Jimmy Parisi Part Two Box Set

by Thomas Laird

  Rita’s gone, and there’s no ship going to arrive at this Lake. There are only freighters, not cruise ships that cross an ocean and dock in New York or some place on the eastern seaboard. Reality is reality.

  I’ve got one very frightened ex-Ranger living over by the baseball park, and we’ve got someone on him twenty-four seven because I convinced the Captain that it was necessary. He bought into my scenario about the ex-Rangers falling like pieces in a chess game, and he gave me the authority to have James watched.

  I don’t think this ex-demolitions expert is the one pulling the trigger, but if he is he’s the best actor since Olivier. I just don’t see him doing the deed on his former partners. I didn’t like his fable about the “collateral damage” back in Quang Tri Province. There’s a gut feeling that he might have been reinventing history a bit on that tale. It might have been far worse than the way he told it, but I’m liking this guy Azrael more and more. He vanishes when the war is phasing down and he never comes back, and then all these years later his bros in arms start tumbling to the dirt. These three victims have only their military duty in common, and Azrael was a member of the clan.

  I’m trying to locate Azrael’s family, and I hit Staff Sergeant Hammond up one more time. I promise him a steak dinner for the favor, and I tell him I’ll never ask him another time about these dead ex-soldiers. He tells me to screw off, and then he says he’ll look into it for free.

  *

  The address is in Fontana, Wisconsin. Apparently, Azrael’s father survives, but the mother died six years ago from lymphoma. I get all this intelligence from my man Sterling, and I reaffirm the free steak he’s got coming, and he finally accedes.

  It’s an hour and a half drive to Fontana, one of the towns in the Lake Geneva resort area. I’ve been to this lake plenty of times, and Azrael’s old man must have made some money because he’s got a lakefront property on Lake Geneva in Fontana.

  He opens the door and I see the military in his makeup, in his face. He’s World War II vintage, it looks like, and when I show him the badge and ID, he lets me right in the door of his cottage next to the lake. It appears he has a private beach and a dock with a medium-sized motorboat attached to that dock. There’s a border collie in his living room that is seriously eyeballing me like I’m a wandered-away cow or sheep.

  “You want to talk about my son, Evan.”

  He’s balding, but there are sparse gray wisps across the crown of his head. He appears powerful, even in deep middle age.

  “And you know that how?” I ask.

  “I received a call from Steven James.”

  “And how’d he find you?”

  “Great detective work, Detective Parisi. I’m in the phone book. People like Steven James—people like my own son—are very resourceful. It was one of the skills it took to be an operator.”

  He’s got a photograph of that famous flag being raised on Iwo, behind him on the wall.

  “I think Evan killed all three of them, too.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Fontana, Wisconsin, 1984

  Earl Azrael tells me about his time on that famous island in World War II. He explains how the Japanese were dug in and had to be rooted out, almost one soldier at a time. They were ruthless. Some other soldiers told him that they’d prefer fighting the Germans. What the Japs had done to the Chinese and to our own troops was obscene, vile. Earl says he doesn’t regret Truman’s decision to drop the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he adds that they might have tried to give the Nips a sample of what was to come by dumping a bomb on an open field.

  “Why didn’t your son join the Marines?” I ask.

  “He always had something to prove. If I did something, he’d have to do something better. So he became a Ranger, an elite trooper. Stunned the hell out of me that he enlisted in the Army in the first place, because we always had pretty angry talks about the war in Vietnam. Evan was a dove, Detective, or so he kept claiming. Didn’t believe the commies had designs on Southeast Asia because he said they already owned the goddam place, and as it turned out, he was probably right. But he became an operator in one of the most elite corps in the world—just to show his old man he had the guts to accomplish something greater than his old man did in the war. I got a few battle decorations, but the Marines don’t hand out the eye-candy awards like the other branches do.”

  His eyes grow misty every time he talks about his experience in the Pacific Theater. I’m thinking he was in the Good War, as some people call it. Usually those people who call it that never came close to combat themselves. There’s nothing good about any goddam conflict that kills off a nice chunk of the population on both sides. My father, Jake, never had anything laudatory to say about his time in Europe.

  “This might be painful, Earl, but do you think your son Evan could’ve killed those three Rangers? Do you think he had it in him to execute his own guys?”

  “I don’t know what Evan is capable of doing. I never thought he had it in him to make it through Ranger training, let alone to…”

  “He may not even be alive, of course. He could’ve remained in—”

  “Or he could be dead,” Earl Azrael concludes.

  “Yes. You understand that I’m just trying to work out what happened, and I don’t have any other theories about the man who killed those three. But I don’t buy coincidence. I’ve looked into any other connections the other three might have had. I found out they didn’t owe money. All of them were solvent. They had no vices that I could find—gambling, women, drugs, anything. The only common thread is that one of the seven is out to get the other six, and I think it has something to do with an incident in their combat time in Vietnam.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Detective.”

  “For your sake, I hope I’m wrong, too. You don’t deserve all this. You were a very brave man, and you deserve some peace after what you went through.”

  I express my thanks for his time, and then I take one last look at the picture on his wall. He wasn’t one of the men who hoisted that flag, but he did his share of the bleeding to make sure it stayed where they planted it.

  *

  Chicago, 1984

  Rita shows up in my office in the first week of November. The weather has remained warm outside, and Indian summer has lingered longer than usual. I see people out on the beach from my office window that looks out onto Lake Michigan.

  “Hello,” is all she manages as she enters my cubicle and sits opposite me at my desk.

  She looks fresh and rested, and the sight of a vibrant-looking Rita elevates my own spirits a little. My mood has been rather this side of gloomy for a while. But Steven James is alive and still under surveillance. And last I heard from the local cops where McIntosh and Dellacord reside, they’re still in the pink, too.

  “You never called. How come?”

  “We needed a complete break, Jimmy. You know that.”

  I watch her eyes, but they never lower or look away.

  “Is the break over?”

  “If you mean on the job, the answer is yes. If it’s acceptable to you, of course. But I can’t see going back to the way it was, other than on the job.”

  “You seeing somebody else?” I ask.

  “You know I’m not.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “I don’t want anyone else, Jimmy. But I can’t have it personal between us right now, and I’ve explained why I can’t do it. Things might change. Give me some time. But not right now.”

  “All right. We’ll play it your way, Rita.”

  “I don’t want you angry at me. I just want to be your partner. Let’s play it by ear, okay?”

  “You want an update?”

  “That’s why I’m back here, Jimmy.”

  *

  We go out for dinner break, on this four to twelve shift, and I take her to an expensive place out in Oak Lawn named the Boar’s Head. It’s a steak joint and she lets me order her the filet mignon. She tries to pay for her meal, but I won�
��t allow it. We have a couple of beers after the food, and we had a couple red wines during the meal. But neither of us seems woozy when we leave. It isn’t kosher to drink on tour, but we’re both sober, and I tell her the dinner was my gesture of welcome back. She accepts the gesture, and we take a ride to Steven James’ apartment building on Belmont on the north side.

  There are lights on in the front room of the apartment, and we see a male silhouette pass in front of the curtains, and it looks about the right height and shape to be Steven James. We sit outside in the car in the dark. It’s 10:16 p.m. The street lights don’t give much illumination to his block because there are some missing globes—probably kids with stones. It’s an old neighborhood, and it’s not the most stylish in the city.

  “I missed you.”

  I didn’t want it to come out, but there it is.

  “I missed you, too. You know that,” she says.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t follow your logic about us splitting personally. I guess I’m just thick.”

  “I’m not ready for commitment. A man should understand that, don’t you think?”

  I’m looking up at James’ front window. Then his light goes out.

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you,” I say.

  “You’ve been married. I never have. You liked being married to Erin. You told me so. But commitment usually leads to that step, and with you, Jimmy, it’s all or nothing. I don’t want to play the hand that way. Not yet, anyway.”

  “You don’t think we could see each other the way we did without me giving you a ring and demanding that you get serious and buy all in? Is that it?”

  “Yeah, that about captures it.”

  “How about I pledge to you that I won’t ask you to hook up to me permanently? That I won’t at any time surprise you with a little box with a big rock inside it. Could you trust me enough that you’ll believe I’ll let you pop the question to me? And how about no hard feelings if you never commit at all, and when the time comes, all bets are off and we walk away as partners and as friends?”

  She looks over at me in the dim light and she smiles broadly.

  “Christ, you are persistent, Jimmy.”

  “I’m known as a bulldog. Haven’t you heard? I grab hold and you can’t shake me off.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Let me think about it. I won’t hang you up, either way.”

  We sit in silence for about twenty minutes.

  Rita breaks the silence.

  “I think we can put James to bed.”

  I start the motor of the Ford, and I pull us away from the curb.

  *

  He’ll be coming for James. We both know it, Rita and I. But he’s struck twice in Chicago, and then there are two other targets, one in Maine and the other in Washington. It’d be a bit too expensive for us to get on jets headed to the farthest borders of the country to go face-to-face with McIntosh or Dellacord, and those two states have coppers of their own who are well aware that we have a series killer in Evan Azrael or Person or Persons Unknown.

  We simply have to wait until he heads to the Midwest, one more time.

  I take us to James’ apartment on a sunny, cool day in early November. The tree branches are now barren, and there’s a hint of winter in the breeze from the northeast. I have the windows in the Ford just cracked open because it’s in the low fifties, but the sun is out and its rays warm up the car enough that we need a little fresh air coming in. I’m lucky Rita doesn’t smoke. I never have either, but the greater majority of the cops I know are hooked on caffeine (coffee) and nicotine (cigarettes or cigars).

  I drink Coke, but I’m thinking of going to the diet stuff because I don’t need the sugar. Rita drinks an occasional pop, but she prefers water when we take our dinner breaks.

  I buzz James’ apartment, and this time he answers right away. We walk up to the second floor and we find him, minus his .45, at the door, and he lets us in. We sit down on his couch as he plants himself in his recliner rocker that wasn’t here the first time when I had to knock him on his ass to disarm him.

  “Who’s the new face?” he asks.

  I introduce Rita to him.

  “She’s a lot better looking than you, Detective Parisi. I hope you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Rita doesn’t blush or smile. She’s heard bullshit before. She’s a cop.

  “I can’t promise that we’re going to be able to keep an eye on you much longer, Mr. James.”

  “You both can call me Steven. I left formality when I left the Army.”

  “We can’t locate Evan Azrael, but we’ve talked on the phone to McIntosh and Dellacord. The police are watching them, too, but when the money runs out…”

  “Have you thought about moving somewhere else?” Rita adds.

  “Yeah. But I like it where I am. I don’t see myself anywhere else. There is a life for me here, and I want to give it a shot. There’s no point in running when there’s nowhere to run. Is there?”

  I look at him as he watches Rita with complete focus. It’s like I’m not in the room.

  “What really happened in that little village in Quang Tri Province?” I interrupt. “I’m not investigating war crimes. I left the military, too. But I’ve got to know the story if I’m going to find Azrael before Azrael finds you. So what really took place?”

  “It’s like I told you. There was some collateral damage.”

  “Civilians got killed,” Rita says.

  “Yeah. It was unintentional. Shit happens and there it is, end of story.”

  The body language is screaming that he’s lying or holding back, and I suppose I don’t need to know anymore. Azrael was hit, it got out of hand, and they wasted a whole village, and they got away with it, and Evan Azrael won’t let it lie. He thinks he’s some kind of comic book avenger. That’s the scenario that’s playing in my mind.

  “You killed a bunch of innocents. That’s what went down. Azrael or someone has come looking to even things up; his sense of justice was grievously disturbed,” Rita suggests.

  “Nah. Nothing like that ever happened. A couple villagers got caught in the crossfire, and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I listen to him lying, and I want to slug him again, but his story is about what I’d suspect.

  “You were the munitions expert, right?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, I made things go boom!”

  He’s a little upset with the new line of questioning, but he’s not the guy who’s been whacking ex-military types with a single shot from a .22. He likes to make things explode.

  “Did you make that hamlet disappear, Steven?” Rita asks.

  “Hell no. It wasn’t worth the ordinance.”

  Now he won’t look at either of us.

  “Did you just burn it down instead?” Rita asks him.

  “I think this conversation is over. You’re supposed to be protecting me, not prosecuting me!”

  “We have to know what really happened,” I say. “We’re not two-thirds of a military tribunal.”

  “You got everything you’re gonna get, and now get out. Get out of here. I don’t need you two as watchdogs or as father confessors. Get out!”

  We rise and walk ourselves out and back into the street and into the parked Crown Vic copper ride.

  *

  I’m waiting for her in the bedroom. She takes a shower after we finished the shift, maybe to get the residue of Steven James off her flesh. I don’t feel like joining her in the shower because I’m a little nervous since she proposed we come back to her place.

  She walks into the bedroom with only a yellow towel wrapped around her.

  “Are we both good with the no-strings rule?” she smiles.

  “You want it illicit. Down and dirty, then?”

  “Something like that. But there’s nothing dirty about us, Jimmy. Never has been.”

  Then she drops the towel and proceeds to climb onto the bed. She pulls my Jockeys down and away from my feet, and then s
he begins to touch my flesh softly from the tops of my feet all the way to my face, where she stops and kisses me hard. I feel her tongue probing inside my mouth, and I meet the probing with my own. She hoists herself aboard, and then she begins a frantic rhythm above me that has no concern for pacing. This is a frenzy that I never saw from her before, and we both finish a long time before I’d like.

  But after a few minutes of downtime, she begins anew, and this time she moves very slowly as her fingers glance my skin from my top to the bottom, reversing her technique. And this time she urges me on top of her, and when we’re joined, she places her hands behind my head and stops us in the middle of things.

  “You know I love you, Jimmy. Isn’t that going to be enough?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  San Francisco, 1984

  Li has taken to her change of situation very well. She’s grooming herself better than she did when I first took her in, but it didn’t take much for that upgrade. She’s conscientious about her clothes and her appearance, and she’s even begun to use just a trace of makeup—mostly a pale pink lipstick. But then she doesn’t need cosmetics because she’s a natural beauty. What did that one character in that Faulkner book say about his sister? “She smells like trees.” It was the retarded guy, Benjy, in The Sound and the Fury, I think. I read it in-country on R and R, and I think I understood most of it.

  Li doesn’t smell like trees. She smells like soap. She smells clean now, so at least I’ve done one right thing since I took her in. She has a life at the moment, but the street would’ve been death for her. I saw the emptiness in her eyes the first time we met. She’d given up; she’d resigned herself. She was simply waiting it out. Li was a nineteen-year-old kid, and she was just waiting it out until it happened.