Whorl

by James Tarr

  “And that’s when you told them about the van down the street, that Williams was in. That you saw roll up a while after you did. They went to check it out, and that’s when all hell broke loose.”

  “Right.”

  “So, based on your version of events, there was no way Mr. Williams could have expected being rolled up on by cops. If he’d only wanted to shoot a couple of cops, he could have driven to the precinct parking lot, or charged into the lobby here and done a suicide-by-cop. Hell, it’s happened before.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what the hell was he doing there?” the detective asked him.

  “I don’t—I don’t know,” John said, and suddenly realized where this was going. Where he should have realized it was going, where it had to go.

  “Williams only showed up and parked on the street after you got there,” the detective told him. “He parked in a spot where he could see your vehicle. The van he was driving turns out to be stolen, and he switched plates on it with another, identical van.” They’d figured that much out already, and that marked Mr. Williams, if that was his real name, as having some sort of illicit intentions. “We also found a sniper rifle inside his van.” He paused and took a sip of his coffee. God, that was horrible. “I think, Mr. Phault, that the person we should be talking about….is you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dave had just gotten out of the shower when his cell phone rang. He saw it was his PI boss. He actually hadn’t talked to John in four days, since the day after the shooting. Dave had called him just to see if John was in jail. Even though it sounded like John had saved the lives of some cops by shooting that crazy dude, cops got weird about private citizens with guns. Local news couldn’t seem to talk about anything but the shootings, but none of the channels had all the facts as he knew them right, so he didn’t trust them to have anything right.

  “John, what’s up?”

  “Hey, Davey. Sorry to spring this on you like this, but, uh…are you busy this evening?”

  “I just got back from working for Absolute all day,” Dave said. “Just got out of the shower. What’s up?” He grabbed his watch off the counter, saw it was just before five-thirty.

  “Well, I’m working a case…”

  “You’re back working?”

  “Yeah. Gotta pay the bills. Anyway, followed somebody to a bar, but I can’t get any video inside. Too dark…among other things. I talked to the adjuster, and she said that if I actually brought another investigator in, then there would be two people who could testify that they watched the claimant working here. Corroborating witnesses. Can you give me a few hours tonight? I don’t know if you’ve got any plans…..”

  “All I was going to do was work out, maybe practice my draw for a while. Sure, I can come out. Where should I meet you?”

  “Well, see, here’s the thing,” John said, then paused. “Claimant is a corrections officer, and I actually followed her to a strip club. She’s in there working right now. Um, dancing. Stripping. I’ve never asked, so I don’t know if you’re religious or what…”

  “You’re wondering if I have any problems with getting paid to come down to a strip club and watch a stripper dance?” Dave said with a laugh. “I think I’ll be okay with that. What club?”

  “Goldfinger’s. It’s on Eight Mile near Schoenherr….what’s so funny?” Dave was laughing his ass off.

  “Nothing. You’ll see. I’ll meet you there.”

  Driving over, Dave got two texts from his boss. The first was LEAVE YOUR GUN IN THE CAR, THEY’RE WANDING EVERYBODY. The second was DON’T TAKE ANY PICS WITH YOUR PHONE, THEY’LL CONFISCATE IT. Dave smiled to himself.

  Benny was working the door, collecting cover charges and checking IDs, and he smiled and nodded at Dave as he came in. Dave paused a second to let his eyes get used to the light, then headed in, AC/DC thumping in his ears. John was sitting at the bar, trying hard to look like he was happy to be there.

  “Hi!” he nearly had to yell for Dave to hear him. His eyes moved left and right. “Glad you could make it.” The topless bartender was heading their way and John saw her in the mirror. He wasn’t sure whether or not it was polite to stare at her. Dave surprised him by addressing her by name.

  “Hi Andrea. How you doing? Who’s manager tonight?”

  “Tony, you want me to send him over?” She had long black hair and a snake tattoo curling around her left upper arm.

  “Yeah, could you? That’d be great.”

  She nodded and headed off. John looked up at him. “I take you’ve been in here before?”

  Dave just smiled and held up a finger. A well-groomed middle-aged man in a two-thousand dollar suit approached them from the back. “David! Nice to see you again. What can I do for you?”

  Dave pointed at John. “Tony, this is John, a good friend of mine. He just went through a messy divorce, and isn’t quite sure he still likes women. I’m wondering if we can get that booth over there, maybe the better view will help him make his mind up?” Dave indicated one of the big padded leather booths in the center of the room between the two main stripper poles. Normally you had to slide somebody at least a hundred bucks to get one. Dave wouldn’t have asked if it had been occupied.

  Tony smiled. “Not a problem.” He checked his watch. “You hungry? I can have Carlos whip something up.”

  Dave looked to John. “You eat dinner yet? I’m hungry.”

  “Uh, yeah, I could eat.”

  “Excellent,” the manager said. “Barbeque beef tips? Carlos is an artist.”

  “Yeah, two,” Dave told him. “But no alcohol for me, I’m carrying.”

  John’s eyes jerked up at him, but the manager just said with a smile, “When are you not?” and strode off.

  “You got stock in the club or something?” John asked him as they slid into the booth.

  “I gave some shooting lessons to Tony and some of his guys after they got robbed earlier this year,” Dave said. “So, who are we here for?”

  Their table butted up to the main stage, and was about six feet from one of the brass stripper poles which stretched up twelve feet to the ceiling. There were two poles on the main stage, one near the far wall on a smaller stage, and one in the middle of the bar. Girls started on one side of the room and cycled through the poles, switching after every song. Usually by the time they were done with their fourth pole one of the guys in the audience had expressed enough interest to be talked into a lap dance, or even into paying for a trip to the VIP room.

  John looked around. “She’s not out now. You’ll know her when you see her. Eight-pack abs. She can climb the pole like a monkey.”

  Dave envisioned most prison guards, male or female, as huge and fat, not stripper pole material. “What the hell’s her injury supposed to be?”

  John laughed. “Back. Got injured in a fight, supposedly.”

  One of the waitresses appeared at John’s elbow. She had on a short pleated skirt that just covered her ass and a red bustier. “Something to drink, gentlemen? Oh, hey Davey, I didn’t know you were here. Diet Coke for you?”

  “You know it, Alisha.”

  “And for your friend?”

  “Coke,” John said. When Dave looked at him, he explained quietly, “Have to be able to say that our observations weren’t impaired by alcohol.”

  Dave only paused a second, but in that time a whole flood of thoughts bounced around his head. “Fuck that. Alisha, do me a favor. Bring Tony back out here.”

  She looked confused. “Okay.” Tony was back out a few minutes later.

  “Dave, is there a problem?” Alisha hovered nervously behind her manager.

  “No. I didn’t want to mention it before, but fuck it. Tony, this is my buddy John. Shake his hand.” Neither man knew exactly what Dave was doing, but they shook hands amicably. Dave went on. “You know that asshole who killed those three Detroit cops a few days ago, wounded like four more, that huge shootout and car chase shit all over the news?” Dave pointed at John. “
This is the guy who killed him.” John blinked and looked like he wanted to disappear into the booth cushion.

  Tony didn’t say anything for a second, and just stared at the muscular stranger sitting in front of him. Early forties, touch of gray at the temples, looked like he could handle himself. Looked like a cop. Worst day in the history of the department, one of the newspapers had called it. Word was a citizen had been the one who’d actually killed the maniac, a private investigator, but the cops were being very tightlipped with the details as the case was still “under investigation”. The news media couldn’t understand why whoever had done it wasn’t begging to get his face all over the TV, but Tony did. He stuck his hand out again, and John instinctively took it. “I knew one of those officers,” he said, actually fighting back tears. “Don’t ever try to pay for anything in this club, ever.” He turned to the waitress behind him. “Alisha, get this man whatever he wants.”

  “So much for low profile,” John murmured as the waitress left with their drink order. But, he had to admit to himself, he did deserve to blow off a little steam. The divorce bullshit had been a giant pain in the ass, but it was almost over. Not as heartbreaking as the first time he’d gotten divorced, but it was still bad. And then there was the shooting. Not that it was the first time he’d ever killed a man, but it had been a while……..

  John leaned back as a dancer climbed up onto the stage in front of them and began dancing to Lynyrd Skynyrd. She started out in a bikini top and a micro skirt over high heels, but soon was down to nothing but a g-string. Michigan law stated that in any club which served alcohol the dancers had to keep on a g-string, or something that covered their pubic area. Across the river, in Windsor, the strip clubs were totally nude. Hell, escorts were legal, marijuana was legal, and the beer was stronger, but post-9/11 getting across the border was quite often a huge pain in the ass, with long delays. The waitress brought their drinks—John had decided on a rum and Coke—and he leaned back in the booth and sipped at it.

  The stripper in front of them was a small-chested brunette with muscular legs and a shy smile that she kept flashing at him. The fact that she was half his age—or less—wasn’t lost on him. He wasn’t a prude, he’d been in he didn’t know how many strip clubs over the last few decades, but he’d always felt strip clubs were a big waste of money. An expensive way to torture yourself.

  “You know, they keep wanting to say that it was me he was after instead of just a whackjob thrill-killing cops,” John told his young employee.

  “Seriously? Why?”

  “Just the way it happened. Guy didn’t show up until after we did. Like he was following me.”

  “But he didn’t shoot at you, he was only interested in killing cops. He had plenty of time to go after you, you followed him for four miles. Besides, who the hell would want you dead? I mean, besides your ex-wife?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Three songs later the claimant appeared, and John nudged Dave’s foot and nodded in her direction. “I think she’s new, I haven’t seen her before,” Dave told him. He watched the sinewy young woman dance and strip and then climb the pole like a snake. “Damn. She’s the first work comp claimant I’ve ever worked that I’d want to see naked.”

  John laughed hard at that, and took another sip of his drink. It was his second or third rum and Coke…he’d lost count already. He wasn’t drunk, but he was feeling good. He watched the claimant work the pole for a while, then she got down onto the stage. “Okay,” he said suddenly to Dave, pointing, “that. How the hell am I supposed to describe that in a report without upsetting the adjuster or crossing some professional boundary?”

  Dave studied the claimant. “Um…..The claimant displayed the greatest flexibility of any dancer seen in the club, at one point lying on her back and spreading her legs until her knees touched the stage to either side of her body.”

  “Yeah!” John said. “That’s great. Remember that, I don’t think I can.”

  “She sure doesn’t look like she’s got any back problems,” Dave smirked.

  John tried to pay attention to the claimant as the song ended and she moved to the next stage, but the girl who got up after her was so hot he had a hard time not watching her as she danced. Blond, beautiful, toned body, and big tits. Probably fake, but who cared? “Wow, you see that one?” he said to Dave. “Who’s that?”

  “I’ll introduce you after she’s done her tour of the stages,” Dave told his boss, smiling. He waved at Alisha and ordered more drinks for the two of them. Thank God he didn’t have to pay for the tiny Diet Cokes, they would have cost him $8 apiece.

  John was definitely feeling no pain by the time the blonde was done with all four stages, and it was a good thing, otherwise he might have felt shy as a teenager as she came over to his booth. “Gina, this is John, my boss,” Dave said.

  “Oh, hi!” she said, sticking out her hand. John shook her hand, but his brain was stuck in neutral as she hadn’t put any of her clothes back on after her last dance and was clad only in a g-string and white high-heel shoes.

  “Uh, hi,” he said stupidly. He’d almost said Pink nipples, because that was what he was thinking.

  “John, this is my girlfriend, Gina.”

  John blinked, and then turned and looked at Dave. “What? Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at Dave’s big smile, then turned back to the girl whose hand he was still holding. “Is he fucking with me?” She laughed hard at that, and it was glorious to watch.

  “No, shit, he’s not the first guy I’ve killed. Don’t worry about me,” John told him confidentially, leaning in close and trying not to slur his words. “It was a good shoot, I’m not going to get any TP…PC….PTSD or anything.” He blinked and suddenly wondered what time it was. His watch was hard to see in the dim and flashing lights, but it looked to be close to eleven o’clock. Fuck it, he didn’t have anywhere to go or anywhere to be until after noon tomorrow.

  He probably shouldn’t have been drinking so much, but a group of Detroit cops—regulars—had come into the club. The manager, after decades of experience dealing with liars and fakes, had asked them if John really was the guy who’d killed the cop killer. One of the officers had been on scene and seen John behind his rifle, so after a shitload of handshaking and backslapping they’d bought John half a dozen drinks. And he’d drunk them. All.

  “You sure?” Dave asked him. “I mean, I got in that shooting a few years ago. Even though it was a good shooting, I had flashbacks and nightmares for a while. It’s not like you’ve been in combat and killed a whole bunch of guys, right? Just shootings that happened when you were a fed?” John gave him a look. “What?”

  “You ever hear of an, annnn…..NDA?” He had to say the letters very slowly and clearly to get them straight.

  “A what?”

  “Non-disclosure agreement.” John blinked, then leaned back. “Never mind, I’m drunk. I should keep my mouth shut. ‘Swhut nundishclosure means, right? Man, I’m drunk. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” He looked pointedly at Dave. “But it’s more like two dozen than two. I didn’t get flashbacks after that shooting last week, I was getting flashbacks during it. Of the last firefight I was in. Which was a hell of a lot worse than popping a guy who didn’t even know I was there. A cop killer. Shit, that was easy. Doesn’t seem right to say it, but it’s the truth.”

  Dave stared at him for a few seconds, then waved at the few strippers standing near the bar. Two of them came over, including the claimant. “I think he needs another trip to the VIP room,” he told them with a smile.

  “No, I…” John began to feebly protest, but by then the girls were pulling him out of the booth. “Make sure you pay very close attention!” Dave called out after him, pointing at the claimant and laughing. As the group headed across the club floor, Dave stared after his boss, a crooked smile on his face. What the hell? NDA? Two dozen? You always learned the most interesting things, being sober around drunk people. Maybe even some of wh
at John’d said was true. He leaned back in the booth and watched Gina dancing around the pole on the bar. Great to look at, and a lot of fun, but he should have broken up with her long ago. What the hell was he doing?

  Special Agent-in-Charge Mitchell Boehmer took a sip of coffee from his FBI mug and frowned. How the hell could hot coffee get lukewarm so fast? It just didn’t seem physically possible. A few years ago his wife had bought him what amounted to a miniature hot plate designed specifically for keeping a coffee cup warm, but it had stopped working several weeks before and he’d been unable to find another one. It wasn’t that important…except when he wanted his coffee hot and it wasn’t, then it was very fucking important. His intercom beeped.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have Director Stephenson from the FBI Lab on Line 2 for you.”

  “Really?” Professionally he only ever saw Boone’s name in memoranda several times a year, when the Lab issued new protocols for collecting certain types of evidence. He hadn’t actually talked to Boone in….shit, had to be ten years.

  He picked up the receiver and hit the button. “Boehmer.”

  “Mitch. You still sound the same.”

  They’d been a year apart at the Academy, but Boehmer had practically shared a cubicle with Stephenson for two years in the huge New York office. At the time they’d both been assigned to white collar crimes, but longed to be big fish in the FBI pond. Boehmer had to admit that Stephenson had risen a bit higher in the food chain than he had, but he didn’t resent that. Stephenson was smarter than he was, but Boehmer was a shark, and had earned every promotion through a combination of skill, ruthlessness, and unwavering devotion to the Bureau.

  Boehmer smiled. “I wish I looked the same. I’m a lot older than I used to be. What’s the occasion for the call?”

  “Um, we need to meet, actually. A matter of some urgency and importance.”