Blood of Angels (12 page)

“Not everybody's got platinum MasterCards, Stillman,” I say. I pull the truck into a space, and we get out. There's not much work going on in the bays; a couple of beefy guys in their late twenties are poking around underneath a raised Oldsmobile, but that's about it. Angry rock music blares out of a tape player that sits on a fifty-gallon oil drum. One of the workers looks over at us—in our suits, we might as well have
Government Agent
painted on our backs—and whistles into the office. The door opens a few seconds later, and a fifty-year-old man with gray, thinning hair walks out in overalls. He's got a nice-sized chaw of tobacco in his lower lip, and he sends a brown stream onto the hot pavement as he stands outside the door, sizing us up. “You wanna talk, do it in the air-conditioning,” he says, waving us over.

We walk into the office, where a manual cash register competes for space with what looks like a couple of years of paperwork on a large, metal desk. The man regards us levelly, waiting for a sign of which way things are going to go.

“Thomas Dennehy,” I say. “This is my associate, Jeff Stillman. We're with the DA's office.”

The man nods and sends a shot of tobacco juice into a wastebasket. “Randy Hiller.”

“I understand Jason Hodges works here. I'd like to ask you a few question about him.”

“Hodges in trouble? Bad enough his girlfriend got killed, you ask me.”

“No. I'm just wondering what kind of employee he is.”

“The ex-employee kind,” Hiller says. “He hasn't worked here in more than three months.”

I look at Stillman. “You don't say.”

Hiller nods. “Up and quit. Not that he wasn't about to get fired, but that's not the question you asked me.”

“Why was he going to get fired?”

“The same reason everybody else gets fired around here. Not showing up, and bein' two feet off the ground when they do.”

“You mean high.”

He nods. “Anyway, he quit, right after he got that new car.”

“New car?”

“New to him, anyway—2002 Trans Am, last year they made 'em. Cherry. Screamin' eagle on the hood.”

“What would a car like that cost?” Stillman asks.

Hiller squints. “Midtwenties, easy. I told him to put it up on blocks. Might be worth a pile in twenty years. He told me to put my advice the same place I could put my job.”

I nod. “I appreciate it, Mr. Hiller. Thanks for your time.”

“Watch out for that Hodges kid,” Hiller says. “He's kind of a bastard.”

Stillman and I walk out and head toward the truck. The workers have stopped, and they follow us with their eyes all the way across the parking lot.

“Don't say it,” Stillman says, once we're in the truck. “There's no evidence Hodges had anything to do with Hartlett's death.”

“I know that.”

“Him being a bastard doesn't make him a killer, either.”

“I know that, too.”

“I mean, she's a part-time dancer. Of course her boyfriend's a bastard. It's like a law or something.”

I nod and put the truck in gear. “Hodges lied to me, Stillman. I don't like that.”

“He's a jerk. He doesn't want to admit he doesn't have a job.”

I look at him. “Which he quits right after he buys a new car? Don't bullshit, me, Stillman.”

“So what do you propose to do about it?”

“Jason Hodges is a redneck, he's unemployed, and it's 10:30 in the morning. I'm pretty sure we'll find him in bed.”

 

IT
'
S ONLY A FEW MINUTES
from Hiller's Body Shop to the edge of the Nation. We cross I-40 and head down Forty-sixth Avenue, and Stillman gives a satisfyingly worried look. “I thought you said we weren't too popular down here.”

I smile and turn on the radio, tuning it to Dan Wolfe's show. Josh's prediction was right; Wolfe's in fine form today. I listen to him drone on a couple of minutes, ranting about a legal system so broken it lets killers like Moses Bol out on bail. I stop at a red light, and Wolfe actually names me and Stillman as the chief architects of the fiasco that got Bol bounced on bail. He calls for our heads, and it's not entirely clear he's speaking metaphorically.

Stillman turns pale. “Shit, Thomas. That was us.”

“Yeah. Tell you what, Stillman. Let's not get a flat tire anytime soon.”

Within blocks, the small houses, all built in the forties, begin their decline into disrepair. With every street the roofs sag more, the yards are more ill-kept, some actually looking condemnable. There's not much traffic, but Stillman still looks as nervous as a house cat with a dog around. Ten blocks later, we're in the heart of the Nation. I roll to a stop next to a particularly bad house: the yard is surrounded with chain-link fence, front and back; the blinds are drawn, and a large rottweiler dozes on a chain on the front porch.

“See this place, Stillman? What with the guard dog and the fence, you'd almost get the idea they don't like people casually stopping by.”

Stillman looks past me out of the truck. “No shit. What's the story?”

I smile.
Time for Stillman's first lesson in Nationite mentality.
“You might be under the impression that these people are ignorant, backwoods peckerheads.”

Stillman scans the neighborhood. “That about sums it up, yeah.”

I point to the house. “This guy, a particularly malevolent bastard named Pickens, is fifty-three years old, and he has been selling one illegal substance or another for thirty-five years. He has only spent a total of eleven months in jail.”

“How?”

“By knowing every trick in the book. Even the house is in his mother's name, because that way it can't be taken away under Rico statutes.”

“You saying his mother's in on it?”

“Pickens is part of one of the Nation's dynasties, Stillman. His grandfather ran moonshine. His father sold pot. And he sells meth. He hates the IRS, government agents of all kinds, and, above all, foreigners.” I hit the gas, driving on. “The point, Stillman, is not to underestimate these people. They were outsmarting revenuers a hundred miles east of here when your father was in diapers.” I take a left on Indiana; two blocks later, the truck rolls to a stop in front of a one-story ranch badly in need of paint. Tall weeds ring the porch, and the mailbox is hanging by a thread. Jason Hodges's black Trans Am sits in the gravel driveway, polished to a high gloss. “Welcome to paradise, Stillman. We're home.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to talk with our star witness, Jason Hodges. You coming?”

“Right behind you.” I lock up the Ford and lead Stillman quietly up the steps to Jason's door. It's open, and I can hear voices inside. I put my finger on my lips, telling Stillman to stay quiet. One voice is Hodges, but there's a female voice I don't know. She's giggling something I can't make out, but whatever it is, she's being friendly as hell. I reach out and knock, and the giggling stops.

“I'll get it, J,” the voice says, and a few seconds later a shorthaired brunette in low-rise jean shorts and a white, bra-less T-shirt walks out of the darkness inside. She slows down at the door, looking us over. “Well, well,” she says. “Must be hot in those suits.”

“I'd like to speak with Jason,” I say.

She smiles and calls back over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off us. “J, baby? It's for you.”

A few seconds later Hodges walks to the door, bare-chested and in jeans. He sees us and stops dead in his tracks.

“Hey, Jason,” I say. “We need to have a little chat.”

“Go to the back,” Hodges says to the girl.

“Come on, J.” She giggles. “I want to meet your new friends.”

“I said get on back, Tiffany.”

The girl flinches, like she's learned the hard way not to cross Hodges. She vanishes back into the house, disappearing into the dark rooms.

Hodges opens the screen door, walks out onto the porch, and looks up into the hazy sky. “Motherfuckin' hot today,” he says. “Melt your ass right on the street.”

“I hate to see you grieving over Tamra like this, Jason,” I say. “Who's your friend?”

“Her? She's just crazy.”

“I was looking for a name.”

“Tiffany. Tiffany Murphy.”

“You two been friends long?”

Hodges leans back against a pillar that more or less holds up the awning over his porch. “We known each other awhile. She worked at the same bar as Tamra.”

“Stillman and I had a chat with Mr. Hiller over at the body shop,” I say. “According to him, you haven't worked there in months.”

“Yeah. I quit that shit a while back. It was my last known job, so you know.”

I look over at the car. “Nice Trans Am. You got the V-8 in that?”

“Hell, yeah. It's the same engine as the Vette.”

“It looks lowered.”

“It is. Put a shift kit in it, too.”

“For a guy with no job, that's a pretty expensive car.”

Hodges shrugs. “I got some things goin'. You know.”

I step up to him, nose-to-nose. “I'm very, very pissed right now, Jason. Want to know why?”

He stands his ground, his mouth frowning. “I'm all fuckin' ears.”

“I'm pissed because Rita West is a very smart woman. She's going be looking for a patsy, and you're starting to look like a pretty damn tempting prospect.”

“Ease off, man. I didn't do nothin'.”

“If you fuck me over, Jason, I'm going to make you the pool boy in county jail.”

Hodges stares at me silently a second, then steps back. “Look, man, I told you. I quit the job. Big deal.”

“You quit your job. You've got a new car. You're screwing someone who knew your dead girlfriend. If I didn't have the evidence I do on Moses Bol, I'd arrest your ass where you stand.”

“Yeah, well, you do have the evidence on Bol.”

“And if you're lying to me about him, I'm going to throw you to the dogs.”

He looks annoyed. “Shit, man, what flew up your skirt? Take a damn Valium.”

I lose it, not gradually, but so completely and instantaneously that before either of us know what happened I have Jason Hodges pressed up against his screen porch, wriggling under my grip like a trapped bug. My right upper arm is pressed underneath his throat, snapping his head up and backward in a move I haven't practiced since basic training. “What flew up my skirt?” I say. “I'm going to ask the jury to kill Moses Bol, Jason. Do you read me, here? They're going to tie him down to a gurney and give him a lethal injection of drugs until his heart stops beating. Now you are going to tell me how you got the money for the car, or I'm going to take you downtown, and I am going to have you booked for murder.”

“Jesus, Thomas,” Stillman says, pulling me a step back. “Take it easy, man.”

I release Hodges in disgust. “Yeah. I'll take it easy. Answer the question, Jason.”

Tiffany appears behind Hodges, her form backlit from the windows behind her. “J, baby? You OK?”

Hodges is coughing, getting his breath back. “I told you, dammit. Stay in the back, Tiff.” He pulls the door shut behind him. “OK. No more bullshit. We was runnin' those Sudanese guys. For money, you know?”

“What do you mean, running?” I say.

“They're
lonely,
man. They got no
women.
Black chicks from around here won't give them the time of day, and they got none from the old country. So Tamra and me started working them. She'd call 'em up. You know, be nice, talk shit to 'em.”

“Go on.”

“She'd tell 'em she needs somethin'. You know, money for this or that. They'd give her stuff. Stereos, money, whatever.”

“You pimped her.”

“Man, you got to understand the business opportunity,” Hodges says, flushing angrily. “A hundred and fifty of these guys, fresh off the boat. No fuckin'
clue.
It was like shootin' fish in a barrel.”

I swallow back my disgust. “How many boys were involved?”

Hodges shrugs. “Fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Did they know about each other?”

“Yeah. A few times that got a little ugly. But it wasn't our problem.”

“Give me some names.”

“How do I know, man? They're all a bunch of fucking Kunta Kintes.”

I move back toward him, but this time Stillman grabs my arm. “Keep it together, Thomas.”

I shake off his hand. “Don't play stupid with me, Jason.”

Hodges pauses. “Deng. Matek Deng. He was one. That dude was a gold mine.”

One of Bol's closest friends.
“How much money did you make?”

“Good week, maybe a thousand. They're all pretty broke, but it added up. She had them coming over to her place all the time.”

“How long did it go on?”

“Maybe three months.”

I nod toward the Trans Am. “So you bought the car.”

“Yeah.”

“What did Tamra get out of it?”

“She did OK.”

“Like how, exactly?”

“She didn't buy shit, OK? She was real generous.”

“Yeah, I'm sure.” I look at him. “Was Bol one of the boys she played?”

“Yeah. He got pissed off about the others, you know? He said he was the chief or whatever. I can't remember the word.”

“Benywal.”

“Yeah, that's it. He's the fuckin'
Benywal.
And the
Benywal
don't share his woman. Him and Tamra fought about it all the time. Finally, he just lost it.”

“Shit,” Stillman says. “You mean he killed her in a jealous rage?”

Hodges nods. “You got it, Ace.” He spits off the porch into the weeds. “Look, I should've told you. But be reasonable, man. What me and Tamra was doing ain't exactly the kind of thing to bring up to the cops.”