Killing a Cold One (8 page)

Cass-peeps believed in let-live among their own crowd, a rather wide-sweeping definition, but mass and serial murderers attracted jazzed-up cops, which jeopardized enlightened self-interest. Snowden pointed him at an address with unspoken hopes that busting the murderous shitbird would return life to its abnormal shade of normal. Working Detroit, Service came to understand that even Hell had its own version and vision of normal. Enlightened self-interest was not the exclusive domain of suits, uniforms, and forked-tongue sky pilots.

Service found himself looking into darkness at a shotgun house in an area off Cass and Mack. The place was set on a block torched flat during the '67 riots. The frames of seven houses still stood, charred and falling over, several basements inhabited by nomadic subterranean life forms, which emerged only when the streets went deep-dark. Most of the block was overgrown with weeds and strewn with garbage. There were two '67 Pontiacs, stripped of wheels and everything salable, but left as rusting, burned-out hulks, like blown-up tanks on an old battlefield. Six months back he'd been in on a raid of a blind pig in the next block, and it had been scary from start to finish. And exhilarating, a reaction that bothered him for reasons he didn't understand. Certainly, he was no cherry to violence; he remained idealistic, believing police intervention would eventually turn the tide in Detroit. Now he knew better.
Don't fight a battle you can't win.

Entering the building, he quickly found a body in a bathtub of congealed blood. He remembered staring and trying to decide what to do when a rawboned country boy with a fluffy red Afro and huge hands came through the door, swinging a double-bit ax. Service's reflexes saved him. He mostly blocked the downstroke, but the handle had glanced off his head, the blade nicking his arm, the blow jarring him and leaving him loopy. Somehow Service had knocked the assailant off balance, hitting him hard on the shin bone with his sap, the impact sounding like a crisp single off a Louisville slugger on a cool spring day. The wounded man crab-crawled away like a cockroach. Service couldn't follow, as blood from a head wound left him nearly blind.

Bad karma. Only then did it occur to him to call for backup. A beat cop named Noonan was first on the scene, checked him over, said, “Head's nothing serious. Tourniquet your arm, motherfucker, you'll live.” Noonan had dead eyes, no meat on his body, all gristle, wired like he was on crank, weight 140 max, giving off deadly vibrations of a tightly wrapped krait on a night-hunt for warm prey. The snakes, neurotoxic banded kraits, had been common in Southeast Asia.

Service heard two shots just before the cavalry arrived in force. There were more body parts in other parts of the house, and especially in the old cellar, trash bags stuffed into fifty-gallon metal drums, in old freezers and fridges. The media had a field day with the gore, which was always their priority.

By the ambulance Service asked Noonan, “What was his name?”

“Gives a fuck?” the cop said. “Shitbag like that don't deserve no name.”

Forty stitches to close the wound where the blade had grazed Service's arm, and twelve more in his head from the handle. It was standard operating procedure that all shootings got an Internal Affairs look-over, but this was ruled a righteous shoot in two days, and Noonan went back to the street.

Service had other negative thoughts that lingered, and he had gone to see the cop one weekend and got right in his face: “The perp was in a different room,” he told Noonan. “I heard no warnings, only shots. The fucker was crawling away and had no weapon. He dropped his ax with me.”

“You trying to make a point, asswipe?”

“You killed that man.”

“Fucking eh.”

“In cold blood.”

“Scribble a note in the public service column,” Noonan said. “No extra charge.”

“It was murder.”

Noonan picked up a paper bag, emptied dozens of black-and-white and color photographs on the floor. “You can't murder a murderer, ass-pump. But if you got your monthly conscience like some big State pussy, go right ahead and whine to them IA assholes, and let's see who's standing when this dance gets done.”

Service had seen plenty of war dead and ugliness, but the shotgun house and the photos were his first real experience with seriously aberrant human behavior.

Weeks later he'd driven down to Metro HQ at 1300 Beaubien and found Noonan in one of the cheap, baggy blue suits that would become his hallmark. He had just been promoted to homicide detective. Service returned the bag with photographs. “He couldn't walk,” Service said. “He was crawling.”

Noonan said, “Yeah, in
your
direction, with a fucking knife. Thing like that ain't human.”

Service held out his hand and hated himself for it. “What makes us different than him?” he asked Noonan.

“We still breathing.”

“Whoever breathes longest, wins?”

“Fucking eh,” the new detective said, and smiled . . .

“Kalina won't like it,” Tuesday said, breaking his reverie. Kalina was Tree's longtime spouse.

“Doesn't matter. I need him.”

“Maybe he won't want to. He's retired and out of the shit.”

“Semper fi. He and I are brothers. He'll come, but I'm gonna go down and fetch him, find out who he knows in the Detroit Indian community.”

“Today?”

“Tomorrow morning. Today is ours. Might be a while before we get another one.”

She leaned her head on his chest. “You'll check in, okay?”

“Roger that, boss.”

Bluesuit Noonan: Still alive and available? Semi-human? This case might be one where a true barbarian could provide a distinct advantage.

13

Monday, October 27

DETROIT, WAYNE COUNTY

Service had called Treebone from Rapid River the day before, and his friend answered, “Yo, Big Dog.”

“I need help.”

“What is it this time?”

“Some very nasty stuff.”

“Where you at?”

“Headed south to your place, be there around seven.”

“Cool. Dinner waiting.”

“Tell Kalina I'm sorry to barge in. And pack your winter gear.”

“Am I going somewhere?”

“Hell, maybe.”

“Heard Hell was hot.”

“Not the one I have in mind. There a head Shinob mucky-muck down in Motown?”
Shinob
was street talk for
Anishinaabe,
slang for Chippewa or Ojibwe.

“Huh. Been long time since I danced with that crew.”

“I just need a name.”

“Let me make some calls.”

“Bluesuit Noonan still around?”

“Yeah, he's still aboveground. Owns a block of fix-it houses on Blackfish Avenue, safest block in the city, and he doesn't even grease city cops or pay for extra muscle. What you want with that crazy motherfucker?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“You
sure?
”

“I think.”

“Okay, I'll call the man, and check on the Shinob social scene. Seven, right?”

“Tell Kalina I'm sorry.”

“Tell her yourself. She'll just yell at my ass. Hey, I heard you're back in the Mosquito.”

“How'd you hear
that?
”

“I'm a cop, remember?”

“Retired.”

“So they say,” Tree said, and hung up.

 

•••

 

Treebone lived in Grosse Pointe Woods in a small house he'd added to over the years. Manicured lawns, topiaries on neighboring lots, mansion estates flanked the cop's house in several directions.

Treebone came out of his garage and waved majestically down the street. “My people, man. Kalina's got fixings,” Treebone said, grabbing at Service's bag.

“Leave it. We're pulling out tonight, right after dinner.”

Treebone grinned. “Works for me.”

They ate the finest jambalaya Service had ever tasted, but passed on alcohol.

Kalina wanted to know all about Tuesday Friday and her son Shigun, and Karylanne and Little Maridly. Service quickly grew weary of the social small talk, his mind already locking into the mission ahead.

They said their good-byes after dinner, and Kalina glared at Service the same as she had for as long as he'd known her.

The two men got into the truck and headed west on Jefferson, eventually pulling down a street that ran down to intersect the Detroit River. A creek ran behind the block.

“Last spring Noonan made a big case for your DNR boys. Locals were selling silver bass to a local eatery. He tracked 'em, set 'em up on a damn tee for your guys, but he was the true author of their legal demise. Your boys here love his ass.”

“Legal demise?”

Treebone shrugged. “I've been readin' a lot since I retired; you know, self-improvement shit and such.”

The houses along the block were freshly painted, lawns neat, flower gardens—it was unlike any part of inner Detroit that Service remembered.

They stopped at a house and Noonan ambled out and stared.

“Man, you still on the State payroll?” Noonan asked Service.

“So far. Nice place you got.”

“Amazing what work and a little money will accomplish, eh?” Noonan chirruped.

Service said, “You hear about the two women in the U.P.?”

The retired detective nodded. “Saw some shit in the
Freep.
” Slang for Detroit's
Free Press.
“What's a woods cop got to do with a double homi?”

“Governor's idea, and order: Hunt down the killer.”

Noonan looked skeptical.“You shittin' me? The governor herself gave you
that
order? Didn't think she had the balls.”

“Maybe not in those words. You believe in dogmen?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“They shit on my lawn.”

“How about you come help Tree and me run this thing down?”

“No fake?”

“Nope; governor's paying, and I get to pick my team.”

“Gimme some time to pack. Cold up there?”

“We've already had snow . . . looks like one of those years. I'll provide snowshoes and other gear. I'm going to step outside for a smoke,” Service said.

Several boys rode bikes up to the Tahoe and dismounted. A black SUV pulled up behind his truck; a man got out and came up the sidewalk and began shouting: “Noonan, you nasty, nigger-hatin' little motherfucker, come outside and face your accuser!”

Noonan immediately came to the door, asked, “Who the fuck you?”

“Latoma Brown be who I am.”

“Brown? I know your old man?”

“You kicked him outten his house.”

“
My
house, not his, and he didn't pay rent for one year, Brown.”

“You don't cut no slack for black men.”

“I don't cut slack for my goddamn mother. What's your point, slick?”

“Gon' cap your cheap, racist ass,” the man said, charging forward, and suddenly he was on the sidewalk, flailing like he was drowning, the air gone out of him. Service helped the man up, his nose and chin bleeding profusely.

Service said, “You've got to be careful on concrete. Can trip you up real easy.”

The man was dazed. An old man crawled out of the car, and Noonan saw him. “What's your son's problem, Brown? You and me parted copacetic, and here your boy comes up on me at the half-step.”

“The boy just back from the Afghanistan, thinkin' he can put righteous whoop-ass on the world's problems.”

Noonan said to Service, “Let's get him inside, clean him up.”

The kids with the bikes were huddled by the Tahoe. Noonan yelled from his door and darted over to them so fast Service could hardly believe his quickness. “Okay, boys, curfew's here—time for home.”

“Ain't no curfew,” the largest boy said. “Mothafuckah.”

“Fine, let's call it a prelude to your funeral instead,” Noonan said with a huge grin.

The kid took an aggressive half-step toward him and immediately doubled over on the ground, grasping his package.

Noonan said calmly, “Next?”

No challengers. “Okay. Get this sorry piece of shit on home, and don't never come back.”

Noonan looked at Service. “How long you think this party will last?”

“Days, weeks, months—don't know,” Service told the retired detective. “You want to know what your pay is?”

“Couldn't give a shit,” Noonan said, and went back inside.

 

•••

 

As the Tahoe headed north, Treebone said, “Where're the Browns?”

“I hired them to protect the block while we're gone. Latoma is Crotch, Semper fi. The old man's gonna live in my place.”

“Semper fi,” Service and Tree said together. Noonan was a unique creature.

“You get me a Shinob yet?” Service asked as they headed north.

“Working on that,” Tree said. “Gon' take a while.”

 

•••

 

Passing near Gaylord, where US 127 merged with I-75, Service's personal cell phone rang and he answered it. “Sonnyboy,” a voice rasped.

Limpy Allerdyce. Most of the Allerdyce clan lived in a compound in southwest Marquette County, on a narrow peninsula between North and South Beaverkill Lakes. The area was a long way from civilization, not the sort of place you stumbled across by mere chance. With water on two sides and a cedar swamp on both ends, it was difficult to get to. There was a two-track from a US Forest Service road down to the compound's parking area, and then it was a half-mile walk along a twisting trail from there into the camp itself. In terms of isolation, the place was a fortress, which was just as well. Limpy's clan had poached all over the Upper Peninsula for decades.

Many years ago Service had challenged Allerdyce for poaching fish with dynamite. The CO had no idea where the shovel had come from, but it had caught him hard, breaking his right shoulder, and a subsequent shotgun blast caught him in the left thigh. He was lucky it was a slug, a twenty-gauge, that somehow missed the femoral artery. Allerdyce spent seven years in Southern Michigan Prison and came out professing to have changed his ways, which, over the years, Service was reluctantly beginning to believe. Especially since the old man had helped him solve several major cases and even saved his life.

The apparent fundamental shift in the man was hard to accept, or believe. Limpy was no accidental violator. He had few normal emotions, was a predator in human form, a demon, a shape-shifter, a crow pocketing a bauble at Wal-Mart, a wolf taking easy, helpless prey. Allerdyce, no matter what he claimed, was cold-blooded and calculating, a dirtbag who had for most of his life taken what he wanted with no remorse. In the man's twisted mind, all that mattered was what
he
wanted, and if you didn't agree, you were in deep trouble. The tricky old poacher claimed he had been Service's father's informant in the old days, and since his release from prison downstate, he had decided to do the same for Grady.

Owing such a person for saving your life was galling beyond words.

“What do you want?”

“Heard somepin',” the man said.

“Like what?”

“Like some punk-ass high school kittles talking 'bout some Holloweenie party up in da Whorons.”

The man slaughtered language in unbelievably cockeyed ways. “What of it?”

“Heard dis in bar over Amasa Hotel.”

Amasa was a long way from the Huron Mountains. “And?”

“Somepin' sick go down, I t'ink.”

“You know the place?”

“Mebbe.”

“Call Marquette County and tell them. Ask for Sergeant Linsenman.”

“I call
you,
not dat weasel,” Allerdyce insisted. “He don't like me.”

Service said, “I don't do kiddie parties.”

“You know dat case, dose two dead girlies up Twinnypointpond?”

“Yes.”
Now what?

“Hear sick like dat, mebbe.”

“And somebody was blabbing about this in the Amasa Hotel?”

“I heard it for sure, and I believe it, sonny.”

“Where are you?”

“Your place, talkin' your dog. I really like dis mutt. I call your girlie, tell her I comin' oot here. I go his sis's, she give me dog and cat, eh.”

“You broke into my cabin
again?
”

“Ain't no break-in. I got key.”

“I didn't give you one.”

“Had it made, eh,” Allerdyce said.

“From what?”

“Last time I was out dere.”

Service sighed. There was no way to change some behaviors, and inexplicably, both his dog and cat loved the old bastard.

“Where youse?” Limpy asked.

“Downstate, rolling north.”

“Take 'er easy. We'll all be right 'ere. Stop, get bottle Jack, eh. Youse're low.”

Great,
Service thought, and broke off the contact. Something Allerdyce thought might relate to the case up at Twenty Point Pond? His gut fluttered. He knew this would somehow be something of substance, but not what. Not yet. Limpy always seemed to know what was going on all across the U.P.

“Who that?” Treebone asked.

Service said, “You brung a nigger into my camp?” This is what Limpy had said when Service took Treebone with him to meet the man in his camp the night he came home from prison years ago.

Treebone exhaled loudly. “That motherfucker Allerdyce.”

“He's waiting at camp. You guys can catch up and make nice.”

Noonan said, “Can I turn on the tunes? You two go on like couple of dried-up old women.”