Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello

by Michael Lister

  “I do.”

  “That’s why I brought him,” Armando said. “I knew you’d want to know about the connection.”

  Following Perkins’s lead, Armando was ignoring Clip again.

  Perkins studied me for a long moment.

  Being here alone with us, unarmed, in his pajamas no less, demonstrated how little threat he perceived us to pose, but even more so just how very invulnerable he felt.

  He wasn’t just a hard hood. He was powerful. And fearless. He didn’t hide from anything or anyone. He didn’t hide behind anyone or anything either.

  “Daniel,” Perkins said, “you and the nigger wait outside.”

  “Of the room, Mr. Perkins?”

  “Of the hotel,” he said.

  Clip looked at me.

  I frowned but nodded.

  He turned and walked out without waiting for Armando.

  “You sure, Mr. Perkins?”

  “You just keep taking chances, don’t you, fella. In the street, now.”

  “I’ll be right out there if you need me, Mr. Perkins.”

  “Sure, guy,” he said with a self-amused smile. “I can’t handle the one-armed wounded soldier who forced you to bring him here in the first place, you’ll be the first person I call.”

  When Armando was gone, Perkins stood, walked over behind the bar, and began to mix himself a drink.

  As he did, I thought about how most of us in the country were suffering, sacrificing for the war, but not Lee Perkins and those like him. They were actually turning a profit, living better than ever before.

  I knew his kind. In an earlier era, he’d have been a ridge runner, a bootlegger, a moonshiner. Before that, he’d have run guns. Before that, who knows, but it would’ve been on the backs of others, of decent people who couldn’t begin to guess at the depth of cruelty and lack of humanity in the dark void at the center of someone like Perkins.

  For a little over a month now, rationed items included bicycles, fuel oil, stoves, shoes, meat, lard, shortening and oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods, dried fruits, canned milk, firewood, coal, jams, jellies, and fruit butter. OPA, the federal Office of Price Administration, had also set limits on the number of gallons of gasoline we could buy each week.

  Most of us, most everyone I knew, willingly, even gladly, gave, saved, helped. Over a year and a half ago now every man, woman, and child had been issued a ration book filled with coupons that limited the amounts of meat, sugar, canned goods, and other food we could buy each week. But not people like Perkins––not those who had the money to buy black market and who didn’t have the character not to, and not the criminals who supplied their demand.

  When he finished fixing his drink, he rejoined me back at the table.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “And yet you get me out of bed in the night in this disrespectful manner. Why?”

  “No time to do it any other way,” I said. “And …”

  “And?”

  “And I couldn’t’ve guessed you’d be in bed this early.”

  He smiled. “All decent people are,” he said. “Bit player like you wouldn’t be, wouldn’t understand.”

  I nodded. He was probably right.

  “And?” he said.

  “And?” I asked.

  “There is more.”

  “And I’d do anything to find the woman I’m looking for.”

  “Anything?” he said. “That is interesting. Many a man tosses that around––anything. I believe it may actually be true of you. No way to know for certain until … until you get a certain test. But there is more.”

  “More?”

  “Yes. More.”

  “Then I must not know what it is,” I said.

  “You are not afraid.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “I know afraid,” he said. “I deal with it every day. You are not afraid.”

  “I am afraid,” I said. “I will not let it stop me.”

  “If a man’s fear does not control him, can that man be said to be afraid?”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “You interest me,” he said. “You’re in a hard man’s game, but I’m not so sure you’re a hard man.”

  “A cop told me something like that earlier tonight.”

  He nodded. “The day you have Lee Perkins and a cop telling you the same thing, you listen.”

  I shrugged.

  “What?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Nothing for it.”

  “All right, fella,” he said. “That may be.”

  “And I might be harder than you think.”

  “Oh, I think you’re plenty hard,” he said. “I just wonder how deep it goes.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Undoubtedly. Like to be there when you do.”

  “Maybe you will be.”

  We were silent a moment, but I didn’t let myself think about what he had said. I couldn’t.

  “I can help you with your girl, soldier,” he said. “But you have to do something for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell me why a woman is worth all this,” he said. “I’ve never loved a woman like that. Explain it to me, fella, and I’ll help you out.”

  “I’d had women before Lauren,” I said. “I’d even loved one or two. They were pretty and pretty smart. At least one of them was near perfect. None of them was Lauren. None of them made me know not just that I’d gladly give up every other woman in the world but that I had to. The thing is you don’t know what you don’t have––not until you have it. Then you can never not know it again. I might have settled for pretty good or may even have been one of the lucky stiffs that finds close to perfect, maybe even very close, but once Lauren came into my life, close enough––no matter how close it was––never would be again. I’ve lost her not once but twice. If she’s alive, I’m going to find her and I’m not going to lose her again.”

  He nodded and seemed to think about it for a moment.

  “Ever feel like a sap?”

  “Sure, but not about Lauren, not anymore. Not for the way I love her.”

  He nodded again, and again sat there in silence seeming to ponder what I had said.

  “I hired the peeper to watch the house for two reasons,” he said at length. “To see who comes there looking for her.”

  “And?”

  “To keep up the illusion that I don’t know where she is.”

  “You have her?” I said, my voice and brows rising.

  He nodded. “You do anything with anything I share with you against me or my sister and I’ll have you killed.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you understand?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I can kill you or have you killed before you leave this room,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  I nodded again.

  “This thing that happened with your girl, it frightened Doris. She talked to me about it. I began to look into it a bit. When the other nurse was killed, it scared her enough to ask for my protection––not an easy thing for her to do.”

  “So she’s okay?”

  “She’s in a room up above us in this very hotel, sleeping like an innocent.”

  “And Lauren?”

  “I’ve been looking into the whole thing,” he said. “Someone poses a threat to my sister, I’m gonna find out who and put him down hard. Understand?”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t know much yet and I’ll tell you why. It’s early days into my inquiry and since Doris is safe, I have not had to pursue this thing with the, ah, intensity or speed I would have normally, which is good because I’ve had a number of issues in my business that required my attention. But here’s what I got––and I’m not going to stop just because you’ll now be following the same leads, so stay out of my way and let me know what you uncover, understand?”

  I no
dded.

  “I don’t know if your girl’s still alive, soldier,” he said, “but I know who knows for sure. Woman named Vanessa Patrick. She showed up that night using the name Valerie Powell and took your girl away from Doris and Betty Jane. Don’t know if it was to kill her or steal her, but either way she’s the doer.”

  “You sure about the name?”

  He nodded. “Why?”

  “Pal of mine is over at the Panther Room looking for Valerie Powell right now.”

  “It’s no good. Her real name is Patrick. She’s got a room at the Cactus Motel. She ain’t the sort of dame that’d be at the Panther.”

  Chapter 17

  The Panther Room was a low rent club in an old brick building off Gaines, with a bar and a bandstand and not much else. When the joint was filled with BYTs and hep cats and kittens all dolled up and togged out dragging their hoofs, it seemed like a decent enough place, but when it was empty you could see just what a dive it really was.

  By the time we arrived, the parking lot beneath the big red-and-orange neon sign that read The Panther Room, the letters stacked atop one another, was filled with patrol cars and a paddy wagon.

  I had taken the time to go with Lee up to his sister’s room to verify she was really there––of her own free will––and so had not gotten here quite as quickly as I might have.

  We parked across the street and walked over.

  The lot had been cordoned off, patrolmen posted in intervals of about twenty feet.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the first one we came to.

  “Police stuff, or ain’t it obvious?”

  He was a pale, blond, big-headed kid with a big round belly, his hand on his baton.

  “What happened?”

  “What’s the idea, pal? I just told you. Better breeze before I bust you one.”

  “I just need to know if––”

  “Look soldier, I been polite on account of your service to our country and all, but you really don’t listen so good. Now, blow or I’m gonna get mad and it’ll cost you plenty.”

  “I’m here to see Detective Dana Shelby,” I said. “Whatta you say you grab him for me?”

  “LIEUTENANT,” he yelled back over his shoulder without taking his gaze off me. “LIEUTENANT.”

  “WHAT IS IT, MORRIS?” someone yelled back from the huddle of cops gathered around what must be a body on the ground.

  “FELLA HERE LOOKING FOR SHELBY.”

  My heart dropped at that.

  “OH YEAH? BE RIGHT THERE.”

  “Where’s Shelby?” I asked.

  “Lieutenant’ll be here in a minute.”

  The cops from earlier in the evening, Average Sam and Tall Roy, spotted us and walked over.

  “You two,” Sam said. “Should’ve known.”

  “Hiya boys,” I said. “Whatta you say you tell us what’s going on?”

  “Suppose you tell us, bub,” Sam said. “Whatta you know about this?”

  “Don’t even know what this is,” I said. “Why I’m asking.”

  Roy shook his head. “Just keep taking chances, fella. We don’t mind.”

  Sam said, “Level with us, pal. Chief’s son or not. Don’t matter. You ain’t playin’ me for a sap no more. Not with one of ours on the ground.”

  “Shelby?” I asked.

  “Like you don’t know.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “but I do know why he was here, what he was––”

  “James?”

  I had an instant and intense visceral reaction to the voice. The sound carried within its vibrations the loss of a father, the weakness of a mother, the rigidity of a stepdad drill instructor, the bullying that bordered on abuse, the anger, the guilt, the grief, and ultimately the relief and release of manhood.

  I turned to see Darryl Collins, Chief of Police.

  “Chief,” I said.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “He was just about to tell us,” Sam said.

  “You mixed up in this?” he asked me.

  “Can we talk?” I said.

  “We pulled them over earlier tonight, Chief,” Sam said. “Shelby called us off of ’em. He was with them last time we saw him.”

  “Thank you, Samuel,” he said. “I’ve got it from here. Go back to what you were doing.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Come with me,” Collins said to me.

  I motioned for Clip to come and we ducked under the rope.

  “He with you?” Collins asked.

  I nodded.

  He shook his head in disapproval. “Okay. Come on.”

  He took us several feet inside the perimeter to an empty area where we’d have privacy. There were a few cops scattered throughout the lot, but mostly they were all clumped in the front corner near the building and, I assumed, the body.

  “I’m Chief Collins,” he said to Clip.

  “This is Clipper Jones of the Ninety-ninth Fighter Squadron First Tactical Unit.”

  “Presently?”

  “Nah suh, presently I of the Riley Detective Agency.”

  Collins let out a mean little laugh at that.

  Turning back to me, he said, “Whatta you say you tell me what you know.”

  I did. Nearly all of it.

  When I finished he was quiet for a long moment.

  Beneath the neon light, the pavement of the mostly empty lot looked bathed in blood, its red residue forming a film on everything.

  The intermittent flash of the squad cars added to the tension and intensity of the scene, the brilliance on the black backdrop of dark night making it seem later than it really was.

  “You got one of my men killed,” he said. “The facts support no other possible conclusion, leave no room for any other interpretation.”

  After all this time his disappointment and disapproval was still a knife slice through a sweet spot of skin and muscle and scar tissue––the latter caused by him many years before.

  “Whatta you say we see what happened before we draw any conclusions?”

  He waved his arm in a be-my-guest gesture toward to the clump of cops, and we walked over toward them.

  “Whatcha got, Staney?” he asked as we walked up.

  “It’s Dana Shelby, Chief,” Staney said. “They got one of ours.”

  I was gripped by a vice-like guilt that began to buckle my knees.

  I looked down to see Shelby as I tried to steady myself. He was lying face up on the ground not far from the open door of his car, his bullet-riddled body contorted slightly, his right foot bent back beneath him.

  “It was an ambush, sir,” he said. “Witnesses say they started firing the moment he opened the door. They shot the shit out of him and the car.”

  “Language, Lieutenant.”

  “Sorry sir. He didn’t even draw his weapon. Two men unloaded into him and his car, then jumped back into their vehicle and sped away. Nobody can give us much to go on––on the shooters or their car.”

  Collins looked over at me, his narrowed eyes burning with anger and disgust.

  “You got a good cop killed,” he said.

  The other officers standing around all suddenly turned the focus of their attention onto me.

  Everything went silent and still, the only sound the soft whine of the cold wind and the hum and flicker of the neon sign hanging above us.

  “Who was he here to meet?” he asked.

  “He thought he was meeting Valerie Powell,” I said, “but that’s not her real name.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Vanessa Patrick.”

  “Wilson,” Collins said to one of the cops nearby, “see if there’s a Valerie Powell or a Vanessa Patrick in there.”

  Wilson turned to walk inside.

  “And don’t just go by the witness statements or the names they’ve given. Check IDs.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Why’d y’all think she was here?”

  I shrugged. “Not sure. He had someone in the depa
rtment working on it for him. He made a call. He was told she might be here, but he said he didn’t think so. Said he suspected the place was too low-class for her.”

  Collins looked back at his men. “Who was working with Dana on this?”

  No one responded.

  “Well, find out,” he said. “Now. And find me an address for Valerie Powell and Vanessa Patrick.”

  I considered telling him about Lee Perkins and what he’d said about Patrick having a room at the Cactus, but decided I couldn’t run the risk of their involvement getting in the way of me finding Lauren.

  “No Powell or Patrick here, Chief,” Wilson said when he came back outside.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Wouldn’t be if it was just a straight setup,” Clip said.

  Everyone turned to look at him with the awe of superstitious people believing they’ve just witnessed a miracle.

  “Speaking’s not the only trick he does,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t need her here for an ambush,” Clip continued. “Not even a fake her.”

  “The nigger’s right,” someone in the group mumbled.

  Collins looked down at Shelby and shook his head. “Just can’t believe he’s dead.”

  Chapter 18

  The Cactus was a roadside motel out on US 90 that looked to have about fourteen rooms. About as basic as a block-building motel could get, there was nothing nice or fancy about it. So why had both Shelby and Perkins said Powell/Patrick seemed too well-to-do a lady for a place like the Panther Room?

  Perhaps she was only staying here because there were no other rooms available in town right now.

  Florida had 328,934 hotel rooms not being used by the service for the war, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce encouraged tourists to come take advantage of them. And come they did. It was counterintuitive but we had more visitors to our state just now than we did before the war started.

  Florida was booming––and not just from all the federal contracts for war production, but from the money it put in people’s pockets and from the tourists we were attracting. Today alone, the Hialeah Racetrack took in $600,000 in bets, while the state’s dog tracks took in $100,000. And today was no special day. It was like all the others this season in the Sunshine State.

  Hotels owners could charge full price for rooms not being used by the service. Many of them received even more in under-the-table sweeteners for vacancies––something the Office of Price Administration and Office of Rent Control seemed to be able to do little about.