“Clear,” he said, but his eyes kept moving.
I turned to Lenny. “You convinced now?”
Lenny stood staring at the street, but remained silent.
“Well if he isn’t,” Henri said, “he ought to be.”
Lenny stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and leaned back against the car. He looked at me.
“When I told you I’d been threatened before, by really nasty guys, that was true. More than once over the years.”
Lenny cleared his throat.
“One night, somewhere west of the Loop, I was chasing a story. Another mob killing. I’d written several pieces for the Tribune with names … politicians, local mobsters. Chicago PD loved it. Brought a lot of rats out of the sewer. But a lot of other people were pissed.”
He cleared his throat again. “They caught me in an alley one night. Two of them. This wise guy stuck a .45 right here …” Lenny put an index finger between his eyes. “Backed me up against a wall. I held my breath, waiting for it, one hand going for the .38 I used to carry.”
Lenny paused, his face frozen, eyes full of remembrance.
“The crack of a gun … so loud in that alley … one shot to the side of the head. Somebody put the wise guy went down. His buddy ran.”
“Cops?” I said.
“Yep,” Lenny said, nodding. “Undercover. They knew me from the street, knew my writing.”
Lenny came off the car. He took his hands from the pockets and ran them over the top of his head like he was smoothing hair he didn’t have.
“I’ve never forgotten that night,” Lenny said. “Everything’s measured by what happened that night. Today, we get a couple of kids in a car?” Lenny stretched his arm out, pointing to the street. “Emmet County is not Cook County, never will be.”
I started to say something, but he stopped me.
“I’m convinced, Russo, all right?” He turned to Henri. “You hear me, Henri? I’ll do what you tell me from now on.”
“No arguments?”
“No arguments,” Lenny said. “This may not be Chicago, but that kid could have stuck a gun out the window. You guys got your ass on the line for me. Doesn’t matter if I like it. No, Henri, no arguments.”
We stood there, next to Lenny’s Honda, in the late afternoon sun. A small black SUV pulled into the lot and parked across from us. We watched. The doors opened. Out came a woman and a man in their sixties, wearing shorts and T-shirts, both with gray hair. They grabbed each other’s hand like a couple of teenagers and disappeared happily into the Side Door Saloon.
“Did you recognize the men in the car?” Henri said to Lenny.
“It all happened so fast,” Lenny said. “They were young and white, at least the driver was.”
“Both white, both young,” I said. “Twenty, twenty-one, maybe. I might recognize the driver, not the other one.”
“I think I’d know the driver, too,” Henri said. “And I caught something else. A tattoo.”
“You were looking at a tatt?” Lenny said.
“I was looking for a gun,” Henri said, “when the driver’s arm came out the window. It was here …” He tapped his arm just above the wrist. “The number ‘44’ inside a circle.”
“Think that means anything?” Lenny said.
Henri shrugged. “Could be gang-related, could be nothing, but it’s worth remembering.”
“Kid had a narrow face,” I said, “close-cut hair.”
“The driver?” Henri said.
“Uh-huh. The other one was white. That’s all I can tell you.”
Two sedans entered the parking lot, drove slowly past us.
“Tourists,” I said. “But it’s too busy here. Time to go.”
“How do you want to do this?” Henri said.
“I’ll ride with Lenny,” I said. “You follow.”
“Do you think that’s necessary?” Lenny said. “Two of you? I’m not arguing. Just asking.”
“It is today,” I said. “You still live in the house over on Jackson?”
“Same place, Russo,” Lenny said. “I don’t like buying houses.”
“Know where we’re going?” I said to Henri.
He nodded. “Across the highway from the hospital?”
“That’s it,” Lenny said.
I climbed into the Accord with Lenny, and we left the Side Door parking lot with Henri close behind. We talked very little on the way. Now that Lenny had agreed to let Henri call the shots, there was nothing to argue about. Lenny mostly grumbled about the heavy summer traffic.
“You going through Bay View?” I said when Lenny turned off the highway.
“Shortcut,” he said. “I do this all the time.”
“If you say so.”
We meandered our way past the colorful Victorian cottages of the Bay View Association. I’ve been up and down these crowded streets for years, but always as a runner. Given the constant snarl of cars, delivery vans and construction vehicles, I moved faster on my feet.
Lenny turned away from the commercial area. The streets quickly turned residential. Most of the clapboard-sided houses were built in the 1930s, some single floor, some two floors. The yards were small, no wider than the house and driveway.
Lenny’s place on Jackson was a square two-story with weathered tan paint in need of freshening up, brown shutters and a one-car garage at the back of the lot.
Lenny turned into his driveway and stopped, but Henri went past us, turned around, and parked a safe distance down the street.
“You’re not going to walk me to the door, are you?”
I shot him a look.
“Just trying to lighten the mood, Russo. I’ll do what you want.”
“We go to the door together, but I go in first and check the house. Got it?”
“Like I said, no arguments.”
We exited the Honda, and I watched the street while we walked to the front door. I took my gun out and held it close to my side.
“Unlock the door and wait here.”
The house was small, with a living room in front, the dining room and kitchen in back. I toured those rooms, then climbed the stairs to the second floor. Two small bedrooms and a bath didn’t take long to search.
“All set, Lenny.”
“Okay.”
“Probably a good idea to keep a sense of humor, Lenny. You might need it before we’re through. You ready for the Carnegie?”
“If you mean am I ready for my presentation …” Lenny shrugged. “Sure, I’ve talked to audiences before, I like doing it. If you mean am I ready to be a target because the public can come and go, how are you ever ready for that? That’s stressful even here in calm, relaxed Petoskey.”
“We’ll do our best to keep it calm.”
“Is seven-thirty in the morning good for Henri?” Lenny said.
“It will be,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”
Henri’s SUV was now in front of the house. I never took my eyes off the street as I walked across the parched brown grass and climbed in the passenger side.
“Everything okay?” Henri said.
“Yeah. He’s in for the night.”
Henri pulled away from Stern’s house. He turned on 31, and we rode in the welcome cool of his SUV to retrieve my car at the Side Door Saloon.
“You think the struggle with Lenny is over?” he asked me.
“I do. We’ve seen this movie before. Lenny’s not the first guy we’ve protected who takes a while to understand the situation. Maybe they get scared, maybe not, but no matter, they finally do what we tell them to do.”
Henri stayed on 31 around downtown. Traffic was thick everywhere, but we were in no hurry.
“Same question to you,” I said. “Think Lenny’ll give us any more trouble?”
“He’s good. Besides, h
e doesn’t scare easily.”
“Which is why it took him a while to catch on.”
“And he’s seen worse,” Henri said.
We rode patiently in the single line of vehicles along the bottom of Little Traverse Bay.
“It’s just … I don’t know, Russo. It’s just … something bothers me.”
“About Lenny?”
“Not Lenny,” Henri said as the road widened to two lanes. He edged his way into the right lane as we passed the Country Club and turned into the Side Door parking lot.
“The end of this row,” I said, pointing straight ahead.
Henri pulled up behind my car.
“Then what’s bothering you?”
“This afternoon, here, in the parking lot.”
“The two guys in the Chevy?”
“They were two young guys,” Henri said.
“Barely out of their teens,” I said. “Still think you can ID one of them?”
“I’ll know the driver, I see him again,” Henri said. “That’s not it.”
Henri paused, and I waited. The hum of the A/C fan droned on pleasantly inside the SUV.
“Remember when Lenny told us he’d been attacked?”
“Finally got around to telling us, you mean.”
“Yeah, yeah. Forget that. But what did he say?”
I thought for a minute. “That he got beat up, a couple of guys roughed him up. What about it?”
“What else, about the guys?”
“He said they were young punks, I think.”
“And today,” Henri said, “in this parking lot, a couple of young punks shout ‘you’re dead.’”
“You think they’re the same guys?”
Henri shook his head. “Nah, Lenny said he’d remember who attacked him.”
“What’s on your mind, Henri?”
“Four kids have come at our favorite reporter.”
“Okay.”
He looked over at me. “When’s the last time the mob hired teenagers to do their dirty work?”
11
“Let me see if I have this right,” Sandy said from her usual chair in my office. I was already on my second bottle of water after an easy, early morning run. The temperature dropped overnight, but the humidity hadn’t gotten the memo.
“Have what right?” Henri said, his face hidden behind my copy of the Times.
“That the guys who threatened Lenny walked out of a Hallmark movie instead of The Godfather. Why does every tough guy have to look like Luca Brasi?”
Henri put down the newspaper. “Only the ones who work for Joey DeMio.”
“I think you two distinguished gentlemen might have missed something, god forbid.”
“You think she’s talking about us, Russo?”
Sandy rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is that maybe good help is hard to find, even for Joey DeMio. Maybe all the tough guys these days don’t fit the mobster stereotype.”
“Joey and his father,” Henri said, “have relied on Santino Cicci
and Gino Rosato to rough up people and deliver threats.”
“Then along comes Don Harper,” Sandy said.
“Good point,” I said. “DeMio’s new lawyer is Ivy League, top to bottom with a wardrobe to match. He delivers the threats these days.”
“But Cicci and Rosato still do the killing,” Henri said. “Those two kids in the parking lot, however tough they think they are, they’re not killers. It doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe Joey DeMio didn’t hire them to be killers,” I said.
“Then what did he hire them for?” Henri said.
“Maybe he didn’t hire them at all,” Sandy said.
“Not the first time you’ve wondered that,” I said.
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to rethink what we’re doing here.”
I checked the time on the monitor. “Well, you two keep right on rethinking if you want, but I’ve got to go. Can’t be late, since I’m about to throw a scare into the nice folks at the library.”
The Petoskey District Library consisted of two buildings. The historic Carnegie was reserved for special events. On the other side of East Mitchell sat the new Petoskey Library, a two-story Georgian colonial, all red brick and white trim with a stately copper-topped cupola.
I went through the front doors into the main room, stopping at the circulation desk.
“Mr. Russo.”
I turned around as Pam Wiecek crossed the large, airy room in long strides with a bright smile and an outstretched arm. She was five-six, a little thinner than the last time I saw her, wearing a pale green cardigan sweater over her shoulders as defense against the air conditioning.
“Hello, Pam,” I said. We shook hands, and she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“It’s good to see you,” my former client said. “Has it been four or five years?”
“Something like that, yeah. How are you?”
She nodded. “Good, very good.”
But her bright eyes and broad smile told me that.
“Well, you helped turn my life around,” she said. “But you’re here on business.”
She took me by the arm. “The periodical room’s down here.”
We went around the corner, past the main doors and into a square room lined with newspapers and magazines. Tall, narrow windows, tinted against the sun, let plenty of natural light into the room.
A woman was standing over a long, rectangular table sifting through a stack of magazines.
“Andrea?” Pam said to the woman who turned out to be the library director.
Andrea McHale turned around. She looked to be in her late forties, with soft features, an earnest face, and sensible shoes. Like Pam, a cardigan sweater was draped over her shoulders, held in place by a small chain like my grandmother used to wear.
We shook hands.
“Thank you for making time,” I said.
“We can sit here,” McHale said as Pam left the room. We pulled out two chairs at a corner of the long table.
“I’m not sure how much Pam told you,” I said.
“Well, she said you were a private investigator, and you have some security concerns about Mr. Stern’s talk.” Her head tilted slightly as “security concerns” came out of her mouth.
I nodded. “All true.”
“If you could explain …” she said, her voice trailing off.
I did explain. About Lenny, the threats, about Henri and me.
“I see,” McHale said, but she was still absorbing the news. “I suppose you have an idea …” she paused. “First, I have to ask. Do you think something violent will happen at the Carnegie, Mr. Russo?”
I chose my words carefully. McHale had a right to know if her library and its people were in danger. But I didn’t want to overstate it.
“There’s a possibility that someone may try to harm Lenny,” I said. “We’re here to keep that from happening.”
“Of course, you are,” she said, but she didn’t look convinced.
“Honestly,” I said, “trouble is less likely to happen at the Carnegie than someplace else.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s simple, really. Too many people will be at the library that night.”
“You mean, too many witnesses?”
McHale had seen the requisite number of Law & Order episodes. But I welcomed all the help I could get.
“Too many witnesses, sure. But these people only want Lenny, nobody else.”
McHale nodded. “If these hoodlums hurt other people or damage the library, the community will demand they be brought to justice.”
McHale had also read her police procedurals.
I nodded. “But Lenny Stern’s an easier target, more vulnerable, out in the open, a car, on the street. I
t’s harder to get at him inside a building with lots of people around.”
McHale pondered that for a moment.
“How can I help, Mr. Russo?”
I leaned in, elbows on the table.
“Tell me about access to Lenny’s presentation in the rotunda. Who comes and goes, and when?”
“We’ve issued tickets for that,” she said. “Business and community VIPs, benefactors of the library.”
“Will they use all the tickets?”
McHale shook her head. “Some people just don’t come, some give them away.” She stopped in mid-sentence. “Oh, I think I see. Tickets might get into the hands of the hoodlums?”
I nodded. “Nothing we can do about that. What time do you open the doors?”
“An hour before the official start time,” she said.
“Is it all right with you if I show up when you unlock the doors, just take a look, hang around the door, watch people drift in?”
“Of course. What about Mr. Stern?”
“My associate will come with Lenny,” I said. “When do you want him here?”
“We’ve already talked to him about the schedule.”
“What happens after Lenny’s finished?”
“Well,” she said, “a few members of the audience will buttonhole him to talk.” She smiled. “But that gives us a chance to clear the chairs and set up for Mr. Stern’s book signing.”
“You have a regular procedure for that, I suppose?”
McHale nodded. “The signing table will be at one end of the rotunda. We’ll put another table, with books and a cash register on it, between the doors and Mr. Stern’s table.”
“Two hours to sign books?”
“Give or take a few minutes, yes. A little more than four hours start-to-finish for the evening.”
I sat back in my chair.
“I think that about covers it,” I said. “Will you be there?”
“Of course,” she said. “Mr. Stern is a big event for the library. The attention helps with fund raising, future events, and so forth.”
We stood up and shook hands.
“I heard a story that this building used to be the phone company. Anything to that?”
She nodded. “Michigan Bell Telephone Company. Back in the days when phones had wires instead of satellites.”
Deadline for Lenny Stern: A Michael Russo Mystery Page 6