by Rex Burns
CHAPTER 26
KIRK DIDN’T REMEMBER going to sleep. He did remember half waking a couple times to swig down some water from the glass by the bed; the infection had made him thirsty as well as sore. He remembered hearing the telephone ring a time or two before the answerer took over, and he remembered that he hadn’t cleared the calls when he came in. When he woke in the morning, it was with that odd feeling of dreams that were intense enough to cling beyond sleep. He sensed they had been replays of his fight with Pierson because of the lingering images of fortress walls and gun ports and rushing, threatening shapes that hung at the edge of recall. But despite that unease, he woke feeling better. The damp sheets told him that the fever had broken, and his ribs, though touchy, no longer held the heat of infection. He could even stretch a bit, torso still cramped from airplane seats that, even in the first-class section that Advantage Corporation paid for, were never big enough to support his spine or let his legs unfold all the way.
As he shaved, he listened to his telephone tape. A deal on carpet cleaning was spaced between silent gaps indicating the caller had hung up. By the time he limped into the office, the early-afternoon sunlight was already carving an arc on the rug. He rewound the answering machine there and listened to those messages while he cranked open one of the panels in the window. There was nothing from Bunch, and Kirk wondered vaguely what his partner was up to. He should have asked Bunch for a report on the Humphries file, but he had been too tired to follow the thought when it crossed his mind yesterday. A series of blank spots was on this tape too. A call had come in at 11:18 a.m. from Dave Miller, DPD Vice and Narcotics. He asked Bunch or Kirk to get in touch with him as soon as possible, and left a series of telephone numbers to try. Miller himself answered the second number on the list and told Kirk that there was a little problem with the Scott Martin drug bust. “The dope tested out at only two or three percent. That’s street-level, Kirk. That means Martin doesn’t come under the Kingpin Statute. So the most we can get him for is being a street pusher. The son of a bitch’ll get a slap on the wrist and that’s about it.”
“Three percent? The shipper on the other end—Schuler— said it left there at around ninety percent!”
“Hey, I don’t give a shit what he says or what you say. The lab report says it’s between two and three percent. You told me this was a first-rate bust, Kirk. The high end of a big operation. We let that other asshole go—Atencio—to cover your man Landrum. Now it looks like this whole thing’s going to fall apart, and all we’re left with is another street-level pusher. Big fucking deal, Kirk.” He asked, “Did you run a test on the stuff when it came out of the sealed shipping container?”
“No. There was no way to do that.”
“Did you keep your eye on the stuff all the way? Any possibility they split it at the factory?”
“We saw them take it out of the sealed container and go to the locker room. They came out a few minutes later and went to work. I don’t see how they had time to cut the stuff then. Right after work, they carried it from the locker room to their cars. We followed the cars to the storage lot where you ran the bust.”
“So you can’t even swear to a chain of possession?”
“Only presumptive. Only to what we saw.”
“Well, your man Landrum can testify. He carried the goddamn stuff.”
“As far as I know, he never opened the packages. So he can’t swear to what was inside them, let alone to what grade it was.” And his testimony would bring Advantage Corporation’s name into the courtroom, something Reznick had been told would not happen.
“He can goddamn well say he saw the bastards cutting it!”
“It would be a lie and he’d be torn apart by the defense. You know that. All we can swear to is what we actually saw, and I can’t even do that much if Reznick doesn’t agree to it.”
“Who the hell’s Reznick?”
“The CEO of the plant. He wants to keep the company name out of it.”
“Hey, Kirk, this is a felony! The D.A. can slap a subpoena on you sons of bitches. I don’t care what he wants!”
“Let me call him. I’ll get back to you.”
Kirk did, and the answer was predictable.
“No way, Kirk. No way do I want the company name dragged into a court trial!”
“As it stands now, Mr. Reznick, the most he’ll get is a year, eighteen months, after time off for good behavior.”
“I don’t give a damn! You told me this thing was over—you told me Advantage Corporation came out of it clean, and that’s what I reported to Stewart. Now you tell me we have to go to court and reveal that the company’s entire shipping network served as a carrier service for a major drug ring? That this plant—my plant—was the place where they diluted their drugs? I’m not going to do it!”
“I didn’t say you had to.”
“You said the district attorney could subpoena you and make you testify! You said the conspiracy charge was their only shot at the … whatever it is, Kingpin whatever.”
“I don’t know if the DA wants to go to all that trouble. It’s shaky evidence. Maybe Vice can scare Martin into a plea bargain.”
“Well, you figure a way to convince them to do that, Kirk. You were paid to keep the company name clean, and by God paid a lot. And I’m by God not going to authorize any court hearings involving the Advantage Corporation if I can help it! And one more thing—Porter’s fired as of now. No police, no criminal charges. I’m just firing his butt!”
Devlin relayed some of what Reznick said back to Miller. The result was another of those inconclusive loose ends—first Pierson disappearing into the sunset, now Scott Martin getting a tap on the knuckles. “I know you don’t like it, Miller. Neither do I. But Reznick won’t volunteer to testify about the shipping arrangements. He wants to keep the company name out of it. And he’s yelling corporate lawyers. You know as well as I do what the defense is going to do with circumstantial evidence and a weak chain of possession. You can ask him, but I bet the DA won’t think it’s worth the hassle. Especially for street-level stuff.”
“Shit.”
Kirk’s sentiments exactly. “Can you work a plea bargain? Scare Martin into bargaining for a heavier sentence than he might get otherwise?”
“I know my fucking job, Kirk. What I don’t know is whether or not I ever want to trust you bastards again. We’ll see what the DA says and maybe we’ll see you in court. Corporate fucking lawyers or no.”
The telephone clicked dead and Devlin set it lightly on its cradle. No sense jarring it into another explosion. Street-level percentage. The dope that Martin was arrested with should have been the same grade as that sealed and sent from Pensacola—the almost pure grade that Schuler said he sent. Unless Schuler was lying. But why would he? The lower grade would have worked in his favor when he was busted, but he never said a word about it.
The puzzle began to stir ugly suspicions at the back of Kirk’s mind, and he sat and stared out the arched window at the mountains until he heard the heavy thud of Bunch’s feet on the iron stairs.
“Dev—you look only half dead now. Feeling okay?”
“Like the Russian army crept in, crapped, and crept out. What’s with Humphries and the spider lady?”
Bunch told Devlin about Mitsuko and her name changes, as well as about Kim Soon, the yakuza.
“She was Watanabe’s mistress? She was given to that Korean?”
Bunch had telephoned Humphries after Kim Soon’s flight had cleared the runway, and this morning he’d made a last trip out to their house. Mitsuko had met him wearing a wide smile and a very demure dress. Humphries had been there too, wearing an air of smug, if slightly dazed, happiness.
“I called my mother this morning. I told her Mitsi and I are going to be married.”
Bunch glanced at the woman, who gazed modestly at the rug. “She doesn’t mind that Mitsi’s Japanese?”
“Well, I explained—I mean, after all, the Watanabe family … And I told her about Mit
si’s father literally casting her off. She—my mother—thinks it’s quite romantic! It’s a true legend, she says, to add to the family name!”
“I think you’re very fortunate, Mr. Humphries. And best wishes, Watanabe-san.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bunchcroft.”
Kirk, leaning back in the chair, grinned. “So you left the two lovebirds standing in the doorway?”
“Waving and smiling as I drove into the sunset.” Bunch tossed an envelope on the desk. “Humphries’ check. Said he put in a little extra to thank us.”
Kirk looked at it. “Nice.” Then, “I hope he doesn’t want it back sometime.”
“I don’t think he will. He got a hell of a lot better woman than he deserved, and I think he knows that.”
“Think she’ll be happy with him?”
Bunch’s shoulders rose and fell. “She’ll be loyal to him—Bushido, ne?”
“Hai.” Kirk logged the check into the computerized account books and addressed a bank envelope. “What happened to your ear?”
Bunch brushed a finger across the soggy, red Band-Aid. “Styled by Kim Soon.”
“Oh yeah?” Devlin winced as he twisted around from the keyboard. “What happened?”
Bunch shrugged. “He missed.” It wasn’t the first time somebody had gone after him armed with a weapon and intent. It wasn’t something you got used to, exactly, but you learned not to worry about the ones that missed. Apparently Devlin understood, because Bunch saw him wag his head once and turn back to business.
“Do we still have that tap on Arnie Minz’s telephone?” Kirk asked.
“Yeah. We better pull that out of there.”
“Let’s wait a little.”
“Why’s that?”
Devlin told him about Miller’s call and the street-level cocaine found at Vinny’s bust. “Now Miller’s pissed off at us,” said Kirk. “Maybe we’d do better in the matchmaking business.”
“You know what I’m thinking, Dev.” Bunch glanced at a telephone number in his small notebook and then dialed it. Kirk flipped on the telephone speaker. They listened to the click and hum of the tape and finally the pinched words. Minz’s voice was a constant, but several different females crowded the tape and added up to a variety of woman problems. Early among the number of unidentified male voices came Vinny’s: “My phone’s been tapped. Don’t call me there no more. Run a check on yours, too. I’ll be in touch.” Much farther down the jumble of messages and pleas, it came again: “It’s here, man, and we’re clear. Meet me in an hour.”
“The little bastard did it, didn’t he?”
Kirk nodded. “But when—and how?”
Bunch cracked the knuckles of one fist deep inside the other. “Let’s find out.”
Vinny’s door was locked, which slowed them about two seconds, and his living room / office had the stale feel of disuse. Bunch poked through a bedroom almost as littered as the last time they’d seen it. Only almost because this time there were no figures sprawled half under the wadded sheets. Kirk scouted the kitchen and the small alcove that led to a door and the back landing outside.
“I think he’s skipped, Dev.”
Kirk was already going through the desk, looking for any paper trail. “He was traveling light, if he did. Maybe he’s out on a job.”
“Twenty pounds of pure is all the luggage he’d need.”
“Any clothes missing?”
“How in hell can anybody tell? The laundry bag’s got some dirty socks and crap in it, but the stuff in the drawers is just as dirty. I think he up and left.”
“Let’s shake the place out anyway.”
It took a good two hours to do the right kind of search: room by room, going over first the furniture and then the floors and walls and ceilings. Kirk had the bathroom and started with the toilet bowl and under the old four-legged tub—spaces that could hold the packages of cocaine or a bundle of illicit cash. Bunch started in the bedroom. Each time they heard footsteps on the creaking stairs outside, they paused, waiting for the door to open on a startled Vinny. But it never did. By the time they finished, empty-handed, the apartment looked only slightly more disheveled than when they started.
“It’s not here, Bunch.” Kirk retightened the trap on the sink drain and rinsed his hands.
“So what now?”
“Johnny Atencio?”
The drive over was slowed by the tail end of rush hour traffic. Most of the cars had their headlights on against the smoky dusk of the chill early-November evening. The sun had dropped below the ragged black mountains west of town. But lingering daylight—purple with haze on the horizons—gave enough glow to see the street signs.
“Ol’ Vinny’s going to be ticked when he finds his waterbed emptied,” said Bunch.
“He’s not going to be worried about his waterbed when we find him.”
“If we find him.”
Atencio’s home was a small, rebuilt garage sitting at the end of an unused driveway. Two strips of pitted concrete straddled a weedy alley of grass and led to a front door where the garage door used to be. As they walked past the wall of the main house and along a high fence bordering the property, a woman’s face hovered momentarily in a window to stare at them. When Devlin looked up, the face disappeared behind the sudden jerk of white gauze curtain.
In the lower corner of the garage’s picture window, the pink glow of a lamp shone. And behind the fence, the scuffle of clawed feet and a throaty growl said the neighbor’s dog watched tensely as Bunch knocked.
“No answer. Want to go in?”
Devlin nodded and came back from the corner of the building where he’d been watching the back. There was only the one door, but all of the windows were at ground level. The screens remained undisturbed.
A spring lock held the door and Bunch had it open quickly with a plastic card. An unforgettable, heavy odor filled the dimly lit cubicle that served as a living room. “Don’t touch anything, Dev.”
He followed Bunch in and paused to let his eyes adjust. “Yeah.”
It was the smell of blood turning stale—a lot of it—and Kirk remembered the last time he had found that odor. “See anything?”
Bunch gestured toward the bulge of a recliner chair that filled most of the tiny space. In front of it sat a portable television set, silent and black, and in it sprawled Atencio. His head was tilted back at an uncomfortable angle and his mouth gaped darkly at the ceiling. But it didn’t gape as widely as his throat. Blood had pumped down his shirt and ribs and was congealed in the soggy nap of the worn throw rug under the chair. His eyes were half open and the soft glow of the small table lamp glinted under his dark lashes.
Hands jammed in his pockets to keep from accidentally touching any surface. Bunch bent to peer at the wound. “Somebody got him from behind. Stood behind the chair, and zzzzzk.” He nodded at a scar on the glossy pad of the leatherette chair. “Tip of the knife dug in here when he started.”
“Think Vinny didn’t want to split the take?”
“He’s the first one I’d ask,” said Bunch.
Devlin, hands also in pockets, leaned a shoulder against a door to push it open. It led to an equally tiny cubicle that was the bedroom. “Somebody went through the place.”
Bunch’s voice answered from around a corner. “Kitchen’s torn up too. It could have been Vinny looking for the other half.” It made sense. Nobody had gone through Vinny’s apartment, and only Vinny knew if Atencio had helped with the rip-off. And the man had disappeared. “We better call the cops,” said Devlin. “Kiefer’s got another one.”
CHAPTER 27
THEY COULD HAVE made the call an anonymous one. Maybe, despite the face that had watched closely when they walked down the drive, they should have. But Devlin talked Bunch into going by the rules, and Bunch didn’t let him forget it as they stood waiting to answer the same questions one more time from one more officer with one more clipboard. Even when you understood the stages of police procedure and had some interest in watching the t
echnicians work a crime scene, a sense of lost time and boredom set in early—reinforced by orders to “just stand over there out of the way, Kirk—we’ll get to you in a while.”
They had managed to interview the woman in the window before the first policeman arrived. Bunch delayed the call to the cops while Devlin asked her if she’d seen anybody else come down the drive earlier.
“There was this Anglo. He went and knocked and went in.”
“Atencio let him in?”
“I guess. I didn’t see for sure, though. I mean, I wasn’t looking all that hard, you know?” The woman was somewhere between thirty and forty and apparently spent most of her time in the crowded rooms that made up the main house. One wall of the over-furnished living room was filled with framed photographs of smiling faces: family members of all ages. Her husband, beer resting on a roll of stomach, sat in front of the television and occasionally glanced up to catch what Kirk or Bunchcroft asked. He said nothing. Apparently, having his next-door neighbor murdered was less interesting than filling in the clichés on Wheel of Fortune. But then his wife had taken the news pretty calmly too, being more interested in Devlin’s report of any damage to the furnishings than in her renter’s sudden absence of health.
“Can you tell me what he looked like? Any facial hair?”
“He didn’t have no beard or mustache I saw. Kind of long hair, maybe. Blond. Down over his collar in back. I remember seeing that.”
“What was he wearing?”
She shrugged. “Clothes. Nothing special I could see. Had on a raincoat or something … what do you call it? A topcoat? I remember that because it wasn’t all that cold yet. But he was wearing one.”
