“No comment.”
“And the others were men with money who turned up wearing polo shirts with country club emblems, and Italian leather shoes. This guy shopped at thrift stores.”
“Still another reason why there may not be a connection. How many ways do I have to say, 'no comment'? Officer Gordon, now, please.”
“Look, Lieutenant Daniels, I really am trying to help. Don't you want to know what Preston and I discussed? It could be relevant to the investigation.”
“Officer Gordon will take your statement, possibly sometime within the next few days.”
This time Gordon managed to get Chapa several steps away before the reporter slipped his grasp and came storming back
“Why was he floating? Lungs full of air because something was caught in his throat?”
Now Herb got so close his nose almost touched Chapa's.
“And how exactly do you know that?”
“I saw something fly out of his mouth, watched the Lieutenant pick it up. Could be a pog.”
“A what?”
“Let me see it, and I'll tell you.”
Jack thought it over, couldn't see the harm, and pulled the bag out of her pocket. Chapa held it by the edge, bringing it close.
“Well, is it a,” Herb hesitated, “pog?”
Chapa looked up at the four of them and shook his head.
“It's not a pog.” He smiled smugly. “It's a slammer, a member of the pog family.”
Jack looked down at the small round piece of metal, then back at Chapa with a gaze that was equal parts awe, bemusement, and pity.
“That's it,” Jack's voice was calm and steady. “Officer Gordon, get him out of here and keep him away from normal people until we take his statement, sometime around Labor Day.”
“Pogs were made of cardboard, this one's metal, and heavier, that's what makes it a slammer,” Chapa was talking fast, trying to get the words out before Gordon could grab his shoulders again and drag him away.
Jack snatched the bag back, returned it to her pocket. “Your turn. What, exactly, is a pog?”
Chapa folded his arms across his chest and looked like he was getting ready to hold court.
“They originally came from fruit juice in Hawaii. The treated cardboard milk cap beneath the screw-on bottle top of passion fruit-orange-guava juice. They had different designs, kids began to collect them and trade them by playing a game. You'd pile up a stack of your opponent's pogs face down, then hit them with a heavier piece called a slammer. The ones that turned face up you got to keep.”
Herb grunted. “Never heard of it.”
“Really big, back in the early 90s. Companies made millions of them. They were a fad for a while, some of the rarer ones sold for big bucks, like baseball cards. The one that popped out of Preston features a Bob Kane drawing. Classic Batman, before they turned his cowl from blue to black.”
“And you know this because…?”
“I'm a reporter,” Chapa said through a smirk. “That means I'm as close to being omniscient as any human being can possibly get.”
“If you're omnipotent you know that if you print any sort of speculation before we release an official statement I'll come down on you so hard your ears will bleed.”
Chapa smiled. “You can't repress the truth, Lieutenant. The people have a right to know.”
“They also have a right to be safe from murderers, which are a lot harder to catch if crime scene information leaks out. Now go take his statement, Gordon, and if he gets away from you again you're going to wish you didn't come to work today and instead stayed home and licked all the hair off of a monkey.”
Chapa laughed, then said, “Don't knock what you haven't tried, Lieutenant,” forcing Jack to suppress a smile of her own.
Gordon nodded, grabbed Chapa more firmly than possibly necessary, and pulled him off the scene.
“Want to get a smoothie?” Herb asked. “I've got a sudden urge for passion fruit-orange-guava juice.”
Jack didn't answer. She watched Chapa leave. While shooing away reporters was second nature to her, this one wasn't as annoying as most, and it seemed like he might have had more to offer. It didn't matter really. Gordon would do a decent interview, and if there was a follow-up needed Jack could always do it herself. Besides, real murders weren't like TV or books where the crime was solved an hour after it happened. It often took days, weeks, months, before an arrest was made.
Still, watching Chapa walk away left her with a nagging doubt that perhaps she should have pressed the man further.
Excerpt from PLANTER'S PUNCH by J.A. Konrath and Tom Schreck
Duffy
My face hurt like a toothache.
The boxer I'd just fought—a fat guy from Gary, Indiana who was supposedly slow and easy to hit—could punch. I hit him a lot, easily, but he countered well, and every time he did it felt like getting banged with a fabric-covered cinder block. Enough of those and it makes your head ring. Not a pleasant dull throb, but a crackling pain going through from your forehead to your jaw.
Incidentally, I won the fight—six rounds to two in an eight rounder that left me a thousand dollars richer. Now, my true reward; a trip to AJ's for a beer. I fought at the Armory, a two minute car ride to the bar, and got the shock of my life when I came through the front door.
The place had a crowd.
That never happened. Usually, the crowd, and I use that term loosely, consisted of the Fearsome Foursome, Kelley the cop, me and maybe, on a good night, a couple of cab drivers. Tonight other people had invaded my refuge.
Luckily, the Foursome had their usual seats at the bar and saved me one. Kelley, one away from that, was also in. Maybe not so luckily, the Foursome had already started.
“They wrapped her tits in ace bandages, you know.” TC said.
“She sprain 'em?” Jerry Number One said.
Fuck, they were arguing about the Wizard of Oz again. TC loved to talk about how Judy Garland had her breasts wrapped to look younger in her famous role.
“Jed Clampett got sick making that flick,” Rocco said. It silenced the room for a second while the others stared. I took my seat, put a hand up to my face. No swelling, yet.
“The glue on the lion outfit gave him the hives,” Rocco said with confidence.
“Bulger.” Jerry Number Two.
“It is not Bulger, it's the truth,” Rocco said.
AJ, the owner and only bartender, slid a bottle of Schlitz in front of me. I took a long pull and held the rest of it to my forehead.
“Let me get a Beam, too.” I said. AJ lifted his eyebrows but said nothing and put a sidecar of the brown elixir next to the Schlitz.
“Buddy Epson got allergic to the silver paint. Ray Bulger played the lion,” I said. “You fuckin' guys had this discussion a month ago.”
The Fearsome Foursome—Jerries One and Two, Rocco and TC—all stared at me.
“Sorry, fellas,” I said, realizing I'd snapped at them. “My head hurts.”
The unusual silence from the crew called my attention to the crowd in the bar for the first time. There were three strangers on stools on the end by the TV. They didn't look like the usual cab drivers who drifted in. Foreign, maybe eastern block, each in a suit worth more than my payday. They seemed familiar, and it dawned on me they were at the fight. I saw them in the dressing room hanging out with Wilkerson, the fight promoter. They also had front row seats.
I figured they probably followed me here for a drink, but then realized they were here before me. Unusual. Behind them, another group chatted quietly while sipping their drinks. A fat balding guy ate an AJ's cheeseburger, getting mustard, ketchup and grease on his face. He didn't bother with a napkin and instead dragged his sleeve in an upward motion across his mouth.
He talked to a forty-something woman in a very sharp suit—way too sharp for AJ's. No spring chicken, but hot enough in that self-confident, cougarish way.
I reached for the whiskey, letting it burn down my throat.
&n
bsp; “Be cool, Duffy. Any second now, they're going to approach you, make the offer.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Kelley. “What the hell are you talking about? Did I just walk into a bad spy novel?”
“Lower your voice, dumb ass. I said stay cool.”
I was going to give Kelley more shit but his eyes made me think better. I took another pull on the Schlitz and played along.
“You wearing the wire?” I asked.
I guess I was going to give Kelley shit after all. But he surprised me by saying, “No. You are. Joint effort with the Chicago cops. Stick this in your pocket.”
He passed something into my hand. I glanced down. Looked like a pen drive.
Kelley wasn't the practical joker type. He wouldn't crack a smile on his birthday in a room full of clowns. Maybe my fat opponent had jarred something loose in my head, because I truly had no idea what was going on.
“Pocket,” Kelley said. “Here they come. Tell them yes.”
I felt movement to my right. The three well-dressed foreign-types were standing over me.
“Matching Rolexes,” Jerry Two said. The Fearsome Foursome were appraising the new arrivals. “Daytonas. Platinum bands.”
“White gold,” Rocco said.
“Platinum.”
“I thought white gold and platinum were the same thing, just different colors.” This from KC.
“Different elements,” said Jerry Two. “Platinum is heaver.”
“No it ain't, zipper-head. Gold is.”
“Platinum. That's why it's more, you know, pricier.”
The tallest of the men, the guy who stood in the middle, smiled at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, five o-clock shadow coming in strong even though he smelled like aftershave. He had something on his front tooth. A diamond.
“Mr. Dombrowski,” he said. His accent was Russian. “May we have a word with you?”
“You know how to tell a fake Rolex?” Jerry One. “If it's got a ticking second hand. The real thing sweeps, don't tick.”
“Another dead giveaway is the plastic band with Fred Flintstone on the face,” said Rocko.
Titters from the Foursome. I rubbed the pen drive recorder in my hand, and still couldn't figure out what exactly was going on here. Were these the Chicago cops Kelley mentioned?
“You guys were at the fight,” I said. Seemed like a smart thing to say. “Ringside.”
“Yes. Your performance was…” he smiled, the diamond glinting blue from the neon beer sign, “acceptable. Now can we have a word?” His eyes flitted over to the Foursome, then back to me. “In private?”
In between fights, I made my living as a counselor. Over the years I got pretty good at reading people. These three didn't look like cops, sound like cops, or act like cops. But their expensive suits had bulges under their left armpits, which meant concealed weapons, and Kelley did insist I say yes to them. So I nodded, finished my beer, and stood up.
The trip wasn't a long one. I followed them over to their table.
“Please, Mr. Dombrowski. Sit.”
“I'd rather stand.”
Bling Tooth made a dismissive gesture, but he and his buddies stayed standing too.
“You put on a pretty good show tonight,” he said. His accent seemed to get thicker. “Your opponent, however… the show he put on was much better.”
I waited, not liking where this was going, but not jumping to conclusions.
“We paid him ten thousand dollars to put on that show.”
I felt the burn coming up my neck, to my ears. I'd gone eight rounds with the fat guy, but all of my energy had suddenly returned, tenfold. It all clicked what Kelley wanted from me, but I couldn't hold back the anger and my fists clenched involuntarily, which probably wouldn't be good for the voice recorder in my palm.
“I've heard the rumors,” I said, making sure my rage wasn't in my voice. “New guys in town. Russians. Paying fighters to take falls. But the guy tonight, he hit back. Hard. I know him from the circuit. He's legit. You're telling me you owned him?”
“We can be… persuasive.”
I wondered how much his diamond tooth was worth, and where I could pawn it after I knocked it out of his mouth. But they had guns, and like an idiot I was standing between them and Kelley, my back-up. Plus, Kelley'd told me to say yes. Get it on tape, they go to jail, win-win. All I had to do was swallow my pride and agree to take a dive.
But then Bling Tooth made a big mistake. Two fingers scissored into his vest pocket and removed a photograph.
“We hope you agree to help us, Mr. Dombrowski. Or else we'd be forced to hurt someone you care very much about.”
He flashed the picture at me. It was Al, my basset hound.
These fuckers had my dog.
It didn't sink in right away. It had already been a long night of getting punched in the head. I looked up to see Bling Tooth smile at me.
“You want I send you a floppy ear for proof?” he said. He went to smile but before the corners of his mouth turned something went bad inside me and I hit him with a straight left. It caught part nose and part upper lip. He went down hard, grasping his face. Blood already spurted from between his fingers, and I guessed it was nose blood by the way it shot.
I sat on the bastard's chest and grabbed his thorax with my right. My grip remained sore from the eight rounder, so it wasn't as tight as I would have liked.
“Listen mother—” I didn't get to finish.
I heard a series of clickety-clacks and realized his two buddies held guns pointed at my head.
Then one of them bent down next to me, picking something up off the floor.
I'd dropped the pen drive recorder.
Jack
The trail led us to Crawford, about fifty miles out of New York City. When a murderer crossed state lines, the Feds had jurisdiction. At least, they were supposed to. But neither Herb nor I gave them a call. We didn't even tell our boss, Captain Bains, we were leaving Chicago.
Sometimes being a law enforcement officer meant tip-toeing around the law.
Our suspect, a Russian mobster named Vladimir Polchev, had skipped town before we could haul him in. Polchev had made two big mistakes.
First, he'd murdered a friend of mine. Dirk Wendt, a semi-pro boxer who happened to be my taekwondo instructor for the last six years.
Second, he'd done it on my turf.
The Russians scared the crap out of people, so most weren't willing to talk. But when I've got my mean on, I can be pretty damn persuasive. Herb and I shook down a pimp owned by the mob, got word that Polchev was paying off fighters to throw matches. If they didn't play along, his crew killed them. Wendt was a Chicagoan, but it didn't take much research to find two other murders that matched Polchev's signature.
A tip took us to New York. We called ahead, playing nice with the locals, and were invited to visit as part of a joint task force. It seemed Polchev was a person of interest in several recent murders. The NY fuzz put a tail on him, checked with their informants, and learned Polchev was planning to put the squeeze on a boxer named Dombrowski. We met the lead investigator, Kelley, at a dive bar, to supervise a sting operation. Kelley informed us, in no uncertain terms, that this was not our collar, and we were to maintain a hands-off policy.
Herb and I had no problem with this. I wanted Polchev, bad. It didn't matter to me which city locked him up, as long as someone did.
“This is an excellent burger,” Herb said. There was so much of it on his face, shirt, and tie, I was dubious he'd gotten any of it into his mouth.
“I'll take your word for it.”
“You should eat something, Jack. The food is good.”
My stomach was still a bit queasy from our flight. The pilot called it “a little bit of turbulence,” but it had been enough to knock the ice out of my complimentary cup of water. Besides, I had a rule never to eat in a place where the main source of lighting was neon.
I checked my watch, then glanced over at the bar. In my left side peripheral vision, Pol
chev and two cronies sat, drinking top shelf vodka. Polchev was the one with the diamond in his front tooth. To my right, four men argued about the merits and detriments of toothpaste.
“You know fluoride is poisonous?”
“Is not.”
“Is so, Jerry. They don't use fluoride toothpaste in space.”
“You can't brush your teeth in space, dumb ass. It's a vacuum.”
“You mean it can clean your rugs?”
“There's no air in space. You tried to brush your teeth, your brain would slurp out your nose.”
“I mean on the space shuttle. No fluoride in the toothpaste, because astronauts have to swallow it.”
“Makes sense. If they spit it out, it would float after them, following them around all mission.”
I tuned them out. Or tried to, at least. I turned back to Herb, took a sip of my club soda and lime, glancing casually at Polchev. He and his men were all armed. Kelley said nothing was going to go down here, and I hoped he was right. The bar was crowded, and shooting would be a catastrophe. I hoped that this Dombrowski guy was good at keeping his cool. Kelley said he was a social worker. Interesting combination, social work and boxing.
Herb finished licking his fingers and dug out the paperback he was reading. Afraid, by Jack Kilborn. He'd read a good portion of it on the plane, every once and a while pausing to whisper, “Jesus H. Christ.” Apparently, the book was supposed to be scary.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Herb whispered again.
I hated it when people did that, because of course I had to ask what was so upsetting.
“This girl is hanging upside down over a pile of dead bodies,” Herb said.
“Sounds like fun.”
“You gotta read this, Jack.”
“I will. Right after I order a burger.”
The four next to us segued into The Wizard of Oz.
“The horse of a different color died. The color they used on him was toxic.”
“Was not. They used gelatin. He kept licking it off.”
“You're thinking of the tin man.”
“The tin man licked off his paint?”
“No, dummy. The horse.”
“The tin man licked the horse?”
Jack Daniels Stories Page 24
