Nickel City Crossfire

by Gary Earl Ross

  Now tightening the robe, she sank onto the sofa. The plastic made a burping sound, followed by the brief hiss of air forced out of the cover encasing the cushion. She scooted back against the upright cushion and stretched her arms across the top. The seat hissed again as she made a point of crossing her long legs. She had peach-colored toenails too.

  “Mind putting that gun away?” she said. “It’s obvious I’m unarmed.”

  “Not just yet,” I said.

  “If you’re looking for Tito—”

  “Tito’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Her eyebrows went up as if she had just heard a neighbor’s dog died and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the dog, or the neighbor. Several seconds passed before she asked the question that would have come to most people the minute they heard the news. “What happened?”

  “A car accident.”

  “Did he—did he suffer much?”

  “I’m pretty sure he died instantly.”

  She nodded but still showed no emotion for a man she apparently had been waiting to screw senseless, not even relief that he had been spared pain. “At first I thought maybe you killed him.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. But you’re here, in his house, uninvited and holding a gun on me.” She lowered her hands to her sides, palms down, and leaned forward. “Did somebody tell you about Tito and me? A couple of my friends knew. They encouraged me. They understood when I told them what it’s like to be married to a man so wrapped up in the needs of the spirit that he forgets the needs of the flesh and misses most of the hints.”

  “While Tito was so good at catching passes,” I said.

  Loni’s smile seemed genuine this time, as radiant as the one I had first seen in her husband’s study. But her eyes were still weighing, assessing, planning. “It seems we’ve come to the point where you must decide what to do. Tell my husband or walk away. You have no authority to do anything else. Either you want money for your silence—or maybe sex. I’m willing to offer either to get back to my life without trouble. Maybe I’d even offer both.”

  “This isn’t about your husband.” I sat in a wing chair perpendicular to the sofa. More hissing from plastic. Resting my left arm on my knee, I kept the gun pointed at her.

  “Then maybe you’re here to rob the place and I surprised you.”

  “Or maybe I’m here to find out why Tito tried to kill me. Why he and Butch Madden were trying so hard to kill Keisha Simpkins when they had a fatal accident.” I made a mental note that Loni’s face showed no surprise at the mention of Keisha’s name, no curiosity at the mention of Butch Madden. “Truth is, you’re far from the last person I expected to find here.”

  She shrugged.

  “I tell you Tito and Butch tried to kill Keisha and you don’t even blink.

  “So?”

  “You don’t even ask who this Butch character was.”

  She uncrossed her legs. “Maybe I don’t care who he was.”

  “Maybe I should call the police. Have them take you in as a material witness.”

  “Go ahead. You’re the one who broke in. You’re not a cop. You don’t have a warrant. I have a reason for being here. Clothes in a closet upstairs, toiletries in the bathroom, even a toothbrush with my DNA. What do you have?”

  “Your motive for murder.”

  “Whatever Tito did or didn’t do has got nothing to do with me.”

  “Does it have something to do with your brother Dante?”

  Loni’s lips parted in surprise, another glimmer of truth. But she caught herself and closed her mouth quickly. Her brow furrowed and she narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Keisha told me one of the men who tried to kill her called the other one Dante.”

  “I don’t recall saying I have a brother named Dante,” Loni said. “Even if I do, he can’t be the only one in the world.”

  “Murder and attempted murder,” I said. “Your brother forced a heroin overdose on Keisha Simpkins and Odell Williamson because Keisha figured out your foundation was being used as a scheme to make money in real estate development while putting low-income people on the street. Somehow she got hold of documents that laid everything out and she brought them to you, thinking you were the victim. She admired you so much. How could she know then you were behind it all, with a direct connection to FBF Development?”

  “So now I’m Donna Corleone?” Loni chuckled. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I know it wasn’t enough just to recover the files in a high-tech age. It wasn’t enough to threaten her parents to keep her from talking. To make sure no one got wind of your plan, Keisha had to die. When people die today, most of their documents die with them, on hard drives that are obsolete before their funerals. Sure, they’re on Facebook forever, but those are just digital headstones in a cyber cemetery on the information highway. Nobody pays them much attention.”

  “So that’s it? An admitted drug user gives you a name, one you probably gave her first, and that makes me a murderer.” Loni let out a long sigh. “Gideon Rimes, ace private eye. More like Ace Ventura, pet detective.”

  “Dante Cuthbert is your brother, Melony. You might as well admit it.”

  Instead of replying, she undid the robe and opened it so I could see her fully naked. She sat perfectly still—breasts full, stomach taut, legs parted enough to show me what I was missing—her hazel gaze fixed on mine as if daring me not to look. “I would have given you a couple thousand bucks and the fuck of a lifetime to avoid complicating my marriage.” Then she retied the robe and sat forward, forearms resting on her knees. “But not for a horseshit soufflé like this. Even if I had some big money deal in the works, how do you know the plan didn’t include relocating residents to better housing? Nothing illegal in that. No motive for murder, especially one as sketchy as forcing an overdose. Yes, Dante Cuthbert is my brother. FBF is his company. So what? Think all this is more than wheeling and dealing? Prove it.” She sat back, crossed her arms, and smiled. “Negro, please!”

  She was right. There had to be more than controversy and potential embarrassment to make them kill, to make Keisha run and Dante use a second identity. There were stakes I hadn’t seen, hadn’t imagined. If there was interstate criminality, the money would have to exceed the profits from a local real estate venture. The operation that produced that kind of money had to be bigger than a development company but off the books. Under the radar but labyrinthine, with supply chains and loyal soldiers. Drugs. It had to be drugs. Was FBF some kind of shadow company using development projects to legitimize drug money? If so, where did people like Felicity Sillers and Butch Madden fit in?

  “How about this,” I said. “Your brother’s company is quiet enough to avoid too much attention. It has projects in several smaller cities trying to revitalize. Suppose FBF is actually a laundromat.”

  She said nothing.

  “Suppose your foundation is too, and gentrification is just part of the spin cycle. What if the kind of bad publicity that comes with putting poor people out in the cold would shine a light where the cockroaches wanted to hide? Maybe a government agency or the press would get curious enough to dig down and ruin the whole thing.” I watched the peach fingertips of her right hand ease toward the gap between the two-seat cushions. “If Tito was enough of a player to try to kill Keisha, maybe he also kept a gun stashed in his couch. For situations just like this.” I shrugged. “Could be wrong about that, but if I think there’s a gun down there and you’re reaching for it, I’ll put a bullet in your chest.”

  Her fingers froze, as did her breathing. When next she exhaled, she folded her hands in her lap.

  “There’s Butch too. I can’t figure exactly where he fits.”

  “Never heard of any Butch,” she said. “I don’t know all Tito’s friends. Our thing was strictly fucking, once or twice a week. Anything else is on him.”

  I smiled. “Good. If you don’t know Butch, you don’t need to worry he’ll flip on you now that he’s in cust
ody.” I let that sink in, pleased she had to struggle to mask her surprise. “No, he didn’t die. You haven’t had a chance to call Harlow Graves yet either. But it doesn’t matter. Unlike Felicity Sillers, Butch will be charged with something. Attempted murder. A high-speed shootout on the Kensington? Bail is going to be steep if it’s granted at all.”

  “I still don’t know Butch,” she said. “Or this Felicity.”

  “Probably why Harlow Graves didn’t know her name the other night,” I said. “But I bet Butch and Felicity know somebody who knows somebody who knows you. All a good investigator or forensic accountant needs is a thread to pull.” I shook my head. “Sooner or later even Graves will have to answer for his role in this mess.”

  That remark was a stab in the dark, but Loni Markham offered no reaction, nothing to confirm or deny the lawyer’s complicity. She was quiet for a long time, so still it was hard now to tell if she was breathing. She stared at me, almost unblinking, as if uncertain what to say. Finally, the hands clasped in her lap pulled apart. She flexed her fingers.

  “Nothing you’ve said proves anything illegal on my part or the foundation’s,” she said. “If you walk out of here today, you’ve got nothing that can harm us. So I’ll be at church tomorrow with my clueless husband, who’ll never believe you if you go to him with this. I’ll attend all my meetings next week and the week after. Utter one word about me in public and I will own you.” She leaned forward, fixing me with the coldest stare I had ever seen. “But my brother is going to kill you for this. No matter what.” Her eyes hardened as she continued, the hatred in them crystallizing. “No matter what happens out there, remember what I’m telling you in here, right now.” Her voice went lower, to a venomous whisper. “My brother will kill you. The first time he killed, it was for me. He’s much better at it now.”

  “Which brother would that be?” I said. “Dante or QC?”

  “I have one brother. You’ll meet him soon enough but you’ll never see him coming.”

  “Because your brother has two identities, and I don’t know either one.”

  “What?”

  “Your family had all the documents after your cousin Quentin was killed by a car. Dante Cuthbert and QC Griffin are the same person.”

  Loni burst into laughter that went on for several seconds. When she stopped, she let out a long breath and smiled her priceless smile again. “Oh, Rimes, for a while there you had it all figured out, even without proof. But not the family part.” Her smile disappeared and her jaw tightened. “What you don’t know, couldn’t know, is that we all hated Quentin Cuthbert Griffin, especially Mama. He was a snotty, cowardly, selfish little bastard who thought the sun rose and set on his narcissistic little ass. Quentin Cuthbert Griffin—he used to introduce himself just like that, like he belonged in Fuckingham Palace. The oldest child, so everything had to be his way. Right? A bully who hit us whenever he felt like it. Took our stuff because it was there. That psycho even took tooth money from under our pillows. One day when I was about nine, he punched me right in the mouth, just to see how much I would bleed.”

  “Where were your parents through all this?”

  “Mama would have done something but our daddy woulda beat her. We didn’t learn the whole story until after he was dead, after he drank himself into his grave from grief. Pop, you see, fussed over Quentin because the little shit reminded him so much of the dead sister he loved.” She paused, closing her eyes and taking a long breath before she continued. “The dead sister whose bed he shared when they were teenagers, whose bed he visited now and then even after they were married to other people.” Loni smiled again, icily. “That’s right, Rimes. I had two brothers, but the day after Quentin Cuthbert Griffin knocked out my tooth, my Dante pushed the fat bastard in front of a car. Now I have only one.”

  Just then I heard a car engine shut off and heavy doors slam shut. I sprang to my feet and looked toward the sunporch. Through the sheers, I saw an SUV had parked behind Tito’s F-150—large enough and dark enough to be Dante’s Navigator. I spun back to Loni just as she plunged her hand between the cushions. Lunging, I grabbed her right wrist before she could pull the .38 revolver from its hiding place and wrenched it out of her hand,

  It was a camo-colored Charter Arms Tiger II. I pointed it at her. “Upstairs,” I whispered.

  Clutching the banister, she pulled herself up just as heavy footsteps hit the porch. Two large men in winter coats appeared through the sheer curtains covering the door glass. I heard a key slide into the lock.

  Already at the landing, Loni screamed, “Dante, QC, he’s got a gun!” and ran the rest of the way up.

  I didn’t hesitate to press the advantage of surprise. My first shot, from the .38, took out the leaded glass. I heard somebody cry out, “The fuck, man!” That left ten bullets, four in the .38, six still in my Glock. A gun in each hand, I went toward the front door at an angle, firing steadily, calmly at the billowing sheers, forcing the men to scramble off down the steps. I knew at any moment they would return fire—or Loni might come downstairs with another gun. But I needed all of them off balance for just a few seconds, long enough for me to reach the door.

  And the alarm panel.

  When I jabbed the panic button that made the alarm service connect directly to the police, the Tiger II was empty so I dropped it on the carpet. I had two rounds left in my Glock. One for each of them if they ignored the otherworldly screech of the alarm siren and waited for me to come out the side door.

  42

  Peeking through the partly opened side door, I waited as Dante Cuthbert and whoever was using the QC Griffin identity backed the Navigator out of the driveway and took off. Then I pushed open the door and ran through the snow in the back yard. The second alarm I tripped in less than a week shut off just after I made it over the first fence. Having assumed the men on Tito’s porch would run from the siren, I was not surprised his lover had the password and could silence the system. But I had got what I needed, a way out.

  After the second fence, I paused to look around before emerging from another driveway. No Navigator. I went out to the street and climbed inside Phoenix’s RAV4. I started it and took off before it could warm up. Knowing what I knew, my next step would be alerting Chalmers and Piñero. They would know whom to push for an official investigation. All I had to do was watch my own back because Dante Cuthbert was coming for me. It would have helped if I had got a good enough look at him to recognize him later.

  But first things first.

  When my phone rang through the car’s sound system, I was crossing Main on my way to Elmwood and my apartment building.

  “Hey, G, it’s Raf.”

  “You at your desk? I’m heading your way after I make a stop. Give me thirty.”

  “Good, because shit is starting to pile up in front of the fan. Hey, wait a minute. You sound like you’re in a car. Your ride was totaled. What are you driving?”

  “Phoenix’s RAV4.”

  “Okay, turns out you were right. We checked Surowiec’s autopsy pictures. The senior criminalist and the ME himself both say those gashes and weird figure-eight bruises coulda come from the ring. It’s being processed right now. But Butch says he didn’t do it.”

  “Course he does,” I said. “Why would he lie?”

  Piñero laughed. “He might be telling the truth. That ring? It’s custom made for a biker gang outside Jamestown. The Immortals. That stretched out eight is—”

  “An infinity symbol,” I said.

  “With a tiny inscription. Ride free. Die free. Forever free. Dennis Quinell at the News did a piece on them last year. Protection. Prostitution. Gunrunning. Murder for hire.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Of course. Licit and illicit. The meth mama whose nose you broke?”

  “Felicity Sillers.”

  “She used to be Butchy boy’s bitch.”

  Now I laughed. “Bet you can’t say that five times fast.”

  “You’re the one broke both their noses.�
� He cleared his throat. “He got her into meth because of the hyped-up sex but she went farther down the tubes than he did and got lost. He still taps her now and then but says he doesn’t love her anymore.”

  “You getting all this from him?”

  “Yep. We sorta hinted that under New York law he could get the needle for killing a doctor, even if she was a meth head. Butch isn’t the brightest guy you’ll ever meet.”

  “That was cold, man, even for you.”

  Piñero chuckled. “I know, right? But it worked. He turned out to be a choir boy waiting for the right song to sing. He already spent time in the joint, two different pens in the state system. He says that was enough for him.”

  “But he started shooting in public. He’s gotta go back.”

  “We explained that but he wants witness protection. ‘I have enemies,’ he says like he’s in a fucking comic book. He might talk if he can be put somewhere he’s never been.”

  “Not much of a poker player.”

  “But he can give up a lot on the Immortals. The right people are interested. An ADA is with him right now. Somebody from the state’s WITSEC is on the way, to evaluate.”

  “He got a lawyer?”

  “A public defender who gave me shit about the needle nap I promised him, but he wants to roll over and she’s walking him through it.”

  “Don’t you wish they were all this easy?”

  “Absolutely. Anyway, he says somebody else in the gang mighta done Surowiec but not him. Oh, get this. The guy killed in the Cadillac, Titus Glenroy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Butch says they played college ball together.”

  “Jamestown!” I said as something moved from the back of my mind to the front and I pulled up outside my apartment building.

  “No, Jamestown doesn’t have an NCAA school.”

  “No, they played at Eastern Michigan,” I said. “But Jamestown—shit! I know where I’ve seen the ring. Maybe why Surowiec was killed. Can I call you back in a few? Put me on speaker when I do.”

  “Sure but later you gotta tell how you knew they played at EMU.” Piñero hung up.