“Is that a problem?” I asked.
“For the IRS maybe, but not for Levering. Listen, I buried a sniffer in the bank’s mainframe. Anytime they access Levering’s account, my computer will know.”
“Be—”
“Careful?” Steve finished for me. “That’s my middle name. What’s going on on your end?” I told him. He was taken aback. “I didn’t think there would be, you know, violence.”
“We’re trying to take a quarter of a million bucks off this guy,” I reminded him.
“I know but I didn’t think … What will he do next?”
“I
HAD AN
interesting phone call last night regarding you,” Freddie told me. He was sitting in my visitor’s chair, his feet on my desk, drinking my Summit Ale like he owned the place. I was drinking coffee from the mug the SPPD gave me when I joined Homicide. It was blue and gold with an inscription that read:
THOU SHALT NOT KILL SAITH THE LORD. AND WE WORK FOR HIM.
“So you said,” I reminded him. Why else would I let him put his feet on my furniture and drink my beer?
“Guy wanted me to do you.”
“Do me?”
“Do you dead in any way that suited my fancy.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted, taking a sip of the coffee, trying to act oh so cool and indifferent—not at all like a man whose life was suddenly in jeopardy. Freddie didn’t buy it. He caught me flexing the still sore knuckles of my right hand.
“What happened to your hand?” he asked.
“I hit a wall,” I told him.
“Gotta watch that temper,” he advised me. “Hitting walls with your gun hand—only bad relief pitchers do that.”
“I’ll be more careful in the future,” I assured him, taking a sip of coffee. I was scared, oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. But I didn’t want Freddie to know. Call it professional pride. Or male ego if you prefer.
“Want to know who put out the contract?” Freddie asked.
“As a matter of fact—”
“Can’t say.”
“Ahhh.”
“Said we didn’t need to meet. Said he would put ten thousand dollars cash in a locker at City Center and send me the key. If I picked it up, we had a contract.”
“And if you just took the money, gambled it away down at Treasure Island?”
“Said he knew me but I didn’t know him. Or anyone he might send to chat with me.”
“Kinda makes you think he’s done this sort of thing before.”
“Kinda.”
Freddie drained his bottle. “Want another?” I asked. He nodded, handing me the empty.
“You take the job?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible, taking a second bottle of Summit Ale from the refrigerator.
Freddie smiled brightly. “For ten thousand dollars? Hell, no.”
I handed him the beer and sat behind my desk again as Freddie took a swig.
“What I said,” he continued, “I said a man like Holland Taylor, he deserves the best. I told ’im make it twenty thousand and we can talk. Only he wouldn’t go for it. Says he could get a hitter from Chicago for ten.”
“In Chicago, you can hire a killer for five thousand,” I suggested.
Freddie snorted. “Whaddya know about hired killers, Taylor? You don’t know shit about hired killers.” He tapped his chest. “I know fuckin’ hired killers.”
“I was a homicide cop, remember?”
“Shit, man. You made your living bustin’ husbands for offing their wives. I’m talkin’
real
killers. I’m talkin’ professionals. Guy in Omaha, very cool, uses nothin’ but hollow points, one shot per customer, fifty Gs a pop, seventy-five if there was a deadline—that kind of professional I’m talkin’ about.”
“Are you a professional, Freddie?”
The big man eyed me carefully, then smiled. “Not for no ten grand I ain’t.”
“But maybe for twenty?”
“What? You don’t think I’m worth twenty? Fuck, Taylor, don’t go dissin’ me, now.”
“I’m just saying, you knock on my door, I tell you to come in, you pump a few rounds into me, hop the next Greyhound out of town, who’s to know? Five minutes work, ten thousand dollars. Who do you know makes that kind of money who isn’t playing pro ball?”
Freddie looked embarrassed. He took his feet off my desk, tried to get comfortable in the chair, and said, “I didn’t want the contract, anyway.”
We stared at each other for a few moments. It occurred to me that I knew nothing about the man except the caliber of gun he carried.
“You ain’t nervous are you?” he asked at last.
I shrugged my reply.
“A guy puts a contract out on me, I’m shittin’ bricks.”
“Let’s see who he sends, first.”
“Just hope it ain’t no fuckin’ amateur with a street sweeper, cuttin’ down a dozen civilians to get to you.”
“Wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt,” I said.
“What I say.” Freddie smiled again. “Let me know how it works out.”
“Hey,” I stopped him. “You working these days?”
“You hirin’?”
“Could be.”
“Whaddya want me to do? Provide air cover?”
“Something like that.”
He shook his head. “I did my good deed for the day.”
I nodded, yawned, stretched, glanced at my watch. It was eleven-thirty, a typical day in the life of your average PI. “Well, least I can do is buy you lunch.”
“Where?” Freddie asked.
“You pick it. Some place expensive.”
“Want to get the good last meal, huh?”
“That’s it,” I said, moving through the door with the big black man at my side, hoping he wouldn’t see through my facade. It wasn’t the meal, it was the company I craved. Freddie and his 9mm Colt Commander.
W
E WERE WAITING
at the hostess station of Sir Walter’s along with a small knot of people, mostly businessmen. Sir Walter’s was one of our better restaurants, with a decidedly English motif. Fortunately the food they served was strictly American with a nod toward Kansas City. They claimed to serve a steak so tender that you could cut it with a spoon—although who eats steak with a spoon I wouldn’t know. While we waited three people came in. Grandpa, Dad, and little Billy. Little Billy was talking up a storm, mostly to his grandfather, until he saw Freddie and bam! It was like someone hit his mute button. He stared up at Freddie. Freddie smiled down at him.
“How you doin’, man?” Freddie asked.
The boy nodded but said nothing.
The hostess told us, “Your table will be ready in a moment,” then guided away the party waiting in front of us.
“I ain’t eatin’ with no niggers,” a voice said in a stage whisper, meant to be heard.
I pivoted and caught Dad smiling. Grandpa was shocked. Little Billy stared at his father, unsure. Freddie did not move.
“You hear me, boy?” Dad added.
Freddie turned slowly. He was smiling. He looked down at little Billy and said, “I bet you’d rather have a hamburger, anyway, huh?”
The boy nodded.
“There’s a McDonald’s just down the street. Two blocks.”
The hostess returned, sensed something was wrong, and tried to get past it. “This way,” she said, her eyes locked on Freddie. We followed her.
“I want to go to McDonald’s,” we heard little Billy whine. Apparently Dad agreed; the trio didn’t follow us into the dining room.
“Why didn’t you bounce his ass?” I asked Freddie after the hostess seated us.
Freddie didn’t answer.
“I would have,” I assured him.
“‘Cuz you’re white,” he said. “White guys bang each other, the cops come, sort it out, everybody goes home with a lecture on good citizenship. Black man hits a white man, he’s cuffed, thrown into the back seat of a squad car, spends thirty-six hours in the joint. No one asks for his side of the story, no one asks was he provoked, no one gives a shit.
“Least this asshole calls me nigger to my face,” he continued. “Man, I get called nigger a hundred times a day by people who never say a word.” Freddie smiled at the expression on my face. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You think you do, but you don’t. It’s a white man’s world, Taylor. But bein’ white, you got no idea what that really means.”
Freddie had a beer while we waited for our steaks. I had iced tea—I like to be sober when people shoot at me.
“Who I feel sorry for is the kid,” Freddie added. “You gotta know he’s gonna grow up stupid just ’cuz his old man’s stupid. Won’t know nothin’ about African-Americans.”
“You aren’t, you know.”
“What?”
“African-American.”
“Fuckin’ fooled me,” Freddie said.
“What I mean is, you were born in this country, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And so were your parents?”
“What of it?”
“Then you’re an American, period. Not a hyphenated-American, just a plain, ordinary American.”
“Who you calling ordinary?”
“You want to be a hyphenated-American, go to another country and become a citizen there. Go to Morocco. You can become a Moroccan-American.”
Freddie looked at me like I was nuts.
“It needed to be said,” I told him.
“Why would I want to live in fucking Morocco?”
“Never mind …”
Our steaks arrived. A few bites into them, Freddie said, “You’re really naive about some things.”
“What things?”
“African-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, all the other hyphenateds. You think if we dropped the hyphens and acted like everyone else, acted like white guys, then we’d all be one big happy family. Ain’t no way that’s true. It’s not how we act that makes us different, it’s how we’re treated.”
I wanted to say something but couldn’t think what. In any case, before I had a chance to speak, Levering Field walked into the dining room with two men and his secretary, Miss Portia—she of the golden mane and pale skin.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“You think you know more about racism than—”
“No, no, no,” I corrected, turning my head away from Levering as he passed. “That guy walking past, with the charcoal suit, red tie …”
“Yeah?”
“That’s Levering Field.”
“Who’s he?”
“The guy who wanted you to kill me.”
Freddie’s eyes narrowed as he watched Levering and his party settle in at a table about forty yards from us, his back to me, my back to him.
“Sure?”
“Not absolutely. It would be nice if you could recognize his voice.”
“Got a working bee?”
“What?”
“Have you got fifty bucks?”
I pulled out my money clip. I had about eighty-five. No fifties.
“Give me a twenty.”
I handed Freddie the bill.
He left the table, went to the arch leading from the foyer to the dining room, then walked directly to Levering’s table.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, standing at Levering’s elbow, holding out the twenty. “I believe you dropped this.”
Levering said something in reply.
“Are you sure?”
Levering checked his wallet.
“My mistake,” Freddie said, heading back to the hostess station. Levering lowered his head, spoke to his companions, threw his head back and laughed. The others chuckled nervously, glancing around to see if anyone else had heard the joke.
“Not him,” Freddie said, returning to the table.
“You sure? He could have disguised his voice on the phone.”
“Voice wasn’t disguised on the phone,” Freddie insisted. “The caller spoke plain.”
I was actually disappointed to hear that. Still, that didn’t mean Levering hadn’t ordered the contract, only that he didn’t make the call.
Instead of sliding the twenty into my money clip, I shoved it into my jacket pocket. The cellular telephone was there. In my other pocket I carried the tiny 3X binoculars. I had a thought.
“Want to have some fun?” I asked Freddie.
“Always.”
I turned in my seat and looked at Levering over my shoulder. The angle was good.
“Take these,” I said, handing the binoculars to Freddie. “Train them on Field. Can you see his right hand clearly?”
He could.
“Waiters, waitresses, they always serve from the right.”
“They did when I was waiting tables.”
“You waited tables?”
“When I was a kid, before I joined the Air Force,” Freddie told me.
“Terrible job,” I suggested.
“Not so bad in a good place. Tips were nice.”
“I worked in a car wash,” I volunteered.
“Talk about your shitty jobs,” Freddie said.
I retrieved the cell phone from my pocket and started punching numbers.
“Who you callin’?”
“Sara.”
Freddie was annoyed. “Why didn’t you tell me she was married?”
The telephone was ringing.
“How do you know she’s married?” I asked.
“I’m a fuckin’ detective, remember? Her old man’s name is on the mailbox. And when I did a credit search, I found out her credit cards are in her and her old man’s name.”
“You didn’t ask if she was married,” I reminded him. “You asked me if I was looking for her husband.”
“You knew what I meant.”
Steve answered the phone.
“Steve, this is Taylor,” I said.
“That’s the fucker,” Freddie said.
I told Steve what I wanted. He told me it could be done, but it was dangerous. I told him to forget it, then. But he wouldn’t. The challenge appealed to him. The problem was guessing which credit card Levering would use. I would supply the information, I told him.
“Let’s try it,” Steve said.
I set the phone on the table but did not turn it off.
“What?” Freddie wanted to know.
“We’re going to sit here until Levering goes for the check,” I said. “You’re going to watch with the glasses and tell me which credit card he uses. I’m going to tell Steve, and he’s going to cancel the card. He’s going to program the credit company’s computer to tell the restaurant that the card should be destroyed and Levering should be detained for the police.”
“The fuck you say! How?”
“He’s going to hack their system.”
“I hate computers,” Freddie said, focusing the binoculars on the target. “But I like the plan.”
So we waited. Levering and his party took their own sweet time. I had two desserts and so much tea, my back teeth were floating. Freddie regaled me with the plots of movies he’d seen recently, mostly shoot-em-ups. The plots were all the same, only the special effects changed.
“Read a book,” I told him.