Deadline for Lenny Stern

by Peter Marabell

  “What side is that?” Fleener said, with an edge in his voice. “What side? How about the side with no more killing on city streets, no bodies dumped behind warehouses. How about that side?”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “It’s been a long day. Take it down a notch, both of you.” I paused. “You’re up, Henri. What happened when you chased the other guy?”

  Henri leaned forward in his chair.

  “I got a quick look at you running down Main Street, but my guy went up the side street, at the fudge place …”

  “Across from the real estate office?”

  Henri nodded. “He was light on his feet, quick, but I caught him in less than a block.”

  “Recognize him?” I said.

  “No, will if I see him again.”

  “But you caught him?” Fleener said.

  “Yeah … put him on the ground.”

  “Then how’d he get away?”

  “Had to let him go,” Henri said.

  “You let him go?” Sandy said, her mouth open.

  “Really pissed me off to do that. Bunch of people in a parking lot, behind the library, started yelling at us … at me, ‘Let him go. Call the cops.’” Henri shook his head. “Didn’t want to be there if cops were on the way. Half a block down, my guy almost ran me over coming out of a parking lot. Old beat-up Ford Ranger truck, dirty red.”

  “Would you recognize it again?” Fleener said.

  “I can do better than that.” Henri went to Sandy’s desk, took a sticky note, wrote on it, and handed it to Fleener.

  Fleener looked at the note, then at Henri. “Vanity plate?”

  “You bet.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “Letters and numbers,” Henri said. “RC space 44.”

  It happened again. That click in my gut. Familiar, I thought … but I lost it. “Can you run the plate, Marty?”

  Fleener held the slip of paper up. “Yep,” he said. “Back in a minute.” Fleener took out his phone and went to the hallway.

  “People put crazy things on those plates,” Sandy said. “Nicknames, colleges, could be anything.”

  Fleener returned to his seat next to Henri, a small notebook in his hand.

  “The vanity plate is registered to the Cavendish Company of Gaylord …”

  “Spell it, Marty,” Sandy said.

  He did, then said, “Cavendish has three officers, Sylvia, Daniel, and Walter, all named Cavendish. The company owns six vehicles, three trucks and three cars, including a 1980 Ford Ranger. I’ll email the specifics.”

  “I pulled up the website,” Sandy said, leaning toward the screen. “The Cavendish Company … let’s see, industrial supply stuff … pipe fittings, pumps, pressure gauges, gaskets. Some history … founded in the ’20s, blah, blah, blah. Okay, here, bought by Sylvia Cavendish in 2000. Daniel Cavendish is president, Walter is marketing and production.” She leaned back. “You can read the rest, if you want to.”

  “Industrial supplies? Gaylord?” Henri said, and shrugged. “Well, at least we found the truck.”

  “All right,” Fleener said. “I have a question for you super sleuths.”

  “We’re in trouble now,” Sandy said, rolling her eyes.

  “Ignore her,” I said. “What’s the question?”

  “Today, at the bookstore, the two men?”

  “What about them?”

  “You both described them as young, right? Probably early twenties?”

  Henri and I nodded.

  “But they weren’t the same two who tried to throw a scare into Lenny Stern the other day at the Side Door?”

  “I only got a quick look at one of those guys,” Henri said. “The man I chased today wasn’t him.”

  There it was again. It clicked …

  “My guy wasn’t at the Side Door either,” I said.

  “Well, that means we have three, maybe four, men involved in this,” Fleener said. “And they’re all young, you say.”

  We nodded again.

  “Then I have to ask the question again, who hires kids?” Fleener said.

  “We know Joey DeMio was pissed when I suggested he hired teenagers.”

  Fleener shook his head slowly. “So you told me, but pissed or not, DeMio is still on top of my list.”

  “But it looks more and more like it could be someone else,” Sandy said.

  I nodded. “Sandy might just be right.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Fleener said.

  “We shouldn’t consider other people?” I said.

  “Of course, we should,” Fleener said, “just not yet.”

  “Your point is?” Henri said.

  “My point is,” Fleener said, “an old tried-and-true investigative tactic is to look for the most obvious lead, then eliminate it before looking for the next most obvious lead.”

  “Obvious around here is Joey DeMio,” Sandy said.

  “I’d like to know if the guys in Harbor today were Joey’s,” I said.

  “So would I,” Henri said.

  “You weren’t sure last time, Russo,” Fleener said. “Make sure this time.”

  Henri and I both looked at Fleener. “What?” he said.

  “You okay with us doing that?” Henri said.

  Fleener scratched the side of his forehead. “Lot of paperwork on my desk.”

  I paused for a moment, glancing at Henri.

  “Just do it quick,” Fleener said.

  “Can you find Joey?” I said to Henri.

  “He’s at Ristorante Enzo,” Sandy said. “At least he was a few minutes ago.”

  “How do you know that?” I said.

  She reached for a sticky note. “His attorney, Harper, called just before you got here. Joey wants to see you. Didn’t say why.”

  “Check and see if he’s still there,” I said.

  She nodded, walked into my office and closed the door.

  “Just take it easy with DeMio, will you?” Fleener said. “I don’t want to get a call you’re in another police station.”

  “Do my best.”

  Sandy returned to her desk. “The lawyer said he’s still there.”

  I looked at Henri. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  “That’s my signal to leave,” Fleener said, moving toward the door. “I’ll see if we got anything on the Cavendish Company.”

  “Hold on, Marty,” I said. The fog in my head was lifting.

  “The plate,” I said.

  “‘RC 44.’ What about it?”

  I turned to Henri. “That day at the Side Door. Didn’t the guy have a tattoo?”

  Henri froze for a moment. “On his arm, a ‘44.’”

  “That’s too bizarre a coincidence even for me,” Sandy said, with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  “A gang tatt?” Henri said.

  “Could be,” Fleener said. “Got a guy in Lansing I’ll talk to.”

  “Thought all that was in the NCIC database?” Henri said.

  “It is, but this guy’s a walking institutional memory when it comes to gangs in Michigan.”

  “I think we finally have a lead,” Sandy said.

  26

  After Fleener left the office, I picked up my iPhone to tell AJ I’d be late. I didn’t look forward to the call. Tension in our relationship was a recent arrival. We both felt it. It didn’t feel good.

  “I have to see Joey DeMio.”

  “I suppose you’re going to the restaurant alone again,” she said. The resentment of the other night lingered. I heard it in her voice, in her assumption of how I’d do my job, of not being careful.

  “Henri’s going along,” I said. He nodded from the other side of the desk.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said, not sounding all that
pleased.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Let me know you’re all right after.”

  We said good-bye, edgy and uncomfortable.

  Sandy said, “You all right? Is everything okay?”

  I took a deep breath. “Sure.”

  “Boss, if …”

  “Let it go, Sandy.” That was too sharp.

  She nodded and kept quiet. But the look on her face? She didn’t buy it.

  “Come on, Henri. Let’s go see the man.”

  We started down the street for the two-block walk to Joey’s restaurant. The late afternoon sun had shifted itself behind some of the taller buildings just enough to drop a bit of welcome shade on our side of the street.

  “Joey might get testy, you tagging along.”

  “Don’t care if he does,” Henri said. “Besides, when’s the last time you saw Joey go anywhere without one of his gunmen nearby?”

  We went through the front door of Ristorante Enzo. Big band music of the 1950s shared the air space with the clatter of dinner prep in the kitchen. A tall man with chubby cheeks, very little hair, and a white apron shifted glasses behind the bar.

  Even in the muted ambiance, I spotted Joey’s gunmen, Jimmy Erwin and Roberta “Bobbie” Lampone leaning on the bar, looking serious. Both of them stepped away from the bar when they spotted Henri.

  Jimmy took two more steps, toward me.

  “No gun,” I said, putting my arms out. It would have been foolish to try to conceal a gun from these guys anyway.

  Henri pulled back his nylon jacket, revealing his handgun. “How you doing, Jimmy?” he said.

  Erwin nodded.

  “Let ‘em go,” Joey DeMio said from the back of the restaurant. He sat at a four-top with his legal eagle, Donald Harper. They occupied two chairs, with their backs to the rear wall. The cautious seats.

  I went up to the table. Henri stopped at the end of the bar, a few feet away from the table. He could survey the entire floor.

  “You inviting me to dinner, Joey?” I said, smiling.

  “This is business,” Harper said. “I told the broad this was important business.”

  I took a step closer and put my hand out, index finger pointing up. “Listen. You hear that?”

  The music had eased into the vocals of Frank Sinatra. “That’s why the lady is a …”

  “I wouldn’t let Mr. Sinatra call Sandy a ‘broad,’ Harper. You don’t get to either.”

  Harper stiffened. “Now look, Russo …”

  “Don,” Joey said. “He’s yanking your chain. Forget it.”

  Harper stayed quiet, but his icy stare told me he didn’t like it. Good.

  “Sit down, counselor,” Joey said. “We have to talk.” Joey still remembered I was actually a lawyer.

  I took a chair across from them. “What’s so urgent?”

  “You want a drink?” Joey said. “What about you, LaCroix?” Joey paused. “Gianni,” he said to the bartender, but Henri waved him off.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Why the phone call?”

  “Think of it as protecting my interests,” Joey said.

  “What interests would those be, and why should I care?”

  Joey leaned forward, arms on the table. “Heard you had some trouble in Harbor Springs.”

  “Word travels fast.”

  Joey shrugged. “I make it my business to know.”

  “What happened in Harbor threatens your interests?”

  Joey nodded. “Everything around here’s my business, capisce?”

  “So you are involved in this?” I said. If I sounded surprised, I was.

  “I told you last time … you sat right there,” he said, pointing at me or the chair. “I told you those teenagers weren’t my men. Told you I didn’t know what you were talking about.”

  “Convince me otherwise.”

  “I hire men, serious men, experienced men, to work for me,” Joey said. “Not schoolboys.”

  “What about them?” I said, nodding in the direction of a young Lampone and younger Erwin.

  I didn’t figure Joey caught the irony that Roberta Lampone was a woman.

  “Unless they happen to be very good at what they do.”

  Joey leaned sideways, to see around me. “Jimmy?”

  Erwin lifted himself off the bar and walked to the table.

  “Mr. DeMio?”

  “Jimmy, you heard anything about kid shooters, teenagers? On the street, you heard anything?”

  Erwin shifted from one foot to the other, nervous. “Wouldn’t know about that, Mr. DeMio. Lot of guys think they’re shooters.”

  Joey offered a wave of his hand, and Erwin retreated to his spot at the bar.

  Joey tilted his head, waiting for my response, like I should be satisfied. Maybe I was.

  “Let me ask you this,” I said. “Since everything, so you say, is your business. Anybody else running a gang around here?”

  “A gang trying to muscle in on us?” Joey said. “Nobody’s stupid enough to try that.”

  Harper jumped in, saying, “What Mr. DeMio means is that our business is unique. That we have no competitors.”

  Joey smiled. “Man’s got a point, counselor.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “But you know who to ask when you need guns.”

  Joey shrugged. “LaCroix knows who to ask, too. Isn’t that right, LaCroix?”

  Henri stared at the opposite wall like he hadn’t heard the question.

  “You knew how to find those two,” I gestured at Erwin and Lampone, “when you needed fresh guns to replace Cicci and Rosato.”

  “Will there be anything else, counselor?”

  I glanced at Harper, then Joey. “You called me, remember?”

  Joey nodded. “Don’t forget, counselor, as long as your interests don’t conflict with my interests … don’t let that happen.”

  “I’ll give it serious thought, Joey,” I said, and slid my chair back. “One more thing, you ever heard of the Cavendish Company? Out of Gaylord?”

  Joey shot a quick glance at Harper, but I caught it. Neither man recognized the name. Joey shook his head.

  I stood, and Henri moved away from his end of the bar. So did Jimmy Erwin.

  I moved past Henri, who followed me toward the door.

  “Take it easy, Bobbie,” I said to Roberta Lampone, but her eyes remained on Henri as I went past.

  “You too, Jimmy,” Henri said as he went by.

  Jimmy Erwin nodded.

  Once outside, we walked up Lake Street with the cool of shade on our side.

  “What do you think?” I said to Henri.

  “Is Joey being straight, you mean? Hell if I know.”

  “Well, you can guess, damn it.”

  Henri pulled up, almost stopped. I slowed until he was next to me again.

  “What’s up, Russo? First Sandy, now me. I don’t care about your …”

  “Then why are you asking?”

  Henri stopped a few steps from McLean & Eakin’s front window. We edged ourselves to the curb on the crowded sidewalk.

  “You’ve made cracks to me before, you’ll do it again. But we’re on the job right now, your head’s someplace else. That worries me. We assumed Joey would be easy, but we didn’t know. We never know. Those two guns leaning on the bar were working, too, you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You talked to AJ before we left the office. You barked at Sandy. And the other night at Chandler’s … you and AJ. What’s going on?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “Leave it alone, will you?”

  Henri nodded slowly. “I’ll leave it alone, Russo, unless …”

  “Unless, what?”

  “Unless it gets in the way. Unless your mind’s not on the job. I don’t want to go up agains
t men with guns, you not focused. Are we clear?”

  “We’re clear.”

  We stood quietly, uneasily. Henri and I’ve always seen the world the same way. We’ve only argued about how to get the job done.

  The uneasy moment passed slowly.

  “You asked me if Joey was straight with us?” Henri said, breaking the awkward silence.

  I nodded.

  “You’re the one said Joey’s after Lenny. What do you think?”

  “Doesn’t add up, Henri. Not anymore. Joey’s hands are dirty, but I don’t think he’s behind this.”

  “Then who is?”

  “Let’s see what Fleener’s gang expert turns up about ‘44’ first.”

  “Okay,” Henri said. “You gonna call AJ?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Make nice, Russo.”

  27

  Henri walked away up Lake Street, and I went upstairs to the office. Sandy was gone for the day, but she left a sticky note with two unimportant messages. I sat down and tapped AJ’s number.

  “It went okay, I take it?” she said.

  “Yeah. I cleared up a couple of things about Lenny’s book tour, that’s all.”

  Silence. We often shared silence. We were comfortable with it. But not this time. This time it felt forced.

  I spoke first. “Yeah, Joey doesn’t like the idea we think he’s behind this.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  Our conversation was lifeless, perfunctory. Fear drove AJ’s conversation the other night.

  “I think Joey really didn’t have anything to do with Kate Hubbell’s murder.”

  “You’ve said that, too.”

  I thought I was being helpful, filling her in like I’d done so many times before.

  “I’m going to run over to Palette Bistro,” I said, “get something to eat. Want to meet me?”

  “I just made a sandwich,” she said. “Thought I’d catch up on a little work. Busy day tomorrow.”

  “All your days are busy, AJ.” That sounded frustrated. Well, I was

  frustrated. “Put the sandwich in the refrigerator. We’ll split a couple of small plates.”

  “I … I’m not …”

  “Don’t you want to meet me, AJ?” That didn’t sound much better.

  “Michael, it isn’t about …”