Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  Christ, Cooper thought. The only pipe Max had touched since he lost his plumbing shop back about six years ago was loaded with crack cocaine. And where did he get this “bullshit holding charge” from? Even if Cooper gave it his best shot, which he certainly wouldn’t, Mr. Herman would be spending what was left of his middle age—not to mention a good chunk of his golden years—behind bars.

  “That’s a fabulous attitude, Maxwell.” Cooper beamed, but Max seemed puzzled by the use of his full first name. “I feel we have an excellent chance of getting most of their evidence disposed of at the suppression hearing. Actually, I was exceedingly amazed that we even got bound over for trial. I did not believe that the judge was too impressed with their evidence. It seems more of a political gesture, their continuing this travesty. I’m convinced that, once we get in front of a jury, we shall get the results we desire and so justly deserve.”

  Not too impressed? Cooper almost laughed. The judge nearly sentenced Max right at the preliminary hearing. And if any juror in his right mind takes one look at this pathetic load and the evidence against him, the DA gets a standing ovation.

  “You know, I’ve been working overtime on this matter,” he continued. “On all of your various troubles. You’ve had an incredible run of bad luck, Maxwell.”

  “Fuckin’ A, I have.” Max nodded wildly. “Incredible, like you said. Who could believe all this shit?”

  “Taken individually, these matters are quite manageable. However, in the aggregate, they are indeed formidable. We have almost exhausted your retainer and secondary monies. I will require another payment of precisely fifteen thousand dollars by the weekend in order to proceed.”

  When Max heard the number he rolled his eyes and made a sour frown, like he was suppressing a fart. “Fuckin’ A, fifteen large. What are you doing, burning the money I give you? Hell, Cooper, that might take some doing.”

  “I understand. But you have to understand that keeping you out of Cañon City for twenty years plus will take some doing as well.” Cooper was getting irritated. This was the first time Max had even hesitated about coming up with money. “Trial preparation is no easy matter. There’s expert-witness fees, process serving, a million details to work out. For God’s sake, Maxwell, I and my staff will be holed up here for most of the weekend working on your suppression hearing.”

  Fat chance. Cooper and Ronnie had reservations at a bed-and-breakfast near Vail for the weekend. Neither he nor his “staff” would be within a hundred miles of the office or Max’s files.

  “I’m not saying I won’t come up,” Max said bitterly as he looked away. “Just it’s a lot of money, is all. Okay. I want the best shot you got. You and your guys here. Balls to the wall on this one, counselor. Nothing less. You fuckin’ hear me?”

  Max had never seen anyone except, as he put it, “that sexy bimbo Cooper was always drooling over” and “that fat spade chick”—the former being Ronnie, and the latter being the receptionist, who snarled at him whenever he came to the office. But, based on Cooper’s incessant pep talks, Max assumed that he had several partners and an eager support staff.

  “But of course. That’s precisely what you’ll be getting, Maxwell.” Cooper decided to tack on another hour just because of the hard time he was having. He reasoned that it was bad enough he had to go through this phony tap dance without having to hear a ton of shit in the bargain. “Right after this money situation is properly addressed.”

  Cooper, if not a class act from birth, was by no means stupid. He had worked himself up in life through basic determination, grit, and greed. First as a private investigator. After going back and finishing college at thirty, he created a resume from sheer nerve and imagination that boasted of his “five years of experience as a trained legal investigator,” and hunted up work. But he soon grew tired of chasing lawyers for forty dollars an hour in fees and decided to chase clients for one hundred forty dollars an hour. He went to the University of Denver Law School, where he realized that lawyering wasn’t that hard. Not if you’re willing to trim the edges. Life was simply too short for jumping through all those silly hoops. Like doing this tedious grunt work that Max’s case required and actually logging all those hours he was billing. A man’d have to be totally insane to do that.

  Cooper’s way made sense. Stall his client for a few weeks and ignore the DA’s offer. And a pretty good offer it was. Plead to the drug charges and they’d drop the threatening business, which was weak anyway. Also plead to the weapons charge and the two sentences would run concurrently. The DA would sit quietly at sentencing and Max would get maybe eight to ten years. He’d be out in four or five if he behaved himself and didn’t get his throat slashed.

  Cooper tabled the offer and told Max that the DA was being a real hard-nose. Then, after they got clobbered at the suppression hearing, he’d let the poor slug know how much trouble he was really in and how the judge was a total maniac on drug dealers. Scare the hell out of Max with the possibility of twenty years for sure. Finally, a couple of days before the trial, he’d lay out the DA’s deal like he had just fought to the death for it. Max pleads out, thinking Cooper saved his ever-expanding butt. Everyone’s happy. Especially Cooper.

  “Awright, Chrissake, awright.” Max wanted to end the discussion, too. “You’ll have the fifteen by the weekend. I think I’ll get trucking now, so you can get down to work. You give it your best there, counselor. Right?”

  “You have my word.” Cooper nodded and leaned forward with enough insincere humility to win office. “I will keep after the district attorney’s office and see if we can get some concessions on these matters. However, judging by the way they’re being so stubborn, I believe we will end up going to trial as scheduled. They simply do not want to bend. They’re coming after you hard, Maxwell.”

  When Max left, Cooper focused on the problem that had nagged him since he read his morning newspaper. On the lower half of the metro page was a twelve-inch story about the murder of a Commerce City man, Merrill Dopps, aka Grundy. The story said that Dopps was the victim of an apparent robbery, because the cash drawer in his welding shop had been rifled. That sadistic bastard Soyko clearly had gone too far, the lawyer pondered as he read. Cooper had only wanted the welder out of town, not out of body. So this jerk goes and kills the guy. But, more important, what happened to that three grand he gave Soyko for traveling expenses? Cooper wanted answers and he wanted them now.

  “Ronnie, get in here,” he yelled toward the door.

  He didn’t have to wait long. When Ronnie saw Max leave, she fluffed up her bleached hair and put on a seasoned pout that showed she was ready for business or pleasure. Cooper was no killer in the looks department, but, then, Ronnie never thought she’d have an attorney courting her. This guy would probably never make the Supreme Court. Still, he generated solid revenues and he paid his gold card on time. She’d be his secretary, his mistress, his whatever, until he produced a diamond and walked her down the aisle. She grabbed her notepad—not that she had ever taken one word of dictation. But she’d seen secretaries do that in a million old movies and so she’d acquired the habit.

  When she walked into his office, Cooper looked up and tried to act serious. It was a real stretch, because just the sight of her in that red dress aroused him to giddy distraction. The longer he knew Ronnie, the more he realized that he was falling for her. Falling hard. At first, she was just this terrific lay. Given his luck with women, any lay was terrific, which put Ronnie completely off the charts. But as time went by, he noticed that he liked her for more than sex. She was really quite bright, and she came up with ways to work a client he never imagined.

  For her part, Ronnie felt a certain fondness for the lawyer. With his choppy Beatle bangs, uneven, gaunt mustache, and doughy body, he had a certain harmless appeal. She’d had her fill of disturbed bad boys, thank you. All danger and excitement. All pain and disappointment. Like the cretin she married when she was sixteen. That crazy biker used to jam the barrel of his thirty-eight
against her forehead and threaten her repeatedly. When he died in a motorcycle accident a year or so later, she was still so afraid she almost didn’t go to the funeral.

  “You see what that nut case Soyko did with our little problem in the Borders trial?” Cooper looked her over. He always felt the urge to impress her, let her know what a take-charge kind of man he was. He continually used the malicious and emotionally erratic duo of Soyko and Romp, in part just to show Ronnie that he could play hardball and hold his own with the two marginally psychotic “investigators.” Cooper mistook her warnings against them for interest. “I better have a talk with that guy. Tighten him up a few notches. Both he and his partner. This is really way the hell out there. Totally unacceptable.”

  He tried to sound cocky, but he couldn’t pull it off. Actually, nobody on earth could tighten Soyko up. He was so toxic that even the criminal-justice system didn’t want him. He’d been up on felony charges seven times, some of them serious. But except for periodic and brief county-jail time, he’d never seen the inside of a prison.

  “I told you this guy could get out of control. I knew it the first time I ever met him.” Ronnie casually smoothed out the front of her dress with one hand as she spoke. She never missed an opportunity to showcase her body to Cooper. “He reminds me of too many of those creeps I used to date. Mean as a snake with a hangover, and you never know what they’ll do next.”

  “You mean ‘the first time I met him,’ honey,” Cooper corrected her. “When you said ‘the first time I ever met him,’ it’s redundant.” He couldn’t resist the constant urge to correct, improve, and refine Ronnie. It reinforced his notion that she needed him: that he was her best hope for a better life. He also knew the value of Soyko’s services. “Look, your instincts were right about him, but don’t forget the good work he’s done for us. One conversation with that man gets more results than twenty restraining orders or depositions.”

  “Come on, Thomas Hardy. I know they’ve muscled some good results for you, but this is murder.” She always called him that when she thought he was acting naïve or stupid. “I’d say that qualifies as something beyond ‘totally unacceptable,’ for God’s sake. You just like all this heavy crap because it makes you feel like a regular gangsta. You better grow up if you plan on growing old.”

  Cooper leaned back in his chair and mustered all his nonchalance. “That is not correct, Rhonda.” He used her formal name when he wanted to put her in her place and let her know the discussion was over. “Leo Soyko’s propensity for violence and the so-called gangster mode do not factor into my hiring the man. He gets results. It’s just that simple.” He wished he believed it.

  Jacky Romp picked up the phone on the first ring. “So talk,” he said through clenched jaws.

  Cooper was surprised by the rancor in his voice. “Uh, is Soyko there?”

  Jacky knew it was Cooper, so he didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Why?”

  The attorney regained his composure and put some authority in his voice. “Because I asked you, that’s why. Kindly put him on.”

  Kindly take a flying fuck, Romp thought. But he just smiled, knowing he had riled the man at the other end of the line. He waited before nodding to Soyko, who was sitting on the couch nearby.

  Soyko guessed who it was by the way Jacky spoke. “Counselor,” he said when he took the phone. He sounded relaxed, moderately amused. “What’s to it?”

  Cooper didn’t like that. The crazy bastard ignores his orders, kills a man, and doesn’t feel a bit defensive.

  “I read about our welder this morning. That was not what I requested.”

  “The way I remember it, you just wanted to make sure the little prick didn’t go to court,” Soyko said slowly. “Even if they do get him there now, a corpse ain’t gonna hurt you. Did my job, the way I see it.”

  Cooper had to admit Soyko took care of the Dopps problem. It would be just a matter of time before the charges against Tiny Fred would be dropped.

  “Look, I’m not going to quibble over semantics. Suffice it to say that I did not order an execution. What about the three grand I gave you for his traveling money? I take it you’ll return that to me.”

  “I don’t know squat about semadics, but, the way I see it, you asked for this. You’re the one sent me up there to deal with this crumb fuck. Do it your way, it’s like he just won on Wheel of Fortune. The guy’s ratting your client out and you want me to help him pack for a vacation. That three grand, the way I see it, I saved the money from being pissed down a rat hole. I should get it. That’s just part of the cost of taking care of this particular piece of business.”

  Cooper could see there was no point in arguing about the killing. That was history. But the money definitely was not history.

  “How about if we split it? Call it a misunderstanding or a tip or whatever. Fifteen hundred each.” He could see Ronnie rolling her eyes slightly.

  There was a pause on Soyko’s end. Then, “That maybe sounds fair.”

  A done deal. Cooper moved on. “You can bring it by the next time we get together. I’d like to see you over the next couple of days. There’s a certain woman I may need you to interview. Could be some money in it for both of us.”

  “I’m listening,” Soyko said. “Who we talking about?”

  Ronnie gave Cooper a hard look and mouthed, “No.” It was way too soon to think about using this lunatic for Story Moffatt. Cooper just held up his hand, palm toward her, as if to indicate, “Don’t worry.”

  “A nobody. But I might need you,” he shot back to Soyko. Then his voice softened. “So how do you intend for us to split up the money you took from this Dopps’ cash register?”

  FOUR

  The red neon “Jesus saves” cross that hung out over the front door hadn’t worked in years, but it still demanded attention. “Jesus” ran horizontally and the “Saves” came down vertically. The first “S” in “Jesus” was the first “S” in “Saves,” with a star above it to complete the cross. Streeter called it Bible Deco, and he kept it up there more as a novelty than as a statement of faith.

  “They tell me that thing busted down about the same time Humphrey Bogart died, back in ’57,” Frank explained the cross to Streeter when they took possession of the brick church five years ago. “Could be some deeper meaning there. I’ll tell you one thing, that man could eat up the screen. Bogey, that is. Not Jesus. No one like that around no more. Bogey, that is. At the time, this place was the Temple of Faith—a charismatic church, I’m told. That was the last religious go-round. It was St. Teresa Catholic Church when it opened back in the twenties and then, sometime right before the Korean War, it became Jesus the Redeemer. That’s of the Methodist African Episcopal denomination. Whatever that is.”

  Streeter told Frank that he wasn’t much interested and he just wanted help moving his furniture into the loft space above the rectory. Now that he and Frank owned the two-story church and his fourth divorce was just about final, he planned on living there.

  “In good time, buddy,” Frank told him. “You got to know what you’re moving into first. Now, it stopped being a church in the early seventies. That’s about when I moved my bail-bonds office into the old Sunday-school rooms. People told me I was nuts, being so far away from the jail downtown. But I told them, with all the housing projects sprouting up around here, I’d have more customers within spitting distance than I’d ever know what to do with. I was right, too.”

  Streeter and the aging Frank Dazzler took ownership of the place when the previous owner’s son made an untimely run for the border, leaving behind a huge surety bond secured with the old church. Under a creative agreement with the father, Streeter went down to Mexico and brought the three-time armed robber back. He and Frank then took possession of the building. The robber’s old man had plenty of property, and at the time an abandoned church in a then-decaying neighborhood wasn’t seen as much of a prize.

  Frank’s office and small apartment shared the first floor with the gara
ge and, later, a feminist survival-defense school forbiddingly named the Womyn’s Workout Space. At first, Frank was delighted with the idea of his new tenants.

  “I thought it’d be one of those aerobics places and they were just being cute with the name,” he told Streeter when the gym first opened. “I expected some spandex jiggle show where the gals stretch wide, and sweat and bounce around to that loud music that’s so popular nowadays. You know, that rap shit or whatever they call it. But then it turns out to be mostly a bunch of feminist maniacs in flannel shirts practicing kung fu so’s they can castrate men. Gives me the creeps.”

  He was overstating the school’s mission, but when they put signs in the window like “Mao was gender neutral, are you?” Frank, a decorated Korean War infantryman and ex–sheriff’s deputy, got more uneasy. Then, to everyone’s utter amazement, the gym’s normally stern founder took a shine to the gruff bondsman. The two of them had been carrying on a creaky romance in the nearly four years since.

  The church was located on the fringes of Denver’s rapidly Yuppifying “Lower Downtown.” The Colorado Rockies’ baseball stadium—Coors Field—was sprouting up a half-mile away, and the old warehouse district to the west was being converted into lofts and brew pubs to accommodate fans. To the north were the last remnants of the Old West, bucket-of-blood bars that had so excited Jack Kerouac when he passed through town some forty years earlier. Although the church was built without a steeple, its pitched, metal roof and dramatically arched stained-glass windows throughout gave it a definite cathedral look. But it also was as sturdy and defensible as a medieval fortress. Streeter—being in a business where angry and deranged bail jumpers came with the paycheck—particularly liked that. Actually, it looked a little like an armory, so he dubbed it Fort God.

  Story Moffatt parked her Audi in front of the church and double-checked the address for Dazzler’s Bail Bonds. Then she spotted the small “Bail Bonds” sign right below the nonfunctioning electric cross. When she and her lawyer saw the squash photos, they had no choice but to take the insurance company’s offer of twenty-seven hundred dollars. The only concession she got from that weasel Swanson was that he told her the name and work address of the man who took the pictures.