Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  Service felt lightheaded. This was so much to take on all at once, but now he knew. Bozian was after him again. He looked at the chief and nodded as he and Allerdyce departed. His pension was meaningless compared to the wealth he had inherited from his late girlfriend Maridly Nantz. Bozian wants war? Let’s see how he handles it when it turns hot.

  “Did you follow all that?” Service asked Allerdyce when they were back in the truck.

  “Yah sure. We got find out state or udder jamokes own unnergroun’d shit.”

  Something like that. “I’m thinking Fellow Marthesdottir might be a good place to start.”

  “I had some t’oughts down dat line too, Sonnyboy. She pert smart cookie, dat girlie.”

  “You might have to take one for the team.”

  “Wah,” Allerdyce said. “I take one, it be for me, hell wit’ youses. If dat okay for team, den okay, but not why I taken one for seff.”

  Grady Service laughed and thought, Polaris and Allerdyce, both invariably in the exact orbit where nature put them.

  “Youse t’ink dis all turn out okay?” Allerdyce asked.

  “So far so good. It’s up to us to make the rest turn out okay.”

  “We go Yoop now?” his partner asked in a hopeful voice.

  “One more stop before we point our nose north.”

  “Knew dat,” Limpy grumbled.

  Chapter 13

  Lake Lansing

  Ingham County

  K Pop seemed ageless in his flashing eyes, but the wrinkles on his face were stacked like flapjacks with liver spots. “Service, you grand and glorious asshole,” the retired CO greeted him and grabbed him in a bear hug. “Hey man, I still got all my original teeth. Heard you can’t say the same.”

  Grady Service had lost all of his teeth with the assistance of culvert, a boulder, and an orthodontist after nearly drowning in a river early one Easter Sunday morning. “Bullshit,” he told the old officer. “You’re on your second or third set of falsies. Word is they fell out just so the Tooth Fairy’s dentist cousin could make a living and build a small palace on the Au Sable River.”

  The old man chuckled and looked down at Allerdyce. “Damn, Limpy, I’da thought them young gang-banger bucks in Jackson woulda butt-fucked you to death.”

  The old man cackled. “Weren’t dere fav’rite flavor when dey see I carry shank.”

  The CO turned his attention back to Service. “Must be the end of the world, an on-duty CO coming to see the likes of me.The half-life of my usefulness having passed down the crapper about twenty-five years back.”

  K Pop’s intel might not be current, so Service decided to let him think he was still on duty. Decades back the old CO had been wrongfully accused of selling state property and had been fired. The subsequent trial found him not guilty, but the department didn’t want him back and chastised him for questionable judgment and unprofessional behavior. The game warden’s lawyer eventually got him fully reinstated, with full back pay, including his pension. He then promptly retired.

  His name came from his habit of keeping cartons of K-rations in the back of his duty vehicle. He had been a resourceful, aggressive, successful game warden who made cases against people that made all of Lansing pay attention. He especially liked to hammer politicians—and found plenty to concentrate on.

  Service saw no shred of irritation or nervousness between the former CO and the famous former poacher. Very unusual for both men. Limpy swore he was allergic to game wardens, all but Service and his father before him. “Dey make me break out in the hides,” he would explain.

  “You two are a long way from home,” K Pop said, suggesting to Service that the old man who swore no interest in anything DNR-related still kept track of who was stationed where. K Pop had left the DNR in Service’s third year. Service had bumped into him in a bar up near the Soo one day, and K Pop had urged him to check in if he could ever help him with any of the many mysteries of state government and its foolish ways. Words spoken so long ago, yet Grady Service could still remember the intensity and sincerity of the man that day.

  “Knew I’d see you, sooner or later,” the man said. “Have to add I was beginning to think it would never happen.”

  “You know how it goes,” Service told him.

  The retired officer nodded enthusiastically and grinned sardonically. “Yah, nobody wants to play grab-ass with Typhoid Mary.”

  “You still running your traplines?” Service asked. K Pop had been one of the biggest, most assiduous trappers among COs, and had taught new officers the sport and how to enforce it.

  “Quit that shit years back, and turned to trapping humans as a private dick. Make more money and it’s a lot more fun. I specialize in politicians of the egg-sucking persuasion, of which this particular water wonderland has too damn many. What the hell do you want? How can I help? You don’t get down to it quick-like, I may keel over dead of old age.”

  “I seem to remember you had a run-in with Bozian.” Service’s actual memory was not clear on the details; it was more of a lingering impression somewhere on the edge of his consciousness.

  K Pop nodded. “Over-limit of pheasants, twice. This was before his political bulk floated him to the top of the state cesspool. Wasn’t much to it. He was up on his farm, and I caught him walking home on a state road, hauled him to a JP. He pleaded guilty and paid his fine. No fuss, no posturing, by-the-bloody-book, politically correct, paid his fines, and went on his way.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Bozian I know.”

  “I’m pretty sure he had a lot more shit back on his property, but it was good to stroke him and let him know he was on my watch list.”

  “No harsh words or aftermath?”

  “I heard a few times how the Gov had his own hit list of get-evens and that my name was up high, but nothing ever came from it. Bozian’s an equal opportunity believer in payback in spades, no matter how small or large the transgression. But so was I, and I made sure he knew it.”

  “A list? What was your source on that?” Service asked.

  K Pop grinned mischievously. “Where’s your favorite morel picking spot?”

  Grady understood. Morel mushrooms, trout behind beaver dams, and sources, these were things you kept to yourself and shared with nobody, including your spouse.

  The retired officer added, “Okay, it was Bozian himself. He said, ‘Listen pal, you’d best step carefully from here on. I’ve got you on my list.’”

  “I said, same here, Governor.” K Pop suddenly looked at Service. “Why the hell are you still working?”

  “I’m not, I’m suspended.”

  K Pop grinned. “I guess I mighta heard a rumor down that line. And not your first one. What did they nail you for this time?”

  “A bit like the deal they ran on you. They suspend guys as a message they should retire—to save legal proceedings and potential embarrassment. They play that game with you?”

  “Hell no, they fired me outright, without a hearing and without cause, all based on some stupid rumor. The director told me, ‘Own up to it and we’ll let you retire.’ I told him to go blow his pink Chihuahua; he had the backbone of broke-down hippers. I told him I’d make the state pay for his incompetence, and pay they did, a full million on top of back pay for punitive damages and soiling my good reputation. The guy who sabotaged me had been in our unit but couldn’t hack undercover work. We sent him back to a uniform and he vowed to get even, not with our boss, who actually nixed him, but with me. I publicly called him out as a chicken shit and he didn’t like that. Ask me, I think he was secretly relieved to be out of the soup . . . he was chicken shit, pure and stinky as they come.”

  “Titty Bar Tyler,” Service said. “Remember the name but not the man.”

  “That was him. Nothing worth remembering, and I don’t know how many times the boss had to tell him that most of our clients
weren’t of the titty bar persuasion, but he had his own ideas. And he could hide his fear with drinks while ogling tits.” K Pop grinned. “What’s your interest in Bozian?”

  “My nose, gut, an itch, who knows.”

  “Yah, I know how that works. Look, Service, I just ain’t one to give up platinum sources, but if you’re looking for night dirt on Bozian, there’s only one true expert, M.”

  “Em, like Emily?”

  “No, the letter M.”

  “That’s all? Like the single-letter boss in James Bond’s outfit?”

  K Pop giggled. “Hell son, M’s all you’ll need.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “M will find you.”

  “Hasn’t so far.”

  “Mebbe ain’t nobody told M you’re fishing the Lansing pond, but I’ll take care of that. When time comes to present your bona fides, just say ‘K Pop sent me,’ and that will open the door and clear the way. But once you’re inside, you have to live by M’s rules.”

  “Which are?”

  “Different for each of us. You’ll be told, don’t you worry none about that.” K Pop stared at a wall. “Yeah, you’ll be told about that.”

  It wasn’t until they were back in the truck that Allerdyce spoke up. “Dat guy back dere give me da big willies. Somepin ain’t right in ’is noggin.”

  Service started the engine. “That’s exactly what people say about you.”

  Allerdyce seemed pleased. “See, takes one, know one, hey,” adding, “Dat Titty Bar guy youses say, he da one left ’im and shot offen ’is pajogler?” The old man’s eyes were on full twinkle.

  “I guess I never heard anything about that.”

  “Me I keep dis Bobbitt list, you know broad cutted off her old man’s whanger? Anybody gets nabbed on dat, I write name on list, don’t want date no knife-happy nut job. Dere’s a Tyler on list, hey.”

  A Bobbitt list? “I guess it’s good to have standards.”

  Allerdyce nodded. “Man’s got to have ’is tankards.” He added, “Bozian ain’t onny one keep payback list, Sonnyboy.”

  “What’re you trying to say?”

  “I ain’t saying nuffing ain’t already got saided.”

  Service studied his partner, whose face was the archetypal violator’s mask of neutrality, a real drooler of the plainest sort.

  “Where we go now?” Allerdyce asked.

  “Fishing.”

  “We ain’t got no gear.”

  “We’re the fish.”

  Allerdyce seemed to ponder this, tucked in his chin, and announced, “I ain’t no easy catch.”

  Truth in those words, Service could attest.

  Chapter 14

  East Lansing

  Ingham County

  An early morning text message instructed him to drive to an address on Northlawn in East Lansing at a certain time. He could bring his partner. The message was signed “M.” Service decided that K Pop had told M about Aller-dyce—how else would he know he had a partner? The neighborhood was nice, not modern chic or McMansionish, but the places of people with a pad of whatever to fall back on when times turned hard, as they recently had. Colonials and colonial offshoots mainly, with one outlier, a French-looking thing that was entirely out of step in suburbia. The uniformity of mowed and manicured lawns and ornately trimmed hedges gave Service the willies. He knew people who prized their lawns so much he swore they named every blade of grass and considered each a pet. The snow down here was gone, and it looked like the lawns had already seen at least one pass of the mowing service. Every house, not just one extremist. Monkey-see, monkey-do, keep up with the pack, Jack.

  No knocker on the door, but there was a small black camera staring down. “You him?” a voice from the camera asked.

  “That depends who him is, doesn’t it?” Service answered.

  “You’d be him,” the camera voice declared. “Word traveled ahead of you that you are a smart-ass and your partner’s a thief.”

  “Thank you,” Service said brightly. “It’s nice to be thought of.”

  Allerdyce stared up at the camera and wiggled his middle finger. “I ain’t no t’ief, and dat voice piss me off,” he whispered.

  “Probably a mutual feeling,” Service replied. The old violator had a knack for upsetting and angering people. Service was never sure if it was purposeful, or some sort of prickly force field Allerdyce projected.

  The camera said, “Excuse me, but do you honestly believe that poaching is not a form of theft?”

  Allerdyce looked around and eventually said, “Who me?”

  “Yes, you . . . you old reprobate.”

  “I ain’t no reporter, an’ I don’t use no bait, wah.”

  “You’re a poacher, a violator, a thief of the state’s publicly owned natural resources.”

  “Oh,” Allerdyce said. “Dat stuff’s old. I retired.”

  “Without making amends, no doubt.”

  “Retire means make end, don’t it?”

  The camera pivoted to Service. “Is this true, he’s retired?”

  “Apparently,” Service said.

  The camera: “But has he reformed?”

  “That’s still up in the air,” Service said. “It’s certainly what he claims, and so far I see no evidence to the contrary.”

  “Youses is talkin about me,” Allerdyce said. “I right ’ere, can hear dat shit, wah!” Then, to his partner: “We got stand out ’ere, take dis shit f’um stupid Pokeroid?”

  “If you are trying so ineptly to say I am a Polaroid, at least say it correctly. I am not a Pokeroid. The word is Polaroid,” the camera declared. “You are an ignorant man.”

  “Wah,” Limpy said with a growl. “Can you see me while we talk, like right now?”

  “Obviously,” the camera said.

  “Den youse is Pokeroid. Got instant pitcher and you like fat black wart on my ass.” To Service: “Why we stand ’ere take dis junk?”

  The door buzzed and popped open without further comment from the camera. Service said to his partner, “You know you were talking to a person, not that camera, right?”

  “I know it jest machine, Sonny, but hey I t’rw shit back and it shut up. I tell one arms do what I want and dey do. See, dese damn t’ings ain’t dumb as you t’ink. All machines is some kind a poodoo.”

  Another voice inside the foyer directed them. “Please take the left corridor to the living room and be seated.”

  The hallway had thick-pile wall-to-wall carpet on the floor and a six- by four-foot oil portrait of a man in a World War I uniform, a small gleaming star on each epaulet.

  “Old school,” Allerdyce whispered with a nod at the portrait. “Ramrod back, spitshinered boots to da knees, real brass all shined up and da Charlie Brown belt.”

  “Sam Browne,” Service corrected him.

  “How youse know dis guy’s name Sam Brown? Youse been here b’fore?”

  “Not his name. His belt is a Sam Browne belt.”

  “My grandfather,” a new voice said from a speaker in the ceiling. “Won the medal of honor twice, first time in Mexico and again in France during the Great War. He lived to 108, still driving his car and commanding the attention of every room he walked into. Five four in his stocking feet, and always confident that he was the morally and ethically tallest man in any assembly. Never had to say a word when he arrived. Such was his command presence that everyone in the room would immediately stand up and go silent. He ran Michigan’s selective service the first two years of its life, and he studied military history the way some people cling to their Bibles.”

  The voice stopped momentarily. “He loathed Robert E. Lee, said if the South had just about any other general, even a mediocre one, they would have prevailed and this country would be two instead of one. The general insisted that one does not destroy an enemy i
n a frontal battle; rather, first the two forces collide, then you make him run, and that done, you destroy him from the rear with relentless pursuit. Lee simply couldn’t understand the principle and put all his faith in God deciding battle outcomes. He spent a lot of time praying and waiting for God to kiss his ear with magic intel. Obviously that never happened. Too damn many dead because of Lee and now he gets treated like a saint. The man tried to destroy this country. What’s saintly in high treason? He should have been hung alongside Jeff Davis.”

  “Who are you?” Service asked, breaking the ramble.

  “Who do you suppose I am?” the voice came back.

  “Is M here? We came to talk to him.”

  “Why does M have to be male?”

  Service had no answer for this. “Are you M?”

  “I am, and allegedly you are here to acquire certain information, the gathering of which is my forte. My grandpa taught me when I was a kid that intel wins most battles. He who knows most is likely to fare best. That make sense to you?”

  Was K Pop serious about this . . . person? Impossible to guess age from her voice, but definitely female. And then she made her grand entry. Five feet tall tops, short black, shiny hair, pebbled skin, all wrinkles, the tiny hands of a doll.

  “So?” she said after she sat down in a pale blue chair across from them. “The two of you are here in my presence, but I am the engineer and conductor, brakeman, and all else on this train, and it shall not depart this station until I see tickets in your hand.”

  “K Pop sent us,” Grady Service said.

  The woman sighed contentedly. “Perfect. How old might you guess me to be?”

  He pondered this before declaring, “I’ll take the Fifth. That’s a no-win question.”

  “What’s the ultimate?” she asked.

  “I don’t have opinions on things like that,” Service told her.