Private Heat (8 page)

“Honey, if I had any money you could have it,” I said. “You folks sure stay open late.”

“We serve financial markets worldwide,” she said, “but we close in fifteen minutes. How can I help you?”

“This is Bernie down at Continental Towing,” I said. “We just picked up an emerald green Corvette from a tow-away zone. This number was in the glove box.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “That would be Arnold Fay. I'll connect you.” She added a heartfelt, “Good luck!”

Karen unassed the sofa when she heard me mention the emerald green Corvette. She charged into the kitchen and tried to reach around me to disconnect the telephone. I didn't let her.

“You bastard!” she screamed. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” She started flailing my back with both fists.

Arnold Fay's line was still ringing, so I turned around and showed her the pepper spray can. She fled toward the door to the garage, ducked, and covered her head with her arms. I set the telephone down, reached around Karen, and opened the door. She tried to step away, but it was too late. I pushed her into the garage and locked the door after her.

Karen jerked on the knob. Pounded and kicked. It didn't help. “Arnie! Arnie!” she yelled. “I didn't say shit, Arnie!”

I picked up the telephone. Good old Arnie's line was still ringing. Karen quit pounding. I thought maybe it was to listen, but then I heard her slide down the door. “I didn't say shit,” she murmured softly, her voice at once a plea and a sob.

Arnie picked up his line. Karen's phone had one of those long cords. I've got one on my kitchen phone so I can yak and still putter around. You just never know who's listening to one of those cordless telephones. I walked to the extent of the cord in case more was heard from Karen.

“Arnold Fay,” he said in a confident baritone, “and my car is in the lot. I just checked.”

“A little joke,” I said. “I'm a friend of Chuck's. He said I should call you about rolling over my IRA.”

“Chuck who?”

“You know,” I said, “Chuck Furbie with the cops.”

Silence. I could hear Arnie breathe. Finally, he said, “What's your name?”

“Bernie,” I said, “Bernie Harper, at Continental Towing. I drive a truck. We pick up cars for the city. Chuck and Paulie—Paulie Milton? They said you were a good guy.”

“I'll connect you with an associate who handles IRA accounts,” said
Arnold Fay. He ditched me on hold and I got a nearly fatal dose of elevator music.

“Betty Krieger,” a chipper voice, at long last.

“Hi, this is Bernie,” I said. “I was supposed to be speaking to Arnold Fay.”

“Perhaps I can help you.”

“It's about his car.”

She tried to transfer me back, but good old Arnie's line was busy. I told her I'd call back and hung up.

Suffice it to say, there is no Continental Towing in town. Bernie Harper is not any real person that I know of, albeit there are a lot of Harpers in town. I did, however, learn the name of Karen's playmate. The City Index would provide a thumbnail sketch of Arnold Fay and his activities.

Mr. Fay did not deny knowing Chuck and Paulie, but an honest man—well, any salesman—might have played along to make a sale. Nonetheless, he took too much time with his answer. More to the point, Arnold Fay was a man who frightened Karen Smith.

I stepped up to the door and listened. I could hear heavy breathing on the other side. I unlocked the door and stepped back. Karen exploded through the door with her eyes fixed on the middle of my forehead and a camping hatchet poised over her head.

I sidestepped the swipe and caught Karen's wrist with my right hand. With my left hand I grabbed the top of the hatchet and wrung her wrist and the hatchet in opposite directions. Karen gave it up with a yip. She caught me with an open-handed roundhouse on the side of my head. My glasses fled the scene.

Karen kept swinging. I caught most of the blows with my right forearm while holding the hatchet behind my back. “Come on now!” I said. “Stop. Quit.” She didn't. I gave her a little shove and swept her feet from under her with my right leg.

Sitting on the floor, looking up, Karen launched into a discussion of my parentage, questioned my manhood, and suggested things anatomically impossible.

“Is that the mouth you kiss your mother with?” I asked, stealing a line from my youngest son—all that came to mind. I picked up my glasses, tossed the hatchet into the garage, and locked the door. When I turned back, Karen was getting up from the floor. I caught her by the upper arm, walked her back to the front room, and deposited her on the sofa.

“It's time to clear up the ‘Who-Struck-John,'” I said.

Who-Struck-John is what you call the legalese in a contract—“party of the first part” kind of thing—verbiage meant to obscure the facts. Karen's face went blank. I guess she didn't know John or who hit him, so I said, “We can start with an explanation of your little tirade. Make it good, and make it fast, or I'm outta here.”

Karen deflated into the sofa and shook her head. “You don't know what you've done.”

“Tell me.”

“Arnie has one of those caller things. He's gonna know.”

“So fire me.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said and sat up straight. She pointed her finger. “You're just like Randy and his tough-guy pals. You do what you want and when it goes to hell you're nowhere around. I'm the one that gets used. I'm the one that gets smacked around.” Her eyes clouded up and her voice wavered. “I'm the one that goes to jail.”

I took the hanky out of the breast pocket of my jacket and unfolded it until I found a dry spot. I offered it to her.

Karen waved it off and wiped her eyes on her forearm. “You're fired, just go away,” she said in a little-girl voice and rolled her eyes up slowly to make sure that I was still there.

“So who's going to protect you? Arnold Fay? Is that why you lied about him being here today?”

Astonishment washed down Karen's face.

“Is that why the parts of this house that you occupy are immaculate, except somebody just held a wrestling match on the bed? Is good old Arnie one of the tough guys who's using you?”

“It's none of your business.”

“It's my business, Karen. For the next two days anybody that wants to kill you has to kill me first.”

“Big deal, two days,” she said. Rivulets ran down her cheeks. “I'd be better off dead. My life is shit.”

“A dirt nap lasts forever,” I said. “But in two days you talk to the U.S. attorney. Your prospects may improve.”

“You just don't get it.”

“No,” I said. “I don't. I asked you about the ‘something else' and you said no—same as your uncle. But I get this, they shot your old boss in the back of the head and left him to rot in the trunk of his car because he knew two things. He knew who the players were, and he knew where the money was.”

“I was in Nevada,” she said.

“Maybe you set him up. Maybe you're setting up Randy to take the fall as the shooter.”

Karen shook her head, slowly, side to side. “I don't want Randy to get hurt, not like that.”

“You wanted to give him up for the steroids.”

“I didn't know that his sergeant was coming. I just wanted to say, you know, ‘See what you did?' and ‘Take this away.'”

“You wanted to save your marriage with a divorce? You thought having him thrown out of his house would cure a case of the steroid mean and nasties?”

“I just wanted my old Randy back.” She started working her eyes with her forearm again.

“We're way past that,” I said. “The feds see you as their handle on the money and the other players.”

“Wayne and I were just trying to get away. I told Randy where I was. I wanted him to come after me. Even if he didn't love me anymore, he could have got away.”

When she looked up I pointed a finger, “If your associates, these ‘tough guys,' whack you right now, they're home free.”

“It's not that simple.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. “Noon, day after tomorrow, I'm done. Then it's just you and your pals. You can't go on telling everybody what they want to hear and hope this will go away. You have to pick a side. If you don't, you end up dead or in jail.”

“Uncle Martin said—”

“Your uncle is hiding something. If he wasn't, you'd be sitting in a safe house right now and under the protection of the United States Marshal Service.”

“Uncle Martin is the attorney the city and the county call when they get in trouble.”

“Your Uncle Martin is a civil attorney acting as a criminal counsel for a family member. I don't have time to explain why or for how many reasons that's wrong, but I can tell you this: If you live long enough to talk to the U.S. attorney, and they are offering immunity, you tell them everything. Then, maybe, you'll have a life. And if Randy Talon ever gets over his case of the stupids, maybe, someday, you might have a life with him.”

The telephone rang.

“That could be Arnold Fay,” I said. “If you want to talk to him, go ahead. I'm out of here. You gotta get off the fence.” I walked over to my duffel bag and picked it up.

Karen looked at the telephone and watched it ring. She looked at me and then back at the telephone. It rang again.

“Well?”

“I don't want to talk to him,” she said.

“How about the U.S. attorney?”

“I'll tell.” The telephone rang. “Please,” she sobbed.

“Why did you call Arnold Fay?”

The telephone rang. She buried her face in her hands. “He told me to call if you were still here after Randy left.”

I dropped the bag and hustled to the telephone. “Hi, Arnie,” I said. “Third Ring of Hell, you calling for a reservation?”

It was Ron and he asked, “Who the hell is Arnie?”

“Drives a green Corvette.”

“Good for him,” said Ron. “Turn on your radio.”

I fished my radio out from under the sofa cushion and turned it on. “Five-seven, this is five-six, radio check, over.”

“This is five-seven,” said Ron. “I hear you, Lima-Charlie. Where have you been? I was starting to worry.”

“We had some things to sort out here.”

“Our friends in the red Escort cruised you as soon as it got dark. One of them did something to the left side of your car.”

“They still surveilling this location?”

“Negative that.”

“Stand by,” I said and went outside. I found my vehicle listing hard to port. “Both driver's side tires are flat—performance tires, two hundred bucks apiece.”

“That's felony malicious destruction of property in this state. You want to call the heat?” said Ron. “I have video.”

“No. I don't want to give you up, yet.”

“Looks like they want you to stay there for a while.”

“Ain't like I was going anywhere. How good is the film?”

“I'm shooting low light. The faces could be better, but there's no question about the license plate.”

“I think the statute of limitations will hold up for a couple of days. Give me a shout when they come back.”

“Roger that,” said Ron. “Seven out.”

“Six out.”

Karen stood waiting in the doorway. As I brushed by, she said, “I wish that had been Arnie on the phone.” She smiled. “I'd like to have seen his face.”

“Well, even if it wasn't, the introductions are over and so is the slap and tickle. From here on, the winner keeps the marbles.” I slid off my jacket and started out of my shirt.

“Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Now, that is conceit,” I said. I unzipped the duffel bag and extracted a vest.

“I thought only the police could have those.”

“Common misconception,” I said as I dropped the vest over my head and Velcroed it snug. I put my shirt back on but threw my tie and tie clip in the duffel bag with the spent pepper gas can.

“You sprayed that all over Randy, didn't you?”

“Yes ma'am, I did.”

“Oh, God! Randy's going to be so mad. Chuck and Paulie are gonna egg him on. They always do.”

I unwrapped the second can of gas and put it in my pocket. “So you think Randy will be back?” I locked my eyes with hers.

Karen blushed red and rolled her eyes up and to the right.

“If you're gonna lie, don't bother. Chuck and Paulie slashed the tires on my car but I can catch a ride with Ron.”

“Maybe. It's just—I wanted him to come back to … me.”

“When Randy comes back,” I said, “two things are not going to happen. Thing Number One is that he is not going to kill or injure me or you. Thing Number Two is that I am not going to kill or permanently injure him or anyone else.”

“I didn't mean for things to happen this way.”

“Karen, I don't think you were ever in charge.”

Karen looked forlorn.

“Things were probably out of control before you got involved. Now, I have to know. Do I have to watch my back just to make sure you don't brain me?”

“No,” she said and studied her feet.

“Good,” I said, and held up the third vest for her to inspect. “Since you're on my side, I need you to wear this.”

Her face lit up as she reached out and took the vest. I watched her wrestle with it for a while. I'd have worried had she donned it like a trooper. She didn't.

“Turn around,” I said.

“I don't want you to touch me.”

“I'm just going to straighten out the vest, turn around and raise your arms.” She did, and must have felt my breath on her neck—and a very nice neck it was—because her skin flushed.

I cleared my throat, stepped back a little, and peeled the sides loose. When I got the front and back level, and the sides evenly spaced, I handed the straps around. “Hook 'em up,” I told her. “Not too tight, but it should move with you as you breathe.”