Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 17 - Retro

by Loren D. Estleman

  “They could have hired that part too.”

  “Wait till you meet Regina. Given any choice she’d pull the trigger herself.”

  “She’s sick, you said.”

  I let him have that one.

  He said, “I’d like to see that bug.”

  “Later. As long as whoever’s listening doesn’t know I know about it, I’m out in front. I don’t know just yet what I’ll do with the lead, but I’m not giving it up without a warrant.”

  He thought about that idea. Then he crumpled it too. “Speaking of guns, you can pick yours up at the City-County Building. I had them run it through ballistics at Thirteen Hundred. Garnet was shot with a thirty-eight revolver, unjacketed slugs, just like yours; but not with your gun. I thought you’d be happy to hear that.”

  I thanked him dryly. Thirteen Hundred Beaubien is the address of Detroit Police Headquarters, and it was a sign of the changing times that the authorities there were willing to help out Wayne County. There’d been sour blood between them for a long time after sheriff’s deputies shot it out with undercover cops during a bungled sting operation in the seventies, and the relationship hadn’t improved during twenty years with a paranoiac in the mayor’s office who was convinced everyone outside the city limits was out to get him. No one ever did, for the record. Emphysema and the devil got him in the end.

  “Am I still a suspect?”

  “I’d grill the pope if he prowled around Garnet’s room before he was even room temperature. For a guy who says he knows the state constitution, you sure pissed all over it up there. But you didn’t kill Garnet.”

  “The constitution’s only forty years old,” I said. “They’ll just draw up a fresh one.”

  “You still investigating this from the Smallwood end?”

  “I’m starting to think that isn’t the reason he was killed. But I can’t shake the feeling it wouldn’t have happened if someone hadn’t killed Smallwood. Who said genius is the ability to hold two conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time?”

  “Sybil. I got another one for you. No sense only one of us going home fluttering his lips with his finger.”

  I tensed. I watched him smooth out the crumpled airplane, examining it with all the attention of an FAA consultant trying to reconstruct a crash. Finally he pushed it away.

  “You’ve got instincts,” he said. “If I didn’t have a few myself I’d think you’d been holding out on me. After you told me about Curtis Smallwood, I requisitioned the evidence from Oakland County. I had Detroit Ballistics compare the slugs that killed Garnet to the one the county coroner dug out of Smallwood’s brain. Father and son were both killed by the same gun, fifty-three years apart.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I studied Hichens, the bleak eyes in the unremarkable face cut off abruptly at the top by the straight black hairline, like a Greek mask. All around us crockery rattled, flatware jingled, busboys and servers murmured among themselves as they stripped the tables between onslaughts. White noise from an improbable future, buzzing disconnectedly below and behind the solid reality of December 31, 1949.

  “Dead certain?” I said.

  Hichens chuckled joylessly.

  “Dead and certain. I looked through the eyepieces myself. Right-hand twist, identical wear patterns in the striations. At the risk of sawing off the limb I live on, I’d say the gun was never fired between the two killings. Not enough anyway to wear down the grooves any further.”

  “So where’s it been all these years?”

  “If I knew that, I’d know where it is now. My guess on the last would be the bottom of the Detroit River, with all the rest of the ordnance.”

  “What kind of killer kills a man, waits for the victim’s son to grow up, then kills him too?”

  “The kind I’d like to clap in solitary for however many years he’s got left. I don’t care if he needs a walker to make it to the end of the cell block.”

  “You know that won’t happen.”

  “Juries are soft. They’d acquit Hitler if he showed up at his trial wearing a hearing aid. But that’s not my job.” He retrieved the creased napkin, then pushed it back. “You said the Babbage woman blamed Garnet for her son getting himself blown up. That’s a long time to carry a grudge. Maybe she had practice from before.”

  “It’s a theory,” I said. “That’s all it is, unless you can put her in that roadhouse parking lot the night Smallwood bought it.”

  “If she’s as bitter as you say, it might not take much leverage. You want to come with? I’ll let you be good cop.”

  “Why so generous?”

  “You’ve got a history with the case. My official partner wants to be sheriff. That doesn’t mean he’s a lousy cop, necessarily.”

  “He just won’t dive for grounders.”

  “I’ve still got gravel in my palm from the first time.”

  I shook my head. “Thanks but no thanks. One day with the Babbages gets me a pass through purgatory. I’m not looking for a halo.”

  “Suit yourself.” He got up, reminding me all over again how tall he was. “Morgenstern said he sent a car for you. I guess it didn’t occur to him to offer you a ride back. Where’s your buggy?”

  “West Grand. It’s a little out of your way if you’re headed up to Royal Oak.”

  “County pays for the gas.”

  “I’ll take a cab, thanks. Drivers never ask questions you have to answer.”

  “We’ll pretend I’m off duty.”

  I hesitated. When a cop offers a favor, you get suspicious. Then curious. I said okay.

  He got his blue Chrysler out of the restricted lot and picked me up in front of the hotel. He drove with both feet, like a trucker, and did most of his shifting ahead of the computer.

  “I thought I’d have to fight the feds for this case.” He kept his eyes on the semi highballing in front of him. “I expected Garnet’s explosive past to set them panting. All they did was ask for copies of the paperwork. I don’t understand how these flag boys operate.”

  “They don’t either, yet. The jurisdictions are so new all the lines are marked off in chalk.”

  “If he wore a turban I’d be busy rubber-stamping towing contracts right now. Who you talking to next?”

  “I’m pretending I’m deaf,” I said. “Just like I’m pretending you’re off duty.”

  “Shop talk. Cop to cop.”

  “I’m not a cop, as you cops keep reminding me.”

  He said nothing, a powerful argument. I was still curious.

  “I don’t know what’s next,” I said. “Most of the witnesses are dead or so far out of the loop they might as well be. Witnesses and evidence are all you need to make a case. You can make it with one or the other if you play it right and you’re lucky. I’m tapped out on both.”

  He passed the semi finally. It had slowed down for an exit, the first time it had dipped below eighty.

  “What’s the coldest case you ever broke?” he asked.

  “Forty-three years.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “On the level. Cops made the arrest in a nursing home.”

  “Bet the jury voted to acquit.”

  “It never went to trial. The defendant had Alzheimer’s.”

  “This time they may have to open a grave.”

  It was a conversation killer. Neither of us spoke again until it came time to direct him to where my car was parked. He slid in behind it next to a plug. “Your building’s around here, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it down the block. The one where they shot Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’m on the top floor.”

  “Big-time troubleshooter like you ought to have an office in every country in the world, like Red Adair.”

  “He puts out fires. I spit on ’em and run.” I left the door handle alone. I wondered if he was working up the courage to kiss me goodnight.

  “Go on up,” he said. “I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”

  “It was a lovely evening, Captain. Let
’s not spoil it.”

  “Five minutes,” he growled.

  “Better make it ten. There’s no elevator.”

  He flipped down his visor with its official seal and we got out. The dusk was charged with nitrogen; we had a thunderstorm coming, the kind that flooded underpasses and snapped power lines. Turning into the foyer of my building, I saw Hichens wrestling something out of the trunk of the Chrysler.

  Eight minutes later—I hadn’t factored in his long legs—he mounted the top landing carrying a square fiberboard carton that had once contained a two-drawer file cabinet. I held open the door to the outer office and he carried it inside and dropped it on the floor with a thud. A cloud of dust and bits of decayed paper puffed out between the top flaps.

  “My compliments to your trunk,” I said.

  “I had to take the spare tire out of the well.” He kept his voice low, remembering the bug in the inner office. “It’s the physical evidence in the Smallwood case.”

  “I thought maybe it was your partner.”

  He wasn’t listening. “You can’t keep it or take it out of the building. I signed for it. Evidence is evidence, and this just got hot again, like a pile of old greasy rags. Good thing you don’t have any plans tonight.”

  I hadn’t told him a damn thing about my plans. As if it mattered.

  “When you coming back for it?”

  “That depends on the Babbages. Whenever it is, you’ll be here, awake and waiting.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Fuck that. I get enough of the rank from Joe Candidate. You see anything in that junk I didn’t, I see it too. Otherwise I’ll yank your bond. A private license isn’t worth shit without it.”

  “Why the boost?”

  “It took a couple of outside eggheads to break the biggest case I ever had, and I had to wait eleven years for it. I’d like to break this one before I retire.”

  “That stewardess got under your skin.”

  “I don’t like killers on my watch,” he said. “It’s an insult. I’m not some ham-footed hotel dick with a pint in his hip pocket.”

  “Nothing in this box would convict anyone for yesterday. I can tell you that much without opening it.”

  “I’m not running for sheriff. Oakland can have the collar, if it breaks at that end. Which murder isn’t important. You can only serve one life sentence, even if two separate juries manage to bring their balls into the courtroom. If the same hand fired that piece both times, I want it in a steel cuff.”

  “Thanks.” I actually meant it.

  “I’m not doing it for you. Nobody does anything in-house anymore; not the News or the Free Press or even General fucking Motors. It’s called outsourcing. Anyway, you won’t find anything, and for the next few hours at least I know I won’t be tripping over you.”

  “I’ve never seen the evidence room in Oakland. It must be the size of Tiger Stadium.”

  “It isn’t. When they close a case they hang onto the stuff till the appeals run out; then they destroy it. The rest goes into private storage. Watch out for spiders. I got a hell of a bite first time I pawed through it. I’m expecting my super powers any minute.”

  After he left, I lifted a flap and peeked inside the box. The first thing I saw was a gray wool felt hat, crushed and moth-pitted, with a torn silk band. The last time I’d seen it was in a newspaper photo of Curtis Smallwood, taken outside a downtown hotspot with Fausta West at his side. Hichens hadn’t been kidding about greasy old rags; the box smelled like the back room of a Red Shield store, with the dry musk of mouse droppings added to taste. It felt like Christmas.

  TWENTY-THREE

  New Year’s Eve, 1949.

  I have on a peach-colored silk shirt, a $200 suit built piece by piece to my measurements at Clayton’s, brown-and-white spectators, a thirty-dollar borsalino hat, and a Harris Tweed topcoat that wraps around and ties with a sash just like a bathrobe, no padding in the shoulders; I don’t need it. I weighed in this morning at one thirty-eight, six pounds down from the Castillo fight (which I won on points in front of ten million people watching from their living rooms), and all of it muscle. Enough of it anyway to swing around the floor of the Oriole Ballroom all night, sleep two hours, eat breakfast, and do four hours of windsprints and an hour apiece with the light and heavy bags and then report to Sportree’s for an evening of wringing hands and slapping backs, without losing steam. I’m not muscle-bound like Marciano or that lump Carnera, or for that matter any of those heavyweight battlewagons slogging around the canvas, throwing two halfass punches and then going into a clinch, boos all around. No wonder the networks prefer middle-and lightweights. Stripped to my trunks I’m smooth and supple like a swimmer, no unsightly knots or bulges. I’m golden as long as I lay off the potatoes and go easy on the hooch, which can bloat you up and ruin your good looks.

  And the looks are good, the rearview reminds me: no scar tissue, nose unbroken, hatbrim cocked precisely over the right eyebrow. A little too delicate, maybe, which is why the Clark Gable moustache, a wisp of a thing that needs barbering daily, but it stops the rumors before they start. If I were white they’d bill me as Pretty Boy, or maybe even Baby Face. But The Black Mamba’s not bad. George Raft’s friends call him Snake. The ladies don’t seem to object, in his case or mine.

  But if looking pretty were all I had, I’d be wearing a white coat and serving boilermakers to some auto-money hag up on Lake Shore Drive, and maybe something else upstairs when the old guy’s in a board meeting. Not this fella. I can deliver a combination like a B-24 payload, and I’ve got a clipping from a big-time magazine in my wallet comparing my footwork to Gene Kelly’s. I’ve stood twenty-three times with my glove in the air. Next week will make twenty-four, with nothing standing between me and Sugar Ray Robinson but open road.

  That’s next week. The hot destination tonight is the Lucky Tiger, a pole-barn roadhouse on an asphalt lot scooped out of solid woods on a lonely twisting two-lane blacktop twenty minutes from downtown; less if I open up the eight cylinders under the Alfa-Romeo’s hood, gunmetal-colored and rounded like the bowl of a spoon. I caught yellow hell over that purchase from Archie, who says by the time I pay it off I’ll need a wheelchair to come out of my corner; but managers are old ladies, convinced they’ll starve if you stiff them on one towel fee. I can feel the motor grumbling through the sole of my foot all the way up to my groin. The dotted lines dart past like laser blasts in a Flash Gordon chapter, the meaty whitewalls wail on the turns but grip the pavement like flypaper. Anyone who tells you it ain’t good to be twenty-two and nice-looking, with a roll in your pocket and a shift-knob in your hand, is a dirty commie.

  I pull into the parking lot, cut the motor, and with one foot on the ground I can feel the throbbing of the band in full stampede.

  The local version of Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd is blasting “Satin Doll” loud enough to stagger the rhythm of the neon sign flashing on the roof. The air outside is flinty, the windows frosted over, but the heat inside is apparent from this distance. The crowd’s fed up with the forties, war and rationing and production quotas. The prospect of 1950 shines like a new dime on a dirty sidewalk. No more suspicion or fear.

  The lot’s filled with Fords, Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Hudsons, Studebakers, DeSotos; most pre-war, some fresh from the line, operating back at capacity after all the retooling from defense. I don’t mind the hike. I’m used to parking away out to avoid dings and scratches. Long-legging it up the aisle with my collar up and my fists deep in my pockets, striding through the vapor of my own spent breath, I don’t notice I’m not alone until someone calls my name from behind. I turn, ready to sign an autograph or block a sucker punch from some country palooka out to impress his girlfriend. I don’t even see the muzzle flash… .

  Thunder broke with the harsh sulfur-edged crack of a pistol shot and I jumped awake. I had a crick in my neck, courtesy of the maple rail along the back of the upholstered bench in my outer office. The dream lingered for a minute, as the wo
rst ones will; it had been vivid enough that I looked down at my hands for signs of dark skin and the calluses on the knuckles that come from throwing rights and lefts that connect with bone and immersing them in brine to thicken the skin, a popular practice in the fight game before others took its place.

  The floor at my feet and the bench on both sides of where I was sitting were littered with the contents of the box Captain Hichens had left. I looked at my watch. I’d been out about ten minutes, time enough for the fusty smell of fabric stored too long under non-climate-controlled conditions, of moldy shoes and old paper, to penetrate to my subconscious and put me in Curtis Smallwood’s place for the last moments of his life.

  Or my idea of his place, based on the evidence. It suggested he was alone and that his assailant was crouched between parked cars; position of the body was consistent with turning away from the roadhouse, perhaps in response to someone calling his name, just before the slug went through his eye. The rest was guesswork. For all I knew, Smallwood was modest about his appearance and his skill in the ring. Dressing like a dandy, driving too much automobile, and carrying a laudatory press clipping in one’s wallet proves nothing. But it’s a rare youngster who can accept so much attention without wanting to prance. He’d certainly liked the night life, according to the columns. Then there were his affairs, which he took few pains to conceal. In a time when they were still lynching Negroes in the South for whistling at white women, that was nearly suicidal bravado.

  A volume of water the size of an Olympic swimming pool struck the roof all at once, roaring off the stucco and tarpaper and gurgling out of the rainspouts. I stood and stretched, bones crackling, and returned the unhelpful stuff to the carton, including the clothes Smallwood had been wearing when he was killed; quality stuff despite the ruination of years, bearing the labels of defunct tailors. Apparently he’d left no known next of kin to claim his personal effects after the investigators were through with them. Silverfish and rot had shredded the silk shirt, a wan pink that might once have been a vibrant shade of peach. The necktie, rayon with a Deco design, two fields of thin diagonal stripes set at opposing angles, was wrinkled but in relatively good shape, and was even back in style. Too bad he’d bled onto it. I threw it into the box.