The boyfriend could have hung up. He could have told Kelson to shut his mouth. Instead, he asked, ‘Do most people think you’re a dumbshit?’
‘Some do,’ Kelson said. ‘Not many.’
‘Zoe lives in the house next door to ours,’ the boyfriend said. ‘She was watching out the window the whole time you talked to Richard.’
‘I didn’t see her,’ Kelson said.
‘I know. Do you miss a lot?’
‘Some,’ Kelson said.
A half hour later, when Kelson knocked on Zoe Simmons’s door, a skinny woman with black hair answered. Kelson looked at her shoes. Pink with carpet patches stuck on the sides. ‘Jimmy Choos,’ he said.
She laughed. She had a crooked smile, as if something had happened to her jaw.
‘You’re pretty anyway,’ he said.
The crooked smile did something mischievous. ‘Not you. What happened?’ She gestured at the scar above his eye.
‘A kid shot me.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yep. Are you Zoe Simmons?’
She did a weird half curtsy. ‘Speaking.’ She turned and walked into the house, leaving the door open. He followed her into a living room furnished with cheap chairs, a cheap table, and a futon couch of the kind college kids have – and thirty-year-olds still trying to earn enough to replace their college furniture. She sat on the futon and swung her fake Jimmy Choos over the side.
He said, ‘I’m—’
‘The guy pestering Rick a while ago. I know – I saw you.’
‘Rick’s boyfriend told me you live here, when I called.’
‘Because I told him to tell you when he said you asked about Jeremy and Genevieve. I’ve been friends with Rick all my life. We lived three houses away when I was growing up, and look at us now – next-door neighbors again.’ She had the affected, showy voice of a bad actor. ‘But Jeremy is only friends with Jeremy. Do I like him? No. But do I want him dead? No. Am I sorry if he really is dead – and by the way, you’re the only one who’s said so? Sure. Do I want him alive the same way I want everyone else alive, because death sucks? Yeah. But will I cry a lot if he’s gone? Not much. Jeremy’s always been a jerk. I never talked to him except he wanted something from me.’
Kelson clapped once because he thought she was performing for him. ‘Did he ever mention a business called G&G?’
‘If it didn’t have the word “gimme” attached to it, he didn’t say it.’
‘When did you last talk?’
‘That’s why I told Rick’s boyfriend to tell you where to find me. Eight days ago, Jeremy came by and I thought right away he wanted something. But he gave me these.’ She pointed the toes of the fake Jimmy Choos at Kelson. ‘Jeremy never gave me anything before – and then, magic slippers, right?’
‘What did he want from you?’
‘Nothing – or almost nothing, which freaked me out, like he was going to tell me he was pregnant with my baby. He just wanted me to hold on to a thumb drive.’
Kelson blinked. ‘Give it to me.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry. Is it red? Can I see it? It’s Genevieve Bower’s. She hired me to get it back.’
‘That’s the thing. He changed his mind. I asked what was on it, and he got squirrelly and said he’d keep it. He didn’t even ask for the shoes back. That was a new Jeremy. Next thing I knew, he disappeared, and now you say he’s dead.’
‘He didn’t let you see what was on it?’
‘He didn’t even let me touch it.’
Kelson pushed for information about where Oliver might have hidden the thumb drive, and when she said she didn’t know, he gave her a card and asked her to call if she thought of anything. Then she invited him to a performance of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard at the Rat and Thimble Theater in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. She was playing Anya. All of the actors were wearing black leather, and Anya’s love interest Peter Trofimov would ride on to stage on a Harley-Davidson.
Kelson walked out to his car. He leaned against the hood and dialed Genevieve Bower.
Again the call went to voicemail.
‘Part three,’ he said to the recorder. ‘I’m waiting for your call. I want to know about you and G&G. No lies. Part four. I talked to Rick Oliver and Zoe Simmons about the thumb drive. Unless you can give me something, I’m looking at a wall.’
He got into the car and started the engine, but before he could pull from the curb, his phone rang.
He snatched it to his ear. ‘About time. Tell me about G&G.’
But Rodman spoke to him – gentle, calm, sad. ‘Neto’s gone, man.’
‘Shit,’ Kelson said, and cut the engine.
‘Yeah, shoulder deep.’
‘Marty needs to know.’
‘I should do it,’ Rodman said, ‘but I’ve got to stay here awhile. Janet’s in pieces.’
‘I don’t want to picture that,’ Kelson said. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘You sure you’re up to it?’
‘I know I’m not.’
TWENTY-ONE
Forty minutes later, Kelson walked back into the G&G office and told the receptionist, ‘I need to see Marty LeCoeur.’ When she picked up the phone to tell Chip Voudreaux and Sylvia Crane that he’d returned, he stepped around her desk and went up the hallway toward Voudreaux’s office and the internal room where Marty was working. ‘The things I do,’ he said. The receptionist shouted after him, but he rounded a corner and then another and startled the thick-shouldered guard at the door to the internal room.
‘Message for Mr LeCoeur,’ Kelson said.
The guard said, ‘Uhh …’
‘Thick-headed too?’ Kelson said. ‘This is life and death. Or just death.’ He opened the door and walked past the guard into the room.
Marty’s fingers did something to the keyboard that sounded like a little drum.
‘Marty,’ Kelson said and, when the little man said nothing, only leaning into the screen of one of the side-by-side laptops as if he would join himself to it, said his name again. ‘Marty—’
‘Shh.’ His eyes on the screen. ‘I got it – maybe. I …’ His fingers drummed the keys. Then he stopped typing, checked one screen against the other, and started again. Something like bliss showed on his face.
‘Beautiful,’ Kelson said, ‘in its own strange way. Almost like love, right?’
‘Be’ – Marty’s fingers swept across the keyboard, and new numbers appeared on the screen – ‘fucking’ – his fingers pattered and pattered – ‘quiet.’
Kelson watched for a few moments, then said what he needed to say. ‘Neto’s dead.’
Marty’s fingers broke rhythm, as if reacting to a muscle spasm. He seemed to try to force himself through Kelson’s words back into the work he was doing.
Kelson said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Marty stopped typing. He stared at the screens as if the numbers were disintegrating. ‘Neto?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Kelson said. ‘DeMarcus called. I’m sorry.’
Marty’s hand hung above the keyboard as if phantom muscles might go back to work, unwilled by his mind. Then his little body seemed to contract. Kelson expected him to cry. But Marty gripped one of the laptops and flung it against the wall.
Kelson went to it and toed the screen, which had detached from the base. Still wired, it displayed four columns of numbers and dates.
He looked at Marty and said again, ‘I’m sorry.’
The little man burst from his chair in a rage unlike any Kelson had ever seen. He picked up the other laptop and hurled it against the same wall. It burst into pieces.
The thick-shouldered guard rushed in and tried to restrain him. But Marty seemed to turn into a muscle – all torque and spring. One of his little legs flashed out and smashed the guard in the thigh. Then he did something vicious to the guard’s ear with two of his knuckles, and the guard crashed to the floor.
‘Really?’ Kelson said.
Marty stared at the damage – the wrecked laptops,
the downed guard. ‘I need to see Neto,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
‘Seems like a good idea,’ Kelson said.
TWENTY-TWO
Janet was crying in the private waiting room when Kelson and Marty walked in. Draped over the side of her chair, she was mashing her head and body against Rodman, who sat next to her. Her face was blotchy and wet.
She looked up at Marty, groaned, pulled herself from Rodman, and consumed the little man in her big arms. ‘Jesus Christ, Marty,’ she said, ‘I wanna kill someone.’
‘Yeah, baby, me too,’ he said.
After a while, a grief counselor came in and took Marty and Janet to see Neto.
Kelson sank into the chair where Janet had sat. ‘He’s a hard little man,’ he said.
‘He hurt anyone at G&G when he heard the news?’
‘He knocked out a guard about twice his size.’
‘They got off easy.’
‘He didn’t say a word on the drive here. I thought he’d cry, but his eyes turned to ice.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ Rodman said. ‘I watched him take down a bunch of big guys at Streeter’s Tavern once. I sat back and waited for him to ask for help. He hit the last of them over the head with a stool, then dragged the stool – covered with the guy’s blood – over to the bar and ordered a piña colada. Marty drinks beer and whiskey. Hates everything else. But he ordered a girly drink to make a point. And he drank it like he liked it.’
‘A hard little man,’ Kelson said again. ‘G&G will come after him. You think he can handle them?’
‘Even a volcano’s got limits.’
‘Can you take him home with you – keep him safe?’
‘Sure,’ Rodman said, ‘though the G&G people know who I am too.’
‘Do they want to take on two volcanoes?’
Rodman lowered his eyelids halfway. ‘Me? I’m the gentlest man I know.’
Kelson left Rodman to deal with Marty, and he drove to his office. As he walked out of the parking garage he said to the attendant, ‘Cherish every moment.’
The attendant said, ‘Sometimes I wish you’d keep your thoughts to yourself.’
‘Me too,’ Kelson said.
In his office, he strapped the KelTec under the desktop and checked the Springfield in its drawer. He considered the picture of Sue Ellen, considered the picture of the kittens, considered the picture of Sue Ellen again, and said, ‘Hi, honey.’
Her picture stared at him with those eyes he loved.
‘Some days like this,’ he said. ‘Some lives.’
He sat and stared at his closed office door. He asked it, ‘Who next? What monster?’
He unstrapped the KelTec and laid it on his desk, the barrel facing the door. ‘Really?’ he asked it. He took its silence to mean … maybe.
Then his phone rang, making him jump. Caller ID said G&G Private Equity, and a sound like henh came from his mouth. He answered, ‘Sam Kelson – as if you didn’t know that.’
A man identifying himself as Sylvia Crane’s assistant asked if Kelson would come to G&G to discuss a possible job.
‘What kind of job?’ Kelson said.
‘I imagine that’s what Ms Crane would like to discuss with you,’ the assistant said.
‘I’m not big on half answers,’ Kelson said.
‘Ms Crane isn’t big on employees who ask too many questions and fail to do what they’re told.’
‘Sounds like a bad fit,’ Kelson said, and hung up.
A minute later, his phone rang again. Sylvia Crane herself.
‘What the hell’s your problem?’ she said.
‘That’s a long list, Ms Crane.’
‘Will you or won’t you come to my office?’
‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘You people scare me – sending Neto out on a little chore that gets him killed, locking up Marty LeCoeur in a workroom. Bad things happen around you. Sometimes you make them happen. How do I know I’ll walk out of your office again if I walk in?’
‘The job pays well.’
‘Oh, then sure – you can stick a gun in my mouth if you promise to tuck a few bills in my panties.’
‘You wear panties?’
‘A metaphor. I suffer from disinhibition, not a lack of imagination.’
‘The job has nothing to do with the LeCoeurs or the money Neto LeCoeur stole. You’re safe with me.’
‘I doubt that,’ he said, then realized. ‘It has to do with Genevieve Bower?’ When she said nothing, he said, ‘Sometimes I impress myself. I lost a lot when I got shot in the head, but I think I make these leaps better. My therapist says that’s my brain compensating.’
‘Will you come to talk about the job?’
‘Will you and your people keep your hands to yourselves?’
‘If you don’t want the job you can walk away and we’ll never see or talk to each other again.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ he said. ‘How’s the security guard Marty punched?’
‘Fired. Other than that, bruised and humiliated. Are you coming?’
‘I’ll tell you what – you want me to work for you, you can come here to talk about it, and you can leave your security thugs behind.’
She hesitated, then said, ‘If those are your wishes.’
An hour later, Sylvia Crane sat in Kelson’s office. She glanced past him at the pictures of Sue Ellen and the kittens. ‘Cute,’ she said.
‘Unnecessary small talk,’ he said.
‘You don’t care for it?’ She seemed to be working hard to make her angular face look friendly.
‘I care for every kind of talk. But right now, I’d like you to tell me what the job is and then leave.’
‘You’re a strange man, but I’ll overlook that,’ she said. ‘I understand you’re a former police officer. G&G has a history of positive dealings with law enforcement. We demonstrate our appreciation for the police, and they find ways to work with us. We prefer cooperation to force. Do you?’
‘What’s the job?’
‘We’re missing a copy of some files.’ She stopped trying to look friendly, and that made Kelson like her better. ‘From what my husband Bruce tells me, you know about this copy. We’d like to pay you to retrieve it.’
‘Genevieve Bower’s thumb drive.’
‘As I’m sure you know, we can outbid her for it.’
‘One problem. She already hired me. I sold my services.’
‘What’s she paying you? A couple thousand?’
‘More or less,’ Kelson said.
‘What if we add a zero? Would that eliminate questions about professional ethics? Say, twenty thousand for a week’s work? Double it if you need more time? Double it anyway, as a reward for your quick work?’
‘Let’s say that would do it for me,’ Kelson said. ‘I could justify taking the job. Genevieve Bower has lied and told me half truths. But I still have a problem. If I took your money and cheated her out of hers, I would give all the details to anyone who asked – and a lot of people who didn’t. That’s the disinhibition talking. Then, if new clients asked if they could trust me, I would tell them no – or I’d tell them yes, but only if no one offered me a better deal. You see how that would wreck my business? What’s on the thumb drive?’
‘We want it back because it’s private and compromising. We want to hire you instead of going to the police because – again – it’s private and compromising.’
‘“Compromising” is a funny word. It can mean embarrassing or it can mean illegal.’
‘Let’s say it means both. Nothing I’ve done personally. But the videos on the drive would affect me and those I love in damaging ways. I would like to stop that from happening. I would like you to help.’
‘Who’s Genevieve Bower to you?’ he said. ‘I looked online but couldn’t find a connection. Why does she want the videos? Why do you?’
Sylvia Crane crossed her legs. ‘You understand, for the same reasons of privacy, I can’t talk about her.’
‘Sorry, t
hat won’t do. Everyone wants to keep secrets from me, but I can’t work that way.’
Sylvia Crane frowned. ‘Let’s say Genevieve Bower appears on one of the videos along with someone I care deeply for.’
‘Huh – she’s got a bad habit with cameras, doesn’t she? Who’s Jeremy Oliver to you?’
‘My husband says Oliver rents an apartment from him, and there’ve been problems – he disappeared. Bruce says you told him he’s dead.’
‘Are you really going to do that?’
‘What?’
‘I told you I could almost justify taking your job because Genevieve Bower lied to me, and now you give me this crap. Oliver stole the thumb drive from Genevieve Bower, so he knew or found out what was on it. Now he’s dead – I saw him. And someone torched his van, and – I tell you this because you’re really annoying me – someone searched his apartment. I’m guessing that person was looking for the same thumb drive you and Genevieve Bower want. But you’re saying you don’t know of a connection to him?’
Her face flushed. ‘I’m sure there must be one, but I don’t know of it.’
Kelson stood up at his desk. ‘You can leave now.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like what? I told you why – and no one ever says I tell them too little.’
‘We’re talking about people’s lives,’ she said.
He laughed at her. ‘From what I see, you screw with people’s lives every day – moving money around in secret, hiring guys like Marty and Neto LeCoeur to do your dirty accounting.’
‘My family’s lives,’ she said. Something in her angular features seemed to be splintering.
‘Someone’s threatening you?’
Lucky Bones Page 11
