The crowd moved again. It was time to say goodbye. “At least they don’t work for Glad Eddie.”
“Everybody needs protection, cowboy. You too. Don’t browse.”
A store employee in shirtsleeves and a necktie whittled the crowd down to a single-file line inside the door. We shuffled forward briskly after that. A long table covered in green crepe stood across the center aisle bearing stacks of copies of Cypress’ book, another poster free-standing on one end, and on the other a printed sign asking customers to refrain from engaging the author in conversation. As I drew near I picked out a white version of Blue Serge standing behind the table among a group that included a woman in a red blazer with a badge pinned to the lapel identifying her as the store manager and a man in a gray suit that had not been cut in this hemisphere, with his steely hair worn in a stiff brush and glasses whose metal rims matched his hair. He had taken his degree at the same university that had turned out both bodyguards years later.
Seated at the table was a mass of thick hair that had been frosted to mask the gray. The face that belonged to it came up with a smile as Eddie Cypress flipped shut the cover of his book and handed it to the customer standing in front. He was fifty, but looked younger thanks to medical science—I’d heard he’d had his face lifted and his teeth straightened and bonded about the time of the nose job—and his leather sport-coat was scuffed to the accepted degree at the elbows. He wore his blue button-down shirt open at the throat without a necktie and no jewelry, not even the standard mob-issue Rolex. That would be an old habit; you didn’t wear anything that might snag on the door after you dumped the murder weapon.
The customer in front of me was the woman who thought he was too good-looking to have killed fifteen men in cold blood. She asked him to sign her book “To Eleanor: An offer I can’t refuse.” He wrote the inscription without hesitation, signed it with a swooping final s, and surrendered the book grinning.
The grin didn’t slip a notch when I stepped up to take her place. His eyes didn’t flicker. They were golden brown and warm. You hear a lot about killers’ eyes, but it only holds true among the amateurs. He had a long jaw, shaven close, and high Mediterranean cheekbones. I was sure they were the ones I’d seen in the doorway of Cabin Five, but there was no recognition in the eyes.
The store manager took a book off the top of the stack and opened it to the title page for him to sign. I said, “I brought my own,” and laid the book I’d carried in on the table. It was Some of My Best Friends Are Killers.
Cypress hesitated only a split-second, his eyes on the book and the expression in them invisible. He picked it up and held it out. “You made a mistake, sport. It’s not mine.”
“No mistake,” I said. “Trade. If you’re finished reading Booth’s latest I’d like to take a look at it.”
I was still watching his eyes. Something flashed in them this time—consternation or bewilderment, I wasn’t sure, except he hadn’t shown either when he’d looked at me the first time. There was a brief frozen tableau, Cypress holding the paperback, the store manager still holding Cypress’ book open at the title page, while a grumbling murmur made its way through the line behind me over the delay. Then his perfect smile found its earlier warmth. He laid Booth’s book on my side of the table.
“I’d like to continue this, sport, only the sign says no conversation. Maybe you got in the wrong line.”
The man in the gray suit said, “Herb.” He was looking at me and the name dropped into the air without inflection, as if it didn’t belong in his mouth and he had decided to get rid of it. The younger man at his side started around the table. He was in no hurry but he made good time and I turned toward the end where he was coming from, going up on the balls of my feet. There was a general collision behind me as the people at the head of the line backed up to make room.
Cypress said, “It’s okay, Sarge. This is my publicist, Sargent Hurley. Sargent’s his first name, not his rank. I didn’t get your name, sport.”
I waited until I was sure Herb had stopped moving. He was on my side of the table now, facing me with both hands clear of his sides. I opened my coat slowly so he could see I didn’t have anything on my belt and drew out my wallet and stuck out a card for Cypress to take. He took it and read it. Then he put it down, took the book from the store manager’s hands, and wrote something on the title page with his fat felt-tipped pen, finishing with his signature. He held it out. “This one’s on me.”
I didn’t take it. “Thanks. I buy my own books.”
The store manager cleared her throat. She was a blonde in her fifties with a mole on her cheek like Miss Kitty’s. “The store will take care of it. We’re grateful to have you here, Mr. Cypress. We wouldn’t take your money.” She was watching me. Glad Eddie could have taken poker lessons from her.
I thanked her and took the book. Some pressure went out of the air then.
“Where were we having lunch, Sarge?” Cypress asked.
“The Blue Heron. It’s on—”
“Walker can find it. He’s a detective. I’m stuck here for a couple of hours, Walker; can’t disappoint the literate public. Lunch is on New York. Unless you prefer to buy your own.” He opened his smile another quarter-inch. “Two o’clock?”
“Better make it three,” Hurley said. “It’s a long line.”
“You heard him, sport. Don’t forget your two-bit book. They’ve got me on a short leash. I don’t have a lot of time to read.”
All of this was conducted in a low tone that didn’t reach any of the people waiting for their signed books. I picked up the paperback and let him keep the curtain line. The leash part was too easy. I trailed glares all the way out. If this kind of thing was repeated, Detroit wouldn’t be able to draw the really first-class felons.
Blue Serge No. 1 was shoving the antenna back into his Motorola when I came out. He wasn’t wearing his dark glasses. “Had to try it on, didn’t you? Didn’t I have you tagged for a cowboy?”
I looked at him. He had a chiseled square nut-brown face with thick skin on the cheeks. He wouldn’t be a bleeder. He had hard sad eyes, as unlike Eddie’s as a good guard dog’s were to a wolfs. “What’s an ex-Secret Service man doing tasting peas for a goon like Cypress?”
“That’s Herb’s job, inside. He works for Eddie’s boy Hurley. I’m just local talent. A gig’s a gig, you know what I’m saying? I never made the White House detail or I sure wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Would you take a bullet for him?”
“Haven’t met anybody I’d do that for yet. That’s why I didn’t make White House.” He slipped two fingers into his shirt pocket and gave me a card. “You’re going to need me someday, if they don’t kill you first.”
It was good stock but plain, just his name and telephone number and an address on Grand River. “Russell Fearing. Were you born with that?”
“Hell, no.” He put on his Ray-Bans. “My real name’s Ogolo Zimbabwe. I just changed it to get back to my roots in Cambridge. Don’t come back, cowboy. I wouldn’t want to have to throw you through any windows.”
Back in the car I opened Cypress’ book and tucked Fearing’s card inside. While I was there I read the inscription. It was in Italian: “Senso vostra angoscia.” He’d signed it “Glad Eddie.” I laid it on the passenger’s seat for translation later and got out of there.
I had time to kill, but not enough to go back home or to the office, so I caught the last two-thirds of a techno-thriller playing at a multiplex in Bloomfield Hills. It was as full of holes as a flute and the special effects just brought back my hangover. I left an hour into the closing credits, bought a two-pack of Alka-Seltzer at the concession stand, and chewed them on my way out. I had just enough time to make it to lunch with Jack the Ripper Dot Com.
The Blue Heron is West Bloomfield’s answer to Oscar’s at the Waldorf and the only five-star restaurant in the state of Michigan. The low yellow brick building is planted all around with trees strung with lights, but they only twinkle at
night, so if you miss the tasteful sign at the end of the driveway you have nothing to look forward to but the Pizza Hut in Orchard Lake. The fog had burned off and the sun was coming hot through the windshield. There were plenty of parking spaces at that hour of the afternoon, so I pulled into a spot in the shade. I thought about the gun in the glove compartment but didn’t take it out. I didn’t think I’d need it to get a look at the wine list.
I put one foot on the asphalt and a train hit me. Anyway something hard and heavy and moving fast struck the door, pinning me between it and the roof of the car and forcing the wind out of my lungs. I got my hands up to push back and then something like the blunt edge of an axe bounced off the big muscle on the side of my neck.
It was over then, but my body didn’t know it. I twisted sideways, forcing the door open a little, and my left arm came loose and I swept the heel of my hand up toward a blur of pale face. It’s a killing blow if you catch the nose just right and drive splinters of bone up into the brain, only you almost never catch the nose right. I missed it entirely, dislodged a pair of glasses from the bridge, tried for a handful of hair but couldn’t hold on because it was cut in a short brush, and before I could reverse the momentum a black hole opened in my vision; the blow to the neck having its effect. My hearing was the last thing to go. I heard a sharp crack, as of something hard striking bone, and a dull thump right behind it, but didn’t feel anything. I was on my way down.
Any time you’re out more than a few minutes from a blow, you’ve suffered permanent damage of some kind. That was why, when someone shook me by the shoulder asking me if I was all right and I got up on one elbow and turned my head and spat out a mouthful of bile, the first thing I looked at was my watch. I’d checked it just before I stepped out of the car; unless I’d been lying on that oil-smelling pavement twenty-four hours I’d only been out of competition two minutes. My neck was sore and my face ached. I touched a doughy swelling on my left cheek and decided right away not to touch it again with anything but a Ziploc bag full of ice. I was going to have a shiner to make a Norman Rockwell model proud.
“Man, you was out. I was scared I’d have to call the morgue wagon. That ain’t good for bidness.”
The door to the Cutlass hung open. I got a hand on the rocker panel and pulled myself into a sitting position with my back against the door post. The man who was talking was black and skinny, in black formal trousers, a white bibfront tunic, and a white chef’s hat as tall and stiff as a smokestack. His apron was spattered with grease.
“Compliments to the kitchen.” I cleared my throat, spat again, and repeated myself, this time in English. “How much did you see?”
“I come out for a smoke and seen a gray Lincoln pealing out onto the highway with two guys inside. Then I seen a open car door in the lot and a shoe laying in the aisle. The shoe had a foot in it and you was attached. First thing I think is, Holy shit, I hope it wasn’t the abalone. You get mugged or what? Only West Bloomfield muggers drive Lincolns. Want me to call the cops?”
I didn’t answer him. When I tilted my head back, the black hole opened up again and I drew up my knees and leaned my forehead against them until it went away. My head ached, but it wasn’t the hangover. The back of my head must have struck the roof of the car when I took the hit to the cheek. Well, it wouldn’t be my first concussion. I don’t know how many you get but the supply must have been thinning out.
“Mister? You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
I looked up at him. His forehead was pleated but the rest of his face was as smooth as good brandy. “I couldn’t scare you with a car bomb. Can you drive a stick?”
“Better’n I can make a soufflÉ, and I got a wall full of certificates for that. Where you want to go?”
“Hazel Park.”
“I never heard of no hospitals there. Sure you don’t want to go to Detroit General?”
“I don’t need to see a doctor. I’ve already been mugged.” I reached for my wallet, but the movement drained too much blood from my brain. “I’ll pay you fifty, but you’ll have to get it out yourself.”
“They left you fifty? That’s the trouble with living here. Nobody’s hungry enough.”
“You can catch a cab back in time for the supper rush if we don’t hit too many red lights.”
“I ain’t hit a red light since the first time they took away my license.” He stooped to help me to my feet. He smelled of baked bread and sherry.
When I put my hand down on the pavement for leverage something cut into my palm. I’d been aware before I’d sat up that I was lying on something uncomfortable, but since discomfort was the order of the hour I hadn’t given it any thought. I picked up the twisted remains of a pair of gray steel-rimmed glasses. One lens was shattered and I guessed Sargent Hurley hadn’t thought they were worth moving me to reclaim. I flipped them onto the floorboards of the Cutlass.
Leaning on the chef as he got me around to the passenger’s side I found out I had some cracked ribs. I didn’t bother counting them. I’d cracked plenty and I hadn’t run out yet.
The lights were green all the way, a trick I’d given up trying to acquire; you have to be born with it, like perfect pitch. He changed gears smoothly and never used the brake until he ran out of road. Once he jumped the curb to beat the car ahead into a right turn. I bet he didn’t cook out of the book either.
I was feeling lightheaded again when we swept into the driveway in Hazel Park. He blew the horn and Louise Starr came out tying the sash of a quilted blue satin robe and stopped when she saw the strange face behind the wheel. She’d recognized the car. Then she saw me and clattered around to that side on tiny mules. I hadn’t enough energy to roll down the window. I popped the door and had to hang on to the handle to keep from spilling out.
“Give Chef Boy-ar-dee fifty bucks,” I said. “Charge it to expenses.”
She stepped forward to help me, but he was already there. “Keep your money, ma’am,” he said, stooping. “Next time you have a real fine meal out, send a couple of bucks back to the boys in the kitchen.”
22
I‘d be very interested in seeing an X-ray of your skull,” Louise said. “I’ll bet it looks like Omaha Beach.”
We were breathing the countrified air in the Hazel Park living room, she in a maple platform rocker with an afghan slung over the back, me sunk in one of the slipcovered armchairs with my feet up on an ottoman made out of an antique doll trunk. We were drinking coffee. She’d offered alcohol, but I’d declined. I didn’t explain that it wouldn’t do to ingest an anticoagulant on the off-chance of an intracranial hemorrhage.
“I’ve seen a couple,” I said. “It looks more like a spider sac. The bone’s pretty thick. I didn’t need a guy with eighteen years of schooling to tell me that.”
“I don’t suppose I’m the first person to suggest you consider changing professions.”
“Detecting isn’t a profession. It’s a job, like pouring steel or operating a crane. You do what you’re trained for. I’m a good detective. It just so happens I get doors slammed in my face and occasionally someone drops a piano on my head. Complaining about it would be like a goalie carping that people keep bouncing pucks off his chin. Anyway a skull like mine would be wasted in Accounts Receivable.”
“I don’t see how you get insurance.”
“I don’t have insurance. I don’t drive a Porsche or live in Grosse Pointe either. I’ve made my peace with these things.” I closed my eyes against the throbbing going on behind them; or rather my eye. The left was pretty much shut all the time. “Your roommate wouldn’t have any ice, by any chance. It’s okay if the cubes are shaped like ducks.”
She set down her cup and saucer and went into the kitchen. After a minute she came out wrapping a clean dishtowel around one of those blue gel-packs. I got rid of the towel and applied the pack directly to my eye. I could feel the heat of the swelling right through the gel.
“I don’t suppose it will do any good to insist that you see a doctor.�
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“Probably not, but don’t let it stop you. It isn’t often somebody cares.”
She sat down again and crossed her legs. The robe fell open, exposing a stretch of tanned thigh. She covered it without undue haste. “Okay, we’ve discussed your condition and analyzed your career choice. Is this the place where we talk about what happened?”
She was entitled and I told it. I couldn’t tell it without Eddie Cypress and so I went back to the picture she’d showed me of Cypress in the Free Press and continued from there. She and Barry Stackpole shared the same view of Glad Eddie—I’d never heard her call anyone a son of a bitch before, and she interrupted me to do it—and I thought it was a shame they hadn’t gotten together years ago when Barry had a book and Louise wanted to publish it. It had been a memoir of Vietnam; the bottom had fallen out of that market quicker than slide rules.
When I finished, she picked up her cup, sipped, made a face, and put it back. The coffee had grown cold while she was listening.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was Cypress I saw at Black Lake. I had to see him face to face. When he called me ‘sport,’ I knew he remembered me too, and didn’t care whether he confirmed anything when he said it. He’s a pretty confident character.”
“Why not? He’d decided to have you killed. I guess he’s too good to take care of it himself these days.”
“If he wanted me killed I’d be on ice right now instead of the other way around. What happened at the Blue Heron was in the way of a message.”
“Maybe the mob’s getting civilized. Forty years ago their idea of sending a message was killing Eugene Booth’s wife.”
“I’m not married. Anyway if murder was called for it would have been cleaner just to do me. I’m not a famous writer. The cops would close the file in a week, with or without an arrest.”
“So what was the message?”
“Lay off. Butt out. Take a hike. Whatever’s current. I haven’t seen a rock video in a while. In a way it’s a compliment to me he didn’t have Hurley or his boy Herb say hello from him. He figured I’d get it.” That made me remember something, but she was talking then.
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger Page 16