A Murder Too Close

by Penny Mickelbury

  My cell phone rang and I jumped. I turned around to look at Yolanda, to see if she was testing my reflexes or some other silly thing; she was the only person who ever called me on the thing . . . except Connie. I snatched it off the charging stand, answered it, and heard, “You know who this is?” My senses needed a moment to synchronize. I knew the voice—I heard it most mornings but I’d never heard it on the telephone. Why the hell was Willie One Eye calling me on the telephone?

  “I know who it is,” I said, sounding as cautious and suspicious as Willie. “Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Everything is good, hermano. Thank you for asking. My nephew has words for you. He’s working nights now through Monday.”

  If cell phones had dial tones I’d be listening to one. Willie was gone, and even if he hadn’t been, I couldn’t have asked him what his nephew wanted to talk to me about. The fact that he did was its own message. The nephew, whose name I didn’t know, was, I knew, an ex-addict with the tattoos that branded him an ex-felon as well. He was a thin, quiet, still man. Motionless, even. It was Willie’s nephew who had provided the tip that led me to Jill Mason’s assailant and, by default, to a multimillion-dollar drug and theft ring that operated out of a barber shop. If Willie’s nephew had words for me, I’d definitely find time over the weekend to listen to them, but since I couldn’t possibly imagine what they would be, I didn’t spend any more time thinking about it.

  “Front door, Phil,” Yolanda said quietly as the door opened. I immediately opened the top right drawer of my desk and stood up.

  “Can I help you?”

  “No,” snarled my visitor, “but I can help you.” He hadn’t closed the door behind him and it didn’t take long for the cold to reach me.

  “Close the door and tell me about it,” I said. I wasn’t a judgmental man, my intention to see Willie One Eye’s nephew as soon as possible just one example of that, but what had just walked in my door guaranteed that I wasn’t about to step away from the desk and the open right-hand drawer where my Glock sat within easy reach. He looked like a refugee from a Hell’s Angels training camp, a refugee because he looked too stupid to even have made the cut in that fraternity of dubious reputation. This guy was tall—over six feet—and he’d obviously never met a carbohydrate he didn’t like or an exercise program that he did. He was probably still in his twenties but his gut hung over his belt like that of an old man. He glared at me through watery pale blue eyes.

  “How much you pay for information?”

  “Depends on the information,” I said. “Close the door and tell me what you’ve got.” I made sure he got that I wasn’t asking for a favor and he slammed the door. “So, what are you selling?”

  “I want five bills,” he said in his snarly voice.

  “You and every other low life in the East Village.”

  He took a couple of steps toward me, confirming my suspicion that he was drugged to the gills. He could barely place one foot down and lift the other and keep his balance. “I’m trying to do you a favor, asshole.”

  “I think I can live without it,” I said. “Close the door on your way out.”

  Faster than should have possible given what I believed to be his drug and alcohol blood level, he grabbed a chair and flung it against the wall. I grabbed the Glock from the drawer and aimed it at him. That got his attention with about the same intensity as the chair meeting the wall got Yolanda’s. She had rushed out into the front room in time to see me point a gun at our visitor.

  “Phil! What’s going on?”

  “Oh, wow! You’re the dyke, right? I heard about you. Yeah, you’re a fine piece of ass, all right. Bet I could change your mind, though.” He leered at Yolanda and grabbed his crotch and made a wiggling motion that if hadn’t been so stupid-looking would have been too obscene to watch.

  “Go ahead and shoot him,” she said.

  “It’ll mess up the carpet,” I said.

  “I bet his mother’ll help us replace it,” she said.

  I chambered a round in the Glock, a sound our visitor obviously was familiar with but just as obviously found not to his liking. He backed up toward the door. “You’ll be sorry, asshole.” His hand behind his back, his eyes locked on the weapon in my hand, biker dude opened the door and backed out, leaving the door open.

  “I’ll get over it,” I said to the gust of wind that blew in. I hurried to close the door but hesitated a moment, listening for the roar of a chopper starting. Car horns was all I heard, confirming my assessment of our visitor. I carefully locked the door and pulled down the shade; it was Friday afternoon and we could safely call it a week. Yolanda was looking at me in total disbelief. “Don’t ask because I don’t know,” I said.

  “You’ll be sorry for what?”

  “I don’t know, Yo,” I said, not bothering to curb my exasperation. “He said he had information to sell and he wanted five hundred dollars. I laughed at him and he threw a chair.”

  She walked over and looked at the brick wall, then at the chair that had bounced off the brick wall. She returned the chair to its proper place, rubbed her hand against the rough wall, then looked at me. “We’re connecting the intercom. Immediately. No more people walking in the door unannounced and unexpected.”

  “What about legitimate clients, paying clients, like . . . like Ravi Patel, who walked in unannounced the other day. And Dave Epstein.”

  “Legitimate clients like Ravi Patel and Dave Epstein won’t mind giving their names and stating their business. Pieces of garbage like the one who just left don’t ever need to be inside this office, Phil.” And the way she closed her mouth after she finished talking made it clear that there was nothing more to be said, so I didn’t say anything. “Isn’t that part of your security evaluation? Isn’t that what you tell all our clients—that they should be sure they know who they’re letting in the front door?”

  “You’re right. I’ll call the Henrys on Monday.”

  “I’ll call the Henrys right now,” she said, and retreated to her lair to make the call.

  Henry Smith, my cop friend’s brother, and Enrique Cruz, owned the security company that we referred our clients to. They also did our personal security work. Naturally we called them the Henrys, and I didn’t doubt that by Monday morning the intercom box on the front of the building that rang Yolanda’s loft on the top floor and the yoga studio on the middle floor would ring Phillip Rodriquez Investigations on the ground floor, and we could ask who was buzzing before we buzzed them in.

  I returned to my desk, returned the Glock to the drawer, and returned my now quite divided attention to the KLM property file. I’d already completed the analysis of the Avenue B building and sent it by messenger to Kallen, and I’d read enough about the building I was to assess on Monday morning to know that I didn’t need to read any more, but I all of a sudden really did need to know what Willie’s nephew wanted to tell me. I also really wanted to know what the hell Mountain Man wanted, because I didn’t believe he’d showed up by accident or mistake. He wanted to tell me something. Question was, what could he possibly know that I would possibly care about? Not that a Hell’s Angel couldn’t have information worth paying for; it just wasn’t likely one of them would want to sell it to me.

  “What’s on your mind?” I hadn’t heard Yolanda approach. She was standing right beside me and I hadn’t heard her. I told her what was on my mind. “Exactly what I’ve been thinking,” she said. “The Hell’s Angels part, not the sobrino part. I didn’t know about that part. But now that I do know, I’m still thinking exactly what you’re thinking.”

  I looked at my watch. Could I get to the doughnut shop and back to my place before Connie was due to arrive? Not likely in Friday evening after work traffic. Yolanda heard that thought, too, and I could tell that she wanted to say something. I could also see the effort her restraint was commanding. “What?” I said.

  She shook her head. “Nada,” she said, and walked away.

  I picked up the desk
phone to call Connie and the other line rang. I knew that Yolanda would answer it so I punched in Connie’s number and got her voice mail, but before she could finish asking me to leave a message, Yo was standing beside me again. “Ravi Patel needs to see you right away.” In my other ear I heard the voice mail message beep on Connie’s phone signaling me to start talking. I hung up the phone.

  “He needs to see me right away why?”

  “He found the people in Chelsea whose business was torched and he thinks you need to hear what they have to say. And the thing I was going to say? If she had a key it wouldn’t matter what time you got home.”

  Had I not thought to myself a mere fifteen minutes ago that if nothing strange or bizarre happened I could look forward to a wonderful, peaceful weekend with Connie? And everything that had transpired since I had the thought had been either strange or bizarre or both. I returned all the KLM papers to the folder and dumped the thing into the bottom desk drawer, the deep one, and slammed it shut. I got my Glock and my cell phone and turned off the desk lamp. I went to talk to Yolanda. “You ready to call it a week?”

  She took off her glasses and squeezed her eyes shut. Before I could tell her we had to find a way to keep her from spending so many hours starting at a computer screen, she told me not to mention the hours she spent staring at a computer screen. I used to worry about her being inside my head like that, but she did the same thing to Sandra, and even Connie has mentioned how Yo can sometimes read her thoughts. Not that it was any less weird when she did it, but it least I wasn’t the victim. She turned off her computers and the lights, stood and stretched. “Call me later, after you’ve seen sobrino and Patel and before you see Connie.” I tried to give her a dirty look but couldn’t pull it off. Instead I helped her close all the shades and dim the lights. The kitchen was already clean since I hadn’t eaten lunch in today and Yo could eat a multi-course meal and not make a mess.

  “You’re going out the front?” I asked as we donned coats, hats, and scarves. Nobody but us and Sandra knew that there was a hidden stairway leading directly up to Yolanda’s loft, and she wouldn’t need outerwear to go home that way.

  “I’ve got to shop and if I don’t do it now, Sandra’ll be really grouchy because there’s no half-and-half for her coffee in the morning, even though I’m the one who’ll have to get up and go to the store.” I found myself wondering how it would feel to share that kind of intimacy and domesticity on a regular basis, then thought maybe I’d be finding out in the not too distant future.

  Yolanda set the alarm and turned off the front lights and I locked the door behind us. “Did you talk to the Henrys?”

  “One of them will be here tomorrow evening,” she said, giving me a hug. “Hi to Connie,” she said, and we parted, heading in different directions. I took the presence of an empty, cruising taxi headed in my direction to be a good omen, a change from the bizarre strangeness of my recent life. Then I thought, what could be more bizarre or more strange, than an empty cruising taxi on Friday night?

  Connie wore her surprise at seeing me better than I had expected. I knew that her colleagues ribbed her about our new relationship, and that there were numerous jokes about her “personal private dick.” I spoke to everybody by name, which impressed them and Connie the first time I did it. We went into her small office and closed the door. She kissed me quickly, then pushed me away and sought the safety of the chair behind her desk. I sat in the visitor chair, where I’d sat the first time I met her. Just like it was Willie’s nephew who’d given me the tip that led to Jill Mason’s assailant, it was Connie who’d supplied the tip that eventually led to the serial rapist and murderer of little girls. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this.”

  “I’m not sorry at all,” she said. “I am sorry that I’m going to have to toss you out in about three minutes, though.” I took an envelope from my pocket and placed it on the desk in front of her. “What’s that?”

  “Door keys and the alarm code. I’ve got to see a couple of people tonight, late developments that I can’t put off . . .” I all of a sudden felt tongue-tied and confused about what to tell her. This definitely was a first. I didn’t discuss my work with anybody but Yolanda, and I discussed every aspect of it with her. “I’m sorry, Connie . . .”

  “No apologies necessary, Phil. You don’t work a nine-to-five job. I know that and I understand what that means. All I want is for you to take care of yourself, to be safe. And anyway, I was going to be later than I told you. I’ve got to stop by the store . . .”

  I cut her off this time. “I went shopping!” I was proud of myself. I’d not had so much food in the refrigerator or in the cabinets since I bought the place. “I’ve got all kinds of stuff, including those ravioli things you like, and a case of seltzer water.”

  She got up and came around the desk and hugged me. “I can’t wait to explore the cabinets, but I’ve got other stuff to get. Like a toothbrush and deodorant and a razor.”

  “I’ve got plenty of razors.”

  She pulled me to my feet and pushed me toward the door. “Make you a deal: You don’t use my razor and I won’t use your razor.” Then she opened the door and pushed me out. “See you when I see you,” she said, and I promised myself that would be sooner rather than later.

  I exited the hospital through the visitors’ door, knowing I’d have a good chance of finding a taxi, then cursed myself as I got in, remembering that I’d forgotten to get the receipt from the previous ride. Then I thought that a cab ride to see my girlfriend wasn’t a legitimate business expense and felt better. I also shifted—forced my mind to shift—from thoughts of Connie to the sobrino . . . and I’d have to ask the guy his name. I couldn’t keep calling him the nephew. Or maybe I could, because there was a very good chance that he wouldn’t tell me his name. Willie had never volunteered it, and certainly the sobrino himself had never told me.

  The cramped little coffee shop was doing good business for so early on a Friday night. Like most places of its kind, it catered to a mix of the gently poor and the nearly destitute, most of them far enough along on life’s journey that they’d probably forgotten more than they were likely to have to remember ever again. The younger clientele tended to be, like the sobrino himself, recovering from some addiction, or recovering from relapsing back into the addiction. I took one of two available places at the counter and watched my man work. He was, I realized, a damn good short-order cook. He had several piles of hash browns and a couple of burgers going, along with some pancakes and eggs. He was flipping and turning and cutting and squaring the food with calm, even movements. Then I realized something else: This man had been a professional cook somewhere, and I was guessing the military. I’d made him an ex-con junkie, a junkie ex-con, and had given no thought to who he really was, but as I watched him now, I noticed how straight he was, how precise and ordered. I’d always noticed how calm and still he was, even now, as he was putting coffee and a couple of doughnuts on the counter in front of a guy who looked a lot like Stephen King. He looked my way, saw me, and turned back to his grill. He’d get to me when he could. My ex-cop friends, Mike Smith and Eddie Ortiz, wouldn’t give the sobrino the time of day. They both believed that you could never trust an ex-hype, who, of course, believed that you could never trust a cop, ex or otherwise. I wondered if they’d have a different opinion of an ex-military man, since in addition to being ex-cops, they both were ex-Marines.

  A cup of coffee and two chocolate-covered doughnuts appeared in front of me, followed by the metal cream container and bowl of sugar packets. I nodded thanks and busied myself doctoring my coffee. As I recalled, the coffee here wasn’t wonderful but the doughnuts were pretty good. And though I’d rather be sitting down to dinner with Connie, I was hungry enough that a couple of doughnuts would go down nicely. I was finishing them when I chanced looking around. Sobrino was cleaning his empty grill and everybody in the place was eating something. I drained my coffee cup, wiped my mouth, put some money on the counter, and stoo
d up. Sobrino moved his eyes toward the hallway that led to the restrooms and the pay phones and I headed in that direction.

  He followed seconds later, pushing a mop and bucket. He got close to me. “See a guy named Jackie at the back of the Furniture Depot main store on 10th Avenue, on the loading dock. He’s there Monday through Friday, eats his lunch twelve-thirty to one. Skinny white dude, looks like a young Clint Eastwood. He can tell you something about the fires. Something nobody knows but the ones spilling the gasoline.”

  Those were the words he had for me. All of them. “Gracias, sobrino,” I said, and put my hand out. He took it briefly, long enough to take what was in it. Then he looked directly at me and a slow smile slid across his mouth, lifting his lips at the corners.

  “Raul,” he said, and pushed his mop and bucket down the hallway. Until this moment, I knew that his tolerance of me was owed solely to my relationship with his uncle Willie. I now was the proud owner of my own relationship with Raul. And while I didn’t doubt for a second that Jackie, the Clint Eastwood look-alike, possessed some useful if not pertinent information, whether he’d willingly share it with me was another issue, and sobrino Raul wasn’t a guy who answered questions. Ever. So, for all I knew, I could walk up to the Furniture Depot loading dock at lunchtime and Jackie would blow my brains out. He’d still know whatever it is that he knows, but I’d be none the wiser and all the more dead. I’d liked to have asked Raul whether Jackie’s knowledge of the fires extend to the whereabouts of Sam Epstein, because the longer I went without word of Sam, the worse it had to be for him. No matter what the television programmers said, people did not just disappear. Not regular, ordinary people with businesses and lives and people who depended on them. In my experience, and I’d done more than a little skip tracing and missing persons work, the people who “disappeared” didn’t just vanish; they organized, planned, and orchestrated relocations—unless they were dead. Sam Epstein either was dead or he was guilty of vicious, racist crimes and he had planned his own relocation. I didn’t believe that, so I had to believe he was dead, and I didn’t want to believe that. I had to find him.