Dead Men's Dust

by Matt Hilton

  “I’m with her on that one.”

  “Me, too. Took a lot of work sorting out the problems he left. As I said, they were a major outfit with major connections. They put out a contract on him.”

  “Shit,” Rink said.

  “In the end they saw reason. I explained that John had double-crossed us all, that we were all equally aggrieved. So I made an agreement with them that they didn’t go near Jenny or the kids. The alternative was that I’d call back up and wipe them out.”

  “They believed you were capable?”

  “I think it was more fear of the unknown,” I said. “They didn’t know who I was or what I was prepared to do. But some of them had heard stuff. I believe in the end they decided it was more trouble than it was worth. You could say that going to war with me wasn’t profitable.”

  “Did they call in the contract on John?”

  “Who knows what they’d do if he ever showed up again.”

  “Which is why you think he’s missing?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “There’s more to it than that. John has other reasons. I guess the point I’m trying to make is this: He’s a selfish son of a bitch. Doesn’t give a shit for anyone but himself. But I don’t think he’d be running from the likes of Petoskey if it’s only about a couple of hundred dollars’ gambling debt.” I paused, summing up exactly what it was that I was trying to say. “Something big has happened. Something he’s so frightened of that he’s disappeared again and he doesn’t want to go back. Louise Blake has been left high and dry, the same as he left Jenny. That means he’s attempting to cut all ties, so he can disappear without a trace. You don’t do that for any piddling gambling debt.”

  Rink agreed.

  “Petoskey’s an asshole,” he reiterated. “But I see where you’re coming from. What’s he gonna do? Maybe order an ass whuppin’, maybe a broken arm or something? He’s not going to order John’s death, is he?”

  “Unless Petoskey’s more dangerous than we’re giving him credit for,” I pointed out.

  “Could be, but I stand on my first opinion. He’s a small potato playing at the big time. The way I remember, he’s too chickenshit to take someone out for real.”

  “You’ve been gone from here a long time. People change.”

  “Okay, I’ll concede that. But it still leaves another option, doesn’t it?” “John’s made an enemy of someone else? Someone who is prepared to kill him.”

  Rink leaned forward, turned on the engine, and pulled out into the traffic. He turned to me, said, “But you’re still fixin’ to start with Petoskey?”

  “Yeah. We’re going to do it loud and hard. We need to shake him up, Rink. Make him fear us. I’m going to make him tell us where John is. Hopefully, it’ll end there,” I said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “No,” Rink said. “Now that you’ve got me thinking, I don’t figure so, either.”

  The city was behind us now and we were entering a grimier section of town.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “Just thought we’d take a detour and scope out the land. Harvey said Petoskey does business from an office downtown, also mentioned this place he visits when the dealings are a little more underhanded. Thought we’d just drive by and take a look. Thought it would be better to hit him there than downtown. Less chance of the cops arriving and saving his ass before we’re through.”

  Up ahead was a building right out of a ghost story. Rink raised his chin to indicate the place.

  “What do you think?”

  “Is it haunted?” I joked.

  “Only by hobos, I guess,” Rink said.

  The building was a huge redbrick affair, but little of the original color showed through the accumulated soot. Five stories high with a flat roof, rows of windows on each level. Not too many of the windows retained their original glass. Some were boarded over with molding plywood, while others bore remnants of glass like the shards of teeth in a crone’s mouth. The uppermost windows had fared better; perhaps they’d been replaced more recently. Beyond the dull glass there appeared to be sheets of semiopaque plastic.

  “What do you think the plastic’s for?”

  “Not the obvious,” Rink said. “It’s not there to catch blood. More than likely it’s to dampen down any sounds from inside.”

  “Looks to me like there could be squatters on the lower floors.”

  “Uh-huh. Good cover. Who in their right mind’s goin’ to want to run a gauntlet of crackheads and thieves?”

  “Only those who really have to,” I said.

  Rink spun the car around in an abandoned lot so we could take a second drive by Petoskey’s hideout. Second time around it looked no better.

  “Time to meet Harvey?” Rink asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. In the rearview mirror, the building took on the color of old blood. It seemed to exude the promise of unrestrained violence.

  13

  “MR. HUNTER?” LOUISE BLAKE LOOKED ME UP AND DOWN. “You’re John’s brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look like him.”

  We shook hands.

  “Please. Sit down. I’ve already taken the liberty of ordering coffee,” I said.

  She sat down and immediately reached for her mug. Quick gulp. Not so much a need for the caffeine as for something to occupy her trembling hands. She pushed the cup from her, almost empty. Fiddled with the handle. There was a faint knocking coming from the table as if the spirits were making contact at a séance.

  You might say that she was a little nervous.

  I’d never met her before, but I recalled John talking about the beauty he was working with. I’d suspected he was glorifying her through the bottom of his beer goggles, but seeing her now, I had to admit she was a good-looking woman. Even pinched with worry and nervously adjusting her clothing, she had the fine bones and full lips of a model. Not Vogue standard, but perhaps your mail-order catalog girl on the way to the big time.

  Something else struck me. Louise Blake was a younger version of Jenny. One not changed by childbirth, and the ultimate betrayal of trust.

  “I hope you don’t mind meeting me here?” Louise said. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts to hug herself. Most likely it was another attempt at concealing the shakes. “The thing is, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to show up at my house.”

  “This place is as good as any,” I told her. I was nursing my cup of strong coffee, while Louise looked like she wanted more. She required reassurance that she was among friends. I made the introductions.

  Harvey Lucas had arranged the meeting with seclusion in mind. Neutral turf, he called it. More like minimal space. We were squashed into a booth in a greasy spoon diner at the end of a strip mall. There weren’t too many customers at this hour of the afternoon, and those who were there apparently understood the concept of privacy. The booths on either side of ours remained empty, which added to the ludicrous scene of the four of us packed together at a table designed for two. Rink and I sat on one side, while Louise and Harvey sat facing us. Pressed into the corner by the window by Harvey’s imposing bulk, Louise looked like a cornered rodent menaced by a panther.

  When you think of a private eye, you might picture a middle-aged white man in a houndstooth sports jacket and mustard slacks. Possibly wearing a fedora to cover his thinning hair. Harvey was anything but. He was six feet five, two hundred and twenty pounds of sleek muscle, with a bullet head. And his skin was blue-black to the point that it reflected the overhead lights.

  Harvey Lucas looked like a professional boxer and dressed with the panache and flair of a movie star. I’d learned that he was an ex-army Ranger, the connection to Rink now obvious.

  Harvey cut into the conversation in a rich baritone. “Been some strange-looking people hanging around Miss Blake’s place these past coupla days. Thought it best we did our business out of sight.”

  “Petoskey’s people?” I asked.

  “Could be,” Harvey said.
“But if you ask me they look too slick to be involved with Siggy. Got a few good photographs of them if you want to take a look.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have a look when we’re finished here,” I said. Then I turned to Louise. “Do you know anything about who’s watching your place?”

  She shook her head and her reddish hair momentarily covered her features.

  Harvey stepped in again. “Miss Blake was unaware of the surveillance of her home until I pointed it out to her.”

  “I knew something was going on,” she offered in an attempt to save face. Apparently there was a tough side to Louise Blake. “I could feel it. As if there were eyes on me everywhere I went. But no, I didn’t see anyone. Not that I’d know them anyway. I’ve never seen this Petoskey.”

  “What’re your feelings, Harve?” Rink asked.

  Harvey rolled his head on his broad shoulders, turned down the corners of his mouth. “Don’t like it one bit, Rink.”

  Harvey had my complete agreement. To Louise, I said, “In your letter to Jennifer Telfer you said that you thought John was in some kind of trouble. Was it because of something specific he said?”

  Louise shook her head. “He didn’t say anything. That was the problem. What bothered me more was the way he was acting.”

  “What do you mean? You said he was frightened.”

  “Yeah, he was kind of jumpy. A car would pull up and he’d sneak to the window, peak out a corner of the blinds, that kind of thing. He couldn’t sleep too well, either. Tossed and turned all the time, jumped at any noises from outside.”

  “Did you ask him what was wrong?”

  “Of course I did. But he wouldn’t tell me. Just said he had something on his mind.”

  “But you didn’t push him about what it was?” I asked.

  “No. I just thought it was to do with him starting a new job. Maybe it was too much for him to handle or something. You know, like the pressure was getting to him?”

  “John started a new job?”

  “So he said. Told me he was doing a bit of driving for a local firm, delivering to customers, that sort of thing. I didn’t press him about who it was for. He looked a little embarrassed at first.”

  “Why’d he be embarrassed about a driving job?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t you be embarrassed? To end up as a delivery boy’s a bit of a comedown, don’t you think?”

  “Is that the way you saw it, Louise?”

  Her gaze snapped onto me with power-drill intensity. “That’s not at all the way I saw it! What do you think I am?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering if he’d got the notion in his mind that he’d let you down, and that was why he was acting so jumpy around you.”

  She exhaled noisily.

  “Maybe he did have it in his mind, but he never mentioned it to me. Anyway, he wasn’t jumpy around me; he was jumpy around everything else but me.”

  “You said he was acting like he was watching for someone?” I prompted.

  Louise shook out her hair again.

  “Not just like he was watching for someone,” she said with a wave of a finger. “More like he was waiting for something to happen.”

  “Or something to arrive?” Rink asked.

  “Yes.” The momentary anger had gone from her eyes. “John said that if anything ever happened to him, you would know what to do, Mr. Hunter. So…I mean, do you?”

  I swirled the coffee in my cup, pondering the patterns of froth as if it were a psychic’s divining tool. I saw less in the coffee swirls than I already knew. Which wasn’t much. Finally, I switched my gaze to her face. My exhalation told her everything. “I haven’t seen or heard from John since he left England; I was hoping you’d be able to bring me up to speed on what he’d been up to since coming here.”

  Louise’s shrug was noncommittal.

  “We just got by. I took a job at a beauty salon. John went from job to job. Nothing startling really. Parking valet. Stacking paint at a warehouse. Fast-food cook.” She ticked off the jobs on the fingers of one hand. “Then, most recently, this driving job.”

  “But you don’t know who for?”

  “No.”

  “Was he delivering locally?”

  She shrugged again. “Sometimes he’d be away for a few days, so I guess he got a few long-haul jobs. Don’t know where he went, though. He’d phone from a motel or something, but he’d never say where he was. I didn’t think to ask. I wasn’t really that bothered.”

  “You weren’t that bothered? Were you having problems with your relationship?”

  Louise looked at me sharply. The power drill on overdrive. “Are you asking if he was seeing someone else?”

  “Was he?”

  “No.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Believe me, a woman knows these kinds of things.”

  I thought of Jenny; how she hadn’t had a clue about her husband’s infidelity. But then again, with the constant money worries, the fear that bad men would turn up and take it from their hides, Jenny probably wasn’t capable of detecting the subtle signs that Louise was now hinting at. “If there wasn’t another woman, was there anything else between you?”

  Louise’s lips trembled. I don’t know if it was emotion or scorn. Then, to change the subject, she lifted a hand and waved over a waitress.

  “Can I have another coffee?” she asked.

  The waitress refilled her cup, offered more to the rest of us, but we all declined. Louise waited, a manicured fingernail tapping her cup, until the waitress returned to the serving counter. “As you know, John left his wife for me. Not exactly the ideal situation.” She glanced around at the three of us, checking for any sign of disapproval. We were like the three wise monkeys. See, hear, and—definitely—say no evil. “Because of that, it wasn’t really a good idea to keep in touch with anyone back home. We severed all ties. My family doesn’t know where I am. John didn’t tell his. There have been so many times that I wanted to pick up the telephone and speak to my mother, but I didn’t.”

  “Was that your choice?” I asked.

  “No. John always argued against it. Said it was best we remained anonymous for a little longer. Just another six months or so. He said it was to give everyone time to reconcile themselves with what we’d done. So that they’d forgive us.” She laughed sadly at herself.

  “Did you believe that?” I asked softly. “That John was concerned about what people back home thought about you?”

  “I’m not a complete idiot,” she said, and again a spark of anger flashed across her features. “We argued about it a lot. But that’s not why he left. Believe it or not, we do love each other. It’s not important what anyone thinks.”

  Her challenge was as direct as a laser-guided warhead. Aimed directly at me. After all, I was the only other constant here. I had come to America because of Jennifer’s request as much as the letter Louise had sent. She wanted to know whose side I was on.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t matter,” I told her.

  She nodded, pacified for now. “When we left England, I knew that he was hiding something. That he was running from more than his wife and children. He was in some sort of trouble and he had to run. That’s the bottom line.”

  I sat back from the table, had to rotate my shoulders so that I could lean against the booth wall without nudging Rink into the gangway. I said, “It’s not likely that the men who were after him have followed him here. The cost would exceed what he owed them.”

  Louise looked more than a little stunned at my words.

  “I…I didn’t know.” Her eyes glazed over. “Are they…uh…bad men?”

  “Yes. Loan sharks. The type who take body parts as payment.”

  She could’ve been slapped in the face and looked less surprised. “I had no idea. I thought the debt he’d gotten himself into was just the usual type that everyone ends up with.” She shook her head, then met my eyes again. “Was it Jennifer’s debt? He said he couldn’t contr
ol her spending. He even cut up her credit cards, but it made no difference. In the end, they lost everything…and that’s why he had to leave her.”

  I chose not to comment. But Rink, who had just heard the truth from me earlier, snorted in derision. Louise shifted her gaze between us. Challenging us to disagree with John’s version of events.

  “The men after him,” I said, to steer the conversation away from John’s lies, “are dangerous in their own right. But you needn’t worry; they’re not exactly an international outfit. They don’t work outside the U.K.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Louise asked.

  “Yes.” To allay any fears about unlikely possibilities, I decided to elaborate on the truth. “I’ve already had a…well, call it a talk with them. They’ve backed off. They know the consequences of doing anything to John or any of his family.”

  “His family.” Louise snorted.

  “Present company included,” I reassured her.

  She looked at me again, and I gave her my most open-faced promise in return. She turned up her nose above a twisted mouth. She wasn’t so pretty now. “You didn’t even know who I was. How could you make the same agreement for me?”

  “My demands weren’t open to negotiation. They harm John or anyone close to him and they’d pay the consequences.”

  I saw fear creeping into Louise’s face now. Not the worry that was evident before. Something new. Something scary that had just dawned on her regarding the man who’d traversed an ocean to help her.

  “Who exactly are you, Mr. Hunter?” she asked.

  “I’m John’s brother,” I told her.

  “But, who…or what…?”

  I held up a hand to ward her off.

  “Just leave it at that,” I said. “All you need to understand is that I’m John’s brother. And by association, you are family. I’m here to help you, okay?”

  Louise picked up her coffee, drained it in one continuous gulp.

  “After you leave,” she asked, as she set down the empty mug, “will it be safe for me to stay here?”

  I gave a quick glance toward Rink, who nodded. Harvey bowed his large neck and stared at the table. I shook my head slowly.