Nickel City Crossfire

by Gary Earl Ross

  “So what should I do?” she asked after a moment.

  “Take out your cell phone.” I produced my own as she opened her purse. “Now go to your app store and look for a locator program that will let me find your phone.” She did so, and moments later we were linked by a friend finder application. “Here’s a new two-letter code to tell me you’re with Keisha or following her. Easy to remember. BB.”

  “BB? Like a BB gun?”

  “Like Bronco Buster,” I said, remembering the story she had told me in her office. “Ride her, cowboy.” As she laughed, I was glad to see the tension in her face lessen. “Text that to me and my phone’s GPS will lead me right to you.”

  Two minutes later, when she left, Spider made no move to follow her. He just sat there and continued to stare at me with his cold, flat eyes.

  17

  Leaving Mia’s tip on the placemat, I carried my second iced tea over to Lester Tolliver’s table and sat across from him.

  “Hello, Lester,” I said. “How’s the dry-cleaning business these days?”

  Face blank, he said nothing.

  “Or do you prefer Spider?”

  “I have no objection to a nickname given to me by my mother.” His unblinking eyes remained unreadable but his soft baritone held a trace of menace softened by amusement.

  “All right, Spider. I’m not in the mood for a swim today. You forgot to bring Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, so it won’t be easy to change my mind.” Lorenzo Quick was so paranoid about being bugged, he held meetings with people he didn’t know in his indoor pool only after they had undergone a latex-gloved full body search and entered the water naked. In our October encounter, Spider had brought three large men, all presumably armed, to discourage my resistance to getting into their car and to reinforce my appreciation of a midday swim. “So Mr. Quick will have to call my office for an appointment.”

  “He doesn’t wish to see you, sir.” As he had been in our previous meeting, Spider was unfailingly polite. “At least not today.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He held up his coffee cup. “For a detective, Mr. Rimes, you are regrettably deficient in your observational skills.” His lips twitched for a second. The son of a bitch was enjoying himself, fighting back a smile.

  “This blend is so good, I may have a second cup.”

  I drank some of my iced tea, maybe to dampen the annoyance I was beginning to feel.

  Spider set down his cup and leaned toward me half an inch or so. “Lunch with three attractive young women, none of them your regular lover. You must be on the mend.”

  I said nothing but felt my jaw tighten as annoyance began the climb toward anger.

  “How is your shoulder, sir?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “I am, but I’m certain my employer would want me to. When he learned you had been shot, he told me more than once how much he enjoyed meeting you.”

  “Because he enjoys scaring naked people in his pool, with those gold-capped vampire fangs and the knife he keeps in the pocket of his swim trunks?”

  “Because he enjoys testing them.”

  I leveled my eyes at Spider. “How’d I do?”

  “Most people in such a situation feel afraid, or at least vulnerable and intimidated. That you didn’t impressed him so much he has wondered aloud more than once what it would take to get you to work for him. I trust you understand how rare such a sentiment is when it comes to my employer.”

  “I believe I do.” I took another sip of tea. “So, you’re here to recruit me?”

  “Far from it.” The salt-and-pepper mustache still threatened to spread into a smile. “Even as he considered it, he remembered how tense you were even in warm water, always ready, calculating your odds. We both reached the same conclusion. It would never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ours is a family business—not blood family but chosen family, which means the bonds are stronger. The rugged individual has a hard time finding faith or footing in such a group.” He began to raise his cup.

  “So I would be a bad fit.”

  “The worst.” Lips pressed tight and cup hovering below his chin, he exhaled through his nostrils. “My employer has known many men like you.”

  “Rugged individuals?”

  “Cynics in search of redemption.” His flicker of a smile vanished. “The permanent outsider is the hardest man to divert from his chosen path. He is just too stubborn.” He shook his head and downed the last of his coffee. “Stubbornness, I’m afraid, is your fatal flaw.”

  There it was, the tail end of the warning that had begun with his allusion to Phoenix. Looking into Quick’s affairs could get me killed, maybe Phoenix too. Spider would be the one to drop the hammer. Was I being warned because of Keisha? No, I decided. That didn’t feel quite right. We regarded each other for several seconds before he spoke again.

  “So, how is your shoulder?”

  “Fine.”

  “You traded your nylon rig for a belt-clip. Even under your sweater, it’s easy to see your grip is pointed outward, so you can pull with your left hand. Plus, your posture is off. You’re sitting in a manner that eases pressure. So I doubt your shoulder is fine.”

  “Nothing deficient in your observational skills,” I said. “You ought to be a detective.”

  He gave a small shake of his head. “Shitty pay.”

  “But good enough, especially if you’re ambidextrous.”

  “Ah, you’re no slouch with your left hand.” Finally, he let himself smile—a small one but a smile just the same. “Glad to know that.”

  “But dancing too long does bother my shoulder, so just tell me why you’re interested in my current work.” I leaned toward him, lowered my voice. “I doubt you or your people had anything to do with the young woman you know I’m trying to find. So what’s up?”

  He looked down at his empty cup for a moment, as if contemplating whether to ask for more coffee. Then he took a deep breath and looked up, the flinty look slipping from his eyes. “Do you have any idea why my mother started calling me Spider?”

  “No.”

  “When I was small, I liked to crawl around on my belly. She took my shirt off so grit on the floor and carpet fibers would make me stand up and try to walk. But before I stood I scampered about on my hands and feet. I was pretty quick. She said I looked like a spider running across the floor, and the name stuck.”

  The faraway look in his eyes surprised me, so I remained silent and let him continue.

  “My mother got Alzheimer’s some years back,” he said. “Broke my fucking heart, especially when she no longer remembered who I was. Toward the end, she thought I was her father or her brother. Some days I was a complete stranger. But before she ended up in the nursing home, one of the people who was especially good to her, who helped her get the support she needed to stay in her own house as long as possible, was a young sister named Simpkins. Dr. Simpkins. The same young sister who had some trouble a while back and disappeared.”

  “Knowing her as you did, it was your professional opinion she would never do what the newspaper said she did.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So your people had nothing to do with—”

  “Not our style to force things on civilians, especially good ones. Good business demands a certain purity of product. Success is based on repeat customers, not dead ones.” His eyes hardened again. “If I knew somebody who did something like this—”

  I nodded my understanding of his unfinished sentence. “You don’t know who but you figure it might be a competitor, somebody outside your regular network.”

  He shrugged. “No shortage of them. You can’t make deals with everybody. There’s a lot of young fools out there, greedy and impatient.”

  “Even careless,” I said. “Leaving a job unfinished is just unprofessional.”

  “I appreciate a man who knows the fundamentals.”

  “How long have you been following me?”

  �
��Since yesterday. When I found out you were the one hired to find her, I thought I’d check on your progress.”

  “Because you knew that as a cynic in search of redemption, I’d keep looking till I found her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then lead you to whoever hurt her, so you could make a deal or settle a score. It could be business or it could be personal. You’re ready to play it either way, as long as I stick to finding my clients’ daughter and pay no attention to things that don’t concern me.”

  This time his smile was broader, and the contrast with the emptiness in his eyes was unsettling. “I’m so glad we understand each other.”

  I sat back and thought for a moment. “Why reveal yourself? Why not just keep tailing me to the end?”

  “My employer is not the only one you impressed, Mr. Rimes. Sooner or later you’d have made me. I didn’t want you distracted—for both our sakes.”

  “Since yesterday,” I said, resting my chin on my fist. “I remember the company car was a Lexus SUV. Your personal ride wouldn’t be a black Navigator, would it?”

  “No. Why?”

  18

  The Erie County Bar Association holiday party was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency downtown, close enough to Phoenix’s loft that we walked. As I hung our coats on one of the stainless steel racks outside the entrances, Phoenix exchanged her boots for shoes and moved to one of the floor plans propped on large easels near the doors to find the table reserved for Landsburgh, Falk, and Trinidad. Then she took my hand and led me inside.

  The ballroom was already full of women in gowns and dinner dresses and men in suits and tuxedos. With an open bar set up on either side, most of those in attendance had a drink in hand. A five-piece band near the first door filled the air with soft jazz. It took us a long time to get near our table, in a far corner, because Phoenix, elegant in her off-the-shoulder black dress and ocean blue Larimar necklace, was intercepted every few feet by someone she knew, or by women she didn’t, who felt compelled to compliment her. My own suit—my only suit—was a navy pinstripe I so seldom wore its condition was good enough not to embarrass her and basic enough not to draw attention away from her. I shook hands when introduced, smiled, and nodded when greeted in passing by someone I didn’t know. I slipped off to get us drinks when she was drawn into conversation by an old law school classmate.

  Holding Phoenix’s Malbec and a Captain and Coke—my cocktail of choice when I had to wear a tie—I turned and nearly collided with Mayor Ophelia Green. She had replaced her customary glasses and business pantsuit with contacts and a stylish lavender dress. Antique gold pendant glittering at her throat, she was on the tuxedo-sheathed arm of the tall State Supreme Court justice whose relationship with her had been a secret until after she won a second term last month.

  “G!” she said, offering me a cheek to kiss. “What a nice surprise!”

  “Looking better, I hope, than the last time you saw me.”

  For a moment she said nothing, the beauty mark at the corner of her mouth falling as her smile faltered. Perhaps she was remembering that we had last talked when she came to my hospital room shortly before the election. Having served in Iraq with her late husband Danny, I was a family friend hired as an independent investigator to look into matters related to the murder of her personal driver. I had been shot in the shoulder during that investigation. My findings, once publicized, had guaranteed her re-election. Perhaps now she was wrestling with the knowledge that, in essence, I had taken the bullet for her.

  Her bronze cheeks flushed, and she glanced at her companion. “G, I am so sorry. Gideon Rimes, this is Hal—”

  “Judge Chancellor,” I said. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper, sir. I’d shake your hand but—” I held up the drinks, one in each hand.

  “A pleasure to meet you just the same, Mr. Rimes.” Hal Chancellor’s voice was radio-deep and smooth—James Earl Jones lite. His dark face looked kind, the eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses pale brown and flecked with gold. “This is my sister, Glendora.”

  I hadn’t realized the attractive woman standing to the judge’s left was a third wheel. Clad in a rust-colored dress and matching headwrap, she was a shade or two lighter than her younger brother and an inch or two shorter. She looked vaguely familiar. When she smiled and said she was delighted to meet me, the last tumbler fell into place: the judge had a sister who’d lost a September primary bid to represent the Ellicott District in the Common Council. A widowed elementary school principal who’d taken early retirement, Glendora Chancellor-Pratt had run on a platform that included limiting the gentrification of her district. Mona and Winslow Simpkins—and Keisha—would have been her constituents.

  “Phee’s told me a lot about you,” Hal said.

  “Then let me plead the Fifth before we go any further.”

  “Oh, everything she said was good,” he said. “Right, Glennie.”

  Eyes never leaving mine, Glendora nodded.

  “But the next character witness may be less generous, so I need insurance.”

  Hal and Glendora both laughed as Ophelia said, “G, you must be here with your lawyer friend. I’ve heard so much about Miss Trinidad. During the campaign, I spoke with her law partner a few times, and leaders from the Latino community, but I’ve never made her acquaintance. She wasn’t there when I came to your hospital room.”

  “Our table’s in that direction,” I said, gesturing with the wine glass. “When I find her, that’s where we’ll head. Come on over when you get a chance.”

  Leaving as Ophelia, Hal, and Glendora ordered drinks, I started toward where I’d last seen Phoenix. Of course, she had moved on by then to another conversation in another location. I found her about fifteen feet from where Landsburgh, Falk, and Trinidad were to sit. She thanked me for the wine and introduced me to a stocky blond man in an ill-fitting tux—Rudy something. I shook Rudy’s hand and told Phoenix Eileen and Jonah were waving me over so I would see her when she joined us.

  Eileen set down her beer and greeted me with a cherry-lipstick smile when I reached the table. A paralegal who doubled as her Uncle Jonah’s office manager, she was in her mid-twenties and had thick shoulder-length red hair. Her forest green dress underscored both her emerald eyes and her pallor. She blushed when I bent to kiss her cheek, likely embarrassed that she had told Phoenix more than once she thought I was cute, for an older guy. Before straightening, I noticed that the black quad cane she used because of a spinal disorder had been replaced by a bright green model that sparkled with glitter.

  “My party stick,” she said. “Good for dancing, if Phoenix doesn’t mind.”

  “She’ll tell you to hit me with it if I step on your foot, but I’m in.”

  Seated on Eileen’s left, brandy glass in hand, was Jonah Landsburgh, the founder and senior partner. A rawboned man with a head full of unkempt white hair, he had tired eyes and a face creased by seven decades of experience. On her other side sat Brian Saxby, owner of a storefront gallery on Allen and life partner to the attorney beside him, Cameron Falk. A few years younger than Phoenix, both men had dark hair, average builds, and wore well-tailored suits. Cam’s was a midnight blue three-piece. Brian’s burnt sienna two-piece was highlighted by a blue, brown, and gold Jerry Garcia tie that was clearly the best neckpiece at the table. Beside Cam and in more basic clothing were his parents—or so I assumed because I had not yet been introduced to them. Phoenix had told me George Falk served at the Berlin Wall and Toshiko was born a few years after her parents were released from the Japanese-American relocation camp near Granada, Colorado. Jonah had offered them the seats left vacant after Bobby, one of his long-time poker buddies and closest friends, had decided to take Kayla to Manhattan for the weekend.

  Jonah and Cam both stood, the former to greet me, the latter to make introductions. After shaking hands all around, I set down my drink and sat beside Cam’s mother, catching a whiff of apple-scented perfume. Toshiko was thin, a bit round-shouldered, and nursing a c
osmopolitan. George was thickset and balding, with a bottle of beer beside his water glass. They were pleasant enough but quiet, directing most of their attention to their son, obviously proud he was a named partner in a feisty law firm. My first real conversation, then, was with Jonah, across the empty chair waiting for Phoenix.

  “Heard from Bobby?” He took a sip of brandy. “He and Kayla having a good time?”

  “Haven’t heard a word, so they must be.”

  Jonah narrowed his eyes. “He say anything about Kayla retiring from the bench?”

  “Not to me.” I thought about his question. “Why? Looking for a new law partner?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt, especially if the New Year brings us the case we’re chasing.”

  “I hear it’ll need a lot of investigative hours.” It was no surprise Jonah was hinting at what Phoenix had mentioned at dinner the other night. Since returning to work, I had taken two depositions, completed two background investigations, and served four subpoenas for the law firm. They’d had no dedicated investigator for more than a year, and for a major class-action suit they would need at least one. He would have expected her to tell me about it and now was probing my level of interest.

  “We’re still evaluating, but it has the potential to be our biggest case ever.”

  “Then count me in. Beats getting shot.”

  Jonah laughed, but I sensed Toshiko stiffen beside me, which meant Cam likely had told his parents everything about their new investigator. I turned to her and smiled as she took a hefty swallow of her Cosmo. Surprised, she dabbed her mouth with her napkin as I asked a few questions about Cam’s childhood. Eventually, I engaged her husband in a then-and-now comparison of army idiocies that made all three of us laugh. By the time Phoenix joined us, brushing her fingers across the back of my neck as she sat beside me, Toshiko had sent her husband for another drink. I was almost sure she would sleep without worrying her son was in danger because he associated with a ruffian people wanted to shoot.