trouble?”

  She waved a hand at me. “Naw. Naw! He’s just excitable, you know, they say ... uh, they say he’s ‘high-strung’,”

  “But he gets in lots of fights, right?”

  She went to wave the hand again but didn’t have the strength to fully follow through in her glassy-eyed state. “Nah. He’s a good boy.”

  She wasn’t going to be much help, so I headed back down the dingy staircase to the street, to scope out the
corner store. It was about four blocks east, and by the time I got close, I could just make out a handful of guys crowded behind it.

  They looked like they were out of high school already, big kids. And there were four of them. So I made the mistake of trying to play it cool.

  “Hey fellas.” I said.

  No reply. One of them was smoking a huge blunt – a joint made with a scooped-out cigar wrapper.

  I said, “Anyone here see David Mince?”

  A young guy with premature lip hair and a backwards baseball cap went to point towards the store, but one of his friends slapped his hands down. “Stupid! Dude is five-oh, man.”

  I raised both hands, trying to look friendly. “Look, I’m not here to hassle you guys....”

  Just then, Mince came around the corner of the building with a six-pack in one hand and a brown paper bag and bottle in the other from the liquor store down the block. He saw me, but barely acknowledged I was even there, walking over to the other guys and handing them the booze.

  “Why you talking to this guy?”

  “He five-oh,” one friend said.

  Mince squinted derisively. “No he ain’t, he’s some security guard or something. He was at the stadium asking questions.”

  Things weren’t looking up.

  “So what do we do with him?” said the biggest drinking buddy.

  Mince shrugged. “Shit, I don’t care. Stomp him, dip his ass in the river a few times.”

  Two of them got up. This really wasn’t good; I was playing the percentages on Mince letting me walk away able to identify him and they weren’t in my favor. If his friends started stomping, they wouldn’t stop until I was dead.

  It was time for a little revision of the odds.

  Most people will tell you that a five-on-one fight is a done deal, and that the one guy doesn’t have a chance. But experience and a sheer brute will to win count a lot in these situations, and you can even up the odds considerably via the element of surprise.

  I didn’t have time to throw a punch, however. I turned left quickly, used one flat palm on each side of two of their heads, slamming them together and putting both down, hard.