“I almost had him the second time, until he ran down a one-way street.”
“Ah. Shame on you. You made that haircut story so convincing I was going to ask you to recommend the barber.”
“I am ashamed. I don’t enjoy taking advantage of your native gullibility.”
“What’d he tell Luis over the cell?”
“Nothing. It was while he was being stomped on and he wouldn’t have had the time or breath.”
He watched me, his eyes burning steady as filaments under the ledge of his brow. “If an upgrade’s all you wanted, you can do a hell of a lot better for less than five hundred bucks.”
“I doubt it. This one has a camera.”
That took less than a second to sink in. He snatched it up and slung it open.
“That doohickey on the bottom, with a picture of an old-fashioned shutter job on it,” I said.
“Shut the fuck up.” He thumbed the button.
The skin tightened across his forehead as the image came up. It had been a long way from loose before. He’d lost flesh from age and the weight of the world, pasting skin to bone like shrink-wrap. His boys were grown and married, one of them was still speaking to him, and his wife, who earned more money than he did working shorter hours, was often away on business. Home for him was just a place to change horses between shifts.
None of this had come from him, although we’d known each other since we were children. The police community in Detroit is growing smaller along with the population, and no one in it has many secrets from the rest. Even a moth fluttering around its edges picks up morsels.
“This could be anything,” he said finally.
“It could be. It isn’t.”
“He could be dancing.”
“That cupid thing falling off the table behind him belonged to Johnny’s old man, by right of theft. He kept it as a family heirloom. It didn’t have a scratch on it until I found it yesterday, before I found Johnny. That fall put a big dent in it. I’ll bet you the five hundred I gave Luis that when you blow up the picture there won’t be a dent. That puts the time of the dance even with time of death.”
“We don’t know that’s when it fell.”
“Sure we do. You do and I do, and so does Luis.”
“If we had his testimony, we could bracket the time between his visits: Johnny alive, Johnny dead, with this character filling the gap. Only we don’t, so we can’t. You went home to catch some winks and he hitched a ride to Mexico.”
“He’s got a better chance of staying alive there than in an eight-by-ten room in County.” I tapped a finger on his desk. “Double or nothing says something else shows up when you blow it up. Blood.”
“Ketchup from one of Johnny’s hot dogs. You can’t do a chemical analysis on a photographic image.”
“You can’t convict anyone at all if you don’t pick him up. This is way better than a police sketch. How many Asian whirligigs are in town this season?”
“One less than usual, probably. Assassins don’t hang around once they’re made.”
“This one took Johnny’s cell. That means he knows what’s on it and where he sent it. He’ll hang around long enough to make the set complete.”
He transferred a stack of sheets from a telephone console, lifted the receiver, and tapped a key. “Hornet.” He cradled the receiver without waiting for an answer.
The lieutenant opened the door ten seconds later, filling the frame. He scowled when he saw me. “Holding or County?” he asked Alderdyce.
“Walker’s not under arrest. Run this down to the photo lab and tell them to get prints of the picture on it.” He stuck out the cell.
Hornet balanced it on his palm like a compass. “That’s an errand for a uniform.”
“I’d run it down myself if I didn’t have more to talk about with Walker. The fewer hands it passes through, the less chance some fumblefuck has to delete what’s on it by accident.”
“What is it?”
“A possible inspectorship for you. Retirement for me with the rank of commander.”
He seemed to draw a conclusion close to correct. His thought processes worked just fine or the department would have turned him out years ago as a health risk. “Want me to call Marshal Thaler?”
“Let’s keep it local for now.”
“Yessir, Inspector.” He took his baggy grin out with the phone.
Alderdyce measured the height of my eyebrows. They were up around my hairline. “It’d mean another meeting, and nothing ever gets done in those. It’s bad enough I’ve got to share this one with those assholes in Narcotics. Drugs are just a gimmick in the case. When a mistake gets made and someone sends out a life-taker to tidy up, it’s Homicide. I can’t work where I can’t swing my elbows without poking someone on either side.”
“How sure are we it was a mistake?”
“Dumping a load of grade-five heroin where there isn’t a user in a carload who can afford crack without making a withdrawal from some party store? Even Santa Claus does better market research than that.”
“Who says money’s the motive?”
“I thought about that for about half a second,” he said. “I’m a detective. Nut-job killers and terrorists bitch up the whole process of investigation. It’s tough enough to make a case for means, motive, and opportunity if the motive is you’re just mad at someone else or you want to scare the shit out of a lot of people you’ve never met.”
“It doesn’t have to be that kind of terrorism. Maybe someone’s just mad at Detroit, or using Detroit as a test lab for something bigger. They say Baby Face Nelson used to throw cops off his tail by dumping cash out his car window. Unloading industrial-strength dope by the long ton packs an even bigger punch: an OD on every block.”
He chuckled deep in his chest, like corn popping in a cave. “Find a part for Godzilla and you can sell that one to Hollywood. Just now I’m going to concentrate on picking up our dancer.”
“Is it all right if I go on looking for those converter boxes? This is the last day I owe Crossgrain.”
“I’d almost forgotten about those. Just don’t turn the wrong way down any more one-way streets.”
“I’m driving my own car now. The tail you’re pinning on me will want to know that.”
“Hornet told you that wasn’t us before. He’s a fat lazy slob who chews with his mouth open, but he’s no liar.”
“I’ve seen him eat. I’d rather he lied. I just thought it was the city’s turn.”
“Manpower’s at rock bottom. We’re sweeping up every pusher in town and turning ’em heels up to shake loose some of that primo horse. There’s just no room left in the budget for a loose pin like you. We can always trail you later by the litter you leave behind.” He flipped open a folder and started reading.
I got up. At the door I said, “Give any thought to what happens when that heroin supply stops?”
“Only every waking minute.”
*
A sergeant with the stoic gaze and sharp beak of a snapping turtle watched me from his station as I made for the exit with my phone ringing, a generic tone that had come with the package; I’d left a far more sophisticated piece of portable technology with the department. He returned his attention to his entry log as I pushed through the heavy glass door, fumbling in my pocket.
“Mr. Walker, this is Eugenia Pappas. May I see you right away?”
There were no ambient noises on her end, not even air stirring in the large room where she’d be bottled up like the authentic imported her late husband’s father had reserved for magistrates and better. She herself might have been ordering office supplies; but that wasn’t her job.
“Is it about Ouida?”
“In person, please. I want to retain your professional services.”
I told her I was on my way. The season was picking up.
TWENTY
Halloween is good for Detroit, once you overlook that business about widespread arson on Devil’s Night.
The DPW sells special trash b
ags to civic-minded homeowners that when they’re filled and placed at the curb make giant orange jack-o’-lanterns. Genuine pumpkins with grins carved in them flicker on front porches, ghosts made from bed linens and papier-mâché flutter from the carcasses of trees blasted by emerald ash disease, and shops specializing in costumes and decorations string bright temporary banners across empty storefronts where retailers bent on permanence have failed. With the surviving trees in full color, it looks like a living city.
Beyond the limits the leaves turned sodden, hanging like spit curls from glistening branches and pasting themselves so tight to the windshield the wipers slid over them without disturbing them, like a wallpaper brush. The spattery rain we’d had earlier had gathered force as it swept toward Canada, drumming the vinyl roof of the Cutlass and racing along the gutters. Out on St. Clair the lancets stitched up the surface and the low clouds turned the water the color of tarnished silver. A bicyclist made a picture of misery sawing at his pedals on a sidewalk paved treacherously with slick foliage, his athletic shoes squishing on each turn. I powered down to crawl through a puddle the size of a lagoon to avoid splashing him.
Under those conditions the cockeyed Bauhaus architecture of the Pappas house made sense, its uneven roofline leaning like so many sails into the slanting rain. The miniature Greek flag on the mailbox that matched the house jiggled before the wind circling back off the bay.
I turned up the collar of the sport coat and ran for the covered porch, but I got a good dose just the same. I stood in a puddle and used the Zeus-head knocker. I half expected Ouida to answer in her suit and cranberry hair, but the other half suspected why I’d been summoned. I wasn’t surprised when Eugenia Pappas opened the door.
“You’re soaked.”
“It sounded urgent, so I swam over. She still missing?”
She told me to come in. I closed the door behind me and wiped my feet on a coconut mat. She looked less angular standing than she had all coiled up at her desk, tall and strong-boned in a lightweight wool dress a shade off from the one she’d had on before, her long, blue-veined feet stuck in slippers with low heels. The silver inlay in her pale, pulled-back hair glinted like platinum wire in the light reflecting off the porcelain bric-a-brac in the foyer. When she seemed satisfied I wouldn’t leave wet tracks on the floor, she turned and led me into the morning room.
The curtains were drawn back today, providing a wide-angle view of the bay glowering under the overcast. The rain appeared to have settled into one spot, turning the water to hammered tin. The level seemed to be rising as I was looking at it.
“When I still hadn’t heard from her this morning, I sent someone around to her apartment. He talked the manager into letting him in with a passkey. He found the place orderly, the bed a little messed up the way she might have left it when she came to work yesterday morning. Nothing in her papers or on her answering machine to indicate where she’d gone or why. While he was looking around, this call came in here.” She pressed a button on a small telephone counsel balanced on the corner of the Prairie desk.
A metallic-sounding voice issued from the speaker, each word dropping with equal emphasis, sounding as human as marbles falling into a bowl: “We … have … Ouida. Wait … for … our … call.”
“I’m not in the habit of answering the phone myself,” she said when the message clicked off. “When Ouida isn’t here, I let the machine get it.”
“You were expecting your man to report from her apartment.”
“I know Ouida’s number, and the number of his cell. The ID was blocked. How is that possible?”
“Star sixty-seven. It isn’t a state secret. No use asking if you recognized the voice. It could be a man’s or a woman’s scrambled, or computer-generated. Are you still waiting for the call?”
She shook her head. “I turned on the machine when it came in thirty minutes ago.” She pushed the button again. The same mechanical arrangement of syllables directed her to deliver the entire shipment of TV converter boxes she’d received to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull in Detroit. She’d tried to ask questions in a voice strung tight, but the directions continued without interruption. The time of the appointment was an hour past dark that evening. A click and a dial tone cut her off in the middle of another question.
“You were talking to a recording,” I said. “Do they have her, do you think?”
“I have to assume they do. She wouldn’t have stayed away this long without word if something hadn’t happened.”
“Do you have the boxes?”
“I don’t, honestly. That I know of.” She stroked a bony upper arm abstractedly. “It’s possible Ouida tracked them down and didn’t have the chance to tell me. If she did and they’re in my possession, they could be in any one of a dozen places: storage sheds, warehouses, the homes of volunteers and people I employ. My charitable work involves auctions of donated goods, recycled clothing and furniture, bottled water and blankets and other emergency supplies for families forced out of their homes by fire. The merchandise is spread out across three counties. Some of the volunteers are recovering addicts, people on parole, former homeless. Their inventory skills are rudimentary, to put it kindly. I’ve placed some calls, but it will be a miracle if we find those boxes before tonight. If they exist.”
“The information might be in Ouida’s computer.”
“I know next to nothing about them. Do you?”
“No, but I know someone who does.” I asked to use her telephone. She handed me the receiver and I pecked out Barry Stackpole’s number. “They didn’t say it has to be you making the delivery,” I said as I waited for him to pick up. “You don’t want to be in that neighborhood after dark. Not since they built Comerica Park. You know what’s at Michigan and Trumbull?”
“I’m afraid I know little more about Detroit than I do about computers. I’m from Philadelphia originally. The stories Nick told me about what went on down there frightened me away from ever visiting the place.”
“It’s old Tigers Stadium. Anything can happen in a big empty shell like that. It might as well happen to me as anyone. Barry? Amos Walker.”
The voice on the other end wouldn’t have been out of place on prom night. “What are you doing calling from Nick Pappas’ old number?”
“I see you upgraded your photographic memory to digital.” I gave him a thumbnail of the situation. “Think you can lift what we need off the P.C. she left behind?”
“Depends on the incentive.”
I put a hand over the mouthpiece. “Seven-fifty, to start. That covers expenses.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“You’re on the sheet,” I told Barry.
“Put it toward a correspondence course on DNA. I want a seat on Eugenia Pappas’ board of directors. Tell her I’m feeling charitable.”
“Who is this man?” she said when I’d delivered the message.
“He’s an investigative journalist, specializing in organized crime.”
“Don’t you know anyone else who’s good with technology?”
“A few, but I trust Barry.”
“Let me speak to him, please.”
I gave her the receiver and went over to the window to watch the rain skidding off the opposite side of the lake. The clouds had lifted slightly, letting sunlight slide under it, an eerie sight. The choppy surface appeared to be artifically lit, like a studio exterior in an old Technicolor movie. I turned back when she hung up.
“Obstinate man. We reached a compromise. No seat on the board of any of my foundations, but an unpaid press agent’s position. It will give him a chance to check the veracity of our press releases before they reach the public.”
“Dangerous concession on your part.”
“Not at all. After Nick died I ran all the rats out of the basement. If there’s anything unlawful going on in my operation, I want to know about it first. That was his concession.”
“Ouida told me she’d report to you before she told me anything. You run a tig
ht ship.”
She smiled, a tight-lipped V in her angular face. “I paid attention when my husband spoke. His Old Country ancestors were fishermen, and his father and grandfather piloted boatloads of contraband across the Detroit River.” She nodded. “I run a tight ship.”
I made a decision that was bound to get me in trouble. “This kind of contraband is worse than radio tubes and cases of Old Log Cabin, Mrs. Pappas. Those boxes are dummies filled with heroin.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she said after a moment.
“I’m under what amounts to a federal gag order not to, so I hope you’re as straight as you make out. People in the drug trade are a lot quicker on the trigger than most smugglers, and the people behind this deal make the regulars look like Muppets. You and Ouida seem close.”
“If I’d thought a daughter of mine would turn out like her, I wouldn’t have avoided pregnancy all those years.”
“You need to be prepared for the fact that she may already be dead. This outfit is conscientious about cleaning up after itself. Two people are dead as a direct result, and the stuff they allowed to leak out through those boxes has been killing habitual users all across town for a week. I want your permission to bring in the authorities.”
“You certainly cannot have it. You heard the instructions: no police, no FBI, no one in law enforcement. One lone courier or they’ll kill Ouida. I hear what you’re saying, but I can’t take the chance if there’s any possibility at all she’s still alive. I literally could not live with myself if she were to die because of something I did.”
I started to say something, but she went on. “I know you’re skeptical when I say I’ve separated myself entirely from my past with Nick. I wasn’t a barefoot, ignorant wife; I knew the kind of business he was in even if I didn’t know all the details. I know some people died in its pursuit, and I know he was directly responsible in at least two cases. The detectives who came to interview him didn’t know that.
“I’m getting to be an old woman. The immaterial things mean more to me now. Frankly, I’m frightened of what awaits me. I intend to buy salvation the same way Nick bought himself and his people out of trouble with the courts.”
Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 21 - Infernal Angels Page 13
