The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1)

by T. V. LoCicero

  Then the city had hit a particularly rough patch, and layoffs in the water departments had sent him home without a job. By then, with Damon three and a half and Sara 16 months, Anthony and Nita had agreed that, rather than taking just any job, he should stay home with the kids, save on child care, take some night classes and wait for the right opportunity.

  In the ensuing years, Anthony and Rick had seen each other only occasionally, usually at some family function. A wedding, a funeral, the big annual summer picnic always on Belle Isle, the city’s major park in the middle of the Detroit River. But the meetings had become much less frequent, and their last time together had been at Anthony’s sister’s wedding, a year before Anthony’s trouble with the law. By then Rick had been on his sixth Maserati, and despite each man’s effort to keep his demeanor casual, there had been an uncomfortable stiffness about their attempts at conversation.

  The fact that many in the family at this happy affair had been fawning on Rick hadn’t helped. But several months later when Anthony had been charged with murder, Rick neither hesitated nor asked. He had simply ordered Sam Dworkin to call his cousin and announce he was taking on the case.

  And while Nita had been certain it would be much wiser for Anthony to find his own lawyer, this had been another of those rare moments when Anthony had known that to be his own man, he would have to defy his wife.

  Chapter 51

  Anthony’s big sister Vanessa, who worked for the postal service, married a man originally from Kashmir. It was a whirlwind romance, four weeks and they were married. He said he was a doctor with a practice in Cleveland, but when the newlyweds arrived there, it turned out the man was actually a failing second-year med student at Case Western Reserve. Even so, Vanessa, who had transfered to a job at Cleveland’s main post office, bought a bungalow for them in the Glenville neighborhood near the lake. Five months later she came home one day to find all her husband’s clothes and belongings gone.

  “So how you settlin’ in?” she asked Anthony as he sampled her spicy gumbo, one of his favorites. Sitting at a small kitchen table, she watched her baby brother give a half-nod with a low, pleasant moan.

  She had told him he was welcome to stay in her spare bedroom as long as he liked. But after a week now, he could not bring himself to say the truth: he had no intention of staying. He was reasonably sure the local cops, the ones who had checked out Vanessa that first week he went missing, wouldn’t be back soon, but she was putting herself at risk by taking him in. He had sworn he would never again jeopardize anyone else he loved. So he said only that he felt very comfortable, thanks to her, and he would be eternally grateful.

  “Anthony, I’m your sister for godsake. Why didn’t you come to me in the first place?”

  “Ness, I told you, cause I was feelin’ safer hidin’ in broad daylight in the middle of a city I know better’n any place else. And there was also a guy that helped me. You knew him back in the day. DeShawn gave me a little loan, and then he was leavin’ for a trip to see his family, drivin’ down to Baton Rouge. I gave him some plastic, my bankcard and a Visa, asked him to get me some cash on the way down and use the Visa for some things when he got there.”

  “You wanted them thinkin’ you left for down there. Good, Anthony.”

  He shook his head. “Ness, you don’t know these people I’m dealing with and what they’re capable of. I didn’t want to bring all that to you. Still don’t.”

  Vanessa eyed him silently for a moment. Then she spoke softly. “I haven’t asked you what happened that day. I wanted you to know I believe in you without question. I know it must be too painful to even hold in your mind. But if you ever feel like you want to, or can, I hope you will talk to me about it.”

  He said after a moment, “I can talk about it.”

  She looked down at her gumbo. “Okay, so first, tell me what happened to Rick. I mean I read the stories in the paper you sent me. But what really happened? You pick up anything from his friends, or on the street?”

  “I picked up a little on the street, and I know this one boy was really tight with him. I was also going to night school with this other guy who’s a cop, so I heard some things. Turns out our little Rick was about to be makin’ a big score. I mean real big. Somehow or other—I heard it was through some spic dude he got to knowin’ in L.A.—he was about to make his own direct connect with some Mexican pipeline. And this made these big Eye-talian dudes very pissed off. Word on the street was they got him.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “But Ricky was nothin’ but smart. He musta known they’d be after him. Why would he let them even get close?”

  “Ness, when they want to do you, they got their ways, man. Anyhow, this courtesy car driving the freeway at two in the morning come up on this big Maserati—Quadroporte, I think—parked on the shoulder on I-75. They stop and the car’s still running, and Rick’s behind the wheel with his head back against the headrest. Like he just stopped and pulled over and takin’ a nap. ‘Cept there’s this little hole just above his nose. And later they find this other one just behind his ear.”

  “You go to the funeral?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it bad like they said in the paper?”

  “Pretty bad. Like Nita said, they coulda fed half the city with what they dropped on it. This big, custom-made casket made outta parts from that first Maserati he owned. Bumpers in the front and back, wheels, part of the engine and inside a steering wheel and part of the dashboard. He’s lying there like he’s sleepin’ behind the wheel, just like when they found him on the freeway.

  “I spent the whole time in front of the casket not thinking about when we were eight and we’d walk to grandma’s house and get eggnog after school, and how he stood up for me, even though he was so much smaller than me, when these older dudes tried to shake me down. I just kept trying to see where the bullet holes were.”

  “Sad.”

  “Way sad.”

  Silent for a while, Vanessa finally said, “So, Anthony, tell what happened with the bomb. If you feel like you can.”

  He said, “Well, but look, okay, when I was hidin’ back there, I talked to Gant on the phone, just like a week before they popped him. And I only know what he told me, true or not.”

  “Which was?”

  “Which was somehow they found out about the tape and stuff. He figured somebody in his office sang. And he was bein’ squeezed to drop the whole thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “But back then I didn’t know none of this.”

  “Right.”

  “So that morning I get this call from Gant sayin’ there’s this big change in the case, and he needs me to come in right away and with the tape.”

  “Your copy.”

  “Yeah, my copy. But I say, ‘Well, but I told you I’m goin’ today to Chi-town with Nita and the kids to her sister’s.’ And he says, flat out, ‘No, you’re not doin’ that! You have Nita take the kids and go. Be better for them out of town anyways. And you come on down here to my office at the courthouse at 7 pm. You got no choice.’

  “So we’re plannin’ to take the Caravan, but that damn piece-a-shit been stallin’ so much I took it in to the shop that morning. They say it need a fuel pump, and they can’t get one ‘til Monday, so they need to keep it. Nita says, ‘It’s okay, you take us to the Amtrak, and we’ll take the train. Be the first time for the kids. They’ll love it.’ So that’s the plan. I’ll drive ‘em to the Amtrak in my car, and then I’ll meet with Gant.

  “But Nita don’t know ‘bout the tape. She just know if the prosecutor say, ‘Jump,’ I gotta jump. So we’re runnin’ late. I already got the suitcase in the Dodge, and I tell her to take the kids out there and get it started, and I’ll be right there. I’m gettin’ the tape where I have it stashed behind the furnace in the basement. And I hear the bomb. And feel it. It shook stuff all over the basement. By the time I’m upstairs lookin’ out the window, Nita and the babies...”

  He stopped. After a few seconds
he opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak.

  Vanessa covered his hand with hers and said in a whisper, “Baby, don’t.”

  Glancing at his sister, he saw tears rolling on her cheeks. He looked away and said, “ I ain’t gonna cry. I cried enough. Some way they gonna pay.”

  Chapter 52

  “Nice ball, Billy.” Frank watched the judge’s drive tail a bit before bounding on the bright green fairway and finally roll to a stop on the right edge about 240 out. Picking up his tee, the judge made a little move with his hips that Frank knew was meant to ward off a slice. Having played together since high school, they knew each other’s game almost as well as their own. O’Bryan climbed into the cart, and they headed down this lush fairway at beautiful Oakland Hills.

  The site of major championships over the years and the area’s premier private club, it’s $25,000 annual membership fee had been part of Frank’s last two contracts with WTEM.

  With his ball up the left side about ten yards beyond the judge, they rolled up to Billy’s ball first, and Frank wondered how long it had been since he’d seen his best friend.

  Was Billy really his best friend? If not, then who? That racket ball game had been over a month ago now, and they had talked only briefly on the phone since.

  Chit-chat over the first few holes had covered the easy stuff—kids and family items. The judge had been out of town for two weeks. As usual he and Gloria had opened their lakefront home up north for the summer. Gloria, 19-year-old Cindy and little Missy would spend much of the season up there. Billy and 22-year-old Martin, who was interning at a large firm in the city before heading off to law school at Michigan, would commute often on the weekends.

  Billy hit a 7-iron over the green on the right, and Frank said nothing as he drove them back across the fairway to his ball. At 50 bucks a hole, this game was just as competitive as their racket ball. As he pulled out his 8-iron, he said, “Well, you left it wide open for me, your honor.”

  “Just testing your nerve.”

  Frank hit it on line but barely made the front of the green, leaving himself a long uphill putt. He could already hear Billy saying “Never up, never in,” but the judge changed the subject.

  “So, Frankie, what were you really doing that night visiting Prentis Gant?”

  He had been waiting for this. “Just what I said I was doing, what I told the cops and everybody else on the news. Were you watching?”

  “Oh, yeah, but I mean beyond the stuff about asking him why he resigned. We both know you didn’t go to his place at midnight just to ask about that.”

  Frank had two baits ready to toss. “Hey, I got a real scoop outta that visit. Before he was murdered, Gant told me he’d been pressured to step down.”

  With a side glance to catch Billy’s response to this double cast, he wondered which bait his friend would rise to first.

  “Pressured, eh. Pressured how, and why didn’t you report that?”

  Frank stopped the cart near the green, got out and pulled his putter. “Hey, I never tell everything I know. In any case, he didn’t say. He just said he’d been forced to step down and that he couldn’t talk about it. Yet. He said he was working on things, and there would come a time when he would talk about it. Of course, now that time will never come.”

  Frank had a fifty footer and the judge a long downhill chip and run. As he walked up to his ball, Billy said, “And you said ‘murdered.’ Everything I hear out of the prosecutor’s office says suicide.”

  “My theory is murder.”

  “Your theory.”

  “Right. As I told the cops, from what I saw that night, he was not a man on the verge of ending it all.”

  “Maybe you freaked him enough to push him over the edge.”

  “Oh, he was freaked all right, but not by me.”

  “By who then?”

  “By whoever was pressuring him. You got any ideas?”

  The judge was over his chip now. “Why would I have any ideas?”

  Frank kibbitzed. “Careful, you give that a little bit too much, you’re gonna be right down here with me.”

  “Thanks for the advice, pal.”

  The judge rolled his chip well past the hole and missed coming back. Frank managed to get down in two, and now he was 150 bucks up.

  Moving to the next tee, the judge again changed the subject. “By the way, you ever hear from that guy who lost his wife and kids in that car bomb? The one you keep asking to call you?”

  Time for more invention. “No, I sure wish I had. Probably skipped town. You pick up any gossip about him or that bomb?”

  “The cops I talk to think he probably did it himself.”

  Frank’s response had a bit more heat than he wanted. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

  Billy looked at him for a couple of seconds. “Why do evil or fucked up people do any of the things they do? Because they’re evil or fucked up.”

  At the next tee, they both pulled their drivers, and Frank said casually, “Well, on a much more pleasant topic, have you heard from a friend of mine named Letty Pell? Lots of red curls, a great body and a very special talent I know you’d enjoy.”

  Stopping his set up, he gazed at Billy’s face. As usual it betrayed nothing.

  “No, but it sounds like I’d appreciate her call.”

  Chapter 53

  “So what’s going on with your mom?”

  Hoping to catch a clue, he glanced at his daughter’s hazel eyes, her mother’s eyes, as he twirled with a fork the fettucini with a diced sausage sauce he had almost every time he came here to the Roma, the city’s oldest Italian place.

  The quick little frown Jennie tried to hide did not bode well. “Meaning is she still talking about the divorce thing?”

  “Yeah, the divorce thing,” said Frank. “Did she really hire Hartzell?”

  Bennett Hartzell was the town’s toughest divorce attorney.

  “I don’t know, but she sounds pretty matter of fact, like it’s gonna happen.”

  “Well, at least she hasn’t called off our trip to the island next week, right?”

  “Right.”

  “She say anything about it?”

  “Only that we can all live together just as easily in the Provo house as we can here. Even with a split pending.”

  With a nod he stuffed a wad of rolled up pasta in his mouth.

  Jennie said, “Daddy, can I ask you something?”

  “Ask away.”

  “Did you invite me to dinner just to spy on Mom?”

  He swallowed and tried not to look offended, a sure sign of guilt. “No way.”

  “Because you didn’t need to. You should know by now I’m totally on your side.”

  She was looking at him so earnestly, that scooped neckline showing so much of her lovely top that he felt almost uncomfortable with his own daughter. He wanted to tell this sweet, smart and sexy girl not to worry about her womanly allure, but he needed to find a fatherly way to say it.

  “I know that, baby, and I appreciate it. I called because I feel like I haven’t seen much of you this summer, and I realized, when we had that chat a while back down by the lake, that I really didn’t know much about what you’re thinking and feeling these days. I used to be able to tell just by looking at you, but it seems like overnight you’ve become this mature young woman, with all the wonderful mystery of your sex, and I can’t seem to tell anymore.”

  “Daddy, stop bullshitting.”

  “I’m not bullshitting. Why does everyone think I’m bullshitting?”

  “Because we all know how good you are at it.”

  Frank shook his head. “Well, anyway, I just think before we know it, you’ll be heading back to U. of M., and then it’ll be even tougher to know how you are and what you’re up to.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I’m gonna want you to know what I’m up to.”

  Thankfully, she offered this with a small mischievous smile.

  “Jen, you know what I mean. I’m not your
mom. I just want to know how you’re doing in class and with your writing, that kind of thing. I mean last year you suddenly started talking about quitting school and spending your time writing a novel in iambic pentameter or some damn thing. I want to know about these things, so I can be a father and give you all the wrong advice.”

  “It was an epic poem in free verse, and I thought your advice was pretty good. That’s why I decided not to do it.”

  “Really? What’d I say?”

  “You said you thought it was an admirable ambition, but why not finish the year and really learn other poetic styles, like iambic pentameter, because otherwise writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. And then this summer if I still wanted to do it, you’d send me to Spain or France or wherever I wanted to go, and I could write it there.”

  “Okay, so what have you been writing this summer?”

  “A few poems, but mostly short stories. I’ve just fallen in love with that form. It’s just this fantastic combination of freedom and discipline.”

  Now that he was gazing at a new light in those hazel eyes, he felt a lift. “So I hope I can read one soon.”

  “Of course, but how about you, Daddy. How’s the book coming? ‘Buffaloes in the City.’ I love that title.”

  “Well, I haven’t been able to work on it much lately, but this morning I finished a chapter called ‘Smear Monday Romance.’”

  “Smear was a card game, right?”

  “And Smear Monday is the day after Easter. Anyway it’s the story of Marcel Sutterman and Margaret DeValkeneeer and how they got together back in 1924.”

  “So how did Marcel and Margaret get together?”

  He was pleased she wanted to know, or at least that she asked. “Well, he’s this big, strapping 20-year-old kid who at 15 had somehow found his way from Brussels to this little town on Superior where he got a job mining iron ore. On Easter Sunday he goes to St. Anthony’s Church and spots this beautiful young girl. He can’t take his eyes off her, but even though she smiles at him in the church, he’s too shy to go up to her after the service.