“Michael, it isn’t about …”
“What is it about, AJ?”
“It isn’t about meeting you. It isn’t that.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t get pissy with me, Michael.”
“I’m not … I’m trying …”
“Trying what?”
“To figure out the other night, AJ.”
“The other night? You’re pissed right now.”
“I just … I just asked if you were hungry.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“You said that the other night, AJ.”
“I meant it then, too.”
I stopped. This wasn’t good — I wasn’t sure what I was talking about or reacting to. Did AJ know what she was talking about? I wasn’t sure. Our conversation, if that’s what it was, needed to stop. Right now, it needed to stop, or it would get worse.
AJ was quiet, too.
After a few moments, I said, “Kate’s memorial is tomorrow. Over in Indian River.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going?”
“Lenny wants to write the piece himself. About the service.”
I should have just said good-bye and let it go at that. I should have.
“I didn’t mean were you going as a reporter.”
“Maury’ll be there, too,” she said, sidestepping my comment. “Charles Bigelow flies in tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t care about Bigelow’s travel schedule, not right now.
“Okay, well, I need to eat,” I said, having little else to say.
“Me, too.”
We said a halfhearted, uncomfortable good-bye. Like Harold Pinter had written the lines.
I dropped the phone on the desk, pushed my chair back and spun around. The deep blue water of Little Traverse Bay gave off wavy trails of late-day heat. A catamaran, all gleaming red and silver, caught the wind and slid effortlessly west toward the sun. I reached down, grabbed my holster from the bottom left drawer of the desk, and clipped it under my shirt.
I needed a glass of wine, or a nice single malt. And food. I locked the office, went down the stairs and up Lake Street.
How did our wires get so crossed? Was it AJ? Me? Did it matter? Sandy thought something was wrong. Henri did, too, although his concern was as much professional as personal.
Henri analyzed matters from every possible angle while I, more often than not, trusted my instincts. I usually did all right by trusting them, but they didn’t help much on the phone with AJ.
I’d only walked half a block when the professional, experienced side of my gut instincts kicked in.
I’d picked up a tail.
He was out there, but where? Across the street? In the alcove behind Symon’s General Store? I turned the corner at Cutler’s and went down Howard. I kept a steady pace. No need to tip him off. Haven’t spotted him yet, and I’m good at spotting a tail.
I’d chosen not to take the short way through the parking lot. I wanted the fresh air of a longer walk to help me let go of the tension. Now it also gave me more time to spot the tail. The holster on my hip didn’t feel as bulky as it did a few moments ago.
I stopped at Mettler’s, just another shopper checking out men’s clothing in the window. I glanced over my shoulder. Nothing. I slowly moved to Fustini’s window and tried again. Nothing. But I wasn’t wrong. The tail was good, knew what he was doing. Anybody that good was a pro, and not likely to try anything stupid on a busy day in the Gaslight District.
I walked into Palette Bistro, a contemporary restaurant on two levels featuring huge windows for gawking at the activity on the bay while dining. Tourists often snapped up the window tables, which left the lounge for locals. I took a seat at the end of the bar near the front window. The room was empty except for two women at a small table. They were in their twenties, dressed for business and enjoying each other’s company while sipping from long-stemmed glasses with little umbrellas in them.
I had a clear view of the patio and the street. If he was out there, I’d spot him sooner or later.
“Good evening,” the bartender said, placing a small napkin in front of me.
“What can I get you?”
I ordered an Oban and asked for a menu. I sat slightly turned on the stool to give me an easier view of the door and out the window.
“Here you go, an Oban, neat. Small plates on this side,” she said, pointing at the menu.
“What are they drinking?” I said, nodding in the direction of the two women.
“Fru-fru drinks.” And before I asked, “Fruit juices with a bolt of alcohol at the bottom,” she said, and walked away.
I tasted the first soothing drink of scotch and put the glass back. A couple with a small child in a stroller braved the heat and humidity to sit outside. The sidewalks of Bay Street were less crowded than Mitchell, so it was more difficult for a tail to hide. I still didn’t spot him.
“Any decision on food yet?” the bartender said, leaving a setup and a glass of water.
I ordered the crab cakes and a side salad.
“Shouldn’t take long,” she said, and went to check on the umbrella drinks.
I enjoyed the first bites of crab cake and ordered a second drink. About the time I wondered if my instincts had failed me, a familiar figure slid his way into the bar. He was tall, six feet at least, and skinny as a pencil; you had to wonder if he’d had a good meal recently. A gaudy print shirt at least two sizes too big hung well below his hips. He wore the same shirt the last time I saw him. At Ristorante Enzo.
“Well, hello, Jimmy Erwin.”
28
“Mind if I sit down?” Jimmy Erwin said. He stood perfectly still, keeping his hands where I could see them. He knew I’d be watching.
I nodded, and Erwin took the stool next to mine.
“Doesn’t seem like your kind of place, Jimmy.”
His eyes did a quick reconnoiter of the room, stopping briefly on the businesswomen.
“Never been here.”
“Buy you a drink?” I said, when the bartender arrived.
“Labatt Blue.”
After the bartender left, I said, “See anyone following me out there?”
I already knew the answer, but I couldn’t resist.
“Keep the glass,” Jimmy said to the bartender when she dropped off the Labatt’s.
Jimmy smiled. “When’d you pick me up?”
“On the corner, by Cutler’s.”
He nodded slowly. “But you didn’t really see me, did you?”
I shook my head.
He took a short pull on the beer. “You just knew I was there.”
I nodded.
Jimmy smiled. “You’re good, Russo. Give you that.”
“Joey DeMio tell you to tail me?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“Then what’re you doing here, Jimmy?”
Jimmy took another short pull on his Labatt’s. Either this guy didn’t drink much, or he was being very cautious. My money was on cautious. Gunmen are always cautious if they want to live longer than the next guy.
“Wanted to give you a heads-up,” he said.
“That so.” I took the last bite of my crab cakes and pushed the plate away.
“Thought you might be interested …”
“Why were you following me, Jimmy?” I was getting impatient.
“I wasn’t following you,” he said, drawing out the word “following.”
“No?”
“Checking to see if you were being followed.”
Didn’t expect that. He had me curious now. Was he moonlighting, picking up a few extra bucks?
“Why do you want to know if I’m being followed?”
“Mr. DeMio wants to know,” he said. “Told me to keep an
eye out, see if anyone’s on you.”
Joey DeMio was not a generous man. His interest in my welfare had little to do with me. This was something else.
“You know what’s going on?”
Jimmy shrugged.
I thought for a minute. “People will blame Joey if another body turns up.” I sipped some Oban. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Jimmy shrugged again.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. “He doesn’t give a shit about Lenny Stern or me. He just wants to avoid trouble.”
Jimmy moved the Labatt’s bottle around in a circle, but he didn’t take a drink.
“So, I’ve got myself a bodyguard?” I said. “You going to shoot a guy who tries something?”
“Only if I have to,” Jimmy said.
The couple on the patio finally called it a night. They slowly ambled away toward Howard Street, dad holding the baby, mom pushing the stroller.
“How long you going to hang around, Jimmy?”
“When Mr. DeMio says stop, I stop.”
“And you’ll stay in the shadows, right?”
“Easier to spot trouble that way.”
The bartender delivered two more fru-fru drinks. The women raised the glasses, laughing their way through a toast.
“Got a question for you, Jimmy.”
He waited, still moving the beer bottle around.
“That story, the one about you and some gunman in Gary.” Jimmy Erwin had cut his teeth on the streets of northwest Indiana and Chicago’s south side.
“Cal Hawley,” Jimmy said in a dismissive tone. “Wore a black eye patch. Thought it made him look tough. He was stupid tough.”
“Tough and dead,” I said.
“Nah,” Jimmy said. “Stupid and dead.”
According to Martin Fleener, Hawley, a street punk older but not wiser, drew down on Jimmy Erwin one night in Gary, middle of East 8th. Real western movie. Jimmy put two in Hawley and walked away. Officially, no one saw or said anything, not that the cops spent much time on it.
Jimmy glanced in my direction, but remained quiet. He seemed to be examining the colorfully labeled liquor bottles neatly lined up behind the bar.
“Lot of stories on the street,” he said. He shook his head slowly, lost in thoughts all his own. “Especially those streets … Gary, Chicago.”
He slowly lifted the Labatt’s and took a drink. He might have finished half the bottle. Cautious.
“Remember,” Jimmy said after he put down the beer. “I’ll be around until Mr. DeMio says I’m done.”
“I heard you the first time, Jimmy.”
“The memorial service, tomorrow in Indian River?” he said.
“You’ll be at the church?”
Jimmy nodded. “Got to keep an eye out.” A thin smile appeared for a moment.
I waved the bartender away when she gestured regarding another round of drinks.
“Why are you being so generous, Jimmy, telling me this?”
“You’d have caught on sooner or later. Could’ve gotten ugly, you and LaCroix don’t know why I’m hanging around.”
Jimmy hesitated, looked straight at me. “I owe you,” he said. “You got me out of that mess with Mr. North, probably kept me alive.”
Jimmy Erwin worked for Conrad North in Petoskey a couple of years back. Henri and I tracked North and his gunmen to a back street in a deserted section of town. Only intervention by the State Police Tactical Unit stopped an ugly, bloody showdown.
“You don’t owe me a thing,” I said. “You were in handcuffs that night, last time I saw you. Henri’s the one who got you out of there, Jimmy, not me.”
“Same thing,” he said. “Cops had me. Next thing I know, a lawyer shows up and takes care of it.”
“And now you work for Joey.”
“For Mr. DeMio, yeah.” Jimmy slid off the barstool, giving the room another quick once-over. “Thanks for the beer.”
I watched Jimmy move across the patio and up the block. He was smarter than I gave him credit for when he worked for Conrad North. But smarter didn’t guarantee a longer life. His world was filled with dangerous people and short lives.
I signed the check, put down a tip, and left for home. My apartment was around the corner on Howard. I walked past my front door to the edge of the grass, looking over Little Traverse Bay. The sun was trying hard to drop below the horizon on the other side of the water.
I took out my phone and thought about calling AJ. I wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice, but last time hadn’t gone well.
I took a deep breath and called Henri instead.
“How about we meet at the office at eight-thirty?” I said when he came on.
“Kate’s memorial service at ten?”
“Yeah. You’ll pick up Lenny first?”
“And Tina,” he said, and clicked off.
There’d be time to tell him about Jimmy Erwin in the morning.
29
I waited by my car in the lot behind the office and sipped coffee. The sun was hot as it hung above the buildings. I was finally acclimated to steamy days. Never thought I’d say that. Northern Michigan drew you in with its pleasantly warm days and refreshingly cool evenings that often required a sweater. Those evenings seemed like a charming memory.
I’d run the neighborhood streets early to avoid the worst of the heat, but it was anything but relaxing. I spent too much time thinking about AJ, about the disquiet that had slid between us. A morning run usually cleared my head of stress or helped me brainstorm a particularly thorny case. This morning’s run did neither. Henri’s concern that I wasn’t focused on the job was more real than I cared to admit.
It was still too early for retail shopping in Petoskey, but a few people wandered the streets or headed to Roast & Toast for coffee. Henri’s SUV came around the corner, pulled into the lot and stopped. The tinted passenger window slid down.
“Morning, Russo,” Lenny Stern said. His skinny black tie was cinched tight, his wispy gray hair flattened behind his ears. His idea of getting dressed up to deliver a eulogy at Kate’s memorial service.
“Lenny,” I said.
“Good morning, Michael,” Tina Lawson said from the seat behind Lenny. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hands clutched tissues.
“Hello, Tina.”
“Shouldn’t be much traffic this early,” Henri said. “We going up US 31 to Alanson?”
“Easiest way. Want me to lead, or you want to take it?”
Henri shook his head. “I’ll drive, you ride,” he said, pointing at the passenger seat. “I watch the road, you just … watch.”
“Get in the back seat, Lenny,” I said, opening his door. He swung his legs out and went around to the other side.
“Are we going to have trouble on the way to the church?” Tina said. She seemed startled by the idea, even though we’d been stuck in the middle of trouble for a while now.
“Just being careful,” I said, as calmly as I could get away with.
“We don’t want to be surprised,” Henri said. “That’s all.”
I climbed in the passenger seat, closed the door, and we were off.
Henri went up Howard, turned on Mitchell at the old J.C. Penny store, and drove through town. Traffic was light over to 31. The fairways of the Petoskey-Bay View Country Club were crowded with golfers, mostly men, in colorful, baggy shorts and an array of visors and summer hats to shield them from the sun.
“You have your remarks ready for the service, Lenny?” I said.
“What can you say when she was too young to die?”
“Well, if anybody can do it …”
“Yeah, yeah. I jotted a few things down last night.”
We rode in silence up 31 and out of town. As we passed Crooked Lake, I turned around and said, “Meant to ask you something, Lenny.
”
“What’s that?”
“Talked to Joey DeMio the other day …”
“Not exactly breaking news.”
“He told me you used to pal around with Carmine in Chicago, when his old man still ran the Baldini family.”
“We didn’t pal around, exactly.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“We’d drink some wine, eat some pasta. You know, stuff like that.”
I’d been at Carmine DeMio’s table before, only at his invitation, only on business, and only when his business and mine overlapped. Carmine was not a generous man unless it suited him to be so.
I’d known Lenny Stern a long time. His reporting and my job sometimes involved the same people. In all that time, he’d never said a word about Carmine DeMio that might have been taken as personal. I wondered why. By the time we slowed for traffic in Alanson, I concluded there could be only one reason.
“Lenny?”
He stopped writing in his notebook. “Yeah?”
“All those stories you wrote about the mob in Chicago.”
“What about them?”
“Was Carmine a source?”
“Carmine DeMio, long-time mob boss? A press source about the Mafia? Seriously, Russo?”
“Lots of phony astonishment, Lenny,” Henri said, “but you didn’t answer the man’s question.”
“Does it really matter, Russo? The Don’s retired. He reads books on the front porch of his Mackinac Island cottage all summer.”
“I don’t care if he tossed you tips, Lenny. What I don’t like are surprises. I’m involved with Joey; that means Carmine, too. And Carmine’s still a dangerous man, if he wants to be. He reads books on the porch, but two gunmen are only twenty feet away. I need to know as much as I can. I’ll live longer that way.”
Henri inched his way through a mesh of cars and trucks in Alanson. He turned at the light and went east on M-68 toward Indian River, heading for Transfiguration Episcopal Church.
“I haven’t even seen Carmine in, hell I don’t know, two, three years. The last time was probably on the island, the Jockey Club or the Gate House. He likes those restaurants.”
“Anything else I should know?”
Deadline for Lenny Stern: A Michael Russo Mystery Page 14