Trouble in Mind

by Michael Wiley

  THIRTY-SIX

  Kelson and Rodman drove up I-94, crossed the state line, and rode into downtown Kenosha. The cold air smelled like fish and iron as they neared Lake Michigan. The restaurant was a half block from the harbor, a place with soda-fountain stools, vintage signs for coffee and milkshakes, and gray-haired diners. ‘A chili and cheese omelet and coffee for me,’ Rodman told their waitress. ‘And one of those milkshakes for my friend.’

  ‘No one here will know Raba Lisle,’ Kelson said when she left.

  ‘Let’s talk about it after we eat,’ Rodman said.

  Kelson tried his best to be patient. But before Rodman could swallow the last of the omelet, Kelson stood and stepped on to his chair.

  He took two twenties and a ten from his wallet and held them in the air for all to see. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘but my friend and I have fifty bucks for anyone who can point us to a stripper named Raba Lisle. She’s hooking up with one of your local boys.’

  The diners held their forks in the air and stopped chewing. The waitresses exchanged glances.

  Kelson looked from face to face. ‘No?’ He put the money back in his wallet. ‘Then we’ll pay our bill, leaving a generous tip, and be on our way.’

  As they walked outside, Rodman said, ‘Nice one. You’ll get us busted in a town like this.’

  ‘How else’re you going to find out if you don’t ask?’

  ‘Right – that lady with the walker, she looked like she was hiding something. Her husband? Even if he sneaks across the border to a strip club, you think he’s going to stand up with his neighbors around and grab the fifty?’

  ‘You never know.’

  They got into Kelson’s car and pulled across the lot to the street.

  Then a long-haired kid in a stained dishwasher’s apron scurried out of the restaurant and flagged them down. Kelson stopped, and the kid went to Rodman’s window.

  ‘Fifty bucks?’ he said.

  ‘Depends on what you tell us,’ Rodman said.

  ‘Let’s see the fifty.’

  ‘Let’s hear it first.’

  The kid looked hesitant. ‘I don’t know Raba’s boyfriend, but I know someone that does.’

  ‘Sounds like a stretch. What’s the name?’

  The kid shook his head. ‘The fifty.’

  Rodman said to Kelson, ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Benny,’ the kid said. ‘His name’s Benny. He works at the Save-A-Lot. Behind the butcher counter.’

  Kelson and Rodman had passed the store on their way into town. ‘Get in back,’ Rodman said. ‘You can introduce us.’

  The kid’s eyes got wide. ‘No way.’

  ‘Do I scare you?’

  ‘Hell, yeah. Plus, I’ve got a job here. They’ll fire me if I walk off.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Do I get the money?’

  ‘Sure, kid,’ Rodman said. Kelson fished out the money, and Rodman gave it to him. ‘Go to college or something.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I’m going to go watch Raba.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Five minutes later, in the low-slung building that housed the Save-A-Lot, Kelson and Rodman walked past the checkout counters, down the cereal aisle, to the meat case. A stock boy was unloading shrink-wrapped pork chops into a refrigerated display.

  ‘Benny around?’ Kelson asked.

  Without looking up, the stock boy said, ‘Smoke break.’

  ‘Yeah? Where’s that?’

  ‘Um … behind the store.’ As if he’d heard no stupider question all week.

  Kelson and Rodman went back out to the front. Kelson turned left and Rodman right, cutting around the sides of the building so they would meet in the middle. Rodman rounded the rear corner, and a short-haired version of the restaurant dishwasher dropped a cigarette and took off the other way.

  Kelson came around the other corner and almost caught him in his arms. ‘Where’re you going, Benny?’

  The kid did a shoulder check to see Rodman, who closed the gap to about ten feet before stopping.

  ‘No escape,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Who are you?’ the kid said.

  ‘Sam Kelson, ex-narcotics cop, current private investigator, father of one, owner of two kittens. Why are you running?’

  He gave Kelson a long, bewildered stare, then gestured at Rodman. ‘You see a guy like that coming after you, what would you do?’

  ‘I’d give him a hug, but I get what you’re saying. I’ll tell you a secret, though. He’d rather talk to you than pound you into the ground.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We hear you know the boyfriend of a woman named Raba Lisle.’

  The kid looked as if he wanted to run again. ‘I don’t know who would tell you that, but I don’t talk about no one.’

  ‘No one wants to hurt you,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Ha,’ said Rodman.

  The kid glanced at an empty lot behind the store, then back at Kelson, trying to decide between fight and flight. He stepped toward Kelson. ‘You don’t look like much to worry about,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what another kid your age thought.’

  ‘I’ll bet he was right.’

  Rodman said, ‘They cremated him because he was too wrecked to bury him.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Kelson said. ‘It was a nice burial. They patched him up and put him in a white suit.’

  ‘Yeah, and you’re fucking with me,’ Benny said.

  ‘We need to find Raba Lisle,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Why? What did she do?’

  ‘It’s more like what her friends did,’ Kelson said, ‘and what they’re going to do.’

  ‘Who’s the boyfriend?’ Rodman asked, and moved close.

  ‘All right, all right’ – as if Rodman had already put his hands on his neck – ‘his name’s Jeremy. He’s my brother’s friend, not mine.’

  ‘His last name?’ Kelson asked.

  He looked at Rodman. ‘Boyd. All right?’

  ‘Where can we find him?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s my brother’s friend.’

  ‘Come on, Benny,’ Rodman said. Gently.

  ‘My brother will beat the hell out of me.’

  ‘If he touches you, tell him about me,’ Rodman said. ‘Tell him I’m your friend now.’

  ‘And you’ll be waiting outside our house when he goes after me?’

  ‘You never know.’

  He tried to walk away. ‘I’ve told you all I’m—’

  Rodman stepped in front of him but spoke to Kelson. ‘I don’t think I’ll need to put a finger on him, what do you think?’ Then he rested a big hand on the kid’s shoulder. ‘I think he’ll tell us all we need to know.’

  ‘If I tell you where he lives, you’ll let me go?’

  ‘Sure,’ Rodman said.

  The kid double-checked with Kelson.

  ‘Sure,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He’s at Oakwood Housing,’ Benny said. ‘It’s about five miles from here.’

  ‘The address?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Rodman squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘Poplar Lane. A little red house. Basketball net in front. That’s all – I swear.’

  Rodman took his hand off him. ‘That’ll do it.’

  ‘Don’t tell Jeremy who told you,’ Benny said.

  Rodman gave him the mildest smile. ‘I promise.’

  Kelson felt bad about it. ‘I don’t.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Oakwood Housing Community was a drab neighborhood just south of a bar called the Rat Race Lounge, which sported a sign of a cartoon rat holding a pink cocktail. The houses were mostly mobile homes, single- or double-wides, the nice ones with a carport, a concrete birdbath, or a skinny garden. Jeremy Boyd lived in the best house on the block – maroon, wood-sided, older than the places surrounding it. On one side, it even had a little tree.

  The metal plating on the front door rang under Kels
on’s knuckles. Rodman waited on the dead grass beside the porch.

  After a minute, the door opened. A barefoot man in dirty blue jeans and a white T-shirt squinted into the sunlight. He had greasy brown hair that needed combing. ‘What?’

  ‘Dirtbag,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. Jeremy Boyd?’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  Rodman smiled from the lawn. ‘You’re the kind of guy who answers questions with questions?’

  The man looked down at him. ‘Get the hell off my property, n—’

  He didn’t get the word out of his mouth. He never had a chance. Rodman seemed to float up the steps, rising to the porch. The man jerked back into the house, recoiling the way he might if he stepped into a street and saw a truck coming. Rodman went in after him and said, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ The man’s hand reached under his T-shirt for something shiny, but Rodman said, ‘Leave it,’ and gripped him hard enough to rake his face with pain.

  ‘What d’you want?’ the man asked, as Kelson came in and closed the door. The front room smelled of marijuana and damp wood.

  ‘Still asking questions?’ Rodman said. ‘Answer one. Are you Jeremy Boyd?’

  The man tried to shake free of Rodman’s grip. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m Jeremy Boyd.’

  Rodman eased his hold. ‘Where’s Raba Lisle?’

  Boyd glanced from Rodman to Kelson, searching for an angle. He looked as if he’d always be searching for one. ‘She isn’t here.’

  But just then a woman’s voice – sleepy and slurring – called from the back of the house. ‘Who’s that, Jeremy?’

  He yelled back, ‘Shut the hell up.’

  Rodman gripped him again. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  Boyd’s voice got a pleading. ‘For her own good.’

  ‘Let’s see about that.’ Rodman marched him through a dim hallway into a dim kitchen.

  Raba Lisle sat at a brown table, her skinny legs pulled up under her. She was smoking a joint and looked as if she’d emptied the medicine cabinet down her throat. She wore a white camisole, which clung to her ribs, and pink underwear – nothing else. When Kelson’s lawyer described her, he hadn’t mentioned her tattoos – a swirling, colorful mass covering her arms and shoulders, coating her legs from her underwear to her ankles.

  ‘Christ, you’re like a cartoon snake,’ Kelson said to her.

  Rodman shot him a concerned glance.

  ‘These guys are asking about you,’ Boyd told the woman.

  She gave him a stoned smile that she might have meant to be sexy. ‘I’m very popular. With the boys.’

  Kelson got a grip. ‘We’re looking for Doreen Felbanks,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ she said. ‘You’ll wreck my – wait, I know you. You killed that Paki girl. I picked you out.’ For unclear reasons, the thought made her giggle.

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said.

  ‘They said you did. Doreen and … that man.’

  ‘What man?’

  She wagged her finger as if he was being naughty. Then she looked at Rodman. ‘You’re not so special,’ she said. ‘I see guys like you every day.’

  ‘Where’s Doreen Felbanks?’ he said.

  ‘Guys just like you,’ she said to him, ‘sitting in front, their legs wide open like they’re pieces of meat. Like I’m … so hungry. But …’ She offered the joint to Boyd, who took it and inhaled. She watched as he held the smoke in his lungs and giggled again. Then she looked at Rodman as if she hadn’t interrupted herself. ‘But I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘Good for you,’ he said.

  ‘Good for the planet,’ she said.

  Rodman said, ‘D’you know what Doreen and this man have done? Two people are dead – the woman you accused my friend here of killing and Doreen’s cousin.’

  ‘Christian?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  She reached for the joint and drew in a lungful. It made her cough. When she stopped, she said, ‘That fucked with Doreen. She couldn’t stop crying.’

  ‘Christian’s death?’ Kelson asked. ‘What did she say about him?’

  She wagged her finger again. ‘You’re not … not special. You kill girls.’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I know who you are, and you know what? Even the cops hate you. They liked it when I picked you out.’

  ‘It meant nothing. They couldn’t use your testimony even if you told the truth. Juries like their witnesses to wear clothes.’

  She looked at Rodman again. ‘What would you do if I took off my shirt? Would you give me twenty bucks?’

  ‘I’ll give you thirty if you keep it on,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Shut up, man,’ Rodman said, then to her, ‘I’ll give you a hundred if you tell us how to find Doreen Felbanks.’

  ‘Doreen’s special,’ she said. ‘Special to me.’

  Her boyfriend said, ‘You talk too much.’

  She gave him a look and said, ‘But no one listens. See this one?’ She meant Kelson. ‘I told the cops he killed a woman. Now he’s standing in your kitchen.’

  ‘I talk too much,’ Kelson said. ‘But I’ll listen to everything you tell me.’

  So she peeled herself from the chair and stumbled to him. She ran a finger down his chest and said, ‘You’re one of them that like to listen. Fifty bucks?’

  ‘You work it too hard,’ he said. ‘That makes me think you’re scared.’

  She giggled. ‘When I’m scared, I don’t work anything. I hide. Not that it does any good. Men knock on the door when I’m getting a morning buzz on.’

  ‘How about Doreen? What’s she do when she gets scared?’

  ‘Nothing scares Doreen. She’ll do anything.’ The way she said it, it sounded like love.

  Kelson said to Boyd, ‘I wouldn’t count on your girlfriend sticking around.’

  ‘Jeremy gets what he pays for,’ she said, ‘just like everyone else.’ She turned to her boyfriend for support. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I’m good with it,’ Boyd said.

  Kelson said, ‘He keeps you high, and you keep him happy?’

  ‘We’re both happy, honey,’ she said.

  Rodman said to Boyd, ‘If you know where Doreen is, you should give her up. You don’t, and you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of her, especially if you talk to Raba the way you did when we came in. You won’t like the wrong side of her.’

  ‘Doreen’s cool with it,’ Boyd said. ‘Like I said, I’m good.’

  Then, out front, a car door slammed. Kelson and Rodman exchanged looks. They glanced at Boyd, who shrugged.

  Kelson spoke to Raba. ‘People are getting hurt. If you know where Doreen is, you can stop it from happening. I know you’re hurting too—’

  She started to argue.

  But the front door opened.

  And Boyd darted across the kitchen and into the hall.

  Kelson and Rodman went after him. When they stepped into the front room, Boyd was rushing a woman back out the door. It was Doreen Felbanks – in a short black skirt, a hot-pink vinyl jacket, and matching pink shoes.

  She’d driven up in a yellow VW Beetle, the kind of car Kelson’s Challenger could do donuts around on an open highway. Before getting in, she reached into a little purse that matched her jacket and her shoes and pulled out a little handgun. She stopped by the front of the Challenger and, as Kelson and Rodman came down the porch steps, popped a single bullet into the driver’s side tire.

  She smoothed her skirt and was in her car with the doors locked by the time Kelson and Rodman reached her. Rodman slammed a fist on the VW roof, denting it. But she turned a key in the ignition and, waving at Kelson with a little finger, drove off.

  A noise came from Rodman’s chest, and he went after Boyd, charging as if he would flatten him. Boyd reached into his belt and pulled out the shiny thing – a knife. Rodman took it from him and chucked it into a neighbor’s yard. He picked Boyd up an
d slammed him against the Challenger. Raba Lisle made a high sound, like an animal whining. Rodman gave her a fierce look and she shut up. He picked up Boyd again as if he would break him.

  After watching Rodman cruise through police academy and sweet-talk everyone he met, Kelson thought the man never lost control. Now Kelson said, ‘Everyone’s a monster’ – at which point, Rodman winked at him, then spoke to Boyd in a voice that seemed capable of blowing down forests. ‘Never wreck a man’s car. Where I come from, a car is a man’s life. For some men, it’s like their child.’

  Boyd pled with him. ‘I didn’t. She shot—’

  ‘You’re accessory,’ Rodman said.

  Boyd said, ‘You’re insane.’

  So Rodman slammed him against the Challenger again.

  Then he made him take the spare tire from the trunk and replace the punctured one.

  Afterward, he marched him and Raba back into the kitchen and sat them at the table. ‘Tell us everything. Every goddamned word. If I think you’re holding back, I’ll tear you apart, and then I’ll tear your house apart, and then I’ll burn it down with you in it.’

  They talked. Raba seemed as sober as a nun. Boyd’s voice shook.

  As far as Kelson could tell, they told the truth and told all they knew.

  But they knew little.

  Raba said she met Doreen at a party at the Sofitel Hotel in Chicago, where they were hired to entertain three visiting Japanese businessmen. The girl-girl act worked out so well they put it on their menus of services they would perform for individuals, couples, or groups. Raba got her dates from a business called Second City Escorts, and Doreen got hers through a boutique operation run by the man she called Mengele. Raba didn’t know the man’s real name – she swore she didn’t – and Boyd knew less than she did. Raba had seen him twice when he picked up Doreen, though, and she gave a rough description – white, thin, thirty or thirty-five years old, dark-haired.

  ‘Short?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘He was sitting in a car,’ she said.

  ‘A screwed-up left eye? Bloodshot solid red?’

  ‘He had on sunglasses one time. I don’t know.’