But it wasn’t enough.
WHAT STEVIE FLOM was going to say: First, you didn’t describe the guy very well. Second, the guy walked out of the camper and got on the cycle. Third, you should’ve done it yourself . . .
He got as far as “First—” before Ralph Bales grabbed his Members Only black jacket by the lapels and slammed the terrified Stevie into the wall of Harry’s Bar.
“Gentlemen.” The bartender wagged a finger but in a lethargic way. This was a dingy, Lysol-scented place overlooking one of the less picturesque refineries in Wood River, Illinois. It was that sort of bar, where the management would let two men—two white men, not too drunk or strung-out—go at it. Up to a point.
Ralph Bales looked from the frightened eyes of Stevie Flom to the cool eyes of the bartender and let go. He had been right on the borderline but now decided not to break his partner’s nose. Stevie slumped and ran his fingers through his razor-cut hair. “Aw, Ralph, come on.”
Ralph Bales turned and walked through the bar into the restaurant behind. He slid into one of the booths. Stevie followed him like a butt-swatted puppy and sat opposite.
Ralph Bales said, “You’re an asshole.”
“First, what it was, he walked out of the camper and got on the Yamaha. How was I supposed to know there’d be somebody else inside? You said he’d be riding a bike. And like, anyway, you didn’t describe him.”
“Shut up and listen to me. Lombro is really pissed now.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Excuse me, I mean, excuse me? When’re you gonna learn that guys like this don’t think about fault. What’re you going to say? ‘Gee, Mr. Lombro, first I shot a cop and now I killed the wrong man but I’ve got an excuse’?”
“Did you tell him I did it?” Stevie whispered.
To Ralph Bales’s glee the kid was seriously nervous now. He let Stevie hang in the wind for some very lengthy seconds. “I didn’t tell him your name.”
“Thanks, Ralph. That was all right of you.”
“I just told him a guy we hired made a mistake.”
“ ‘We hired.’ Like you and me, we hired somebody else. So he won’t think it was me.” Stevie nodded. “That was good.”
“He was pissed but he’s not going to do anything about it. He’s not going the whole nine yards with the bonus because of the screwup, but he’ll give us something. If you do it right this time.”
“Maybe what you could do is describe him better to me.”
“Maybe what I could do is hold your hand and take you up and introduce you . . .”
“Aw, Ralph, come on . . .”
“Look, this thing is running away from us.”
“Maybe we should just vanish.”
“Without a penny? I wish you’d done the cop right.”
“You could’ve, too,” Stevie said cautiously.
Ralph Bales opened his mouth to protest then remembered his gun muzzle nestling in the cop’s hair. “I could have, too. Yeah.”
The waitress came by and they ordered boilermakers and hamburgers. When she left, Ralph Bales said, “Okay, well, do the witness this time and do it right.”
Stevie said, “All right, sure. You still want it to be an accident? I mean, if that’s what you want . . .”
Ralph Bales considered this. “Do it however you want. I don’t care.”
This relieved Stevie immensely and he said, “I just want to say one thing. First, you didn’t describe him very well—”
Ralph Bales turned on him.
Stevie lifted two palms and grinned. “Joke, Ralphy. Joke. You got to keep a sense of humor about these things.”
“HE KILLED MY friend,” Pellam said, “and I’m going to get him.”
Donnie Buffett was not interested in what Pellam was going to do. Penny had called and chanted over the phone to him for five minutes while he stared at the receiver, first in disbelief, then in disgust. He had finally hung up and left the phone off the hook. Then he had been taken downstairs and poked and probed all morning. He had been told to contract his sphincter. He had said peevishly, “My what?” And the young intern had said, “Your rectum, contract it.” And Buffett had said loudly, so that patients up and down the hall could hear, “Oh, you mean my asshole?”
The rest of the exam had gone like that.
Now here was Pellam, sweating and wild-eyed and talking about getting people.
“Look, you steal my gun, you give me a lecture about things you don’t know from, then you come in and you start rambling about some killing or another. What,” Buffett said evenly, “do you want from me?”
Pellam leaned close. Buffett blinked at the nearness of his face, the pores he could see clearly, the way the dark hairs on the top of the man’s forehead disappeared smoothly into the skin.
The look in Pellam’s eyes reminded him of young cops after their first firefight. Eager and energized but also quiet—ironically calmed by death. And because of that, scary. Extremely scary.
Pellam said, “The man in the Lincoln killed my friend.”
Buffett did not respond and Pellam told him about Stile’s death. “They got us mixed up. They saw him leave the camper on the bike and they killed him. They thought it was me.”
“Look, Pellam, it’s crazy to drive a cycle in the city. Accidents happen. I could tell you the statistics.”
“Hell with statistics. I want you to tell me how to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Arrest him. Can I shoot him if I have to?”
The chanting and the poking and probing faded from the cop’s mind. Pellam and his calm, scary eyes had Buffett’s full attention. “Let me make a call.” He was on the phone for ten minutes as Pellam stared out the window. Pellam’s lips moved silently from time to time. Into the phone, the cop asked, “Any chance it’s related to the Pellam thing? . . . Uh-huh. Yeah, well, I know how you guys feel but I’m starting to think he’s okay . . . Yeah, Pellam, I mean. I’m not so sure he did see the guy in the Lincoln.”
Pellam’s head turned.
Buffett said, “Well, do what you gotta, I understand. But take it easy on him. It was his buddy got killed.”
When he hung up the cop said, “They’re calling it an accident. Hit-and-run. The truck driver said the car clipped the cycle. The tag number’s from a stolen Dodge.”
“There. Stolen.”
“Most hit-and-runs involve stolen cars. That’s why they’re hit-and-runs.”
Pellam leaned forward again. “Look, I know it was the guy with the mark on his face. He must’ve seen me go to Peterson’s office after Nina was attacked.”
“I’ll have Gianno and Hagedorn look into it. They—”
Pellam exploded, “Look into it? Look into it? All they do is hassle me. You don’t understand. I’m going out that door in five minutes and I’m going to find the guy who killed my friend and I’m going to get him. If you won’t help then the hell with you!”
“Look, Pellam, if he did it then the guy’s a pro. He’s not going to let you just arrest him. You, by yourself, no backup? Are you crazy? Are you ready to waste him if you have to? You ever shot anybody before?” Buffett shook his head with a condescending smile.
Pellam unzipped his jacket and pulled the Colt Peacemaker from his belt. The grin left the patrolman’s mouth and his uneasy eyes followed the gun as it went back into the waistband.
“One thing you might want to remember,” Pellam said quietly. “The guy with the mark on his face? He’s probably the partner of the man I saw get out of the Lincoln and that makes him the one who shot you.”
No, Buffett hadn’t thought about that. But he did now for a long moment. He said slowly, “I’m a cop. I can’t help you kill someone. I don’t care who it is.”
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to arrest him.”
Buffett’s tongue gingerly touched the corner of his lips. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How do I make a citizen’s arrest? Do I have to get him
to confess? Can I just arrest him, like in the movies? Do I have to read him his rights?”
Buffett the cop considered. “Well, you don’t have probable cause. The truck driver didn’t get a look at the guy driving the Dodge. The procedure our guys’d use is to find a suspect, then bring him in and interview him. Not arrest him. Just talk to him. He doesn’t get a lawyer for that but he can get up and walk out any time he wants.”
“Just talk to him?”
“Try to find inconsistencies. Maybe he’ll mention people who’re supposed to be alibis, but we can squeeze them and get them to turn. It’s a hell of a lot of work, Pellam. You don’t just arrest somebody.”
“What if I had a tape recorder with me and got him to say something in it?”
“You can tape yourself talking to somebody without a court order. That’s okay. But it’s a little risky, isn’t it?”
“It’ll be admissible and everything?”
“Probably.”
Pellam shrugged. He walked to the door and stopped. “What you told them. I appreciate it.”
“How do you mean?”
“What you told the detectives, about believing me.”
Buffett shrugged. Pellam noticed him rub his eyes in a resigned way. He seemed as tired as the wilting flowers that littered the radiator cover of the room. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I guess. My wife came for a visit.” He opened his mouth and was suddenly overwhelmed by the volume of things he wanted to say; they rushed forward. But just before he spoke, the torrent dried up instantly, and he asked, “Hand me the TV Guide, would you?” Buffett motioned across the room. “Son of a bitch orderly left it on the dresser. What good’s it doing me over there? I mean, some people, they just don’t think.”
Chapter 19
A KNOCK ON the half-open door woke Donnie Buffett. He was dozing and he awoke from a dream he could not remember but that left a residue of longing. “Yeah?” he muttered. “Hello?”
The door pushed wider open and a blond woman’s face appeared, her head tilted sideways. The face, which he did not recognize immediately, was delicate and pretty. She stepped into the doorway. The lope of her walk, combined with the delicacy and prettiness, made her sexy. This in turn depressed Buffett even more than Pellam’s visit.
“Hi. You’re not asleep?”
Hearing her voice, he remembered her name. “Nina, right? Pellam’s friend?”
As if she now had permission she entered the room. She wore a tight-fitting brown silk dress. A beige raincoat was over her arm. Donnie Buffett commanded himself to look at neither her abundant breasts nor her sleek, pale legs but only at her face.
“You’re Donnie.”
“You just missed him.” He smoothed his hair and stroked his two days’ growth of beard with forked fingers. “Did I?” She grimaced and Buffett wondered why he had thought even momentarily that she had come to visit him. She asked, “When did he leave?”
Buffett looked at his watch, surprised. He thought he had slept for hours. “Thirty, forty minutes ago.”
“That’s John. Hard to pin him down. Oh hey! Nice roses. The ones I get never open up.”
“There’s this stuff in a packet that comes with them. You put it in the water.”
“They smell nice, too. You don’t know where he’s gone off to?”
If you only knew, lady.
“Sure don’t, no. Look, take some flowers. You want the roses, take them.” But she shook her head. He remembered that he’d tried this once before. Nobody liked hospital flowers. He figured people thought they were bad luck.
“Pellam told me about what happened to you in that factory downtown. That’s a tough neighborhood. You okay?”
She nodded but said nothing, as if the memory were too troubling; Buffett was sorry he’d brought up the attack. But he felt compelled to add, “Maybe you should, I don’t know, leave town or something, until they find who did it.”
“I could do that. I was thinking I would.”
What she did at the moment, though, was straighten a disordered pile of magazines on the bedside table until the corners were perfectly aligned.
Buffett’s eyes returned to the TV. Watching sports increased his depression but he had developed a taste for bad afternoon movies, provided the sound was off. Hearing the dialogue spoiled the experience. He had fallen asleep watching a silent, bad movie about the hijacking of a ship. He wanted either to go back to sleep or to watch his movie. He was becoming irritated with her. “I thought visiting hours are over.”
“I smiled at the cop outside and he told the nurses to let me in.”
Buffett grunted but he tried to make it a pleasant grunt.
She walked further into the room. He did not like her putting her raincoat over the back of the chair. This meant she intended to stay. She kept looking at him. He felt like a freak. Why wouldn’t she leave?
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Great. I’m great.” On the screen the ship hijackers were chasing the good guys around the decks. Or maybe it was the good guys who were doing the chasing.
“You don’t sound real great.”
He looked back at her. “I get kind of groggy sometimes. Just sitting here.”
Her eyes flicked to his hand. “You’re married, right?”
“Yep.”
“Your wife visits you every day?”
“Sure.” She’s a great little trouper. “Brings me cookies. You want a cookie?”
“No, thank you. Any kids?”
“Nope. Sour cream dip? I think it’s onion. I don’t remember.”
Nina was not going away. Why was she forcing him to have a conversation with her? Why was her mouth curled into a tiny little smile when there was nothing to smile about?
Buffett said, “You’ve got a relative here, right?”
She nodded. “My mother. I was just visiting her. I got bored and left. Is that bad of me?” She asked this in a pouty way—the schoolgirl routine that she seemed to have perfected—and he understood he was supposed to tell her that it was not bad of her, which he did, though not very sincerely. Buffett watched the silent machine guns firing at fleeing sailors, who called silently for help. A number of them got gunned down. Several were shot in the back.
“Well,” she said, no longer smiling. “You’re sure Mister Quiet.”
Commandos were coming to save the ship.
“I guess I’m watching TV.”
“With the sound off?”
He clicked the off switch. He’d denied himself the treat of the commandos’ rescue and now she’d sense his resentment and leave.
But, no, she was walking around the room in a very leisurely way, straightening his magazines. Then she started on the vases.
“I think I’m becoming a curmudgeon,” he said by way of apology. “What is that exactly?”
“Got me. An old fart, I guess.” She began to throw out the dead flowers. “I’d think the nurses’d take better care of them.”
“They’re pretty busy. Everybody’s busy.”
Except me. I sit on my ass all day long. I can tell you all about fabric softener, breakfast cereal, and tampons. I could learn how to hijack ships if you’d leave me the hell alone.
She washed the vases in the bathroom and left them upside down to dry on the top of the toilet. Buffett took grudging pleasure in watching her. The glass was immaculate. Some women are good at this, he thought. Give them a dirty bar of Ivory and a cheap paper towel and they’d make anything spotless. Penny had been this way.
Penny is this way, he corrected.
Nina walked to a low dresser across the room. Nothing more to wash. No more silent hijackers or Monistat commercials. No more crazy location scouts.
No more nothin’.
“Well, I’m pretty tired,” Buffett said, and yawned a fake but large yawn. “I think I’d like to get some sleep.”
“Naw,” Nina said, picking up a deck of cards from the dresser. “Don’t you think you’d really l
ike to play gin rummy?”
JOHN PELLAM, HIS bomber jacket covering Samuel Colt’s deadly brainchild, walked with the oblivion of landed gentry through the streets of Maddox, Missouri.
He kicked at a tuft of tall grass springing from a perfect hole in the middle of a cracked sidewalk slab. He continued on. There was no traffic here, foot or auto, along this row of buildings. The tallest structure on the block—a three-story factory—may have bustled in its heyday but the building now mocked its past; the roof had collapsed long ago and the old green sign on the facade read FINERY, the RE ironically worn down by some trick of erosion.
Looking behind him, looking down alleys, looking more often in the reflections of windows than at the sidewalk where he planted his brown Noconas, Pellam saw no one following.
He turned from this part of town and ambled down Third—past the spot where Donnie Buffett had been shot. Here, too, he lingered. The rains had washed away the blood he’d seen, if it had been blood, and the cobblestones were everywhere clean. This is one advantage of ghost towns—fewer residents to toss litter on the streets. Pellam, unzipping his jacket slightly, paced back and forth. He wandered several blocks to the alley through which he had eluded the sedan several days before. All deserted.
Tony Sloan and the film company—still without their precious machine guns—were filming the few remaining scenes. Sloan was also, Pellam guessed, spending many hours on the phone arranging for extensions of the financing. Pellam himself avoided the set. Sloan wouldn’t speak to him. Besides, he had friends there and he wanted to keep what was about to happen as far removed from them as he could.
He lingered outside the camper at the Bide-A-Wee. He walked slowly around, then through, the old factory where Nina had been attacked. He wandered among the gray, corrugated metal Quonset huts, uninhabited, it seemed, since World War II. He walked along sidewalks of stores selling dusty office supplies and medical supplies. He found himself scanning the street in a window’s reflection for a long moment and realized he had been staring intently at thick mannequins wearing heavy girdles, chastely muted by an amber plastic sunscreen, and the store clerk had been studying him with amused curiosity.
Where is he? Where is Stile’s killer?
Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery Page 21
