Low End of Nowhere

by Michael Stone

  The two investigators looked at each other for a long time, like they were having a telepathic conference. Then Jacky simply said, “Porsche prick,” through his closed mouth.

  Soyko nodded and looked back at Cooper. “I think I know who you mean. Guy about thirty-five maybe. Little older than me. Waved a lot of cash around but wouldn’t even shoot you pool for fifty cents. I know he deals. Drives a red Porsche and acts like he’s hot shit, too. Ain’t seen him in a long time.”

  Cooper smiled, once again amazed at the broad range of people that his investigator knew. “Nor are you likely to see him in the future. He died a few months ago. He’d been arrested late last year for possession of several ounces of flake, excellent quality. Had a short rap sheet from here and there and he was facing some state time. Most judges have big erections for drug dealers these days. Like they think that putting them away for a few months to play tennis in medium security somehow protects society. It’s a joke. But what the hell? It keeps me supplied with clients.

  “At any rate, our Douglas was basically screwed because it was a hand-to-hand sale. Then something very unusual happened. A couple weeks after his preliminary hearing, I received a call from the prosecutor telling me they were going to dismiss everything. Seems the cocaine had inexplicably disappeared from the police-evidence locker. Other physical evidence disappeared as well. As we hadn’t had a chance to test the coke yet, the charges were dropped and Douglas was free.”

  Soyko frowned. “Too bad he died.” Then his face brightened slightly. “Normally, that means he’s out of the picture, but I’m sure, if there’s any way to get something out of a dead guy, you’ll think of it. He owed you money?”

  Cooper frowned in pained sincerity. Doug Shelton had paid him over nineteen thousand dollars in two quick cash installments. That basically covered his meager legal efforts about five times over. If anything, Cooper owed the estate a refund, but no one, least of all Soyko and his crazy partner, needed to know that. “A considerable sum, and I certainly don’t intend to wipe out the debt without trying to collect,” Cooper said severely. “I put in long hours on this man’s case and I’m entitled to the appropriate payment.”

  Soyko studied his face. “I tell you this, it would break my heart to see you take it in the shorts like that. But don’t you usually collect a shitload of money up front before you even budge on a case?”

  Cooper inhaled deeply and spoke with a forced patience. “That is not at all an accurate characterization of my practice. Typically, I do like to get a decent retainer. That’s just prudent business. But I provide all my clients with the best legal assistance possible regardless of their ability to pay in advance. I also do a considerable amount of work pro bono—that is, without receiving a penny. It’s the least I can do.”

  Thomas Hardy Cooper was more likely to get pregnant and deliver twins than do one hour of pro-bono work and everyone at the table knew it. Jacky Romp spit out a laugh and turned away.

  Soyko just shrugged. “Whatever you say. But if this guy was such a slow pay, what makes you think he had any money to go after?”

  “I’ve handled a great many drug defenses these past few years and I can tell when a dealer has money. Theoretically, they all should have plenty, because their profit margin is so obscenely vast. Christ, just last month I had these two post-office guys, letter carriers, come to hire me. A couple of coons, no less. They had been arrested dealing eight balls to their fellow employees. They come to me and they’re dressed about a notch above Goodwill. I tell them I’ll need ten thousand in cash just for starters, figuring that would turn them away. One says to me, ‘Okay, but I gotta get the money from the credit union.’ He says it like it’s hysterical. Then he reaches into one of his socks and pulls out a wad of cash the size of his dick and counts out the ten grand. I’m sitting there just about creaming my pants and thinking, Why didn’t I ask for more?

  “But drug dealers, like so many of us, fail to handle their money properly. Sadly, a good many of them are addicted themselves, so they piss their money away. Our Mr. Shelton was not like that. He also had a good real-estate income. He was always well turned out. You know, the car, the clothes. Plus, this evidence theft took some doing. It seems obvious to me that Douglas arranged it. He had to have someone on the inside, on the force. That costs plenty. He damned near told me that he arranged it, and he implied it was no big deal, money-wise. That man had assets, no doubt about it.”

  “He had a way of flashing it around, I’ll give you that,” Soyko interrupted. “Had a nice-looking blond chick with him sometimes. Great ass and legs. His wife?”

  “I’m not certain,” Cooper answered, uncomfortable that Soyko knew about Story. “He implied that it might have been a common-law situation.”

  The three sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Finally, Jacky spoke up. “We supposed to be reading your mind or what?”

  Cooper glanced at him for a second and then turned back to Soyko. “I want you to find out everything you can about Douglas. I think he kept women on the side, and I’m dead solid certain he stashed money. He used to brag about the financial reserves he kept hidden from his lady. Gentlemen, if this is anything like what Douglas led me to believe it is, there could be close to half a million in it for us. Or whoever has the balls to go get it. I’d say it’s definitely worth a little looking into, wouldn’t you?”

  For the first time since he’d known them, Jacky and Soyko seemed impressed.

  “And the girlfriend doesn’t have it?” Soyko asked.

  “Maybe a little sliver of it, but he used to brag about keeping her in the dark. We’ve got to dig into this. If I intend to collect from his wife or whatever she is, I’d like to know that she can pay. If he was keeping a woman, you may have to talk to her. But no more of that Grundy Dopps cowboy nonsense.”

  Anger flared across Soyko’s face. “I don’t want to hear about that.”

  Cooper backed off fast. “Well, just see what you can find out about Mr. Shelton.” With that, the attorney stood up, pulled a twenty from his wallet, and dropped it on the table. He turned and walked out of the diner without another word.

  Jacky Romp watched him leave and then, to no one in particular, he snarled again, “Goofy fuckwad.”

  Ronnie Taggert lived in a garden-level apartment on the city’s predominantly Hispanic near West Side. The rent was a reasonable three hundred twenty-five dollars a month for a spacious two-bedroom, with a laundry next door and free cable. She had gotten used to living in that part of town from her days as a party-animal waitress at a rock-and-roll bar located there. Her apartment wasn’t a prestige address, but the building was clean and she liked the nearby Mexican restaurants. Cooper hated visiting her there, because he intensely disliked all minorities. He always felt as though he were taking a giant step down the social ladder when he crossed the viaduct over the Valley Highway, just north of Mile High Stadium, into “their neighborhoods.” Besides, in his book, “garden-level” was nothing more than a euphemism for “half-assed basement apartment.”

  He knocked on her door and smiled when she answered in just a silk slip. “Hi, baby,” he said.

  “Come on in.” She kissed him on the cheek as he walked past her. “How did your meeting with those two deranged Nazis go?”

  “You should stop referring to my investigative staff as Nazis. Even in jest.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She lit a cigarette and turned her back to him.

  “We had an interesting strategy discussion. You know I’m looking for a payoff from Doug Shelton’s estate. This Story woman doesn’t have a clue about what he paid me. She didn’t know about his dealing coke, nor about his womanizing on the side. She’s just some harmless, artificial advertising person.”

  “Yeah?” Ronnie turned to face him. “You sure?”

  “Indeed. I’ve developed a twofold plan. First, I’ve retained Mr. Soyko to kick around under some rocks at the bars and hangouts that Doug frequented. If he had a girlfrien
d, I want to meet her. The second part calls for us to draw up one hell of a bill for Story Moffatt. I’m figuring around forty thousand. This will have to be some of our best work, but if I can establish that they held themselves out as man and wife, I think I have a real shot at getting the court to order her to pay. Hell, I can probably just finesse it out of her without even having to go to court.”

  Ronnie thought in silence. “Developed a twofold plan.” She hated the way he tried to make everything sound so formal. “Don’t be so sure about his girlfriend. My hunch is that she’s tougher than she looks. She held up pretty well at the funeral and she runs her own advertising agency. That’s a tough racket, advertising. You really think you’re going to stick a bill in her face, start screaming about court, and she’ll just hand over forty thousand?”

  Cooper walked to the kitchenette just off the living room where the refrigerator was and grabbed a beer. He knew it would be a long shot trying to talk Story out of money. She’d have to be nuts to just fold up and pay. But there was money for the taking, and he hated the condescending attitude she gave him at the funeral. Maybe she is tough, but she’s never dealt with anyone like Soyko, he reasoned.

  When he returned to the living room, he smiled at Ronnie. “Well, we shall just see what evolves. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “Tom, with the way you practice law, damned near anything can happen.”

  SEVEN

  Story sent Streeter an authorization letter, and the following week he hit a dozen banks during a two-day stretch. Doug Shelton had no accounts or safe-deposit boxes at any of them. Then the bounty hunter got bored. One of the reasons he never went into law enforcement is that he didn’t have patience for repetitive, detail work. If the police were doing this search, they’d check every bank in the city. But Streeter liked to go on his instincts and his ability to read people and situations rather than relying on “procedures.” Also, the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Shelton kept a stash in a bank. As he told Frank after the two days, “Banks have short hours, which would be a definite drawback to a free-lance guy like Dougy.”

  “What about ATMs?” the bondsman asked. “They’re open day and night.”

  “Yeah, they’re always open, but you can only get a couple hundred dollars a day. That’s nowhere near what we’re talking about. Besides, ATMs and safe-deposit boxes can be traced.”

  He decided to check out Doug’s court file. The criminal complaint would tell him a lot, like where he was arrested and if there were codefendants. He went to the basement of the Denver Courthouse, room thirty-eight, and got the complete file on Douglas Lawrence Shelton’s arrest of November 10: case number CR 94 1083. Although inactive, it was still over an inch thick.

  Streeter copied every page and took it back to the church to read it. Most of it revealed nothing of value. The complaint and the arresting officer’s report primarily interested him. There were no codefendants: Doug was arrested alone. He was popped selling almost one pound of cocaine to a Denver undercover officer behind a bar just off the touristy Larimer Square. That translated to close to sixty thousand dollars in street value, about half for Doug at wholesale. Tax-free.

  The buy was made shortly before midnight, and the primary arresting officer’s name was Detective Arthur Ernest Kovacs. Obviously, the name of the undercover narc who set up the buy did not appear. Doug apparently walked to the bar, because there was no mention of officers’ finding or searching his Porsche. He also must have known the narc fairly well, because Doug was unarmed, and it mentioned several times that the two men had an ongoing relationship. There was a list of prospective witnesses, most of whom sounded like other Denver police officers or lab technicians. It appeared that no fewer than fourteen people were needed to bring down Douglas Shelton.

  Streeter was disappointed when he finished. Nothing seemed to pertain to his search. He decided to call Detective Kovacs and fish around. Kovacs’ work number was listed in the report, and the detective picked up on the second ring.

  “Kovacs here,” he answered abruptly, like he was just on his way to lunch or, more important to a man with his bowel miseries, to the restroom. Streeter explained who he was, that he was working for the estate of Doug Shelton, and that the survivors were curious about the arrest. Kovacs made it clear that Doug’s estate was of no concern to him.

  “No offense there—Mr. Streeter, was it? Yeah. But I give a good rat’s ass if any of them ever find more money.” Kovacs now sounded bored, like he was reading junk mail out loud. “This bum made his money from selling drugs, and in case you haven’t heard, that’s against the law. Hell, if we knew he had any cash laying around, we’d have grabbed it for the state. We can do that, you know. Your client’s just lucky we didn’t go after their house and stuff like that—attach all the assets from illegal activities. That’s the way we used to do it in Detroit, back when I worked out there. Now, if that’s it, I’ll be saying goodbye. Maybe you should try the girl. You might have better luck with her than we did.”

  “His fiancée? That’s who I’m working for. Story Moffatt.”

  “I ain’t talking about any Story. Or any poem or any book, for that matter. I’m talking about the broad at the bar. The fuck’s her name? It was on the witness list.”

  Streeter shuffled through the papers on his desk and found the last page of Kovacs’ report, with the witness list. He started reading all of the women’s names out loud.

  “Nora Lewinski?”

  “No, she’s over at the lab. Keep going.”

  “Shannon Mays?”

  “Bingo. There you go, Mike Hammer. She was the one that was waiting for him over at Marlowe’s. He told our guy about her just before we popped him. We sent a couple uniforms over to talk to her after the arrest. We’d a loved to pop her, too. Smug little bitch.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Possession of a wine spritzer ain’t a crime in this state, ace. Least not that I ever heard of. Anyhow, we found her just sitting there having a drink. Happy as a pig in shit, if you pardon my French. A real cool customer. We tell her that her boyfriend just got nailed and she acts like we read her the weather report for Poland or something. But we had no cause for an arrest.”

  “Why wasn’t she listed in the report itself?”

  “Cause she didn’t mean nothing to the investigation.”

  “Then why is she on the witness list?”

  “No reason really. Just to bust her chops a little. Maybe shake her up some. Damned coke whore.”

  “Do you have an address on her? A phone number?”

  Kovacs grunted something bitter-sounding at the other end but then said he’d check. A couple of minutes later, he came back on the line.

  “I couldn’t find no phone. She told us she lives at a joint, some high-rise, in Capitol Hill. Seven forty Pennsylvania. Number nine oh three. But I doubt she’s going to be much help to you.”

  “Was she that uncooperative?”

  “You might say so.” Kovacs honked out a thick grunt indicating amusement. “I think you’ll find her—how would I put it?—very tight-lipped. Anything else, ace?”

  “No. That’ll do it. And, Kovacs, it’s been a real pleasure.”

  Former Detroit cop, Streeter thought as he hung up. An FBI agent he knew once told him that Detroit cops were world-class scammers and shakedown artists. He said that the Detroit FBI office was the only one in the entire country where the bureau specifically told its agents to share nothing with local police officers. He said so many of them were on the take there was no way of knowing whom to trust.

  Just from his attitude, Streeter could picture Kovacs rutting around Motown, “kiting the coloreds out of a few bucks, ace,” and generally being a useless imbecile. We’ll see who’s tight-lipped, the bounty hunter thought. Just because this Shannon Mays wouldn’t talk to a clown like Kovacs didn’t mean she wouldn’t talk to him.

  At his end, Kovacs could feel a decided twinge of activity in his
lower intestine when he hung up. Pushing fifty-five, randomly flatulent, and constipated as a cement block, the detective was chugging into retirement some three months away. He subsisted primarily on cut-rate bourbon, Maalox, and your basic bran cereals smothered in prunes. Any inquiries into the whole Shelton business were about as welcome as another bowel obstruction. He decided to make a call up north for a little input on the matter. This bounty hunter probably didn’t know his ass from a rearview mirror, but Kovacs had heard of Story Moffatt. What he heard was, you don’t want to underestimate her. He’d make the call later. First, he grabbed the Sports Illustrated off his desk and headed for the John, determined yet realistically glum. A weary veteran, he knew he was in for another long and at best moderately productive siege.

  Shannon’s building, imperiously named Penwood Heights, was a concrete high-rise built in the mid-1960s near the governor’s mansion. The on-site manager was an aging, painted beauty who wore perfume so foul it could drop a wasp at ten feet. She was the kind of maintenance day drinker who was never really drunk, yet never fully sober. Streeter was surprised that a nice building would have such a rank manager. Fortunately, she was incredibly high-strung and talkative.

  “My name is Nancy,” she said when she buzzed him into her office just off the lobby. “Who did you say you’re looking for, dear?”

  She wore orange polyester slacks tight enough to render her childless and stood in the doorway with a cigarette in her right hand, the elbow braced against her side. Her left forearm ran across her waist in front, with that hand holding the right elbow for support. She looked fragile, like one solid belch would cause her to fall apart.

  “Shannon Mays. I was told she lives in nine oh three, but the name on the register out there is Viveney. I buzzed up and they said Shannon doesn’t live here anymore. I was wondering if you might have a forwarding address. She witnessed an accident and we need her help.”