by Lynn Kostoff
He took out his notebook.
He needed to find Croy Wendall.
Sharpe confirmed Croy was a friend of Jamie Blake. They usually partnered at the job sites, Jamie pretending to do the work that Croy eventually completed.
Croy was built low to the ground and had a round baby face and prematurely gray hair. He was quiet and a little odd maybe, but the guy was a machine, Sharpe had said, and did twice the work of any of the others on the crews.
The problem, though, was Croy had quit showing up for work. That meant there was a very good chance he’d already left the area.
The waitress brought Ben’s meal and refilled his coffee.
He went back to his notebook. Jamison Blake, T.C.’s claim of bar talk to the contrary, was still a strong contender for the one who’d vandalized Sonny Gramm’s Mustang with a crowbar. Jamison, ditto the bar talk, had also insinuated he was about to cash in on the reward for Stanley Tedros’s murder. And then Jamison ended up dead, killed with the gun that had been taken from Ben at the Passion Palace.
And Jamison’s pal, Croy Wendall, had disappeared.
Ben slipped the notebook back in his pocket and watched a car pull up outside. A man and a little girl climbed out. A brown and white dog jumped out too and began running in tight circles. It took a while, but the man got the dog back in the car and then lifted a remote and locked the doors.
Once inside, the father and little girl sat in a booth opposite him. She looked to be around Paige’s age. Ben cut through the stack of pancakes in the middle of his plate and listened to the waitress tell the man and girl about the three large wildfires that had broken out on the far northwest and west sides of town. Her husband and brother were part of the firefighting crews. There was talk about extensive property damage and possible emergency evacuations later in the evening.
Ben glanced at his watch, paid for the meal, and walked outside. He took out his cell phone. He wanted to try Sonny Gramm and see if the name Croy Wendall or Jamison Blake meant anything to him, but it was Manny Harrison, not Sonny Gramm, who picked up when Ben called the Passion Palace.
Manny Harrison was Gramm’s nephew and new head bouncer and now temporary manager at the Palace because Sonny Gramm had not shown up or checked in all day. Manny told Ben he’d been calling Gramm at home but had gotten no further than the answering machine or a busy signal. He’d also had no luck with Gramm’s cell phone. When Ben asked if anyone had been sent out to check on Sonny Gramm, Manny said he’d been too busy to do anything except keep the doors to the Palace open, the drinks flowing, and the dancers working.
“It’s called marshalling resources,” Manny said. “Lucky for Uncle Sonny I worked at Taco Bell for ten years.”
Ben got Sonny Gramm’s home phone number from Manny and ended the call. He turned, and out of nowhere, a brown and white blur flew at him.
The dog hit the driver’s side window and, teeth bared, immediately started at him again, growling and throwing itself against the glass over and over.
Ben looked back at the I-Hop and the father and girl in the booth. The man said something, and she laughed.
Over Ben’s shoulder, the brown and white dog hurled itself against the car window.
Ben walked to the blue and white and called dispatch. He asked permission to leave his patrol sector.
FIFTY-EIGHT
SONNY GRAMM HAD TOLD HER the graves were ready. Two of them. Fresh.
Corrine Tedros sat in the back of the Continental, Raychard Balen at the wheel, Wayne LaVell in the front passenger seat. Outside the window, the sun burned deep orange, and the surrounding clouds were swollen and layered in purple and red. Corrine drummed her fingers on the armrest.
“That’s an odd shade of orange.” Wayne Lavell gestured toward the west. Even in a Continental, his bulk took up most of the front seat.
“You get that when there’s no rain for a while,” Raychard Balen said. “That and the new fires. You end up with a lot of sunset.”
Balen lifted his hand from the wheel. “Coming up on the left, Wayne.” He pointed at the Express Pawn Shop and the 101 Discount Tire Outlet, both of which carried large banners draped across their facades reading “Under New Management.”
“What’d I tell you?” Balen said. “Right on schedule. Like a line of dominoes. I doubt the ink’s dry yet.”
LaVell nodded and then swiveled his head and shoulders so that he was facing Corrine. “You’re pretty quiet tonight,” he said.
“I just want to get this over with.” She could smell LaVell’s aftershave. It was blunt and overripe.
Corrine wrapped her fingertips in her palms and squeezed. She worked on summoning up regrets and second thoughts, but in the back seat of the Continental, there was no room for either.
She’d spent her whole life practicing how to empty herself of Betsy Jo Horvath.
For a moment, Corrine wondered, despite herself, if her mother were still alive. Then she emptied herself of that thought too.
Fifteen minutes later, Raychard Balen hit the turn signal and swung the Continental into Sonny Gramm’s driveway.
It was covered in oyster shells and dead-ended in a T. Gramm’s newly resurrected Mustang was parked at an odd angle, canted on a diagonal, as if behind a display window.
Raychard Balen pulled the Continental into the left wing of the T, then hesitated and glanced over at Wayne LaVell before putting the car in reverse, eventually parking so that the Continental’s front end pointed down the driveway toward the road.
Sonny Gramm was waiting for them on the top step under the porch light. He was wearing a snap-button shirt and jeans and battered cowboy boots. He raised a glass tumbler and rattled loose ice cubes at them when Balen, Corrine, and LaVell walked up.
Gramm had turned on all the upstairs and downstairs lights in the house. The night air was dry and smelled faintly of smoke. Waves of moths broke against the downstairs windows.
Inside, small pieces of paper had been taped to various wall hangings and pieces of furniture. The pattern was duplicated in each room they walked through. Under the ceiling fans, the slips of paper trembled and fluttered like leaves about to be wind-torn from a limb.
Raychard Balen paused and pointed with his free hand. After getting out of the car, he’d grabbed his briefcase and then shrugged his way into a brown-checked sports coat with the nap and weave of an old piece of carpet. When he lifted his arm, the sleeve rode halfway up his forearm.
“Hey, Sonny, what gives here?” he asked.
“Everything I had to replace and its price,” Gramm said, “after my house got vandalized.”
“Insurance, right?” Balen asked, then smiled. “It’s what underwrites civilization.”
“I’d let mine lapse,” Gramm said.
He led them to the dining room, its center dominated by a large oak table and a brightly burning chandelier. There were more pieces of paper. The door to the kitchen was closed. Gramm pointed at two chairs and then walked around the table and sat down across from them.
He handed Corrine his tumbler and said, “Honey, how about making some drinks?”
Wayne LaVell and Raychard Balen sat down. Corrine looked for a place to put her purse and ended up leaving it on the top of the sideboard.
“Rats too,” Gramm said. “Dozens of rats. Someone came in here and broke things, and then they let rats loose in my house.”
“Well, here’s to happier, ratless times,” Wayne LaVell said when Corrine had passed out the drinks.
She remained standing just to the left and slightly behind Sonny Gramm and placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. A small piece of plywood rested on the lower rungs of Gramm’s chair, the butt of the Charter-Arms Pathfinder jutting out, within easy reach, ready for the moment when Sonny Gramm dropped his arm.
It was going to be all right, Corrine told herself. Gramm was following the script.
All those pieces of paper though. They hadn’t discussed that.
“Aren’t you going to
sit down and join us, Corrine?” LaVell asked.
“She’s ok where she is,” Gramm said.
LaVell frowned, then shrugged. The room’s lighting drew out the broken capillaries on his cheeks. He folded his hands in front of him on the table.
“We’re businessmen, Sonny,” LaVell said. “That’s all this is. Business.”
Raychard Balen reached for his briefcase and set it down in front of him. He flicked its latches.
“I want to hear you say it,” Gramm said.
“What?”
“The rats. The vandalism. My car. That you were behind it.” Gramm picked up his glass, finished the drink in one swallow, then handed the tumbler back over his shoulder to Corrine.
She hesitated. Sonny Gramm kept the glass dangling. Corrine reluctantly took it.
“Come on,” Gramm said. “Say it.”
Wayne LaVell was smiling. “You wouldn’t by any chance be taping this conversation, Sonny? It won’t hold up in court. You can check that with our esteemed barrister here.” He nodded in Balen’s direction.
Gramm glanced back at Corrine. “Not so much ice this time.”
Corrine thought she heard movement on the other side of the door leading to the kitchen. She took her time making the drink but didn’t hear anything else and finally chalked it up to nerves and impatience.
Corrine couldn’t understand why Sonny was dragging things out.
“I’m still waiting,” Gramm said to LaVell.
“This is the wrong road,” LaVell said.
“We’ll see.” Gramm took the drink from Corrine. She nudged him twice with her knuckles through the back slats of the chair. He ignored her.
“This afternoon I got out some paper and a pen,” Gramm said, “and walked around my house and flagged the damage. Then I found my calculator.” He paused, pulling a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his shirt and tossing it across the table.
Wayne LaVell left it lying where it landed.
“I want two things,” Gramm said. “First I want you to admit what you did. Second, I want that amount added to the total on the paperwork your esteemed barrister’s got in his briefcase.”
Wayne LaVell arched his brows and looked at Corrine. “I thought you’d made the terms clear, Corrine. We didn’t come to negotiate.”
Raychard Balen pulled a sheath of paperwork from the briefcase. “Your Hancock,” he said, holding up a pen. “Three places, Sonny, then we’re gone. The bank cuts you a check tomorrow morning.”
“I knew your mother,” Gramm said. “She was a whore.”
Balen set down the pen and pretended to dab at his eyes. “Please don’t bring up Mom. I always get weepy and nostalgic when that happens. Growing up in a whorehouse leaves one with a virtual trove of precious memories.”
Gramm took a long swallow of his drink. “I just thought of something,” he said. “I didn’t frisk either of you when you got here.”
“We’re clean,” Wayne LaVell said. “No guns. Didn’t see the need.”
“I forgot. This is business, right?” Gramm said.
Wayne LaVell nodded. “Name one thing that isn’t.”
Corrine stood behind Gramm, waiting for his hand to drop for the .22 Pathfinder, willing the moment when he lifted it. Her life would begin again on the other side of the shots.
Raychard Balen picked up the pen setting next to the open briefcase. “Hey Sonny, we almost finished here? I think we’ve all seen this movie.”
“Guess you’re right, Raychard,” Gramm said, getting up from his chair and leaning across the table for the piece of paper holding the figures for the damage. He stuffed it back into his breast pocket and sat down again.
“It’s an old movie, and I’m an old man.” Gramm dropped his hand and brought up the Pathfinder, resting it on the table next to his drink.
“Whoa there,” Raychard Balen said.
“I was really looking forward to shooting Balen and you,” Gramm told Wayne LaVell.
Corrine involuntarily lifted her hand from Gramm’s shoulder. What Gramm said, she couldn’t have heard it right.
Wayne LaVell was looking at Corrine, not Gramm, and smiling.
Gramm picked up the .22 and opened the chamber. He began taking the bullets out one by one and lining them in a row in front of him.
“The car. My house. Hell, my life,” Gramm said, taking out another around. “I wanted to hear you say it. Then shooting you would have made a kind of sense.”
Corrine couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice. “What the fuck are you doing, Sonny?” She took a step forward, then back. Wayne LaVell was still smiling at her.
“A kind of sense then,” Gramm repeated, almost to himself. “The way it should have happened.” He paused. “Not this way.”
Corrine watched him shake out the sixth bullet and line it up with the others. This couldn’t be happening, she thought. It couldn’t. Her throat had closed up.
“What way is that?” LaVell asked.
“Your way,” Gramm said. “Pay someone else to do it. Keep my hands clean. Call it business.”
Gramm finished his drink and sat back in his chair. “You can come in now,” he said.
Behind him, the door to the kitchen opened.
“I hired me a new bodyguard,” Gramm said. “Unlike the others, he does what he’s told.” He swiveled his head in the direction of the doorway. “Go ahead. Finish both of them.”
“Oh Sonny,” Corrine said.
Gramm frowned, puzzled, at her tone.
Wayne LaVell kept his hands folded on the table and in front of him.
Corrine watched Croy Wendall walk through the door. He was wearing new blue jeans and a snap-button Western shirt like Sonny Gramm’s. His prematurely gray hair had been dyed a muddy red and was cut close to his scalp.
Three quick steps and Croy was standing behind Sonny Gramm. Wayne LaVell looked at Raychard Balen. Balen nodded to Croy and tapped the table once with his index finger. Croy pulled a .38 from the waistband of his jeans and shot Sonny Gramm in the back of the head.
Gramm’s face had barely smacked the table-top before LaVell stood up and buttoned his jacket. Raychard Balen put the paperwork back in the briefcase and pocketed the pen, then stood up too.
“The family,” LaVell asked, “you’ve talked to them?”
Balen nodded. “A son and daughter. From Gramm’s first marriage. They weren’t close to Sonny. Once the estate clears probate, they’ll sign.”
“How much?” LaVell asked.
Balen shifted the briefcase to his other hand. “Three clicks above what we offered Gramm.”
“Ok,” LaVell said. “I can live with that.”
They started out of the dining room for the front hallway.
“Wayne, wait,” Corrine called out. Croy Wendall had stepped up next to her. He was barely as tall as the neckline of her dress. The upper body, thick and muscled, was out of proportion to narrow hips and thin legs. His face and eyes were absolutely without expression, just as they’d been when Corrine had hired him to kill Stanley Tedros.
“Wait,” Corrine called again.
Wayne LaVell stopped on the other side of the next room. He pulled off the slip of paper Gramm had attached to the face of a large mirror with an elaborate gilded frame. He worked the paper into a tight ball and dropped it on the floor.
Then nothing. Not a word to Corrine or a backward glance.
A few moments later, she heard the engine of the Continental kick over.
Croy Wendall cut the phone line running along the baseboard. Then, on tip-toe, he snagged Corrine’s purse and took out her cell phone. He put the purse back on the top of the sideboard and then dropped the cell phone to the floor and smashed it with the butt of the .38.
Corrine looked at what was left of the back of Sonny Gramm’s head, then away, through the open door and into the kitchen where the white moths hammered soundlessly at the lighted windows.
She hunted down her voice, then put some Phoeni
x in it, dropped herself back into Valley of the Sun Escorts. She didn’t know what else to do.
“Your hair’s different,” she said. “I like it. It suits you, Croy.”
“The box said Summer Strawberry.” Croy paused and gently pressed two fingers against his lower jaw. He swallowed and went on.
“You mix it and put it on your hair, and then you wait twenty minutes. You have to be careful not to get it in your eyes.”
“Do you like my hair, Croy?”
He frowned, considering.
Corrine took a half step closer. “Would you like to touch it, Croy? I don’t mind. In fact, I think I might like that.”
Croy cocked his head. “Missy used to say things like that.”
“Who’s Missy?” Corrine dropped her hands to her hips. “Your girlfriend?” She opened a smile. “Don’t worry. I can keep a secret, Croy.”
“That’s what Jamie said. About secrets, I mean.” Croy glanced over at Sonny Gramm.
“Let’s not worry about Jamie or Missy. There’s nobody here but us, honey.” Corrine smiled at Croy. “We can do whatever we want. Whatever you want.”
She turned so that Croy could help with the zipper on the dress.
“I don’t sex,” Croy said. Then he stepped over to the table and pulled out the chair next to Sonny Gramm. “You need to sit down now, Miss Corrine.”
It took Corrine a moment to understand what Croy was getting at. He needed her to sit because he wasn’t tall enough for a clean shot to the back of her head if she remained standing.
The .22 Pathfinder was still in the middle of the table, chamber open, and just to the right of the bullets Sonny Gramm had lined up. No matter how hard she worked at it, Corrine could not come up with one plausible scenario that would let her get even one bullet chambered, let alone fired, before Croy shot her.
She offered Croy money. Despite her best efforts, her voice wavered and broke.
“I already have some,” Croy said. “From Mr. Balen paying me to pretend to be Mr. Sonny’s bodyguard. Mr. Sonny gave me some too when he didn’t know I was pretending to be it.”
