by Brian Drake
Room service arrived with a light double-knock. Wolf opened the door for the young steward. The steward set out the two covered dishes and a teapot. Wolf tipped him a five, triple-locked the door after the steward exited, and sat down to eat.
One plate contained a mix of hash browns, sausage links, bacon, scrambled eggs. The other plate contained three fluffy buttermilk pancakes. The teapot held hot water. Wolf poured some of the water into a mug with a chipped brim and dropped in a tea bag which held the custom mix of honey-flavored green tea he bought from a small mom-and-pop shop in Chinatown.
Wolf took his time with each bite. Such comforts hadn’t always been available, and he appreciated the opportunity to enjoy a hot breakfast.
He finished eating, placed the dishes outside his door. The black smart phone on the table beside his leather couch buzzed. Wolf went over the picked it up. “Hank’s Chicken Shack.”
A feminine laugh answered. “Did you have to make such a mess last night?”
“Last night? I was in the tub engrossed in Fitzgerald, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Right. A warehouse blasted to pieces, a man lying dead in the street? None of that means anything to you?”
“Please, my virgin ears can’t handle--”
“Forget it. I’m coming over. There’s some things you need to know.”
“Can’t wait.”
Wolf ended the call and smiled. Kiki Callaway, John’s daughter and his only other ally in law enforcement, always made him smile. The mood faded when he set the phone down. A good mood always faded when she said good-bye.
A knock on the door. Wolf peeked through the peep-hole and flipped back the trio of locks and the door opened with a little squeak.
“You should really oil those hinges,” Kiki said. When she smiled, her nose crinkled up. Wolf liked when she smiled.
“I keep telling the super but he’s in Africa hunting rhinoceros.”
She laughed and stepped through the doorway. Her long black hair drifted in a shoulder-length wave. She’d come from the D.A.’s office based on her attire, long, loose black skirt, white sweater.
Wolf triple-locked the door. Kiki dropped her purse, from which a yellow manila envelope protruded, on the couch. She plopped down, slipped off her heels, and crossed her legs.
“Nice to get away for a bit,” she said.
“Busy?” Wolf went around a dividing wall to the kitchen.
“What do you think?”
Wolf opened the refrigerator. On one shelf sat a row of bottles of beer. Below that, a row of Cokes. Wolf started to grab two of the bottles, then snatched two Cokes instead.
Wolf returned to Kiki and handed her one of the sodas. She popped the top. “You can have a beer,” she said. “It won’t bother me.”
Wolf shook his head and cracked open his drink. He poured some into his chipped mug and sat down.
“Back in the old days,” Kiki said after a sip, “I’d be on my second bottle of vodka.” She slouched back and crossed her legs.
He drank some Coke. “How are your roses?”
Kiki grew and bred roses for competition and had dedicated a large portion of her father’s back yard for the work since she didn’t have the space at her apartment.
She shook her head. “My father’s stupid beagle found a weak spot in my safety fence and tore up a bunch. I chased that little runt all through the house. He finally hid in my father’s office and Daddy wouldn’t let me go in after him.”
Wolf laughed.
“It’s not funny,” she said.
They sat without talking for a bit. Fine with Wolf. He was in no hurry to talk about the gun runners. He considered the operation a complete disaster. No goal reached. No information. No leads. The fight was all over the news. Nothing could have prevented that. And Wolf had lost his car.
Presently Kiki brought up the subject.
“I guess things didn’t totally go as planned last night,” she said.
“It could have been worse.” Wolf explained his side of the action.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “As for what you need to know, the Feds have swooped in. Confiscated the weapons, the bodies, everything. The only thing I got from the files was the guy you shot--his name was Tim Dell. Long history. Mostly smuggling.”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is the first time the Feds have gotten their hands on the stolen guns since the theft. Now maybe they’ll get a break.”
“Any gossip at all? Who they think is behind the smuggling?”
“Nothing that I’ve heard with my own ears,” she said. “But one of the other girls thinks a CIA agent is part of the search team.”
Wolf raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Kiki shrugged. “Says she heard a guy say he wanted to update Langley. That’s all I heard, third-party. Don’t put any stock in it.”
Wolf smiled.
“Will you lay low now that the Feds are here?”
“You’re joking, right?”
The pile of chips in the center grew as the men around the table said, “Call,” one by one. The table fell silent. The dealer glanced at the one player who hadn’t called. The dealer, a big, bald black man whose white shirt and black vest stretched tight against his big chest, said: “Now you, tea boy.”
Wolf smiled and sipped some of his honey green tea. It wasn’t his day. His pile of chips had been dwindling since the game began. He looked at his cards, said, “Call,” added two chips to the center pile.
Ceiling fans hummed above and circulated the hot air. The glass-walled back barroom of Bert’s Hof Brau catered to the poker club in the afternoon hours, when the restaurant closed after lunchtime. Wolf played once or twice a week. Bert’s reopened at six, and as the players put their skills to use, the restaurant crew hustled to clean and prep for the dinner rush. The kitchen noises and crew movement didn’t jar the players’ concentration.
The dealer said, “And the turn,” dropped a fourth card on the table, where it joined three others. All four cards were lined up straight.
“Place your bets,” the dealer said. The players added to the pot once more. Wolf raised the pot. Two players folded. The remaining five called.
Wolf made a fist with his left hand, used his thumb to pull down his index and middle fingers until the knuckles cracked. He knew he should have folded. Cut and run. But it was only money, so he stayed. He’d been cleaned out anyway. Winning would only mean one more hand, and he’d had enough. He sipped his tea. Should have stayed home.
“River,” the dealer said, adding a final card to the line. The players showed their cards. One had rags, nothing; the other two held pairs; Wolf smiled, flipped over the two cards he held. Maybe he’d stay another hand after all.
“Flush,” Wolf said.
The last player, far to the right of the dealer, threw down his cards. He said: “Straight flush, scar face.”
Wolf deflated. The dealer swept the pot to the winner. The dealer then scooped up the cards, shuffled the deck. He looked at Wolf. “Still in?”
Wolf put up his hands. “Just ain’t my day, guys.” He grabbed the handful of remaining chips, crossed the wood floor to the bar where a girl changed his chips for cash. A ten, two ones. He still had lunch money. He left the restaurant and climbed into his new car, a dark blue Chrysler 300. He had a third back-up vehicle stashed at another location should the 300 meet the same fate as the Camaro, and he made a note to get another vehicle purchased soon so he was never without wheels. The big four-door had the massive Hemi V8 and more power than Wolf would probably ever need, and that made it a perfect fit. He missed the tight feel and manual gearbox of the Camaro, though. Driving home, Wolf thought about grabbing a couple of Newton’s hot dogs and wondered if there was anything good on television.
When Wolf spotted Sheila in the lobby, his heart skipped. She ran into his arms sobbing.
In his suite he sat her down on the couch. She clung to him. Her body felt warm agai
nst his. It took a few minutes, but she finally said: “Hi.”
“Tell me.”
She sniffed hard. “I think something’s happened to Freddie. I was at the doctor’s getting my check up and this guy came up and put a gun in my side and said Freddie had done something and he had to clean up the loose ends.”
Wolf clenched his jaw. She sobbed some more. Wolf rubbed circles on her back.
“What do you want me to do?”
“See what happened.” She told him of her last conversation with Freddie, said that to the best of her knowledge he’d gone right to bed, but when she called after being attacked, the phone just rang and rang.
“You need to lie down,” Wolf told Sheila, nudging her to rise.
He led her down a short hallway to the spare bedroom, where Sheila stretched out on the bed. The fluffy pillow seemed to swallow her head. Wolf almost smiled. Then he noticed that she had fixed her eyes over his shoulder where a framed black-and-white photograph hung. A hallway, dark. One small light bulb shined at the very end.
“Did you take that one?” Sheila said.
Wolf looked at the photo. Photography had been a hobby of his, long ago, before the military, before his life now.
“I think it’s one of the last photos I took,” he said. “The darkness is powerful, but that little light never stops shining.”
She swallowed, ran a hand over her belly. Wolf watched her. He hoped what she feared wasn’t so. He couldn’t imagine Freddie going back on his word. He’d helped Freddie out of a jam once and that’s how he’d met the couple. Now he had to help them both out of trouble. And trouble was his business.
7
Wolf only spent a few minutes at the apartment, checking out the bullet hits, which led him to Freddie’s body. On hands and knees, he leaned over far enough to sniff the revolver and realized it hadn’t been fired.
On the way home he stopped at a liquor store pay phone and called Kiki.
“There’s somebody at my place you need to see,” he said.
“Who?”
“Have you heard about a shooting at Lakeshire Memorial?”
“Yes. One dead and a pregnant woman fighting with the gunman. She ran into the hospital but vanished.”
“She’s at my place.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Come by and meet her.”
Wolf hung up and looked at the shell casing he held. He’d picked it up from the apartment floor. Nine-millimeter. It didn’t tell him anything, but he’d taken it anyway.
He called the police to report the murder, then called Sheila and told her to let Kiki in if he didn’t return in time. He said he hadn’t seen the apartment yet. Then he hit the street and stopped at a few hangouts and asked about Freddie. The information he gathered formed a disturbing picture.
Wolf returned to his hotel suite and found Kiki sitting on the couch with Sheila. “Getting to know each other?”
Kiki rose. “Outside, Mister Wolf.”
She closed the patio door. Over her shoulder, Wolf saw Sheila watching them.
“You can’t keep her here.”
“Right. That’s why she’s staying with you.”
“There’s an APB out and you want me to hide her in my closet?”
Wolf said, “You only know part of the story,” and filled in the other details.
“I’m sympathetic,” Kiki said, “really, I am. But I’m not looking the other way on this one.”
Her cheeks had a red flush. She kept her dark eyes fixed on Wolf. “I need a head start. A few hours.”
“What do you already know?”
“A few nights ago, a crook named Jimmy O’Shea went looking for Freddie. O’Shea had a job lined up and other safe crackers were lying low. Now, both O’Shea and Freddie are dead. O’Shea’s body was found this morning, look it up. It’s all over the street. Freddie’s killed later in the day. Here’s what I think happened: Freddie pulled a double-cross and killed O’Shea and ran off with the loot. Whoever hired O’Shea tracked down Freddie and killed him, and probably took back whatever was stolen unless Freddie was able to hide it.”
“Is that all?” Kiki said.
“Earlier this morning a guy was making the rounds looking for Freddie. Posing as an old friend. A couple guys I talked to say he isn’t from around here. I bet that’s the man who killed him.”
“What did you find at the apartment?”
“Just the body. Nothing Freddie may have stolen. He put up a fight, though. I found him in the bedroom with a gun in his hand.”
“I’ll see if any robberies were reported today involving safes.”
“Appreciated.”
“Now,” Kiki said, “about Sheila.”
“She and I have things to talk about. Tomorrow you can bring her in.”
“She’ll let me?”
“When I tell her it’s okay. Then can you take care of her a few days? She’ll have doctor visits--”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
On the street below, car and bus engines grumbled. A horn honked. A pigeon flapped wings as it landed on the balcony rail, paused, took off again.
Wolf and Kiki blinked at each other.
Kiki said, “You two have things to talk about,” with a glance over her shoulder.
“Yeah.”
Wolf and Kiki went back inside, and he showed her out, then sat beside Sheila and took a deep breath before he started talking.
“Now what?”
Wolf said, “You need to see some detectives tomorrow. Then you can stay with Kiki until I fix this.”
“You can’t fix this.”
“You know what I mean.”
Sheila looked down at the carpet.
“If Freddie broke his promise,” Wolf said, “tell me why.”
Sheila patted her belly, explained Freddie’s money concerns and second job options. She described his withdrawal the past few days, all of which must have been related to planning the robbery, she said.
“If Freddie wanted to hide something, like whatever he stole, where would that be?”
“I can’t--” and she broke down. Wolf again pulled her close, waited.
“I need to know,” he said.
“What if he couldn’t hide it?”
“It’s worth a try.”
She wiped her eyes and said, “We have a safe deposit box. Key’s in my purse. If it isn’t there I don’t know.”
Wolf reached Parker Savings & Loan and stopped the 300 in a space near the front entrance. He crossed the tiled lobby to the wall of safe deposit boxes.
He wasn’t wearing his London Fog, but a regular brown leather bomber jacket instead, with the Colt Series 70 .45 auto nestled in an inside-the-waistband holster just behind his right hip. He preferred IWB carry when walking the street. Holster kept pistol snug against his body so comfortably that he often forgot the gun was there--until he needed it.
He found a box that corresponded with the number on the key, put key in lock, twisted. The door opened without a squeak and Wolf pulled out the black nylon bag.
Back in the car he opened the bag and found a folded piece of paper with words on it.
Sheila, if you’re reading this something bad happened. I broke my promise and I’m sorry. I thought I could fix it for us. Maybe my stuff will help even the float. I don’t know who we hit, but I put our recon photos in the bag with the rest of the junk.
Wolf examined the photos and read the letter a second time. Freddie neglected to write down any directions or an address. He didn’t recognize the house in the photos, nor the section of town, nor the neighborhood.
As a lead it made a great wild goose chase.
He drove home and found Sheila stirring a simmering pot of soup. Wolf placed the nylon bag on the dining table.
Sheila looked at him with red saucer-like eyes. The soup bubbled.
He wasn’t sure what to say.
The next morning Wolf sipped cooling tea and looked out the win
dow at the crowded mountainside. The breakfast dishes lay scattered on the table, a few extra since Sheila had eaten with him. Kiki had picked up Sheila a little after ten, and now Wolf found the silence to which he’d so long become accustomed almost unbearable.
This was no way to live. He should have been out on the street with the normal people doing something productive, not on a collision course with his own death.
He left the tea on the table and moved to the couch and played the DVD. He recognized neither man featured. One spoke in noncommittal lingo. A politician? The eye-patch-wearing gent wanted him to help the “organization” which could have meant anything, but Wolf figured it held the usual connotation. The DVD and the murders would equal zero until he put the puzzle together. He turned off the player, brought Freddie’s recon photos to his computer, and scanned them into his picture-viewing software. While the scanner clicked and hummed, his eyes settled on the framed picture beside the computer monitor. The last photo of him and Shelly, taken during a hike, nature surrounding them. Shelly, slightly taller than Wolf, wore a big smile, her bright eyes full of life. When it came to the two of them, he was always the frowner, and this picture recorded the expression perfectly. But he’d been happy to be there with her. Wolf let out a breath.
Whenever he felt like quitting, he somehow found renewed inspiration in that picture.
And if he died fighting, so be it.
Wolf cycled through each picture until he settled on a pair that showed a partial street sign. One showed more of the sign than other. The letters O-K-E-R stood out. A switch back to the first picture showed the house number, 2667.
Wolf clicked on the Internet and went to a driving directions website. He punched in the house number and what he had of the street name and smiled when a question showed up on the screen. Do you mean 2667 Brooker?. Wolf clicked “Yes”.
8