Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  “No thanks.”

  The Cheese Man nodded and picked up the water glass in front of him. He took a short sip, set it back down, and then ran through the whole story about the Vail arson. “Arson,” he repeated softly when he’d finished. His voice picked up again as he stared at Streeter. “If Sheri here’s right about who she saw up there, then my hunch is that a Mr. Freddy Disanto was behind it.” He sat back, his head looking a shade too big for his shoulders.

  “You think this guy had your neighbor’s house torched to get at you?” Streeter frowned and turned to Sheri. “How sure are you about seeing Mitch Bosco?”

  “I only saw him for a couple of seconds. I couldn’t even describe him very well to the police, but I think it was him.”

  The bounty hunter looked back at the man behind the desk. After Al had called him that morning, he’d asked Frank if he knew anything about the Cheese Man. The bondsman echoed what Don Knight had said: that Alphonse was sort of a marginal criminal in years past, but now he was just a harmless old man who ran a few card games that weren’t entirely legal. “Does Bosco work for Disanto?”

  “Not all the time. Mitch is sort of a freelancer, from what I hear. You need something like this done, you call him. But the D. has used him in the past, the way I hear it. Freddy likes to dabble in different vices and he’s had uses for a guy like Mitch over the years. See, Freddy can be a rough customer. I heard he even killed a guy once, but that’s just rumors.”

  Streeter nodded. “Why did they do it, Al? I mean, why your neighbor’s house?”

  “I’ll put all my cards on the table here, Streeter.” He glanced at Sheri, and then looked back at Streeter and leaned forward, his voice taking on a hushed, intense tone. “I’m sure I’ve made a few enemies over the years, but of all of them Freddy the D. is the biggest asshole. He’s let certain mutual friends know that he hates my guts and that he’d like to see me suffer more than a little. As to why he’d go after the doctor’s house is anybody’s guess, but my hunch is that he meant it as a warning to me. That, or maybe they just screwed up and got the wrong place. Who knows? But my hunch is that he did it as a negotiating tactic.” Alphonse’s eyes flared open wide and he nodded sagely, as though that should explain everything.

  “What does that mean?” Streeter shifted in his seat.

  “The D. wants to buy Daddy out but he’s not selling,” Sheri interjected.

  “You see, Streeter,” Al stepped in now, “Freddy owns a few restaurants down south, near Englewood, and he wants to expand up here on the near West Side. He’s becoming a regular developer, too. One a my two pizza joints is in a choice area where Freddy wants to locate, so he tried to buy me out. It’s the one over off 32nd Street he’s really hot for. Now, I’ve got about as much interest in retiring as Tiger Woods has, so I told the D. absolutely no. He didn’t much care for the answer, and lately he’s been making rumblings about ‘convincing’ me I’m making a big mistake. I run a card game Monday nights, and the D. sits in usually. He’s been giving me grief about it for the last couple a months. Since I turned down his offer.”

  Streeter leaned back. “You’re telling me he’d order an arson fire because you won’t sell him one of your restaurants. You must serve some terrific lasagna there, Al.”

  “Pizza mostly,” the old man said with obvious pride. “Opened that one right after the Big War with my old man, may he rest in peace. Nineteen hundred and forty-six. It’s an institution up here. But there’s something else for Disanto. He’s already bought up every house and business on the block over there off 32nd and him and some friends plan on making a condo and shopping complex out of the neighborhood. My place would be sort of a anchor restaurant for the project, it being so established and all. That’s not sitting well with the D. You know, one stubborn old hump like me in his way. And I understand some of his partners are getting pretty impatient, what with Freddy promising they’d own the whole block by now. There’s a lot a money riding on it, and his people are leaning on him to get the job done.”

  Streeter shook his head. “But arson. This is like the movies.” He paused. “Did he make you a good offer?”

  “Sure did,” Sheri shot in.

  “No amount a money gets me to sell that place,” Alphonse said intensely. “It’s in the family as long as I’m alive. It was a promise I made to my old man. The D. knows that.” He looked off for a moment. “Freddy’s got a personal reason, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  Alphonse looked off again before answering. “I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I did some business with Disanto’s old man a while back. Must be ten, twelve years ago. All you have to know is that it involved a shipment of bootleg videos from California and it went sour. Real sour. Ended up with Disanto’s father, Carlo, and his brother, I forget the name, both going to jail. Anyhow, this bastard Freddy blames me for the whole screwup, and he’s pissed because his father died of emphysema down in Cañon City a year or so after he went away. Freddy thinks I’m responsible for Carlo dying.” Alphonse shrugged dramatically. “Like I made the guy smoke three packs a day for forty-plus years. Gimme a break.”

  “Have you told the police about this?” the bounty hunter asked.

  Alphonse shook his head violently. “No way. It’s all just speculation for now, and besides, you think I want to sit down with a bunch of police detectives and explain a bootleg-video scam? Or my card games? I don’t need them digging into my business. Past or present.”

  Streeter studied the man across from him. His head so wrinkled, and him squinting behind those thick glasses. He leaned toward the desk. “That leaves us with the big question: what does all this have to do with me?”

  “Right to the point, huh?” Alphonse asked, smiling now. “I like that.” He leaned forward even farther. “Here’s the deal, Streeter. I want to go rattle this Disanto’s cage a little. Let him know that, if he did this fire and he’s thinking about pulling any more bullshit like that, well, sir, it’ll cost him. Come outta his hide.” Alphonse was getting excited as he spoke, and a thin line of spit came out of the side of his mouth. He wiped awkwardly at it, missing by inches. “Big guy like you oughta handle that easy. Let Disanto know we got suspicions here and that Alphonse Lucci ain’t gonna just sit back and take whatever crap he’s dishing out. And let him know we’re watching his ass from now on.”

  Streeter drew his head back slightly, wincing. “You want me to go threaten this guy and then tail him? Listen, Al, I never do the former and I hate doing the latter. I don’t know what you heard about me, but I’m not a hired goon.”

  At that, Alphonse shot to his feet, elevating himself by all of about eight inches. He threw his hand palm-down toward the desk for emphasis. But he mostly missed, and ended up with his fingers scraping the edge in a feeble tap. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Let this guy walk all over me and my family?” In his excitement, another string of spit laced out of his mouth. “You don’t have to threaten him. Just let him know that we know and that he better stop that kind of thing. I’m willing to pay you cash up front. Three grand for starters.”

  The bounty hunter looked at the two of them. Alphonse seemed so shaken and Sheri so concerned. He liked the old man, and his daughter appeared to be genuine enough. Not to mention that three grand was three grand.

  “Here’s what I’ll do,” Streeter finally said. “I’ll do a background check on Freddy Disanto and Mitch Bosco. And I’ll talk to a few people I know at the police department to see if I can get a handle on what they’ve been up to lately. I’ll even ride herd on the fire investigation in Vail. Then, when I get my information, I’ll go talk to Disanto and explain what we have. Let him know we can go to the cops with it anytime. No threats and no violence. Just me and him discussing a little situation. Let him know that if he goes cowboy again he’ll have to answer to the law.”

  Alphonse broke into a modest grin. “That’ll work for me, Streeter. Just so you dig deep and hard. And if you hear anything ba
d about Freddy Disanto, do yourself a big favor. Believe it.”

  FIVE

  “I tell you what, Mitchie, it’s probably all my fault. If I was really, really serious about you torching the right place, I would have sent old man Lucci along with you to point out which house is his.”

  Freddy Disanto was sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the Friday-morning Rocky Mountain News. As he spoke, he shook his head. He didn’t look or sound mad, which let Mitch know that he was toasted out of his mind. Carefully, Freddy stroked at the wide expanse of his nose with a middle finger the size of a plump ballpark hot dog as he glanced over the paper to Mitch. Then he nodded.

  “Probably would have been a decent idea,” Freddy continued softly. “That way, you’d a had someone to talk to on the ride there and back. Musta been a pisser of a lonely trip that time of night.”

  He paused and nodded again, looking like he was about to smile. Mitch was glad he didn’t, because Freddy’s smiles had a way of lowering the room temperature a few degrees. Mitch had never seen him this worked up before. With a crazy guy like Freddy Disanto, you knew that cool meant furious and friendly meant watch your backside. Slowly, Freddy set the paper down and sat back in his chair, still staring at the other man. His gentleness made Mitch’s eyes narrow in anticipation. He took a quick puff from his Salem 100 before snuffing it out in the ashtray next to his coffee cup. Then he opened his mouth to respond, but quickly shut it. Let Freddy finish first.

  Mitch studied the big man for a moment. He’d known the D. for maybe a dozen years, and this was only the second time he had been invited to his home on the southern fringes of Denver. Not much of a place for a roller like Disanto. Two thousand square feet tops, and Mitch had noticed a few Mexicans living on the same block. Guy like the D., Mitch thought he’d be in a high-rise downtown or on Capitol Hill. He figured Disanto pulled down an easy half a mil a year—with most of it unreported to the IRS—what with his restaurants and the assorted numbers-running and bookmaking out of each of them. Combine that with his moving the odd hot products from time to time and what he stood to make on that West Side redevelopment project and the D. should be sitting pretty by now.

  But just look at the man, Mitch thought. Built like a short gorilla wearing an ugly human costume. Barely human. A regular knuckle-dragger all the way. More body hair than a terrier and thick black eyebrows about the size of ski socks. Eyes maybe half a mile apart and a long, cruel mouth. Not that Mitch would mention any of this to the D. personally. You’d have to be nuts to do that. Although he was strictly local and in no way connected to made guys anywhere, Freddy Disanto generally packed a weapon and it was common knowledge that he’d used it at least once. The man would do whatever had to be done to get his way. And he had some dangerous business associates, too. You sure didn’t want to screw around with the D. But lately Mitch had been given an opportunity to do a little growing on his own, and even if that meant crossing Freddy Disanto, so be it. “Be realistic about your adversaries,” Mitch had read once. “Don’t underestimate them or overestimate them. Everyone has a weak spot.” That thought kept running through his head as he listened to Freddy’s onslaught.

  “I suppose I should be glad—huh, Mitchie?” Freddy was now saying as he stood up, coffee cup in hand. He ran his other hand down the front of his wrinkled dress slacks. “Least you ended up in the right zip code. Hell, you even made it to within one house of Lucci’s. You were very close, you know that, Mitchie?”

  Mitch cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. When he looked up at Freddy, he wasn’t sure what to say. Whatever it was, he’d probably get hammered. “Look, I thought I wrote it down like you told me, Fred. I’ll go back next week and do it right.” He paused for a beat and then added, “I’d like it a whole bunch if you didn’t call me Mitchie. Makes me sound like a kid.”

  With that, Freddy quickly and deftly shoved the blond wooden table with his huge right thigh. That pushed it toward Mitch at amazing speed and power. Mitch had been leaning forward, and the edge of the table caught him squarely in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He made a sudden gurgling sound like he might vomit.

  “Shut up, for starters,” Freddy hollered. Although his teeth were clenched, his voice was deep enough to cause the glass china-cabinet doors to shudder. “Send you back up there.” He shook his head. “I can see it now. In about a month or so, Lucci’s place’ll be the only one up there left standing. Maybe that should be our new plan. We’ll torch all of West Vail and give that little runt something to really think about.”

  Mitch struggled to compose himself, and glared at Freddy. “I already said I wouldn’t charge you for the other night.” The words came out staggered and he moved his right hand cautiously over his stomach. “I told you I was sorry about a hundred times.”

  But Freddy didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he moved to the coffeemaker and poured himself another cup. When he turned back, he was relaxed. “Don’t worry about making it up. Some good may come outta this, after all. I’m spreading the word in Lucci’s circle that his house was the one we were after. My hunch is the old man already knows he was the target and he’s crapping into his Depends by now.”

  “That doesn’t sound like all that great of a idea, does it? Spreading that out there on the street.” Mitch sat up. “Could bring the law back to us. To me specifically.”

  Freddy shook his head and frowned, seemingly confused. “No one’s got no proof unless someone saw you up there. Or you left a business card. Something stupid like that. You get stupid up there, Mitchie?”

  “No.” He lit another Salem. “That was one fine job I did. But, still, who needs the police nosing around?”

  “I thought you were tight with the DPD these days. Aren’t you ratting out Kostas for them?” Freddy glared at Mitch now.

  “I got a little cover and they been told by the DA to cut me some slack,” Mitch said and then cleared his throat. “But I’m not untouchable. I got them thinking that Teddy Kostas is head of the Mafia, so they gave me breathing room.” He could see Freddy’s forehead wrinkle in disapproval. “Hell, it was roll on someone or head back downstate for six to nine. I gave’em Kostas. Who’s going to miss that useless fucker?”

  “Just so you don’t give them anyone else. You follow me, Mitchie?”

  “Never you, Freddy,” Mitch came back, his voice higher than he intended. “You gotta know that. You think I got a death wish here or what?”

  The D. nodded, letting Mitch know the discussion was over. “Just stay in that frame of mind. And stick around town the next week or so. I might need you for some more work on old man Lucci. This arson thing doesn’t get him to rethink my proposal, I’ll have to get a little rougher.”

  Mitch stood up. “You know where I’m at, Fred. And you know I’m ready. Always. Like they say, ‘Vigilance and foresight keep you ahead of the competition.’ ”

  Freddy winced. “Will you give it a rest with all that self-help shit. Godawmighty! You sound like a infomercial. Just stay close to home and be ready to help me give Lucci more grief. That too much to ask, Mitchie?”

  “No.” He shook his head slowly and stared back at Freddy once more before leaving. It might be just about time for Freddy the D. to get a little of that grief himself, he thought. All that “Mitchie” noise. Mitch knew some people who owed him a favor and he had a pretty good idea what that favor was. Call up the Ramirez Boys. Them screwing over the D. and Lucci could really benefit the people in Arizona, Freddy’s partners on the West Side development. People Mitch was just about dying to impress.

  SIX

  The past three years had been so considerate to Ronnie Taggert that Streeter decided on the spot to start using his minoxidil later that night. Any hint of cheapness in her face, hairdo, or way of dressing was gone. From a distance she looked more mature. Less defensive, clearly sensual. Her hair was still blond and from a bottle. But it was definitely a better bottle, and she wore it shorter and not so teased up. As he walked
to her table at a downtown Starbucks shortly after five on Friday afternoon, she smiled broadly at him. He pegged her for about thirty. Less makeup set off her blue eyes better, and several delicate laugh lines made them seem kinder. Not that he’d ever thought of her as mean, still Ronnie had been so streetwise and aggressive that a little softening didn’t hurt. He smiled back.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” she said, and made a movement like she was going to stand. Instead she leaned back. “Glad you made it, but, then, you always do what you say you’re going to do.” Her head tilted a bit to the side and she gestured casually at the chair across the table, her voice as confident as her posture.

  “Ms. Taggert.” Streeter slid into the chair and studied her. She wore a pale-blue silk blouse and black pleated silk pants. Obviously expensive and very unlike the tight come-on clothes she used to favor. “You look all growed up. Like you’ve been to the city.” He was quiet for a moment before adding, “You look very nice, Ronnie.”

  She nodded like someone who’d heard that often. “I was hoping you’d notice,” Ronnie replied in an even voice. “You look as good as ever. Still very Streeter-like. How’s Frank and the bail-bonds business?”

  “Same old. I’ve been doing more PI work lately and Frank, well, Frank is Frank, as always. Only more so.”

  “And you?” she asked. “Anything new?”

  He shrugged. “A couple more romance disasters, but that’s hardly new. Story and I went in the toilet years ago. I started playing the piano, if you can believe that.”

  “Now, there’s a picture. The Terminator does Carnegie Hall.”

  “Same old Ronnie.” He shook his head. “Ever the wiseass.”