Private Heat (2 page)

“How about the Choo-Choo up by Leonard on Plainfield?” The Choo-Choo Restaurant had been retired as a train station in the early fifties and had served as a diner ever since. Despite its size—about as big as a two-car garage—and a coat of red paint over the brick, it still exudes that certain railway charm.

Once upon a time in Grand Rapids, there had been a minor league ice hockey team called the Owls. Some of the fans, players, and hangers-on, most now retired, gather daily to fill the Choo-Choo's two tables and short counter for breakfast and spirited conversation. The lunch traffic, mostly carry-out, comprises a blue-collar trade that pit-stops for “the best burgers in Grand Rapids.” If you want one of the two tables, you have to get there early.

“Eleven-thirty,” Van Pelham said and hung up.

I finished my report, stood up, and peeled my windbreaker off the back of my chair. I keep a sport jacket—this week, a brown herringbone in wool and Italian silk—and some ties on the coat rack in the investigators' room. Ready-to-wear suits present a problem. It takes a forty-eight long to get around my chest and shoulders, but the trousers that come with a suit that size can't be cut down enough to fit my waist.

This morning I'd dressed in the dark so as not to wake my wife, Wendy. Luck of the draw dealt me a yellow broadcloth shirt and black slacks. I passed on the brown tie in favor of a black-and-gold checked silk tie and took it, along with the sport coat, back to my office to saddle up. Properly attired, I clipped a billing slip onto my report and went out to beard the lioness.

Marg had her “leave me the hell alone” half glasses perched on the end of her nose. I dropped the report into Marg's in-box and waited for her to finish a ledger entry.

“What?” she said.

“I was serious,” I said. “I need a check.”

“Checks you got,” she answered without looking up.

“We billed twenty-five hundred last week, and the P&L says we have forty thousand in receivables!”

“And you're on a thirty-day billing cycle. A lot of that isn't due yet, and some of it is late.” She fingered my battered ledger off the shelf next to her desk and smiled malevolently.

“Oh, God,” I said, “don't beat me with the book. That's cruel and unusual. Just give me the short version.”

“Taxes and Social Security,” she said and slipped the ledger back into its slot. “Quarterly payments.”

“I've got to meet a client.”

“Twenty-three dollars.”

I said, “Great. Gimme a check for the double sawbuck,” and tried to sound chipper.

“You know they charge you for every check.”

“Let 'em take it out of the three spot.”

“You need to think about a retirement program,” she said. She made a little sigh as she dragged out the checkbook.

“Good. Let's look at this as an investment.”

“Don't get snippy,” she told me. To get even, she made me take the tax payments, since I “was going to the bank anyway.”

Just short of seventeen thousand dollars swirled into the bank teller's drawer. She smiled and stamped my coupons like it was nothing. I breezed out of the bank with twenty bucks to operate my business. My black Olds sedan drank a sawbuck for breakfast.

I got to the Choo-Choo at a quarter past eleven and parked on the hard-packed dirt lot that forms an uneven wreath around the building. Inside, railroad pictures covered the dark-stained knotty pine walls. The close quarters behind the counter shone in stainless steel and tile. The serving area featured chrome, speckled formica, and brown Naugahyde—here and there garnished with duct tape.

The usual breakfast crew still filled both tables and four of the seven counter stools. They were down to raucous conversation and lukewarm coffee. I slid onto a stool and ordered a cup of joe. After ten minutes, a table cleared and I hustled to take possession.

“The service is better up here at the counter,” said the owner/cook/waiter,
a fellow as big as a landing craft with hair cut high and tight like a marine drill instructor. He hooked his thumbs in the straps of the starched white bib apron he wore over jeans and a white T-shirt. “I don't go out there unless there's two or three people at a table.”

“I'm meeting a friend here in a couple of minutes,” I said. “How about setting us up with a couple of deluxe burger baskets?”

“Eight forty-eight,” he said and pointed at a sign mounted next to the clock. “P
LEASE PAY WHEN YOU ORDER
.”

I fished out my ten spot and walked it over to the counter—a bad omen—Van Pelham had weaseled out of the lunch tab and he wasn't even here yet.

The owner made my change and said, “I'll clear the table.”

Van Pelham walked in wearing a blue pin-striped Italian suit. Pushing the door open, he exposed his left wrist and a gold Rolex watch that cost more than the diner grossed in a month. His hair, flecked with brown when we'd clashed in the Federal Courthouse, was now stark white and just long enough to lie down. Still ramrod straight and six feet tall, he weighed a lean one hundred fifty or sixty pounds and moved lithe as a cat despite his nearly three score and ten years. We shook hands and he said, “I remember you as taller.”

“I remember you as younger.”

“I used to be younger,” he said and gave me the deadpan face that only lawyers and serious card players can muster.

“I used to be taller,” I said and showed him to the table.

Van Pelham took out his hanky and dusted the chair before he sat. The counterman, wiping the table, scowled at him and two of the denizens seated on the stools appraised Van Pelham in an apparent effort to determine what he'd weigh dressed out.

“I have to ask you,” I said, pausing until we made eye contact, “just what inspired you to call me? As I remember it, you described me as a ‘sleazy keyhole peeper' in the hallway over at the Gerald R. Ford Building.”

“Let's not recriminate,” he said and looked over his shoulder at the door. When he turned back he added, “I called you because I need your services.”

The front door opened and a man in a grease-stained mechanic's uniform breezed in and headed for the counter. Van Pelham did a quick head swivel to check him out.

“You still don't like cops?” he said, like it was a fact I should stipulate to, to save the court's time.

“I have the greatest respect for the police,” I said and waited till he was looking at me again. “They do a difficult job. Most work hard and serve the public at great personal peril. However, I don't believe that a badge is a license to—”

He waved a halting backhand. “I heard the speech at the trial.” He folded his hands on the table and said, “You sued the county when you could have walked away from a reasonable mistake and made some good friends in the law enforcement community.”

“Really? Damn! Sure would have cost you a bundle in billable hours.”

“That's not the point.”

“That's exactly the point. Trust me on this—with police agencies, respect is a lot more durable than friendship.”

Van Pelham allowed me a little nod of his head. “I had a similar thought this morning,” he said.

The burger baskets arrived, and Van Pelham looked dumbstruck. He stared at the basket of fries and the top of the big sesame seed bun like he'd been served a snake in a bucket.

“Take a walk on the wild side,” I said and hauled my half-pounder out for a bite.

“I haven't eaten like this since I was an intern,” he said and pushed the basket aside. “My niece is going through a divorce. Her husband has assaulted her on several occasions and has made some very specific threats on her life.”

I nodded through another bite, but his silence made it clear that it was my turn to talk. “I take it,” I said, using my napkin to wipe the ketchup off my mustache, “your niece's soon-to-be-ex is a police officer.”

“Yes, he is. And
that
is the problem.”

“Get yourself a restraining order. If he gets out of hand, he has a lot to lose.” I felt like I was preaching to the choir. “If he's assaulted her several times, he should be on the rubber gun squad already.”

Van Pelham wagged his head in the negative. “She pressed charges once. His sergeant came over and told her that he could get counseling through the department, so she dropped the charges. I still managed to get a restraining order. He should be served when he gets off shift tonight.”

“What flavor?” I asked between bites.

Van Pelham twisted his head like a dog studying a worm on a wet sidewalk.

“State? City? County? One of the suburbs?”

“City,” he said and turned his head to check out a customer who had opened the door to leave.

“Shit,” I said. “Go see the chief. The city is one of your clients. I'm sure he'll make time for you and take it as a favor that you helped him head off some trouble.”

“Like he took care of the Rat?” asked Van Pelham.

“Rat” is the nickname for a city police detective who married a district court judge. The newspaper made it an occasion for the city, with color pictures of the happy couple standing on the courthouse steps. But, like most fairy tales, it turned out to be an ugly story with a nasty ending.

One morning after the Rat's customary breakfast of bourbon and beer, he walked into the judge's chambers, shot her in the neck, and watched her bleed to death on the floor.

The police department took the position that the shooting was a domestic matter and not nearly as bad as if the Ratmeister had wandered into the courthouse and capped somebody at random. The prosecutor couldn't find it in his heart to personally prosecute an “old friend and professional associate,” so he appointed a special prosecutor.

The Rat took a twenty-five-to-life murder fall in a federal penitentiary but not before his attorney mounted an unsuccessful diminished capacity defense, due to advanced alcoholism. When the good people of Grand Rapids started asking why an active alcoholic had been left on duty, in uniform, and entrusted with a firearm, the police chief mugged for the cameras.

“Hey,” I said with a shrug, “I saw the chief on the news. He flopped the Rat back in the bag from Major Cases because of manpower needs. A lateral transfer. Had him assigned to midnight foot patrol in the tenderloin. An administrative thing. The chief
had no idea
the Rat had a drinking problem. The press ate that spin with a spoon, and I believed him, too! Didn't you?”

“That's the point,” said Van Pelham. “I'm afraid that after her husband gets served he'll head straight over to the house.”

“Of course he will,” I said. “He has a right to pick up his clothes and personal property. Maybe this is a good time for your niece to take a long weekend. Chicago, maybe, or Traverse City is nice this time of year. The cherries are in bloom.”

“She can't.”

“Sure she can. This isn't about principle. This is about common sense.”
I leaned forward and showed Van Pelham my open palms. “A trip to Toronto would be cheaper than paying me.”

“She's on a tether.”

You're putting me on, I wanted to say. His face revealed that he was not. “What's her name?” I said instead.

“K. T. Smith,” said Van Pelham—made it sound like “Katie.” He snapped his head to check someone who had opened the door.

Out of habit I'd taken the gunfighter's chair—back to the wall, with a clear view of the door, and a short unobstructed route to the rear exit. It would have been a mercy to trade seats with Van Pelham. I didn't. The voice of Sergeant Ochoa, my old ranger instructor, whispered to me from the dark recesses of my memory, “Mercy may fall like gentle rain, but stupidity comes down in great-big-fucking chunks.”

“Karen Smith?” I asked.

“Karen Terisa,” said Van Pelham. “I've always called her K. T.”

“That saves me a trip to the courthouse to read the summons and complaint,” I said. The story had been in the newspaper—front page and above the fold for three days. Karen Terisa had been boffing her boss, who ran a payroll check accounting firm. One week all the checks bounced and the boss disappeared. A neat package until the local FBI located his car parked in the long-term lot at Kent County International Airport and staked it out. After a week the car started to get ripe, so they pried opened the trunk and found out that he'd missed his flight.

Ms. Smith turned out to have a numbered account in the Bahamas. She'd been waiting for her boss at Lake Tahoe when he got whacked.

“Officer Smith should be running away from her like she was on fire and he was wearing gasoline boxer shorts.”

“Officer Talon,” said Van Pelham. “She never took his name.”

Talon was one of the brain surgeons on the “Community Service” crew. The Community Service Squad was a plainclothes decoy unit that had recently figured prominently in a rash of civil suits against the city, not to mention some of the members getting busted for assault and battery down in Kalamazoo—exploits reported in the local newspaper.

“Oh, I don't think so,” I said.

“Too much weight?”

“Absolutely. Way out of my league.”

“That's not quite the whole story, is it, Colonel?”

“Yeah, well, I lied. I never used to be taller. I did used to be younger—just
like you. The other's all reserve crap. I'm retired, anyway.”

“NCIC said you had an SCI security clearance.”

I've always wondered why it is that lawyers have to talk around the edges of things; it's like eating pizza starting at the crust and working your way to the point. “NCIC” stands for National Crime Information Center. Their reports go to police agencies, not slick private practice lawyers. Even so, getting an NCIC report on me wouldn't have been much of a magic trick; he'd been defending a sheriff's department back when we were butting heads down at the federal courthouse.