“Under two minutes to post time. Under two for the seventh."
The crowd in the viewing area watched the oval track, even though I didn't see anything going on out there. Mainly male and mostly white, there was a smattering of black and Asian faces, usually in small groups. None of the African-Americans was Grover Gant, though.
I drifted to the betting counter, overhearing the short, one-sided conversations.
"Two dollars to win on number Four."
"Gimme a ten-dollar Quiniela on Two and Seven."
"Five bucks to show on the Six dog."
As I stood near the counter, one of the employees behind it, wearing a white, placket-collared shirt, said, "You want to place a wager?"
"No, thanks."
"Good," he replied. "Don't get in the habit, believe me. Look around the room, see what you're in for, you do."
I did look around the room, but still no Grover Gant, People smoking like chimneys mingled with others slumping in chairs or shuffling on canes, crutches, and even a few four-footed walkers. Behind me, a guy named "Richie" and a woman named "Jayme" discovered they owned houses just blocks from each other.
I saw three middle-aged black men, standing near a pillar. Two wore Houston Rockets ball caps, all looked to be in good shape.
The P.A. announced, "The greyhounds are entering the starting box. It's post time."
As I approached the black guys, one said to the other, "That's what I heard."
"It all come back on Rashid, playing in that thirty-five-and-over league like he was."
"I know, man, but you ain't that bad yourself."
"The hell I ain't. Doctor says I got to have his operation, too."
"What operation is that?"
"The one like Rashid have in his knee"
To the closest guy, I said, "Excuse me," just as the P.A. chimed in with, "There goes Swifty!"
The black guy held up his hand. "After the race run out, man."
I watched with him as eight or ten dogs tried in vain to catch a white, mechanical rabbit on a horizontal bar. The bar was attached to a motorized cart that rolled on narrow-gauge metal rails around the inside edge of the track itself. The race was all over in thirty seconds or so.
"Damn that number Five," said the man I'd spoken to. "You could time that pig with a sundial." Turning to me, "Now, what you be wanting?"
"I was wondering if you'd seen Grover Gant."
"Grover?" said the other.
"His mother told me he'd be here."
"Oh, he here, all right," the first guy gesturing with a parimutuel ticket toward the track. "It ain't snowing or shit, Grover like to stand by the puppies at the rail, talk to them."
"Dummy-ass think it help him," said the other.
As the people standing outside made their way toward us, I could spot Gant near the fence. "Appreciate it."
The first man let the ticket flutter from his hand to the floor. "While you out there, ask Grover will he tell that Five dog to please take himself a dump before the next time he racing."
"I'l1 do that." I said, moving against the crowd and toward the track.
Outside, the sun shone brightly from the west as a commuter train lumbered north on the far side of the grounds. Grover Gant was doodling with a red Flair pen on his racing form as a white guy spoke to him.
The P.A. voice said, "We have a field of juveniles for the next race. Open the floodgates for the first pup, a clear favorite in the eighth. Post time in eleven minutes."
As I drew close enough to hear the white guy, he was saying, "Fuck, that's four races in a row without a payoff."
Gant never looked up from his program. "So, what are you gonna do?"
"I don't know, Grover, but I'm sick of these goddamn skinny greyhounds. You ever hear of any place races dalmatians?"
"Dalmatians?" Now Gant did look up. "Why the fuck would anybody race dalmatians?"
"I don't know. They just look . . . healthier, I guess."
When Gant shook his head and went back to his form, the white guy moved off. I waited until he was thirty feet away before saying, "Nice day to be out in the air."
"Hey, man." Gant shifted his feet to face me. "Taking my advice, right?"
"Your advice."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Gant swept his hand toward the track. "Doggies over horses. Cheaper to get in, not so much hoopla between the races, so the action comes faster. And there ain't no human factor, remember?"
"I remember. In fact, I'd like to talk with you about the 'human factor'."
Gant checked his watch. A big, bright one, with lots of bells and whistles on the face of it. “I got time before I have to lay my bet down on the next race."
"New watch?"
He looked at it again. "Kind of."
"Your ship came in."
"Say what?"
"The insurance on your brother's life."
"Oh, yeah. That." Gant made his tone even more casual. "Guess I got kind of mad at you over to the house."
"Kind of. The insurance must let you clear up a lot of debts."
The P.A. announcer said, "Post time in just under eight minutes." as a cloud came over Gant's eyes. "Meaning like what?"
I decided not to mention the scene I'd witnessed with Trinh and Huong at the coffee shop. "You said you'd borrowed from your brother. Now you can repay the estate."
"Oh, right, right, right." The sly smile. "So, what you want to know about the 'human factor'?"
“I'm still trying to figure out who shot your brother."
A shrug that settled into a laugh. "Man, I told you last time. The police, they got the mother'."
"Except they have the wrong one."
No more laugh. "Now what you mean?"
"Just what I said. Alan Spaeth didn't do it."
“Aw, man. Come on, come on, come on. You didn't see that dude in Woodrow's office there the way I did. He was like a maniac. Ranting and raving."
"Everybody gets mad. You got mad at me in your mother's house. Does that mean you'd kill me?"
The sly smile again. "Got no reason to kill you. I'm what they call 'a man of wealth and taste' now."
Somehow it sounded better when Mick Jagger used to sing it.
Just then, men and boys wearing red windbreakers began walking leashed and muzzled greyhounds toward the starting gate at the far left end of the track. As the dog wearing number “7" came even with us, he stopped and lifted a leg.
Grover Gant smiled wider. "Seven, you get all that out of your system, now."
I said, "Your brother wasn't the only one killed."
The wider smile froze. "Hey, man, you keep confusing me."
"Confusion isn't the half of it, my friend. The guy Spaeth says would be his alibi was found dead this morning."
"Alibi?"
I thought that was an odd part of my statement for Gant to home in on. "Spaeth claims he spent the night your brother was shot getting drunk with a man named Michael Mantle. This morning the police found Mantle dead in an abandoned building."
“I don't go into no abandoned buildings, man." Gant glanced left, right, and behind him. "Life's dangerous enough when there's people around you."
Which made me wonder who Gant might worry would spot him, provided Grover in Wonderland had used part of the insurance proceeds to pay off the balance of his "coffee shop" debt to Nguyen Trinh.
I heard a lot of yowling and barking from the starting gate. The handlers in the red windbreakers were all jogging up the track toward us.
Grover Gant said, "I got to put my bet down."
As he turned, I stepped in front of him.
"Hey, man, it's almost post time."
I said, “Missing one race won't kill you."
"Shit, shit, shit." but he stayed with me.
"So, to sum up, you don't know a thing about the departed Mr. Mantle."
"Don't know," said Gant, "and don't want to know."
"The police got a tip, telephoned into a hospital."
"Last I
heard, hospital can't help no dead man."
"Clever thing, though. You kill somebody and want him found at the right time, you call a number that doesn't tape-record your voice as it comes in over the telephone."
"Yeah, well, that leaves me off whatever hook you trying to put me on, man."
"How do you mean?"
"One thing I ain't—and ain't never been—is clever. Otherwise, I wouldn't be needing Woodrow to die, put me on Easy Street, you hear what I'm saying?"
Unfortunately I did. And worse, as the fat man hustled toward the betting counter, I believed him. Setting up what had to be an elaborate frame of Alan Spaeth—down to the indirect reporting of one body on that road and another in that cellar—required brains, and Grover Gant didn't seem nearly clever enough to pull it off.
However, we both knew somebody who was.
* * *
I waited in the parking lot until the crowd began streaming out and back to their cars. As the lot emptied, I spotted Gant's rust-bucket Chevy three rows down and as many over, in the same "Preferred" section I was in. Finally, Gant himself made his way through the gate, shimmering like the proverbial bowlful of jelly as he waddled to his car. Once there, Gant opened the driver's door and climbed in. After some blue smoke belched from the exhaust pipe, the old Chevy joined the line of cars turning right, back toward the city.
I started up and followed.
* * *
We went down IA, negotiating the traffic rotaries and driving almost sedately. I expected Gant to take the Sumner Tunnel, which would lead him to the Central Artery and the most direct path home to his mother's house. Instead he took the Tobin Bridge, then Storrow Drive along the Charles River. We went past Harvard University and the turn for Harvard Square, eventually getting off Soldiers Field Road in Brighton. Gant cruised through half of a warehouse district near St. Elizabeth's Hospital before pulling into a narrow parking area with angled white lines. There was only one other vehicle in the lot.
A Mercedes sedan, green in color.
I couldn't make out the license plate, so as Grover Gant left his car and walked in a side door, I checked the address Larry Cosentino had given me back at the Gang Unit. I was indeed sitting outside the offices of Nugey Trinh and Associate, Limited.
But not limited by much. I'd have bet even my own money on that.
Chapter 17
THE SIDE DOOR opened silently for me, but the hinge complained a little as it closed. I got some sounds of forklifts and hand dollies from behind an interior door on the first floor, but there were also heavy footfalls at the top of the shrouded staircase to my left. I waited and heard a metallic knock, Grover Gant saying, "It's me." Then a swishing noise before the sound of a door clicking shut.
I took the first half-flight to a landing and, seeing no one above me, climbed the rest of the stairs to the second floor. There was a heavy steel door for what seemed an office, so I walked up to it. Putting my ear against the jamb, I recognized Nguyen Trinh's voice saying, "Not enough, Grover."
I drew my Chief's Special before trying the knob. Unlocked. As I pushed hard, the door flung open, banging violently against the wall. I leveled the snubbed barrel of the revolver about heart high on Trinh.
Seated behind a desk, he stared at my gun. Grover Gant, in a chair across the desk from Trinh, twisted around to look at me, too. For just a micro-second, I registered Oscar Huong looming over Gant from behind before Huong literally sprung vertically three feet off the floor, spinning in the air to face me.
Huong's feet hadn't yet hit the ground again when Trinh snapped off, "Oscar, no!"
Huong landed in a martial arts stance, his body—shaved head on down—vibrating like a tuning fork from the strain of obeying Trinh against his apparent urge to feed the Smith to me an inch at a time.
Keeping the muzzle on his boss, I said, "Listen to the man, Oscar."
Trinh picked up. "Mr. Private Eye here, he ain't gonna shoot me, long as you don't do nothing."
Oscar's words came out like they were being dragged across a gravel driveway. “He does, he's dead."
I said, "Without this gun, Oscar, you'd have maimed me by now. I just want us to have a nice little talk."
Trinh nodded very slightly. "You followed Grover."
"Yes, but I had the address here anyway."
"How you get it?"
"Connections."
Another slight nod. "Oscar?"
Huong didn't move.
Trinh said, "Oscar, ease off. Let Cuddy come in, sit a while, we find out what he want."
This time Huong seemed to calm down. I realized that in the stance, his sports coat had been bulging here, there, and everywhere, like the old Incredible Hulk television show, Lou Ferrigno bursting out of the late Bill Bixby's clothes. Now Huong just looked normal.
Meaning homicidal.
But he shook down his sleeves above the huge hands before standing back against the wall.
Trinh did that wristy Macarena flourish toward the other empty chair across from his desk. "And you can put the gun away, too."
Sitting down, I kept the barrel on target. "I don't think so."
Gant spoke to me for the first time. "Mother-fucker, mother-fucker, mother-fucker, I thought you was going to get my ass killed."
"Be patient, Grover." said Trinh. "It could still happen"
Then, in my direction, "So what you come here for, Mr. Private Eye?"
"I thought maybe we'd go over all the ways you were involved in Woodrow Gant's life. And death."
The smile that showed just the tip of his tongue before Trinh laced his fingers and brought them over and behind his carefully moussed head. Reclining in the desk chair, he said, "You like a hungry dog, got a stick he want to be a bone."
"Meaning you had nothing to do with Gant's being killed." Grover became agitated. "Say what?"
Trinh didn't bother to look at him. "Shut up, deadbeat." To me, "Like I told you before. I'm gonna kill the man, I don't shoot him."
"You'd just have Oscar beat him to death."
"Been a pleasure," said Huong from the wall.
His boss gave him a look that I thought meant, "That's enough." Then Trinh returned to me. "But it didn't happen that way."
"You've got a grudge against Gant. Makes you a prime suspect if he goes down, especially from a beating administered by somebody like Hands of Stone over there. Plus, you've been kind of dipping into his life, like getting him to eat in a restaurant you're bankrolling."
More agitation from Grover. "What you saying?"
“Nugey here isn't just your banker, my friend. He fronted the money for the restaurant your brother ate in the night he was killed. Owns the building, in fact."
Gant seemed like he wanted to say something more. But Oscar Huong came half a step off the wall, and the sentence died in Grover's throat.
Trinh rocked his chair a little. "So the man eats at a restaurant maybe five mile from his condo."
I thought, Nugey knows where Woodrow Gant lived, down to the distance.
Trinh kept rocking. "Shit like that happens."
"Only this time it didn't just 'happen.' You set it up, Nugey."
The tongue licked out and back once. "You wanna tell me how?"
“By having your girlfriend take him there for lunch the first time."
Now Gant turned in his chair toward me. "Girlfriend?" Trinh said, "Grover, I tell you once already, shut up. Not gonna say it again."
I kept my gun on the man behind the desk. "Then let me explain things so your favorite customer here doesn't have to talk. Woodrow Gant put you and Oscar away for that home invasion. After getting out, you expand your horizons, eventually meet a lawyer in his firm. Which gives you an idea. You start threading your way back into Woodrow Gant's life. Loaning money to his brother who likes to gamble, moving—"
Grover Gant finally added things up and rose from his chair, rage in his voice. "You yellow mother'—"
Thanks to peripheral vision, I was aware of Oscar Huong
moving, but I couldn't have told you what part of him struck Grover. I could see what part of Gant hit the floor, though. All of him, a cracking sound still dying away in the air as he writhed, hugging his right arm with his left hand and moaning. Huong's face said he wasn't finished.
I kept the gun on Trinh. "Call him off, or I put a round in you."
Just a tip-of-the-tongue smile from across the desk. "You lose your license."
"It's that, or lose Grover, right?"
Trinh stopped smiling, "Oscar?"
This time Huong needed more prodding.
"Oscar, enough, okay? Man's not gonna try anything more."
Reluctantly, Huong backed up to the wall again, Gant moaning louder.
I said, "Grover, you all right?"
Trinh shook his head. "Somebody come after me like that, Oscar usually break something."
"Just one bone," said Huong. "So far."
I watched Trinh. "You started dating Deborah Ling to get your hooks further into Woodrow Gant. But why?"
"She a good-looking chick."
"There's got to be more to it than that."
Trinh blinked twice, pursing his lips, then moved his eyes off to the right, where nobody could see them. In a smaller voice, he said, "I fell for her, all right?"
Grover Gant began to moan even louder, now sprinkling in a few words.
I said to Trinh, "Fell in love?"
"Yeah. Her, too. With me, I mean."
I tried not to shake my head. "Okay, let's say I believe that. I still don't see why you were stalking Woodrow Gant."
"You said it before."
"Said what?"
Trinh swung his head back to me, the eyes as involved as his mouth in what he was saying. "The 'grudge' thing. Gant put me away, Mr. Private Eye. Me and Oscar, for a long time. What happened to us back in Vietnam wasn't enough. No, you guys have to get us over here, too. So, yeah, I was 'stalking' the lawyer-man, but not to kill him. Just to . . . get him."
"Get him how?"
“Like I got Chan there with his restaurant. Make that pure-blood respect me."
"Only Chan knew he was dealing with you, and Woodrow Gant didn't, right?"
Trinh shrugged. "Best I could do. When the lawyer-man put us away, I couldn't do nothing. When I got out, I make enough money, I could. So I start in with his law-woman. And then I loan some money to his brother. Grover couldn't come up with enough to cover things, and so it was like old Woodrow was paying me direct, for all the time I was in the slam. And after that, I—"
The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy Page 22
