"Not much," I said. "Ruttenberg was a little obsessed about his safety, but obviously just because he was paranoid, it didn't mean someone wasn't after him. Hate has a way of blowing up in your hand."
"We're questioning all the kitchen help and the wait staff. Who knew the Ruttenberg crowd would be eating here?"
"I have no way of knowing who they told. I know I didn't tell anybody." Then the skin prickled on the back of my neck. "Except Willard Dante."
"The stun-gun guy?"
"That's the one. I happened to mention to him that the Kluxers were going to be having dinner here. But he's a Pat Buchanan conservative; why would he want to kill Ruttenberg?"
"Why indeed" she said, and jotted his name down in her notebook. "This town catches fire this afternoon and his phone will be ringing off the hook with people wanting security cameras and alarm systems and even stun guns to protect themselves from rioters. What made you tell him and no one else?"
I had to think about that for a while. "Because he asked."
"Uh-huh," McHargue said.
* * *
Willard Dante's house was in the elegant little village of Gates Mills. Apparently the stun-gun business was a lucrative one. He seemed surprised to see me on his doorstep, because I hadn't called first. From what I could see over his shoulder into the formal dining room, he and his wife were apparently hosting a dinner party for two other couples, a casual one because he was wearing white sailcloth slacks and a fuschia polo shirt.
He looked shocked when I told him about Ruttenberg.
"But why come all the way out here to tell me?" he wanted to know. "I had nothing to do with him."
"Is there someplace we can talk?"
He looked nervously back at his guests. "Sure, in the garden room."
Which turned out to be a quaint little utility room that had been done up with white wicker furniture and trellises against the walls. It was a peaceful room, the kind of room one sits in when the pressures of business are great and the batteries need a little peaceful recharging.
"Will," I said after we were both sitting down, "why did you come to my office the other day?"
"I told you. I was in the neighborhood, and I thought what a lousy deal you'd gotten from Clifford Andrews's talking about you on TV like that, and I wanted to drop by and show you some support."
"Support because I needed it, or support because you thought Earl Ruttenberg was a patriot?"
His face flushed. "That's a shitty thing to say, Milan. Sure, I'm a right-wing conservative, and sure, I've lived in Cleveland all my life and my favorite color isn't black, but I'm no Kluxer. I thought Ruttenberg was pig shit, to tell you the truth."
"Enough to slip rat poison into his chicken soup?"
"You aren't serious!"
"You made a point of asking me where Ruttenberg was staying and where they were going to eat. Why would you want to know that?"
Out in the dining room, everyone laughed. They were having a lot better time than their host. "I told you I dropped by for support and friendship," Dante said, "and that's true. But I also came to see if I could do a little business. Remember I asked you if you wanted hidden cams put up?"
"I remember," I said.
"So trying to turn a buck or two makes me a bad guy?"
"Not necessarily."
"It sure doesn't make me a murderer."
"Who else did you tell about Red's Steak House and the Pine Rest motel?"
"Nobody," he said. "Who the hell would I tell?" Then his eyes got big and round. "Oh, wait," he said. "In the parking lot outside your office. I just happened to mention it in passing. Reverend Quest. Was he coming to see you, Milan?"
Lieutenant McHargue wasn't glad to see me the next morning; she never is. And she was overwhelmed with work, trying to coordinate the police presence at the Klan rally for that afternoon. But I had, after all, cracked her case for her, and she couldn't be downright rude and toss me out of her office.
"Go figure," she grumped. "A man like Alvin Quest. God!"
"He made a full confession?"
She nodded. "He sent one of his people in to Red's Steak House and got him a job as a busboy— using a phony name, of course; that's how the rat poison got in the chicken soup. The kid is long gone from the city and Reverend Quest will go to the execution chamber before he'll tell us his name. Quest's lawyer will probably plead temporary insanity. He may have something at that. Find me twelve jurors in this town who are going to send Alvin Quest to death row." She took a deep breath. "Frankly, I'm more pissed off at him for trying to incite a riot in my city than for ridding the world of garbage like Ruttenberg."
"It's the same scenario as Clifford Andrews," I said, "only Quest's was more dignified and with a little come-to-Jesus thrown in. Certainly Quest had every reason in the world to hate Earl Roy Ruttenberg and want him dead. And if things blow up this afternoon, the mayor is going to have a whole Western omelet on his face. And that would give Quest the wedge he needed to run for mayor himself."
"Well, the joke's on him, Jacovich, and you, too. Because there isn't going to be any blowup. We've got every cop who can drag his or her ass out of bed with riot gear and tear gas, ready to uphold the Constitution and protect the rights of a bunch of mouth breathers with pillow cases over their heads. Or we will have," she said pointedly, "if you get the hell out of my office and let me do my job."
"Good luck this afternoon."
"Are we going to see you at the rally?"
"And listen to that kind of filth? No, thanks. I have better things to do with a summer Sunday afternoon."
"Like what?" she said.
"I was thinking about straightening out my sock drawer."
I didn't go near my sock drawer, after all, but I did stay home and watch the Indians play the Oakland A's on television. Jim Thome didn't hit a dinger, but the Tribe won anyway.
I stayed around for the six o'clock news, though, and was delighted to hear that the Klan rally passed without incident that afternoon. Less than a hundred Klan supporters showed up, probably because the keynote speaker was in cold storage with a tag on his toe. About twice that many anti-Klan protesters linked arms and sang "We Shall Overcome." The biggest contingent of all was the press, and they had precious little to write about when it was all over. No incidents whatsoever, no sound bites for the networks to use to castigate poor old Cleveland, and when it was all done, the mayor came out smelling like the Rose of Tralee.
I was damned proud of my city that day. Cleveland can be a tough town, but it's always, always fair.
Clark Howard
When the Black Shadows Die
THIS SECOND
of the brilliant Clark Howard's stories to grace our collection this year, "When the Black Shadows Die," shows off his strengths in full force as he chronicles the lives of several outsiders in southern California. This piece first appeared in
Mystery Scene Magazine
, issue 67.
When the Black Shadows Die
Clark Howard
A
s Tony parked his rented car on the East Los Angeles funeral home parking lot, he saw that he was being observed by two men posted at the entrance driveway. One of them spoke at once into a palm-size two-way radio. It did not surprise Tony. He was a stranger, an outsider. Strangers did not attend the wake of a man like Frank Barillas. Not if they were smart.
Tony locked the car and walked toward the funeral home, a tall, lean man with the easy movements of someone with self-confidence and skills, someone who did not fear to walk an unknown path, such as the one to the wake of Frank Barillas. He wore a dark suit and dark tie, which made his light nutmeg complexion seem even lighter; much lighter, for instance, than the darker brown men at the parking lot driveway.
There was a small group of people congregated outside the funeral home entrance, a few of them smoking, all talking in subdued voices. They stopped when Tony approached, their eyes appraising him, the women because of his clean, handsome features, the men because of his obvious
macho
bearing. Tony made his way through the group without making eye contact with any of them.
Inside, in the silent foyer, there was a directory that read:
FRANCISCO BARILLAS SLUMBER ROOM 3
At the open double doors to Slumber Room 3 were two more sentry types, one with another palm-size two-way radio in his hand. Just inside the doors, at a podium holding a large open book, were two scrubbed, dark young women in plain black dresses with white orchids pinned to them.
"Good morning," one of them greeted him in English, as if he might not understand Spanish. "Will you sign the visitors memory book, please."
"Si gracias,"
he replied. She offered him a pen but he removed a Mont Blanc from his inside coat pocket and signed with that: Antonio Marcala.
The slumber room was softly lit, cool and quiet, with only barely audible organ music coming from unseen speakers. The fragrance of flowers permeated the room. As Tony walked toward the bier where the open casket rested, he saw that the mourners already in the room also wore orchids of various colors, larger ones pinned to the dresses of the women, smaller ones on the lapels of the men's coats. The bier and the casket were likewise trimmed with trains of multi-colored orchids, and when Tony stepped up to the casket he saw that the dead man in it had a white orchid on his lapel and held a larger purple one in his clasped, embalmed hands.
Frank Barillas, Tony thought, looking down, a legendary killer of men, was leaving the world surrounded by many of the two hundred different species of orchids indigenous to his homeland of El Salvador. Back there, he likely would have been tortured to death and thrown in a ditch. In the U.S. he had the luxury of dying in a clean hospital bed of kidney failure and having the privacy of his wake protected by somber men with two-way radios. Lucky. Very lucky.
Tony knelt at the bier, made the sign of the cross, and lowered his head. But he did not pray. What good would it have done? After all, the soul of Frank Barillas, if he ever had one, had already gone to wherever it was supposed to go, so prayers after the fact of death seemed pointless. But since Tony knew he was being observed curiously by every pair of eyes in the slumber room, he simulated prayer for what he deemed to be an appropriate period of time, then made the sign of the cross again and rose.
Walking back up the aisle toward the scrubbed, dark young women, ignoring the inquisitive eyes that followed him. Tony wondered how far he would get before being stopped and queried. Not far, he guessed. And he was right. Before he reached the funeral home's foyer, he was stopped by three men, one in front and one on each side, all wearing orchids in their lapels.
"Excuse me, would you mind coming with us?" said the one facing him.
"Where to?" Tony asked.
"Just in here." The man indicated the open door of an anteroom.
Tony let the men walk him inside and close the door. It was a small room, comfortably furnished for use during moments of unmanageable grief. Two more men and a woman were already in the room, standing, waiting for him. They all wore orchids and were not friendly looking.
"Who are you?" one of the men asked. He was about Tony's age, twenty six or so, and had the same look of confidence that Tony had.
"My name is Antonio Marcala," Tony said.
A hint of irritation flashed in the other man's eyes. "I know your name,
hombre
," he said quietly. "I read it in the visitors book. What I want to know is who
are
you? Why are you here?"
"I am here to pay my respects to my
patron, Senor
Barillas."
"Your
patron
?"
"Yes. The man who got my mother and me out of El Salvador. The man who gave us a place to live in the U.S. The man who sent me to college."
Looks of incredulity seized the expressions of everyone in the room. They exchanged glances of complete disbelief.
Brief
disbelief, that quickly became doubt, then even more quickly suspicion.
"He's lying," said the lone woman. "He's an agent."
"Shut up, Tela," said the other man who had been waiting in the room.
"Don't tell me to shut up, Perico," the woman snapped. "Shut up yourself!"
"Both of you shut up," the first man said firmly.
"Okay, Monte," the other man said quickly.
"Sure, Monte," the woman called Tela said.
"Show me some ID, man," Monte ordered.
"Why should I?" said Tony.
Monte nodded to the man called Perico. He immediately drew a Glock 17 automatic from under his coat and placed its muzzle against Tony's temple.