Killing a Cold One (15 page)

22

Monday, November 10

DETROIT

Friday telephoned Service as they made their way south. “I've been trying to call Johnstone since I saw you Friday. No luck, no call-backs, no dice.”

Service promised to follow up, and called Dani Denninger right away. “You been watching Johnstone's place?”

“Not in several days. I've been scouting, trying to get myself ready for the deer opener.” This meant finding illegal bait and blinds, and other suspicious setups to visit opening morning. It was one of the busiest times of year for most game wardens. He couldn't blame her for making it a priority, and it was a reminder that he'd prefer to be doing the same.

“Check it out, will you? See if she's around. If not, ask neighbors.”

“Something make you think she boogied?”

“Maybe. Also, look and see if there's a little bag hanging on her door.”

“Like last time?” Denninger said.

“Yeah.”
Good. She'd seen it, too.

Noonan directed him into southwest Detroit, West Vernor near Marshall: Latinoland, Voodoostan, Geekville. Someone had spray-painted a wall:
detroit: where the weak are killed and eaten
. The people of the city had never had any false illusions about their burg.

His thought:
Finally, truth in advertising.
All he could think about was the old joke about how Detroit looked like Beirut. Bullshit. Beirut looked like Detroit, and was the worse for it. The city of soul had little left, had squandered most of what it had in the sixties, and never recaptured it. Diana Ross had cut and run, which should have rung alarm bells, but the city's leaders and denizens, then as now, were mostly blind to the obvious. Even if they had been able to read the tea leaves, what could they have done about major social upheaval?

A red van in front of them had a bumper sticker that read
have you hugged your bitch today?
Not necessarily intended for dog lovers,
he thought.

Their destination was Lucy Rommey's joint, appropriately called Lucy's. Long ago it had boasted the best black bean soup north of Havana.

Noonan said, “Eighty-nine, Eulogio Protracio commence whacking people he found disagreeable, which pretty much took in everyone. He'd snatch 'em, put plastic bags from his old man's bakery over their heads, and suffocate their asses, drop the bodies near relatives' houses. Eulogio's other indulgence was PCP, which he popped like Jujubes.

“One Christmas morning I'm souping with Luce and I get a call: Some douchebag is down in the park half-mile away banging away with an AK-47, trying to off a buncha brothers and their Latin competitors. Park was DMZ, no violence zone, by agreement between two bent-ass crews, Latino Lords and the African Rangers. I run down there and what do I see but this asshole blasting away on full auto: It's my boy, Eulogio. I get up behind him, grab the wep, kick him in the balls, and beat his face so raw he pukes his spleen. Uniforms haul his ass away. That day I got points all the way around. Fine day, best day in long time.”

“You are a violent man, Noonan.”

“I might allow I got tendencies. You met Luce?”

“Couple times in the long waybackago.”

“Let me do the talking.”

 

•••

 

Lucy's had not changed, but she had aged badly. She now sported a thick black bristle of a mustache, a majestic furry caterpillar over her upper lip.

“Suit,” she said when they walked in.

Service felt her eyes on him. “Where you got off to, Service? Liberia?”

“U.P., Michigan's Siberia.”

“Hear dat,” she said, nodding.

Service was impressed by her memory.

“S'up, Luce?” Noonan asked.

“You know,” she muttered, “stuff and shit, little this, little dat, like always.”

“Could use some help, Luce.”

The woman ladled dark soup from a cauldron perched on a massive stove burner, topped it with raw onions and slivers of red chilis. “T'ought you done retire, Suit, gole watch an' all dat shit,” she said.

“Tru dat,” he said. “Favor for a friend, here. Place ain't changed, Luce, eats good, smells good.”

“Rent up ten ex,” she said. “B'lee dat?”

“Everywhere,” Noonan said. “Punks and zombies got all the bread.”

Lucy chuckled. “What you want, Suit?”

Noonan asked, “Tonia Sorrowhorse still around?”

“Not by much . . . She been bit by Dr. Slim.”

Service saw Noonan's mouth briefly hang open, as if he had been taken by surprise. Service knew Dr. Slim was AIDS in this neighborhood. It was a term he had never heard in the U.P.

“That shit be ev'where these days,” Lucy said. “People won't even touch them folks when they die. Just leave 'em rot like dead wolf in woods.”

Service was surprised at her reference. How did an inner Detroit black woman know that nothing in the woods would eat on a dead wolf? Worms consumed them, never predators or scavengers.

 

•••

 

They drove to the address Lucy gave them. Same place Tonia had lived when Service had been a Troop. “Should have just come here in the first place,” Service said.

“Lucy's the unofficial mayor of a big chunk of Detroit. We pay homage, she keeps her ears on for us. Rules of the road, man, matter of ghettocol.” Noonan looked at the house. “This area a Ciz Seven, man.”

“Meaning?”

“My first partner, Big George Ciz, he made his own scale of Motown badness, with Ciz Ten the worst. “

“So seven's good?”

“Under ten ain't synonymous with good,” Noonan said.

An old man with yellowing hennaed dreadlocks answered the door.

“Tonia,” Noonan said.

“You the Man?” the man asked.

“Not here, not no more. I'm an old friend,” Noonan said.

“She ain't seein' no frens, my fren,” the man said.

Noonan eased the old man aside. “Sorry, Pops, she'll see me.”

It had once been an elegant house and was now on its last legs. Tonia Sorrowhorse was in the parlor in a crank-up hospital bed, an IV in her left arm, oxygen tubes in her nostrils, the scent of decay and impending death deep in every pore of the room. Noonan sat on her bedside, kissed her forehead. “Bambi, baby.”

The woman's eyes flickered. Yellow, rheumy, sunken, scared. “
Glenn?
”

“Heard you're feelin' poorly,” he said.

She tried a smile, but failed. “Dead meat, Suit. Was prime meat, now soon gone be dead meat. Dr. Slim.”

“I heard.”

“Dr. Slim get you, too?”

“Maybe,” Noonan allowed.

“Can't win 'gainst Dr. Slim,” she muttered. “You want here, Suit? Do the nasty?” She grinned devilishly, stretching her lips tightly across her yellowed teeth and dark gums.

“You up for it?” he asked.

“Shee-it. That funny,” she whispered. “You know I born ready, dig?” She took his hand and tried to squeeze, but Service could see she lacked the strength. “I done it all,” she said.

As good an epitaph as any,
Service decided.

“They take good care of you, Bambi, honey?” Noonan asked.

“Hopspits,” she said. “Nice folks come dance with the dying.” She stared at the IV drip. “They givin' me the good shit for pain. I flyin', Suit. Got Dr. Slim fum bumpin' shit, now they gi' me same shit fo' Dr. Slim. Tell me, dat make sense?” She closed her eyes, sighed softly.

Service watched Noonan squeeze the woman's bony hand. “We need information. We'll pay.”

“You come, didn't you?” she said.

“Yeah, I'm here,” he said.

“Then you paid enough,” she said. “What you want?”

“We've got some nasty kills, no IDs, DNA telling us Indian blood. Who's Top Tonto these days, and where do we find him?”

“Dr. Slim turn snatch to snitch,” she said. “Call him Speedoboy, aka Dwayne, last name unknown, works the doghouse, grabbing baby girls.”

“Greyhound Station?” Noonan said.

She nodded. “Some say he take those little girlies, turn 'em out, work on the stree', but ain't like dat, Suit. Speedoboy, he help them babies, pull them out 'fore they get fucked up, put them on buses back home. Got a bad rep fum some, hear what I'm saying? Jealousy, envy, an' shit like dat.”

“You know him?”

She nodded. “Bambi know ev'body, Suit. Your fren' there, he a State boy here one time, move to be fish cop.”

Service was impressed at her memory, decided survival in a wilderness of any description was helped by a solid memory.

“Be careful, Suit. Speedoboy, he fat man, Ojibwe.” She inflated her cheeks. “Like dat? Careful, dough. He fat, not soft, dig?”

Noonan kissed her and held her close until she seemed to be asleep. The man with the pink dreads was sitting on the stairs by the front door, smoking a pipe. “How long's she got?” Noonan asked.

“Hours, minutes. Only Jesus answer dat.”

Noonan fished three one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, pushed them into the man's hand. “No pain. Get if off the street, you have to.”

The man nodded, took the money, looked him up and down. “Bluesuit Noonan?”

“How'd you guess?”

 

•••

 

The Greyhound station had been renovated since Service had left Detroit, or else it was entirely new. Decades of dinge had been replaced with chrome columns, huge glass walls and partitions, potted trees, carpet, red and blue plastic seating, all covered with fresh dinge. He instantly loathed it.

Speedoboy was the Man and easy enough to locate. He worked out of a black Astro van parked across the street. Noonan read the deal immediately. His teenage posse scouted arriving buses while the boss sat back. Eventually an enormous and obese man slid out of the van and lumbered slowly toward the terminal, legs apart, sagging in style (or fighting a rash, it was hard for Service to tell). Bodyguards followed and led, two lines, twenty feet from the man. Sloppy security. Noonan used an open flank to cut in, and Service followed right behind him.

“Speedoboy,” Noonan said. “Bambi Sorrowhorse say you Top Tonto.”

Fat but not soft; her characterization was correct, Service saw. The man had a thick corded neck, massive hands. Service flashed his badge. “We need to talk privately—about Shinobs above the bridge.”

The man's voice was comic, high and slobbery, the opposite of his hard obsidian eyes. He led them into a public lavatory. A look sent his bodyguards out. Speedoboy stood at a urinal trough, grunting. “Got the bad p'ostate,” he said. “Low manifold pressure. You a long way from home, fish cop,” he said to Service.

“Bambi said you might help. She said you're a good man with a bad rep.”

“She a ho.”

“Got the Dr. Slim,” Noonan interjected.

“It always somepin', ” Speedoboy said. “What you want?”

Service told him about the killings.

“I look like Ast-the-Motherfuckah-Dot-Com?”

“You've got connections,” Noonan said. “What we seen up there is ugly, man. We want to bury some kids, not leave their spirits wandering.”

“I didn't make the world,” the man said.

“No, but Bambi swears you've tried to make it a better place. This is like what you do for kids.”

“People up north being ripped apart, chewed on,” Service said again.

“I mebbe hear some shit. Dogman, right?”

Noonan asked, “You b'lee dat dogman shit?”

Speedoboy closed his eyes. “Windigo . . . You go talk wit' Father Bill Eyes.”

“Macomb County Father Bill?” Noonan said.

“He the man.”

 

•••

 

The Macomb County Native American Center was just outside Mount Clemens. Air Guard jets thundered over the old Selfridge Air Force Base, now an Air National Guard operation. The center was run by a half-breed Cree priest, Father Bill Eyes. They found him playing basketball with kids half his age, twice his size, and holding his own.

They sat with the priest while he rested with a bottle of pale green fluid. “Gatorade—electrolytes,” he explained. “As mysterious as the Holy Ghost. You have to take the existence of both on faith. Thought you retired, Suit,” he said to Noonan.

“Did, but helping my friend here, Conservation Officer Grady Service. Woods cop up in the U.P.”

“You a Catholic?” the priest asked Service.

“Raised one, but more Non-Pref now,” he answered.

“What can I do for you?”

Service told him the story, adding the word
windigo,
but omitting mention of Speedoboy.

The priest invited them for a late dinner, but Noonan refused politely.

“The windigo is real,” the priest said. “But let's define the word
real
in this context. It's not a myth or fairy tale. It scares the hell out of tribals—as well it should. Psychiatrists define it as windigo psychosis. Almost always hits males with families. They get into a spell of bad luck and begin thinking they've been inhabited by a windigo spirit. Makes them cold all the time, like they're filled with ice, and insatiably hungry for human meat. They sometimes turn to cannibalism, and start by murdering and eating their own families before reaching out to others.”