Men of the Mean Streets

by Greg Herren

  “What’s your name?” I asked, trying to delay the first real break in the case from leaving me alone.

  “You can call me ‘Miss Trial.’” She sashayed down the street before I could say another word.

  *

  It was nearly noon by the time I’d rested, shaved, and made myself presentable enough to see clients. The right side of my face was complementary shades of red and purple with my eye closed in a permanent wink. I’d tried to make it look better, but I’d only succeeded in drawing attention to my face. My only plan of attack today was to track down Miss Trial and find out what she knew.

  I tried Simon Says, a hole-in-the-wall bar on Walnut, but no luck. No one recognized my description. She’d be hard to miss at that height in a hoop skirt. Someone should have noticed her.

  I decided to try another part of town, thinking she should stand out. I went to Bronze, thinking perhaps someone knew her there. Northside was a trendy neighborhood, one that lived and let live. I figured she would fit in there. The bar was empty when I went in, and I could see the bartender from behind as he counted stock in the back of the bar. He finally returned to the front and apologized for his absence. I ordered a drink, a double only because I doubted that he’d serve me a triple. The dull throb in my cheek had not subsided, and any painkiller would be helpful at this point. He brought it back and set it in front of me.

  I sipped the vodka tonic and asked about Miss Trial.

  “I know a drag queen that fits the description, but not by that name.” He turned and poured me the drink. “She do that to you?”

  I shook my head slightly, trying not to bring up any more pain. “She saw who did. I need to ask her a few questions.”

  “She’s a lunch hostess at the Universal Grill. She still might be there.”

  I downed the drink and headed off to try the bartender’s suggestion. She wasn’t at Universal Grill either, and it took two more drinks and nearly an hour to get her home phone. I did a reverse look-up and found that she lived a few blocks from the restaurant. I made my way there, taking care of the leg that had been hurt last night.

  It was an old brownstone on Fifth Street, and of course, she lived on the third floor of the walk-up. I made my way slowly up the stairs and knocked on the door. She didn’t answer, so I tried again. The door had a funny quality to the knock, so I gave it a push. It swung open. I didn’t have to walk inside to see the mess.

  Blood had been smeared across the entryway wall. Lamps and jars were smashed on the floor, and the trail of blood oozed across the tile floor into the living room. I followed it like the corpuscles and saw more wreckage. Her body was on the floor, twisted and beaten as mine had been last night. She lay there, uttering a soft moan, and I knelt down beside her. The blood from the carpet dampened my knee through my pants, but I tried only to focus on her.

  “Who did this to you? What happened?” I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. The operator came on and I reported the beating.

  Her eyes fluttered and she opened one eye, but it drifted. I wasn’t sure if she was seeing me or something else. “Ddddd” was all she could say.

  “Duerr did this? How? He’s in jail.”

  Her head tipped back and nothing more would come from her ruby lips. I started to stand up, seeing the blood on the knee of my pants.

  A shriek echoed from the doorway. I looked up to see an old woman standing at the door, her walker blocking my exit. The cry from her lips sounded like the wail of a siren, intermittently loud and soft, but never wavering in intensity.

  I started to move toward her, but she screamed louder. The window on the far side of the living room was open, and I moved toward it. The fire escape hugged the building on this side, and I decided that my best move now was to beat it. I scrambled down the stair, cutting my palm on a rusty bar that had broken away from the rail.

  I’d been on foot all morning, but decided to return to my car and try to figure out a place to wait this out. I’d barely gone two blocks when I saw the blond boy walking east on Seventh. I couldn’t follow him because of one-way streets, but I circled a few blocks to catch sight of him as he made his way across town.

  I circled around Main Street and watched as he entered the justice center through the visitors’ door. The requisite families were outside, holding up babies for the inmates to see and waving at parents or spouses. Sometimes they flashed the inmate, letting him know what he was missing behind bars.

  My cell rang before I turned onto Court. My mind was racing at what I’d just seen. There could only be one person that the blond had been going to visit: Steve Duerr. What connection did he have with an accused murderer, and what tie-in did he have to Paul Greer? He could be the missing link that provided me with a plausible alternative theory and a fat paycheck.

  “Aaron Wolf” flashed up on the screen and I decided to answer. I figured that if I didn’t, he’d just track me via GPS anyway. Aaron wasn’t known for being shy about getting what he wanted.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, thanks for the lead. We in the CPD appreciate it.” Even over the phone, I could see his shit-eating grin at this moment.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That blond you’ve been tailing all over town is Paul Greer’s son, Max. He just went into the Justice Center for a tête-à-tête with Steve Duerr. We’ll have tape at eleven, if you’re interested. He’s not a lawyer, so it’s all fair game.”

  “Jesus, you got people following me?” I looked around but saw no signs of a tail. CPD cars were thick as syrup around the courthouse, so it would be hard to spot just one car that had taken an interest in me. I was slipping if I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “You seem to be on to something here. This case has stagnated for a year, and in two days you’ve managed to get yourself beat up and a drag queen killed. Care to comment about that?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve uncovered anything. Just pissed off the wingnuts.” I turned the wheel and headed back to my place.

  Aaron laughed. “Meet me back in your office in twenty and we can go over what you saw at the drag queen’s apartment. The ME is putting the time of death way before you were seen in the room. I’m fairly satisfied that we’re not after you.”

  I blew out all the air in my lungs until I felt almost as light as a twink. I hadn’t realized how concerned I was about the possibility of being accused of that crime, even though I knew I would be exonerated eventually. I lived too close to the edge of my paycheck to lose cases while I defended myself against a bogus charge. “She kept trying to talk, but all she could say was ‘D.’”

  “For Duerr, I guess, but he’s in jail, so it must have been a more involved message than that.” I turned onto Vine and drove back toward Clifton and my office. We were still discussing the details when I pulled into a space on the street in front of my office.

  Davis was sitting in my lobby when I got upstairs. He was dressed in a suit and bulky overcoat. “I’ve been waiting for you. What do you have for me?”

  I explained the situation with the Greers and where the younger Greer was at the moment, providing a link between the client and the marriage crowd. I didn’t mention Miss Trial, thinking that Aaron had probably told me more than he should have about the murder. “So he’s gay and upset with his father? Perfect. He must have been feeding information to his father. He’d kill to keep quiet about his own orientation and so would Greer. This will go over great at trial.”

  I sighed, thinking of what I’d probably done to this boy’s life, just because he seemed to have the hots for Duerr. It hardly seemed fair.

  “Is there anything else? Remember, Duerr is in jail until we can prove he’s innocent.” Davis’s question made the hair on my arms stand up. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed as if he already knew about the drag queen’s murder.

  “Nah, that’s it for now. I should be able to get you more details in the next week to use at trial, but I’ll have enough to give you a few other suspects for the jury
to think about.”

  Davis slid his hand into his pocket. “No need. I think that after today we have more than enough evidence to make them take notice.” His hand flew out of his pocket and onto my leg. I felt a sting and looked down to see a syringe hanging out of my thigh. His thumb pushed the plunger down all the way.

  “What?”

  “Cyanide. Just like Rick Lambert. When the PI researching the case dies in the same manner as Lambert, the police will have no choice but to reopen the case. Then Duerr and all his millions will go free. It’s not every day that a millionaire proposes to make you his next spouse. All I had to do was get him free, which I’ve done thanks to you.”

  I yanked the syringe out of my thigh and reached for the phone but Davis grabbed the syringe and ran toward the door. “You can’t call. I unplugged the phone and snapped off the jack. You’ll be dead before the EMTs get here.”

  The door slammed, and I slumped against the wall. This was it. The door opened again, and I expected further gloating from Davis over his future as I faded to black, but it wasn’t. Aaron Wolf stood in the door frame. “What happened?”

  I managed to outline the entire case to him in the minutes remaining. He radioed for a bus, but I knew I’d never make it. At least Duerr wouldn’t either.

  Last Call

  Mel Bossa

  Who killed Easy D?”

  Jitters, filtered cigarette pushed to the lip, tossed a Hefty bag over the greasy ledge of the Dumpster. “I mean, shit,” he said, his buggy brown eyes shifting nervously to the recesses of the back alley. “It just ain’t right Shield. Just ain’t right.”

  Right? Shield thought. What did Jitters really know about basic moral codes? The guy was dealing weapons out of the Detour Club’s kitchen. Between orders of prosciutto platters, Jitters―Detour’s nimble-fingered cook―was slipping Hank’s boys machine guns “to go.”

  “Well, I don’t buy none of it,” Jitters said, his face pinched with consternation. Or maybe it was heartburn. “Easy D was no rat. No sir.” Jitters’s eyes glistened yellow under the watery neon light. Detour Club, the faded pink sign twinkled. Jitters shook his head as if to rid himself of a nasty image and sucked hard on his cigarette. He didn’t seem to notice it was burned to the stub. “Tell you what, if Easy was a snitch, then that four-eyed bastard deserved to have his throat sliced.” He tossed the cigarette into a rain puddle. “Hank’s boys sure did a number on him, huh? Rumor is, they couldn’t even identify him, except for his teeth or something.”

  Shield nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on the front street. It was presently empty, but they were coming. Steady and dependable, the club’s usual crowd would start rolling in at any time now. It was Friday, and the electricity in the air made him set his jaw. It was going to be one of those nights, and he was the only doorman on call. The other men had all quit before their trial period ended. Something he should have done three years ago.

  But he couldn’t leave this place.

  Can’t leave him, you mean, Shield silently corrected himself.

  He turned up the brim of his double-breasted jacket. “Sugar in yet?” he asked casually. The mere sound of Sugar’s name on his lips made his heart skip a beat or two. He’d spent the morning with the ravishing bartender, rolling around with Sugar under the boy’s silver satin sheets. As usual, Sugar had left his luxurious apartment before Shield had stepped out of the shower. Sugar had left the coffee on for him with a note, which Shield had crumpled without reading. The notes were always the same.

  Stay out of the rain, big boy. I’ll see you tonight. Had a fantastic time.

  “He’s in Violet’s office,” Jitters said. “They’re hollering like Armageddon in there.” He looked around, his eyes narrowing at the shadows, and wiped his hands down the front of his loosely tied apron. “If Easy D sang, we’re all gonna be in―”

  “Easy was no rat.” Shield’s tone ended the debate. He cracked his knuckles and met the cook’s uneasy stare. “Why don’t you go back inside,” he said, with a natural authoritative air. “You’re breaking into a sweat over this.”

  Jitters’s features coagulated like melted wax. Begrudgingly, he stepped back into the kitchen’s pantry without a glance up.

  The cook hadn’t gotten his nickname for nothing, Shield mused. The little man was jumpier than ever this evening. But in all fairness, they all were―from the busboys up to Violet, the owner. Because no matter how much they went about their usual business in a phony, carefree manner, they all knew something had gone terribly wrong. Shield could feel it in his bones, and his stomach tightened with a growing sense of dread. He leaned his head back on the concrete wall, allowing the cold surface to cool his senses. For the last two days, he’d tried to appear unaffected, but ever since Easy D’s body had washed up on the river’s east shore, his thoughts had been doing damage to his conscience.

  Easy D was the club’s bookkeeper. Easy was the kind of quiet man who wore cardigans matched with neatly hemmed slacks. All math. No glam. No games. He never rushed anybody, and never stayed past midnight. He never touched the liquor, not even on Christmas Eve. Easy was a stand-up guy.

  And he also knew every single sleazy deal that took place inside Detour’s walls. Word on the street was that Easy had kept two kinds of books: One in which the club’s activities were on the up-and-up.

  And the other?

  The other was a lengthy, revealing tab of the club’s money-laundering racket. A record of the names of every cop on the payroll and every free bottle of liquor Violet passed under the blind eyes of the commission.

  Yes, and every brown envelope Sugar carried out on Saturday mornings.

  Easy D had been a very observant little man.

  But why would Easy turn on them? He’d been nothing but a small-time accountant before the Detour Club. And because of Detour, Easy had moved his growing family to the ’burbs, bought a Cadillac and a time share in Boca Raton. All this paid for by Violet’s generosity.

  So why had Easy risked his life?

  Well, it didn’t matter. Hank’s boys had made sure Easy D wouldn’t be flying south anymore.

  Shield couldn’t get this queasy, sick feeling to quit. Hank’s boys were brutes. Everyone knew the boys were hired help, tolerated only because they took on the jobs no “civilized mobster” would.

  So if they’d slashed Easy’s cleanly shaven throat, someone had paid them to do it.

  And the death sentence had to have come from the one man who had the most to lose—the man who was the most ambitious of the lot.

  Heat filled Shield’s wide chest, leaking steadily into his every limb. His face flushed. He swallowed hard, dispelling the thought, which flashed feebly from time to time, like a dying bulb. He wouldn’t consider it. No way. Sugar was a good boy―just a little too caught up in all this. Sugar liked the bartending money, the small claim to fame the club provided him, and who could blame him? Three years ago, the boy had been surviving on the charity of the local Baptist church—a play toy to its closeted pastor. Today Sugar lived in one of the city’s most prestigious apartment buildings, and if anyone wanted to play with him, they’d better be prepared to dish out. Sugar was going places, and any man who wanted to tie him down, had better do it with “golden chains.” But behind his stone-cold facade, there was still a naïve, blue-eyed farmer’s son. Shield just knew it.

  And Sugar would come to see how much he could offer. How deeply he loved him. How much he suffered for him.

  Shield stepped out of the back alley and shook the rain off his hat. He had to get a grip. Tonight was not the night to go to pieces. He walked slowly, his arms loose at his sides, scanning the side parking lot and the front of the club. A few men had gathered under the street lamp. He recognized two of them. Regulars. No one important. The taller man looked over and raised an eyebrow in greeting, but quickly looked away. The men huddled, talking from under their turned-up collars, casting sidelong glances to the main door. They were reluctant to enter. Like men who were
the first to arrive at a funeral.

  Who’d take the first step to the open casket?

  Word of Easy’s death had rattled the customers a little. They acted like they’d caught sight of the sky’s chipped blue paint, realizing they’d been duped. The Detour Club was a place where every drink came with a side order of silver-screen dreams. Every night, boys, straight off the cross-country bus, piled up at the bar with fresh, open faces. While Sugar dazzled them with his tricks and knock-your-pants-off smile, their eyes soaked in the light like bottomless wells. And as the night spread thinner and thinner, they leaned in closer and closer, swallowing every promise, every whispered compliment. Meanwhile, the vultures—washed-up film directors, talentless photographers, and bankrupt playwrights―filled the boys’ glasses with watered-down booze and their pretty heads with cheap ideas.

  The club was a haven of corruption.

  The only thing it could really do was break your heart.

  Shield folded his gloved hands together, watching the wet street glimmer, his throat clamping up tighter by the minute.

  He had to get Sugar out of this place.

  *

  Nine thirty. The night had crept up on him. Shield blinked, shifting his weight from leg to leg. He’d been standing at his post by the main glass door, watching the clusters of boys entering but without discerning their features. He was on autopilot, a dangerous state to be in tonight. He tried remembering what his mind had been on for the last two hours, but couldn’t bring himself to care. There was only one thing he cared about—his urgent need to be alone with Sugar. If he could snatch Sugar away from those leeches at the bar, just for one minute―