“Shut up, Ricco,” Ed said wearily. “Good-bye, Rafferty.”
“I’m going,” I said, and I did. After a dozen steps, though, I went back and stuck my head into the office. “Ed, maybe you should cover your ass on this one. Tell the heavy hitters upstairs that I got the message.”
Ed turned his big head toward me. “They don’t know you like I do,” he said. “They’ll assume that means you’re willing to let it go.”
“Serve ’em right, won’t it?”
Chapter 6
I wandered out of the downtown cop shop wondering why whoever was pulling Ed’s chain didn’t want to protect Max, the unlucky potential victim. I found myself thinking of him that way: Max the Unlucky, like Erik the Red or Peter the Great.
On the other hand, Ed’s chain puller might know things about Max the Unlucky that I didn’t. Maybe I should be comparing him to Vlad the Impaler. Maybe Max was someone the cops wanted, and I had just wandered into the line of fire.
And the timing was still a factor. Max wasn’t hurt yet. It would be tomorrow night at least, maybe the morning after, before the nervous man—whoever he was—even realized I wasn’t the person he’d hired on the phone. After that he would have to find the right man, set up another date and time, then …
Max wouldn’t become truly unlucky for another two or three days.
Even so, he should be told. Now.
Then I remembered a biker gang leader named Guts Holman. If Guts was still alive and I learned that someone wanted to kill him, would I tell Guts?
Never.
So, what if Max the Unlucky was another Guts Holman?
Still …
For once my timing was impeccable. As I started to pull over to the curb in front of Gardner’s Antiques, Hilda’s red BMW poked its nose out of the driveway. I waved her out in front of me, then pulled up beside her at the first stoplight.
I draped myself out the Mustang’s window, pounded on the door with both hands, and leered at her, panting heavily.
Hilda pretended to ignore me. In a station wagon behind her two women with a carload of kids looked nervous. The woman in the front passenger seat reached up and locked her door.
The light changed. Hilda went straight ahead, gunning it. The station wagon turned onto the cross street, but its turn signal didn’t come on until it was halfway around the corner.
I caught Hilda at the next light and pulled up alongside. Her passenger window hummed down. She said, “Don’t you do that again.”
“Wouldn’t think of it. Perhaps you’d like to hear my famous timber wolf howl, however.”
“No way.”
“I could do it pianissimo. To keep from embarrassing you.”
“You’re too late,” Hilda said.
“Oh. Well, then, you wanna go drink and eat, babe?”
“For a Neanderthal, you’re a smooth talker. Lead on, big guy.”
After wriggling through a few of my favorite shortcuts, we merged our way onto Stemmons Freeway. It was busy—the rush hour loads Stemmons up pretty badly sometimes. We eventually came to the exit I wanted and took it. Hilda followed me into the cluster of restaurants a block off Walnut Hill Lane.
I waved her up alongside me. “Pick a beanery, any beanery.”
Hilda shrugged. “Mother Tucker’s?”
Four minutes later a clean-cut young waiter gave me a beer to play with while he opened a bottle of chardonnay for Hilda. He went through the full routine, label-checking and cork-pulling and sample-pouring and ice-bucketing. I think he stretched the wine business out some, so he could be around Hilda longer. I could not fault his judgment.
Hilda had had a good afternoon. She scooped up a bargain at an estate auction. “You should see it,” she said. “A large French Empire mantel clock. Perfect condition. You’d hate it.”
“What is it, one of those ornate things with gimcracks and swirls and doohickeys everywhere?”
“Pretty much. I don’t care for the style, either, but I have a hungry buyer waiting for it.” She sipped her wine and smiled to herself.
It was too early to eat yet. Next time the waiter came to top up Hilda’s wineglass, we ordered a plate of snack food and wondered aloud how a dentist in Odessa, Texas, became a freak for Napoleonic timepieces. We decided it didn’t matter how, as long as he bought them from Hilda. The snacks came. I sent the waiter after another beer for me, and I poured Hilda’s wine this time. The waiter looked jealous.
Hilda popped a toasted cheese something into her mouth and chewed happily. “So, beloved savage,” she said, “how was your day?”
I told her. She wasn’t very happy with Ed and Ricco.
“That’s just not right,” she said. “They should do something.”
“What would you suggest?”
“They should tell this man Max.” She didn’t seem to have any doubts about that.
The waiter brought my new beer. I drank some. “Police departments tend to get angry when cops disobey direct orders, Hil.”
“What could happen to them?” she said. “What’s the worst thing?”
“Getting kicked off the force is always the worst thing for career cops. That probably wouldn’t happen, though. Suspension, maybe.”
“Probably? You mean there’s even a small chance a police officer could get fired for not letting someone get killed?” Hilda snorted. “That’s insane!”
“No, it isn’t. At least, it might not be. And you asked what was the worst thing.”
She bristled up to argue. I shushed her. I wanted to try my Guts Holman argument on her, but without mentioning Guts. Hilda doesn’t like to be reminded of those bikers.
“Try this for a what-if,” I said. “What if Max is mob connected? And what if the state or federal fuzz is about to nail Max and his pals? And finally what if a cop popped up and told Max to watch his back ’cause somebody out there doesn’t like him? Blooey! Months, maybe years, of police work go down the drain. Don’t you think somebody should have a long, hard talk with that cop?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hilda said. “The mob wouldn’t try to hire you to kill this Max person. They’d do it themselves. And why would they want to, if he was one of them?”
“Come on, Hil. I only made up one possibility. I don’t know what’s actually happening.”
Messed up again, Rafferty. You should have gone with the Guts Holman argument in the beginning.
Hilda crunched a celery stalk like she was mad at it. “Your cop friends are boxed in. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. And it bugs the hell out of them,” I said.
“But you’re not boxed in, because the police department can’t fire you. Not again anyway.”
“True. One to a customer, and they took their best shot years ago.”
Hilda said, “That’s why we came all the way out here to eat. Because the Micro-Multi whatever—”
“Mini-Maxi Food Barn Number Three,” I said. “Please. Somebody worked hard to think up a name like that.”
“The Mini-Maxi Food Barn, then, is—”
“Number Three.”
She ignored me. “—is around here somewhere close.”
“Well …”
“And after dinner tonight, you’re going to warn this Max, whoever he is. Because someone might kill him tomorrow night.”
“As it happens, I do need a loaf of bread. While I’m buying bread, I might say hello to Max. If I should happen to see him.”
Hilda nodded shortly. “For once I think you’re doing the right thing.”
“You modern women are such a disappointment. Used to be, women said great stuff, like ‘My hero!’ Now what do I get? ‘I think you’re doing the right thing.’” I took a long swig of beer and shook my head. “The hero business just ain’t what it used to be.”
Hilda clasped her hands over her heart, fluttered her eyelids, and trilled fervently, “Sir Rafferty; my hero!”
“That’s better,” I said. “Now where’s that goddam
ned dragon?”
Chapter 7
The Mini-Maxi Food Barn was classier than I had expected. Out front, between the parking lot and the street, there was a large sign shaped like a traditional barn. The sign was red with white lettering, lighted from inside and mounted on a hefty pylon. The sign revolved slowly and dragged large splotches of bright light across the parking lot. You wouldn’t want to live across the street from that sign.
The store building was set back behind fifty feet of asphalt parking lot. Maybe sixty feet. Enough for almost twenty parking slots, anyway, which seemed like overkill for a late-night convenience store, but what did I know about the food business?
The Mini-Maxi Food Barn really was a barn, provided you could accept a too-low, too-narrow barn sitting sideways on the lot, with plate glass windows and sliding doors on the street side. One end wasn’t square with the long sides. That end was slewed toward the street; angled so passersby could admire the big barn doors and the hayloft port and the pole above the port to lift up the hay. The Mini-Maxi Food Barn was bucolic as hell in its own special way. The Waltons meet Madison Avenue.
Need I mention that the building was painted red?
Considering there were apparently three of these things, the operation looked professional. Twee, but professionally so.
It didn’t seem to do much business, though. I hadn’t seen any customers yet. To be fair, though, my in-depth commercial and financial survey was based on only two trips around the block.
I was going around in circles like that because I wanted to find the dedicated cops who were so intensely involved with the place that I had been warned off. It didn’t matter, I guess. Not really. If they were there, I’d still go in, but I’d be sneakier about it.
Past the Mini-Maxi again. The parking lot was still empty. This time I noticed the big sign said the store hours were six a.m. to midnight seven days a week. That was probably a dig at 7-Eleven. Ah, the cutthroat world of commerce.
I made the third circuit a bigger square; two blocks on a side this time. Still didn’t see any vans with portholes, doorway loungers, or men sitting quietly in parked cars.
Which did not necessarily mean there was no surveillance of the Mini-Maxi. I couldn’t check everywhere. Take the store and shops across the street, for example. Half of them were two-story buildings; a long-lens camera could be hidden behind any of those windows.
And that was only the looking. Listening would be even easier. I bet myself I could put three bugs within six feet of the cash register and pay for a quart of ice cream at the same time. With the correct change.
Come on, Rafferty, stop daydreaming and go to work.
I didn’t make a full circuit that time. I stopped short and parked around the corner from the store. That Mini-Maxi parking lot was too bright. Any halfway decent camera team would have my license plate number in a fiftieth of a second, my name in five minutes, and Ed Durkee on the carpet first thing in the morning.
So I walked to the store, thinking they might give Ed and me a hard time yet, but at least they’d have to work for it. Screw ’em.
I found myself thinking “screw ’em” more and more often about more and more things. Hilda said that was part of an accelerated aging process; I was becoming a curmudgeon before my time. I said my continued life experience gave me new insights into reality. Hilda was probably right. Screw ’em anyway.
As I crossed the bright parking lot, I kept my face turned toward the Mini-Maxi. The camera jockeys could take all the pictures of the back of my head they wanted.
A bell bonged softly as I stepped through the open entrance doors. The class act continued inside; the vinyl tile floor was spotless, the display gondolas were well spaced, and the food on them was neatly arranged. Half the back wall was taken up with glass-fronted cold storage; dairy products, dips, soft drinks, juice. There was a low magazine stand, a neighborhood bulletin board, a bread rack; all the usual convenience store items.
I snagged a loaf of whole wheat off the bread rack and headed for the cash register counter at the right-hand end of the building. I hadn’t seen anyone yet. Maybe Max was back in the storeroom. I harrumphed twice. Nothing.
What was I supposed to do? Holler, “Hey, Max, wait till you hear this. A guy wants to …”
I harrumphed again instead.
Then it occurred to me that this might be Max’s night off. After all, he wasn’t scheduled to get whacked until tomorrow. Which led me to the next cheerful thought. If Max wasn’t here, who was? The nervous man who wanted Max hit? Naw, that wouldn’t be a problem. I could con my way out of—
Then I glanced down the last aisle, between a gondola loaded with chips and crackers and the cold storage unit. The man I saw there was Max, I guessed. Had to be Max.
For a long, sick second, I thought I’d mistaken the date; that this was Thursday night, not Wednesday. But I wasn’t a day late; this was still Wednesday.
Not that it mattered much to the man who had to be Max.
He couldn’t get any deader tomorrow night.
Chapter 8
I was furious, which was a strange emotion for me when standing over the corpse of a total stranger. I could remember other feelings associated with bodies I’d discovered, or seen later, or created on the spot, but I couldn’t recall this pure blind anger.
I was angry at myself, probably, but I can rationalize as well as anyone else. So I thought I was angry at the cops.
I yelled, “Get in here, you dumb bastards! Come see what you caused.”
Nothing happened. The empty store had a hollow background hum that was alternately annoying and soothing. The only other sound was a hoarse, rasping noise. I finally realized that was me, breathing.
Think, Rafferty. If this place was bugged, the cops would have heard Max get it. They’d already be here. You dummy.
Cameras, then. I stalked out the front door and waved broadly at the building across the street. Come here. This way. Follow me. No matter how they interpreted it, that much arm-flailing should bring even the sleepiest rookie trotting this way any second.
Nobody came.
Well, goddamn.
There really weren’t any cops out there. None. Not hiding and watching, not taking pictures, not listening. None at all.
How ’bout them apples?
Most of the household goods were down at the end of the central gondola. I opened a pack of rubber kitchen gloves first, put them on—they were yellow, very chic—then I found a note pad and a felt-tip pen and cellophane tape and a garbage bag.
I wrote, “SORRY, CLOSED FOR CLEANING,” on a sheet of paper and taped it inside the window. Then I closed the door and looked for the key.
It seemed like a long time before I found three keys on a ring in a junk drawer behind the cash register counter. The keys had been tossed in on top of paper scraps, a receipt book, scissors, string, and—well, well, well—a Model 65 Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.
The gun could wait. I locked the doors. Good. Now I had breathing room.
Back at the junk drawer I decided the gun probably didn’t mean anything. Convenience stores are an armed robbers natural grazing ground. There were probably guns under most cash register counters. Hell, if I worked in a place like this, I’d have a machine gun. And grenades.
I sniffed the muzzle of the Smith anyway; it had not been fired since it was last cleaned. And it had not been cleaned for a very long time.
I went to see the sad little man sprawled prone on the tile floor. He lay in the curiously flat posture corpses invariably adopt. That must have something to do with the total absence of muscle tension.
The first thing to find out was whether or not this was really Max.
His driver’s license said he was Max Krandorff. He was, um, let’s see, fifty-seven years old last December, and he lived in Plano, on a street I didn’t recognize.
There was money in his wallet. And credit cards. Last thing I’d heard, the hitter was supposed to fake a robbery. Maybe it’s
true; maybe you can’t get good help anymore.
Then it occurred to me that the cash register was closed. I went to it and pushed buttons, trying to get it open. I felt foolish doing that with gaudy yellow kitchen gloves on. If a customer looked in … but this store didn’t seem to have any customers, and that didn’t make much sense, either.
I kept stabbing my yellow fingers at the cash register buttons. How could it be so difficult to get one of these gadgets open? It looked so simple when sixteen-year-old clerks did it.
Finally the register binged and stuck out its cash drawer tongue at me. There was money in the drawer. Not much money, but I seemed to recall that convenience stores transferred cash from the register to a floor safe three or four times a day. I shut the cash drawer.
The safe was gawd-awful obvious, once I looked for it. It was a barrel safe, concreted into the foundation slab by the front window, with an overhead spotlight shining down on it. The safe was shut.
So what had happened to the fake robbery? Had the hitter been interrupted? I went to see if Max could tell me.
As I started to examine the body closely, the front door rattled. Uh-oh.
A muffled voice yelled, “Hey, open up.” The door rattled again as he shook it. “Closed, my ass. You’re supposed …”
I waited there, hiding behind the potato chips, squatting beside the body. Max and Rafferty, old buddies, him dead and me in my pretty gloves.
Outside, the frustrated customer yelled, “F’chrissake,” and kicked the door.
A muscle in the back of my neck quivered and jumped, My scalp felt tight. I said, “He’ll give up in a minute,” to the body before I realized what I was doing.
Waiting like that was not a whole lot of fun.
The grumbling customer stayed around for two or three minutes, then gave the door a final kick and his curses faded slowly.
I waited a full five minutes, then circled around the end of the gondolas and peeked out into the parking lot. There was no one in sight.
Cannon's Mouth_A Rafferty P.I. Mystery Page 3
