Never Street
Page 8
Eleven
IT WAS A SHAME I knew where he was going, because I could have tailed the big Buick through a black hole. Since the Invicta had rolled off the line, Detroit had filled the highways with cars that could parallel park in the space between its taillights. On top of that its shock absorbers were shot, probably from having had to carry Fat Phil for so long: every time the car hit a bump the red lights kept bouncing for a block. Just watching them made me seasick.
Not having to concentrate too hard on the tail job allowed me more time to look in the rearview mirror. I was watching when a green Camaro turned into a side street behind me and cruised under the corner lamp.
It must have followed me from home. It was Friday night, and the traffic of restless day-laborers out for a good time had been heavy enough in that comparatively early hour to swallow it up. I’d been watching, but the guy was good. He didn’t seem to care about being good now. I didn’t like that by half.
The motorcade slowed down near a painted brick house on a hilly street. When the house was built, sometime in the thirties, it had been intended to shelter one well-off family by Depression standards, possibly belonging to an executive at Ford or GM. Since then it had been converted into apartments. Vesta’s Triumph pulled into a parking lot the size of a placemat and stopped next to a Dumpster. She got out and let herself in the back door with a key. After a minute a light went on upstairs.
The big Buick coasted to a stop against the curb. I drove on past and parked around the comer. The Camaro kept on going when I turned. I wondered where it would park. I locked up, checked the load in the bulky Luger for the second time that night in the light from a window, and trotted back around the corner. The Invicta was still there with its lights off. I got in on the passenger’s side.
Fat men are often fast. This one sprang his gun from its underarm clip with an economy that would have impressed Wild Bill. But Hickok knew better than to try to pull the trigger on a man whose gun was already drawn. He let his hand fall into his lap with the pistol in it.
“You should lock your doors,” I said. “This isn’t Kokomo.”
“Who the hell are you?”
It was a light voice for so much man. In the glow from the corner he had on a dark suit that could have been used for a dropcloth and a light-colored porkpie hat whose narrow brim made his face seem more bloated than it was. Actually his face was in proportion with the rest of him. He would run three hundred stripped. It was a picture I got out of my head as quickly as it came in. He had one eyebrow straight across and a blue jaw. It would always be blue, even when it was still wet from shaving. The smell of Old Spice in the car was thick enough to float the boat on the bottle.
I waggled the Luger. “Give me the cannon and I’ll tell you my name.”
“That ain’t no trade.”
“I’ll sweeten it. Give me the cannon and I won’t blow your spleen through your back.”
“Who gave you that piece, Colonel Klink?” But he gave me his. It was one of those Sig-Sauer automatics the cops are so hot on, nine millimeters in a shiny chrome case with black composition grips. I put it on the dashboard out of his reach and lowered mine.
“So much gun for one girl,” I said. “The name’s Walker. You wouldn’t know it.”
“Don’t bet on it. Detroit ain’t as big as it used to be. What’s the play?”
“Who’s paying you to tail the Mannering woman?”
“Never heard of her.”
“What are you doing parked in front of her house?”
“I stopped to take a leak.”
“They arrest you for that here.”
“This is Iroquois Heights. They arrest you for breathing without a permit.”
“How about Neil Catalin, ever hear of him?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Your number was on his office redial.”
“So what? I’m running a small business. I ain’t so swamped I’m unlisted. Listen, I got a sour gut. There’s a bottle of Pepto in the glove compartment.”
I opened it. The second my eyes flicked away his hand went up to the sun visor on the driver’s side. I swung the Luger, cracking the barrel against the knob of his elbow. He yelped and brought down the arm. With my free hand I reached up and slid a two-shot .22 out of an eyeglass case clipped to the visor.
“For a guy that knows nothing from nothing you’ve got plenty of ordnance,” I said. “What’s Vesta Mannering to you?”
“Why should I tell you?” He rubbed his elbow.
“I have three guns and you have none. Also I’m asking polite. You don’t want to be around me when my manners start to slip.”
“Shit. I heard about you. Mr. Integrity. You wouldn’t stomp a cockroach.”
I reversed ends on the Luger and smashed his nose with the butt. They knew how to cast steel at Krupp. He shrieked and covered the bottom half of his face with his hand. Blood slid out between the fingers. I shook open my handkerchief and gave it to him.
“Lean your head back. Press hard and breathe through your mouth. That part should come easy. That’s the boy. What’s Vesta Mannering to you?”
“Jesus, you busted my nose.” He sounded like Arnold Stang.
“It was too small for your face anyhow. Vesta Mannering. What’s she to you?”
“Didydoogad.”
“Say again?”
“Ninety-two grand.” He leaned on each syllable. He was looking up at the roof of the car with his head tipped all the way back and the handkerchief bunched up against his nostrils, turning dark. “She’s got that pony stashed someplace. She can’t stay away from it forever.”
“Even the cops gave up on that. What makes you smarter than the cops?”
“Cops ain’t smart. That’s why I quit and went private. Ted Silvera didn’t have no safe deposit box and he didn’t trust his friends. Where’d he put it if he didn’t give it to her?”
“Too thin, Phil. This town’s rotten with divorce work. You’re not the kind of dick to throw it over on a hunch. What’s your source?”
“Idodadode.”
“Say again.”
He swallowed blood and mucus. “I got a note. In my inside pocket, left side.”
“Fish it out. If it’s more iron I’ll shoot you in the head. It’s not much of a head but it’d be a shame to spoil that hat. The state fair souvenir stand doesn’t open for three weeks.”
He lowered his head and changed hands on the handkerchief. The note came out slowly. I laid the Luger in my lap, took it, and unfolded it, an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of heavy Xerox paper with two words printed on it in block capitals:
VESTA KNOWS
“Who sent it?”
He shook his head. The bleeding had slowed. He wiped his nose. It didn’t look as bad as it would once the swelling started. Right now there was a wide white welt across the bridge. “It was a fax. I got it Wednesday. That’s all there was.”
“You’d throw out the clutch and take off after her on the strength of an anonymous note?”
“For ninety-two thousand I can afford to look like a chump.”
I put the note in my pocket. My hand brushed something there. I brought out Neil Catalin’s picture and turned it toward the light so he could see it.
His eyebrow rippled. “Sure, he was sniffing around the Mannering broad two years back. I ran his plate through the Secretary of State’s office but he wasn’t nobody. I guess Catalin could of been the name.”
“You need a memory course, Phil. He’s the reason Silvera hired you, to find out if his wife was running around on him while he was in the tank.”
“I was hired to find out who she was seeing and where she was going. Silvera wanted to make sure she didn’t skip with the cash.”
“He told you that?”
“I never talked to him. His mouthpiece did the hiring. He didn’t say it in so many words but I figured it out.”
“Did you ever get a good look at Vesta?”
“Nice-looking piece. You can buy a couple
of nice-looking pieces for a lot less than ninety K.”
“Could be he loved her. Some guys are strange that way. A King of England threw over his throne for that reason.”
“Not lately.” He blew his nose into the handkerchief and inspected the carnage. “What’s with this bug Catalin? He on the lam?”
“Maybe. His wife wants him back. Seen him around?”
“I might have. If the price fits.”
I shifted my weight on the seat. He sucked in air and covered his face with both hands. Grinning, I broke the little .22 and shook out the shells. I took the shiny automatic from the dash, kicked out the clip, and put it in my pocket. I ejected the shell from the chamber onto the floor on the passenger’s side. Then I shut both guns in the glove compartment and bolstered the Luger. I opened the door.
“Go back to wiring motel rooms, Phil. You’re not a money player. You don’t even have what it takes to be a good grifter. Bottom-feeders can’t fly.”
“I don’t see no Rolex on your wrist, pal.” He blew his nose one last time and flipped the gory linen over the back of the seat.
“Nice car. You ought to take better care of it.”
He lifted his lip. “Repo. Bank went bust and I took it in place of my fee. Fucking savings and loan.”
“Know anybody who drives a green Camaro?”
His eyes went right and left. “I might.”
“Yeah, yeah. If the price fits.”
I got out, slammed the door, and walked back up the street. The storms had let up for once. There was no moon, but the stars were as big as eggs. I didn’t see the Camaro. I didn’t have to; it was there. The light had gone out in Vesta’s window. The femme fatale was in bed, asleep. The streets belonged to the plucky hero, the heavy, and Mr. X.
Fadeout.
It was past midnight when I entered my street. I hadn’t spotted the Camaro, which meant exactly nothing. I didn’t bother with any circus tricks to throw it off. There didn’t seem to be much point to it. The driver knew where I lived.
Just as I swung into the short driveway I caught an orange arc in the darkness in front of the garage that could only belong to a cigarette being flipped to the ground. My first instinct was to throw the Cutlass into reverse and clear the hell out of there. My second instinct told me I wouldn’t get any answers that way. My third instinct was to go with my first, but by then it was too late. I coasted to a stop and set the brake. The metallic blue of a Detroit Police Tactical Mobile Unit shone in the beam of my headlamps.
“Mr. Walker?” A five hundred-candlepower flashlight shaft caught me full in the face. The officer behind it was a large indistinct hulk in a thin leather Windbreaker whose shiny surface gleamed softly in the backglow.
“If this is about that rented vcr, I’ve been too busy to return it,” I said.
If he found that amusing at all he didn’t tip it. “Would you come with us, please?” I had an impression of a broad face with blue-black skin, a heavy bar of moustache, and behind that of another uniformed figure in the darkness. “What’s the ruckus?”
“Would you come with us, please?”
“Is this a pinch or can I follow you in my crate?”
He seemed to consider that. “We’re going to the southeast side. Don’t get lost.”
“What street?”
“Ferry Park.”
“With or without air support?”
“Please keep up with us, sir. We wouldn’t want to have to double back and look for you.”
The flashlight snapped off and a pair of broad hips with a creaking gun belt strapped around them turned and started back toward the cruiser. His partner waited until he was inside the car on the driver’s side, then went around and got in beside him.
There is something about the way a cop in uniform says “please” and “sir” that is like the way an animal trainer says “sit” and “roll over.” I backed out of the driveway and waited obediently for the city car to take the lead.
Twelve
THE ADDRESS ON Ferry Park was ten minutes and two worlds away from my cozy Hamtramck neighborhood, a crumbling monument to the last city administration, whose mayor hadn’t owned any property there and so left it undeveloped: Grass speared up through buckles in the asphalt out front, pheasants nested in the weeds of the empty lots on both sides, and every time a long-haul semi thundered down the nearby interstate, shingles showered down from the roof like dandruff. It was a squat house with all the paint rubbed off the boards and a patch of burnt lawn wormy with mole tunnels. The bars on the windows were the only improvement it had seen in forty years.
Against this frayed backdrop, the yellow police tape encircling the lot looked garish, the throbbing red and blue strobes of the parked police cruisers as frivolous as Christmas lights at a vigil for the dead. I parked at the curb behind the Tactical Mobile Unit and got out. The big black sergeant who had shone the flashlight in my face asked me to wait there and ducked under the tape. A small group of local residents in fuzzy bathrobes and knee-length football jerseys had gathered on the sidewalk in front, staring at the house and at the officers quartering the yard with flashlights, not looking as if they expected much in the way of entertainment. Police activity in that neighborhood would be almost a nightly event.
The sergeant’s partner, a lean cob with a withered-looking face, leaned back against the cruiser, arms folded, daring the crowd with his bitter little eyes to make some move that would give him the opportunity to dazzle them with his fast draw. I saw videotape in his future.
The sergeant leaned his big head out the front door and beckoned to me with his arm. I felt a dozen pairs of eyes on me during the trip up the cracked front walk.
“The lieutenant will see you now,” said the sergeant.
“Which lieutenant?”
“Thaler.”
That was good news, aesthetically speaking. I found Mary Ann Thaler in the tiny living room, conversing in a group that included a pair of officers in uniform, one of them female, and a young Asian male in a snappy white turtleneck and a corduroy sportcoat with leather patches on the elbows. The lieutenant was a trim 115 pounds or so wearing a red blazer over a silver blouse, black miniskirt, black hose, and moderate heels. She wore her hair longer these days, tumbling in rich light brown waves to her shoulders, and glasses with large frames in a color that matched her hair. The plastic police ID she had clipped to her handkerchief pocket was a fashion don’t, but she carried it off. The room was just a room with some furniture in it. It needed cleaning, but then so did mine.
“You look like the tattered end of a long day,” she said by way of greeting.
I said, “You look like spring blossoms. Nobody else in Armed Robbery does justice to a miniskirt.”
“It’s Felony Homicide now, and watch your unenlightened mouth. This is Albert Chung from the coroner’s office. Amos Walker.”
The Asian shook my hand. “CID?”
“P.I.,” I said. “Who’s dead?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Thaler cut him off. She had her notebook out, a nifty slimline pad with imitation alligator covers. “You’re working for a Mrs. Neil Catalin in West Bloomfield?”
My inner stem wound itself a notch tighter. “It’s Catalin?”
“Missing Persons took a report from her this afternoon. I’m starting to like our new computer system; it cross-references complaints. Mrs. Catalin’s maid says she’s out for the evening. Sergeant Binder and Officer Wise burned twenty-four dollars in city money waiting for you at your place. You dating clients now?”
I shook my head. “I’m not putting them on electronic tethers, either. Who am I here to identify?”
“These officers were cruising the block when they heard shots.” She indicated the Adam-and-Eve team. “They couldn’t tell which house the shots came from, so they started pounding on doors. This one was open. It looks like the perp exited out the back. If he had a car it wasn’t parked on this street. Two hits?” She lifted her eyebrows at Chung.
“The officers heard six shots,” she said. “We found three holes in the walls and a freshly broken window, broken from the inside. If it was a professional hit, the pro was either in a hurry or blind or trying to make it look homemade. I vote for genuine homemade. A buy went bad.”
“Drugs?”
“Hot merch. Let’s take a look.”
I followed her through an open door into a kitchen the same size as the living room, that hadn’t been done over since Nixon. The cabinets and countertops were avocado to match the refrigerator and four-burner stove. A flycatcher of an imitation Tiffany ceiling fixture shed greasy light onto worn linoleum, stacks of electronic equipment, and Brian Elwood, Gay Catalin’s kid brother.
He lay half on his back on the linoleum with his knees drawn into his stomach and his head resting on a baseboard, staring up through the ceiling, the rafters above that, and beyond them the roof, trying hard for the stars. Three of the four bulbs in the fixture weren’t working; the one remaining cast shadows from the leading between the panes, etching a spiderweb pattern across the gray bloodless face. There was an angry red hole in his tank top where the pectorals met, frozen pink bubbles on his lips.
“Lung shot,” Mary Ann Thaler said. “Drowned in his own blood, probably. You can see he tried to crawl through the side door. Left a track like a snail. His black Jeep’s parked next to the door; that’s where we got his name, from the registration in the glove compartment. He was trying to get to his wheels.”
I bent over him, keeping my lips tight. His shaved head was as gray as a stone. There was blood clotted in his goatee. I tried to make eye contact and gave up. He was seeing something the rest of us would have to wait for.
Straightening, I turned and looked at the equipment piled in the corner. I identified four large video cameras, a laser disc player, a rectangular black box that might have been a seven-channel equalizer, and several thirty-six-inch speakers encased in ebony. There were coils of copper wire and a number of fiberboard cartons with stenciling on them I didn’t bother to read.