Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  “You want to look in the Porsche, you don’t need my permission. You want to check out my car, be my guest. And if you want to give that slob all the cocaine, that’s entirely up to you.”

  Haney grinned and thought for a moment. Then he continued, “No need for that. You say that’s all you found, then that’s all you found.”

  Just then, the black officer and Story walked up to them. “All done with her, Sarge,” he said.

  “Give her a ride home,” Haney responded.

  “I came with Mr. Streeter. I’d prefer to go home with him.” Story’s voice was even, but she was anxious to leave.

  “He’s going downtown with us,” Haney said without looking at her. “We’ll need to get a statement from him, and that could take quite a while.”

  She nodded and looked at Streeter. He was standing with his shoulders slouched like he was tired. “I need to talk to you before I leave. Is that all right with you, Sergeant?”

  “Fine by me.” Haney was still looking at the shed.

  Streeter walked her to the police patrol car. It was new and white, one of those nondescript, aerodynamic makes. It looked like a giant bullet in an unribbed condom. He hated its utter lack of style.

  “You’re not in any trouble, are you?” she asked.

  “Probably not. They have to make out a report, is all.”

  “Give me a call when you get home tonight,” she said. “I’ll let you know how much money you have coming.”

  “There didn’t seem to be that much cash in the envelope. I can’t believe there’s enough there to make all this killing worthwhile.”

  “Believe me, Streeter, I had no idea it was going to be this dangerous. But it’ll be worth it. This cash is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of money yet to be found, and now I think I know how to get it. I promised you a big payoff if we got what we’re after. With what we found today, that payoff’s getting very close. I know where the real money is.”

  “Something in that other envelope?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you know all along that there were two parts to our little hunt?”

  “Not really. I hope you believe me about this. I’ve leveled with you for the most part all along. I didn’t tell you everything all the time but I didn’t really lie to you.” She reached out with her right hand and gently brushed at some soot that was smeared on his arm. “I know you must think I lack strong values. Or any values. But believe me, Streeter, I didn’t want all the pain, and I never wanted to see you get hurt. I certainly never expected you’d have to do something like that.” She nodded toward the shed.

  “This gets more bizarre all the time,” he said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Knowing you has been…How would I put it? Let’s just say it’s been a very high-concept relationship, Story.”

  “We’re close, believe me. If we’re on to what I think we are, you’ll feel better about all this. Just give me a call when you get home. Are you okay with not being there when I count out the money?”

  “What choice do I have? These guys’ll need me for a couple of hours and you’ll be alone with the envelope. I doubt that you’ll wait until I get there to open it. I have no choice but to trust you now. Just try not to be somewhat less than totally candid, okay?”

  “I will. Call me later. We have to get together tomorrow. Good luck.”

  “I could be really late with them. If I am, I’ll call first thing in the morning.”

  “Whatever you think is best.” With that she turned and got into the police car. Streeter walked back to Haney.

  “Nice-looking woman,” the sergeant observed. “You two going at it?”

  “Going at it? What the hell is that to you?”

  “Just curious.” Haney smiled. “Lighten up, for Chrissakes. By tomorrow morning, you’ll be a local hero. You’re the guy who took out the big bad man. Did it unarmed, no less. When word of this gets around town, you’ll be handling more ass than a proctologist.”

  “Haney, I had no idea you’re such a romantic.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time Max Herman had pulled in front of Cooper’s building that afternoon, he’d reached a state of delirious equilibrium. He was toxic to the bone after drinking and pounding cocaine up his nose for three days straight. He hadn’t slept for more than a couple of fitful hours since he started. Nor had he eaten much other than an occasional handful from the giant Fritos bag—large, dipping size—on his back seat. He hadn’t bathed or brushed his teeth in nearly seventy hours. From time to time he went to the bathroom, and he smelled of queasy perspiration and warm malt liquor. He was wearing the same crumpled blue jeans, red-and-orange Hawaiian shirt, and sandals that he’d slipped into the previous Sunday afternoon. His hair was pulled back in a filthy ponytail, and a pair of expensive aviators hid two runny and narrowing eyes that looked more like fleshy little bags.

  Still, despite the three days of ferocious abuse, he felt in control, coherent, and focused. He used to call it drinking himself sober during those vicious all-nighters with the bowling team, when he’d go right from the bars to his plumbing shop in the morning.

  “I know what I got to do,” he’d told one of his burned-out drug buddies as they sat drinking in a downtown bar earlier that afternoon. “No doubt about that. I got me a thirty-eight-caliber Smith Lady. Nice little five-shot number. That prick Cooper’s got to pay. Ruined my life, is all he did.”

  Max’s battered mind drifted back over the events of the last couple of weeks.

  “I spent so much time and money paying this asshole that my business went down the tubes,” he continued bitterly. “You know the drill. Fucking suppliers won’t give me no more credit. No credit, no product. No product, obviously, no cash flow. Next thing you know, no girlfriend. Bitch left me Monday. Back to her husband, of all things.

  “And then, to really make it worse, I find out that this shit-bucket attorney is holding out a truly fine plea bargain on me just so he can run up his bills. I can see doing a deuce or so in Cañon City if I can hop to it and get it over with. Maybe give up a couple customers to the cops and get just probation, for Chrissake. But thanks to this lawyer my case is all dragged out and costing me a ton. I figure I spent nearly fifty-five large just to get hosed by this cocksucker.”

  “It ain’t fair,” his friend said, shaking his head in painful wisdom. “I’d take care a his shit. Right quick.”

  “Fuckin’ A. My life is crumbling around me and I got to watch this douche bag sitting comfortable in his cushy office with that little fuck-puppet secretary taking care of him. And using my money to foot the bill.” Then he lowered his voice. “I bought me the Smith and some bullets from this jive ass at a spade joint up in Five Points. I plan to settle this guy’s hash today.”

  Indeed, Max had scraped together what cash he could, loaded up a couple of grams of coke and his clothes into the ratty old Porsche, and made his decision. He would visit Cooper at home, shove the gun down his throat, rob the place, and then…And then what? Max had no qualms about stomping on the state’s drug laws, and he even threatened people from time to time. But he’d never physically hurt anyone and he certainly wasn’t a killer.

  He’d improvise, he told himself in the car. The word came to him from deep in his foggy stupor. He liked the sound of it. Make it up as you go along. That suited him just fine, and he smiled idiotically. Yes sir, hang loose and improvise. Once he had the little schmuck begging for his life, Max figured, he’d automatically know what to do. With that, he took one last pull from a warm can of Colt .45 Malt Liquor, tossed it on the floor in front of him, and belched triumphantly at his steering wheel. He shoved the gun into his belt, the handle resting between his sweating gut and his shirt.

  It took him nearly a minute to find and properly activate the door handle. When he stepped out of the car, his left foot caught on the floorboard and he stumbled forward. He landed hard on the street on both palms and both knees, cutting the former and bruising the
latter.

  “Mothafucka!” he yelled at the pavement. He staggered to his feet, looked back at the car door, and kicked it shut. “Cock, suck-fuck!” he screamed at the offending equipment. Both palms ached as he brushed tiny bits of sharp gravel from each. “Motha,” he mumbled in conclusion.

  Denver Police Detectives Petronilo Padilla and Art Kovacs watched the pathetic show from their unmarked car across the street. They both laughed.

  “Is he ever fucked up or what?” said Padilla, the driver, with the horrible complexion and the expensive clothes. “I’d like to have me a little talk with that guy. Bet he’d blow a point three on the Breathalyzer.”

  “I’ll get his plate number,” Kovacs said. “You keep an eye on where he goes. He takes off again, we’ll call it in to Traffic. We ain’t got no time now to nurse that moron, Petro.”

  “You ever see a Porsche with that much primer on it?” Padilla asked. “That tub of shit can’t be worth as much as my Nissan.”

  “That sounds about right. Look, he’s heading into our guy’s building. What the fuck?”

  “Maybe he’s the man’s driver.” Padilla smiled at the thought. “Be some fun following those two coconuts around, huh?”

  “Yeah. Some fun.”

  The two detectives had been sitting on Tom Cooper’s remodeled loft building for the past six hours. The attorney had been holed up there for the past couple of hours, and Padilla and Kovacs were instructed to “ride his tail like bikini underwear” if he tried to leave. Sergeant Haney would be bringing the arrest warrants sometime around six or seven, and they would all go up to pop Cooper together. That was the official plan. It was now almost five, and Kovacs instantly didn’t like the intrusion from the drunk.

  Kovacs had had to scramble to get on the detail with Padilla. He had no idea Haney was so close to an arrest, and the news caused him to drastically change his plans. He called Cooper early that morning and told him part of his revised plan. He said the bust was going to hit tonight, so Cooper better move up his travel arrangements. The lawyer better have his cash and clothes all packed and ready that day. Then he instructed him to meet him in the basement garage of his building at precisely five.

  Finally, Kovacs told Cooper, purely as a safety precaution, to be sure and bring his gun with him. That was where the plan shifted, and Mr. Cooper wouldn’t find out about it until about four minutes past five, when the detective would put a couple slugs from his service revolver into the attorney’s head. No way Artie Kovacs was going to let Thomas Cooper get hauled in and use what he knew about Jacky Romp and Doug Shelton against him as a plea-bargain chit. And he just couldn’t take the chance that Cooper would successfully escape. Kovacs would wait until a couple of minutes before five, tell Padilla to go and check the upper floors, and then slip down to the garage to meet Cooper. With the lawyer bringing his own gun, it would be easy enough for Kovacs to claim the shooting was self-defense.

  “Maybe you should hop up there and see if this goof’s going after our guy,” Kovacs suggested.

  Padilla thought for a minute. “Naw. I mean, why? If they’re going to leave together, we’ll see it. They have to come out this way. And if he’s going up there to cause the man some trouble, let him. This lawyer’s one major-league asshole, from what Haney tells me.”

  As Kovacs looked off, he felt his stomach churn laboriously. A hot lick of heartburn bubbled up behind his sternum. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out another antacid. Placing it carefully on his tongue, he decided to wait a few minutes and then order Padilla to go check the floor. His whole plan still could easily unravel.

  Thomas Hardy Cooper kept the front pages of both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post with him that entire day. The headlines and stories about Jacky Romp were the best news he’d received in weeks. His world may have turned utterly sour, but he was still better off than that punk Jacky Romp. At least he was breathing, and as long as that continued, Cooper knew he had a shot at making things right. Now, he thought, if only Leo Soyko would meet the same fate, he’d be a happy man. The attorney assumed it was Kovacs who’d disposed of Romp. He further assumed that the brutal cop would now be looking for Soyko. Now, that would be a battle he’d pay to see.

  Cooper had spent the morning closing out all three bank accounts, including the one for his corporation. Then he sold his Corvette to that dealership on South Broadway. He even managed to unload some stereo equipment and a new set of Pings, although he wondered if he might not miss the high-line golf clubs when he hit Mexico.

  Now he was finishing up his packing and he had almost fifty-five thousand in cash for the trip south. He had hoped for more but he was in no position to bargain, especially after that call from Kovacs first thing in the morning. He figured that amount, plus the cash Ronnie brought, would give them a running start on a new life. He only hoped she would make their rendezvous. She was furious on the phone Monday night, an anger he couldn’t understand. Then, when she called the next morning, she still wouldn’t tell him where she was staying. She sounded remote and indifferent to their plans. When she didn’t call today, Wednesday, he started to worry.

  Cooper had barely slept the night before and he had been stuffing his nose with blow all day. Normally, he never touched the stuff, but he needed it to stay alert, and he knew he would need more to get him through the next couple days of driving. He had just over nine grams of cocaine left. That should do the trick, unless Ronnie got greedy in the car. Once they were safely to Guadalajara, he would sell his BMW and they’d set up a new life. He’d chosen Guadalajara because it is an inland, mid-sized capital of a Mexican state. He figured it was populated enough to get lost in and yet would not be as obvious a hiding place as the seaside resort towns.

  At precisely four-forty-seven, he was ready to load up the car, check in with Kovacs downstairs, and split. Kovacs said he’d have a few bucks for Cooper from Doug’s stash. Nowhere near the twenty grand he’d hoped for, but enough to make meeting the obnoxious police detective worthwhile. He grabbed his two suitcases and the metal briefcase with his life savings.

  As he closed his loft door, a winded Max Herman, bleeding palms and all, was tromping up the stairs. When Cooper turned from his door and reached for his bags, Max wheezed around a hallway corner and into view. At first, Cooper didn’t recognize him: Max was the last person he expected to see, and he still had on his dark aviators. But the lawyer recovered quickly.

  “Maxwell. What, may I ask, are you doing here?” Cooper stood there with his bags in hand, about six feet from his visitor.

  Max paused for a second, surprised to see the attorney before him. “Where are you going, may I ask, Mr. Shit Bird?” The sentence seemed to puzzle him for a second: he frowned deeply from behind his shades. Then he remembered his gun and struggled to pull it from his belt.

  Cooper saw the small revolver and, understanding the gravity of the situation, took a step back. He realized that his Colt Python was in the trunk of his car, where it did him no good.

  “Hold it right there, Mr. Bird Shit,” Max yelled. Then, in a quieter voice, he added, “It’s judgment day. Time to pay the piper.” He had no idea what that meant, but it was the best he could do.

  Cooper watched the gun wobble in Herman’s hands. He calculated his options. He could try to talk some sense into the man, talk him out of the gun. Or he could try to verbally bully him into surrendering the weapon. Or, if Max was as far gone as he appeared, he could simply walk past him. He decided to invest a couple of minutes in conversation.

  “What seems to be bothering you, Maxwell?”

  Max took a minute to gather his thoughts. He suddenly felt nauseous and disoriented.

  “The fuck you think is bothering me?” Actually, by now he was curious himself. All he could remember for sure was that Cooper had done something bad to him. He must have, or else why would Max be standing out there in the hallway with a gun on the man?

  “I’m certain I have no idea.” Cooper sensed that M
ax was running out of steam. He assumed that somehow the idiot had found out about what little work he’d put into the case. However, it might be no more complicated than that the imbecile was so wasted he was beyond all logic and was simply lashing out.

  “You’re certain,” Max repeated as if he were considering a language foreign to him. He noticed his gun was pointing to a spot just in front of Cooper’s feet, so he pulled it back up to aim at his chest. Random thoughts from the car came back to him. “Improvise,” he shouted. “You sold me out. I’ll improvise.”

  Cooper now felt relatively safe. He thought that the only real danger was if the gun went off by accident. He decided to wait until the barrel sagged down again and then walk past Max.

  “I would suggest that you go home and get some sleep,” Cooper said in his most soothing voice. “Then come see me at my office first thing in the morning. I’m certain we can straighten out whatever it is that’s troubling you.”

  Armed or not, Cooper believed that Max Herman by now was manageable.

  Max considered what Cooper said. His legs twitched briefly. He was dying to take a leak. He felt he had lost control of the situation and he feared he would soon lose control of his bladder. He took a deep breath and yelled, “Not good enough, Mr. Screw-Over. We settle this now.” Settle what? He struggled to remember.

  This is nonsense, Cooper thought. “Maxwell, please lower your weapon and go home. We’ll iron this all out in the morning.”

  At first, there was silence. Then, as the gun barrel slowly lowered again, the clotted, nasal sound of a snore came from Max’s open mouth. He was, literally, asleep on his feet.

  Cooper rolled his eyes and in an even tone inquired, “Maxwell?”

  The snoring sound only grew, and by now the gun was pointed almost directly at Max’s own feet. Cooper had wasted enough time. He adjusted the bags in his hands and took two steps forward. He was about three feet away and just off to the right when Max jolted awake. Instinctively, he lifted the gun. All he saw for certain was the gleam of light from Cooper’s brushed-metal briefcase. He still was almost asleep when he actually squeezed the trigger. Twice. The gun went off like a little cannon in the narrow hallway. Cooper’s face looked stunned as the two slugs burned into his upper chest. His tongue shot out and his eyes froze wide open as his head shot back. He fell dead to the floor with his bags still firmly in his grip.