Shaker

by Scott Frank

  “Roy?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Nobody has it.”

  “You got rid of it?”

  The nurse whistled, “One forty-eight over ninety.” She looked up at Roy. “Pressure’s a bit high.”

  Roy could feel his heart hammering on his chest. He needed to get that gun.

  “You okay, sweetie?”

  Roy nodded at the nurse and mouthed, “I’m fine.”

  “Have you by chance turned on the television? You’re all over it.”

  “I’m sorry, Rita.”

  “Quit apologizing.”

  The nurse peeled off the cuff. “I’m gonna come back in an hour, take it again. Okay?”

  Roy smiled.

  “You’re famous.”

  Roy almost said, “They think I’m a hero,” but thought better of it.

  “And while fame is good for some, it’s not so good for you, is it?”

  “No.”

  “So what are we gonna do?”

  “What does Harvey say?”

  “He says what I say. That this is a problem.”

  “Should I come home?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Is somebody coming to see me?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “What should I do?”

  “For starters, I’d get your ass out of that hospital.”

  Kelly pulled up to 1332 Laurel Canyon and saw Rudy Bell sitting on the curb wiping off one of his Nunn Bush loafers with a fast food napkin.

  She got out of her car and said, “Step in something there, fat boy?”

  “The vic’s fiancée threw up on me.”

  “Any splash on Araki?”

  “No such luck.”

  He finished wiping off the tassel, tossed the napkin into the street, and stood up. “I’ll take you up.”

  She followed Rudy up the stairs, noted that he was in a light wool suit today, this one charcoal with a pale blue shirt and a navy tie with a tiny red diamond pattern. Dressed more for fall in New York or Chicago than L.A. She didn’t have the heart to tell him there was what appeared to be a splatter of puke on the back of his trouser leg.

  The indoor crime scenes were always tricky for Kelly. She was never comfortable crossing a new threshold. It wasn’t so much the dead bodies in all their myriad shapes, sizes, and arrangements, so much as it was seeing how people lived. Being inside somewhere intimate and personal. Somewhere she didn’t belong. The strong and sometimes unfamiliar smells, the family photos, the faded furniture, laying people bare in a way that never felt quite right to her. But it was this sensation of being somewhere foreign that had also protected her. She needed to pretend that there was some kind of separation between her and them. She needed to believe that these worlds were all alien to her in order to be able to leave it all behind at the end of her shift. This was the very thing that ultimately ruined the lives/marriages/children—fill in the blank—of every cop she had ever known. The truth was, they could never leave any of it behind.

  Kelly had a particularly bad moment when, one night, she walked into the bedroom of a woman who’d been stabbed a hundred and eighteen times by her estranged husband and saw that the dead woman had the same Wamsutta sheets that Kelly did.

  That put her over.

  But this place, she thought, was just sad. Sad wasn’t even the right word. Tired was more like it. Everything felt almost secondhand; either broken or about to break. There were a few photos and a vase on the floor. Not from any struggle, she thought, from the quake.

  “His name is Martin Shine,” Mike Araki was saying. Reluctantly filling Kelly in on shit he wasn’t convinced she needed to know. “Sixty-four-year-old Caucasian male. According to his ID. Mr. Shine resided in Brooklyn N-Y-C. Girlfriend found the body.” He nodded down the hall where a paramedic knelt in front of a tiny woman in her thirties with short black hair who sat on the edge of a bed taking deep breaths. “Her name’s Ani Nahapetian. Mr. Shine had apparently come out here to stay with her.”

  Rudy said, “Long-distance relationships can be a bitch.”

  “She says she was in Palm Springs with two friends, came back this morning to find Mr. Shine’s head stuck to the carpet.”

  Kelly could see the paramedic slipping an oxygen mask over Ms. Nahapetian’s head, the woman still having trouble keeping her shit together.

  “We got here, the uniforms had her laid down in the bedroom. She seemed to be okay, came out, had a good look this time, and puked all over Rudy’s shoes.”

  “How long was she away?” Kelly asked.

  “Just the one night.”

  Rudy said, “Right now they’re putting it at last night around midnight, but nothing yet bona fide.”

  Mike Araki asked Kelly, “You all good now? Anything else you need to know?”

  Kelly looked at the man on the floor. “What’s he do?”

  “His girl said he’s some kind of accountant, but that’s all we’ve got for the moment.”

  Kelly waited for Araki to walk back down the hall, and then turned to Rudy. “I know this address.”

  “What do you mean, you know it?”

  “Was written on a piece of paper in the alley. I saw it last night, bagged it myself.”

  Rudy thought about that for a moment, then nodded to the door. “Feel like getting some air?”

  “After you.”

  They walked the two blocks to the alley, the ground around the mouth now covered with flowers and cards in honor of the late Councilman Peres.

  Rudy looked at the display and said, “They liked the guy.”

  Kelly could still see blood in between the offerings. “So why is Martin Shine’s address floating around our crime scene?”

  “Technically, it’s his girlfriend’s address.”

  “Either way,” Kelly said, “someone’s looking for him. They find him. They clip him. Then they either walk over here and somehow lose or get rid of the slip of paper, or, even more bizarrely, they get mugged along with Councilman Peres.”

  “Unless the same gangsters who whacked Peres, whacked Shine.”

  “Whacked him, why?” She shook her head. “I’m having trouble seeing Peres as anything other than a straight-up shakedown.”

  “So we’re looking at your Mr. Cooper.”

  “A man with no discernible background as you pointed out. And, not incidentally, also here from New York, same as your Mr. Shine.”

  “So let’s say that Mr. Cooper is out here looking for Shine, why?”

  “I’m guessing Shine comes back wrong in some way. A CPA for other wrong guys. Maybe pissed off someone back home in Brooklyn. Decides to hide out with the Armenian girlfriend he thinks no one knows about.”

  “Which makes our Mr. Cooper, our Good Samaritan, a hired hand for some assholes back east.” Rudy shook his head. “Awesome.”

  She looked up at the window above the alley. “How much he get,” she asked. “The guy who recorded it?”

  “I heard a few hundred grand.”

  “Fucking guy doesn’t open his window, doesn’t shout, doesn’t call the po-po, just sits up there smelling dough.” She turned around. “Maybe his neighbors should know.”

  Rudy smiled at her. “You can be mean, you know that?”

  But Kelly wasn’t listening. She was already crossing the street, walking to where a white Ford was parked all by its lonesome, the driver’s window shattered. She looked at the gap in the dash where a radio and/or a GPS might have been. Rudy walked around to the other side, used his coat to open the passenger door, and got in the car and poked around. Nothing but some glass on the front seat. He bent down and grabbed a rental agreement off the floor.

  He opened it up. “Joe Mills.”

  Kelly thought a moment, then started laughing.

  Rudy said, “What?”

  “You don’t follow baseball?”

  “I prefer to stay awake at sporting events,” he said. “I’m
a hockey man.”

  “Really? The way you dress?”

  “Who’s Joe Mills?”

  “Pitcher for the Cardinals. They call him The Kid and apparently he’s close to breaking some record.”

  “All these years, I had no idea you were a baseball fan.”

  “I’m not,” Kelly said. “Roy Cooper told me.”

  —

  They were walking back to the apartment when they saw Leo Manning leaning against his car trying to figure out how to work his newly issued sat phone.

  Rudy said, “Hey, boss.”

  Manning looked up at the two of them, slowly came off the car, and stood there on the sidewalk, unsure of what to do with his hands.

  “Kelly,” he said. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  Albert Budin watched Vanna White hang a vowel and then changed the channel to CNN. The room was dark, the shades pulled for the baby’s nap, but he could still see the mess on the floor. The crib with the dirty blanket in the middle of it, the sticky toys, a lonely little sneaker.

  It pissed him off. He’d worked all night. What the fuck did she do all day? On CNN, that silver-haired homo was interviewing some general. In no other universe, Albert thought, would these two ever talk to each other. He was about to change the channel when he heard her voice.

  “Albert?”

  He could see her shadow. Even that looked small and frightened. He half turned, didn’t want to move or speak for fear of waking the baby in his lap. Took him nearly an hour to get her to fall asleep. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t much of a mother. She was tiny and pretty, though, like a little girl, and Albert dug that.

  “Some men are here to see you.”

  “Some men?”

  “Police.”

  He could see that she was nervous, so he smiled and said in a quiet voice, “Tell them to come in.”

  She didn’t move. Just stood there looking back at him.

  “What?”

  She glanced down at the sleeping baby. “Do you want me to take Isabelle?”

  “What for?”

  He turned back to the screen. The silver-haired dude was now commenting on guns. On how there are just too damn many. Albert understood then that the other guy wasn’t a general, but a police chief somewhere. Why the fuck did he dress like that? All braids and brass? What kind of bullshit costume is that for a cop?

  A voice said, “Albert Budin?” Mispronouncing his name the way people always did. Making it sound like “Albert Booden.”

  Albert didn’t bother looking at them as he said, “Al-bare. Boo-dan.” Then, nodding to the couch. “Please,” he said, “make yourselves at home.”

  And as they entered his vision he saw that one of them had no hair. His shiny head reminding Albert of a piece of broken china. The bald man’s partner was particularly tall. Albert guessing that he went well over six-five. He made the bald one look small, even though he was probably six feet himself. They were both in suits. Albert noticed the bald one wore a silver cuff on one wrist. He thought they were too beefy to be Feds. Marshals maybe. No. Too well dressed. They weren’t local law, he’d know them, so most likely Staties of some kind.

  The taller one saw the infant in Albert’s lap and lowered his voice as he sat down. “I’m Detective Brown and this is Detective Weston. We’re with the Washington State Police.”

  Albert knew they were holding up their badge folders, but, once again, he didn’t bother looking, just rubbed the baby’s feet, staring at the little pink socks as if he’d never seen anything like them before.

  Brown, the taller one, kicked it off. “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if we may.”

  “What about?”

  “About a few murders,” he said. “Actually, more than a few.”

  Albert kissed the baby on the top of the head. “I don’t know anything about any murders.”

  “These killings have all taken place in the Washington State area during the past five years.” Brown leaned forward, the movement getting Albert to look at him as the state cop then added, “Since you moved here.”

  “I imagine lots of things have happened since I moved here.”

  Brown opened a notebook and asked, “Did you know a man by the name of Walter Castle?”

  “I did not.”

  “Jimmy Cullotta?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Albert smiled at Weston, the shorter cop, and gently bounced the baby. Weston just stared back at him as Brown continued. “What about Dominick Lucci?”

  “Sorry.”

  Albert looked at the television. A shot of some alley somewhere. A body covered with a tarp. Lots of little flags marking shell casings. Cops milling about. Albert couldn’t turn away, hoped that these two would be leaving soon so he could rewind it to watch it all again.

  Brown kept at it. “His wife said he’d gone to meet a man about some guns and had a large amount of cash on him.”

  Albert nodded as if he was listening.

  “His body was found by the Walla Walla sheriff in a storage locker a month later.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Sure you didn’t know this fella? Dominick Lucci? Sometimes called Lucky Dom?”

  “Doesn’t sound so lucky to me,” Albert said to no one in particular. He was too busy looking at the scene on the television…some shitty cell phone video. A bunch of black kids held a guy at gunpoint. Some other asshole, an older guy, was down on all fours.

  Never demean yourself like that, Albert thought. Ever. Take the fucking bullet.

  “Mr. Budin.” Mispronouncing it again.

  “Boo-dan. And I don’t know Mr. Lucci.”

  “What about Mason Toole? Freddy Alderisio? Sy Attwater?”

  Albert shook his head after each name. “I wish I could help you.”

  “Attwater worked at the Hormel plant with you. Was into pornography. We hear the two of you were in business for a while.”

  Albert turned away from the TV and smiled. “From whom do you hear such things?”

  This was when Weston leaned forward and tapped the coffee table. “Mr. Boo-dan,” he said with a sleepy Southern drawl, “how ’bout we just cut the cute act? It’s a fuckin’ bore.”

  This was supposed to get Albert looking at him, but Albert couldn’t take his eyes off of what was happening on the TV: one of the kids had just shot the old guy in the head. The news people blocked out the money shot with a big black dot so Albert couldn’t see the brains and blood that he knew had to be everywhere. And then it played over again. And this time Albert noticed the other man, standing there off to the side.

  “Truth is, you’ve been a wrong guy for a long time,” Weston went on.

  Albert couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Was that him?

  “Since age twelve, you’ve had over forty-one arrests, six before the age of eighteen. You did three years at the Honor Center in Boonville, Missouri, when you were sixteen. You’ve done state time in Florida twice as well as a five-year federal bump in Leavenworth. And that’s just what you got caught for.”

  Albert resisted the urge to stand up and move closer to the TV.

  Harvey told me the fucker was dead.

  Annoyingly, Weston was trying to regain his attention with ancient history.

  “Since then, you’ve been arrested for breaking and entering, auto theft, assault and battery, possession of burglary tools, strong-arm robbery, sale of stolen food stamps, possession of narcotics, statutory rape, and murder.”

  Albert stared hard at the shadowy man on the cell phone video, the guy on CNN now calling him some kind of hero.

  That’s him.

  “You’re a real renaissance man, aren’t you, Mr. Boo-dan?”

  Albert watched as the little black kids all started running, firing their weapons at anything and everything as they scattered. He watched the man he recognized go down in the middle of it all.

  No. He cannot be dead. Not yet.

  Ah, wait. They were
showing some hospital. Saying he’s in there. In critical but stable condition whatever the fuck that meant. What city? How did Albert miss that?

  Then he saw it.

  Roy’s in Los Angeles.

  Albert sat there, unaware of the baby. Unaware of anything other than the man on the screen. The man he’d thought about every single fucking day for a dozen years. No. Longer than that.

  “Mr. Budin?”

  Albert looked at the two Staties a moment, both of them watching him, and brought himself back. He smiled.

  “I have a family now,” he said. “This isn’t Miami or Kansas City. I moved here to get away from those things.” He looked at Brown, and then Weston, all sincerity.

  “I honestly haven’t heard of any of those men you’ve mentioned.”

  He then carefully stood up with the baby still in his arms. “If you have no more questions,” he said, nodding to the playpen, “I’d like to put my daughter down for her nap.”

  The two cops stared back at him. Weston wanted to say something but Brown touched the side of his partner’s leg, stood up, and considered Albert a moment. Actually had to look down at him. Man, the fucker was tall. Albert thought Brown was going to leave him with some threat disguised as cheap cop wisdom. If I were you, Mr. Boo-dan…blah blah blah.

  But all he said was, “Thanks for your time.”

  Albert may or may not have heard Justine say something in the other room to the two men as they left, may or may not have heard the front door open then close. Albert was too busy looking at the little black kid with the gun. Too busy looking at the gun itself. Too busy looking at his old friend standing there in the midst of it all.

  So many questions. A lot to do before he hit the road. Albert’s mind was reeling. He already had a dozen different ways he was going to kill Roy. One bloodier and more drawn out than the next. After all, he’d had a lot of time to think about it. Eventually, he’d also have to go see that old fuck, Harvey, and that dry cunt, Rita.

  That, too, would have to be settled.

  But he was getting ahead of himself.

  First he had to call Bob Spetting and tell him that their old friend was alive, shot once or twice, but alive and currently tubed up in some hospital in Southern California, ready and ripe for a long and bloody peeling.