Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  “I hear you, but be careful,” Frank said with a dismal smile as he struggled to get up from the desk. The Scotch had taken its toll. “You’re heading into the low end of nowhere with these people. They’re poison, all of them. I don’t want to have to break in a new skip tracer and get a new tenant for that loft of yours.”

  “That’s a very warm thought, Frank. I’ll hold it close to me in the days ahead.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “Will you relax, Ronnie? You don’t even know for sure it was them.” Cooper kept trying to grab her shoulders to steady her, but she was too agitated to be touched. Ever since they saw the news of McLean’s beating on television Saturday night, Ronnie’d been hopping around like her shoes were on fire. She was furious and scared. It was now Sunday afternoon at Cooper’s downtown loft, and she’d whipped herself into a state of inconsolable bitchiness that he’d never seen before.

  “You had to make all those threats against him after the hearing,” she said. “Right in front of those two freaks. I told you they’d see that as the green light for some kind of violent horseshit like this. And what the hell do you mean, you’re not sure it was them? Get real, Thomas Hardy.”

  “Okay, it probably was them,” he conceded. “I’ll be more careful from now on. But why are you so upset? You didn’t even know this damned McLean. And they said on the tube he’s going to pull through. It’s not like he was actually murdered.”

  Ronnie glared at him. Then she adjusted the front of her silk bathrobe and looked away. The hell you gonna do with this mutt?

  “What a relief! He was only beaten half to death. And here I was starting to worry that you didn’t have a conscience. You know, after that Commerce City stunt, we don’t need more attention from the cops.” Her voice rose as she spoke. “Even they can’t be so stupid that they’re not going to start putting this together fairly soon. It looks pretty obvious to me that you’re the common denominator here. One might think that professional police detectives would notice that, too.”

  Cooper drew back, his forehead chopped deep in concentration; his words came more slowly now. “But they have nothing on me. Absolutely nothing concrete in nature. You must understand, Rhonda, that what seems ‘pretty obvious’ to you simply does not convict people in a court of law.”

  “Oh, right, Thomas Hardy.” She spit the words out. “You’re always right. For another thing”—she stopped to light a fresh cigarette off the one she was finishing—“these are very dangerous guys. They get an idea in their heads and someone gets hurt. What if they get the idea you’re in their way? Or me? We might get something very ‘concrete in nature’ from those two, in the form of a baseball bat to the skull.”

  She thought of Soyko’s visit to her apartment. She wouldn’t tell Cooper about it, but the idea of him coming back for another visit was always with her, like ground glass under her fingernails.

  “I’m their boss. They work for me.” Cooper’s voice was loud and shrill again. “They’ll get back in line.”

  “Aw, Tom, you really don’t get it.” Her voice softened and she lowered her head a bit. He looked kind of pathetic, standing there in crisp new blue jeans with his pudgy stomach oozing out over his belt. Pressed jeans, for Chrissakes. “They work for themselves. You’re just the guy that gives them stupid ideas and pays them. You like to have them on the payroll because it gives you a sense of power. Like you’re suddenly above the law and you can reach out and hurt people any time you want. But you’ve got no power with them. No control. That should be obvious by now. Look at that little welder. Dopps. And now this. These two freaks are beyond you. They’re beyond everything but their own crazy reality.”

  With that she walked into the kitchen area and poured herself another cup of coffee. Cooper’s loft had twelve-foot ceilings and few interior walls. Ronnie didn’t like it: it reminded her of a furniture-store showroom.

  Fundamentally, Cooper knew she was right. He had been feeling a growing sense of fear since they heard about McLean. The beating bothered him more than the Dopps hit. At least with Dopps he’d instructed Soyko to go talk to the witness and get him to leave town. McLean was totally free-lance. All their own idea. But he had had enough of Ronnie’s lip, and he couldn’t bring himself to show her he made a mistake. To let her know she was right and he was powerless. He stalked after her.

  “Listen, you.” He was spitting lightly as he spoke. “They work for me and so do you. I’m sick of your whining about those guys. An arrogant son of a bitch like this McLean deserved everything he got, and more. So did that worthless punk up in Commerce City. I’m glad they did it and I’m glad I gave them the idea. And you let me worry about the cops. If they get within ten miles of me on this, I’ll turn Soyko and that detestable little fuck Romp over to them in a second. I’ve got this thing under control, but I’m getting sick and tired of the way you talk to me. You were nothing before I met you, and I could turn you out any time. Now I’ve got to go to the office for a while. Just lighten up. I’ll be back about five. In the meantime, why don’t you make yourself useful and clean up around here!”

  Cooper made a point of keeping hard eye contact with her until Ronnie looked away. He was furious and yet he knew he really didn’t want her to leave him. “Look,” he said with a gentler voice, “it’s going to be all right. I’ll have a talk with them when I get down to the office. You just shouldn’t keep riding me like that.”

  Then he nodded and walked out of the condo without trying to touch her again. Anger and fear boiled inside Ronnie, forming a noxious burn in her stomach. I was nothing before I met you? She thought about leaving him, but that was so dramatic and final, not to mention fiscally unsound. First things first. Get those two “investigators” out of the picture. For good. She glanced at the phone, and the thought that had been percolating since she first heard the news about McLean suddenly erupted. She finished her coffee and had four more cigarettes—then she did the deed.

  Her hands shook as she dialed the police number she had memorized the night before. It being Sunday, she had a little trouble getting through to the right department. Finally the right officer answered.

  “Detective Lesley, may I help you?” The question came quickly through the line, and Ronnie almost hung up. The voice sounded so young.

  “Are you working on the McLean case? The beating that I saw on the news last night?”

  “Yes ma’am. Sergeant Haney is in charge, but he’s not in today. Do you have any information regarding the attack?”

  “You bet I do.” She rolled her eyes at how loud her voice was.

  “May I have your name, ma’am?”

  “No, junior. I’ll just tell you what I know and I’ll tell you once. Try to get it all down. The same two men who did that Dopps guy up in Commerce City, the knife job, did McLean. I’d check out a couple of guys in Aurora. One of them’s named Soyko. I think his first name is Leo. The other one is Jacky Romp. They live just east of Havana, near Iliff. They’re the ones you’re after. They’ll give you a ton of crap, but be careful. They’re trouble. And nobody asked them to do it. They did it on their own.”

  “Ma’am, how do you know this?” Lesley’s words were coming quickly. “If I could just have your name and phone number.”

  “I told you, no, sonny boy. Look, just nail those guys. If you don’t get them now, there’ll be more trouble.”

  With that she slammed down the receiver. Seconds later, she lit a cigarette and tried to remember exactly what she had just told Lesley. Her thoughts were clouded with fright. Soyko and Romp at her house. All anger had left her during the call, and it was replaced with fear.

  Sergeant Haney had seen the look a thousand times. The same just-try-me sneer he got from damned near every dime-store hard-on he ever met. But this sneer wasn’t forced or shaky like some of them. It was no pose. Haney could tell this guy meant what was carved on his face. His eyes gave up nothing and he smelled like he never showered. Contaminated. And Haney knew he had nothing on Soyk
o and his buddy, but he just wanted to shake the tree, see if anything fell out. That phone call to Lesley the day before was all he had to go on in McLean’s case.

  Soyko kept thinking how he could probably slap the hell out of this flabby old man before he could get his gun out. The guy looked like he could have been tough once, but that was about a hundred years ago, when he was young. Still, Soyko had never moved on a cop before, and he knew it would be a mistake. He also thought how Haney had squat to go on except for this one lame tip. He looked over and saw Jacky on the couch, twitching in rage and glaring at the detective.

  “You two can have a lawyer if you want one,” Haney said. “Course, then we all go downtown and make a big deal over this.”

  “I suppose we could just do that, but it don’t matter,” Soyko shot back. “We ain’t talking to you about nothing, anyhow. Downtown, here. Don’t matter. What’s all this about? You come here talking about a guy dying up in Commerce City and some other guy getting beat up. We don’t know squat. Last Friday, we were both over to the Drift Inn playing pool. All night. We can probably only get about twenty guys to back us up.”

  “I bet they’re fine citizens, too.” Haney was getting mad. “What about the afternoon of June fourth? I suppose you could get another twenty guys to back you up on that one?”

  “That’s guaranteed, pal. Look, I got no idea what you’re talking about. Get my lawyer? Man, I work for lawyers. Jacky and me are private investigators. Like on the television.”

  Haney took in a deep breath and crushed out his cigarette. He thought how he’d like to kick some respect into this mouthy little punk. For twenty-seven years he’d been listening to all kinds of trash. White trash, black trash, brown trash. Whatever the color, trash was just trash. He had no idea who called with their names, but he was believing it more.

  “What lawyers?”

  “That’s confidential.” Soyko leaned back against the dining-room table, smiling. He didn’t know if it was confidential or not, but he had heard it on enough lawyer shows and movies to use it.

  Lesley had told Haney that the woman said something like no one ordered these two guys to do it either time. He said she sounded nervous about that part. Lesley didn’t get a chance to ask her exactly what she meant.

  “Could be it was one of your lawyers got you into this.” He took a flyer. “The lady tells us you were on your own, but I’m not so sure.”

  Soyko felt his face flush for just an instant. “Unless you want us downtown, I don’t have to say a word.” Forty-five minutes is enough with this clown.

  “Take it easy, slick.” Haney leaned forward, obviously furious. His face looked soft, puffy from overuse, but even Soyko backed up a shade. Haney realized he had hit a nerve. “We’ve got some more checking to do on both you pukes. Maybe you might want to make sure you can get those twenty guys for the afternoon of the fourth and for Friday night. I’ll be seeing you again. You can fucking bank on it.”

  When he left, Jacky got up and kicked the side of the sofa with a frightening amount of force for a thin man. “Son of a bitch,” he screamed at Soyko. “Who did it?” His face was the color of blood.

  “Got a pretty good idea. For one thing, he said it was a broad.”

  “How you know that wasn’t a lot of crap?”

  “Because that cop ain’t ambitious enough to do no homework. Someone called on us or he would never have been here. If they had anything, they’d be building it into a case right now. To them, this is just an assault that’ll blow over and a homicide out of their backyard. They were just squeezing our nuts to see if we’d fold.”

  Soyko was pulling his fingers individually, deliberately cracking each knuckle as he spoke. “When Cooper ordered this thing with McLean, he told us not to let it get back to Ronnie. Then yesterday, when he called, he told us how pissed she was. My bet is, he fed her some shit like it was all our doing. Not that I care. And she would tell the cops that it’s our idea. Try and cover for her fat-ass boyfriend. My thinking is, she just got so mad she called the cops sometime yesterday or first thing this morning. Only two people know about us, and there’s no way Cooper made that call. If it was him, he’d cut a deal, roll on us, and the first time we see the cops they’d have a warrant.”

  “That miserable little bitch,” Jacky fumed, his jaws not moving.

  “We gotta deal with this,” Soyko said. “With both of them. And we gotta do it quick and hard. No fucking doubt about that.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Ronnie listened to the phone ring at the other end of the line. She had been trying to reach Cooper for well over an hour. He’d left work early that afternoon, and she needed to talk to him. Desperately. Her head pounded from nicotine and nervous fear as she paced her apartment. That call to the cops the day before was, in her own words, “making me mental.” The more she thought about it, the more she realized that if they talked to Soyko he’d quickly figure out she dropped the dime on him. She tried to convince herself the police wouldn’t move on him and Romp unless they had more evidence to go on. But how could she know that for sure?

  She reached for her purse, containing her cigarettes, and glanced at the clock again. Almost seven. Cooper had to be getting home soon. She fumbled around inside the huge bag for a couple of minutes, looking for the pack. “Enough damned junk to fill a suitcase,” she said furiously to no one. Inside there was the petite, off-white cellular phone that Cooper had given her for her birthday and an empty box of M&M’s. There were nine half-full bottles of nail polish, along with her entire linty candy collection and an assortment of makeup far too extensive to itemize. There was her key chain, complete with attached hot-pepper spray designed to ward off dogs, and several checkbooks. There was a separate key chain for her personal safe-deposit box and a small coupon book. Finally, she found her pack and noticed that she had only one Marlboro left. She stuck the cigarette into her mouth angrily and lit it. Ronnie had a habit of turning fear or anxiety or sadness into anger. It never seemed to hurt as much. At that moment she’d rather be furious than feel the terror inside her.

  “Screw it,” she mumbled to herself and slipped her shoulder into the long strap from the black leather purse. If she had to sit around to wait for Cooper she’d jump out of her skin. Might as well go get some more smokes from the closest 7-Eleven. She figured he’d have to be home by the time she returned.

  As she walked down the hall leading to the outer door, she felt more aggravation. Someone had parked in her usual spot that night, and the entire lot to the east was full. She’d had to park on the street that ran along the side of the building and past the lot. Definitely not my night, she noted.

  When she got outside, she was surprised at how bright the sun still was. She put on her pink-rimmed sunglasses—“my hooker shades”—and took a couple steps toward her car, some fifty yards away. That was when she saw Jacky Romp get out of the driver’s side of his El Camino. She looked farther and saw Leo Soyko get out of the passenger’s side. They had parked the big vehicle between her usual lot and where her car was now parked in the street. Ronnie was absolutely amazed that her first thought was how nice Romp’s car looked. Must be a new wax job: Just how the hell does my mind work? Her second thought was that she was thoroughly screwed. No chance to get to her car without them seeing her. And they’d be coming her way any second.

  “Which one’s hers?” Jacky asked his friend as they looked over the long white two-story apartment building.

  Soyko lifted his arm and pointed to his left. “Over there. Sort of a basement apartment. Total shithole. I think that’s her car on the street there. The maroon Tercel. Betcha Numb Nuts leased it for her. Spoiled bitch. Let’s go get her, Jacky. She’s done enough damage.”

  Ronnie saw Soyko point toward her building just before she ducked back into the hallway. She knew if they got her inside she’d be dead. Or wish she was. Instinctively, her right hand shot down into her purse and she grabbed the keys with the pepper spray. Lot of good that’ll do, sh
e thought as she fought back the panic. She glanced out the window and saw the two men walking slowly toward her. There was no other way out of the building, and she didn’t have time to get to her apartment, way at the other end of the hall. She froze with fear and got ready to scream.

  At that exact moment, the door to the nearest apartment swung open and three large men walked out. Two looked Hispanic, the third nondescript. Ronnie smelled a sticky blast of pot smoke trailing them into the hallway. She’d seen two of them before, and one, the shortest but stockiest, had flirted with her in the laundry once. They all were in their early twenties and dressed in Target grunge clothes. They smiled hazily at her.

  “Hey, man. It’s the blondie,” the stocky flirter said. His voice was enthusiastic but syrupy, like he just woke up. Bad-ass pot voice. “Hey, blondie, man. How you doing, baby? You want to come in and party big-time? Party with Hector maybe?” His eyes got dreamy as he spoke but he definitely wasn’t joking. His friends awkwardly nodded approval and flashed their stoned, shit-eating grins.

  Hector wasn’t much taller than Ronnie, but his arms looked thick as logs and his neck was the approximate size of his shoulders. She guessed his weight at well over two hundred pounds. His two friends were thinner and each was almost a foot taller. She instantly knew what she had to do.

  “That sounds hot, Hector,” she said in a breathy voice usually reserved for Cooper when she wanted something—a voice so laced with promise the lawyer never could turn it down. Her shorts were small and tight, and most of both smooth cheeks of her butt were exposed. The pink halter top added nicely to the effect. “Very hot. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since we talked that day.”