Low End of Nowhere

by Michael Stone

  “No, it’s not that. There’s still money left.”

  “Did you hear anything in Boulder to make you want to stop?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, the more I hear, the more I think we might be on to something.”

  He told her about Susanne and the Squirrel handle and how Doug had operated in Boulder. She listened intently to every word.

  “And you asked if I wanted to stop now,” she said when he finished. “Hell, we’re just getting started. We’ve got the general layout and now we can focus in on specifics. Where do we go from here?”

  “From here? Story, before we take another step, I have to tell you that this thing is getting dangerous and it could get even more twisted from now on. Your car and your dog were bad enough, but it’s getting worse. Someone fired a couple of rounds into my house last week. At night after our meeting with Cooper.”

  “My God! Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. It was the middle of the night and they just shot out a couple of windows.”

  “Do you know for sure it was connected to this business?”

  “Not for sure. But I don’t believe in coincidences, and now someone knows where I live. I hate that, especially if it’s someone with a gun who doesn’t mind firing it. And even worse, I think that someone has a badge.”

  She scowled. “A policeman? Where do you get that from?”

  “The license number the guy got that night your car was trashed was for an unmarked police car. My hunch is it’s the same cop who nailed Doug. I think he’s the one that helped the cocaine disappear from the police-evidence room, and now he doesn’t want any more attention. I suppose the shots could be Cooper just trying to scare us off the scent of the money, but my hunch is it’s a cop.”

  “So go tell the cop we’re not interested in him. Tell him we’ll leave him alone.”

  “Now, why didn’t I think of that? You want me to go accuse a cop of vandalism, tampering with evidence, and shooting at me and then tell him, ‘Hey, but that’s cool. We’ll forget it if you will.’ He’d blow me away on the spot, and I couldn’t blame him.”

  “Look, Streeter.” She stood up and came around the desk. Her face looked like it did that day in the squash court. “I don’t care what you do or don’t do about this cop or whoever it was that shot at your precious church. But I’m not giving up on this thing. If you want to, fine. I’ll get someone else to help me. I’m simply not quitting.”

  Streeter stood up and faced her.

  “You have no idea what you might be getting into, do you? You think this is just some other ‘account’ you might lose. You could lose a lot more than money if it’s what I think it is. Cooper is capable of God knows what, and if it’s a rogue cop, he could be worse. What’s so damned important about this money?”

  “It’s mine. That’s what’s so important.” Then she lowered her voice. “I don’t want to argue with you. If you want out, I understand. Keep the money I gave you and no hard feelings. But I’m not stopping. If Cooper’s behind this, that just makes me more convinced that I’m on the right track. Who knows what Doug may have told him? Or who knows what he told the cop who helped get him off? I’m going to keep looking, with or without you. For what it’s worth, I hope it’s with you.”

  Streeter laced his fingers behind his head and stretched back to give himself time to think. After a few seconds he said, “I’m not saying I want out. I’m just letting you know what we’re in for. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way I’m going to let this asshole get away with shooting at my house. That’s a bad precedent for someone in my line of work. I’m in, Story. I just wanted you to know the kind of people we’re dealing with here.”

  “Okay. I’ll consider myself warned.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “I have a little thirty-eight. I usually keep it next to my bed.”

  “Do you know how to use it?”

  “An old boyfriend showed me how. He’s the one who gave it to me.”

  “Keep it close, just to be safe. And put it in your glove compartment when you go out. You never know when it might come in handy.”

  “I assume you have a gun.”

  “Several. I usually keep a three fifty-seven short-barrel under my car seat.”

  “Do you have a permit?” she asked.

  “All of mine are registered, but I can’t get a concealed-weapons permit. Practically no one can anymore. It seems that the cops hate to make the bad guys nervous by allowing honest citizens to carry a hidden piece or two. I doubt if we need them, but someone out there has a gun, and I’ll feel better if you do, too.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “I want to keep talking to Doug’s friends, all the people he worked with. We know this money isn’t in any bank, but it might be in a locker at the train station or a place like that. If Doug was as distrustful as I think, he wouldn’t have told anyone about it. But maybe he left a spare key with someone for safe keeping without telling them what it’s for. Maybe several spare keys, judging by what I heard up in Boulder.”

  “I’ll make a list of anyone I know of who was close to Doug,” she said, jotting something down in her Daytimer.

  “Include even those people who weren’t too close to him. He might have picked someone he wasn’t tight with. And I’ll want to go over everything he left at the house. We should do that together.”

  “Why don’t you come over tomorrow night? I’ll have it all ready and we can plow through it.”

  “Fine. And I’ll want the address and phone number of his family up in wherever he’s from. Wyoming, wasn’t it?”

  She frowned again.

  “Some problem with that?”

  “I’ll have it for you,” she said. “It’s just that his mother is such a bitch.”

  “I don’t want to move in with the woman. I just want to talk to her.”

  As Cooper slithered back to his office after court, he felt like he’d just paid a thousand dollars for a hooker and then couldn’t perform. On top of that, she’d laughed at him. Why was that courtroom so packed? Rage and humiliation surged through him in giddy waves.

  When he got to his office, Ronnie was in the lobby. “How did you make out?” she asked, even though she could tell from his expression.

  “How’d Iraq make out in Desert Storm? I got totally hammered, that’s how. Get me Soyko on the phone.”

  “No need to. He’s waiting in your office,” she said. “He got here about two minutes ago.”

  “How did he…Uh…Aw, who gives a shit? Come on. I want you in on this, too, seeing as how you’re so interested in Doug Shelton.”

  Cooper walked into his office and saw Soyko sitting in front of his desk, with Jacky Romp sprawled out over the couch. Both men were smoking cigarettes, and they remained quiet when the attorney entered with Ronnie behind him.

  “Do you two have to do that in here?” Cooper yelled as he sat down. He waved his hand like he was swatting invisible flies.

  “Just a hunch, court sucked,” Soyko said, crushing out his cigarette.

  “Brilliant.” Cooper looked off to the side. “That fucker had the judge in his hip pocket. Judge my ass. More like some affirmative-action appointment with an attitude. We got totally shot down.”

  We? Soyko was tempted to remind Cooper that he’d lost on his own. But he let it slide. Bust his chops and the lawyer might just self-destruct on the spot. Instead, he kept looking at Cooper, letting him blow off steam.

  “That motherfucker…” Cooper muttered, too upset to finish. “And that bitch client of his. Both laughing at me. Rubbing my dick in the dirt. I don’t know who I’d like to see dead first. They should both be tortured. Now she even has the option of coming after me for money. Judge Jose there practically told her to do it. I’d like to burn her for this. Her lawyer, too.”

  “That can be arranged, you know.” Soyko’s voice carried no emotion.

  “Forget it. I just keep thinking of the stones on that broad. Lyin
g in court under oath.”

  “Be a shame, someone’d try and get something they don’t deserve like that,” Soyko deadpanned. “There oughta be a law.”

  Jacky cackled at the irony.

  Cooper looked from one man to the other. “Just keep yukking it up, you two. Big goddamned joke, isn’t it? Let’s us concentrate on what we have to do to get that money Doug hid. Okay? I don’t suppose you have any good news for me on that score. You know, I don’t even give a flying fuck about the money so much anymore.” He lowered his voice, a thin trail of spit lacing off the side of his mouth. “I just want to stop this Story broad from getting it. What the hell kind of name is that anyway? Story. What is she, some princess from a fairy tale? I want you two to go balls to the wall on this thing. Take no prisoners and spare no expense. Find that money. I want all these bastards to bleed. Whatever it takes to screw them over.”

  “I hear you, counselor.” Soyko got up. His partner got up, too. “We’ll get right on it. You should maybe take the day off. Looks like you’re about to blow wide open.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Let’s just deal with this fast and hard. Find that money, and no more Mr. Nice Guy bullshit.”

  When the two men left, Cooper leaned back in his swivel chair and began rocking quickly. Ronnie just stared at him for a while.

  “You should have calmed down before you talked to them,” she said.

  “Yeah, why’s that?”

  “Because they might get the wrong idea about what you wanted. They might think you want them to hurt someone.”

  “Aw, Christ, Ronnie. Give it a rest. I just told them to find the money, whatever it takes.”

  “And you don’t think they might take that to mean, mess somebody up? Really put the spurs to them?”

  “Of course not. I made it perfectly clear. They won’t get carried away.”

  She studied him for some time. Poor dope really didn’t get it. Here he was with his coat on fire and he’s busy looking for lint.

  “Yeah, sure. Why would they?”

  FIFTEEN

  For someone who supposedly made a lot of money, Douglas Shelton had few belongings. Streeter discovered that the next night, when he and Story sifted through his so-called earthly possessions: clothes, papers, books, desk, golf bag, cabinets, knickknacks, ski equipment, and other items that belonged to the late realtor. They went through virtually every page of every document the man kept. They were at it for over three hours without finding anything the bounty hunter would say vaguely resembled a clue.

  “He liked his cars and his clothes, but he never showed any real interest in accumulating much property,” Story explained as they worked. “He’d hit the museums from time to time, like I told you before. But he never really collected things, from what I could see. Most of his spending was geared toward looking good. A lot of his money went to restaurants, too. We ate out almost every night. He bought some stuff for the house, but not much.”

  It was well after nine when Streeter noticed how hungry he was. “I’m starving. You want to call out for something?”

  They were standing in the middle of what used to be Doug’s study, surrounded by open boxes, open drawers, and stacks of papers. They were both wearing faded jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. His was a white Broncos shirt, hers powder-blue, touting the name of a perfume he’d never heard of. Streeter appreciated the way her jeans so comfortably snuggled up to the contour of her legs and bottom without appearing like they’d been applied with a paint roller. But she kept her makeup and earrings on, which looked inappropriate to the task and to her clothes. Totally casual was not Story’s style.

  “I’ll get the menu and we can call the Pagoda,” she told him. “Great Szechuan, if you like it.”

  “Fine. I’ll eat anything that’s got duck in it.”

  He was sorting through a file marked “Taxes—1990 All.” Apparently, Doug was fascinated by detailed and ultimately insignificant paperwork while at the same time he ignored obviously important things. For instance, Streeter found meaningless receipts and obscure reminder notices, yet no copy of Shelton’s completed 1990 tax return. There was no discernible pattern to what he kept and what he threw away. It made Streeter’s job more difficult. Luckily, Story had come up with a list of thirty-seven people—addresses and phone numbers included—who knew Doug, so he had more leads to explore.

  “I don’t know if this is doing us any good,” he told her when they’d finished. “About all I can figure out is, he has a very strange sense of filing, and he doesn’t know the correct name for the mayor of Denver.”

  “Mayor Webb. What makes you say that?” She came back into the study after calling for the Chinese food.

  “There were some notes he kept with his bank slips where he wrote out ‘W. Webb Wellington’ instead of ‘Wellington Webb.’ He had to be referring to the mayor. Don’t you think?”

  “He must have written a check to Webb’s reelection campaign. Who knows? Doug never was much on details. I could show you this letter he was writing to his mother. He wrote like a sixth-grader. All this melodramatic crap about how precious his time in Wyoming is. Doug was strange about his family. Especially his mother.”

  “So I gather. Like I said yesterday, I’m going to have to go up there and talk to her fairly soon.”

  “I suppose, but it won’t be fun. She’s really lonely and incredibly judgmental. Apparently, she’s second-generation German. Real old-school and totally long-suffering with her religion. She thinks that if you smile too much you’re not going to the Kingdom of God. In a strange way, Doug was sort of in awe of her. He’d complain about her, but when she was around he treated her like royalty. She was always criticizing him, yet he still tried to impress her. It was like he thought if he made enough money she would finally approve of him.

  “Doug has this brother who’s in and out of homes and hospitals. He’s mentally and physically disabled. The mother, Gail, blames the world for that. She blames the world for everything miserable in her life. She blamed Doug’s father until he died, and then she started blaming Doug. Now she’s probably just sitting out there on the old family farm and blaming whoever’s nearby.”

  “Doug was a farm boy?”

  “Hell no. They lived on what was left of Gail’s family’s farm. They never worked the place. Gail was a schoolteacher and his father was a pharmacist.”

  “That would help explain Doug’s interest in pharmaceuticals. You think she might know anything at all about what he left behind?”

  “It’s unlikely. They didn’t see each other more than once a year in all the time I knew him.”

  Story had ordered a Happy Family combination and a gallon of hot-and-sour soup. They each drank a beer while they waited.

  “Didn’t you tell me he left you a clock?” Streeter asked.

  “Yes he did. I took it to a good friend of mine who’s an antique dealer and he knew of a buyer for it. I didn’t particularly like the thing myself, but the guy paid twelve thousand five hundred dollars for it. I gave my friend a nice commission and I still kept over ten grand.”

  “I guess you can put a price on memories. That must have made your day. I didn’t know there are clocks that expensive.”

  “Hell yes. My friend was telling me about ones that easily get two or three times that. This one was a Charles Gabrier or something like that. He threw a bunch of names at me. You wouldn’t believe how pretentious the world of antique clocks is. I got a crash course on it.”

  “Twelve thousand’s a lot of money. How’d he get such an expensive clock? He doesn’t seem to be the type to go for high art.”

  “I wondered about that, too.” Story frowned as she looked at him. “He told me it was given to him by a client once in return for Doug helping get her a great home-loan rate. But that’s an awful lot of gratitude. Maybe he waived his commission to get the thing. It could be that all his trips to the museum gave him an idea of how valuable the clock is. Perhaps he had an appreciation for the finer th
ings that he never shared with me. That’s possible. Apparently, there was a lot that he didn’t share with me, and Doug was no idiot. He had a good mind, when his head wasn’t up his butt. That’s a pretty conflicted metaphor, isn’t it?”

  Streeter nodded and said, “I’ve never had much interest in antiques. By the way, was Doug paranoid?”

  “He was cautious but not particularly paranoid. Especially considering the line of work he was in. Why?”

  “He has a flyer over there from a company called the Executive Protectors Inc., out in Indiana. It’s only four pages, but it’s got all this phone-debugging equipment. Scramblers, pen transmitters. All kinds of electronic equipment and home-security products. Did he ever actually buy any of that stuff?”

  “Not ever. At least not that I know of. But some guys like to get product information and then never do anything with it. He’d get flyers for all sorts of different equipment and that was it. Doug hated to part with his money.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how all guys are, but Doug was one very strange pack rat. Judging by what he kept in his files, he seemed to be a warehouse of useless personal information. Keep an eye out for anything like that. You know, electronic equipment, security stuff.”

  They both sat in silence for a minute, drinking their beers.

  “Frank’s been getting a lot of hang-up calls today,” Streeter finally said. “That usually doesn’t happen. One time the guy said ‘Fuck off’ and hung up. He said it so fast Frank wasn’t sure he heard it right.”

  “Really? What time was that?”

  “About five-thirty or so. Just before I left to come over here. Why?”

  “I got a few hang-up calls last night, that’s all. I wonder if this is from our friend the paint-spraying cop,” she said.

  “It sounds too juvenile even for him. Do you usually get many hang-up calls?”

  “Once in a while. Never four or five in one night.”

  “Let me know if it keeps up. The guy didn’t use my name, so it may have been just a random call.” He tried to sound convincing. “I talked to a detective friend of mine who’s on the Denver Police Department. I gave him the name of the cop I think helped Doug. Detective Arthur Kovacs. My friend’s going to check him out. Evidently, Kovacs has been in Denver for about five years, and he’s due to retire soon. He’s got a rep as a world-class bully from back in his days as a Detroit cop.”