by David Levien
“You heard from Flavia Inez lately?” Behr asked. Ezra just shook his head. “Let me ask you something else,” Behr said, “when she left, how’d she get her stuff out of here? Who helped her?”
“A couple of guys.”
“Movers?”
“Not real movers. Some young guys.”
“Big kids? High school age?” Behr asked, getting an idea.
“Could’ve been. Since I got old, I can’t tell age too good. But they weren’t professionals.”
“How are you sure?”
“They didn’t have the matching T-shirts, or a moving truck. Just one of them little jobs from U-Haul. They made two trips.”
Behr leaned back on the couch, processing, and switched the can of frozen juice from his head to his bruised and swollen elbow. He felt like he was back in high school algebra solving a formula and he’d just been given the value of X.
Behr pushed himself to his feet and turned to Ezra. “If that guy comes back, you call me and not the cops. You can’t reach me, you call the Stateys. And you be sure to stay inside.”
“Damn straight,” Ezra said, his eyes serious and afraid as he nodded. “I ain’t gonna end up floating down by the railroad tracks.”
Behr just looked at Ezra and nodded, remembering the first time the man had spoken those words, and how they hadn’t meant much to him then.
Night had come down at the end of a long day, and Terry Cottrell had gotten himself cleaned up and ready to go out and meet some boys down at Brandy’s Show Lounge. He was good and ready to see some fine women do their thing and hear what was happening out in the real world. He’d driven out and had pulled through the gate, stopped, wrapped the chain around the gatepost, and just locked it all up when he saw a pair of headlights bouncing along the long dirt entranceway toward South County Municipal Landfill.
What the hell? he thought, gonna have to tell ’em there’s no dumping after dark. Cottrell squinted at the coming vehicle, trying to read its make in the black night.
There was no other traffic at this time of night, but as he reached the fence circling the dumping area, he saw an old Camaro, its lights on, parked just outside of the fence. Terry Cottrell was behind it, in the midst of padlocking the gates for the night when Behr rolled up, almost bumper to bumper with the other car. When it came to information gathering, Behr found he did better staying friendly with people who knew things, doing favors when he could, and just asking. And when he found someone who knew something and asking didn’t work, he’d start demanding. It wasn’t something he’d had to do to a friend lately, but this was where he found himself and so be it. When he’d finished with the lock, Cottrell came around the front of his car and they stood across from each other in bright glare of the headlights and Behr saw right away that he was not a welcome visitor.
“This time I talk, you listen and nod,” Behr said.
“You got me boxed in here,” Cottrell said, seeing his position between the car and the locked gate.
“Won’t be long. Someone’s been making a run on the pea-shake game city-wide. You knew it when I was here last and it’s what you were trying to tell me with that Trafficante bullshit.”
A nod. Cottrell knew a guy who knew a dude, Marcus, who crushed beats down at a bar that was in the middle of all the shit. This was a good dude, too. Not hard, but smooth. Cottrell had met him a few times and could see Marcus had a talent for navigating social situations. There wasn’t nobody he couldn’t get on with, but even he was rattled and looking to scatter. Word was, he was waiting for the right time to get his gear out of the bar and drift away.
“It’s a family.”
Another nod. Cottrell didn’t know why he was confirming shit for him, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He just wanted Behr gone.
“From up Speedway. A bunch of brothers and a father, and maybe an uncle or some other partner.”
A third nod.
“The Schlegels.”
Cottrell didn’t move. Now they were getting into some ground that was dangerous for him, and he wasn’t about to give up this kind of information. But his eyes must have confirmed it, for Behr continued.
“They’re killing anyone who gets in their way. No one’s talking to the cops, because the Schlegels have the cops.”
This time Cottrell made sure his eyes remained still and cold. There was nothing more he should tell Behr, and nothing more Behr had the right to ask, but Behr couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Did they take out those P.I. s? You hear anything about that?” he asked.
“Man, if they told anyone about it, how the fuck would it be me?” Cottrell said. Since his silence wouldn’t put Behr off, he hoped maybe some angry words would. In all the years he’d known Frank Behr, the guy had never come on all hard-core John Law like this, except that first time when Behr had busted him long ago. But it was like a flashback to that time now. Cottrell felt Behr there with his demand for truth, an immovable object in his path.
“Goddamn it, man, gimme something,” Behr breathed, sick with himself. He knew his actions were crossing someone off a very short list in Cottrell, and he regretted it, but Cottrell’s claim rang like bullshit to him.
“Or what, you gonna put a beat-down on me?” Cottrell spat back. He turned to get to his car, but Behr stepped in his way.
“Is it just the cops? What else is there?” he demanded.
“Fuck you, coming down here asking, get out my grill-”
“No.”
Only the car engines sounded between them for a moment. It sounded like Cottrell’s engine was missing every few seconds. They glared into each other’s eyes.
“A’ight,” Cottrell finally said. “I give you this, you keep it, or else a good dude gets his ass greenlit…” Cottrell flashed on Marcus, full of holes, dumped in a ditch somewhere.
Behr just nodded.
“Way I hear it is they got help from up north.”
“Chicago or Detroit?”
“Don’t know, but peep’s saying they brought in some outta-state boys.”
That was it. Behr had it, and had been right about pushing for it, but still he felt ashamed and put a hand on Cottrell’s shoulder. Cottrell knocked it off.
“Next time we meet, we talk about the Colts or movies or whatever, and that’s it,” Behr said.
“Hope it ain’t soon,” Cottrell responded. Behr understood. The whole thing had rattled his friend, and Cottrell was not someone who rattled easy, and he sure as hell didn’t like it. The night was still for a moment, the only movement the night bugs scrambling between the headlights. Finally Behr turned and moved back toward his car.
“You watch that dome of yours,” Cottrell said quietly. But Behr was already in his car and backing down the dirt track on his way out.
THIRTY-FIVE
Morning had come like an executioner’s call. Dean, unable to sleep, had spent a good part of the night sweating and flopping about in a spinning bed. They’d drunk, the bunch of them, as if it would change all the bad shit that was swirling around them, until it was almost light. And maybe it had, for a minute, but now he had a tub full of Jameson sloshing around in his gut and his head felt like a thunderstorm. Putting a foot on the floor hadn’t helped at all, and despite the patty melt he’d scarfed down at the kitchen table in order to soak up the whiskey, he half felt like he was going to puke out the whole works. He thought about that last hour they’d all spent the night before. They’d doused their concerns for a moment and decided they felt strong. Dad always made them feel that way, especially when he leaned in and whispered that nothing had changed, they were still on track, and Uncle Larry could keep shit locked down on his end. They’d kicked everyone out of the bar at closing time and played poker and kept on drinking. And when they’d gotten home they’d made so much noise, the four of them, that Mom had come out of the bedroom. At first she’d been pissed they’d woken her, but then Dad had started singing “Dixie Chicken” and dancing her around the kitchen until she’d started la
ughing. Finally, she’d pulled out the frying pan and had started cooking, and they told stories and ate until they all went to pass out. It was like old times, when they were kids, but with whiskey, and for a while their troubles seemed far away.
Now Dean rose and staggered through the silent house to the kitchen, where he drank from the tap and belched and drank some more. The water momentarily diluted the poison inside him and he wiped a layer of clammy sweat from his face with a dish-towel. Then he turned and saw the greasy frying pan, and the plates scattered across the table, dirty with chunks of meat and sodden bread and smeared with ketchup. He went to the front door, for some fresh air and the morning paper.
“Bodies Found in Near Northside House ID’d as Father and Son,” screamed the Star’s headline. It was the address of the last pea shake they’d taken down. Dean’s stomach elevator-dropped. He was awash in dread as he read the account of the discovery of the dead boy. A child. It rang in Dean’s head. His hands began to shake and his blood turned to ice. A low moan escaped his belly as the enormity of what they’d done settled on him. He’d killed a kid. Then, from an even deeper place, came a spasm, and a roiling wave of vomit splattered down on the front step from where he’d just picked up the paper.
THIRTY-SIX
He stood along the riverbank and listened to the black water rush by below his feet. The better part of a bottle of Maker’s Mark rolled to its own current within him. His life was over-at least life as he knew it-killed by a pain he could not even estimate. He reached to his belt and felt the gun there, hard and unyielding. Its existence mocked him. He gripped its cold handle and lightly touched the trigger, where that precious small finger had somehow found its way. With a brusque fury he yanked the gun free and hurled it into the night with a force that tore things deep in his shoulder. He couldn’t hear the splash for the howl that erupted from within him.
Darkness lifted like smoke from the water as Behr came back to the present. He had trudged along the muddy bank of the White River for several miles, scanning the shallows with his light, which he now clicked off as dawn had arrived. He hadn’t been this close to the White in years, since that night when it was finally all over for his boy and he’d driven out to fling the 9mm Tim had died by into its waters. Behr had never wanted to see that weapon again, same as the face that stared back at him when he looked in the mirror. He did his best to shake off the memory and continued on.
Wherever there is money, there is violence. It was a truth. In business the violence is in the boardroom, in illegal business the violence is in the street. Despite the fact that he was hard tired and the left side of his head felt like it had a railroad spike lodged in it, Behr knew he had a long night ahead of him. After leaving Cottrell, he went home and worked quickly. He needed a piece of information and some supplies. The information didn’t take him long to obtain now that he knew what he was looking for.
He found it in the state marriage license database and was able to back it up with an old announcement in a local news archive, and then tax and school records. Bustamante, Victoria, and Bustamante, Lawrence, the police lieutenant, were not married, they were brother and sister. Twenty-three years earlier Victoria had married Terrence Schlegel in a ceremony at Garden of Gethsemane Church in Speedway. They had three sons, Charles, Dean, and Kenneth, twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen years of age, who had attended area schools. Terry Schlegel, the father, was listed by the Alcoholic Beverage Commission as the permittee of the Tip-Over Tap Room. Behr selected “Print” and jotted further notes while the machine whirred to life. Then he’d begun putting together the supplies he needed-a map, flashlight, boots, and a thermos bottle full of coffee. The threat that the man he now knew was Dean Schlegel had made to Ezra was not idle, nor abstract, Behr believed. He marked the map with a highlighter, starting at the southernmost likely point in the area, where railroad tracks touched or intersected the White River. He steeled himself and drove out to the first spot, an area near West Troy Avenue that was fairly industrial in character, and then he started in.
The night air had been chill next to the river, and his boots and pants quickly became soaked up to the knees, yet he’d warmed as he alternately walked the tracks and the bank. He was aware of how easily he could miss what he was looking for. He could walk right by it. He could be looking in all the wrong places. His instincts and his source could be wrong altogether. Still, he carried on until he’d felt satisfied that the first spot held nothing. He hiked back to his car and drove on to the next location, a place where the tracks ran next to Waterway. He covered both sides of the river and found nothing but loose refuse, a cache of beer and soda bottles, and rusted car parts. Next he parked on South West Street between Raymond and Morris, where he slid down a steep gravel and dirt pitch next to a railroad bridge that crossed over the water.
The mud along the bank sucked at his hopes as it did his feet, but he kept on. He kept on although all he found was an array of trash and detritus similar to that littering the other spots. Then, when he was nearly through with the area, he stumbled across the carcass of a large dead dog. The hindquarters of the animal lay in the water, a weak current lapping against it until the dark fur had grown matted and wet. The dog’s one visible eye had gone green and opaque in death and was turning gelatinous. Behr looked it over, checking for tracks that would indicate from which direction it had come. He couldn’t spot any sign, but finding the body buoyed him to continue.
He decided, though it seemed a bit unlikely due to its proximity to the city, to move on and try a spot in the shadows of the White River Parkway Drive, near the Chevy plant, continuing on his south-to-north route. When he parked he saw that despite being only several minutes’ drive from downtown, there was a certain abandoned quality to the area, perhaps due to the hour, which made a dump possible. He had gone over a quarter mile from the tracks and had neared a sloppy, marshy area along the bank when he stopped. He saw the cluster of dark green plastic contractor bags in the distance ahead of him. He wouldn’t have thought much of it except for the way they were all stacked together. They couldn’t have landed that way if they’d been thrown from a passing train. The location represented a lot of effort for some illegal dumping. The bags were all neatly cinched with large plastic twist ties. Behr walked slowly across the expanse toward the bags, dread rising within him. The water here was dank and fetid. He became acutely aware of the slurping sound the mud made under his feet.
He circled to the far side of the pile, carefully avoiding some footprints in the soft, wet ground, then paused and looked around. He peeled a blade free from his Leatherman tool, reached for the nearest bag, and sliced into the top. A thick wave of black flies rose up into his face as the bag gaped open and the smell hit him. He waved away the insects and saw the white of sawed-off bone, encased by pale, deteriorating flesh. The bag contained a pair of lower legs, the feet still shod in dress socks and black wingtips. He was pretty sure he’d found Bigby and Schmidt.
“Get Pomeroy on the line,” Behr said. He leaned against the quarter panel of his car talking to Karl Potempa at the Caro Group on his cell phone. He’d dialed as soon as his hands had stopped trembling.
“Who would that be?” Potempa intoned in his smooth voice, for which Behr wasn’t in the mood.
“Don’t fuck with me, get Captain Pomeroy.”
There was a brief hold during which Behr watched the sickly slate green of the White River burble by.
“Yeah?” Pomeroy’s voice came on, trying to hide his concern under a mask of irritation.
“We’re all on,” Potempa said, “and the line is secure.”
“Off West Washington and White River, on the southwest bank of the river.”
“That spit of land below Chevy?” Potempa asked. Behr could hear a pen scratching against paper.
“That’s right. Where it gets marshy. Against the hill below the track bed, that’s where you’ll find your A team. There are four trash bags-”
“Oh crap-,” Potemp
a croaked, his voice gone rough.
“Jesus Christ-,” Pomeroy added.
“Yeah, all of it.”
“What’s their… condition?” Potempa wondered, grasping for control.
“Their condition is all damn done. Chopped up and bagged. Feet, hands, heads. I didn’t dig around much, I didn’t want to disturb the scene, but it looks like they were bled and quartered somewhere else. Thanks for this, by the way,” Behr said.
“Have you developed any information on whom-,” Pomeroy started in.
“Whoa,” Behr said. “You asked me to find ’em. They’re found. An ex-Treasury and a fifteen-year Philly PD, like they just ran into Bill the Butcher. You wanna know ‘who,’ that’s a different deal and I pass.”
There was a long beat of silence, then an audible sigh. “All right. West Wash and White River.”
“Yeah,” Behr said, “bring your galoshes,” and he hung up on them.
Behr retired to a vantage point near the Chevy plant grounds where the tracks split and he was able to park and watch the personnel arrive, sirens wailing in the distance. Uniforms and plainclothes, Violent Crime, Crime Scene, and Coroner, they all descended on the site. Pomeroy, other brass, and some blue suits that must’ve been Caro boys arrived, too. They all executed their tasks with the diligence and instinct of worker ants.
Then a navy blue Cadillac STS rolled up and Potempa picked his way across the mud over to the hub of the activity, where he shook hands with Pomeroy before taking a look. When he caught a glimpse inside the bags he sagged back, and Pomeroy caught him by the elbow to keep him upright.
When it was finally close to done, when the body parts had been packed up and Potempa had been seen back to his car by a uniform and had driven away, Pomeroy broke off from the rest and made his way along the tracks toward where Behr waited. The captain scrambled up the loose gravel lining the railway bed and was breathing quickly by the time he made it to Behr. Behr could see by his shoes that Pomeroy hadn’t realized he was serious about the galoshes.
