Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “This keeps getting better and better.” I said. “Call Chauncey and let him know. See if he has any suggestions.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The afternoon was just as hot as the day before. Brother Thomas, Darcy, and I watched through the windshield of my truck as a skinny white guy we guessed to be Gordon Sykes, Esquire, stepped out of Sykes & Associates, a grungy steel and glass structure book-ended by two vacant offices for lease. He wore a light-colored suit that looked as if he’d slept in it. Since it was Saturday, maybe he lived at his office. His bald head boasted a few long strands he must have greased into place because they gleamed in the sun when he looked up and down the street.

  I tapped the steering wheel. “He feels us watching him.” With his client base, Sykes probably had the clichéd eyes in the back of his head.

  From the backseat, Darcy said, “You don’t know that.”

  We were parked across the street from his office in a lot where most of the vehicles looked abandoned. If Mr. Sykes knew what he was looking for, such as a brand new chrome-laden pickup truck with three of the strangest carpoolers this side of a flea market, we wouldn’t stand a chance at fulfilling our plan. Lucky for us he didn’t know what to look for and spent a few more seconds glancing around before locking up. He made his way along the cracked sidewalk, past the rundown storefronts his law firm shared space with, stopping at an old Pontiac Grand Prix with a sagging headliner. Scanning the street one last time, he got in the car and drove away in a cloud of blue smoke.

  When he turned left at a four-way stop, I started the truck, pulled out, and punched it, heading in the opposite direction.

  Darcy asked, “Where are you going?”

  I ran a stop sign, hung a right, floored the accelerator, and did the same thing at the next intersection. Another stop sign ahead would put us perpendicular to Sykes. As we approached the corner, his Grand Prix crossed in front of us. I flipped on my left turn signal, came to a complete stop, let a car get behind Sykes, then followed when it was my turn to go.

  Brother Thomas said, “Except for the two stop signs you didn’t stop for, nice doing.”

  “You got lucky,” Darcy said.

  I looked at her from the rearview mirror. She was smiling.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  “Any time,” she said. “Just don’t lose him.”

  Sykes pulled into a turning lane.

  I trailed behind and realized where our mark was headed. Mutt and I had been there five days ago. “It couldn’t be that easy.”

  “Easy?” Brother Thomas said. “Nothing about this been what I call easy.”

  The Treasure Chest was open but not very busy. It was still early.

  I said, “We may have to go get Mutt.”

  We watched Gordon Sykes, Esquire, pull into the parking lot of the one place I should have known he’d eventually head to. Willa Mae must have had prior contact with Sykes somewhere. Anyone looking in the phonebook or on the internet for an attorney wouldn’t have found him listed. Chauncey said Sykes’s clients lived under rocks and didn’t come out until after dark. And they usually didn’t call him until they needed to get out of jail.

  I said, “I wonder who’s headlining tonight.”

  Darcy said, “I’m surprised you don’t already know.”

  “Quiet, you two.” Brother Thomas did not suffer fools.

  I drove past the strip club and no one spoke for a half mile. Brother Thomas ended the silence.

  “I believe Brother Brack is right. Any of us go in there and it won’t be pretty.” He dug out his cell phone and searched his contacts.

  I turned at the next side street and headed for Mutt’s house. He’d said to call him if we needed any help. Otherwise he’d be playing dominoes with Willie.

  “So lemme get this straight,” Mutt said from the backseat of my truck. “You want me to go inside and sweet-talk a crooked lawyer?”

  “Close enough,” I said. “You think you can get around the manager we beat up?”

  “Yeah,” Mutt said, “he got fired ’cause of that. How’m I supposed to get this lawyer outside?”

  I handed him a hundred-dollar bill. “Show this to him. Tell him you need to talk and you’ll give it to him outside.”

  Mutt said, “You think he’ll bite?”

  “He’s a starving vulture,” Darcy said. “He’ll probably lick the bathroom clean for a twenty.”

  Mutt laughed. “What happen when we get outside?”

  “We be watching,” Brother Thomas said. “When you get him out the door, bring him over here and we’ll have a talk.”

  “He see ya’ll and he’ll run,” Mutt said.

  “Then he loses the hundred and we go to plan B,” I said.

  Mutt shook his head. “Plan B? You got a plan B?”

  “I got a few ideas,” I said. “Most of them will violate his civil rights if it comes to that.” Handing him more bills, I said, “Here’s for the cover charge and the drink minimum.”

  “There’s a drink minimum?” Darcy asked and chuckled.

  Mutt folded the bills and stuck them in his pocket. “Opie, I always said you was one crazy white boy. Now you got Twiggy and Fat Albert in wit you.” He opened his door and got out, letting the door close on its own. We watched him enter the club.

  Darcy asked, “Did he just call me Twiggy?”

  “Naw,” I said. “You’re Fat Albert. Twiggy’s up here riding shotgun.”

  Brother Thomas said, “Who in the Good Lord is Twiggy?”

  The clock in the dash said 5:05.

  At 5:09, Mutt and Sykes walked out the front door of the strip club. Mutt guided the lawyer beside my truck and the three of us got out.

  Sykes said, “I didn’t know it was going to be some kind of white trash reunion.”

  “Mr. Sykes,” Brother Thomas said, “we’d like a moment of your time.”

  “The hundred bucks or I’m leaving,” Sykes said. “This goes past two minutes and it’s another hundred.”

  Sykes was Darcy’s height, which meant he was a few inches shorter than me. Half a foot shorter compared to Brother Thomas and Mutt.

  Mutt handed him the hundred.

  Sykes smiled, showing an almost full mouth of teeth, took the money, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Now, what can I do for you fine people?”

  Darcy said, “Why did Willa Mae Johnson retain you?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge any information about my clients,” Sykes said. “Attorney-client privilege.”

  “We’re not cops,” I said.

  “Still,” Sykes said, looking at his watch.

  I handed him a twenty.

  “The deal was for another hundred,” he said.

  I said, “That’s for good faith on our end. Why not return the sentiment and give us something?”

  Sykes looked at the folded money clip in my hand thick with more twenties, licked his lips, and wiped beads of sweat off his forehead. He checked his watch and seemed to be contemplating something.

  Finally, he said, “I represented her.”

  I handed him another twenty.

  Darcy said, “In what capacity?”

  “As legal counsel,” he said.

  “I figure that’s what’s meant by her retaining you,” Brother Thomas said. “Come on, Mr. Sykes, tell us something we don’t know.”

  “Look, my girl comes on in five minutes. I been looking forward to seeing her dance all day.”

  “You answer a few more questions and I’ll make sure you have enough for a trip to the champagne room,” I said. “Mutt and I already know how much it costs.”

  Sykes’s beady eyes seemed to brighten at the prospect. He licked his lips again. “Okay, but make it fast.”

  “Why were you representing Willa Mae?” Darcy asked.

  “She was pregnant,” he said.

  I asked, “And?”

  Sykes smiled. “And she wanted to make sure the father was going to pay his fair share.”
<
br />   Brother Thomas said, “How much was she thinkin’ his fair share was?”

  “Normally,” Sykes said, as if he handled paternity cases all the time, “it’s based on the financial means of the father.”

  Already knowing where this was headed, I asked, “Who was she thinking the father was?”

  “You say that as if there might be some doubt,” Sykes said.

  “Well,” I said, “she was a drug addict who stripped and also used prostitution as a means to fund her lifestyle.”

  Darcy said, “Did you get a paternity test?”

  “We were going to make the father ask for one,” Sykes said.

  “And pay for it,” Darcy said.

  “Of course,” Sykes said. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back inside.”

  Brother Thomas said, “We ain’t done yet.”

  Darcy said, “How did she pay you?”

  “That’s not relevant here,” Sykes said.

  I snatched his shirt collar and lifted him off the ground. “Make an exception.”

  “Hey!” His feet scissored in midair trying to find where the earth had gone. “Get your hands off me.”

  “I suggest you answer the questions we axin’, Mr. Sykes,” Mutt said. “Else we might have to go to plan B.”

  Sykes’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “Pl-plan B?”

  “Plan B,” Darcy said.

  I lifted him higher.

  “Okay! Okay!” he said. “I’ll answer your questions.”

  As soon as I lowered him to the ground, he tried to run.

  Brother Thomas grabbed him. “You don’t want to do that, Mr. Sykes. Mm-hmm.”

  “You people’re crazy,” Sykes said, his beady eyes now large and bloodshot.

  Mutt grinned, showing his missing teeth. “Now you gettin’ the picture.”

  Darcy said, “How much did Willa Mae pay you?”

  The shyster ran a hand over his head, repositioning an errant strand that had shifted from its perch. “My end would be covered with the settlement.”

  Darcy said, “Again, who was the father?”

  Sykes said, “Where’s the rest of my money?”

  I held up another hundred.

  “Uh-uh,” Sykes said. “This one’s gonna cost you.”

  Mutt stepped forward and Brother Thomas stopped him.

  “How much?” Darcy asked.

  “Ten grand,” Sykes said.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “I got a deal for you, Mr. Sykes,” Darcy said. “You can tell us here for five hundred dollars or you can tell the police for free. Your choice.”

  “Ten grand,” Sykes said. “That’s my price.”

  I took hold of his shirt again.

  Brother Thomas said, “Let him go.”

  I did and Sykes took off, ducking fast inside the Treasure Chest.

  Darcy said, “I guess we better make our exit before the bouncers come after us.”

  “You kiddin’?” Mutt said. “Them guys too busy watching the show to worry about anything out here.”

  “We still didn’t get what we came for,” I said.

  Darcy tapped her chin. “You think Sykes might be playing the other side?”

  Brother Thomas asked, “What you mean by that?”

  “Blackmail,” I said. “Sykes probably already cut a deal with the father.”

  After another two-hour session with my personal trainer and then a shower, Shelby and I made our way to my bar.

  Bonny flew over and landed on my shoulder.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” I said.

  She nibbled at my ear. “Hi, Brack. Squawk!”

  “I wish all women treated me as good as you do,” I said.

  Paige came through the doors from the kitchen. “Don’t listen to him, Bonny.”

  Bonny flew up to her perch and whistled.

  “She’s just playing hard to get,” I said. “What’s the word from Chauncey?”

  “He says we can still operate as long as our application for a replacement license is still pending.”

  “Good. What about actually getting it in our hands?”

  “He’s still working on that, but said the state operates at its own speed and it’s never as fast as you want it to be.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said.

  Paige reached underneath the bar and pulled out a box that she set on the bar. “This came today. Think we need to call the bomb squad?”

  Though she said this with a smile, having been a target already I didn’t find the remark all that funny. I gently lifted the box and looked at it. It showed the markings of being one of an express overnight delivery. The sender’s address read the Church of Redemption. “You saw the delivery driver leave it?”

  Her smile faded. “I signed for it. Don’t be so melodramatic. Brother Thomas probably cooked up another one of his schemes to keep us coming to Sunday service.”

  The box weighed only a couple of pounds so I wasn’t too worried about a bomb. I pulled out my cell and called Brother Thomas.

  He said, “Brother Brack.”

  “Hey, Brother. You send me a package?”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “An overnight package arrived at my bar today. The sender is your church.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I looked at Paige. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “As far as I know, no one here sent any packages. You think something hinky is going on?”

  “Thinking that way’s kept me alive this long,” I said. “I’m calling the police.”

  Detective Warrez and her partner, Crawford, showed up an hour later. I’d had the single mom army close up early, but most had stuck around to see what would happen. As soon as Crawford saw the group of attractive women that made up the bar’s wait staff, his disposition brightened significantly.

  Warrez carried a navy blue canvas bag slung over her shoulder and set it on one of the barstools close to the package. From the bag, she pulled out latex gloves and put them on. Then she took out some hand-held device. “This sniffer will check for anything toxic, like anthrax.”

  A few of the waitresses gasped.

  The device was similar in size and shape to one of those supermarket scanners that do inventory counts. Warrez turned it on and moved its green light over every inch of the box, keeping it close to the package and taking extra time at each end. Nothing happened.

  She looked at me. “It’s not detecting anything.”

  “The box is pretty light,” I said. “Maybe a pound or two.”

  Warrez put the scanner down on the bar and picked up the box. She pulled the strip that opened one of the sides and bent the flaps back. As she peeked inside I noticed everyone lean in for a closer look. Then Warrez said, “Detective Crawford, get me one of the large evidence bags.”

  He dug into the navy blue canvas bag, snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and pulled out a plastic bag that opened to the size of a pillow case. Warrez emptied the contents of the box into the bag. What dumped out was clothing. It appeared to be women’s things. The last item to drop out was a gold chain. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like it held a pendant. I think I glimpsed a heart with a red stone and immediately thought of the gift Brother Thomas had said he’d given Willa Mae for her sixteenth birthday.

  Warrez looked at Crawford and then at me. “Recognize any of this?”

  I met her eyes and nodded yes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The evidence bag filled with the contents of the box was sealed tight and sat on the desk in my office. Warrez, Crawford, Paige, and I stood around it.

  “All right, Brack,” Warrez said. “What do you know about this stuff?”

  I pressed a button on the office phone that activated the speaker, then dialed a number I’d memorized.

  “Church of Redemption,” said a woman’s voice.

  I said, “Merlyne, this is Brack. Is Brother Thomas around?”

  “He is but he’s busy with someone right
now.”

  “I hate to impose, but could you tell him it’s important? It will only take a minute of his time.”

  “I’ll see,” she said. “You know he don’t like interruptions.” She put me on hold.

  Warrez said, “How is this going to answer my question?”

  I held up an index finger, telling her to wait.

  Brother Thomas’s voice boomed over the speaker. “What’s up, Brother Brack?”

  “Sorry to bother you,” I said, “and I want you to know you’re on speaker phone. I’ve got Detective Warrez and her partner, Detective Crawford, with me, along with Paige.”

  The preacher said, “How y’all doin’?”

  “Fine, sir,” Warrez said.

  “What I want to ask you,” I said, “is to tell me again what you gave Willa Mae for her sixteenth birthday.”

  I picked up the evidence bag and turned it so we could all see the chain and pendant while Brother Thomas described each item to us over the phone.

  Warrez asked Brother Thomas, “Did you get anything engraved on it, like her initials or a message?”

  “Um, no,” he said, “but if you opened it up, it would have a picture of Jesus inside.”

  Crawford snapped on fresh gloves, opened the evidence bag, and took out the necklace. Each of us watched as the detective unlatched the locket, revealing two tiny heart-shaped frames. One held a very small picture of Jesus. The other held a photo of a child, Aphisha.

  Paige said, “I don’t believe it.”

  I sat down in the chair that used to be my uncle’s.

  Brother Thomas said, “Are you still there, Brother Brack?”

  “Yes, we’re still here.”

  He asked, “Did you find the locket?”

  “You could say that,” Warrez said. “We’re going to need you to identify it for us in person, Reverend.”

  “It’s Brother Thomas, and I’d like to say I’d be glad to, but it will probably break my heart.”

  “I understand,” Warrez said. “When is a good time?”

  “I have to finish up something here,” he said. “I can be ready in about an hour and a half, if that’s okay with you, mm-hmm.”