“Pull over up here,” Charlie pointed to a spot at the curb. “We’ll just wait.”
Lauren did as she was told, pulling up in front of a vacant lot. She put the car in park, leaving it running. “What are we doing?”
He looked over at the houses a little farther up the block and repeated, “Just wait.”
Looking straight ahead, arm still hanging out the window, he sat watching the neighborhood foot traffic. Most people ignored them, a few gave them curious glances as they passed. Lauren looked at the digital clock on her dash: it was one thirty in the afternoon.
“How long are we going to sit here?” she asked.
“Wait for it,” he said patiently.
After another minute or so, Lauren watched a young woman with braids carefully pull apart an umbrella stroller on the porch of a double two houses up. She set it down on the sidewalk, then retreated into the house and came out with a toddler, who she protectively buckled in, tugging on the nylon straps to make sure they were secure. Walking with a look of dignified purpose, she pushed the stroller their way. Lauren could see the baby, a little girl dressed in a puffy pink coat, looking all around as her mother pushed her right up to the car.
“Hello,” the woman said to Charlie, her eyebrows knit together in a sort of determined resolve. She was in her early twenties, dark-skinned and beautiful, with high cheekbones. She was what Lauren’s mother would have called “big-boned”—broad in the shoulders and hips. She wore a long yellow dress with a fleece-lined denim jacket over it, and a thin gold chain hanging around her throat with a single letter done in script: S.
“This is my neighborhood,” she began in a calm, steady voice, “and I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you need to leave my street right now. There are children here.” She glanced down at her little girl who was staring at Lauren and Charlie like they were aliens. “And they don’t need to see addicts come to buy their drugs.”
Charlie didn’t smile but said in a tone of respect and deference, “We apologize for alarming you, but we’re not looking for drugs. Do you know where I can find Jackson Morgan?”
Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know Mr. Morgan?”
“We’re old friends. If you could point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it. It’s important.”
“You? Friends with Mr. Morgan?”
Charlie nodded.
The woman looked Charlie and Lauren up and down, trying to determine if she should get involved. Charlie gave his best grin at the little girl in the stroller and waggled his fingers at her. She giggled and gave him a clumsy wave with her chubby hand.
“What’s your name?” the woman with the braids asked.
“Charlie Daley.”
“Charlie Daley” she repeated, to get it right. “Hold on.” The woman held one manicured finger up and pushed the stroller past the car. She stopped at the edge of the vacant lot and pulled a cell phone out of a maroon-colored shoulder bag. Lauren watched in the rearview mirror as she spoke to someone, her other arm crossed around her waist, her left foot rocking the stroller gently back and forth while she spoke. When she was done, she pushed the stroller back to Charlie’s side.
“Stay here,” was all she said, then continued with her walk down the street, her sunny yellow skirt swishing back and forth until she hit the corner and turned out of sight.
“Now what?” Lauren asked.
Charlie slipped a Glock 19 out of the inside of his jacket and rested it next to his enormous thigh. “Now we wait again. Just be ready.”
Lauren put her hand on the small gun in her jacket pocket but didn’t take it out. “Who’s Jackson Morgan?”
“Someone who knows things. He owes me a favor.”
“Do I want to know for what?”
He shook his head. “Probably not.”
Charlie began to hum the theme song from The Love Boat as they waited. Lauren only recognized it because during her home confinement this last week she’d taken up watching old TV shows during the day. The Love Boat had come on right after Bonanza.
The minutes ticked by. First a half hour, then forty-five minutes. All the while Charlie hummed television theme songs. Just when Lauren was about to suggest they call it a day, a black BMW came around the corner and slowly rolled up to the car.
Sleek, shiny, with intricate chrome rims, the vehicle purred like a cat as it idled next to Lauren’s. The passenger side window, tinted well past the legal limit, slid down. A thin black man about Charlie’s age wearing thick black-rimmed glasses peered into Lauren’s car, past her and on to Charlie. One of his eyes strayed off to the side, watery and pale. “Daley, is that really you? I heard you were dead.”
“Not dead, just retired,” Charlie said. “Which makes me good as dead.”
Giving a knowing chuckle, the other man smiled. “I consider myself retired, too, but I still have to look after the neighborhood. Make sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I got a call you needed to talk to me. I was concerned. It’s been a long time, Daley. A long time.”
“Seems like we’ve been talking on this same street corner since horse and buggies.”
“It does seem that way,” Jackson Morgan agreed. “It’s nice to know someone else remembers how things used to be.”
There was a moment where the two of them just regarded each other. Old soldiers, Lauren thought. Old soldiers who fought on different sides.
It was Charlie who broke the silence. “Can I talk to you alone?”
“Sure thing, Daley.” He turned to his driver. “Pull up.”
The driver, a young guy with the word HONEST tattooed across his neck, pulled the BMW in front of Lauren’s Ford and parked. Charlie slid Lauren his gun and told her, “Wait here. This will only take a second.”
“Charlie, wait—” She tried to slow his roll, but he was out of her SUV, meeting up with Morgan on the sidewalk. Slipping out of the driver’s seat, the neck-tattooed friend of Morgan’s leaned against the car, watching the two men carefully. She couldn’t see the telltale bulge of a gun on him, but she knew if she got out he wouldn’t see hers either. She could see he was tense, like a coiled spring, and that made her nervous. No one knew they were here. And he could take Charlie out before she could get a shot off.
She turned her attention to the two old men. Lauren knew she was skinny, but Morgan looked like he might blow away if Charlie exhaled too hard. There was a toughness about him though, a calm certainty that said Morgan was a dangerous man. In all her years as a cop, she’d never seen or heard of Jackson Morgan. Now she watched as the two men, both approaching seventy, stood on the street corner, their white-haired heads almost touching as they discussed their business. Charlie in his working man’s jeans and Morgan in a neat gray pinstripe suit.
She gripped the gun at her side, ready in case things went bad. Lauren realized her heart was pounding in her chest; the adrenaline of the job was flooding back into her system.
After what seemed like an eternity, they shook hands, Charlie slipping something into Morgan’s, and they clapped each other on the back. Charlie walked back to the SUV, hands stuffed in his pockets. Morgan got in his own ride, waited until Charlie got into Lauren’s vehicle, then had his driver back up alongside of Lauren again.
“Thanks for your help, Morgan,” Charlie told him.
“Young lady,” he said addressing Lauren for the first time. “This here is one of the most honorable men I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing my business against. Daley, good luck. But don’t you come back here, okay?”
“You’ve been more than gracious. Take care of yourself.”
“I always do,” he laughed, sliding the glass back up. “I always do.”
The luxury car pulled off in a squeal of tires.
“Who was that?” Lauren demanded, finally letting go of the gun.
Reaching
over, Charlie stashed his Glock in his waistband, fluffing his shirt over it. “Just drive and I’ll tell you.”
She pulled out, turning the opposite way Jackson Morgan’s car had gone.
“Morgan ran the numbers for the entire city in the seventies and eighties. He was over on the East Side back when the numbers were huge money. Lots of payoffs to police and politicians. Morgan kept a low profile, always smart enough to stay one step ahead. The few times he did get arrested, the charges never stuck. He had his hand in everything back then. I remember chasing his guys around when I was a rookie cop.”
“And now?”
Charlie shrugged. “He keeps his toe in the water. The numbers are still around, a lot of the older folks still play, but not like they used to; now that there’s a lotto machine in every street corner deli. He still gets his cut from the gang bangers on drugs, guns, and prostitution, I’m sure.”
“How have I never heard of him?”
“When everything went to shit during the crack wars in the early nineties, he went underground, let the drug runners shoot it out, played from the sidelines. But us old-timers, we knew who was calling the shots from afar.”
“Does he know where Rita is?”
“He’ll find out. I gave him my cell number. He’ll call, but you might as well take me home now. He’s in no rush, and my back is screaming from all the shoveling I did today.” He reached down and massaged his lower spine. “You gonna tell that partner of yours what we’re up to?”
“I’ll wait. What if she’s dead or he can’t find her? Besides, it sounds like she’ll talk to you. Maybe not Reese and his new temporary partner, Joy Walsh. I don’t want to distract them with a wild-goose chase.”
She made a left and headed for Niagara Street. The traffic was picking up, more so toward the Peace Bridge, which was backed up. She could see the line of cars stopped on the bridge on their way to Canada in her rearview mirror. “You really think Morgan will call?”
He nodded with a grim certainty. “Yup. He’ll call. I’ll clear my grave-cleaning schedule. Tomorrow you’re going to meet my old friend, Rita Walton.”
28
“You sure this is the place?” Lauren looked up at the senior apartment complex on Elmwood Avenue, smack in the middle of the trendy Elmwood Village, with its boutique shops and martini bars. A U-shaped construction, it boasted a sad, narrow courtyard between the two main buildings. A fuzzy-haired octogenarian in a puffy coat slowly pushed a walker toward a wooden bench at the far end, plastic shopping bags filled with God-knows-what hanging from each hand grip. The lady gave them a suspicious look as Lauren and Charlie came up the sidewalk, then sat down and began fiddling with her goods.
“That’s what Morgan’s message said. Apartment 202.”
The weather had turned overnight, coating Lauren’s front lawn with frost. She had watched Reese scrape his windshield that morning, then head to work. She hadn’t said a thing about yesterday’s excursion with Charlie. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Reese; she just couldn’t be a hundred percent sure Ben Lema or Joy Walsh weren’t the leaks. If word hit the street that Rita Walton was trying to snitch on someone, that would be akin to signing her death warrant. The fact that the police couldn’t find Rita, and Charlie had to resort to using Mr. Morgan, meant she’d already been hiding from something or someone.
After all, it could be nothing.
The outer door to the south-facing building was open. Walking into the lobby, Lauren noticed a fat, twenty-something security guard eating nacho chips and playing on his phone. He didn’t look up as they crossed the filthy carpeted floor to the elevator. Benches were pushed up against the walls, filled with the residents who took no notice of them. They sat with coffee mugs or holding onto their walkers with one hand as they spoke in loud voices to be heard over the television set mounted above the security guard station, currently airing a daytime talk show.
One older gentleman looked up at them as they waited for the elevator car to come. “You got a smoke I could borrow?”
“Sorry, boss,” Charlie told him, “I quit when I was sixty.”
“Yeah?” He laughed, showing off a lifetime’s worth of tobacco-stained teeth. “So did I, but it didn’t stick.” He burst into a fit of hacking coughs, drawing dirty looks from the lady next to him.
“Have a good one,” Charlie said as he and Lauren got on the elevator. When the door shut, he turned to her. “Don’t you ever let me end up in a place like this.”
“What?” She stared up at the floor numbers. “This place is heaven compared to some of the nursing homes I’ve been in.”
Stepping off onto the second floor, the smells of greasy home cooking flooded Lauren’s nostrils. She’d been in these apartments a few times before and she knew they each had little kitchenettes. Just big enough to cook for one. An enormous orange cat sat on the window sill at the end of the hallway, watching them with yellow eyes as he soaked up the afternoon sun.
“201.” Charlie’s finger pointed to the brass number on the door to their left, then changed course, across the hall. “202,” he declared.
Positioning himself in front of the door, Charlie took his oversized thumb and put it over the peephole, an old street copper’s trick, before he knocked. Lauren stood off to the side, watching his huge fist pound three times on the door. From inside, they could hear the sound of a person shuffling around, some swearing, and a very loud television.
“Ellie, if that’s you, I ain’t got no money you can borrow—” The door swung inward to reveal a heavy-set black woman around Charlie’s age with her hair in pink plastic curlers. A pair of huge gold hoops hung from each lobe as she stood dumbstruck in the doorway, clutching her blue and white house dress together at the chest.
“Hey, Rita,” Charlie said. “Long time no see.”
“Am I dead? Am I seeing a ghost? Oh Lord, you come right in here!” She stepped back, waving her arm frantically for them to come inside. “Did anyone see you?”
Lauren followed Charlie into the tiny but neat apartment. A huge flat-screen TV was blaring from its place on the floor, the box it came in propped against the wall next to it. Charlie seemed to take up the entire space of the living room; Lauren would bet if he held out his arms he could touch each side wall. Poor Rita was throwing the deadbolt and fastening the chain behind them, mumbling to herself, “I knew it. I knew it. I knew I shoulda minded my own business.”
“You’re not in trouble, Rita,” Charlie told her when she was finished with the door.
She turned to face him, her meaty hands propped on each hip. “If Charlie Daley is at my door, I’m in trouble. And don’t call me Rita, unless you want me to get my ass kicked out of here.”
Framed family photos took up almost every inch of space on the walls, some in color, some in black-and-white, interspersed with embroidered Bible quotes and colorful inspirational prints. It made the small room feel even more claustrophobic now that there were three of them inside.
“So who are you now?” he asked in amusement as she shuffled by him to her kitchenette to turn off the burner under a whistling tea kettle.
“Virginia Robinson, my older sister. She died in North Carolina six years ago when I was staying with her. I needed to come back home to be near my babies, but I got too much negativity because of my previous lifestyle. I’m clean and sober now, seven years, and I ain’t been in no trouble. You know that, Daley.” She held up the kettle and looked at Lauren. “You want some tea? It’s Earl Grey.”
Lauren shook her head. “No thanks.”
Rita squinted at her. “I ain’t got my glasses on, but you look familiar. Who are you?”
“My name’s Lauren Riley. I’m a cop who used to work with Charlie.”
Reaching over the stovetop, Rita extracted a chipped teacup from a shelf. “So now you bound to him for life? Because that’s what it feels like for me. Charlie�
��s like a bad penny, he always turns up.”
Charlie gave a little snort of laughter.
“Actually, Rita, he’s helping me, and I hope you can help me too.”
“I ain’t rude, I just know Charlie don’t drink no tea.” She poured herself a steaming cup, dipping the tea bag up and down in the hot water. Lauren watched as she poured sugar from a glass container, exactly like the ones they had in restaurants, into her teacup. She vaguely wondered if Rita had slipped it into her purse the same way her own grandmother used to do every time they ate out. Every Sunday night there’d be a new set of salt and pepper shakers at Grandma Healy’s.
“Rita.” Charlie’s voice was low, like he was in business mode now. “Did you make some phone calls to the old Snitch Board?”
“Ain’t this a bitch?” she asked, leaning back against her countertop, tea in hand. “I ain’t seen you in a million years. I’m living a law-abiding life and you still wondering if I’m in the mix?”
“Law-abiding except for the identity theft?”
“She’s dead. She don’t need it no more,” Rita protested, taking a long slurp from her cup.
“Rita—”
“Shhhh, shhhhh, shhhhh!” she snapped. “It’s Miss Robinson now.”
“Rita,” Charlie said, a little more sternly now. “Quit playing games. Did you call the Snitch Board or not?”
Rita crossed her arms over her ample chest, earrings swinging, a couple of tea drops flying out of her cup. “Not.”
Feeling around in her jacket pocket, Lauren produced the slim black digital voice recorder. Without a word she held it out and hit Play.
Rita’s lined face fell as her voice filled the small space. She put the teacup on the counter, shoulders slumping along with the sound of her own voice. Lauren let all three calls play through before she spoke again. “Did you call the Homicide office that day?”
“Damn you, Charlie Daley,” Rita said. “I’m almost seventy years old. I can’t be involved in this shit no more.” She seemed to sink in on herself, like a great burden had just been replaced where she’d managed to shake it off.
The Murder Book Page 13
