Henry looked troubled. “I don’t want to tell you your business, but you better know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t give a damn that Cooper runs Irvington like a feudal lord and dirty money is the lifeblood of his precinct. Finding Tanya is what brought me here.”
“Tanya’s not here, right? You know it. Why should Cooper believe that’s the only reason you’re here?”
I tried to decipher what he meant. Then it hit me. “What? I’m a G-man?”
“If they think you’re messing with them, you might not make it back to Chicago. I wouldn’t hang around too long.”
Henry’s look burned a hole between my eyes, penetrated my brain. I doubted a man could have been more serious than Henry at that moment.
“If you wouldn’t mind giving me an address, I’d like to make one more stop—on my way out of town.”
Chapter 25
If I dulled my vision, the block could have been any middle-class neighborhood on the Eastern Seaboard. Two-story wood-framed boxes, attic dormers, wide flights of stairs leading to large front porches. Only after I sharpened my gaze would the peeling paint, water damage, cracked windows, and torn blinds come into focus.
An eight-foot privacy fence circled Burt Byrne’s residence from one side of the staircase to the other. Boards standing vertically along the sides of the staircase reached almost to the second story, preventing a visitor from looking into the yard. Halfway up the steps, I saw two African American men passed out on Burt’s porch. Empty liquor bottles lay scattered across the floor. None appeared to have labels. I stepped over the bodies. Ringing the doorbell provoked hysterical barking from the yard. The furious noise receded toward the back of the house, only to manifest moments later as three snarling German shepherds staring at me through the sidelights.
I retraced my steps back to the sidewalk, then loitered in the vicinity. Perhaps it was the “energy” Amy spoke of or maybe it was my keen awareness of history, but I sensed an uncanny quality about the neighborhood. Despite the gloom, the buildings themselves seemed somehow optimistic. Perhaps Amy would’ve claimed the happier energy of the early-twentieth-century construction still embodied the framework—just waiting for good times to reappear.
A Dodge station wagon circa 1970 approached from the end of the block. Despite the relatively flat street, the vehicle conspicuously bounced, rolled, and swayed as if on a trampoline. The car slowed almost to a stop in front of Burt’s house then slowly maneuvered into the driveway. The suspension bottomed out with a painful scrape. A man I assumed to be Burt Byrne stepped out of the car, holding a bag of groceries. Early sixties, six foot, dark circles under eyes, beer belly dammed up behind his belt. Upon noticing the unconscious visitors on his porch, he placed the bag on the hood, grabbed a wooden baseball bat from the backseat, then ran up the stairs shouting obscenities.
I looked on in horror as Burt raised the bat only to slam it down on the floor next to one man’s head. The noise prompted the first signs of life, but not enough movement to prevent Burt from poking the men hard in their sides while continuing his verbal assault. Not until he started viciously kicking them did the two finally scramble to their feet and stagger off his property.
For several minutes Burt stood catching his breath, watching the derelicts shuffle down the sidewalk. When they were out of sight, he dropped the bat and walked back to the car to collect his groceries.
“Are you Burt Byrne?”
His look epitomized the same disdain and suspicion Henry displayed. “What do you want?”
“I know your son, Eddie. He hired me to find Tanya Maggio.”
His expression turned incredulous, as if I had uttered the dumbest statement possible. “So what do you want from me?”
“I’d just like to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”
Without a word, Burt turned around and walked back up to the porch. I followed him to the porch’s top step. A chorus of anxious whimpering replaced growling as Burt stood in front of the door, fumbling for keys. I couldn’t think of what to say before Burt entered the house and locked the door behind him.
I held the doorbell button down, listening to the repeated chimes provoke the dogs into a frenzy of barking. Burt’s footsteps approached with a heavy urgency. Instinctively, I stepped back, almost tripping on the bat, which I then picked up. The door flew open.
“Do you want to fuckin’ die today?” Burt shouted as he advanced toward me.
I extended my arm, pointing the bat almost into his abdomen. His hesitation allowed me to negotiate my backward progress toward the stairs.
“I’m trying to help Eddie find his girlfriend,” I shouted then pulled the bat away. “What’s the big deal?”
“You’re on my goddamn property,” he said as I backed down the stairs, lifting the lumber when necessary. “You don’t tell me what to do on my own goddamn property!”
When I reached the sidewalk, I dropped the bat. Burt stood at the end of his driveway. “Okay, I’m off your property. Go ahead and beat the crap out of me.” I stood with my arms behind my back, offering the most vulnerable of targets.
Burt gave me a queer, almost deranged look. In addition to the dark circles, his eyes were red and watery. His voice lowered, Burt said, “What is it you want?”
“I want to find out what happened to Tanya—”
Burt threw up his hands. “I don’t fucking know.”
“Why would Tanya take off without telling Eddie?”
For a few moments, Burt appeared to be thinking my question over, but I couldn’t be sure. Then he said, “I don’t get why I should tell you anything. You just show up and think I’m gonna start talking to you?”
“I didn’t just show up. Eddie hired me.”
“He hired you to come talk to me?”
I should have anticipated this question. Too risky to lie. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Another demented look, eyeballs bouncing around. “Huh! And why is that?”
“He hired me, but I work on my own terms. I don’t need his permission.” Burt shook his head then started back toward the stairs. Think of something, damn it! “C’mon, Burt, Cooper talked to me. And Henry the hardware guy talked to me. Don’t you want to know what they said?”
Burt stopped, faced me with another moonstruck expression. “And why would I care what those fuckers said?”
“Truth, damn it! That’s all I’m looking for. Where the hell is Tanya? Don’t you want to know? For Eddie’s sake, don’t you want him to find out what happened to her? She’s a human being who your son cares about. So I gotta learn about this whole world you all live in. You think I’d come here from Chicago—to this paradise of Irvington—just to fuck with you?”
I wanted to believe Burt’s latest expression revealed the slightest acceptance of my last-ditch effort to salvage a conversation. When he turned and headed back to the house my heart sank, only to rise moments later when he motioned with his hand to follow.
—
On the porch, Burt pointed to one of three wicker chairs then held the door open and said, “C’mon, girls.”
The image of German shepherds tearing my flesh had barely registered before the three dogs sat in front of their master, staring in silent devotion, ears back, tails sweeping the floorboards.
“Relax—sir. If I’m home, they’re pussycats.”
I handed Burt a business card. “Tell them I love animals so much, I don’t eat them.”
Burt stared at the card, mumbled my name. “Call her over,” he said, pointing to one of the dogs. “Daisy. Call Daisy over.”
I did as told. Daisy approached cautiously and sniffed the back of my hand. I knew to avoid direct eye contact, and when Daisy lifted her tail higher, I knew I could slide my hand behind her ear for a little scratch. When she sat and plopped a paw on my knee, I knew peace would reign.
Burt kicked away a couple of bottles from the floor of the porch then pulled a chair opposite me. Daisy lay down at my feet. The other dogs lay on e
ither side of Burt, who stared across the street, his expression now just the average scowl. His arms hung down the sides of his chair, each hand lightly stroking a dog’s head.
I said, “Eddie didn’t want me to come here and ask questions. I don’t expect you to rat out your own son. But if there’s something about his past that is related to Tanya’s disappearance, I need to know.”
Still staring straight ahead he said, “Eddie’s been on his own a long time—I wasn’t much of a father.” Burt abruptly stood up, then disappeared into the house. The dogs turned their heads in unison to stare at the door until their master reappeared, holding a six-pack of Pabst. He handed one to me, sat back down to resume staring across the street, then cracked open a can.
“Eddie brought a hell of a lot of cash to Chicago,” I said.
Burt gulped twice from the can. “You don’t say.”
I cracked open my can, pretended to take a long swig, but choked down only about a thimble’s worth. “Didn’t mean to shock you.”
“It’s a cash-and-carry world. Not much check writing around here.”
It suddenly hit me that Burt spoke better English than Eddie. “You don’t wonder what Eddie’s selling for cash?”
“Too late to wonder.”
“Drugs and cash are pretty well matched.”
Burt glared at me, then looked away. “He’s no dope dealer.”
“Why not? You said he’s been on his own a long time.”
“Because he doesn’t fucking sell drugs! Others maybe, but not Eddie.”
Several moments of silence. I said, “But he’s in the family business, right?” No response. “Eddie needs cash to go look for Tanya. Uncle Whoever gives him money. How do you know it’s not drug money?”
Burt guzzled the rest of the can, belched, then opened another. “What difference does it make?”
“The difference is Cooper. He’s the vice lord. He gets a piece of everyone’s action, right?”
“So?”
“So it’s all connected. Cash from strip joints, gambling, whores, crack. It’s all part of the same pot.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”
“A white boy in the ’hood. He’s respected. He’s gotta be working with Cooper. And since Tanya was Eddie’s girl, she was probably plugged in, you know?”
“Ask your buddy Cooper.”
It was my turn to scowl. “Sarcasm gives you away, Burt. You’re angry Eddie works for Cooper and you blame yourself.”
Burt shot up from his chair, startling the dogs. “Don’t tell me what I am! I should throw your ass out of here. I don’t know why the fuck I’m even talking to you.”
“Cooper acted like he was Eddie’s guardian angel, made sure Eddie kept on the right path. He said he knew Tanya only from a distance—as Eddie’s sweetheart. That’s gotta be bullshit. Did she run away from Cooper? Run from Eddie? C’mon, Burt, what do you think?”
Red faced, stomach falling over belt—a heart attack could not have found a more accommodating host. Burt took a deep lungful of air, then sat back down.
“Let’s keep it simple,” I said. “It seems unlikely Tanya could be Eddie’s girlfriend but still have a life unconnected to Cooper.”
Something about that chair compelled Burt to stare across the street. I leaned back, set my almost-full can of beer on the floor, and studied the face of a Vietnam veteran now hunkered down in Irvington, New Jersey. From his sixty-something face, I surmised a birth positioned perfectly in a ten-year stretch of Baby Boom arrivals, from which President Johnson plucked the unlettered, low-hanging fruit of American sons, and shipped them to a Cold War jungle. Just as the profiteering corporations loved a poor man’s war, guys like Cooper knew how to exploit a local war on drugs.
“They were together too long,” Burt said quietly. “She couldn’t have helped knowing more than she needed to know.”
From that simple acknowledgment, Burt appeared tragically helpless, yet somehow heroic. Up to this point, I had only assumed that the realities of Eddie’s life might have played a role in Tanya’s disappearance.
“Burt, I don’t believe Eddie sells drugs. I really don’t. But I have to work on the assumption that Tanya is running from something. And whatever that something is, Eddie’s probably part of it.”
Burt turned to me. For the first time, he didn’t look angry. “He might not know what’s going on. I always told him he couldn’t trust that prick Cooper.”
“Eddie says he went to Chicago to find Tanya. A retired cop friend thinks Cooper gave him the additional assignment of establishing inroads into Chicago for his drug empire.”
Burt shouted, “I said Eddie is no dope dealer! He wouldn’t do it, no way!”
“Okay, forget the drugs. What if Cooper financed Eddie’s trip but wanted some kind of work done in return? Does that sound like Cooper?”
Burt nodded. “Yeah, Cooper would do that. Cooper would send Eddie off a cliff if he thought it was good for business.”
Burt closed his eyes, leaned his head back. It seemed like a good time to call it quits. I stood and put another business card on my chair. “Thanks for your time, Burt. I hope you’ll call me if something comes to mind.”
I thought I heard an acknowledging grunt, but couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 26
With two peanut-butter sandwiches and a bottle of water, I parked on a corner intersecting Clinton Avenue, a couple of blocks from the mini-precinct. Despite the cars lining the street in front of the building, nobody entered or exited. I guessed the meeting Cooper had mentioned was in progress. An hour later, both sandwiches were gone. The sun beat down on the car. Weights hung from my eyelids. I opened the windows but the air was still. The drowsy spell would have its way, there was no going back.
Men laughed, car doors slammed, alarms chirped. Emerging from a hazy slumber, I started my car just as Cooper’s crony Sergeant Blake joined another man in a large Buick. Their car pulled a tight U-turn and flew past me. I let them get half a block ahead then sped after them. Instead of staying on Clinton, they turned down a side street and meandered their way into an industrial park. The Buick stopped in front of a long structure in the shape of a top hat. In the middle of the building the warehouse towered high, with three enormous bay doors flanked on both sides by standard one-story flat-roofed offices. I parked on the far side of an adjacent warehouse then walked toward the back of the top-hat building. As I got closer, I realized the lower level was twice as wide as the warehouse. The building now resembled a modernist-style chair. I opened an unlocked wooden door on which the word “Office” had been sloppily painted.
The room was large, extending back to carpeted partitions lined up in front of a glass wall separating the office from the warehouse, and had a strange, overripe kind of smell, not unpleasant but not exactly desirable. I moved one of the partitions away from the glass and saw an elaborate network of steel tanks, hoses, valves, pumps, meters, and other obscure-looking mechanical devices. Two men in lab coats attended the machinery. One walked slowly around the equipment, stopping to check gauges and adjust dials, while the other added packets of powder or small quantities of liquids to one of the tanks. In the corner, a man sat next to a pile of wooden crates. Smoke drifted from a device he pressed against the wood.
“Miss your flight, Detective?”
Two men stood in front of the door. The guy holding a gun was Guido Tuxedo from Back End Up. Sergeant Blake stood beside him, arms folded.
“Weird. All the flights were full. Nobody gave up a seat.”
I had failed to notice the glass door to a dimly lit hallway linking the office to the warehouse. A hulking figure approached.
“You got a gun under that jacket, Detective?” Guido Tuxedo said.
“I didn’t yesterday. Right, Sergeant Blake?”
Sergeant Blake had no comment. His face looked as pleasant and unconcerned as when I first walked into the mini-precinct. The figure from the hallway pushed through the door. M
iddle-Eastern looking, he stood about six foot with gorilla shoulders and a chest like the front end of a Peterbilt truck. His smile disturbed me.
Guido Tuxedo said, “In such a small space, I’d feel better if I knew you were unarmed. I hope you don’t mind if Ahmet pats you down.”
“Guys, New Jersey doesn’t have a concealed-carry reciprocity agreement—”
The smell of oregano arrived first, a moment before Ahmet stood behind me and executed a choke hold with his left arm while patting me down with his right hand. Despite finding me unarmed, Ahmet placed his right forearm against the back of my neck and applied pressure. My comical attempt to get a grip on his massive forearms was my last memory before I found myself sitting on the floor, leaning backward against someone’s hulking stomach, but having no idea where I was. The oregano smell restarted my brain as the gorilla hands lifted me up by the armpits.
“Feeling better?” Guido Tuxedo said. He stood about a foot in front of me. Sergeant Blake remained at the door. “Now that we know you’re unarmed, I feel better. Look, I’ll put my gun away. Why don’t we chat a bit?”
“Yeah. Let’s be friends.”
Guido Tuxedo frowned. “Playing the tough detective? You think you’re in a fucking movie?”
I truly couldn’t help myself. “I have to act tough or be a smart ass. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Guido Tuxedo looked confused. “Can’t we just talk like men?”
“Okay. What’s your name?”
“Mike.”
Guido Tuxedo was now Mike. “Mike, your breath stinks.”
A sudden ringing filled the room then everything spun in a mist of sparkling lights before the pain spiraled out of my ear and covered the top of my head. My knees buckled but I somehow remained standing.
“Turks are known to be hospitable,” Mike said, “but not Ahmet. He just gave you a mild concussion without even trying. A concussion is a brain injury. Your brain should heal before you get another smack like that. Otherwise, you may never recover.”
“Why don’t you just put a slug in my head instead of scrambling my brains?”
Gold Coast Blues Page 13
