Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  Driving south on Washington Street to East Evans, he wondered how long Carol had had the locker. When he got to Evans, he turned right and headed west. At the intersection with Sherman, he spotted StorageWorld on the northeast corner. It was a small world. Two long cinder-block buildings stood end to end with a dozen bright-yellow overhead garage doors on both sides of each. Cryptically, the number sequence began with 311. Streeter drove to 341, on the west side of the far building. He parked and walked to the padlock on the bottom of the door. The key fit. Inside was a room about eight feet wide by seven feet high and six feet deep. It contained a wooden trunk and three large wardrobes, all packed with Carol’s old clothes.

  Streeter got his huge work flashlight from the Buick and returned to the locker, closing the door behind him. When he saw what was inside the trunk, he grunted with excitement. It contained all the confirmation he needed. With the exception of a few details, he’d been right about Carol and Kevin, and, subsequently, about them and Otis Weeks. Streeter stayed in the locker for over three hours, reading by flashlight and pacing. It was all there. Too bad he couldn’t use any of it.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Bumpy gravy covered the chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes like boiled Elmer’s Glue. Tasted like it, too. Monday night meant chicken-fried steak, canned peas, Parker House rolls, and vanilla pudding for dessert. Otis grabbed the pepper and shook it furiously over his food. Ditto with the salt. That pretty well exhausted Lois’s repertoire of spices. Otis toyed with the idea of adding ketchup, but decided against it. Instead he just started sawing at flank steak that had been battered and fried to just this side of a roof shingle. It didn’t matter. He had the pot munchies so bad he was nearly blind with hunger.

  “You say this Phil Swallow wasn’t who he claimed to be?” Lois asked from across the table.

  Her son nodded without looking up from his food.

  “How do you know that, Od-us?”

  Weeks paused and glanced at her, his jaws working the meat like a disposal. When he finally gulped it down, he rested his fork hand on the edge of the table. “Because I called up to a guy I know at Motor Vehicles this morning and found out that the plates on his car are registered to a Frank Dazzler in Denver. I also found out that there’s only one Bill Swallow in Colorado and he’s all of nineteen years old. Lives over in Aspen. Then I made a few calls to people I know at the Sheriff’s Department up in Denver and I found out that Mr. Frank Dazzler is a bail bondsman, of all things. And he has a partner, some mutt named Streeter, who matches up with that guy that looked at the piano the other day. He’s a bounty hunter.” With that he started cutting another piece of meat. “A fuckin’ bounty hunter.”

  Lois considered what he said as she slid her chair away from the table. She turned to the sink counter and grabbed an unlit cigar from an ashtray there. Turning back, she held the cigar like a pointer. “Does this Streeter have a first name?”

  Otis shrugged without looking up. “None that no one up there knows. Guy thinks he’s James Bond or something.”

  “And he told us his name’s Swallow. Like your friend from work.” She paused to study her cigar, then pointed it at him again. “The one who was going to put us on Easy Street when you took care of him in the pen. The one who this Streeter guy said was his cousin.” Lois shook her head. “It looks like someone’s on to you, Od-us. You got your armpit caught in a wringer, again.”

  He looked up, his jaw dropping in exasperation. “Can’t you get anything right? That’s not what gets caught in a wringer. Just think about it, for chrissakes.”

  Lois scowled, her head rising. She pulled her arm back and chucked the cigar across the table. It hit Otis in the forehead and bounced down into his plate, landing in his potatoes. “Can’t I get anything right! Look who’s talking over there. You’re the big shot who said you had everything set up. You said, if you looked out for that shit-bird con, we’d see tons of money. And you’re the one who told me not to worry even after he got killed. You still knew where all the money was. A simple burglary, you said. And now you’re up to your eyeballs in a murder. Murder, Od-us!”

  “Take it easy,” he countered. “How the hell am I supposed to eat this now?” He looked back down at the brown cigar stuck in his milky food.

  “The way you shovel it in, what difference does it make?”

  Otis glanced back up at her. “I told you, I didn’t mean to kill that woman. You read it yourself in the damned papers. She choked herself. The cops said it was an accident.”

  “Big deal. It’s still murder, and if you get caught, your sorry ass goes to jail. Simple as that.” She got up and went to a drawer in the hutch, opened it, and pulled out a fresh cigar. When she got back to her chair, she went after her son again. “So what are you going to do about Streeter?”

  “I dunno.” Otis shrugged. “I mean, what’s he got on me? I dunno,” he repeated.

  Lois shook her head sadly. “My son. The man without a plan. Did you see the size of that guy? And he wasn’t all lard, like you. He’ll probably come down here and break you in half before he takes you in.”

  Otis frowned and tried to concentrate. His premeal joint made that difficult. “He don’t know nothing. I was careful. There’s not a damned thing anywhere that links me to Kevin Swallow or that lawyer. How could there be?” His eyes narrowed. “I was smart. No one even knows that I knew her. And the papers said that the cops think her burglary was just like a bunch of other ones around there. I planned it that way. After I saw all those Capitol Hill burglary stories, I made it look like that. Nobody knows nothing about me.”

  “Od-us, Od-us,” Lois repeated sadly. “You talk like a sausage. The only one that don’t know anything is you. Streeter knows plenty or he wouldn’t a come down here. And if he knows plenty, the cops’ll know it all soon enough. There must be something to link you up to that dead lawyer. I told you not to mess with her. When Swallow died, I told you to write it off and let it go at that.”

  “And I told you, I wasn’t gonna get jerked around by them.” His voice went up as he worked into the topic. “Swallow promised me about sixty thousand if I took care of him. He said he and his lawyer had it all tucked away. He said it was worth it to him for what I did. We had a deal! Hell, they were planning to cut me out and go to Mexico. Irwin, the lawyer, bragged to me about it that night.”

  “Great. You make a deal with a guy who’s doing life for a contract murder and then you’re surprised that he’s full of bullshit. You can sure pick ’em, Od-us. And how much did you end up with? A couple thousand dollars?”

  He looked back at his plate. “About five, I guess.”

  “Well, go out and enjoy it before you head over to prison. I wonder how they’ll treat an ex-guard in Cañon City.”

  He glanced back at her. “That won’t happen!” There was more fear than certainty in his voice. “I’ll take care of Streeter. You’ve got my word on that.” Then he nodded to indicate that he meant business.

  “Oh, my my. Why didn’t you say so earlier? Your word. I guess we’ll all sleep better tonight knowing we’ve got your word.”

  At that, Weeks stood up and threw his napkin on the table. “There’s no way in hell that I’m going down for what happened to that lawyer. I’ll wait and see what Streeter comes up with. If he gets too close, I’ll take care of him. I’m no killer, but if it’s him or me, it’s him.” He frowned. “You know what I mean.” Then he backed away from the table and left the room.

  Lois just sat there, shaking her head. “The man without a plan,” she finally repeated softly to herself. “That’s my boy.”

  When Otis got to the basement, he was too worked up to sit. So he walked around the room, occasionally coming back to the tray by his recliner for a shot of schnapps. How did Streeter get wind of him? His source at the Sheriff’s Department said the guy was a crack skip tracer. Otis knew it would just be a matter of time before he’d be back. What then? Weeks drained the shot glass and sat down. Could he kill Streeter
face to face? It might come to that. He was positive there wasn’t any link between him and Carol Irwin. Except for those few times she came to the prison, he never talked to her. Even then, she wore that stupid disguise and called herself Kelly something-or-other. Could he kill Streeter? Or anyone? He sure didn’t want to. But living out his days in prison for something he didn’t mean to do—well, just forget it.

  He got up and walked back to his desk. The situation called for serious thought and desperate action. That meant he’d clean his .44 and smoke the last of the opium he had in the middle drawer. Sitting down, he again told himself that there was no evidence anywhere to link him to Irwin. But Streeter might have been a friend of hers. He might not need evidence. Otis remembered how he’d damned near passed out when Streeter said his name was Swallow. The bounty hunter had noticed it, too. He might come back and break Otis’s spine in repayment. Screw evidence. Remember the size of his arms? Damned tree trunks. He shivered and reached into a drawer, grabbing something else he’d taken from Carol’s place. As he pulled the hand grenade up for closer inspection, the guard felt calmer.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “I tell you, Frank, I nailed this thing cold almost from start to finish. And now I can’t move on it without going to jail.” Streeter was sitting across the desk from his partner at about two-thirty on Monday afternoon. “You’re probably looking at charges just for hearing about it.”

  The bondsman considered that. “I got mixed feelings here, Street. You breaking the law like that. Plus, you put Jeff in a box with this stunt. But I don’t know that you had much of a choice. What was in that locker?”

  “Diaries. Five, six years’ worth of diaries. Three or four entries a week. There must have been close to fifteen books. Carol started them at Swallow’s trial and she laid everything out in detail. How she hooked up with Kevin, how they hatched up all their plans. She and Swallow were totally nuts about each other. Not to mention totally nuts in general. And I won’t even tell you what she wrote about yours truly. The woman despised me. They planned to kill me and then move to Mexico. Between the thirty thousand Mrs. Mallory paid Kevin, and money Carol had tucked away, they thought they could retire. They had about ninety grand, and they promised Weeks a lot of it for helping Kevin skate through the pen. But they strung him along for months once he got out, and then finally blew him off. They thought they’d be far away before he’d find them. Evidently, Weeks didn’t know exactly who Carol was until near the end, when the papers printed it. Neither of them was very impressed with Otis’s brain power. The last entry was from just before she hired me.”

  “Did you find out who Kelly Spears was?” Frank adjusted himself in his chair.

  Streeter nodded. “There was no Kelly Spears. That’s the name Carol used on her visits. She was careful not to have any traceable contact with Kevin once he went away. Carol put a lot of thought and work into this. She was obsessed by it. If she’d put half that much into her practice, she’d have been rich and successful. All that energy going into blaming and planning how to get even. Like a sick child.”

  “Which is basically what she was.” Frank paused. “That has to make you feel good about your choice of females.”

  The bounty hunter was silent. He thought about his conversations with Linda on the subject. Especially the last one. “Yeah, I’ve got a real way with the ladies. Linda and I talked about all that the other night, right before she dumped me.”

  “Haven’t you two patched that up yet?” Frank looked pained. “I hate to see you let her get away. She’s probably good for you.”

  “Probably. But it looks like we’ll never find out.” Streeter stood up, anxious. He walked around the room as he spoke. “Look, I can’t worry about her right now. I’m sitting on enough information to settle this whole Irwin mess, and there’s nothing I can do with it. It’s nice to be vindicated, but if I can’t give it to the police, I’m back where I started. Nowhere. And the cops’re still chasing the wrong guy.”

  “You sure they can’t trace anything to you?”

  “I wore gloves and put everything back. Except for these.” Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out the card and key. “It’s for the locker.”

  Frank winced. “Good, Street. Now they got you for theft on top of all the rest. Why not go just back into the apartment and leave those things out where the cops or the sister can find them? They’ll go get the diaries themselves.”

  Streeter shook his head. “Won’t work. First of all, there’s no way to get in there again. Barrows is finished. Plus, by the time they find this and check the locker, Weeks could be long gone. I shook him up pretty good the other day. He knows I’m on to him, even though he’s got no idea who I am. He’s going to panic and split or do something crazy. Soon.” He thought for a moment. “No, I have to draw him out fast. At the bottom of the locker, I found a couple of hand grenades and a stick of dynamite. Some tools, too. Carol must have used the locker for Kevin’s stuff.”

  “You’re sure Weeks doesn’t know who you are?” Frank asked.

  “He thinks my name is Bill Swallow. And I parked way at the end of the driveway so he wouldn’t see my license plates. Hell, the guy was so whacked out, he probably couldn’t even tell my Buick from a Porsche.”

  “You don’t want to underestimate this joker, Street. Carol did, and look what it got her. Listen, I’ll be gone all afternoon and I’m meeting someone for supper. Don’t do anything until I get back.” The bondsman stood up and grabbed his reading glasses. “Later.”

  Streeter spent the afternoon practicing the piano and lifting weights. He had to think. It wasn’t until eight-thirty that night that Frank walked into the loft. Streeter was sitting at the piano, listening to an Oscar Peterson tape, and staring at the keys.

  “There you are, Big Guy,” Frank said. “Getting some inspiration?”

  Streeter looked up. “Just hearing how good this thing can sound. How was business?”

  “Another day, another pain in the ass. You decide anything about your little problem with Mr. Weeks?”

  He stood up. “Yeah, I did. Let’s go to your office. I need to use the phone.”

  They walked down the stairs, but before they got to the office, Frank went to his apartment and grabbed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. “This could come in handy,” he said as he moved behind his desk. He poured two short drinks. “So, let’s hear it.”

  “You better make those doubles.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” Frank topped off the drinks and pushed a glass across the desk.

  “The time for horsing around’s over,” Streeter began. “I’m done lying. One more ‘pretense’ call and I’m going over the top. So I decided to go straight at this guy. I’ll call his bluff and draw him out.”

  “One more cliché and I’ll go over the top with you. The hell you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about calling Weeks and laying it all out. Let him know who I am and that I was a friend of Carol’s. Tell him I know what went on with him and Swallow and what went down at Irwin’s. Get him sweating. My read is that he doesn’t have the stones for what he’s into. I’ll set up a meeting for tomorrow. Tell him, if he doesn’t pay me ten grand, I’ll go to the police. Ten thousand sounds like enough to keep me quiet, and yet not too much that he can’t come up. Then I’ll wire myself, and when we meet, I’ll get as much out of him as I can. This guy’s not all that bright, and I bet he slips up. That should give me something to take to Carey. Anything Weeks says could help.”

  Frank took a long pull from his Scotch. “Good thing we made these doubles. I don’t know, Street. Even if you shake him loose, how do you explain to the police where you got your information?”

  “I’ll tell them I was just bluffing, guessing at all of it to see what I could get out of Weeks. Carey already knows my theory of the case.”

  “And what if he comes armed tomorrow?”

  Streeter drained his Johnnie Walker. “We’ll meet in public. Somewhere
in Denver, my home turf. He’s got to bite. And I’m not going up against a drug cartel here, Frank. We’re talking about a day drinker who lives with his mommy and lets her push him around. You should have seen it. I don’t want to underestimate him, either, but this is as safe as I can make it. He’s not that dangerous.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes stupid and desperate’s worse than dangerous.”

  He knew Frank was right. “Look, this is the plan, and I’m doing it with or without your blessing. You got the recorder set up. I might as well see if I can weasel anything out of him tonight.”

  Frank nodded. He usually kept the small phone recorder he got at Radio Shack constantly in place. Streeter grabbed the phone and slid it close. Then he pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. Reading from it, he pushed in Weeks’ number.

  Otis had put the wooden case for his .44 back up in its spot on the shelf when he noticed something was wrong. He’d forgotten to put the just-cleaned gun in the case. “Damn!” he muttered. Staring at the long pistol lying on the couch next to a small stack of cleaning rags, he realized that opium was too heavy to smoke if he had work to do. As he reached up and grabbed the wooden box, the phone rang. Weeks looked at it on his desk and then glanced toward the stairs. It was a couple of minutes before nine, so Lois wouldn’t get the call. Past her bedtime. For a moment, he was confused. Opium’s some truly heavy shit. After another two rings, he answered it.