Authors: Robert E. Bailey
“How's that?”
“You know, like they want the guy to throw the fight, so they kidnap his kid, or his sister, or something like that.”
“If 'throwing the fight' covers betraying our friends, I'd say that was an astute observation.”
“What should I tell Daniel?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said and twisted my head. “You like to tell Daniel what to do.”
Ben made one pulse of his eyebrows and smiled.
“Tell him the same thing that I told you,” I said and put a hand on his shoulder, “and tell him I said it. Also tell him that I said to park his car on the grass just off the gravel and pointed out of the driveway. Tell him to keep his keys in his right-hand pants pocket. I want you to get the spare keys for Daniel's car off the key rack and put them in your right-hand pants pocket. If you hear a shot fired, you are both to lie on the floor wherever you are. If you start running around, you'll just run into trouble.
Last of all, do whatever your mother tells you. This is not a âgee, Mom, but' situation.”
“This should be way cool, you know, but it's, well, kinda weird,” said Ben, his face flushed.
“Nothing wrong with knowing when things are weird,” I said and shook Ben's shoulder. “A good sense of weird is what keeps you from taking a nap on the railroad tracks. I wish that my weird antenna had been up a little higher when I took this case.”
“But Mom's tough,” said Ben, “and you trust her.”
“All of that,” I said, “and one more thing.”
“What's that?”
“Now she's mad at these guys. You can bet that I'm going to knock before I open the door.” We laughed. I let go of Ben's shoulder and shrugged into my jacket.
In the living room Karen's eyes were closed. I watched her breathe. She moved her head from side to side.
“I'm not real sure about this,” said Wendy.
“Rent's only paid until noon,” I said. “Pack her a lunch and show her the highway.”
Wendy hammered me lightly on the chest with her fist. “I'm serious,” she said. “I'm not a doctor; I don't know what to do.”
“Don't put a bag over her head,” I said and shrugged. “She survived that once today so I don't think she's all that fragile. Don't let anyone come in and shoot her.”
“Same old stuff.” said Wendy. “You leave me here with the smelly diapers while you go out and have all the fun.”
“I'm going to stay until Walt and Denny show up,” I said and pulled her sweater together. “Maybe you ought to go put the rest of your clothes on. I find this all very distracting.”
“Yeah, you like it,” said Wendy.
“Yes, I do.”
“That Walker guy. What's his nameâWalt? He didn't look too convinced,” said Ron as he turned out of the drive and headed up toward the blacktop.
“It's the glass eye,” I said. “He never really seems to look straight at you. The eye is the reason he's retired. He's worked for Wendy for four years. Doesn't need the money, just wants to stay active.”
“Hard to be a SWAT sniper with a glass eye?”
“Not really. It wasn't his master eye. Walt's left-handed. He travels all over the state to compete in the high-power matchesâhas a house full of trophies.”
“It's his 'sense of duty' that I'm worried about,” said Ron.
“He was in uniform for seventeen years. He'll wait until he has all the facts before he feels the need to unburden himself. Until then, lying up in the weeds with his Remington is going to seem like more fun than trying
to catch Joe Shit stealing rolls of toilet paper in his lunch bucket. The one I'm worried about is Denny Parker.”
“He seemed enthusiastic,” said Ron. “Anybody who wants to get to Wendy is definitely gonna have to go through him.”
“Yeah, but he gets his degree next month. He still thinks of police work as some kind of uniformed social activism.”
“He'll be running his mouth by the end of his shift.”
“He'll get shuttled around like he was in a pinball machine. In the meantime, there's something else. In the ambulance Chuck and Paulie talked about a âRussian' who is in town to tidy up.”
“They use a name?”
“Nope, but they did say the Russki shot Campbell and told Paulie to leave the gun with the body. I think we can rule out your basic Brighton Beach black-market thug. He planned their little caper with Karen this morning.”
“Could have been a very tidy package,” said Ron.
“I don't see how I missed Paulie,” I said. “Your .357 should have cut through the chain saw like hot butter.”
“I only carry soft-nose thirty-eight ammo.”
I fell back in the seat. “No shit!”
“Lawyer says that it's easier to defend in court than hardball magnum ammo. Didn't you notice the difference?”
I hit the seat recliner knob, fell back, and closed my eyes. “Nope, I was busy at the time.”
“Where to?”
“My office,” I said. “We have to find our pals. I'll start on the telephone. The office phone is Caller ID blocked.” I winked out. Ron told me later that he had stopped to drop off our still shots. I didn't know a thing until he started shaking me to tell me we were at my office.
Marg sat, busy at her desk, looking sharp in a brown-checked suit and a tan silk blouse despite the fact that a troll sat on the divan. He had a foot of grizzled beard that he'd gathered at the point of his chin with a little green rubber band, and a full head of hair that shagged down to his shoulders in filthy strings. Standing he couldn't have been more than five-foot-one or two and had to weigh at least two-sixty. His baggy brown trousers were shiny at the back side and held up with suspenders. He wore a blue short-sleeved shirt and a red bow tie. Balanced on his knees was a brown cigar box that he secured in place with his two clammy paws. His fingernails were long, with a black half-moon at each fingertip.
“This is Mr. Dutton,” said Marg. “He insisted on waiting.”
I stuck out my hand and Mr. Dutton wrestled himself from the divan to take it.
“I sure am pleased to meet you,” he said.
“Please have a seat in my office,” I said. “I need to speak with my secretary for a minute.”
“She's kinda uppity,” Dutton said. “But I figure you to straighten her out.”
Ron stifled a laugh down to a snort. With a sidelong dart of my eyes, I motioned for him to follow Dutton.
Dutton waddled past with Ron in lockstep. I turned to Marg, smiled, and held my nose.
“You're a matched set,” she said. “You need a shave.”
“I need a check,” I said.
“How much? You had two hundred dollars.”
I reached into my pocket and produced forty-six dollars in wadded up bills. I stared at the money. “This isn't my pocket!”
“That one, I believe,” said Marg.
“I have to replace two of the tires on my car,” I said. “They're custom tires. Figure mount and balance, make it, say, three hundred and twenty-five bucks.”
“Don't you have a spare?”
“Yes ma'am, and that's just what it is, very spare.”
“I want the receipt,” said Marg, “and I want your expense report on time for a change.”
“When?”
“Now!”
“Can't,” I said. “I have to see what Mr. Dutton needs and we have to wrap up our case before Ron goes off the clock.”
“It had better be a long clock for what we're paying him.”
I turned around at the door to my office, and shaking a finger, announced gruffly, “And don't let it happen again!”
“Your boots are muddy,” she said.
I turned back and stepped into the office. Dutton had taken the overstuffed chair in the corner and left Ron the straight-backed chair in front of my desk.
“This is kind of private,” said Dutton.
I closed the door.
“No,” said Dutton and nodded at Ron.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Mr. Dutton, this is Mr. Craig. He is my closest professional associate.”
Dutton waggled himself forward on the chair and stuck his hand out. Ron leaned forward and shook Dutton's hand.
“Now, how is it we can be of service to you, Mr. Dutton?”
“It's my mother-in-law,” he said. “She runs the trailer park where I live, so I can't get away from her. She tells my wife stuff and makes her all crazy like.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
“Like yesterday,” said Dutton. “I sent her up to tell her mother that we still didn't have the lot rent.” Dutton squirmed in the chair and visibly gritted his teeth. “And she come back saying like I should get a job, and take a bath, and clean up the junk around the trailer.”
“How can we help you?”
“Well,” he said and leaned forward, making his voice a coarse whisper, “I was going to do the bitch myself, but then I read about the hatchet number you laid on that cop, and I knew right off you were the man for the job.”
“I didn't kill Officer Talon,” I said.
Dutton closed an eye and made one vertical nod of his head. “Yes, and I want you to not kill my mother-in-law the same way you didn't kill that cop.”
Dutton wrenched himself from the chair and planted the cigar box amid the disordered administrative rubble that constitutes the top of my desk. He lifted the lid so that I could see inside. “There's a hundred and eighty-seven dollars in there,” he bragged, “and only just some of it is food stamps.”
I looked at Ron, and we nodded respectfully in unison.
“So you can see, I got the wherewithal,” he said.
“Your gal there said that you charged fifty dollars an hour and it's only up to Fifty-Second Street where you got to go. I figured to pay you for the whole hour, even if it only takes twenty minutes or so. If you can't work her in, then I'll just get an axe on the way home and whack her when I get there.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Dutton,” I said. “That sounds like a good offer, with a fine tip included, but I just can't do it.”
“Well, why not?” he asked as he picked up his treasure chest and backed up to the chair.
“It's in Kentwood,” I said. “The Kentwood Police have the concession on domestic murder-for-hire in the City of Kentwood. They don't allow any poaching whatsoever.”
“Right,” said Ron. “They might even act like they caught you fair and square and put you in jail like a common criminal.”
“Don't that beat all!” said Dutton as the chair groaned under his descending weight.
“If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense,” I said. “They have to conduct the investigation, and they can make sure it doesn't get out of hand.”
“Well, I can see that,” said Dutton as he wiped his nose with his wrist.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I'll call Detective Van Huis. He's the chief of detectives, and he assigns the work out.” I winked. “Has to get his cut, you know.”
I picked up the telephone and started dialing.
“If he takes the job,” said Ron, “Art and I get a nice cut.”
“How much is this going to cost?” asked Dutton.
The line was ringing. “I'm sure you've got plenty,” I said, “but I don't think he'll take the food stamps.”
“Uppity cuss,” said Dutton.
“Van Huis,” the police detective growled into the phone.
“Hi,” I said. “Art Hardin over at Ladin Associates.”
“Leave me alone, Art,” he said. “I'm doing the budget.”
“I've got a customer for you,” I said.
“I've got to have it in by four o'clock.”
“Only take a few minutes,” I said. “It's only down on Fifty-second Street. Man wants a quick axe murder, no frills. He's got at least a hundred bucks,” I said and winked at Dutton. He winked back. “Says if we can't squeeze it in, he'll do it himself on the way home.”
“Art, have you lost your goddam mind?”
“That's right,” I said. “The guy says he'll do it himself, and you'll be out your cut of the dough.”
“Leave me the fuck alone,” said Van Huis. “Call the desk like the rest of the city. Dial 911. I don't have time for your horseshit today, Art.” Van Huis hung up.
“Okay,” I said, “I'll send him right over. ⦠Yep, I'll give him a card with the code on it. ⦠Uh-huh. ⦠Right. ⦠You got it. ⦠I won't forget. ⦠That's right. ⦠Kentwood is your concession. ⦠Don't forget my cut ⦠and Ron Craig, too. ⦠That's right. ⦠He recommended you highly.”
I hung up the telephone and took out a business card. I wrote on the back: “Personal to Detective Van Huis: This is the guy I told you about.” I signed the card, “XXOOXOO, ART.”
Dutton inspected it doubtfully, then asked, “Why did you write them kisses and hugs on the back of the card?”
“That's the code,” I said. “Everyone is supposed to think they are kisses and hugs, but see here”âI pointed at the card with my ballpoint penâ“the exes, they mean ten, and the ohs, they mean percent. So like it says here, I get twenty percent and Ron gets ten percent.”
Dutton nodded recognition.
“Just a damn minute,” said Ron. “How come I only get ten percent? I recommended Van Huis just as highly as you did.”
“Well, I had to make the phone call,” I said.
“What did that cost?” said Ron. “A quarter?”
“I had to give him my card and write on it, too.”
“Fifty cents, maybe!” Ron's voice took an edge.
“Look, fellas,” said Dutton, “I'm getting a headache, and now I got to go down to the police station, and the neighbor kid wants his bike back by three. Little bastard has a paper route. I'll just go now, and you can work this out after I'm gone.”
“Just give that card to the desk sergeant,” I said, “and tell them you have to see Detective Van Huis, personally. Tell them I called and made the appointment. When the desk sergeant sees the card, he'll smileâmeans he knows it's a special deal.”