Dark Men

by Derek Haas

  “There isn’t.”

  “I’m sure there isn’t. It’s just a formality. You mind if we give it to you in cash? Makes it cleaner for us.”

  “No, yeah, I mean, cash is great.”

  “Karen here will get back to you shortly. We, uh, we know where you live,” I say with a laugh.

  He laughs too, like he’s relieved. As we step back off his stoop, “How . . . how did he die if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “It’s classified,” I offer, trying my best to look apologetic.

  He nods again, then gives us a half wave, drops his hand like he was embarrassed about that, and then just shuts the door.

  Risina and I climb in the car, and she chuckles. “Okay, not all of this job is miserable.”

  “No, not all of it,” I agree as I hold up the phone. “Let’s go find a place to call Decker and see if he might want to come say hello.”

  We take him at the casino.

  Downtown Detroit has three of them, one in Greektown, and two in the middle of downtown. The MGM is a Vegas-style complex, with a full floor of gaming tables, restaurants, nightclubs and a show theater attached to a forty-story hotel.

  I call the number from his phone and know it’s going to be recorded, so I evince my best impression of his brother’s nasally whine when the woman picks up with “National Investments.”

  “It’s Lance. I’m outta money. And these guys at the MGM, they’re not messing around. Tell my bro . . . tell Ro I gotta . . . I’m going in at midnight to room 4001 to meet these guys . . . just tell him I love him.”

  I hang up. The phone chirps in my hand three minutes later, but I ignore it. I don’t remove the battery so they can pinpoint the location with whatever satellites do that type of thing. Since Risina and I are already checked into the hotel, it should paint a convincing picture.

  I’m certain he’ll come alone. He doesn’t want his employers to know any more about his personal business than absolutely necessary, and certainly not about his deadbeat brother who got himself in a bad way with some casino heavies. No, my guess is he’ll come in by himself, pissed off, armed but not ready to shoot, not ready to play defense. And as a man who understands the value of surprise, I’m betting he won’t try to contact the casino owners ahead of time to straighten out this matter. If he does, my plan is sunk, but what better place to play the odds than right here in a gaming joint?

  At eleven-thirty, Risina spots a man heading to the elevator, and after he gives it a cursory glance, he backtracks toward the reception area. His face is similar to his brother’s, but better looking—a stronger jaw, brighter eyes—like the superior chromosomes bandied together to favor him and exclude his alcoholic brother. Still, the family resemblance is there.

  The top floor requires an extra security card to trigger the elevator, so he’ll have to request the floor, another indication this is our guy. Risina ducks in behind him, hears him request a room on the fortieth floor, and then listens to the receptionist give him room 4021.

  He thanks her politely and heads back to the bank of elevators. I’m sure he’s surging with grim energy, ready to confront the guys in room 4001 before his brother arrives, straighten out the situation, turn it ugly if he has to, whatever it takes to get his brother off the hook. After he presses the up button, the first doors to open are for the middle car in this deck of three, and as soon as he’s in it, Risina calls up to me.

  “Middle elevator, up now.”

  I’m on the twentieth floor. Above the doors are LCD readouts displaying the floor number of each car’s current position. I watch and hit my own “up” button as the middle car passes the tenth floor. We tested this a few times and ten out of eleven, the elevator heading up is the one that stops; the only exception was when one of the other cars was already on the twentieth floor. But the right and left elevators are elsewhere and the one rising should be the correct choice, come on. Except now as I look, the elevator up on twenty-eight is heading down this direction and if it gets here first, I don’t know what will happen, which door will open. The middle one continues to climb, please don’t let someone else in the teens press “up” and stop it. It’s moving up steadily, 17, 18 . . . while the one on the right continues to fall, 22, 21, and then it hits 20 and I hold my breath, but it keeps heading down, 19, 18 on the way to the lobby and then the middle elevator door dings open. No one else is inside but Decker. I have a ball cap slung low so he won’t get a good look at me. I doubt he knows my face but if he’s working closely with Spilatro, I can’t be sure.

  I move in quickly, pull my card out to clear security for the top floor, then shrug since the 40 button is already lit up. I move to the back wall as the doors close, hoping he’ll scoot up but he’s experienced enough to keep his back to the wall. I have a burnt cigar in my mouth to mask the smell of what I’m about to do.

  This is different from my usual work, an anomaly because I don’t want Decker dead. If this had been an assignment, I would have popped him when the door opened. But I want him alive, unconscious. My left hand drops to my pocket, where the handkerchief soaked in chloroform rests. I can see him in my periphery, and he definitely checks me out as the elevator crosses 30 on its way to the top.

  I have about ten more seconds to do this. I hope the smell doesn’t give me away, but the cigar’s scent is strong and should overpower the chemicals.

  The elevator passes 34. I have eight more seconds, maybe five, but before I can pull out the rag, he says, “Do I know you?” and I can feel the pressure of a handgun’s barrel pressed against my temple. He’s a professional, a government professional, and he’s trained to spot anomalies like warning flags, so a guy on twenty pressing forty must stand out. He may not know I’m Columbus, but he knows I’m someone sent to shadow him, and he probably mistakes me for one of the guys who is about to hold his brother in room 4001.

  The elevator chimes as the floor hits forty and in that little jostle elevator cars make when they come to a rest, I duck the gun and drive my forehead into his chin. He jerks back instinctively, and I pin his arm to the wall, the one fisting the gun, and I bang it one, two times into the back paneling and the gun drops. Unfortunately, by focusing my energy on the gun, my rib cage is vulnerable, and he takes advantage, pounding me in the side with his free fist, just as the door springs open.

  He’s a strong puncher, even in close quarters, and he connects in my kidney with a rabbit punch that doubles me over. He drops for the gun but I’m able to kick it out the open door onto the fortieth floor hallway and luckily, no one is up here waiting to catch a ride down. The door starts to shut on us, and he dives for the gun, but I grab his leg and the door bangs into him before springing open again. He kicks backward at me and connects with his heel to my chest before he dives for his gun in the hallway.

  I leap for him. If he gets to that gun first, I’m sunk and this whole damn thing is for naught. I won’t let that happen, can’t let that happen. He’s on the gun, but I’m on him, and before he can roll over and come up with it, I drive my fist into the crook of his elbow, snapping his arm backward. The elevator behind us closes and heads down again, leaving us to battle it out here in the fortieth floor foyer. I can see another car heading up this way, in the thirties and climbing. If it’s coming to this floor, we’re going to be spotted and who knows how quickly security will be here next. Somebody might have heard the scuffle and the hotel dicks are already on the way.

  Unexpectedly, Deckman or Decker or whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is works his legs around my mid-section and squeezes my torso in a scissor-lock. I’ve seen mixed martial artists do this shit on TV, but it’s a new one to me. Before I know it, he’s forced me off of him, and I can barely breathe, barely move my arms as he squeezes the air out of my lungs. At the same time, he gropes with his hands, reaching behind him for the gun on the ground . . .

  The elevator continues to climb toward our floor, 35, 36, but the numbers are going fuzzy, like I’m looking at them through a kaleidoscope. I
pound my elbows into his thighs, but the muscles there are like rocks.

  He keeps pulling us backward, just a few feet from his gun now, and if I’m going to make a move, it’s going to have to be in that last instant, when he reaches for his pistol and releases just a little bit of pressure from my ribs.

  We slide another few inches and I’m able to reach my hand into my pocket and withdraw that cloth. The numbers above the door pass 39 and that car is coming and whatever he or I plan to do, it’s going to be in front of witnesses. He drags us the last few inches and his hands seize on that pistol, a little Colt .22, and the pressure from his legs around my waist loosens only a bit. We both twist around at the same time, toward each other, just as the elevator dings, and he swivels with the gun as I swivel with the cloth, but I’m a half-second faster and I mash that cloth into his face and hold it there, pin it there, up under his nose and mouth. He bucks wildly but doesn’t fire that pistol and his eyes roll to the back of his head as his whole body goes slack, and his legs finally drop from my waist.

  “You all right?” Risina says, stepping out of the elevator car, a Glock in her hand. I’m glad I was a half-second quicker or she might have witnessed something a bit bloodier when she emerged onto the floor.

  “He’s checked into 4021,” she says as she stoops over his limp body and withdraws his key card.

  “Then let’s show him to his room,” I grunt as I wrestle him up.

  No sooner do we have him propped between us than a maid rounds the corner, pushing a cart. She barely glances our way as she moves down the hall. He’s not the first semi-conscious guest she has encountered in the hallway and won’t be the last, I’m sure. Probably not even tonight.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  He comes out of it talking. My guess is he’s been conscious long before he opened his eyes. He was hoping we would give something away while he pretended to be sawing logs, but his patience went unrewarded.

  I sit in a metal folding chair in front of him. I hit him with a full wet rag of chloroform—hell, I almost passed out just soaking the cloth—so I estimated we had a couple of hours to make arrangements. We bribed a member of the hotel’s security to take us down the service elevator and get us to our car in the garage. Five thousand dollars and a story about a Motown record producer who tripped himself stupid got us a wheelchair, an escort, and no questions. The lethargic guard might not have bought it from me, but one look at Risina sold the story.

  It only took twenty minutes of driving around downtown for us to find what we were looking for: an abandoned warehouse. Shit, you could put on a blindfold and walk around downtown Detroit in any direction and find one. A cursory reconnaissance of the place yielded no derelicts and no security.

  So when Deckman finally opens his eyes, it’s the three of us alone, and with his arms and legs fastened tightly, like I said, he wants to talk.

  “You have no idea who you guys are fucking with. If you touch one hair on my brother’s head, I will open up a hurricane of destruction on you and your operation you can only dream of.”

  I just stare at him with somnolent eyes, like I’m somewhere between amused and bored.

  “Where is he? Where are you holding my brother?”

  Still, I give him nothing, just let him get himself worked up.

  “You might intimidate a lot of people with that thousand-yard-stare, tough guy, but I guarantee you are wasting it on me. We can talk and figure this business out together or you might as well pop me and get it over with, because the more you make me wait, the less lenient I’m going to be when we meet up later under different circumstances.”

  “I could give two shits about your brother.”

  He grins. “That makes two of us. You got a cigarette I can bum?”

  I just shake my head and he shrugs like it was worth a shot to ask for one. I wait for him to strain at his bindings again, testing out their tensile strength. He gives up after a moment, and I lean forward.

  “I want to know how to contact Spilatro.”

  Some hitters like to use their fists to elicit information, try to break a man so he’ll pour out his secrets, like punching a hole in the bottom of a water bucket. Not me. Like Kirschenbaum did to me in that hotel room in Connecticut, I stagger Deckman by playing with his expectations.

  The name “Spilatro” floors him, like a driver who has to jerk the wheel suddenly when an animal darts into the road.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I let him dangle.

  After a moment, he sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “You’re the guy, huh? The one he’s gone on about?”

  “I’m the guy.”

  “Columbus.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you kidnapped me to get to him.”

  “Means to an end.”

  He nods. “So now what?”

  “A swap. You for my friend.”

  “Oh, yeah. The pistol.”

  “Pistol?”

  “Black guy in Chicago. Pulled a .22 from under his mattress. Name was Grant but we’ll always call him the Pistol after that.”

  “That’s right,” I say, and I’m oddly comforted that Archie impressed them enough to earn a new nickname. “Spilatro had two guys there.”

  “Three, actually. And Spilatro never left the lobby. Pretty straightforward snatch-and-grab except your friend pops up with that pea-shooter right as I get my knee into his back. He squeezed a round off at Bando but missed his head by six inches—I pried the gun away from him after that.” He spits on to the dirty cement next to his feet, making a clear mark in the dust. “That scrawny dog could put up a fight. I’ll give him that.”

  “Who broke his nose?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Little payback from Bando?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I let that one sail by.

  “How long have you and Spilatro been government guys?”

  He looks at me sideways. “Who sold you that dope?”

  “Two and two makes four.”

  “Except you put the wrong numbers into the calculator.”

  “Did I?”

  Deckman shrugs. “Who’s the chick?” he asks as he cranes his neck to get an eye on Risina.

  “Man in your position might choose his words more carefully.”

  “I haven’t felt this terrified since my dad got out his belt,” he says flatly.

  “Your dad in Northville?”

  “My dad six feet under in Birmingham.”

  “That’s right. It’s your brother in Northville.”

  “You hurt him?”

  I shake my head.

  “Sure I can’t have a smoke?”

  I shake it again and he grins. “How’d you get Lance to give me up?”

  “I told him you were dead. Said you left him some money.”

  He nods. “Dollar signs was all it took, huh? Surprised you were the first to try it. He tell you I was a government man?”

  “I already knew it.”

  “Uh-huh. He’s my kid brother. You think I’m gonna tell him I plug guys for money?”

  “I don’t care what you tell him.”

  He falls silent for a moment. Then lifts his chin again, “You gonna let me—“

  I interrupt to throw a wrench in his tactics. “How do we get ahold of your army buddy?”

  He snickers, like this is all too much for him. “You’re not fishing. I can tell that. You must have a full file on me.”

  “I had to pick up a new fence since you snatched mine.”

  Risina smiles at that. She’s behind Deckman, so he doesn’t notice. I repeat, “How do I contact Spilatro?”

  “You got my phone?”

  “What’s the number?”

  “Give me my phone and then give me my hands. I’ll track him down for you.”

  “Your phone is smashed and in a trash can in the parking garage at the MGM. Along with your two pistols and the knife you had in that cute little wrist
sheath.”

  This gets him to draw in his smirk. “Doesn’t matter. They’ll know where I was last.”

  “Who will?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “Will I? It’s a big city.”

  He shrugs, looks down at the floor. He tries to toe that spit mark he made in the dust, but can’t get to it with his foot.

  I haven’t broken his confidence, but chipped at it, like a ship cracking through ice to get to the pole. I sit back and fold my hands behind my head. “Tell me about the dark men.”

  His eyelids flutter, slightly. Then, he offers, “I gotta go to the can.”

  I don’t move, just keep the chain tethered between our eyes.

  “You gonna make me piss myself?”

  “You can earn trips to the bathroom.”

  “You’d fit right in at Abu Ghraib.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  He takes another run at the bindings then settles again to see if he accomplished any slack. He grunts, unsatisfied, then does that thing people do when they’re absently thinking. He sort of moves his lips over to the side of his face. After a moment, he looks up again. “All right then. How you wanna play this? Because I’m getting bored and quite frankly, a little angry.”

  “Tell us how to bring Spilatro out, and this can end lickety-split.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “I’m not going to shoot you, or beat you, or cut you, if that’s what you’re wondering. I always thought that was more of a weasel play, and I don’t care for it, to tell you the truth. I mean, if you want immediate results, it’s probably the way to go, cut a man up, get him to talk, but why go to the trouble when I have nothing but time? So what I’m going to do is sit behind you in the dark back there and watch you die of thirst.”

  He stares at me evenly, his face hot, as he tries to gauge whether or not I mean what I say.

  Risina walks over and hands me a fast-food bag. I take out a plastic bottle of water, take a swig, then set the remainder in my chair.

  “I checked online, and the maximum someone can go without water is ten days. But the statistics say your body will pretty much shut down in three. Three days? Can you imagine? That’s nothing. That’s a weekend. That’s a ‘hey, I’ve got plans on Tuesday so I’ll see you on Wednesday.’”